Chapter 122: Remnants of a bygone age.

Viv’s perception of time slowed before her brain even registered the lethally dangerous undeads barrelling towards them.

 

The two nascent necrarchs on the side bumped into each other, slowing down ever so slightly. Sidjin caught them in a deadly trap of serrated blades of colorless mana. At the same time, Arthur spat fire and Viv used her oldest trick against the leftmost one.

 

“Yoink.”

 

Immediately, her mind flooded with the power filling the creature just as her aura gulped their energy, but it hissed and rolled, breaking the connection. The two other nascent necrarchs backed up, flames covering their emaciated bodies. Black mana surged out to quench the flames. One of the creatures opened its maw. Viv and Sidjin reacted almost at the same time.

 

“Wall.”

 

“Eldritch walls.”

 

Stone sprung from the ground, only to change into a tentacle mass grasping for prey. Magical bile splattered harmlessly against the newly risen barrier. A clawed fist immediately punched through, but the rest of the wall held. Viv was getting much better at making walls that were more wall and less sand now.

 

Viv cast yoink on the exposed limb while Arthur showed she was truly a caster as well, peppering the nascent necrarchs with stones through their defenses opening, using them as murder holes. The beasts were strong though, and Sidjin worked double time to keep the living protected.

 

Behind them, Viv heard sounds of fighting and felt mana move but she could do little about that. With Sidjin on the defensive, offense fell to her. They had no need to talk to coordinate.

 

Viv used her improved mental stats to cast yoink on whatever target she could see, draining them so long as she could maintain the connections. Gods but did those fuckers have a lot of juice to play with. Her desperate game of whack-a-mole continued until Sidjin cast a massive grinder spell, piercing through a weakened wall to hit the beast behind. The mangled nascent was pushed back. Viv saw an arm fly off but knew it wasn’t enough to kill it. Had to keep up the damage. Resilient bastards, resisting spells that would shred humans in an instant.

 

It was also the sign she’d been waiting for. With the two mostly intact nascents scrambling for the opening, she released the spell she’d been building up.

 

“Blight!”

 

The overcharged death cloud of disintegrating energy spread out.

 

Perhaps it occurred to the nascents that they were between a flow of destructive energy and a really solid wall because they started screeching.

 

One of them made a split decision. It jumped through the expanding wave of death, to Viv’s disbelief. She felt before she saw the monster break through and huffed in anger. It looked like a flayed, mutated gorilla now but it was still very much alive. Then an earth spear caught it in the flank, another in the chest. Arthur and Sidjin coordinated to punch the beast back into the cloud, screeching and roaring. A last grinder spell lifted it off its feet to send it stumbling to Viv’s death trap. Meanwhile, the second mostly intact nascent had followed the first and seeing its predicament, jumped in zig-zags to avoid the same fate. Viv focused on keeping the cloud stationary and as deadly as possible but she could not bring it back towards her without risking annihilation. With the rest of her focus, she hit the charging nascent with her most powerful yoink. It was the most efficient way she could think of to cancel their incredible resistance. This one kept going, ignoring the rapid drain of its resources as well as Sidjin’s barrage of fireballs. It just didn’t stop. Viv used all the overflowing mana she’d been collecting and cast the largest purge net she had ever managed.

 

A dense lattice of finger-thin rays seemed to fracture space in front of her. The void tendrils lashed and whipped with such haste that her vision played tricks on her. The room didn’t feel so real anymore. It was half normal stone and half space between the stars. So dense was the network that Sidjin was forced to adapt, sending his offensive spells to the side to arc back into the creatures’ flanks.

 

The critically wounded beast jumped, in a last-ditch effort to get at Viv, but that was the moment Sidjin switched to the offensive. A massive, vertical blade appeared mid-air to bite in the creature’s chest. The small construct whirred and sent bloody bits of undead flesh flying. The necrarch almost managed to escape the deadly spell, almost, then Arthur made another stone spear descend from the ceiling right on its neck. That was enough to seal the creature’s fate. Meanwhile, Viv had engaged the necrarch they had successfully pushed back into the blight once. This one was now more bone than flesh, but it didn’t seem to stop it.

 

Viv dropped the blight, now that it had done its job. The last necrarch appeared mostly dead on the floor beyond, but the witch was tiring. Could hardly focus. Too many powerful, overcharged spells in a short timeframe. She was already having trouble following the creature’s movement. A yoink drained its lifeforce, but it wouldn’t be enough.

 

Arthur jumped on it.

 

For a moment, Viv panicked. Arthur dodged graciously under a swipe, then clawed the monster’s flesh. The nascent necrarch managed to grab one of her wings just on time for her to spit a thick gout of flame in its face. It punched her, and for a moment Viv feared the worst, but the dragonette blocked the blow with her clawed hand, going with the motion. The strength propelled her backward. She twisted mid-air. Her tail lashed at the creature’s face, taking out its eyes.

 

Arthur’s apparent distress galvanized Viv’s efforts. She poured everything she had into the yoink spell, this time trying to overtake her foe’s entire reserves rather than just stealing dregs. The nascent necrarch’s mana presence dwarfed that of even the most powerful of mages. It felt like drinking a lake through a straw, but she persevered. The longer the connection lasted, the deeper she delved into the creature’s maw. Arthur spat fire again to buy her some time. The monster countered by vomiting black mana of its own but it wouldn’t be enough. A trickle became a flow, then a torrent. Viv claimed all of that energy as her own. One moment, the creature was glaring at her with vicious red eyes, the next, it was bone and ash.

 

Sidjin had finished the first one. With a wave of his hand, he gathered all the fire in the room on the last mangled nascent necrarch.

 

Viv breathed. They had done it.

 

Now, for the main course.

 

The trio of casters turned to face the fierce battle behind them.

 

Tired as she was, it took Viv a second to understand the whirlwind of color and patterns in front of her. There was a dark canvas, which she recognized as a cloud of black mana not unlike the one she had used. Slashes of white were the necrarch and Solfis striking. Slashes of gray were Solar’s lethal swipes. The black dots were her allies, wearing their isolating armor. The white blob was the necrarch.

 

Gods, they were fast.

 

Already, Sidjin and Arthur were helping, throwing spells and reinforcing the shield. She had to do… something. Ah yes, of course. Solfis had given her instructions.

 

With an effort of will, Viv yoinked the cloud and pulled. There was some meaning there, annihilation with a different flavor than her own, but the necrarch was not in direct control of the cloud and the room progressively lightened. When it did, Viv had a better view of the battle. It was, in a word, breathtaking.

 

Solfis acted as a flanker, surging forward with flashes of blinding speed to inflict grievous wounds. He moved with absolute confidence, never wasting a moment, never moving a knuckle that did not have to be moved. Irao appeared and disappeared in flashes of darkness, striking deep at their foe’s back. With each blow, he left a blade deeply embedded in a bone or an articulation where it would inflict the most damage and where, Viv thought, the necrarch could not reach to easily remove them, but it was Solar who carried the fight.

 

The blade master was the eye at the heart of the hurricane. He exuded an aura of calm even as his arms moved to repulse attacks that would devastate fortifications and ravage entire cavalry squadrons. He struck with exacting precision. Claws came close to his head, his heart, but they were never allowed to cross that last finger that would make the difference between a hit or miss. His counters dug grooves in the stone and slashes in the flesh of the horrible creature facing them. The trio was as inspiring as it was deadly, and yet, until Viv lifted the veil, they were not winning.

 

The necrarch stood in the midst of them and he occupied so much space in the room and in Viv’s mind. It existed widely, shockingly. It could not be ignored. Humanoid, it stood over the height of three men, or would have if it were not so hunched. Long horns curved forward over a noseless, disturbingly humanoid face. A jaw layered with needle fangs split its head in two. From then down, the abomination was a gaunt and simian figure with hands and feet ending in long, wicked claws. It fought with an unsettling mix of dancer’s grace and feral fury and each of its attacks left a noxious imprint of black mana behind. In fact, the creature oozed destructive mana from its pallid skin to saturate the air. Only Viv had the means to counter that effectively. Irao and Solar’s armor already showed signs of damage despite their inherent properties.

 

Now that the casters had entered the fray, the battle reached a turning point. Sidjin waited for Irao to appear to throw sharp, transparent edges while the assassin struck. Viv wasn’t sure how he managed the timing. As for Arthur, she waited for an errant leg to pass by to spit fire on it.

 

The necrarch felt that the tide had turned as well. It crouched on itself. A veil of destructive mana surrounded it, pressure building immediately. The fighters stood aside. Solar sheathed his sword and stood still. Viv recognized the skill from outside, but he needed time. Time, and an opening.

 

The necrarch’s attack protected it just as it increased in power, but it was inherently a pressure bomb, and the best way to counter it was to create an outlet.

 

“Bolt.”

 

Her attack connected with the envelope, barely disturbing its surface before new energy replaced the loss but that was enough to understand how the outer shell was structured. She sent three yoinks in three specific points and drained.

 

It was strange to drain a spell instead of an undead. The mana was just as thick, and yet it felt easier, less personal. The mana in the spell begged to be released. She was merely providing an opportunity.

 

Pillars of destructive mana hissed out, darkening the room once more yet at the same time the windup to the attack stopped.

 

The necrarch was not pleased. It roared an ear-shattering screech of outrage and Viv was once again happy to have included a sonic barrier to her shield. However, that was just the beginning.

 

The necrarch’s evil, crimson gaze locked on her.

 

Suddenly, it was much larger.

 

Suddenly, it was in front of her, punching.

 

Its claws were right in front of her face. Viv saw her entire life flash in front of her, but a detail stuck. Solar had completed his attack.

 

The necrarch put its entire weight in the jab. Its claws hit the shield and stayed there while the monster itself finished turning. Viv realized why. The blademaster had cut its arm clean off, mid-lunge.

 

She still fell on her ass.

 

It was too much for the necrarch. With a last woosh of displaced air and a few parting attacks from her allies, it was gone through the tunnel.

 

Viv finished collapsing, her gloved hands sliding on the wet stone below. She breathed deeply, amazed to be still alive.

 

“I’m alive! I’m alive.”

 

//This did not look like a normal wound.

//Does your skill create lingering wounds?

 

“Give me a moment, machine, while I contemplate one of the most difficult fights of my long life,” Solar replied. He sat on his knees and meditated.

 

Sidjin approached Viv and patted her shoulder.

 

“You did well,” he whispered.

 

“I am… processing.”

 

“I believe I understand. I will be here if you need to speak.”

 

“Squee!”

 

We won!

 

Yay!

 

Just as expected.

 

“You were amazing during the fight!” Viv said, happy for the distraction. “I was so worried but you did so well! You fought the nascent necrarch on equal footing!”

 

Arthur was left unimpressed by her observations. She aimed her thought with the frayed patience reserved for slow children.

 

Mother.

 

Of course.

 

Am dragon.

 

Arthur stood to her full height. On her hind legs, her head was now slightly higher than Viv’s. Teenager growth spurt, probably.

 

Those were not tears in Viv’s eyes. Just dust and also condensation. The caves were humid, is all.

 

“My little baby grew up so fast…”

 

Mother.

 

No crying in front of your lessers.

 

“Sowwy.”

 

Viv sniffed away her pride, but still gave the deserved pats. The others were busy recovering and inspecting the battlefield so they had most likely not used their superior senses to eavesdrop. They were gentlemen, after all.

 

//Your Grace.

//Good news.

 

“What is it?”

 

//We have loot.

 

Viv watched Irao recover a large orb from the remains of one of the fallen. He wordlessly passed it on to Viv.

 

Monster cores were strange. She felt resistance when clutching the perfect spheres, yet her fingers felt nothing. No temperature, no texture, just an absence of physical feeling. This was offset by the incredible power coursing through the metaphysical construct. The core fixed to her dagger only had a fraction of the reserves in there, and it was not even full.

 

“Wow.”

 

“You’ll need a staff to carry that thing around,” Sidjin observed.

 

“This is a group effort,” Viv replied with some regret. “We share the reward.”

 

“Only one of us is a pure black mana caster, and you are also our employer. Normally, the treasure should be yours. Treasures.”

 

Irao brought back an early Christmas present. Two more cores of a similar size to the other. She wasn’t sure, but she thought the price of those would be enough to retire a rich woman in any large city. At least a hundred gold talent per piece, easy. Of course, those would not be sold. She had a nice project in mind that would make her heavies protected in battle. Those would be the batteries.

 

She was juggling them with joy when Solfis spoke.

 

//Your Grace.

//There is another prize.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

 

Now that the nascent necrarchs were dead, their absence revealed the back of the armory. Little was left of the original weapons save for faded trails of rust along the sheer walls. The chains binding the monsters had disintegrated as well, leaving behind shards of striated black iron. It made the surviving object that much more threatening. Viv approached, watching the grisly weapon with concern.

 

[Skull mace, artifact. Once used for ritual sacrifice and as a badge of office for the high priest, this potent weapon has been twisted by the death of its creator. Cursed. It is not suitable for use by any naturally-occuring creature of Nyil.]

 

Before Viv could even think about tricks, a new window opened.

 

 

Viv needed that instruction the same way she needed to be told not jump ass first into a volcano. If an aberrant could be an object, it would be the abominable assembly of spikes, twisted bone, and cancerous obsidian this apparatus seemed to be made of. Only a B-movie power-hungry antagonist would touch that horror and hope for anything but to be turned into an ulcer. ‘Cursed’ was an understatement.

 

“What the fuck are we supposed to do with that?” she asked no one in particular.

 

Solfis stepped to the thing, grabbed it, then shoved it into a bag.

 

//We shall sell it to Elunath, of course.

 

“Errrrr,” Viv replied, a little unsure.

 

“The good decision would be to bring it to a temple of Neriad to be destroyed,” Solar said reproachfully.

 

//Then let us hope…

//That Elunath will take a good decision.

 

“You think he’ll buy that thing?”

 

//Undoubtedly.

//If not out of interest, then out of concern.

//He will never trust you with such a dangerous tool.

 

“I don’t know, giving a cursed artifact to a powerful, overconfident mage sounds like a recipe for disaster.”

 

//I estimate he will analyze the mace then destroy it himself.

//In the unlikely event where he is corrupted.

//Note this is below 4%.

//Then his fall will lead to the destruction of Helock.

 

The room fell silent while Solfis stood there, unfazed.

 

//Tragic.

//A terrible loss.

 

“I can notify the temple,” Sidjin said. “If he doesn’t destroy it, they will.”

 

Solar shrugged.

 

“As long as it is destroyed, I care little. Sidjin is correct. Elunath would be a fool to keep it, and one has not reached his level of power by being a fool. Let him have it, if it will help Bob survive.”

 

“Right,” Viv said, “Let’s have a break, then we’re off.”

 

After taking a minute to recover, the party was ready. Once again, magically reinforced bodies and minds came in clutch. Being surrounded by people on the fourth step or above really drove home how much Nyil turned its more determined denizens into super soldiers. The survivors, in any case. It was not just the ability to cut rock with a sword. Even their mental resilience improved, allowing them to brush off near-death experiences. She wondered how a society with supermen would look in a world like earth. It probably wouldn’t be too great.

 

“I think we should finish exploring this floor,” Solar said, “I don’t want things to come at our back again.”

 

//The black mana density here is lower.

//Should the necrarch return while we are here, it would not fight at its maximum potential.

//I believe the decision is sound.

 

“Right.”

 

Staying in formation again, they explored the study rooms next. It was a large, open space with pillars set at regular intervals and some alcoves dug into the sheer rock with tables and seats. Viv believed the empty space might have housed a storage space for scrolls or books. Unfortunately, nothing was left of it. Regular openings on one side showed the night sky, partially cloudy. Whoever had dug them had also woven the consumed stone into an overhang, protecting it from most rains. It was cleverly designed for comfort despite the Spartan appearance of stone furniture. Perhaps, a long time ago, this place of study might have been covered in pelts and colorful cloth. She would never know. In any case, only Solfis found something valuable.

 

//Those inscriptions on the wall show the totality of the ancient glyphs used in their alphabet.

//With a sample that size and by cross-referencing ancient Enorian dialects, I will be able to decipher those texts.

//Eventually.

 

“This is all fascinating but we have more pressing issues than archeology,” Viv said.

 

//I do not need time.

//I have saved all the texts to my database.

//We can move on to the last part of the upper floor complex.

//The garden of fertility.

 

Viv wondered what would be left of the garden, if anything was left at all. The path leading there winded up to what Viv was the secondary, open-air entrance she had spotted from afar. It was bound to have a nice view, at least. She just hoped there wouldn’t be any traps.

 

The party followed the winding stairs leading there. The higher they got, the more certain Viv grew that there was something left.

 

The first thing that hit them was the smell. A pungent and acid wind hit her nose full on, more chemical and unpleasant than truly revolting. Its cloying intensity pushed Viv to place a tissue in front of her nose.

 

“Hmm, are we being poisoned or something?”

 

//No airborne toxins detected.

//No mana signature detected.

 

“So this is a normal smell?”

 

“Nothing normal about that,” Solar said, “but it won’t kill us.”

 

“I have experienced many fragrances from courtesan-made perfumes to charnel pits, but nothing quite like that,” Sidjin added in a subdued voice.

 

Stinky.

 

“Right. If we’re going to do it, let’s do it.”

 

They climbed more, staying close to the walls. Their silent ascent finished on a landing lit by the light of Nyil’s moon. Solfis went first but he stopped and tilted his head a way Viv did not quite understand. Solar followed and gasped, then Sidjin. Viv hurried to see what was the big deal. She regretted her enthusiasm instantly.

 

The sacred place around them spread to the edge of the cavern where the roof dropped suddenly into the abyss below. The weather had cleared a bit and with silvery light shining freely over the ‘garden of fertility’, its blasphemous nature was revealed in all its gruesome horror. The garden was a forest linked by patches of vegetation, except, it was all meat. Quivering planes of pinkish flesh like flayed muscle, still oozing blood with every palpitation linked together trunks of bones, leaves of sinew, fleshy fruits of purple tissue that pulsed lymph over the cartilage bark. The field of gore did not stand idle. It beat from a hundred hearts in a quiet cacophony that sent this gigantic mass of meat shivering and moaning, the exposed tibias and humerus creaking under the strain of their nerve-wracked dance, and in the midst of it all, at the base of the tallest tree, there was a single, perfect eye.

 

As large as a plate, the organ could have made a painter weep. The curve of its lid, the length of its lashes, the perfect, radiant color of its iris spoke of a stupendous beauty made that much more gruesome by the surrounding, grisly display. Viv watched the pupil enlarge but she could not tell if it was surprise, relief, panic, or anger. There was not enough humanity around it to determine anything more than the fact it reacted. The ungodly glare settled on Viv.

 

An instant later, the iris turned green.

 

“Oh FUCK no.”

 

Before Viv could react, Solar screamed and cut. The tree split in two. Phlegm-drenched ichor hit Viv’s boots on its way down. Ropes like intestines, or intestines like rope, shot from the gutted trunk to reunify both parts in a concerto of tortured bones. The eye started to regrow while the shed humor slid from the wound in a viscous mass. Sidjin screamed as well. Fire licked the fetid garden, forcing hisses and spasms, each new wound spitting more liquid until the blaze was smothered. The two men kept attacking the regenerating mass.

 

//Your Grace.

//Their minds are under attack.

 

Viv finally perceived it, an insidious strike on her soul. Something crawled and tried to revolt and attract her at the same time. Her soul was strong, however, and her own leadership and mental skills shored up the defenses. She cast a quick analysis on the pulsating mass of flesh.

 

[Corrupted garden of the jovial pudge. Fallen, living artifact, twisted by the fall of its maker. Extremely dangerous…]

 

“Wait…” Viv said, “that thing has combat abilities. Guys! Snap out of it!”

 

“Squeeeee!”

 

Arthur was less affected, trying to pull back a struggling Sidjin.

 

“Ok. Enough. Eldritch wall.”

 

Viv aimed at the edge of the cavern and cast, tentacles closed all around them. A quick spell blocked the organic dirge of the dying and reborn garden. This left the men sagging against the walls, out of breath.

 

Viv stood between them and the horror garden, now blocked from sight. She could feel the black and life mana behind settling down.

 

“Alright, everyone, calm down.”

 

//They are going to need a moment.