Necromancer and Co., Book 3: The Underearth

Chapter 5: Wisdom

"Within the Underearth lies the city of cities, the place of origin, and the headquarters of freedom. Pure, the city glows with a fiery light in the break of night and burns away the despair of imprisonment. Whether this is true for the city within remains to be seen. Is the light bright, or the shadow it casts darker?"

[Alen]

He sped forward, past the stony trunks and above the branches and their glowing leaves. Above the forest, and into the sky above it. The gems on the impossibly tall cavern roof glittered like starlight, shining down upon his back. There, he frantically edited the structure of the giant beetle he was riding in his AutoBone program. In it, the bones were thickened, then compressed—reinforced. Barbs grew, and the legs turned increasingly sturdier, increasing their capacity for magic.

The village rolled into view. It rested against the edge of the cavern, with burning houses and huts resting on platforms glued to the wall. One such platform crackled with flame one last time, before crashing down into the forest.

Hundreds of pale-skinned, big-eyed people fought in the platforms, defending themselves against an assortment of different creatures. One ran away from a massive, lobster-like behemoth, and another struggled to delay it. Alen tightened his jaw and pressed his hand into the beetle. His magic practically burst into it, drastically changing it mid-flight. It grew to twice its size, and its form became decorated with sharp horns and barbs that could slice through stone like butter.

A flash of blue and white light came from the left. Alen’s eyes flashed there just in time to see a spire of ice tear through a burning house. Sam stood atop it, throwing a frozen corpse off the platform into the forest below. Lynn jumped up from the spire, pelting the opposition with arrows. A young man Alen didn’t recognize floated beside Sam, a ball of fire trailing over his shoulder. He hurled flames at one of the Xargith and another at a man that had horns and barbs akin to the woman Alen had just killed.

Finally, Alen saw a young man jumping from house to house with surprising grace, the longsword in his hands flashing and injuring a long-faced, bat-like man that was pursuing a young girl. His eyes widened. It was Adam. Adam and the man began to fight, and as Alen rushed towards them, he spotted a shadow sneaking closer and closer to his friend.

“Oh no,” Alen shook his head, his features contorted into a cold stare as the beetle rushed forward even faster. The shadow dashed out from behind a house, the dagger in its hands about to stab into Adam. Alen’s robes covered his entire right arm, creating a gauntlet that crackled with virulent black-green flame. He stomped. Bone Spear. He exploded forward like a rocket.

“Not this time, motherfucker,” Alen coldly said, and the figure turned just in time for the necromancer’s gauntlet to latch onto his surprised face.

Boom! Alen slammed the figure into a house, the keratin gauntlet empowering his push further by exploding forward like a piston. The structure’s walls burst inwards, sending dust blasting out like a gout of dragonflame.

Adam and his foe paused to stare, surprised. A figure in gray robes stepped out of the dust, leaving a corpse with a horrifyingly burnt and corroded face behind him. His emerald eyes glowed a piercing green, and his gauntlet surged with hungry, black-green flames. From above, a gigantic beetle escorted by an army of vicious phantoms landed beside him, the sheer weight shaking the platform and blowing away the dust.

Alen ignored the shocked expressions sent his way and pointed at the massive lobster-like creature a few platforms below. His beetle jumped right off, speeding towards the creature like a freight train.

“Alen?” Adam asked, blinking. The man in front of him started to back away, his eyes laced with fear.

“T-Those…. Those are Torturer Grizelda’s specters,” the man muttered, his eyes locked into Alen. “You…”

Their eyes met, and he shuddered, beating his bat-like wings and rising into an aerial retreat. Just as he turned, his eyes stared straight into the empty, terrifying visage of a vengeful phantom. It surged into his mouth, and his eyes turned glassy, before his body began plummeting down into the ground far, far below.

Adam frowned. “…Alen?”

The necromancer waved his hand, and the spirits surged into the dozens of battles raging beneath the higher platforms, weaving into the fray and wreaking complete havoc. Adam saw the spirits and pointed his weapon at Alen who’s face contained a cold, impassive stare. He suddenly failed to recognize the person in front of him. That face didn’t belong to the Alen he knew. Adam’s expression turned dark.

“If you aren’t him, then you better tell me who you are or—“

“Sorry,” Alen interrupted him, an awkward smile suddenly coming over his face. “I was thinking of a cool one-liner to supplement my badass entrance, but my head’s pretty much blank.”

His friend relaxed, letting loose a breath of relief. He lowered his weapon. “You’re still dumbass,” sighed Adam.

“Oh, great. I thought I was losing my touch,” Alen nodded.

Footsteps rushed towards them and Alen felt the magic surge to his hand, but he lowered his arm when he saw that the two moving towards them were Lynn and Sam. The latter glided along that platforms, ice forming under his feet, while the latter stuck to the wall, frost keeping her feet glued to the surface. Lynn jumped, and landed in front Alen. She shared a nod with Adam.

“You just got here?” the elf asked Alen.

“Yeah,” nodded Alen. “Two of them attacked me in the woods. I ran from the first, but I wasn’t lucky enough to escape the second one.”

“Where’s the second one, then?” Sam raised a brow.

“Dead,” Alen simply said, looking down from the edge of the platform and orchestrating the chaos his new ghosts wrought. They jumped from victim to victim, every swipe of their phantasmal claws raking deep into their opponents’ souls, causing them to pause mid-attack and allowing the surprisingly powerful villagers to reverse the tide of battle. Alen spared a glance at Sam. “You sure these people are trustworthy?”

“They are,” Adam answered. “Even if they aren’t, I still owe them my life.”

“Alright,” nodded Alen, “What’s the plan?”

“Evacuation,” a voice suddenly said, and the necromancer blinked his eyes at the sound he didn’t recognize. Alen turned around and spotted a man in his mid-twenties sporting a grim look on his face. His sandy hair was singed at the ends, likely due the ball of fire that continued to follow him around like a loyal, desensitized puppy. “We’ve been attacked like this before, but this is one of the bigger ones,” he sighed. “This’ll be our fourth time switching homes in two months.”

“Yo, Dieter,” Adam raised a hand in greeting, and the man, Dieter, nodded back.

“And so, I’ll be counting on you guys again,” he told Adam and Sam, who nodded. He then looked at Alen. “Can we trust you?”

He nodded. “About as well as a really moist piece o—“

BOOM! The entire cavern shook. From deeper into the woods, a flash of light had ripped through the air, slamming into one of the houses near the base of the wall and completely converting it into a charred crater. Dieter cursed. “They have those mages again,” he bit his thumb’s nail in frustration, pacing around rapidly. “Let’s stop talking. The sooner we help evacuate Kara and everyone else, the better. Granny Drizza will keep whoever they sent busy. I’m off to get Kara! You four go and help the other villagers! Take them to the west side of the forest! The other hunters should already be waiting for us there!”

With that, he jumped off, flames shooting out from his hands and sending him swooping downward into the warzone like a hawk. Sam glanced around at them and pursed his lips, before similarly jumping off the ledge. Adam shrugged at Alen. “We’ll catch up later,” he simply said, before jumping after Sam.

Alen blinked. What the hell was happening? He looked at Lynn, who looked back.

“What?” She tilted her head. “Let’s go.”

Alen sighed. “I really need to take a break from this shit one day,” he said, then grabbed Lynn’s hand before jumping off the platform. They fell, and seconds before they hit the ground, a parachute of keratin billowed out and slowed their fall. It disintegrated to dust, and the two of them plunked down into a run.

They turned a corner and found Alen’s beetle locked in battle against the giant lobster-like creature Alen sent it to fight against. Lynn loosed an arrow and it easily pierced through the monster’s abdomen, her shots sporting a terrifying new level of penetrative power. Alen had his beetle tackled the creature, sending both of their large forms crashing to the sturdy, Stonewood platform. He waved his hand.

Necrotic Blessing: Deathchill. Skeletal Rupture.

Dozens of pikes and needles of Deathchill-coated keratin impaled the lobster creature to the ground, killing it and spraying its purplish blood all over the floor. Lynn ran past it, rushing into a house that had avoided the raging flames around them.

Boom! Another explosion, presumably from the mages Dieter had talked about. As it hit, Alen felt three of his ghosts die on impact. He renewed their orders, having them try to avoid the magical attacks as much as possible. He called ten back to him and has them lurk behind him. He was a bit uncomfortable using the souls of the deceased as weapons, but right now, they were needed in his current task. Plus, Alen could feel that their spirits were content at the slaughter of the foes they were facing.

Lynn ran out of the house, two children and a woman in tow. The latter held a baby in her arms, crying its eyes out. They boarded the giant beetle. He followed after them, nodding reassuringly at the scared children. He looked down at Lynn.

“You go and save the other villagers,” Alen said, holding a fragment of the lobster-creature’s carapace. “I’ll fly the beetle up and support you with my summons. They’ll be safer with me on here with them!”

“Gotcha,” Lynn nodded, then sprinted off to another burning house. The beetle rose, and Alen surveyed the battlefield. He spotted an area where one of the hunters that led him to the village was fighting alongside about half a dozen villagers. They were heavily outnumbered. Alen threw the carapace in that direction, the magic draining from his body as the lobster-creature fully formed and crushed three of the enemies under its club-like feet.

He sent his ghosts out as well. They were dying quickly, but their impact was not to be doubt. Every second they brought after entering an enemy was valuable to the fleeing and fighting residents, giving them an edge in the battle. As he orchestrated his summons to the unpredictable rhythm of battle, one of the children tugged on his sleeves.

A young girl, her unnaturally large, teary black eyes causing him to feel a bit uncomfortable. “You have to save daddy!” She insistently shouted.

Alen blinked. “Um, where is he?”

“Back in the house!”

He glanced at the mother who was tending to her two to her two other children. Her cheeks were moist, and she felt… empty. As if in shock. She looked up at Alen and shook her head, pulling her screaming child back. The husband was most likely dead. Alen frowned at the realization.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, carefully controlling his undead with a newfound frenzy. He heard Lynn’s voice in his head and moved the beetle down towards her, where another batch of injured survivors climbed onto its back. She was injured.

“What happened?” he asked her.

“One of them managed to sneak up on me,” said Lynn, wincing at the injury on her side. It looked bad. Alen pursed his lips. The beetle was already close to being full.

“Get on the beetle,” he said.

She frowned. “What? There are still a lot more to evacuate.”

“You’re injured. It’s too risky, especially when the lower platforms have even more of them. It’s a lot more dangerous down there.”

“That doesn’t matter. I’ll be more careful, but lives are at stake here.”

“Ours are too! I barely killed the one I encountered in the woods. While the one we’ve seen so far are relatively weak, stronger ones could come at any time! We need to leave while we can! I’ll just go get Adam and Sam and—”

“You can go ahead. I’m not letting these innocent people die,” she lowly said, then turned around and sprinted off into the smoke and brimstone of the lower platforms.

“Shit,” Alen cursed, pursing his lips.

To him, the amount of danger they were in increased by the second. The hunters, which were presumably the stronger ones among the villagers, ones even stronger than himself, were separated. With a group defending the village and another waiting for the evacuees, they were not only terribly outnumbered, but also inferior to the enemy. Granted, there were ones he could handle, but his luck wouldn’t hold forever. The scar on his palm heated up.

Fear is your true enemy, it almost seemed to say. Alen gripped his left fist tightly, calming himself and gazing out at the chaotic scene of fighting that enveloped the entirety of the cliffside village.

Evacuation was his priority. He couldn’t fly the beetle over the trees because not only would that paint a target on his back, but also give the point of evacuation away to the enemy. That meant that he had to take the refugees away through the trees. He nodded. Calm, he told himself. He needed to be calm. Now, there was the problem with Lynn and his two other friends. There was no way he was leaving them behind, so how was he going to accommodate them along with the people they were bound to bring? Through the forest, no less. He’d need nothing short of a goddamn train to accomplish his task. He paused.

His eyes widened. That was it!

Hurriedly, he flew his beetle down from the sky, the villagers behind him sighing in relief after they left the sky where they could easily be shot down. Alen dipped his summon below the treetops and circled, making sure that they wouldn’t be followed by concealing his summons behind a group of large boulders. Quickly, he had the lobster-creature retreat from where it was fighting, having it take a long route to meet up with his beetle summon. He nodded, then turned his back to leave. A voice called out to him from behind, coming from the dozen or so escapees he had with him.

It was the little girl. She scrambled out of her mother’s embrace and ran in front of him, blocking his path. “I know that daddy won’t come back,” she sniffled, giving him a long look, “but you can’t leave us like he did! I’m not letting you!”

Alen stared at her for a long moment. “Do you have friends that are still in the village?”

She wiped her eyes. “…Yes,” she hesitantly said, as if afraid of thinking of what had become of them.

”Do you want to leave them behind?”

“No!”

The necromancer smiled. “Well, listen. I have friends back there too, and I don’t want to leave them either. You’ll be safer here than in the village, and I’ll be right back as soon as I find them. If you let me look for them, I’ll look for your friends too. Deal?”

The girl who looked to be around nine paused, her large, teary eyes staring up at him to make sure he spoke the truth. Eventually, she nodded firmly. “Okay,” she told him, putting up a brave expression and running back to his summon. Alen turned, his expression grim, before bolting into the woods with pikes of keratin erupting from his boots.

Gray, stony trees ran past his vision like blurs, and he sharpened his mind as much as he could, maneuvering through the thick horde of trees using his keratin hooks and bursts of speed.

Booooom! Another massive explosion rocked the village in the distance. Alen sped up. There was no telling how much time he had before things in that settlement became too dangerous. His ghosts were dying. Only about forty were left from the original sixty-three. Alen pulled a tooth from his robes. The woman’s tooth, he gripped it tight. A fragment of her soul was within, and when he summoned her, Alen knew that her skeletal form would be a large asset to helping his escape.

The village came closer. Should I do it? Alen asked himself. He’d never used his skeletal minion spell on things beyond insects and animals. How would people react to him, seeing humanoid skeletons following him around?

He’d be hated. A walking reminder that their dead could be brought back as weapons—killing machines. Alen knew that once he started using them, he’d keep doing it. The moment he summoned this hateful woman, another weight would pile itself over his shoulders. He was scared. How would his friends react? He’d seen how Sam reacted to his nonchalant mention of killing the orc. They’d be horrified with his methods. Lynn? She always gave off the air of a good person. How would she take it?

Alen clenched his teeth and began to pull his hand back, preparing to slip the tooth back inside his robes. The slight presence at the back of his head told him that Selerius was watching, waiting for his choice. He could risk it. Yes. He could do it, right? He could—

An image flashed into his head, created by his own imagination. Adam flayed, his skin turned into mere tent flaps. Sam lying in a pool of his own blood, gutted and prepared to be cooked over an open flame. Lynn and Roland, their heads impaled on pikes as their glassy, lifeless eyes stared into the distance. All four of the images stared at him in blame, condemning him for his weakness. His scarred palm burned. His eyes grew bloodshot.

“You want to see a necromancer?” Alen asked the presence of the lich in his mind, opening up a copy of the spell program for Summon Greater Skeletal Minion. He completely erased the lines that grew body structures from bones. He upped the suppression the souls would experience—forcing their entirety to obey his will. Alen felt the growl rise up his throat. “I’ll fucking show you one,” he said.

Finally, the village came into view. Corpses were heaped atop one another, defenders and attackers, sharing their final moments in death. Alen waved his hand, and a virulent stream of black-green magic surged into the corpses of the attackers. Obsidian-skinned creatures, ones covered in horns and barbs, and some that eerily resembled insects and fish. They twitched, and as Alen clenched his fist and forced his magic to dominate their waning souls, they began to rise. The spell he’d avoided creating for so long despite its ease had finally seen the light of day.

Raise Undead.

The enraged, indignant screams of the spirits trapped within their own corpses assaulted his mind through the connection they shared, raving and venting their hatred through the thread that held them together. Alen grimaced, taking an unsteady step back. He was about to cut his connection to the corpses when a laugh rang out from within his mind, and suddenly, the souls quieted—cowed into submission.

Good, good, Selerius chimed, approval lacing his tone. Before I was driven insane by these same voices in my head, I struggled with this decision too. I’d only wanted to return what I had lost, so why drag these souls away from their next lives to further my cause? Why become the enemy of society? Back then, I didn’t realize that my power was my own, and its use could be utilized for both good and evil deeds. It was not black and white, but gray. It is the magic we carry, fellow sovereign of the dead, and like all rulers, you must bear this weight upon your shoulders. I will suppress these spirits for now. They are terribly annoying when left to rave in this mental space of yours, so until the time comes that you are to face them, I will keep their voices from reaching both of our ears.

Alen let loose a long breath, the ringing in his ears slowly fading away. “Thanks,” he told the lich, staring up at the flashes of magic and fighting in the platforms above.

I do no free favors, boy, Selerius said. Compensate me by thriving in this place—by growing stronger. The sooner, the better. I have my own agendas to settle, and I can only do it through you. The amount of assistance I can give is limited, but remember that when the time comes, I will come to collect every grain of debt under your name with interest.

“Great,” Alen frowned, checking his mana. Forty-one percent. “Now I have a loan shark in my head. Do you take sexual favors as payment?”

The lich didn’t respond, and Alen nodded, satisfied. He gazed at the undead awaiting his command and looked away, clenching his fists. He sighed. The feeling was still there. The weight in his chest. Every life taken another weight to bear. He opened up the party chat.

“Lynn?” He spoke aloud, feeling the sound of his voice run through the invisible thread of magic that linked them together.

Don’t come back, her voice rang back; tired.

He frowned. “Where are you?” Alen asked, more a demand than a question.

We’re backed against the wall, she said, voice uncharacteristically hard. Get the villagers and take them to the rendezvous point. The granny that guy talked about and this man are talking, and they don’t seem to be friendly with one another. The feeling I get from both of them makes it hard to even breathe under the pressure. This isn’t a fight we can take part in.

“I’m going up there,” said Alen, resolutely. Magic gathered in his boots. His newly risen undead picked up their weapons, their blank, milky eyes staring into his. Power gathered in their legs, ready to dash up into the top platform. He nodded and bolted forward. The undead followed.

His pikes propelled him forward. Lynn shouted in his head. Don’t be stupid! Get those evacuees out of here! If you die too, then there isn’t any hope left for them!

Alen didn’t respond. He called on his wraiths. Thirty remained. They phased through the walls and gathered, following after him.

Alen, I swear to the gods if you go up here I’m going to—

“I’ve found my friends, Lynn,” he told her. “After so long, I finally saw them again. We haven’t even talked properly yet. They’re up there with you. I know they are. I’m not leaving them to die, and I’m sure as hell not leaving you either. Just shut up, watch, and let me be the one to save you this time.”

He ascended the ramps and platforms as quickly as he could, leaving his undead behind. He got closer and closer to the top and gritted his teeth. Too slow, he cursed, then pointed his palm upward. Magic violently slammed against itself just beneath the surface of his palm. He compressed it further, his eyes glowing a bright emerald green. Lynn continued her attempts at dissuading him.

You’ve done enough! If those villagers I entrusted to you die, I’ll never forgive you. Just go! Leave! There’s no use for you to go up here!

He closed his eyes and let loose a breath. When he opened them, black and white flames burned behind his pupils. His wraiths flew up and phased through the floors of the top platform, notifying him where the most enemies where concentrated. He aimed his palm at that spot.

Are you even listening?! You’ll die if you go up here, Alen. Sto—

“Deathflare Blast,” Alen whispered.

The world turned black. Everything went silent. For the briefest of moments, everything was nothing, and nothing was everything. No dust rose. No rocks tumbled. No wood crackled. Alen looked up at the result of the spell that had erased a part of the top platform from existence and wordlessly shot up using a pike from the bottom of his boots.

He passed the boundary and landed, his feet silently tapping against the Stonewood boards of the top platform. Dozens of pairs of eyes stared at him and the destruction that he had caused.

A man stood among them, smiling. His skin was the color of the blackest night, and his eyes were bloodier than the stains lathering Alen’s hands. In his hands hung the unconscious form a young woman with golden hair, her eyes and skin similar to the rest of the villagers. An old woman stood in front of the man, staring at Alen in shock. The man turned his back to her and faced him.

“And so the mouse has come to play,” Sieth mused. “And I thought you were wise for running from me the first time.”

Alen wordlessly summoned a black and white flame to his hand. The man looked at him in interest. Alen glanced at his three friends on the other side of the platform and nodded towards them in reassurance. He matched the man’s gaze.

“I’m an exceedingly wise person,” he coolly said,

“I’m just not wise enough to live by my own wisdom.”