Necromancer and Co., Book 3: The Underearth

Chapter 10: Not Muffins

"Orinwood, like all metals in the Underearth, grew on trees. Many scholars are unsure of why this is, as the old records stated that all metals were mined in the world above, their old home, but are instead located within trunk and roots here. Perhaps it is a form of symbolism? To tell them that mining was unnecessary? That a way out wasn't possible that way, or any way at all? Many are unable to sleep because of this subtle reminder, but is it truly the intention of the gods, or a reflection of our own despair?"

[Adam]

He stared at the piece of wood in his hands. The dagger was carved almost to completion. It was white, and the patterns of the Orinwood he’d used were prominent, the lines in the grain occasionally flashing with traces of a blue light. The material was high quality. It was powerful, magical. Soaked in magic, he was confident that this dagger made of the stuff and the shortsword that he’d carve afterwards would be his best so far. He reached for the carving knife on his side, but found that it was a short distance away.

He’d knocked it aside again, most likely.

Adam reached out and focused on the dagger. A flicker of gray, white-tinged light shone on his fingertips, his brown eyes flickering with the same color. With a whump, the dagger disappeared from its previous spot.

It clattered on the ground a distance away, farther than it was before.

The young man sighed and stood up, walking over to the knife the friends he’d made in Eskwood had given him. He picked it up and stared at the block of wood, before shrugging and placing both in the bag he had hanging on his side. Supported by a strap on his shoulder and help in place by one around his hip, it didn’t flail around nearly as much as before.

He doubted he’d have a problem with storage if he could master his actual set of skills, though. Adam channeled the magic with ease once again, noting how significant the difference in mana cost was compared to his wind-type magic.

Why is using my main fucking affinity so damn hard? he scratched his head in frustration, pointing at a pebble on the side of the road. He held his other hand out.

Magic flared, and the pebble disappeared.

It appeared to the right of his outstretched hand, clattering onto the cobbled road of dark stone below. Sparks of gray and white fizzled out where the pebble had teleported into the air.

He sighed. I’d be so badass with teleportation powers, but no, that’s obviously too much to give, right? Adam shook his head. Wind was nice, and the way he circulated magic throughout his body to improve his physical capabilities went well with the direction he was driving himself towards, but the difficulty he had with using his actual mana-type was a massive crutch.

A crutch that had been crippling him for three months in the surface, and four in the Underearth. Almost a year of time total.

Adam pulled out a mirror from his pack. Was his hair alright? He brushed it up, tilting his head to give himself a better look. Better, he nodded, satisfied, subconsciously brushing it back down and nullifying his previous effort. He patted his clothes down, removing the crinkles his sitting had given it. It was mostly swamp-green wyvern-leather, but the extra neatness on the cloth he wore underneath always made him a little more presentable. He smiled at himself on the mirror, then put it away.

He looked up, and the door to the building his friend disappeared into opened. Sam stepped out.

His friend had changed a lot since their time on Earth, a time that felt so far away now. He wasn’t sure he wanted to feel bad about it. His parents were great, but they’d always raised him with independence in mind, so homesickness never struck him as hard as it did Alen. He watched as Sam approached him, a bag full of things in his hands.

“Here,” said Sam, offering the bag to him.

“You’re making me carry it?” he asked, raising a brow.

“I’m the woman in this relationship.”

Adam gave him a look.

“Look, man,” Sam said, groaning, “this bag’s heavy as hell, and my staff’s getting in the way. Take it.”

Adam shrugged and took the bag. It was light. Were Sam’s physical stats that bad? Granted, a few bars of metal, wood blocks, and a couple of mana stones were bound to be heavy, but with his threshold, he was way past that point already. Where the hell did Sam dump his stats into? He stared, and said person stretched, nodded, then pointed.

“Let’s go,” Sam said, “Lynn asked me to pick something up for her too.”

“And that is?”

“What do you think?”

“Food?” Adam asked.

“Close enough,” Sam shrugged. “Raw mana stones. Cheap for what it is, but expensive for what it does. She seems to benefit from them a lot, though.”

“No kidding,” said Adam, “she’s higher up on the thresholds than we are, and somehow, Alen’s still ahead of her.”

“Actually, where is Alen right now?”

“Mapping, I think. He took a gate to a settlement over in uh, Demi—Deme…”

“Demidrun,” Sam supplied.

“Demidrun,” Adam finished. “We haven’t gone to that region a lot, so he’s probably busy looking for a route we haven’t explored yet. I’d ask him to import the waypoints he’s mapped into my nav-device, but his is cluttered as hell. I’d get more lost looking at it.”

Sam nodded sagely. “Right?”

“Shut up, Sam. Yours is even worse. What kind of person names waypoints like you do? At least Alen gives his waypoints names like Rock Hard and Moist Hole.”

“DK8-D is a great name for that place.”

“Whatever,” Adam said, shaking his head. As if he remembered something, he looked at Sam. “Is my hair alright?” he asked.

“Push it up a little,” Sam suggested.

“Alright,” Adam nodded, running his hands through his hair, pushing it up. “How about now?”

“It’s good, yeah.”

“Oh, great,” Adam nodded, pushing his hair back down again by habit.

Sam sighed.

—o—

Drizza sat in front of her desk. She looked out of the window and felt a sense of trepidation rise up in her throat. She looked down, and the headings of the papers in front of her seemed to threaten her, taunt her. They seemed to nettle her, trying to find a reaction, trying to inflict pain with the titles—to remind her that her granddaughter was missing for four months, and that she’d done hardly anything about it. She picked one of the papers up.

Report: Missing Chosen, Freugo of Axel.

Axel, she pursed her lips. It was another major settlement in the Underearth. Not quite as grand as the City of Pillars, but it was still a major hub for trading. Neut-mounted traders almost always passed through it on their way to the City of Pillars. How was it that a chosen was taken there too? There weren’t even any reports of fights. Drizza picked up another.

Report: Ambush, Path of Pillars.

Report: Lower District, Creuss Street Riot.

Report: Missing Chosen, Edmund of Demidrun.

She bit her lip and pushed the papers to the side. She pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a low curse under her breath. The attacks seemed indiscriminate, without a set pattern. One attack in a major settlement, another in the City of Pillars’s lower district, and another in a relatively underdeveloped settlement.

Drizza tapped her nails on the table. The council wasn’t listening to her. Frankly, she hadn’t expected them to at all. Her power was the only reason she was welcomed back in the first place. A prisoner in her own city, a follower in a coven she was supposed to lead. Now, she was forced to watch as chosen were taken one by one. The other council members treated the issue with the Cult of the Dark One like a hoax.

To them, it was merely an abduction of religious figures. Icons to the people seeking for forgiveness from gods, and powerful mercenaries offed by their enemies.

She knew it was beyond that. Ironic, how they had taken her for her power, and yet, they refused to listen to what her power was telling her at this moment. The sleeping god in the Underearth was alive, asleep. It wasn’t to be ignored. Like they were, this deity had been imprisoned in the Underearth for a reason—robbed of its power.

And now, they were feeding it. The Cult of the Dark One were fueling a fire. Powering a storm, and the council was merely standing by, watching the tide rise to swallow them all.

A knock rang out from her door and Drizza sighed.

“You may enter,” she said.

Slowly, the door creaked open, and one of the servants stepped in. Sul’in, she recalled. Sul’in bowed to her, then spoke. “You are being asked to come to the room, Lady Drizza.”

She said nothing and merely stood up, walking past him.

“I am sorry my Lady,” the servant muttered softly, under his breath. Drizza walked on as if she hadn’t heard.

The walls of the palace located in the Cloud District passed her, lined in paintings. Outside of the tinted-glass windows, the blue light of the crystals shining the Underearth’s sky slithered through the glass, painting images on the floor. Warm, fire-like light flickered across the halls, the stones glowing like flames mounted on sconces on the walls. Drizza took a turn and descended a circling flight of stairs.

Vanity, she scoffed. The stairs descended into a lower hall, surrounded by mirrors so that the reflection of the one descending them was magnified to everyone in the room below. A show of power. Petty, egotistical. Image at the cost of practicality.

If she was the one in charge, she’d have—Drizza stopped herself. She shook her head. She’d lost. That’s all there was. She’d angered many by refusing to marry Kara off to Casith’s nephew, and she had paid the price. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, she was back, her pride unimportant. It was not the time for petty feuds. She’d begged for help, and she got it. It was easy enough. Casith always liked scenarios where she was the one in power. Drizza had merely used that to her benefit.

She moved across the hall, then moved to stand in front of a set of double doors. They stood tall, large. Five meters high. Despite that, she pushed them open almost effortlessly.

Drizza was strong again. She’d asked for help, and she’d gotten it.

She stepped inside, and a woman with cat-like eyes turned and smiled at her, amber barbs and small horns dotting parts of her body. Her forehead, shoulders, and elbows. The woman wore a dark red dress. An expression of supreme smugness covered her face, and she nodded at Drizza.

“Welcome, Lady Drizza,” she said. Despite her words, she was still somehow capable of sounding politely condescending.

“Good afternoon, Casith,” Drizza replied, unperturbed. She moved across the room, Casith’s eyes on her. An air of superiority lingered over the woman, but Drizza paid it no heed. She walked over to a formation in the center of the room. Mana stones lined the formation, powering it. Mirrors of varying sizes were suspended all around her like a dome, but they were neither reflective nor transparent.

Inside the mirrors was swirling mist. A mosaic of colors and ideas.

It was her job to put them together.

“What do you require?” Drizza asked the woman, feeling her magic seep into the formation below.

“The top district is becoming a hassle to keep under control,” said Casith, the smile never leaving her face. “Especially that conflict my clan has with the Craftsman’s Quarter of the Hunter’s Lodge. It’s awfully crippling to be denied of their services, you know? Find me a solution. One that hurts that old man on the top.”

“The Father?”

“Yes.”

Drizza apologized to him in her head. Closing her eyes, she retreated into her mental domain. Slowly, her consciousness divided, then entered each of the mirrors surrounding her. They began to glow. Ideas began to coalesce. Possibilities became images to view.

Life energy began to drain.

A steady throb began to course through her body. She grit her teeth, and felt the sweat stream down her face. The pain was horrendous, one that was beyond physical. The device was cruel, requiring a person’s vitality to function. It was the reason why diviners like her lived so little.

Drizza began to see. Ideas, solutions, possible routes. They took hold. All the mirrors displayed them on the outside, the images flashing quickly. She had no doubt that Casith was analyzing everything, finding the optimal solution. She pushed the most efficient ones to the front, neglecting the ones that wouldn’t please the woman. Every stream of consciousness yielded a result, and it was precious.

And like all precious things, it came with a cost. Her skin wrinkled, cracked. Drizza’s back begun to hunch, and the flesh she’d put on her body began to wither. Her hair turned white, her eyes going milky.

More and more possibilities flooded in. Ways to attack, manipulate, defend. The weak points of the Craftsman’s Quarter, the betrayers, the easily bribed. The potential victims. Ways to make The Father of the Hunter’s Lodge concede to Casith’s terms. Every idea was a sea of life force. Even with her strength, Drizza couldn’t keep it up for any longer.

Finally, with a gasp, she stopped. Her consciousness streamed back in, and she keeled over, kneeling on the floor, panting for breath. Casith nodded, satisfied.

“Thank you,” the woman said. “The crystals are in the bedside chest of your quarters. You may leave.”

Drizza nodded, then limped away. Back to her old, weak form, she grunted at the strain as she pushed the large double doors open. She walked up the circling steps, her enfeebled frame magnified for the servants to see. Drizza paid them little heed. She nodded at one that supported her as she passed, and thanked another as he opened the door to her room.

She limped over to the bedside and withdrew the life crystals, their energy surging into her form and renewing her. It would have disastrous effects in the long term, but she hardly cared for her own health. In the darkness of her quarters, her eyes shone as she recalled the images she had seen.

Aside from the images Casith had asked of her, in a mirror at the very back, she conducted her own search. In her closed eyes, Drizza could still see it clearly. An imprint in the dark.

It was a possibility she was too afraid to show anyone else. The image had shown a hole torn in reality above the City of Pillars, and a churning mass funneling towards a blue sky. Freedom. And in that possibility, no matter how small, her granddaughter had lived within it, soaring towards the blue sky in the company of a large, white beast of claw and horn.

With that, Drizza now had hope.

Next, was taking her steps to move towards it. She opened her eyes and got to work.

—o—

Alen scratched his head as he walked through the streets, a large, bulky figure walking around beside him. It was hidden under a dark cloak, the lights in the cavern roof casting shadows over its face. In the figure’s cloth-wrapped hands, it held a torch. However, instead of a flame, the same stones that lit up the City of Pillars in the night rested upon the rod’s claw-like grip. Its fire-like glow was reflected in Alen’s eyes as he looked over the ruins of a home.

“Missing Chosen, Edmund of Demidrun,” he said, remembering the letter that had come to his room. Alexandrius’s uncle, Vexxaron, had managed to get a copy of the report. Edmund Rusream, forty-three years old, had been attacked in his home.

The man was a famous preacher, loved by the townspeople for his virtue, and respected by travelers for his willingness to offer a bed to sleep in. The report spoke of a fight that had broken out in the middle of the night, but by the time the townspeople had arrived, the shack located a good distance from the town was already in ruins. The man was gone, like many others.

“Another attack by the cult,” he idly noted. The house showed the same signs as the other sites he’d observed. A powerful stench of blood pervaded the area, and the silence around the house was unnatural. The moment he stepped near it, every ambient noise in the area seemed to go out, snuffed out by the magic in the air.

He pulled up the message screen and sent a message to Adam and Sam, telling them that he’d be back soon.

Alen walked out of the small town situated in the Demidrun region and moved towards the teleportation formation nearby. He took a small detour along the way, hiding behind a rocky outcrop. Seeing that no one was around, Alen waved his hand, and the cloaked figure following behind him deflated, equipment clattering onto the ground below. He picked up the cloth and the torch, strapping the latter to his waist. He reached down and collected the single tooth that laid on the stone.

It was humanoid.

He’d taken it from a Xargith warrior. He’d been mapping with Sam, Adam, and Lynn when they’d come across the obsidian-skinned man. He was wounded and separated from his group, but he’d still managed to put up one hell of a fight. Alen had taken it and made it into a summon, the natural mana-rich strength of the man’s bones only strengthening his repertoire of undead. Alen had taken a larger chunk out of the man’s soul to power the summon too, something that he’d noticed he was doing more lately.

Alen wasn’t sure if he should be comfortable with what he was doing. It just seemed wrong, somehow. As if he was on the wrong path. It wasn’t that he was putting a forced value on souls and life, but rather, he was afraid.

Not fear of the unknown, no. Nor was it fear for what he was about to face. He’d conquered that long ago. The scar on his palm was a constant reminder of that. What Alen was afraid of was himself.

He didn’t want to become numb to the concept of death. He wanted to feel the weight of every life he took. He wanted to hold himself back from raising hordes of zombies to send his enemies at their allies. It would serve him well in dire straits, but he wanted to stay away from making it a casual action as much as possible. He wanted to get home, after all. How would the people from his old life react, seeing him come home broken like that?

He laughed bitterly as he stored the tooth in a pouch, where it clattered together with other humanoid teeth.

I’m already broken, more or less, he thought. He wasn’t a stranger to his own habits. He was more violent, more aggressive lately. Violence had proved an easy solution, and he’d grown accustomed to it. Every time he saw something stand in his way, he subconsciously saw it as an enemy. When he’d nearly killed a thief for stealing from him a month ago, he knew that it was time to stop.

Granted, the thief had stolen something extremely valuable, but that wasn’t a valid excuse. Coin could be earned back, and items could be bought again. Alen had resolved himself already.

He would take lives, but only if those lives had threatened to take his own.

He would not kill because of annoyance. He would not kill because it was convenient. Alen refused to do it. He’d come to this vicious world to live in it as a person his past self could respect. That threw a thought into his head.

If his old self saw him now, what would he say?

Nice and edgy there, faggot.

He smiled and shook his head. He was a dick, back then. Alen remembered how he’d taken his fear and frustration of being thrust into a new world out on people and felt himself cringe. He felt better in his own shoes now.

His sense of humor was still the same, but it was less forced. Less like a coping mechanism. He wasn’t desperately clutching at something to laugh at anymore, desperately trying to find something to escape from his situation, no matter how needlessly vulgar. Well, he was still pretty bad on that scale, but an improvement was something to be celebrated.

“Yay,” he told himself, stepping up into the set of steps that led up to the portal.

He handed the fee to the woman guarding the portal. Seventeen kris. An expensive amount, but for the luxury teleportation provided, it was worth it. Light lit up the entirety of his vision, and he squinted his eyes at the intensity of the glare. When it faded away, he was in a large room, surrounded by people. Opposite the large booth-like room he was in, other teleportation circles stood, leading to different places.

Axel, Xanadar, Kaerun…

He shook his head. Lots of places to explore. Lots of uncharted territory. He’d been in the Underearth for four months, longer than his stay in the upper planes, and things seemed as hopeless as ever. Not only was finding a way back proving more difficult, other problems presented itself too. The Cult of the Dark one was getting more aggressive, for instance. Alen prepared himself to be attacked every time he left the city, but he was left untargeted so far.

So much that he had even begun to doubt Vexxaron’s words. Was he really marked for death? There had been no signs. His thresholds had increased rapidly with the effort he had put in combined with the dense, ambient mana of the Underearth, but he’d been unable to experience a single attack.

He supposed that was a good thing, but it kept him on edge. Alen almost wished for a group of assassins to attack him, just to put his paranoia to rest.

Alen stepped out of the Hunter’s Lodge and onto the streets outside. People were busy in the lower district like always, milling about and going on their daily lives. Alen envied the sense of normalcy the people around him gave off. What he’d give to feel like every day was a routine again. To wake up, brush his teeth, go to school, and maybe go out with friends at the ends of the day.

Now, every day was packed with things to do. A request for a craftsman, areas to map, places to investigate, requests to finish, things to help out in…

He sighed.

A voice rang out in his head.

“We’re at the courtyard, visiting for lunch. Come over,” Lynn’s voice said.

He pressed the button to reply. “Alright,” he said, “I’m coming over. Leave some of the good stuff for me.”

“No way,” she laughed. “You better hurry.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he replied, going through the streets. The upper district was a fair distance away, and he still needed to stop by the room he was renting out to pick up the token that granted him entry onto the upper regions of the city. Lady Drizza had sent him one, a month after she’d disappeared to apparently live in the Cloud District.

He never had the chance to talk to her properly. She hadn’t come back down once since she’d left. Aside from hearing that her stay was barely pleasant, Razzan hadn’t told him anything more. Dieter, meanwhile, was still missing.

The new arrival from his batch had departed to explore the Underearth to search for Lady Drizza’s granddaughter, and aside from occasionally running into him in settlements outside of the city, Alen rarely made contact with the man. He was rough, Alen recalled. Haggard. He shook his head sadly.

Quickly, Alen walked to his room and retrieved the token. He left his equipment on the bedside, leaving the reinforced-keratin plates that covered his vitals on the bed. He departed in just his robes, the thick fabric reaching just by his calves. He pulled on the cuff of his top, loosening it and lowering the hood over his head. He set his gauntlet by the table as well, the glowing necrotic-affinity magic stone slotted onto the back of it, surrounded by runes and sigils.

He kept his pouch full of teeth and bone shards, though. It never hurt to keep some measure of protection on him. Namely, an army of undead that could be summoned at any time.

Alen grinned at the thought and switched roads, moving to a wider one. People riding on mounts and carriages flowed through the streets, the people walking on foot situated to the side. Alen threw a tooth to the ground and summoned a large, four-legged creature. It looked feline, but its tail’s skeletal structure was that of a snake’s, and its four legs long and triple-jointed. Its head was massive, almost out of proportion, with two mouths lined with sharp teeth, the bone structure itself curved into a feral, cat-like grin.

A Kavarith, as people in the Underearth called it.

He mounted it and it bounded over carriages, moving through the street with a grace that showed little to no difficulty. Some people cursed at him, calling him out for his use of undead, but he rarely paid heed. There were no laws against his mount, and the people who got angry at him for using it were either religiously offended or simply annoyed at how easily he skipped over the rest of the traffic.

Alen bounded over more people, and on the ramp that ascended towards the level above, his mount jumped, using the side of the road to skip the crowds of people going up and down. It was dangerous, the way his mount threatened to slip and fall of the edge, but living in the Underearth for four months had robbed Alen of any fear or reluctance he had towards heights. He brushed his hair back. It was still freshly shaven, no longer falling over his eyes when he leaned forward.

The guard at the gate asked for a fee, but stopped as Alen flashed him the token he had in his pocket. Quickly, he ascended towards the upper levels.

It was easy, with his mount shortening the time it took to get there by a significant amount. Alen crossed another set of guards and ascended a familiar road. Blue grass lined the side of the street, and a courtyard showed itself just beyond the horizon. Alen sped up, then eventually slowed as he spotted a group of people gathered in front of the gates.

Razzan, Adam, Sam, Lynn, other Hunters he could recognize, a couple villagers, and…

Dieter? Vexxaron?

They looked up at him as he bounded forward. Alen stopped a short distance away, unsummoning his mount and stashing the fang in one of his many pouches. As he walked up to them, the lizardman gave him a nod.

“Alen,” Vexxaron said, acknowledging his presence.

“Vexxaron,” Alen returned the greeting, raising a brow at the rest of them.

Dieter glanced his way and nodded. Alen noticed the fresh scar that ran up from his jaw, cutting up into the corner of his lip. The flame wisp over his shoulder, Ignis, burned with an intense blue flame. Dieter pointed into the courtyard and they followed as he went in.

The rest of the villagers were there, gathered around a table. Lunch had been served, but their appetites seemed to be forgotten at the sight of Dieter, who hadn’t come to the city in months. Quickly, a crowd gathered around him. Alen stood back, letting them greet one another. His friends stood around him, silent.

“You know what this means, right?” Sam said.

“He found something,” Alen replied.

“Yup,” Adam said, “let’s hope it’s related to finding a way back.”

“Or a really good recipe for muffins,” Lynn offered.

Alen smiled. “Let’s hope it’s both.”

Silently, the four of them watched the Kaer talk for a few minutes. Alen wasn’t quite hungry, and he didn’t want to interrupt the reunion of sorts, so he stayed back. A while later, Dieter separated from the crowd, walking to them with Razzan and Vexxaron right beside him. The man paused, trying to figure out what to say. He sighed.

“Follow me,” Dieter said.

He led them into an isolated house. The walls were thick, and as Razzan waved his hand, a bubble expanded out from his position, most likely blocking the noise from outside. They sat, and Lynn tilted her head in curiosity. She gave Alen a look. “They aren’t going to assassinate us, are they?” she whispered.

“I’d like to eat lunch first,” Alen responded, keeping his eyes on the three. Dieter seemed to hesitate, then shook his head.

“I’ll skip the greetings,” said Dieter.

“Uh, alright,” Adam said. “What’s up, then? You said you’d only come back when you found something, right?”

“Yes, and I have,” the man spoke, nodding. He fished a rugged, dirty navigation device from his pocket and handed it to Razzan. The hunter opened it, and a large display, formed from magic, hovered over the surface like a hologram.

There, large chunks of the Underearth had been mapped. Tunnels and passages, constantly shifting. Layers above layers, floors below floors. Multiple levels constantly shifted and stuttered, the layout slowly but surely changing every second. Alen gaped at the sheer progress Dieter had made. Vexxaron seemed unfazed, but the slight raise of their brows was clear enough. He’d been surprised too.

“I’ve been looking,” said Dieter, sounding tired. Despite that, however, a fire burned behind his voice. “I’ve been searching, and two days ago, I found something.”

He pointed to a section of the map. Alen looked closely, then his eyes widened at the name Dieter had assigned to the waypoint.

Cult of the Dark One, Portal #1.

Lynn leaned in and whispered something into Alen’s ears. He nodded dumbly in agreement.

These were not about muffins.