Necromancer and Co., Book 3: The Underearth

Chapter 11: Matriarch

[Alen]

Alen leaned against the wall, his arms crossed. He stared seriously at the navigation device Dieter held in his hand. Above it, a three-dimensional image of the Underearth Dieter had mapped came into view, the cave structures of each room and passage outlined by the pulses of magic emitted by each sigil he left. Alen could tell Dieter’s device was of a high quality too, with the sheer amount of sigils being far above the amount his own could sustain.

“If you want to repay us,” Dieter said, “now is the time.”

“Hm,” Sam spoke little, his arms similarly crossed. “This cult is full of those dudes like the one who had that standoff with Granny Drizza right?”

“Yes,” Razzan nodded. “Sieth is one of the stronger ones, but the Cult of the Dark one has many individuals capable of taking on chosen, with most being chosen themselves.”

“So we just have to beat people on Alen’s level?” Adam grinned. “Easy.”

A hand covered in red scales raised up, and Vexxaron spoke, his fist clenched. “Your friend, despite his rapid growth, is still a freshly assigned chosen. If I recall, he’s only faced a single trial from his god. I’ve faced three, and the people we know enough to take note of in the Cult of the Dark One have faced two, at least. It will be far from easy.”

Adam frowned. “So you’re sending us to fight these people? It’s a fucking suicide mission. No. I’m sorry, but giving us a place to stay and leading us to this city isn’t enough of a favor to make me kill myself. No offense.”

“None taken,” Razzan said, and Dieter continued for him. “We’re not attacking,” said Dieter, “we’re breaking and entering. Preferably with as little breaking as possible.”

“My family has a background on these things,” Lynn slowly said, “and there’s always an objective for doing so. Stealing, kidnapping, eavesdropping, or… Assassination?” Alen raised a brow at her voice near the end.

“Kidnapping,” Dieter clarified. “To be more specific, rescue. They’ve been kidnapping chosen for months, and Kara is among them. I’m almost certain the chosen haven’t been killed yet, contrary to the rumors. If we can rescue them, I’ll be sure to find a way to repay you all.”

“If it’s money,” Adam said, “no deal.”

“Of course it isn’t,” Dieter said. “I know what you want. My plan has a chance of helping you get it.”

Alen gave him a long look. “And that is?”

“A way back to the surface.”

—o—

“I’ll handle the paperwork,” Alen said. “I’m no good at the whole negotiation thing. You guys figure things out with Dieter. I’ll take care of the form.”

“Alright,” Adam nodded, and Alen turned his back, walking to the counter of the Hunter’s Lodge. The place was far more complex than its name would suggest, offering a sea of hallways and discussion rooms, where deals and contracts were exchanged. He turned a corner, and in the hallway ahead, he spotted the main lobby.

It was a large room, with arches and pillars of obsidian marble holding the ceiling up. Tinted glass lined the windows, depicting things from the surface—no doubt the only things the trapped races could remember about it. Oceans, mountains, and wide, sprawling forests. Alen passed them, along with multiple other tables where people sat. All around the room, different races could be seen.

A large, furred man with the head of a cow and the claws of a feline sat on a table in one side. He was of the Ginno race. Another man, barbs and horns protruding from his face was a person Alen could recognize. He’d dealt with the Arineian man before, a small exchange of information between their navigation devices. It had been embarrassing after the man had seen his waypoint names. They quickly got along after a few jokes at Alen’s expense. His name was Koss.

Koss nodded at him, and Alen nodded back, continuing on his way, more aware of each race as he passed them. A fish-like man, with long fins running down from his head like hair. His webbed hands held a pen. A man of the Kivotl race. Alen pulled his eyes away. Now that he’d gotten hope of a way out, things seemed to be more out of place than ever. Faces and people that he’d never see in Earth, or even the continent above. Since the Underearth counted as a world itself, did that mean he’d traveled worlds twice now? It was baffling how easy it was to lose everything he had just because of a single portal.

He reached into his pocket and felt the Redarian coin he had inside. Baby steps. One step at a time. Find a way back into Sandsea or Redarian territory, then find a way back to Earth. Easy.

He reached his destination. The man on the counter had a complexion of obsidian, his skin black like midnight and his eyes red like blood. Xargith. It was peculiar, seeing a man of the most savage race in the Underearth working in front of a counter. He was different, however. Alen almost couldn’t associate him with the race that had made tents from flayed skin.

Alen raised a hand in greeting. “Hey, Youno.”

“Ah, the resident new arrival,” Youno said, his arms crossed. “Is Dieter with you?”

“Yeah,” Alen nodded. “He’s over in one of the negotiation rooms. My party’s making a deal with him.”

“Party? I don’t seem to recall you ever registering for one.”

“It’s why I’m here, actually. I need a better nav-device.”

“Ah,” Youno said, bringing out a piece of paper from underneath he counter. It was glossy, a vaguely transparent blue. The ink on the paper glowed with a gentle white light. He pushed it towards Alen. “A long expedition?”

“Yup,” he nodded. “My party’s going out for a while, and we can’t afford to buy one of the more expensive devices for a way back. I don’t want to sacrifice any of my current waypoints for new ones, so I’m going with the devices the Lodge provides.”

“I see. You are aware of the terms?”

“Discover a new piece of habitable territory every two months, with three different routes to enter and exit. The paths must be consistent, and at least one must be active every day of the week,” Alen recited. “That’s all, right?”

“You forgot to mention the down payment,” Youno smiled. “Intentionally, I hope.”

“Damn. I thought you’d forget.”

“You’d be surprised how much people try that,” the man said. Youno pointed at different parts of the paper, where blanks where line in white ink. “Party name, member names and their respective IDs, and the magical imprint from the contracting party leader. The rest of the blanks are the same ones you filled in when you first registered into the Lodge. I trust you remember them?”

“Yeah,” said Alen, taking the pen. As he touched the paper with it, it emitted magic, cutting out text into the mana-based paper made of Stonewood tree leaves. It left luminescent white letters in its wake.

When he finished, Youno pointed to a section of the paper. “And… magical imprint.”

Alen pulled on his vitality, and poured the green motes into a strand of his magic. The pain was familiar now. A powerful sting, but he’d felt worse pain. A few motes would never be as painful as ripping out in a clump. Alen pushed the strand of magic into the paper, branding the contract with his identity.

Youno took it and nodded. “You know, your magic imprints are more potent that others’. I’ve noticed that it’s stronger, somehow. More… alive? Xargith like me are naturally talented at controlling life and blood, and your signatures practically hum with it? What do you do?”

“I just throw my identity in with my mana, really,” Alen said, then nodded. Youno shrugged and slid the paper inside a drawer in his desk. “That’ll be two hundred purple kris.”

Alen frowned. “That expensive?”

“It’s navigation device than can hold somewhere around ten thousand magical imprints active for a year,” said Youno. “Of course it’s expensive.”

“Do you take red coins for that?”

“Even better.”

Alen sighed and pulled up his coin pouch. He rifled through the bag of keratin, his fingers moving through a mass of crystalline coins. Most were dark, a faint swirl of color churning within like mist. Others were brighter, a crystal coin with a sea of purple mist within, but they were even fewer in number. Alen spotted the single bright red coin in his pouch. From where he was at, it still glowed with a light that faintly lit up his fingers.

He pulled it out and slid it across the table. “Take the rest from my balance,” Alen said, giving the man his navigation device. Youno glided the back of it over a rune. A faint arc of magic like red lightning flashed between the two before the man pulled a circular slab out of his device. He put the device off to the side and slotted the slab into a new device. Sleek, black. Like the pillars of the city. Youno handed it to him.

“Thank you for you patronage,” Youno smiled, and Alen smiled back stiffly in return. With a final nod, he turned his back and left, his shoulders more hunched than before.

“Three months of my fucking savings,” Alen muttered. “Three months gone.”

Alen walked past the main lobby, and a Ginno man with a bull’s head flicked a coin in his direction from behind him. It passed through the thin cloud of magic Alen dispersed around his body and alerted him immediately. He casually moved a hand behind his back and caught it. He looked back at the man. “Thanks, Marrh,” said Alen. The bull-man nodded in response.

“I know what buyin’ one of those upgrades feel like, bone-boy,” said Marrh. “Buy yerself a drink.”

“Will do.”

With a final affirmative grunt from the Ginno, Alen left the lobby, with Koss slapping him on the back as he passed. Familiar with the layout of the Lodge, Alen quickly found himself on the hallway leading to the discussion room the rest of his colleagues were in. Voices rang out from within. Alen pushed the door open and stepped inside.

“…telling us that aside from that aside from waking that god dude or something, they already have a way to open a portal back to the surface?”

“Yes,” Dieter answered Sam. “Razzan told me that a newly awakened god would be too weak to open a portal back up. They definitely have a way to open that doorway.”

“And why don’t they just wait until the god is strong enough?” Alen asked, taking a seat beside Lynn. She nodded at him as he sat.

“Because,” Dieter said, “they need to do a favor for that god. Whoever the god is, it won’t be in their control when it wakes up. If it happens to be angry and they don’t do anything to curry good will with it, it could easily kill them all.”

Alen frowned. The cult was planning on raising a god and hoping it didn’t kill them when it woke up? They really were lunatics. He looked around the room. Lynn sat, leaning on the chair. She looked about ready to go with whatever happened, but Alen knew she was listening intently. It was the same for Sam. He was as untidy-looking as ever. One of his sleeves folded up when the other wasn’t, ruffled clothes, dirty boots, and one button left unbuttoned on his shirt. He fiddled with an ice shard in his hands, paying minimal attention to the discussion.

Adam was the only other one who had a serious look on his face. He looked at Alen, and Alen pursed his lips. “Should we go?” Alen asked.

“I think… we should,” said Adam. “We’ve been looking for a way back for four months in the Underearth. That’s roughly seven to eight months in the surface already. We’ve been in this world for nearly a year, Alen. I want to get back.”

“Yeah,” Alen said. He looked around the room. “Sam? Lynn? You guys want to go?”

“If it involves going into places I’m not allowed to go into, I’m in,” Lynn said.

“Eh, do we really need to go?” asked Sam, dismissing the shard of ice.

“We kinda do, yeah.”

“So let’s go, then,” Sam shrugged and picked up his staff. He looked around the room and raised a brow. “Well? Come on. I wanna go home too. I have a lot of shows to catch up with back home.”

“Very well,” Razzan nodded and stood up. Dieter, two other hunters, and Vexxaron followed.

“As agreed,” Vexxaron said, “we’ll meet by the teleportation portal to the Axel region in eight hours. Take that time to rest and gather your supplies. We don’t know how this will go, so come as prepared as possible.”

The room was filled with a round of nods, and they all stepped out and parted ways. The party stepped out into the hall, and Alen looked down at the shirt he wore. It was white, made from the fur that only grew out of the back of a Hill Behemoth’s head. Comfortable, durable, but totally inappropriate for the journey ahead.

“I’m going to go change,” Alen told his friends. “Meet you guys outside?”

“Mm.”

“Okay.”

“Sure.”

Alen jogged ahead of them and passed a corner. He waved his hand. From the keratin belt that held the bag and pouches to his waist, gray thread bubbled out. When he turned another corner, his equipment had already materialized around him. His robe, thicker and stronger, sported more armor plates to protect him. It barely weighed him down as he jogged forward onto the lobby.

Youno looked up at his again as he approached. “Back already?” the Xargith man asked. “I’m not interested in men, you know. I’m sure Geralt in the next window would be interested, though. Should I switch over?”

“You’re the only one for me, Youno,” Alen said, bringing out his device.

“Always the charming one,” the man shook his head, crossing his arms. “What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to retrieve my things under my name. The usual list of stuff I get when I head out.”

“The gauntlet?”

“And the other things, yes.”

Youno nodded and reached into the bottom of the table. Immediately, the notes stacked on the table floated away as a circular formation of runeworks and sigils lit up on the surface of the table. The Xargith man waved his hand, and a piece of paper floated over to him. He grabbed the pen on the side, then copied signs from the paper onto the blanks of the formation.

A white light flashed, and when it faded, a terrifying black gauntlet sat upon the surface of the runework. A green gem was embedded into the back of the gauntlet’s hand. Alen took it, and with a gesture on his part, the straps and material of the gauntlet reached out like millions of tiny tendrils, each connecting to the fabric of his sleeve. Within seconds, it had fully melded into his right arm, running down from his shoulder to the tips of his fingers.

Runes and engravings ran down the length of the gauntlet, the exquisite work reflected the light of the lobby on the glossy black material of the armor.

Alen clenched his fist, then unclenched it again. He nodded. More items flashed onto the circle. He noted the floating notes around Youno and tilted his head. “You learned a telekinesis-based magic?”

“Yes,” the man nodded. “I’m still adjusting to the new job, and I figured things would be a lot easier if I learned something to help me manage things.”

“I’m thinking of learning it too, yeah.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Youno disagreed. “With what you have right now, learning an affinity like this would be a waste of your capacity.”

“I haven’t learned a new affinity since… I don’t even know how long. I guess Life would count, seeing as how I’ve tinkered around a lot with life force,” said Alen. “Good point though. Noted. I’ll choose my affinities wisely.”

“Good,” the receptionist said, handing him a bag.

Alen took it. He quickly glanced inside to check if it had everything. Pouches. Teeth, bones, shards, shells. Some had summons stored, and others…

Souls. It was complete, alright.

“Thanks,” Alen muttered, and Youno nodded, the runes fading. He resumed his work. A voice called out to Alen from behind.

“Alen!”

He turned his head. It was Adam, right by the door that led outside. “What’s up?” Alen asked.

“You made the party right? We were talking about how we forgot to settle for a party name,” said Adam. He paused, then gave Alen a look. His face suddenly went dark when Alen met his stare with a grin. “...What did you name it?”

Alen told him.

Adam groaned.

—o—

“Is it somewhere around here?” Alen muttered, slowing his mount. The skeletal form of the Kavarith lurched to a halt as he tilted his head to get a better look at the road ahead. Dieter and Razzan stood in front of a wall, arms crossed. They shouted something at the following party. Sam, Adam, Vexxaron, and the other hunters were just behind, dismounting to set down and rest. Lynn, who sat behind Alen looked over his shoulder.

“Why’d we stop? I never knew riding a Kavarith as a mount would be so fun,” she said, patting the creature’s back. Alen had molded a saddle of sorts onto the back of the large feline creature, easing many of the aches the mount would cause his ass otherwise. She poked his back with a finger. “Lend me one already,” she said. “We could even do a race. Best rider gets fifty kris.”

His eyes lit up. “Purple kris?”

“Just kris.”

“Rejected.”

She laughed. “Okay, how about this: five purple kris.”

“You’re exceedingly stingy, you know that?”

“It’s why my savings are still intact,” Lynn smugly said.

Alen hit the top of her head with his new navigation device. She glared. “I paid for this thing, you know. I’m your only way back to the city, and I’m the party leader of our new group. Am I great, or am I great?”

“You hit me,” she complained, “and the party name is terrible.”

“What? It’s perfect.”

“How is—I won’t even say it,” said Lynn, shaking her head. “I don’t want to.”

“It’ll grow on you,” Alen said, urging the mount forward. They approached the group. “We’re stopping because we arrived early. Dieter imported his waypoints into my nav-device. Look. See?”

Alen pointed, and Lynn looked at the device’s screen. On the marker signaling their location, a small white dot slowly made its way closer to them. A passage was moving towards their area, no doubt a link to their next destination. Alen had magnified the map significantly, so Lynn could tell that its progress was near-glacial. “No way,” she said. “I’ve never been this early to anything in my life. This wait will take what, an hour? Two?”

“Yeah, I think.”

“So we’re just supposed to sit here?”

“Yeah.”

“But that’s boring.”

“It is,” Alen said, messing around with the device. He brought the screen up to Lynn. “Gorebat nest. I’m rushing to the thirtieth threshold, and these guys should give me a good amount of mana to assimilate. You want to go?”

“Only if we go mapping if there’s any time left afterward. I still need to complete my monthly quota for the Lodge,” she said. “Youno threatened to have me pay for my contribution instead if I didn’t map out nine new places in the next three days.”

“The quota’s fifteen, Lynn. What the hell have you been doing?”

“No, what the hell have you been doing?” She asked, exasperated. “The areas fully mapped by the city are massive. To get to any uncharted territories, you have to teleport to the farthest regions and go from there. Do you have any idea how much that costs?”

“I think it’s reasonable.”

“You have a mount and a magic system that recoups any of your losses twice over with every fight. If you didn’t splurge on your money, you’d be rolling in cash.”

“Fair enough. Talesin makes good bread, though.”

“Extremely overpriced bread,” she said. “Even for the middle district.”

Alen smiled. “Still good bread,” he said, looking over to the rest of the party. Adam was hunched over, fiddling with something, and Sam was idly watching, humming a tune as Adam halfheartedly sang along.

“Adam! Sam!” He called out, and the two paused to give him a look. “We’re heading out to slaughter innocent animals! You guys going?”

Adam shook his head. “I gotta finish carving my weapons or I’ll be useless later. You guys go ahead.”

“Sam?”

The person in question stood up and stretched. “Yeah, I can go,” said Sam.

Alen nodded and plucked a tooth hidden in a pocket within his robes. He threw it to the ground, and the enamel bubbled, before growing into a humanoid skeleton. Its jaw was sharp, and multiple bones in its body were dense in places humans weren’t. Its bones continued to surge. A layer over the ribs. Breastplate. Plates of armor began to sprout from its body, covering it in dense, mana-enhanced material. Pauldrons, gauntlets, greaves. They were a clean white, but as the necrotic mana swept over the enamel to strengthen it even further, they were dyed a murky, black-green. Alen created a cloak of keratin from the fabric of his sleeve and tossed it at the summon. It caught it, then draped the hood over its head, obscuring its skeletal features.

Sam stared at the summon in curiosity. “Doesn’t your magic get exhausted, having to strengthen each of your summons like that all the time?”

“It’s different for each summon,” Alen answered. “If I try to bring for example, a wild wolf to a level where it can fight people of our thresholds, it’ll drain my magic very quick, even with the insane amounts of mana I have after min/maxing Wisdom.”

“So like, this guy is different because?”

“Because when we killed him, he was at a threshold even higher than we were. His bones were soaked in the magic he absorbed when he was alive, and when I summon him, I only have to spend my magic on regenerating said bones back into shape. I kinda just edited a part of his soul so that the armor is considered a part of his skeletal system. After that, it’s just another sweep of my magic to make him just a tiny bit stronger than he already is,” said Alen, arms crossed as a blade of bone grew out his minion’s chest. It snapped the weapon off from the armor at the hilt.

“I thought you hated using people as summons,” Lynn noted, tilting her head.

“I don’t like using entire souls as summons,” he clarified. “Whenever I touch on the parts that make the person them, it builds something in me, a connection. It’s kind of like suddenly considering a stranger a brother. Their presence suddenly feels like family, and the feelings of hatred and sorrow inside them is enough to drive me insane,” Alen said, rolling a tooth around in his hands. “Selerius is suppressing the voices, but whenever I use Raise Undead for a long amount of time, my chest begins to hurt. It’s probably the way I’ve designed my magic system, but these souls can affect me. They can influence my emotional state.”

Adam, who was in listening range nodded. “So if you take a bunch of gay spirits and let them influence you, then…”

“I won’t—no,” Alen shook his head. “I don’t even know. If I start professing some undying love towards you, then you’ll know what happened.”

“No worries man. I’ll exorcise you or something.”

“Appreciated,” Alen said. He looked to Lynn and Sam. “Let’s go?”

“Lets,” said Lynn. Sam shrugged.

Alen smiled and threw three teeth onto the ground. They clattered and bubbled up, exploding into fluid enamel that rapidly hardened, forming quadruped feline creatures with two mouths and three-jointed legs. Alen mounted his Kavarith, and his summon did the same.

Sam mounted his, and Alen was about to give the order to go when he spotted Lynn giving him a look.

“What?” he asked.

“You had four of these things,” she said.

“About two dozen in my pouches, actually. They usually come in pairs or groups of three.”

“You didn’t summon one for me on the way here,” she complained. “I had to hold on to you to avoid falling off the entire way. Your saddle has no handholds on the back.”

“Exactly.”

“What?”

“Hm? Nothing,” Alen shook his head and gave her an innocent smile. “I was conserving mana. These things have enough magic in their bodies to be considered in the early thirties of mana thresholds, you know? Mana conservation.“

“You were bragging about how you could summon your entire army with mana to spare just a week ago,” she pointed out, smiling wryly.

Alen coughed. “We have two hours. Let’s hurry into Gorebat territory.”

“Yes, party leader,” Lynn mocked, climbing onto the back of the Kavarith. Alen coughed again, and gave the order to move with his magic. The mounts exploded into action without delay. Wind buffeted Alen’s face. He didn’t look at the front, but looked at everything through the navigation device instead. A thin globe of magic extended out all around him, letting him avoid any incoming obstacles. Mana Sense. Sam had taught it to him.

As they bounded forward, he controlled the mounts of the other three as well. Lynn’s hair fluttered in the wind, followed back flashes of blue and black as Sam and his cloaked summon trailed after them not far behind.

“Alen,” Lynn called out.

“Yeah?”

“Let me see your status.”

“Why?”

“Curiosity.”

Status:

Name: Alen

Race: Human

Type: Necrotic

Current Threshold: 29

Health: 100%

Stamina: 99%

Mana: 100%

Strength: 68

Dexterity: 69

Agility: 58

Constitution: 67

Vitality: 71

Resistance: 55

Intelligence: 136 (+)

Wisdom: 215 (+++)

Control: 172 (++)

Skills:

Mana Programming, Dominate Undead, Necrotic Blessing, Numb Senses, Numbing Mist, Summon Greater Skeleton, Rotfire/Deathflare Blast, Deathchill Grip, Deathchill Pulse, Conjure AutoBone Design, Skeletal Detonation, Vitality Manipulation, Blightwater/Darkwater Surge, Raise Greater Undead, Mana Sense, Drain Vortex, Skeletal Vajra, Magelight, Create Specters

System Applications:

Soul Editor, AutoBone, System Notepad

He shrugged, then brought it up, before bringing her mount close enough to his that the bones of each Kavarith’s shoulder grinded against the other’s. He gave it one good look to see if everything was in order. He smiled in satisfaction.

“Gods,” Lynn muttered. “No wonder you refuse to arm wrestle with me.”

“Shut up.”

“Oh my goodness,” Sam called out from behind. “Can we like, let me see? Your summon is terrible at keeping people company. He didn’t even respond when I asked him about the weather.”

Alen smiled and rolled his eyes. He brought Sam close to the other side of his summon, then pushed the screen over to him.

“Holy crap,” Sam laughed. “You’re even more of a glass cannon than I am.”

He shrugged. “I mean, I’ve only pumped my points into those three stats since day one.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I think even people at the twentieth thresholds could push me around in a purely physical confrontation.”

“No kidding,” Lynn said. “Should I start learning how to use a shield? Nah.”

“We have Roland for that,” Alen quietly said.

Sam furrowed his brows. “Dude, I don’t… I mean, you’ve been here for a long time. He should’ve turned up by now, especially with how much you scoured the Underearth. What if he’s, you know.”

“He isn’t,” Lynn calmly spoke. "I have a party comms with Alen and Roland. If he died, his name would’ve disappeared from the directory. He’s out there.”

“Yeah,” Alen said, stopping the mounts. The two looked at him, confused. He pointed.

Ahead of them was a dark passage. A cave in an underground world of cave systems. It seemed darker than normal. No crystals near the ceiling that lit up the inside of the rooms. A warm breeze blew out of the cave, and it brought with it the coppery smell of blood. Alen reached into his pouch and threw teeth onto the ground. They began to form into his summons. Through the darkness of the cave, a single, blood red eye the size of a table looked down at them.

“Heads up,” Alen said. “The bats know we’re here.”

Sam licked his lips. “Is that…?”

“A matriarch,” Lynn said, and a piercing screech ripped through the entirety of the cave. The sounds of thousands of beating wings exploded out from the darknedd in a maddened flurry, announcing a single, clear fact:

The fight was coming.