Necromancer and Co., Book 3: The Underearth

Chapter 13: Kept In Reserve

[Alen]

Flame-like lights shone from yellow rocks mounted on sconces affixed to the walls of the spiral staircase. It was dim, foreboding. Shadows and silhouettes danced in the shade as a group of ten ascended. The one at the lead was a man, his big eyes scanning the corridor at the end of the steps. He nodded.

“Clear,” Razzan said, in his unmistakable accent. He moved forward, and the rest followed. Alen’s hands were tense at his sides as they crept onward, his thoughts a continuous ramble to keep himself focused.

Head help high, shoulders straight, he told himself. Move casually—with purpose. You know what you’re doing. You’re a cultist right now, not an intruder. You intend to sacrifice children to dark gods. You’re a pretentious religious fanatic. Think pretentious things. May the Dark One bring us salvation. The pagans will fall, and their families will watch from their stakes as they burn one by one… or something.

The group turned, and a hand grasped his arm and pulled him back to stop him from getting lost. Lynn raised a brow at him from under her hood. “What the hell are you doing?” she asked, voice a whisper.

“I pray for your endless suffering in the name of the Dark One, heretic,” Alen hissed.

She gave him a look. “Did you just hiss at me?” she said. He furrowed his brows.

“Look,” Alen said, “I’m trying to get into character alright? We’re cultists right now. Think pretentious cultist things. We need to fit in.”

“Quiet down back there,” Vexxaron glared. “If you want to fit in, shut up.”

“Okay sorry,” Alen said, lowering his voice. He looked at Adam, who joined his hands together under the baggy sleeves. “Adam,” he whispered.

“What?”

“What do we do if they get suspicious?”

“We make them not suspicious,” Sam pointed out, putting a finger to his lips. “Shhh.”

“But what if that doesn’t work?” asked Alen.

“We knock ‘em out,” Lynn took on a stance and punched the air, imitating knocking someone out. She shook her hands at an invisible crowd. Together with her cultist robes, the scene really looked quite disturbing. “We have to catch them off guard, though,” she quietly said, resuming her serious stance as they encountered another group.

Up ahead, a group of fanatics dressed in a mix of ceremonial robes and armor moved across the dim light. The corridor continued on to a splitting path, and they moved to the right, steps quick and measured. Alen tensed, but the group ahead paid them no heed, moving past. With purpose, Alen noted. He straightened his stance once again. Razzan led them forward, Vexxaron to his left. Dieter and the other hunters stalked behind them warily. Alen followed after.

“We need a signal,” Adam whispered. “If there are more than one of them, we have to strike at the same time.”

Sam nodded. “How about ‘Now!’?”

“Too obvious,” Lynn said. “Something to catch them off guard.”

“A love confession?” Adam offered.

“Not confusing enough.”

“How about a really bad pun?” Sam said.

Lynn tilted her head. “Like?”

“We ask them: ‘Did the Dark One speak to you last night too? He told me something. He said it was really important.’ and when they answer, you say something really stupid, then we punch them while they’re stunned from the secondhand-embarrassment puns cause.”

“Good enough,” Lynn nodded.

“Am I the only one who’s nervous as fuck here?” Alen said, eyeing another group of people in cultist attire. The group passed them again, seemingly in a rush.

“We’re thresholds above most of these guys,” Sam pointed out. “If they get suspicious, we can knock them out quickly without too much trouble. Stay calm man. You’ll give us away if you keep looking around suspiciously like that. Try to uh, practice your fanatic-speech.”

Alen nodded and furiously started muttering under his breath.

Eventually, they stopped at the entrance to a large room. It seemed to be a center of sorts, more of a hub that contained a collection of entryways and passages than a room that people lingered in. For the purpose it served, it was surprisingly empty. No cultists passed through the doors and halls, and only the soft hum of the torch-stones mounted on the walls echoed through the room.

Razzan nodded and looked back at them. “Do you all remember the plan?”

They nodded, and Alen pursed his lips. “I know I’m not the best person to be saying this, but doesn’t splitting up sound like a horribly bad idea?”

“It is, but staying together is worse,” Dieter said. “If you’ve noticed, no groups move around with this many people. It’s only a matter of time before someone gets suspicious and stops us for a check. If we split up, we can cover more ground and reduce suspicion.”

“And if anything happens,” Vexxaron’s voice rang out inside of everyone’s heads, “use the party voice transmissions to notify everyone as soon as you can.”

Razzan nodded. “That should be all,” he said. “Remember, our main objective is rescue. Find the people they’ve abducted, and meet back up with us at the portal. Avoid direct confrontation at all costs, and if any happen, end it as quickly as possible and report.”

“Alright,” Alen said, and the rest of their group departed, picking passages to enter.

He looked back at the people who were to go with him.

“So,” Adam said, “let’s get going, yeah?”

“Remember guys,” said Sam, “if they get suspicious and we’re in danger of being caught, you guys know what to do.”

Lynn nodded seriously.

Alen sighed and led the way. The followed behind him as he entered one of the passages. It was different from the others. Unlike the cramp passage that led to the portal, this one was large and grand. It arced upwards, and lights shone down from above, casting shadows over their faces. Mirrors and glass lined the hall, and through the tint, Alen spotted something that sparked a brief sense of familiarity in him.

He frowned and approached the glass. The tint and coloring was thick, and the glass was blurred—not something that was made to see through. However, through it all, he could vaguely make out lights—a flickering mass directly below the passage they were in.

“What’s up?” Adam asked, leaning in.

“There’s something outside,” Alen said. “Lynn, can you make sure the coast is clear?”

“Got it.”

Alen nodded and looked at the glass. Slowly, a small wisp of Deathfire formed on the tip of his fingers, manipulating the magic without a spell program with much more ease. He silently thanked his Control stat in his head. He looked around, and Lynn gave him a thumbs up from the entrance to the passage.

Satisfied, he sent the flame forward. It burrowed into the glass, carving a small hole near the bottom of it and digging through until the wisp of black and white emerged from the other side. He stopped pouring magic into the fire, and it dissipated. Alen’s eyes widened as he shot a look at Sam, who was already channeling his magic beside Alen.

Fog had started to violently pour in from the hole in the glass. Alen backed away and Sam hurriedly froze it before the vapor could flood the room. The ice sealed the hole Alen had carved.

“Okay,” Alen said. “That was probably a bad idea.”

“No shit,” Adam said, motioning towards the hall. “Let’s hurry up. We don’t want to be left behind. We only have forty minutes before it’s time to head back to the portal. I don’t know about you, but I do not want to be left in here without Vex.”

“He doesn’t like being called that,” Lynn said. “Said it reminded him of a really annoying friend.”

“Tirilius,” Alen remembered. “The guy who was with Alexandrius.”

“Yeah, him,” she said, rubbing the white wooden ring she had around the index finger of her right hand. Alen noticed that she did that when she was uncomfortable lately. The habit had started after she’d started putting the ring on for the first time. Was it something like the scar on his palm? Associated with an event that she remembered often? A memory sparked inside of Alen’s mind.

Dark, cavernous halls. Starving and dehydrated. Helpless and afraid. Weak.

Alen shook his head free of the image. That was far in the past. He had grown. He wasn’t the same dumbass who was thrust into a deadly situation for the first time anymore, as much as he wished he was. Alen led the way through the halls, flanked at his sides by Adam and Lynn, while Sam lingered at the back, eyeing the hall with the same sense of sloppiness and laziness he usually had around him. He seemed to care little.

The necromancer knew that was far from the truth. Underneath his outer appearance and mannerisms, Alen considered Sam exceedingly intelligent. It was the case even before they’d been taken into the Talarian continent back in the surface. Sam would always know what to do—how to exploit things best. Pulling off builds that never should have worked in games, knowing which mechanics to abuse—the things to take advantage of that no other person thought about. He dominated each of them in chess, and his consistently impressive academic records were the highest of their group.

Sam was a smart person, but they didn’t treat him like one. It was their dynamic, somehow. Everyone respected him and his opinion on things, but it was never a question of doing the things he did. Alen had tried, and Adam had too. It wasn’t because they looked down on Sam that they didn’t do what he did, but because they couldn’t. Sam was smart in a way that didn’t make sense. He was different from the rest of them in that regard. He knew things, and that was why when he stopped walking, the whole group stopped too.

Alen stared at him. He stood, hands in his pockets with his eyes closed. Adam was beside Alen, arms crossed. Lynn watched, curious.

Ever so slightly, Alen felt a pull of magic in the air. If it hadn’t been for his obscenely inflated min/maxer stats, he was sure he wouldn’t have noticed it. Something had rippled past his clothes.

Sam was pulling something.

Long moments passed. Adam was about to say something when Sam opened his eyes and grinned. “Found something,” he said.

Alen nodded, then looked at the rest of the party. “Let’s go.”

The dark-haired Sam led them onward, the crimson robes he donned over his dark blue one spilling over the ground behind him like the waves lapping against the shore. Every moment that passed, he seemed to become more confident in what he had found, until eventually, it led them to a set of stairs that led straight down. It was dark, torches absent.

“Magelight?” Alen asked him.

“Nah dude,” Sam shook his head. “If there are people down there, they might get suspicious. Rely on Mana Sense.”

“What about us?” Lynn pouted.

“You can see in the dark,” Alen pointed out.

“Just barely,” she said, almost sheepishly. “And I don’t like dark passages. I can do the woods, but tight places like these without any light creep me out.”

“You’re claustrophobic?”

“What’s that?”

“Never mind,” said Alen. “Now that I think about it, the Underearth always had lights somewhere wherever we went, and you’ve never joined me for any late-night mapping. No wonder I only found out about this now.”

“Oh!” She said. “How about I stay back here, then?”

Sam and Adam stepped into the passage, and Alen shook his head. “Nonsense,” said Alen, grabbing the elf’s hand. “Let’s go,” he said, then pulled her inside with him. Despite her strength being higher than his, she didn’t resist. He let out a mental sigh of relief. If she’d resisted, he probably would’ve looked like he was pulling on mountain. That would’ve been quite embarrassing.

The darkness enveloped them, suffocating in its sheer mass. Like an ocean crushing down from above, they were pressed down on by the abyss, with only the steps at their feet to guide their way. With the magic dispersed in an area around Alen, he could vaguely sense things. The small crumbled parts of the walls, the cracks, the imperfections. The ruffle of his clothes, his breathing. Lynn, who fidgeted around behind him. He felt as if the mana sense was an extension of his awareness. Not like touch or sight or even smell, but another sense. One he couldn’t explain. He guessed that was the result of taking tips from Sam, who did everything instinctually. He’d already edited the spell to fit with his magic system, but he still only barely knew how it worked.

Alen glanced back at Lynn, who was silent. “You alright?” he whispered.

“I’m okay,” she quietly said, “but if you let go, I’m shooting you in the foot with an arrow.”

“That sounds way too excessive.”

“Can we please hurry up? And I never said I was using a magma arrow. Just a normal one, made of my ice.”

“Case in point.”

“Just keep walking,” she huffed.

“Yes, yes.”

Alen led her forwards, the soles of his boots crunching against the dust of the staircase. Through his magic, he could vaguely sense Sam and Adam ahead, creeping down slowly. He motioned in the dark, and Lynn saw, quieting her steps further. As they descended, voices began to ring out from below.

“…and already left,” a woman said. “We can’t risk this. It’s too dangerous.”

Her voice was hushed, as if she was afraid of her voice traveling farther up the stairs. A man replied to her, voice low. “He’s an idiot, changing his mind like that. We can escape now, while the others are busy with the ritual. It’s been three years, Risa. We can finally leave this place.”

“I know Tod, but please, hear me out. We can wait for when it’s safer. We’ve already done it for four years. We can do it again.”

“No,” the man said. “Once they open that portal and drag us out there, we’re done. Their god is going to put the entire cult under its thumb. We won’t escape then. Not ever.”

“Is there really no way?”

Alen and Lynn crept forward until they joined Sam and Adam at the base of the stairs. They peeked out, and saw two figures standing in front of a hall, cells and locked doors lined up neatly on each side of the walls. One of the figures was a woman dressed in the same red robes they wore, and another was a man, wearing the same ceremonial tribal armor that the cult’s Xargith members wore. He raised his hand, and a faint red mark—like the tusk of a mammoth, lit up under his hand.

“I can’t hide this forever,” the man said. “My passenger’s helping me mask my aura, but I can feel it. The second trial is coming, and if I don’t leave, they’ll know. They’ll kill me, then you for hiding my status as a chosen.”

Alen’s eyes widened. Chosen. He looked closer, and found that underneath the layers of armor the man wore, his skin was pale. Too flushed to be one of the Kaer, too pale to be one of the Xargith. It was just the right color. Alen remembered their names.

These two were human.

He slowly stepped out of the shadows. He pulled down his hood, and flames of black and white burst from within his sleeve, burning away at the red robes and exposing the black gauntlet underneath. The green gem gleamed in the shroud of flames. The two humans backed away, and the man drew a spear, his eyes wide in fear. The rest of the robe burned away, and Alen stood, back in his normal equipment. He nodded at the two of them.

“Yo,” he said.

The man named Tod gave him wary a look.

Alen sighed. “Okay look. You two are looking for an escape route?”

“Who’s asking?” the woman said.

“Alen.”

“Why should we tell you?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Alen said. “Let’s not talk like this please. I haven’t even been here for a year, and I don’t want a reminder of how I’ll probably be talking in another three years. Let me just put everything out there. You two are looking for an escape route, and whatever it was, it sounded like a bad idea. We were listening, and we have one ourselves. I’m offering for you to join us.”

“Why?” Tod asked, spear not lowering in the slightest.

“Because,” Alen said, “I’m a great person. And less importantly, these cells are empty. These should be where the Chosen are held, right?”

“Yes,” Tod slowly said. “They were taken a while ago. The Cult of the Dark One is starting its ritual later tonight. We were planning to escape while they were busy setting up.”

“Oh no,” Adam whispered from behind Alen.

The man evidently tensed. Until he had spoken, he had not seen nor sensed Adam at all. How many more of these people were in here? How powerful were they? What did they want? He took a step back, and Alen sighed.

“You have any idea where this ritual room is?” he asked. “We’re here to rescue the chosen.”

“But that’s…” the woman trailed off.

“It’s suicide,” Tod finished. “We’ve been under this cult’s thumb for three years. We’ve seen what their core members can do. You’re here to rescue the abducted chosen?”

“Yeah.”

“Go back the way you came until you reach the room with all the halls in it. Take the third passage from the one that led you here. There should be a set of stairs. They all lead to the same place. The sacrificial room’s at the bottom,” he said, finally lowering his spear. He turned his back and put his hand over the woman’s shoulders. He led her forward, and through the echo of his steps, Alen heard his voice once more.

“Good luck.”

“Yeah,” Alen nodded. “Don’t get killed.”

Sam stepped up. “If your plan doesn’t work,” he said, “we’ll be meeting at the bottom portal in thirty minutes. The run-down one that leads to the region near Axel.”

The man nodded and disappeared into the darkness ahead. Alen looked back at the rest of his party. “Let’s head there right now. I’ll relay the location to the rest of the group.”

His party members nodded. They ran up the stairs, taking two at a time. Alen pulled up the voice channel and called out. Vexxaron responded swiftly, and soon, the rest of the group was rushing towards the location Alen had specified. The hallways passed by in a blur, the torches on the walls looking like car lights in the highway. The entire place reeked of dust and blood, and the stench blew into his face as he ran.

Alen turned a corner, his party just ahead of him. He was the slowest runner, after all. They ran through another hall, past the tinted glass Alen had burned a hole through. The ice had melted, and fog was beginning to seep through like tiny tendrils once again.

For a moment, Alen thought it looked familiar.

He shook his head and kept running, his thoughts racing. What would he do when they got there? What if Seith was there? What if those two other strong ones Vexxaron mentioned were there? What if it was an unknown enemy, stronger than the rest? Alen recalled the movements of the cultists. They hadn’t been heading into that room, no. They were going somewhere else, congregating in a separate location. Why?

A curse was muttered under his breath. He hated not knowing what he was up against. The lack of information would lead to many problems, many of which that could get them slaughtered. He was—

A figure passed by the hall to his left. Long, canine-like mask, and the same ceremonial armor that the rest of the cultists wore. The man was tall, muscular, evident even underneath the layers of heavy, dark armor he wore. He was accompanied by another cultist, one trailing behind him like an aide. The aide looked nervous, shoulders tensed.

The two cultists only passed through his line of sight for a second, but it was enough. The armor type, the gait, the height, and the neatly trimmed beard of orange hair that ran down from his chin. He was almost unmistakable, like a déjà vu, a memory rekindled after a lengthy slumber. Alen recognized him immediately.

Roland.

He stopped in his tracks. Roland disappeared into another passage in the maze of halls that made up the Cult of the Dark One’s headquarters, but Alen recognized it, even with the distance that separated them. One of the groups of cultists they’d passed had entered that. Congregating. Roland was congregating—wearing their armor.

He was one of them.

Alen twisted, and immediately shot after him with a pike from the bottom of his boots. His voice rang out in the heads of the rest of his party.

“Go ahead! I have to do something!”

He didn’t check to see if they followed. He passed a pillar and his feet skidded across the ground, slowing his momentum. He broke into a sprint. Immediately, he opened up the window for the party Lynn had started so long ago. His finger pressed down on the button hard, and he roared into it.

“Roland!” he shouted, the vague shape of his friend’s back barely lit by the in the hall a distance away.

The person in question stiffened. Aside from the party chat, his voice echoed through the whole passage. He wasn’t wearing his disguise anymore. Roland’s aide hurriedly conjured weapons of blood, hovering threateningly above him. Alen disregarded him and rushed forward, meeting eyes with Roland. He stopped a short distance away, and his old party member looked up at him silently.

Alen stood his ground, keeping the blood weapons in the outer ranges of his senses, calculating how they would strike. He looked to Roland, but didn’t find the proper words to say. Long moments passed.

“…You’re one of them?” he finally said.

“Yes,” his friend replied. His voice was quiet—quieter than it had ever been. He grasped the hilt of his blade in one hand, and Alen noticed the crisscrossing scars that lined his flesh. Alen pursed his lips, grim.

“What happened when we got separated?”

“I did what I could to stay alive,” said Roland. His aide frowned, as if trying to remember something. Alen ignored him. Roland was saying something. He was staying alive, he said, expressing the necessity of what he did to do it. Was Roland trying to say something?

“We looked for you,” Alen said.

“You didn’t find me,” Roland replied, quiet.

They didn’t.

“We didn’t, no. We came here to rescue the abducted chosen. I didn’t expect to see you here, Roland. What is this?”

“My way of getting out of here,” he said, and the runes on his armor flared. Alen noticed that they were brighter—more powerful. More potent. Roland had improved. He was stronger now, and if things went south… Alen wasn’t sure if he could take the man on. But what he said…

Roland was making his goals clear. He wanted a way out of here too.

“So you’re abducting and killing innocents?”

Roland paused. He didn’t reply.

He doesn’t approve of the cult’s methods. It was simply the only option at the time. The scars on his hands, and the way he’s reacting…

“We’re beating the shit out of these fuckers, Roland. I’m saving these chosen, and I’m using whatever means the cult has to open a portal to the fucking surface, and I’m getting out of here. I’m going to see the rest of my friends. Are you going to be one of them?”

“Should I attack, sir?” his aide asked, warily eyeing Alen. He was weak. Alen could sense it. His magic had already draped over the surrounding area. Everything was in his range of awareness. Roland’s magic fluctuations were something to be worried about, but this man? He was weak. He wouldn’t be able to do a thing to Alen. He watched Roland shake his head.

He doesn’t want a fight.

“You wouldn’t be able to kill him,” Roland said, pushing the aide’s arm down. He gave Alen a long look. “Are you going to fight me?”

Testing my resolve.

“If I have to.”

“My master Sieth is stronger than I am,” he said. There was a tremble in his voice. Quiet, deep. Almost unnoticeable. Alen recognized it. He knew it all too well. Fear. Alen slowly connected the dots together as Roland spoke.

He was confirming it.

“He took you in, huh? I’ll fight him if I have to as well. I’m getting the fuck out of here.”

“You’ll face him?” Roland whispered.

This was it. The final push.

His aide sensed something in the atmosphere and tensed. He began to back away.

Alen felt himself grin. “I’ll shove my dick up his ass and make him scream.”

Roland was silent, and then, he turned. The passage erupted into action. The weapons of blood from his aide slashed down as the man turned to flee. Roland conjured a shield from thin air and deflected the strike. When he twisted, the shield was gone, and a javelin made of ivory had replaced it. Alen casually destroyed the blade of crimson descending down on him with a splash of Blightwater, watching as Roland threw his javelin.

It sailed, and the man dived, evading it. However, a sigil appeared where Roland had previously touched the aide’s arm. The javelin turned midair and impaled him, the shockwaves turning his insides to mush. Blood fountained from his mouth as he fell, dead.

Roland waved his hand, and a rune on the javelin glowed. It reappeared in his hand, where it disappeared into the bracer he wore with another flash of light.

He looked up at Alen, and for a second, Alen saw red flash within the eyeholes of his mask. It was canine-like, and now, a single, red mark was etched onto the surface of the skull’s forehead. Roland nodded at him, newly god-touched. “Is there a slot open in your party?”

“Always kept one in reserve,” Alen said, pressing a button on a screen. Roland looked down on it and gave a little smile. He nodded.

“Let me get my things.”

System Message:

Roland has joined Necromancer and Co.!