As soon as Coquelicot was sure Anastacia had passed out, she kicked the girl in the shoulder. Not quite hard enough to break anything but it’d definitely leave a bruise.

“Stop that!” Xamiliere yelled and ran between them.

“Hmph. Move aside, spriggan. I need to take a look at the bracelet.” The high inquisitor commanded and glared at Xamiliere.

“Whatever. Just don’t hurt her.” The spriggan responded and moved out of the way.

Coquelicot immediately kicked Anastacia again, but that was enough for her, at least for now. The bracelet’s lock was a simple toggle clasp that was easy to operate, even with teeth, as long as someone would be holding up Anastacia’s arm. Coquelicot tasked Xamiliere to do it and started trying to catch the lock with her teeth.

“You know, this seems like it should be hot, but I can’t quite grasp the appeal.” Valimir pointed out.

Even after numerous attempts, the lock wouldn’t open.

“This isn’t going to work. It would have opened by now if it was possible.” Coquelicot admitted and got back up. “That means I can’t open it. Did you dumbasses plan for this?”

“Yeah, why do you think we brought the priestess with us?” Xamiliere said.

“Because you two need adult supervision.” Coquelicot remarked and turned her attention to Emilia. “Go ahead then, priestess. We don’t know how long we have, so try and make it quick.”

Emilia picked Anastacia up and placed her into a slightly less muddy spot before kneeling next to the drunken necromancer and starting her incantation. Like usual, the prayer took a few minutes and Valimir started getting anxious.

“Why is this taking so long? Is she having problems connecting with the god or whatever?” He complained. “What god is she even working with, Klavian? Coronia?”

“Just shut up half-elf. I’ve seen her work before and she’s worth her salt.” Coquelicot said. “And I believe she works for Sylvia.”

“Sylvia… That’s a bit out there. I thought they were all insufferable cunts.” Valimir shrugged.

Emilia took her mace and tapped the bracelet lightly. The prayer was successful and as the mace touched the gem in the bracelet, Emilia could feel Sylvia’s presence enter it.

“Well, she’ll do what she can. The thing with all these ancient enchantments is that they’re often made with the aid of gods far older than most of the ones we know now.” The priestess explained. “All we can do now is wait.”

King Alabaster was sitting on his throne, waiting for Anastacia to give up on her futile efforts on killing him. If she somehow managed to kill him with necromancy, he was willing to give up his position and accept defeat. Any time Anastacia tried to rely on fire magic instead, he pressed the girl into the ground with his own powers.

“Just give up already. We’ll be here for a long time and I’d rather not spend that time fighting.” Alabaster said and got up to take a walk.

“And do what instead? There’s nothing in here.” Anastacia asked. She had tried walking away from the throne before, just to see if there really was nothing out there, but after about fifty meters she stopped getting further away no matter how long she walked.

“I’d be interested in hearing what the world is like these days; it’d be good to know what kind of place we’ll be ruling over.” Alabaster smiled. “And I bet I have quite a lot of tales from my time you’d enjoy. After a while, your body will die of old age and the bracelet will have a new bearer. Then that person will join us and have their own stories to tell.”

Anastacia caught up to the king, partly because she was actually slightly intrigued by Alabaster’s suggestion to share stories and partly because being close made trying to kill the king easier.

“Now child, tell me about this cult that’s ruling over necromancers these days?” The king asked.

“The cult itself consists of every necromancer who isn’t in the rebellion or, you know, me. I honestly have no idea how many of them there are since I rarely left the castle before escaping. Within the cult, there are four castes: the ruling families, the master families, the servant families and the common folk. Your caste is more or less written in stone from your birth and has nothing to do with how capable you are as a necromancer. It was just pure luck that I was born into a ruling family.” Anastacia explained.

“That’s preposterous! I made it very clear that the strong will rule over the weak! I can’t believe my beautiful legacy has turned into a disgusting nightmare like that. They must pay for this!” Alabaster looked disgusted.

“Well that’s what the rebellion is more about, they’d give the power to the few that can control living material, and I suppose they’d be less shitty overall. But anyway, the ruling families are there to keep up the stupid traditions, like the one with your skeleton, and keep down everyone else with the inquisition by their side. Master families are the ones that lord over whatever area was handed to them. Each of the master families have a few servant families under them as soldiers and the like. The common folk is exactly that, they farm whatever shitty food is able to grow in Mournvalley.” Anastacia continued. “The whole thing is so messed up that the rebellion could just wipe them out if it weren’t for a few powerful assholes.”

The necromancer king had to go back to his throne to sit down. The current state of the country was too much for the ancient ruler to handle and he had to take a moment to work through it. They spent what seemed like hours in silence, Anastacia working on killing the king and the king just sitting there, frowning.

Suddenly the king got up and stared into the void.

“Something is coming in.” Alabaster said and looked startled.

“What? I thought we were the only ones here?” Anastacia asked. Seeing the king suddenly be so tense made Anastacia extremely worried.

“We are. Something in coming in from the outside.” Alabaster explained and took a few steps towards the darkness.

A small flame popped up in the distance and for a while it seemed like that was the extent of the situation, but then the flame started to spread all around them. In a few seconds, the infinite darkness turned into a seemingly endless field of fire.

“No, it can’t be! We destroyed you all!” Alabaster yelled.

“And fate would have us meet again, dear Anastacia.” A disembodied voice greeted them.

Anastacia recognized it immediately as her favorite goddess.

“Sylvia!” She shouted in excitement. “Alright. Alabaster, this has been fun, but looks like it’s time for me to leave with…”

“I am afraid it is not that simple. I can not free you before this man allows you to leave, or dies.” Sylvia admitted.

“But… You’re a god. He’s just some guy that’s pretty good at necromancy.” Anastacia argued and pushed Alabaster a bit to make him stumble, making her point clearer.

“There are many things you need to learn, my child. Humility among the more important ones, but today you have learned that The Great King Alabaster is someone who gods only bargain with.” The goddess explained.