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Arcanist - Chapter 31
🕑 Added 2025-03-09 12:42:47 +0000 UTC“Maggots and worms,” the Necromancer hissed with a voice like snakes slithering over the wet, muddy ground. “Skittering through the wilds, too blind to see the path, insisting still on the old ways, flailing deep in the mud. This world needs not men like you anymore. Your false Gods lived too long in their forged peace, but the end is nigh, and it's coming for all the enemies of the Damned.”
His skin was sickly pale, paler than a corpse’s, scratched hard as if he’d made a habit of using his nails on his face. The hood and the robe shaded most of his frame, but Valens could see through his sound vision that the man had a clean pate that lacked any sort of hair.
There was a gravity to his stature, a certain confidence in the way he carried himself. That, and the contempt with which he regarded them, as if the act of commanding hundreds of skeletons somehow elevated his status to that of a God.
All that power and those bones. Valens felt something stir inside of him. He’d managed to claw his way up to Level 64, and already he could see how this power was changing him. Bringing possibilities, making him think about things that would’ve never crossed his mind. You could do a lot so long as you had the power for it.
This man looked like he had, and he had decided to use it for purposes beyond his understanding.
It’s a matter of perspective, but he’s barely more than a corpse. Why would anyone do such a thing?
“You filthy creature!” Lightmaster’s voice boomed in the cave, quieting the sounds of clashes around them. He jabbed a thick finger into the Necromancer’s face, light cascading down his back. “Your kind is the plague of this world. Parasites clung stubbornly to the lives of men, full of lust, and ambition, and chaos. Your presence serves only a single purpose, one that I gave an oath to annihilate!”
The Necromancer crackled with mad laughter at the words, blinking at the Lightmaster. “That is one high horse you’re riding on, Lightmaster! Thinking yourself all precious and radiant, walking the sacred path of a mission drilled into your mind, caring not about the truth of it. Such hypocrisy! Serving your god, have you? To cleanse the Damned off the world, you wish? You are not worthy!”
“It's wet up here, wet and damp,” came a voice, rasping with a weight so heavy that Valens couldn’t help but stare at the Undead Lich. He was shaking his head, both hands resting over his wooden cane. “There’s nothing worse than a damp cave for your bones.” He let out a weary sigh. “Isn’t that so, Chief?”
“It is, my Lord,” Hook grunted.
“Must we suffer each time that wicked witch catches one of the senseless humans with her promises? Must their kind be so foolish to believe power of such magnitude will come without a price?”
“I’ve found that is indeed the case, my Lord. They are almost always foolish and stupid.”
“Such is our fate. Cursed with duty, eh?” Lord Zahul breathed out, raising one bony finger into the Necromancer’s face. “Tell me, young man, what is it that you truly seek? Don’t you know the undead is already burdened with the weight of the Eternal War? Speak, and do choose your words carefully, for I am not in the best of mind to endure the delusions of a broken soul.”
“After how these humans treated you, you still take their side?” the Necromancer hissed at him. “You have no honor to claim, Lich. You are nothing but a dog tamed and leashed by its Masters!”
“A dog, I am,” Lord Zahul nodded at him. “But there are worse things than a dog, don’t you think? Or do you reckon becoming the tool of the Tainted Father is a fate better than our own?” He smiled, but it was a sad smile that made Valens feel odd. “I am keeping the demons caged in the bowels of this world. I’m fighting the war promised to all able-bodied men on this very earth. Now tell me again, what is it that you do other than to stir up trouble nowadays? Just for the chaos of it, eh? So that your Tainted Father can find more souls to claim? I reckon that’s not very kind of you.”
“These Necromancers are almost never kind enough, my Lord,” Hook muttered, clicking his jaw. “But we have wasted precious time. Those demons aren’t going to kill themselves.”
“That is indeed the case,” Lord Zahul nodded, then flicked another finger up to Necromancer. “Go on. We are ready, are we not, Lightmaster?”
“Uh…” Lightmaster shuffled nervously beside the Undead Lich, looking greatly disturbed. “We are… Lich.”
“Good!” Lord Zahul said, looking at him. “Show me your grace, then. There has been a shortage of talented apprentices on our side lately. Enough that I almost wish this young man kills you so that I can have my Forgemasters turn you into a Lich! Hahaha!”
Valens swallowed. For some reason, he felt that Lord Zahul wasn’t simply teasing the Lightmaster for the sake of it. Somewhere in his words, there was some truth.
“You will learn… You will learn to respect me!” the Necromancer growled with cold fury. “And I will enjoy forging your bones, Lich. Enjoy crushing your Heartstone and filling it with my rot! You and that Lightmaster both. You will make good additions to my flock. But my true prize is there, waiting for me. I’m glad you’ve brought such precious company to my doorstep.”
His eyes swivelled to Valens and his mouth parted into a sickly smile, which made everybody turn toward him as well.
The Lightmaster’s golden eyes narrowed down to slits, fingers of his right hand gleaming with burning lights. The Undead Lich’s foggy eyes weighed him down as though the Magus was trying to see something there deep in his heart.
The Apathy stretched tight, and Valens straightened his back. He faced both Magi and stood his ground.
“Another day for the Damned, and a worthy sacrifice for the Tainted Father,” the Necromancer said, raising his gnarled staff that was slathered with death mana. “Arise, my knight! Show me your worth!”
The ground ruptured underneath his feet, fissures stretching out in a web of cracks. Valens scowled when he felt the shift in the Resonance. Something was wrong. The scattered rhythm that suddenly appeared made no sense to him.
Until he saw a giant hand jerk up from the ground. It grabbed a large patch of earth, grabbed it tight and hauled itself growling up its feet. Dark armor gleamed under the Lightmaster’s lights, coating the giant creature’s body from tip to toe. Clasped in its hands was a terrible sword that had its one side jagged with nicks so sharp that for a second Valens thought he was looking at a rather big saw.
[Death Knight - Lvl ???]
He shivered. This creature’s Resonance… It was aligned with the Necromancer’s frequencies, merging into a high cadence which seemed unusually alive. Unlike the other animated corpses, this creature was being fed by the Necromancer’s rot like an unborn baby still resting in its mother’s womb.
Interesting.
Valens breathed in, and the Inferno roared alive in the tip of his fingers, stretching out in a streak of burning light to coil round the Death Knight’s armored feet. He made sure he got a good hold of them both, then jerked his hands back, putting all the strength he could muster for the effort.
The creature hardly bulged. It was a monstrous being towering over the rest of the undead, peering down with lusterless eyes behind its visor as if trying to understand what this little human was trying to do.
“What are you doing?” Celme asked with a rasping voice, frowning at him. “What the hell are you—“
“Taking control,” Valens said. “It's not my intention to wait and see how this creature will take a swing with that hideous sword at us. I’m sure Lord Zahul and Lightmaster will agree.”
They didn’t. They looked at him all blank and surprised, eyes judging him as if he was some mystery waiting to be discovered. Valens shrugged. He was scarcely the most interesting case here, considering one of them was a Lich and the other basically a human shaped Warded light bulb.
It was to his thinking that making the first move would give some semblance of an advantage to the warring Magus, and even if the Inferno didn’t work as he hoped, that hardly meant it was pointless at all. It could serve well as a distraction.
He raised one hand over the air, letting the Inferno dissolve as Gravitating Earth pulled at his mind. He focused round the cracked patch of earth underneath the giant, felt the muddy soil stir at his will, felt its growing loose and wide, then swept his hand sideways to remove that patch.
The hulking beast plunged down as the ground around it ruptured in a wave of thick dust, and plunged deeper still, until it vanished down below the earth. Behind, the Necromancer’s pupilless eyes widened in response, which sent some satisfaction down Valens’s chest.
Taking initiative. Seemed he was right, after all.
A shadow lunged out from the newly opened hole on the ground. Valens tensed. It moved impossibly fast and made for the line of men standing before the Necromancer. Valens caught Celme by the arm, held her tight, and dragged her back as the shadow took a wide sweep at them.
Dark steel screeched as it ripped into a number of undead too slow to react. It made clean work of them, severing their skulls from their bodies and sending them rolling back to the side. Twisting round the air, it took another sweep at the Lightmaster and Lord Zahul both.
Hook was on it as if he expected it. A rasping, rattling breath escaped his jaw as he hauled the spiked mace high and pulled himself out in front of the Undead Lich. The dark sword lunged at him like a shadowy streak, crashing into the shaft of his weapon, sending him sliding back, back until he nearly rammed into his own Lord. But he did manage to parry the blow, forcing the Death Knight to retreat toward its master.
“Oh,” was the Undead Lich’s response to the heroic act. “It is one of those, then.”
Valens sucked in a shivering breath. A mountain of steel and bones couldn’t have possibly moved that fast. It didn’t make any sense. The more you focused on the Strength stat the more you should have gotten muscled and clunky, not the opposite.
“That was a good move, young man.” Lord Zahul turned to him. “But these creatures are notorious for their quick feet. You don’t baby round a Death Knight without a reason. They take time, and gentle care, and a great deal of mana on the Necromancer’s end. The result is an abomination. Pity we can’t do that in the Underworld.”
“You want one of those ungodly creatures in your sacred war?” The Lightmaster didn’t seem to take his words lightly. He almost seemed offended, even, as he gave the Lich a side-eyed glance.
“Why not?” Lord Zahul said. “The more the merrier. It's a bloody job in the Depths, Lightmaster, and a bloody job demands a certain degree of madness. That there is one good specimen. It would do good. More than good, in fact, it would do great against the lessers. Don’t you think so, Chief?”
“Shame that it doesn’t have a heart, my Lord,” Hook nodded, face still strained. “But reckon I could’ve made good use of men like it if I’d had any.”
“Alas,” Lord Zahul muttered. “We are cursed to meet the most egregious expectations with the least of sources available in our hands. Such is our fate.”
He’s too strange, as if he’s burdened with some laborious work on a holiday. Quite the difference between him and the Lightmaster.
The Lightmaster held burning orbs in both of his hands, his lips stretched tight in a deep frown. He gestured with his eyes to the men behind him, Celme and Marcus shifting as they took in the command.
Valens looked at them, then back at the Death Knight. There was small hope that the group could best a creature like that, but beyond the lines, the men and the undead alliance were still battling against the Necromancer’s horde. Hundreds of them bloody in the din, and barely a chance to join this little circle.
It will have to do.
“Take the knight,” Lord Zahul said, nodding at Hook and his team, then turned at Valens. “You stay close to me, young man. I’m especially fond of people reckless enough to choose a special Class, and it’d tear my Heartstone apart to see you get bloodied by that creature.”
Valens shuffled nervously to his side, breathing in the stench of his deathly mana. It reeked of rot and pus, and… lavender? His eyes widened slightly. Seemed the Undead Lich had a fashionable side to him.
Meanwhile Hook spread his team wide, Nomad tailing him still, Celme and Marcus joining them as they stood against the Death Knight. They were over thirty strong, more hands and harder faces that could take a couple of Olifants no doubt. Still Valens felt it wasn’t enough. They seemed pitifully small against the Death Knight’s menacing bulk.
It’s their fight. They can manage.
Right. He settled his focus back on the Necromancer whose eyes remained fixed on him, only to pause when dark light poured forth as the mage thumped his staff to the ground. The Wards behind him sent their tendrils whistling forward, forcing Valens to take a step back.
“The promise of a rest,” Lord Zahul said in a low voice. “How alluring.”
Dozens of tendrils all clad in the Necromancer’s filthy mana, tips glinting painfully sharp, reaching forward in a sprawling web, and there Valens stood with the two other Magi against them.
“I’ll deal with the Wards,” he said, raising his chin. “You can take their Master.”
“Confident as well,” Lord Zahul praised him with a small smile. “You go do that, young man. Take them all.”
Green fog slithered forward as the Undead Lich grasped his wooden cane. Then there was golden light, spilling from the orbs in Lightmaster’s hands. It was the first time Valens found himself facing another Magus like him, but had little time to consider the implications.
…..
