Yaralon: Maidens Refuge
33rd Ymiden, 719
33rd Ymiden, 719
"I like this place!"
Tasha frowned at Tio's comment, looking back and forth between him and the mouldy stone door. It was made from a bleak, lifeless shade of grey granite, coloured only by the wave of brown mud and sickly green swamp plants that'd washed halfway down the hallway it led to. Stale, putrid air drifted out from it, assaulting their noses like Raskalarn on a warpath. It couldn't have fit the stereotypical description of a necropolis better if it had a huge flaming sign saying "undead only" above it.
"Why?" She asked with a level of exasperation normally found only within the carers of spoiled noble children.
"Why? What do you mean why?" Tio replied, gesturing out to the swamp land surrounding them. "It's a city in the middle of a swamp filled with undead! What's not to like?"
"Literally all of it!"
"You're no fun."
Sneaking out of the coven's base had been surprisingly easy thanks to Tio's natural skill at dreamwalking. What were walls to someone who could just step out of the dimension he was in at a whim after all? Sneaking into the necropolis however was going to be harder. Undead animated hundreds of years ago still prowled its darkness, devouring anything that trespassed in their realm, and while their senses weren't the best the sheer amount of them and their immunity to making typical human errors made them formidable guards. It made sense that Zavious of all people would choose such a terrifying place as his hideout; only a master necromancer stood a chance of taking control of the thralls roaming about. Sadly he and Tasha weren't quite powerful enough to do the same.
Luckily Tio had a plan.
"Okay Alpha, you're up." Tio muttered as he reached into his domain bag and withdrew one of his thralls: a little wooden fetch-sized golem. Alpha was the first of his set of twenty-six battle puppets, each armed with a javelin and a coil of razor-wire in their stomach. It was small enough to hopefully escape the notice of Zavious, Eilwiche and anybody else they were colluding with down there, but as it wasn't alive the undead roaming the necropolis would just ignore it. In short Alpha was the perfect little spy.
Tasha stepped closer to him and began to keep watch as Tio sat cross-legged on the muddy ground, entering a meditative state. He looked inside of himself, into his very soul, and fed his ether into the necromancy spark that resided within, feeling it flare with power in reply. With his will he guided that power to take the form he needed, not just forming a connection to Alpha, but casting his own conscience through it. When he opened his eyes again it was not his own he saw through, but Alpha's.
"Alright, the link is established." He said, his voice coming out of Alpha's mouth several octaves higher than he was normally capable of. He sounded like a chipmunk on helium. "Wish me luck."
With that he headed into the necropolis, his tiny legs scuttling along the cold stone floor. With each step the sunlight faded, soon covering him in a thick blanket of darkness, but stray fireflies darting about illuminated the place just enough for him navigate through the corridors. The dark, damp conditions made the necropolis an ideal place for moss and insects, but made journeying through the place a distinctly disgusting experience when you legs were the same size as a squirrel's. Tio felt a stab of sympathy for the tunawa; being small sucked.
As he rounded a corner a wall of pitch darkness rushed to meet him. That was strange. Why weren't there any fireflies up ahead? His instincts niggled at the back of his head, warning him that something wasn't right, but he ignored them and pushed on into the dark regardless. He didn't have the time to waste getting all hesitant over bad feelings. One step at a time he advanced forwards, moving closer and closer to-
Bamp.
Tio reeled back as he collided with something: something warm, furry and making an irritating squeaking noise. Beady red eyes alit before him, fixing him with a dread glare. Tio retreated further back into the light as the silhouette of a great beast prowled towards him, hissing and baring its sharp teeth.
Giant rats featured as easily defeated monsters in many fairy tales, though as far as Tio knew they did not actually exist in real life. Technically speaking the rat that stood before him now was of average size for a rat, however inhabiting the body of his tiny thrall gave Tio a horrifying new perspective on how threatening normal rats could be. Through his borrowed eyes this rat was the size of a wolf, and judging by the thin trail of saliva trickling down the corner of its mouth it was as hungry as one too.
"Easy there little buddy. Easy…" He whispered slowly, backing away as the rat drew close enough for him to see the veins in the corners of its eyes. "We don't have to fight."
The rat disagreed. Closer and closer it came, taking rasping breaths of anticipation as it backed him into a corner.
BAM!
Like a dart the rat turned and bolted back into the darkness as the ground beside them issued forth a thunderous boom. A skeletal foot, the size of a bull and coated in scraps of rotten flesh, had stomped down onto the ground. Tio gawked at the foot and slowly looked up, following the leg bone and spine all the way until his was staring into empty eye sockets.
It was a walking skeleton the size of a titan, looming over him like a tidal wave bearing down on a rowboat. It had been a long time since a skeleton had inspired fear with him, but looking up at the colossus Tio could remember the terror he'd felt back before he became a necromancer; when the slight of those empty eyes filled with naught but ravenous hunger sent spikes of ice down his spine. The skeleton glared at him blankly, and it dawned on Tio that it was probably about to devour him.
And then, as if bored by what it saw, the skeleton looked away and continued walking.
It took Tio a few trills to process what had just happened. Of course the skeleton had left him alone: he was using the body of his unliving thrall right now after all, and undead weren't interested in eating other undead unless specifically ordered to. It likely didn't even recognize such a small thing as a threat. More importantly though if Zavious had taken control of all the thralls in the necropolis then that one was probably following specific instructions to patrol an area, and there was a good chance that at some point on its patrol route it was return to, or at least pass near to, wherever Zavious was using as his headquarters. If he followed that skeleton it could lead him right there!
He took off as fast as his tiny legs could carry him, following hot on the skeleton's trail as it led the way left, right, up and down through the musty corridors. As he was trying to memorize the route he was taking it occurred to Tio that the structure of this necropolis was a lot like a beehive: with webs of interlinked corridors filled with worker thralls connecting a few larger rooms, each of which simply and blandly performed a specific function. Eventually the skeleton led him into a room that was far more ornately decorated than the others, one with actual furniture and material more colourful than grey stone and metal. It seemed to be some kind of gothic parody of a chapel, and was the only room in the necropolis where a living person could live.
And he could hear voices.
Tio broke away from trailing the skeleton and headed in the direction of the voices, flitting between shadows to avoid being spotted. The voices were coming from the centre of the room, and so he crouched behind a pillar and cautious peered around it. There was a row of six tables, each with a stand next to it which held drips of strange and colourful alchemical potions, with tube leading down to something huge on the tables concealed by red cloths. Walking between the tables and examining whatever lay under the blankets were two figures. The first was unmistakably Eilwiche, her distinctive punkish fashion style obvious from miles away. And the second...
"Zavious!" Tio hissed to himself
Just like he had two arcs ago Zavious wore ragged grey robes and a hood that kept every part of his body concealed; like a ghastly wraith straight out of a storybook. Unlike then however his walk was slower, more pained, and he leaned upon his walking stick with the weight of one who could not do without it anymore. He had been old back when they'd first met, but now it really seemed as if the years had caught up with him. It was actually a little hard to muster that same anger over being abandoned to bare against someone so frail looking, so weak. All necromancers aspired to escape from death, and seeing one standing right on its doorstep about to keel over from natural causes was… pitiful.
"... -esults certainly are impressive." Eilwiche was saying, peeking under a cloth with a morbidly curious expression. "Some formulas haven't quite reacted with each other as anticipated, but we're close. Adding a few more catalysts and synchronization effects should lead to perfect result next time." A toothy grin graced her lips. "We're close now, I can feel it. The next experiment should lead to everything we've dreamed of."
"Good, good." Zavious rasped, a newfound note of weariness in his voice. "My time is running out; I can feel it. I need the next experiment performed as soon as possible. Have you selected your volunteers for the process?"
Eilwiche nodded. "I'll be undergoing it myself of course, along with my four most trusted lieutenants. Elasin won't be distracted by her little war for long, I want to undergo the process before she's finished and turns her attention back inwards. She isn't going to be happy that I went behind her back like this."
"It was a necessary action. It is better to ask for forgiveness than permission, and once she sees the power you wield she won't want to see it go to waste, even if that means forgiving you for ignoring a direct order."
"Yes… Yes you're right." Eilwiche dropped the sheet she was looking under and turned to look at Zavious. "I'll get the final formula completed right away. It should be ready in two trials. As soon as it is I'll bring those loyal to me right here and we'll begin straight away."
Zavious grunted in agreement, and Eilwiche walked briskly out from a different exit. Zavious watched her leave, and then hobbled over to a nearby chair and collapsed into it with a heavy sigh.
"Nearly there now. Just hold on a little longer."
It didn't seem like he was going to do anything else important for a while, and Tio had heard enough to know that whatever he was planning wasn't going to be anything good. He turned around and started running back to the exit, mind already starting to turn as he tried to come up with a plan. There was a small army of thralls down here: too many for him to take on alone. Should he sneak in again using this puppet body and try to assassinate him? No, he wasn't exactly experienced in the art of assassination and he couldn't risk failure. He couldn't sneak about in his real body either, as there was nowhere to hide in the corridors. What he needed was an army of his own: one already experienced at fighting undead. But where on Idalos was he going to find something like that?
The answer struck him like a bolt of lightning. It was suicidal for someone like him to even consider an idea like this, but desperate times called for desperate measures. There was only one group of people who were up for the job.
He needed to enlist the Zuuda.
