Maiden's Refuge, Yaralon
33rd Ymiden, 719
33rd Ymiden, 719
Fear. Such an odd little emotion. People lived their entire lives trying to avoid fear, to feel safe behind the walls they constructed around them, despite the fact that from a logical standpoint fear did nothing but help them. Fear of being hunted gave prey that extra burst of speed to escape. It was fear that sharpened the senses, honed the mind, and allowed all creatures to tap into their natural instinct to survive. Or at least that was the case most of the time. There were some rare circumstances where a second kind of fear, one that conversely robbed people of their strength and paralysed their minds, emerged. This kind of hopeless fear did not reveal itself when one faced off against something dangerous, but rather when they confronted the unknown; when they stepped out into the darkness and felt the breath of something they didn’t understand, something unnatural, on the back of their neck.
It was this kind of fear that ruled the atmosphere as Tio, Tasha and the large gang of zuuda and mercenaries they’d allied themselves with crept through the dark tunnels of the necropolis. Most of them were familiar with the undead, and yet there was something else about the air in the ruins that set them on edge; an unspoken promise of something more, something different, than anything they’d felt before. Here the power of necromancy throbbed in the very walls with a strength beyond the shallow corpse puppetry most necromancers wielded.
“How much farther to the antechamber?” The zuuda captain growled, eyes darting to every shadow with practised caution to check for traps. Although his guarded expression gave nothing away, it was clear that he and the rest of the zuuda were all very uncomfortable. The presence of necromantic power all around them were like fumes, making it harder to breath. Even worse was the fact that they had encountered suspiciously few patrols on their way in, and those they did encounter had been almost pitifully easy to defeat. Something was wrong here, everyone felt it, and yet they had no choice but to continue onward anyway. The Coven’s secret project was taking place tonight, and if they didn’t put a stop to whatever it was now there was no guarantee they’d ever get a chance to do so again.
“Just up ahead.” Tio whispered back, leading the way with cautious steps. Up ahead the faint glow of candlelight began to flicker into view, and on an unspoken cue the party drew their weapons as quietly as possible. A few steps further and the first sounds of ritualistic chanting reached their ears.
Tio stopped and allowed the zuuda captain to take charge as the grizzled man began making gestures to his troops, directing half of them to take a corridor branching off to the left. The corridor would lead them right around the antechamber to the entrance on the other side, from which they would launch a surprise attack on the necromancers within after the first group attacked and drew away their thralls. Tasha had volunteered to go with the second group, leaving Tio with the first. As the second group departed the zuuda captain crept onward, and Tio joined the rear of the first group as they silently followed behind him.
Up ahead the figures of the coven mages could be seen standing in a circle, black hooded robes concealing their features. It was pretty much the stereotypical image of an evil magic ritual, and that alone set alarm bells off in Tio’s head. What did dark robes and chanting have to do with the alchemy formula? From his expression the captain seemed to feel the same way, but whatever his concerns held up a hand and silently gave the countdown to charge.
3… 2… 1…
The moment his finger dropped down the zuuda troops and mercenaries all let out a warcry and charged forwards, swinging their weapons into the robed figures without hesitation. Tio joined the back of the charge, his blade drawn and ready to lash out, but refrained from engaging in combat. Something wasn’t right here, he could feel it.
The first of the mages fell down to the ground like puppets with their strings cut, not even reacting to the weapons as they pierced their bodies or uttering so much as a whimper. The other mages didn’t even look at the disturbance, instead just continuing their chanting even as the zuuda mowed them down like blades of glass. No fear, no pain, it was like they weren’t even… alive...
Oh bugger.
Tio sprinted over to one of the downed mages and pulled the hood back from their face, revealing a pale, clammy corpse. This body had been dead for ages.
“Ambush!”
The call came out too late. There was a loud thump as something heavy fell from the room above the entrance they’d come in from, and as if on cue the remaining disguised thralls dropped to the ground as the power animating them was cut off. All eyes looked over to the thing that’d dropped over the entrance.
It was a stitchborn thrall, no doubt about it, but one that seemed to have been built entirely for war. It stood roughly ten feet tall, and judging by its physique every organ unnecessary for combat had been carved out and replaced with solid muscle. The fingers had been sharpened into claws, its teeth into fangs, and spears of condensed bones jutted out around the joints to ward off attacks against its weak spots. Yet there was something more to it that, a deep red hue that almost seemed to glow slightly in the darkness and cackled with the promise of power.
“Do you like it?”
A voice came down from the ceiling, and Tio looked up to see a crow perched on a planform carved high up on the wall. The bird started to shift and grow, becoming a rising blur of black feathers that molded itself into a humanoid form before solidifying into a hunched old man in a tattered grey robe. Zavious.
“If you’re looking for the coven I’m afraid they’re gone.” He rasped out, face hidden by the darkness beneath his hood. “We learnt you were coming and my associates decided to take the unfinished prototypes and leave. Didn’t fancy taking their chances against a bunch of fanatics.” He chuckled. “Such little faith. The thralls I’ve been able to create with their aid are like armies unto themselves. Did you know that since they aren’t alive thralls can hold alchemic enhancements permanently? Just one of them, like this one here, has the strength to tear a mountain in half! Bruxa I call them. The Coven took the rest before they could be perfected, but this one here will be enough to get rid of all of you. Watch”
He raised a bony hand and clicked his fingers, and the brief crack on stone shattering beneath the Bruxa’s foot was the only warning they had before the enormous thrall burst forward with absurd speed. In a flash its claws had torn straight through two of the mercenaries before they could even react fast enough to defend themselves. A blink later and the Bruxa raised its leg and kicked out at a nearby zuuda with the force of a ballista, killing them on impact and sending them flying into a wall. Zavious hadn’t been lying; this things physical strength was unreal!
The rest of the zuuda and mercenaries charged at it with weapons raised, but each strike they delivered seemed to just bounce off the Bruxa’s skin. One of the zuuda tried to touch it, probably to use some kind of mark ability, but the Bruxa dodged out of the way with its insane speed and skewered them on a spike jutting out of its elbow. It was massacring them!
Tio’s mind kicked into gear, quickly running through a list of plans to defeat it. Physically overpowering it seemed to be completely impossible, and it was fast enough to intercept any projectiles they tried to launch at Zavious. There wasn’t enough space to set a trap, nor enough time to escape, and there weren’t any resources around to make use of besides the decoy corpses on the floor.
The vague outline of a plan sprouted in his mind, and while all eyes were focused on the Bruxa Tio darted over to one of the decoy corpses and reached within, calling upon his necromancy spark and feeding his ether into it. The spark replied with a rush of its dark power, and Tio brought the power into his hands and touched the shoulder of the corpse. The dead flesh parted like water against his touch, surrendering with ease to his Corpse Molding spell, and in a mere few trills the arm of the corpse was separated from the rest of the body.
Tio slipped his own arm out of his shirt sleeve, hiding it behind his back while he put the dead one in its place. A close examination would make it obvious that it wasn’t his real arm, but the deception would pass at a first glance and that was all that he needed. Harnessing his necromancy spark again Tio took control of the arm and bade it to reach into his domain bag and take an item out of it, which it wrapped up in its fist to keep hidden.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” He muttered to himself, and then with a cry that sounded more fearful than brave charged straight towards the Bruxa.
His cry caught the Bruxa’s attention, and it looked towards him as he jumped up off the back of a kneeling mercenary and let his ability to float do the rest, bringing him up to the height of its face. With his false arm he punched towards it, seeming to be intending to hit it on the nose, and the Bruxa instinctively opened its mouth and caught his punch between its teeth, biting it clean off without effort. But within its mouth the undead hand under Tio control opened, allowing what it held within, a snowcrystal, to be released.
The Bruxa reared back as the snowcrystal, firmly lodged in its throat, worked its magic and began to freeze the thrall from the inside! Tendrils of stiff, icy flesh began to spread out across its body, robbing it of the strength and speed that made it so tough. Zavious saw what was happening and scowled, his body melting back into the fluid, feathery mush as he retook the form of a crow again. The zuuda and mercenaries saw their opportunity and rallied again to attack the Bruxa, targeteing the now brittle and vulnerable veins of frozen flesh.
They could handle it from here. Tio discarded his false arm and focused on Zavious, calling now upon his attunement spark to lock onto his master’s frequency. It only took a moment for Zavious fully adopt his crow form, and whilst the warriors were distracted by the vulnerable Bruxa he silently flew out of the antechamber to make his escape. But there had been time enough for Tio to catch his frequency, and now there was nowhere in the world that Zavious could hide from him. Before anyone else could notice he slipped out of the room as well and chased after Zavious.