by B G Mitchell
Carrying a human in a demon castle hallway was no cause for alarm or at all shocking as the other people in the castle paid no notice to him and went about their normal task, just with an odd glance being exchanged, but he assumed it was the succubus rather take a shine to him. He then stopped outside another room, this time guarded by two succubus in bikinis like armour that seemed more for flesh display purposes than defence. It of course included large shoulder armour as well for some strange reason.
Currently, the guards crossed their demon pitchforks when he approached the entrance and turned to him and said in a rather superior attitude, “The Goddess is busy at the moment, and what is up with the dead human starting a fashion trend?”
Gilgamar smiled and pulled the human down off his shoulder and showed the face to the uppity guard. She simply nodded and entered the room while the other guard stood back to attention, bringing her spear up to her side as he heard a loud female voice say, “Enter.”
As he walked in, he saw the goddess Zateria had taken her seat on a large, obsidian throne which was a stage to make her seem higher than any of her subjects. Also to the side was a large obsidian slab. Gilgamar noticed the other guard getting up from a kneel. He simply threw the dead body down at her feet. Zateria got up from her throne. She was wearing a blood red wrap around dress and blood red high heels, her white long flowing hair had be tied into a ponytail. She bent down and looked at the body and smiled.
“How long has he been dead?”
Gilgamar bowed before replying, “Not long. About five hours, I would say.”
Zateria nodded. “Excellent.” She then turned to her guard. “Prepare a room for the ceremony of necro-interrogation.” She nodded and dragged the body away to a separate chamber. Gilgamar watched the body being dragged away as Zateria returned to her throne. She then turned to Gilgamar. “How goes the battle?”
Gilgamar replied, “Well, they are starting to retake some ground, and some orcs are beginning to desert. If I had more demons, I could maintain discipline and overrun this city.”
Zateria crossed her legs and let out a sigh. “No, I cannot afford any more losses after the destruction by the strange human and the civil war. We are short of demons as it is. Leave the city, gather as many orcs as you can, and take them to the Blackfoot hills and make sure deserters are shown the error of their ways.”
Gilgamar nodded and left, walking out of the throne room heading back to the portal room. Strange that she would abandon the battle so easily, but his place was not to question.
The Goddess Zateria smiled as she left the throne room and was followed by one of her trusted guards down the hallway and through another long corridor and up a couple of stairs. She entered the room where her guard had put the half-naked body laid out, spread eagled, on a stone slab and had carved powerful symbols into the body’s forehead and stomach. She started the dark ceremony and muttered a few incantations. The symbols began to glow and burn into the body. She could feel a faint connection there. She tried to pull his soul but it would not come. She felt resistance like it was further away. Odd, she thought to herself, with a body this fresh she would have had to feel the presence of even the most powerful god or goddess, but she felt nothing but distance. She then knew what she had to do. This human was too important to simply slip away. She muttered another set of incantations and felt herself being lifted up and slipping into his conscious.
Gary’s eyes opened slowly. All he could see was a blur. He felt rather weak. He blinked a couple of times, and that blur turned out to be a faint outline of a fluorescent light. He blinked again and every time he did he felt his head pound. His mouth also felt very dry. He looked around and found his arm hooked up to an IV. He slowly reached for his left arm, and it felt normal, not at all like an orc had used it for his sword practice. He then felt his chest which felt sword free.
He was alive and in a hospital. He blinked again and looked. Beside his bed was a blank table. He very slowly and painfully tried to sit up. He then heard a door open. In stepped a doctor wearing a white coat followed by two male nurses. He tried to speak, but his voice did not cooperate, and it came out as a croak.
The doctor put his hand on his chest to stop him from getting up. He then said, “Please rest, Mister Mckenzie, you have been in a comma for the past six months.”
He couldn’t believe it had it all been a dream. He lay there as they took readings as he stared at the ceiling. Now what? he thought to himself as a nurse handed him a glass of water. It had all felt so real.
Zateria opened her eyes. She felt the connection slowly slip out of her grasp. She frowned as she grabbed some golden powder and put it to her lips then blew it over his former corpse which slowly compacted itself into a sphere with a length and width of half a meter. Then with another incantation, a clear glass ball formed around the compacted body. The ball itself turned black and fell back on the stone slab with a long clang. She picked up the ball with one hand as if it was as light as a feather and looked closely at it. It was black at the moment. Every now and then an image would flash by.
“Hmm,” she said out aloud to no one. “It seems he is not dead yet, and the distance between realms is causing a problem.”
She left the ball floating above the slab, and thought to herself, now for the next part of her plan at least I have some sort of connection. She walked out the door and down the hallway and entered another room. On all the walls were shelves holding what appeared would be oversized diamonds. She picked up one, put it on the table in the centre of the room, gently flicked the crystal with her finger, and an image was projected above the crystal. It was a the top half of a man who was completely bald and wearing a red skull cap with a thin, long face and small, beady eyes. The face was screaming out for a goatee, but the face did not have one. She suspected the eyebrows as well were painted on. He also had long, spindly fingers and was wearing a red wizard cloak and he also wore large shoulder pads.
He leaned back as he touched his fingertips and put his thumbs up to his thin lips, and spoke in a raspy voice, “I assume you are Largartha’s replacement.” He stated the fact in a rather superior manor.
Zateria smiled to herself. This was going to be easy. Male magic users, especially powerful ones, were arrogant and easy to manipulate. She nodded her head, an act which required swallowing her pride. “The grand necromancer, I presume. I am indeed Largartha’s replacement, the dark elf goddess Zateria, and I have a proposition for you.” The Grand Necromancer let a thin smile play about his lips for a brief second before reverting back to frowning he then simply nodded. “I understand you have a special skill in raising the dead, but as we all know, that power comes with a price.” She paused for the moment as she tried to read his emotionless face and found it to be rather like a blank slate. She continued. “Well, I understand that you need that power to defend your realm, but I know where you can get a weapon that will completely destroy the city of your enemies.” She stopped and waited for a response.
When it was obvious she was not going to add anymore, he spoke as he waved one of his hands. “I am interested, go on.”
Zateria then replied, “Well, there is a wizard in the fallen dark elf city of Narderba. If you use the armies of Morkangin to capture this city, I can lead you straight to the wizard with a magical device that can cause much destruction. As a show of my good faith, I will also give you all the power you need to both defend your realm and crush the city.”
The grand necromancer performed a half smile, looking like someone trying to smile while having Botox injected into their face. “That is indeed generous, and what do you get out of this deal?”
She replied in a stern tone, “The satisfaction of seeing the city of Narderba crushed.”
“I see,” replied the necromancer in a sombre tone. “Well, of course I will have to inform the sorcerer king and get the alliance of wizards’ approval.”
Zateria smiled at the necromancer rather smugly. “I think we both know the
se days, given your powers, that is a mere formality.”
The Nercromancer gave a half nod and then the signal ended. Zateria smiled herself.
Lucinda walked down the street strewn with broken wood closely followed by Nataylia. Now that the orcs had started retreating, Nataylia had insisted on moving on to treat the other wounded that did not make it back to the compound, and since there were no soldiers on hand Lucinda had decided to escort Nataylia herself, and so far, despite the debris and the odd body, nothing much had proven itself a threat.
Lucinda still checked her potions bandolier of potions and made sure her sword was still there for the hundredth time as she stepped over another burnt piece of wood. She then noticed a couple of soldiers taking away a corpse of their comrade. She hurried onwards, feeling slightly guilty. As they crossed a section, Lucinda noticed something out of the corner of her eye. She turned as a orc came bundling out, followed by another. Both of them had chipped slightly rusted swords and let out a howl in the hope of terrorising their prey.
Lucinda grabbed a potion bottle and pushed Nataylia behind her. She threw the bottle down as she covered her eyes. It exploded in a loud bang and a flash, giving her time to reach for her sword and swing at the now blinded and confused orc, hitting him in the side of his arm and cutting across his chest. She then pulled her sword back as she noticed that the other orc was making a grab for Nataylia who was laying prone on the floor. Something within her rose up an odd anger she had not felt before as she grabbed another potion and flung it into the orc, reaching for Nataylia who had raised her arms to defender herself.
He let out a screech as the potion hit him square in the chest and began to burn him. She took advantage of his pain to slash at his arm, embedding her sword into his flesh and hitting bone. She then let out a savage growl as she pulled the sword out of the wounded orc and swung straight for his neck and scored a lethal hit, spraying orc blood onto the floor. Lucinda then saw the other orc move towards her in the corner of her eye. She pulled her sword out of the poor orc’s neck and blocked the sword swing aimed at her left shoulder with a loud clang. The orc yelled out in range as she swung a hard kick into the side of his leg, causing him to lose balance as she pushed back on her sword, sending the orc falling back. She then raised her sword and brought it down straight onto the orc’s unprotected head with a sickening crack.
She turned and made sure the other orc was still down. By now Nataylia had gotten up and had pulled out a short dagger. Lucinda then looked around and noticed that two soldiers had started to run towards them but stopped when they saw the corpses of the two orcs and her bloodied blade and slowed their pace. As they come closer she simply nodded to them and waved them on. Seeing who it was, they did not argue. Once they were out of site she let out a breath and gave Nataylia a quick look, then said to her in a soft voice, “Come, let’s get off the street.”
Nataylia simply nodded and followed Lucinda rather closer than she had followed before.
As Bloodhammer arrived back at his compound with Tankarda, followed closely behind now the orcs had retreating, they had been able to search the caverns, but had just found a couple of impaled orcs who they suspected where deserters and no sign of Gary’s body.
The patrols had been sent out to the city to make sure the streets were still safe and there had been reports of the odd engagement from any orc who had not joined the retreat. He sighed as he went for his bag. He had decided to join the first group back to Blindstone when he noticed Gary’s bag. He picked it up and put it on a nearby table. He took out the crystal and had a look at it. Inside he could make out distorted figures and a well-lit hallway. He put it down on a table and then took out the sacred tome and studied the smooth black online in his hands. Gary had a called it occasionally something odd: a laptop. He turned it over and smiled. Gary had been kind enough to show him how some of it worked. He opened it up delicately and was surprised when the screen turned on. He knew that sometimes some magic stopped after the owner died. He looked at the link. Currently it showed a page on metallurgy, his favourite subject, and thanks to that he was now able to produce large quantities of steel, something the elves had started to lap up.
So much information was on this tome, it was unbelievable, but he had found that most of the information was missing. He clicked on what Gary called a link and found it opened with no trouble, and on a new page he had not seen before. This time it was about steam engines. Bloodhammer looked at the information and started to make notes. There were other things besides links he could use, according to Gary, but Gary had not shown him how else to use the tome. Well it was a bit late now, he thought glumly to himself.
Lathenia sat back in her padded study chair which was ironically located in her study: a large room that had many shelves of books and a secure strong room among the shelves which contained her more magical and valuable books. Also in that room was her desk, a large wooden ornate affair with many draws and shelves built on the side and was currently in its normal state of being covered in various papers. Behind her was a book stand subtle to read a book while standing, useful for the more complex spell books, and to add to the confusion on her right was a shelf with many compartments containing many herbs and spices and a large wooden desk containing many beakers and bottles. It also had a large padded couch which many would have recognised as a Victoria fainting couch (here it was called a lazy couch since they had yet to invent Victorians).
Currently the couch was occupied by Sylvania who was reading Botan’s Magical Creature Compendium rather quietly. She seemed to be rather quiet and in a dark mood after she heard about the invasion of Narderba. Lathenia left her to it as she was sorting through papers, hoping to find a report when she heard a knock at the door. Sylvania got up and went to the door. Behind it was Lathenia, her wood elf servant Tanyarva, a wood elf with light bronze skin and short blond hair with a dark green strip in the fringe. The relationship between Sylvania and the Tanyarva was rather odd. So far they had a respectful distance from each other, something Lathenia understood. The wood elves had always been the first victims of the Dark Elf attack and their representatives were the loudest naysayers in the council to providing aid, not that the rest of council had been much help, but at least she had managed to get fifty flintlocks to Narderba. The only thing that seemed to go for her was the fact that the elven parathion had more than given their approval for her plan.
Religion that was another concern. All magic users could feel a change was coming, something was out of balance, and someone was trying to take advantage of it. She rubbed her forehead as Tanyarva simply handed the note to Lathenia, who took the note with a simple nod. She then gave the note to Lathenia who looked at it, an urgent message from the Councillor of the army (currently the army has its own council seat as well as the navy), a post her father currently had but he was hardly one to use it to send personal messages to her family.
She opened it up and took a look, and her suspicion was confirmed. It was an official report. She took it and looked at the title. It said simply the office of intelligence report four five. The Office of Intelligence had been her father’s pet project, and it had proven his worth as its network of spies in the Morkangin and Gar and even according to rumours a rather short lived attempt to spy in Narderba. She looked at the contents. It was a standard piece that seemed to have been printed and was addressed to all senior military officers. It spoke that the grand necromancer had called an alliance of wizards, a most unusual occurrence. Normally the grand necromancer just went ahead and did what he wanted, unless he was planning something big. It was an odd form of government to her elven sensibilities. In theory, the sorcerer king was meant to be in charge, but it had become obvious not only to the office of intelligence but to the average Morkangin wizard that the grand Necromancer was in charge ever since the sorcerer king had become a recluse in his own palace.
Normally in such a case, any powerful wizard or sorcerer would have killed the current king and declared
himself in charge, but in this case the grand necromancer was content to leave the sorcerer king as long as he had full run of the place. The current theory was that the grand necromancer was too focused on his dark experiments to worry about taking power. She continued her look at the report. It spoke of the usual summoning of wizards and the odd speculation of what they could be up to which ended in the usual phrase of more information required, but she could read between the lines and they were worried what this could mean. One of the reasons for the calling of a wizard council was to mobilize the Morkangin army. She sighed as she put the report down and heard another knock at the door.
Again Sylvania opened it, and it was Tanyarva with another envelope. She noticed it was marked urgent. She took the envelope as Tanyarva simply nodded a thank you then handed it to Lathenia who opened it with a loud rip and took a brief look. She smiled. This was sure to cheer Sylvania up. She turned to Sylvania and handed her a report as she spoke in a reassuring voice, “Good news. It seems it is a report from the dwarfs. The orcs are retreating from Narderba and according to this report, you sister and their leader, Lucinda, are well.” She felt a warm glow of happiness engulf her as she noticed the sudden smile on Sylvania’s face. She handed the report to her and let her continue reading, as she went back to her reports.
The capital of Morkangin was a city past the border and connected to the world with a port called Merdith and contained the Grand Palace (sorcerer kings and wizards aren’t known to be subtle) which contained the sorcerer king and the Dome of the council, which was, as the name suggested, a large domed building that held the alliance of wizards (ironically enough this was a spot of an old theatre in the bygone days of the republic. Back in the day when heroes were heroes, wizards were wizards, and creatures of immense terror from the dark void were creatures of immense terror from the dark void. The current running joke is that they still do play, but the actors are worse and the show is a lot more deadly). But our focus is a small tavern hidden among the clump of streets and buildings next to the Dome of the council run by Shareriza, a human with short blond hair and a tall frame and owner of the said tavern, the BlackHert. It was rather upmarket, being close to the Dome and served a lot of wizards.