An Arsonist and a Necromancer Walk into a Bar

The grand gate opened slowly, twin monoliths of black stone grinding against the cracked earth. Bare of pomp and prestige these doors marked the edge of civilization, beyond which only the land of the Damned awaited. Battered yet unbroken, their stark beauty had long warded away even the most determined of foes.

In this forsaken tomb at the edge of a fallen empire it was only ever the most brave and foolhardy who passed beyond.

And today was no exception.

With the flash and elegance of one who had witnessed the horrors of the world and in turn dared the horrors to witness them back, a garden brazenly strolled through those black gates and into the Land of Demons. A green fortress of thorns and roses, the living construct was nearly as tall as the gates themselves and wide enough across for a small cottage to have been built at its center. A pompous yet practical organic machine of death and decadence, it was in itself the living embodiment of its creator.

Spinosa delle viti—one of the most powerful members of Pedemoa's Fiori Adventurer's Guild—was more than aware of that, and in fact reveled in it. For in many ways it was her Magnum Opus, an ever-growing monument which mocked the mediocrity of her cousins who passively accepted their sedentary lives in the dirt.

It had taken a long time to get this far, for despite what you might think the Nymph Spinosa had not always been the brave and dashing adventurer she was today. Once a mere noble rose bush, she had lounged in the gardens of the Etriea Villa north of Veccia, one of many nymphs of that decadent commune. There she had supped on the finest of cricket stew and rat-tail kebabs, drinking from goblets of blood-wine as she and her girls grew fat and slovenly off the wealth of their patron.

It had been a good life. A better life than many, even. But despite it all, it wasn't the life for her.

But she had not considered any other. How could she, when all she had ever known was the same few dozen acres of land she had been born to?

That had been until their little Villa had been attacked, for back during the Demon Wars not even paradise was sacred. So close it was to the sea that Weremaids and Dusk Anglers hounded its walls and flooded the fields, the dark servants of the Woman-Serpent pillaging the countryside with reckless abandon. Once they had even come so close that she could see the glowing lights of the escas stalking like fireflies amongst the trellises of the vineyard.

It had been the single most terrifying moment in her life.

It had also been the most exhilarating.

For in their darkest moments a group of adventurers had arrived, and with whispered prayer and roaring hellfire through might and magic they cast the monsters back into the depths where they belonged.

Awed and inspired, she had decided in that moment there that Spinosa delle Viti would become the most fabulous adventurer the world had ever seen!

Though relieved her soil sisters were much less enthused by her dream, but who were they to judge? They who had never strayed from the garden path to look beyond their overgrown fence? For what had remained for her there, but to wither away on the vine, a beautiful rose trapped in a prison of glass? No, no, she was born for more than that! To slay evil and rescue maidens fair in lands far away!

Born from the excess spiritual energy of nature, most nymphs were rooted in place, forever tied to the plants which birthed them. However, that did not guarantee them to be stuck. Though it was uncommon, if you were careful it was possible to uproot your birthplants and move them somewhere else, though that also carried some risk—if the plant died the nymph tied to them died as well, and few were willing to risk that.

Spinosa, however, was of a different pedigree than her soil sisters. For in exchange for her most beautiful roses (a tall order in and of itself, forcing her to declare one of her beauties better than the others) the Head Mage of the estate offered to teach her magic. And with all the restraint that had characterized her life before now (read: none) she had delved into the world of mysticism with all the passion of someone who really didn't understand what they were getting into.

Magic was the reflection of the soul. Learning how someone cast a spell could tell you more about how they saw the world than a decade of knowing them. For Men lied often, but for all its defiance of order Magic could speak nothing less but the truth.

And what of Spinosa? The Nymph who sought to unbind the fate of her birth through sorcery? Well, how could her magic be anything other than grand?

It took her many years, but on her final day in the estate she dropped off her resignation letter to the shocked Famiglia head and gave a rousing speech to her soil sisters, who saw her off with much tears and fanfare. Then with a flex of her will she used her very magic to uproot herself, turning her little corner of the garden into a walking fortress of flowers and thorns so she might finally witness the world for herself.

Or at least she would have if the old Famiglia head hadn't sued her for 'destroying' his garden. But she brought him to court over it and soundly claimed her first victory as a righteous adventurer!

(Granted she had been forced to offer the corrupt judge a favor to get him to rule in her favor, but she got back at him for that by sleeping with his wife only he found out and then she had been banished from Palunera—)

She was digressing.

The point is, Spinosa was one of a kind, a woman who loved easily and passionately. When she declared she wanted to do something, she did it. And when she claimed something as hers, it was hers, now and forever.

Palmira di Firozzi was not a close friend of hers. Truth be told they were barely acquaintances. But Spinosa had seen her young and lost and so very adorable, and if it weren't for how utterly unsafe Pedemoa was she would have stolen her for herself then and there.

Unfortunately such was not meant to be, but meeting the girl again after so many years had been a heartwarming experience. A reminder that what little aid she had been able to offer had helped, and that she could see her now standing tall amongst her new guild—why, she had been positively delighted to see the girl doing so well!

So when she learned that Palmira had been kidnapped after a day out on the town, from right underneath her nose?

She had been wroth.

Spinosa had volunteered to lead the expedition herself, though Guildmaster Dante had turned her down. As the only member of her guild in the party she lacked both knowledge and camaraderie with her temporary allies, and trying to take the lead here would likely see the whole thing fall apart long before they found their girl.

She, begrudgingly, accepted his logic. Then he told her they couldn't afford her help and she threatened to cut his balls off.

She did not need to be paid to save a little girl from a fate worse than death. She would be going, she would pay for herself, and if he tried to tell her they didn't need her help due to some bullshit like pride or politics she'd shank him and take over his guild right then and there.

The Orc had seemed impressed by her vitriol, which was only natural—she was a master of a great many skills, and threatening others into compliance was vital to survive back home.

That all led to here and now, traipsing out into the desolate lands she had been warned never to go in order to rescue a young girl from a Demon's clutches.

All in all, it was rather exciting, though even she had enough tact not to point that out to her dour-faced companions.

Still.

"Like, if you frown any harder your face is gonna get stuck like that, dearie," the Nymph hummed over a cup of blood-tea, stirring it gently with the femur of the rat she'd drained to make it. "Lighten up a little—a single smile isn't going to kill you."

Chiara—the 'I'll be an adult in a few months' member of their expedition—merely grunted, staring into her own rose-tea as though trying to set it on fire with her mind. Considering she wasn't a fire mage that was unlikely to happen, though with how furrowed her brow was it looked like she was giving a good go at it.

"You're a bit late on that front," Lorenzo, the handsome young stud who seemed half the girl's minder rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "She only has enough joy in her heart to smile once a year, and she's already met her quota."

Catherina—the girl she could have sworn had been part of a different guild before they left—coughed at that, nearly dropping her own cup as she tried to hold in her laughter.

The four of them were settled around a teapot in front of the cabin, surrounded by a sprawling garden of roses of all colors. Every few moments the ground would shift, as the dirt and vines readjusted with the shuddering of each step the Bed of Roses took. It was quiet now—and likely would be for the next day or so as they crossed the no-man's-land of the border—and so she had grabbed some of the younger, tenser members of their expedition to relax with her over a cup of tea.

So far, it was only marginally working.

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The girl finally dragged her eyes off the cup to glare at the tree-man instead. "Fug off bastard," she barked at him. "I'm not in the mood."

"You're never in the mood," the young battle-priestess grumbled, only to freeze as that glare was then turned on her.

"Now now," Spinosa chided them, sighing into her own cup as she noticed the rose near Chiara's elbow turn a bit too ruby red for her tastes. "No fighting anymore, children. We've crossed the border—from this moment on you are all allies and best friends, and you will act like it, understood?"

The girl's knuckles went white, and for a moment she looked like she might break her teacup with how tightly she was gripping it. But then she took a long, deep breath, and very carefully placed it on the table.

"I'm going to patrol the edge," she declared with only the slightest waver in her voice. The 'don't follow me' was clear enough in her tone that Spinosa simply nodded, watching her stalk away in silence.

The remaining three sat awkwardly for a while after, unsure what to say in the absence of the girl they kept trying to talk around.

Finally, Catherina placed her own empty up on the table, grimacing as she hunched in on herself. "I shouldn't have said that," she mumbled, almost too quiet to hear.

"No, but I shouldn't have either," Lorenzo sighed, running a hand through his leaves. "She's just… if she were just angry I could help her get it out of her system. She's got a temper, but give her an outlet and it burns fast. Normally I'd say give her an hour to cool off and then apologize, but now…"

"She's frustrated," Spinosa finished her own tea with a groan. "And I do understand why. But she is letting it control her, and in a place like this we can't allow such resentments to fester. That way leads only to death."

"…We shouldn't have come," Lorenzo's shoulders slumped. "I—it felt like we had to, at the time, but now… I see the rest of you work an I realize how out of our depth we really are."

"No, you really shouldn't have," she agreed with him easily, which caused his brow to twitch in annoyance. Hah, had he expected her to reassure him? He really was too young to be out here. "But now you're here, and like, there's no going back. The three of you will simply have to own it or die trying."

That clearly wasn't what he wanted to hear, but Catherina on the other hand seemed to straighten up at her words.

"I see, so we just have to fake it until we make it?" she asked, a small smile returning to her face at the Rose Nymph's encouraging nod. "Got it, I can do that. Oh, uh, and can I have more tea please?" she asked, holding up her now empty cup.

Spinosa raised an eyebrow, though smiled good-naturedly as she got to pouring her another. That was what, her fourth? What a gluttonous little thing, it was almost adorable.

As she finished pouring, however, their conversation was cut off by a shrill whistle coming from across the Bed. Her head snapped up to where Charles was standing, one hand in his mouth while another unslung his bow from his back.

"We've got company!" he shouted, aiming up into the sky.

Eyes darting to the heavens, she instantly noticed what he'd seen. From behind the cloud cover over a dozen undead Hogharpies—or as the common folk called them, flying pigs—descended far too close for comfort to their living fortress. Little more than skeletons with the mere suggestion of flesh, they let out an unnatural clacking sound as they more or less dropped directly on top of them.

Charles swore as he and the rest of their group readied to fire on the monsters, but a single vine rose to gently hold his arm back.

"Save your arrows for when you need them, Ser Knight," Spinosa called out to him calmly. "I shall take care of this."

As the skeletal hogs descended ever closer, the Bed of Roses shuddered and shook. From the walking garden a dozen vines unwound themselves from the greater whole, barbed with thousands of thorns from end to end and thickly corded with enchanted plant fibers. The whole Bed seemed to pulse, and then as fast as lightning each vine snapped into the sky to meet their monstrous adversaries.

The rotting bovines let out a clattering rage as they tried to dodge, but her thorns were ever more graceful than some pathetic pigs. In seconds every last one was bound in the grip of her vines, and with a mere flex of her will she had them squeeze.

The undead were crushed to paste beneath the strength of her living fortress, and with a negligent wave she tossed the lot of them back off into the mud surrounding them.

"Done and dusted," she smiled, preening under the wide eyes of the children around her. "And we didn't even have to waste a single arrow. Like, isn't my baby just the best?"

Charles, unfortunately, was not as easily impressed as the children, a character flaw born of him being both old and competent. Instead, he simply glared out at where she chucked the bones, before finally grunting and turning away.

"You didn't get them all," he told her, which caused her smile to immediately flip upside down. What did he mean she missed one!? "But you broke them up enough they won't be able to follow us anymore, so good work. Focus more on their spines next time—even if you don't kill them, it'll firmly cripple them no matter what."

With his piece said he returned to his patrol, grumbling under his breath about how much he hated clouds.

Damn him and damn his good advice, he was ruining her glory with his pessimism! Why couldn't a victory just be a victory?

She sighed, before blinking as she felt a tug on her sleeve.

"Ah, sorry Signorina Spinosa," Catherina shuffled a bit in embarrassment, pushing her cup forward once again, "could I have another?"

Wha—five!? This girl was going to drink her whole stock at this rate!

-<X>-

Lorenzo glared off into the distance, eyes trained on an ever-growing line of green rising after a day of mud and death. So far, the expedition had been dangerous but calm—everyone else had been more than capable of taking out any enemies before they became a threat, and without access to much range it had left him with little to do beyond playing peacemaker between Chiara and Catherina.

Mostly, he'd taken to studying the strange ecology of the Bed of Roses. According to Spinosa it was an entirely natural expression of her magic, but closer inspection had found a fascinating combination of organic functions running on magical organs. It had given him a significant amount of inspiration for his own plants and he'd spent most of his free time questioning the Rose Nymph about the specifics of her garden.

That had been yesterday though, and today was shaping up to be something entirely different.

"What the hell is that?" he hissed, squinting. "Can you see any better, Leo?"

Leo just grunted. The towering Orc hadn't done much today beyond chuck a harpoon at a passing Nevermore during his patrol. It had been very impressive, especially since the monster dodged and he'd been forced to tear the oversized corpse-raven apart with his bare hands.

He was also singularly unhelpful when it came to conversation. He didn't think he'd heard Leo say… actually, had he ever heard the man say anything ever?

He shook the thought off. A question for another time.

More importantly, they were still approaching the green, and every warning bell in his system was going off in agreement that it should not be there.

Unfortunately, with how it covered the entire western horizon, it was also very clear that they wouldn't be able to go around.

And so, as the day progressed they approached ever closer to the line of green, and he grew ever more uneasy as they finally got close enough for him to understand what he was looking at.

It was a forest, green and thriving. It was beautiful. Lush, even.

"What the fuck is this…?" Lorenzo hissed, eyes darting around frantically. He backed away from the edge of the Bed, unconsciously clutching one of the bags of seeds he kept on his belt.

As they reached the border of the forest he saw a deer trotting through the undergrowth, three fawns following in a neat little row behind it.

"The Lich-King favored himself a scholar," Teresa clasped a hand on his shoulder, marching up to join him in watching the forest. As she did she narrowed her eyes at the foliage, unsheathing her holy sword and holding it aloft as though to ward away some great evil. "And he did so love his experiments. Don't let yourself be fooled by this mockery of life—this deep into the territory of the Lich-King, everything is undead."

The deer stopped and turned to look at them, tilting its head in curiosity.

And then it continued to tilt. Further and further until with a wet 'SNAP' it shattered its own neck, its head now hanging upside down against its body. Its mouth opened wide, pungent drool pouring from its rotten teeth as it let out a cry not dissimilar to dying pig.

Teresa swore, readying her sword before her and beginning to pray. As she did the fawns began to mutate, claws splitting from their hooves as they charged. The grasses which the Bed trampled underfoot joined them, growing feet in seconds and wrapping around the vines, headless of the thorns which tore them to shreds in return. Even the trees warped at their presence, gnarled bark cracking open to reveal vats of toxic decay which spewed in high arcs towards their sole island of true life in the sea of undeath.

"May my body be the conduit upon which you channel your wrath," Teresa chanted rapidly, nearly slurring the words together to get them out in time. "May my eyes be the agent of which you witness the sins of the world. May my sword be the means upon which you end that which claims itself unendable. Thusly shall we lay ye to rest, foul Demon—let mine mercy grant you this sole succor."

Upon the last syllable the world seemed to pause, as though holding its breath so all might witness these divine works.

Then a pulse of holy energy erupted from the Crusader like a typhoon battering against a broken shore, washing over the surrounding foliage with billowing brutality—

And everything ceased.

Bark cracked and rotted as trees crumbled to dust in seconds, their leaves changing from green to red to brown to black and decaying to nothing before they even reached the ground. A frog cut out mid-croak and the chirping of insects fell silent as one and all dropped to the ground. The deer which had come charging from the darkness fell to their knees, bowing at the end of their undeath before following their companions into the mud.

In a hundred-foot radius around them, everything died.

No, it was not that they died—it was that now the curtain had been drawn high, and they could no longer pretend at their mockery of life.

Everything here was undead.

A wasteland now surrounded them, ringed on all sides by unnatural undeath.

"I will have to keep that up as we continue," Teresa murmured lowly. "The rest of you, make sure nothing gets through—the last thing we need is a false rose to sneak behind us and plant itself in our garden."

Lorenzo did not have hair, but if he did then he would equate what he was experiencing now to the feeling of the hairs on his arms standing on end.

"You don't need to worry about that," he murmured, eyes locked on to the horrors that surrounded them. He swallowed heavily, forcing down his own bile. "I'd rather die than let a single speck of this unholy place touch me."

With its path cleared, the Bed slowly continued onwards, its thick vines crushing and grinding what was left of the lost forest into corpse dust.

The undying animals gathered at the edges of their holy wasteland, watching them with sightless eyes as they passed. Crows perched on the antlers of bucks, insects gathered in masses so thick they rumbled like storm clouds, and even the trees seemed to be watching them, shuddering and twisting with each step the Bed took. Despite it all, if he had been looking with just his eyes, he would never have suspected everything in this land was dead.

Once—though he hoped his eyes had just been playing tricks on him—he could have sworn he even saw a Nymph. Skin pallid and eye-sockets full of maggots, it had stared at them from behind the thicket before swiftly fleeing, as though more terrified of them than they were of her.

(He would have nightmares of that moment for years to come, he knew. For all he could imagine was the face of his Aunties, his friends, his mother, so twisted by death they rotted even as they lived. He had been sick then and there, and had almost decided to join Spinosa in hiding in the cottage.

But he couldn't. Not yet. He had to see them to the end—to know that this hell was long behind them before he could ever feel clean again.)

And as they marched he could see far, far behind them, nearly out of sight, the false nature slowly began to creep back in. Inch by inch, the lie of life once more overtook the barren truth, until slowly it looked as though they had never even been there at all.

A stasis of suffering, fit for the King of Corpses alone.

Lorenzo had never known much of the Lich-King. But in this moment now, he knew without a shadow of a doubt—there was nobody in the world more evil than them.