Daughter of Death - A Necromantic LitRPG

“My match?” Lieze tilted her head, “I hope you didn’t mean that literally. I’d almost be disappointed if we ended up facing down another necromancer.”

“No, no, no. Perish the thought.” She couldn’t see, but assumed that Baccharum’s bony fingers were waving through the air to dismiss her claim, “What I meant is that this will be no walk in the park. Not only are we approaching Akzhem blind, but the terrain and culture of the region is beyond anything a low-to-midlander like yourself will be prepared for.”

“You’re an Elf. Enlighten me.” She requested.

“Akzhem isn’t some sprawling grassland beneath the shadows of the Great Oaks. Their roots run like mountains over the land - large enough to build cities on. Their branches grow low and fearsome, shrouding one’s vision with mazes of barbs and poisonous leaves. Below, the Onz snap their elongated jaws like crocodiles, awaiting prey to take one misstep along the roots. Above, the Peelers construct their nests from flaps of rotting skin and glue them with blood while their chicks scream like banshees through the darkness.”

Lieze scratched the back of her neck, “As if some local wildlife will pose a threat to our army. If anything, adding more beasts to our ranks will only diversify our options.”

“-And exactly what kind of ruthless society do you suppose would form as a result of that danger?” Baccharum asked, “When every night could be your last, the struggle against gruesome mortality is as common a problem as hunger or thirst. We learn at a young age to hunt as the beasts do. Imagine if every citizen in Tonberg was poised to end another’s life at a moment’s notice, striking with such deadly precision and finesse as to leave the body unmarked by a blade.”

“You’re lending your people too much credit.” Lieze dismissed his warnings, “Once we establish a foothold, it doesn’t matter how many-”

The air split inches from her ear - a sound imperceptible but tinged with danger. Something was driven into the wall behind her. A blade, if she had to guess. There had been no time to react, to even glimpse the beginning of Baccharum’s movements. A few inches to the right, and she would have been dead.

Baccharum intertwined his fingers, “Now imagine if I planned to kill you without any fanfare. One opportunity - that’s all an assassin needs. And in Akzhem, there will be no cramped offices or caverns. There will be vantage points, nooks, crevices, shadows… your enemies will leap through the forest so quietly that you will feel as if you’re being stalked by phantoms, and your comrades will fear every moment of it.”

Lieze remained silent as he stood from his chair, “In these mountains, you were nothing but pests to the Dwarves - albeit particularly troublesome ones. But in Akzhem, you are something unknown and alien, like a disease creeping into the wounds of the Black Forest. Heed this warning now, Lieze, for I will only tell you once: stranger things abound in the darkness of my homeland. The Elves will not be your only foe. Indeed, in your darkest hour, you may feel as if the forest itself is out to drink your blood.”

His silhouette came around to Lieze’s side of the desk and passed her to cross into the hall. Despite his size, she couldn’t make out more than a suggestion of the Elf’s movements, and neither did his three-toed, hairless feet make a sound as they swept over discarded books and shreds of canvas torn down from the walls.

Baccharum certainly knew how to spin a yarn, she thought. But however many threads were the result of pure exaggeration and which were warnings in the purest sense of the word eluded Lieze’s ability to decipher. She could only draw a single conclusion: that Akzhem was a land unlike any other she had ever known.

Drayya was last, but that wasn’t to suggest she was in need of motivation. Rather, her enthusiasm for the trip north exceeded Lieze’s expectations to the point where she was convinced that some secondary motive lurked beneath the girl’s devotion to the Order. Most of her waking hours had been spent lingering in relative silence with Lieze while the two of them performed [Necromantic Alchemy] rituals.

She trekked beyond the mountains’ gates and shielded her eyes with one arm as the explosive sunset burned into her vision. In those arid flatlands, the distant sky and land may as well have been a single entity. Lieze comprehended a certain beauty in that moment, and understood for the slightest tick how one could grow enamoured with carving away the late hours in the sun’s dying presence.

Drayya lingered between amber-kissed thralls idling in the wind. Lieze waited for her presence to be noticed and suppressed the leap in her heart when Drayya hopped over just seconds later. They clashed like lovers long-lost in the distance between stars. Lieze had learned to ignore the impulse that screamed at her to recoil from the girl’s touch, but couldn’t quite get a grip on where her hands were supposed to rest whenever Drayya hugged her.

“Ah… I’m tired, Lieze.” She confessed, “I want to go to bed.”

“It seems to me that you’re always tired recently.” Lieze said, “We’ll work on reinforcing the Rot Behemoths and Flesh Elementals for another few hours. Try to keep yourself awake until then.”

“Will you let me off if I make a fuss about it?”

“I’ll gladly give you even more tasks to complete if you want to start acting like a spoiled child.” She answered, “Thankfully, if all goes according to plan, this will be the last time we ever need to improve our army.”

“That’s a big ‘if’. Way too big.” Drayya paused, “You know how it always turns out.”

“You’re being overdramatic. We couldn’t have asked for a more decisive victory against the Dwarves.”

“Ah, that’s right.” She lifted her chin from Lieze’s shoulder, “Did you… uh - absorb the gemstones of Alberich and Mime?”

“I did.” She nodded, “Not only that, I finally got around to reading that grimoire we found in Sigmund’s tower. You should flip through it yourself sometime.”

“Mhm. And what else?” Drayya cocked her head.

“What?”

“You’re itching to tell me something. Your left eyelid twitches whenever you have something to hide.” She said, “You’ve got such a bad habit of concealing truths that bother you.”

Read like a book yet again. Lieze wondered if her secretive old self had melted away when she rid herself of the Blackbriar’s corruption and the new layer of skin beneath had yet to harden. Her first instinct when pressed had turned from dismissive to receptive - or perhaps it had more to do with the fact that she was speaking to Drayya and away from prying ears.

“...There’s something beneath the fortress.” Lieze began, “I’m not sure what it is, but I was drawn to it by tempting whispers. An offering of blood granted me an audience with those whose true nature I couldn’t discern, other than their own explanation of serving some greater entity beyond the Gods.”

“W… what?” Drayya blinked, thoroughly bemused, “Are you quite certain you weren’t hallucinating? And you say all of this happened beneath the fortress? This is… a- uh- huge, this is huge, Lieze!”

“Don’t get too excited. They were willing to answer my questions in terms I could barely understand, so I doubt they’ll be helpful in the war effort.” Lieze turned her head to avoid a few flecks of spittle, “Their master is something called ‘Ur’ - not a beast, or a God, or even an observer, but something underlying and crucial to the existence of reality. A mere concept. Sigmund mentioned something similar, remember?”

“Yeah… I do.” Drayya lowered her voice, “So… you were right all along, then? The Gods aren’t ‘Gods’ in the right sense of the word. They’re just beings beyond our worldly understanding, shackled to a different cuff of the celestial chain link. This ‘Ur’ is the God we know as the creator of all things, impartial but all-powerful.”

“Yes. And I was told that the Light-In-Chains would grant our wishes.” Lieze continued, “It may have once been a God itself, but some cataclysm among the stars or heavens saw it confined to its current state. By exercising the manifested will of the Scions - a shard of cosmic divinity - I can release it from that prison and allow it to wreak havoc on this star and the next, until naught remains of the universe but thoughtless darkness.”

“...But how authentic will our dream of total oblivion be if Ur is allowed to exist within that darkness?” Drayya finished her thought, “All this time, I believed we were struggling against fate itself, challenging the Gods in an impossible bid to relinquish this world from its suffering. But knowing this… we could destroy everything, and the formless creator of our reality would remain. It almost feels as if we’re being forced to compromise our beliefs.”

“A compromise…” Lieze repeated, “Is that what this is?”

“Hm?”

“Ur does not create or destroy. It only observes and embodies. If the void prevails over creation and transforms its waking dream into a desolate, breathless wasteland, wouldn’t you say we’ve accomplished our goal? With no sterile ‘afterlife’ soul trap prepared by the Gods to cage us, there’s no telling if our collective consciousness will persist.”

“That… doesn’t sound likely, does it?” Drayya considered her next words, “Maybe it’s my own fault for expecting too much from the Order. We can deliver this world from the evil that binds us, but to dismantle the fabric of the universe itself… I suppose there is a limit to how much our mortal hands are capable of.”

The perfect conclusion once thought unattainable by all necromancers was right around the corner - all Lieze had to do was kill a single fool among thousands and the universe would go out like a dying star. Beneath her influence, a beast of the cosmos would rattle its way across their earthly weave and disintegrate all the histories and fables of man. She couldn’t ask for a better ending. So why did she feel unfulfilled?

“I’m afraid of the end, as hypocritical as that might be.” Drayya looked towards the dwindling sunlight and squinted, “Lieze - I think we’ve all come to appreciate the world in a way that can never leave us. I don’t want to extinguish these little sparks of beauty. Beyond Sokalar, it seems like there’s too much of life left to experience. It’s only in his absence that I recognise the rationality behind those who oppose us.”

“It’s very like you to say something like that.” Lieze replied, “And yet, there isn’t a doubt in my mind as to whether or not you’ll follow me to the end. Maybe you care a little too much about me and my dreams as opposed to the beauty that could have been your own under different circumstances.”

“The reason I care so much about you-” Drayya began, “-is because you’re a terrible basket case, and you wouldn’t be able to cope without me - or anyone else, for that matter.”

“Mm…” She pushed out her lower lip, “You could have phrased that in a more flattering way.”

“But that’s fine.” Drayya resolved, “To see you free like this, unburdened for the first time - that’s all I need to be happy. That’s why it’ll be very difficult to say goodbye to you once we tilt reality towards oblivion.”

“Is that so?” Lieze closed her eyes, “I didn’t think you’d bother.”

“Well, maybe I won’t? If the end arrives as quickly as skipping a stone, then don’t act disappointed when we die without any fanfare.” She said, “Or, maybe that would be for the best? I’m not sure you’d be able to handle the embarrassment of a tearful farewell.”