Chapter one
“This may be slightly difficult to believe,” the man stated during a lull in the conversation, “But when you died, I was undone in turn. There’s so little besides the goal that I can hardly bear to enjoy these seconds.”
“Oh, honey,” replied the ghost in pained sympathy. The necromancer longed to tell Raime that everything was alright, but he knew that it wasn’t.
The sunlight on this part of southwestern Shien was the same one over that entire continent, but due to a lack of lush greenery, its glare felt all the more prevalent. A few trees sprouted here and there, but you could smell ocean and there was never a lack of rock within sight. Where the land could accommodate it olives grew, fighting for their spot with figs, a green fruit which Azrael did not recognize, and the occasional drunken vine. More orderly farms stood upon perch-like terraces carved into hills. Time had been kind to this place, for many of the guilds controlling the area were merchant or alchemy guilds and had allowed Normals to prosper, unlike the warmongering majority of guilds. Watching farmers load entire carts of wine to ship off somewhere on a caravan, Azrael knew that Alfjötr Christon would enjoy it here.
The couple stood across from each other next to a wide flowing river. He looked at the foaming rush, knowing what had to be done but internally recoiling from the suffering he was about to witness. Raimé and Sera had been like sisters. Turning towards his wife, Azrael pleaded, and yet her once green eyes, now a pale luminescent grey like the rest of her, mirrored the hardened set of her jaw. Despite a gut wrenching feeling, Azrael loved that look on her. She’d always been the very personification of a dream.
Putting a hand into his trademark black cloak, the necromancer pulled out an item recovered from his charge’s travel bags: a red rose enclosed in a jar of glass. The object had baffled Glint Stryger, like many other knickknacks stowed away in the many pockets he had in his clothes. It was fortunate that he hadn’t taken the youth with him a year ago, for some of the adventures he’d gone on were far beyond his friend’s level, including some of the visits he’d had to make to Krava’s rainbow libraries and that one particular temple. Now he was oh so very close to finished, and was starting to miss the warrior. Say what you might about Glint’s lack of sophistication, inability to manipulate others, and his horrid taste in pranks, the sandy haired child had been a pleasure to have around.
Azrael took out a knife and cut out a hole into the jar’s base. After that, he put his head into it, looking quite silly indeed. Then, the blonde and green eyed widow, as bidden by his wife, recited the words of a spell.
Raimé had never told Azrael the spell while living. It was simply one of those things they’d never shared with one another, although of course she would have had he asked. The incantation was genius, actually, despite the massive amounts of energy evoked by its use. A long time ago, the entirety of her guild had worked on it together. There were dedicated alchemists who put almost all of their strength into crystals powering it every day. What the spell essentially did was take a nearby plant’s natural ability to create breathable air and enhance it using alchemy. A small one way opening in the glass next to Azrael’s right ear expelled the excess and kept his head from exploding in what Raimé had assured him would be an impressive display. The jar’s lower cork was in fact made of compressed earth, and by some transformation he didn’t entirely understand, it tightened and sealed around his neck, creating a glass helmet. Sure that he was safe from impressive displays of any kind, Azrael tried to tell Raimé that he was ready, but she couldn’t hear him. At his expression of surprise, the ghostly apparition laughed with all of her usual mirth, drawing a laugh from him as well.
When both were ready, Azrael turned and leapt feet first into the river. A wave of cold numbed his body almost immediately, and the necromancer helped it along with some death energy. It wasn’t cold enough to actually be dangerous, particularly not to Unchained, but there was little sense in allowing discomfort. He paddled along for a second, then realized that he could see and gasped.
The first thing Azrael noticed was how different everything was from when one’s eyes were open underwater. That was generally how Azrael liked to swim, but from within the jar he could see astonishingly far. Perhaps the river’s clear water helped, but the necromancer was still shocked for a few seconds. Fish of multiple colors swam all around, and there were red scaled ones in a school. Carp? I don’t know at all. Maybe I should learn some more books on the matter. There were weeds and algea and he could see an almost underwater cliffside to his right. That was a spectacle in itself, for the rock was gorgeous. He could only see a set distance, however, and the river had been widened long ago in order to make place for the guild.
Entranced by the magic of new discovery, Azrael had forgotten about Raimé. Looking around now, he saw her hover slowly behind him in all her ghostly brilliance. The necromancer checked that his brooch was on securely enough, then swam down with his wife along the shockingly deep river. There was no reason to have the brooch slip and reveal his truth. As they went, Azrael made to pull out another object from his cloak, but his wife motioned for him to simply swim. As they neared something luminous in the distance, Azrael allowed her to dissipate back into heaven as a soul with an aching heart. This past month, after he became able to summon her, Raimé had given him invaluable information regarding heaven, Odin Allfather, as well as about her own guild. The man wished he could have her with him indefinitely, but it seemed that even the Unchained had limits to what they could do. Even more so, he had limits upon his heart, and could not deny his wife the pleasures she had described, even if it was to have her by his side.
The golden haired necromancer neared his goal slowly, still almost encircled by industrious fish, and his mouth began to open in wonder. The guild, named Seltah, was made almost entirely of glass, with metal lattices and beams supporting it. Inside he could see figures moving around by light of devices seeming much like his own firelight orb, and much of the glass was covered by glyphs both designed to power the spell he’d employed, and also for the many traps this guild used to protect itself against intruders. The building looked very much like four spheres connected to a cylinder-like center, and all four structures were attached to one of the river’s two rocky sides. Each of the spheres seemed dedicated to one of the four western elements, for he could see the unfortunate results of a man’s experiment with fire in one. The man’s black hair seemed on fire, and he ran around in his white robe, being chased by colleagues who were somehow throwing beams of snow at him. Azrael winced in sympathy, especially since the man’s hair was wavy and dark.
The guild’s top right sphere held what seemed like miniature mountains, but boasted a painfully obvious lack of researchers on fire. There were whirpools in the lower left one, and the trees in the last swayed, each to its own rhythm while a woman chugged a dangerously frothy liquid, her white coat flapping mysteriously. The spheres held far more than that, for each was as large as a manor, and not of the puny kind Glint had lived in prior to meeting the necromancer. More than anything, the necromancer could not shake off the wonder he found at seeing glass and brown metal window like globes such as these swaying slowly in a river. The building almost hunched, giving him a thoughtful stare.
When Azrael reached the guild’s entrance, he was surprised to find the metal door already opened for him. The school of fish had fallowed him here, and he shooed them away in thought. Swimming slowly forwards to where a second metal door stood directly before the first, Azrael was confused. He was in a completely submerged room, due to the portal behind him being left agape. There was a table here, circular and metallic, as well as two chairs. All were bolted to the room’s floor. Both walls to his side were made of glass, as was the ceiling and he could peer into the almost eerie orange glow through mingling into the river’s natural hues and the shimmering white far above. Only then did it occur to the blonde haired necromancer that the water he just swam in flowed too slow to be a p
roper river, despite how it looked from the surface. He’d wondered earlier why Seltah was situated in this particular area, at the obvious cost needed to deepen the river.
Just as Azrael began to consider circling around for another entrance, he heard a thunderous whine. Twirling in place, he was met with a roar as the door behind him slammed shut. Another sound came, this one akin to clicks one may make if one were in deep thought and wished to announce it to everyone within a mile’s radius. As the slightly pudgy man thought, hoping against hope that he hadn’t already triggered a trap, he noticed that the water level in his room was decreasing ever so slightly. In less than two minutes, he stood in a still wet but relatively air filled environment. Airtight drainage? I didn’t know you could even do that. Then again, he supposed the principle must be similar to what allowed excess air out of his rose jar but not water in. Just as he thought of it, the rose became painfully noticeable against his skin. He hated it when that happened.
Now that he was standing drenched in his room, a knock floated to the man. Suddenly a stretch of door directly in front of him, where the guild should be, turned clear. I can’t believe she never told me about these things, thought Azrael in something rather close to annoyance. Not that it was possible for him to be annoyed with Raimé, naturally, but she’d always told him the advancements in her guild were rather boring.
The man facing him through that stretch of glass looked annoyed. Much like Azrael he had a pudgy face, but his hair was more of a greyish red hue marked by hints of grey, marking him to be just past middle aged. With Ability users, of course, that could have been anywhere between eighty and three hundred years, although the necromancer thought that that upper estimate unlikely, for he’d have heard of an alchemist that powerful in Seltah. The small bit of white Azrael could glimpse just below his face told him that the man was likely dressed in white robes, as was fashionable here. It occurred to the necromancer that it was strange for this particular wall to be of metal when most of the building was lined with glass. It was probably to hide guards and traps, but seemed as clumsy as he was told of this guild. For geniuses, they really don’t know much about battle strategy, thought Azrael with a polite grin. Even before becoming Unchained, the necromancer could have taken this place in a week. Assuming he could even get down here and avoid the traps, of course.
The man scowled, then motioned for him to take off his jar. Azrael motioned back, trying to convey that he had no idea how to take the thing off. The middle aged man tried to mouth something, possibly the incantation to release him. The necromancer tried his best to replicate it, and after a few tries he felt the slight pressure against his throat cease. In a second or two he was able to take his jar off his head with a gasp. He hadn’t realized how warm it had gotten in there. His neck itched from the rose.
“Hello, intruder. Welcome to-“ the man started from behind the door, before apparently catching himself with a caugh. His voice echoed strangely, and Azrael wondered where exactly the voice was reaching him from. “I mean, uh. Who be you, to enter our guild so easily? Declare yourself.” He was obviously used to repeating a specific greeting, and was thus not versed with the art of being rude with intruders.
“Good morning,” said Azrael with his usual ease but a fake accent. People had always come relatively naturally to him, despite the necromancer having a knack for making some of them angry. “I can’t tell you what my name is, but I am a friend of the guild. I assure you, there is no harm to be found in my cloak.” It was a common oath in these parts, but happened to also be true. The curved ceremonial dagger didn’t count.
“Aww, mate, I haven’t have brunch yet! No need for theatrics… alright, whose friend are you?”
“Sera Bakas, and a woman called Raimé, I’m here to convey the second’s last words to the first.” The man was taken aback for a second, turning somber although he couldn’t have been here back then. He asked for a password, which Azrael provided. He nodded grimly, then turned something somewhere, grunting. Water dripped from the door as it went upwards slowly. The man didn’t waste time in ushering Azrael towards the earthen part of the guild after locking the door behind him and opening that farther one, flooding the room in between once again. All around Azrael oogled at the wonders around them.
“First time actually here, eh?” asked the man, then slowed down in his brisk stroll to shake hands. “Name’s Mattias Finch, by the way. Middle of Shien?”
“Pleased to meet you,” Azrael answered. “Yes and yes. You have a good ear for accents.”
“Cornhill, myself. A small little town in Brittania’s south. A bit further off, but we like the peace and quiet. We commute every day, you know.”
“Really?” asked Azrael, feigning surprise, then feeling bad. Mattias was a friendly guy, and deserved a small hint of truth, at least as much as could be given presently. “Oh, I remember. Sera mentioned it once, but doesn’t like to do it herself.” In truth, it wasn’t Sera who’d told him. A memory surfaced of Raimé eating her usual breakfast of fruits, kissing little Judith, and finally stepping into a circle to disappear into thin air. Judith. Azrael gulped as his heart lurched, unbidden. He’d thought he had gotten used to loss, but ripples had a way of causing waves. “What’s that?” he asked suddenly, attention drawn by a rock one guild member in spectacles was demonstrating to others. It was set upon a white table, in the middle of many alchemy glyphs.
“Oh, that’s an automatic ore fission circle,” explained Mattias, pulling Azrael closer to see the thing. The rock, circular in shape, suddenly seemed to split into two smaller ones. Whereas the first was a myriad of colors and obviously natural rock, it now had much less red in it. The second rock was smaller and seemed to be comprised purely of the red ore missing from the first. Then it split again, and again, until there were five different rocks of similar sizes and all seeming mostly comprised of a single ore each. The surrounding spectators clapped enthusiastically and Azrael joined in, eyes wide like a three year old’s.
“That was amazing,” he said when he was dragged away by the arm. “I’ve never heard of ore being split like that. It’s incredibly sophisticated!”
“That it is. How come you forgot the enchantment to get the aerators out? It’s pretty simple.”
“I didn’t forget it,” grinned the necromancer. “I never knew it.”
The man frowned. “Then how come-“
“Always been good at lip reading,” Azrael informed him.
“Wow, that’s pretty handy. Here, we’ve reached advisor Bakas’ office. Come on in.”
“Advisor? I thought she worked in water purification.”
“That was ages ago! How long has it been since you two last spoke?” asked Mattias, still leaving no room in his heart for suspicion. Azrael cursed his memory silently.
When the two knocked, they were greeted with a cheerful, “Come on in!” The red haired man chuckled to himself, and Azrael realized that he’d found a kindred soul in the man. They both loved to have their fun. Knowing that there was little reason to keep up his façade. He let the fake accent drop with a sigh, letting his true Aetherian extravagance shine through. “Well then, master Finch. Many thanks for the tour, but I shall be able to take care of the rest quite well enough on my own!” Leaving the man standing outside, Azrael stepped through the door, shut it behind him, and turned to a now slightly alarmed Sera.
“Who are you?” she demanded from her seated position. Her frown looked odd coupled with such pronounced laughing lines. In response, Azrael took off his brooch silently. She almost jumped right out of her own skin. “Az- Az- Az-“ she spluttered, still pointing a finger.
“Yes, Sera,” exclaimed the now tall thin raven haired necromancer. He had wished for a brooch to actually change his features, but needed to settle for a psion’s artefact designed to affect the sensibilities of those around him. “It’s me. I died that night, like you heard. You can tell what that means, I assume?”
“Ye-Ye-Ye-“ she confirmed, shak
ing only a little but realizing what she was looking at.
“look, I know that it’s going to be hard to explain, so I’ll summon Raimé to help me explain. I can do that now.”
“No,” she said suddenly, sitting back down in her seat. “There’s no way.”
“Yes there is. I just told you, I died. You don’t know what I can do now.”
“No, you can’t do that,” she stubbornly insisted, somehow getting his nerves up. There was a limit to shock, and Sera had almost reached it. She hadn’t been like this as a child prodigy.
“Sera, now is not the time for that, just-“
“I said no!”
“Ugh, fine, look!” with a gesture, Azrael pulled his power from deep within and shaped it with an age old spell. The spell was the same one employed by necromancers from the Purple Skull guild, but with his vastly superior powers it took on a different nature, echoing solemnly through the room. A cold whisper could almost be heard in the air and Sera’s breath fogged over. The overhead light, which seemed alchemical and looked like a glowing knot, suddenly sputtered as his death energy flared. His wife appeared, first as a glowing orb, then just like he remembered last seeing her, in a beautiful white dress and little to no make up on her skin. Her eyes had been a brown which he insisted was honey based and she believed to be muddy, but now all of her, even her hair, was a pale grey glow. She was undeniably beautiful, what with a strong jaw and shoulders coupled with creamy skin, even as a ghost. Not like Azrael thought her magnificence was captured by outward beauty. His wife looked good because she was beautiful. His lovely was strong, kind, and funny at times.
Raimé said, “Boo,” but Sera had already fainted. “Great,” she added with a disappointed sigh, heading over to Miss Bakas and trying to poke her with a finger. It went right through her nose. “Now what?”
“Now we wait.” Azrael Windslayer moved over to a red armchair and splaying himself right on it with slight disappointment, leaving room for his feet to dangle off the side. His hands rubbed against the velvety red for a few seconds as he glanced about. The office was warmly furnished, mostly in reds, yellows and deep browns. Sera’s desk was especially impressive, and he envied her it a little. One could see ocean through two windows to each side behind the desk, and they offered a breathtaking view of fish and blue. Shooting off the walls, practical shelves were lined with books and essays, many being reports written by simple researchers looking for advice. He headed over to one particular shelf. “I’ll need to rethink how I explain things. Do you want to pop into heaven till then?”
“Nah, I’ll wait and chat. She’ll wake up in a bit anyways. You’ll need help telling her that you’re practically a god now, and planning on making sure nobody ever dies again –Which I’m still not sure I approve of.”
Azrael frowned. They’d had this debate before. “The system Odin created is broken. Only the strong enter heaven, and he won’t change it. We can-“
“I know. I just don’t know if people will be better off. No one has ever not died. Besides, you’re planning on opening a weird portal and basically having a fist fight with death.”
“Well, if you put it that way,” remarked Azrael in a slightly hurt manner. “It does sound bad. But I really need her help with the force conversions. If I do it wrong, I might end up releasing the true spell, and so convincing her is crucial.” He pulled out an essay on automatic ore fission, took it to his seat, and set into it with the hunger of an avid reader.
“What would the spell do again, honey?”
He fidgeted. “Uh. Well…” Under her stare, the Fourth Unchained in known history relented. She knew what could happen, he’d told her right after raiding that devil worshipping temple and finding a very ancient and rather prophetic looking scroll. “It might unleash demons of death and kill more or less everyone in the world,” he grumbled.
“Aha,” she nodded. “I think my prince should try to use up all of his Charming today.”
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