//------------------------------// // Chapter 7. // Story: "Low Level" Mage // by Knight of Crows //------------------------------// Manus POV I was really hoping it would be wisps, we could've dealt with it tomorrow if that was the case. Instead we ended up with a corpse making it's way out of town. Once it reached the edge on the west side of town, it turned a little to the south and crossed over the train tracks. If I remember correctly, there were some grass lands in that direction and a wooded area further down before crossing into Appleoosa. We followed far enough behind that it couldn't detect us, the lights reappearing every so often. After about an hour of tracking the undead, we reached a cave of all places. "What is this? A poorly written horror story from several hundred years ago?" I thought as the targets entered the cave. "We should deal with this now while we have the chance." One of the guards whispered as he drew his blade, I wasted no time pushing it back in it's scabbard. "We don't need the glint from your sword giving away our position!" I whispered loudly. "The target is right there, I'm sure we can take them out with no trouble." One of the other guards supported the other. "Tell me, do you know how dangerous necromancy can be?" I asked her as I focused my sight into my familiars to search the surrounding area for freshly dug graves. "A necromancer isn't really anything without their army of dead ponies." She responded. "Saying a necromancer is nothing without their puppets is like saying an enchanter is useless without an enchanting table, or a lightning mage is useless without a lightning storm, and I am far from useless without a storm." I told her as I found eight graves so far. "Princess, your orders?" The third guard asked Luna. "We wait until Manus is ready." Luna answered as I found fourteen graves. "Almost ready." I told her. Twenty one graves. I began to make my way to the nearest one. "What are you doing??!!" The female guard questioned me. "Figuratively and literally protecting our asses." I answered as I commanded my familiars to start drawing runes on each grave. "What is that?" Luna asked as I finished the first one and poured a bit of dark magic into it to charge it without them noticing. "A rune to keep the undead from coming behind us." I answered as I moved to the next one. "Why not just destroy them now and be done with them?" The first guard asked. "Because depending on how far the necromancer has delved into their work, killing one could alert the rest." I moved to the next one. "There are twenty one graves here, how many do you think are in there? Safer to disable them than to destroy them." "How do you know so much about necromancy?" The third guard asked, suspicious of me. "That's enough, let Manus do what he needs to!" Luna ordered them before coming my way. "Need something?" I asked her. "Where did you learn runes?" She asked back. "Chroma had an optional course since runes can be imbued with elemental magic. I didn't take it, but we had three or four sections in the library specifically for runes." I'm almost done charging all of them. "This is ridiculous!!! Why is he even here??!!" The first guard asked, loudly like an idiot. "Because aside from your princess, I have the most experience with dark mages." I answered for Luna. "I know what can be expected and how to deal with it. Tell me, how do you counter curses?" I asked him as I finished the last rune. "What do-" "What would you do if the undead out here caught you by surprise while you were in there fighting a horde and the necromancer in front of you?" I interrupted and started closing the distance to him. "That's not-" "What if the necromancer is increasing the strength and durability of their 'pets'?" I'm practically in his face now. "Back off n-" "What if one of you gets struck with a curse? Maybe one that will turn your comrade against you or into an undead after some time and you don't have the means of removing it?" I made an ash sword and held out the hilt to him. "Are you capable of killing your friends or your princess if such a curse falls on them?" I asked him as I pressed the hilt against his chest plate. "That's enough! We get it!" The second guard placed herself between us and stopped this from escalating further. I got rid of the sword and started walking towards the cave in question, stopping a few steps away from them. "I'm here because I basically put myself in debt to the princesses and the guard. This is my first job to repay that debt, I was just told to investigate what was going here with Princess Luna. Her's is a given, but your health and safety, your lives are not a priority. If something happens, don't expect me to bail you out. The others are a different story though since they've been very reasonable so far." I desummoned my familiars and made my way inside, not waiting for the others to follow. It definitely reeks like death down here. I don't just mean dead things, I mean death has it's own smell and words can't describe it. The others caught up after a little while, there hasn't been any trouble yet. We would hear strange noises every now and then, I thought I heard screams mixed in as well, I really wasn't looking forward to this. After several minutes, we finally arrived near the sources of the sounds. We passed through a stone door of a design I swear I've seen before and descended the stairs. The first thing we saw was a large empty room that was lit up by stones in different areas. I think I recognize these ruins, these are the ruins of the Ancients, but why are they here I thought to myself as we went further in. As I was about to grab one of the Moonlight Stones in case of emergency, we heard screeching from above and we were ambushed by a few dozen undead. Luna wasted no time to cover us with a barrier. Figures stealth would be thrown out the window. "We're surrounded!" Luna struggled to maintain the barrier on such short notice. The guards stepped in front of her in a defensive formation. "Teleport out! We'll cover you!" One of them said, willing to make that sacrifice. "No need." I summoned a five fire werewolf familiars and gave them the order to start decapitating everything outside of it after the barrier fell. "Shield us with thy flames, turn those who would desecrate our flesh to ash." I casted a cloak spell on the five of us, each of us was covered in a thin layer of flames hot enough to melt iron with ease. This startled the others and Luna lost her concentration on the barrier. In that moment, the werewolves started making quick work of the undead while I shot a lightning ball above us that would shoot at them for me. They all died (again) in seconds, the ones that weren't dealt with by my familiars were dealt with by the flame cloaks or lightning from above. I collapsed onto my knees as I tried to catch my breath. "What was that??!!" The female guard yelled in shock at what just transpired. "That *huff* was me saving our asses." I answered, trying to catch my breath as I desummoned the familiars and the lightning dissipated. I didn't collapse from low magic, just that it was a lot to do at once. Summoning five altered familiars and channelling magic into two other completely spells from different elements will do that. "Do you need a moment?" Luna asked as she knelt down to place a hand on my back. "I'm fine, let me just grab something." I grabbed one of the stones and shattered it in my hands, magic flowed into me and I felt renewed. As I turned back, I felt something crunch beneath my foot. What I saw almost made me lose my dinner, but quickly angered me. "We're killing this bastard, we're not even going to attempt to bring him in." "What's the-" Luna looked down at my feet and saw what was wrong. Each and every corpse had extra limbs and other physical alterations. All of them had giant spider legs on their backs while others had deformed faces and jaws resembling different predators or weapons like claws replacing their fingers. "Someone has been studying beast magic and using it to augment their army, though they've twisted it immensely." I walked past them and through the door, sending a shadow bird down the hall when no one could see me. "I'll be back to deal with the bodies later." I thought as I continued down the hall, my familiar ensuring the path ahead was clear. This is as much of an insult to Exolvuntur as it is to the Goddess of Beasts and The Hunt, Venari! My familiar detected a few undead further into the ruins, armed skeletons this time. I summoned a couple fire dire wolves and lightning snakes to deal with anything else, I want to deal with this asshole myself! Soon, these souls of the departed will once again find peace in His domain.