Daughter of Death - A Necromantic LitRPG

Alma blinked.

The woman in front of her could have been her twin, were it not for the terrible scowl infecting her face. She wore the same cloak as Lieze. It blended perfectly with the girl’s long, black hair. A groan from one of the caverns’ inhabitants broke the silence before either of them could speak a word.

“Um.” Unsure of what else to do, Alma lowered her head, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She seemed dignified. More collected than Lieze. A level-headed sort. Expecting politeness in return, Alma recoiled in surprise when the visitor answered her greeting.

“What a pathetic hideout.” She insulted calmly, “I never expected to see anything impressive, but this place has sent my expectations through the floor. Lieze calls this a ‘cult’? With a measly two members? And the smell… I hope you know that practising necromancy doesn’t make you impervious to disease.”

“Uh-” Alma stammered, “...I’m sorry.”

“This isn’t anything to blame yourself for. Lieze should be the one apologising to you.” Drayya replied, “You seem less ambitious than her, at the very least. That’s a good start. One who recognises their place in the pecking order should always be eager to prostrate before their superiors.”

“Drayya.” A third voice entered the chamber. Lieze’s expression was that of a tired mother’s, “Alma isn’t even a member of the Order. We’re going to be working together for quite some time, so try to keep your relationship equal.”

“Do you see what I mean?” Folding her arms, Drayya looked towards Alma, “She was but a timid insect when last we spoke, yet now she demands silence of me without reservation. If she wasn’t the daughter of my master, I would have ordered her skin draped over the foyer chandelier.”

“We don’t have time to be bickering like this.” Lieze argued, “An audience with Ricta awaits me. I need your guarantee that Alma won’t be dead by the time I return.”

“You’re planning to depart for the castle now?” Drayya questioned, “Aren’t we going together?”

“What if you’re recognised?”

“How long has it been since the siege? Just over a week?” She replied, “I wouldn’t trust the maggot king or any of his surviving entourage to recall what they had for breakfast this morning, never mind the face of a necromancer who spent the entire battle surrounded by thralls.”

“Come if it pleases you, then.” Lieze capitulated, “I thought you would want to make some improvements to the hideout.”

“Well, who’s to say we can’t do that right now?” Drayya’s gaze scanned the cavern walls, “Frankly, we’re missing some key facilities. No alchemy tools, no vessels for blood rituals, no crypts… we don’t even have a proper entranceway yet.”

“Alma.” Lieze called, “How goes your search for an alchemy table?”

“Y-Yes!” The girl stood to attention, “Baccharum was able to point me towards a number of options. The cheapest I could possibly find was… around 1,000 gold pieces. Used.”

“That’s to be expected, I suppose…” Lieze resigned. She knew from the very beginning that such a sought-after commodity wouldn’t be cheap. Between the Kobolds, the Koorin, and the two bandit camps, she had just over 600 gold left in her Bag of Holding.

“Why not simply take what we need?” Drayya suggested.

“Try dragging an alchemy table out from a shop in the middle of the day. See how far you make it before the guards lock you up.”

“Am I to involve myself in the lowly affairs of commoners?”

“For as long as it takes us to gain a foothold? Yes.” Lieze answered, “We’re not in the Deadlands anymore, Drayya. We can’t simply march an undead army through the front gates and expect everything to turn out wonderfully.”

“Fine, then. Fine!” The girl shrugged, “We really do need some cauldrons, though! A Flesh Elemental or two would give us an edge. What about Nightcrawlers?”

“I was just about to bring that up.”

Reading her mind, a quick description of the subject launched from Lieze’s scale.

Ability - Necromantic Alchemy (Create Nightcrawler Breeder)

Description - Spend 1 hour to begin the process of transforming a thrall into a Nightcrawler Breeder. Once the chosen subject is prepared and placed next to a sturdy wall, it must be left alone for 48 hours. During this period of time, the thrall will adhere itself to the wall and undergo rapid physical changes. Once completed, the resulting Breeder can be fed blood to produce Nightcrawlers. The Breeder may hold a maximum of 15 litres of blood and produces 1 Nightcrawler every hour provided it has at least 1 litre of blood available, which it consumes in the process.

Nightcrawlers. Undead insects resembling scorpions, produced from the gaping un-mouth of an unlucky thrall. While utterly useless in direct combat, the pitiful creatures were fantastic vectors for all manner of diseases and had a nasty habit of biting those who strayed too close to them. For Lieze’s purposes, they were perhaps the greatest tool available--autonomous sowers of chaos and malcontent.

“I’ll get to work on creating a Breeder immediately. After that, we can set off.”

“Hoh…” Drayya tilted her head, “Not only can you meld Horrors, but Breeders as well? Quite the step up from what you were capable of only a few weeks ago.”

“Are you complaining?”

“Hmph.” She sneered, “Don’t let it go to your head. Once we scrounge up enough of the maggot king’s sacred gold and acquire ourselves an alchemy table, I’ll show you what a true necromancer is capable of.”

One of the corpses graciously donated by Baccharum soon found itself the subject of a ritual most sinister. The vessel was to be emptied out. From veins to guts to muscle--all had to be removed or repurposed to make room for the sickly-green egg sacs of Nightlings.

A thrall’s level didn’t seem to contribute to the effectiveness of a Breeder. Nor did its size. Therefore, it was in Lieze’s best interest to modify the most pitiful servant she could salvage; a measly [Level 2] corpse. As with Flesh Elementals, the only true limiting factors were time and blood. Drayya’s comment about acquiring suitable vessels was well-founded indeed.

After an hour had passed, the thrall was unrecognisable. Its scabbed-over skin folded grotesquely, tapered by a stretched abstraction of the corpse’s former mouth. It appeared less like a living creature and more like a rotting pitcher plant.

“Ah… ah…” Alma couldn’t bear to look upon the monstrosity, “No… as I thought, this is just too much! There’s no beauty to this! I-I think I’m going to vomit…”

A pair of hands gripped the sides of her head, eliciting a cry of surprise from the meek girl as two sets of fingers converged towards her eyes.

“Do not avert your gaze.” Drayya’s voice slithered into her ears, “This is a trial all necromancers must face. You must look beyond the grotesqueness and find beauty in the utter devaluation of life. This corpse does not live. It is only what remains when the soul--a perfect realisation of the self--evacuates its suffering, loathsome prison.”

Her fingers peeled back Alma’s eyelids. The abomination writhing near the cavern wall turned her stomach. How could she ever see beauty in an act of such refined evil? And yet, she knew there was no other choice but to try. Her choice had already been made. Lieze would kill her if so much as a crack appeared in her loyalty.

“I-I understand.” She averted her gaze, “I understand, so please…”

“Hm… Lieze could have picked someone with more gusto.” Drayya criticised, “But, very well. It’s difficult to say whether you’ll flower into a wonderful necromancer or wilt before your time arrives. The Order is always willing to silently observe its new members.”

“Are you quite done?” Lieze asked, “I still need to report back to the guild before we receive our audience. I’d like to be somewhere safe before nightfall.”

“Ah. Afraid of being accosted by some holy man on a quest for vengeance yet again?” She replied, “Honestly, were it not for her valiant efforts in rescuing you, I would have dismissed this recruit of yours right away.”

“I wouldn’t underestimate Helmach.” Lieze warned, “He isn’t quite as docile as his peers in the priesthood. His strength is… otherworldly, and his devotion to the Gildwyrm borders on psychotic. I can’t imagine he’s too pleased with my escape, either.”

“An irrational man following irrational ideals. A convenient dog for the parasites of this world to sic on their enemies.” Drayya summarised, “Death cannot come quickly enough for one so deluded.”

“Just try to be careful.” She replied, “Shall we make our way to the city, then?”

“That depends. Will I be allowed inside?”

“As long as you’re with me, I doubt the guards will try to stop you.”

“Well, if the worst comes to pass, I can always pass through the walls.” Drayya concluded.

Lieze didn’t offer a comment in return. It was no secret that Drayya had dipped her toes into the school of transmutation. Though forbidden by the Order, she couldn’t deny that the girl’s expertise could certainly come in handy. Magic was but another tool in the advancement of their ambitions, after all.

Her prediction was correct. The guards stationed within Tonberg’s busy southern gatehouse barely paid Drayya any mind. She had always expressed a profound hatred for the Sovereign Cities, but the expression of bewilderment plastered on her face from the moment the two of them stepped through the gate reminded Lieze of a lost child.

“Unbelievable. How does one even find their way around such a labyrinth?” She asked.

“The street signs.” Lieze replied, “You’ve been here once already, haven’t you?”

“-In the middle of a battle, yes. Forgive me if I didn’t have enough time to comprehend the sheer scale of this place when I was too busy slaughtering royalists by the dozen.”

“Keep your voice down. Your esteemed mission will be over faster than you can blink if you shamelessly brag about how many people you’ve murdered.” Lieze scolded, “You’ll need to put on a friendly face, or at the very least a tolerant one. We have reputations to uphold. Reputations that could influence the outcome of our goal if left to stagnate.”

“I know that. Don’t treat me like a child.”

“The guild is just around this corner.” She ignored, “I won’t be a moment, so wait for me outside.”

“It’s a… a tavern, isn’t it?” A sliver of hesitation leaked through her voice.

“It is. Why do you ask?”

“I was curious.”

“...Are you hungry?”

“No.” She pursed her lips, “...Yes.”

“It would help if you didn’t lie about such a simple thing.”

“What do you expect me to say!?” She exclaimed, “I’ve been lurking in an abandoned pub for days eating nothing but scraps of stale bread! Of course I’m hungry!”

Drayya was too prideful for her own good. Admitting to something so base and pitiful as hunger wasn’t an embarrassment she could tolerate. Lieze much preferred her honest self--the rather innocent girl lurking beneath a façade of hatred. There was something amicable to their conversations all of a sudden, no doubt thanks to the fact that Lieze was no longer a lead weight holding the Order back.

“When was the last time you had anything with meat in it?” She asked.

“Meat?” Drayya repeated, “Not long ago. We all had frog soup and baked slime for pudding before we departed from the Deadlands, didn’t we?”

“I meant real meat. Beef and pork. Poultry. Venison.”

“Not since I was a child, when caravans still dared to trade with us.” She recalled, “What difference does it make? Meat is meat.”

“I don’t understand…” Stunned, she brought a hand to her chin in thought, “How is it so tender? It practically melts in the mouth… I barely had to chew…”

“All of the gristle is cut out during preparation.” Lieze explained, “After that, it’s marinated in a blend of spices, herbs and oil. Left overnight, it tenderises and develops a complex profile of flavours.”

“Lieze…” It was the first time in over a decade that Drayya voluntarily lowered her head, “This is…”

“As much as it pains me to admit, the royalists have us beaten in the culinary arts.” She continued, “I’m certainly not looking forward to the day when we return to chewing still-twitching frog legs for minutes at a time.”

The guild receptionist was pleased to hear the wonderful news that whatever necromancer was stalking the crossroads south of Bascoroch had moved on from their foul perch to greener pastures. The thralls Lieze had supposedly (not at all) dispatched in the nearby village of Hoplod lent a completely fabricated credence to the claim. Not only that, she’d rescued a poor girl who had been left in chains to rot by the culprit, desperately in need of a warm meal.

“A messenger has been dispatched to the castle.” Lieze explained, “Ricta will be expecting us. I can’t imagine he’ll have much to offer apart from a few poorly-chosen words. It’s all just a farce to make it seem like he cares about the affairs of the guild.”

“Even so-” Drayya paused to finish chewing her food, “We shouldn’t ignore this opportunity to take stock of the castle’s defences. Tonberg is inches away from crumbling. It simply needs a push in the right direction. Assassinating His Majesty would be the final nail in its coffin.”

“I wouldn’t be so optimistic.” She replied, “If we’re discovered, the combined might of the royalists and the priesthood could crush us, even without Ricta to rally behind. Progress will be slow. Unbearably slow. But when the time comes, we will be ready to strike the parasites of this city down in one fell swoop. The royalists, the Church; Ricta, Helmach... all of them.”

Drayya’s appearance had only cemented Lieze’s ambitions. With the power of the scale at her beck and call, absolute victory was only a matter of time and dedication. Her years as a pitiful underachiever within the Order had finally come to a close. She would earn the respect of those who once derided her--Drayya, Graeme, Lüngen… even her own father. By force, if necessary.

From the golden deformity on her hand emerged a premonition of events to come, invisible to all but Lieze.

New Quest Received!

"Hidden Sin" - Discover the secret of Tonberg Castle

Reward - 2,000xp