Daughter of Death - A Necromantic LitRPG

The Elves were gathered at the palace, forming a final line of defence against the recollected might of Lieze’s army. It couldn’t be said for certain which side would come out on top, but as the Rootborne tore apart the undead responsible for plugging the city’s crumbling entrances, it was only a matter of time before the Elves would have an overwhelming advantage in numbers.

Roland gathered what remained of the Deathguards and formed them upon the gravid shelves uprooted by Kesset’s Heavenly Favour. There were no longer any streets to walk - only ruins of purest obsidian bending, poking, and crumbling all around them. He was grateful for the change, knowing that an uneven battleground heightened the threat of their remaining thralls.

“We’re all here… those still alive.” He muttered, “It’s time.”

“Yes…” Drayya, who stood beside him at the army’s apex, could only stare unknowingly into the darkness, “We’ll draw the Elves away from the palace and allow Lieze a moment of opportunity to enter. It matters not whether we emerge victorious - only that we provide her with the chance she needs.”

“I suppose this is it, then.” He nodded, “Drayya - you were always a nuisance.”

“Thank you?” She smirked.

“-But, you’ve been a dependable ally. I never imagined the Order would steer itself in this direction, but I’m glad it did. We can finally die for something meaningful. Something worth all the sorrow and restless nights.”

“Nothing is worth the time we spent un der Sokalar’s heel.” She replied, “It’s cruel that we’ve only been allowed to experience this freedom for a few months. Now it’s all going to crumble away. I can only pray that Lieze knows what she’s doing with those Sages. I don’t trust them one bit.”

“She has her duty. We have ours.” Roland paused, “...This moment before it all kicks off will be the death of me. Let’s not waste another second.”

“Agreed. I’ll let you do the honours.”

As Roland’s arm raised into the air, the chatter surrounding him came to a solemn end. All at once, the Deathguards realised that they stood at the advent of their long-lost dream. As soon as Roland’s arm fell, they would march towards the destined death awaiting them at the end of life’s cycle. It was neither sombre nor terrifying, enlightening nor fabled - only truthful.

“It’s time!” Roland repeated himself, his voice rising over the horde, “Move out!”

From some distance away, Lieze watched their failing lamplights dancing through what remained of the Black City, standing from her perch upon an unblemished rooftop once she was adequately prepared for the trial ahead. She retrieved the circlet from her Bag of Holding and waited patiently for the twin armies to collide in the dark, occupying herself with the deafening screeches of Grotesques darting within the canopy.

The war seemed so far away to her then - nothing but a waltz of lights in the distance. In the minutes that followed, she watched the Elven army fade into view through the darkness and smoke. Once the forces collided, there was no telling them apart with any degree of certainty. All Lieze had to focus on was her own task. She placed the circlet onto her head.

“The palace… I need to get to the entrance.” Visualising her point of exit, she channelled mana into the artefact, switching from the focus to her own personal pool of MP once it ran dry.

Staff of Thraldom’s MP - 0 / 3,417

Lieze’s MP - 1,377 / 2,925

Once the requisite cost was paid, her traversal was instant. The cool wind blowing over the rooftops was replaced with choking ash as her surroundings melted away. Tactfully, she spent a second examining her surroundings before extinguishing the light of her lantern to avoid being spotted.

The structure before her was massive. Its enormous doors, which terminated near the apex of its construction, told her that the spell had interpreted her intentions perfectly. There was no doubt in her mind that she had ended up right in front of the Elven palace.

The fog spreading through the city blended with the nearby song of battle to create a perfect smokescreen that Lieze could use to push open a door without revealing her position - necessary, considering it took her nearly a full minute just to open a crack wide enough to slip through, and nearly as much time to close it behind her. Just as the final plumes of smoke were cut off on her way in, a shadow skittered through the gap just in time to avoid being locked out.

“Fudge…” Lieze watched the roiling mass take shape, “I suppose sneaking past the Elves must have been a trifle considering they’re all wearing blindfolds.”

Her felid companion ran ahead to scout out the area. The half-light of Lieze’s lantern could only pierce through a few metres of the fog before it was consumed by the inky void.

“It’s dark…” She muttered, “I don’t know why that surprises me.”

So dark, in fact, that she couldn’t get an idea of just how large the chamber was. Even her breaths seemed to echo from the far-flung walls, drowned out by the recursive chorus of battle flooding through the palace’s windows. Like everything in the Black City, it appeared featureless. Perhaps that was by design, Lieze thought, but the lack of decoration was jarring to a human like herself.

She imagined that at least one Elf would have been waiting for her - but the prediction only turned out to be half-right. There were certainly Elves in that space. Very dead, very cold Elves, that is. Some unknown battle had been waged within, coating the ancestral palace with dismembered limbs and pools of blood. It wasn’t until Lieze made her way towards the centre when she found the source of the devastation.

“Oh…” She lifted her lantern, “That would explain it.”

There, sprawled across the reflective floor, was Baccharum. His body was ruined with so many lacerations and gashes that Lieze had trouble recognising him at first, but upon closer inspection, it was indeed the assassin himself. With both hands still curling around the handles of his daggers, it was prudent to assume that he was responsible for emptying the palace of its guards following his disappearance early on in the battle.

“He went this far for the Order’s sake…” She kneeled by his body, “That much loyalty deserves respect. He was always an outsider, but when push came to shove, he was just as devoted to our mission as any necromancer. A shame I couldn’t hear his final words.”

She brushed a hand over his face, allowing the Elf his final rest by closing his eyelids. Thanks to his efforts, Lieze wouldn’t have a problem meeting with the Head Shaman. In an act of quiet mercy that surprised even herself, she omitted Baccharum from the rest of the corpses while raising them as thralls.

Staff of Thraldom’s MP - 452 / 3,417

“Now… I’d better not let this opportunity go to waste.” She sighed.

With Fudge and the reanimated Elves stalking her shadow, she wandered through the bloodstained hall, arriving at a pair of obsidian stairs curving around the outer perimeter of the chamber towards a modest balcony on the next floor. Her lamplight seemed so insignificant as she ascended, only illuminating the first of the high steps designed for Elven traversal. When she reached the landing poking out from the balcony, all that remained below her - glimpsed through gaps between the ornate railing - was the silent darkness.

A pair of doors barred her from the chamber’s only connection, featureless apart from a pair of hooked indents on either side that one could wrap their hands around. She was forced to stand on her toes just to reach them, and struggled to part the doors with any degree of haste.

Beyond that passage was a hallway branching off into smaller, more bespoke rooms. Lieze saw the first inklings of decoration since entering the city - rugs fashioned from the dark hides of Akzhem’s beasts, double beds curtained with translucent silk, cabinets lined with instruments of alchemy…

“This must be where the Shamans reside…” She said, “A shame none of them will be returning.”

She couldn’t afford to dawdle. Not when the sprawling hall at the end of the corridor lacked a pair of doors to conceal her presence. A short staircase lowered her into a chamber not quite as large as the first, but still gargantuan. Unlike its sibling, there was a suggestion of class to its architecture; great pillars of black marble fused expertly to the walls, upon which windows of black glass greedily reflected the light of the first lantern they had ever welcomed.

A Great Oak bulged through a cavity in the rear wall, its branch hovering half the room’s height up in the air. Something golden was coalescing at the tip of the limb, drawing one’s attention to the basin of sap sinking neatly into the floor - and the trail of blood leading from the bottom of the staircase towards its edge. Fallen but resolute, the Head Shaman awaited Lieze’s arrival with commendable patience, trying but failing to rise to his feet as she approached.

“Cursed one…” His voice was weakened, “I foresaw your arrival.”

“No more of this. No more talking.” Lieze shook her head, “It’s over. Allow yourself the pride of a battle well fought and hand over your gemstone. I’m tired of killing - of struggling against the world. Let this be the end of it. Of all things.”

Something resembling a smile broadened across Kesset’s face, “...You know I cannot.”

His defiance was punctuated by another spray of water from his decanter. Lieze took a glance at his remaining MP - [662 / 3,509] - and estimated that he had a few dangerous tricks of transmutation left before he would cast himself dry. But what hope was there for him? He was crippled, unable to approach her, capable only of delaying the inevitable. Even as the puddle turned to fire, capturing the hall in flashes of light and revealing the gorgeous detailing upon its walls, she could only pity what had become of her final hurdle.

“This is not the way…” Kesset pleaded, “The future you seek… it is nothing more than a fantasy. We cannot escape from suffering, no matter how many chains we break. Forces greater than the Gods shall forbid your ambition.”

“Forces…” She repeated, “I’ve also learned of them. The enigmatic Ur, whose grand tapestry chronicles our foolish fable. Even as the Light in Chains scours this reality and wipes clean the stain of life, ‘Ur’ will remain. And soon - sooner, I’m certain, than any of us can know - another dream will form to enshroud our own, and the cycle of life will continue unerringly.”

“So you know…” Kesset’s tone grew betrayed, “Then why…?”

“For freedom.” She answered, “Freedom from the Gods. From the foul machinations of the ‘trial’ imposed upon we who would sculpt the world with our strength. From dominion, and from faith. The beauty of life cannot exist without death. So let this be the darkest age, in the hope that beauty can prosper, uninhibited, in a world separate from our own. This is my calling.”

As the fires raged, Kesset’s MP continued to deteriorate. No matter how fiercely he dragged his arm through the air, no amount of water could reach Lieze. The outcome of their encounter was already set in stone, and yet, she found herself somewhat respectful of Kesset’s right to deny her. Such were the freedoms of man - freedoms she had no right to deny.

“Ahh… was I the selfish one all along, then? Was my own ambition too faultless to exist?” He lamented, “All I wanted was to grant my people peace… and yet just as it arrived, fate demanded our suffering once more. What manner of justice is this? Why must life be so cruel?”

“It is not ‘life’ that betrayed you.” Lieze paused, “The Gods are to blame for this. Do you see now? Our hands have been guided all along - towards suffering. Towards blood. And if the cycle is not broken, this will only be the latest in a long history of tragedies. I will not die to ensure the advent of a God’s influence. This farcical tale ends with us. Is that not the one true path to justice?”

Kesset lowered his head, “...I dreamed of a world better than this.”

“I’m sure you did.” Lieze nodded, “But we are not the ones blessed with the wisdom to lead without bloodshed. Failing that, we instead choose to gorge ourselves on death, convinced that our crusade shall be the one to end conflict as a natural extension of man’s will.”

Unwilling to await Kesset’s end, she retrieved the dagger from beneath her cloak. Its edge was slick with a substance like black tar, applied during the moment in which the Head Shaman was at his most vulnerable in the city. Baccharum’s final gift to her.

With surprising dexterity, she tossed the dagger through the fire, witnessing its blades catching embers and setting alight as it careened through the darkness. Kesset could summon no defence as a man relieved of his sight. He raised both arms to defend himself, but the poison cared not where it struck. Lieze’s clumsy toss ensured that Kesset only received a small scratch, but that much was more than enough.

“Poison…” He recognised the torpor attacking his blood immediately, “How did you… ah - of course. The betrayer…”

“He assured me it was quite powerful.” She replied, “I take no pleasure in dragging out someone’s death, but you’ve forced my hand in the matter.”

The compound applied to her dagger was one of poignant lethality. Within seconds, Kesset’s breaths became disorderly, and the tiny, malformed heart pounding in his chest quickened. He knew just as well as any Elf that there was no surviving such a toxin once ingested.

“Lieze Sokalar…” He swallowed down a heap of saliva as the urge to vomit leaped up his gullet, “If I am to die… if ‘beauty’ must be sacrificed to ensure peace, then promise me… swear that you will see this journey through to its natural end…”

“If it will grant you any peace, then l swear it.” She nodded, “I will allow nothing to stand in the way of my goal. You needn’t worry about obstructions from this moment forward.”

“I see…” He closed his eyes, “Perhaps… yes - perhaps there is some measure of freedom in that…”

A human would have suffered quite the violent death indeed from Lieze’s poison. But an Elf was a different matter. However lethal, their bodies had adapted to Akzhem’s toxins over countless centuries. Even when inflicted by a truly heinous combination of natural poisons, an Elf’s death would be remarkably peaceful. So peaceful, in fact, that Lieze didn’t take notice of his passing until a notification appeared.

Secret Quest ‘The Transmuter’ Complete!

Description - Defeat Kesset

Reward - 19,500xp