Scourge Sixty-Two - Challenge

“Oh, this one’s dead,” Felix says as she pokes one of the fear cultivators with a foot.

I can tell he’s dead too. No one’s head is supposed to rest at that angle. Judging by the broken wood by the doorframe, he flew through and crashed here pretty hard. “Yeah, he sure is dead,” I say.

“You should get one of your monsters to eat him,” Felix says.

I don’t know where that’s coming from. “Why?” I ask.

Esme comes up behind me from the entrance hall where Bianca and Lily are watching over the cultivators that aren’t quite so dead and all of the house’s serving staff who all seem really eager to help. I get the impression they haven’t been treated all that well lately.

“Because our captives are necromancers and he’s their primary resource,” Esme says.

“Oh,” I reply. That does make sense. Yeah, we don’t want to have to deal with an undead chomping on our behinds while we’re paying attention to something else. “That’s not a bad idea.” I whistle over one of my wolves and point the puppy to the body. “Eat,” I say.

While that’s being taken care of, I move out of the sideroom and back to the main entrance hall. The necromancers are looking a bit worse for wear, with bruises, a bit of bleeding, and maybe a dislocated limb or two, but they’re mostly being quiet, which is nice.

“Have they tried anything?” I ask.

Lily grins and points to one who’s got his hands jammed into a large rock that looks like it’s melted around his limbs. I imagine those are an earth-mage’s equivalent of handcuffs. He also has a chunk of rock going around his lower face and obscuring his mouth. “This one said some rude things to me. And he smacked one of the serving girls when she came over to help move them, so now he’s lost mouth and hand privileges.”

“Oh, that’ll make it tricky for him to eat,” I say.

“He has his nose,” Lily replies. Her grin is downright vicious, and I think the other captives are aware of just how little it would take for her to do the same to them. Lily strikes me as someone with a lot of pent up issues to punchbag her way through.

“How will he eat with his nose?” Felix asks.

“I guess we could mash the food up and just kind of shove it in there,” Lily says.

“He’ll choke and die,” Esme points out.

Meanwhile, the necromancer is looking more and more like he’s regretting his choice in careers. I leave my friends to it. I think they’re all purposefully exaggerating to see the cultists we’ve captured sweat.

I step up to one of the older serving ladies. She’s maybe ten years older than I am, which, I guess makes her not that old at all. But all the others are looking to her in the way I’d guess people looking for leadership would, so she’s the one I figure I should ask about things.

She notices me coming and steps away from the others towards a quieter part of the hall under a great big oil painting of some rich merchant family who may or may not be part of the undead guarding this house now. “Hello,” I say.

“Ma’am,” she replied with a curtsy. “How may I help you?”

“Uh,” I say. Honestly, I’m not entirely used to this. We have servants at home, sure, but they’re monsters. They don’t do too much bowing and scraping unless mom’s in one of those moods. “I’m sorry, I just wanted to know what happened here. Can you fill us in?”

“Certainly?” she tried. “It all started over a week ago. There was a commotion during the night, and the next thing we all knew the city was burning in parts, the temples were being defaced, and the dead were running rampant across the streets. Then the necromancers came and... made things orderly.”

“By killing everyone?” I ask.

“No. Well, some. I think they maybe only killed half the city. The other half is locked in the fishing quarters. Some of us still have family there. We can send letters, and get replies.”

“Wait, so not everyone in Algecante is dead?” I ask.

She shakes her head, then hesitates. “Not yet. I’ve overheard the cultivators talking about what they want to do with us, with the people they’ve captured. I think... Those that worship Altum and make sacrifices to him were going to be spared. Many of the fishermen already worship him, you see? Because they fear the open oceans, they were mostly spared, but many others worshipped other gods and goddesses and--” she cut herself off with a swallow.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” I say. “Look, we’re here to help. Lily over there’s a Templar of Heroe, and there are dozens of them in the city right now, killing undead and making a mess of the necromancer’s fun. Plus there’s the rest of us too.”

“Thank you,” she says, but I can tell she’s holding back. Afraid to hope? I guess that makes some sense. We’re just five random girls and a lot of monsters that have showed up from nowhere. It must be tough for her to place her trust in us.

“Um, ma’am, the monsters...”

“Oh, don’t worry about them,” I say with a grin. “Those are mine. See, mo-- I mean, the Dark Goddess Luciana doesn’t approve of the undead, especially after they mess with her temple. So Heroes templars aren’t the only ones here to save the day. Though I think we’ll probably just murder all the necromancers and their undead and leave the organizing and such to the Templars.”

“Okay,” she says. I don’t think she thinks it’s okay, but whatever.

“Have you had any trouble with those ones? Can we expect trouble?” I gesture to the cultivators we’ve captured.

“Some. They have been... forceful, and unkind, but we survived. Francine may have taken a liking to one of them, but I’m not certain if it was mutual or if the young man was just doing as young men do.”

I frown at that. Well, as long as Francine was consenting... it’s still kinda gross though. “Yeah, we’ll let the Templars handle matters of law when it comes to that.”

“Have you defeated Getorix?” she asked, the rising pitch in her voice suggesting that that’s something we really should have done already.

“Who?”

The woman starts hyperventilating. “He--he’s the leader of this cult. A powerful necromancer lord and water cultivator. He rules over all the others. They fear him and respect him, some of them practically worship the man, but he’s mad. I’ve seen his eyes. He does more than just worship Altum, he lives for the drowning god.” She clutches the front of my dress and shakes me a little. “If you haven’t defeated him, then where is he?”

There’s a sharp crack from outside, and Felix abandons the others to run over to the windows. “Uh, guys! Big, big problem.”

“Is it a crazy necromancer-looking cultivator that’s really powerful?” I ask.

“Actually, yeah, that looks like what it is. He’s chopping up the mantises outside into ground insect meat,” Felix says.

I turn back to the woman. “Get the other servants, run away,” I say. “Oh, and take the prisoners too. If they try anything, just stab them a few times. That usually works to calm uppity people down.”

“Oh-okay,” she says. And with that, she runs to the others and starts hissing orders at them which sets all the servants up in a tizzy.

“Valeria, what are we doing?” Esme asks.

I consider it for just a moment. From the sounds of it, this guy’s either the big boss, or just someone fairly important to the Altum cultists. Either way, we should probably do something about him.

I just wish I had more monsters. I guess I’ll have to use what I do have. “We’ll let him take the first move. Esme, Lily, get ready to hit him with the hardest attack you have. Felix, be careful. This guy sounds tough. Bianca, can you focus on the undead? He’ll probably attack with a lot of those. Felix will help you with that, but she’ll be distracted.”

As for me... I have no idea what I’m supposed to do except for my best.

The windows crack, shatter, and explode into the main hall. The sprinkling of glass is followed by a hail of sharp water that washed across the floor. And then undead hands grab at the edges of the windows, soon followed by zombies pulling themselves into the mansion.

“Oh, right, we’re dealing with a necromancer, he’s probably not all that great in a straight fight,” I say. But maybe that kind of assumption’s not too smart to make. I’m a monster-fighter too, and I’m pretty darned tough!

We’ll have to see how my friends and I stack up.

***