At the very least it wasn't too long of a trip to the necropolis. Jessie hadn't been ranging out that far, so it only ended up being ten or twenty miles. Given the enhanced physiques and stamina of the people involved in the trip it didn't take long, not even moving as slow as the H rankers. It was actually really nice to bolt through the woods, dodging trees and swinging off branches. The kind of speed we were reaching even without going all out was absurd.

It needs to be understood that the fastest mortal in the world can sprint just below thirty miles per hour. This can be considered a single point of Might, much like a thousand pounds of lifting force can be considered the same. At more than fifty Might that put my top running speed at over fifteen hundred miles per hour. Now, allowances needed to be made for my much lower Vitality, I couldn't keep up that level of sprinting for particularly long, but it was irrelevant since the others were with us.

We kept it to a brisk jog, ten points or so, and three hundred miles per hour was more than fast enough to make that trip in a few minutes, even with time shaved off for tree dodging. It felt amazing to really let loose with my power in a controlled activity, even a non combat one. I decided I would run more often. It wasn't practical in the city, but while we were out here it was a fun and easy way to get around. We made it out of the forest without much trouble, and slowed down as we approached the city of the dead.

It was, as stated, a relatively small crypt in the center of a giant ass field of black grass. Despite the accurate description though, it wasn't nearly enough to do it justice. The entire landscape looked like something out of a nightmare. Black twisted trees clawed their way up from jagged hills that jutted up between the tufts of ebony grass. It was hard to spot them in the dark, but I could make it shambling, creeping forms in the shadows between the hillocks, presumably the undead we'd been warned about.

Benny, who was staring hard out at the dark landscape tilted his head back and whistled. "Anyone else notice that? Because I'll be honest, I didn't even think to question why it got dark so suddenly at first, and now I kind of wish I hadn't looked." We all looked up and winced as we saw what he was talking about. A swirling vortex of black clouds, shot through with icy blue light that diffused out over the area just enough to make things vaguely visible without letting us see too well. He turned to Sarah. "Don't suppose they covered this in your church classes?"

She sighed and nodded. "It's called an Omen Star. It's a meteorological manifestation of a massive concentration of necromantic energy. It's not an actual star obviously, it's just named based on the placement, but if there's one here...we might have to fight a Lich. I imagine if there's one here it's only going to be a Beginner Lich at worst, the Academy wouldn't have left it here if it was any stronger, but still, they are...problematic to deal with. I'm not even sure how one would have ended up on a planet like this, much less have established a presence strong enough to form an Omen Star."

That sounded unpleasant to say the least. "So Liches are like...undead magic users? You mentioned they were one of the races of undead you can transform into, which makes them part of the devil faction I take it?" I knew the devils were a faction of monstrous cultivators with a racial trait, similar to the fae, but I didn't know too much about them in general. "What's the difference between devils and the fae exactly? Sorry if the question offends Celine." I gave the elf girl a nod of acknowledgement.

Luckily for me she didn't seem upset, just shaking her head. "It's...somewhat arbitrary in all honesty. The devil factions split from the Faerieland for one reason or another. They're basically a mishmash of cultivators that aren't technically fae. They gathered under the actual devils, which ARE a race of their own, and declared their independence. For simplicity most people call the devil factions as a whole fiends, because devils are a specific subset of the fiends as well as the leaders of the faction, regardless, yes Liches are fiends, and dangerous ones at that."

Sarah's worried frown testified to that. "They're magic users, which isn't something you see often in the Conglomerate, part of the Job system and not ability based cultivators. Liches are unpredictable and difficult to defeat because they rarely have the same Skills. The only real consistent skill set is necromancy. Regardless, if we're lucky we can avoid the Lich altogether. They're best given a wide berth." She turned to Callie. "So, what's our plan of attack Nightstrike? I assume you have a specific method of approach in mind?"

Callie nodded. "I was thinking I could cloak us in shadow. I wasn't sure if the undead have a way to pierce that kind of concealment. This seems like a good environment to use my ability though." She gestured out at the faintly lit ebony landscape, and I could see her point. Her shadow embodiment should get us to the crypt itself easily enough if they couldn't see. "Based on stories I've read about necropoli, chances are pretty good there's a series of catacombs under that crypt, so the closer we get before being discovered the better our chance to get in without a fight."

Sarah pursed her lips, staring out into the dark to try to identify exactly what we would be facing. "I can't say for sure honestly. It depends on which undead we come across. Some of them see with senses beyond those of mortal eyes." That was actually an interesting thing to know. I wondered how Perception interacted with that difference in sight. Regardless, that meant as usual we had nothing to go on really.

Callie knew it too, so we could only go with the obvious plan. "Then I guess we just have to check and see. We'll try to breach the borders and check if they notice us. If they do we run and hopefully only the closest undead will come after us. We can mop up the few that try for us and then try another plan of entry, or barring that just run back to the hatchery and use it as a fortified position. Either way, our best move here is to test the waters." She glanced around inquisitively. "Unless someone else has a better plan? I'm always open to suggestions."

I had to give it to Callie. Aside from being open to new ideas from teammates, her timing was always good too. She made sure to give us all input at times when it wouldn't affect the flow of battle. Whether we took her up on it or not we all felt heard, and it didn't screw with our operational efficiency. Besides, her plans were usually pretty solid, which was why we picked her as leader to start with. As usual, no one had any big problems with her strategy so we all just indicated that we were ready to go.

Callie raised her hands, eyes closing in concentration, and the shadows surged beneath our feet. They wrapped around us, and I felt them shift slightly as Callie synergized her stealth skill with her ability in a monumental feat of power I was pretty sure I couldn't have managed. Even if I had the tools like she did the amount of shadow she was perceiving and the traces she had to suppress were mindblowing. It took her a few minutes to even get the whole thing in place, and we all just waited and watched.

I'd done plenty of tricky operations with my Skills, but I hadn't used my ability much, it wasn't really functional in a combat situation. Still, I knew very well how much it could wear on a person to make changes to the world around them like she was doing now. I had enough trouble effecting my own individual skills or even pushing them to one person. Cloaking an entire group in stealth was enough to reinforce my already heavy respect for my girlfriend and her capabilities.

When her eyes opened she began to walk, slow and steady, trusting us to follow. Which we did obviously. The second she stepped out onto the black grass though she froze. We all stood stock still behind her, waiting for the shoe to drop. Despite the tension though she just stood there in silence for a beat and then started walking forward again slowly. We followed again and again she stopped. It finally occurred to me what she was actually doing. She was trying to process the sounds and traces the rest of us were making and erase them, and it was talking a bit to manage.

I held up a finger to my lips to show them they should try to be quieter and then slowly started to step after her, doing my best to creep across the grass without disturbing it too much. The others clearly understood my intent because they began to do the same, trying to make Callie's job of hiding our presence easier. The effort brought our speed down in a pretty dramatic way, but it was worth it. We slowly crossed the field of death, avoiding trees and sharp hills and any undead we noticed.

Of which there were A LOT. Seriously, skeletons were pretty common like we'd seen, but more prevalent were a sort of creeping undead that scurried across the ground on four legs called wights. Sarah had been able to give us a hushed explanation of the things once the first one we saw was out of earshot, and we saw plenty more of them over the next hour or so of careful creeping.

We also learned something new. The crypt was MUCH bigger than it looked. It turned out that the whole tiny mausoleum thing was a trick of perspective, the massive marble edifice was actually the size of a pretty decent house. Even the raven hadn't been able to spot that because it was so fucking FAR into the field. Jessie had stayed on the outskirts of the black field to avoid drawing attention from the undead and because of that hadn't had the perspective to notice the size difference.

Still, in the end that didn't matter, we took things one step at a time, and the actual distance was pretty much irrelevant to the journey beyond making things harder on Callie. We had to stop multiple times on the way to lighten the burden, but eventually we got within sight of the huge marble crypt. Once we could see it we stopped again as we noticed the place was guarded by more than just skeletons. A quartet of massive undead, black skeletal knights in plate armor, stood two to a side in front of the crypt, attended on either side by smaller bone constructs.

Unlike the others these skeletal knights didn't seem to have any trouble with Callie's stealth, and turned to glare right at us as we approached. I wasn't sure if Callie was tired, they could see better, or the fact that they were G rank made up the difference, but in the end it hardly mattered. Callie dropped the stealth field and slumped against me. I held her up before passing her to Jessie for a pick me up and turning to Cark and Benny. "Well, looks like we're fighting our way in after all. So, who gets to fight two of them?"