Deus Necros

“I mean…” Thomas hesitated, “I’m down for that and all,” but he looked up as if he was able to see Necros’s gaze on him, “I don’t know about Necros though, might actually just smite me…”

His voice tried for lightness and missed. The edges of him fuzzed, a faint blur like heat over stone. He touched his own chest as if to test whether his hand would meet resistance. It did, barely. A ripple ran from palm to shoulder and faded.

“No he wouldn’t,” Ludwig shook his head.

He spoke without ornament. The certainty in his tone steadied the air. The vial at his collar lay cool and quiet against the pulse in his throat, the Water’s hush smoothing the Heart’s restless push.

“Indeed, he wouldn’t,” Lorina added, “And not for the reasons you think, even for an apostle he would still take the soul of a companion if they die. However, being a spirit means you’ll be tethered to the elements of this world, and bound to your contractor, in this case Thomas. You aren’t cheating death, nor are you going to become immortal. Your fate will be tied and intertwined with your master, that is all.” Lorina said.

She did not dress the truth to make it kinder. She watched Thomas as she spoke, the way a healer watches a patient decide whether to live with a scar. Her hands folded at her waist, fingers stained faintly green from the living wood she worked.

“Hmm, I don’t see any downsides to it then,” Thomas said.

His grin came back, smaller, honest. The flicker along his shoulders calmed. He turned his head, testing the way sound left his mouth and returned to the room. It returned cleanly this time.

“Then good, I’ll have you follow me then, the process will take multiple days, and I don’t think Ludwig has free time right now.”

She glanced toward the vaulted passage that led deeper into the tree. The walls there held a darker green, the color of old growth. Whatever rites waited were not meant for hurried feet.

“Then this is where we part ways Thomas,” Ludwig nodded to Lorina, it was a good break, but I still have much more to do.”

“I’ll ask the guard captain to escort you to where you need to be. I was informed by your regiment’s commander of the happenings in the forest, and we already located the Sand people’s base of operations. Follow her, and deal with them however you see fit. Regarding some other matters, if you happen to deploy further down the west… don’t fight the Envious Death. Not right now, not as you are, your level of existence is very lacking…” she said.

On the word lacking her eyes softened, apology without retreat. The wind from some higher vent slipped across the chamber, lifting a few pale motes and setting them down again.

Once again, the same words, ’Level of Existence’ mentioned.

They struck the same place in him each time, a quiet bruise. Not an insult, a measurement.

For Ludwig, he had his system and it told him his own Level, but that was a foreign concept for the people of Ikos, yet, they had something else they judged people by, this Level of Existence, it came from the mouth of many people now, including the Witch, Lorina, and once in passing by Titania, all of which, powerful people.

Different languages for the same height. His system gave him a number, these lands weighed presence and the way the world bent when one entered a room.

His level of existence basically translates to, ’You’re weak. Level up, kill more monsters’

He let the thought sit without heat. The work remained the work, named or not.

The memory of the notification of him needing to reach 200 popped in his mind again. How will he level up to 200 then before he fights the Envious Death?

The numbers slotted into place beside routes and rations in his planning. Western forest first. Sand later. The Envious Death last.

“Are there any… mobs, I mean monsters that you need taken care of along the path to the base of these invaders?”

The slip pricked the air. He kept his face still. The amulet’s cool steadied the small impatience that often followed questions he already knew the likely answer to.

Lorina tilted her head, “Not really, most inhabitants of the forest are friendly to the elves. You’ll only find hostile and aggressive creatures outside it, or within the sand desert. Why? Are you like the hero? You grow stronger by killing others?” she asked, her eyes looked doubtful.

The way she said hero tasted of iron, not praise. Reports had traveled. She watched him as if a single word could turn the room colder.

Ludwig realized that if he answered her with ’Yes’ things might get awkward.

He met her gaze and let a fraction of humor touch his mouth, the kind that made no promise.

“Wait, he can do that?” Ludwig feigned surprise.

He gave the line the lightness it required and no more, as if hearing gossip he had not cared to collect.

The mere reaction of Ludwig made Lorina take a deep sigh, “Yes, he can. And it’s horrible, for someone to simply absorb the lifework of another person. I’ve heard reports of him capturing powerful people, at first it was mere prisoners and some death row inmates, he killed them underneath the Sacrosanctum… and gained what he called Levels. A terrifying ability which simply disregards effort to give power without any drawbacks.”

Disgust did not roughen her words, restraint did. The name of that place darkened the air, as if the tree itself remembered old bruises from stories told beneath it. After all the Holy Order had a big hand in the toppling of the elven kingdom.

“No,” Ludwig shook his head, “I met him back at Solania,” Ludwig said.

The mountain light came back with the sentence, knife clear across stone and snow. He set the memory down where it belonged, a fact among facts.

“You did?” Her posture straightened by a degree. The room leaned forward with her.

“Yes, beat the shit out of him too. He may have grown in level and power, but he really is bad at fighting, any veteran soldier can take him out him if they put their minds to it. I believe that when he kills a person, he himself grows in terms of power, but not in fighting experience. He still needs to put in effort to make use of that power. Otherwise he’s no different than the Wrathful Death, although the Wrathful Death was far more monstrous and more powerful. It was nothing but a brute.”

He did not boast. He described a gap. The difference between numbers and hands that knew what to do when steel met bone.

“I see, that’s refreshing to hear, still why did you want to know if there were any monsters in the forest?” she asked.

Her voice eased, then returned to the earlier question, precise as a needle returning to a stitch. She had noticed the slip and followed its thread.

She circled back to the same question, Ludwig thought that she wanted to make sure that he too wasn’t a ’level up’ person.

He allowed the fairness of that prudence. Trust was a plant that took slow water.

“I wanted to test out the amulet and see its effects against the corruption of the Heart, but it’s fine if you don’t have any issues I’ll try it out in the desert when I get there,” he turned to Thomas and said, “Now for real, I have to go. Good luck on becoming a spirit.” Ludwig said.

He touched the vial lightly with two fingers. The quiet it lent him was noticeable even in speech. He gave Thomas a small nod a commander might give a companion before they entered different doors.

“Right,” Thomas said as he flew toward Lorina, “Now what should I do?”

He sounded eager, a little boy about to learn a dangerous trick. The fade at his edges calmed as he drew near her, as if the tree’s presence thickened him.

Lorina smiled to Thomas as she pressed on a nearby wooden wall. The tree opened up from inside, revealing what looked like a circular platform. “This should take you all the way to the bottom floor Ludwig, I wish you good luck.”

The wood parted without scrape. The platform within was grown, not built, rings of grain circling a smooth disk. A low rail had been coaxed from the same surface, a living curve that would hold a body steady. Somewhere below, hidden pulleys of root and will waited to lower him.

Ludwig nodded and walked into the elevator shaft, while Lorina was gesturing for Thomas to follow her.

The platform held his weight with a soft flex, then steadied. The chamber air changed, the faintest draft rising from below, cool and clean, scented with water and bark. He placed his palm to the rail and felt the tree’s slow pulse meet his own.

Just before the shaft’s door closed, Lorina turned to Ludwig and gave him one last bow as the doors closed.

It was not a court bow, more a promise to meet again. Thomas lifted a hand in a salute that tried to be cocky and ended up sincere. The living doors drew together. The green light narrowed to a blade, then to a line, then to nothing, and the platform began to descend with the quiet confidence of a world that had carried kings and children both and remembered how to lower each of them safely into the work that waited.