Deus Necros

The opening had a stone made staircase that led down, without a torch or any source of light, anyone would have trouble seeing where they’d be stepping. The first breath tasted of old lime and the cool of places that never saw the sun. Dust clung to the throat like a thin cloth. The steps were narrow but deep, built for feet that knew how to place weight with care. The walls pressed close enough that the scrape of cloth could have been a hand.

But just as Ludwig took the third step, the ceiling seemed to react. Some form of fluorescent light balls began emitting dim faint light that began illuminating the square corridor leading further forward. They woke one by one, as if his presence roused them from an obedient sleep, and their glow was not fire but a soft milk-blue that pooled in shallow bowls along the ceiling. The light made the stone sweat with a sheen and threw long, even shadows that behaved like quiet sentries. In that pale glow the dust motes rose and fell like a slow snowfall turned sideways.

Misty followed after Ludwig, her suitcase in hand, and her eyes peeled for any danger. The leather of the case sighed against her palm. Her steps were silent, but the chain hidden inside gave the faintest murmur when she shifted her grip. For Titania to be just this far into the desert and not report must mean that something bad had happened. The thought lived behind her eyes and sat the corners of her mouth lower than usual. She checked each side alcove, measured the width of the corridor with a glance, and kept the compass tucked into her sleeve though it was of no use down here. The needle had gone still above, and stillness felt wrong now.

This wasn’t a close distance to the camp, but at the same time wasn’t that far. Titania could have cleared this distance within one to two days. But something isn’t right, and as if the altar agreed it shuddered, sand and dust fell from the ceiling giving off the vibe that the whole thing might come down in any given moment. The tremor ran along the stair and through Ludwig’s boots, a long patient groan, the sound of ancient joints remembering they were old. Grains slipped off ledges and pattered onto shoulders and hair. The air smelled briefly of dry stone struck together, a scent like old bone.

[You have entered the Forgotten Altar of the Moon]

[Empty Dungeon]

You’re afflicted with the Curse of the Godless

All divine interventions will be suppressed.

[Necros’s Blessing activated!]

[You have resisted the Curse of the Godless]

[Your death point has been saved to, Entrance of the Altar of the Moon]

The moment these words lit up in front of Ludwig’s face, he pressed his ring. The thin metal cooled under his thumb as if it knew what he meant to ask of it. The message sat clear and cold in his mind. The moment the death point was set, was the moment Ludwig knew that this place harbored a great deal of danger.

“Are you going to use Nightbreaker?” the Knight King on Ludwig’s shoulder asked. The old voice was careful. And wary at the same time, not of fear but from caution.

Ludwig hesitated for a second, “It’ll bring the whole cave down…” The picture came at once. One swing. A white bite of light. The ceiling surrendering all at once. The desert pouring in like an ocean without mercy. Too much risk, and too little value.

“What will?” Misty heard it, being used to operate alone Ludwig spoke his words out loud. Her head tilted only a fraction. She did not press with questions, but her attention sharpened.

“A weapon I have, I’ll have to use something less flashy,” Ludwig said as he drew Durandal instead. The blade came free with the soft sound of something waking that had already been awake. Its edge drank the blue light and returned a line thin as a thought. He anchored his breath to its weight in his hand and let the familiarity steady his pulse.

“By the way,” Ludwig turned to Misty who didn’t seem to even sense the affliction she was struck with. Her posture had not changed. Her shoulders were set for work, not prayer.

“Can you use your divine powers?” Ludwig asked. He kept his tone neutral, but he watched her hands.

“I don’t have those,” she shook her head. She said it like one says I do not keep a dog, the simple truth of a house.

“What do you mean? Aren’t you a nun of the church?” His eyes moved to the hems of her robe, to the little charms stitched into the lining, and to the way she wore the weight of her case without thinking about it.

“Not a nun, I’m a paladin,” she smiled. The smile did not reach her eyes. It rested there because she had put it there for him, to soften the word.

Ludwig looked at her clearly clerical robes and frowned. The cloth was clean and blessed, but under it muscle and temper belonged to a fighter. He had seen that in the way she moved, and in how she had taken a punch back on the wall like it was a greeting. But to be told directly was quite the experience.

She tapped her suitcase once, “I just don’t like wearing the heavy metal armor.” The tap made the faintest ring inside, a sleeping bell.

“I see, but you can use some holy powers?” Ludwig asked. He looked past her at the glowing bowls along the ceiling.

“I mean, I can do basic healing and purification, why?” She flexed the fingers of her right hand as if already feeling for the shape of a simple benediction.

“Can you try and conjure any of them?” he asked. He wanted to feel the place push back, to hear what kind of denial the altar gave.

“Sure,” she said, skeptical at first from his strange request, but Ludwig has always been strange. She set her feet, not for casting but out of habit, a soldier’s balance.

However, the moment she tried to use a holy spell, her face contorted, she tried again, but barely a flimsy spark of golden light jumped from the tip of her finger before it died out. The dying light smelled like clean linen left too long in a chest. It left nothing on the stone. It left the air a little sad.

“What is going on?” she asked. Her voice flattened to keep anger from riding it.

“This whole place is a trap for anyone that uses divine power…” he said as he looked around. The carvings along the wall had the tight cursive of a ritual meant to exclude. There were crescents and eyes and the long beaks of things that stole offerings. “Instead,” he opened his palm, “Fire ball.” He did not whisper. He did not need to.

And the spell immediately manifested. Heat gathered with an obedient weight, shifted against his palm, and floated there like a small tame sun. It painted the stone with a warmer color and sent shadows running a little away from him. The flame tasted of good sulfur and his own mana. No resistance. No complaint.

“Seems like magic isn’t affected, it’s just holy energy…” he turned his face to the deeper part of the cave, “I have a bad feeling about this place. If Titania was there, without her holy energy…” The thought tightened in his chest and he let the amulet’s calm push against it. He imagined Titania facing this emptiness where her gifts should answer.

“We have to move,” Misty, for the first time since Ludwig ever met her had a serious look on her face. The play had drained from her mouth. She looked not like a girl but like a hammer waiting for a hand.

“You should probably stay here,” Ludwig said. He did not soften it. The place would not tolerate kindness if it slowed them by a breath.

“No! I have to go, she might be in trouble.” She set her feet closer together and let the suitcase fall to the stone. The sound was a modest thud that carried promise.

“You can’t use your holy energy anyway,” Ludwig said, aiming for mostly to keep her away from him, as he could perhaps find himself in a situation where he needs to use dark magic, the last thing he’ll want is The Holy Order’s eyes seeing it. He kept his eyes on hers and let the weight of the words do work.

“I told you I’m a paladin, having no holy powers doesn’t make me any weaker, just less efficient. But that’s fine,” she said as she opened her suitcase, a massive anchor of silver and gold plating revealed itself from inside. The metal was clean and scarred at the same time, edges polished by use rather than vanity. She wrapped one cuff on her hand, the cuff held a chain which attached itself to the bottom of the anchor. The chain spoke low on the stone, a heavy whisper. The cuff clicked home around her wrist and bit once like a tame animal testing its master.

Ludwig smiled, after all, Durandal was similar, a chain attached weapon. The memory of the arc and pull of it ran down his arm. There was comfort in tools that came back when called.

“You have one of those I see.” Ludwig smiled. He let the approval sit plainly in his voice. Praise was a kind of oil for stubborn machinery.

“I saw you use it before, and liked the technique, it’s quite hard to control at times, but very good to retrieve the weapon if I need to bash someone’s skull from far away, she said. She spun the anchor once on its short leash to wake her arm to the weight, then settled it on her shoulder with care where it would not catch the light too much.

“And from the looks of it, we’ll probably be doing just that in this Godless Place.” Ludwig said.