Deus Necros

Ludwig took a couple of deep breaths as he followed after the guard captain. The air tasted of wet clay and heated brass, a city’s breath pressed through narrow corridors and open courtyards where fountains whispered to keep stones from cracking. His steps held steady, yet his mind lagged behind, snagged on what had just clawed across his senses. He knew who she was. Not by name alone, but by the weight of that vision and the perfume of authority laced through it. The queen of the sand kingdom. The Lustful Death.

He replayed the vision and felt his jaw tighten. The trap had not been violent in the way he trained for. It had been a soft vise, a pressure that did not bruise the skin yet bruised the will. The notion of being incapable of escape felt absurd to him on instinct, and that was precisely why it troubled him. It had bypassed the parts of him that usually shrug off fear and pain. It spoke to a smaller, breathing piece that still remembered the rhythm of a pulse.

He rubbed his temple. The mask made the gesture clumsy, fingers striking the cupped hands that covered his eyes before finding a place to push. He exhaled through his teeth. The Mask of the Blind Witness always came with a price that could not be measured at first glance. It showed possibilities the way the desert shows water from a distance. Some mirages were lies. Some were lakes. On the off chance that this was the latter, he needed to prepare for thirst and drowning both.

If it was true, then the fault line ran through his current body. Not the Undead vessel that could float above the storm of feeling, but the Living Vessel that let heat through. This form pulled human threads back through him. Anger. Irritation that felt like grit under a lid. A quick spark of humor at the wrong time. Wrath most of all, since the crystalline heart of the Wrathful Death beat beside his own. It made fury clean and bright. It also left a door open for other emotions to walk in.

If the Lustful Death could work her influence through that door, then the scene the mask had thrown at him was not a grotesque fiction. It was a rehearsal, a preparation for what is to come. In that picture he was not an adversary. He was a tool. A toy. A body taught to obey a rhythm it could not refuse. Then soon discarded like the many broken toys before him. A consumable for her pleasure and hers alone then trash when it no longer works. The mere thought made Ludwig feel an itch he couldn’t find nor scratch.

He let the thought stand without flinching and moved on. He had not come to the desert to hunt her in her den. A kill would be beautiful, but beauty meant nothing if a city burned for it. Morde’Xander had been different. There had been a mountain range, wind like knives, nights that never ended, and five years of steady ruin. The peaks had paid the price, shaved in halves through decimation and destruction. Here the price would be people who did not know his name. Mothers and bakers. Children who chased shade. To start a war under palace windows would be idiocy, and idiocy was not what Necros demanded of him. Nor was it what he sought. He wasn’t a hero so he had no obligation to save anyone, but he wasn’t a villain and had no need to kill everyone.

There was also the second blade in the scabbard he could not ignore. Envy had left a long wound in this land. The Envious Death lived deep in the western deserts like a thorn that kept the wound open. The Witch of the Mare had placed a task in his hands, a simple sentence dressed as a favor. Take back what was stolen. Though it might sound simple, but it is anything but. Two Usurpers, and nasty ones at that too.

The priestess matched his stride and studied his silence. The guard captain felt it too. They did not pry. They mistook it for the weight of what had happened at the bridge, and that was acceptable. Let them be wrong in a way that kept them calm.

“Sir,” the priestess began, and stopped herself from saying his name. She looked ahead as if the road could overhear. “What is going on.”

“Nothing serious,” Ludwig replied. “Only thinking through some matters.”

“Think later,” the guard captain said. “We are inside the city.” He turned to a uniformed runner and jerked his chin toward the street. “Get us a carriage. We go to the royal palace at once. There is much to report.”

“We have one ready,” the runner said. He pointed to a low carriage waiting beneath a tiled awning at the harbor’s edge. The paint carried the sigil of the kingdom. A crescent moon resting above a sculpted dune. Simple lines. A pretty lie that looked like peace.

They climbed in. The harness clinked. The driver snapped the reins and the wheels bumped over seams in the stone. The captain of the ship smoothed his tunic as if that could polish salt stains out of the cloth.

“I do not think I am dressed for a meeting with royalty,” he muttered.

“I do not think we will be meeting any royalty,” the guard captain said. “The king is sick. We will see the chancellor. He handles the husk of the throne when the throne cannot speak.”

Streets widened and narrowed in turns that felt designed to confuse invaders. The palace rose where such things always rose, a heart planted in the city’s center. It wore its own walls and kept its own river of guards circling. The main road to the gate lay paved and clean, polished by wheels that mattered and by the absence of common feet. No crowd pressed here. No merchants lingered. It was a road made to inform one of one’s place.

The great doors opened as the carriage approached. No inquiry. No challenge. They were not being careless. They were being honest. Whatever passed through this mouth did not concern the teeth.

The axle hummed as they rolled beneath the arch. Ludwig felt the shift before he saw the message. The world pressed inward as if a vast beast had breathed in and forgotten to let the air out. The notification struck him like the dry crack of a split reed.

[Your Death Point has been saved]

You are in the presence of the Lustful Death.

You are currently far too weak to fight the Lustful Death alone.

Quest: Hidden in plain sight.

Difficulty: A.

Observe if capable, the Lustful Death, and gather information regarding her interest in the Kingdom of the Sand.

You are not to cause any deaths in the territory of the Lustful Death.

[Territory of the Lustful Death is currently limited to the Royal Sand Palace.]

If you are to kill anyone in her territory, Necros will not be able to claim their soul, and it will go to the Lustful Death instead, giving her more power. The Lustful Death will notice a death in her domain and will be able to investigate. Upon discovery of your relationship with Necros, you will fail your quest.

To assist you in your current Quest, Necros has given you a new power.

[You have obtained a new skill]

[Termination]

Quest Rewards for success:

Shard of Darkness.

Lead on how to begin your Quest of Existence II.

Failing the Quest will result in the immediate return to the Death Point and repeat of this quest. The quest cannot be refused.

[Gate of the Royal Sand Palace.]

The text faded. The echo of it did not. He blinked under the mask as if that could shake the grit out of his head. A granted skill before a task was complete had never happened to him. He read the description and felt a wry sound want to escape his throat.

[Termination: immediate death of the caster. Can be used without cooldown.]

His lips twitched. It was not a joke. It was a rope tied to a ceiling beam. A clean exit when there could be no exit. Useful, honest, and irritating. Necros had not given him a weapon. Necros had given him a door.

The carriage rattled to a stop inside the first courtyard. The air here was cooler. Palm fronds whispered. Guards shifted their weight and did not meet his face.

“This will be a greater hassle than I hoped,” Ludwig murmured. He set his feet on the stones and stood. The palace watched with the patience of a spider. He adjusted the lay of the mask, felt the lantern settle against his hip, and counted his breaths. Observe. Do not kill. Do not be killed. Learn why the queen wanted the kingdom to pulse to her rhythm. Live long enough to make that knowledge matter.