Chương 146: Chapter 167: You already know Druse.

Fifth bell. Midmorning. Sun is high, but it's not too warm yet, not this time of year. Late Autumnrise, reasonably warm at these latitudes. I step out of a portal thirty feet above the ground, floating out of the white beam with my gown rustling around me. I'm going to be meeting the Aumerje elite today, the highest-ranking members of the High Chantry. Forget the duke or the central family, this is the real power. I'm not dressed for impressing them with my decorum and protocol.

There's only two ways to impress the High Chantry. Either through rigid decorum and enthusiastic adherence to protocol, or by blowing shit up real good. My dress today is hard-wearing and simple in its profile, unfashionable but still striking. The wind presses waves into my skirt. I glance to the north, the road. Dust is pouring up into the sky, and two dozen carriages are flying along these poorly-maintained roads.

This is probably absolute hell on the passengers if they do not have some really incredible suspension. It's a bit of a flashback for me, these carriages are almost identical to the ones that kidnapped my family and I when I was ten years old. Meadwhite the lich sent that one with a forged note to get us inside. Basically a self-driving automobile. I'm betting the magisters have doors that lock from the inside though, that's the key difference.

In either case, these are the best way to get around if you need to cross hundreds of miles in just a few days in Hearstwhile. I gave them three days to cross almost four thousand miles. They have not had time to step out for the restroom. Was that a power play on my part to humble them and make them work on my schedule? Partly. But here's the thing about the Aumerje. They're total assholes. But for the most part, they really do understand and appreciate a good power play.

Making someone scramble to keep up is a way to flex your power over them. But it only works if the people you're flexing on want what you have enough to cooperate. And if this is the chance to really stick it to the Freckentops, they're 100% on board. Freckentop runs the Dominionist faction. Harigold is chief of the Development faction. But Aumerje is the first name to find in the Independent faction. They've got a lot invested in seeing the Freckentops and the Dominionists taken down a peg.

So knowing exactly when and how to bully them is an important skill to develop. The alternative is learning how to deal with getting bullied by them. Fortunately I'm a leg up on everyone else. This world has never known doctors that would leave you in the waiting room for two hours just to remind you who's important here. So, these guys are amateurs by American standards.

Making them drive nonstop for two days to get here in time is just my way of reminding them that they should feel honored to be included in this opportunity. I figure if I can get my hand on the leash early, I can avoid about a a year's worth of stupid posturing and roadblocking. I mean, once they realize that I'm in an authoritative position they will start seeking to backstab, overthrow and plot against me, that's just their nature.

But the grief of being principal to them is nothing compared to the grief of being subordinate to them. The carriages skidded to a stop, grinding up weeds and chalky gravel under their iron-rimmed wheels. The carriages looked worn; lacquered wood is not meant to drive itself at freeway speeds all day and all night. I would bet those iron wheelrims are hot to the touch.

I hang in the air, skirts sifting around my legs, hair sifting around my waist, while I wait for the mages inside to get their shit together and stumble out. I can tell that they are not asleep inside, my affinity to fabrics tells me they are moving around rather a lot inside those cabins. It's windy out, I position myself so the wind is to my face. I like the feeling of long hair, and have never even allowed my bangs cut. But I hate the feeling of long hair against my face.

Pinned back, tied back, braided, bunned, or just held in place with magic. The wind is blowing towards the tower, so I hover with my back to it, facing the carriages. When I can't see my hair, I can still pretend it's red. Periodically I turn and check the tower to make sure that everything is still in place. I would be pissed if everything fell apart while these dumbasses just parked on the road tying their shoes and- They're making me wait to pay back the insult of making them hurry. I rolled my eyes.

Of course they are. They've been losing this game of stupid petty posturing, so they're trying to claw back their dignity by making me wait on them. I threw a gale force wind against the carriages, rocking them on their wheels and sliding a few feet across the gravel. Then, I started heating things up. Half a minute later the doors were flung open and magisters were stumbling out, still beating at their legs to get the pins and needles out.

They are wearing clean robes that look like they were tightly folded just a few minutes ago- floor-length vestments of black and red with wide conjurer's sleeves and a deep V-neck collar that revealed sweat-stained undershirts or, in one case, a pajama top. They had no trouble sorting out which of them was in charge. A chestnut-skinned man with a phenomenal pink beard and a pointy hat strode to the front.

"I am the Grand High Master of the Triangle of Justice, and -""I was supposed to be meeting a High Grandmaster," I said.

"How did you get tapped instead?"

"The High Grandmaster was in the midst of meditations and could not be disturbed," The Grand High Master of the Triangle of Justice said with a smirk.

"In any case, this is rightfully my domain. The Triangle of Justice is responsible for-""I don't care," I told him.

"You know I don't care. Let's wrap this quick. There's an inn four miles east, you can get a bath and a bed there, as soon as this is done. Would you rather get to that inn sooner, or later? I'm missing class for this." Partially true. My fifth-bell class is Natural Philosophy, a class I'm more qualified to teach than to study. Ryichsur has been true to his word, marking me down for perfect grades whether I attend or not. Almost makes up for that crap he pulled on the first day of class.

The Grand High Master puffs himself up.

"I think we could at least do with introductions and presentations. It will be required later when we need to document all of these proceedings. I am, as I said, the Grand High Master of the Triangle of Justice, the Guardian of the Fifth Veil, Bequeather of the Mirror of Mystery and Disciple of the Tower Chantry. To my left is the Hand of the Grand High Master, Sentinel of the Fifth Veil, Bequeathed of the Mirror of Mystery and Loyal Disciple of the Tower Chantry.

To her left is the Lord High Master of the Triangle of Justice, Burgeon of the Fifth Veil, Bearer of the Mirror of Mystery, and Faithful Disciple of the Tower Chantry. To her left, again, is the High Lord Master of the Triangle of Jurisprudence, Bringer of the Fifth Veil, Apple of the Nine Wisdoms, and Faithful Disciple of the Tower Chantry.

To his side now is the Architect Supreme of the Hall of Records, New Document Final Final of the Lexical Archive, Mask of the Open Eyes and Faithful Disciple of the Tower Chantry. To her left is the Architect Penultimate of the Wandering Star, Tesseract of Divine Fire Within, and Obedient Disciple of the Tower Chantry. Oh, and I believe you already know Druse."

"Hi Druse."

"Hello again Lady Natalie."

"Awesome. Grand, Hand, Burgeon, Apple, Records, Penultimate, and Druse. Brilliant. Grand to meet all of you. Now let's go get-" The Grand High Master raised his hands, palms-out, with an expression of benevolent and patient wisdom on his face that had my teeth grating.

"As we understand the summons," he said, to be a pain in my ass to get his sense of power back, "we are called here to not only find and destroy a necromancer and his works-""Her works," I corrected. People like to assume necromancers are men. It's not like necromantress is even a word.

"-her works," he amended, "and end the plague of death magic across the lands, but also to find documents or other evidence that would indicate who has sponsored and assisted this necromancer, how h-she was able to move as freely as she did, and what motivated her to commit these crimes. There is already a logged public allegation made, but now it is time for the duly authorized representatives of the Tower Chantry to resolve this for the benefit of the kingdom.

And as representatives of the magister's college, it is our duty to support magic and learning in all forms, and to -" This was a rehearsed speech. I groaned, and floated myself higher to avoid a case of contact pomposity. But when I saw the dust, I realized what was about to happen, and with a smile I drifted back downwards.

"- and with that glory of justice peering through the veil of misdirection, a third veil if I may, then we may find that-" Man, this guy was something else.

"Good news, there's about to be twice as much glory for the magister's college," I said.

"Wha?" gasped the Hand, who was actually held rapt by the Grand's speech"Another caravan of magic carriages on the way, making top speed. They'll be here in about fifteen minutes, and then we'll have twice as many magisters to defeat the necromancer and find evidence who sent her." The Grand gulped in terror. His greatest fear had been brought forth: being forced to share credit that he was already stealing from someone else.

"I think all the rest of the speeches can wait until after the pragmatic matters have been attended to," he said. He now had a fifteen-minute window to steal all the credit before the High Grandmaster showed up to upstage him. He took a deep breath for concentration, and let it out slow, with a harsh noise as his eyes unfocused.

"The tower is warded against wizardry," I told him.

"Ah hells," he snapped.

"I ought to just blast this thing to smithereens! Who would ward it against wizardry?!"

"This was an outpost tower," I told him.

"The college of magisters warded it." The tower itself was ancient, and crooked, bleached as white as a new tooth and slightly curved first one way then the other, giving it a slightly bowed shape like a tusk that tapered from its thick base to pointed tip. Lights shone out the windows near the top, a beacon streaming out into the midmorning. Credit where it's due, the magister's college still makes some damn fine combat casters, even with their vast wizardry ruled out.

As soon as they wrenched open the front door of the tower, grotesque monsters began streaming at them. With staffs leveled, the magisters began delivering arcane destruction. I was impressed not only by the power they brought and the rapidity, but the control. Nothing that wasn't meant to be burnt was burned, nothing that wasn't meant to be pierced was impaled.

Their staffs flung icicles and sprays of flame and globs of acid and weirder forms of energy, and each one sliced or crushed or disintegrated the necromantic bastardizations that flooded the interior. I floated along behind them, and listened to them bantering jocularly about the good old days.

"Oh ho! If the magisters of old could see us now! Great job with that Zazzinar's Zigzagging Zap, High Lord Master of the Triangle of Jurisprudence, Bringer of the Fifth Veil, Apple of the Nine Wisdoms, and Faithful Disciple of the Tower Chantry! That's what they would say!"

"I rather think that if the magisters of old could see us now, they would wonder how they themselves had been brought beyond the realm of death and demand to know what necromancy animated them."

"Oh, tosh, you know what I mean! They would be delighted at the work we're doing!"

"Not if they were pulled from the ether and enslaved to the world from beyond the grave."

"That's not what I mean! It's just an expression!"

"No, it's an idiom. This is an expression."

"Put your tongue away, dolt! We have Wrinklebone Revenants to destroy! Oh ho!" If you have the knowledge of the Freckentop conspiracy you can recruit the magisters for this battle right up to the last minute. If you don't have that knowledge, you need to request their assistance a month in advance and there's a lot of work that goes into proving you deserve their help. And if you try this tower without their assistance, it's an absolute pain in the ass.

Each of the monsters is low Strength but high Damage, but you need the right sequence of attack, block, and present holy items to make it through each fight. Each time you get it wrong you take from three to seven points of damage, and because they're all low-power you get zero XP for any of the battles. But if you recruit the magisters, they just mow down all the monsters. My stroke of luck was that I got the event where two groups show up and you can play them off each other.

Most of the lower levels were just empty rooms for monsters to fill up and attack. It looked like a plain warehouse of undead horrors to lurk in, sometimes pressed shoulder-to-shoulder in tight ranks. In some rooms the aberrations seemed to have started as humans, and we sometimes found coffins in the aftermath. But more often the creature-features were animal in origin, just whatever bodies or bones were laying around on short notice.

There was a human skeleton attached to five screaming specters, all running straight at us. A cackling mutated ghoul clutching a plank of wood like a lover tried to bite the Burgeon and would not die until the plank was destroyed. Spider-things like the ones I had shown off to Nathan. A zombie rat that was decaying so rapidly and restoring itself so rapidly that it looked swollen and stuffed up, shedding a constant stream of rotted organs and stinking ichor.

A half of a skeletal deer that crawled at us laying upside down, its antlers moving like spider's legs. A cloud of dead flies that whipped around in a dusty whirlwind that looked like it was trying to say something before it got lit up. I used to know the names of all these things. Now I don't even bother selecting them.

I am in the middle of the climactic battle against the first boss monster and I'm having a hard time giving a shit, because my geography class is coming up next and today's the day we're matching each county in Meadowtam to its primary exports and I'm excited about this one. Following windbag wizards while they blow icky monsters into monstrous ick is just... gross. And tedious. I don't have the game insulating me from the sensations, and I don't have the novelty of doing this for the first time.

The magisters are all swept up in the excitement and uniqueness, but I know how it ends. Nothing to distract me from how fucking gross that rat really is. I can use wind and flower essences to try to screen out the smells, but some of these grave-bait monsters are so nasty that just looking at them makes it impossible not to know how they smell. It was only the last few floors that things started to change up. A storage room for spare furniture. A big workspace with pentacles and black candles.

Bedroom with attached bath. Paint studio. Home office.

"All right, here we go," I said.

"Wall safe behind the crooked painting, if you please." The Grand High Master glared at me but moved towards the painting, swishing it to the side to reveal: a wall safe just like I'd said. He tapped a few runes on his staff and tapped it against the door of the safe, and it sprung open. He glared at me as he reached in and snatched them out, and then started skimming. By the second page, his mouth was hanging open. He flipped two more sheets, and dropped his staff." Holy shit this has everything," he gaped.

"How is it all so blatant?! I'd be embarrassed if my affairs were this easily unraveled!" Yeah, that's because at this point Nathan would have fished through months of half-truths, suppositions, rumors, partial messages, coded notes and cryptic hints gasped out on a dying breath. By the time he gets here he has definitely earned a simple straightforward answer. We on the other hand skipped all of that and went straight to "wow this was just too easy!"

And I don't get any of the XP rewards for this because I don't have any classes with either Kiri Sizomaji or Curigi Ghant to have given me the dialogue to start the quest. Which is why I wanted this to be his catch instead of mine. But that's okay. I'm still gonna make this fun for me. I leaned out a window, carefully. There was a woman above us on the balcony there, holding onto a piece of string that was being pulled by a strong wind, feeding it out gently, with a look of great concentration on her face.

She wore mage's robes, a shimmery velvet black with deep yellow undertones, like forest fungus in deep shadow. She was right next to the window, facing out. I eased back in, and blew out a nervous breath, cheeks puffing.

"The necromancer's one floor up," I said.

"She's dangerous. Tougher than you expect, and trickier. The least of her spells is lethal, and the worse ones will not only kill you but turn you into a monster against us. This is the fight of your lives, the stakes are never higher. Do you understand?" They said yes by rote, but they were obviously hesitating.

"Someone once told me that if you live a coward's life, you will earn a coward's death. But a coward's death is sixty years from now, peaceful in bed surrounded by wealth and loved ones," I said, and started channeling steel now.

"Cover your ears." Thunder blasted through the room, knocking books off of shelves, sifting dust down from the ceiling. Most of the magisters either dropped to the floor out of terror or fell over out of surprise. The whole place quivered like an earthquake, and the air seemed frozen in the aftermath, a tension like this could all happen again. The shock was palpable, but I was relaxed and nonchalant.

"WHAT THE SHIT" bellowed the Grand High Master of the Triangle of Justice, the Guardian of the Fifth Veil, Bequeather of the Mirror of Mystery and Disciple of the Tower Chantry. He was on the floor under the heaviest desk, hands folded over the back of his neck.

"You guys get the paperwork, but I wanted the necromancer," I said.

"That seems fair. C'mon, let's check out the aftermath." I turned on my heel, and opened the door to the next stairwell leading up. They were still pulling themselves together when I came to the top level, the observatory. Huge round room, great lighting, lots of mysterious bric-a-brac, chandeliers that could swing dramatically. It's an awesome room for a boss battle.

Right now it looks like a tornado might have squeezed itself in through one window, run riot in here for a few minutes, and then escaped through all the rest of the big spacious windows that are completely stripped of all glass right now. There are a pair of boots on the floor next to one window, standing upright, facing towards an open window. Dark, ominous boots. Velveteen, with yellow undertones.

"The fuck happened here?" The Grand High Master of the Triangle of Justice, the Guardian of the Fifth Veil, Bequeather of the Mirror of Mystery and Disciple of the Tower Chantry asked from behind me.

"Those boots belonged to the Cachexia," I said.

"The necromancer. She's dead now." The floor was marked with a faint red stain, spreading in a wedge shape. Narrow near the boots, wide near the far wall.

"Why isn't she wearing her boots?" asked the Grand High Master of the Triangle of Justice, the Guardian of the Fifth Veil, Bequeather of the Mirror of Mystery and Disciple of the Tower Chantry.

"If you look closely, I think you'll find that she still is," I said blandly, gesturing." Oh."

"Yyyyyyep," I said with a smug self-satisfied smirk.

"I've had that singularity building for about twenty minutes now. Sure was windy when you guys pulled up, right?" And it was still as a painting now, except for fluttering scraps of paper that were drifting slowly downwards. Sure, the blast was about fifty feet away from outside the tower. And it was all air-burst, almost all compressible materials, and that really lowered the overpressure impact from the release.

But twenty minutes is a hell of a long time to let even a weak event horizon consume the local atmosphere and store it up for one climactic release. Much easier than dealing with an enemy that has a ton of HP, heals herself, inflicts status effects and summons minions. I got 5XP for killing a boss enemy. Why do I keep killing enemies off-screen? Easy. Because my life is so much better now that I've stopped giving people a fair fight. Magister Braux handed me my ass and almost put me in the ground.

The barbarians priests almost killed all of us when we fought them on level ground. But killing someone, safely, efficiently, effectively? That's much safer, and much easier. It's anticlimactic, maybe even a little bit of a letdown. But going into a life-or-death battle against an opponent that's stronger than you? Save that for a video game where you've got a recent save slot. I can't save the world if I don't save myself first. The mages here seemed even more annoyed by it than I expected. I had a fix for that.

"I'll let you tell the High Grandmaster it was your idea," I said. That got a great big smile.