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96. Central Tent
🕑 Added 2024-02-29 15:00:07 +0000 UTCOz hurried along, passing the trundling zombies along as he strode toward the tent in the center of the necromancer’s camp. As he walked, he cast concerned glances at the black pool behind him. The surface remained still, not a single ripple breaking the thick surface.
Use your qi. You’ll be able to sense them coming, Fflyn advised.
Oh, right. Oz extended his qi toward the pond.
A black disc greeted his senses. His qi failed to penetrate the surface of the liquid. In his qi sense, the black water remained as inscrutable as it did to his eyes.
Well, it was a good thought, Fflyn muttered to himself.
It was a good thought. But whatever that fluid is, it’s way higher level than us, Oz said. He twisted his lips and shook his head. This whole space is high level. It’s dangerous. I need to be careful. See what I need to see, and get out.
The central tent soared over him. From his perspective, it grew taller and taller as he approached it. He put his hands on his hips. Fflyn, you’re too short. This thing’s not that big. You’re just too small.
Hey! That thing is huge. It’s not my fault. Also, you aren’t that much taller than me!
Oz chuckled under his breath. I’m just playing with you.
As they drew close, smaller tents appeared around them, blocking off their sight of the main tent. Oz peered inside the nearest one, curious.
A cool breeze blew from the tent flap. Inside, a blue crystal stood in the center of the room, radiating icy energy. Frost spiderwebbed over the inside of the tent, icicles dripping from the poles. Dead bodies piled up, one on top of another, stacked like logs. Ice rimed their eyelids and lips, feathering their clothes and fingertips. Open, frozen eyeballs stared at nothing, stiff and empty.
Are they making ice-themed undead? Or are these merely the unprocessed bodies, kept in cold storage until it’s time to become zombies? Either way, this is a bad sign. Oz ducked away from the flap. He checked the other few tents around him, but found the same frozen bodies, the same blue crystals. I’m in cold storage, it seems. If all these tents are cold storage, then there are even more zombies here than it looked like from above.
The necromancer murdered this entire region. There’s no one left alive. Those who were turned into puppet gatekeepers can honestly be considered the lucky ones; the only other option was to become some kind of undead.
Fuck. This is so much damn bad news. I don’t even know how we’re going to go about handling it. “Hey guys, we found a necromancer, and uh, he’s already established an entire huge camp full of undead right under your nose and you haven’t noticed because someone’s fudging the numbers and, I don’t know, there’s probably some sort of glamour on this region…” fuck, man. Who’s going to believe me?
Man. I really need to find some solid evidence. Something they can’t ignore, no matter how outrageous my story sounds. Because damn, my story is going to sound outrageous.
The white flank of the enormous central tent rose up to his right. He touched the surface of the fabric. Feels normal. Doesn’t seem to be cold.
Oz glanced down, but the tent went all the way to the ground, the fabric wrapping around to form a floor. How modern of them.
Modern? I’ve never heard of a tent with a fabric floor, Fflyn commented.
Right. It’s, you know. A recent development. For stealth and stuff. To himself, Oz added, It’s really reminiscent of tents from my world, but then, it’s not like I can immediately assume it’s an otherworldly invention. It’s not like ‘adding a floor to tents’ is some kind of impossible invention that couldn’t be replicated anywhere in the multiverse. If anything, it’s the kind of thing that almost seems like a normal alternative reality, for people in this world to have come up with floored tents early.
He walked around the wall of the tent. The door gaped at last, a huge flap that hung open from about a quarter of the way up the tent, large enough for two elephants to walk through shoulder to shoulder. He edged around the corner of the door, barely peeping through.
A massive dark space spread before him. The only light came from the narrow ring of space around the central pole. Pierced through the shoulder with the central pole, a giant man slumped, large enough to fill almost the entire tent.
Although the giant slumped, lifeless, he appeared as though he’d jump to life at a moment, his cheeks rosy, his skin soft. Rather than a hideous, monstrous thing, he appeared as a mage, incredibly handsome and dressed in fine white-and-gold robes. Long, pale hair draped over his body, his hands draped in his pocket. The wolf’s blood dripped down the pole slowly and sunk into the giant’s body, staining his robes red at the shoulder where the pole met his body.
Oz stared. That’s…not what I was expecting. Is this the necromancer? But he’s unconscious. Er, dead. Er…something, anyways. Or is the mage from the city trying to revive this necromancer? But they’re dead. And also I don’t know who they are.
No, that’s not anyone I recognize, Fflyn confirmed.
Huh.
Footsteps sounded from behind him. Oz startled, then darted into the tent. The flap fell back in on itself, and he tucked himself into the flap’s fabric. The glamour should make me invisible, but just to be sure!
The footsteps grew closer, and a woman stepped into the tent. Broad shoulders and a muscular build, a harsh face, a stern expression. Brown hair spilled over her shoulders, dark eyes gazing into the darkness. Oz’s brows furrowed. She looks familiar. But why…? Where do I recognize her from?
She drew close to the giant and paused. Slowly, her head tilted up, and she gazed up at the enormous being. Longing filled her eyes, a longing so intense that even Oz couldn’t help touch his own chest. A void. There’s an emptiness in her eyes. Something she longs for so intensely she forgets everything else.
Could it be? This man…is she willing to throw it all away for him? In looking at the macro explanations, did I forget one of the most potent ones of all: love?
But no. The way she looks at him is more like religious devotion than love.
Religious…devotion— Oz’s head snapped up. No way.
The woman approached the man. She pushed off the ground and glided to his shoulder, gently touching his cheek. Gently, she whispered, “Naomhan. Please, wake up.”
Holy shit. Naomhan—that’s the name of the founder of the exorcist sect. The one who’s sleeping. And that woman, I knew I’d seen her somewhere! She’s that bitch. The hardline paladin who came to the library door with a whole mob of exorcists. The same woman who wanted me to kill Linnea for no other reason than that she was a demon—is she the necromancer?
