An Acolyte of Zero

Chapter Twelve

The Academy was floating.

Icebergs tied by chains floated around it, as the entire complex pulsed with necromantic energies that lifted her spirits beyond comprehension. The ground where the Academy had been was now nothing more than a giant hole, where a lake of putrid green water collected.

"Master," Louis said as she appeared in a flash of green in the courtyard of the now flying Academy. "Welcome back," he bowed deeply.

"Louis? The Academy is floating," she pointed out.

"Oh, yes. I found the upgrade button to be quite difficult to please but, in the end, it happened to yield," Louis acquiesced with a knowing nod.

Louise blinked. "Upgrade button?"

"Necropolis, Halls of the Dead, Black Citadel…the first is the basic form which can then be upgraded. Apparently this Academy had an upgrade available."

"So, now it floats?"

"It also moves, master," Louis remarked. "And fires," he added after a moment. "Albeit it is frankly a surprise it can move."

"So…this is a Black Citadel?"

She looked around the courtyard, taking in the subtle differences. There was no grass, but black marble tiles replaced the rotten ground. The walls were shining onyx, with pale teal faces of souls moaning through them as if they stood trapped within. Bone spikes and jet-black now surrounded each of the towers, once white and with a shining coloured symbol to specify its elemental side.

Atop them stood purple gems the size of carriages, and surrounding the gems, more souls moaned their pain and suffering.

Necromantic energies flowed freely around the walls and the air itself was thick with the smell of death and rot. Somehow, she felt at home.

That thought disturbed her more than anything else did.

"No, master. It is…something else. I cannot describe it. It resembles Dalaran, if the city ever were to decide to float for some reason. This should not normally be possible to achieve but…apparently, we satisfied the requisites for it."

"Like what? And where is Henrietta now?"

"I believe it required incredible amounts of resources and magical artefacts…or maybe your own powers, master, were sufficient. Why, I know of the Lich King's might in resurrecting an ancient blue dragon for his own purpose…maybe this is just an extension of your true self?"

She looked around the moaning and screaming souls that pleaded mercy in their strange tongues and shuddered. "I don't actually like all this black," she muttered softly.

"The Lich is, by the way, occupied summoning the new recruits."

"Recruits?"

"We have unlocked the Temple of the Damned, master. Necromancers can now be summoned as well as Banshees."

"Wait, you aren't a Necromancer to begin with?"

"I'm an Acolyte master. Necromancers have the power to command various types of Undead and even spread the undead plague as well. They can raise the dead to fight for our cause, cause an unholy frenzy in both the enemy and our troops, and Cripple the enemy drastically."

Louise began to walk inside, Louis followed quietly.

"Louis, do you think we can now assault the Capital? The Queen is not present there, but as to where she could be…"

"Master, I have gleamed upon the land and come to a conclusion. There are only three more battles between us and the completion of the campaign. One battle will take place upon the lands of your family, one will take place upon the Capital and the last one will be on the lands of the Gramont. The only thing I ask master is where shall the Scourge move first."

Louise exhaled; the hallways of the Academy now twisted into ice and bone mockeries of what they once had been menacingly glinted at her. She remembered the halls filled with life and the cheerful talking of the students, but now there was only death, cold breezes, and strange bearded people wearing horned skulls on their heads.

"The restless dead await," one spoke gravely, bowing to her as she passed by.

"The shadows beckon," another remarked as he opened the doors for her. She arrived in the general quarters, what once had been the lobby of the Academy now was a full-out strategic hall, filled with maps and…

Henrietta was holding an orb within her hands, which floated gently up and down in front of the Lich. Her cold eyes settled from the orb to her, and she bowed deeply at her entrance.

"Master," she hissed. "I have news. Some escaped," she remarked dryly. "Some, you let go."

Louise's gaze narrowed darkly. "It was my choice."

"I obey," Henrietta replied. "But we all bow to the will of Ner'zhul."

"You all bow to my will here," she hissed back. "Do not forget it." She stepped closer, eying the maps. The dots of blight were expanding, as tiny green circles showed where Necropolis and Crypts were.

Some flared red for a moment, before disappearing completely along the path from La Gramont to the Capital.

"What is this about?" she asked, pointing at the red arrow that was apparently heading towards the capital.

"The enemy's flying units," Louis spoke gravely. "They are sending a relief team to the Capital. We have not yet unlocked our Gargoyles, albeit I'm sure attacking the Gramont lands will unlock them. It would be optimal to do so now, with much of their strength elsewhere."

"Uhm…what of the Queen?"

"Master, if what I gleamed from your thoughts is true, then she is here," Louis pointed at the La Gramont fortified citadel, "Or she is here," and with that, his finger went to the La Vallière lands.

"Which should we attack first, Louis?"

"If we attack the La Gramont, they will lose their supplies and their flying units most certainly. If we attack the la Vallière lands, they will not harness enough foot soldiers to stop us."

"What of the cavalry and the musket corps?"

"Master, I have no insight on where they might be," Louis admitted quietly. "They might be further to the North, closer to Germania."

"That would mean near the la Vallière," Louise whispered back. "We don't have enough units yet, do we? No, it's better to take away their flying units, whatever you mean with that." She pointed at La Gramont.

"Make sure the Acolytes expand the net of Necropolis. You said this thing could move? Then start moving it towards the La Gramont." She looked at the closest green dot. "I will rest for now, but when I wake up I will personally head towards the battlefield."

"Master, what of the mages' corpses we acquired?" Louis said carefully.

"Use them for the Scourge, of course," she retorted. "Deploy them to stall the La Vallière army from marching towards the Capital. They are expendable," she added. "But if they manage to hold…then I will reward them personally."

She didn't know with what, but then again those words always worked.

"Thy will be done, master," Louis bowed.

Louise left then, making her way to where once her room had been in the Academy. She entered the floor and was gobsmacked. The entire floor converted into a single, luscious and enormous bedroom, she lacked words to express her surprise. Louise carefully unclasped the buckles of her armour, letting the sword drop in the nearby weapon rack.

She removed her mantle and sighed as her fingers kept on trying to unfasten the belts and the metal links. She closed the distance with the mattress, dropping along the way everything else. She dropped face first on the soft bed, and within minutes, she was peacefully snoring.

Malicorne

He remembered the ice.

He remembered the cold embrace of death.

He remembered that he had pleaded for anything to save him, because he didn't want to die. Maybe he was being cowardly, but when a voice had answered, he had grasped onto it.

And he had breathed.

He felt something wrong in his body since then. He felt rotten, twisted, as if something that was supposed to be there no longer was. But when Guiche had all but finished declaring him dead, he had reappeared.

Alive, breathing, a bit covered in ice but not by much.

He had been so close to death, they had believed, that his heartbeat had simply stopped for a moment.

They never thought to ask how he could have freed himself from the ice itself.

He trembled slightly, as he gazed into the empty eyes of Montmorency who was carefully cradling her wand as if it was the most precious thing in the world. The forest was once more luscious, and as they kept on trekking through it, memories became clearer and clearer.

This was the direction for La Rochelle. Soon, they would be at the Gallian border.

He would follow quietly the rest of the group. His gaze however, that was fixed on a single object.

Miss Longueville and the black pack she was carrying with her.

The Staff of Destruction, wasn't it?

If it was as powerful as the myths and the legends said, then it had to fall in his hands.

Afterwards…he would deliver it to his master, and in exchange…maybe the power to become a Lich would be within his grasp?

"Malicorne! Ohi!" Guiche exclaimed. "You all right? Don't zone off like that!"

"Sorry," he meekly replied. "It's just…Reynald…"

"Yeah," Guiche exhaled. "To think the Zero did all this," he trudged on. "Miss Longueville, how far until we reach the border?"

"Two hours," she replied from ahead of the line. "You know you can all just levitate and leave me behind, right?"

"Never!" Guiche exclaimed, "It is the most sacred duty of a noble, to help the common people!" he then flashed a smile to the olive skinned maid, who blushed and looked sideways.

"Ah! If only all nobles were like you, Monsieur Gramont!" Marteau said loudly.

"Ah," Guiche nervously chuckled. "Now you're flattering me."

Malicorne remained quiet after that. He had to warn his master of the threat, after all.

La Gramont Lands

Commander Depardieu was fifty-four years old. His aim had always been to reach the sixty, retire, hold a grandchild on each of his knees, and then die after a few years of peace on a fishing boat in the lake of his private lands. Now here he was, receiving reports of the countryside ravaged, the townspeople scared out of their wits and furthermore…

There was a giant menacing thing coming from the South that was not, under any account, something seen before.

The navy of Tristain had all been deployed to bring relieve to the Capital, and not only had that taken away their fleet, but also many of their dragon, griffon and Manticore knights. Their supplies barely granted them the ability to float some battle barges, and even those couldn't continuously float.

The token force that remained held maybe a dozen of dragon knights, all lightly equipped and more valuable as scouts than actual combat. Twenty-four griffon knights composed the 'bulk' of the token defence, and for what concerned the Manticore…

He had three, and they were all bastards.

Both in the literal and figurative sense of the term, so to say.

The only thing he was glad of was that La Gramont was a fortress built upon five concentric rings, all of which protected with cannons mounted on the walls. A frontal assault would be meaningless, no matter the troops amassed. Even if the first ring fell, the others could just fire on the assaulters trying to march their way upwards or unleash a stream of boiling oil to 'wash away' the enemy.

The population that was trickling in however, those were starting to become a problem.

He had many ways to resupply the city. Be it by using the barges to carry food from the outside, or by instituting rationing. He was glad a few Earth mages had begun working with a couple of Water ones to come up with a mean to make the crops grow faster, even though he supposed that was just an excuse to stay away from the battlefield.

"An envoy at the gates!" a lightly armoured soldier —probably a recruit from the militia— exclaimed as he barged in the room he was using to strategize the defence.

"An envoy?" he had heard of the Necromancer not following protocols, killing the population of villages whenever they could.

"Yes, Commander," the recruit stumbled out nervously. "He's got the white flag and is on a horse too."

"Very well," he acquiesced. "Prepare me a dragon," if things turned sour, he could always fly back past the walls.

The beast he flew out of the city with was a well-behaved female dragon, who appeared slightly scared to boot as it landed in front of the horse rider.

The recruit could have mentioned the horse was a skeletal steed.

He also could have mentioned the envoy was a woman.

"You will surrender," the envoy spoke clearly and without hesitation. "Do so, and you will be spared the pain."

"This is not how we treat diplomatically, miss," he retorted holding on to the reins of his dragon. "And you have what army, to scale our walls? Germania tried to capture this very city time and time again, and repeatedly we staved off their Valkyrie, their armies and their steel. You may possess foul magic, but even that will run out with time against our walls!"

"I will make my offer one last time," the woman remarked. "Surrender now, or suffer in your death forever."

"We will never surrender to the likes of you!" he spat out angrily. "We have thousands of soldiers ready to lay their lives down in the name of the Queen! You will not conquer our walls!"

"I do not need to conquer your walls, foolish imbecile," she snarled, tugging on the reins of her steed to trot away.

But the truest victory is stirring the hearts of your people.

"All I need to conquer is Death."

She murmured the last part with a quiet and subdued tone, and then as one she was gone, teleported to the highest tower of the Academy itself, who was at the horizon.

"Until we reach the La Gramont," she remarked, grabbing the helm that Louis had brought her and putting it on to protect her face. "Give Henrietta the order."

"Thy will be done."

Then Louise watched.

Henrietta

She brought up her delicate white arm, and then gestured for the walls.

"FIRE!"

The meat wagons fired, their corpse filled bellies emptying with each attack. The bodies of the deceased flung themselves against the walls, splattering their innards or showering in blood the defendants.

"Disgusting heathens!" the captain on the wall gagged at the sight, "Fire back men! Show them what cannons can do!"

The cannons opened fire then, slamming against the ground and tearing apart a few of the enemy's siege means. If 'siege' was as an apt term…how were they planning to take down their walls using corpses? Furthermore, it was more the amount that sailed harmlessly past them than the amount that actually hit the walls.

There wasn't even an attempt at bringing forth a ram or a trebuchet. Only those strange catapults that flung corpses ended up attacking the walls and the city.

He saw the ground become rotten, as near the assaulters strange constructions began to appear one after the other. Buildings as tall as mansions finished constructing in seconds, as his blood began to run cold. The men assigned to the cannons recharged them with militaristic precision, but it was unnerving to watch the corpses flung over the stone guards and on the rooftops.

Were they expecting to protract the siege for so long, that the corpses would start to rot?

A few mages would take care of them in no—

"The gates are opening!" a recruit yelled next to him, as he turned to stare at the entrance to La Gramont. Men with skulls and long robes, wielding staffs and uttering incantations were standing on one side —the wrong one.

The corpses that fell from the skies were suddenly surrounded by dark green light, and beneath his watchful eyes…they transformed, becoming skeletons with swords made of their very bones.

"Necromancers! They must have mixed with the refugees!"

"Move to close the gates!" he bellowed to a few musketeers near him, gesturing with his own sword towards the upper side of the gates in question. "Thankfully their armies aren't clos—"

And in that moment, the ground trembled and shook as just a few meters away from the gates, dozens of giant spider monstrosities emerged and began to charge forward.

"ALL MEN, TO ARMS!"

Henrietta looked at the living panic, forgetting about her and the Meat Wagons. She made a single sharp nod towards the Acolyte near her, and he bowed profusely before starting to walk towards the gates.

The Meat Wagons opened fire once more.

Corpses rained from the skies, slamming against the few who had remained to guard the cannons in her direction on the first ring, smashing them to a pulp as they screamed their dying breaths drowned in blood. Henrietta floated forth next, and with a single well-placed Frost Nova…

Opened a breach in the walls.

"EMBRACE THE SCOURGE!" she screeched as she charged ahead. The Crypt Fiends would keep pressure on the gates, while she would aim for the breach together with her own troops.

Ghouls dashed, faster than she was. Skeletons emerged to hold back the defenders, giving time for the Crypt Fiends to enter through the gates opened with treason.

Soon the shields and the lances of the militia met with the bones and the claws of the attackers…

And glorious carnage, for the Scourge, began.

Louise

Louise watched, from high above, the first offensive.

The Scourge had not an end. She could summon countless numbers from the Great Beyond, and they did not tire. As long as pressure was kept, eventually the defenders would fall.

"How close must we get, before we can fire upon the city?" she asked Louis.

"We are not yet in range, master," the Acolyte remarked. "We can however upgrade the Halls of the Dead to a Black Citadel, and unlock the Gargoyles."

"Do so," she nodded firmly. "I will lead the charge to claim the second ring. Amass more troops, keep the pressure up and have the Acolytes build Ziggurats to expand the influence of the Blight."

"Yes, master." Louis bowed deeply.

"Oh and…Louis?"

"Yes, master?"

"You can call me Louise," she said hesitantly.

"Master Louise?"

"No, only…Louise."

"I understand," he breathed once, sharply. "Louise."

"G-Good," she nodded firmly, her helm clanking slightly as she turned to leave and teleport down, to take her place with the waves of reinforcements.

La Gramont would fall.

She would make sure of that personally.

Author's notes

La Gramont…imagine it as Minas Tirith.

As for win/losses, Louise has already lost a few times. She isn't on a complete Victory spree. The Capital can be imagined as a 'contested' Stratholme.

The Academy is now an Undeath-themed flying Dalaran.

Void powers…always acting silly.