Geomancy
It was night now.
To Robin's glowing eyes, it would have still been easy enough to see except that now a thick gray mist had crept throughout the cemetery.
It was a churning brume that effectively obscured sight more than twenty feet away. The light from the gibbous moon overhead was captured and diffused by the mist, giving the whole necropolis a soft otherworldly glow.
The Chosen of Fire's fortune had certainly gone from bad to worse. She hid for now, in the niche of a massive elaborate gravestone, shaped into the likeness of a hooded angel that towered above her, its stone face concealed by a stone cowl.
Here she sat, trying to control her breathing. She would not allow herself to fear, though it was difficult. She felt her heart beat just as she heard the dirge coming from the countless undead roaming beyond sight in the thick of the subtly glowing brume.
They were everywhere and she was exhausted. She could not remember how many walking corpses she had destroyed, but this place harbored more, so many more. She wouldn't doubt if the whole of the vast necropolis was now animate and her mind raced for some kind of plan. She didn't have the stamina to destroy every last corpse that walked in this place, there had to be another way.
She sat with her back to cold stone, soft earth beneath her, steadying her breathing. The night was cold, unnaturally so. It had to be mists, and Robin knew they were as unnatural as the walking dead. She searched her memories. She had learned a great deal about certain kinds of creatures, the wild and dangerous denizens of the forests and plains that her tribe had shared. She had learned to hunt such creatures, and to know when she was being hunted, but she knew that she had little experience with undead.
She recalled the memory of an incident in an old ruin some miles south of her tribe's village. The shaman elder of the village had been called to investigate such an incident and had brought Robin along. She had been twelve then, already quite used to her powers. The elder had brought her to the ruin and there they had found a clutch of desiccated zombies milling about. The elder had called his ancestral spirits to bind the undead while Robin had summoned her fire and burned them to nothing.
It had been laughably easy, but what the elder had told her afterward was the lesson she had needed to learn. Undead were unnatural, but they occurred sometimes in places where death was gathered. Strange winds would blow and a strong lingering need of a corpse may animate it. Such occurrences were rare, however, and usually if one were to wait, the corpse would soon fall to true death again. For such creatures to be sustained for any length of time meant something else was at work. It meant forbidden magic, magic of death used by a living mind for twisted purposes. Also, intelligent undead did not exist except for such methods, a perversion of the natural balance that the spirits of nature abhorred. The elder had faced such a cabal of renegade tribesman long ago when he'd been young.
The black mage nodded. Someone living was behind this, and most likely more than one. Strike at the root and the rest would fall. Robin now had her plan.
She huddled in on herself, her glowing runes having been gone this whole time. She dare not light a beacon for the undead to find her before she was ready. Instead, she retreated into herself concentrating on the source of black magic in her soul. She felt the currents flow through her like liquid fire in her veins, a blazing torrent allowing her to sense the source of other magic all around her.
Yes... she felt them. Ley lines of ugly twisted magic flowing through the earth beneath her. Such sorcery was a corrupted reversal of true earth magic, infusing buried corpses with unnatural life. She followed these sensations in spirit, her ability allowing her to sense a coalescence of such power, which emanated from the north of her. There she felt something like the pulse of a heartbeat not her own. It was a sick and twisted heart pulsing with viscous black blood... the forbidden energy of death magic.
Such a feeling threatened Robin's very existence, and she had to fight its power. Suddenly all about her, an invisible sense of ugliness threatened to weigh her down, to leech the strength from her body, the will from her mind. She cringed, clenching her jaw.
You dare try this on me, darkness. Ha! I will never succumb to you – you will succumb to me!
Robin opened her eldritch eyes and they blazed. Runes of fire flared about her with white-hot intensity burning away the mist around her like nothing. She stood, fixing her black robes, and gripping her charred rod in both hands. A bestial growl rolled up from deep in her throat.
Her orange runes added to the glow of the surrounding mists and almost immediately a group of worm-eaten zombies shambled out of the brume, moaning piteously with arms outstretched.
Robin held up one hand, palm up, as the things came closer. A ball of orange-white fire grew to hover just above her palm until it was the size of an apple, its writhing light creating lunatic shadows that danced about the surrounding mists.
When she could smell the scents of freshly dug earth mixed with decayed flesh, Robin hurled the ball of flame and it struck the closest zombie. The creature emitted no shriek as it was consumed, just moaning for warm flesh, feeling no other pain than its insatiable need until there was nothing left of it to cry out.
Another larger fireball flew from the girl and detonated in the midst of the remaining zombies. The explosion consumed them in fire, turning them to torches that lit up the mists all around. Still, they shambled forward until they were consumed utterly to ash. The living flame was their weakness. The elder had taught Robin that also.
When they were no more, the black mage headed north, moving cautiously. She went from gravestone to gravestone; careful of where she planted each step. The necropolis was built upon a gently sloping hill, the inclination so slight that it almost felt flat, but Robin knew she was going upward. As she moved, her eyes constantly scanned the brume as it whirled phantom-like about her. A sudden clutch of skeletons appeared to her left, but before they could even start to advance on her, the girl summoned a cone of flame from an outstretched hand. In a blazing roar it consumed the skeletons, burning their bones to nothing but a charred scent in the air.
Robin moved further.
With her world so constricted, it felt as if time had no meaning here. The mists writhed, giving life to short-lived apparitions that flowed one into another, and Robin wondered if she had not descended into the Abyss itself. More zombies and skeletons appeared, but their reactions were too slow and Robin was a living font of the very power for which they had no defense.
With the girl's magical sense leading her, she could not get lost, though she stopped when she came near the entrance of a massive crypt adorned with oddly grotesque gargoyles. Robin scanned the structure's heavy stone facade, worked elaborately in carvings and relief. Odd little imps cavorted with the larger gargoyles that acted as sentries against foreign spirits... yet Robin got the sense that something else was among these inanimate carvings. Her eldritch eyes stopped on a rusted iron gate, cinched with chains though no lock was in evidence. It was down in the crypt that the dark sense coalesced. She would have to enter.
Out of the corner of her eye, one of the gargoyles seemed to rear up, and Robin instinctively ducked and rolled to her left. She heard stone shatter as she got back to her feet, and her eyes narrowed as she saw the mottled black thing perching on another gravestone before her. It was twice as tall as she, long of limb, emaciated, with overly long fingers that flexed with incredible strength. Its skull-face harbored large rheumy eyes that stared unblinking at her. This was no shambling zombie, nor mindless skeleton. It was the thing from before, the one that had knocked her from the mausoleum.
Robin got to her feet in a guarded stance. The air smelled of rancid meat, threatening to nauseate the black mage, but she kept herself under control and took slow steps back from the thing.
It just watched her, its skull-face locked in a fleshless grin, its feverish eyes shining in the glow from Robin's runes of fire. It had come down and destroyed a gravestone with one of its powerful fists, but now perched on another, suddenly opening its mouth and letting its viscous dark tongue writhe out to drip ichor. The tongue was long and thick, another unnatural organ grown by the unholy transition of what this thing had been into what it had now become.
"Gooooooollllll," the thing breathed in a guttural breath, and then said no more. Robin summoned a ball of flame and the thing looked to it with its feverish gaze. It suddenly tensed and Robin readied, but it turned and leapt away... into the mists.
Robin growled and went after it. She couldn't possibly enter the crypt with this thing following her. It was likely to be tight down there, with little room to maneuver and this thing would have her instantly. Why it continued to toy with her, she didn't know, but it would stop playing eventually and if it caught Robin in its grasp, there would be no fighting it then. Robin knew she was no melee fighter, and it would have been utter stupidity to think otherwise. She knew this thins thing was undead and her living fire would destroy it.
She ran, perhaps too carelessly for she stumbled upon another clutch of zombies and skeletons. She sent her fireball into them and blew them apart, but before she could conjure another, the black thing leapt from the mists. Robin barely sidestepped as the thing swooped passed her, one of its long-fingered hands catching her robes and flinging her through the air. She struck soft earth and rolled to a stop. Slightly dazed, she shook her head before looking up... directly into the yellow rheumy gaze of the monster.
This close, the stench of rancid meat was nearly overwhelming and Robin could not help but gag. Then the thing lifted her easily, holding her above the ground. It then opened its distended maw and its grotesque tongue slid out to hover near Robin's face. She only thought the smell had been bad before. Then slowly, the thing licked her cheek, and Robin shuddered, using all her will not to vomit down her front.
The girl growled and looked again into the thing's face. She summoned all her defiance into that look, and the thing somehow seemed to grin even deeper. It then released her and she fell to the ground. She got to her knees and saw the thing take another perch upon a gravestone. As it did, a wall of lesser undead came in through the mist at the creature's back, their moans a wailing dirge.
The black mage stamped down her fear. Having never lost hold of her rod, she summoned the fiery sigils about her and a ball of fire quickly hovered over one palm. She flung the fireball at the perched monster, but it easily leapt out of the way and the magic fire exploded into the wall of zombies behind it.
The lesser undead continued up in a shambling wave and Robin had no choice but to blast them to pieces. Ball of flame after ball of flame was launched into the undead, but others replaced those that were consumed just as quick. Robin saw the black monster watching her intensely, perched above the lesser creatures that ignored it completely. Suddenly, however, it opened its maw and its tongue shot out to wrap about a passing zombie. Without protest, the lesser undead was brought back into the things distended jaw where it was promptly eaten. The monster chewed noisily, the crack of the zombie's bones audible even above the dirge of the lesser undead. The black monster's viscous ichor seemed to dissolve the zombie as it was consumed, though large pieces still fell from the creature's maw as it fed messily.
Robin had no time to be disgusted. She turned and ran, her breathing already hoarse, but something flew over her head to land. The mottled black creature was suddenly in front of her and with a backhand blow flung her back toward the coming tide of lesser undead.
Dazed, Robin had trouble forcing herself to her feet. When her head cleared, she looked up to see the ghoulish thing perched on another gravestone nearly above her, its tongue wrapped about her charred rod, which the mage realized she no longer held.
Behind her, the tide of lesser undead came on, their piteous cries getting louder all the time.
She had no choice now. She would have to summon her power without her focus. Such a brazen act might destroy her, but she was out of options. The ghoul would not surrender her rod. As always, it seemed content to let the lesser undead overwhelm and feed on her. It probably wanted to watch.
That it would dare such a foul thing fueled Robin's rage, but she closed her eyes and concentrated on the eldritch energies within her. She would summon the burst, but beyond that, she would have no control over what happened. She would have to use all her being to keep from being consumed by her own power and hoped it would be enough to keep her whole.
An intense pain clenched Robin's lungs together as if in a vice grip. Her breathing became labored and harsh as the burning power grew within in her being. Like a too-full reservoir, the sluice gate of her will became strained, but she tried to hold it together as the power mounted within her. She couldn't let it go until she knew the explosion would be devastating enough to destroy everything around her. She coughed painfully, each beat of her heart becoming restricted. Her sense of time seemed to slow, her eyes closed, her body clenched.
Above, the emaciated ghoul looked down with curiosity in its feverish gaze before it suddenly frowned. The human's glowing eyes snapped open just a split second before the very air turned white –
A shrieking explosion blew out in a wave of concentrated white fire, striking the ghoul like a solid wall. Earth and stone turned to ash, and a shock wave blasted the mist away, consuming it as it consumed all else. Undead flesh was seared to air, and the ghoul was utterly obliterated. The blast wave struck the facade of the crypt and the stone immediately glowed, turning red then white-hot before it melted and warped, chunks of it simply turning to embers blown about in the roaring white rage...
And then it was over.
Huddled in the fetal position, Robin suddenly lurched, gasping and coughing, smoke roiling from her mouth, which was so dry she could not breath. She tried desperately to suck in air, but even her lungs felt scorched. She coughed and coughed, her hands going to her throat as if she could force air into her body, but she got nothing, blackness jabbing at the edges of consciousness. She lurched again and gave a shuddering breath and suddenly she was able to breathe. She gulped in air through lips so parched that they bled, and then simply lay there, looking up into the clear night sky, the gibbous moon shining down at her.
She heard no moans, no pitiful chorus. The ground around her was scorched black, the acrid smell of char heavy in the air. Gravestones in the immediate area were black slag when they were not gone altogether. Ones farther away were molten stone, still red-hot. She managed to stand, just as a sudden strong wind surged into the area. Robin held on to her singed wide-brimmed hat as the winds blasted her. Then everything was calm.
Her whole body ached like nothing she could remember, but she cringed through it and forced herself toward the crypt. A little ways off, she found her charred rod. Enchanted, the thing had fortunately withstood the blast, and Robin scooped it up. Her body unclenched a little as she moved toward the half-melted gates. The chains that had cinched them were now a pool of molten metal on the ground. The whole facade of the crypt was warped, many carvings now twisted, many gargoyles unrecognizable. The structure's thick construction however meant that it had only been changed, not obliterated, and Robin went down into the crypt, her sandals scratching on stone steps. Her body was still sore, her mouth still parched, but she felt much better than she had. Surviving her own unfettered power emboldened her. These fools had no idea what was about to fall upon them.
The narrow stone corridor seemed to leech sound from her movements, and torches on the walls were lit with strange emerald flames to provide light. The stone walls were carved in grotesque images, a horde of ravenous imps and demons devouring each other, but Robin paid them no mind. She passed side corridors that were even narrower than the one she walked, when she entered under a broad archway into a large pentagonal chamber, each corner of it studded by a huge statue carved into the likeness of a demon. A great stone dais arose from the center of the room, with a half-dozen black-cloaked figures surrounding a huge standing sarcophagus centered on the dais. The chamber was lit with more emerald fires burning in stanchions around the perimeter, and the eerie green flame flung shadows all about.
The robed figures all chanted deeply, making them male, though a lone figure strode with a languorous sway passed them before making her way up to a standing sarcophagus, its front carved elaborately into the likeness of an armored warrior.
Robin came in to stand just inside the archway and growled audibly. Quickly, all the figures stopped chanting and turned toward her, the female leader doing so as well.
Robin's eyes blazed balefully. "You twisted fools! How dare you disrupt the balance like this!" Her voice echoed loudly throughout the chamber.
The leader pulled back her hood to reveal a dark elf's sleek countenance, her pale features and long black hair a stunning contrast. A wicked black tattoo covered her face in a stylized mask, and her painted black lips formed an amused smile. Her dark voice also echoed in the chamber. "Ah, a small child has come to whine about the noise. I am shocked." And she suddenly laughed.
Robin gripped her rod as the other black-cloaked figures suddenly came forward, reaching beneath their robes to pull out wicked daggers. Robin shook her head. "Those will not help you."
The female leader suddenly hissed, and the male elves surged forward with wordless howls. Robin summoned her electric blue runes and crackling energy surrounded her. She flung out her hand and sizzling arcs of electric power stabbed through the charging dark elves until they were merely singed corpses burning on the floor. Not one had even gotten close to her.
Robin looked up. "Do you have anymore subordinates, witch? These were a trifle inadequate."
The woman only laughed again. "Oh, I do have one more, pitiful child." She suddenly took out her own dagger and slit her palm before wiping it down the front of the sarcophagus. "With this, the pact is made! Come forth, Sir Dulahan, and smite this whelp – I command you!"
The smear of blood upon the sarcophagus suddenly glowed a malevolent red and the surface exploded into dust. The dark elf stepped back, clutching her wounded hand.
Robin stood ready, bringing up her rod when a creature emerged from the pall of dust. It was as tall as the dark mottled ghoul had been, but this creature wore archaic armor, with a heavily worked breastplate and pauldrons of ebon metal and a metal skirt that came to its armored shins. It clinked as it moved, its body only bones beneath, but thicker than any skeleton's should have been, the deep sockets of its skull glowing with points of wicked emerald light.
Besides the clinking of its armor, it made not a sound, having spotted Robin. It moved forward with measured steps, nearly like a march, and Robin sensed profound danger radiating from it. In fact, her mind was struggling to loose from her control. Just setting eyes upon it, Robin wanted to wail, but immediately took hold of such weakness and wrenched it back.
As it moved, the girl saw its armored hands slowly reach up behind it toward twin hilts that protruded from its back. At the edge of the dais, the thing stopped and pulled two wickedly curved blades free with ugly rasps. It then did an incredibly skilled flourish before crossing the blades over its chest as if in salute.
The black mage immediately knew that if she got anywhere near this thing she would die. It wasn't just a matter of it being far stronger than her, but the fact that this creature had obviously been a great warrior in life and somehow it had retained those skills as undead.
The dark elf witch moved up, staying to the creature's flank and smiling wickedly. "You have no chance against my wight, human. I suggest you run as fast as you can or this is the end for you."
Robin gripped her staff tightly. "We shall see." She then flung out her hand and a bolt of lightning struck the creature's breastplate – and was absorbed.
The girl's blazing eyes widened, but she merely growled and her runes became blazing orange. As the creature started down the steps of the dais, she flung a roaring fireball at the creature's head. In mid-flight, however, it veered toward the wight's breastplate to be sucked in, dissipating in a plume of smoke through which the wight advanced, unfazed.
Robin flung another fireball, but it dissipated like the first, and the wight came on, blades poised at its sides.
The dark elf laughed as Robin was forced to retreat into the corridor, and she summoned her icy blue runes. The black mage sent a whirling wind of freezing ice at the undead and it was quickly frozen to the ground. Yet in a blink, its eyes blazed and the ice shattered, releasing it. It came on.
Robin retreated further down the corridor, fear trying to take purchase wholly within her now. Never had she fought something that could shrug off all her magic. She quickly tried a cone of flame, but all of it was sucked into the creature's breastplate leaving only a plume of smoke. She tried more freezing winds, and each stopped the wight but a second or so, but did nothing else. She tried more lightning, making the bolts split in as many arcs as she could, but all quickly converged and were swallowed into the armor of the wight. They did nothing.
Robin furiously forced panic from her as she continued to move back. She focused on ice magic, stopping the wight for seconds at a time while she tried to form a plan. The thing could not be indestructible, there had to be a way to destroy it. She just needed time to discover how.
Visibly shaken, Robin took step after step back, when she noticed the demon-carved walls. The stone all around her was a mural of disturbing things. Damned death magic, had she no way to counter it? To corrupt the earth so thoroughly as to give un-life to the dead was reprehensible. How could she fall to such twisted chicanery?
Robin's eyes suddenly widened...
Earth magic.
A sudden wild plan formed in her mind. She had no idea if it would work. That fool Gantz was immune to her lightning, Sana probably to her ice. Would Valor be immune to earth magic, if she had any such power? Robin remembered thinking this way once. Those idiots were a burden and were yet potential future obstacles, but perhaps they weren't completely useless after all.
The black mage suddenly smiled and summoned a blast of arctic wind, the coldest she could manage. The blast struck the inexorable wight and froze it in place, but quickly the ice began to crack and that is when Robin acted. She sensed the twisted skeins of dark earth magic beneath, corrupting the ground as it had the corpses that had lain within. She felt it and tried to draw it into the purifying fire within her. Immediately, dark shadowy power arose from the very stone beneath her feet and stabbed into her. She growled in pain, but endured as the dark earth flowed in. She gnashed her teeth and rage surged through her being –
The wight was upon her, one of its swords poised to cleave her in two. Robin looked up with a defiant growl, her eyes blazing as runes of solid yellow power suddenly surged to life around her.
The ground cracked at her feet and a loose stone shot up to strike the wight's armored hand. The sword was knocked from it, clattering off a wall. Without hesitation, the wight brought its second sword in a thrust but another stone flew up and battered the blade away with tremendous force. A resounding clang sounded, though it was but one of many to follow. Suddenly, a dozen stones shot up, battering at the wight, knocking it this way and that, but mainly pushing it back from the black mage.
Robin raised a hand and the ground split further, more stones breaking free to fly up and hammer at the undead warrior from all directions. Its breastplate seemed unable to fully absorb their impacts as it had absorbed her other powers. Indeed, the creature was soon struggling to keep its feet. Though it felt neither pain nor fear, it could simply not recover itself from impact after impact.
Soon, they were both moving back into the huge pentagonal chamber, impacts ringing off the wight's armor continuously, until the sound hurt the ears. Robin kept on, however. The thing was incredibly tough and she could not relent. With each step, the ground at her feet split and new stones broke loose and flew into the maelstrom swirling about the wight. With her searing eyes wide, Robin summoned a final burst and two huge chunks of stone broke from the ground and converged on the undead.
With a thunderous crash they collided in an explosion of pulverized dust. From out of the bilious cloud flew a battered skull, which hit the ground rolling until it stopped near Robin's feet.
The dust cleared quickly, and all that was left amidst a pile of stone rubble were the shattered bones and armor of a creature that was fully dead once again.
Robin looked to the cloaked dark elf where the woman stood upon the dais, her tattooed face painted in incredulity. "Once again, elf witch, your subordinate was inadequate. Anymore tricks?"
With a horrid screech, the woman brandished her dagger and charged from the dais straight at Robin. The yellow runes still surrounded the black mage, however, and a rock the size of a burly man's fist blindsided the elf witch, striking her so hard that she flew aside ten feet, hitting the ground with bone-breaking force. A pool of blood quickly formed around the body. It did not even twitch.
Suddenly, all the eerie green lights in their places went out, plunging the chamber into darkness. The only lights that remained were the back mage's blazing eyes combined with the solid yellow runes that wreathed her.
"I didn't think so," Robin said with a sneer, and turned back down the corridor.