The following is a diary entry.
***
…by the day's end, we've found four grimoires, preserved in a well-enchanted jewelry box. Yet, the rest of the room that was once a library was empty. The roots, judging by their growth patterns, consumed even the scrolls, breaking through the cases they were stored in. We observed thin, branching out roots spreading like a spiderweb across the shelves, now petrified.
On that note, it's the first time I've seen spells recorded in scrolls. It's quite fascinating that the way the spell templates themselves are written down is so similar to what we use nowadays.
Outside of that, our findings were mostly jewelry and metal scraps. Most 'treasures' rusted at least to some extent, signifying that moisture was present in the air for a time.
Irem makes little sense; every discovery just creates more questions.
Still, considering the amount of enchanted jewelry and items we found, I believe Teuflisch and I are now quite rich.
Teuflisch also almost lost his head on our way back to the camp. A mimic dropped down on him from atop one of the buildings. Those pests seem to take every opportunity to ambush us. I believe this was the thirtieth encounter so far in just four days of Irem exploration.
We also spotted an incredibly peculiar place. A manor of stone and granite that remained preserved… and happened to be located in a sizable crater. With petrified roots crushed beneath the gigantic rock oozing magic, on which the manor was built.
The leakage looked very much like the one on the wall at the entrance to Irem, and the only reason why I didn't notice this place before is that it was located practically on the other side of the city, surrounded by rather tall buildings. It was also close to an inner wall. Whatever illumination the leakage of magic created didn't extend far as mana dispersed; it was exactly like with the gates, light that didn't provide luminance, and was only visible if you could look at it directly.
That building will be the goal of our expedition tomorrow; Teuflisch is even planning to take the majority of his Vigil with him.
I should also note that my mastery of the local language advanced excellently. With so many examples of writings etched in stone, as well as the rare grimoires we keep finding, I believe I understand the written and spoken languages of Irem rather well now.
Much to Teuflisch's envy, but I believe he can't truly complain considering the circumstances.
Nothing else comes to mind now, so I will return to doing chores.
***
Making a simple omelet, I glanced towards Lisch, who entered the house after tending to the animals. The man looked dead on his feet.
That was understandable; he had to stay up late yesterday to conduct maintenance on his constructs. It didn't help that Lisch really wasn't a morning person.
"Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes," I offered, adding a pinch of herbs as I glanced towards the necromancer.
For a moment, I paused, studying his face.
"You need to shave, you have some time before food is done," I commented.
The necromancer glared at me, a slight wrinkle around his eyes told me he wasn't completely serious.
"Sure thing, father," The sarcasm was thick in his tone. "Would you want me to wash the clothes too?
I allowed a small smile to show that I understood the byplay.
"That would be a job for a wife in that scenario." I offered, "And I deeply apologize, but that sort of relationship with a fellow man isn't to my preference, and it goes against my faith. I am afraid you are out of luck." Not that I considered anything sexual.
Come to think of it, I have yet to experience any lust in this life. Physical arousal was possible, I checked, but the feeling of lust was missing.
I wonder how demons even produce children. I understand sex, but they must be attracted to each other at least. I wonder how it would even feel. Is it any different from human lust? Probably less intense, considering demon emotions on average are less potent.
The necromancer chuckled, shaking his head as he went to his room, presumably to grab a razor.
"The sentiment is mutual, rest assured."
With him gone, I ceased mimicking expressions, and finished the breakfast preparations.
For myself, I merely made a cup of magical tea and set the table. I didn't need to eat today; my next intake of food should be tomorrow, unless I will overtax myself.
When Teuflisch returned, clearly shaven and with wet sleeves, he sat down, glancing at me, and sighing.
I spoke up before he could.
"I know what you are about to say, and we discussed this. I don't mind cooking; you aren't functional at this time of the day, but I am. The quicker you eat, the faster I can put you to work on things I care about," I told him the complete truth, and saw the man sigh.
"I understand all that," He assured, "But seeing you cook for me like a servant, while eating nothing yourself, still feels a bit…" He trailed off.
"As a demon, I can't enjoy…" He gestured at me to stop.
"I know, I know damn it, please stop with this," He asked, as he aggressively stabbed the omelet, "Thanks for the meal!" He said before digging in.
For a while, I let him eat in silence before speaking up.
"I tried adding some of that other herb we got the other day, which should add a bit of an acidic aftertaste. I figured it may be more enjoyable." I said, watching him eat. I couldn't enjoy the food humans enjoyed, but my taste buds were more sensitive than they've ever been in life. I put a lot of effort into cooking, seeing that I was learning how to do it anyway, carefully consulting my preferences from human memory using Resonant Soul…
The man looked up at me as he muttered something about housewives under his breath.
"Please don't stare at me this intensely while I eat," He asked in a small, pleading voice, and I blinked before glancing into my teacup. "Seriously, is this a custom from your homeland, to stare at people like that during a meal? Or is it a demon thing, the need to see my body language you mentioned?" This sounded more like a complaint and a rhetorical question, rather than a conversation starter.
Still, I considered his words despite myself.
Was it a custom? Probably not, but I remember doing this before, in my past life. Sure, I did want to see his body language as it was an instinctual, demonic reaction, one of the few I allowed myself to indulge in. And seeing him react to cooking may help me refine the recipe, so that once I am human, I can the current research.
But it also, surprisingly, wasn't so different from how people normally behaved.
Still, tact exists for a reason, and I didn't want to make the man uncomfortable.
The rest of the breakfast passed in silence. I am not sure about Lisch, but I focused on the preparation for what is to come.
***
The twenty Vigil constructs moved in perfect formation around us, their footsteps creating a rhythmic percussion against the stone streets that seemed to echo endlessly in the cavern's vast emptiness.
Teuflisch had insisted on bringing the majority of his forces, and I agreed.
We passed through the tunnel leading to Irem, past the familiar outer gate, and soon enough, we were in the city itself. This part of it we explored thoroughly.
As we traveled, the buildings grew progressively taller, their architecture shifting from the utilitarian designs of the outer residences to more elaborate constructions. Every surface bore the scars of the roots' passage, doorways forced wide, windows shattered outward, entire walls buckled where particularly massive roots had burst through seeking whatever organic matter had once existed within.
The silence was absolute, save for our movement. Sometimes wind whistled in the sealed cavern, but no water dripped from unseen heights, no insects scuttled in the shadows. Even our breathing seemed muffled, yet oddly deafening.
Teuflisch walked beside me, as usual, when we explored. He radiated unease and tension.
I observed the patterns in the roots as we walked. The petrified tendrils grew denser the deeper we ventured into the city, yet they all seemed to flow in the same general direction, like a frozen river system, made of countless springs.
Some roots had grown along the streets, following the paths of least resistance, while others had simply punched through buildings with apparent indifference to the stone and mortar in their way. Where roots had grown close together, they had fused into massive trunks that rose like pillars, defying gravity. None seemed to have attempted to reach the ceiling, or if some did, they must have collapsed under their own weight once they 'dried up'.
The magical lights we maintained cast harsh shadows that shifted and danced as we moved. Each building we passed revealed new details of the catastrophe. Here, a root had grown through what must have been a shop, the metal framework of shelving units still wrapped in its calcified embrace.
There, an entire building had been split in half, its interior walls exposed like a Barbie house, every room stripped bare by the consuming roots. As always, I couldn't help but acknowledge the absence of any furniture remains, doors, any cloth, any wood that hadn't been part of the roots themselves. Whatever these things had been, they had been thorough in their consumption.
We reached a broader avenue that ran directly toward the inner walls, and I could see our destination in the distance.
The manor sat upon its foundation of stone that glowed with the same pale, cold light we had observed at the main gates. It glowed… and yet, produced no luminance in the air, nor reflected from surfaces. The light was magical in nature and acted unnaturally, neither reflecting nor refracting.
The rock on which the manor resided was also in the middle of the crater. Countless petrified roots, and, I believe, the remains of a few buildings, were turned to rubble under it.
Even yesterday, we noted that the fragments of roots blasted around, presumably from this rock falling from the sky, were already petrified. Meaning this thing fell when the roots were already in their current state.
The inner walls loomed behind the mansion as we continued our approach. These fortifications were even more impressive than the outer defenses, rising perhaps thirty meters with regular watchtowers and what appeared to be positions for those giant skeleton defenders Teuflisch had been so fascinated with. The gates here had not been breached by roots but simply left open, the massive metal doors standing ajar as if the defenders had abandoned their posts in a hurry. Judging by some clay containers and the bits of metal, presumably from the wheels scattered all across Irem, this wasn't anything special for this location, but notable nonetheless.
The manor grew larger as we approached, its architecture distinct from anything else we had encountered in Irem. Where the other buildings had been constructed from local stone, this structure appeared to be made from a single piece of black granite. Likely the work of magic.
The pale flames that licked along the surface of its foundation cast no heat, produced no smoke, and weren't in truth the flames. It was mana leaking into the air from the enchantment.
It must have looked ethereal and menacing, like some cliche Demon Lord castle. Unfortunately, as a demon, I couldn't experience fear from the atmosphere without a direct or implied threat.
I am, however, not alone in this expedition.
Teuflisch had grown increasingly quiet as we drew nearer. The Vigil constructs showed no reaction whatsoever, continuing their mechanical vigilance with the same steady patience they had maintained throughout our journey. The contrast between his human apprehension and their unliving indifference seemed particularly stark in this moment.
The final approach to the manor required us to navigate around the twisted, broken roots that surrounded it.
The manor itself stood three stories tall, its black granite walls reflecting the pale light in ways that made it difficult to focus on specific architectural details. Windows of a dark material that might have been glass or polished stone revealed nothing of the interior. The main entrance was a towering archway with doors of the same black stone, standing closed but showing no visible locking mechanism.
We stood before it in the unnatural light, surrounded by our escort of the animated dead.
"Good thing we cleared out the mimics on this route yesterday," I said quietly.
"Don't call those things that," Teuflisch said with a sigh, shaking his head. "In any case, now that we are close, what does this say?" The neromancer asked, gesturing towards a white marble plate, cracked, yes, but with a perfectly preserved text.
Out of the two of us, I happened to know the language of Irem better; Teuflisch still needed to consult the dictionary.
"It says, King Barmherzig's Academy for Talented Youth," I read aloud.
Tueflisch's neck snapped towards me.
"Barmherzig... was a king?!"
I understood his surprise, considering nothing of that sort was ever mentioned in the texts he shared. I simply shrugged.
"Seems that way. Does it matter at this point?" I asked, glancing at the man by my side, and calmly meeting his gaze.
He visibly froze before shaking his head.
"No… no, I suppose it doesn't, just a fascinating detail."
Lisch's breathing shifted as he clearly tried to get himself together, even slapping his own cheeks and shivering slightly, pumping himself up.
Like before a training session.
I simply observed him silently, my trusty staff at hand.
"Ready?" I asked him, once he straightened his robe, and manifested his own staff.
The man glanced at me and nodded sharply.
"I am." He glanced back towards the manor.
It truly was quite enormous. It looked more gothic than any other building in the city, though, I suppose, that 'feel' was caused by the choice of building material rather than architectural design.
The doors of the manor were decorated with skulls. Not in a menacing way, but more like in an anatomically correct sense.
Irem seemed to love skulls, bones, and other symbology of that nature. I saw it in the necropolis, I saw it in the manors on the outskirts, and on the artifacts we managed to find, this city seemed to have been fascinated with death.
This wasn't anything special. What was impressive were the mosaic windows of coloured glass; the 'Academy' almost appeared like a cathedral on Earth..
"Do we use the main entrance?" I asked, as I turned towards Teuflisch.
After all, this building still seemed to have some of its enchantments active, and it wasn't invaded by the crawling horror. Which meant if it had guardians or traps, we would encounter them.
Lisch shook his head.
"This is an academy. A floating one, judging by the crater," He said quietly, pointing upwards. "Irem tended to include vast defences in its resting places culturally, but that doesn't mean they did this with every important building where people actually lived daily. Considering this place must have been all but impossible to reach from below unless via some specific means, I doubt we have to look out for traps or defences."
I nodded slowly; his logic was sound.
Calling out to my mana, I started to reshape the ground. Raising a platform under the platform, until we had a stairway up the rock that was bleeding mana, and on which the manor resided.
Teuflisch wordlessly sent a single Vigil soldier first to check if it was dangerous.
"How is your mana sensitivity? That thing doesn't have any roots," He asked me. It was an idle question, as he too could sense mana, and likely expected my answer.
"The mana bleeding from the foundation obstructs my view. I sense practically nothing in the academy due to it." I confirmed.
"As I thought," The necromancer sighed, "Never anything simple with this cursed city, is there?"
I elected not to respond.
The vigil construct climbed atop and seemed perfectly fine. Lisch sent a few diagnostic spells his way; his eyebrows furrowed.
"..nothing affects the construct externally. It's safe." He took a step forward, and I stopped him with my hand.
"I'll go first to make sure," I insisted, as I floated upwards, and onto the platform…
…nothing happened.
I gestured for the necromancer to climb up, as I glanced around.
The courtyard of the academy looked deserted. I could see the place where, clearly, a stream was flowing, and a sizable garden was located; now, only dry, cracked dirt remained. But even the fertile dirt was consumed elsewhere in the city.
"It seemed this thing was really flying in the air," I mused, glancing up, and towards the giant half-sphere made of calcified roots in the city center. "But it's odd, I could swear the roots can reach this height…"
When Teuflisch approached and looked at me questioningly, I simply shook my head, unwilling to repeat another pointless question.
Slowly, the two of us headed towards the academy's entrance.
On the way there, Teuflisch suddenly stopped, gestured for me to follow, and approached one of the strange structures on the 'rock's' outskirts.
"...this clearly used to be an elevator," Teuflisch gestured to a mechanical contraption around it, and a big, rubble-filled, cracked shaft. "It likely threw a couple of chains down… yes, those," He said, approaching one such rusted chain. "And then lifted whatever weight they needed." He bent down, and under a layer of dirt, uncovered a long metal… handle? "They probably had a fet construct to work the mechanism."
I stared at Teuflisch for a moment before shaking my head. I didn't want to consider skeleton-powered lifts.
"Now that the fact that it was floating is practically confirmed… I am very interested in how they achieved it. And how the fall didn't destroy the structure." I mused, glancing into the rock below.
I could feel that the enchantment on it was powerful, but… something like that must have been a ridiculous project and a show of wealth.
"It was likely levitating rather than flying. And the lack of strong winds was probably the only reason it was possible," Teuflisch suggested. "You told me that even your flying magic struggled against stronger winds."
He wasn't wrong, but by stronger winds I meant hurricanes.
Still, levitation instead of flight…
"They could've used something magnetic to hold it in place…" I tried, before shaking my head. "Forget it, it's useless to guess. Let's explore the building and make sure it is safe. After that, I will take my time trying to study the foundation."
If the template for floating existed, I may finally be able to find a way to transcribe flight from demonic magic into something usable by humans.
Not that I dedicated much time to trying to do that, but it was a project I worked on sometimes.
Finally, we approached the main gate.
Two of the Vigil's physically stronger constructs stepped forward and pushed, making the stone doors open with a grinding, scraping noise against the ground. Some small stones started to fall from the roof, likely shaken by the door opening.
Once the door opened, magical, sunlight-coloured lights ignited along the walls.
Before us was a grand entrance chamber. Three floors, one after another. At the walls stood statues of remarkable craftsmanship, enchanted portraits that seemed to have still been preserved, and magical items in display cases…
The roof above us was a cracked mosaic; young people and the undead seemed to dance in the circle, looking cheerful. For a moment, it reminded me of Danse Macabre so much that I almost took one of the leading figures, who I think was a professor here, for an episcope.
"Looks almost like a museum," I said quietly, stepping first after the undead constructs. I knew they were there to scan the area; they were programmed to defend Teuflisch and me both.
"Museums? What even is this word?" The necromancer muttered, glancing around in wariness and awe.
"Places where historical artifacts are displayed and preserved. Popular back home." I commented, taking in the surroundings.
The main hall did appear like a museum, with a tall stairway being the centerpiece, and some balconies to the sides. There were engravings and bas-reliefs of undead and plain skulls, but not overbearing. If not for the dust and devastation, the atmosphere actually would've been quite lively.
Or at least as far as I could tell.
"We inspect the museum pieces first, don't forget the mimic detection spell," I told him plainly, "Let's see if there is anything worth taking here."
Teuflisch sighed, shaking his head.
"I know that you don't mean it this way, but you do have a way to make me feel like a marauder."
…said the literal proud graverober by profession.
Sometimes I really feel like I don't understand humanity at all. Then again, I used to feel like that in life, too, seeing some things in the media, and what they push into the textbooks.
"Keep a construct or two around," I reminded, seeing the man wave me off.
We scanned the displays and portraits on the first floor within the first ten or so minutes. Most items seemed to have symbolic value rather than anything practical.
A short scepter, for instance, was supposedly gifted to some ancient king of the neighboring city, his symbol of power, taken by conquest.
Then there was a ring Teuflisch was geeking out over, supposedly the oldest necromancer construct 'control unit' ever built, belonging again, to some ancient king. Lisch couldn't tear himself away from the well-preserved silver artifact, which still had its templates dimly burning inside.
I, on my part, was quite fascinated with the self-playing harp that was the oldest magical item in the city, period, according to the marble panel. Supposedly, it was a gift from the elf named Sonnig, who taught the first mages of Irem.
On the harp itself, in elven script, the following was written: 'A sign of friendship eternal, may our people be at peace and prosper. May we come to aid each other when we need it most.'
I considered those words for a while, trying to make sure I translated them right. I considered the artifact, before, carefully, taking it for myself, to admire the enchanting work.
An enhancement that played any music the user imagined was a fascinating spell.
"This symbol here," Lisch's voice rang out from my side, making me snap out of trying to understand the complex enchantment. I looked at the symbol he pointed towards, at the side of the harp, and it was… a drawing of a sun, I think? "It's been on some of the better-preserved houses in that elven village," He said, his expression somber, as he smiled bitterly. "Do you think the elves waited for help from Irem while being slaughtered and devoured by demons? Wandering where their allies were?"
His hands were clenched tight, I noticed.
"They might have," I admitted, glancing down. "Irem fell, what, four or so centuries before elves were targeted by the Demon King? To someone of their species, it's like a few decades for a human."
Teuflisch let out a slow sigh before heading towards the nearest stone bench.
"The more I learn of this city, the more tragic it becomes," He said, and…
"Lisch," I called out, raising my voice and making him blink. "Check the bench with a mimic-detector first, I never did so before." It was on my 'half' of the hall.
He sighed, but stepped further away from it, looking more annoyed than anything.
"Come on, Albert, there is no way…" He paused, as the spell took hold. I simply stared into his back. "..there is a one percent chance it's a false positive." He tried.
For some reason, I could only imagine a spirit of a certain silver-haired elf behind his back, perhaps whispering this absolute nonsense into his ear like a devil.
"...just blow it up already." I simply requested.
Lisch hesitated for a couple of seconds, but produced multiple Kraftstoßs spheres, from the only offensive spell he managed to master.
Once he did, the mimic, who was still a fair distance away, exploded into action. Unfortunately for it, the spells hit it almost immediately, and then the Vigil warriors tore into the writhing and screeching pile of flesh.
For a few long seconds, we simply observed the execution. The amount of blood those things can produce, and the distressed screeching, must be exceptionally unnerving to humans. I remember Teuflisch mentioning he had nightmares about those.
"...let's just check the second floor," Lisch asked with exhaustion in his voice.
"Let's." I echoed, as I focused my eyes on the display cases of the second floor.
***
Two hours later,
"..why did we even bother to check the lecture halls first, again?" Lisch asked/complained.
"Because we didn't bring a cart with us, and every other place will likely have enough items of value for us to require one. I also like to be thorough, and would prefer we clear out places, rather than having to go through the same places twice." I patiently explained again.
The necromancer sighed dramatically. I almost missed when he was too shy for such showmanship.
"Let's just go to the laboratories and the library, it's in the same wing, and by this point, I am done checking every stone seat. How did five of them turn out to be a mimic?" He complained, probably to himself.
To be honest, I didn't know how to answer that. 'Proto Mimics liked to target human taint' probably wasn't the correct answer.
"Let us go then."
Neither the laboratories nor the library was on one of the three upper floors of the building, according to the remaining marble signs; what we were searching for was in the basement.
Or more likely, an underground layer dug into the rock, on which the academy building stood.
We circled back to the main hall, two of the Vigil constructs, the ones who were combat mages and as such were the least useful indoors, were loaded with most of the valuables and left to guard them, as we headed towards the stairway behind the one we ascended on the first floor, which led down.
As we passed, the magical lights ignited above us and dimmed behind us, even if many of them were styled like torches, it was still impressive how many of those were still functional.
Once we approached the stairway that led down, Lisch paused, and so did I.
"..this is deeper than I thought it would go," He commented.
Privately, I agreed. Vigil first, and while casting mimic-detection spells under our feet, we advanced at a snail's pace.
The descent was slow, punctuated by the metallic scrape of the boots of the lead Vigil construct against the steps. These steps were not the simple, functional stone of the upper floors; they were carved from the same black granite as the manor's exterior, polished to a reflective sheen that captured and multiplied the magical lights flickering to life ahead of us. They were also enchanted to repel dust, so I was relatively sure that were I to crouch here and look closely, I would see my face reflected in the stone.
The walls of the stairwell were not bare. Intricate bas-reliefs formed a continuous mural that descended with us. The artistry was remarkable. They depicted scenes of academic life: robed figures observing the stars through arcane devices, others meticulously dissecting bodies of some creatures, and groups of students gathered around a master demonstrating a complex spell that was depicted as a collection of interconnected stars between his spread arms. The ever-present skulls and skeletons of Irem's iconography were here, but were more subtle. Skeletons were posed as anatomical studies, or as tireless assistants holding heavy grimoires open for their living masters.
Now that I think about it, I think every depiction had at least one skull or a skeleton somewhere.
Each new magical light ignited from within a crystal lens set into a recessed niche, casting shifting, web-like patterns on the polished steps and the opposing wall. The air grew cooler, still, and heavy with the scent of ancient dust and something… almost sweet. But instinctively repulsive.
I don't think Teuflisch, lacking my demonic senses, noticed.
"While this is beautiful, I just don't get it," Teuflisch muttered from behind me, his voice echoing slightly in the enclosed space. "Who builds a stairway this... ornate... for a basement? To begin with, why are the library and the workshops in the basement?!"
"This is likely better decorated because students were expected to pass this place more often," I replied, not breaking my pace. My gaze tracked a particularly detailed carving of someone working on a giant skeleton. "The fixation with the underground is probably normal for an underground city. It's also plainly safer if you have so much stone between your experiments and dorm rooms."
Lisch didn't reply; I think his words might have been mostly rhetorical in the first place.
The stairway finally ended, opening into a wide, circular chamber. The ceiling here was vaulted, supported by four thick, fluted pillars of the same dark granite. The silence was profound, broken only by our arrival. Three large, arched corridors branched off from this central hub, each portal framed in polished white marble that contrasted sharply with the black stone.
Above each arch, gilt lettering was inlaid into a dark marble slab, the script identical to the signs on the upper floors. I read them as we approached the center of the chamber. One indicated 'Workshops and Laboratories'. The second, 'Equipment Storage'. The third, and the one that led deepest into the foundation, read 'Sanctum & Library'.
"Library and a sanctum," I stated, gesturing with my staff toward the third corridor. "Our destination."
"Finally," Teuflisch sighed, adjusting the strap of his pack. "Let's hope the books weren't stored on stone benches. I've had enough mimics almost biting my head off, thank you very much."
Lisch sent Vigil constructs ahead into the indicated passageway. We followed our own mimic-detection spells, re-cast every time we saw anything remotely suspicious or displaced, sweeping over the floor before us. This corridor shifted with a turn.
It was now a complex mosaic of dark red and white stone, forming a dizzying geometric pattern that seemed to pull the eye inward… the white stones were the smallest element, and looked like an interconnected vertebrae, a giant trailing spine.
The magical lights here were more frequent, giving the long hall an even, steady illumination.
Our footsteps and the rhythmic clanking of the constructs were the only sounds. The passage was long, perhaps fifty meters, and ended at a set of truly imposing double doors. They stood at least four meters tall, crafted not from stone, but from a dark, petrified wood that seemed almost black. Its surface was smooth, yet covered in finely carved sigils that spiraled out from a central emblem: a silver inlay of a great, stylized tree, its roots and branches interwoven to form a perfectly recognizable human skull.
We stopped before them. The constructs took up positions on either side, their unliving eyes fixed on the entrance.
"I don't like this symbol," I said, my voice emotionless as ever, "I don't like what it may imply."
"It may be a coincidence," Teuflisch echoed, his voice pretty hollow, "But I have trouble convincing myself of that by this point."
Exchanging glances, we pushed the door inwards.
What met us was… a library.
No, The Library.
For some reason, I expected the place to be smaller. We were underground, so surely, there wasn't that much space.
But it seemed the corridor was over fifty meters long after a turn for a reason.
Above us was the coloured glass, enchanted with pretty impressive spellwork, that still held up. It was also a mosaic, reminding me of Notre Dame de Paris.
Countless motives were upon it, like the roof of an Orthodox church. Battles I had no idea about, creatures I didn't recognize, countless undead depicted in different forms, and in the center, the skull woven of branches and roots with burning, flaming eyes…
It seems the library was outside of the main academy building, built into the ground and ascended a bit into the spire, as there were multiple floors of it.
Mostly, all around us were scrolls.
The sheer scale of the academy's library was unexpected. The chamber was a vast, cylindrical void, rising upwards for what I estimated to be at least seven distinct levels. Balconies, crowded with endless rows of dark wood shelves, lined the circumference of each floor. The air was perfectly still, heavy with the dry scent of millennia-old parchment, dust, and the faint, repulsive sweetness I had noted in the stairwell. It was much stronger here.
Made my hair stand on its end.
Far above, the mosaic ceiling pulsed with a cold, internal light. It cast its illumination downward, a broad column of white light that caught the swirling dust motes in a silent, perpetual dance. It was beautiful.
And then there were the shelves.
Most of them were in perfect condition. Positioned across the walls and on the balconies, the scroll shelves were everywhere. Countless scroll cases lined the shelves, and I was certain that the scrolls within were untouched.
With no light, with faint magical enchantment on the bookshelves, and the air this dry… those were perfect conditions for papyrus preservation, were they not?
Some of the scrolls even radiated the faintest of magical auras, additionally protected.
In some places, entire shelves were intact. if only barely.
"Incredible," Teuflisch breathed, his voice hushed, echoing in the immense quiet. He stepped forward, his gaze sweeping upwards. "The knowledge... even a fraction of this…!"
For the first time in my memory, my emotions were almost in synch with Lisch. I, too, was excited by the possibility beyond belief.
Interconnecting the floors was a complex web of ladders, all crafted from the same dark, enchanted wood as the shelves. They were fixed to rails, allowing them to slide along the balconies and also to connect vertically between levels, granting access to every high shelf in the tower. The enchantments on them must have been formidable; like the shelves, they showed no sign of decay.
My gaze followed the ladders upward, climbing floor by floor until it reached the apex. I studied the central mosaic, the skull of roots and branches. It was from there, at the very top, that the anomaly originated.
Sprouting from the edges of the seventh floor, just beneath the mosaic's border, were roots.
They were not the pale, calcified structures we had seen throughout the city. These were a dark, sickly brownish-green, glistening with a faint, oily moisture. They were not petrified. They were not even dead like the specimens in the tomb.
One of them twitched.
"Lisch," I said, my voice sharp, cutting through his quiet awe. I pointed with my staff. "The top floor."
Teuflisch's head snapped up. His breath hitched, quiet horror in it, as he saw what I did. "They're.. alive."
The roots, as if responsive to our voices or mere presence, were spreading, crawling sluggishly across the highest bookshelves and down, their tendrils wrapping around scroll cases and wooden supports.
As they attempted to slowly travel down.
"We go up. Now," I commanded, moving toward the nearest ladder.
"The Vigil first," Teuflisch ordered, his voice tight with distress. He directed one of the undead under his command up a ladder.
The ascent was rapid. We did not pause to inspect the decaying floors, climbing one after the other with practiced speed. The dark wood of the ladders was firm under my boots. We moved through the column of dust-filled balconies, and the silence of the library was periodically broken by scrapes of the agitated roots above.
As we passed the sixth floor, the air grew noticeably thicker, the sweet, repulsive odor becoming almost cloying. We climbed the final ladder and stepped out onto the top level.
This was not another floor of the library. This space was open, a circular chamber that served as a capstone for the entire library tower. The walls were not lined with shelves but carved with intricate bas-reliefs, all depicting the same motif: roots and branches, coiling and spreading across. Reminded me of medieval obsession with vines in Europe, except here it was much more ominous. The floor was a mosaic of a great tree. In the very center of the room, directly beneath the root-skull mosaic in the ceiling, stood an altar of white marble.
Upon the altar lay a body. As if it fell on its face-first, awkwardly. By the altar, on the floor, lay a rusty blade, a knife, I think, but I barely noticed it.
The body used to belong to a human. It was grotesquely malnourished, the dry, leathery skin pulled so tight over the bones that it was barely more than a skeleton. What little clothing it might have worn had long since rotted into nothing. But the most horrifying detail was its head.
Thick, dark roots, the same living roots we had seen from below, burst from its eye sockets, its open mouth, and from a jagged rupture in its forehead. They writhed, coiling together into a single, thick cable that snaked upward, merging into the tangle of roots spreading across the ceiling.
And across the entire body… I could see the roots moving beneath the skin.
Teuflisch made a choked sound, a mixture of horror and something else, as he held his mouth shut, as if about to vomit.
It was the trigger. The roots on the ceiling, which had been moving with slow, sluggish purpose, suddenly stopped. The entire network trembled. The body on the altar arched, a silent rictus of a scream twisting its mummified features.
I didn't bother holding anything back, as I released my carefully concealed mana as a torrent and woven a spell,
"Druckwelle."
In truth, I didn't know if those roots, when still alive, were resistant to fire and electricity. But I knew that blunt force worked; I saw the roots torn by the tomb guardians.
So I unleashed this spell directly towards the corpse, even as seven different shields of defensive magic arose around Teuflisch and me in an instant.
The spell landed like a Hammer of God, quite literally squashing the remains and the altar into paste. The roots all around us and across the room started to squirm chaotically, directionally, and in the next instant, the Vigil were upon them.
Hacking and slashing and burning…
Within just a few seconds, countless living roots of the crawling horror were turned to nothing.
My eyes immediately turned to Teuflisch, who sat there on the floor, looking around in wordless horror.
I followed his gaze.
He was focused on the motifs on the walls and ceiling. The great skull of roots, from which branches of said roots trailed to a few people with halos.
Immediately, I dismissed the imagery for now, focusing on the most important part, namely, the roots that intertwined with the scrolls and bookshelves on this floor.
I started to weave blades of shadows and cut into the spreading cancer, as I hurried towards one such bookcase that was intertwined by the roots. On closer inspection, the roots branched out into such thin tendrils that they appeared akin to spiderwebs, spreading across everything inside.
Approaching the shelf and taking out one scroll case, I looked inside… empty of content, but filled with spider-web-like roots.
"This thing was feeding on scrolls, just like the ones outside fed on all organic matter," I said, as I glanced around.
The top floor was mostly this odd temple, yet it had plenty of bookshelves that were consumed by the crawling horror.
For a few long moments, I focused on controlling the shadow-blades, cutting apart the roots all around.
Now with the central node dead, they struggled and writhed purposelessly, like a body in a dying agony, merely convulsing.
From each cut, the oddest-smelling liquid was spilling. It looked like arterial blood, but thick and viscous like tree sap. It had this cloying sweet scent that smelled both appetizing and like something rotten and foul, beyond repulsive.
"Al!" I snapped towards the necromancer. "There could be more of those things around the building. They seem to get more active by sensing us; we need to finish them off before we can do anything else."
He was likely right. Those things ate through organics, scrolls, clothes, and likely furniture. I glanced down at the platform beneath our feet, even though it was enchanted, the roots buried into it, ate at it.
"Understood," I nodded sharply, "I will take the underground level and the first floor. The second and third floors are yours."
Lisch nodded with some hesitation, his face conflicted, he looked sick.
I leaped down, activating the flight spell. I heard the necromancer hurrying towards the stairs.
***
"...I see you found something of interest too," I commented, my gaze shifting from his haunted expression back to the wide map spread on the table in front of me.
Teuflisch stood in the archway of the library, his frame rigid. He had clearly just returned from his sweep of the upper floors. His breathing was audible in the vast, quiet space, a ragged counterpoint to the library's ancient stillness. One of the constructs carried a thick sheaf of bundled parchment and letters in its hands.
My words, spoken as I heard his approach, seemed to hang in the air between us.
The necromancer's gaze shifted from me to the items I had arranged on the wide, darkwood table. I had placed a small, steady magical light floating precisely one meter above its center, casting a bright, sterile illumination that banished the room's natural shadows.
Under this light, I had carefully unrolled the three vellum maps I discovered on a wall within a workshop that I think was focused on geography. They were not simple maps of the city. While the basic layout of Irem was recognizable, there were markings on it in the space surrounding the city, markings that I recognized as the centerpieces of the barriers we destroyed.
On closer examination of the map, I found a subtle enchantment woven in; activating it revealed a dizzying lattice of symbols and interconnected lines.
The barrier system was depicted here. Not the spell that built it, but where it would be placed.
Teuflisch finally moved, walking stiffly toward the table. He looked exhausted, but it was an agitation of the mind, not just physical weariness. His eyes scanned the maps, but his focus seemed fractured, his mind clearly burdened by his own discovery.
He stopped opposite me and, with a heavy sigh that was more an exhalation of frustration, he dropped the bundle of letters onto the small, clear space remaining on the table. They were not ancient scrolls or grimoires; there was no magic to them. They were personal correspondence, folded pages, and scrolls.
"Interest," he said, his voice low and strained, "is not the word I would use, Al."
He stared down at the letters he had brought, his expression a mix of anger and a profound, hollow sadness I had seen in him before, back in the elven village.
"Have you encountered any more clusters?" He asked simply, obviously referring to the roots.
I shook my head.
"No. The first and second floors were empty. But I heard the explosions, I assume you…?"
Lisch nodded sharply.
"In the men's dormitories. The thing spread across half the rooms. I killed it, and when I had my constructs making a sweep… I discovered a wall cavity." He chuckled, shaking his head, "No, I suppose, it's correct to say that the abomination found it first, some of the roots practically dug into it."
He gestured at the correspondence.
"Take a look."
I did as he offered.
Quickly unfolding some of the papers, I was immediately taken aback.
"Elvish?" I muttered to myself, already scanning the contents.
"All of it," He confirmed, sounding a bit frustrated, "I know some elvish, but on a very basic level. This correspondence is beyond me. Is it ciphered?"
I shook my head as my eyes ran from line to line.
"No, just very flowery and elaborate. Likely on purpose. Those aren't common words. Instead of using simple phrases like 'I need help', they wrote something like 'henceforth I beseech you for assistance'. They were simply using more complex and rare expressions. As long as you know the language well, there won't be an issue reading them."
Luckily, not a problem for a demon.
"Those are coded exchanges. Not a cipher, rather, just code words and code terms. Something is delivered successfully." I took up another letter, "This one is about the arrival of the 'sun' in the 'pastry'..."
"Al, just read the damn things, and then summarize what you can make sense of," He asked in a small voice.
I simply nodded and got to work. I could tell that Lisch himself focused on the maps across the table.
In a few minutes, I had read through most of the correspondence.
"Is that all of it?" I asked, after taking another minute or two to consider the information I've read.
Tueflisch nodded.
"Everything that was preserved. Roots got to some on the top of the pile, those were… merged with the roots, half-absorbed." He looked almost sick as he said it, but instead of focusing on it, I nodded.
"Understood. In this case, to summarize…" I took a small pause, once again gathering my thoughts, "The first correspondence of interest addresses the formation of a 'cult'. Both sides of the exchange are concerned about it. Especially about the 'chosen', who were controlled by 'that thing'. The exchanges don't have dates and aren't in order, but a lot of them are just complaints about raising taxes, harsher laws, and such, mostly blaming the cult for it. Something happened in the main square, near the palace; it seemed to be a catalyst of some sort. New people were drafted into the conspiracy, it's coded, but I think from mages, necromancers, army, city guard… and here," I shook three letters held together, "They mention an elven friend. 'The Sun'."
I sat back a bit.
"I believe the cult is the reason for that terrific shrine on top of the library. As for the chosen…"
Lisch nodded slowly.
"It's the infested bodies," He glanced down at the map.
"It's mentioned in one of the letters," I said quietly, "Apparently, a great achievement that they call heresy. Fusion of living and dead flesh, achieved by the studies of certain monsters contained there…" I paused, recalling exactly what cages I found in the laboratories. "The monsters in question are likely the Proto Mimics. Most of them escaped when the enchantment of their cages withered with age, that's how we found them across the city, but some were still contained in the labs." I glanced at the map, "It's likely that the reason we found so many across the city below was that they escaped either when the academy fell from the sky, or maybe even before, and spread across the ruins."
I knew that Lisch couldn't possibly be taking this well. For him, Irem was a holy land from which his craft originated. A noble kingdom that created the rigid rules he abided by.
He had strong opinions about what constituted heresy. That the dead may serve the living, because it doesn't hurt them to do so, but turning living into slaves puppeted by magic is something he can't accept.
Much less the ugly atrocity that the roots represented. I saw how pale he was, how sick and exhausted he looked, and yet, I could offer no comfort, as I had trouble parsing exactly how terribly he felt.
Instead, I just gave him time.
"...it was the conspiracy that created those barriers?" He asked quietly.
I slowly nodded.
"It seems so. The latest letters mention the 'project'. There are some exchanges about how it's a terrible thing to do, but there is no other way. The elves… seemed to have helped with constructing those barriers," I said softly, "Look here."
I gestured towards the map, and Lisch obediently did.
"Those four barriers outside of the outer walls were the ones we breached," I explained the obvious, before pointing at the gates. "This is the barrier around the city itself, the last barrier we broke. That said," I pointed at it, and then, towards the three other barriers… within the city itself.
The necromancer nodded sharply.
"There was supposed to be three other barriers. One around the castle, one around the centermost districts, one just beyond the inner wall…" He listed slowly.
"The second barrier corresponds with the root cocoon," I told him the one thing I noticed before he even came here, seeing the man's eyes widen, "This structure… was likely the roots pushing on the barrier from every direction at the same time."
I gestured down towards the letters.
"According to the correspondence, the conspirators never expected the first couple of barriers to hold, even if 'Sun' assured them they should. They were erected to buy time for evacuation. They were planning to enact 'the plan' during a festival, saying it's their only chance to save the city," I said, before sharing some of my observations, "The lack of battle in the outer districts was likely due to the third barrier. It held back the roots at least until the civilians escaped."
Teuflisch looked taken aback, but nodded, his shoulders relaxed just slightly.
"I see… in that case, would I be correct to assume that the center of this cult… was in the castle?" He asked, his expression growing empty.
For a brief moment, I hesitated. Not completely sure why.
"Yes," I said the obvious, "It seems to have been a seat of power for this calamity."
For a while, we sat in silence.
"Al, I don't think I can do this," He said quietly, his voice broken up. "I… I can't sit around and wait, exploring outer ruins anymore. I need to make sure that… that whatever it was, it's over."
This wasn't wise. If we just explored the academy, we likely could get a much better idea about what happened in Irem first. There was clearly no pressing, immediate danger.
Yet, I understood somewhat.
"Then let's go," I offered, meeting the necromancer's eyes. "Let's see what lies in the heart of this."
***
The journey toward the city was silent initially. I never enjoyed small talk, and Lisch was clearly not in the mood for them either.
We left the academy behind, its once floating foundation still bleeding pale, luminescentless light into the cavern's darkness. The Vigil constructs moved in formation around us, their footsteps creating a steady rhythm that echoed off distant buildings. Twenty of them. All that remained functional after our exploration. We had to leave everything we found in a relatively secure container before moving out.
Teuflisch walked beside me, his staff held tight. His knuckles were white against the dark wood. I noted this, but did not comment.
The streets leading inward were wider than those we had explored before. Grand avenues, once meant the place where the trade flowed through, were, as alway,s desolate. The roots here were thicker, their petrified forms coiling up building facades, and streaming across the cobblestones like fossilized serpents. Some were as thick as my torso. Some as thick as a small building. Others had fused into massive trunks and spread back out.
"There," Teuflisch said, his voice quiet.
The inner wall rose before us, still as colossal as it appeared from the distance. It was constructed from the same dark stone as much of Irem's architecture, though here the stone was carved with defensive enchantments that still flickered with the faintest traces of magic. Unlike the outer wall, this one wasn't bleeding magic… as it was long since bled dry. The wall curved away to our left and right, encircling the city's heart.
The gates stood open.
Massive iron portals, each at least five meters wide, hung motionless on their hinges. Everything appeared orderly. Undisturbed.
"No battle," I observed. "Not on this side." I gestured towards the gates. "The gates were wide open, the guards were likely warned in advance, and evacuated."
We passed through the gateway, the Vigil constructs adjusting their formation to fit the narrower space. The passage was perhaps ten meters deep, cutting through the wall's thickness. Roots had grown through here as well, but they were thinner, more sparse. The constructs cut through them without much difficulty.
Then we emerged on the other side.
The change in scenery was immediate.
Where the outer approach had been eerily peaceful, this side of the wall told a different story entirely. The ground was scorched, great swathes of it turned to glass where extreme heat had melted the stone. The buildings immediately beyond the gate were heavily damaged, their walls cracked and in some cases completely collapsed. In some spots, there were no buildings, just craters.
And there were shadows.
I stopped, studying one such shadow on the ground before us. It depicted a human figure, lying prone. But it was not painted or carved. The shadow was burned into the stone itself, a permanent silhouette where the person had stood when something, some tremendous release of energy, had struck.
"Goddess," Teuflisch breathed. He had seen them too.
There were dozens. Perhaps hundreds. Scattered not too far from the wall itself, but never quite near it.
Because I remembered the schematics. The barrier was on this side of the wall, meaning people couldn't have possibly passed.
Those were likely the surviving civilians who didn't manage to escape before the barriers were raised.
And then they were bombarded with the barrier by some tremendously powerful spells.
"I've seen this before," I said quietly, yet deeply, I felt a pang of fear. "They called it 'human shadows etched in stone'. They were a product of the strongest weapon humanity in my world invented. An explosion so monumentally powerful that the fundamental particles of the body were injected into the stone below."
I remembered that Frieren used something that looked like black holes, of course. That, however, felt distant. A far-away peak of magic, that for all I knew, might have been an animator's stylistic choice rather than the genuine nature of the spell.
But now I saw a literal afterimage of explosions that rivaled nuclear weaponry in intensity, if not radius.
I approached one of the shadows. A child, I thought, based on the size. The silhouette showed them curled up, knees drawn to chest. I reached out but did not touch the stone. There was nothing to touch. Only the shadow remained.
"Albert," Teuflisch called. His voice was strained.
I turned and saw what had drawn his attention.
Bodies. Or what had once been bodies.
They were scattered across the plaza beyond the gate, perhaps twenty that I could see immediately. But these were not skeletons. They were intact, preserved in the same manner as the corpse we had found in the academy's library. Mummified, leathery skin pulled tight over bones.
And from each one, roots grew.
Thick, white roots that burst from eye sockets and mouths and chests. The roots coiled around the bodies, through them, binding them to the ground and to each other in a grotesque network. All petrified now, frozen in place like everything else in this dead city.
All of them had their mouths open in silent screams, even if now the flesh was the same calcified substance as the roots.
I moved among them, examining the scene with clinical detachment. The roots that grew from these bodies were connected, I noted. They formed a network, all flowing in the same direction, toward the city's center.
"In the letters, there was an exchange," I paused, not sure how to choose my words, "It says that the 'plan' will disturb the connection of the chosen to the 'source'. That this will cause them to go out of control, revert to being a monster," I gestured towards the roots. "The first two barriers, those around the castle and the inner district… they likely disturbed that connection. The roots sprouted from the chosen at that moment. This is likely why they started the plan during the festival. To minimize the amount of those things across the rest of Irem, so they could evacuate as many people as they could."
"How many… how many were even infested in the first place?" Teuflisch said. His voice was hollow. "How could they have accepted this? The city? The nobility? The king Barmherzig?!"
I shook my head, gesturing at the petrified bodies.
"Lisch, before the connection was cut, those chosen likely were superhuman," I explained quietly, "I am almost certain they had their human memories preserved, likely their minds too, for the most part. But judging by the bodies, they likely had the same property as those roots. Durable… and likely immortal."
The man gritted his teeth.
"It's an abomination! You've read Barmherzig's remaining notes! The apparent last king of the city himself proclaimed the rules for necromancy, of such things being an unforgivable crime! How could they have been so foolish?! I…" He cut himself off, breathing out. "Let's just go."
The necromancer's staff trembled in his grip.
We moved onward.
The streets beyond the plaza grew progressively worse. No more bodies, beyond an occasional 'chosen', no more shadows etched in stone, but still signs of countless battles. Those battles, however, were smaller. Likely surviving mages trying to fight back against the roots sprouting by the out-of-control chosen.
Some buildings were not just damaged but destroyed, reduced to rubble by whatever battle had been fought here. The roots were thicker, forming a dense carpet across the ground in places. They spread like this in the bookshelves… when they had something to feast on. We had to navigate carefully, stepping over the petrified growths.
The magical lights we maintained cast harsh shadows that danced and shifted with our movement. Every alcove, every doorway became a potential threat. But nothing moved. Nothing lived here.
After perhaps twenty minutes of walking and maneuvering between thicker petrified roots and rubble that obstructed the streets, I began to sense something ahead. Not with my eyes, but with my mana sensitivity. A disturbance in the ambient magical field.
"Do you feel that?" I asked.
Teuflisch nodded, his jaw tight. "Yes."
The root cocoon rose before us like a wall of tangled vegetation. It was massive, perhaps two hundred meters wide and rising to a height that nearly reached the cavern's ceiling. The roots here had grown so densely, interwoven so tightly, that they formed a nearly solid barrier. A sphere of petrified plant matter that encased the city's heart.
But it was not completely solid. There were gaps, spaces where the roots had not quite sealed together.
Buildings had been pulverized, reduced to scattered fragments of rubble. And everywhere were the bodies.
Hundreds of them.
They lay in heaps, in piles three and four deep in places. Men, women, young, and old. All infested with roots. All frozen in their final moments. Their faces were twisted in agony or rage or terror or emptiness. Many reached toward the cocoon, as if trying to claw their way in. Others were turned away, as if fleeing.
And woven among them, binding them together, were the roots. So thick here that it was difficult to see where one body ended and another began. The entire mass formed a grotesque carpet of death that surrounded the cocoon on all sides.
"The chosen gathered for the festival must have been trying to breach the barrier from this side, while the source of their corruption pushed from the opposite end. They likely didn't devolve to this form instantly," I commented quietly.
Teuflisch made a sound, low and anguished.
I glanced at him. His face had gone pale, almost gray. His eyes were wide, darting from body to body, taking in the sheer scale of the carnage. His staff shook visibly in his hands now.
"This is wrong," he whispered. "This is... this is an abomination."
I did not disagree. Even without human emotions, I could recognize the enormity of what lay before us. This was the sort of atrocity written about in textbooks.
"We can turn back," I offered.
"No." His voice was firm despite the tremor in it. "No. I need to see. I need to know what happened. I need..." He stopped, swallowed hard.
We moved forward.
Finding a path through the bodies was difficult. We had to walk carefully, sometimes stepping over the petrified remains. The Vigil constructs followed without hesitation, their unliving nature rendering them immune to the horror that so affected Teuflisch.
I focused on finding an entrance to the cocoon. The gaps I had seen from a distance were larger up close, some wide enough to walk through. But many were partially blocked by root growth or by bodies that had tried to force their way in.
Eventually, I found a suitable opening on the northeastern side of the cocoon. It was perhaps three meters wide, formed where several massive roots had curved away from each other. I could see through it to an open space beyond.
"Here," I called to Teuflisch.
He approached slowly, his gaze still fixed on the bodies surrounding us. When he reached my side, he looked at the opening, then at me.
"Are you ready?" I asked.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. "Yes."
We entered the cocoon.
Inside was a hollow space, a bubble in the mass of roots. It seems I was right, the roots were merely pushing against the barriers, this was the source of the tumbleweed-like cocoon.
The ground was clear of bodies here, though roots covered every surface. They formed a carpet of sorts.
We were practically in a vast chamber, hundreds of meters across. The walls here were formed entirely of roots, rising up and curving inward to meet at a point high above. It looked almost like the inside of a cathedral, or a ribcage.
But it was what lay ahead that stopped us in our tracks.
At the center of the infestation, where the palace must once have stood, the roots had formed into something else entirely. A structure. A shape.
A face, or a head.
It wasn't quite one. The petrified roots were far too numerous, far too varying in thickness, but the human face was almost visible, the big, sullen brows with dark holes for eyes, a mouth, and a nose. All calcified now, all stone.
It was massive.
We beheld its shape for a few agonizingly long moments.
"You mentioned that… the cult's main base was in the castle, correct?" He asked, his voice weak.
I nodded.
"Castle and a cathedral. Those words were used interchangeably."
Lisch didn't reply, just walked forward first. I followed.
It was when we approached, and he suddenly stopped, that I noticed. With my sharp eyesight, I might have seen sooner, if not for the backs of the Vigil obstructing my vision.
And at its base, fused directly into the roots that formed the skull's foundation, were the people of Irem.
Thousands of them.
They were packed together so densely that individual bodies were difficult to distinguish. Men, women, children, elderly, all pressed against each other in a solid mass. The roots had grown through them, binding them together, incorporating them into the structure itself. Their faces were visible, tilted upward, mouths open in expressions of such profound agony that even I, with my limited capacity for emotion, felt something cold settle in my chest.
This was the entire population of Irem's inner city, used as raw material to construct this obscenity.
But this wasn't all. I glanced at the 'head' itself; woven into it, too, were the bodies. Not calcified and petrified but…
Teuflisch made a sound like a wounded animal.
I turned to look at him. He had fallen to his knees, his staff clattering to the ground beside him. His hands were pressed to his face, fingers digging into his skin. His whole body shook.
"No," he whispered. "No, no, no.."
His voice echoed in the chamber, bouncing off the root walls and the skull structure. The Vigil constructs stood motionless around us, awaiting orders that did not come.
I placed a hand on Teuflisch's shoulder. He flinched but did not pull away.
"They used them," he said, his voice breaking. "They used the living. Thousands of them. They... they…" He could not finish the sentence.
I understood his distress, intellectually if not emotionally. Necromancy, as Teuflisch practiced it, operated under strict principles. The honored dead could be called to serve, but only after death, and only with respect for what they had been. What we saw before us violated every principle he held sacred.
"Lisch," I said quietly. "Look at me."
He didn't. I hesitated for just a brief moment, surrounded by Vigil as we were.
Then, sharply, I slapped him. Not using my full strength, not anywhere near, but enough for the man to fall on the ground disoriented. To my surprise, the undead construct didn't immediately try to kill me.
"Teuflisch, you already knew where this was going," I told the man, who looked up at me with shock and a trace of fear. "Since we found that body on the altar. You must have the same ideas as I. The cataclysm that devoured Irem was nurtured by the city itself." I crouched by his side, placing my hand on his shoulder. "Don't break down on me now. The implications of what you see don't matter. All of those people are dead now. Let us discover the source. Then you will have time aplenty to think about the whys and hows."
He stared at me for a long moment, then nodded slowly, shakily.
With visible effort, he pushed himself to his feet. He retrieved his staff, though his hands still trembled. He looked back at the skull structure, at the thousands of faces frozen in their final torment.
"May the Goddess have mercy on their souls," he whispered. "Or that Almighty of yours, if he truly can see this."
Then he straightened his robes, took a deep breath, and turned to face the structure fully.
"Where do we enter?" he asked, his voice carefully controlled.
I studied the skull structure, looking for an access point. The eye sockets were the obvious choice, large enough to walk through. But there was also what appeared to be an opening at the base, where the fused bodies gave way to a darker space beyond.
"There," I pointed to the ground-level entrance. "That appears to lead inside the castle proper. Or what remains of it."
Teuflisch nodded. "Then we go in."
And so we did.
The Vigil constructs fell into formation around us. As we drew closer, more details became visible. The bodies at the base were engraved into the roots. Eventually, we were walking across them. All had the most tortured expressions I've seen.
The opening at the base was perhaps four meters wide, a dark threshold that led into the skull's interior. From within came absolute silence. No light, no sound, no sense of movement.
We stood at the entrance, looking into that darkness.
This was it. The heart of Irem. The seat of whatever cult had brought this catastrophe upon the city.
"This time, follow me," I asked, and went forth.
Lisch was in no condition to respond to danger, I knew that much.
The interior of the head turned out to be a castle.
Not metaphorically, but literally. An actual castle, preserved within the mass of petrified roots like an insect trapped in amber.
As we entered through the roots, the entrance hall stretched before us, its dimensions only partially visible in the light of our spells. The ceiling rose at least fifteen meters above, supported by columns of dark stone that had once been carved with intricate reliefs. Now, roots coiled around each pillar like serpents, their petrified forms breaking through the carved surfaces and disrupting the original designs. Between the columns, the walls bore faded frescoes depicting courtly life, festivals, and ceremonies. All of it was partially obscured by the network of roots that had grown across every surface.
The floor was tiled in alternating squares of black and white marble, though many tiles had been pushed up and broken by roots growing from beneath. Debris littered the ground in places. Fragments of what might have been statues, pieces of decorative metalwork, the remains of tapestries reduced to mere threads clinging to root-covered walls.
"This was the royal palace," Teuflisch said quietly. His voice echoed in the vast space. "The seat of King Barmherzig's power."
Barmherzig, the laws for necromancy established by him were still used by Teuflisch's line. A genuine necromantic master of old he admired deeply.
I nodded, studying the architecture. Despite the damage, despite the intrusion of the roots, the building's original grandeur was unmistakable. This had been a place of wealth and authority, designed to impress visitors with the might of Irem's rulers.
We moved forward, the Vigil constructs surrounding us in protective formation. Our magical lights cast shifting shadows across the root-covered surfaces. Every step revealed new details. Here, a doorway that had been completely sealed by root growth. There, a corridor that remained partially accessible, its walls buckled but still standing. Always, there was a path forward. The roots had not sealed the castle completely. They had grown around it, through it, but left passages that led deeper into the structure.
The bodies were everywhere.
They lay in the corridors, slumped against walls, sprawled across the floors. All mummified, all with roots growing from their remains. Some wore the remnants of fine clothing, nobles perhaps, or high-ranking officials. All were engraved into the roots, merged with them.
We passed what had been a grand staircase leading to the upper floors. The stairs themselves had collapsed in the middle, broken apart by massive roots that had punched through from below. Only the lower portion and the very top remained intact, separated by a gap of perhaps ten meters filled with tangled petrified growth.
"Judging by the academy, the most important areas are likely below," I said, spotting a descending passage to our left.
Teuflisch followed without comment.
The descent began at a wide stone stairway, its steps worn smooth by centuries of foot traffic before the catastrophe. The roots grew thicker here, more densely packed. They covered the walls completely in places, forming a textured surface that looked almost organic despite its stone-like rigidity. Our magical lights reflected oddly off the calcified surfaces, creating an unsettling play of light and shadow.
Down we went, level after level. The air grew heavier, more oppressive. That sweet, cloying scent I had first noticed in the academy library was stronger here. Teuflisch breathed through his mouth, his face pale in the magical light.
The architecture changed as we descended. The upper levels had been designed for display, for ceremony. These lower levels were older, more utilitarian. The walls were bare stone, the passages narrower.
Bodies became more frequent. They lined the corridors, packed together in places. All infested, all frozen in their final moments. The roots that grew from them were thicker here, as if drawing some sustenance from the concentration of remains. They coiled together, merged, spread across every surface until it became difficult to distinguish individual tendrils.
The bodies were beneath our feet, in the walls, in the ceiling. Some faces and limbs broke beneath Vigil's boots as we walked; one did beneath mine.
We reached what appeared to be a landing, a small chamber where multiple corridors met. The roots here had fused into a solid mass that blocked three of the four passages. Only one remained open, a corridor that led straight ahead into deeper darkness.
I enhanced the brightness of our magical lights and continued forward.
The corridor sloped downward at a gentle angle. The walls here showed signs of great age.
The corridor ended at a massive doorway.
Beyond the doorway lay the throne room.
I knew it immediately, even before we entered. The space beyond was different. The oppressive closeness of the corridors gave way to open air. Our lights only partially illuminated what lay ahead, but I could sense the vast chamber beyond.
We stepped through the doorway.
The throne room of Irem's ancient palace spread before us in all its terrible beauty.
Unlike every other space we had seen in the castle, this chamber was intact. The walls stood straight and true, showing no signs of the buckling and collapse that had affected the levels above. The floor was smooth, unbroken by root growth. The ceiling soared overhead, lost in shadows that our lights could not quite penetrate, but clearly high enough to create a sense of overwhelming scale.
The walls were carved from floor to ceiling with bas-reliefs that put every other decoration in the palace to shame. Scenes of battle, of ceremony, of daily life in ancient Irem flowed across the stone surfaces in exquisite detail. Warriors with weapons I did not recognize faced enemies both human and monstrous. Priests performed rituals before altars adorned with symbols that matched those on the doorway frame. Common people worked fields, tended animals, and built structures, all rendered with such care that individual faces were distinguishable even after countless centuries.
And everywhere among the human figures were the undead. Skeletons, all depicted not as threats or horrors but as companions, as helpers, as equals. The artwork showed a civilization where the living and dead existed in harmony, working together toward common purposes. It was beautiful. It was haunting. It represented everything Teuflisch believed necromancy should be.
The floor was a masterwork of mosaic craftsmanship. Thousands of tiny tiles, each no larger than a fingernail, had been arranged to create a massive mandala-like pattern that spread across the entire chamber. The ever-present roots were mostly absent; their growth wasn't chaotic.
Pillars lined the chamber's length on both sides, each carved from a single piece of dark stone. They rose perhaps twenty meters, supporting the shadowed ceiling above. Each pillar was engraved with text, lines of ancient script that ran from base to capital in continuous spirals.
Chronicles, perhaps.
Between the pillars, where in most throne rooms one might expect to find braziers or statues or decorative screens, there was nothing. The space was deliberately empty, focusing all attention on the room's far end.
On the throne.
The roots that had been passed through the rest of the chamber converged here. They flowed through the stone channels as if specifically built for them. Across the floor from all directions, hundreds of thick cables of petrified growth moved toward the throne like rivers flowing to the sea. They climbed the dais upon which the throne sat, wrapped around its base, rose from the ground, and descended towards it from the ceiling.
But it was what sat upon the throne that drew the eye. That commanded attention. That explained everything we had seen in this dead city.
I stopped perhaps twenty meters from the dais, Teuflisch beside me. The Vigil constructs formed up around us, their unliving eyes fixed forward. Our magical lights illuminated the throne and the dais.
And we beheld the source of Irem's destruction.
On a throne, a root-covered heart still pulsed. The roots immediately around it were still alive, twitching slightly, even though most of them around the throne room were dead and petrified.
The heart and the throne and the roots were one and the same, merged, but recognizable.
Above the throne, a marble panel with a text.
After a brief moment of hesitation, I read it out loud;
"King Barmherzig the Kind, for it is his heart that rules Irem now and forevermore."
When Teuflisch raised his staff, his mana coiling in tact with an expression of animalistic rage, I didn't hesitate, weaving a spell first.
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Author's Note: I adore this chapter. I hope you had as much fun reading it as I had writing it.
Not really a cliffhanger, the resolution for this will be too sizable to include here, so I had to stop at some point.
Been away for a week, came back, we are still on schedule.
What else? Ah, yeah, the suspense writing was a new one for me. Not sure if I am overdoing it, but I was going for a vibe, and I vibe with this arc a lot. It's also nearing the climax, as you might imagine.