Low-Fantasy Occultist

The midnight silk pooled over Nick’s hands like cool water. He sat by the hearth in his study, turning the garment to catch the firelight. Silver threads were woven through the dark fabric, forming strange patterns along the hem and collar that had no discernible meaning, beginning or end.

A day remained until the diplomatic talks in the underworld were scheduled to begin, and three until they were set to end, according to the messages Gaelen had received. That left Nick a narrow window to gather his supplies, test his spoils, and reach his father before the Royal Army began its march back to the surface and every other noble began jockeying.

He stood and slipped the robe over his shoulders.

The moment the silk settled against him, the ether shifted. Nick closed his eyes, extending his senses to observe himself.

Most cloaking artifacts worked by bending light or casting simple illusions to fool the mortal eye. His old Ring of Unknowingness operated on a slightly greater tier, nudging observers’ minds to overlook his presence, making him seem so unremarkable as to be almost invisible.

The robe operated at a significantly higher level.

It seemed to merge his physical and spiritual existence into the background hum of the World’s mana, yet he knew even that was only the beginning.

Nick fed a sliver of his intent into the silver threads, clamping down on his surging power [Sovereign’s Parsimony] until the robe noticed his unique hue and painted it over with the ambient frequency.

For a moment, he stood there, watching himself, before he sensed another presence approaching.

The door swung open, and a young servant boy walked in, carrying an armful of split logs for the fire. Nick stood in the center of the rug, perfectly still.

The boy did not pause. He did not blink in confusion or step awkwardly to the side as he might have under the ring’s influence. Instead, he walked straight toward the hearth, passing within inches of Nick’s arm, dumped the logs onto the stone hearth, prodded the dying embers with an iron poker until they flared, and wiped the soot from his hands, all without ever showing signs that he had noticed anyone else in the room.

Nick observed him openly, making no attempt to hide his presence. Yet the robe somehow convinced the World that the space Nick occupied was empty, and the boy’s mind accepted this truth without hesitation.

Done with his job, the servant turned, walked back to the door, and shut it behind him.

Nick looked down at the dark fabric and knew the [Ring of Unknowingness] was obsolete. It had been a faithful companion, but it had become less useful with the development of the [Mire], and now it simply made no sense to use it anymore.

"I will call you the Stillness," Nick murmured, the words making no sound, absorbed into the silk.

An hour later, he stood on the high balcony of the Elpen manor. He had filled a small leather satchel with bread, dried venison, and a dozen restorative alchemical vials gifted by Rhea, then placed it in his spatial ring, where it would remain in stasis.

Tucked inside his coat was the detailed vellum map Gaelen had provided, which marked the treacherous paths of the northern spine.

Guided by new instincts, he stepped off the balcony without attempting to craft [True Flight]. He simply willed himself to levitate, and the air beneath his boots became solid ground, allowing him to rise high above Toneburg.

Another thought saw him shoot off.

The biting winter wind howled through the craggy mountains, carrying flurries of sleet that would have stripped the warmth from a mortal man in minutes.

He flew at a staggering pace, the world blurring into streaks of white snow and dark gray stone below him.

I will need some time to explore the full breadth of the free manipulation my new Traits give me.

As far as he knew, the dark dwarves had held the subterranean depths of northern Berea for millennia. They were a proud, brutal, and deeply isolationist people, fortified by psychic mastery and vast reserves of subjugated beasts.

For them to surrender the First City and call for a parley meant the Royal Army had beaten them thoroughly.

Or this is a trap. Or they have other, greater concerns and can’t commit their full forces to expel the invaders. In any case, something more is going on.

He had not forgotten Ephor’s last words, that the Abyss wouldn’t be denied so easily.

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Given the knowledge that demons were active in the underworld, it was possible the dwarves had been forced to the surface.

That didn’t mean they were without fault, as he remembered they’d been the first to attack. But it did mean that a peace treaty was the only way the dark dwarves could secure their upper borders while they fought for survival below.

Bah, I shouldn’t lose myself in speculation. The dwarves might simply have exhausted their forces.

He didn’t quite believe it, but he’d know sooner rather than later.

Long before he saw the encampment, the scent of woodsmoke, roasting mutton, and horse dung reached Nick.

He slowed his flight, drifting high above a mountain his map called the Broken Tooth. The valley below was choked with a sprawling beast of canvas, mud, and steel. Thousands of tents dotted the snow-covered basin, arranged in precise blocks. Earthen walls formed a defensive ring around the perimeter, and supply wagons were held within another inner ring, accessible only through a watchpost and guarded by what felt like several earth mages.

Nick hovered in the clouds, wrapping the Stillness tightly around his shoulders as he surveyed the banners snapping in the wind.

Beyond the many northern flags he’d expected, he spotted the Golden Boar of the southern marches, the Crowned Halberds of the royal infantry, and even the White Eagle of the eastern border lords.

It seems like just about every noble in the kingdom sent a representative. Some groups consist of only a dozen people, but at least they are here in a symbolic capacity.

That spoke ill of the fate awaiting the Houses in Toneburg that had hidden from the call.

He reached out with his senses, sifting through the churning presences of ten thousand men, looking for the powerhouses.

The camp bristled with high-level commanders, mages radiating potent elemental signatures, and knights bearing enchanted steel. But Nick sought the distinct pressure of a Prestige entity, and no matter how he looked, he found only one.

In the center of the encampment, beneath a sprawling pavilion of crimson silk, sat a soul like a dying star. It was immense in breadth and depth, yet its edges were fraying. It sang a tired rhythm, lacking the vibrant, churning might of someone in their prime.

It was neither his father nor the Grand Commander of the Royal Army. That much was clear.

More likely, it was an old royal uncle or a retired marshal, a decorated veteran left behind to guard the supply lines and hold the surface camp while the army’s true might descended into the earth.

Satisfied that the camp posed no immediate threats capable of piercing his shroud, Nick flew past the sea of tents toward the gaping maw in the side of the mountain where the crag split open.

This was the descent path the army had taken, widened by royal sappers and reinforced with thick timber beams.

Nick glided down into the dark, passing by several layers of guards who didn’t so much as twitch, even as he felt their senses observe the world around them.

The temperature changed the deeper he went. The freezing wind at the surface faded, replaced by a warm, damp air. Lumen-stones were driven into the cavern walls at regular intervals, casting the descending path in light.

Not that Nick needed them. The etheric residue left by the Royal Army was impossible to overlook.

It was a wide, trampled highway of destruction. The stone walls bore the scorch marks of high-tier fire spells and deep gouges from blade strikes. The ether still remembered the spilled blood and panic that had gripped thousands.

Nick drifted silently above the path, watching the deep roads unfold.

A dozen miles beneath the surface, the subterranean ecosystem turned hostile. He passed through a cavern glittering with phosphorescent fungi, where a pack of insects the size of warhorses fed on the carcass of a five-horned goat.

The beasts possessed no eyes, relying on vibration-sensing to hunt, yet even they were blind to his passage.

Nick floated mere feet above their clicking mandibles, and the crawlers did not so much as twitch their antennae toward him. The Stillness folded his presence into the hum of the glowing fungi and the dripping water, rendering him effectively nonexistent to their predatory senses.

He continued his descent, the tunnel sloping sharply downward for hours, occasionally interrupted by chambers where great battles had been fought and by side passages where lives had been lost in ambushes, before narrowing again.

Eventually, the path opened into a void so vast that the far walls were lost in the gloom.

Nick stopped mid-air, settling onto a protruding stalactite to survey the objective.

This was the First City.

It was a sprawling settlement carved directly into the cavern’s basalt floor. The architecture was firmly utilitarian, with sharp angles, stepped pyramids, and towering obelisks of polished obsidian. There was no art, no delicate decoration, only the pragmatic construction of a species born in the dark.

It was a great defensive position to hold, yet the Royal Army had breached it.

The massive outer gates lay in ruins, shattered by siege engines and magical bombardments. Thousands of infantrymen manned the obsidian walls, their armor gleaming in the light of the garrison fires, while tens of thousands more had settled within. The King’s banners hung limply from the highest spires, marking the conquest.

Yet the city was relatively quiet. There was no ongoing slaughter, no sounds of looting or battle, and very few dwarves. Whatever truce had been declared held.

Nick pushed his senses outward, sweeping the occupied streets and deeper avenues toward the lower holds until he found a concentration of high-level signatures near the ruins of a grand central plaza.

He stepped off the stalactite, drifting down through the cavernous dark, careful to keep his descent slow and controlled. He landed lightly on the flat roof of a basalt watchtower overlooking the plaza.

Below him, a tense standoff was taking place.

A detachment of Royal Knights stood in a rigid formation around a wide, circular dais. They wore pristine white cloaks hiding their enchanted arms, and despite their stillness, he knew they were poised to strike at any moment.

Before the dais stood men and women radiating potent auras. They were some of the kingdom's finest mages and knights, and among them, he recognized his father’s fiery signature, along with at least three other Prestige classes, one of whom had to be the Commander.

Interestingly, they were waiting for something.

He didn’t have to linger long to figure out what. From the far end of the plaza, another group emerged from a tunnel plunging even deeper into the earth, where the echo of thousands fleeing the city’s capture could be felt in the ether.

Nick knelt near the roof's edge, narrowing his eyes as he studied the enemy.

The dark dwarves wore armor of seamless, opaque black glass that seemed to absorb the light from the nearby lumen-stones. They were shorter than humans, broad-shouldered and thick-limbed, yet they moved with a disturbing grace.

Their leader, an elder with a long beard braided with dull purple stones, hovered two inches above the ground, sustained by sheer telekinetic force. Another Prestige.

Even from the roof of the watchtower, Nick could feel the psychic weight radiating from him. It was a suffocating, dense pressure that scraped at the edges of the mind, demanding submission. It felt like standing at the bottom of the ocean, the water's weight pressing against his eardrums.

The Royal Knights didn’t so much as flinch as they fought to keep their mental barriers intact against the passive assault.

Nick felt the psychic pressure wash over the Stillness. Then [Blasphemy] rippled, and the mental weight slid off him, finding no purchase.

The elder's face was carved from stone, revealing no emotion, yet his signature told a different story.

Beneath the suffocating psychic prowess and the pride of a high lord, Nick felt a desperate exhaustion.

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