The misadventures of the necromancer

“I warned you, Clarice!” an aggressive man’s voice echoes, waking him.

His eyes open, allowing him to see iron bars. Beyond them are walls carved out of stone, illuminated by the reddish glow of torches. The air is difficult to breathe in, heavily filled with smoke from the flames. Beyond that, there is a smell he unfortunately knows well, the one of death. Blood mixed with rotting flesh.

His head hurts, and he has to force himself to focus on a group of three people in long red robes, gathered beside one of the many candelabras, with red candles scattered around. That must be where the voice came from.

This is confirmed when one of those figures raises a hand, and he hears a woman’s voice.

“I already told you to call me High Priestess!”

“I warned you, High Priestess, that this would end badly. There was no reason for us to take this risk,” the man’s voice replies, not hiding the sarcasm in his tone.

He tries to move, but it is difficult because his entire body hurts, as if he has just been beaten senseless. Considering his last memory was exactly of that. When the attackers from the orphanage had overwhelmed him and started beating him unconsciously.

When he forces himself to start moving, he notices sounds of movement behind him, which makes him stop. Not knowing if this is the best moment to reveal that he is awake.

Meanwhile, the group on the other side of the bars continues their conversation.

“I already told you we have no other choice!” the woman replies, showing clear irritation.

“Yes, yes, I’ve heard that story already, that the boogeyman is coming!” the first man snaps back.

“Unfortunately, my contacts have also confirmed that the Bane of Mages is coming to Pinetop!” interrupts a new voice, that of an older man.

“And he should be arriving…” adds the woman’s voice.

Adar can only contemplate that, if they are right, one of the Five is about to arrive in the city. He needs to tell Nero, because this could mean a sea of trouble. The only time Adar had seen Nero in real difficulty was when the necromancer had faced another of the Five.

“We cannot be certain that he is coming to…” the man continues, when a sound behind Adar catches his attention again.

With effort, he looks in that direction, only to see something approaching.

“Mister Adar… are you alright?” says a young voice quietly.

Allowing him to realize that the approaching figure is a child.

And when he manages to see properly, behind this child, all grouped together and pressed against the wall, there is a group of children. There seem to be eight or ten of them, but besides their clearly frightened state, he cannot tell much more.

“Mister Adar!?” the boy beside him repeats.

It's hard for him to think so; it takes him a moment to understand. These must be the children from the orphanage, but they should not know him. Eventually, however, he thinks he recognizes the boy.

“One of Esther’s kids… right?” He is also careful to keep his voice low, while the three people in red robes continue arguing.

The boy seems happy to have been recognized, nodding.

“Taren.” That must be his name.

Adar tries to sit up so he can speak better with the boy. But the child stops him and points at his head.

“Blood.”

Adar raises a hand to that spot and sees some dried blood. That probably means the wound is not too serious.

For a moment, he almost instinctively tries to take out his potion to heal himself. Unfortunately, he finds nothing. His captors must have taken it, and certainly his knife as well.

When he searches his body for it, he discovers he is right. He cannot help but find it funny that the first thing that comes to his mind upon realizing this is that Nero will be furious.

Losing both his knife and one of their last potions will certainly make him irritable, and Adar will be the one who has to deal with him.

Looking around, he notices that he and the children are locked inside a cage in the corner of this place. The cage door is secured by a chain with a padlock.

That is when he notices the worried look of the boy still staring at his head.

“Don’t worry, Taren. I’ve been in worse shape.”

The comment immediately reminds him of the time Mira, a priestess, attacked him. That time, he swears the girl had broken some of his bones, and only the potion he drank saved his life.

The little boy nods, but he does not seem convinced.

Before Adar can try to reassure him, a voice echoes.

“Finally awake!”

Looking toward the source of the sound, he sees that the three have noticed he is awake and are approaching.

This makes him stand up with difficulty while motioning for Taren to move away. The boy quickly does so, going back to the other children.

“Well, perhaps we can finally discover what happened!” says one of the men.

“Who do you work for?” asks the woman.

Now that she is close enough, he can see she is beautiful: dark hair and sharply defined features.

“Clarice Grennside,” a child’s voice says quietly behind him.

He vaguely recognizes the name Grennside. If he is not mistaken, they are supposed to be an influential family.

“So!?” says the older man, with a clean-shaven face but a sea of wrinkles, making Adar wonder how the old man even manages to shave.

Just as he is about to answer, the words fail him.

Because he has noticed something. On the ground near where the group had been standing, it seems something is written in dark ink.

The writing forms a circle, and around that circle are the candle holders with the red candles. In addition, in certain spaces, there are what appear to be ceramic pots containing something.

He remembers how he and Nero had agreed that whoever was killing people in the city must be necromancers. But looking at them now, Adar doubts it.

Contrary to the stories people tell, necromancers usually do not use rituals like this. No, this is more the style of Dark Priests.

And looking at the woman, he remembers the title she claimed: “High Priestess.”

“Will you talk willingly or…” the thin man interrupts aggressively, with a slightly hoarse voice.

“Someone you do not want to meet…” he begins calmly.

Getting nervous right now would not be good. Once again, he needs time.

“He heard us. And now wants to scare us with Eran, the Bane of Mages,” says the old man.

“Hmph.” The woman begins moving toward the circle on the ground.

“Do not misunderstand. We have a way to deal with even Eran!” she declares firmly and confidently, pointing toward the floor.

Turning back to him, she adds with a smile:

“Thanks to you all.”

Some of the children begin crying, probably understanding what she means. Adar worries about the children, but he cannot really take these people seriously.

It is not difficult to guess that they intend to summon something to fight Eran. And they kidnapped the children for the sacrifice required.

The only problem they have is that long before they face the Bane of Mages, they will have to deal with Nero.

“Do you think this is funny!?” the man says, making him realize he is smiling and slightly shaking his head.

So he announces:

“If you are smart, you will run before he arrives.”

And wanting them to understand, he looks toward the children huddled against the wall, wrapped around each other, seeking comfort from their friends.

“It does not look like you have hurt anyone… So he will not bother chasing you.” Something completely true. Without a real reason to act, he doubts Nero would bother hunting these idiots down.

But he wants them to understand that this is only true as long as the children are safe.

The woman laughs.

“A demon? You think a demon is something to joke about? Not even one of the Five will be able to defeat him.”

A point he cannot help but consider.

Before meeting Nero, even the idea of a demon would have terrified him. And he understands that it must be a terrible threat. But he has already seen the necromancer stand against Servants of the Gods.

And he cannot help but think that a demon must be weaker than a literal Servant of the Gods. Maybe if they were planning to summon one of the servants of the dark gods, that would be more concerning…

Funny enough, the only person who could convince him right now to truly worry about this summoning would be Nero himself.

No, the only thing he wants to prevent is these idiots in front of him hurting someone while attempting their useless ritual.

So he decides to create some confusion.

“I never said it was the Bane of Mages coming, did I?”

That causes a pause as the three look at each other, trying to evaluate what they just heard.

Telling him this is the moment to keep pressing. The more doubt and hesitation he can create until Nero arrives, the better.

“Unfortunately, I was not that lucky. Working for someone as serious and polite as Eran would have been my fortune.”

Here, he releases a heavy sigh and gives them a miserable look.

“No, I work for someone much more… difficult.”

He carefully adds enough hesitation and concern to the final word.

He has to leave them thinking. Trying to imagine who is about to arrive and what level of threat that person truly represents.

The great joke is that he is not exaggerating that much.

If they had the slightest idea of Nero’s abilities, merely his name would make them run out of here.

“He is trying to scare us!” the woman finally says.

Unfortunately, she continues in the worst possible way, revealing a knife with a golden handle and a black blade.

“But perhaps we should prepare ourselves…”

The two men nod.

Leaving Adar, trying to think of a way to stop them.

That is when screams begin to be heard.

At that moment, he notices a dark wooden door on one side of the room.

“Finally…” he whispers more to himself than anything else. The damn bastard must finally be arriving.

He was beginning to think he would never show up.

“Mister Adar!!” he hears a frightened voice.

The face of poor Taren, who has come back to his side, confirms it.

The other children also seem afraid. Something, the growing screams coming from outside are certainly not helping.

“Don’t worry! Help is arriving.”

“Clarice!!” he hears one of the men shout.

The door suddenly opens, and three men rush inside.

One continues running toward the leaders, while the other two close the door and seem to search for a way to block it.

“Undead, undead!!” the man running toward the leaders screams in fear.

Beside him, Adar feels Taren pulling on his robe, clearly frightened by what he heard, while he himself curses:

“Damn it!!” The only positive point is that this confirmed it was Nero.

The problem is that the existence of the hostages must have forced him to reveal his necromancy.

And with the children as witnesses, this means they will have trouble when they leave here.

“Explain yourself!!” orders the man to the unfortunate person who just entered.

The man takes a deep breath to calm himself before beginning.

“I don’t know. Suddenly, skeletons with swords covered in blue fire appeared from nowhere and started attacking us.”

Hearing the report, Adar notices the heavy look the woman gives him.

A terrible look from someone considering things that should not be said.

She seemed to begin muttering.

Suddenly, he saw a golden flash, and the newly arrived man grabbed his throat and began to collapse to the ground.

Before the more aggressive man could even react to what had just happened, she turned the knife on him as well, cutting his throat, where this time, a jet of blood was clearly visible.

“Clarice!!!” the old man exclaimed, slowly backing away.

“I’m sorry, my old friend, but there is no other choice,” her voice truly seemed to carry remorse. But she nonetheless drove the knife into her victim’s chest.

Adar began pulling Taren away while planning how to stop her from reaching the children. Assuming the madwoman was about to start a massacre. She turned toward the circle and began saying something he couldn’t quite make out.

The only thing he managed to understand was: “…we summon you, great Lord…” With these words, whatever had been written on the floor began to glow an intense red. Making him suspect it had not been painted with ink.

In the next moment, whatever was inside the pots began to burn, releasing large blue flames. The High Priestess now fully lived up to her name as she shouted, “We summon you! Oh, great Centesimus... Vicesimus... Sextus”

But something seemed not to be going as she had planned. She finally slashed her own arm with the knife.

This was followed by another cry, he would have called it one of rage, echoing through the room as the flames rose to the height of a grown man. Suddenly, dark smoke appeared and began to gather in the center of the magic circle.

It vanished instantly at the same time as the flames, leaving behind a figure with its arms raised, screaming where the smoke had been.

The arms of what had been summoned were muscular, Adar would say, as thick as his head, attached to an equally muscular body. On its back, he noticed a massive double-headed axe.

For a moment, the figure almost looked like a giant human with grey skin. But the face that screamed… the description that came to Adar’s mind was a grasshopper’s head with a red horn on its forehead. That, and sharp teeth the size of a thumb.

The creature continued screaming, which unfortunately allowed him to see its teeth.

With everyone’s attention fixed on the creature, a loud crash sounded. Looking toward it, the source became clear: the door that the two henchmen had stopped trying to block. Distracted as they were with the summoning. Had just burst open.

From the other side, two shapes lunged at the henchmen. He immediately recognized the thin white bodies as Nero’s skeletons.

While the two undead were dealing with the men, the sound of calm footsteps approaching entered the room, where only the fight with the skeletons made any sound.

Finally, Nero entered calmly, as if he had not a single worry in the world. A smile came to his lips as he sighed:

“Finally!”

The young necromancer walked in wearing his shabby clothes. Which, strangely enough, were not more damaged than usual. But considering Nero must have stayed out of direct combat by using his skeletons, it made sense.

Nero seemed about to speak, but when he took in the scene before him, he fell silent. His head tilted slightly as he scratched it.

Finally, with his eyes fixed on the creature still inside the magic circle, he asked, sounding genuinely intrigued:

“What the hell is one of the library of the underworld guys doing here?”

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Immortality is not a gift. It is a war of patience, bloodlines, debts, and graves.

Since childhood, Elian has harbored a secret capable of changing his destiny: a mysterious technique that absorbs the essence of the sun and moon, transforming the mediocre into something extraordinary. In a world where geniuses are exploited, the weak are sacrificed, and every resource can decide the survival of an entire clan, revealing one's light too soon invites stronger predators.

He is prudent when it comes to survival, ruthless when it comes to striking, and intelligent enough to understand that true power belongs not to those who advance fastest, but to those who remain standing when all others have turned to ashes.

In this world, immortality does not reward the pure and honest.

It rewards those who wait.

Those who lie.

Those who kill.

And those who still have something to protect when the long road to eternity becomes a graveyard of forgotten names.

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