Dragon Gods Reign

[Southern duchy]

Spotting two undead, skeletons to be exact, marching along the city's streets fully armed and covered in chainmail without a care from the civilians, Darganth was astonished. While the number of undead they saw has risen drastically since they arrived in the southern province, before they were always still separated from the living.

In cities, this mostly took the form of woods or abandoned towns directly connected to a small section of the outer wall. Only a handful partially or completely replaced this with extensive tunnel systems and large caves beneath the ground, though the effect was the same and both succeeded in separating the fog of death energy that formed in these areas from the living population.

Inside this fog, both large and small undead stumbled around, constantly feeding on the dark energy permeating these areas and growing stronger. But instead of slowly returning to an equilibrium as the death energy was absorbed by them until it dropped below the critical amount required for it to sustain itself in an unbalanced state, at which point about half of it will rapidly turn into life energy and return the area back to a balanced state between the two, the death energy remained at a steady density.

By itself, that wouldn't be too strange, though the lack of any fluctuations would still warrant surprise from many, but the replenishment of the death energy requires a source of death energy, often in the form of dead or dying individuals. And neither were there any signs of corpses, nor was there some natural phenomena that produced this effect.

Instead, there were basic undead that stood dispersed around the edges of these areas in strategically calculated spots, with a special focus being placed on the intersection with the actual city. These undead used the unique trait that their connection with Melidra gave them to draw in death energy from the balanced parts of the surroundings.

This energy was then funneled into the undead sections by a magic formation, with the life energy that was produced as a side effect being channeled into the city by a second formation.

And while this idea already surprised Darganth as even he had never witnessed or even heard of something similar, this sight in the capital overshadowed even that.

“I'm impressed.” Darganth openly admitted a few moments into their journey through the city.

“Melidra will love to hear that. And unlike Cehlya's praise, she might even be paying heed to it when it comes from either of you two and relax at least a bit.” Lara said, speaking mainly to Darganth and Allaire.

“You sound exhausted.” Allaire commented in response to Lara's tone.

Responding with a pronounced sigh, Lara nodded her head with a distant look, earning herself a look of pity from Allaire.

“I am. Because Melidra wants to have as much control over every situation that even remotely concerns her she wants to do as much as possible either herself or for it to be done by someone she has sway over. And with the intelligent undead she currently has being both few in number and often ill-suited for the current tasks, much of that becomes my job.” She complained.

Those words caused Allaire's expression to change from pity to concern. To her, Melidra's controlling attitude seemed almost assuredly to be a coping mechanism for the inability to truly trust someone that she had already believed to have noticed during the short time they had previously met.

And in her mind, there was one clear source for this behavior, namely the mage Darganth killed during their raid on Aleta. As even if this paranoia already existed in her beforehand, Melidra's time as his test subject certainly worsened it.

“Then we'll try what we can.” Allaire told her.

Nodding in gratitude, Lara slowed down at the same time and turned around to face their entire group.

“I still have something else to do so I can't accompany you into the castle but I'll give my thanks in advance.” She said.

“No problem.” Allaire replied.

“Oh, and Melidra already knows you're coming so no guards should stop you on the way. I'll be on my way then, maybe we'll still see each other later.” Lara added.

“Maybe till later.” “Good luck.” “See you then.”

Exchanging goodbyes with Darganth, Serania, and Jennia, Lara soon was on her way, leaving their group of four to enter the castle in front of them alone.

Entering through the towering front gates without even meeting a single guard, they stepped into the long hall stretching out beyond it. There, lined in two orderly rows along the wall that continued for the entire fifty or so meters of the hallway, stood a small army of undead.

Numbering around fifty and standing at nearly three meters tall, these skeletons were clad in full plate armor that left only the red glow in their eye-sockets visible and wielded a Greatsword nearly as large as their body. Stripped to their left arm was a small heater shield with its straight edge by the elbow and the pointed protrusion continuing past the back of the gauntlet.

The imposing appearance of their towering figures was further enhanced by the fact that they stood completely unmoving with their greatswords held in both hands and pointed over their right shoulders. Like this, they could strike out immediately at anyone foolish enough to cause trouble while within their reach.

Stepping through after the outer door had swung open, Darganth took a few seconds to inspect the nearest one out of curiosity. Needing a couple of seconds to get a gauge on its strength, Darganth was mildly impressed by the result.

“It looks like they aren't just show.” Serania commented as she caught up with them.

“If I'm right and these aren't yet death knights and only a regular skeletons with a specialization then their energy would place them somewhere up to peak third rank. Depending on which one that might drop as low as the early third rank but I doubt these are her strongest soldiers so it's still not bad.” Darganth said.

“You're right, they aren't.” An unknown voice suddenly interjected.

Reacting immediately, Jennia's arm flickered up as she thrust it into the direction the voice was coming from. Amidst this motion, a flaming missile in the form of an arrow shot out from her palm and headed for the newcomer.

In the blink of an eye, this projectile crossed the few meters between her and the unknown figure, with the latter being left unable to react.

Luckily for him, Jennia had purposefully aimed slightly too far up and to the left, causing the projectile to rush past the ear of his shock-frozen form. Instead embedding itself in the wall behind him with a thud, the spell simply faded out of existence harmlessly.

Coming out of his shock a few moments later but remaining in place with hands raised pacifyingly, the man started slowly turning his head toward Jennia. Meeting her gaze, he found her grinning at him with a mocking smile.

“Next time you try to scare someone, think twice. If I hadn't known you were there my spell would have found your heart and exploded.” She warned.

Acknowledging her words without reacting to them, the man suddenly winced a moment later before his expression turned apologetic.

In that moment a second figure stepped out through the doorway next to him that connected to a second hallway that branched out from the one they were currently in. Shaking her head in the direction of the man, the woman stepped past him and slightly lowered her head.

“I apologize. We didn't know that she expects visitors up until just now, otherwise, I would have stopped this fool.” She said.

“He got what he deserved so in my mind it's all bygone, though I am curious why else you would be here.” Jennia answered her.

“Glad to hear that. And we were just close by and noticed a glimpse of your mana presence so he assumed you were sneaking past the guards. But we won't bother you any longer, so you can be on your way.” She said.

Chuckling in amusement, Darganth suddenly unleashed his dragon's fear for a fraction of a second, causing both of them to instinctively jump back in fear.

“Just so you know, I don't need to sneak past them.” He said with a mischievous smile.

Nodding weakly, both stayed with their back against the wall without movement as Darganth, Jennia, Allarie, and Serania continued further down the corridor. Only when they passed through the doorway at the other end and entered the throne room did they relax, sighing in relief and hastily rushing back to where they came from with fearful looks.

Meanwhile, Jennia was still continuing to laugh over their reaction to Darganth's parting gift as their group stepped past the last two undead guards and into the throne room.

There they were greeted by a surprisingly small hall that wasn't even as long as the corridor that led to it and barely ten meters wide. Inside it stood only a rather plain throne that stood against the wall opposite of them, with an elevation a single step high being the only thing further separating the otherwise empty room.

The only further existence in the room were two women standing near the throne, one of whom was projecting a cluster of paired-together spherical objects into the air around them. The other one was meanwhile visibly focusing, though whatever she was attempting failed as the group around Darganth stepped into the hall, accidentally distracting her enough to break her focus which caused the spell to fail.

“Ah, it's you.” Melidra said as she spun around to them, dropping the projection she had created.

“I see you've been doing well compared to the last time met.” Darganth said as he walked closer.

“Hard to do worse, but yes, things are improving.”

“That's a bit of an understatement, don't you think?” Allaire chuckled.

Leaning her head from side to side critically, Melidra didn't seem to agree with her words.

“In the past, I would have agreed but with everything I've learned since then, I can't help but feel just as if not even more helpless as I keep learning what is out there. And there are still things I haven't even begun to understand so I have no idea what I'll still encounter.” Melidra said, turning to Darganth at the last part.

“I've been there and believe me, the answer you are seeking will just make it worse right now.” Serania said in response to the subtext of her words.

“As funny as that sight would be, I have to agree with her.” Jennia commented in response to Serania's words.

“Not to mention that my help would at least partially go against your purpose as an elemental lord.” Darganth said.

Turning her head abruptly to him, Melidra looked at him with a mix of confusion and anger.

“What do you mean by that, Cehlya never mentioned anything about some purpose.”

“Well, it's not exactly a purpose in the sense of a task given to them. In fact, it is quite close to the complete opposite of it as elemental lords are left to develop mostly on their own. This has a few reasons, but the main one is perspective.

Whereas other servants of a god get their powers from said god, elemental lords are instead given potential and left to develop their own powers in the hopes that they find a new path that the god can then learn from them.”

“So I am just an experiment from which Cehlya might one day learn something?” Melidra asked with narrowed eyes.

“That's one way to look at it. Another, in my opinion more accurate, perspective would be to consider yourself her potential successor.” Darganth corrected, his words surprising Melidra.