Ch. 145 – End of Book 2: The Power Vacuum

A hand placed confidently on his hip, Lesser Knight Quagmire of the Lesser Knight’s Court stood high above the skeletal menace. His feet were planted on a robust wooden platform, the topmost platform of the garment district’s sole watchtower.

He was accompanied by another, Knight Stuford, both of them belonging to the highest ranks of their former circle. Former being an hour and fifteen minutes ago, the time period now known amongst the knights as codeword B.T.P.D – Before The Prince Died.

What came after B.T.P.D, was, of course, T.P.V. The Power Vacuum. Aloysian historians agreed on this name many decades after the fact, a highly-contested choice that included many rounds of input from the public, and, more relevantly, a whopping amount of lobbyist groups and pro-Knight revisionist history associations, such as the highly esteemed League of Moms Against Necromancer Propaganda.

But that all came much, much later. In that very moment, as Quagmire and Stuford surveyed the hundreds upon hundreds of skeletal heads dotting the horizon, all that seemed to matter was one crucial fact, provided to Quagmire courtesy of Jarvirium’s elementary school education curriculum.

“We got nothing to worry about,” he said with a nod, as if he was preemptively agreeing with himself. “Everybody knows skeletons can’t come in unless invited.”

“That so?”

Stuford chewed anxiously on a bit of tobacco. He had sworn the habit off to his wife a week before, so he wasn’t too happy to hear Quagmire’s theory. He had been counting on the necromantic apocalypse as a sensible scapegoat for him indulging his addiction.

“I’d bet it on the late Prince’s severed head, I would,” Quagmire said. Taking Stuford’s lead, he lit his own cigarette, puffing out a bloom of smoke. “Blessed be his many tentacles.”

“That’s a strong bet,” Stuford said, chewing hard. “But are you sure that’s not vampires?”

As it turned out, not all monsters possessed the same manners.

Within the course of the following ten minutes, the skeletal army clamored up the tall, “impenetrable” walls of Jarvirium like a vertical conga line. It wasn’t long until one of the undead breached their watchtower seat. Stuford got out one last “told you so” before its long, serpentine neck descended into their cloud of tobacco smoke.

—

The undead came in waves. The heavyweights stood at the front lines, creatures of pulsing, skinless muscle and supernaturally wide rib cages. The spider-like rangers trotted in after, fearsome things with eight spindly legs that wielded bows and magical bazukas. Then there were the snake-like slitherers and the skinny former farmhands, the scouts and the just happy to be invited to the undead invasion types making up the middle ranks.

At the far, far back, was a calamity of a creature; it hadn’t scaled the walls, but headbutted straight through, leaving a hole as wide as its shoulders. The scaffolding of surrounding buildings trembled, and the watchtower completely collapsed, its supporting posts bending like knees.

Momo gawked at it with a mixture of awe and disgust. The creature resembled a minotaur, sans skin and fur, with hot air puffing out of its huge nostrils. It had two horns, much like Momo’s own, a piece of parchment impaled on one of them.

“Oh my god,” was all Momo could think to say. The rest of her so-called friends were looking at her for answers, but she had very few. “I think Valerica might have fed them a little too well.”

The streets, which could have been described as chaos before the introduction of the minotaur, turned into complete pandemonium. Jarvirium’s abused townspeople screamed and pleaded to their respective deities as they ducked behind still-standing buildings. Some ran straight through the hole the minotaur left, fleeing into the woods.

The Expert knights, whose population had dwindled severely, swung at the heavyweights, Holy light flashing against swords and scabbards, but they were tired – depleted. Leaderless and exhausted, they were quickly losing their patriotic spirit.

Wait, Momo thought, studying the minotaur. That thing. It’s looking at me.

The creature had indeed stopped in its tracks when it spotted her. Its mouth hung open, head quirked in focus. Crazed citizens streamed around it like rivers, knights stabbing uselessly at its ankles. When Momo focused on it, the audio courier buzzed in her ear.

Type: Undead Demonic Minotaur. Level 24. Name: Bone-o-taur

HP: 200 / 200

Unexpectedly, another entry reverberated against her eardrum.

Type: Nether Courier (Impaled). Level ?

HP: ?

Please come retrieve me. This is uncomfortable.

Momo felt a dash of sadistic joy that the courier was finally getting a taste of its own destructive medicine, but she didn’t want to play around – anything with a question mark where a power level should be was potentially terrifying.

On the flip side, there was no way she was messing with the crowds below, either. It was pure bedlam; she had seen enough news broadcasts about crowd crush to know stepping into a situation like that was asking for a trampling.

“Be right back,” Momo whispered.

Running at full throttle, she sped down the sloped roof, taking off with a last-second [Death Monkey Leap]. She swam through the air, arms flailing desperately as she aimed for the beast’s thick neck.

She grunted at the impact. There was no comforting rug of fur to land on – only neck bones the size of a large sofa. She gripped onto the edges of them, hoisting herself up so she could pluck the parchment off of its horn. The beast barely moved as she did it, completely apathetic to her, like a fly buzzing around the head of a cow.

With a successful yank, the paper came free. The gaping hole in the middle quickly healed, not impacting the legibility of the words in the slightest.

QUEST COMPLETE! The Oblivion Heist

You have completed the main objective as well as the bonus objective.

Rewards:

• 50,000 XP in Nether Dokkaebi
• Skill Book | Expert-grade  (Talk to questgiver Valerica to claim)
• Skill Book | Excalibur-grade (Talk to questgiver Valerica to claim)
• Bonus reward: Oblivion Stone (Already claimed)

Talk to questgiver Valerica. Small problem. Momo grimaced. Questgiver Valerica was no longer on Alois.

Momo felt the summoning stone burning a hole in her pocket. Could it work… trans-dimensionally? She doubted it.

From ahead of Momo, she watched another building go concave. The skeletons were pressing onto it like a field of mindless zombies, their only command being “destroy as much of this place as possible.”

I’m going to kill Valerica if she didn’t include an instructional manual for these guys.

As screams of fear and agony filled Momo’s ears, she flipped the page.

My dearest Momo,

Can you believe I’m talking to you via Nether Courier right now? I can’t. A real courier! My excitement is simply boundless. So boundless, in fact, that Morgana has already put me in a solitary confinement chamber – which she refers to as the timeout and relax corner – because I am a little too delighted to be here. I think it’s scaring her a smidgen. Hehe.

How does that saying go, “never meet your idols”? It seems the reverse is actually true. Your idols should never meet you. Of course, I don’t think it’s me that’s the problem. It’s the others. Your brilliant haiku was, of course, brilliant, but it had the tiny flaw of promoting a few other fiends into my position. Namely, Sera. That Sera.

Sure, I tortured her ever so slightly with the Court Jester bit, and trapping her in that birdcage, and et cetera et cetera, but she’s definitely overreacting. Sharing my responsibilities with her will be cumbersome, but it’s nothing we can’t work out with enough time, space, and a handful of assassination attempts.

But that’s enough about me. Now let’s talk about you.

If you’re reading this, it means my dear Bone-o-taur has breached the Jarvirium walls and successfully tracked you down. What a good boy! I gave the undead army the preliminary instruction to annihilate the capital, but if you’d like to preserve a few lives, you can always use Bone-o-taur as your commanding vessel. Tell him what you’d like the others to do, and he’ll get it done for you.

Now, what else… ah, right. Just a beautiful job well done with the Oblivion Stone quest. You’ve made conquering the realm a lot easier now that time and space isn’t just one big, messy pizza pie. With that out of the way, we can progress with our core, indelible mission –

The Queendom of Morgana.

You might have noticed the absence of a certain despicable, ugly, tentacled monarch, and his equally heinous Excalibur force, the Knights of the Sun. That is because Kyros, in a moment of rare forethought, sensed you would take control of the Stone, and advised his precious thralls to flee. To form a new capital, on a wholly new continent.

While you were busy chopping off the Prince’s head – beautiful assist, by the way – the Knights of the Sun seized all of the boats off of the shores of Mekna and set off into the Barium Sea. I cannot seem to track them past that point. They’re using some sort of Holy barrier to obfuscate their location. Sneaky fools.

Fortunately for you, this rash escape bides you time. Seeing as there are no more Excalibur necromancers in Alois, that means you (and a smidgen of less capable others, such as a Wraith I will not name) are the most powerful necromancers on the planet.

Congratulations! Big promotion!

Of course – that is a tad bit troublesome. Should Kyros realize the full extent of the situation, he will send the full force of his Excaliburs to recapture the capital and put you and your compatriots in tiny, tiny cells. But for now, he is scared. He lacks information. As always, deception gives you the advantage, my dear Momo.

So, as I go through the next fourteen strenuous months of Lesser God onboarding, praise be Morgana and her endless patience, I give you this piece of advice.

Watch your back, baby.

Lovely tidings,

Valerica