She carved, split, and tore her way through layers of oily skin. Two towels rich with the stench of blood prevented the fruits of her efforts from leaking right off the table. At first, she prodded apprehensively at the creature's body as if afraid of awakening some survival instinct tucked into the labyrinth of its diseased mind, but no such reaction ever emerged.
Her crimson fingerprints stained the corners of the pages whenever she flipped forward through those exhaustive grimoires. Occasionally, Lüngen would appear with a tome he thought might have something to do with her research, but more often that not was searching for an excuse to keep an eye on the girl's health as the hours ticked by.
Lieze had played this game before. She had spent countless evenings poring over the feverish journals of those who had come to understand too much of the world, piecing together their unique brands of esotericism into an illustration of something greater lurking behind the veil of reality. She knew what to look for - where to read between the lines and when to discard unreliable tangents.
"Quicksilver has been coveted since the earliest days of civilization." Theories sprang in her mind. She dragged a finger across the print to recall her place, "Legends of its ability to bestow immortality originate from a soup of many differing anecdotes throughout the ages, very few of them clear and even less verifiable."
Lieze was the final piece of the puzzle - or rather, [Supreme Regeneration] was. Every essay and stray footnote pointed towards the origin of Mercuria as something akin to a God's very lifeblood. It just so happened that one Heavenly Favour in particular was capable of infesting a human with the same compound.
"Mercuria can only be obtained from me… or rather, from the Scion of necromancy." She muttered, "Quicksilver must have some similarly divine nature. Could it be an artificial catalyst designed from the very beginning to create life? A kind of literal primordial soup?"
If so, the Gods were as much alchemists as any other doddering scholar. Lieze's research had certainly lowered her opinion of deities to the point where they had become more comparable to wild animals than all-powerful observers.
Her loathsome run-in with the Blackbriar just the other night proved that their influence over the world wasn't as perfect as they would have liked it to be. If the Blackbriar considered Lieze a traitor for refusing to converse with it, then why hadn't she been struck down by the heavens for her heresy? And how was she still able to wield necromancy despite opposing the source of its power?
"They're just as pathetic as we are - bound to laws, rules, obligations… these aren't 'Gods'. We're being made the puppets of entities from beyond the stars, or exiles from some horrifying dimension." Lieze furrowed her brow, "They may be powerful, but their mortality is so exquisitely real. And they are afraid - afraid of losing their precious Scions to one who refuses to be made their martyr."
She couldn't help but wonder how far away the Heavens were. She had always assumed the afterlife occupied a metaphorical space within the cosmology of the universe, but the further she peeled back the curtain, the less glamorous it all seemed to become. Was her entire world a mere product of celestial hubris? Humans, Dwarves, Elves, beasts - how likely was it that their similarities and differences had been sculpted over the course of millennia by beings desperately seeking purpose within the void?
The Sages were the first to address that question with a definitive answer, and the solution they discovered lay in the abandonment of flesh that now saw them confined to strange instruments in the bellies of the towers their material selves once called home, waiting, waning, longing in the dark for a champion with too much ambition for their lowly mortal shell to contain.
Lieze would be that champion. But she would not usher in prosperity or peace. She would not slay the Dragon of chaos and unite the world against despair, or liberate the unwashed masses from their lordly oppressors. No - she would seek the end of all things in a bid to destroy suffering at its core. Her destiny was to pierce the heart of darkness itself, and invite the world towards quiet, comforting oblivion. This was her claim to heroism, deplorable as it was.
The turgid growth pulsating upon the table was an abstraction of her foe. She was not disgusted by its slimy appearance, many eyes, and buck teeth, but the undeniable kinship that ran between them. Deep inside, she was no better - a loathsome mass of pulp and bone gasping for breath, indentured to the suffering of life by forces beyond her ability to comprehend.
Quicksilver was as much a mother to her as the corpse her egg had been plucked from. She owed everything - she was certain - to that silver, whirling solution. In the end, she and every inhabitant of that cursed world were bound by the law of blood - siblings from different strands, perfected from abominations not unlike the foetid creature wriggling upon her table. What was stopping her from becoming a God of her very own design, having been enlightened to the origin of life itself?
Quest 'Elixir' Complete!
Reward - 3,000xp
Heightened Potential Progress - 3,000 / 50,000
Her theories might have been dismissed as conjecture, but the scale, Lieze had discovered, would always reveal the truth. At least the majority of her conclusion must have been correct to trigger the quest's completion. Quicksilver wasn't a product of the world's grand splendour, but a reagent once used by the Gods to create life. Their 'divinity' was closer to 'ingenuity', and that simple fact revealed much of their true nature.
"I knew it… we really are just pawns." Lieze closed the tome, "This world was never meant to be. Fulfilment, ambition, hope - all of these and more are the result of imperfections within our beings, rationalised as fragments of a so-called 'condition'. There is no greater purpose to our suffering. We were sculpted from the very beginning to satisfy the lordly desires of beings beyond the veil of reality."
Her gaze fell upon the writhing welp. She hadn't noticed it at first, but there was no notification hovering above its head. It had no name, no level, no attributes - her scale didn't recognise it as a living creature. In that way, it was enviable, freed from the burden of conflict, too deformed and repulsive to consider its sorry state with any measure of sorrow.
Lieze's MP - 2,500 / 2,550
A [Blood Spike] reduced what was left of its dissected body to ribbons. With enough research and dedication, Lieze could use quicksilver to stitch together creatures of her own design, but she had no desire to emulate the habits of the Gods. Her burning questions had been answered, though she didn't feel quite as fulfilled as she'd hoped.
"...What's next?" With a sigh, she recalled the other loose ends in need of tying up, "I'd like to learn more about the Light-in-Chains, but that can wait until we locate another Sage tower…"
New Quest Received!
'Truthseeker' - Contact the Sixteen Sages
Reward - 4,000xp
"Let's see… ah, there's also the grimoire authored by Kazor Nict that we found in the Kanin Delta." She continued, "I never had any free time to study it back then."
New Quest Received!
'Bookworm' - Read 'Necrology' to completion
Reward - 1,500xp
"Is there anything else?" Lieze paused, "I do have that quest to improve my knowledge of alchemy from all the way back in Tonberg, but that would be better suited to someone else… Marché knows a thing or two about it already, so perhaps I'll leave the task to him instead."
The armouries spread across the city would no doubt contain a plethora of magical items. Using the Melting Jug, Marché could theoretically transform their reagents into something more befitting of necromancers.
Lieze tried to wipe a fleck of blood from her cheek, but only succeeded in smearing it. A headache was beginning to pound in her skull now that the adrenaline from the battle was wearing off. Even after a well-earned nap, she was still exhausted by the day's events.
"...Maybe I should run a bath before I do anything else." She muttered.
...
..
.
"Keep it coming… keep it coming…" Marché beckoned with both arms, "You're alright… you're alright… aaaand stop. Right there."
At his command, the Skeletal Necromancers turned another barrel upright and wandered off to find another. Marché took in the arid winds, relieved to taste fresh air after lingering in the mountains' stale, stuffy tunnels for far too long. The wagons close by were stocked with barrels of blast powder, prepared to depart at a moment's notice.
Roland came up out of the gate to see what the fuss was all about, "Leaving already, Marché?"
He smiled, "Where would I go? There's nothing but monsters and dust to see in this country."
"Why bother setting the wagons up if you aren't heading out?"
"Drayya asked me to. Or, well - when I say asked…" Marché trailed off, "...She wants everything ready to go at the drop of a hat once Lieze gives the order for us to move out."
Roland nodded, "-And the blast powder?"
"It's easy to transport, it's light, and it explodes." He shrugged, "So why not bring some along? The Elves won't know what hit them."
"You say that, but are you really so certain that you understand anything about the Elves?" Roland asked, "-Because I don't. And neither does anyone else save for Baccharum. Don't you think it's a tad dangerous to wander blindly into enemy territory - literally and metaphorically?"
"How dangerous could it possibly be?" Marché asked, "We'll work the darkness to our advantage. They won't see us coming."
"If only it was as simple as that…" Roland stood aside to make way for a pair of Skeletal Necromancers rolling a barrel down the hill, "To us, Akzhem is a land shrouded in darkness, but to the Elves, it's as bright as it needs to be. They have no trouble wandering through the shadows - in fact, it's just about the only place in the world where they don't have to constantly wear blindfolds to avoid losing their eyesight."
Akzhem. To Marché, hearing the name spoken aloud didn't bring to mind earthly images. He thought of the Black Forest like a distant planet populated with strange extra-terrestrials. He had never exchanged words with an Elf before meeting Baccharum.
"...I suppose we'll need lanterns." He resolved, "And plenty of oil."
"I can't help but worry that light sources will only worsen our chances." Roland folded his arms, "In any case, you had better enjoy the world while it's still lit up during the day. As soon as we cross beneath the canopies of those Great Oaks, we won't be seeing the sun until this war is over."
"Tell that to yourself." Marché smirked, "I've made it this far already. Lieze never struck me as much of a leader when we first met, but now I can't imagine the state me and my comrades would have found ourselves in if she hadn't come along. I'll follow her to the edges of the world."
"Funny. I thought much the same of you when we set off from Tonberg." Roland brushed the back of his hand over his nose, "There were a few moments in those mountains that I was sure would spell our end. But you proved your worth when push came to shove. All you need now is a haircut so you don't remind me of a pumpkin patch whenever I look at you."
A brief chuckle made its way out from Marché's throat, "If you're going to be like that, then at least make yourself useful and help me load these barrels onto the wagons."