Revenge of the Sorcerer King 27

Chapter 27

Alessa

It was late into the night when we found the cave that carried the worst aura of death from it. I still found it bizarre that it didn’t bother me. A few weeks ago, I would have been running as fast as I could from this place. I guess you could never underestimate what Fate threw at you. 

The cave had a number of runes craved around the entrance. I wasn’t worried though, as both Oberon and Helena started to laugh when they saw them. I didn’t know whether it was due to them being done poorly, or that they were too weak, and frankly I was afraid to ask. Those two’s idea of powerful was off the scale after all. 

Oberon drew his sword and started to gently tap the runes. I saw a burst of mana as it was sucked into the sword. The sword must be as powerful as Oberon with how much mana he’d feed it during the trip. It was the one thing he refused to let off his person. In fact, I couldn’t remember a time when the sword wasn’t with him. 

“Would you like the honors?” Oberon asked looking over to Helena.

“Oh, now I can lead us?” Helena asked putting her hands on her hips. 

“My lady I know very well that you are stronger than me. In this case you’re the one with a giant ass shield that can take anything this joker could think to throw at us,” Oberon said with a mocking bow. “But to be more to the point, I believe the phrase is Ladies first?” 

“Whatever!” Helena said with a growl as she moved forward shield leading. 

“Are you two ever going to get along?” I asked moving behind the two. 

“No,” answered both of them at the same time. 

The cave looked completely normal after the runed up entrance. I guessed the person that was here assumed his runes and undead would be enough to stop anyone from getting close to him. And to be fair, he had been right so far. It was just unlucky that Oberon happened upon the town he’d been terrorizing. 

We had probably gone fifty meters into the cave when it started to rumble. Helena braced herself, her feet digging into the ground as she put force into it. A few moments later, a horde of undead rounded the corner and slammed into Helena’s shield. It was large enough that only limbs were able to reach around in the tight passage. 

Oberon looked over the shield and I heard him counting. When he reached forty-two, he stopped and raised his hand. I sensed the mana in the air heat up before Oberon said, “Immolation!” and a torrent of flames raced down the passageway. The flames acted almost as if they were alive, growing stronger with each undead it consumed. Only ten seconds was needed to turn all the undead in the cave to ash. 

“That was fun,” Oberon said checking his handy work. 

“Did you burn my hair?!” Helena asked as she felt her hair with her free hand. 

“What?! Of course not!” Oberon said waving his hand. 

Unluckily for Oberon, Helena managed to find the lock he did indeed burn during his spell. It was already returning to normal due to her rapid recovery ability. I blinked and Oberon was imbedded in the wall from a punch Helena threw. I rubbed my temples as I was getting a headache from these two. 

“Next time I’ll make sure to break a few bones!” Helena yelled at him. 

He pulled himself out of the hole as he glared at her. I was glad he kept his mouth shut. I just couldn’t understand why he went out of his way to piss her off. If she wanted to, she could kill us both. 

We continued inside and came to a large cavern. A man that looked to be just into his adult years was working a spell over a corpse. He wasn’t particular ugly, but he wasn’t handsome either. Average would be the word that best described him. Someone you would forget in the crowd if you weren’t paying attention. 

There were two armored zombies standing next to him. I would be worried if we hadn’t singlehandedly decimated all the other zombies on our way in here. Oberon held us back as he watched the spell being worked. The green energies floating around the corpse looked unrefined to me, with a lack of the order that Oberon’s spells had. The difference between a novice and a master. 

The spell completed and the zombie jerked to unlife. The caster told it to go head for the cave to deal with the intruders, while another zombie lugged a dead body onto the table he was working around. I jumped when Oberon suddenly sent a magic missile into the just risen zombie blowing it to pieces. The necromancer yelled in surprise. 

“Could you spare a few moments to speak with me about our lord Siateth?” Oberon called out. 

“Who the fuck are you!?” the man said holding his chest. I snickered as he must have been more surprised than I thought. 

Oberon pulled his helmet off. “Just a lich passing through,” he said scratching his chin. 

Oberon 

I had to stop myself from crying as I watched the magic being performed it was so… bad. From my study of the necromancer spells, the caster had to animate the body in one way or another. The caster could provide mana to return the body to an instinct level of activity, create a link to a soul to inhabit the body, or create an artificial soul if you had enough mana. 

This man was going the first route. I was amazed that he’d managed to survive. While it was easier to just provide mana to the body to make it move like a doll, there was no loyalty or control. The best he could do was point it in the direction he wants it to go. Even just now when he ordered the thing to head for the passageway. The only reason it had started heading our way was because he fricking pointed in our direction. 

That wasn’t even the worse part. The spell was completely uneven. You needed to distribute the mana evenly throughout the body to remove the jerks and limping. The spell he just used pushed most of the mana into the chest area, where he was inserting the mana. Barely any of it reached the limbs. 

“My friend. We need to have a nice chat. Now we can do this the hard way or the easy way. Would you like to choose?” I called to the frightened man. “Ah before you make your choice. Alessa would you please demonstrate for us.”

She looked at me for a moment then understood what I was going for. She nodded then moved next to the wall. The man watched with wide eyes that only got larger as Alessa proceeded to punch the wall putting a meter-deep crater in it. She pulled her hand out and dusted off the gauntlet. I noticed it had gained a new dent, one of many since the start of this night. 

“Alright! Alright. I’ll… I’ll talk,” the man shouted putting his hands up. 

“Very good!” I said as I clapped my hands. We started into the cavern while the man collapsed into a chair surrounded by books, reagents, and magical components. It was a pretty decent assortment for a man on his own. 

We probably crossed half of the distance when the two undead that stood on either side of the table suddenly started to move. We came to a stop, the lights on the armored zombies’ eyes turning a flaming yellow. Dust and stone cracked and popped as they started to move towards us. 

“Friend, you better call them off or it might not end well for you,” I said though I already knew these weren’t his undead. Sure enough, the man was currently backing away as well. 

“There not mine! I have been studying them! They’ve never moved before!” the man shouted. 

“Sense a family member?” Helena asked as I put my helmet back on.

“You? They look about that old,” I shot back. 

“I was thinking the resemblance was striking! I mean you could be their long-lost father!” Helena laughed. 

The undead miasma in the air thickened until it was almost palpable. It didn’t bother us, but the human on the other side of the room was already coughing. Well, if he died this was his own fault. 

The left undead, wielding a long two-handed sword charge with surprising agility across the room. Helena rushed forward to meet the charge while I worked on casting the control undead spell. The undead brought its sword around in a horizontal slice that Helena met with her shield. I knew we were dealing with some out of the ordinary when it managed to force her back a meter. 

I finished the chant in record time and the green magic circle appeared over the undead. It stopped and looked at it as the chains wrapped around its body. It turned a glare on me, the yellow flames that made up its eyes growing more intense. The yellow light spread from its eyes into the chains which were quickly corrupted. 

It wouldn’t be a joke if that spell rebounded onto me, so I quickly canceled it. I wasn’t sure but I thought the undead snorted when it saw the spell fade. That only served to piss me off. I summoned a blade storm around me and sent it flying at the undead. Blades of yellow slammed into my green ones causing them to burst into particles of mana. I jerked my head around to see the other undead was wielding a staff and magic sigils floated in the air around him. 

“Is this a king’s tomb or something!?” I shouted but received no answer from anywhere.

Helena was managing to keep the melee undead occupied with her shield work. We argued all the time and I hated her to the core, but at least she was strong. I turned back to the mage undead, let see how much this guy knew.