II

In life, I had employed the services of many creatures through Conjuration. Fey, Demons, Devils, Spirits of the Dead… though my work was mainly centered in the manipulation of life and death, I had found very early on that it was smart to consult creatures with access to information and experiences I would never truly have.

It doesn't help that Conjuration Magic doesn't really need Magic Cores after the first contract is established. Beings such as Lurline were different from you or I; their names were parts of their conceptual existences, and they were aware of anyone who said them at all times, usually merely choosing to ignore a call. Instead, the actual Conjuring was made to impress a creature by forcing it to manifest, using your Magic Circles as a means to define its existence magically.

I had thought myself safe, for now, because I believed I would still have access to my Summons, with whom I had maintained a good working relationship with. Though Lurline had answered my call, it was clear that I no longer had a Contract with her… which in turn meant I had no Contracts established at all.

Starting from zero was… painful.

"So, somehow, the Obelisk remained active and built you up from scratch?" Lurline mused, stroking her chin. She was sitting on one of my tables, because of course she was, while I ran through some of my old research. "That's… remarkable. It sounds possible, but, as I'm sure you would be aware, it would require someone or something to be almost constantly supplying it with magic and bodies."

"Yeah," I murmured. Not this paper, either. Where were my notes on «Necropolis»? It was starting to piss me off. "I'm in a bit of a disadvantageous situation, too; I want to go out there and warn the Alliance of the traitor myself, but, as you can see, I barely have the resources to get dressed. And with only one Mana Core, too…"

Lurline hummed.

"You don't have to worry about the Alliance," she finally said.

I perked up at that, looking over my shoulder with a bit of a relieved look. 

"They caught her, then?"

But the Fey looked like she was chewing on something very bitter as she looked back at me, a frown on her lips. She jumped off of the table and walked toward me, which instantly told me something was wrong — placed two hands on my shoulders.

"No. They lost." A pause. "You died over 50 years ago, Kyo."

… I froze at that. Blinked twice.

It made sense. I knew it would take the Obelisk time to construct a new body, and it would also take time to build up that much dust. But still.

"...That's…"

She sighed. It was… weird, seeing Lurline act this touchy. Not that she wasn't usually nice, but the Fey I knew liked playing the young, kickass warrior-queen role — how many times had she kicked old Harrim's ass for asking about her age? 

In contract, the Lurline of now was acting almost… motherly. It was an odd surprise, but not necessarily an unpleasant one.

Right. I didn't have time to dwell on such things. 50 years had passed since I died. The Alliance had lost to the Maburhian dogs, likely because of the traitor leaking all of our most sensitive information. My friends were likely all dead, and my peers were old enough to be my grandparents.

Looking at Lurline, I could tell she was expecting me to ask her to tell me about the world of the current day. But I didn't feel like doing that just yet. I had something else I wanted to ask.

"...Hey, Lurline." My words were carefully measured. "I have a question for you."

The Fey blinked slowly, stepping around to look at me. It felt a bit awkward, since I was short and she was anything but. But we've made it work before.

"Hm?" She hummer a question, eyebrows furrowed. "Yes, Kyo?"

And I took my chance.

"Would you be willing to establish a Contract with me once again?" 

A pause.

Lurline stated at me for a good five seconds… and then chuckled heartily, stroking my hair as she did. Despite my previously serious expression, I could feel my face heating up in embarrassment at the clear dismissal — was I truly this much of a joke to her as I was? Just because I lost my mana circles?

That's…

But the Fairy Queen cut off my thoughts.

"Don't be silly, Kyo. So long as you are alive, our contract never ended — even if the you of right now isn't exactly the same as the you of back then. Your soul is the same. That I can tell."

Ah.

I flushed a brighter red, but nodded once.

"I see," I murmured. "Thank you. But will we not need to re-establish the contract?"

She hummed softly for a second, then shook her head.

"Not yet. I've some ideas regarding that, my dearest Kyo."

There she goes again with the delicate treatment. Was she alright? It's a bit heartwarming to be given care like that, but I could not help but find it weird.

I deadpanned.

"Your dearest?" I parroted. "I thought I was 'Kyo the little bastard' to you".

"That was before you died so young," she shot back immediately, and I instantly swallowed my words.

 Ah. That's right. The contract between Lurline and I had been a lifelong contract — meaning she had expected my company for many more years to come. In her mind, perhaps, she had expected to see me grow up alongside her. Instead, I lasted a whole two years.

Kind of sad, now that I think about it.

So I sighed.

"Well, I'm not complaining." I paused, and my eyes wandered to a particular stack of papers on my desk. Foregoing what I was about to say, I walked up to them in a rush and grabbed them, reading through them in pairs with wide eyes. "Shit, yes! I found them! My notes on the Obelisk!"

The «Necropolis» spell had been a disgustingly difficult one to create. The number of different sources of magical knowledge I had to pull from to create a spell like that wasn't just bizarre, it had never been seen before. Due to that, the «Necropolis» was something of a magical marvel — the only reason it wasn't widely praised was because people weren't big fans of necromancy, and my reputation was already dubious even inside the Alliance due to it.

These papers contained my many observations during the test castings of the Spell. It's reactions to stimuli, it's resistances, its capabilities, its effects… everything and anything I could take note of, organized chronologically. But I noticed something strange. 

"...Hey, Lurline. Come look at this."

She walked over to me, curious.

"What is it? You know I'm not big on — oh, my."

About 70% of the way through my notes, someone else had taken to writing on them in a deep red ink, using a language I was mostly unfamiliar with. The notes grew in intensity until the last few pages were all but filled with them on every space where I had not written myself — and the mystery researcher had even added a few pages of their own, like observations they themselves had made and a full illustration of… me, naked, and an outlining of the organs that would have to be constructed.

The last page was full of notes, but these I could mostly read — because while the language was different, I could recognise the structure of equations when I saw them, and this page was chock-full of calculations. Energy calculations, I realized, comparing the spacing to calculations I had made on my own. 

Whomever had made those was my mystery contributor.

I looked back at Lurline over my shoulder.

"Do you recognize this language, Lurline?"

"...No," she admitted. "Not at all."

"Well, then." I grinner. "We've got a mystery to crack."

And I set off to start my work.

I emerged from my second laboratory with Lurline, walking steadily downstairs toward the tenth floor. I felt a bit safer now that Lurline was accompanying me; many of my sealed rooms were sealed because I had used them as experimentation laboratories on different types.

The lower we went, the more dangerous the creatures in the compound. But, on the flipside, the tenth floor was also where I kept my armoury… and, I've got to be honest, by that point I'd gotten pretty sick of being naked. Even though Lurline had been kind enough to hand me a piece of fabric to wrap around my waist and cover up my private parts, I still felt a bit too exposed.

The Fairy Queen beside me looked a bit mystified, looking around with an odd quirk to her lips. When questioned on it, she gave me a very simple answer;

"I just didn't expect to be here again. What an interesting little complex you have built, Kyo."

Interesting, I could get. Little? Honestly, I was a bit offended. But I kept walking down the stairs, my steps echoing aimlessly throughout the complex. Every once in a while, I would use «Gust of Wind» to blow the dust away from me, though that was merely a temporary measure. 

We climbed down the last stairs in silence, and I let the glowing runes I'd inscribed on the walls guide me through the darkness. My artificial lighting has long since stopped working on the lower floors, but that was alright. By the time we finally got to the tenth floor, my eyes were accustomed enough to the shadows.

I lifted a hand up and murmured a few words — 

"Aplis, Gaisma, Lode, Sekot, Iestrēdzis. «Ghastly Lantern»."

And created a small series of orbs; floating blue flames that floated in lazy circles around my head like a crown. They cast light across the walls, illuminating the crevices on the walls I had set up as well as the faint runes on the floor.

"Lurline," I muttered. "Careful. Float, if you can. I trapped this entire floor."

"Alright," she replied, and instantly rose a few inches off the ground. Satisfied, I began making my way across the hallway — stepping over runes carefully and guiding Lurline through the motions she would need to do to avoid the ones on the ceiling, made to detect flying targets.

I stepped over the rune for Spikes, then jumped across a like of runes for Fire, then slowly led Lurline back to the ground when the anti-flight runes of Shock would detect her, telling her to float again after we got through. I tiptoed across the wall when I approached my rune for Sound, and then broke into a dead sprint on the last stretch — my runes for Life, which took a few seconds to detect.

Thankfully, even tired as I was, I was able to make the time I had to get through. Lurline was on my tail, only barely making it thorough. Unlike me, the Fey didn't look any worse for wear — though perhaps a little frustrated at the number of traps I had set up.

"Will we need to run this circuit again on the way back?" She murmured, irritated.

"Nah," I waved her concerns away, approaching one of 10 doors on the tenth floor that could only be accessed after making it through. The second-to-last one. "I can temporarily disable the defense mechanisms on this floor from the room we're about to walk into. Animus."

The door detected my use of the password and slowly slid open, revealing a room so dark that not even my «Ghastly Lantern» would do little to light up. As intended.

"15, 95, 5, 17. Veni, vidi, vici." I murmured now a series of numbers and the great Caesar's words of conquest, the final passwords, and only then did my armoury recognise my presence, lighting up with bright red crystals on the ceiling that cast even light across all of the room.

The wide, marble-and-gold room had already been luxurious when I discovered it, with pillars and altars for many artifacts, most of which were still here. I suspected that this room was used as a treasury by the people of the Ruined City long before I discovered it, and the artifacts I found within were of great help. Of course, two of those had been on me by the time I died, meaning they were likely in the hands of that woman by this point, but I had plenty of other interesting stuff in my armoury.

"Oh, my." Lurline muttered, covering her mouth. "I don't believe you've ever taken me here before."

"I did not," I confirmed, stepping in. "I never showed anyone this room. If you don't use the second and third passwords, in that order, the illusion runes on the door will show you a tiny, empty room."

I walked through the room in comfort, casting my gaze on the treasures within. Most of the artifacts here were of limited use, as I didn't have too long a life to go around collecting them — instead, I sold spells for magical items I could study, which was the origin of most of my collection. The few I acquired myself were acquired by spelunking through ancient ruins, a hobby of mine.

Let's see… first, I walked toward an alter near the back-end of the room, where a set of ancient robes and pants were kept carefully folded and cleaned. The Vest of Kevna the Dark One had been my pride and joy for a while, discovered deep within the man's tomb after I raided it with my undead in search of secrets.

They were a bit big on me, which was why I didn't wear them around in the first place, but they'd have to do. I threw them on in a minute or two, folding down the arms and legs to be able to actually walk and do stuff in them, and then adjusted the collar a bit. The robes were ornamented and beautiful, with small gems encrusted in the center and beautiful spirals of red, blue and green drawn across the arms and backs of the dark black robes.

 Even after all this time, they felt quite comfortable to touch.

Lurline was looking me over, adjusting the robes here and there in small measures that made me feel a bit embarrassed, but actually helped out a ton.

Next, I walked across the room to grab a set of jewelry — the Necklace of the Queen of Wolves and the bracelets of Hermes. With Lurline's help, I was able to get them on without too much trouble, though the ornamental jewelry felt a bit stuffy.

Finally, I grabbed the last two item of interest for now — a dagger and a gemstone. There were some 30 items in the armoury, but these were the only ones of interest to me at the moment. I could always come back later, after all. Sheathing the dagger on my waist, I flexed my shoulders a bit and nodded to myself.

"Alright," I muttered. "Time to go."

"Go?" Lurline repeated, a quirk to her lips. "Go where, if I may inquire?"

I breathed in, carefully placing the small gemstone on the palm of my ungloved left hand, then putting the glove over it. I flexed that hand a bit, testing the comfort. Everything was okay.

"Well," I murmured. "Like you said, the Alliance lost. Clearly, I've got things to fix. Grab on, Lurline."

A pause. The woman put a hand on my shoulder, and I began.

"Aizved mani kaut kurkur spīd gaisma — Erenen!"

The Gemstone of Teleportation had been a luxury artifact only the most important in the Alliance were afforded. Many had complained about such an item being given to a youngling like I, talented or not — nevermind two, like I had requested. Still, my request had been granted by old Harrim, who trusted in my good sense.

With a flash of brilliant blue light, I was gone.