Iris headed towards where the merchant pointed the barracks where. She broke the crust of the bread with a satisfying crunch in two realising an appetising aroma.

 

"Mmmmm." Iris took in the deliciously smelling scent causing her to stop her stride to better take in the heavenly smell. "Want some?" She offered half of the luxurious bread to Kia.

 

The undead mage mirrored the elf smelling the still warm bread, quickly snatching the half from the hand in front of her. "Ommnomm."

 

"Enjoying it?" Iris asked already knowing the answer to her question but still asking wanting to hear Kia's answer.

 

"Mmmdelisiousmmm." The girl answered between bites.

 

  Hearing this Iris also took a bite out of her half. The crisp crust made a loud crunch sound. The hard crust was contrasted with a soft, fluffy and warm inside which melted in her mouth realising the rich flavour trapped inside. No wonder not a single crumb of this bread was left for her to eat.

 

"Can I have more?" Kia's pleading voice reached Iris. 

 

  With a brief frustration, the elf broke her portion again and presented it to the girl. Knowing Kia, Iris was amazed that the always-hungry necromancer would not just sneakily take a piece of the bread from her inventory, thinking about it what does she have in there? Iris saw the girl stuffing many small and big things inside her seemingly infinite inventory.

Not only that but the object inside it looked like it was stuck in time which was not the case with the inventory spell used by Alicia and Brad. They sometimes complained about things forgotten by them rotting inside if left for a long time even causing Alicia to use a notebook to track her inventory.

 

  As the risen pondered she was dragged out as a building made from red bricks giving the building an atmosphere of being wrong inside the city surrounded from all angles by the yellowish-white walls. The elf guessed that the building with a large gate as its entrance with the lower portion of portcullis seen dangling above it was the barracks Denson talked about.

Besides the unmissable build was a much smaller building with four armoured guards standing guard in front of it.

 

"Are you lost, ladies?" A somewhat distorted voice came from under a metal visor covering the human's face. 

 

"Is this an entrance to the dungeon?" 

 

"Yes but civilians can't use it only people authorities by the garrison commander or someone higher in rank can allow access." The armoured guard explained to Iris.

 

"Will this do?" She pulled out the small coin, still unsure if the coin would do anything.

 

"Ohh?" The guard held the coin in his gauntlet causing the soldiers beside him to look over his shoulder. "Years had passed the last time I saw this. Before I let you in show me your level and names and remember behind these doors is not some off playground but a dangerous dungeon which will kill you if you make mistakes." The man inside the armoured explained. Iris and Kia manifested their status sheets with the things the guard asked for. She noticed that the humans closely eyed Kia's black sheet.

"...eleven and ten, level twenty-one is fine... also the same." The guard whispered to himself holding their sheets. Open the door for the adventurers here."

The rest of the soldiers stared at the guard from under their helmets. "Come on today would be preferable." He said throwing Iris's and Kia's tablets onto the ground causing them to instantly disappear. 

The soldiers quickly shook off their shock and opened the door with haste for Iris and Kia to enter inside.

"One more thing, it is forbidden to harm the core in any way." The guard said to the two.

 

  Iris stepped through the door finding herself in a small room with nothing inside except a stone trap door in front of her was held open by a small wooden block, she leaned over the edge and could only manage to see the silhouette of a ladder in a thick fog below her. 

 

"Ominous." She said before stepping onto the first step of the ladder.

 

When her feet touched the ground the fog disappeared reviling the rough stone walls of a cave covered in green vines with one tunnel leading outside. The sound of water filled the cavern as a small spring endlessly gushed out water creating a small pool of crystal clear water. A wooden plank was put against the pool with and message reading. "Healing water." 

 

"Thought dungeons reset themself once every few days." Iris commented on the manmade sign partially covered in moss laying in front of her.

 

She tried to touch the water-soaked sign but she quickly retracted her hand from the pool as the skin on the tips of her finger dissolved into a black sludge with a slow hiss ringing in her ears.

 

"Want me to heal you?" The necromancer standing behind Iris asked. 

 

The risen watched as her skin dissolved followed by her flesh underneath, she somewhat expected to see her own bones being eaten by the minuscule amount of water but before that could happen her body began to regenerate, regrowing the missing flesh. "No thanks." She showed Kia her fingers. 

Kia walked beside Iris and glanced at the pool, running her finger along its edge before it started to dissolve. "I feel this should not be here for some reason." She commented, her finger bursting into black flames stopping the water from dissolving it.

 

  The two headed towards the only exit they saw having to squeeze through a tight passage which ended on a slope under the canopy of gigantic trees towering over the two undead.

 

 

---

 

 

  In a room dimly lit by the flickering candlelight, a woman sat on a vermilion red chair with her legs crossed. Her dark clothes covering her body from the tips of her toes to her neck did not hint at the late hour of the night. In one hand she held a goblet idly sipping on it every so often while she read the pile of letters stacked beside her. Above her a coat of arms depicting two roses with a black worm coiled around a sword hang.

The beauty rumoured in all noble courts of Firmusa was nowhere to be seen replaced with a tired exhausted look as she read through the documents.

 

"Mistress." A young human wearing an elegant black servant suit kneeled in front of the woman.

 

"Speak." The woman paid spoke with an emotionless voice wanting the human to quickly leave her.

 

"Lord Eastwood reported the arrival of spies two days ago in today's diet." 

 

The pale skin woman shifted her eyes from the letter she held to the servant. She frowned with frustration at the mention of the conclave she was meant to attend. "Spies from who?"

 

"Lord Eastwood said they might be from the Adventurers guild or the faction your most cursed of enemies." The servant said.

The woman glanced at the letter in her hand regarding another loss caused by the blasphemous traitor slowly eroding her power.

 

"What caused the young Eastwood to think a person could fit the characteristics of a spy from those two conflicting groups?"

 

"Lord Eastwood handed me this." The man handed a letter sealed with crimson red wax to his mistress.

 

The woman rolled her eyes grabbing the letter from the human, she opened the letter from her vassal and quickly read it through it.

After she finished she gave the letter back to the servant. "Tell Eastwood if he is incapable of capturing even low-level undead he shall face my eerie." She oversaw the servant leaving her room with a silent stride.

 

"Great Master why even the Mother of Darkness is against me? A level 90 defeated, outsmarted by a pair of low lives. I tried to defend your name but I can't defeat your enemies when I have a bunch of spoiled children to herd and whip into any action. Having to be reminded of your very existence." The woman sank into her chair, unable to shed a single tear of torment, grieving to her long-forgotten deity.