The walk had been long, tiring, and rather boring. Sure, the landscapes of the plateau were beautiful, but walking pace meant you were moving slowly enough to get bored of any specific thing before it was out of sight. Or, well, maybe some of you wouldn’t, but I did. Sore feet probably didn’t help my mood. I wanted to fly, but the air currents still felt a bit too chaotic. At least for an inexperienced flyer like me.

This all added up to mean it was evening by the time we caught sight of the city. A sight that surprised us, as it seemed there were far fewer fires burning within than one might expect. Instead the city was but a shadowy mass looming at the foot of a great mountain.

I could see that the buildings were towers rising above the rest, though it wasn’t the easiest to guess the scale on the treeless plateau. 

“That… doesn’t seem right,” I muttered.

“Maybe it’s some sort of holiday where they can’t light fires?” Aara offered.

None of us really believed that, though. We decided to move with caution, avoiding the various roads we saw heading towards the city, and trying to keep behind hills and ridges wherever possible.

“It’s… not to be cliche, but it’s too quiet,” I muttered, hiding behind a ridge not far from the edge of the city.

“Cliches exist where there is truth in them,” Aara replied softly.

The ‘edge’ was a bit hard to define. The city had no walls. The buildings simply trickled away. Some of the buildings looked damaged as well, though I normally wouldn’t have been able to guess if that war from battle or fire and neglect. However, there were no sides of life at all. 

Aara turned to the pegasus and whispered something to it. The animal let out a small whinny, then hurried off across the plateau. Once it seemed a safe distance we moved ahead. It wasn’t too hard to slink through the city streets, swords drawn. We didn’t encounter any resistance for the first few blocks, as the city built up around us.

There also weren’t any signs of death, only continuing property damage. We were starting to wonder if the city might have been ransacked and then abandoned when we reached a large square. There were stalls and wagons scattered about, so we thought we could still stealthily weave our way across, sticking to shadows. However, as we passed a threshold I felt something shift. Something magical.

I froze, the others turning to me. They were clearly about to ask what was up when a horn blew. And then another. And then at least a dozen more. 

Out of the buildings in every direction poured countless numbers of ghouls and zombies and similar small sickly grey creatures. The sort of things that made up the canon fodder of Nemza’s armies. Sukura and I both moved to guard Aara, knowing that she was fairly defenseless in a desert city like this. 

The armies of dark creatures swarmed ahead. I couldn’t believe how many of them there were. At least, the wreckage strewn across the square hampered their motion. Any that reached me were soon sliced to bits. I didn’t need any great skill with a sword to hack through such creatures with my divine strength. 

Sukura was struggling a bit more. She was worlds better with a blade than I was, but she couldn’t slice through bones and flesh like they were—well, I didn’t want to finish that analogy. I was just glad that the undead forces of darkness crumbled to dust instead of bleeding. However, stabbing them was of minimal use. Which left Sukura having to swing with all her might to slice through the limbs and necks of the endless ghoulish enemies.

“There aren’t even rats to call on,” Aara hissed, having been trying to offer some support.

“Follow me,” I said. “I can lead the way. Cut a path. You and Sukura can follow. We’ll get out and get a new plan.”

The two of them exchanged looks, but then nodded. Neither of them had a better idea.

So I rushed towards the square’s edge. Back roughly the way we’d come, hacking through the swarms of undead foes as I charged. It was easy enough, and I had to control my pace to avoid rushing too far ahead of the others. Sukura cleaned up any ghouls I’d missed, keeping Aara (and herself) safe. 

However, the city proved more winding than I’d realised on our way in. After a few minutes we’d found ourselves back at the square, nothing to show for our escape attempt but being slightly more tired.

“I must have taken a wrong turn,” I muttered, glancing over my shoulder. 

By this point, though, ogres had begun to crawl out of wherever they’d been hiding. While I could deal with them, they’d slow us down enough that I wasn’t sure how well I’d be keeping the other two safe. 

“Do you think you can fly out?” Aara asked.

I glanced up, towards the tall buildings all around us. I hadn’t noticed quite how tall they were on the way in. Easily pushing ten stories. I thought back to what the city had looked like from the outside, too. I remembered the various towers reaching above the rest of the city. As well as how windy it had been out there. How gusty it got in here, as well, when the wind hit just the right angle to be funneled down the narrow streets.

“I don’t know if it’s the best idea,” I replied, charging ahead to punch an ogre in the gut.

The creature flew backwards with the force, but I found a wave of ghouls bursting around where it had been. 

“Staying down here is definitely not the best idea,” Sukurua said, and I could hear she was running out of breath. 

Before I could manage a reply, a section of the cobblestone beneath us lifted up. I realised, as I watched, that that had actually been metal of some sort. A manhole. 

A figure was still tucked under the manhole, but shot forwards blast of magic, slicing through the nearest ghouls.

“Get down here if you value your lives!” a female voice hissed.

“Aara, you first,” I said, moving to shield her.

“I—” she started.

“I’m fine,” I shot back.

She nodded, and then hurried over, into the sewer. Sukura and I then backed towards it, fending off ghouls and ogres as best we could, with a bit of magical support from our unknown rescuer. Well, I fought off the ogres. When one moved for her, Sukura took that as her cue to make a break for it and slip into the sewer. 

I then disentangled myself from the mass of enemies and slipped down after, finding myself in a cramped stone tunnel. The unknown woman pulled the manhole back in place, did something magical to it, and then hissed for us to follow her through the darkness.

“What were you doing, wandering into the middle of the city like that?” the woman asked in a rough whisper after we’d travelled for a few minutes.

“There weren't any signs of anyone at all,” Aara replied. “We wondered what had happened.”

“We thought the city had been pillaged and abandoned,” Sukura added.

The woman let out a tired sounding sigh. “The Dark Lady’s armies don’t need food. They don’t need water. Nor amusement. Nor… nor any of the things that strain a normal army. They can hide in any space that fits them and stay there as long as they need.”

“Good to know,” I said, not thrilled about the news.

The going was getting difficult. The cramped space meant I was scrunched up in a way that was far from comfortable, and the longer we wandered through the labyrinth down here the worse the discomfort got. Then there was the fact we were walking through ankle deep water. Under a city. 

“How much of the city is left?” Sukura asked. 

“Not much,” the woman replied. “There’s only the old town. Which is only holding out because it’s sized for dwarves. Ogres aren’t getting in. Nor are the… worse things.”

We were quiet for the next while. Just crawling and crouching through the darkness. Listening to the splash of our feet. With our silence we could hear noises above us. Ogres and such marching about. Drums and horns blowing. A reminder of why we were down here in this cramped tunnel system.

“Silver lining to you getting them all riled up is that they’ll probably end up fighting each other a bit in the confusion. Enslaved spirits don’t tend to be the smartest,” the woman said. “Should take a little pressure off of us.”

“That’s good,” I said, trying to smile. Not that I thought it was visible in the darkness.

Finally, we stopped. The woman knocked against what sounded like a metal panel a few times. Then it cracked open, revealing a sliver of light. It was too much for my eyes at the moment, but I was thankful for it all the same. We headed in, all blinking to adjust our eyes to the light.

The ceiling was only a little higher than the sewer had been, but the ground was dry, so I sat down. And I was glad I was sitting when I looked over to the woman who had rescued us. She was talking to a well bearded dwarf, but the dwarf got relatively little of my attention. Because the woman… 

She was human, with muted brown hair pulled into a low ponytail draped over one shoulder. Her clothing was simple, patched and threadbare. But that wasn’t the issue. No… it was the fact she had the same sort of grey skin as the servants of Nemza. Grey skin that seemed just a little too dried out to be alive. Sure, she looked far closer to alive than any ghoul I’d seen, and better, even, than the men who had attacked us at Chem’s home. But she still looked clearly dead. Or, undead.

Especially when you looked at her eyes, as kind as they seemed otherwise.

“Now you’re an odd looking one, aren’t you?” she said, looking me over.

That threw me for a loop as I was still trying to process her appearance. An appearance that was making me feel wary of trusting her, but… well, that was prejudice, wasn’t it? Judging someone just for… er, being undead.

“I’m, uh… I’m…” I glanced to Aara and Sukura for any impressions they might convey.

Aara gave a small nod of support. “They seem trustworthy.”

“I’m the new Vazehr?” I offered.

“The ‘new Vazehr’?” the woman replied, raising an eyebrow and exchanging a glance with the dwarf. “I would expect a goddess to use something better than a simple metal sword.”

“Uh, well… I kind of came here to learn how to use my magic?” I offered.

“The gods did not give her much information to go on,” Aara added.

Sukura gave a nod, though she had less directly to say about that.

“Mhm. The gods do have a habit of glossing over details,” the woman said, her eyes growing distant for a moment.

With that, she gave a nod and told us to continue down the tunnel. It was still too small to walk in for either me, Sukura, or the undead woman. Aara could just barely manage, her eyes tickling the ceiling. The dwarf leading us seemed fine, however. 

Eventually we found ourselves somewhere with more folks. Mostly dwarves, but there were humans, elves, and… halflings? Though, seeing so many of them in one place, I was surprised to realise the halfling-sized folks all seemed to be female. Thinking back, I wasn’t sure if I’d seen any that looked male… though I hadn’t seen many in general.

“Ah, Gazzurk, we need to get the professors together,” the undead woman said to a dwarf, indicating towards me. “We seem to have an important new student.”

“That ‘we’… does it mean you’re a professor?” I asked.

“Mhm,” she said with a nod. “Uké’el Khair. Professor of Evocative Channelling.”

“Evocative Channelling,” I mumbled.

“Not—um, not Necromancy?” Sukura asked.

“…no?” Uké’el replied. “Why—oh, right. It’s been a few months since I met anyone new… but, no. My status as a lich was from a friend of mine helping me. Mālee… gods let him rest… he was an incredibly talented Necromancer. Helped me out as I was sick… slowly dying. Something that healing magic couldn’t manage.”

I nodded. “Oh… that’s… you’ll have to forgive me for my earlier looks. I’m… I’m not from around here, so my only encounters with the undead so far had been with the, well, enemy.”

“Not from—where are you from?” Uké’el asked.

“That’s, uh… that’s a bit of a story,” I replied.