Never Die Twice - Chapter 17

A peaceful, quiet life.

As Tye managed his shop in the morning, he meditated on his newfound peace of mind. Gone were his fear of discovery, and the constant home robberies. The world believed him dead, and his mining operations had returned to their pre-Princess levels. He could work back quietly in the shadows; he had even made his first deliveries to Mockingbird, securing future supplies in exchange.

People kept coming to his shop, for he had become a local hero after the dungeon raid, but the influx of clients would die down. Without an easily accessible dungeon, his clientele would shift to sick people looking for remedies, travelers making emergency purchases, or local guilds in need of chemicals. His finances would take a hit, but he could manage.

He would even enjoy the company of his favorite mortal, Annie, for a little longer. “Tye,” she asked him, after making a magical ingredients purchase. “Do you have anything planned tonight?”

Yes, opening the path to Nastrond. “Only a few hours after closing shop, why?”

“To play Board & Conquest with me, like old times.”

What a sweet girl. Truly the little sister he never had. “With pleasure, Annie,” he answered, the witch smiling sheepishly in response. The alchemist also heard Laufey snicker behind a shelf, as she arranged potions in a set row.

The arrival of a newcomer in his shop ruined the necromancer’s mood though.

“Your Highness,” Annie greeted Princess Gwenhyfar, while Tye nodded politely at the vile, obstinate woman.

“Annie, Walter,” she saluted them both. “You look very happy today.”

“Yes I am!” Annie rejoiced, showing her purchases. “I can finally cash in the guild’s reward!”

“You have come to buy magical items, Your Highness?” Tye asked, playing the role of the friendly shopkeeper.

“No, I have come for the truth,” the princess replied, her eyes meeting his. “Why are you underselling yourself, Walter?”

“Excuse me?” he asked, surprised by her bluntness.

“You are clearly far more powerful than you pretend, and I suspect you have at least five to ten levels more than your official records suggest.” Twenty, actually. “You could make a name for yourself in Avalon.”

“I have no desire for fame or power,” Walter Tye replied. “I am looking for something more practical. To help my fellow man.”

“One doesn’t exclude the other.”

“I’m afraid it does. I prefer a quiet life to the court intrigue, power games, and stunts high-level people partake in.”

The princess let out a brief chuckle, sounding amused. “In that case, you will grow to hate me, because the Academy requires your services in the near future.”

Why was the reward for good work more work? “Your Highness, please, no more dungeon cleaning.”

“I was thinking more about consulting services on magical and alchemical matters,” the princess replied. “You expressed interest in teaching if I remember right, and our work in Lyonesse is not yet done.”

Damn it. “Not done?” Annie asked.

“I wished to clear out the dungeon, instead of waiting for the undead to come out,” the princess said. “Unfortunately, Lady Yseult and other priests decided to keep the monsters safely contained, rather than risk more lives.”

Never underestimate the power of human laziness.

“But the necromancer is gone, no?” Annie asked. “We all leveled up a lot from it, and we found his treasure stash.”

“[Linnorm Demilich],” the princess said. “The Yggdrasil System said that we survived a fight with a [Linnorm Demilich], not an [Ankou].”

“Your Highness, you could have mistaken the kind of undead he really was,” Tye lied.

“I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “And if this was a polymorph effect, then the Yggdrasil System should have pointed that out. I cannot put a finger on what, but I feel like we missed a detail.”

“You are astonishingly intelligent, Your Highness.” Seriously, if that woman wasn’t trying to kill him, Tye would have voted for her as queen. Such a shame that someone so brilliant served the wrong cause. “But perhaps a bit too cynical.”

“Maybe,” Gwenhyfar replied, but obviously didn’t believe so. “In truth, I didn’t decide to visit the dungeon by happenstance. I have been investigating the Pale Serpents for a while.”

“Oh?” Tye faked interest.

“I suspected this Ankou to be one of the survivors.”

The alchemist’s eyes narrowed. “One of them?”

The Princess dramatically took a piece of paper from her belt and showed it to the alchemist.

It took everything he had for Tye not to betray his shock, when he saw the sketch of a black knight straight from Helheim itself. He could feel the princess’ gaze on him, looking for any micro-expression.

She had staged this moment, that paranoid woman. After everything he had done to throw her off his scent, she still suspected him.

“So?” Gwenhyfar asked Tye, after a tense silence.

“That’s a [Death Knight], obviously,” the necromancer replied, his face a pallid mask. “One of the strongest undead.”

“He has been sighted near the Plateau of Logres, and the ruins of the Pale Serpent’s citadel,” the princess explained. “The Academy is investigating him at my demand, and I intend to track the creature down. I thought you could help.”

It could be a trap meant to trick Tye somehow, but the resemblance to the real deal was uncanny. That black armor, those spikes, the way he carried the sword… “I’ll see what I can do.”

After the princess and Annie left, Tye sank in the chair behind his counter, pondering the implications.

“So, you’re ‘alive’ too,” he whispered to himself, “Medraut?”

Having gathered with his elites before the door to Nastrond, Walter Tye raised his [Apophis] scepter and called upon his [Blood Magic]. “[Blood Mimicry],” he cast a spell on the stolen blood of Princess Gwenhyfar.

Instantly, the blood escaped its glass container, taking the form of a floating hand.

She was still suspicious, the necromancer thought as he applied the hand against the stele seal. Tye’s grand play hadn’t fully convinced the princess.

Of course, since the others had fallen for it, she didn’t have the pull to force another investigation. Well, she could, but her whole coronation plan depended on good public relations. Princess Gwenhyfar couldn’t afford to look like a paranoid maniac chasing after ghosts.

It wasn’t fun to be right when everyone else was wrong.

So for now, Tye had gotten rid of that stubborn royal, and he still had a spy in Morgane. He hoped it would last, but the gods weren’t so kind with the necromancer. He had the intuition that the Princess would prove a relentless thorn in his foot, and return to challenge his dungeon one day.

“You have been snickering for a while,” Tye told Laufey, frustrated by the sound she made behind him. “Stop it.”

“I find it adorable that you agreed to a date with little Annie,” the dark elf said. “I thought you no longer felt the call of warm flesh.”

“Chief, you’re meeting someone?” Hagen asked, amused. Unlike the false battle with Gwenhyfar, he had come to this gathering armed to the teeth.

“Annie is my protegee,” Tye replied. “Do not mistake my intentions for something impure.”

“Oh?” Laufey chuckled. “I was mistaken then. My apologies. Still, I wonder why you keep me around now that your adventurer problem is solved.”

“Your contract will terminate in a year,” Tye replied, the stele shining in response to the false hand. “Truth to be told, you have proved a valuable asset so far. I prefer that you remain at my side.”

“You make me swoon,” the dark elf replied, faking embarrassment. “My, have you fallen in love with me?”

Love? Such disorderly, maddening emotion had no place within him; neither did hate. These feelings turned people astray, made them lose sight of their goals.

Only immortality mattered.

Tye shrugged the conversation off, as his gambit worked. Answering the magic within the blood, the stele moved out of the way, the seal broken. The path to the buried city had opened to the group.

Duke, whose body his master had repaired, went first with Spook and Hagen. Tye followed afterward, alongside Laufey and a group of goblins carrying explosives. The necromancer felt some apprehension as he descended the stairs towards Nastrond, half-expecting Hel’s cold voice to threaten him again; his mind eased up as no such thing happened.

His soldiers couldn’t help but pause upon entering the giant cavern, and the immense plateau that housed the buried city. While Tye mostly focused on the alkahest veins he would dig up, he had to admit that he found Nastrond awe-inspiring.

Hagen, however, looked down into the sea of smog below the plateau. “Helheim,” he whispered.

“I suspect this place marks the frontier between Midgard and that cursed realm,” Tye confirmed. “Are you afraid, my friend?”

“No,” the dullahan lied, focusing on the path ahead. “I’m never going back in there.”

As the group made their way to the breach in the city’s walls, they soon entered the city’s dusty street. “What is this place?” Duke wondered as he observed the numerous snake statues making up most of the local decoration. “I have never seen anything like this before.”

“Me neither,” Laufey admitted. It surprised Tye a bit since she was usually coy and overconfident; this time though, she seemed lost in her thoughts. Something about Nastrond fascinated her. “It reeks of pain and hate.”

“What do you mean?” Hagen asked as he examined a snake mural on a building. Spook, meanwhile, seemed on edge, distracted.

“As bodies leave scents, emotions remain even after the soul has long departed,” the demonic elf explained, picking up Tye’s interest. “I have never smelled anything so rance, so vile, since my father’s prison. Countless atrocities happened there, headless man. I can hear the screams in the walls.”

Laufey suddenly stopped in the middle of the street.

“There, eight children are gathered,” she said. “They were nine last month, and it is time for the sacrifice. The beast is hungry, but cannot stand the taste of the living; the meat must be salted with horror and treachery. The father approaches, with his long knife, and looks at them…”

The dark elf walked through the street, glancing at people who weren’t there. She suddenly paused and pointed a finger at an empty space. “You,” Laufey whispered, in the throes of some kind of trance. “Come over here.”

“Chief,” Hagen spoke up. “This is messed up, even for that fiend. Shall I slap her out of it?”

Tye remained silent, more curious than anything.

“Father. Father! She begs him, but he doesn’t listen.” Laufey smiled, before mimicking a man gutting a pig. Her expression was one of pure, cruel bliss. “He has done it before. He will do it again. The forever serpent will feast tonight, and the night afterward.”

The echoes of footsteps interrupted her, as an adamantine golem turned around a corner.

The machine let out a screeching sound that echoed across Nastrond, before raising its sword threateningly. The group prepared for battle, but the necromancer had an ace up his sleeve. “Behind me,” Tye ordered.

“Chief, it’s higher-leveled than you,” Hagen pointed out, shielding his master protectively.

“And mindless. [Parasitic Soul],” Tye cast with [Apophis], ripping out a fragment of his soul and hurling it like a bullet at the golem. The machine froze in place, as the dark spirit took hold in its metal body. Soon, a shadowy glow appeared beneath its helmet, a shard of Tye’s will filling this empty husk.

The golem’s immunity to weaker magic couldn’t protect it from high-tier spells.

Charisma check successful. You [Enthralled] the [Adamantine Golem] with your soul.

“Magic never betrays,” Tye mused out loud. “Lead us to your brothers. They too will serve.”

The enslaved machine nodded, obedient.

The other golems didn’t pose much resistance either. Level 60 or not, these creatures had been designed to fight an army or standard spellcasters, not a mighty necromancer. Mindless automatons weren’t of much use against someone who could possess them.

In the end, Nastrond’s defenses folded one after another. Golems were enslaved, traps removed, debris cleared. While he had lost Level One of the dungeon, Tye now had control over the underground city, with only a single building remaining untouched.

Nastrond’s central cathedral was even more impressive when witnessed in the flesh than through astral projection. The black metal doors of this stone temple would need giants to open, and the more Tye examined the magical wards protecting it, the stronger they seemed.

“So?” Laufey asked impatiently. The last, disturbing episode had dramatically improved her mood.

“We won’t have to blow up the doors,” Tye replied. As he had suspected, the seal was Allfather Odin’s handiwork. “But move the explosives near the entrance, in case anything sealed inside comes out.”

He had yet to find a ‘problem’ that enough bombs couldn’t solve. In case the enemy survived, the [Horn of Jotunheim], his reward for protecting Lyonesse during the last convergence, allowed Tye to summon a powerful giant spirit. Combined with the golems, they should have enough forces to prevail.

“Chief,” Hagen said, pointing his weapon at his left. “Look, Spook is acting weird too.”

Tye turned around, witnessing his favorite assassin bashing his head against the cathedral’s wall. “Spook!” the necromancer called in surprise, but his elite ignored him. The scene looked like some kind of pantomime, a condemned asking for punishment.

Did the sight of this cathedral awaken buried, traumatic memories of his old life?

“Take him away upstairs,” Tye ordered Duke, the mummy too confused to provide any resistance. “I will check up on him after we have secured the cathedral.”

And so, the necromancer applied his false hand to the seal and worked to undo it.

Morgane’s blood wouldn’t have been enough. Since she was born of incest, she was tainted, her birthright denied by the pantheon; while Gwenhyfar was a true-born heir, recognized by the gods and empowered with their blessings. Tye’s spell mimicked her magical signature, making the seal believe that an heir of Avalon, a chosen of Odin, had come to break it.

Of course, as a crafty and paranoid god, the Allfather had put alarms to be notified should the seal be broken. He clearly didn’t want these gates opened outside of an emergency, and it made Tye all the more determined to break through.

His [Loremaster] class allowed him to read the runes making up the seal, and the mechanism behind them. One rune would send a pulse of holy energy upon activation, a flare lit up for the gods to see. However, it could only be activated by a subtler rune, which would immediately notice the seal breaking and trigger the alarm.

So Tye simply altered magical currents to trick the trigger into believing the holy rune had been activated by other means. Its purpose ‘fulfilled,’ the mechanism went dormant and would ignore the seal-breaking.

The necromancer had robbed the gods today. Clearly, the King of the Aesir had expected a more forceful kind of intrusion.

After Tye broke the lock, the doors opened on their own. A rancid, purple miasma poured out of the cathedral, fumes so toxic that they made the goblins protect their mouths. Even Laufey looked mildly inconvenienced, in spite of her natural resistances.

No monsters poured through, however.

Carefully, Tye crossed the threshold, his undead nature allowing him to shrug off the miasma. Hagen and Laufey followed afterward, one tense and subdued, the other barely restraining her excitement.

This place… it didn’t exist in Midgard. It was a space in-between the realms, a pocket dimension where the rules of reality broke at the System’s whims. Space itself stretched further that the cathedral could logically contain. The walls seemed as high as mountains, giant scenes of Ragnarok carved in the stone.

The design was odd. Series of scenes were assembled in rows, one above the other. Scenes repeated themselves, with minor differences; for example, one picture represented Surtr burning Asgard with his fiery sword [Laevatein], only for the scene above to show him with a hammer instead.

But something else caught Tye’s attention.

A massive, blackened root of Yggdrasil dipped inside a water pit at the center of the hall, itself shielded by the bones of an ancient monster. The blackened remains of the creature were so old as to be barely recognizable, but the beast appeared to be some kind of colossal reptile.

A spawn of Jormungandr? It would explain the miasma it released in death, and the serpent imagery in the city. Could this place have been a Calamity cult colony?

“It looks like a giant serpent,” Laufey observed, sounding almost aroused. “Such vile power radiates from these bones, I am almost drunk on it!”

“If it was a serpent, it must have been at least three hundred feet long,” Hagen whispered, intimidated.

Walter Tye ignored them, fascinated by the root and water source from which it took nourishment. The necromancer looked inside the pit, dug within the stone, and stared down an endless abyss. The waters were supernaturally clear, untainted by the fumes; they radiated magic more powerful than the necromancer had ever seen. Perhaps even beyond the fabled Tier XII of spellcasting.

A System notification confirmed his wildest thoughts.

You have entered [Hvergelmir, Third Spring of Yggdrasil].

“This is…” Laufey was positively ecstatic. “This can’t be…”

“One of the three mythical sources, from which the World Tree’s roots take their nourishment,” Tye said, mesmerized. “The spring of all life in the Nine Realms.”

At long last, immortality was within grasp.