Chapter 309: Pyre (1/2)

“You didn’t interfere because of that?” Ilea asked, tapping the bone. “Damn, we should have asked him more questions.”

“Him? It sounded female to me. Interesting. Didn’t seem like a talkative fellow if it wasn’t about his beautiful villa.” Maro said as he cleaned up the bone piles with his ring.

“You can use them as minions?” She asked, looking at him work “Don’t tell me you planned all of this from the moment we got you out in Tremor.”

“I’m hurt that you would think so.” Maro said and laughed, “I’d like to think of myself as a good strategist but no. I didn’t know what was in here until we stepped onto the premises. Your abilities are such a good counter I thought I’d risk it.” He waved her off, “Don’t look at me like that, if he would have done significant damage I would have intervened.”

“You would have just healed him with your own death magic. And losing a heart isn’t significant damage?”

He shrugged, “That’s not how death magic works. And no, apparently losing a heart isn’t significant to you. I would have felt it if it was. Damn, you’re pretty indestructible then. No wonder you cleaned up the kingsguard so quickly. Battle healers… might be an idea worth pursuing in the future. Always though it was stupid to spread oneself so thin at early levels.”

“Guess I lucked out with my class then. I won against level fifty people while below and with only one class.”

Stepping into another pile, Maro made the skeleton vanish before he spoke, “Really? Is that the Azarinth he mentioned? The blue stuff. Never seen a mana intrusion spell that looked like that. Most work with blood or death magic. Yours looks more… well more like mana itself.”

“Healing orders and their experiments… guess something good had to come out of those lunatics at one point or another.” He grumbled, done with the cleanup.

“You want the big one too?” Ilea asked.

“I think you could use some of that to make armor. Just have to find someone capable of molding bone. If your fists can’t crack it I think it’s safe to say that the quality is good.” The king suggested and appeared, touching the chest of the thing, “Yea this is prime quality. I’ll take whatever’s left of it.” He added and laughed.

[Undying Skeleton – Timeless Quality]

“Hmm. What does timeless mean?” She asked.

“I’ve seen it only twice I think. It can regenerate if you push mana into it. Not as quickly as your ash armor but at least you don’t have to repair it constantly.” The king explained as he looked around the room.

I guess instead of skin it’s bone… full circle. She smiled at the thought. The drake scale armor had been one of her favorites. I hope Goliath can work with this at all. And I hope it can be made into light armor. It didn’t look light at all. She put it into her necklace and found it taking up four spaces on its own.

“I’ll go downstairs to find Gadrian, give him a proper burial.”

“What about all the other skeletons?” Ilea asked.

Maro shrugged as he walked down the steps, Ilea following after she placed the remains of the butler into her own storage item. “I didn’t know them. Nor did the monsters he created match up. No necromancer worth his money would waste such a large amount of bones.”

Ilea nodded when they came up on a closed double door. “Enchantments.” She said as he put a hand over them. A pulse of purple mana flowed up and the door opened.

Maro stepped through without a word, Ilea shrugging. The stairs led down and into another big open hall. No more monsters were present and compared to the piles of bones and rot upstairs, the glint of gold, silver as well as other colors shined through all the death. “It’s all yours as far as I’m concerned. Just leave the bones for now until I found the old fucker.”

Ilea smiled. That’s a lot of damn work. It turned out the work wasn’t as excruciating as she had expected. Her own efforts were sped up by her ashen magic, both her limbs as well as ash simply moving around the bones and separating gold and treasure into their own piles. Maro helped by supplying around forty skeletons that searched through the piles and piles of bones and treasures.

Ilea separated it all into piles. “It’s a small golden key by the way. Let me know if you find it.” Maro added after a couple minutes.

It took the two of them and their ashen as well asbony help two hours to sieve through most of it all. Much of it was rotten, old and useless.

428 gold coins

13821 Silver coins equaling 138 gold coins once exchanged.

Pile of gold treasures with varying worth, detail, age.

Pile of weapons and armor of various quality.

Ilea stored the gold and silver. “Hey can I have one of your crates?” She asked, Maro not quite done with his search as he separated bone piles. He appeared next to her and summoned a crate. “Thanks. Still haven’t found him?”

He shook his head and continued, Ilea dumping the pile of gear into the crate as well as most of the weapons. These all belong in a bloody museum. She requested another two crates and put in the treasures as well as the rest of the weapons and armor that wasn’t completely rusted away or rotten. Most of it was.

She stored the crates in her necklace and started moving through the room again. Probably gonna sell all that… wait no. She smiled at the thought. I mean at least I don’t have bones there too. She decided to keep all of it and put it into her own house’s little exhibition. The three crates took up a lousy three units which made her decision final. Maybe give some of the treasures to an actual museum if such a thing exists around here. Some of it probably is as old as time itself, coming from this fucker’s… oh hey look. She moved away a pile of bones and found a glint of gold. “Maro!”

The man appeared as she retrieved the key with a thin tendril of ash. “That it?”

He didn’t look at the key, instead kneeling down before he moved some bones away. What remained was the skeleton of a man. His hands shook as he carefully touched the skull. Ilea stored the key as he carefully touched each bone, stored safely in his ring. At last he held the skull again in his hands, his helmet vanishing to reveal his pained expression. The skull went into his ring before he looked at his empty hands.

Waves of black and purple energy shot out, the piles of bones around him rotting away more and more with each touch. Ilea’s armor formed quickly as she remained at his side. The waves intensified, his helmet appearing again. With a last wave rotting away a layer of her ash, Maro looked down and let out a single shout with all his breath. He was heaving when Ilea took a step towards him, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Let’s burn this fucker down.”

Ilea added the corpse of the butler to the small pyre they had built in front of the mansion. Her ashen limbs had ripped through half of the entrance to get enough wood. Her fire sphere summoned, she looked at Maro with a questioning gaze. “You do the honors.” He said, not wearing his helmet.

Ilea shrugged, stepping towards the pyre before she pushed mana into the sphere. The wood wasn’t wet but the pieces were rather big, leaving her with a couple minutes of burning before it finally caught. She refrained from using her Heart of Cinders in consideration of the event. When the fire started taking over, she moved back to Maro. “I’m sorry.” She said after a minute of standing there.

The man didn’t speak, simply watching the flames move. Ilea noticed that with time more and more dark ones gathered close to the estate, none actually stepping upon the dead land. “We’re attracting a crowd.” She said to the king.

“It seems so.” He simply said.

“Mind if I set the whole place ablaze?” Ilea asked when the pyre started to collapse. Maro shook his head lightly as she stepped towards the broken in entrance. Most of the mansion was built with wood. When she was inside, she did actually use her Heart of Cinder to dry out and slightly burn the stairs while using her sphere to actually set them aflame.

When the flames started spreading, she activated her ashen armor to avoid losing her last set of leather armor. Guess I still have a bunch of clothes. Just no light armor. She released Heart of Cinder in the dining hall and added her tiny flamethrower into the mix. Should be fine now if nobody stops it. A good part of the mansion was burning now, Ilea stepping down the collapsing stairs before exiting, her ashen armor receding as she joined Maro.

The crowd had grown and the previous silence had been replaced by cheers and loud conversation. When Ilea joined Maro again, she formed a spear of ash before releasing it towards the cave ceiling. He smiled and lifted his arm, adding a ball of darkness that exploded in a flash of wild mana when it reached a thirty meter height.