Hungry Necromancer

Chapter 75: Do You Want To Build a Kingdom?

Quickly gaining composure of myself, I stop gaping at the fey spirits that moan and groan as they circle around me, often dropping down and screeching in my face.

From what I can understand from the ritualistic spell, it lasts as long as you don't dismiss the spirits or someone else with doesn't call on the fey spirits. They will answer any call so long as the key ingredient; an elves hair, is provided.

However, if you are not an elf the fey will leaving your side after ten minutes enraged that they've been tricked into protecting common folk.

Alternatively, if there is live proof of an elf nearby, they will stay with you as long as you demand or until another spell caster calls for their assistance.

With that in mind I make haste. Journeying back the distance and way I came in a desperate sprint until I see Anselm and Kaylin.

"Did you get the spirits?" Anselm asks. Which I find quite odd because he should be more than able to see them.

"Can't you see them?" I respond with a huff, today has been physically demanding.

"See them?" his eyes glide all around, looking for what I'm talking about. "Where?"

Despite how odd it is that he can't see them I dismiss the fact to the side as something far more interesting is occurring before my eyes.

The Fey spirits begin to moan and groan even louder in my ears as they circle around me but seem to take turns visiting the side of Kaylin. 

And Kaylin, well Kaylin looks amazed. Her hand glides through their corporeal bodies but she's got a smile on her face regardless, nodding and laughing at every terrible sounding moan the spirits make.

"KaylinCan you hear them? Can you speak to them?" I ask, slowly approaching her and the spirit moaning and gliding all around her.

It befuddles me that a spirit like Anselm can't see these ones and yet Kaylin can. I wonder what rules and laws are in place. Could this have anything to do with the Goddess of the Elves? Could she be why I've never seen elven ghosts hanging about?

Anselm looks just as bewildered as I am, perhaps even more because for once, we're the ones seeing things that aren't there. The irony is not lost on me.

"See them? Yes, my family, my people. Persecuted and punished for being children, blessed children of our Goddess. They're here to protect those who remain, they're here to protect me."

Well, technically

"They're so happy to see me," she sniffs, her blue eyes long pouring out rivers of tears, "They say it's been ages since they've been called."

I suppose that means I'm the only one who knows this spell. Perhaps the other Necromancer, the one who terrorized this world once called on them. Still, this rules out the possibility of someone else calling on these fey spirits, they're all in my service it seems.

"They can speak then. Ask them what lies ahead, ask them what they saw, what they see, what they feel, ask them if everyone in Carbina is still alive."

Kaylin gives me a dead pan look but understands my desperation well enough not to complain about the series of questions I've bombarded her with. 

She takes a minute to communicate my questions to the spirits, all while they discuss the only thing, I hear from them are moans and terrible painful groans.

I suspend my natural disbelief and wait patiently for Kaylin to be done talking to the fey spirits.

"They say there's nothing but death and despair ahead." She suddenly speaks, her voice lined with worry and fear, "They say there's nothing ahead and I should go back, that we should go back."

Grunting I wave the needless warnings off, "Are the villagers alive or not, Kaylin?"

Taking a single look at me and back to the fey, she mutters, "YesNoMaybe."

What?

"It's a simple question Kaylin. Are they alive?"

She seems to grow agitated, much like the spirits do. They start moaning at themselves, and gliding through each other.

"They can't be sure. The villagers, they're weird, they look strange." Kaylin says, struggling to communicate her people's words, "They might be alive and they might be dead. The vibe is off."

I scoff, frustrated, "A classic Schrodinger's Carbina."

"What?" Kaylin and Anselm both ask.

"Nothing, if there's a chance the villagers are alive, we're going in." At that theirs is a chorus of moans from the fey spirits.

Almost violently they descend around me, swirling and screaming in my face.

"They say-"

"I know what they're saying." I frown. Giving me terms and conditions huh. Annoying sentient spirits!

"Kaylin, we've got to save Leriva, at the very least, she's got to come out of this alive."

She shakes her head, "The spirits say if we go in we might end up like the villagers; maybe dead, maybe alive. I don't want that."

"I don't want that either. But we owe them this much, we owe them a chance even if it's a sliver."

"I didn't incur that debt with you two!" she screams, pointing an accusatory finger at Anselm and I.

"I suppose you're right. But aren't you behaving the same way many people did when the elves were persecuted? Shamed and stripped of their magic?"

"Your sister, Merlara, Maylin had to seal off her magic because of love, but it's still a horrible act. Stealing away ones potential? Enslaving them to the whims of priests and snobbish nobles?"

"It's those snobbish nobles you want me to risk my life for! Why would I do that?"

"Because you're better than them!" I find myself yelling, "Because despite all the shit life, this Kingdom, this cruel system of subjugation has thrown at you, you know better than to give in."

"Do I?" she sobs. "I don't want to, I don't want any of this, I don't want to fight the Cult, I don't want to live in this Kingdom or under the laws of the Synagogue! But what choice do I have other than to live this horrible life as safely as possible."

She sounds just like me. A scavenger. Hopping from dumpster to dumbster like a street cat fetching for the scraps of society and living under the bottom of the barrel.

What other choice did I have but to take up my crowbar, my pistol and then my machine gun and fight back? And brazenly steal from the set table of the snobbish rich assholes that controlled all that was left of a life.

"You can create your own."

I never even thought about it. I never even looked down another path and thought it worth the try, worth the happenstance. I went around killing, stealing and selling all while decievign myself into believing that the little scraps I've taken will one day amount into an tower of my riches.

Alas, I got myself a bullet in the head before I could think about taking my ruthless ambition into a different field.

She looks up at me, the fey spirits around her caressing and moaning into her ear as tears reeled down her eyes.

"You're not the first Elf I've come by, you won't be the last. But every one of them, even your mother, strong as she ishas given up."

"You have all resigned yourself to being satisfied with the growing heap of scraps the top snobbish nobles provide you. And that simply isn't good enough." 

I take a deep breath and speak the idea that has been knowing against my skull for months, since I met Elsa, since I laughed with Sem.

"Come with me and build your own life, build the life you dream for, Kaylin. Help me build a Kingdom free of oppression and free of the Synagogues Influence. Help me build a home for the elves and new safe haven."

She stars at my outstretched hand for a moment, the spirits moaning and groaning oddly ceases as everyone around, dead or alive, waits for her decision.

"Haha!"

Huh?

"Hahahah!" She bawls out laughing, holding her sides. With tears in her eyes, she looks as though she suffers a great pain but really, she's just laughing at me.

"What's so funny?" I ask. Not so amused by her theatrics.

She waves at me, shaking her head, "It's not youIt's just..." she gasps, catching her breath from such intense laughter. "It's justYou're a human."

"Obviously."

"And you're trying to create a place for elves."

"Not just elves, elves and anyone else who has be discriminated against. A place where opportunity doesn't look at your past, your races deeds or your families name. A place where only your strength matters, where your zeal can be put to work."

"Right, you said."

"So what's the problem?"

"Humans don't do that. If they try to they fail, if they succeed it gets ruined by other humans. Even if you make this laughable Kingdom of all opportunity and zero discrimination, it will fall, it will fail, it will be conquered and turned to dust, it will become corrupt."

"Then I'll be there to watch and punish whoever makes a mistake or breaks the rules."

She scoffs, "How noble. But you're halfway past your lifespan already human. You won't live forever."

"Then I guess I'll just have to entrust that responsibility to you then. You're barely beginning life, aren't you? You have many more youthful years ahead too."

She loses her smile at this and her eyes become saucers, piecing my intentions together bit by bit.

It's my turn to laugh, "Enough of this Kaylin, lets go save our allies."