Chapter 67 – Familiar Ground
Eirene and Maxim both stared at Orestis after his surprising declaration. Not because of his admission about studying necromancy—she had already assumed he knew how to use it. Since this was him, Eirene was fairly certain he was, at the very least, proficient in all forms of magic.
No, what surprised her were the implications of his words. With his personality, anyone that Orestis chose to learn from had to have been the absolute best in the field. And judging by the means employed by this necromancer, he seemed capable indeed.
Then there was the fact that he had mentioned anything at all.
Maxim voiced the question she had in her mind, asking him, “Are you feeling hesitant about facing your future-but-not-yet teacher?”
“Not particularly,” Orestis replied. And yet, Eirene was familiar enough with him by now to know that he was troubled by something.
“My point is that I’m familiar with his methods,” he continued, then gestured at the yew tree. “It’s likely that Varra has installed life crystals at several convergence points throughout the area. This is just one of them.”
Maxim sighed. “Let me guess. They’re arranged in a formation, and he’s extracting the life force remotely. So staking out one of these nodes won’t help us find him.”
Orestis gave him a look. “Who would bother going out of their way to waste resources—and plant extra nodes in unnecessary areas—just to complete a formation? It is far more probable that he is opening a small gate inside the tree, right next to the crystal, to harvest the energy.”
“Either way, he never needs to physically visit.” Maxim made a face. “Overly cautious dark mages. It’s almost like they think someone might be looking for them.”
“In fairness,” Eirene pointed out, “someone is.”
Maxim nodded. “Yes, paranoia is a healthy habit in their vocation.”
Amusingly enough, Orestis nodded, agreeing with the sentiment. Which, of course, he would. His standards for caution had always leaned dangerously close to paranoia. Eirene still remembered the absurd level of preparation he had gone through before the ball.
Their conversation pivoted after that to what they should do next. They had already agreed to wait a week before revealing the necromancy—partly to avoid causing panic, and partly to see if any of the researchers would make the discovery.
They also decided to make rounds to all the other villages to consecrate one building in each. Eirene was glad they were doing this, since it would mean no one would die before they found a cure. And caught the perpetrator.
Maxim also volunteered to scope the area, sending marked portions of his life force from various points to verify exactly how many life crystals there were, and where. Maxim and Orestis even started a wager as to whether or not there would be a formation.
Eirene joined the wager, betting on not; if this necromancer was anything like Orestis, he would choose efficiency over elaboration.
Once that was settled, they decided to return to the village, since they still had yet to meet any of the researchers.
***
Licinia was back in her lab area, having already completed the reorganising of her staff. She met them with a raised eyebrow.
“I was wondering where you three disappeared to,” the healer said.
“Just checking the surrounding area,” Orestis replied.
If she found that explanation insufficient, she didn’t press it. Instead, she offered a list of all the female researchers in the village—roughly a dozen healers and volunteers. Eirene had to admit that the woman was thorough.
They went to meet with each one. Eirene kept an eye out for possible indicators: unconventional approaches, analytical thinking, any kind of insight that would mark someone as a potential Saintess.
All of the researchers were, without exception, competent. Several were genuinely talented. But competency in treatment was different from the kind of innovative research capability they were looking for. None of them stood out in the way the Saintess needed to.
Maxim, meanwhile, smiled warmly at every single one of them. Every introduction received the same easy charm—a handshake, a kind word, an expression of genuine interest that made each researcher feel individually valued.
However, he kept things friendly without being flirtatious. It seemed he was fully capable of separating work and indulgence. Or he was on his best behaviour due to his patron. Perhaps it was both.
The remaining villages took the rest of the afternoon. They gated between them—walking was no longer necessary now that they knew the road would not yield any clues. At each one, Maxim consecrated the primary treatment building while they collected a list of healers and researchers working on site and met with them.
None of the researchers, however, seemed like an obvious candidate. But that was expected this early in their search. Eirene was not discouraged.
By the time they gated back to Nomyra, the sun was low.
“When are you two training tomorrow?” Maxim asked just before they parted ways.
Right—she had almost forgotten about that. Eirene glanced at Orestis.
Her training had always been on a three-day rotation: physical conditioning, sparring, and spellwork. Tomorrow was the day for physical training—her, to stabilise and improve her aura; him, to work on his flexibility and mobility.
They had been planning on using the garden for that. However, she had a feeling Orestis would not want Maxim coming to their house.
And, as expected, Orestis said, “Dawn. But I’m not inviting you to my home. We’ll meet you here at the temple courtyard.”
Eirene held back a smile.
Maxim shrugged, unbothered. “Works for me.”
***
Once they were back in Orthessa, Eirene finally asked him the question. “Are you really alright with this?”
Orestis paused, considering his response with the care he always reserved for answers that mattered.
A moment later, he said, “If you’re asking whether it bothers me to face someone who taught me, the answer is no. Our relationship had always been transactional.”
Eirene tilted her head, indicating she wanted him to clarify.
The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “As a lich, he could not feel anything. Me, I could at least register stimuli. He believed I could help him. And he was competent enough that I believed he could help me with the curse.”
So they had used Orestis’s immortal body as a testing ground—Varra searching for a way to feel, while Orestis searched for a way to die. It was an absurd arrangement. At least, to her. He probably saw it as a productive academic partnership.
“Was he successful?” she asked. Orestis had not found what he wanted—obviously—but she was curious whether the lich had managed to find success.
“Yes. He solved it before the end.”
“The end?”
Orestis nodded. “He was killed by one of the heroes before Maxim.”
“Did that bother you?”
“No,” Orestis replied. “By that point, we had already exhausted every avenue of research regarding the curse.”
What he’d left unsaid—but what Eirene gathered from his tone—was that by the time the lich died, they had probably not seen each other in years.
She thought she understood that. Their relationship had never been emotional. It had been built on mutual utility, shared obsession, and a common problem neither of them could solve alone. And once they had reached the end of that pursuit, the need to remain in each other’s lives was gone.
At this point, they reached the corridor where their rooms diverged.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Orestis said.
Eirene nodded as he disappeared into his room. She also intended to spend the rest of the day at the Divinarium. She had a lot of things to read up on and research.
But first, she had a hungry mauthet to feed.
***
Orestis sighed after returning to his room. Taking a seat at the desk, he considered his priorities.
He had been busy. Too busy. Since arriving in Nomyra, he had accumulated obligations the way a bureaucracy accumulated paperwork—each one small, each one reasonable, and together they had changed his trajectory so gradually he almost hadn’t noticed.
Training Eirene. Managing Eleuthera. Tolerating Maxim. Lyse’s advancement system. The birthday. The Saintess search. His father’s business contacts. The node-linking device. The report for Kestel. The divine power experiments from months ago that he still hadn’t gotten around to.
Apart from Eirene’s training and birthday, everything else was in the category of low priority tasks. Or they should be. Somewhere underneath all of it, buried beneath layers of responsibility he had never asked for: his actual goal.
Investigating the shrines and working on his curse should have been a priority. But he had been putting it off. And now, there was also the situation with Varra.
Well, if I’m being honest, it’s not altogether unwelcome. At the very least, it dragged my attention back to the curse.
But before that, there were some things he needed to do first.
Drawing on profane power, he cast two spells in quick succession. The first obstructed the Chosen bond, rendering him invisible to Lyse’s perception. The second enclosed him within a shell designed to block all divine senses.
From a divine perspective, he would have just ceased to exist.
He barely had a second before both Lyse and Eleuthera materialised in his room, their faces carrying concern. Lyse had even skipped the glowing visual effect she normally employed prior to appearing. It had never been a necessity, after all; merely a courtesy intended to keep people from being startled.
“What happened?”
“Are you alright?”
Both goddesses spoke at once, their full attention fixed on him.
Orestis looked at the two of them calmly. He tilted his head in Eleuthera’s direction and said, “Her, I can understand. But why are you here?”
Lyse crossed her arms. “I told you before; I’m not a negligent goddess. The bond went silent without warning. I was worried.”
“Same,” Eleuthera said. “You disappeared from my sight. In fact, you’re still invisible to my divine senses. How unexpected.”
Orestis wondered if he should tell her that she was the reason he had come up with the technique in the first place. He had long ago realised that trying to block her with wards was an exercise in futility. So, he decided that disappearing entirely was considerably more effective than attempting to deny her entry.
She could bypass the shell, of course. But only if she knew where he was. As long as he remained outside her line of sight, he would be hidden from her. That was good enough.
“How are you cloaking the bond?” Lyse asked, frowning. “That should not be possible.”
“I’m cancelling the bond’s resonance with an opposing alignment,” he replied, seeing no reason to hide it. Even if she knew how it worked, it wasn’t like she could counter it.
Lyse rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Hm, I see. And only possible because you can use profane. Clever.” Then she narrowed her eyes at him again. “That still doesn’t explain why you decided to vanish without warning.”
“I want some privacy, obviously,” Orestis said.
“What for? We’re goddesses. We’ve seen everything before,” Eleuthera said absently while poking at his shell, already trying to find a way to break it.
Lyse gave her friend a disapproving look. “You’re making us sound like perverts. And his desire for privacy is perfectly reasonable.” She turned to him and added, “However, I would prefer advance notice in the future. The sudden absence was alarming.”
“Agreed,” Orestis said.
Lyse nodded, satisfied. Then she turned to Eleuthera, taking her by the arm. “Come. We’re leaving.”
“But—”
“No buts! It’s because you’re always watching him that he is upset.”
And then both goddesses vanished, Eleuthera allowing Lyse to drag her away. There was, after all, no way to forcibly teleport the Goddess of Freedom anywhere without her consent.
Finally, some actual silence.
Orestis cast a simple glamour, altering his features enough to be unrecognisable—and then teleported away.
***
The cave was exactly where he remembered it, hidden deep underground behind a sprawling maze of tunnels. The route alone was discouraging; the depth made it worse.
Varra used to have several hideouts all over the continent; this one was the one he remembered being closest to Nomyra. If the lich was going to operate in the area, this was the most likely place he'd be at.
And, as expected, Orestis found the entrance warded. He smiled.
Less refined, but definitely familiar.
He didn’t need to dismantle them—which would have been a mistake, anyway. Any damage would have alerted the lich. Fortunately, his familiarity allowed him to bypass them and enter without triggering anything.
The passage descended steeply for thirty metres—every inch littered with wards and traps—before opening into a natural chamber—a lab. The air was cool, still, and carried a faint residual charge of necromantic energy.
The place was modest in size but meticulously organised. A central work surface held research notes and sketches, arranged in careful stacks. Containment circles were etched into the floor—three of them, two active, one dormant. Necromantic tools lined a stone shelf carved into the wall: precise instruments, well-maintained, each one stored in its designated place—as they should be.
Missing seven hundred years of renovation and innovation. But still familiar, nonetheless.
Orestis walked through the space slowly, examining without touching. The research notes confirmed what he had guessed. Varra was collecting the life force to construct his lich body—the outlandish looking thing he had been so fond of.
The sketches on the work surface depicted design iterations—dozens of them, some crossed out, some annotated, some refined through multiple versions. The final design showed a figure that would have been striking if it weren’t for the fact that he’d gotten used to seeing it: a skeleton with four arms, no legs, an elongated spine that tapered to a point.
Several sketches explored different arm configurations—placement, joint angles, optimal spacing for simultaneous spellcasting. The annotations were enthusiastic. Detailed. The handwriting of someone genuinely excited about what they were building.
The annotations indicated that the body was designed to float, though he hadn’t yet decided where to put in the enchantments or finalised which ones he wanted to use. He also hadn’t decided on what to use for clothing. Varra seemed to be wavering between using a cloak or living flames.
Black flames, that emitted cold instead of heat, apparently.
Ridiculous. I’m glad he chose the cloak. Probably couldn’t figure out how to set the properties of the flames.
He moved to the containment circles. The two active ones each held a vat—cylindrical, translucent, and filled with a luminous fluid that glowed faintly with concentrated life force. Inside the first, suspended in the preserving medium, was a skull.
It was human in structure, but modified. The cranial proportions had been adjusted, the teeth sharpened, and a third eye—vertical—was set into the forehead. He remembered the middle one glowing like fire, while the other two glowed red.
The second vat held an arm. Elongated, with joints that allowed a wider range of motion than any human limb. The bones were the same reinforced material as the skull—life force crystallised into something harder than steel, lighter than wood.
Prototypes. Components of a body that was being assembled piece by piece.
Either Varra was still human, or he was unhappy with his current body.
Not that that’s relevant.
Orestis created a chair, and sat down to wait. Varra should return soon enough.
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