Leftover Apocalypse

When Connie first told me about the Necropolis, I was pissed off. I was trying to get an understanding of how magic worked, and it seemed like for everything other than the Necropolis magic was a power harnessed by living creatures, not by the land itself. And then out of nowhere there's this city where it's constantly sinking into a bottomless pit? I was infuriated. Was the pit actually bottomless? Seemed like. How fast did the city sink? Fast - well, fast in terms of a city sinking. It was multiple feet a year, and more importantly this had been the case since literally before recorded history. The problem should be obvious, which is that no matter what was going on underground it just couldn't have been stable with them throwing building after building on top of this sinkhole. Just stacked on top of each other, miles deep without collapsing? Ridiculous.

And they hadn't collapsed, for sure - people sometimes delved into the pit, going down and looking for things to steal. I had intended to ask more about why it wouldn't all be picked clean right away, or why people were okay with grave robbing after a certain amount of time, or... just the rules in general. But I'd gotten hung up on the engineering side of things, which I had at least as many questions about.

The city was almost perfectly circular, and laid out in rings. The outer ring was shops at the six gates and then houses in-between, nothing too alarming there. Next came a thin ring where the only buildings allowed were ones that dealt with the dead - some temples, embalmers, specialized shops. And then after that was the actual Necropolis, a large area constantly being built up with shrines and mausoleums and organized stacks of bones.

There were thirty-six gods but only a handful were actually worshiped, and yet there were dozens of different religions - some didn't worship gods at all, and some shared the same gods but had totally different practices. Each had its own rules about how to respect the dead and what rituals to do when preparing them which made the Necropolis a fascinating place to walk through; some bodies would be on open display right next to a sort of sarcophagus which was, in turn, next to a building literally made from bones.

But the most interesting thing about the Necropolis was the huge hole in the very center.

You couldn't see as far down as I'd hoped, because lower levels weren't always lined up in quite the same way and so after a few hundred feet your view was obstructed - except, presumably, from directly overhead. But it was still an amazing sight, floor after floor precariously perched on each other and filled to bursting with the dead of the world. Bodies were shipped in from thousands of miles away, the rich transported in huge processions while poor folks were carted in by the wagonload all tangled together. Depending on how they had died and how far they had to travel it was likely they'd been mummified in some way, and others had been interred in their homeland and were only removed and brought to the Necropolis once they'd been reduced to bones by time. You could be buried in your home town in the short term, but eventually everyone headed to the same place.

Some were taken to a (sadly very thoroughly guarded) walkway over that pit and dropped straight down, presumably with a prayer although it still seemed odd to kinda chuck someone into a hole like that. But most were given a final resting place in a mausoleum or something on that inner ring, which just kept sinking year after year. As it got lower, they would build a new "floor" on top of it, though with all the different structures these floors were added on all at different times and heights. At the edge of the pit you could see that it was a mess of ramps and stairs, with little crawlspaces created by awkward joinings and some passages that were only three feet high right next to others with a clearance of fifteen feet or more.

My drug induced haze had lasted several hours so I'd missed us getting set up at a house and had fallen asleep for a bit. When I woke up I immediately wanted to go see the pit, and Cyne had volunteered to take me which meant it came with an educational lecture. "We discussed the way that Planar magic works already, so you know that there is a membrane of sorts that separates the planes and can be thinned to allow alternate laws of reality to bleed through or pierced in order to travel between them."

I nodded, and he continued. "While it is exceedingly difficult and usually temporary, it is possible to bind two planes together. There have been various organizations throughout history that have tried to do so for different reasons, and of course some artificers that have made devices to do so. I know that several permanent doors into Nusos have been created, for example, though it is advised against - there are native creatures that can cause problems even though they cannot live long on the primary plane, and Nusos is easy enough to gain access to that a permanent portal is frivolous."

I immediately wanted a magic door to another plane. "So... why do they do it?"

"Novelty, mostly. More money than sense. The same would be true for permanent passages into Itzele," he said, and it took me a moment to remember that was the shadowy reflection world that we'd briefly dipped into while sneaking out of Good Charl, "but that one has also had some created. Most often the tension fluctuations as the plane comes into and out of alignment eventually break it free. But the Necropolis is a large and permanent portal to the land of the dead - the thirty-fifth plane.

"It is only aligned with the land of the living every one thousand one hundred and fifty-five years, but more importantly it only is part of the Grand Alignment twice in the eighteen cycles which means it last happened eleven thousand, five hundred and forty-nine years ago. Give or take. We don't know anything at all about what happened the last time, or if this place even existed then. In six hundred and eighty-seven days a lot of people will be watching very closely to see what happens. Personally I'm torn between wanting to be right here at the Passage, and running as far as I can in the other direction."

"Will it be dangerous?" I had talked to Connie about the mostly-averted end of the world, but I kept forgetting that there would be other things happening on that day. She'd mainly mentioned human plots that the task force was dealing with, but there had been mention of other problems inherent to the planes lining up.

"It will be a very dangerous event, one way or another. All but two planes will be in alignment, which will mean some very powerful magic can happen that day. In addition to this, some of the planes are extremely dangerous; monsters always escape into the world from Besetie when it aligns even outside of the Grand Alignment, so I can only assume it will be far more this time. I personally wonder... I wonder if this overlap will end. It could be that the center of this city will soon be a smooth, empty field. What will we do with our dead then? But I get ahead of myself. We will cross that bridge when we come to it."

Cyne was silent, just looking at the pit while I was lost in thought - he probably assumed it was something deep, pondering on the alignment of the planes and our uncertain future and the potential loss of this culturally important site. Really I was thinking about how his version of "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it" was closer to "we'll pluck that bird when we catch it", but the bracelet had translated it over for some reason as if I couldn't infer what was being said. After a moment of trying to think about the best way to ask for more information without showing off how ignorant I was, I gave up and just asked. After all, I was paying him.

"You already know I don't know a lot about the planes, but I'm also totally ignorant about... religion, and what happens when we die, and... all that shit. And I don't get what all this means. If we were to go down that hole and just keep going, would we get to... the afterlife? Or?"

"It's unclear. Your lutore is the core of you, the point where your mind and soul are bound to your body and the thing that gifts from a Duminere are inscribed upon. When your body dies, the balance is upset and your mind and body snap together and merge. This bit that remains either lingers on the primary plane as a ghost, or is pulled into the land of the dead. All attempts to go there physically have failed - I belong to a monastery that is dedicated to that purpose, and I myself have tried on several occasions - it is why I originally sought out planar magic. We make pilgrimages to the Necropolis to get more of a feel for the plane, in an attempt to learn better how to cross over.

"Unfortunately, the bottomless pit is all transition - a portal where you never reach the other end. Picture a hallway that just keeps going, and in theory at the far side your destination is waiting but in practice you never arrive. It is likely this was not the intention, though we no longer know who created it. We assume they meant to have a direct portal and something went wrong. It could be that on the day of the Grand Alignment the distance will finally close and we would be able to reach to the other side and have so many questions answered. Are the spirits of the dead still there? Have they degraded and returned to this world as energy, as some suspect? Have they given up their memories and been reborn into Enimondoa as simplistic spirits?"

I felt like I was still missing something. "Okay so. Wait. You throw bodies into the pit... because of ghosts? Is that why it's filled with zombies? I thought - everyone said the zombies were just mindless constructs of magic, they didn't say they were actual ghosts of dead people."

"I apologize, I got off-topic. Yes, we inter our dead here in case any have lingering ghosts that were not able to find their way to the other side. We believe that, not being truly attached to their bodies, they will be able to use the transition in a way the living cannot. The animated dead, however, are largely unrelated. There is a well of life-aligned mana inside the pit, specifically aligned with animation as opposed to healing or growing. The bodies, being organic structures that have been alive before, are particularly susceptible."

"So everyone on this continent decided that the best place to put your bodies is somewhere that they'll spontaneously rise from the dead? Sorry. I'm not trying to be disrespectful, it's just... that seems like a recipe for disaster."

Cyne smiled. "I suppose so. But they rarely animate anywhere close to the surface. As you go further down... well. We should discuss that with the whole party, I know everyone is eager to learn more about the next step of the plan."

We headed back, and as we approached Cyne shifted the topic to the kids we'd picked up. I missed the first part of what he said because I was watching someone walk by wearing a huge headdress made of finger bones, but it sounded like he was very tactfully saying he was pissed.

"I thought of all people - well, aside from Errod maybe - you'd be the one most supportive of freeing those poor children. You're a pacifist, but you're okay with slavery?"

Sige saw us coming and held the door open, and sarcastically shook his head in disappointment. "Cyne wants kids to be slaves, huh? I always fucking suspected he was that kind of guy. Shameful."

Cyne sighed, sat at the table, and rubbed his temples. "I think you've misunderstood. I was merely saying that the execution of your plan was... inelegant, and might have caused us quite a bit of trouble - and further, that it may still cause me a great deal of professional inconvenience if they hold it against me. I make my living transporting people through the planes, and you have increased the risk of entering Xeyul."

I tried to think of a tactful way to say 'sorry not sorry'. "I apologize for any inconvenience I've caused you earlier today and in the future. But also, if I had to do it again I would."

Aestrid, lounging on a lumpy thing that maybe technically counted as a couch, looked thoughtfully up at the rafters. "My uncle had slaves. We lived in Markonti, and it's legal there. When I was young, I was quite smitten with one of them... Ualrak. He told me in his homeland he was a prince, and said if he could earn his freedom he would marry me and take me to live in the palace with him. Of course, when I removed his collar he beat me unconscious and tied me up in the basement, then went upstairs and murdered my uncle so he could free the rest of the slaves. At the time I felt quite betrayed, but I'm old enough now to just be grateful he left me alive and didn't light the house on fire or anything. I'd have done much worse, in his position." She sighed, and continued gazing off at nothing. "They never did catch him. I'm sure he was lying about being a prince, but I wonder if he's single?"

Everyone was silent for a moment, and then Sige decided to change the subject. "Okay, well we got out of that fucking mess and those assholes from Halenvar shouldn't be able to find us too fast. And they can't do anything while we're in Necropolis anyway. So what's the plan from here?"

They already knew the answer to that, but I suspected Sige was hoping I'd drop some more detailed information than Connie had - she was being secretive to ensure nobody could race ahead of us to claim our prize. Still, there was no harm in answering at this point. "Connie has a specific crypt we're looking for. It's deep, so getting there might take a while. She has the location, but not a clear route. We'll need to get supplies and plan on camping down there a few nights, but assuming Mila hasn't gotten distracted and wandered right out of the city we'll be able to make a path almost straight down. Once we get what we need, the next step is to go through Nusos to our final destination."

Cyne shook his head. "Unless it's another life or death situation, we shouldn't risk going into Nusos while deep in the Necropolis. It can take some time to get from one type of environment to another, and if we start out somewhere so filled with thoughts of death and decay we'll be immediately beset by the local creatures. It would be much safer to come back up and go to another city."

"Sure, fine. I guess it doesn't matter. Would have been nice to not need to hike back up and everything, but... ah, shit. I guess we couldn't have anyway because of the stowaways."

Katrin, Errod, and the recently-liberated kids from fairyland were in the next room. It was the only other room in the rental house, which was barely nicer than a barn - it was intended to give a whole extended family somewhere to crash when transporting the body of a loved one. I could hear Errod trying to play with the kids, but they were all pretty shell-shocked and quiet.

Connie was out and about somewhere, leaving me to the question of our new... wards? Refugees? They were young, the oldest at most twelve years old in Earth years and completely disoriented. They couldn't just be sent off on their own. Aestrid, who was coming up with all sorts of odd comments and asides, even suggested bringing them down with us into the deeper levels of Necropolis - but that got shut down fast, by literally everyone else.

"More fucking people means more food and water," Sige said, "and that's more to carry. Plus they're fucking children, I don't want them getting killed down there."

I sighed, wishing for the hundredth time that doing the right thing was the same as doing the easy thing. "He's right. We can't take the wagon down there, so we have to plan on everyone carrying their own supplies. More people won't help. But... maybe Connie can spare some money to keep them set up here, and... well, I don't know. We'll figure something out."

Once I'd confirmed that we wouldn't be able to start on getting permission to head down into the pit until the following morning I dismissed Cyne, who wanted to visit a temple of some sort dedicated to someone named Sithlan. Getting caught up on the religious beliefs of this world were on my to-do list, and slowly rising to the top as I ran out of excuses not to. "Well, assuming Errod can keep an eye on the kids we rescued from the Sahrger I'm going to go practice magic with Katrin. Let me know if you need anything, and I'll give an update tomorrow morning at the latest."

Aestrid waved vaguely in my direction. "Yes, good. I'm fine thank you. I have plenty to eat."

"Okay? Sige, you look like you want to talk. You alright?"

He nodded, and pulled me aside. I still wasn't used to the fact that I was hanging out with... not quite an alien, but for sure not a homo sapiens. The fine orange curls on his wrist tickled my arm as he guided me to the corner. "Not my fucking business, right? But you're new to this stuff so just a tip. You want to practice magic that's fine, but don't let Katrin help you. She's going to hurt herself."

"Wait, what?"

"I saw her after she tried that tether trick. She was shaking like she'd gone skinny dipping in a blizzard. She overextended, burned some of her life force as mana. She needs to take a few days off."

I remembered the woman we'd gone to measure my mana capacity back in Handoleren. She'd mentioned that using more mana than you could handle was bad, and when she had charged me up to full I had felt oddly warm. It made sense that Katrin chattering and shivering after she had cast the spell was related.

"She was like that before, after she cast a spell that made a... well, a very thin force field. She saved us from some soldiers that were charging us, but I remember she was shaking afterwards."

"How long ago?"

"Um. Eight days? I think?"

"Fuck. That's even worse. Twice so close together is bad news, at least until you have a Dumine - they make it easier to train up your lutore to its full capacity. You want my advice, you'll take that fucking book away from her and not give it back until she's laid off the magic for at least a week to be safe. No fucking point in her doing permanent damage."

"It could have partly been nerves or something. Sometimes in life and death kinds of situations you can feel really cold." He raised an eyebrow at me, and I shrugged. It wasn't that, and we both knew it. She had been casting spells both times, ones she had openly admitted were beyond her skill level. "Fine. Yeah. I don't think she'll want me to take it away, but I'll make her promise on pain of death to chill. Pretty sure she's only been practicing the simple stuff lately though, so maybe she already knows."

"She shouldn't even do simple stuff for a bit. And like every asshole that finds a spellbook she's fucking obsessed, so good luck getting her to stop without taking the book away."

I hated to admit it, but he was probably right. "Okay. Well, thanks for the heads-up. I really appreciate it. I figured it was going to be something about Aestrid acting funny."

"Naw, she's just been eating all that Sahrger food you brought back."

Oh, you fucking bitch. "Aestrid? I swear to god I'm going to find a way to kill you."

"I'm un-kill... invulnerable... to your tiny weak fists," she said, around a mouthful of fairy food. "And anyway, it would make Errod sad. He's like a newly weaned hound, it's adorable." She started to make little howling sounds, which quickly devolved into giggling.

"Please tell me I wasn't this bad earlier?" I said to Sige. He just laughed and walked away.