Never Die Twice

• Decades ago, frontier with the Feylands after the Niflheim Convergence.

A day after the massacre, his village reeked of blood. The grass had turned red.

Entrails and limbs splattered the grass, the villagers torn to shreds by the jaws of giant wolves; not even for food, but for pleasure, as a cat would toy with a rat. Most of the houses had been upturned, the ruins freezing from the chilling winds of winter.

Only he had survived, by hiding in the grain cellar below his house. His parents said they would join him there, alongside the neighbors. They never did.

The teen had only found his father’s remains, torn in half from the waist; he had heard his mother being chewed up and eaten. And now, he was trying his hardest to sew the remains back together, even with his fingers freezing from the cold.

He heard the footsteps of horses and raised his head, facing two fearsome figures. Both rode sick, pallid horses, but greatly contrasted one another. One hid every patch of his skin beneath a dark cowl and gloves, while the other was a mighty knight in black, spiked armor. Sword and sorcery.

“You’re alright, kid?” The knight’s blade was drenched in wolfblood. How could his pallid horse carry someone as heavily armored? “We’re here to help.”

Too late for that.

The teen looked at them with suspicions, worrying that they might be scavengers looking to loot the abandoned houses. While he cared more for the corpses inside, he would rather avoid a fight; he had had his fill of blood.

“I’m Medraut, a knight of the Pale Serpents Order, and my companion is Archmage Asclepius. All the wolves are dead, and you are safe with us.”

“You undersell yourself, my friend,” the cowled figure rasped, his words sounding more like someone’s death throes than a healthy man’s voice. “He was a Royal Knight once, child. A great hero.”

“That was a long time ago,” the armored knight replied, his voice dripping with contempt. “I quit.”

Maybe they had said that to reassure him, but the teen wasn’t impressed. After the horrors he had seen, after hearing his parents’ screams, he felt as dead as all the corpses surrounding him.

“What is your name, son?” the knight asked first.

“Walter.”

“What are you doing with the corpses, Walter?” the cowled figure asked his own question, looking at the remains. Walter glimpsed two green halos below the hood, where the eyes should have been.

“The wolves broke them. I’m trying to repair them.” If he could preserve the brain long enough to pump the heart…

The two riders exchanged a glance. “A body is a machine,” Walter said. “Like a mill. You must put the pieces together.”

“This is a bit more complicated than that.” The cowled figure removed his hood, revealing his ‘face’.

Tye had heard of the undead, but it was the first time he saw a withered, grey-skinned figure with otherworldly light in the place of eyes. The living dead had replaced his teeth with gemstones crackling with magic, and the upper-left part of the skull was missing, darkness seeping through.

“You are a [Lich]?” the teen asked.

“You are not afraid,” the walking corpse noted. “Good.”

“You can revive them?” Walter asked. “Like you?”

“Maybe. The soul has to be willing for the corpse to be raised as a free-willed undead.” The sorcerer raised his hand, an aura of palpable death washing over Tye. A sinister, purple shroud covered his father’s corpse, before vanishing. The skeleton didn’t hide his displeasure. “The soul refused. This fellow does not want to return.”

“I’m sorry,” Medraut said, with compassion.

“Why?” Walter asked, confused. “Why would anyone choose to remain dead?”

“Perhaps he is in a happier place than Helheim. He would rather stay in the arms of their gods rather than risk a dishonorable death, even for your sake.”

“Do you have other family members?” the knight asked. “A distant uncle in a neighboring village, perhaps?”

Walter shook his head.

“Don’t you see, Medraut?” Asclepius said, observing the teen with his empty eye sockets. “He belongs with us.”

• Present day.

It must have been years since Tye had gone beyond Lyonesse and its surrounding areas.

The little fishing hamlet in front of him reminded him of his home village, bringing old memories to the surface. No more than fifty souls must have been occupying the mud huts in the area, subsisting off the animals they could fish from the riverbank. The town was eerily silent, almost empty; and the morning fog only made the area look even more unwelcoming.

His face hidden under a cowl like his teacher once did, Tye moved towards the village’s graveyard. It wasn’t hard to find it, considering the overwhelming number of stone circles on the grass; each delimiting a tomb.

An old man in his sixties kept watch, a lantern in hand, and an axe in the other. “You are the gravekeeper?” Tye asked, the man tensing upon seeing him approach.

“Who the Helheim are you?” the gravekeeper asked.

“I am here for the victims,” the necromancer said, keeping his face hidden. “I am an investigator.”

“You’re a bit late,” the old man replied, suspicious, before pointing in a direction with his lantern. “The priests buried them under the oak over there.”

Good. That was all he wanted to know.

“[Sleep],” Tye cast on the old man, letting him rest on the grass; hopefully, he would have no memory of the meeting upon waking up. The necromancer then moved to the grave’s location and exhumed it with [Meld Stone].

Five victims in total, all girls aged between eight and twenty; each of them brutally savaged. Someone had dug a hole in the chest of four of them, removing the heart and some organs; the fifth had probably died before undergoing this gruesome experience. After forming a line out of them on the grass, Tye first analyzed the remains with magic; much to his annoyance, the priests had purified the corpses, making it all but impossible to raise them as undead.

Considering the short timing, he could still cast [Proto Naglfar], but not with a missing heart; even his [Repair Corpse] spell wouldn’t repair wounds this grievous. He could bring them back to his laboratory and graft alchemical replacements for the missing organs, then animate them for interrogation. Tye considered the possibility, but decided to run an autopsy before raising the fifth victim.

Besides the obvious missing organs—the chest hole’s shape suggested the ribs had been shattered with a hammer, and the contents eaten by a fanged beast—the victims were covered with wounds. Both whips or hooks. Finally, the bodies had also been pumped with a load of magically-enhanced venom, with the one victim who kept all of her organs having died from a poison overdose. Not hooks, snake fangs, Tye thought, upon examining the wounds more closely. Bred snakes.

Why five women though? What did they have in common?

…

“Virgin sacrifices, seriously?” The necromancer shook his head. “Why? Why virgins?”

Walter had never paid too much attention to Calamity Cults. Certainly, the necromancer had heard of their activities and had a passing knowledge of their methods. But fundamentally, he still didn’t understand what could drive someone to worship beings hellbent on ending the world.

He knew cults of Hrym were the most ‘visible,’ savage barbarians who openly and proudly displayed their allegiance. Their tribes lived in the eastern lands beyond the sea, honing their skills for Ragnarok, when their warships would join the giant armies of Jotunheim. Ironically, this also made them the easiest to manage. Besides the occasional shore raids repelled by the royal army, they were nonentities.

Disciples of Fenrir, the Niflheim calamity whose pack had massacred his home, were a vicious bunch. They were predators, living hidden in the woods or among small villages. They hunted humans like how wolves massacred sheep; sometimes, they were literal [Werewolves].

Servants of the Midgard Serpent, Jormungandr were little better, snake-worshiping societies who delighted in feeding people to giant reptiles. Surtr’s servants were warriors, arsonists, and blacksmiths. They were organized raiders and warbands, a constant thorn in the royal army’s foot.

And Loki’s cults were perhaps the most dangerous of all because they hid in plain sight. They could be your brothers, your parents, the people you never thought of when you went to work. You would never know until they struck.

Tye knew that while cults operated in independent cells, they often cooperated during special occasions; or at least, they worked together as best as bands of chaotic madmen could. Was this massacre the result of such an alliance? The savage state of the corpses indicated a Fenrir cult, but the traces of snake venom were a telltale sign of Jormungandr worshipers.

Both cults with a heavy focus on controlling, or becoming, monsters. The more he thought about it, the more Tye was convinced this massacre was a joint ceremony. The victims had been ritually offered to snakes and then sacrificed to Fenrir.

“[Proto Naglfar],” he cast on the fifth victim to ask her personally and confirm his theory. After what she had gone through, the necromancer hoped that he could convince her to start anew somewhere else and not ask que-

“There you are, my thieving thrall.”

Tye froze, as something canceled his spell and moved the corpse’s lips.

The remains were that of an eight-year-old child, but the voice...

“[Disintegrate]!”

The necromancer fired a green ray from his left index finger, turning the flesh to dust.

His action was answered with an amused chuckle; a dark queen’s regal laughter spoke from the lips of an older, dead woman. The corpse rose up and faced him, her eyes white as pearls. “This is useless,” the entity mocked him. “You cannot kill death.”

“[Disintegrate]!” Fear overtook Tye’s heart, as he vaporized the vessel on pure instinct.

No sooner did his spell turn that one to ashes, that a third corpse rose up in response, the creature speaking with their lips more amused than anything. “Is your tantrum over, my dear Walter?”

The necromancer took a step back, an overwhelming pressure weighing on his very soul.

She had found him.

“What do you want, you beast of a goddess?” Tye replied threateningly, his finger pointed at the ‘speaker.’ He had enough SP reserves to do it all day if needed. It wouldn’t harm the deity, but it could perhaps give him time...

“You, my thrall.” So replied Hel, goddess of death, as thick black blood flowed through her current vessel’s empty chest. “You fled my realm by becoming an abomination, and stole souls that belong to my realm. Come back to me. I will forgive you for your insolence.”

“Afraid that I will empty your realm soon?” the necromancer replied, after mustering all his remaining bravery. “If you could do anything to get me back, you would have already.”

The corpse’s lips pursed into a thin smile, and then she took a step in his direction.

“Back off!” Tye ordered, channeling magic through his fingers. “Back off I said!”

“Are you afraid of my kiss, Walter? Perhaps you would prefer to see my better half, as you show me your false mask of life?”

The walking corpse in front of him shifted, transforming into a picture of the goddess he had faced in Helheim. An eerily serene woman with ash-gray skin, perfect crimson lips, and pure pale eyes. Her long white hair floated behind her face, while she dressed in a regal dress crimson and black. She was more beautiful than Yseult herself, but her splendor was a dark, unnatural one; a deadly allure.

Before he knew what hit him, her hand lovingly brushed against his left cheek.

Every nerve on the left side of his undead body flared up at once, half his skin peeling from his flesh under invisible knives. He could sense the chilling mist searing his exposed flesh, leaves turning into razors cutting through his hand as they brushed against it.

Never before had he felt such excruciating pain.

You have lost half your HP and SP!

“Your escape was ingenious,” the goddess said, as the Ankou covered the flayed half of his face. “I still do not fully understand how you managed it, and it bothers me greatly. But do not mistake patience for weakness, Walter. Everything dies, even the walking dead. Even the world.”

Then she added, with the warmth of a mother scolding a naughty child.

“Even you.”

“Come and try!” Tye responded in defiance, activating his offensive Perks and simmering with magical power. “I escaped your grasp; I will do so again!”

“Here you remain, frustratingly delaying the inevitable.” She shook her head. While her face seemed expressionless, the necromancer could have sworn he had noticed a hint of something else. Something… disturbing. “It baffles me, yet never have I desired a soul more than yours.”

Ignoring his magical defenses as if they weren’t there, she put both hands on each side of his face. The left one was cold and heightened the pain, but the right one was warm and pleasing to the touch.

“It is not enough for me to kill you, my thrall,” the goddess said, holding him by both cheeks, like a lover ready to kiss him on the lips. “If I do, you will simply escape my realm a third time. No. You must submit to me first. I will break you, Walter. I will torment you until you accept me into your heart. Only then, will I release you from this painful half-life.”

A third time? “Then you will live disappointed. [Sinmara’s Shield].”

His body unleashed a burst of searing blue flames, as hot as Muspelheim. A chilling frost from the goddess immediately smothered them.

“Your actions threaten the very fabric of this universe, and the cycle that sustains it,” Hel whispered, sounding disappointed. “As a man or a snake, you selfishly yearn for immortality, no matter the cost; is surviving as an undead, rotting carcass truly better than my peaceful embrace?”

“Yes!” Tye replied, refusing to submit.

“You may have stolen a few souls, my thrall, but you also sent me many,” Hel told him. “My hounds are hungry for your blood, Walter. Do you hear them? They are howling for your head.”

And then, she kissed him on the lips. The contact felt both sweet and sour, pleasurable, and disgusting.

You have obtained the [Kiss of Hel] personal Perk. All damage will be halved, but the goddess Hel and her servants will always know your location.

A second later, he was kissing an inanimate corpse, which collapsed on the ground.

The necromancer wiped off the taste of her lips with his hand in disgust and teleported away.

“I dreamed a dream last night, of silk and fair furs,” Hagen of Vendemar hummed, as he emerged from Nastrond’s grand stairway to enter the ruins of Level Three; a shield and a mace in his hands. “Of a pillow so deep and soft, a peace with no disturbance.”

“Shut up, Hagen!” the voice of Duke came up, the [Zombie Lord] waiting for him in the flagstone chamber above the city. The [Linnorm Demilich] stood watch over Nastrond’s entrance, coiled like a snake. “You are tone deaf!”

“Hey, I’m trying to take a level in [Bard],” Hagen joked, though he had to admit Laufey’s songs sounded much better to the ears. “Aren’t you supposed to patrol the ruins?”

“I am,” the zombie replied, pointing at the [Linnorm Demilich] with his chin. “I am checking up on that thing.”

Tye had deployed the undead dragon at the junction between the ruins and Nastrond, chaining it to the seal-stele by a black, shadowy chain. While the creature was in theory non-sentient, some of its malice remained, driving it to slay the living. Its zeal in trying to kill the princess had even threatened their grand stage, weeks ago.

And yet, after the necromancer managed to ‘repair’ it and claimed Nastrond, the creature had become eerily calm. It hadn’t strained against the chains, hadn’t attacked anyone; it hadn’t even made a sound since. Were it not for the focus in its gaze, Hagen could have sworn it had fallen dormant.

Still, it was a pretty impressive guardian. It easily reached up to the ceiling, and the room would give little room for intruders to dodge its breath.

“I do not trust it,” Duke said. “It is strong, but it feels off somehow.”

“Still better company than the golems below,” Hagen replied. “I still can’t believe they are higher-leveled than me.”

“How many do you have?” the zombie asked, curious. “I earned a few from the last raids.”

“Fifty-two, including my ten [Dullahan] racial levels.” He had almost capped his [Dark Knight] class too, with only five levels to go.

“Two levels more than me,” Duke grumbled.

“Unlike you, I die if my HP drops to 0,” the headless knight replied. “I have no head left to crush.”

In fact, he had no bones left at all, his ‘armor’ being his body now. At first, the lack of physical sensations had been off-putting, but Hagen had grown to enjoy the absence of fatigue or tiredness. Undeath had given him an inner focus he never had in life.

“But one of your racial Perks does not grant you a horrendous stench.” The [Zombie Lord] had to cover it with perfume, much to his shame. “Another only grants me pleasure if I eat fresh brains. Thankfully, I still have the thrill of combat.”

“You could read, or find a hobby,” Hagen said. “I formed a bowling group with the goblins. I think the rats are interested too, although we are still figuring out the logistics.”

“I am a man of the flesh, not the mind,” the zombie replied. “I think I was, even before my transformation.”

“So have you ever…” Hagen trailed. “You know…”

“Ever what?”

“Eaten brains?”

The zombie looked at him with a look of pure disdain. “How can you even ask me that?”

“So you did?” Hagen asked, curious. According to his sources, it tasted like spinach.

“No, I did not! That would be cannibalism! I may not have all my memories from the old days, but I still remember table manners.”

Ah, yes. Life. “How much do you remember?”

“It feels like… like the memories of a dream. I remember brief moments, but not the entire journey.”

“Which moments?” Hagen pushed. Although he vividly remembered most of his life, he had special circumstances; namely, the source of his [Dark Knight] powers.

“A great feast with many guests,” Duke said. “My clan, I believe, from my time as a Jarl. The memories of the stuffed boar still quicken my pulse. So does a duel with another man, as my blade sent his own flying. Death, I remember clearly too. That rot settling in my lungs, that despair as I wasted away, praying the gods, any god, to save me. I never prayed as hard as on my deathbed.”

“Maybe that is why you went to Helheim.”

“I think so too. But I do not believe I ever hated the living, before the torments of Helheim. Death made me what I am today, not life.”

“Shame for you,” Hagen replied, having committed more felonies than every undead in the entire dungeon combined, and not regretting a single one. Among the people condemned to Helheim, he was perhaps one of the few who truly had it coming.

“Why are you here?” the zombie asked his fellow elite. “With our master gone, you are in charge of Nastrond’s defense.”

“I’ve lost one of my trophies, and I’m looking for it,” Hagen admitted. “A [Sacred Weapon].”

Also, the underground city weighed on him. Hagen couldn’t quite explain it, but he could tell a thousand eyes watched him within its confines. Every minute spent in that hole made him more paranoid.

“I thought only Earthlanders could use [Sacred Weapons]?” Duke asked.

“Yes, but I won it in very funny circumstances and it always brought a smile to my face, metaphorically speaking.” Hagen had no head, although he could ‘see’ everything around his armor. “It was still there yesterday, and then poof. Vanished.”

“A prank from Ghostring, most likely,” the [Zombie Lord] said.

“He swears he has nothing to do with it, and most importantly, he is an intangible ghost.” The zombie shrugged in response, causing Hagen to turn to the [Linnorm Demilich] for counsel. “And you, Ser Skelewyrm? Have you seen a sacred sword?”

Of course, the dragon didn’t reply—

“Nidhogg.”

Both undead elite froze, as the linnorm let out a rattle. “Nidhogg…” it repeated, moving its head in the direction of Nastrond’s entrance.

Duke immediately drew his invisible [Masked Blade], and while Hagen did nothing so obvious, he tensed up. “What did you say?” the Dullahan asked, his voice a threatening growl.

“Nidhogg…” the dragon rasped in response, a parrot repeating a single word.

“Why are you saying his name?” the Dullahan asked. “How do you even know it?”

The [Linnorm Demilich] did not respond immediately, but when it did, it spoke a different word. “Devourer… eternal...”

“Hagen, what is the meaning of this?” Duke rasped in confusion. “How can it be talking?”

“I do not know.” How did the wyrm know that name? As far as Hagen knew, the chief had only shared it with him and the goblins. “Maybe it remembers the dream of life.”

“Life…” The dragon rasped, its neck twitching. “Punish… punish...”

Thump!

Suddenly, the dragon smashed its head against a wall, causing the entire room to tremble. It did it once, then twice, causing some stone fragments to fall from the ceiling. “Punish…” the undead wyrm rasped, not in condemnation, but supplication. “Nidhogg…”

“Hey, calm down!” Hagen ordered. The twisted monster stopped, its skull against the stone.

“It acts like Spook,” Duke observed, disturbed.

“I don’t even want to see how it will react if brought into Nastrond,” the Dullahan replied, carefully approaching the dragon’s head. He immediately noticed drops of liquid falling down the beast’s cheeks.

Tears.

The dragon was crying?

“Brother…”

Hagen froze, turning to face Nastrond’s entrance.

“Brother,” the familiar voice called from below, repeating the same words Hagen’s sibling whispered to him while impaled on his sword. “I am bleeding brother…”

“Hagen?” Duke asked, the ghostly voice turning silent.

“Well, that was ominous,” the Dullahan replied.

As if to answer his words, an explosion resonated; but from above instead of below, as he would have expected. A strident sound echoed across the dungeon, signaling an attack.

“The alarms,” Duke said, Ghostring phasing through the ceiling, “What is happening?”

“Intruders poured from the galleries,” the ghost replied. “They triggered the [Runes of Madness] and started killing one another, but more are coming.”

“Antlions again?” Hagen asked, rejoicing at the opportunity to change the subject.

“Snakes and wolves at the doors, my friend!” the ghost said. “And hooded men smelling of both!”

Ah, great. Cultists. Finally some variety.

“Kill contest?” Duke proposed, smirking with relish.

“Kill contest,” Hagen replied happily, swinging his mace [Skulltaker].

He could never say no to easy levels.