"Wh...what do you mean by stepped too far in?" The statement piqued Kaelen's interest.'is this all part of the storyline' he thought as his brain was going a thousand miles trying to piece everything that just happened.
The necromancer took a step closer, her hips swaying with the natural grace of someone who didn't have to try to be captivating. Her dark robes, slit high along one thigh, whispered across the stone floor, revealing smooth skin marked with glowing sigils that pulsed softly with violet light. They shimmered as the dying stars, they looked ancient and slow yet so powerful. Her eyes, those deep amethysts, were unreadable now, locked on Kaelen's.
She paused just in front of him, close enough for the warmth of her breath to brush his jaw as she looked up at him. Close enough to feel the fear radiating from him, wrapped in curiosity and something deeper, a compulsion, perhaps. She reached out and touched the marking on his right arm
"I've never seen markings like yours..." she murmured, her voice softer now, coaxing. One hand rose, fingers trailing through the air near his shoulder. She was hesitant but felt drawn forward as though magnetized by the odd illumination in his skin. "Which family are you affiliated with?" She couldn't help but ask the question plaguing her mind.
Kaelen flinched at her nearness, though he didn't step away. He could feel the pulsing in his tattoos, those five glowing marks etched along his arms, chest, and inside his pupils, tightening like cords beneath his skin. The necromancer's hand hovered near his collarbone, giving him the aura that if he doesn't answer he would be done for. And for a long second, they simply stared at each other.
Her voice broke the silence again, a breath above a whisper. "Cat got your tongue?"
Kaelen swallowed hard. He was still shaken not just by Lyra's death, but by what had come afterward. That thing the shadow it hadn't just killed Lyra. It had erased him. Like he was code. Nothing real.
"I…" he started, voice hoarse. "I.....I'm not affiliated with any family." And then in dawned on him "wait, why is an NPC asking me what family I'm affiliated with?"
The necromancer's lips twitched faintly. Not quite a smile. Not quite pity. "Me.....me, an NPC, are you frigging dumb" her voice betrayed her calm demeanour "do I really look like code to you all because I started differently and look different, well guess what, heads up cause that's money talking." taking a step back. "You have your roles, and I have mine"
Kaelen's brow furrowed. He wanted to scream at her. Ask what she meant, but chose to focus on what was going on presently "wait are you a player?"
"Of course I am, If I wasn't, would we be having this conversation right now?" stepping back to sit on the chair as she felt hurt she was called an NPC. "My name is Clara Giovanni"
"Gio....vanni....Gio....Giovanni, wait you mean from the Giovanni family." He blurted out before rushing to hold his mouth. 'just my luck, I had to run into a named family '
"Yes from the Giovanni family" she replied now returning back to her normal demeanour. "What family are affiliated with Kaelen?"
"I... I'm affiliated with " he closed his eyes trying to recall the named families, but due to the anxiousness from being asked at the spot he couldn't remember.
"Don't try lying" she said locking eyes with him, "there is no badge with you, and you lack the gait and essence of one affiliated." She Scrutinizingly observed him, as though trying to burn him into her memory.
"I'm not affiliated to any family" he finally replied downcast.
For the first time, the Clara looked surprised.
"You sound like someone who's lost his plaything." she said, standing up from the chair and heading towards the parchment Kaelen had dropped back on the floor amidst the commotion. She knelt and picked the fallen parchment the one that had triggered the system notification in his vision. She handled it reverently, as though it might disintegrate with the roughest of treatment.
"You saw something, didn't you?" she asked over her shoulder. "The golden interface… you flinched like it was branded onto your mind."
Kaelen hesitated, cause he thought he was done for. But since she didn't say anything, means he was in the clear...for now. Then nodded once. "It said… MajorClueFound."
Clara exhaled through her nose. Not quite laughter. Not quite disbelief. She walked to the cluttered table and laid the parchment flat on its surface. Her fingers glided over the curling symbols, which flickered and shifted when Kaelen looked directly at them like they were aware he was watching.
"You saw more than I ever have," she said quietly. "This parchment, whatever it is, it's incomplete. Most of it doesn't make sense. But we felt it when you touched it, The magic reacted to your markings, oddly enough it seemed as though they were linked to it."
She tapped a point near the parchment's center. Kaelen leaned in and was confused.
The illustration which was totally cryptic with twirling spires of ink, spiraling corridors, impossible geometry, now had one icon standing out. A cathedral. Towering, cross-shaped, with a circular window like an eye in its heart.
Kaelen's hand braced against the table to steady himself his mind a total chaos. The room was starting to feel too small. The shadows in the corners no longer just sat passively he could swear they stretched ever so slightly, coiling along the base of the walls. Watching patiently. 'they weren't like that earlier' he tried remembering the twirling lines
He noticed the candle on the table had burned down halfway, yet the shadows had grown thicker.
"I saw it," he muttered, more to himself now. "That shadow. When Lyra died, It didn't just kill him, It… took him."
Clara turned slowly to face him again. Her expression was unreadable. But Kaelen saw her hand twitch against her side, fingers curling in tightly as she recalled the memory.
"That was his third death," she said flatly.
"What do you mean by that?" Kaelen asked. "The… mark on his forehead, It faded after, Like a game penalty."
"It's not just a penalty," she said. "It's a warning, The Reckoning remembers everything and It doesn't forgive repetition."
She approached him again this time slower, more wary, the candlelight flickered between them, casting her features in sharp relief. The curve of her lips. The faint shimmer of sweat at her collarbone. Her dark, wild hair falling around her like a curtain of shadow.
She looked at his eyes again. At the tattoos that glowed faintly around their edges.
"Seems like this is your first time inside. Mind blowing right?" she asked.
Kaelen's pulse skipped. "Yes."
Her brows lifted slightly. "Then you should have been informed before entering, or you weren't?."
He licked his dry lips. "No I wasn't, only told not to die inside."
She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she reached out and touched his chest just above his heart. Her fingers lingered there. Before he could react, her hands rose with gentle fingers, she pushed back the collar of his shirt. Her touch lingered on the edge of his shoulder, tracing the glowing sigils embedded into his skin. The tattoos shimmered softly five distinct, interwoven glyphs, like constellations made of pure, golden static. They pulsed faintly in rhythm with his heartbeat.
"They're beautiful, but the rules are, the deeper you get into the reckoning" she whispered, her voice almost reverent. "The darker they become, for some it's the reverse, it's something old, Woven into our essence."
Kaelen couldn't bring himself to move. He was hyper-aware of how close she stood, the curve of her body brushing lightly against his, her breath warm where it tickled. From this angle, he could see the tattoos on her skin too, amethyst spirals along the side of her thigh, looping in ancient geometric sequences. A few glowed faintly from beneath the loose folds of her partially open robes, dancing along the hollow of her waist, her ribs, and one that seemed to climb the underside of her breast.
His eyes lingered too long and she noticed.
"Curious?" she asked, tone unreadable, teasing, maybe, or testing.
Kaelen cleared his throat awkwardly. "I.... I've never seen anything like yours either. They're… fluid."
"They shift with my emotions," she replied. "And with proximity to power."
Their eyes met. And for a long moment, the world narrowed to just the two of them, her fingers ghosting along the sigils on his chest, his hand slowly rising to trace one of hers as it wrapped around her ribcage. His fingertips paused just below the edge of her exposed tattoo, and her body tensed almost imperceptibly beneath his touch.
The moment seemed balanced, breathless and electric.
But something shifted, a cold gust of memory or warning from the Reckoning itself and the tension broke. She stepped back quickly, deliberately, her face a perfect mask of neutrality.
"That's enough," she said quietly, smoothing her robes over herself. "We've lingered too long, we still have some hours before the quest is over, and I don't plan on failing."
Kaelen exhaled, his pulse still loud in his ears. "Right. Of course", trying to act cool
"But just know this you won't come back as you were once you die" she whispered. "Not the same, a part of you ripped out and an empty void left with nothing to fill the emptiness."
Kaelen tried not to shiver, but his look failed him as it showed fear.
"So what's in the vault?" he asked, voice strained, trying to get rid of the imaginary cold he felt. And to stir the conversation away from the death.
Clara returned to the parchment. "I don't know. But it's not gold. Not jewels. It's something worse, or better. Depending on who finds it."
Kaelen's mind reeled. He looked around the room again seeing it with fresh eyes, shelves bowed with grimoires and totems, skull fragments arranged in circles on the ground, sigils drawn in dried blood, wax, and old ink. The scent of ancient incense, the palpable hum of old spells and bound pacts. It wasn't just a sanctuary, It was a warded prison, a trap of safety and knowledge that kept the necromancer alive and sealed.
"Did you do all this?" he asked, still looking around
Clara looked at him for a long moment.
"No I didn't" she said. "My mission is to discover what's plaguing the kingdom and aid in the vault heist."
Kaelen blinked. That was more honesty than he expected.
"It belonged to a necromancer called Circe Blackwood, I read her diary hoping to get some insight" she added, more quietly, "she was paramount on the fact that something was or rather has been watching the cathedral, like it wants something from the vault."
He exhaled slowly. "So now there's something watching the vault, how is this supposed to be a beginner's mission?"
"Beginner's mission?" she asked somewhat surprised. "This is a 3 star mission. 3 star epic mission equivalent to a 4 star"
He narrowed his eyes. "3 star epic?"
She tilted her head. You must be really unlucky. Everyone's first quest is usually a 1 star or starless quest."
Kaelen stepped back. "My bad luck has followed me into the game" he starts laughing at his demise
"It's not so bad, you have me" Clara tries to cheer him up "we'll play the mission together, but you have to make a deal."
He turned towards Clara."what deal?" Begining to feel as though he was a lamb being led to the slaughter.
"When the mission is over, find me in the academy" she said
"That isn't so hard, I will" he replied after thinking for a while."how did you know I'm from the academy "he asks
"You are in a game with your academy uniform Sherlock" she replies back her voice laced
"Ohhhh" he glances down and sees his uniform. "My bad" he turn around feeling shy for forgetting that detail.
"Wait " she said and when he turned, she was holding a twisted black pendant in her fingers, like a knot of obsidian shaped into a closed eye. "Take this, It will help me locate you when you get lost, and would let anyone know you are affiliated with the Giovanni's."
Kaelen hesitated, then took it. It was warm, and alive, somehow.
As he slipped the pendant over his head, the shadows in the room seemed too still.