Night settled over E-Rantel.
As the city nearest to the Tob Forest and the Angelisia Mountains—lands synonymous with danger and opportunity—it naturally drew adventurers in great numbers. Those who lived by risking their lives rarely slept early. Taverns blazed with light, noise spilling into the streets, giving the city an air not of peace, but of restless vitality.
Yet within the outer military district, beyond the strictly restricted barracks, lay a place shunned even by adventurers.
The city cemetery.
Years of war between the Kingdom and the Empire had filled it. Soldiers fallen on distant fields were transported here for burial, a necessary measure to prevent battlefields from becoming breeding grounds for the undead. Civilians, too, were interred within its walls.
High stone ramparts enclosed the grounds. Patrols from the city garrison walked its perimeter daily, ready to destroy any corpse that showed signs of reanimation.
At the cemetery's heart stood a memorial hall—opened only on rare holidays. Now, it lay silent. The trees around it were withered, branches skeletal, steeped in the stagnant weight of accumulated death.
Rustle.
Two faint footsteps crossed the gravel, their shadows stretching thin beneath the moonlight.
Both figures were cloaked, their faces hidden by masks. From their silhouettes alone, one could tell they were a man and a woman.
"Master," Vier asked softly, her gaze drifting across the desolate grounds, "why have we come here?"
There was no fear in her voice. She had destroyed high-ranking undead before—Bone Dragons among them. A cemetery was little more than scenery to her.
"What we seek is not the dead," Lock replied calmly.
"To find someone."
Vier's curiosity deepened.
Hidden beneath E-Rantel's cemetery was a secret few knew—a necromancer who had long been gathering power, intending to awaken an undead legion and drown the city in death to fuel his research.
Khajit Dale Badant.
He was a senior operative of Zur-En-Arrh, an underground organization devoted to necromancy and the pursuit of undeath. Its members preyed upon border villages, harvested corpses, and experimented without restraint, spreading across the Kingdom, the Empire, and the Slane Theocracy.
Where authority was strong, they were crushed.
Where corruption festered, they thrived.
And the Kingdom—fractured by noble greed and internal decay—was fertile ground.
Lock had no intention of playing executioner.
He wanted information.
They entered the memorial hall.
The structure resembled an ancestral shrine, only larger, emptier. Lock lifted his hand. A faint magic circle formed in his palm, rippling outward in silence.
Hidden Path Detection.
A modest spell by native standards—something never formalized within Yggdrasil's rigid hierarchies. Lock had never learned it there.
He had learned it here.
Unlike those bound solely to Yggdrasil's rules, Lock was not restricted. His foundation in magic was absolute. Native spells bent easily to his will, their effects sharpened by overwhelming magical capacity.
The response was immediate.
Beneath the stone platform used for laying out the dead, a concealed structure revealed itself.
Lock stepped forward and pressed an inconspicuous protrusion.
Click.
Stone shifted. The platform slid aside, revealing a stairway descending into darkness.
"Follow," Lock said.
They went down.
The passage was short, opening into a broad underground cavern. The walls were reinforced earth, carefully treated. Air flowed freely—ventilation planned, deliberate.
What lit the space made Vier narrow her eyes.
Candles.
Red.
Fresh blood, shaped into wax.
In the shadows, faint gaps exhaled the stench of low-tier undead—contained, restrained, waiting.
Lock surveyed the cavern without emotion.
Then his voice echoed softly, carrying authority rather than threat.
"Come out, Khajit."
A pause.
"I'm here to make a deal."
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