Death Hunters 15: Xiang

    Two thousand years ago when the Aesperians colonized this world, one group in particular after studying the ancient cultures of the world known as Earth opted to transform a lush region of this world into a duplicate of this very same ancient culture. The Xiang, while the name now refers to this mighty empire at one time only referred to a family. That same family thanks to their power and establishing an imperial monarchy still remains in power. The land, the culture, that they had co-opted and is now viewed by their descendents as their own ancient heritage was that of ancient imperial China.

    The buildings, the cities, the dress, the roads, like their Earthly counterparts these people have retained these much the same for two thousand years. It is this astonishing sight that meets the eyes of the harvester of souls known as Sickle. Her own outfit, hair, and general appearance would stand out more here than almost anywhere else on all of Aesperia. A fact she has to remind herself of as she stands in the very air high above the ground, especially given the fact that the people of this world unlike those of most others can see her.

    The towns are in the distance now, the fire lights shining as the sun starts to go down. Sickle looks up knowing that only a few hundred more feet and the sun would vanish and the horizon be lost to a blurry image of the mountains in the distance. Below her is an elaborate temple with a large stone courtyard. Thanks to her own illusion spells allowing her to blend into the society of the nearby town she was able to first gather information on her target, this temple emitting a strong yet unusual Necro-aura.

    Posing as a traveling scribe she learned from the various merchants and other travelers that this is temple is dedicated to the wisest of their ancestors, the wisest of the attendants of the temple and even including members of the imperial family dating back to their founder the man named Xiang. These people are not only revered here, but its said their very souls reside with in an inner chamber known as the spectral library where diplomats visit brought in by the head priest to speak to their ancestors for advice on current matters. The locals say its considered a great honor to have one’s soul selected to be added to the spectral library, as once inside they gain more knowledge than they had in life as a group mind; even able to see anything anywhere in the world when asked by a member of the imperial family.

    However her mission is clear, harvest souls, particularly powerful ones or anything that may draw the souls of the undead to gain un-natural strength or congregate to one location. If the spectral library is all they say it is, then it is a prime target.

    The courtyard of the temple of the Spectral Library is not some ancient abandoned tomb or passive retreat of holy men. Even in the twilight hour many attendants come and go from rooms off to the side, meeting and speaking, coming and going.

    “Well, well,” says Sickle hand on hip, “As my dear old boss would say, this will not do.”

    With a wave of her arms as though plucking grass into the atmosphere she speaks words no living being could ever understand and no letters or symbols of any language known to man or alien life any life could hope to even rudimentary convey a pronunciation there of. The men in the courtyard, the men in the room, their female attendants, the young apprentices studying in the houses off from the main building, the high priest, everyone through out the temple and its adjacent buildings lowers themselves to the ground, not a sudden thud but a deep impossible to escape sleep.

   Sickle floats down into the courtyard, she can sense that some distance below and before her stands the spectral library, this close it might as well be a fresh streak set but two rooms through thin cardboard walls before a wolf.

    *thud*

    As she walks towards the door, she feels it.

    *thud*

    She stops and looks at the ground as pebbles bound, with the

    *thud*

    “uh…huh.” she says tongue in cheek licking her teeth.

   *thud*

    “Who…goes…there?”

    A deep monotone voice from the passage before her, four men in ornate armor, four very tall men in ornate armor in the shadows, but she sensed no living presence, no one should have been able to esacape….

    “yeah.” she says realizing it just before the four figures step out into the moon and torch light.

    Clay Golems, each a man and a half in height, wielding metal swords.

    “Who…goes…there?” repeats one of the two in the center, the one dressed like a captain of the guard.

    “and…” says Sickle imitating their tone in a sarcastic manner with exaggerated mouth movement and head dips, “Why…should…I…answer…a….pet…rock?”

  “Prepare…to…die.” says the guard captain clay golem, all four drawing their swords and marching head first towards her.

      “As if,” says Sickle with a smile and speaking more of those words of the Netherworld, words that cause torch lights to
flicker and grass to die at her feet as her own red ghostly glow brightens.

     *Ka-boom! Crash*

     A spray of rocks as a figure as large as one of the clay golems explodes from the floor between her and them, although in reality it simply materialized in the floor not beneath it.  She smiles as if she meant it to appear that way, but shakes it off with a roll of the eyes as she remembers her enemies are just pre-programmed modeled clay figures and not people with memory.

    The bleached white figure stands there, body looking as though it were an intensely muscular man wearing imitation human skeleton themed exoskeleton armor; complete with claw like hands and holding a white sword with a skull and ribs guard and leg bone handle. If not for the small human skull with fire points for eyes, half hidden and held tight in an inner white locked plate behind the oversized bone like collar one could be remiss to mistake this for a person in armor, rather than a skeleton in a Necro-power suit.

    “Necro-Soldier.” says Sickle, “Play with these golems for a bit, smash ‘em  up if you have to. I have work to do.”

    The skull inside the armor nods as it jumps at the clay golems. Despite their size they move quickly, trading *clang* after *clang* with the Necro-Soldier. However it is clear if it were not for it being four against one, the fight would have quickly gone to the Necro-Soldier.

    Sickle walks past them, her summoned minion drawing the four away from the door. Her being a petite woman compared to the massive armored creature she summoned, it is no wonder in her mind that those pre-programmed automatons of clay would be designed to focus on who ever posed the most obvious and simplistic definition of “threat”.

   At the back of the temple is a metal double door, its chain and lock easily severed by Sickle’s hook weapon. With in she find that most of the doors had simply been standing before a wall with a much smaller personal entrance sized opening in the middle with stairs leading down into darkness.
The stairs seem to go down forever, the wood walls give way to brick, then to stone slabs, then to mortared rock. The stairs stop at a wooden door held shut by an odd lock, something so completely out of place that Sickle must stare at it for a whole minute, long enough to realize that she is either too far down to hear the sounds of battle above or the fighting has stopped. A metal device with a place to put one’s palm and a blinking red light; she shrugs and phases her hand, passing it through the machine to short circuit it thus allowing the door to open. A landing is before her of only three feet and then more steps.

    Down and down some more, but something is different, the area below becomes brighter, the walls lined with small ovals like a dotted line, each glowing blue illuminating the stairway. Sickle pauses, the walls are now metal plates held on by large bolts, the stairs beneath her are now metal grates instead of stone slabs. She looks up, her eyes glowing red to see into the darkness. Through the metal grates she sees where the stone steps stop and then drop off below into the darkness like some cliff dividing two very different worlds, one of stone and sorcerer, the other of metal and science.

    She shrugs her shoulders; she can sense her target close at hand. Down the technological passage, the hum of machinery, a sound she knows from the world she normally harvests souls from but had not heard once since coming here. At the bottom another door, as easily passed as the last, only this one slides open on both sides. Inside is a cave of a chamber, natural stone walls that come right up on; and seem to block in a green glowing giant aquarium like structure. Inside is green mists swirling about. Before it connected to its base is a large computer terminal lit up with various colors of switches and lights and displays. Off to the side some distance back is an alter like device with a place to put ones palm, outlined in green dots of light, other wise it seems to have been decorated to look more mystical than technological.

     Sickle steps forward taking out her hooks only to stop as a raspy loud voice coming from the aquarium of mists echoes off the walls, “wait, please wait reaper of souls.”

      As Sickle approaches it she sees a face of mist emerge near the front of what to others would be perceived as glass, but Sickle knows is something she would have thought impossible for mortals to make, a clear crystal barrier able to hold in even spirits.

     “We are not lost souls.” It says before vanishing like mist blown in the wind only to be replaced by another, yet with the same voice.

     “We are not monsters who have lost their hearts.”

    *whoosh* it vanishes as well to be replaced by yet another, each time a sentence is done each vanishes only to be replaced.

    “We are the memory of the people.”

    *whoosh*

    “We are the secrets, the dreams, and the knowledge of ages gone by.”

   *whoosh*

    “With out us, the peace of this land may be lost again to war.”

    Sickle Shrugs and pulls a small red crystal from thin air which expands out into the capture device her kind has.

    A more prudent voice emerges, a more distinct face with it, “If harmony and history for the living does not move one such as you.”

    The face remains even after speaking, “Then perhaps another method we can find. As you have heard we know everything of this land, we are the collected souls of its greatest leaders and scholars. However in our current state along with the ancient technology of our people with us we can do much more than that. We can look anywhere on this world at any time, we can see the distant past and all that once lived here, we can even look to any person anywhere at present. This is something normally saved only for the emperor…”

    “You mustn’t” comes a whisper behind the face.

    “If we do not,” says the voice, “If she does not accept the offer to know any thing about anything or anyone upon this world, then we are lost…in more ways than one, we are gone, and our people…”

    “hmmm,” says Sickle looking thoughtful while setting down the device with out turning it on causing the face and the voices to pause as well waiting in deathly anticipation at her response.

     She thinks back to not long ago, in the swamp where she had been hunting a demonic spirit. She remembers the woman, the adventurer with the strange aura.

      “Okay,” says Sickle hand on hip, “We reapers as you call us are honorable beings…for the most part…at any rate we are bound to our words.”

        “Okay,” she continues, “Here’s the deal then, if you can answer my question than I’ll let you all stay, if not you’re coming with me.”

       She thinks for a moment before acting further, “Why not? If they can answer me then I learn that little something that’s been bugging me, if not I do my job. Either way I win.”

     “Agreed. What is it you want to know?” asks the raspy voice.

     “I want to know about a person I encountered,” she says, “or rather I saw once. There was something off about her, and its
been bugging me, I want to know who she is, and what she is.”

     “In that case,” says the voice, “place your hand upon the alter behind you, and picture this individual in your mind, and we will locate them. We can see into the past and know the present of all, it is only the future that alludes us.”

    Sickle places her hand on the alter, the lights flash rapidly around her hand as she pictures the woman standing with her group in the swamp as Sickle had watched them defeat the demon called Tin Tin, Sickle remembers her odd aura.

    “Impossible!” scream a thousand voices from with in the container bringing Sickle back to reality, their voices shaking the very walls. She can sense a sudden intense fear. The ghosts, the spirits of this land are terrified.

    “She must have seen her a thousand years ago.” says some voice

    “No,” says another, “it is a recent memory, the aura, the past flow, it is her.”

     “Well,” says Sickle walking away from the alter, “Who is she? and what is she?”

    “She is the Empress of the World.” says one voice.

    “Ex-empress you mean, she was a horrific being who in her greed condemned the world by tying all its wonders to her so that when she went it all vanished with her.”

    Another speaks, “She brought our world from an barbaric state to one of technological glory,”

    “Yes,” comes another, “and then it was all gone,”

   “thanks,” says another, “to the actions of that idealistic fool hero Gyro-Lee.”

    “He was no fool! He understood as we do that no one being should rule the entire world for so long! He could not know of her design…”

    “Not Know? The Lee family were the generals and guardians of her domain, how could he not know that defeating her and sealing her away would result in all the machinery of the world being turned to dust, that she had connected it all to her own impressive power to control the kings of the world to prevent war.”

    “Prevent war? One does not control a world as one would control a room full of children? Play nice or I take away your toys, it is this condescending belief that is proof enough of that only mortals should rule the world.”

    “Empress of the world,” says Sickle interrupting them, “I see then I have my answer and a deal is a deal I leave you…”

    A man’s voice projects into her head, a regal voice so unlike the other ghosts, “Leaving so soon my dear? Perhaps I could interest you in actually knowing the truth in exchange for a favor? Empress Rhulan, is not as you believe her to be, she is not a celestial, she is not unlike myself, one of the immortal…wuh..wuh…damn…damn…”

    Sickle looks behind her to see a spectacular sight, where there had been mist before there is not electric green fire all aiming, all focusing towards the center of the container, all around something she hadn’t noticed before obscured by the cloud like entities. A coffin with wires and tubes connected between it and the base of the container, all the spirits, the hundreds, the thousands perhaps with in, all focusing their power to restrain a force that leaked out. In their confusion some of the machinery succumbed to an internal force, their lack of focus allowing it to weaken its own restraints. All this Sickle notices, all this Sickle understands. It is not merely a library, it is a prison, but a deal is a deal. She leaves back out the way she came, back to the surface where her Necro-Soldier waits to be returned to his own realm; and like the mist Sickle vanishes into the air looking for her next target.

    Back below in the darkness, the mist has settled, inside the coffin however the lips of an ancient man curl for the first time in over a thousand years into a smile, “Rhulan has returned,” he says in his regal tone before thinking to himself, “Immortality, a blessing and a curse, one’s beliefs may change, a fact I have told myself a thousand times, nay, by now a billion times before, I said to hold me here no matter what I said, I was wise to know my mind would change. But damn-it all my old self be damned, I will return!”

    “He struggles once again,” says a raspy voice.

    “As he did before,” comes another, “But with out the key no one can free him.”

   “and yet he can still influence the world with out us here to prevent it.” says a scholarly voice, “he has grown stronger over these many years, despite being imprisoned here, one could only imagine what he would be like free. If he can actually loosen his bonds enough to reach out to the mind of a soul harvester who knows what he could do with out the restraints in place.”

   “and yet,” says a commanding voice, “it will only be a matter of time, despite the hero of our land’s sacrifice eighteen hundred years ago to keep the key safe from those who would have the old empire return, or foolishly seek to try and use him as a weapon it will still only be a matter of time before the technology corrodes on its own enough for him to break free, the best we can do is use our power to keep him in a state of rest and sleep; we can not repair the machine enough, binding loose parts is one thing but…”

    “Are you trying to awaken him? Give him conviction and hope? Give him the drive for one last mighty push to break away?”

    “look who speaks?”

    Even as the ghosts of times past and after his own, the figure inside the coffin has been well aware of all this, their worries are for not, for he himself built the prison he is in, he imprisoned himself. He smiles even as their power seeps in and forces him into a deep rest again, “time,” he says, “time is on my said, my dear empress, my dear captain,” he reaches out a weak hand in the darkness towards the lid of his coffin, “I was a fool…I…ad…*yawn*…mit…now…please…help…mmmm….”