Chapter 19: Ch. 18 – The Wrongful Imprisonment of Momo the Totally-Not-Necromage

“Can I talk to my lawyer?”

The Earl rolled his eyes. With a wave of his hand, he instructed his guards to shut the containment room door. The heavy door closed with a slam, making Momo jump in her seat.

“So that’s a no…”

With the knights posted outside, her and the Earl were the only ones remaining in the tiny interrogation chamber. For the second time that week, Momo had been hauled to the longhouse prison. She was getting to be on a first-name basis with the prison guards.

“Law-yer? Is that some sort of dialect word?” he asked dryly, reclining in his chair.

Right. Momo stiffened. Medieval world, medieval laws, and all that jazz.

“Er - legal representation? How about that?”

“A legal presentation about what?” he squinted.

Momo wanted to slam her head on the table, but the Earl’s beady, expectant eyes were staring straight through her. After yesterday, she had no intentions of getting on his bad side - or, reflecting on current circumstances - badder side.

She was not keen on ending up another pile of exploded goo.

“In my, um, previous land, a lawyer was a person who would typically defend another person who has been wrongfully imprisoned,” Momo spelled out quietly, “like right now.”

The Earl ignored her, instead zoning in on the first part, “your land. You mean the necromancer’s den you belong to?”

She tried to manage her most apathetic expression, and even then she still managed to look upset and constipated, “I told you, I’m not a necromancer.”

“Ah, please forgive me, a necromage,” he sneered.

Momo deflated.

“How would you know that?” she whispered.

“I had my suspicions. I am able to sense the presence of Death Magic on others. It’s a skill of my class, [Holy Mage]. It’s also how I concocted my original list of suspicious citizens. And when you came in, it was simply wafting off of you,” he pinched his nose with his fingers.

Momo frowned. She hadn’t heard of that class before - but it sounded powerful. She recalled Valerica teaching her about the [Holy Knight] expert class. Maybe this was the mage’s equivalent?

“And then I saw you receive your class scroll. It was covered in snakes and koi fish, a dead giveaway,” he laughed, and Momo frowned at the pun, “what was even more curious was your class title, however. Necromage Initiate. That is unusual. So tell me, where did you come to earn such a title?”

Momo nervously shifted her feet. The last thing she wanted was to give away Valerica’s location. To everyone else who ventured through the forest, the Dawn looked like an abandoned fort, unlived in for centuries.

Momo grimaced. The living conditions also mirrored this illusion.

Still, Valerica was her fearless leader, and she would expect Momo to weather such a storm of accusations. She needed to get out of here, but she also couldn’t give too much away.

She considered her options - the two most relevant skills in her grimoire would be [Con Artist] and, yuck… [Pitied].

That was a last resort.

She coughed loudly, feigning like something was stuck in her throat.

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“[Con Artist],” she whispered as quietly as she could manage.

He glared at her, “what was that?”

“Nothing,” she squealed as her brain came alive with new information. It was as if someone had imported a thought into her head with a USB stick. A memory flashed in front of her subconscious, that of the Earl sending his resident thief into the blob, only to grin as he got slobbered up by it.

It dawned on her: he didn’t care about the life of his men, nor the village of Bruda. He cared singularly about alleviating his own terminal boredom.

“You’re going to release me,” Momo said in realization.

He sneered, showing off a previously concealed array of rotting teeth.

“What a funny little thing to say. And why would I do that?”

“Because putting the necromancer in jail is dull,” she said, “letting her go is much more interesting. It opens up a whole new realm of eventual chaotic possibilities.”

Momo shivered. [Con Artist] made her brain feel possessed. As if she had a brief one-way window into someone’s thoughts and emotions.

Still - it worked. His smile fell.

“You are not completely incorrect. This role, Earl,” he spat, “it bores me. The King wastes me here hunting small-time necros. Do you think that’s the first zombie glomboid I’ve slayed this year? Hardly. Let me show you something.”

He twirled his fingers through the air, summoning a halo of light. As he dragged his hand upwards, the light began to deform and stretch, forming terrain-like shapes: tiny golden houses, a slope of mountain, a shimmering waterfall. As it solidified, Momo realized it was a flickering map of the region, with Kalendale at the bottom, and Bruda at the top.

With a snap of his fingers, dark blots of ink appeared on the map. A large blob in Bruda, a smaller blob in Kalendale, and an overwhelmingly large pool of ink in the woods near the Dawn. Momo swallowed.

“Bruda is a boring town, and monitoring intermediate necromancers is boring work,” he pushed his finger into the black splotch in Bruda, “they are so… predictable. I took you for one of them. But that tricky little class title - Necromage Initiate.”

He took Momo’s hand, posing her finger to the ink splotch in the woods.

“I sense a great mass of Death Magic in these woods. I thought it might be from a wandering Nether Beast - but now I have other ideas. There is an expert-level necromancer in these woods. Maybe even several.”

His grin widened, his pearly yellow teeth shining.

“You’re right - keeping you here would be tedious. Using you as a tool to eviscerate your own brethren? Very amusing,” he laughed maniacally, his head thrown back, “they’ll never expect the likes of a lowly initiate to turn on them, now will they?”

Momo’s skin crawled, but the terror was overshadowed by annoyance. Did everyone in this universe think the only thing she was good for was being incapable and unassuming?

She supposed it was true, fine, but they didn’t have to bring it up so much.

He rose from his chair, cringing with pain as he stood.

“Your mission is simple,” he took a vial of black liquid out of his cloak pockets and handed it to Momo, “simply add a teaspoon of this to their dinner, and then be on your merry way. It will quickly become a real corpse feast.”

Imagining Valerica keeled over a supper of dead-rat stew, Momo could feel tears pricking her eyes. Gods, no - not now.

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