Spirit Wars Saga: Echo Mage

Chapter 16

"Looks like what?" Rygic worriedly asked. Hearing the words, that's weird, followed by almost looks like, was never a good thing in his opinion.

Ruby's gaze lingered on the dead rat for a few contemplative moments before lifting to meet Rygic's concerned eyes. "Let me look at the others before I answer...," she interjected, not waiting for an answer, she moved to the next rat. A fleeting trace of concern seemed to flicker across her otherwise composed face, a subtle shift not lost on Rygic. With meticulous scrutiny, she inspected several more rats, before extending her gaze into the depths of the murky sewer as if to pierce the darkness. A hush, as dense as the shadows in the damp, echoing sewer, draped over the group. Silence breathed through the air, accentuating the distant trickle of water and the faint scuttling of tiny unseen creatures. The group looked to Ruby, eagerly waiting for her to reveal her suspicions.

Still kneeling over the undead rat, Ruby looked up at the members of her group, each face showing concern. "These rats were already dead when they attacked us," her words cut through the silence.

Each member of the group reacted differently to the gravity of her statement. Quart subconsciously took a step back, silently muttering "Spirits save us." Lita, her senses alert, cautiously advanced a few steps further down the sewer, scanning for signs of more vermin. Dreck did the same, but in the opposite direction, listening for anything beyond the hushed splashing of the party's movements. Meanwhile, Rygic knelt next to Ruby and attentively studied the morbid bodies before them. He noticed their eerie, pallor-white eyes, mottled and diseased skin, patches of missing fur, and wounds oozing with pus.

Rygic's voice trembled with a mix of curiosity and concern, his brows knitted in deep thought. "How is that even possible?" he nervously questioned out loud.

Ruby's usual blank expression fixated on Rygic for a few awkward moments before she spoke. "Some refer to their condition as undeath. High-level death mages can perform spells to bring the dead back to life. But it's different, their forms are different. They normally come back looking as they did before they died, only more ghostly, as if you could almost see through them. However, casting such a spell is seldom done as it's considered taboo. This type of magic is typically reserved for the direst of circumstances such as high-level investigations involving murders or treason. These," she pointed toward an undead rat, "have been risen back into their original bodies."

"Necromancy," added Dreck without looking back, his voice cutting through the uneasy atmosphere. "Kosany spellcasters are well known for using the dead to augment their forces." His hands rested on the hilts of his daggers as he stared into the darkness.

"Great, so we could be dealing with a rogue Death Mage? There's no way the Kosany could have gotten through wards placed around the city. Could they?" questioned Rygic.

"Highly unlikely," answered Lita. "Not only would the runes around the city warn us, but Lord Stephan Dormyre also employs a team of mages sensitive to Kosany magic."

"Due to the stigma already associated with the nature of our magic, we death mages tend to keep tabs on our own. This wasn't a death mage dabbling with powers they shouldn't have been using," disclosed Ruby.

Hearing that the ruler of Rinkon had such mages, as well as Ruby's statement about death mages, Rygic felt some of the tension he was feeling began to ease. "Then, is it possible for an undead rodent to spread their malady to others? And if so, could an infected rat sneak into the city and spread it among the rats down here?" questioned Rygic.

"Yes," mused Ruby in her usual measured tone. "A single undead rat would have a very small presence, so it could be possible to go unnoticed."

"Then it had to be a single undead rat" Quart quickly suggested as if doing so made it emphatically true.