A clear and steady drip was going to drive Ravi mad. Even with the echoing sounds of footsteps in puddles, the drip made it through and rang like a drum in his ear. Maybe following a necromancer into the catacombs of a city was a bad idea, Hakyeon had been eager to point out just how bad of an idea it was. But Ravi had to believe that this was more than just mere chance, or at least every necromancer he ran into he had to pursue. Finding the people he was looking for was going to be hard enough for the races that were abundant, a necromancer was nigh on impossible.

The dizzying caverns of the Torbinas’ sewers intercut with the catacombs leaving Ravi, Hakyeon, and Hyuk all fairly lost. The hazy red light that seemed to pulse from the smoky tendrils of power led them down ever twisting corridors. The necromancer, no name given, had been all but silent aside from an amused chuckle when he realized that they’d actually followed him. Every now and then he would turn back and see if they were still with him, an unreadable smirk tipping the corner of his lips.

Plop, plop.

Ravi winced and ground his teeth slightly. By all rights they should have been far past the distance of hearing the same drip. “You hear that right?” he glanced to his traveling companions and found Hakyeon all but huddled behind Hyuk’s tall frame. He was peering through suspicious eyes at the back of the necromancer’s head while simultaneously keeping one very harried technomancer between them.

“Hear what?” Hakyeon peeked out from behind Hyuk’s shoulder, silver throwing knife in hand. “Are you hearing things? Is it him?” He hissed the word like it was a dirty flavor in his mouth.

“It’s blood.” The deep voice of the necromancer echoed back to them, a soft chuckle following it. All three of them froze as the dark haired man turned to face them, his crossed out eye scanning over them. It was the first he’d said to them since they’d started their trek down into the maze. Stepping closer, the necromancer tipped his head to the side, the straight curtain of black hair covering his right moving to reveal another white black crossed eye. The stories were right, it was unnerving. Sliding his fingers delicately down the sharp blade of his needle point cane, the man laughed as they came to the end, red dripping from his fingers where they’d been pricked. Squeezing them together, Ravi watched as a fat drop of ruby liquid fell to splat against the floor before being absorbed into it, disappearing completely.

“That’s gross!” Hyuk’s nose wrinkled even while he took a few steps back from the spot where the blood had been enveloped by the stone floor. “Why would you even do that?”

Their guide turned his head to gesture at the walls of the sewers/catacombs lined with bones and skulls, almost artfully placed. The Holy Empire took their ancestry seriously, and Ravi knew that each skeleton was carefully categorized in the Hall of Memorials. Giant hand written tomes held the name of every warrior who gave their life in service to the Empire, and every Angel was a servant of the Empire.

“Do you think I’d stay anywhere without a security system?” the Necromancer asked before rolling his eyes at the very idea. “Or did you want thousands of spectral warriors coming to bear against you?” He waited a beat before letting another fat drop of blood sink into the stones followed by the same soft laugh he’d been using. “I didn’t think so.”

Hyuk shot a glance to Ravi and Hakyeon but shrugged and started after the floating body of the automaton and the man controlling it. “Does anyone else feel like this is a bad idea?” he muttered quietly to himself.

“I agree.” Hakyeon bit his lip and made sure to keep at least one body away from the lead. “It feels like a trap. The kind of trap that could easily be closed on us, and no one would ever know. We’d just be more bones to lay on the pile. That’s what they do, you know?”

“They?” The chuckle from the necromancer was starting to get a little unnerving. “And just how many of my kind have you met, caster? The last I’d checked the Starlit Kingdom had wiped out any necromancer they’d found trying to live there.” His tone was light but an unmistakable coat of bitterness soaked into the words.

Hakyeon bristled but didn’t respond right away. Ravi could see the internal struggle between the need to defend his home country and the refusal to speak to the raven haired man. He opened his mouth once before shutting it and glaring at the retreating back. “Well, it’s not as if there isn’t good reason for it. Everyone knows the stories of necromancers terrorizing all the nations.” He glanced to Hyuk and Ravi for confirmation.

“Well, he’s not wrong exactly,” Hyuk shrugged but kept a few steps back, at least out of range of the wicked looking cane. “Historically speaking every record of a necromancer has ended in some sort of massacre and ritual disturbance of the dead.” He sent an apologetic look all around, as if he was sorry for knowing the facts.

“Imagine that,” their guide said dryly, “hunt down and villainize a people enough years and suddenly none of them want to play nice with the others.” Sarcasm dripped off his words like the blood falling to the stone. “If you’re so worried about not making it out of this crypt alive then you can turn right around and make your way out.”

For a moment, Hakyeon glanced back, gauging his chances on making it out of the twisted maze of tunnels safely. “I…” he started but Ravi reached out and took his wrist softly, rubbing gently to offer comfort. “I’m not afraid of you.” Hakyeon retorted stiffly and turned his hand to squeeze Ravi’s once. “But I am ready, for when the trap springs, necromancer.”

“Hongbin.” That crossed out eye narrowed as the man glanced over his shoulder, another plop of blood splattering against the stone. “My name is Hongbin.” Ravi watched, almost entranced, as the necromancer drew a line across his palm with the tip of his cane, blood trickling down to his wrist in a wet line. “And I expect some manners if you’re going to enter my home.” Reaching out, he placed his hand against a wall of bones, resting right on the forehead of a gaping skull. The same sick red fog seemed to spill out of the cracks in the wall, pulsing with light as it wreathed around Hongbin’s legs. Slowly an entrance began to form from the bones, scraping and shifting away. Light began to pour out of the side, blazing and bright making them all wince and squint. So used to the darkness, the bright shine seemed almost too much to handle.

By the time Ravi could make his eyes adjust to the dramatic change they were following Hongbin into the opening. He heard more than saw the bones shift behind them to seal the entrance once more, but nothing could distract from the wide cavern they’d stepped into.

Light, so much light. It seemed to pour in from every direction but that was probably due to the mirrors situated all around the room. A giant crystal chandelier hung from the high ceiling sending it’s unnaturally bright glow to reflect and bounce from mirror to mirror, filling the room completely. Plain and ornate mirrors hung all over the space, on every wall, on every pillar, even on the ceiling. White gossamer fabric hung in delicate drapes against the walls of bone and skulls, and pretty cream colored furniture were arranged perfectly inside the wide open space. It was like he’d taken a grand ballroom and all it’s opulence and turned it into his living space.

It was a testament to how strange and beautiful the room was that Ravi noticed the fully animated skeleton servants as an afterthought. They stood, silent and waiting, to the side of the entrance. It was with a morbid fascination ;that Ravi watched one reach out it’s bony hand to take the stitched together jacket Hongbin had been wearing. As absurd as it seemed to him, he watched as the skeleton delicately handled the coat and set about hanging it up on a rack. Another followed after Hongbin, pouring water into a glass for him from an carved carafe on the large table near the center of the room.

“I’ll need three more.” Hongbin instructed the skeleton which nodded with an eerie sort of creaking before going to fetch a tray and more glasses. Ravi couldn’t help but think that the necromancer seemed so out of place inside the space. A spot of black darkness from his shirt and pants to his hair to his strange eye inside all that light.

Despite all his knowledge, all the studying he’d done to prepare for his journey, Ravi never would have expected something like this. There weren’t many accounts of necromancers from reputable sources. A lot of what was printed in the tomes he scoured were stories told of necromancers past. He’d read stories of communes which were eventually destroyed, and of self appointed kings who were toppled, but nothing like the space Hongbin kept. It was fascinating and a little terrifying, the sense of unknown was slowly becoming more and more familiar to him.

“Well? Are you three just going to stand there?” Hongbin had relocated to a collection of couches and chairs to the side of the room, settling in on a high backed seat in the same cream colored upholstery as the rest of the furniture. His skeletal minion arrived with the soft scraping of bone on bone to set down a platter of water goblets on the small table in the center of the seating arrangement.

Hakyeon seemed wary of going any farther into the room, hand placed against the wall that had sealed them inside and eyes drifting toward the body of their robot attacker, sitting dormant on the ground. “This isn’t right,” he whispered for only Ravi and Hyuk to hear, “I’m not being paranoid; there are good reasons why you don’t go looking for necromancers.” His yellow eyes darted around the room, skimming over each skeleton that stood as a silent sentry. “We’re outnumbered and on his turf. And now we have no exit.”

“Well,” Hyuk started before Ravi could offer a reassuring word, “no exit means no choice now.” He smiled cheerfully but it didn’t quite light up his face the way it had previously and Ravi got the feeling that he was offering the positivity to help calm the knight’s nerves. “Let’s face it head on, okay? If nothing else, this is definitely something you can take back to the court isn’t it? Not many other knights will be able to say they sat down for a chat with a necromancer right?” The offered encouragement was either a sign that Hyuk felt equally as threatened in the space or that Ravi’s prayers of the two of them getting along were finally starting to be answered. He sincerely hoped for the latter.

Slightly mollified, Hakyeon gave one swift nod before screwing up all his courage to make the trek across the room to the couches. It was much shorter than it appeared, but the mirrors tended to give the illusion of size and space. Stiffly, he sat on one of the offered seats, eyes trained on the skeleton stationed behind Hongbin’s seat. He kept his throwing knife in hand, almost like a safety item, the pad of his thumb rubbing continually over the handle.

Purposefully Hongbin took a deep sip from his goblet before settling further into his chair, seemingly completely at ease, that same peculiar smirk on his lips. “It’s not poisoned, you know?” He laughed softly and sipped again as if to prove his point. Ravi had to wonder if he didn’t say it just to put the idea in their heads. It felt like they were all pieces to a game Hongbin was playing but none of them knew the rules.

“Where did you get all of this?” Hyuk piped in before Ravi could fully get an assessment of the situation. Trust the fearless technomancer to start off on any foot available. “It’s, well I hope you don’t mind my saying, but it’s pretty nice for a sewer.”

“The perks of living like a shadow in the Holy City I guess, the most densely populated space in the Holy Empire means there are a lot of people for others to point the finger at.” All but an admission that the goods were stolen.

“And the mirrors? I mean… you like looking at yourself that much?” Ravi winced at the blunt force with which Hyuk waded into conversation. But he wasn’t exactly wrong, there were a lot of mirrors, much more than was aesthetically pleasing and there was a certain cut to the necromancer’s jaw, the slope of his nose, the lobe of his ear that someone might find appealing. Not that the someone was Ravi, of course not, just in an… objective sort of view, if one looked past the creepy eyes and penchant for spilling his own blood then Hongbin would probably fall into the category of attractive; sub heading: very.

It might have been his imagination but Ravi was almost sure he saw dark look pass over the other man’s face before he gave a nonchalant shrug. “It’s good for the lighting.” He held up his goblet and without missing a beat the skeleton behind him took the cup away. “Not easy to light up a cavern like this, is it?”

A vague answer at best, but Ravi wasn’t expecting more. “Do you think you could answer a few questions for me… please?” It never hurt to be polite but even the time worn chronomancer felt himself pull back ever so slightly when that strange eye peered into him. “It is why we came after all.”

“I thought your questions were for that.” Hongbin gestured to the automaton crumpled on the floor. “What do you need me for?”

“This idiot thinks he’s from the future.” Hyuk snorted and kicked back in his seat. “He wants to rope you into some save the world plan, same as us I imagine.”

“Why would I want to do something like that?” Disdain all but dripped from his voice.

Ravi winced and muttered under his breath about being too casual before making himself look up to meet the unwavering gaze of the necromancer. “We didn’t have the chance to start out right. I’m Ravi. It’s nice to meet you, Hongbin.” He bowed once and then shot a glance at the two with him.

“Hyuk, Technomancer.” The younger boy bobbed his head slightly and offered a cheesy grin, “there’s no way my friend is going to believe I met a real Necromancer.”

“How many fake ones have you met?” Hongbin smirked, just the corner of his mouth turning up at the side and it did little to lessen the creepy aura surrounding him but it didn’t deter Hyuk from laughing heartily.

All eyes turned to Hakyeon who still sat as far away as he could manage, body stiff. “We don’t have time for this. While we sit around down here the keys to my kingdom are being compromised!” Ravi watched him rub the handle of his throwing knife again and could feel how uncomfortable the man was.

“This is Sir Hakyeon, of the Starlit Kingdom. We came here chasing an angel with access codes to the defenses of Arxist. You can imagine the havoc it might cause to fall into angelic high command.” Ravi explained quietly, doubting sincerely that their host cared at all.

Hongbin didn’t bother to comment right away, glancing between all three of them before sighing, broad shoulders slumping in his seat. “And where did the dead man come into play?”

“That we don’t know,” Ravi worried his lip before taking a sip from the offered cup. To his relief, it wasn’t poison but in fact some of the cleanest, coolest water he’d tasted. But that could have been the exhaustion of the day speaking. “He found us in Stenyae and attacked. We thought we lost him but I guess we were wrong. However, as to what he wants with us? I have no idea. Hence, the questions that need asking.”

“About that,” Hakyeon cut in, standing as if to emphasize his point, “explain to me how bringing him down to an enclosed space with us, his targets, is going to be a smart idea when he wakes back up.”

“Man’s got a point,” pushing up from his seat, Hyuk wandered closer to one of the shining mirrors. “Getting him shut down was hard enough, I imagine the firewalls in his software are already safe guarding against future attempts. That’s what happened last time.”

Hongbin gave a disinterested look and brushed his hair aside a moment before peering at the cyborg. “There’s something… strange about him, besides being dead. Figuring it out is not a chance I’d want to pass up.”

“I could help, you know? I was pretty instrumental in bringing him down this time time.” A bright and somewhat smug smile spread across the young blonde. “I know a thing or two about cybernetics too.” He waggled his eyebrows for good measure while letting his fingers briefly glow yellow.

“Then that settles it!” Hakyeon stood up and clapped his hands but seemed less in a hurry to admire himself in a mirror. “You two stay here with that,” he shrugged toward the automaton, “and we,” Ravi felt himself be gripped tight around the waist suddenly, “will go look for Lieutenant Jung.”

For the briefest moment it seemed like Hyuk would argue but then he shrugged once and nodded, “Okay, but no stupid ideas,” glancing between them he snickered, “that might be asking too much, only semi stupid ideas.” Pulling out the holodisk he kept, he transferred the hologram of their target from his visor’s HUD to the portable display. “Take this with you and have fun.”