Chapter Eighty-Eight: The Shimmering Scales

In the narrow cave, the sound of bones clicking echoed. The skeleton shuddered, the soul-fire kindling within its skull, and with its right arm braced beneath it, it lifted half its body upright.

Vade sat up and looked at his own ribcage. A light dusting of sand had settled on his bones, fallen from the cave ceiling above. From his experience, a single natural resting cycle would not have left so much dust upon him. It seemed he had indeed lain here for a long while; time on the wasteland must have passed at the same rate as it did when he was active elsewhere.

He had used that mysterious twenty-sided die to pass through the doorway and spent nine days on the northern border of Tania. In the final moments, he entrusted the Radiant Blade to Lukas, and then, as if waking from a dream, his consciousness returned to his original body.

Truly, a considerable time had passed, and he had experienced a harrowing journey. He could only hope that those people from Tania had reached safety; all Vade could do was pray for them.

He gathered his thoughts and looked at his left hand. In his palm he held three clear, pure crystals, surprised that he had managed to bring them back with him.

These were a gift from the wraiths. In that plaza, he had broken through his own limits; the dead had aided him, severing the necromancer's head and piercing his heart. He had released the wraiths who had been tormented and imprisoned by Quasimodo. With the necromancer slain, the wraiths were finally free.

Together with the other released dead, the wraiths drifted away into the distance, returning to nature, relinquishing the power born of fear and pain. As they departed, they expressed their gratitude to Vade; starlight fell into his hands and finally coalesced into these three crystals, each brimming with pure energy.

When Vade first took them, he noticed the crystals were weightless. Skeletons are acutely aware of weight, for they lack sensation and rely on changes in vibration and mass to interpret the world. If a mosquito landed on his back, he might not notice, but if a pebble struck his spine, he would sense it more keenly than the living.

He felt these three crystals were not material in nature; had they been, he would not have been able to bring them back to the wasteland. It was like the iron helm and sword—he had grown fond of that helm after wearing it for nine days, becoming accustomed to its restricted view, and he had hoped to bring it back upon "waking," but alas, he had failed. Without something enclosing his skull, it felt oddly unfamiliar for a time.

Still, here, there was no need to cover his head or body with a helmet. On this desolate, ruined wasteland, there were no living souls to shriek in terror at the sight of a skeleton—at least, Vade had yet to find any.

He set the three crystals aside on the cloth mat. They seemed to be composed of pure soul energy, yet in his conversations with York, the dwarf had never mentioned such crystals. Though they were born from wraithly souls, they contained no grudge or negative energy. He was unsure of their value, but they must be rare; and even if he wished to recreate such a thing, the conditions required would be nearly impossible to reproduce.

All in all, he decided to keep them safe for now.

Besides the crystals, Vade had brought something else back with him. He could sense the presence of those souls—those who had chosen to follow him, who were willing to fight at his side—dwelling within his mind.

They resided in the blank space where he went during his rest, the very spiritual domain where the twenty-sided die existed. Ever since Vade breached his own limits, he found his control over that space clearer; other changes had taken place there as well, for something new had been added as he grew.

He had yet to find time to study it in detail. Having only just risen from his makeshift bed on the ground, it would be overly lazy to lie down again so soon. Besides, after nine days on his back, he needed to check if anything in the cave had changed; he hoped no part had collapsed.

Yet as he awoke, he sensed something of that inner space. He had brought back around fifty souls. Hundreds had perished for him in the stitched-beast’s explosion, their existence snuffed out. The remaining souls, after the death of the necromancer, had chosen to depart, leaving only about fifty, still clinging to unresolved desires, choosing to remain and follow him.

Compared to Mia, those souls were much weaker. Before Vade released them, they were only formless "wraiths." Most of them, under normal circumstances, would never have become such after death. Only the necromancer’s imprisonment, the forced compression of their spirits, and the accumulation of negative energy in that heap of corpses had shaped them into wraiths.

As Vade had read in books, should these spirits drift into the outside world, they would be mere floating flames, easily extinguished. Yet, in his spiritual domain, they seemed able to exist intact. That place had become something like a hall of heroes; the souls slept there, consuming nothing, and when needed, Vade could awaken them.

Perhaps, their use would extend beyond battle. Vade understood his new abilities more deeply. Just as a man is born knowing how to breathe or blink, so too did he feel—though he had yet to try it—that he could revive these souls in another body.

He could "command corpses" like the necromancer, but it was fundamentally different—neither a spell nor an act of control. He sensed that to achieve this, he would need a suitable vessel, but for now, he had none. The cave was woefully barren, allowing no experiments.

For now, he set aside these various matters. Like baking bread, every task must proceed step by step. He wanted to check if his little home was still in order, and whether anything had changed on the wasteland during his slumber.

With such thoughts, Vade brushed the dust from his bones and flexed his body. Mia had also woken from her small bed; the little ghost slipped out from under her tiny blanket and perched on Vade’s shoulder. Drowsily, she clung to his neck. Though the cave was as peaceful as ever, only minutes ago, Mia and Vade had been locked in battle with the necromancer and then confronted the ancient fire demon.

The creation of the ice golem must have taken much out of her, and Vade had seen her consume a fragment of the necromancer’s soul. Whenever Mia ate, she grew sleepy; surely she wanted to rest. Yet after so many days hiding in her sleeping bag, she was eager to be outside before napping again.

Vade patted Mia’s forehead. If the weather outside was calm and free of harsh winds, he would take Mia out to play for a while on the open ground near the cave entrance. After all, he had promised her to play together once they returned, but first, he needed to check their home.

Stooping, Vade managed to stand upright in the cramped cave. The first thing he checked was the glowing moss. He hadn’t been home for nine days, caught in a cascade of events, and had not watered the moss. He hoped it had not withered.

It had not. The moss still glimmered faintly. Back when it grew beside the mage’s remains, it must have endured the arid desert for countless years, so nine days without water had not been enough to defeat it.

But Vade paused in surprise as his gaze landed on another glowing object. It was the scale he had found near the nameless ruins—a bowl-sized, palm-shaped scale he had used to dig soil and as a water dish. Never had he imagined it would one day shine as brightly as a dwarf’s bald head.

Before passing through the door, Vade had left the scale beside the moss, since he always used it to water the plant. It seemed the moss had tinted the scale, and now the scale itself was glowing, its light waxing and waning as if it were breathing.