The Hallowed Tomb

Author: WolfSpatial

Co-Author: Lucifer

[What you do for yourself dies with you; what you do for your kin remains and makes you immortal in their memories.]

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Momonga had gone, leaving me alone in the round table room of our large guild home. The Tomb of Nazarick was once a dungeon; many players came from all over the nine realms to challenge the underground hellscape. Most died before the seventh floor, but not my guild.

We managed to conquer the Tomb with only thirty-five of our forty-one members. Momonga had been instrumental in that advent due to his unique class and quick thinking.

Despite resigning as Guild Leader almost seven years ago, the man was still dedicated to Ainz Ooal Gown in his own right. The only reason for his resignation was that he didn't have enough time to devote to the game anymore; he simply worked too much to be able to spend long periods with his friends.

So, he appointed me as Guild Leader, ignoring the protests from the others. He said he knew I'd be suitable for it and transferred ownership of the Guild Base to me and the rights to the Guild itself.

It made me somewhat sorrowful as I thought back to it, and I could still almost feel the pain in his voice when he said he'd have to cut back on his playtime. I looked around the room and sighed.

The large room seemed to bathe in comfortable silence as I roamed the room with my eyes. The enormous table could have sat forty-one players altogether, but only four slots remained filled by semi-active players. Before today anyway.

The great white table had the symbol of our guild engraved in a dark metal on its center, the bottom of the emblem facing the door that led out from the room. Evenly spaced around the table were forty-one elegantly designed chairs with each player's symbol engraved where their head would rest and on the back of the chair.

Leaning back in my seat, I closed my eyes as the clock struck midnight. There was a slight rumble as my vision turned white, and I expected to be kicked from the server.

As the light cleared, however, I still sat in my seat at the round table. The strange thing was that only my chair remained intact. The other forty chairs were tattered and torn, emblems scratched away or faded. The symbol in the center of the table had begun to peel, and a large crack had split off a section to my right.

Standing from my seat, I looked down at the table in surprise, "Did the devs update instead of shutting down? Are we in an apocalypse game now?"

Reaching out to open my inventory, I found it just as I had left it. All of my items were gone, but I had stored them in the mausoleum before the game was supposed to end.

I hoped the mausoleum was still intact; it should be given that it was only accessible to people not wearing the Ring of Ainz Ooal Gown. However, the corridor that led to the Mausoleum could only be accessed via the Treasury, which didn't have an actual door. The treasury had to be teleported into using the Guild Ring that every Guild Member had.

I still had my Yggdrasil character, which meant I was still inside the game or something attached to the game. But something still felt off; I could feel the coldness of my seat and the hardness of the ground beneath my boots.

My right index finger tapped against the dark wood of my seat's armrest, making me realize that I could feel the vibration of the impact travel through my arm.

"Did I get eesay-kee'd or whatever?" The thought sounded absurd coming out of my mouth, but it made sense when I put everything together. First, I could feel things in more depth than Yggdrasil could ever emulate, as if it was my own body I was in as opposed to an avatar. Second, though I was in my character's body, I didn't seem to have the skills I used to.

In Yggdrasil, the player only needed to click on the UI to use Skills and Magic. Given that I didn't have a UI, it was safe to assume I couldn't use my Skills or Magic anymore.

My only question now was, "What happened to the Tomb?"

The circular walls were cracked, and small chunks were taken out by something sharp hitting them. The concave ceiling looked like it was only being held together by the cobwebs that clung to its surface and stretched like sore limbs. The floor looked slightly better, only dusty and parts of the tile chipped.

The doors connected to a hallway off of the Throne Room were faded, though still in one piece. Standing back up from my chair, I walked over to the decrepit wooden doors and paused.

I took a last look at the room and noticed that something else was missing. Behind the Guild Master's seat was a book in the wall that used to house the most powerful artifact Ainz Ooal Gown possessed. Known as the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown, it was a large golden staff with seven types of gems in the mouths of seven serpents.

Sometimes, one could see the faces of Humans in agony dance and crumble away on its surface. The effect was so surreal that one felt they could almost hear the voices of those doomed souls.

Whoever, or whatever, destroyed and looted the tomb took our staff. That meant they were strong enough to resist its effects, at least long enough to put it into their inventory.

Turning, I opened the door and found an empty hallway with flickering lights. Taking a moment to steel myself, I took a deep breath and began walking.

I had hoped that only the Round Table Room was affected, but as I walked the Ninth floor of the Tomb, I couldn't help but clench my fists in anger.

When I reached the Lemegeton — the large arena-like room that once was lined with protective Golems — I found the crevices along the walls empty and piles of rubble around the room.

The stairs leading up to the Gates of Judgment had long since fallen apart and were broken down a narrow path leading to the Throne Room. The Gates themselves were probably the most intact thing I had come across thus far, though the Gate of The Demon was on the ground of the Throne Room.

Walking up the narrow path, I looked into the Throne Room and felt my wings shake in anger at the half-crumbled Throne of Kings that used to sit proudly upon a raised platform. The forty-two flags — one for each member and the Guild's banner — that used to hang around the room were nowhere to be seen, and the poles they used to adorn were strewn across the sides of the chamber.

Letting out a yell, I punched the Gate of The Angel to my right as hard as possible and watched it creak open. My fist had left a distinct imprint in the stone, displaying just how much strength this new body of mine had.

Looking down at my hand, I was astonished that it didn't hurt. There wasn't even a mark on my black glove.

I took another moment to calm myself, finding I had a shorter temper than usual. As a member of the Yakuza, I had been taught to control my emotions so they couldn't be used against me.

It seemed that this new body didn't have that same training. It was like I was a child again, my anger and pain controlling my actions.

I was angry; there was no mistake in that. I was angry that my Guild had been destroyed, my home broken, and my creations crumbled.

But I wasn't angry enough to punch an innocent door. I tried to be more level-headed than that; to get back what was taken from the Guild, I needed to be more level-headed.

Walking up to the Throne of Kings, I sat down and leaned back. Holding my head up with my right hand, I closed my eyes and spoke to myself, "What do I do? Can I do anything? How do I fix everything?"

After a few seconds of no response, I opened my eyes and slammed my hand down onto the throne's armrest. I was surprised to find a black screen with gilded edges popped into my view.

At the top, the screen read Master Source, along with four tabs under it that read Facilities, Followers, Achievements, Territory. The Facilities tab had a list of fourteen things, thirteen of which I recognized as Floors of the Tomb. The thirteenth, something called 'The Workshop,' was listed under the Treasury. Besides The Workshop and the top option, the list was grayed out.

Furrowing my brow, I tapped the Throne Room and found myself confused as the words shook, but the screen didn't open.

I tapped it again, this time harder, hoping it would open this time. The shaking of the words as the screen remained caused me to shake slightly.

I took a calming breath, allowing myself to settle down before tapping on what was labeled 'Floor 0: The Ground Floor.'

A list of different buildings the guild kept above ground popped into view. We did so, hoping that the treasures contained within would dissuade any would-be robbers from entering too much further into our Guild Home.

For the most part, it worked. It also helped that we had a veritable army of skeletons that roamed the area and attacked anything that wasn't associated with Ainz Ooal Gown.

Besides that, the area was lifeless, with pristinely taken care of pillars encircling the Tomb's entrance. Atop those pillars was a ring of white marble — the same as the rest of the above-ground structures — that started and ended just thirty-seven feet apart. That area gave enough entrance to anyone we welcomed — not that we often did — to bring their entourage comfortably into the Tomb's walls.

Along with the list, I received another screen that gave a top-down view of the Ground Floor. It showed me the buildings crumbled and outlined in red.

I was sure it was just for effect and that the buildings would not have any hue if I went up there. Let alone a red one.

To the right of each building on the list was a small red button that looked set into itself. I clicked the button and waited as it shook without doing anything. To my surprise, another screen appeared that told me I didn't have the necessary resources.

My head cocked back as my brows knitted together, "The Treasury was still… oh… it's locked."

I didn't have a Guild Ring, so I couldn't personally go to the Treasury to gather materials. It was also grayed out on the list, so I doubted I'd be able to, regardless. That's not even considering the toxic air down there, for which I don't have an item or skill to grant immunity.

Closing the prompt, I returned to the Ground Floor's list of broken buildings. Clicking on the first one — not because it was the only option, but because it seemed the easiest to repair — I gazed at the list of materials and frowned.

I needed two thousand five hundred pounds of stone to repair the outer ring. It didn't specify what kind of stone, so I figured any kind would work.

That made me wonder if going and grabbing the stone that used to be a part of the encirclement would count towards the resources or if that was already counted in what was needed.

Something I hadn't noticed until after closing the requirements list was a small green button at the bottom of the screen that read 'Teleport.' Not thinking much of it, I hit the button and found myself standing on the platform in the center of the Tomb's Ground Floor.

The Master Source closed before I could get an edgewise action, leaving me alone outside. Slumping my shoulders, I sighed, "Well, shit…"

The first thing I noticed was the sun beating down around me. Not only did this platform used to look like a church, with marble columns and everything, the Tomb had never seen sunlight before.

Since time immemorial, the Great Tomb of Nazarick has resided in a marshland bog, not the windy, sunny, bullshit plains of Valhalla. And for as far as my vision stretched, all I could see was the plains.

Far beyond them, to my North, was a mountain range that reached far beyond what it should be able to. Surrounding the base of the mountain was a forest with decently-sized trees.

"Master Source, open." Though I called, the Master Source denied me. Not seeing the screen pop up, I gritted my teeth and stopped myself from acting out. Taking more calming breaths, I loosened my jaw and looked at a large piece of rubble to my left.

I was happy to find that it only took me a tiny bit of effort to stick the thing into my inventory, showing that I had a decent amount of strength as it easily weighed upwards of a hundred pounds. I blew my light-ashen gray hair from in front of my face and sighed, looking out over the ruins of my home.

Setting my hands on my hips, I felt my wings shudder in the breeze. Thinking of my hair and wings made me look back to when I first made the character and where I was a few months before the announcement that the game was shutting down.

I closed my eyes and sat down to visualize my character's appearance. Since I used a cosmetic item to keep it looking the same after storing my armor in the Mausoleum, my char- I hadn't changed any from a few months ago.

I was a Nephalem in white holy robes wearing black gloves with golden plates at the joints of my knuckles which matched the golden tips of my black boots. My medium-length, lightly ashen gray hair fell to the side of my head, the voluminous threads seeming to gleam in any light it could find.

Above my head was a fractured halo, the fragments floating in a circle though their glow was unmistakably bright to any who stared into their aura. My snow-white skin was offset by the deep magenta of my irises, looking as if I had been afflicted by Alexandria's Genesis, a myth from a long time past.

Stretching from my back, I had two distinctly colored wings. The wing extending from the right side of my back to the left of my right shoulder blade was pure white, as if made of fresh snow.

My other wing, stretching from just to the right of my left shoulder blade, was as black as night and looked like it belonged to a beautiful raven.