Book of The Dead

Ravens screeching awoke Tyron with a start, the bird’s harsh call grating in his ears as he blinked the grime from his eyes and tried to sit up. Muscles stiff from cold and lying on the hard ground groaned in protest and the young man slumped back down before he flopped like a fish, trying to get the blood flowing through his limbs again. The rain had been a near constant companion but thankfully he’d managed to find a relatively dry patch within a copse of trees to unroll his bedding.

When he felt up to the task, the Necromancer pushed himself off the ground, biting back a grunt of pain as he did so. A quick stretch, then he began to pack up his small camp. Sleep had been hard to come by since his flight from the mausoleum five days ago and he was in half a fugue state as he went through the motions of repacking his bedroll and rummaging in his pack for meat and water.

It’d be so nice to have the skeletons handle the menial tasks, he reflected to himself, but his reserves of magick wouldn’t hold against such profligate waste. Every ounce of power he could scrounge together would be needed to continue the march, with luck they might even reach the woods today.

They. He laughed grimly to himself and shook his head.

There was no ’they’. His minions were just that, almost mindless servants to his will. That they had been formed from the remains of people meant nothing in the long run. He was alone in this and he would be for a long, long time. Once again the temptation to reach out to the Abyss rose within him and once again he quashed it. He was not about to perform a spell and communicate with a completely unknown power just because he was lonely. Even more seductive was the part of him that wondered if the Abyss might offer him a shortcut to power, a way to hasten his eventual triumph and return to civilisation.

That part of him he throttled even more ruthlessly. Five days living rough was not enough to drive him to desperate measures and dangerous deals. His resolve was not that weak.

Even so, he was struggling. The long days of marching, the constant anxiety and fear of capture, the rough nights and little sleep were all wearing down his nerves slowly but surely. There was nothing for it but to keep going though, he’d known this would happen the moment he’d decided to run. He rinsed his mouth and spat with the dregs from his waterskin before he shouldered his pack and set about removing the traces of his camp site. He was far from an expert in such matters, but he did what he could. Job done, he issued a mental command to his minions and set off once more.

Travelling cross country had slowed his pace significantly, and worn him down. His legs ached, his feet hurt abominably and he was fairly sure he’d slept on a rock at some point since he’d gained a persistent ache in his hip. Tyron had slept rough and travelled hard before, in short bursts out with parents, but he had to admit that he’d let his physical condition slip to a low level and now he was suffering for it.

As the hours ticked by, he and his two robed minions continued to travel through the poorly cultivated lands to the northwest of Foxbridge. The river was far behind him now and from his hazy memory of maps he’d seen in the library there was little to be found between his current location and Allthorn Forest that marked the edge of the western province.

As he travelled, Tyron kept constant watch behind him for marshals. They were sure to be out there looking, though how thorough they would be he wasn’t sure. He’d never really checked to see what happened when someone with an illegal class fled civilisation. It would go onto his records, obviously, and he’d never be able to gain employment in any major institution without providing a verified copy of his status, which would get him immediately arrested the moment he did so.

He also spared an eye forward as much as he could. He was acutely aware that he was walking toward contested land and the threat of encountering stray rift-kin rose with every step. Farming communities this far out were under constant threat from critters and were often quite martial, tilling their fields with a bow slung across their back or a sword on their hip.

Through it all, his skeletons continue to march. Unspeaking, unflagging they followed his mental commands and followed in his wake, their robes rippling in the breeze. The drain on Tyron’s reserves of magical energy was constant. These were not natural creatures, after all, they were constructs, formed from bones and powered by his own magick. At the end of the day he was as tired as if he’d marched the distance three times instead of one. His own stamina was gone and his magick was all but empty.

When it came time to make camp again, he slumped down, his back against a tree trunk and just breathed for a few long minutes. His muscles ached, his head hurt, and he felt hollowed out inside, as if someone had scraped away at his soul until there was almost nothing left.

He was tired.

Almost mechanically he started setting up his camp. No fire since it might give him away, he flattened out a section of ground and spread out his bedroll while he could still see, he placed his back in a dry spot and pulled out some more cured meat which he chewed without really tasting. With that done, he washed it down with the stale water he had left before he kicked off his boots, hung his cloak and rolled into blankets, making sure to order the skeletons to stand somewhere dry.

Despite his exhaustion, sleep didn’t come easily. His mind churned through the events of the last week over and over again. Why had this happened to him? What would his parents say? They must have arrived home by now. How much longer would he have to live this way?

I would kill for one of Aunt Meg’s meals.

Then he could only laugh bitterly at himself. Six days into his ’adventure’ and already he yearned for home. Had all his bluster and determination crumbled so easily?

When he finally slept, his eyes were wet with tears that dripped slowly from his eyes.

The next day he awoke sore and stiff once more as he pushed himself out of bed and moved through the motions of packing his camp, pulling on his pack and once again setting out on the march. On this day something changed. It was midday, the sun hanging high overhead when he almost tripped over his first rift-kin. The land was less cleared now, he came across fewer farms, skirted around fewer homesteads and the trees were getting thicker, older the further he travelled.

As he stubbornly placed one foot in front of the other he rounded a tree and there it was, ravenously tearing into a hare it had caught. He should have heard it easily as he approached, but his fatigue was greater than he suspected. It wasn’t large, thank goodness, just a small one. Despite his exhaustion, he reacted quickly once he realised what he saw.

The rift-kin was small, no bigger than a large cat, a savage looking thing of spikes with a tiny mouth full of needle sharp teeth.

His first instinct was to pull his sword, something he did with fumbling hands. He almost swiped down at it, slashing at its spiked hide with his rudimentary skills, only to realise at the last second that if he were the one to destroy the creature, he’d get nothing for it.

His was the way of the Necromancer, it wasn’t for him to do the fighting.

With a mental command, he ushered his minions forward, the two skeletons shambling forward with their blades raised. The rift-kin saw them now, raising its head from its meal to his and snarled, it’s face covered in blood. The creature scuttled forward to slice at his minions and Tyron frowned, trying to direct the two of them at once. It was difficult to coordinate them, his thoughts flicking from one servant to the next as he tried to direct them and he kept getting confused. After an awkward dance that lasted far too long in his mind but was likely less than a minute, one of the skeletons was able to skewer the beast with a thrust .

Creatures from the rifts were hard to kill and the little thing kicked and snarled for some time on the end of the blade before finally breathing its last. Only when it went limp did Tyron relax and order his minions to retreat so he could step forward to inspect it. He’d been lucky to find such a small one. Likely this rift-kin had been part of a larger swarm that had broken through and scattered into the woods and surrounding area. It wasn’t uncommon for such things to happen and if the infestation became too bad then Slayers would be dispatched from the capital to clean up the mess. His parents had been dispatched to the Slayer Keep in Allthorn Forest twice that he could remember, to help relieve the pressure and close the rifts when things got too dangerous.

High-level Slayers like his parents were generally not used on the frontlines like that, for reasons that he didn’t really understand. Magnin and Beory Steelarm were somewhat unusual in that they wanted to be out fighting and got restless if they stayed in one place for too long. Which meant they travelled from rift to rift even if they weren’t called for.

As he gazed down on the pitiful creature Tyron sighed and then sat. After a little rummaging he pulled out the bestiary he had taken from the house and began thumbing through the pages. He didn’t really have the time to spare, but his mother had always warned him to know what it was that he was fighting.

”The rifts are dangerous, Tyron,” she’d warned him, her eyes serious as she’d looked down at him. ”Information is a weapon. If you know what you’ll be dealing with in advance, then half the battle is already won. And sometimes you might come up against a rift that goes against your strengths. There’s no shame in backing down from that. Only a fool throws their life away for pride.”

So he kept thumbing through the pages as he peered at the corpse and then back again as he tried to identify the beast. With some surprise he actually succeeded. There were thousands of different types of rift-kin and hundreds of different rifts, so there was no guarantee that the one he’d fought would be in the pages of this volume, but once again he’d been lucky.

”A gem biter,” he read to himself as he stared at the beautifully illustrated creature on the page. ”From the Nagrythyn rift.”

As he’d suspected it was a swarming creature that could come in groups numbering over a hundred. A pack feeder that could grow to be almost waist high on a man if given enough time and sustenance. He flicked a few more pages and read up on the general information of Nagrythyn. Generally unintelligent beasts with little magical affinity, the creatures who came through these rifts tended to operate in large numbers and have thick hides. If the biter he’d come across had a little more time to grow then the swords he had may not have been able to penetrate…

With a sigh he closed the book and carefully stowed it in the pack before he strapped it onto his back and stood with a groan. It was hard to say just how far he’d come, but he had to think he was still some distance from Allthorn Forest given the pace of his travel. If he was running into rift-kin out here, that meant there was likely to have been a breakthrough over the last few days, which didn’t bode well. On the other hand, it could be a blessing in disguise, since the marshals were unlikely to chase him into territory known to be covered in beasts from another dimension.

It didn’t change much, he had to keep pressing forward whilst being more careful not to stumble over the things. With luck, he’d find a few more weak ones and pick them off, gathering some experience in the meantime. If he managed to snag a few levels before he arrived, that would be for the best. At level four, he’d likely be able to choose another spell and at level five he’d get his first class feat, which could be a huge boon to his progress.

Filled with a renewed spirit, Tyron set forth once more. Though he scanned his environment more carefully as he went, he spared a glance for the fallen creature his minion had destroyed.

The first rift-kin to fall to him, but far from the last!

It was unfortunate that he couldn’t raise it as a minion. Not that it would be overly powerful, but likely it would need less of his magick to fuel. After studying the spell he had been granted upon his receiving his class, Raise Dead, Tyron had quickly come to realise that it would only work on human remains. Why that was the case, he didn’t know, but he was certain of it. Attempting to raise this beast would be a waste of time, energy and magick.

He found one more gem biter that day before it grew too dark to continue, which he quickly dispatched with his skeletons. He was sorely tempted to perform the status ritual to see if he’d levelled up, but he doubted that killing two of the tiny creatures would be nearly sufficient and didn’t want to waste paper, or blood. So he resisted and set camp. He felt grim as he inspected the remaining food in his pack. A mere handful of smoked meat was all that remained of what he’d taken with him. If he didn’t get more soon, he’d have to tighten his belt all the way to the forest.

He could go without eating for a few days, but would rather he didn’t have to if he could help it. After a little thought, he decided he’d hunt around for a farmstead the next day, see if they were willing to trade. Word of his flight from Foxbridge likely hadn’t made it out this far yet, not to these isolated holdings.

He ordered his skeletons to keep watch over him as he slept, hoping that they’d be proficient enough to keep him alive through the night if a rift-kin were to appear. There was still a great deal he didn’t know about his minions. How well did they see in the dark? How capable were they of interpreting orders? Poorly and not much he suspected, but testing their limits would have to come another time, he simply didn’t have the energy or time right now.

When he rose the following day it was to find that clouds above had finally broken, if only a little, and the near constant rain that had accompanied his trek had abated somewhat. A good omen if ever he saw one. He ate the last of his food and set off, rather than heading straight toward the woods this time, he zigzagged left and right, using the sun to keep his bearings as he’d been taught. It was close to midday when he saw a what appeared to be a fence in the distance and as he approached he could tell he’d been right. Sectioned paddocks of cultivated land surrounded by high and thick fences to keep the smaller rift-kin at bay formed a neat pattern around a central farmhouse that he was able to spot by climbing a tree outside the property. Smoke rose from the chimney that poked through the roof which gave him heart. Someone was home at least.

It was strange to think that he’d be looking forward to talking to someone, given how aloof he’d been his whole life. A few days of isolation in the wilderness with nothing but skeletons for company was enough to make him feel wistful about human contact. Despite this inclination, he wasn’t foolish enough to abandon his caution. As he circled wide around the farmstead, he took care to hide his pack and bury his gold, leaving the two skeletons standing over his belongings as he took only a modest amount of silver with him. There was almost no chance an isolated place like this would have received word of his flight yet, but out here with no-one watching, it didn’t hurt to be safe.

This close to the woods and the rifts that were found within, it wasn’t easy to carve out a life farming. The constant threat of attack meant the land was cheap for those hardy folk who were willing to try and make a life out here. As Tyron drew closer he felt like he was approaching a small fort rather than a farm, the solid high fences and gate, complete with two watchtowers were intimidating enough. As he walked toward the thick wooden doors that marked the boundary of the property he quickly became aware of the archers on either side of the path keeping their weapons loosely drawn on him. Nervous and exposed, he put his hands up to show he was no threat.

”That’s about close enough. What’s your business, stranger?” a man called from the right tower.

”Trade,” Tyron replied. ”I’m a traveller in need of supplies. Some bread and cheese, a chance to refill my waterskin. I have a few silver I can pay with.”

He felt awkward, standing there as the two armed farmers looked down at him with hard eyes.

”Wait there,” the man eventually said before he jerked his head at the other archer.

A second later the other man was gone, likely to the building, hopefully to gather the supplies he’d asked for. After five minutes of nervous sweating the gate swung open and Tyron was faced with an old woman who appeared to be more leather than human flanked by two grim looking farmhands, both armed with hatchets and bows. He negotiated poorly and paid far more than he ought for what he received, but given the circumstances and the cold look in the eyes of his suppliers, he was happy enough to get away with anything at all.

Business concluded, he smiled politely as he handed over his silver before he turned and walked decisively away, unknowing that he was watched. He didn’t know why he decided not to go straight back to his skeletons and belongings, instead opting to go directly north, stopping only to nibble on the stale bread and hard cheese he’d managed to acquire. After an hour, they caught up with him.