Book of The Dead

Even walking in a straight line was a significant challenge inside the Broken Lands, let alone coordinating an army of thousands of undead. Thankfully, the simple skeletons were largely unperturbed by the disjointed laws of reality in this place. They weren’t ‘smart’ enough to perceive the world in a sophisticated way, they simply acted based on their relatively simple inputs, which weren’t affected much at all.

It was the wights and demi-lich’s that suffered the worst out of the undead, although none struggled as much as Tyron himself. He thought that he’d adapted well to the vagaries of the rifts, but he’d been deluded. In truth, Tyron hadn’t spent time at the strongest rifts inside the Western Province, let alone the Empire. To walk into this rift, as large and untamed as it was, thinking he’d seen it all before, was naive, he could see that.

Despite the struggle, despite feeling as though his hands were underwater and his words rolled out on top of each other, time speeding up and slowing down seemingly at random, he managed to hold on and push through. After all, what else was there to do?

Making ground was difficult, not just due to the kin, but the difficulty of the land made it hard to advance with any sort of confidence. Progress was slow, but steady, and the hours whiled away in relentless combat against the large, lizard-like monsters that poured out of the rift. Some were as large as wagons, muscular and huge, on all fours, or two legs, with vicious teeth as long as scythe-blades, or clawed arms that raked out in huge arcs, trying to cut down his skeletons like stalks of wheat. Among them were almost humanoid-looking creatures, seven, eight feet tall, with strong tails and angular heads. Powerful and quick, they ran in great loping strides before hurling themselves into the ranks of skeletons with wild abandon.

Perhaps they were what remained of the people who lived in that world, twisted into a mockery of their former selves. Had they too used the power of the Unseen to try and save their realm? Pushed their abilities to their limits, raised their levels and Classes to fight back, hoping it would be enough?

Was it even possible to succeed fighting against magick with a weapon that needed magick to function?

Tyron knew the Unseen, knew more about it than most people could claim to. It was inextricably linked to the arcane energy of the rifts, carried on it like a fish in a magickal stream. If the Unseen grew stronger, that meant the magick did too, which meant the war to save the realm was being lost.

But he wasn’t going to fail the same way these lizard people had. If he was going to attempt to save the world, then he was going to succeed.

It was magick, after all. He was good with magick.

“Holy fucking shit, this is intense,” Dove exclaimed from beside Tyron’s platform. “I haven’t felt power like this since my last visit to a five star brothel.”He looked up at the Necromancer, idly swinging his snake skeleton.

“The power comes from the hips,” he drawled.

“I get it.”

“Most people don’t think about maximising the strength of the lower body,” the skeletal construct continued. “Proper stance, a hint of rotation, makes all the difference.”

“Do you really think you can shock me with this, Dove? That you’re going to get some sort of reaction?”

The skeleton threw his hands up.

“Oh, you’re so worldly now? You bed one lady and you think you’re some legendary lay?”

“My experience was… atypical,” Tyron said, eyes still scanning the Broken Lands.

“The fuck does that even mean?” Dove exclaimed.

“It means children such as yourself should listen when the grown ups are talking,” Filetta drawled as she swayed into the circle of guarding skeletons.

“Children?” Dove squawked. “I was leching before you were even born, young lady!”

“Quality, not quantity, old man,” she countered.

“Both of you shut up,” Tyron snapped. “I’m trying to focus.”

“You were bragging about your magnificent snake a moment ago,” Dove muttered.

“I did not mention my–never mind. I think this is close enough.”

He concentrated, issuing orders to his undead. Ghosts drifted through the air, scouting ahead as ranks of skeletons formed, spears out, shields up. To tackle kin the size of those emerging from this rift, they’d needed to be light on their bony feet and quick to adjust formation, not something they were good at without help.

Wights spread evenly across the lines would help control the minions and make sure they weren’t uselessly crushed, preserving as much of the horde as possible, while his archers and mages softened the targets before they could fall upon the lines. A simple and direct strategy, but an effective one.

Concentrating, Tyron raised his hands and poured his power into a spell, drawing and shaping the magick to his will. The world faded away as he let himself focus completely on the flow of power, on the words he spoke and the changes they wrought. After ten seconds, he snapped his hands out and felt the temperature plummet. The area before him became bone-bitingly cold as his curse sucked away the heat, leaving his skeletons unaffected.

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It was an effective curse against the monsters from this rift and would help tip the balance further in the direction of his undead. Enough that he could focus on other things for a few minutes.

Once again concentrating on the magick within him, he flicked out several gestures, then levelled his palm. A globe the size of a human skull appeared, hovering over his skin. With a thought, he sent it upwards, rising past the floating rocks and spinning clouds of dust and flickering magick. When it was a hundred metres overhead, it pulsed, exploding with light, once, twice, three times, then faded. After a few moments, it pulsed again, and would repeat that process for ten minutes, unless his calculations were off.

In the distance, he could hear monsters roar and screech as they noticed the light, pure rage and anger driving them to kill anything that wasn’t kin. It was idiotic to draw attention to yourself in the Broken Lands, every Slayer knew that. Every Slayer that didn’t have an army of undead to protect them, and he needed to signal the others.

Job done, he turned back to Dove and Filetta, still bickering with each other by the side of his construct. He lowered himself down to ground level and stepped off, taking a moment to regain his sense of balance. This was one hell of a rift.

“Are you going to keep making jokes about your dick, or are you going to tell me why you’re here?” he asked the Summoner.

Dove stilled for a moment, then gathered himself. Before he could launch into another pile of nonsense, Tyron reached out and poked his skull, right between the eye-sockets.

“Wh–hey!” Dove protested.

“I’m not interested in your bullshit, Dove. You said you needed to be here, and after what you hinted at before, I’m not exactly happy to have you around incredibly dangerous, magickally unstable areas when I have no idea what your motivations are. If you don’t come clean, I’ll rip out your soul and stick it in my socks.”

“Are you sure? I might have a thing for feet.”

Tyron extended his hand, palm out, towards the construct that housed Dove’s soul, and the skeleton leapt away.

“Alright! Look, I was asked to be here.”

“By who?”

Dove held up his hands in an exaggerated shrug.

“You can’t say?”

His hands didn’t move.

“Someone you have a contract with?”

Again, his hands remained still.

“And you can’t tell me what they want.”

Still, he remained frozen.

“Dove, can you even move?”

“Nope. Contract gets a touch… restrictive, when I start dancing on the edges like this.”

Great. Whoever he’d signed this deal with, they had a powerful command of contract magick. Very powerful. Whatever such an individual wanted, an individual Dove had presumably come into contact with inside the Realm of Death, Tyron didn’t particularly feel like they should get it.

Another layer of complexity to add on top of everything else he had to deal with.

“You can stay in your bones, for now,” he said. “How long until you unfreeze?”

“That’s going to be a learning moment for both of us.”

“Fine. Filetta, help out in the lines. It’s going to be tough here for the next while.”

“You don’t have to talk to me,” the wight said, tapping on the side of her helmet with one bony finger.

“It seemed polite.”

She shook her head before turning and walking to the front lines, drawing her twin bone-forged blades as she went. Still thinking about Dove’s problem, Tyron turned his attention back to the Broken Lands.

He re-cast Death Blades and the Shivering Curse, making sure to keep the horde at peak fighting performance for as long as possible. He seriously considered enacting the Imperator ritual, but decided against it. It was a powerful boost to his army, but immobilised him while he maintained the spell. It also drained a huge amount of magick, which he’d rather reserve for the assault on the rift itself.

For the next few hours, he kept watch, maintaining his spells but leaving the battle to the wights. Eventually, over the roaring beasts and crackling of magick, he heard someone call out.

“Ho, the undead horde!”

Tyron turned his head, ears pricking, He knew that voice.

“Ho, the out-of-work innkeeper!”

“Hey!” Worthy bellowed. “I’m between Inns!”

The Hammerman ran through the Broken Lands along with a handful of other gold ranked Slayers. Spattered with gore and dirt, Worthy still sported a wide grin as he greeted his nephew with a solid clap on the shoulder.

“How are you, boy?” he laughed. “Enjoying the rift?”

“Not especially,” Tyron grimaced. “Have you ever seen anything like this, Uncle?”

He gestured to the reality-warping field around them, and Worthy nodded, losing a little of his cheer.

“It’s the worst I’ve ever seen,” he said, “which isn’t really a surprise. We think there’s a dozen or more rifts just like this one in what used to be Granin. Imagine that.”

“We can do something about it,” Tyron told him. “We can shrink the rifts.”

“If you can do that, you’ll be the first in ten thousand years.”

“Someone has to be first,” Tyron smiled, just a little. “Are the Slayers in position? I’d rather not be in here any longer than I need to be.”

“Aye, we’re ready to go when you are.”

There were three other Slayers with his Uncle that Tyron didn’t recognise. Scarred veterans all, they looked to be roughly the same age as Worthy.

“Is this your team?” Tyron asked.

His Uncle turned and gestured for the others to step forward.

“Not really a team as such. We haven’t started formally organising like that yet, but aye. I worked with this lot a few times when I was active. They went on to become gold and get locked in the birdcage. Morons.”

The three Slayers rolled their eyes as Worthy laughed.

“This is Lecia, Byron and Gawn.”

Each extended their hands to Tyron, who gladly shook them and gave them a friendly nod. Anyone his Uncle was happy to work with was a Slayer deserving of respect.

“Nice to meet you all,” he said. “I hope my Uncle hasn’t gotten you into too much danger.

“Got them out of it, more like,” Worthy grunted. “Are you going to put out that lamp in the sky yet?”

“Ah, right.”

With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the magick, and the light overhead faded.

“No point waiting,” he said. “How long will it take you to get back to the Slayers?”

“Half hour,” Worthy stated.

“I’ll wait that long, then push to the rift. Be careful, Uncle. Things are going to get dangerous in there.”

“I was a Slayer long before you were born,” Worthy laughed. “You don’t get to warn me about danger.”