Book of The Dead

A swift march across the dunes proved too difficult for Tyron to maintain, so he eventually relented and allowed his minions to carry him. Magick, he could easily supply, balance, not so much.

Dove shouted and harangued him the whole way, though Tyron largely tuned him out. Instead, he let his mind drift, trying to soak in whatever he could of his new magick. The hints and images he was able to tease out were so tantalising that they captured his imagination instantly, sucking in his attention as he began to slowly put the puzzle together. It would take time, a lot of time, before he was able to cast it with confidence. This spell was complex, with many intricate, interlocking parts and a titanic power requirement. The amount of precision and energy required to make it function was staggering, but the difficulty only drew him in more.

The harder it was to cast, the more effective it should be….

That logic didn’t always hold, some effects were simply more difficult to manifest using magick than others as a result of the strange confluences arcane energy held. Fire was excellent at destroying things, water was more difficult. It was possible to kill someone using life magick, but it wasn’t as straightforward as shooting them with a rock to the head.

He was so absorbed in this process, he didn’t realise they’d returned to the gate until he was placed back on his feet by his own undead. Blinking owlishly, he swayed for a moment before Filleta stepped up and grabbed him by the arm to stop him from falling over.

“Tyron! Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“He’s a fucking idiot, is what he is,” Dove interjected.

“Fuck off,” she replied, making a shoeing motion with her hand.

Before the outraged Summoner could reply, he was seized by nearby skeletons and dragged away, kicking and protesting as he went. Ignoring him, the wight leaned closer, trying to support the Necromancer.“Are you actually alright?” she asked him softly. “Can we help at all?”

Tyron forced out a laugh.

“I never expected to get sympathy from my own undead. You’re my slave, remember?”

“As if I could forget. I’m serious, you arsehole. You look like you’re about to keel over and die.”

“I’m not… that far gone,” he grunted.

With a few mental commands, he began to organise his horde. The gate was almost fully stocked with crystal and ready to be powered. He directed a few extra skeletons over to help expedite the process. The sooner it was ready, the safer he would feel.

It was eerie, being surrounded by darkness and dust, yet knowing that a horde sent by a faceless master of this place would descend on him soon. The air was as still and silent as always, hanging heavy overhead, pressing down with the sheer weight of Death Magick that suffused this place.

With a groan, he leaned down before lowering himself to the ground. It would take time for him to recover his strength from this endeavour. Without food or water, he would be in a difficult position when he returned. Weak and vulnerable.

Coming to the Realm of the Dead this soon may have been a mistake. He wasn’t strong enough to endure here, didn’t have the necessary knowledge or experience to understand its rules. Yet he would need to master them if he wanted to be strong enough to topple the Empire and kill The Five, he was sure of that.

Besides, it was too early for him to say this trip was a waste. After the upcoming confrontation, he would know.

“Do you know how long until they arrive?” Filetta asked him.

She was scanning the surroundings through the minions, he could tell from the strange light in her eyes. It was interesting to see them employ the abilities that came naturally to them in their new state. In the eyes of the Unseen, they had gained new races and new Classes, with all new inherent skills. Slowly, over time, the wights had grown more accustomed to their new selves, settling into their roles, relinquishing their emotions and humanity, bit by bit.

“I don’t. There will be two of them, two separate forces.”

“Two? How can you be so sure?”

“There’s the one that spotted the souls, and the one that Dove has summoned. That makes two.”

The former thief’s eyes flashed.

“That worm-fucker! He’s bringing them to us?!”

Tyron raised a hand, his eyes closed as he breathed evenly.

“He doesn’t have a choice,” he told her. “His contract binds him. If anything, I would say that he held off as long as he could.”

“It’s still a betrayal,” she hissed. “You should smash his soul to dust.”

“Why? I needed him to do what he did. If only one of the Death Lords comes to us, then we will have to run.”

“And two of them coming is somehow better?”

“If what Dove told us is true, then they hate each other much more than they want a few souls. They would much rather prevent their rivals from gaining the tiniest scrap than secure it for themselves. If they fight each other, then I have a chance to profit from the conflict.”

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“So you wanted to invite two armies, neither of which you can defeat, so that they could fight each other, and allow you to throw rocks at them from the side? That seems…”

“Insane? That’s what Dove said.”

“Unwise,” she said, changing her statement.

“Getting to level eighty is supposed to be hard.”

He groaned, trying to steady his swirling thoughts.

The skeletons activated the gate, allowing the power to begin flowing into it, drawing it out of the remaining arcane crystals. Hopefully it wouldn’t open too early… or too late. He had no idea how long it would take them to reach his position, no way of finding out either, but he couldn’t wait to activate the gate after they arrived. It would take far too long to open, leaving time for whoever showed up to crush his horde and rip out his soul.

If possible, Tyron would rather avoid such a fate.

He kept his revenants and wights pulled in close, not wanting to advertise just how many souls were here, lest the Lords send an even greater force to collect them.

Now there was nothing to do but wait. He settled in, pressing his armour-covered back into the grit and gravel of a dune as he pulled out a book of notes and placed it in his lap.

“Hey, Filetta, can you go and get my pen and ink?”

“Are you serious!? You’re going to study right now?”

The Necromancer frowned.

“What else am I going to do?” he wondered. “I’ve spread minions out to raise the alarm if anyone is coming. There’s nothing for me to eat or drink, sleeping isn’t going to help me feel better, and the gate is currently powering up. I may as well study, I have a new spell to figure out.”

“You’re unbelievable. I’m dead and I still feel nervous about this. Aren’t you worried?”

“I’d be a lot less worried if I had a pen and ink,” he said, jerking his thumb towards his tent.

Swearing softly, Filetta stalked off, returning a few minutes later with the writing supplies. He thanked her, but she only huffed before standing guard.

Tyron genuinely didn’t know the last time he had been in such poor condition, perhaps never, but at least now he had something to focus on other than how awful he felt. It was difficult, massively so, but he was able to push his fatigue and pain aside and start writing down his thoughts.

The Screaming Skull was an exceptionally difficult piece of magick, but if it were just a matter of speaking the words and making the sigils, he could do it right now. In two hours, he’d managed to sketch out a rough sequence that he felt would work to successfully cast the spell. Not necessarily well, and nowhere near its full power, but it would cast. To get it to a standard he would be happy with would take weeks, if not months, ironing out the inefficiencies and ensuring the spellwork was up to scratch.

No, the trick was the supporting spellcasters. Normally, a group of mages would work on something like this together, all of them having access to the spell via the Unseen. He needed to use his minions to cover for those roles, while also casting complex magick himself.

It took another hour, but he was able to create an extremely rough, very basic sequence which probably wouldn’t actually work, but should be enough to provide the basic building blocks. With more time, he would fill in the gaps and smooth things out, but for now, this would do.

He gathered eight skeletal mages, his most basic magick-capable minions and began to practice simply making the hand motions through them.

Forming sigils with undead, skeletal hands and fingers felt very different than doing it with his own fleshy digits, and he still wasn’t used to it. Commanding eight minions at once to conduct such intricate movements was even harder than he’d thought it would be. Doing so while casting at the same time?

Tricky.

Keen to keep himself distracted, Tyron continued to practice with his undead, going through the motions, even starting to have them create incredibly faint spellforms that he could safely throw away when they started to come unbalanced. It didn’t always work, and one of his mages exploded when he lost track of it, causing him to curse and clutch at his temples.

Every now and again he would idly check what was happening around him, but so far, there was nothing. The gate continued to power up slowly and soon it would be done. His outlying minions hadn’t seen a thing, and though the wights, revenants and demi-liches grew more and more tense as time went on, there was no sign of any change in the endless darkness of the Realm of the Dead.

So Tyron continued to study and practice, working on the new spell, tweaking his still-developing sequences and trying to get his skeletal mages to form the sigils correctly.

Just when he thought he might not be attacked after all and would have to retreat through the gate without gaining any further levels, finally, something happened.

He’d expected the Death Lords to send an army by foot, a horde of undead marching across the dunes from their fortress. Although he couldn’t be sure, he felt as if the realm was a vast, mostly empty place, so surely they would have a way of moving quickly. Perhaps a spell to increase the speed of the dead, allowing them to march tirelessly, endless miles being chewed up beneath their skeletal heels.

Apparently, that wasn’t how things worked around here.

The first sign of any change was a shift from above. A hint of blue light in the darkness that quickly swelled, growing brighter and casting an ethereal shade over the surroundings. Eventually, Tyron was forced to shield his eyes, which had long adapted to the darkness, even as his minions formed ranks, preparing to engage.

The storm of light overhead grew brighter and brighter until, finally, it pierced through the darkness overhead. Descending from above, an enormous sphere of energy fell, roiling at the edges like boiling water. Within, he could make out shapes, little blotches of darkness within that he assumed were undead of some description.

When it touched the ground, the sphere dissipated, the glaring light fading away over a matter of seconds.

What was left behind was both more, and less than what Tyron had anticipated.

In terms of raw numbers, his own horde was greater than the force arrayed before him, yet that didn’t mean he thought he would win a confrontation. Undead horrors and creatures he had never seen before stood arrayed against him, constructions formed of pure soul-matter, homonculi stitched together from the dead flesh of Bone Hounds and other native creatures. Among them drifted powerful ghosts that radiated baleful energy, eyes burning with such fierce hatred he could feel it even over the distance between them.

One of the spirits, a ghostly crown on his head and scepter in his hand trailing purple smoke, drifted forward as the creatures behind entered a tight formation.

They were a kilometre apart, yet Tyron had no trouble hearing the spirit when it spoke.

“Identify yourself, tresspasser,” the ghost demanded, its voice a tortured whisper that sent shivers down Tyron’s spine. “You are in the lands claimed by the Death Lord Arrilessa, and your soul is by right her property.”

Well, that wasn’t going to happen. Keeping an eye on the dark blanket overhead, Tyron stood, weaving magick of his own. So far he didn’t see any sign of another force descending, which wasn’t ideal. The gate still needed time, perhaps as much as an hour. Would he be able to hold out that long?

“I am Tyron Steelarm,” he replied, “Necromancer. My stay is only temporary and I intend to leave shortly. Please give my condolences to your mistress, but I will not have the time or opportunity to greet her in person.”

The ghost smiled coldly.

“You will grow very familiar with the Arch-Lich Arrilessa over the next few thousand years, Necromancer. She will chew on your soul like a delicacy until she finds a use for it, and you will wish she hadn’t.”