Book of The Dead

“Such a waste,” Tyron grumbled to himself, walking through the fallen camp. What remained of his horde surrounded him now, having emerged from the surrounding woods and out of the river’s depths where they had hidden after he was captured.

There was an impossible amount of work to be done, as always, and, as always, he would be relying on his undead to complete it. First of all, the dead needed to be gathered, stripped of their armour, sorted and organised by their roles and responsibilities in life, then butchered.

That task had already begun, skeletons picking through the camp and dragging the dead, and in some cases not quite dead, soldiers of the Golden Legion towards a gathering point outside the palisade wall. Several wights and demi-liches were gathered there, coordinating the next steps without Tyron’s direct interference.

To process this many fresh bodies, though… and in such a short time frame, would be difficult, to say the least. His supply of alchemical reagents, used for cleansing and strengthening the bones, was almost entirely depleted after raising the horde before the battle. Hopefully he could find more of what he needed within the camp, or perhaps somewhere in Foxbridge? He hadn’t gone through the dockside warehouses all that carefully before, he’d been focused on other things, but it was possible something useful would be sitting there, waiting to be shipped to a larger city.

It was a long shot. If he couldn’t find what he needed, he may have to move downriver. Waybridge was roughly halfway to Kenmor, and if there was enough of it left standing, he likely would get the components he wanted there.

As to the waste….

He’d never wanted to use this spell. It was immensely powerful, and could even be used against many forms of undead, but since it consumed the soul, that meant he wouldn’t be able to turn any of the fallen into wights, demi-liches or even revenants.

This was an unprecedented harvest of level seventy-nine corpses! Of course, the materials themselves would be of the highest quality, refined and empowered by the Unseen to an incredible degree, but it was such a waste to turn them into rank and file skeletal soldiers. Just thinking about the wights and demi-liches he could have produced from such high-grade components and souls angered the Necromancer deeply.

Thankfully, he’d managed to salvage something from the General. If the battles they were going to fight continued to increase in scale and scope, then having a central figure to help coordinate between the wights would be incredibly helpful. Tyron had to dedicate most of his attention to spellcasting, after all.

At the very least, everyone who died at the battlefield could still be harvested. Many dead had been stuffed into the Ossuary before he’d been captured, along with the dozen or so who had been raised before it ended. Almost exclusively front-line Soldiers, they would likely be better revenants than wights, lacking in leadership skills, but they would be excellent combatants if he poured in all of his strongest techniques.

Filetta strode towards him, Dove trailing along by her side, so Tyron stopped to wait for them.

“Are you alright?” Filetta demanded as she approached him, her immaterial flesh grasping at the handles of her twin blades.

“You completely fucked them up, kid!” Dove whooped, throwing his hands in the air.

Ignoring the latter, Tyron held his hands wide and showed himself to his former lover.

“Still in one piece,” he said with a slight, crooked smile.

“I can see where you were bleeding,” she scolded him. “Your skin is basically red from the chest down.”

“Well… there were complications.”

“Complications?”

“Swords.”

“Where were the swords?” she grated.

Tyron looked down and pointed at himself.

“Here, here, here and here. Getting them out was a pain.”

Dove laughed while Filetta reached out and shook him.

“I’m healed,” he assured her, feeling oddly touched by her concern. Even if he’d died, he had contingencies in place. In truth, he had never really been close to death inside the camp, they had simply been too slow in arranging their ritual. “Not a scratch on me. I’ll wash up soon.”

“Good,” Filetta huffed, finally letting him go and stepping back, allowing Tyron to turn his attention to his former teacher.

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“Oh, so now you have time for me?” the undead Summoner said.

“Yes.”

“Well… good then. Kid, you fucking did it! You smacked the Empire right in the dick! I… I genuinely didn’t believe it was possible.”

Looking at his former mentor, Tyron frowned a little.

“Dove… you’re sounding… unusually lucid. Are you alright?”

No longer a proper undead but a spirit trapped in a construct made of bones carved from onyx, Dove had been… increasingly unstable… since his resurrection. Busying himself with childish antics, filth, and generally being as annoying as possible to everyone around him. Those had been aspects of his personality before, certainly, but he had still been a largely functional member of society. That had changed since his death, yet now a glimmer of old Dove seemed to be returning.

“Unusually lucid? Perhaps,” the skeleton shaped construct mused. “I have to say, I assumed we’d be smashed to a fine pulp in this battle and all die a horrible death. I also assumed we would be captured in the Realm of the Dead and slowly roasted over a soul fire for all eternity, so maybe I haven’t been in a good headspace lately?”

He waved his hand to indicate the general carnage and mayhem around them, slowly being organised by silent undead.

“But you fucking did it! There’s actually a chance you can bring down the Empire! I’m so excited I feel like I have nipples again.”

Perhaps having a sense of purpose helped to stave off the degeneration that all undead with a soul seemed to undergo? That would perhaps explain why Filetta had been able to hold onto herself as long as she had. She had latched on to Tyron and become his most trusted protector, always by his side, concerning herself with his safety above all else. A sad and twisted way for someone who had attempted to kill him and in return been slain by his own hand to end up, but it had been working for her so far.

“This is only the first step,” Tyron said, trying to temper Dove’s excitement a little. Killing some of the Golden Legion was a grand accomplishment, to be sure, but there were tens of thousands more, and only the Abyss knew what else the The Five Divines were capable of throwing at him.

“But this proves that it can be done,” Dove insisted, losing none of his enthusiasm. “Do you have any idea what news of this victory will do around the Empire? Slayers will rise up in every province! The rebellion is going to ignite everywhere once word starts to spread.”

“How exactly are we going to spread the word?” Tyron asked him pointedly. “The only living person who saw it happen is… me.”

“Bah! Wasn’t there some brat back in Granin with a Bard Class? That kid is hitting the fucking road.”

It was true. Almost as rare as an unbranded Necromancer, an unbranded, unchained Bard had indeed been found in the ranks of the rebellion, Rell. If he’d taken Tyron’s advice and started levelling his main Class, then he may indeed be the perfect messenger for them.

“It’ll be dangerous for him, but Rell might be willing to do it,” Tyron mused. “There’s also the question of how we move him into another province unnoticed.”

“Leave that to the Slayers. They’ll figure something out. There might be a few rifts they can use to connect to other provinces. I know some of them appear in more than one place.”

That wasn’t a bad idea. Tyron did need to get back and speak to the others, visit his aunt and uncle, see if Elsbeth was alright, and restock on some of the materials he was missing. On the other hand, he desperately needed to refill his horde. After building it up to an unprecedented level of power, the battle against the Golden Legion had cut it right down again.

Repairs were desperately required to almost every single one of his minions; there were hundreds, if not thousands, he could piece back together from what was left of them on the field. If he was lucky, he might be able to snag some souls and remake some of the revenants and wights he had lost.

Even working through multiple demi-liches at once, it would take him days to get it all done. Days and nights, since he wouldn’t be sleeping. He hadn’t had a decent rest in weeks now, and he was definitely feeling it.

“Stop thinking in your head and start doing it out loud,” Dove remarked. “You’ve got this sour look on your face, like you’re contemplating taking a shit but are worried you might be blocked up after a spectacular night of spicy food.”

Tyron sighed.

“I was thinking about what to do next. I need three days here to do repairs, raise new minions and get the horde up to strength. After that, I can return to Granin, which will take some time, time I might not have, or I can move deeper into the Province, look for some big cities. There are millions of dead here I can use.”

Even if the soldiers of the Empire had been thorough and destroyed the remains of everyone they’d murdered in their purge, which was unfathomably unlikely, there were thousands of graveyards across the Province filled to bursting with usable remains.

Within a month, he might be able to push his horde to a hundred thousand basic skeletons or more, though they would be drastically lacking in revenants and wights to help manage them. Even so, with a force that large, sheer weight of numbers would achieve a great deal.

But what if they’d managed to bring down more wyvern remains in Granin? His lone wyvern had proven to be excessively useful for a soulless minion, a half dozen would be exceptionally powerful.

Dove merely shrugged.

“You’re a platinum rank and can’t figure out how to be in more than one place at a time? What’s the fucking point?”

Tyron frowned. Then paused, considering. His eyes flicked from side to side, unseeing, as his mind began to pick up speed. Ideas flashed through his head, some discarded, others picked up and examined more closely.

“Oh shit. He can’t… can’t actually do that, can he?” Dove asked, turning to Filetta.

She shook her head.

“Not yet. But… give him a few days.”

“Fuck me, I hate this kid sometimes.”