Book of The Dead

Rested and as driven as ever, Tyron threw himself into his work, marching forward tirelessly as he worked on more and more relays. Soon enough he had torn through the supply of wagons they’d looted from the camp and he had to start making those as well. It was more efficient to have his minions cut down trees and make them from wood than to use thousands of bones on each one, so he was quite grateful a few of his wights had a modicum of carpentry knowledge. Without the appropriate tools, there were limits to what they could do, but the relays didn’t need anything particularly fancy. As long as it was robust and relatively flat, he could make it work.

Ruined Foxbridge once again became his home and workshop, a hive of undead industry as he replenished his horde, conducted repairs to damaged minions, crafted new constructs and orchestrated multiple expeditions at the same time. His stock of cores was low, so a force had been dispatched to hunt for kin. Now with a dozen relays in operation, he sent a full twelve thousand minions north, reinforced with wights and revenants. Not only would they harvest cores from the unending waves of rift-kin, but he would also act through them and tame the rift there, once they’d fought their way close enough.

With what remained of his limited pool of supplies, he was able to finish another four relays and dispatched them further into the province. Following the river, they would come to Weighbridge soon enough, where he would be able to plunder supplies from what remained of the warehouses and docks, as well as bones from the smouldering ruins of the city. Once that was done, he would have his minions raid every cemetery and burial ground in the area, shoring up his stockpile of bones.

By the time he’d done all he could, another week had passed. Once again starting to feel fatigue begin to creep in on the edges of his awareness, Tyron sat under the stars, weary but satisfied with what he had achieved.

If he concentrated, he could feel his connection to his minions via the relays, strong and clear despite the growing distance between them. As the bulk of the horde closed in on Woodsedge, the fighting grew more and more intense as the packs of monsters grew larger and more frequent. So far, he hadn’t had to intervene much, but that would change over the next few days. Reaching through the relay and casting spells through the demi-lich in control of it was oddly difficult, which bothered him, since it shouldn’t be any different than if they were standing next to him, but it was still manageable.

He hadn’t rebuilt his horde only to allow half of them to die fighting against kin. At least they were harvesting experience for him.

Indeed, he had reached a point where, not only did he no longer have to personally fight to progress his Class, he no longer needed to be even remotely present. Should the relay system work out, he could command battles in every province of the Empire at the same time without leaving Granin.

Not that he would be satisfied to dispatch his enemies from such a distance. What Tyron had in mind for the nobles of the Empire was a little more personal.

Only with all of that done was he then finally able to sit down and plot his next move.

Filetta found him working at a table his minions had dragged to the middle of the market square, sitting on what had once been General Crow’s chair. Given his Constitution, it didn’t make much difference to Tyron if was sitting on a rock, but he appreciated the thought someone had put in. It was a particularly comfortable chair, after all.“What are you scribbling away at now?” she asked him.

As always, he was busy, furiously scratching away with pen and ink in one of the several volumes he carried with him.

“Updating my notes. There are several sections that need to be revised regarding constructs. I’ll need to add several new pages regarding what I’ve learned about dimensional conduits as well.”

Talking didn’t stop him from writing. His hands never stopped moving, scratching words, arcane symbols and little, annotated diagrams in neat columns down the page.

“You’re including your knowledge of dimensional conduits?” she remarked, surprised. “Isn’t that sort of information highly restricted?”

“By the Empire? Yes,” the Necromancer replied without looking up. “I don’t have any reason to keep it a secret. Especially not from the people on my side. Besides, I highly doubt anyone would be able to create them without the aid of the Unseen before reaching Platinum rank anyway.”

If he was saying that, then the reality was likely even worse. Perhaps people would need to achieve an even higher tier than platinum to create a dimensional conduit without help. Over and over again, Tyron had proven how exceptional he was, but he occasionally seemed to think that others were much closer to his level than they actually were.

Like a bird flying in the sky, looking down and wondering why everyone else was walking.

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Not for the first time, she wondered why she had ever thought she would be able to kill him. Of course, she hadn’t known exactly who, or what, he was back then. She had been catastrophically wrong when judging just how dangerous he was, and the end result was her death at his hands. She no longer blamed him for it, not really. It wasn’t easy to let go of all of the resentment and anger she still felt, it was her only life after all, but she was getting there.

She stood by his side as he finished his notes, capping the pen and putting it away carefully before stoppering the ink and storing that as well.

“Done for now?”

“Almost.”

With practiced ease, he flipped to the back of the book and neatly tore free a blank page, placing it flat on the table in front of him and pinning it down with one hand. The other he held out to her.

“Do you mind?” he said, looking up at her for the first time.

With practiced ease, she drew one of her twin daggers, slipping it from its sheath with the dull scrape of bone on bone. Black as midnight and emitting a soft, cold glow, they were the pride and joy of her undeath. Recently enchanted by Master Willhem himself with sharpness and hardening, they had performed admirably in the recent battle.

With care, she flipped the dagger around and cut a small slice into the meat of Tyron’s thumb. Even as sharp as her blades were, she could feel the resistance as she cut into his skin. It was simply unnatural for a person to be that tough! He was as dense as a tree.

Even so, blood welled from the nick and he pressed the digit into the page and enacted the simplest and most common ritual in all the realm.

Having blood wasn’t something that Filetta had actively thought about a lot during her life. She’d certainly seen more than her fair share, growing up on the docks was not for the faint of heart, not to mention her… bedroom habits, but it wasn’t something she had actively thought about. Now, as a bloodless spirit bound to her own skeleton, she didn’t miss it as much as she thought she would.

Across the page, blood streamed outward, spidering across the paper until Tyron’s status was laid bare. It was fascinating for her to see. A platinum rank individual was almost a mythical creature to someone like her as she was growing up. Many of the kids on the streets hadn’t even believed they were real. Now here she was, leaning over the shoulder of one and peeking at his status.

Immediately she was struck by how short it was. Frowning, she leaned a little closer, but no, no more words were appearing.

What was happening?

Rather than the long list of Sskills beneath his (disgustingly high) attributes that she expected, there were instead three short columns with a small number of Sskills in each.

Tyron seemed to anticipate her query before she had a chance to utter it.

“The old Sskills are still there, but they’re not shown in the status ritual anymore,” he said. “Instead, the focus is now placed on these three core groups. Part of the ritual to rise to platinum rank involves selecting these three groups. I believe this is a way for the Unseen to force us to focus on the core abilities that really matter to us.”

It made sense, in a way. She perhaps had imagined that rising that high would widen a person’s horizons, rather than narrow them. Again, Tyron seemed to read her thoughts.

“Each Class I was offered enhanced a different one of these groups. Essentially elevating the Sskills to be a new, more powerful version of what they had been before. Dimensional Conduits are a perfect example of that. Perhaps I would have been able to invent them myself, eventually, but with the help of the Unseen, look what I am capable of right now.”

He waved a hand vaguely towards the workshop. Right now, there was nothing all that impressive there to see, indeed, right now most of the horde was somewhere else. She understood what he was getting at, though.

“So what happens now?” she said. “You don’t get offered new abilities any more?”

“Not in quite the same way,” the Necromancer mused. “From what I understood from the Unseen during the last ritual, it’s much easier for me to create my own abilities now. If I polish them to a high enough standard, then the Unseen will acknowledge them. I’m not certain exactly how my status will evolve going forward, but there is a lot that we still don’t know.”

He gestured to the top of the page where Filetta could see that he had gained only three levels. Three?! After all of that?! He killed thousands of Gold ranked Soldiers! Whatever the requirements to gain levels at the platinum rank were, they must be completely insane!

“I think it’s likely I’ll be granted choices to make once I’ve gained four levels, and I expect the feat selection may well remain at level five. Which means the number of choices I get to make has been cut in half.”

Strangely, Tyron didn’t seem all that bothered by this. Instead, he just leaned back, a slight smile on his face.

“I feel encouraged to try and create an ability of my own. I wonder what sort of spell I can design if I get a little time to myself?”

That would be the sort of thing that tickled his fancy. Filetta could already see him seated on his platform while they trekked back over the mountains, scribbling away, ignoring the freezing cold temperatures and snow. If his ink froze like last time, he might be forced to look up for a change.

Without a fuss, Tyron ended the ritual and sat still for a moment as he absorbed the changes. After a few minutes, he stood, took the paper and crumpled it up before throwing it in the nearby campfire. She had gotten into the habit of making sure there was one burning somewhere nearby the Necromancer at all times. It was where his food was cooked, and provided some light during the night.

“Given how much the horde is fighting in the north, I expect I’ll reach level eighty-four in the next few days,” he said, watching the paper burn. “I’ll check as we head over the mountains. For now, we need to get moving. We’ve already tarried here too long. It’s time to go back to Granin.”