Book of The Dead

There may have been a reason the Old Gods had chosen an urn as the vessel to contain the souls of their followers, delivered to Tyron by Elsbeth and a procession of other Priests. Chomping at the bit to have the process done with, Tyron had barely been able to tolerate the ceremony they had demanded as a condition to hand over the urn, but he forced himself to be patient.

It had taken a full week to fully prepare the bones, with Phillip insisting that no corners be skipped, no matter how impatient the Necromancer became. After waiting that long, an extra hour was neither here nor there.

Despite the excellent condition the remains had been found in, a lot of work had needed to be done in order to bring them to the desired quality. A large part of the problem, it appeared, was an interesting method the ancient people had apparently used to prevent the remains from rising as wild undead. Rather than leaving the bones to gradually become filled with Death Magick over time, they had been flooded with other types of arcane energy, both to help preserve them and to block the accumulation of death-aligned energy.

It had worked remarkably well, so well that Tyron heavily suspected that something else had to have been done to prevent that magick from leaking, either to the bones or the barrow. It also meant that the process of purifying the bones had been a lengthy one, ensuring that no speck of magick remained inside them at all.

Add to that the extensive repairing of minor flaws introduced by sheer age, along with the various treatments and processes to further strengthen them, and the Necromancer had been forced to wait entirely too long to get his hands on them.

Once he did, we was finally able to convert them to noctic bone and personally weave their tissues, ensuring that each set of remains received a custom-designed musculature perfectly aligned to their dimensions.

Each of the demi-liches was given special attention, the arcane marrow being grown with particular care, Tyron taking lessons from his newly enhanced knowledge to make improvements to his old designs. Although he wasn’t ready to fully utilise his new proficiency and see what could be created from it, he was able to ensure his new demi-liches would have a richer and more dense reservoir of magick to draw on than the others.

With the urn finally in his hands, Tyron was able to retreat inside. To create his wights, he would need to mould the souls into their spirit flesh, along with a dash of Soul Magick from his ever-dwindling supply within his orb. It had regenerated a little since the battle against the Golden Legion, but creating these minions would drain his reserve down to almost the final drop.

He had to have more, but that could wait, at least a little while.

When they were finally ready, he had each of the wights interred within their own recess within the Ossuary and prepared to cast Raise Greater Dead.He did it himself this time, not wanting to delegate the task or act through an intermediary for the creation of such critical minions. Nor would it have sat right with him to do less than his best with something he had been given as a gift. If the Old Gods were willing to meet his request, then the least he could do was properly show his gratitude. That way they might be inclined to do it again.

Raise Dead, the key ritual that all necromancy stemmed from, had now become Raise Greater Undead and was the fundamental pillar on which Tyron’s entire horde was built. A complex and detailed ritual with unlimited potential for tinkering and variation, he had continued to refine it to this day, and the version he cast now was one he had never used prior. Each little tweak he made at this point didn’t change much, but as if compelled, Tyron could never stop himself from continuing to poke at the construction of the spell.

Words of Power thundered into the air, warping reality and bending it to Tyron’s will as he drew on his power. The work he performed at the altar was replicated across the Ossuary and repeated for each wight, nestled in their own alcove. He cast for over ninety minutes, his voice and hands never ceasing for a moment as he wove the complex ritual, not abbreviating or excluding any part of it. In fact, he expanded on several.

When it was done, he paused for a moment to clear his throat and drink from a canteen of water offered by a nearby skeleton.

Gradually, the wights began to move, the souls settling into their new housing and growing familiar with the sensation of being undead. How long had it been since these souls had possessed physical forms? Tyron wondered how they would react. He had no idea what their existence had been like since their deaths, what the Old Gods had done with them.

Just another thing he was interested to find out. Most of all, he wanted to know if they would be useful in his fight. So long as they were, nothing else truly mattered.

Gradually, they began to move, spirit flesh glowing with the force of the souls within, while Tyron watched them come to life. Eventually they began to roll out of the recesses, finding their feet, and their balance, as they stared down at their skeletal fingers and hands.

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He could feel them through the conduits that bound them to him, their thoughts swirling, each of their minds a confused tangle as they struggled to understand just what had happened to them. It would have been nice if The Three had at least warned the souls what was going to occur, but Tyron could only blame himself for expecting that they would. He could have done it himself once he had his hands on the urn that contained them but had been too impatient to create his new minions.

An oversight.

Eventually, each of the wights stepped out onto the floor and Tyron was able to have a good look at them. They were magnificent creations, if he said so himself; the magick contained in their bones thrummed with power and the strength of their souls echoed down the conduits. Unarmed and unarmoured, they hadn’t achieved their full, intimidating appearance, but he’d thought it best to have the arms and armour crafted after consulting with the souls themselves. They knew best what they needed to fight, after all.

“Are you able to speak?”

The wight he addressed turned to him, ethereal, ghostly features twisting in confusion.

“Auld viksnay?” the wight demanded.

Now that he thought about it, it did make sense that language would have changed over a period of five thousand years. Tyron sighed. If he couldn’t talk to them, they should at least be able to communicate via the conduits.

Concentrating, he focused on the wight in front of him, directing his thoughts to him alone.

Do you know where you are?

In no uncertain terms, the wight told him that it had absolutely no clue.

Do you know what you are?

Again, a very firm and heavily expletive-laced negative. This was going to take a little while. Tyron explained who he was and the deal he had struck with the Old Gods in order to obtain these souls. Once the wight understood him well enough, it turned and explained to the others, who had gathered around, wanting to know what had happened to them.

From there, he went on to patiently explain who The Five were, only to find that they were perfectly aware of the false gods, as they put it. From there, he went on to tell them that he had brought them back as undead warriors to help bring down the false gods and destroy the Empire ruled by their descendants.

“Vandersful! Auld flickin slik torras shittestales!” the wight declared, clapping Tyron on the shoulder with one hand.

Enthused, the other wights let out a raucous cheer, laughing as they clasped each other’s forearms and joked back and forth. It was almost disorienting to Tyron to see undead acting so… human. Indeed, seeing undead so… happy? It was jarring.

But they were happy. Delighted, even. The conduits buzzed with positive energy and the wights’ good mood as he explained they would need to be armed and armoured and that his other minion would lead them down the corridor to the workshop.

In total, there were almost three dozen wights that had been raised, and they each lined up to clasp his forearm and say a few words, which he didn’t understand, before leaving.

Presumably they would grow less and less human as they lived as undead, losing their memory and connection to their living selves… but… these souls had been dead for thousands of years already.

Still, there was nothing to be done about it. Filetta went with the new wights down the corridor to act as an interpreter to help the Bone Crafters and other artisans know what the undead wanted. Far from merely saving Tyron time, the dedicated crafters could actually make better weapons and armor than he could at this point. Fundamentally, anyway. Tyron was of course the only one who could transform bones into the far superior noctic version, which he would have to do for all the equipment once the crafters were done with it.

Once the wights had cleared out, Tyron could only shake his head and turn to the next task at hand. Sixteen demi-liches needed to be raised and they would make a welcome addition to his horde indeed.

Of course, Tyron had a modified version of the Raise Greater Undead ritual prepared specifically for demi-liches, and he cast it now, taking a full two hours to ensure each component was executed flawlessly. Each of these men and women had been buried along with their enchanted staves, and the first thing they did upon waking was reach for them, taking hold of the familiar wood in their now-skeletal fingers.

When they alighted from their alcoves, they gathered around Tyron, hovering just over the ground, as he explained their predicament to them.

He wasn’t sure what to expect from these former Mages. Likely they had been spellcasters, but most likely they had been primarily Priests of The Three. How they would react to learning their souls had been effectively traded away by the gods they had served, he had no clue.

Instead of being upset, they too clapped him on the shoulders, talking and laughing merrily amongst each other as they playfully poked at their hovering feet with their staves.

Utterly baffling behaviour for the dead, but it was fine. If they wanted any further equipment, he directed them to the workshop where they could reunite with their fellows. Again, they insisted on clasping his forearm and saying a few words of gratitude before they left, leaving a bewildered and uncomfortable Necromancer in their wake.

Once they were up to speed and he had an idea of their capabilities, he would deploy them to the garrisons on the rifts in order to start gaining levels and recovering their abilities. That would make the minions he already had there free to rejoin the main horde, which pressed towards a new rift at Dustwatch Keep.

His work crews continued to scour the Western Province, and every day thousands more skeletons were raised, along with more constructs and weapons. Soon he would be ready to march to a new province with a force numbering in the tens of thousands, perhaps more. With this new injection of capable leaders for his horde, he could continue to grow it at an increasing pace.

The Empire wouldn’t know what hit it.