Book of The Dead

Georg lifted his head from the notes he’d been poring over as he heard someone rush down the vacant street toward the half-collapsed house he’d chosen to occupy. There were only a few people who came to this deserted part of town, and most of those didn’t run, narrowing the list of subjects quite a bit.

With a sigh, he pushed back his chair and ordered his zombie to pack away his things. Likely, he wouldn’t be able to get back to studying any time soon, so it may as well be tidied while he dealt with this distraction.

He reached the door just a moment before his surprise guest did and pulled it open to see Briss, out of breath and red-faced, reaching for the handle.

“Georg! Nice timing!” she wheezed.

“Morning, Briss. What brings you to my neck of the woods?”

She pulled a face as she continued to suck in breath.

“This wouldn’t be so difficult if you didn’t move so far away,” she said.

“It’s two streets, Briss.”

She desperately needed excercise.

Georg blinked.

It had been two months since Tyron disappeared into the rift. He’d begun to wonder if the man was ever coming back, or indeed if he was still alive. He was powerful, of course, but powerful Slayers died beyond the rift all the time.

“Are you sure?” he blinked. “We haven’t heard a peep about him in over a month.”

Some Slayers had returned to the keep with word of the Necromancer, but none had seen him since.

“Someone saw a column of skeletons marching through the woods,” Briss told him impatiently, “who else is it going to be? Rurin sent word herself. Richard is already waiting, so come on!’

She pulled at his arm and Georg allowed himself to be dragged out the door, feeling a little bemused. If Tyron really was coming back, how were things going to change?

The three students had worked together and made decent progress in the time he’d been away. Each of them had successfully created their first proper undead servant a few weeks ago, a moment worthy of celebration. Georg himself had reached level four, one away from his first Necromancer feat.

Slowly and steadily, like making a fence, he’d been going about the process of preparing himself to strike out on his own. Levelling the ground, digging out holes for the posts, making sure the timber was treated. Getting all of his ducks in a row to make sure he’d be self-sufficient if he needed to be.

Tyron had left behind extensive notes on Necromancy, all copied from the dense book of notes he kept with him at all times, along with pages filled with more general knowledge on magick, going over structure, techniques, common sigils and how they were used. It was a wealth of material that had kept the three of them more than busy in the intervening time. Would he help them further now that he was back? Or would there not be enough time?

Briss was excited, he could see, and Richard would be doubly so. The two of them looked up to Tyron more than he did, almost hero-worshipped him in the case of Richard, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Tyron had been immensely helpful, more than he needed to be, but Georg was under no illusions that his three students were anything other than an additional burden to him, one that he hoped would bear fruit some day.

When they returned to the main street, they found Richard standing outside the front of their first house, brushing his hair down with his palms nervously.

“I got him!” Briss called and Richard turned towards them as they jogged the last few metres.

“I told you he was going to come back,” Richard said, somewhat smugly, and Georg could only roll his eyes.

“You did,” the former farmhand allowed. “Do we even know if he’s coming here?”

“Where else would he go?” Richard frowned.

Just about anywhere? Georg thought to himself.

It was foolish to think the first thing the son of the Steelarms would think of when returning from the rift was three fledgeling Necromancers.

Yet Georg was surprised when, half an hour later, a skeleton marched around the corner, wielding a shield and blade of black bone, followed by another, then another. It was almost strange to see them walking in the clear light of day, these undead servants, but in such great numbers, they were intimidating indeed. More than a hundred turned the corner before Tyron himself appeared, his bone armour still affixed in place.

The Necromancer didn’t wear a helmet, so his face was clear to see. He looked… tired. Perhaps tired didn’t go far enough. He looked exhausted. His features were drawn, his hair grown out and matted, yet he radiated the same sort of confidence he had before he’d gone in.

The very best always seemed to have this sort of air around them. His uncle Rickart had been a mild-mannered man, but he was an expert when it came to breaking in horses. Take that same, quiet individual, and put him in a field with horses, and he transformed into someone with utmost confidence, a presence, a weight of authority.

Tyron always carried himself that way, except now… more so.

Whatever had happened in the rift had clearly had a positive effect on him. Georg experienced a sudden surge of… ambition. He too wanted to have that quiet strength, walk on the other side of the rift by himself and return with levels and experience.

He calmed himself. That was a long way off. You couldn’t harvest before you sowed, that was just common sense.

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Then behind Tyron came something different, something they hadn’t seen before. Two skeletons, burning with a flickering green light and enveloped in thick plates of smoking black bone armour walked behind the Necromancer, one at each shoulder. Georg gaped at them. They were like nothing he’d seen or heard about. How was it even possible to create undead of this level?

Just what had Tyron done on the other side of that rift?

When he finally stood in front of them, Tyron looked the three students up and down with a weary gaze.

“You’ve gotten better,” he said, his voice a touch gravelly and raw.

Richard stood straighter and Briss smiled at the compliment.

“We’ve studied hard,” Richard said, trying to contain his pride.

Georg tried to count the number of skeletons on the street, but stopped when he reached eighty. Why were there so many here and not stored away?

“Is there a reason the skeletons aren’t stored in the Ossuary?” he asked.

Briss and Richard turned to stare at him, but Tyron merely flicked his gaze to the minions around them.

“The Ossuary is full,” he said shortly. “Now, let’s sit down and have a discussion. We need to speak about what comes next.”

Full? If this many skeletons were outside… what was inside?

Tyron brushed past the three of them and made his way inside the partially repaired building he’d left them in. Immediately, he recognised the change and queried them as he removed his bone armour.

“The three of you aren’t staying here anymore?”

“I am,” Richard said quickly, “but we decided it would be better if we had more space to work. It’s not like there’s any shortage of it in this area. Briss is a few doors down and Georg is two streets over.”

With his armour removed, it was clear to see how Tyron had been deprived. His clothes were filthy, streaked with sweat and grime. In places, his pants were tattered, stained with blood, and there were several cuts. The Necromancer looked down at himself, then sighed.

“I should have probably washed first,” he said, “I apologise for the smell.”

As Richard assured him no apologies were necessary, Tyron sat at the table, several of his skeletons entering behind the three students to perform tasks. Two of them gathered up his armour and carried it away, while others brought a heavy leather satchel and placed it on the ground by his chair.

The students gathered some seats and sat at the table with their teacher, wondering what was going to happen next.

Georg fully expected they were about to be abandoned. He didn’t even feel aggrieved. At some point, a calf had no more need of its parents and struck out on its own. It was normal.

He would quickly be proven right.

“I spent longer than I intended beyond the rift. As soon as I can, I need to return to Kenmor via the rift at Cragwhistle. It won’t be possible to take you with me, in the event any of you wanted to come.”

The words were delivered firmly, but without malice, he was simply stating the way it had to be. Briss and Richard appeared crestfallen, Georg simply nodded.

“The three of you should continue to work together either here or at Cragwhistle,” he went on. “Hunting low level kin with your undead will be the best way for you to advance, and both places have an abundance of remains for you to work with.”

Tyron reached down to the satchel by his side and removed three sheaves of paper. Placing them on the table, he pushed one in front of each student.

“These notes and exercises should cover everything you need to know to reach the level of a bronze ranked Slayer. Your advancement choices may well be different than mine, but I’ve written what advice I can.

“There’s more drills to help you work on your fundamentals and another glossary of words of power that should come in handy for you going forward.”

Georg shifted through the pages with his brows raised. There was a lot here, all of it written in the neat, meticulous hand he’d become familiar with. When had the man found the time to do any of this? Wasn’t he fighting for his life against the kin? He certainly looked as if he had!

This was far more than he’d expected to get, and he felt a strong sense of gratitude towards the Necromancer. He had no idea why Tyron would go so far for them, but he was grateful nonetheless.

“This is… amazing,” Richard said, hungrily flicking through the pages. “Thank you, Tyron!”

“Unfortunately, I don’t have the time I would like to help you through the next stage,” he sighed, “so you’ll be best served relying on each other for aid. For now, I have until nightfall to go through anything you don’t understand and give advice. Who’s first?”

He looked at the three of them expectantly, they all stared back in confusion.

“Aren’t… aren’t you going to rest? Or wash?” Briss asked.

Their teacher scowled at them.

“Do you want me to be clean or do you want to learn magick?” he said irritably.

“Magick,” Georg said.

The others shot him a look, but he only tilted his head toward Tyron, who was nodding approvingly.

“Exactly. Magick is far more important. Now, let’s get started.”

It was Georg, of course, who asked the first question. He’d been struggling with certain sigil forms, his fingers still not able to transition from one to the next as smoothly as he liked. Tyron demonstrated the correct method, pointing out he’d been misaligning his wrist.

After that, Richard found the nerve to speak up and request Tyron inspect his first skeleton, at which point Briss also spoke. Their teacher spent the better part of an hour picking apart every mistake they’d made with their threading technique, demonstrating the flaws in their undead’s movement.

“It’s not bad for a first attempt,” he mused, looking over their skeletons, “but you can do a lot better than this.”

He turned to Georg.

“You must have produced a zombie by now. Do you want me to take a look?”

Zombies didn’t have the fastest walking speed, but his undead made it eventually.

“I’ve been trying to repair its flesh daily,” he said, scratching at the back of his head, “but I can’t seem to prevent decay entirely.”

Tyron wrinkled his nose as he approached the minion.

“Smells worse than me,” he muttered.

“This isn’t my area of expertise,” he continued, “but it seems the rot is accumulating despite your efforts to repair the damage. Either you haven’t been able to fix the undead flesh properly, or the body is accelerating its rot the longer it stays undead.”

“That would mean…”

That would mean it was impossible to keep a zombie alive for a protracted period of time, no matter how well he cared for it. Georg bit his lip. Had he chosen a dead end after all?

“There are two courses of action. Continue to diligently practise your flesh mending, raising its level, and create more zombies, so you can compare results. If it is true that the rot accelerates the longer they are dead, I am certain there will be measures to counteract the problem provided by the Unseen. Once you have a small number of zombies, go out and hunt smaller kin, but take others with you. If you run into a larger monster, the zombies won’t be much help.”

It was good advice, and somewhat set his mind at ease. He may have come across his first stumbling block, but he would overcome it.

Tyron remained with the three students for hours, answering their questions, assisting them with the new exercises he’d provided, and correcting their use of sigils and words of power. When the sun finally fell, he rose from the table.

“This is farewell for now,” he said. “Work hard, stick together, and by the time I return, I expect all of you to have made great strides. Level twenty at least.”

He shook each of their hands, bid them good luck, and then he was gone, his entourage of skeletons vanishing into the night.

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