B5 Chapter 16 -  The Fly in the Ointment

With his status confirmed, Tyron destroyed the paper, ripping it up and chewing the pieces to destroy any remnant of writing on the page. Task completed, he stepped out of the tent and into the open air of the camp. The sky boiled overhead, the air mixed with so much magick that the sky no longer looked like it should. It was eerily similar to what he had seen beyond the rifts, if not quite as violet. 

Clouds rolled like colossal waves, bolts of coloured energy rippling across their surface and occasionally stabbing down to the ground with a booming crash. It was these strikes of raw arcane energy that formed the crystal, he’d learned. It was a way for the magickal storms to discharge their excess power into the ground, and sometimes a locus was formed at the point of impact, condensing the magick into crystalline form. These would be struck again, over and over, sometimes shattering, sometimes growing larger or more dense.

Since the storm never truly stopped, and had been running for several hundred years, it was no surprise the shards had come to dominate the landscape in the manner they had. Tyron’s theory regarding the bolts of energy went further. Much of the magick that poured through a rift suffused the air overhead. It didn’t flow out over the land like water, but seemed to distribute rather evenly in all directions. To change a realm into one that produced kin, concentrated points of magick needed to be formed, which meant gathering large volumes of power in small locations. The energy discharging from the clouds above into the ground seemed to be a key means by which this was achieved. If they were able to cut off the flow of power to the sky, the change overcoming the land might be, not reversed, but hopefully slowed.

If not, then perhaps the world was truly lost.

All around him, his undying minions continued to guard the walls they had dug with their own, skeletal hands. None of the necromancy students were out and about, doubtlessly resting from the previous days’ exertions. There was still plenty of time before they needed to depart, so he wasn’t bothered, rather, he was grateful for a little time to himself.

He moved away from the tents, well aware of the effect his spellcasting could have on a someones’ rest, until he was right against the wall, close enough to reach out and snatch one of his minions’ ankles. Which he did, seizing hold of the skeleton and pulling it down to the ground where it landed in a tangle of limbs, flailing and, surprisingly, cursing.

“FUCK, you fucking fucker! That would have hurt if I still had skin!”

“Well, you don’t.”

“It’s still rude! Here’s me, pretending to be a skeleton, fucking expertly mind you, when you wander over and pull me off the wall! If you wanted to talk, you could have just said so!”

Tyron didn’t want to explain that he had a particular dislike of Dove impersonating his minions. Not because he felt like Dove was diminishing his own self-worth, but rather because his minions were supposed to be… his. 

“You’d had your fun. Time to rejoin the world of those with self-determination.”

“It’s kind of fun,” Dove said, picking himself up and brushing down his bones, in so doing removing streaks of the chalk powder he’d used to make himself look whiter. “There’s something freeing about just letting go and doing whatever the skeleton in front is doing. No need to think, no need to feel, you just need to… be. No wonder the skeletons are always grinning, they’re such happy bastards.”

“I think that’s more to do with the fact they don’t have lips and can’t conceal their teeth.”

“That brings me to another thing. Are you manually attaching the teeth to each skeleton? Because only a complete psychopath would go around attaching the teeth to each individual skeleton.”

“You got your wish, Dove. You’re out here, ready to examine the rift. That doesn’t mean I agreed to listen to your inane babble for any length of time.”

Dove placed his hands on his hips and shook his skull.

“You’ve changed, Tyron. You used to be fun. Do you remember that? When you were fun?”

Tyron thought for a moment.

“No,” he stated after careful consideration. “No, I don’t think so.”

Dove stared at him silently for a minute.

“You know what, I can believe it,” he said finally. “Look, I was happy to just blend into the background, you’re the one who decided to give me a firm tug. Could have bought me dinner first.”

“Go annoy someone else, Dove,” Tyron stated evenly, eyes narrowing with a faint hint of anger sparking within.

Sensing he was beginning to step into dangerous territory, Dove made a hasty exit. Tyron was fairly confident he’d stashed his armour, robe and likely the ridiculous snake skeleton he wore somewhere for the journey, probably packed into the luggage the students brought with them. 

The Undead Summoner practically skipped through the camp, clicking his heel bones and cackling like a mad thing.

So much for letting the students sleep.

Resigned to it all, Tyron could only shrug his shoulders and move on. He didn’t know exactly why Dove had wanted to see the rift for himself, but he suspected there was a loose connection to the nefarious contract he’d been forced to sign.

Had probably been forced to sign, Tyron corrected himself. Dove, being Dove, may well be keeping the true circumstances to himself. While he had once been an altruistic person, beneath his self-deprecating, unserious exterior, the man he had been was long dead. As the only being with access to his Class in the entire realm, as far as Tyron was aware, Dove was in a unique position to say whatever the hell he wanted and have nobody question him on it.

Raising his hands, Tyron began to cast. Words of power rolled like thunder as he rapidly formed sigils with his hands, letting the magick flow and take form. The more powerful he became, the more he learned and studied arcane energy, the more enthralled with it he became. Moving and shaping his magick had never been so easy, his mind and will had never been stronger, and yet the perfection he sought seemed to always be out of reach. No matter how well he manipulated the magick through words and gestures, it was never as good as he felt it could be.

That gap, between what he knew was possible and what he could currently achieve, was like a burr buried in his flesh. It would be maddening if the pursuit of magick weren’t so all-consuming for him.

He ended the short spell and watched as the Ossuary Vent formed overhead. As it opened, a dark cloud of Death Magick began to pour out, trailing down until it touched the ground. More specifically, it touched his shadow.

The Fallen Shadow feat allowed him to use his own shadow as a repository of magick, and as it turned out, he was able to store quite a lot in there. Once he’d judged it was full, he cut  off the spell, causing the vent to disappear, the last dregs of power being sucked into his shadow, there to stay until he called upon it.

Ready for the day, he began to climb up the wall, his skeletons moving aside for him at his unspoken command. With his physical strength, granted to him by the Unseen, it was no challenge for him to clamber up the slope until he was able to look out over the side, facing north. Somewhere out there, not too far away, the broken lands, and the rift at their centre, would be found. Even from this distance, he could see the dark shapes of kin looming in the distance.

Any of the largest monsters roaming the wasteland had been hunted down by the Slayers over the past two years, but they were always thick on the ground around a rift. Unwilling to provoke an aggressive response from the like thousands of kin milling around the rift, the Slayers hadn’t attacked it yet. A wise decision. With more levels and familiarity with each other, the Slayers were far better prepared now than they had been just after the exodus. 

Tyron could acknowledge that he too was greatly stronger than he had been before. With a literal army of undead at his beck and call, along with the power of his magick, he wasn’t worried about the upcoming battle. It was the challenges that would come afterwards that concerned him. 

For now, he didn’t need to think about those, one thing at a time.

While he had time to kill, he thought he may as well put his skills to good use. As packs of kin continued to approach the camp, he used his magick to decimate them before they even reached the wall. A slight smile on his lips, he kept his hands in constant motion, flicking out one sigil to the next while he spoke the words of power, letting them slam into the air and cause the world around him to ripple.

Death’s Fist’s flew out, snaking through the air as coiled black smoke until they reached their target and clutched around them, squeezing and crushing. Lances of bone were conjured from thin air and sent rocketing outwards, two, three, five at a time. Under the barrage, there was little the monsters could do once they entered Tyron’s range. Some monsters were able to endure several spells, others could endure a dozen, but what did it matter? He could keep casting all day if he wanted to.

Several monsters approached with thick, crystalline shards covering their backs, proving to be effective armour against his magick. No matter, he just needed to change tacks.

Changing the pattern of his hands and the spoken words, he cast a new spell. Pillars of bone began to rise out of the earth, before the kin, who simply charged through them. With another spell, the bone formations shattered, causing chaos amongst the monsters and shredding their soft flesh.

One particularly stubborn monster kept going, despite its injuries. Tyron frowned, wondering if his spells were still too weak. With another series of gestures, he conjured a spear of bone, as thick as a mans leg and several metres long. Piercing upwards from the ground, it skewered the kin straight through, punching through its soft underbelly and breaking the shards of crystal on its back.

Methodically, he continued to attack every monster that approached, but no longer felt compelled to destroy them all himself. It wouldn’t do to draw out too much magick before they set off for the rift. Idly, he thumbed some mage candy into his mouth, letting the power flow into his body. Using the stuff had become more of a habit here in the wasteland where it was so readily available. Sadly, his tolerance didn’t go up with his constitution, otherwise he really could eat it like a confectionary.

By the time he came down from the wall, the students were up, already looking frustrated at whatever Dove was saying to them. Not bothering to listen in, Tyron simply spoke over the skeleton. 

“Make sure you don’t leave anything behind. We’ll be leaving in a few hours.”

“Rude,” Dove muttered, swinging his snake over his shoulder.

“Yes, thank you, Master Steelarm,” Richard said, gratitude plain on his face.

“How did you go yesterday on the wall?” Tyron asked.

His students’ expression soured somewhat. 

“It went well, but I lost several more minions, as did the others. The kin are larger and more aggressive than we expected.”

“I’ll make sure to replace all of your losses,” Tyron assured them.

“That’s… unexpectedly generous,” Georg blinked.

Tyron scowled at him and Georg held up his hands defensively.

“There’s not an unlimited supply of remains, is all. I know you need them more than we do.”

“Keep going, you might convince me to change my mind.”

Georg clamped his mouth shut while Richard and Briss glared at him.

It was important that his students keep growing and developing their knowledge and abilities. Tyron wasn’t so arrogant as to think he didn’t need more perspectives than his own to succeed at Necromancy. Investing in them was also investing in himself. Besides, they weren’t able to handle that many undead anyway, refilling their hordes was a drop in the bucket.

“Once we leave, we’ll push straight toward the rift and wait until the Slayers arrive. Is there anyone here who’s never seen the broken lands for themselves?”

Several of the younger apprentices raised their hands, looking ashamed.

“Warn them in advance,” he instructed his own pupils. “I don’t want anyone falling over themselves or passing out when we get there. Considering how thick the magick is, I suspect it’ll be something of an experience.”