Book of The Dead

Chapter 43: Breaking

It took long hours of work for Tyron to prepare his minions, not nearly as long as he would have liked. He could almost imagine what it would be like for a new Necromancer trying to learn in an environment in which they weren't persecuted. Taking the time to practice each technique, not having to rush each step. He could happily spend a week just testing different methods for infusing magick into the bones, or stitching a skeleton and then dissolving the threads in order to try it again.

What would he give for that sort of relaxed pace, where he could research and take his time puzzling out each and every step of the process, pushing his spells and skills to ten before he even approached level twenty in his class. Perhaps even taking the time to pick up a sub-class that suited him, blending the two together to create something greater than the sum of its parts. If all had gone according to the plans he'd envisioned before the awakening, he'd be doing that right now. Holed up in a wizard academy, practicing magick and preparing his path through to level eighty where he'd join the elite of the elite, like Magnin and Beory.

He had none of that. Instead, he did the best he could, intricately weaving the bones together, forming the sinews and joints necessary for the creature to move using threads of pure magick. His understanding of the technique had improved yet again, an achievement acknowledged by the Unseen, and he felt that gain as he worked. When he remembered how difficult it had been when he wove his first skeleton, the number of times he'd fumbled and had to redo his work. Thinking back, it was almost a miracle the final creation had been able to move at all. The joints had been sloppy, the threads not aligned correctly, the musculature misshapen at best and just plain wrong at worst.

Compare that to now, he could competently weave together a complete skeleton without having to stop once. He methodically moved from bone to bone, joint to joint, starting with the left leg, then the right, pulling together the ankles, toes and knees. These were critical components of the finished weave; if the legs weren't done correctly, the skeleton would quickly fall apart or be crushed in combat due to being unbalanced or too slow. The knees in particular needed a thorough job, bearing the weight as they did.

With the legs done, he moved to the waist and chest before moving to the spine. The spine was by far the most tedious section to work on; each of the small bones needed to be carefully slotted against the next with incredibly fine, yet uncomplicated thread-work required to allow the bones to flex as they needed to. Finally the skull, strangely enough the simplest of all to complete. It made sense when one thought about it; the facial muscles needed for expressions, eating or speaking were completely unnecessary for his minions. Very little work was done around the jaw, the most time was spent at the base of the skull where it connected to the spine.

Once the weaving was done, he began to inspect and infuse the bones as best he could. Using an unformed cloud of arcane energy to slide along the bones, searching for imperfections and leaks before plugging them as best he could. Once that task was done, he worked to infuse the remains with as much Death Magick as he could. In ideal circumstances, he'd happily spend a week on this stage, attempting different approaches and attempting to bring things to an ideal state. Even just leaving the bones next to each other over time would allow them to foster that strange exchange of magick he'd observed in the past.

He still didn't know if that process continued after they were raised, something he'd love to look into if he ever had the time. As things stood, he didn't have the time to do anything other than raise minions and fight.

Pouring over four sets of bones in this way was time consuming and mentally draining. If he hadn't maxed his concentration, he doubted he'd be able to focus for this length of time. It was grueling, detail oriented work, but he grit his teeth and pushed through it until finally it was done. The only step left was to cast Raise Dead four consecutive times to have his four latest minions ready to go. He took a short break to regenerate his magick, put something in his stomach and gather his energy before he launched himself into it.

Just like with his stitching skills, his ability to cast Raise Dead had improved dramatically since that first attempt. He was so much more comfortable with the rhythms of the spell, the gestures and intonations required to shape the arcane energy into the necessary forms. In many ways the spell he cast now didn't resemble that he had used the first time at all. Phrases had been changed, the order modified, certain sections were abridged where others had been expanded. With the aid of his ritual focus, the flow of energy was smooth and uninterrupted, pouring into the bones as he created each of the elements necessary to form a functioning undead.

To cast four in a row unaided was too much, even for his greatly expanded pool of magick, and after the third he needed to draw on his dwindling supply of mage candy to produce the energy required. With the fourth cast complete, Tyron had been working for eight hours straight, but he refused to rest. With his latest advancement, these four skeletons represented the pinnacle of his achievement once again, the only four to benefit from the additional aid of the Unseen provided by his second Feat. He hated that the strength of his minions was so unbalanced. If possible he'd prefer to raise entirely new skeletons, erasing the old to make way for the new, but he couldn't afford such waste.

Tyron rose and exited the cabin, quickly summoning all nine of his minions to his side. Soon he had distributed the arms he had available across each of them and it was time to leave. He'd recovered a second shield the previous day and he made sure two of his latest creations wielded them. They were by far the most nimble, and the most durable of his skeletons, if any of them were going to take hits, he wanted it to be them. He tapped his pocket in which he kept a small stash of Arcane Crystal. He needed to push hard over the next twenty four hours, the slayers would have already reached the rift by this time. If he was going to be of any use at all, he needed to get there quickly and do his bit to remove the monsters in the area.

It wasn't much, but it was all he could hope to do.

He set off at a brisk pace and was pleased to note that the nine skeletons by his side drained his magick slower than he'd expected. It was unknown why, perhaps the second Skeleton Focus Feat reduced the cost to maintain his skeletons more than he'd expected, or his growing skill had made the process of feeding them energy more efficient. Whatever the reason, he was happy for it. It turned out he could have supported ten after all, but he didn't regret the lack of the additional minion. With the spare magick, he could utilise his other spells and begin to level them finally. It was likely that being able to cast Suppress Mind more often, or make use of his new curse, would help keep his skeletons alive more than having one more to fight with.

Resolved to do what he could, Tyron marched forth, the silent forms of the undead arrayed around him.

In the broken lands.

In Dove's opinion, it was a beautiful thing when slayers worked together. Competitors most of the time, fighting over missions, hoarding resources and attempting to rank up before the others, cooperation wasn't a common thing amongst their profession. Yet when it really came down to it, he liked to think that every slayer knew they could count on the others to have their back. And when shit really hit the fan, when things were grim, they would pull together and beat the ever living fuck out of whatever they needed to or die trying.

It was almost enough to make him feel sentimental.

"Dove, would you stop pissing about and get your bony backside in the fight?" Monica growled at him, all trace of her usual decorum abandoned.

"Monica?" he gasped. "To think I would hear such appalling language from you, when others are around to hear what you say?"

She grunted and hurled another ball of fire toward the frontline.

"I'll be dead by the end of the day, reputation hardly matters now."

"Tut-tut. Can't have that defeatist talk here. We'll succeed! Victory is practically guaranteed! I can sense it in my left nut."

A mixture of confusion and revulsion passed over his friend's face as she processed his words.

"Why the left?" she finally asked.

Dove grinned and held up a finger.

"Why, the left can see the future, of course, whilst the right can peer into the past."

"And your dick can split the present. We get it. Now throw some spells or I'll burn you to a crisp like I should have done the day I met you."

Disappointed at being robbed of his punchline, Dove pouted before he began to move his hands and stir the arcane within him.

"I was waiting for my magick to replenish, if you must know. Summoning takes a lot out of me, as well you know."

"Fine, now put your sub-class to use and throw fire at something."

It had been a mistake to branch into combat magick with his third sub-class. The stats were great and the additional firepower made him useful in a lot more situations, but he hated never having any down time. If he wasn't managing his summons, he was expected to be hurling fire and ice around like a brainless iron rank on their first expedition.

Words of power rolled from his mouth as his hands wove through the air and in moments a ball of flame had appeared in the air before him. It grew hotter and brighter over several seconds before he thrust his palms forward and the flame rocketed away, arcing over the top of the warriors in front to detonate amidst the mass of monsters beyond.

"You know this would be a great opportunity to snag a few levels under normal circumstances," he called across to Monica. "My lack of aim isn't particularly relevant in these conditions."

"Shut the fuck up and cast!" she hollered back.

The noise from the battle rose and fell as spells and skills were unleashed with devastating effect. Light flashed, creatures roared and hissed and battle cries rang out again and again as the massed slayers pushed forward into the broken lands. The noise drew the rift-kin like a flame drew moths and they poured out of the woods to descend on the humans, hissing and shrieking with rage. Cold eyed slayers braced their shields, readied their weapons and slashed out, cutting down swathes of the creatures but suffering wounds in turn.

In the centre of the line and the thickest fighting stood the silver ranked slayers, those above level forty in their main class, who stood toe to toe with the largest and most vicious foes. The creatures of Nagrythyn were twisted insectoid monsters of chitin and warped flesh and now Dove saw beasts he'd never encountered, not even on the other side of the rift. Hulking bruisers the size of a house with shells as thick as a man roared and thrashed amidst the masses of smaller creatures. They could only be felled when multiple slayers pushed forward to surround them, avoiding their deadly blades and razor pointed teeth to carve away at the thick armour piece by piece before finally inflicting fatal damage.

The cores of these monsters would be worth a ton of money, enough to pay for the living of every slayer here for a year, especially if they were able to harvest and sell the chitin, but this wasn't a venture for money. This wasn't even the fight for survival, that was still to come, this battle only served to gain access to the rift. The fight raged for hours as Dove continued to empty the magick he held throwing spells or calling on his contracts. Each of every summon he had available was drawn out until the energy that formed the creature's body on this plane was dispersed through damage and they returned to the astral, when he would begin to draw out the next.

By the time the battle ended, all ten of his summons were exhausted and his reserves of magick were completely dry. With a grimace, the mage pulled a shard of candy from his travel bag and stuck it in his mouth, an action repeated by dozens of mages along the line.

Almost twelve hundred slayers had joined the expedition to the broken lands, and looking around Dove believed it was likely they had already lost a portion of them. As hard as they tried, an Iron rank not yet level twenty was always going to be of limited use in a place like this. Still, he saluted their courage. They had volunteered to come despite the risks. They were heroes in his eyes.

"Dove! Get up here and take a look at this."

Rogil's voice rose over the clatter of ongoing fighting and Dove walked towards the source of the sound where he found his friend, dripping sweat, a haggard look on his face as he stared out over the rifts.

"By the munificent melons of the goddess, you look like shit."

"It's the arm," Rogil grunted. "Nearly ripped off again. Hurts like hell."

"I bet."

He wished he could do something, but he couldn't, and Rogil knew nothing could be done, so they moved on.

"What do you need?" Dove asked, unusually business-like.

"We don’t have any pure dimension mages so I wanted you to take a look at the rift. Is it stable enough for us to get through?"

"It's too stable, that's the damn problem."

The fighting hadn't stopped, but had died down. All the rift-kin who had flooded through into this world within the broken lands had been destroyed, but there were more breaking through all the time. As they appeared, the slayers took turns defeating them as the others rested and gathered their strength for the true test to come.

Dove brought his hands up and activated his magick sight. What he saw was almost blinding, but he endured it for several long seconds as he studied the rift.

"It's stabilising quickly. Too quickly. We can get through, no problem, even this many. Fuck, we could have taken twice as many."

"We didn't have twice as many to bring," Rogil spat.

Dove was silent and his team leader glanced at him. The mage was unusually shaken, his face pale as sweat beaded on his brow.

"What is it, Dove?" he asked.

The summoner twitched before he looked to his friend.

"Oh. I've just… never seen it so close before. Nagrythyn, I mean."

"Got a good glimpse did you? That's what happens during a break. You know more about it than I do."

Dove swallowed.

"Didn't expect to fucking see it though, did I?" he muttered, a touch of his sarcastic tone returning, "not from this side of the rift."

Two realms that should never touch were drawing closer as the rift continued to stabilise. A break wasn't caused by the rift being destroyed, or shattering in any way, it was caused by the two sides coming into contact. When it happened, Nagrythyn would overlap their own world within the range of the broken lands. In a way, the rift would cease to exist at all, and anything that walked on that cursed realm would be free to escape, to rampage in a place that had yet to fall.

"Alright, we can't wait any longer. Time to push through."

Rogil gathered the other silver rank team captains and they organised the gathered slayers. After a few minutes to regroup, they stepped through the rift and found themselves standing inside another realm. Dove looked up at the familiar sight of the acid green skies of Nagrythyn. Though this time they boiled with a frenetic energy he had never witnessed before.

All around them rift-kin snarled and hissed as the slayers began to fight their way through the monsters.

But their numbers were endless, and in the distance the true behemoths approached, the ground shaking under their weight.

Dove crunched the crystal in his mouth between his teeth and hissed as the raw magick flooded into his body. He raised his hands and began to cast.

"Let's fucking dance you pricks."

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