Efrain reached over to grab the mesh ball, dropping the collection of leaves into it and closing the tiny clasp. On of the odd qualities of having no skin is the complete lack of grip. More than once he had sent the entire assembly spinning across the counter. The tiny clasp was already temperamental for those with flesh intact. The difficulty was redoubled when you could only work with your phalanges.

Fortunately, luck hadn’t entirely deserted him today, so the mesh ball remained shut as he placed it aside on the counter. The kettle was a masterwork of glass and metal, a piece that had cost him considerable amount of coin at a Karkosian workshop. The stove underneath it had been even more expensive - the ducts of copper tubing zig-zagging their way underneath the metal grate had earned him some very strange looks by the forge lord he’d commissioned.

Efrain placed a hand onto the plaque before the ducts, letting his mind settle as he envisioned the smell of hot metal, glowing red tracts letting off waves of heat. The next image to come to mind was the actual flow of the energy from somewhere else to race across the copper, to collect in bubbles on the bottom of the kettle and explode upward. Finally, he recalled the laundry list of tasks that were added with the paladin’s incursion. The resulting irritation sparked as the goal of hot metal and the process of heat transference slammed together.

Memory, the visualization of the goal state, intention, the visualization of the process to get to that goal state, and emotion to power the process. Memory, intent, and emotion - in the combination of those three things, came the genesis of magic. Efrain could feel the success of the spell as his senses sharpened and mind cleared.

The model was the most common logical framework for the casting of spells, and all of it was perfectly encapsulated in the act of boiling water. If he ever had a apprentice, he thought, they’d make tea every morning to remind them. Of course, that was predicated on finding someone who was both interested in necromancy and wasn’t already dead for such a hobby.

His train of thought was broken as steam screamed out of the kettle. Gripping it by the handle, he removed it from the heat, and poured it into the waiting tea set. After replacing the cosey, he rifled through the cupboard to get at the jar of cinnamon he’d used this morning. Yet another problem, he thought after failing in his search, this is what I get for not investing in some proper shelving. He wondered what next mess would spontaneously materialize on his doorstep, or crash into it, as the case may be.

The answer to that particular question bubbled up behind him as he spooned some sugar into the mug. Every person with significant wealth had their impractical expenses, like gold statues or golden whores - Efrain had sugar. That being said, what was habit back when he still had a tongue had become a ritual. The mixture lacked something if he didn’t put a spoonful of that useless white powder in.

Plesco bobbed patiently as Efrain hoisted the kettle, a vague sound reminiscing of a bird’s chirp echoing from the folds of skin. Efrain hmmmed in acknowledgement as he poured the amber liquid in, watching the sugar darken and dissolve as he swirled.

“Alright, you wouldn’t of come to get me if it wasn’t important - what am I missing?” Efrain said with the politest measure of patience he could muster.

He placed the mug below his nasal cavity and his head began to float with the scent. He could ‘inhale’ too, which is something he definitely should not have been able to do. Part of a new frontier, he supposed - most of the reanimation enchantments had been created far in the past - as a consequence, he and other had to reconstruct considerable parts of it. Some quirks and unintended side effects were almost inevitable. It would be very difficult to track exactly what caused what through the network of different magical nexuses and physical interfaces.

Plesco chirped again, which reminded Efrain how sorely he missed having someone to talk with that wasn’t trying to kill him.

“I’m assuming a visitor. Maybe this one will have the grace to come through the front door instead of the ceiling,” he laughed in response, picking up one of the several volumes on making preserves that were stacked on the centre table and flicking through it. Plesco’s chirps changed in pitch, and Efrain sighed as he put down the text. He almost wanted to pick it back up again when he saw the beautiful botanical illuminations vanish behind the cover. Instead, settling for another sampling of the tea, before speaking again.

“Who is it?”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The creature shuddered in a way that most people would’ve found distinctly uncomfortable. A little bloom of pink and red light floated up, a line of flickering fire drawing a sigil in the air above Plesco. Efrain had briefly glanced back at the cover, reminded of the preservation enchantment he’d need to cast before too long. He only shifted his gaze back when the sigil, the letter ‘C’ shaped like a pair of crimson lips, had fully formed.

Efrain nearly dropped the cup.

Plesco stood idly by as Efrain rushed past him and out, the tea cup clinking as he set it down quickly on the counter.

“Shit!” Efrain hissed under his breath as he hurried along.

Why in the world had they made these corridors so long? Well, he might as well ask why that damnable creature was here unannounced. They could’ve hardly chosen a worst time - a collapsed ceiling would not reflect well to one who loved aesthetics as much as Carnes.

Finally, he made it to the end where the turnpike stair awaited him. In a rush he crossed the threshold and promptly tripped over his own robe. Apparently, life had decided it wasn’t quite done with him. Like with most of these occasions, he felt less of a sense of alarm and more a profound frustration as he careened downward.

As the stones blurred and the sharp angle of the stairs rushed toward him, something pale and white shot out. His skull shuddered with a sudden impact. Those graced by flesh forget how much muscle and fat cushioned them. With exceptional precision and disproportionate strength, his skull was slowly turned to face the ceiling.

“Oh dear, oh dear. You don’t want to be putting any dark dents in that lovely white bone. I helped you bleach it myself, remember?” a voice purred.

If Efrain still had facial muscles, the smile he would’ve attempted would came out as more of a grimace.

“Hello Carnes,” He said.

The grin the flesh lord responded with was nothing short of predatory.

Some time later, the sun blazed down surrounded by a sea of blue. Even with that being the case, the air in the Vale was still quite chilly, but fortunately the breeze was light. The blossoms growing around the beams of the pergola fluttered as the wind flowed through the hatching.

“How ever did you manage to grow such beauties all the way up here?” asked Carnes as they took the steaming porcelain from Efrain’s hand. Their hand was so pale, it nearly melded into the fine porcelain.

“Some months of trial and error, and quite a lot of compost," he said as he resumed his seat across from the flesh lord.

“You must have no shortage of that, what with all the adventurers coming to ‘challenge’ you.”

Eyes the colour of crimson flickered with grey and green as Carnes lifted the cup to their face with exceptional delicacy.

“Or have you experienced a reprieve from that particular annoyance of late?” they said, lowering the cup back down.

The bowers and arcs of cream, red and orange flowers that weaved up and around the balcony were the one barrier between him and a sunlight-induced headache. The mountains beyond stretched clear, the gentle curve of the Frozen Vale, and the titanic middle ridge of the giant’s spine beyond to the north. The beauty of the day contrasted starkly with what it brought to Efrain’s castle.

“And completely ruin my floors. You wouldn’t happen to know of a plant that grows them back would you?”

“I am sure some of the forest lords could give you an answer. They do some marvellously creative things with vines and bark.”

“And they’ve let you trapeze around in their old growths, have they? How many are even left after the church burned half their woods down?” Efrain said. Carnes let their expression flow into a melodramatic mask of sorrow. They had a man’s face today, smooth, young and bright, framed by a neck-length sliver mane.

“You wound me, Efrain Belacore. As insular as mage now are, even to each-other, it’s not as if my services are not in demand. I happened to be requested, to help revive one of their fauna - a group they had thought almost extinct. Have you been up here so long you forgot about ‘helping others’?”

“Wonder who shouldered the cost for that?” Efrain said as he raised the cup to where his nose had been. He ignored the jab at his isolation - it wasn’t like he’d been up here that long.

A thin smile crossed Carnes’s lips as they said: “Oh, I did not ask for that much. This was a challenge I could not resist. Besides, having a favour from a forest lord will undoubtedly prove useful at one point or another.”

They stretched, although it might have been more accurate to say they unfolded.

“Such a pity,” they tsked, “so many of them left for Pasgrima after the purge. Scare few maintain the forests here in the north.”

“Don’t suppose you have a favour to call into the light lords while you’re at it and have them stop ruining my hall?”

“Light lords? So you’ve had a run-in from one of their number then?” Carnes said as they absent-mindedly played with a strand of perfectly curled hair.

“‘One of their number’ made that lovely hole in my ceilings, as well as the multiple craters in my floor.” Efrain said bitterly.

“Oh, how ghastly,” grimaced Carnes, “for all their ostentatious soliloquies and books worth of strictures, they really do have no sense of decorum when they get ‘swinging’. So how did you convince them to leave?”

“Convince them?”

“Yes, how did you…” Carnes leaned forward, their eyes alight with an glee that made Efrain almost squirm, “you don’t mean to say… you killed one of them?”

“Well, not exactly…” Efrain said, then he recounted the whole tale of the morning, the sudden arrival of the paladin, her… creative use of weaponry, and, finally, the pendulum. Carnes’s resulting peals of laughter were high and pure sounds, much like a child in its bemusement.