“You’re generating magick already, somehow. It’s not much, miniscule, if I’m being honest–”

“Don’t mock my size.”

“–but it’s there. This must be how your spirit generates enough energy to maintain itself.”

“I always wondered about that, because you never created a conduit between the two of us, right?”

Tyron nodded in confirmation as he continued to peer down at the carved skull through his Death Lense.

“At the time, I figured it was just a function of your status. A high level Slayer would be a powerful spirit and sustain itself. I didn’t really have the time to investigate, so I just glossed over it. Now though, I have to wonder how it works.”

“You need to remember I’m not in my original vessel anymore. Perhaps when you stuffed me into my skull, the bones were generating magick the same way your bony boys do, converting ambient magick into death attuned energy. Considering I was hanging around all your skeletons, they could have been feeding it to me as well.”

Tyron put down the lens and pondered for a moment, arms folded over his chest.

“That’s… possible. Are you suggesting that perhaps your current… ‘vessel’ works as a descriptor, I suppose… your current vessel is different? Modified, somehow?”

“One way to find out.”

“I don’t think I can crack it open without freeing your spirit.”

“You don’t have to break it, you ass! Aren’t you a fancy schmancy Enchanter or some shit? Bust out the tools and get fancy, for fuck’s sake!”

~~~

“Fucking found it!”

“Thank the mother’s mammaries. I was getting sick of being rolled around this table.”

Hunched over the table, Tyron continued to focus through his glass, tracing the incredibly fine filaments carved on the inside of the ‘cheek bones’.

“Blood and bone, I can’t believe they managed to fit such dense script in there. It’s not even powered by a core! Fuck me.”

It had taken two straight days of exhaustingly careful analysis to find the script. If he hadn’t been so careful, he likely would have tripped one of the four hidden matrices that would have dissolved the skull to dust in his hands. Disabling those had taken a full day on its own.

“They seriously didn’t want anyone to examine this thing too closely.”

“Don’t call me a thing, that hurts my feelings. And, let’s be real, the only person who was going to look at it was you. They didn’t want you to look at it too closely.”

“I can see why,” Tyron muttered, “this is… incredible stuff. If I’m not wrong, this script does exactly what you suggested it might. It takes in ambient magick and converts it to death aligned energy. That’s what’s been powering you.”

“If… if you damaged it in some minute way, would that… drain me of power? Over time? Maybe I’d be able to escape that way, before they notice what’s happening.”

Tyron sat back and gave the suggestion the thought it deserved. Ultimately, he shook his head.

“It’s possible it might work the way you suggest. But it’s also possible that it would just drain you until you couldn’t be in your ‘awake’ state, and then you’d just be sleeping inside the skull forever, rather than being set free.”

“Well, shit.”

“It might work. I can do it, for sure, if you want me to.”

“... No,” Dove sighed, “if I stopped waking up, Yor would realise something was wrong and just fix it. Even if she didn’t, I wouldn’t get free. Damn it all. Let’s keep going with your plan.”

“Well, this is a huge step forward. I need to copy out this script and study it. If I can figure out how, I can use this to feed you the power you need. Instead of taking in ambient energy, I’ll feed it magick straight from my power array. This script will do the work of conversion for me, and feed that magick straight to you.”

Unspeakably excited, Tyron got to work. Due to the incredibly fine work and the awkward position it had been done, he had to use small mirrors, his fingers, and a thin paint that he eventually blotted onto a clean sheet of paper to get a clear picture of the enchantment. Only then could he get to work on interpreting it.

~~~

“It’s ridiculously sophisticated,” Tyron groaned as he rubbed his eyes. How long had it been since he slept? It didn’t matter, he was fascinated by what he was seeing.

“Of course it is! This is vampire bullshit. I’ve never seen Yor do anything in a straightforward manner if she had the option to do it in a needlessly bizarre and labyrinthine way instead. I imagine the attitude filters through every aspect of their spellwork as well.”

Tyron grunted as he continued to trace lines and sigils onto yet another clean copy of paper.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Apparently, there are differences between vampire groups; some of them are a bit more direct in their methods. I was warned that they might come for me.”

“Oh great. So not only are they of limited help, they’re an active danger as well.”

“To be fair, I never considered Yor to be anything other than dangerous.”

“I didn’t think she could hurt me! I was already dead!”

“I wasn’t mocking you, just stating a fact.”

“Oh. Well don’t look so smug when you do it.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Oh yes you were, smuggy.”

“Can I focus on this enchantment, please?”

“Fine.”

As Tyron continued to work, he couldn’t help but muse out loud.

“I always intended to use my enchanting skills as a way to enhance my Necromancy, but I didn’t expect to get the chance so soon.”

Dove was a little confused.

“What do you mean, so soon? You’ve been out here at this shop for months. What have you been doing all this time?!”

“Trying to max my core Skills before I hit level forty.”

“Oh, shit. I guess I kind of assumed you’d advanced to Silver ages ago.”

“Never had the chance. I’ve been running experiments, trying to increase my Corpse Appraisal and Corpse Preparation. When that’s done, I want to hit my cap with Raise Dead as well, possibly Bone Stitching too.”

“It’s a lot of work, but it’ll put you in good stead going forward,” Dove mused.

“Only after that was I intending to start implementing my Enchanting ideas. Trying to focus on too many things at once would stall my progress on every front.”

“Speaking of, you probably haven’t thought much on this so far, but I wonder if you have any ideas about your third Sub-Class? I assume you’ve hit human level twenty?”

Tyron paused.

“I have. Reached it I mean. To be honest, I’ve not given much thought to it, considering everything I have on my plate already. Something that can make my undead better, that’s all I have right now.”

“Huh. I thought you might consider some sort of Mage Class so you have a better variety of spells to play with. Or a defensive Class to keep yourself alive.”

The Necromancer shook his head.

“If you think about it, all of those purposes can be served by simply having stronger minions. I could add some sort of fire Mage subclass and throw fireballs around, to do what? To damage my enemies? Stronger undead fighting for me will do that just fine. Protect myself? Some sort of Defender subclass? Stronger undead could protect me just as well.”

“You’re probably right,” Dove considered “Your subclasses are meant to supplement and support your main class. So what’s going to help you create better minions?”

“I’m not sure. With the Enchanting, I had a clear idea of what I could do, the weakness it could shore up. Specifically, helping lighten the burden on my magick. For the next step, I’m not sure. Perhaps I’ll have a clearer picture after I advance my Class again.”

~~~

“Where the heck do you think you’re going to stick that?!”

“Deep, deep inside you.”

“Tyron. That’s so filthy, it brings a tear to my eye. Metaphorically.”

“Shut up.”

“Seriously though, where is it going to fit? I’m only skull sized!”

The young mage picked up the matrix he’d designed and held it in front of the skull, spread across his two palms.

“It looks bigger than it really is, and, to be honest, there’s more surface area inside your skull than you think there is.”

“So I’m big after all.”

“I thought you said size doesn’t matter.”

“That was before I learned how massive I was.”

Tyron rolled his eyes.

“Right. Anyway, if I make it much smaller than this, then the amount of power it can store won’t be significant enough to do much with. I can create another array and connect it to this one, doubling or tripling the available energy, when you have a body and I have more room to work with.”

“Fair enough. Still, are you sure this is going to work?”

“I have no idea. This is entirely guesswork.”

“That gives me a lot of confidence….”

“Look, it should work, I believe it will work, but I’m not a vampire with thousands of years of experience, alright? I’m just trying to figure this out as best I can.”

“You’re right, you’re right. I told you to go ahead and try in the first place. Fine, turn me over and stitch me up. I’m ready.”

“I’m going to have to bolt you in place while I’m working, this is going to take hours to get it housed properly.”

“Well… great. Off to sleep for me then.”

~~~

A week without sleep. Seven days straight of continuous work, and it all came down to this. He felt exhausted, down to his bones. His head swam every time he moved, and his eyes felt completely raw. Simultaneously, he felt elated. The deep-rooted satisfaction that came from new discovery, from pushing his Skills to their limits and developing something new. It was a euphoric experience.

The grimoire he had received from Yor lay forgotten on the side of the table as he unclamped the carved skull and turned it back over, placing Dove carefully in the centre of his workspace. If all had gone well, then his power array was currently absorbing ambient magick, storing it, and then feeding it to the matrix the vampires had etched on him. If it worked as he believed it did, then that power would be converted to death magick before being sent straight to Dove’s spirit.

What effect that would have, and what Dove could then do with that energy, he had no idea. Hopefully, the former Summoner could draw on that reservoir to cast spells. He wouldn’t be able to do what he’d done before, namely, Summon creatures from the Astral plane, since Death Magick wasn’t useful for that purpose, but he could figure something out. Maybe.

“W-w-what the… what the fuck?”

The dim lights in the hollow eyes of the skull flickered and brightened as the spirit within stirred himself from his ‘rest’.

“Hello, Dove,” Tyron croaked before he coughed, took a sip of water from his flask and tried again. “H-hello. Shit. How do you feel?”

“Better than you, I think, which is an achievement, since I’m fucking dead. I know what you’re asking, though; I can definitely feel something is… different.”

“For want of a better term, you’re all hooked up. I’ve tested every part of the power network, and it’s functioning as it should. The work I did to connect it to the existing matrix is also working, energy is flowing. It’s nothing like what you would have had available as a human, but it's a heck of a lot more than you had before. A hundred times, at least.”

“Yes, I can feel the difference, for sure. I feel… better? Somehow? More solid. I can see a bit better also.”

“If we give it a day to build up, we can try and get you to cast some verbal spells, something simple. See if it works?”

“Fuck yes,” Dove breathed. “I can’t fucking wait.”