Within the Ossuary, Tyron worked at a feverish pace. The space within the pocket dimension he’d created had seemed absurdly large at one point, but now, he didn’t have enough room for all that he wanted to do.
The equipment and tubs he had used in his study beneath Almsfield Enchantments had been installed here, as had a desk, comfortable seat and all the materials he would need for ritual casting. In addition, he had installed a glass and pliance to allow him to work on enchantments for his undead.
Amidst all of this clutter, a slew of paper, notes, open books and piles of misshapen bone were strewn, products of his ongoing labour.
How long had he been gripped by the frenzy this time? He genuinely didn’t know, and he didn’t allow himself to entertain the thought, lest it distract him.
In his mind, sigils whorled and spun, combining, shifting, aligning, then breaking apart faster than he could write them down. He considered one angle to the problem, then allowed his mind to run like a river, trickling down into thousands of divergent pathways as he flicked from one combination of runes to another. When none showed promise, he would throw his half-formed work to the side and begin again, attempting to arrive at a solution from a new starting point.
Exacerbating the problem was the fact he didn’t know exactly what form the solution would take, but as he worked, as he attacked over and over again, he felt as if the thing he was trying to achieve was slowly taking shape.
Several times, he’d come across a method he’d thought might work, might create the superior undead he was looking for, but each time, his method fell apart as he tried to implement it.
What did he need to create a wight? It all came down to what he believed a wight was. What he wanted it to be was a commander type undead, one with a limited form of access to the Unseen. In other words, a form of semi-lich. A sentient undead that could continue to grow and gain levels in its new undead race, much like Dove did.
But Tyron didn’t intend to bleed every time he wanted his minion to check its status, which meant an entirely new method was needed to help his wights commune with the Unseen. He knew how to… for want of a better word… extract the status from a soul, but he needed a new medium which could take that information and act as a conduit between the dead spirit and the Unseen.
At the same time, he needed to determine a method via which the wight could form a connection with his minions.
This was infinitely more complex than it seemed. Not only did the connection need to be formed, so his wight could command the dead as he did, there were layers that needed to be considered as well. After all, he couldn’t allow the wights’ connection to override his own. If he ordered his minions, his commands should take precedence. But how to introduce a priority system to a system that existed largely as a form of magickally communicated thought?
It was the conduit formed between Tyron and his undead that acted as the vehicle for his unspoken directions, and his first thought had been to modify the Raise Dead ritual to change the way this functioned. If he formed a conduit between himself and the wight, then from the wight to the skeletons under its command… he would still be able to command the dead via their ‘commander,’ and the wight could issue instructions to the dead it was connected to.
It should work, but this method carried with it a fatal flaw. If the wight were to die, so too would the skeletons under their command. Tyron hadn’t been able to determine a method whereby the conduit would transfer back to him upon the death of the wight.
Frustrated, he pushed his current sketch away and stood up. His body, toughened by the Unseen, suffered little from these extended periods of work, but his mind was fatigued. Then again, his eyes had achieved a familiar level of sandy irritation, to the point it almost hurt to blink. He’d reached the limit again; it was time to rest.
He emerged from the Ossuary and back into Nagrythyn. Little had changed in his absence. His minions remained in their places and the camp was undisturbed. To be safe, he took the time to sweep the surroundings with his ghosts, looking through their eyes to see if anything was amiss.
Thankfully, nothing turned up, so he lay down on his bedroll and cast Sleep, instantly plunging himself into a deep state of rest.
For some reason, he never felt much better when he awoke. His head still pounded, his thoughts were still sluggish, but he knew his condition would gradually improve over the next few hours. Food and water, some simple stretching, and he already had begun to feel the benefits. Still, his mind buzzed, eager to pick up where he had left off.
Instead, Tyron forced himself to focus. He wasn’t just here to work, but to gain vital experience by battling against the kin. Gaining levels would grow harder and harder as he progressed, so he knew he still needed to make the most of this opportunity.
He checked the state of his minions and the cauldrons to ensure they were fully charged. He nodded with satisfaction upon confirming that they were, and began to organise his minions.
Since the battle against the rift-killer and throwing himself into his studies, he’d gone through this cycle three or four times; he couldn’t quite remember which exactly. When his skeletal host was assembled, Tyron affixed his bone armour and ordered his minions to advance.
The world of Nagrythyn hadn’t changed in the time he had been here. It was still desolate, chaotic, and filled with a never-ending stream of rift kin, eager to invade and rampage through other worlds. Idly, he wondered if it would be possible to travel this realm and find another rift which connected to an entirely different place. How many alien realms did this one place connect to?
It was the sort of question only someone like Magnin and Beory could answer. With their immense strength, those two could travel through Nagrythyn, if not in safety, at least with confidence. To hunt down another rift would likely take months, travelling hard every day, an impossible task for regular slayers.
If Tyron grew strong enough, perhaps he could do it, but it was only an idle fancy. There was no reason to abandon his home…. He had business there yet.
Summoning all his caution, he scanned the landscape for anything unexpected, but found nothing beyond the usual, which was horrifying enough.
He didn’t dare venture too far from the ravine anymore, not now that he knew there were giant rift-killers potentially on the loose. He was eager to secure more cores, but not before he’d bulked up his forces.
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For three hours, Tyron engaged in relentless battle against the kin, harvesting cores when he could, but mostly fighting to maintain as many of his undead as possible. Many of his skeletons were overdue for maintenance, their bones cracked in places, their threading coming undone in others, but he couldn’t afford the time, not yet.
When they returned to the ravine, he once again ensured the perimeter remained secure, and the warding stones were functioning correctly, before he reentered the Ossuary and threw himself into his work. With every hour that passed, he crossed off another potential solution, but still he was haunted by the tantalising sensation of the correct method taking shape, just beyond his reach.
Every time he reached a dead end, he felt as though a single point of light had been shone on the true form of the wight.
Again, he shoved the page in front of him away, almost spilling his bottle of ink in the process. He reached out and placed the cap on it once more. Were he to lose his precious supply, he’d probably end up having to write in his own blood because he wasn’t going to stop until he achieved the breakthrough he sought.
Frustration bubbled up, but he forced it down as he stood and began to pace back and forth. There was still something he was missing… a technique or method that would provide the medium he sought.
Something that would bring all the disparate, functional pieces in his mind together into a single, cohesive whole.
Was it form? Or density? Or a combination of both? How could he test it? His idle thoughts on the matter of density caused his mind to turn to Nagrythyn. Out there, the magick was so thick it behaved in different ways. Just speaking the words of power had enabled him to see their effect with his own, unenhanced eyes. Perhaps… he wasn’t thinking about this the right way. He was trying to be clever, trying to find neat roads toward the solution. Perhaps it was time he attempted to use a battering ram.
Suddenly inspired, he burst out of the Ossuary and looked around with wild eyes.
There! That section of ground would be flat enough for his purpose. With a thought, he brought two dozen skeletons to his side and had them prepare the area, pulling the strange, alien grasses and shifting stones until it had been completely flattened. Then, he went to work.
With the staff his mother had gifted him, he began to draw into the sandy dirt. Sigils rapidly took shape under his precise and expert hand, spiralling outwards from the centre in concentric circles, a whirlpool of arcane power.
Several times he paused, frowning, then brushed over a section before rewriting it to his satisfaction. For six hours he worked, adding layer after layer to the increasingly intricate ritual circle. When it was finally done, he stood back, his eyes tracing over it carefully, inspecting every inch for even the slightest flaw. Finding none, he entered the Ossuary briefly, returning with a stone, which he placed within the exact centre of the circle.
Contained in the stone was the soul of a random marshall, a sacrifice for the upcoming test.
Next, he had his skeletons gather the four cauldrons and place them at precise intervals around the circle, which he then inspected himself.
This will either work… or blow up in my face. Or it could do both.
He didn’t care if it blew up, as long as it worked.
When he was ready, he raised his hands and began to cast a spell he hadn’t worked with yet, the Ossuary Vent. When completed, a small rent in space opened, and from it, a thick cloud of Death Magick began to pour.
This spell allowed him to release the dense, concentrated Death Magick held within the Ossuary to the outside, and now he called upon it to help fuel his ritual. As the energy fell like black mist, it was captured in the circle, syphoning down toward the centre and growing ever more dense as it did.
This continued until the Ossuary had emptied its store of power and he dismissed the Vent, staring at the plume of power held hostage in the circle he’d created.
It stood about as tall as he was and as thick as his arm, terminating at his eye level and starting just above the ground, just above the stone placed in the centre. So far, it appeared the containment was holding just fine, so he moved to the next step.
With a thought, four skeletons activated the sigils on the cauldrons, which began to belch forth black smoke, rich with Death Magick, into the air. Rather than spread, this energy was also captured by the sigils, spiralling around the circles, growing richer, more concentrated, before it too was funnelled all the way to the middle.
The plume had grown thicker and appeared more like a storm, pushing and roiling against the prison he had constructed for it. Still, it was holding.
Here we go.
Tyron raised his hands and began to speak. At the same time, he activated the outermost layer of the circle. Two things began to happen. First, his own power began to pour out of him and into the circle, spiralling down toward the centre. And second, the ambient energy that howled through the ravine began to be syphoned down as well. Not all of it, such a torrent of power would overwhelm the circle in moments, but a portion, providing a steady flow of power that added to his own.
As the arcane energy moved through the layers of runes, it began to change, darkening, thickening, shifting to the alignment he desired before joining the shuddering spire of Death Magick held captive in the centre.
Tyron eyed it fiercely, watching for any sign the power was on the verge of breaking its containment. Though it twisted and bulged in places, straining against the invisible bonds that held it, he was confident his sigils would hold.
When he had emptied out half of his reserves, he ceased the flow of power from himself, but allowed the ambient magick to continue being absorbed. He observed with caution, sensitive to any fluctuations in power as the contained energy grew more and more dense. After a time, he judged the gathered magick was approaching the limits of what his circle could contain, so he moved swiftly, adjusting the outermost sigil to cancel the absorption of energy.
In the centre of the circle, the incredibly dense plume of energy spun and wobbled. Pure, concentrated power like this was dangerous and unstable. Tyron was eager to succeed, but even in his manic state, he retained his sense of caution.
Now to see if this gathered power would be useful in his experiment.
Taking hold of the staff, he shifted to the nexus of the circle he’d prepared and planted it firmly. He raised his hands on either side of the powerful artefact, and began to cast.
This time, he wasn’t quick, he didn’t fire out the words of power at a rapid pace, but instead cast slowly and deliberately. One sigil followed the next at an even pace, and he spoke clearly, each word spaced from the next.
This was the Spirit Binding ritual, which was used to create ghosts. The spell contained several components, but it wasn’t overly complicated compared to his more potent rituals. First, the spell conjured forth the spirit.
The soul trapped within the stone began to emerge, right into the middle of the dense pillar of Death Magick.
Tyron watched intently, hyper-sensitive to anything abnormal.
With a few quick gestures, he used the eye magick Dove had taught him, staring hard at any interaction between the spirit and the arcane power.
He thought he saw… something… but what came next would be the key moment.
The next stage of the spell required him to construct a ‘shell’ or container of magick for the spirit to inhabit. It was a wispy, half-formed thing, delicate and insubstantial, but that wasn’t what Tyron was trying to make. He wanted something different.
Again, step by step, he began the next stage of the spell. Surrounded by such an immense cloud of energy, the shell began to behave differently. It sucked in the energy, shifting and warping.
Tyron ceased the ritual, carefully unbound the last few sigils, then redid them.
Forward, and back. Forward, and back. Tyron’s focus was absolute, as was his control of the magick. Slowly, piece by piece, he began to modify the spell, and watched the changes taking place inside the circle with growing glee.