Dennis was in front of his graduated students. He was so happy seeing them back in the capital. They all prostrated before him laying the ritualistic greetings thick. Nevertheless it was nice seeing the kids of the kids of the kids he used to teach.
They were shivering and panting inside the tomb filled with eldritch greenery surrounding the roach kin covered with tubes. He should probably notch his ice magic a tad bit. He didn’t want to make the youths uncomfortable now.
“Arise myne students, how doth thee fare in these times. I hope you all don’t mind me calling upon all your assistance. As you can see my friend here has been freed.” He showed Charles spasming in the stone slab. He should maybe put a bit more restraints now that he thought about it.
“Yet he seems to have an unsynchronized soul incapable of following the rhythm of the mind, a heart and body incapable of responding to thought, and a scrambled psyche. As you may have guessed this man is one of the heroes, just like our red haired warrior friend here.” He gestured to Judith busy smoking a pipe and leaning on the wall.
“My wonderful apprentices, as I have taught you everything I know of magecraft, I now seek your assistance on a problem never seen before. One musn’t ever let themselves deny themselves in seeking for help after all, for that might be the height of hubris haha.” He cheerfully laughed with genuine joy. He hopes they could all brainstorm an idea to bring back the Charles he used to know.
“With that I greet you all. Welcome back to the capital.”
“Now let us get straight to the lectures my dear students. Some of you may have broken thru your respective fields, but let us never believe that we have reached it’s end. See, I managed to strike a deal with a very powerful being. You may know her as the one behind the dark hill, the gentle Goddess of death.”
He drew a line in the air as life force and mana hummed around him. Each of the apprentices wove a visualization spell each unique to their specialization. Some viewed space fluctuations, some viewed events via a clever use of divination, Some even saw it as a words describing the very event transpiring before them. Each saw the impossibility before them.
Dennis smiled at the old students, that might as well be students to him, craving for knowledge as if it was second nature to them.
“The Godess has bestowed a boon to our kin, but due to interference and laws much older than written word, only a fraction could be given.”
He pulled a thin glowing line of blue embers out of the empty space in front of him. The line formed a circle, then a wheel, then the wheel spun. It increased in speed as if it promised the motion to remain in perpetuity.
“What you see before you is that gift. The samsara, the wheel of reincarnation, the ouroboros, the key to true immortality, or the purifying grindstone, call it what you will, but it remains to have one function in all it’s many iterations. It recycles souls and the information it has. And this information can be processed into power, or as you may commonly know it as ‘faith’. Faith in a concept, in the physics of mundane things, in a wish that enough beings desired causing it to solidify in the aether. Faith which is the very foundation of divinities.”
They all oggled at the thing with fascination, almost burning in their retinas as they stared unblinkingly.
“Unfortunately, this is but a spark. Even with this draw back it still has the property of separating us from some selected rules imposed by us, like say a temporal curse.” He smiled as the students were starting to piece the puzzle.
Although it hid them, he hopes taking Charles out of the prison didn’t temporarily give their presence away. Afterall, those pesky oracles were always sensitive to these types of things.
He shrugged. It was probably fine, it was only a moment anyway.
“This will be the key to bring the old methods of lichdom into obsolescence. Now to get to the properties.”
Dennis blabbered on and on about the things he found out and the things his students hypothesized. For the first time in along time he forgot about his thoughts and insecurities, and just taught what what he knew to others that appreciated it. This went on for hours, Days, then weeks. They’ve set up a temporary magical lab filled with conjured equipment and expensive reagents that could probably set a kingdom for life.
He told them that when he gets the method to stabilize a connected wheel that all his citizens could use, he’d give it to everyone and they wouldn’t have to worry about ever fully dying. He’s still scared of dying and entropy after all. Which is why he worships the Godess of death and learned all this. He believed no one deserved to die, to have all chances to make a choice stripped from them. To forget everything and become something else.
Funnily enough he also wants to forget everything and start over again. Another thought for another time perhaps.
“Master, forgive me, but this problem seems to not have a feasible solution within the given time frame. No amount of sympathetic links seem to connect the mind and spirit to the body. No synthetic anima stabilizer currently exists that could buffer the outflow of data that the soul is receiving. And no core could even handle the strain put on someone equivalent to a fabled hero like subject Charleshun. Frankly, the only thing that could bring him back to a stable state would be an equally ridiculous miracle or the soul of something as powerful and as willful as a ‘summoned hero’. The tests we took with lady Jeau Dithias let us reach the conclusion that she only managed to survive intact is due to her mastery of her soul. Sir Charleshun had his soul fractured before the wheel was implanted.” His apprentice Dacia told him.
“I agree master. It might take a few years to collect enough souls to make a theoretical synthetic stabilizer to keep Sir Charleshun coherent. And that’s not taking into account the soul needs of most lichkin in the empire.” Another one of his apprentices said.
Dennis sighed. Well it looks like the problem won’t be solved anytime soon.
“I understand, even with this revelation I ask for your assistance my students. The empire needs all the help it can get, and if the lifeweaver was restored to his prime we may be able to alleviate some resources and manpower on some areas and redirect them to vital points of interest. Not just this, but I also ask of this because.. he is my friend. It has been ages since the era we used to build cities and establish communities, and frankly it is a bit lonely having only a handful of people my age.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
He bowed his shadowy form.
“I ask this of you my students. I have need of your help even now.” Dennis needed this and he wanted to save his spasming roach friend.
“Please master lift your head up! We would do this despite your request. To think a new frontier in our craft was here, it would be foolish of us to let go of this chance.”
Dennis smiled.
“Thank you I deeply appreciate you all. Look at you all haha, all grown up. Where did all the time go.”
Dennis sighed and felt a weight lift from his chest.
“You don’t know how much this matters to me.” He looked at his vizier talking to his red haired friend as everyone did the same. “Only my vizier has given me comfort in these weary years, it is good that one of my companions have been brought back.”
Maya’s and a bunch of women’s ears perked at this.
“Now everyone run along and rest. I should give you all access to the reincarnation wheel afterward. You need all the energy you could muster before we begin, I would not want to bring you all to the same state as our roach kin friend here. Gather your strength and we’ll begin a week from now.” He dismissed the others to their chambers away from the shrubbery filled room.
“My dear friend Wyatt” He said. “Please escort my students to their abode. I fear they might lose their way if they exit without your assistance. I will stay here for a bit longer.”
In the mean time, the women were mumbling to themselves, Maya especially so. Some were repeating a phrase in their head.
My dear friend Wyatt
My dear friend Wyatt
My dear Wyatt
My dear Wyatt
My Wyatt
Wyatt
Wyatt my love
They were slowly struggling to breathe and shaking their hands. Their palms were sweaty and their eyes wide. It was as if they beasts that found fresh flesh.
“Come along then. I’ll need you all to stay close.” Wyatt said with a frown.
“Thank you my friend, what would I ever do without you.” Dennis said.
“Shut up, I’m just doing this because I wan’t them out of here as soon as possible.” Wyatt said in an annoyed tone.
As they left to the halls Wyatt made a little smirk unseen by anyone but the most observant members of the crowd.
So this is what those otherworlders call a ‘tsun-deree’. Maya was thinking this as with many others doing the same.
They followed him out of the confusing passages of the mausoleum.
As soon as they all went out of hearing distance Judith sat next to Dennis, exhaling purple and blue smoke from her lips.
“… So” Judith took a deep breath of her pipe. “That sucks. A bit of unrequited affection aye. After all these years you still haven’t come out huh.”
Dennis dispelled his illusion and buried his hands on his head. “..I know, I know. It’s just that there was never any time. With all the work that needed to be done, with the empire and the sieges, there’s just a lot on our plate.”
Judith flicked his forehead. “Never any time? Do you hear yourself! I was cursed by fate for thousands of years and there isn’t any time?! You could have come out and carved out a place that accepts and comforts you Dennis. Hells, you could have moved on and maybe found someone else to share your time with.”
Dennis was looking down at the floor speechless. He could have rebuked and lashed out at her anger. He could have avoided the discussion. But he knew she was right. He has wasted time, so much time. He had nothing to say.
Judith sighed at the man. “Look Den, I know it’s hard for you, but you are literally rotting away and killing yourself in the process. This, all of this! The empire the necromancy and the lichdom, you did all this because you were scared. You were scared that the ones you’ve adored and wanted would avoid you, but this is not how life is supposed to be. You’re dying inside man. I can’t bare to see you do this to yourself.”
…
“I saw them you know. I saw the apprentices of yours. They looked like the men you used to be close with, I saw how you looked at them fondly as if they were your children. But the men chose someone else, and now generations have passed and you still seem to wonder what could have been.”
“You!.. Stop, please stop judith..”
“… You need to think of yourself Den” She hugged the man before him, wet and struggling. “I’ll be here like always. There’s still time.”
Dennis held his friend close. “You know it’s funny, I still see them in the children. The way they speak, laugh, and act. The way they make those slight tics in their speech patterns, they look so much like Arthy, and Gaviel, and Theo. They look at me just like how they used to look at our old teachers back in the days when I was still a student watching them train in my dad’s courtyard. But they’re gone now. Only their children are left.
Arthy, I used to dream of a world where I held his hands instead and maybe this empire wouldn’t even exist. But my students would be here if I did. He told me how he was scared back then you know. He was so scared of dying in the wars back then. He made me so happy. He showed me the joys of being in sunlight, the taste of wine, and the waves of music. He made me feel beautiful for the first time. He’s gone now.
Gaviel, he used to tease me. He flirted with me repeatedly that it made me confused. We used to go everywhere in the Academies. He just knew how to annoy and comfort me at times. But I saw him fall in love. I saw him kiss her at their wedding day. I used to wonder that if I was born a woman, would he have held me in his arms that day. But he’s not here anymore, but his descendant that sweet little girl Dacia looked just like him, it looked just like her.
And Theo, that foolish halfkin man. I used to see his back always defending me, always doing ridiculous things to ensure his schemes came to fruition. He believed that peace would come one day, that all these wars would end and a utopia would reach the horizons of the cities he built. What a fool I was to think it would all turn out right. He made me hope. He gave me a dream, a dream that I’m still trying to fulfill. He dreamt of a world without strife but it seems to get farther and farther from my reach. But now I’m here building the empire he wanted and I’m doing an unsatisfactory job.
I never told any of them how I felt. How could I, I’m just this small thing pretending to be something I’m not.”
“Dennis..”
“I’m so tired Judith, I’m so scared. What if I tell Wyatt and he starts seeing me differently? What if he looks back at the memories that I’ve shared with him and sees something vile and predatory. I’m not ready Judith. Maybe I’ll never be. I don’t like him to hate me.”
…
“Please don’t tell anyone, at least not until Charles and La hire are alright. Please promise me this. Please tell no one and just give me a bit more time.”
Judith looked at Dennis pleading to her as if his world would topple at such a thing. She sighed and soothed the bridge of her nose. “Fine, but please understand that you need to get out one day. Tell you what, when Charles is back why don’t you and I make a place for you that’s safe to come out. A small sanctuary if you will. There you can be anyone you want.”
Dennis looked at the fiery haired woman. “You mean it? What would this place even be?”
“Hehe oh sweet naive Den, you’re about to be in for a treat. See back on earth we used to have these small enclaves of outcasts where we partook on booze and music. A bar for our kind if you will.”
At the idea of booze, Dennis side-eyed Judith. “Yeah I can definitely see you being there.” Judith flicked her finger to his forehead almost causing a concusion. “Ow!” Dennis rubbed the area.
“Shut up! Anyway we’re about to make something grand.”
She grinned squeezing the ratkins cheeks with her hands.
“We’re gonna make a gay bar!”
“What?!”
“Yeah, you’ll see a lot of people that have the same problems as your own, y’know. So that you won’t feel lonely and bear this weight all on your own.” She winked.
“And maybe you’ll get the confidence to confess to you know who.” Judith wiggled her eyebrows.
Dennis blushed as he looked down all flustered. Judith rolled her eyes and the side of her mouth lifting into a smirk.
Oh Dennis, you sweet sweet virgin boy, so scared of sex and so intimidated by love. Maybe if she showed him the joys of being free, he’d stop all this depressing shit and kiss the damned bat already.
“Okay…let’s do it!”