Dad and I rushed to the forest, whipping through the underbrush as fast as my legs could carry me. While my stats hadn’t increased at all these past few years, even just the extra length of my legs having recently grown provided a significant boost. Without pause, dad started leading me along the well-trodden footpaths to a spot he seemed to remember near the wolf carcass he spotted.
We didn’t find it immediately, but once we were in the area, the stench of rot and decay was a somewhat pungent beacon in the right direction. When we finally came across the body, it was mostly picked clean by scavengers and decomposers, the bones fully exposed and only a few blood-matted scraps of fur left. As we approached, insects and beetles scurried out of the hollow cavity of the ribcage, frightened by our presence they scurried back into the safety of the forest undergrowth.
“Can you handle things from here?” Dad asked, gesturing to the wolf corpse with a brief look of disgust. “Yeah. I’ve got it, thanks” I tried to force myself to smile up at him. I’ve long since grown numb to the stench of rot and decay, but even with experience, the site wasn’t exactly pleasant. I turned to the grim work with determination, the occasional sound of crunching leaves as Daniel patrolled a loose perimeter echoing softly in the morning air. He’s weak, scared of real magic just like those fools in Teraq. I shook off the distraction and set to work.
Left alone in the silence and cool morning air, I could finally do what I’d come here to do. A reanimated wolf skeleton isn’t going to be a particularly strong minion, but dark magics had a way of unnerving people regardless. Even without the added benefit of my fear spell. I don’t have time to find a better minion, I have no other options.
Suboptimal necromancy is still necromancy. If I’m going to do it, I’ll do it right. I took out a small kitchen knife, borrowed from the house this evening, and carefully scratched out a circle around the wolf. In the future, I plan to do this fully manually, but for the time a written spell circle of any medium will dramatically increase my efficiency. Stripping a few of the stringy pieces of fur with the blade of the knife, I removed one of the rib bones and began a careful process.
Low-grade undead are incredibly stupid creatures, I’d go as far as to call them inefficient in my old life. The best way I could improve that efficiency was to give them an Animus Core. The rib bone would be carved with crude mana circuits and an extremely rudimentary logic processor. It would increase the rate the minion drew mana, but in exchange improve response to commands and input, as well as decrease passive mana burn.
Animus Cores are a way of front-loading the effort of low-level undead, taking longer to raise a single minion, but making each minion marginally more effective.
As I carved away at the brittle bone, it repeatedly chipped and cracked under the pressure of the knife, each tiny imperfection lowering its effectiveness. In my frustration, the work became hasty and sloppy, and the blade drew a crimson slit across my left thumb. I cursed under my breath and pressed on, hoping the added blood would strengthen the magic, but I knew blood magic to be as fickle as the wind. The smell of blood and bone, death and decay. Nostalgic.
Several minutes later, I completed the framework and sheathed the knife to check and recheck my handiwork. The symmetrical lines of the spellform twisted around the rib in a jagged helix, unprepared materials, and poor tools made it barely better than nothing. Hopefully, it would at least pay some rollover experience if I lived through this to unlock my system access.
I carefully replaced the bone into its proper place, as close as I could manage without disturbing any of the other remains. Lying in rest was the closest thing to a complete arrangement I could hope for, but from my spot stooped above the carcass I could already tell some bones were missing. It would have to do.
The body was prepped, the circle set, and nothing else could be done to improve the outcome from my own efforts. I’m stalling. I know I’m stalling. I planned out this entire process, and now when it comes to the crucial moment, I was nervous. A lifetime of knowledge and experience is useless if I don’t have the proper affinities in this life. I can sling spells, I know I can. Can I sling my spells though? Can I handle it if I can’t? If I start the ritual and it doesn’t work?
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I’ll tell you right now. All spellforms are the same. Anyone who says otherwise is a fool and a charlatan. The variance in casting is not the spellform, caster aptitude, affinity with the element, power, and precision can all have wildly different effects on the outcome. The outcome, however, is always the manipulation of mana.
Without proper power, you can use a written circle to channel the energy more efficiently. If you lack control, spell chants help focus the mind and speak intent to the mana. Affinity is determined ‘by the gods’, another way for religious folk to say it varies by person at birth. Magic power and Magic control can be increased by stats and levels, affinity to a specific element can be compensated for by raw stats as well, or finding a more connected element with similar powers.
The only thing the system doesn’t make easier? Aptitude. Raw skill. The only thing I had an entire lifetime of backlog for. Give a level 1 kid an archmage’s practical knowledge and things can be a bit easy.
[Reanimate Animal] is a fairly straightforward Negative Push spell. Negative here meaning that it deals with noncorporeal concepts, life, and death, not that the spell is evil. Push represents a forceful addition.
As an aside, raw wild magic is completely neutral, Positive Magic deals with material and corporeal effects, and Pull is bringing energy from one place to another.
Back to the topic at hand, [Reanimate Animal] is a simple enough spell that I could cast directly with my current stats. The only problem with that is efficiency. Even a high-level mage can perform better with more prep time.
The spell itself is most common in a Void-attuned form, though I’ve seen some creative applications of plant magic do a similar thing. For my own uses, in order to maximize potency, I’m using the heightened Void element, Abyss. Abyss magic is a secondary element and more difficult to work with, but Abyss necromancy is far more self-sustaining. The addition of a chant and circle would make it more efficient and more potent as well.
A sudden thump on my shoulder brought me back to reality, all senses on high alert I whirled to face… dad. His soft but stern gaze dragged me away from a rambling mess of theoretical magical half-thoughts.
“We don’t have all day bud. Does it help if I stay nearby?” He offered softly, letting my unspoken fears stay unspoken. As much as I would have liked to deny it, his presence was reassuring. I set my jaw, focused my gaze down at the corpse, and began the spell. He’s right, but I have no chance of failure. This is where I belong.
I held my hands out in front of me, closed my eyes, and focused hard to shut out all external stimuli. Like meeting an old friend, I felt mana rise up to match my intent. Words I hadn’t spoken in decades now crudely formed on an unfamiliar tongue, gestures and symbols shaky and unrefined without muscle memory. It was invigorating. Like the first cool breath of air after diving a bit too deep in a lake.
The familiar sting of new mana channels being burned through my body stopped me from wandering too far into my memory. My new self wasn’t thrumming with pathways and wasn’t as adept physically, but I could correct any mistakes. A different intonation on the same word, a swapped suffix or root, the same spell mechanically could be written and rewritten a thousand times as I channeled it, compensating for any slights.
After the first few seconds, [Mana Forming] activated and began passively assisting me. A weight lifted off my shoulders as the spell suddenly felt far less strenuous. Now demanding less focus, I opened my eyes and scanned over my circle with [Mana Sight]. The extra breathing room granted to me by my skills would let me correct even minor hiccups in the circuits of the spellform, only noticeable with close and detailed inspection.
Just for good measure, I activated [Mana Command] to circulate my own mana pool as it was drained, hoping to increase the formation of pathways by increasing internal movement.
The spell was completed, and I spent several minutes tying off every potential loose connection in the spell before stepping back and looking over my work.
59 points of mana in a single spell, the most I could handle without going into shock. Every possible advantage I could give myself poured into a single minion I would have considered trash for the majority of my lives. With a deep breath and a staggered step, I approached the carcass as new mana rushed into my body.
The regeneration was slowed, and each command would slow it further, but I had all morning to get back to full.
“Rise” I whispered, suddenly keenly aware of dad’s gaze from behind me. He said nothing though, and the bones haphazardly strewn on the forest floor shuddered and rattled, lifting themselves into a cohesive form.
Minion connection established.
Bone Wolf (Greater) - Lvl 1.
He’s beautiful.