Keylan spun around, reaching towards the sword on his hip, but seeing who it was, he relaxed, slightly. His hand never strayed far from the handle.
“Lord Azemar, I did not realize you were here.”
Azemar walked out of the shadows, still looking down at the book in his hands, “I would have been surprised if you had. However, it was not truly the delegation that wanted to talk to Alaster, it was me.” Azemar looked up, “Privately, if I may.” It was not a question.
“Of course. I’ll take my leave. Alaster, once you are finished, please come find me. I wish to discuss a few things with you.”
“Certainly, City Lord.” Alaster said with a nod of his head.
Keylan left the room, looking back for a moment before he closed the door.
Azemar walked to the center of the Hall, just a few feet away from Alaster, and summoned a comfortable armchair. All without looking up from his book.
Alaster conjured his own chair out of bone and sat down, wondering just what the man would say.
The book disappeared from Azemar’s hands. The dark man began slowly.
“You have successfully completed all three tests. Survival, Might, and War. However, you still know nothing about Nobility, Politics, or how they play into War. This time, all you had to do was kill anyone that attempted to break into the city.
You have only experienced a single battle. Not a war. In a true war, there will be movement, there will be environment, terrain, weather, politics, information, and countless more things you have to monitor and react to. I’ll teach you how to best do so.”
“There is something more to it. What do you want?” Alaster leaned back and crossed his arms.
Azemar’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, “I told Aila that I would teach you if you passed the three tests. I did not actually think you would survive them. And technically, you didn’t. Yet here we are.”
Alaster could sense that there was something else. Some other reason Azemar wanted to teach him. But seeing how resistant he was to talk about it, Alaster simply let it rest, for now.
“How did you manage to revive yourself?” Azemar asked with fierce attention.
“It was a one-time thing due to my Class and the environment. Due to the large amount of death and powerful Magic being thrown around. It won’t happen again. The conditions are simply too precise and I’m still feeling the side effects.”
“What sort of side effects are those?”
“I just woke up yesterday so I’m still trying to sort the side effects out from just normal issues. But I do know that I am in pain, my entire body. And even using an Ability that is supposed to remove pain, I can still feel it.”
Azemar scratched his chin and leaned back with a dejected sigh, “That is probably just pain from having your soul ripped from your body and then thrown back in. It should go away after a few more days. You waking up means that the soul finally situated itself back into shape, but it is still repairing itself and trying to fine tune it.”
“So, when are you going to start teaching me?” Alaster asked, eager to begin his final step before he rescued his sister.
“I can start now while we are in Onigas, but I suspect the delegation will be complete with their discussions in three days. Then, we will return to Galmore, where I can truly begin teaching you. However, I must be going, I am supposed to be protecting the delegation, even if they are all perfectly capable of doing so.”
Azemar stood up, his chair vanishing as he did so.
“Make sure you are prepared to leave by then. It will be at least a year before you can come back.” He warned, not bothering to turn back as he left the room.
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Alaster watched him go and sighed. He wanted nothing more than to simply lay down and do nothing. But he had so much to do, and not a lot of time to do it in.
Standing up with a groan, Alaster collected his bone chair and ordered his Minions into the room. They marched in through the many doors leading into the Training Hall and stood before Alaster, allowing him to take stock.
In his meditative trance, he was not able to accurately number them. He had simply followed the Magic.
Four Iron Guardians towered their fellow Adept Minions, both in height and in weight. Their armor was simple, but thick. They stoically watched the world, refusing to allow any of the world through their armor. Earning their loyalty had been as simple as asking for it.
Six Dread Knights were impatiently pacing around room, searching for any potential threat, not to protect their Master, but because they were bored and wanted to kill something. To taste their blood. Their loyalty had to be earned through the promise of blood and death. A promise that Alaster had fulfilled plenty, and more bound to come.
Five War Born curiously observed the room around them, focusing more on the racks of different training weapons. Skill over might, and they could never have enough skill. They learned individually, and Alaster had no doubt that over time, each one would gravitate to a unique weapon, though they would always have a predisposition towards two handed weapons. Their loyalty had been secured through the promise of challenging fights in the future.
And finally, there were the four Shadow Assassins. Dark cloaked figures wreathed in shadows as they dove in and out of the shadows around the Hall, almost as if it was a game of tag. They were the most fragile of all Alaster’s summons, but also the most lethal. They refused to remain still. Even when Alaster ordered them to stay in one place, they continuously swayed, never rushed. Their loyalty had been the easiest to earn.
Bound to Alaster’s soul, the Shadows could peer into it, learning of its nature. That had been all that was needed. They had pledged their loyalty to the one most in tune with death and shadows.
Alaster had not yet begun rebuilding his Custom Undead. Both because they needed bones, but because the Adept Minions were simply that much stronger. Though as Alaster unsummoned his Minions, minus the Assassins as they could very simply follow him unseen through the shadows, he entertained the idea of creating Skeletal Stallions for his Adept Minions.
After all, the Custom Undead were the most adaptable and versatile. Even the Summoned Undead were beginning to grow in levels enough to rival the strength of his Custom Undead.
Unfortunately, his idea was quickly scrapped. The Dread Knights were agile and merciless, not suited to a cavalry. The Iron Guardians would likely shatter the Stallion under their immense weight. And the Shadow Assassins were much faster than the Stallions, so long as there were shadows they could move between. The War Born were the most likely to be capable cavalry, but even they would not be great.
Two-handed weapons were simply not suited for cavalry. Using Alaster’s soul as a go-between, all his Minions could ‘communicate’ with each other, allowing their riders to perfectly control the Stallion, even without a hand steering them. But two-handed weapons were still too bulky and unwieldy.
Instead, Alaster began planning for a Cavalry Minion as he moved to find the City Lord. First, he would need to learn a Summoned Cavalry Minion as he was still not experienced enough to create an entirely new Spell. Luckily, he still had a few upgrades to go through. The Summoned Undead had gotten quite a few kills, even if they had to be resummoned just as often.
As he walked through the Halls, occasionally asking stunned and slightly terrified servants where the City Lord had gone, Alaster looked through the Summoned Upgrades. He quickly made his choices, not really thinking much about each, until he found the one he wanted, branching off the Undead Soldier.
[Summon Undead Knight
Level 1: 0%
Summon the Dead to fight for you.
Max Minions: 0/1
Mana Cost: 100]
Examining the Mana Streams, Alaster was able to learn that the Undead Knight was a Skeleton armored in medium plate with a proficiency in polearms, short swords, and medium shields. While the Spell summoned them without a mount, Alaster could detect the ability to ride horses within the web of Mana Streams.
It was exactly what Alaster wanted.
He would begin creating the Stream Pattern for an Adept version as soon as he could, but at that moment, he reached the City Lord’s personal office. It was quite small for someone of his stature, but he only did paperwork or met with a few people at a time. The true city business would be done in the Meeting Hall.
But as much as Alaster wanted to begin the creation of his own personal Cavalry, he wanted to begin experimenting with [Rebirth], even more. And to do that, he needed access to the Experts that he had killed while under the Corrupted’s control.
However, while he had plenty of Expert corpses here in Onigas, he knew that he would eventually come across an Expert body that he wanted to use at a later time. And to do that, his current Ring of Holding was too small. Alaster figured, ‘why not ask the creator of the Ring to enlarge it?’. While any Warp Mage could enlarge a Ring of Holding, it was much easier for the creator of the Ring to do it themselves.
Alaster walked past the two Expert Tiered guards, neither attempting to stop him, and knocked on the door.
“Come in!”