“You are… S’visha the Skull?” The man in the doorway asked.

“What gave it away?” I gestured to the skull marked upon my face, the bone white standing stark out against my ashen black skin.

“you uh…”

“Are you going to invite me in or not?” It was currently raining and though some Magiar can pass through a typhoon without so much as a drop landing upon them I was very obviously not one of them.

“p-please.” He gestured inside.

His house was a humble construct of wood and thatch, the standard for villages of this region though his appeared to be more than a little worse for wear. The detritus around the edges and the small stream descending from the roof being the most obvious signs of dilapidation.

“So you… you uh…” he began, seemingly bewildered. It was the reaction I was used to.

“Let me guess, I’m not what you expected?” I asked.

He shook his head.

I took off my wide brim hat and wiped off the rain. It was only drizzling outside but the trip had been long enough to soak me all the way through.

“Some pale ghastly fellow riding atop a skeletal horse, maybe a rotten undead squire carrying his belongings; a staff made of a human spin with a skull on top, I’ve heard it all before.” All nonsensical hearsay of course, anyone who’s even looked at a horse can tell you why sitting on it is a bad idea.

“no, I just thought you’d smell really bad.” He shrugged.

“I- what?”

“Necromancers are supposed to smell like rotting corpses aren’t they?”

“No? We use embalming fluids and incense- do you think we don’t clean up after ourselves or something?”

He shrugged again. “Don’t you have corpse wives?”

“I’m not going to talk about that.”

“Or corpse husbands, seeing as how you’re female.”

“I said I’m not going to talk about it. Now, Ernard yes? I trust you still have need of my services and that I haven’t trudged all the way here for you to change your mind?”

“y-yes. That’s right.“

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“And you have my payment? Upfront as we agreed?”

“That's right.”

I held out my hand and he placed several golden teeth upon my palm.

I examined them closely, they looked authentic but displayed a noticeable variety in age and wear. Almost certainly the product of grave robbing. Something I happened to be all too familiar with.

“These all your teeth?” I asked.

“Would it bother you if they weren’t?” he replied. Most of my clients were desperate so it’s not uncommon to see them resort to extreme measures to afford me.

“Not in the least.” I tipped the teeth into my coin pouch.

“So when can I see her?”

As tired as I was, it was already night, waiting for tomorrow would mean waiting around in this dump longer than I had to, better to be done with it.”

“One step at a time, do you have the items I requested?”

“this was her blanket as a child, this Is her.. it's hers.” He handed me an old blanket and a thin object wrapped in bandages.

I nodded.

“Now I need a flat surface to perform the ritual, ideally somewhere she spent a lot of time.”

“I set out a bench in her bedroom.”

“That should be perfect.”

He led me to her old room, everything in there lay beneath a layer of dust. Left undisturbed since she left.

With some reluctance Ernard cleared a space on top of the wardrobe, gently placing the objects on top within one of the draws.

“Now then.” I began. “I already laid out the rules in my letter but for the sake of absolute clarity I’ll go over them again.”

He nodded.

“First and foremost you do exactly as I say, you don’t not contradict my orders and you do not ask questions while the ritual is underway.”

“Second: You will be silent at all times and only speak when I give you a direct que. You do not ever interrupt me and if interrupt you, then you will return to silence, if I shove your leg or step on your foot you will do likewise.”

“thirdly; don’t ask small talk nonsense like ‘how are you?’ or ‘how do you feel?’ Those questions never lead them anywhere good.”

“The last and most important rule of all is that she cannot ever and I mean ever realize that she’s dead. If she even begins to start piecing it together, I’m ending the ritual then and there are we clear?”

“y-yes. I understand.” he replied, I can only hope he's telling the truth, they don't always.

“Good, now then, my strategy is to present her with a scenario, she’s just awoken from a terrible accident but she’s perfectly fine and on the way to make a full recovery. Any emotional state you find yourself in will be the result of you being beset with worry for so long. If it comes up I will be the assistant of the great healer; Doctor Waltner to whom she owes her recovery, he will be out for the moment and check in later.”

“You don’t look anything like a healer.” Ernard raised an eyebrow.

“From my understanding the experience is like a dream on their end, she's unlikely to question any inconsistencies unless direct attention is drawn to it. Did you have any other questions?”

“No.”

“Good, then we can begin.”