The Basic Reanimation lab turned out to be one of those rooms that was a lot bigger on the inside than the outside. Not that either Holly or Alec were particularly surprised by this point. The Necropolis, despite the literal city that had built up around it, seemed to contain a city in its own right. Though how new rooms were added neither of them could even begin to fathom.

Up to now they’d only been in one mage’s lab, Healer Evans, the insane and illegal time mage of Forsaken Valda. The Reanimation Lab was a lot sparser. No vials of glowing mystery goo. No summoning circle in an iron cage. No cabinet filled with what were essentially targetted death curses.

What there was was bones. Lots and lots of bones, many too big or small to have come from a human being, and all neatly stacked in piles, bundles and buckets, cabinets, chests and drawers. What Alec could have mistaken for anatomical models adorned the walls, if it weren’t for the way the skulls turned to follow them as they walked to the front of the class.

“Good morning class.” What was presumably the teacher said, taking a deep swig from his hip flask as they took the two seats left out for them behind a time worn and thoroughly weathered wooden desk,. A greying, sparsely haired man stood in front of three objects covered in tarpaulin.“Archmage Merida informs me you are both currently unable to practice magic. I can honestly say it’s the most joyful news I’ve had in the nearly ten years of I’ve been teaching.”

The balding man gave them a beaming smile, enthused beyond decency. “I am Alchemist Mortimer. And for the first time in my career I can genuinely say I’m pleased to see you both. Because for the first time, I am able to guarantee we’ll have properly covered the safety protocols for handling undead before one of you goes and does something reckless.”

‘He clearly doesn’t know us at all.’ Alec mused, sending the errant thought at Holly out of habit before he could realise his mistake. Irritation filled him at the foolish mistake, only to subside as Holly chuckled anyway. It was nice to know that even if they couldn’t share thoughts, they might as well be.

“Now I like to kick off everyone’s first lesson off by showing them the absolute upper limits of what Basic Reanimation can do.” Mortimer declared, grabbing a tarpaulin and pulling it off of its occupant.

It was just a skeleton. Almost identical to the hundreds Alec had helped cut down at Valda, and Mort had to see on his face just how unimpressed the fledgling mage was.

“Yes I know, I know. The humble skeleton. The workhorse of the Necropolis and all towns and villages under its aegis.” Mortimer smirked, “But, as I’ll be showing later, Randy here is a little bit on the special side. Before I demonstrate, can either of you tell me what is actually meant by Basic Reanimation?”

Alec glanced over at Holly, who shook her head, before reluctantly raising a hand. Giving what he knew had to be the wrong answer. “That it’s easy?”

“Ha. No.” Mortimer scoffed. “Well not entirely. Basic Reanimation is the art of reanimating a single body, and just the body.” He walked around Randy, smiling as he continued, “Technically if I remove so much as a single finger Randy here ceases to be an example of Basic Reanimation. And if poorly constructed even that much would cause him to crumble into a pile of bones.”

As he said it he snatched an entire hand off the skeleton and began walking to the other end of the lab. “Or at least he would if he weren’t also enchanted to do this.” With that he let go, the hand snapping sharply back into place with a loud click of bone on bone.

“Still not impressed I see.” The alchemist observed, “But what about if I do this. Duck!”

The duo had just enough time to cower behind the thick oak desks as Mortimer smoothly drew a wand and sent a pulse of something hot and orange at poor Randy. Moments later shards of ivory gravel peppered the walls.

Tentatively Alec and Holly began to rise, only to duck back down as Mortimer barked, “Not yet.”

Just in time too as the bonemeal that had been Randy began to at first crawl and then shoot back to where the skeleton had been so brutally blown apart. The teens watching as their desk, with its many deeply embedded shards began to be dragged away from them until the pieces were able to pull themselves free.

When the bonestorm had finally subsided, Alec cautiously peeked his head over the top of the desk, noting that it was not, as he’d first assumed, worn away by time but apparently semi-regularly scoured by exploding skeletons.

Sure enough Randy the Skeleton was stood right where they’d last seen him, still stood to attention with the last of the visible damage fixing itself before their eyes. Holly could feel the way the mana in the room had sunk like a stone as the skeleton sealed its broken bones back together.

The Necropolis had an unusually high amount of ambient mana normally, but right now there was barely enough for her to live on. Or rather for Alec to unconsciously refine into the magicka she needed to live on, the teen’s substantial mana well starting to empty out at an alarming rate as the differential sucked his magicka out into the open air to diffuse back into mana.

And while the teenager couldn’t feel mana, he could certainly feel that. Turning alarmed eyes to Holly, “I think we might need to leave sir.” He said, as he grabbed Holly by the wrist and prepared to almost drag her from the room at a full sprint.

“Nonsense. Just give it a second and… there it is.” A pulse of mana, from beneath one of the other tarpaulins, spread through the room in a semi-visible wave of blue (at least to those with mana senses).

With more than a hint of melodramatic flair, Mortimer crossed the room to grab the second tarp and pull free to reveal another relatively normal human skeleton, albeit yellowed heavily by time. There was a bit more adornment, a sword scabbard tied through the pelvis for example, and a few jewels drilled into the skull.

“Meet Captain Gates of the Bonemeal Blades. Forty-seven years ago, after an illustrious career, they kindly donated their body to the Necropolis and now is one of the major nodes for the very legion she served in life. You’ll note the mana reservoirs in the skull. Captain Gates here is still an example of Basic Reanimation, combined with a slight bit enchantment and artificery, to allow him to act as a control node for a company of two hundred and fifty, effectively relaying orders instantly to the troops under his necromancer’s command.

“The mana reservoirs allow him to keep the entire company operating for up to a day under light null suppression, and up to ten minutes under heavy suppression. Now I know that last part doesn’t sound especially impressive but to provide heavy suppression fully armoured paladin knights would need to have gotten amongst them – at which point they aren’t going to survive ten minutes anyway.

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“Captain Gates is about as basic as a command node skeleton can get. There’s no additional enchantments and he’s only been programmed with the basics. Despite that it requires fewer manhours, and frankly less expertise, to animate the over two hundred bonemeal class skeletons under his command.”

“Bonemeal class sir?” Alec queried, raising a hand.

“The lowest class of skeleton. Made from people who’s skeletons were in some way too damaged to be effectively animated, skeletons where serious mistakes were made in the animation process, those with degenerative bone conditions or those works done by apprentices. They’re cheap to animate, and most importantly cheap to teleport, practically counting as inanimate objects. Though you’ll see some of the bindings fail on arrival.

“And to preempt your next question, there are five classes of skeleton. Bonemeal, labourer, war, ivory guardian and Ossific Champion. Though only the first three count as Basic Reanimation. Captain Gates here would be the lower end of a war class skeleton. And this...” Mortimer indicated the final black tarp, much larger and taller than the others. “Is an ossific champion.”

The Ossific Champion could almost have been mistaken for an ogre at first glance, it had that sort of bulk and scale, though the skull was still distinctly human, almost comically small where it nestles between massive shoulders. It almost looked more like a mishapen statue than a skeleton, there were no gaps in the ribcage for example, thick overlapping bones plates covering every inch of the chest. The feet definitely hadn’t come off of anything human. Thick taloned things, designed to dig deep into the ground where necessary. And the claws…

Alec was fairly sure the claws would be making semi-regular appearances in his nightmares. An impressive feat given the competition. They were long and serrated monstrosities, almost too long for the champion’s already absurd frame and if they’d once been bone, they certainly weren’t anymore. Whatever metal encased them it was a deep, dark grey, barely glinting under the magelights of the lab.

“It has taken me nearly ten whole years to assemble Walter here.” Alchemist Mortimer said proudly, slapping the monstrosity on it’s upper arm where he couldn’t quite reach the shoulder. “But when he finally passes his trials next week he’ll finally be welcomed into the unhallowed ranks of the Ossific Champions. There are liches who’ve been trying for centuries to get one of their creations into the vaults.

“Now come closer and let me show you some of the more interesting techniques you can get away with when working with a skeleton. Though Walter is most definitely not an example of Basic Reanimation, all the things I’m about to highlight are things you can do to a standard war class skeleton.”

Mortimer smiled broadly as he beckoned them over, rapping three times on Walter’s ivory chestplate while he waited. The bony plates peeling open like the world’s most morbid flower beneath the sun’s rays.

“Behold...” He declared, running a finger along the runic scripts that had been revealed on the inside of the plates. “Now I imagine you’ve all seen enchanting before but this is one of the more basic tricks for hiding it, putting it on the inside. There aren’t as many places you can hide spellscript on a normal skeleton, so most choose to just make it obvious. But if you’re determined to leave a sting in the tail the traditional location is the skull.

“Just saw the top off and load the inside with whatever lethal nastiness takes your fancy, it’s also why standard practice against even undead who’s heads aren’t integral to their structure is still to try and destroy it first.

“The other locations if you’re feeling really smug are the thigh bones. Cut them open lengthways, siphon out the marrow, then cover the insides with spells. This does leave the skeleton a little bit underweight so it’s advisable to fill the resulting hollow with something. Mercury used to be a favourite but has fallen out of fashion since it was discovered to be toxic, but you can still see it in some of the older skeletons.

“Walter’s legs are filled with genuine dragonsblood as a mana reservoir, and a final screw you to whomsoever kills him. Don’t ask how I got it. Now once you finish writing and filling the legs, you’ll want to either use a high strength glue to reseal them, or go multidiscipline and have them actually healed.

“Now note the claws. I got really lucky with those. A blütkind ransacked a large town and died in one of the alchemy labs. I was fortunate enough to be called upon to help with safe disposal and shutting down of the lab and managed to snag the claws before the body could be burnt.

“See the metal coating? That’s one of the more modern methods, or more accurately a modern interpretation of an old one. In ye olden days, you’d have to employ a master geomancer to try and evenly coat bone with metal, and frankly it was hit or miss. Either the coating was too patchy or so thick the skeleton struggled to move properly. Now though the alchemists have come up with this wonderful process called electroplating which… well the details aren’t important right now.

“The point is dear Walter here has a tungesten coating on his claws. I’d like to have bartered for adamantium but I just wasn’t able to acquire any. Still it should allow him to cross blades with just about anyone.”

Alec nudged Holly with an elbow as Mortimer continue to wax lyrical upon his magnus opus. “He sure likes to talk doesn’t he?” The teenager observed, soto voce, before snapping back to paying attention as Mort raised his voice a little.

“If you look closely you’ll see that the plates often tinged with colours you would not normally associate with bone. That’s the alchemical treatments. I’ve seen some skeletons so heavily treated with alacrity oil that they’ve turned bright blue.” He shook his head in pity for the poor misguided fools, “Don’t follow in their footsteps. Subtlety will stand you in far grander stead than some one-trick wonder and if you pay attention in this class I promise you that you will be able to perform every technique I have highlighted today.”

“So how powerful actually is Walter?” Holly asked, not as wide-eyed as one might expect when faced with one of the pinnacles of the necromantic craft.

“Well I can’t speak to Walter specifically, as he hasn’t passed all his tests yet. But it’s estimated any five Ossific Champions are sufficient to defeat a demon lord.” Mortimer told them proudly, lips pursing as he watched their faces fall.

“So…. How would they compare to Tza’rahlitzek? Or Charigris?” Alec asked more bluntly. Mort’s answer somewhat less than useless given how wide a gamut demon lords, or devils as they referred to themselves, ran.

“It’s possible that if we deployed every single Champion, they could have defeated Charigris. But that’s really not a fair standard. Events like that are beyond rare.” Mortimer said somewhat wretchedly, taking another hurried swig from his flask.

“We watched two happen inside a day.” Holly stated flatly.

“That’s to miss the true purpose and beauty of the Ossific Champions.” Mort deflected hurriedly. “Once they pass their trials, they have a spell sphere inserted into their chests containing a near complete encyclopedia of necromancy, our history and basic magecraft. They’re the final contingency if the Necropolis falls. Able to act autonomously and rebuild from the ashes.”

“So what you’re saying is they’re a massively expensive weapon that you’ll always be too scared to actually use?” Alec snapped.

“Well no… it’s quite clever really…” Mortimer actively frowning now as he realised he was losing control of his classroom. Which was particularly embarrassing given the class size. “You see the lack of a soul allows them to hide really well from pretty much every magic other than necromancy which the Paladin Order refuses to use.

“Now I’d like to talk you through the animation matrix but Archmage Merida has informed me that one of you is currently unable to sense mana, so to avoid having to repeat myself we will save that for another time. Instead we will start with the basic safety checks you should perform before beginning any project...”

That said he opened a drawer and deposited two heavy leatherbound books in their arms. Alec looked down at the large tome, reading the title, ‘Basic Reanimation – Pitfalls and Post-Mortems’.

“Let us begin with Chapter 1. Ethical Sourcing of Materials and the Dangers of Unwilling Projects.”