Bancroft stared out into the distance towards Dry Run from the balcony of his room, cold sweat running down the back of his neck. The prompt he had just received hovered in one corner of his vision, a reminder that what he had just seen had been real. That it hadn’t been an illusion or some random atmospheric collision of mana. That there wasn’t a convergence storm brewing on the edges of his territory, and that coincidence had no place here.
No… Either Gold Spire truly has come for me already. Bancroft stroked his ordinarily perfect silver beard to calm himself as he pondered that possibility. Tasted it… and then summarily discarded it. Or one of those heart-soaked bastards back home followed me here and ratted me out.
While the latter was more likely, the real problem burning him inside was: if Gold Spire knew, then they should have attacked already. But they hadn’t. Why? Outside of the stables catching fire and the estate’s purifier slime being released – which had ultimately been the thing to take out many of his lesser minions – the night had been relatively calm since he had managed to retrieve his nightmare. Which was… disconcerting.
Paladins were not ordinarily this subtle. They tended to proclaim their discovery of ‘corruption’ wherever they ‘found’ it, and then attacked immediately heedless of rhyme or reason. They had little patience for tactics, Bancroft knew. As he stroked his beard once more the necromancer allowed that, whatever else, paladins weren’t often stupid. He knew that particular fact better than many ever would. Any who remained alive, at least.
So why reveal themselves so early? The necromancer stared across the many miles that separated himself from the insignificant, ramshackle town of Dry Run, and couldn’t stop the question from rolling itself around his mind over and over. Why waste the first-strike advantage of the initiative over some pointless, backwoods village?
There was nothing to be gained by ‘freeing’ that place from the scant few minions who yet patrolled its borders. Apart from the townsfolk, all of whom were currently dead, undead, or on their way to one of either of those two states, Bancroft couldn’t fathom why Gold Spire would bother.
Unless… Perhaps that had been a show of force meant to intimidate him? Bancroft tapped a finger against his chin as he mulled that over. He had to admit, that sounded more in line with the paladins’ way of thinking. But burning down his stables? Releasing his mount into the wild? Those were not the ways of his true enemies. Of his former tormentors. They were the tactics of criminals and interlopers. The filthy wriggling of worms.
Still, the more he thought about it, the more Bancroft inexplicably felt like the two events – the light he had seen over Dry Run and the incident on his estate – were connected somehow. Certainly the timing was suspicious. It was possible that one of Gold Spire’s number, acting as both informant and saboteur, had purposefully staged the incident in order to distract him prior to the paladins’ launching their attack.
Only there had been no attack. At least, not yet.
Bancroft might have missed even this display were it not for his instincts screaming at him to wake up moments ago. Warning him of the danger brought forth by a massive incoming surge of Life mana right at the edge of his territory. Those same instincts had made him rush to where he was now, and had been proven right a second later. The display had been about as subtle as a thunderclap. He had arrived with his own heart beating furiously in his chest and blinking away the last vestiges of sleep, just as the surge of mana had hit its crescendo.
And then the damn sky split apart.
The necromancer had some idea of the mana reserves necessary to make a show of that magnitude, and none of the potential options were good for him. Outside of excessively rare items, if that show had come from one of Gold Spire’s agents then Bancroft was almost certainly facing an Inquisitor. Perhaps a group of older Zealots. Clerics could part the heavens like that with a mere snap of their fingers, but Bancroft knew for a fact none had ever been seen before in this region. Not in any contemporary accounts, at least. There was simply no reason for them to be, either. There was nothing here.
That had been one of the reasons he had chosen this backwoods portion of the wilds in the first place. Nobody was supposed to be out here.
And yet, here they bloody well are. Bancroft’s grip inadvertently tightened on his own beard and, irritated with himself, the necromancer slammed his fist down on the balcony. Damn it all to Life, who does a mage have to butcher around here to be left alone?! How many more of these rats must I suss out?!
Not having all the pieces of this desperate, nonsensical plot against him was infuriating. Nothing about this situation made any sort of sense! Bancroft glanced one final time at the prompt that had appeared to him just seconds prior, right after the thunderbolt of Life mana had struck Dry Run like the fist of an angry god.
Your minion: ‘Shroud’ has been destroyed, ongoing mana consumption has ceased.
Bancroft sighed and relaxed his fist. Then he inhaled several deep breaths of the crisp morning air to soothe his nerves. With practiced ease the necromancer stilled his inner turmoil, allowing the increasing concentration of death mana emanating up from his flesh pit to revitalize his focus. That done, he aimed the burgeoning fury rising inside his chest towards a more practical purpose.
“If they’ve come for me now, then I will show them the true costs of their actions.” Bancroft announced to none but the landscape and sky above as he resumed stroking his beard. “None of those sniveling miscreants of the spire will make it back to report to their superiors on me.”
More bodies would also have to be sacrificed today, he decided. The pit’s growth would need to be accelerated if Bancroft were going to have any hopes of winning a pitched battle against the spire in the long term. Admittedly, doing so now was far earlier than Bancroft had wanted to begin defending his new lands and forcibly staking his claim – doing so always attracted more attention than intended – but it wasn’t like he hadn’t planned for this.
That stable boy, a dozen or more of the captives, that wandering caravan of fools from the other day, and one or two of the servants. That should help keep the rest in line. Bancroft didn’t bother remembering the names of those who served him save for Sabin, and Sabin only counted because of how long the man had served his family.
I won’t need even his help soon. Bancroft promised himself, before turning away from the balcony and striding back into his room. His next course of action had been decided the instant the shroud had died, and Bancroft found his resolve firming with each step as he made his way back into his study.
What was Gold Spire? What were their servants? When he finally succeeded here, he would have the capability to challenge even one of those pompous clerics for supremacy… One day. Given a few decades. Maybe a century. Maybe two? It didn’t matter. Time on that scale was nothing.
Just like this problem. Bancroft realized, a startling clarity of mind settling over him as plans for his next steps fell into place. Now that his anger had pushed down his fe– well, not his fear. He hadn’t been afraid earlier. Necromancers didn’t get afraid. They got… startled. Yes, he had simply been startled. That was all.
Bancroft continued reminding himself of that baseline fact even as he shouted for Sabin.
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“Fetch me three sacrifices!” The necromancer ordered his oldest servant who had come rushing up the stairs, having noticed the same surge Bancroft had, only to be met with the locked door to his study. Sabin knew better than to intrude into his quarters, a lesson the necromancer had only had to give once. “And make haste! Else I decide to add you in as one of them.”
“Aye, m’lord!” Sabin declared immediately, rushing back down the stairs and shouting orders of his own. “Right away!”
Bancroft walked over and unlocked the door, then he strode back to the center of his study and waited. Before he had finished rolling up his sleeves, three sacrifices were shuffled into his room. Each was pushed to their knees before him by armed undead warriors: a woman, a young girl, and a man. The first two had been taken from the village, their general state of disarray and pitiful sobs enough to tell that story. The man, an overly large and disfigured fool, was dressed much better than his soon-to-be-unfortunate companions. He looked like he had been one of Bancroft’s own staff until just seconds ago, though of course Bancroft had no idea who the man was.
Perfect. Bancroft thought, slowly cracking his neck from one side to the other. Even that fool Sabin can learn to make haste when properly incentivized.
“Excellent.” Bancroft said slowly, before raising his voice to a commanding snap. “Now leave us, and close the door!”
Sabin moved quickly, mumbling some nonsense about being grateful to serve, but Bancroft was already done with him. Or was, until a thought occurred to the necromancer. The old fool was at least the most useful of his servants.
“Oh, and Sabin?”
“Yes, m’lord?”
“Do not be caught on the stairs when this one comes down. I shouldn’t need to remind you that Inmortu are notoriously… unfriendly.”
Sabin’s face paled almost to the color of the stone beside him at hearing the name of the creature Bancroft was summoning, and the door had scarcely closed before the old man was at the bottom of the stairs beyond it. Bancroft had no doubt the old man was now scurrying around, attempting to empty the floor below of staff lest they be slain outright by the horror he was about to bring forth. The necromancer certainly didn’t care if his new pet was about to paint the walls downstairs dark crimson, he wouldn’t be the one cleaning it, after all.
Bancroft just didn’t feel like wasting any more research materials. Enough had been wasted on this farce already. His former servant, the large and disfigured one, began sobbing and mumbling some incoherent nonsense. Something about who would look after his ‘precious little ones’ when he was gone.
Pathetic. Bancroft’s tolerance for the pitiful man’s existence ran abruptly dry. He had no more time for games, and he needed servants who could actually serve him properly. Which the sniveling man now would, whether he liked it or not. The two female sacrifices shot glances at the mumbling fool next to them, shared one of their own, and Bancroft saw through their desperate planning as he had so many times before.
“Hold them.” Bancroft ordered, and the skeletal warriors behind each of his three squirming captives rushed forward to do exactly that. The living began to scream and plead, but Bancroft shoved one open hand forward into the air between them. In the same instant, he activated his second-most powerful summoning ability using all three of them as the material foci for its cost.
A trio of shadowy tendrils of Death mana shot forth from him, each stopping on the forehead of the sacrifices in a perfect copy of his own hand. Bancroft tightened his grip, and each of the hands tightened in turn. The screaming and sobbing cut off instantly. Three pairs of eyes rolled back into three separate heads as each of them died. Bancroft noted with passing irritation that the man even tried to resist his spell in the end, but to no avail.
Dark mana spread forth from each of the connected hands, covering each of the fresh corpses in a blink. The bodies then collapsed, crumpling in on themselves and one another until they merged into a perfect sphere of roiling, bubbling darkness. Not a drop of blood nor an ounce of flesh escaped its formation. Bancroft poured more mana into the summoning as it reached its second stage, even reaching out with his senses and draining some of the burgeoning power contained within the flesh pit downstairs. Vents dug or borne through the stone released wisps of nearly invisible shadow-tinged mana that streamed into the sphere.
The flames of the room’s candles and wisp lanterns dimmed down to nothing. Even the light of the three moons peeking in from the balcony retreated until the room itself was pitch black. The floor beneath Bancroft’s feet began to tremble, and he marshaled his mind as the mana concentration of the sphere reached its crescendo.
Spoken components to spells were rare. Precious few castings actually required them, and even then only the most powerful or complex. Bancroft himself knew none with such a requirement. But what the feeble-minded often forgot was that words were power. They shaped intent, and properly harnessed intent could serve as a boon to any spell. Provided you knew how to mix such intent in without corrupting the spell, that is… and Bancroft did. For this one, at least.
Shouting words that were immediately lost to his own ears in the impenetrable darkness all around him, and yet still heard by what waited on the other side through the fabric of the spell, Bancroft infused the summoning with his will. Granting the Inmortu enhanced resilience, a suitable weapon, and all the inevitability of the grave. The necromancer controlled the now invisibly swirling death mana all around him, forcibly shaping the undead creature currently rising from the sphere before him into one that better suited his own purpose.
A purpose the necromancer imbued into the very fiber of the creature’s swelling, necrotic flesh. A purpose that flared bright in his mind as Bancroft’s spell cracked the very air around him in half with a resounding boom: a drive to hunt, and to never, ever stop.
With a flash that was more the lack of light than the presence of it, the Inmortu rose to its full 8 foot height. Light poured back into the room and flared from the candles and wisps as the spell ended. Bancroft choked down the gasp that surged up from his lungs. He fought down the trembling of his own limbs after being emptied of so much mana, and commanded them to be still. By will alone, he kept his body from collapsing as he forced himself to stare down his new horror.
In sharp contrast to the incorporeal nature of the shroud, the Inmortu was a hulking figure of pure physical might. Its face was disturbingly human, its skin the color of rot and decay, and it bore dark leather armor. A longsword of deep midnight, one of the additions from Bancroft’s spoken components, was held loosely in its right hand. The creature’s eyes were a roiling black, and each time they moved to focus on something else, wisps of darkness rose slowly into the air.
This was only the third time Bancroft had ever created this particular undead. If he hadn’t lost so many minions in the last twenty-four hours, he wouldn’t even have been able to pay its mana upkeep alongside the rest of his horde for more than a few hours. Only his own high investment down that particular branch of necromancy nodes permitted him even that much. But since he had, the Inmortu was an expense Bancroft could now afford.
Even so, best to make swift use of it.
Activating a boon granted by one of his many titles, Bancroft transferred the knowledge of his slain, departed shroud into the Inmortu. He regretted that the boon could not grant him the knowledge of his dead minions, not to mention the fact that Inmortu couldn’t actually speak, but this would still be sufficient. He didn’t have to know which faceless paladin or Gold Spire servant had meddled in his affairs. All that mattered was that his dark servant now had its target.
That was all it needed.
And none too soon. Bancroft thought as the creature knelt on one knee in supplication to its master. Stars bloomed in the necromancer’s eyes and his mind pounded from the strain of the summoning. It was all he could do to stay on his feet – showing weakness to the Inmortu was even more dangerous than doing so to the shroud might have been – but he was not yet done.
“Go now.” Bancroft commanded, raising one arm to slowly point out towards the balcony. He was pleased to see that his hand did not shake, though it was a near thing. “Do not return until all who would oppose me are slain, and bring their corpses back to serve me once you are finished.”
The Inmortu clapped one dark fist to its chest in response, then rose and strode towards the balcony. Its pace was unhurried, as such creatures always were, and Bancroft spared a moment of irritation for its lack of haste. Why are they always so damnably slow?
Bancroft knew why, and he chased that weak thought from his mind as the Inmortu leapt from the balcony to the ground. The earth quaked when it landed, and though the stones of the building barely trembled, the necromancer sank to a nearby chair in relief. He slumped back in it, allowing himself a brief moment of respite now that none were present to witness it. Soon, he would begin marshaling the rest of his forces. But for now, he could get some rest.
Just before sleep reclaimed the necromancer, cries of alarm echoed across the courtyard as the servants Sabin had ushered outside laid eyes on the creature he had brought forth for the first time. A brief smile of satisfaction stretched across Bancroft’s lips, and he slipped into unconsciousness as the comforting, familiar panic of others wrapped him like a warm blanket.