Bancroft stared down at his new captives from the seat of his subjugated nightmare with supreme self-satisfaction. His information, sourced from his family’s old contact in the desert city of Dervash, had given him the location of this remote village long ago but it was the zealots’ spirits who had revealed its true value. A value the necromancer had deemed too irresistible to ignore. For there was not just a bounty of rare materials hidden within this deep forest–

– but one of many enlightened lives as well. Dry Run, it seemed, had not been the only outpost seeking to become more than what it was.

“Fools.” Bancroft muttered, watching with a rising sense of pride as his hulklord smashed apart the remainder of their meager defenses. “Simple wood and paltry blessings cannot save you from me.”

Indeed, with each massive blow of the hulklord’s reinforced fists, another section of life-blessed hardwood wall gave way like rotted boards beneath an iron hammer. Shards of light-brown exploded all over the place, showering the hundred or so vine-bound humanoids his army had caught outside the walls. More cowered behind their crumbling defenses, and the necromancer could not suppress a grin at the opportunity that now lay firmly within his grasp.

“Do ye think they will destroy the vessel before we can take it, m’lord?” Sabin asked from beside the nightmare, concern in the old fool’s voice. He at least had the good sense not to stand too close to the ever-burning horse’s bluish flames. “The servants said they saw several rushin’ the town’s center before the gates were closed.”

“No.” The necromancer said with utter confidence, and his next words dripped with contempt. “They are only peasants. Those fools at the spire trusted in the forest to hide them. Only a pair of zealots were left to guard this place. Neither have the knowledge or power to make use of what they have.”

Not that it would matter if they did. Bancroft’s dark eyes glittered as his hulklord finally broke through the wall, and the sounds of panicked screams on the other side were as music to his ears. His creation was unlikely to gain much in the way of experience here, but that was alright. As his great-uncle was so fond of saying:

“Some days, it’s not about efficiency. It’s about sending a message.”

“... m’lord?”

“Have the servants surround the rear of the village. Kill any who try to run.” Bancroft order, and his steed mirrored the command with a haunting whiney of its own. The skeletal horses which followed it charged forward immediately, taking the necromancer’s servants astride them by frightened surprise as their mounts responded before they themselves could.

“Were we not saving them for the pit, m’lord?” Sabin’s frown had deepened at his lord’s command, though Bancroft himself hardly noticed. “Should we not capture them?”

A flicker of irritation passed across the necromancer’s features, but he quickly reined it back in. The rampage of his beloved new minion more than making up for his annoyance at being questioned.

“The army needs to feed.” Bancroft said simply. “So unless you wish to offer yourself up for that role…?”

“No, no m’lord.” Sabin said quickly, holding a calloused hand up to placate his lord. The old man wisely refrained from asking why the army could not feed on the wildlife within the forest as it had on the way over. Clearly this point was one on which his master was stuck. “Just doing me best to offer help.”

“Mhmm.” Bancroft’s dark eyes grew distant as the servants and their steeds left to do his will. His thoughts drifted back amidst the intensifying screams, remembering the early days of his childhood. Back before his own family had begun to ostracize him. To judge him and question the value of his experiments against the attention they brought down.

Back before I knew what true power was.

The day he had discovered it was still burned into Bancroft’s mind. He could picture it with perfect clarity even now.

Word had reached his family that Gold Spire’s meddling in their affairs had escalated to the point of raiding a stronghold in broad daylight just outside the city precept’s office. Bancroft had been too young to know the value of what had been kept in that place, but he had been old enough to know that such an offense could not go unanswered. He had been taught that the ability to defend one’s territory often went hand-in-hand with the legal justification to refute such provocations. Any hesitation to respond would lose them standing. The family would look weak.

“The appearance of weakness is a swifter death than any other.” His mother had cautioned him that day. “Whatever else you show your enemies, it must never be that. Remember: a knife at your throat or back means they lack the conviction to push it in– but if they think you are weak, then falling on it yourself is the swifter exit.”

She had taken him directly from that conversation to a balcony overlooking Gold Spire’s own holdings in that section of the city, from inside a property Bancroft did not recall their family actually owning. The ostentatious golden tower had rumbled when she pointed at it, though both knew it had not done so at her command.

A family elder had been near the city when the attack had occurred. Moments after the tower rumbled, all forty-odd floors of the brick laid building quivering like a child might, it had simply fallen into the ground. Just like that. Gone. Without so much as a scratch or chipped brick finding the adjacent properties. An entire base of their family’s hated rivals. Hundreds of personnel. An incalculable amount of coin in materials, supplies, and other valuables… Gone.

Just like that.

Bancroft had stared after it in wide-eyed awe, mouth agape, for what felt like an eternity after. Not even smoke or dust rose from the spot where the tower had fallen. As if the whole building had been simply swallowed up.

With the same small, satisfied smile on her face that she so rarely wore in public, his mother had simply led him away from the destruction as the shouting down below began in earnest. Only those outside of the tower itself at the time had had the opportunity to scream, and soon enough even they were silent.

His mother had revealed later that his earlier guess had been right. The family elder had brought with him a legendary minion which burrowed underground. One whose maw opened up to impossible size and unfathomable depths. The creature had swallowed all their problems whole, dissolving them as if they were nothing.

It was that day that Bancroft had chosen his path. What point was there in gathering power for yourself when you could control minions like that? His family elder hadn’t even entered the city himself. Hadn’t even lifted a finger! And yet he had eliminated so many by himself.

Bancroft wanted that kind of power. Needed it.

And yet, they told me no. That I was too young. Too weak. In retrospect, they had probably been right. At least at first. But Bancroft had never been the sort to take such denials in stride.

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When his family had refused to teach him to summon such creatures, citing dangers he did not yet understand, the would-be necromancer had snuck out and sought the family elder. The one whose name not even his mother would dare speak. Family servants had allowed him in of course, but the elder had already left.

His personal library, however, had not.

It would be years before Bancroft understood what he read that day. Before he could fathom the arcane knowledge and esoteric rituals scribed in scrolls and tomes older than his forefather’s bones. And years after those before he would discover the secret entrance into the elder’s vault below those many shelves.

To where true power laid. Bancroft rested one hand on the ancient tome hidden inside a fold of his robes. On the book whose value was too great to leave behind. Perhaps even to leave out of his sight.

Absently caressing the ornate cover of the book he had stolen from the elder’s hidden vault before coming all the way out here, Bancroft wondered if the evening’s fortuitous venture would afford him the opportunity to attempt another of its many rituals. The sudden lack of screams tearing through the air, and the silence that followed, brought the necromancer out of his nostalgic reverie.

“Forward.” Bancroft urged his steed, careful not to put his own hand too near the nightmare’s flames. Subjugated its will may be, but until the beast was fully broken its blue fire was still fire.

The burning beast of skeletal burden heeded his command, and his oldest servant followed dutifully behind. His army and remaining servants, those who were not occupied prepping the captives to march back to his estate, followed as well. All were silent as they approached the village through the hole the hulklord had made.

Or, perhaps more accurately, its ruins. Bancroft chuckled to himself as his minions dispatched the few defenders who had not already surrendered in the wake of the hulklord’s rampage. Those who groaned pitifully of their injuries from the ground and begged for aid or reached for mercy they would not find from him. Wait, what was the name of this place?

Bancroft almost asked Sabin for that information, before dismissing the thought. No matter. Soon not even ruins will remain here.

Underfoot, the nightmare crunched the skull of a slain man perhaps Bancroft’s own senior in age and the necromancer chuckled once more. Perhaps his new steed was gaining a measure of his own humor.

In the center of what little remained amongst the still-crumbling, nameless village, the hulklord stood tall over its final defenders. Towering two dozen feet over their heads, its enormous stitched grey flesh bulged with muscle that rebuked the zealots’ attempts to harm it. Each leg was thicker than any tree trunk they had passed on the way over. Each of its five heads grinning in malicious glee as it tormented what was likely the only prey that had offered meaningful resistance to it.

Bancroft allowed his minion to play for a time before he interfered. A few limbs torn slowly free from the bodies of his foes were not worth interrupting his minion. Not with what he needed it to do next. Though the necromancer would never admit it to any other living soul, his control over the hulklord was the most tenuous over any of his minions.

Thus it was only when the hulklord went to squish the final zealot’s head like a marmlat between two massive grey fingers that Bancroft intervened.

“Stop.” The necromancer commanded, infusing his word with every ounce of authority he could muster. Behind him, dozens of skeletons froze mid-step. Some even fell over. Bancroft resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Release.”

The hulklord did as it was bid, but even Sabin could not have missed the instant of pause before it did. It turned, staring down its master with ten separate eyes of roiling black.

Bancroft returned the gaze, unflinching. He kept his heartbeat forcibly calm, knowing the creature before him could sense its timing. The revolting stench of life all around them threatened to wrinkle his expression, but he suppressed that as well. Not thirty feet behind the hulklord and zealots lay the prize he had come all this way for. He refused to look, knowing that time would come and choosing instead to maintain his aura of dominion over the hulklord.

“The appearance of weakness is a swifter death than any other.” His mother’s words leapt unbidden to his mind once more, and the necromancer’s resolve hardened.

“Kneel.”

Again the pause was fleeting, but it was there. Bancroft’s eyebrow twitched, but when the massive creature crunched the ground – and the paladin it had just killed – with one knee his irritation waned. The necromancer dismounted, then strode over.

“You are… a blight upon… the light.” The lone surviving zealot managed to somehow spit out despite the lizardkin having been almost wholly dismembered. “The spire will… sear you from… the la–hrkkh!”

Bancroft’s boot broke the zealot’s jaw, sending sharp teeth tumbling out across the shoddy brickwork of the village’s square. He reached down, cold hate mixing with excitement as he tapped the zealot on the head before moving on.

You have used the ability ‘Timed Exit’ on Gold Spire Zealot! The moment of the target’s impending death has been chosen. It will die in thirty seconds, regardless of injuries sustained.

“Retrieve the vessel.” Bancroft ordered the hulklord, pointing at what he meant to ensure there was no confusion. He sensed the hesitation behind him. Sensed his minion’s unwillingness to obey his command– but he would not allow it.

“Now.” Bancroft ordered, infusing his voice with mana this time.

The hulklord complied immediately, rising and crossing towards the silently sobbing, golden-haired maiden who knelt with one hand on the ground not far off. Bancroft found the hypocrisy of the vessel’s existence almost as choking as the abundance of life mana the woman gave off just by her presence. In many ways, what the paladins had been attempting to do here mirrored the purpose of his own flesh pit.

And yet, not on nearly the same scale.

The necromancer’s mind was straining from the effort of directly controlling the hulklord. Though he had yet to show it externally, the exhaustion was building. His vision momentarily flashed out when the massive creature’s grey flesh made contact with the life vessel, wrapping one immense hand around her. Immediately, its flesh began to burn and even bubble up as if exposed to an invisible flame.

She’s doing more blasted damage than the zealots did. Bancroft thought with annoyance as his vision slowly returned. The iron will he had cultivated his entire life the only thing keeping the woman in the hulklord’s arms. Still… Better than touching her myself.

A dark grin slowly spread across the necromancer’s face as twin beads of sweat rolled down his brow. Reaching into his robes once more, he retrieved his family elder’s ancient tome. Indicating the zealot with his offhand, he gave the hulklord its final command for the moment. One it, thankfully, held no animosity against him for.

“Drop her there. Atop him.”

Sabin’s eyes widened behind him, a mirror of the dying zealot’s own, and the pair of them muttered in either amazement or fear– Bancroft didn’t know. He wasn’t paying attention. His mind was focused.

Swiftly, he swept through the book, seeking the page containing the ritual he needed. Then, with only seconds remaining in the dismembered zealot’s life, the necromancer began his dark work.

Am I ready now, Mother? Could your precious Damien have done this? The words were unworthy of a man of his stature, but Bancroft did not shy from his inner feelings. He was not ashamed. Resentment built up since his earliest days was not something so easily thrown away.

Because I’ll bet he can’t. Bancroft’s focus sharpened, his will firmed, and tendrils of black mana spilled forth from his feet to encircle both the vessel and the zealot– the former now clinging tightly in fear to the latter. Even today.

The necromancer only had time for one final thought before the demands of the ritual stole the rest of his attention, and this one – in the deepest part of his heart – he was ashamed of.

Just wait until I return. I’ll show the family everything I can do now.

… and I’ll show him, too.