“Instructor? What, exactly, is Growth?” Robert asked worriedly.

Katira began to pace, the subject obviously weighing heavily on her mind. “It looks as though Growth will be first on today’s agenda, then. No problem. Growth, Initiate Grimes, is the process by which your Necromantic abilities suffuse your entire being.” She looked at our confused faces. “Up to now, you have all been reaching for your skills. Think of it like a muscle. When you exercise, you create microtears in the muscle, and the body sends nutrients and healing to the muscle. This, in turn, is what helps you build the muscle and get stronger. This is an oversimplification, but is essentially true. Growth is the same but, for Necromancers, that “muscle” Grows stronger logarithmically instead of linearly. This means that the Growth is sudden and explosive to a point, and then tapers off and levels. It will continue to increase over the life of the Necromancer, but will be slow.

“Once you have gone through your Growth, you will no longer have to reach for your Necromantic skills. They will be there, present and ready. This isn’t to say that you will be filled with knowledge, but you will experience new and, frankly, rather terrifying sensations and sights. The rapidity by which this happens is fatal to some. The Guild loses around seven percent of all new Necromancers to Growth. I have personally lost sixty-eight. Every familiar has lost a Master to Growth. Trust me, it hurts us every time we lose one of you. Some of us are simply better at hiding the pain.

“The symptoms of Growth are as follows: Headache, nausea, sweats, chills, extreme fever, and delirium. Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? The headaches are on the level of cluster headaches. The nausea is unrelenting, and no matter what you do, you will be physically incapable of vomiting. You will sweat as if you were running a marathon. Inside a sauna. You will shiver until your very bones feel like ice. Your fever will spike to about a hundred and seven. No higher. The delirium is a side effect of being severely dehydrated and feverish. It will last the entire time you are going through your Growth. You may become violent. You may mentally regress. You may become a vegetable for the entire time. And all of a sudden, it stops. If you haven’t plucked your eyes from your own head, you will see the world differently. We cannot reveal what that will look like to you. You are free to speculate amongst yourselves.

“Once your Growth has run its course, there will be no turning back. You will be a Necromancer for the rest of your days. There is no shame in refusing to continue right now. We can find the proper reagents to stave off your Growth, if that is what you wish. If we cannot find them, they can be purchased from the Guild, but it will be at an exorbitant cost. If you cannot afford it, and still do not wish to be a Necromancer, the Guild might allow you to collect reagents for the rest of your lives as payment. Be warned: That will take up all of your time until you die. No chance for a job, a relationship, or much sleep, even.

“Are there any more questions regarding Growth?” she concluded, her hands clasped behind her back.

“That sounds terrifying, Sensei. And this will happen to all of us, no question?” Morita-san asked.

Katira nodded. “Yes. Without fail. Growth is the single biggest reason we are to bring you to the Guildhall as soon as possible. I was lax in this regard with my Initiate. It was five whole days before we went. Do you recall what the Thoth said to me when we got there, Initiate Merideth?” she asked me.

I thought for a moment. “Something to the effect of me Growing during the intervening time, if I recall correctly. I didn’t understand why he was so irritated at the time, so I stepped in and told him to back off. Now I see. He was rightly concerned, and I shouldn’t have said anything, should I?” I replied.

“Correct. It would have been best if you had kept silent. However, your words were enough to placate him, and you coming to my aid simply felt nice, so I let it be. If you’ll recall, I tried to get you to go to the Guildhall sooner, did I not? You refused, which was well within your right to do. We familiars cannot force our Masters to do anything unless it is in immediate defense of their lives. Refusal to go to the Guildhall is not going to kill you. Growing without being instructed on how to survive it will,” she concluded.

“Any other questions?”

“Would we have gone through Growth if we hadn’t met our familiars?” I asked.

She sighed and all the energy seemed to leave her body and her shoulders slumped. “Truthfully? We do not know. We do not understand just how people are picked to be Necromancers. Is it fate? Is it just plain luck? Random chance?” she sighed again. “We don’t know. For Initiate Madras, it certainly seemed to have been a random twist of chance, but there is just no way to compare what might have been with what is. For now, we must deal with the reality as it lies. We don’t know, and it’s not terribly important anymore. “What if’s” will kill your soul, Initiate Merideth,” she replied kindly.

“O que faremos se o tio tiver seu Crescimento enquanto todos estivermos procurando por reagentes? Nenhum de nós é forte o suficiente para movê-lo,” Joaquin said softly.

“A good question, Initiate Madras. If that happens, I will carry him back to the cave. Understand something, Initiates. No matter what our form is, we familiars are much more powerful and stronger than we appear. Any of us could pick up the car we arrived in. We are not human. We can, and will, do whatever needs to be done to protect our Masters. I could easily carry him at a run for literal days,” she replied matter-of-factly.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

I looked at her in disbelief. When she saw my face, she smirked. “Would you like a demonstration?”

“Well, I mean no offense, but it just seems so at odds with your appearance,” I said lamely.

“Stand up, Initiate.”

I stood, unsure of what was about to happen. Katira calmly walked over to me and held her arm out. “Take hold of my arm, and drop your weight on it.”

I hesitantly reached out, wrapping my large, calloused hands around her much smaller forearm. She nodded and I let the full force of my nearly three-hundred pounds hang from her arm in one sudden movement.

Her arm didn’t move a millimeter. It was like she was made of steel. What’s more, she turned around, swinging me, wide-eyed, from her arm as though I were nothing more than tissue paper, to address the rest of the group.

“As I said, I can handle his weight with ease. While yes, he is heavy, he is far from being unmanageable. Thank you, Initiate. You can let go, now,” Katira said gently.

“Hmm? Oh. Yeah, sorry,” I replied as I put my feet on the floor and stood. “That’s insane. I’ve not been handled like that since I was a literal child. Well, I guess that’s one worry off my mind. If I collapse, you can take care of me. I’ve been plagued by that concern for years. I know I’m a big guy, and that makes things difficult for anyone around me in many ways, but most especially in an emergency situation. Thank you for the demonstration,” I said with a smile.

“My pleasure, Initiate. The only person here who may have challenges is Initiate Grimes. Yin may well be able to carry him, but lacking a humanoid body will hinder him in many ways. Still, we are not without resources. Yin is an adept spellcaster in his own right, and therefore has an array of options,” she said.

“Instructor?”

“Yes, Initiate Grimes?”

“Will any of us be able to learn any real magic? And, is Necromancy magic in its own right?”

Katira smiled, as it seemed she was waiting for just this question. “As you would understand it, Necromancy is alchemy. Through a quirk of their biology, humans are able to affect natural materials with their essence, but only after the introduction of a catalyst: their familiar. It is through our influence that humans are able to do this. Would it happen without us? Yes, but not anywhere nearly as potent as it can be with us. Once we Bonded with what would become the first Necromancer, things changed for both our kind. We were able to access more of the Universe around us, and humans were able to explore even more with their impressive curiosity. It was soon discovered that the Bond was unbreakable, and that it was mutually beneficial.

“As for learning “real” magic? The answer is much less clear. Some things apparently remain out of the reach of humanity. There won’t be any fireballs or magic missiles or the like being cast anytime soon. Wards are, as you saw when we arrived, well within the realm of possibility. Most Necromancers can create a Ward. Hiding the car? Much less likely. Still possible. I’ve had two Masters that could do something like that. Most can just barely cast a Ward, and even then, they use so many reagents and so much blood that it is usually prohibitively difficult. A grand total of fifty-seven Necromancers have had any skill with anything outside of a Ward.

“Remember that, Initiates. Only fifty-seven Necromancers out of hundreds of thousands over the millennia have had any degree of skill outside of a Ward. Your chances of being the fifty-eighth are almost zero. Don’t expect it. Dream it, yes. But do not expect it.” She stood now at the mouth of the cave, her form limned by the morning sun.

“Are we ready to begin learning about the reagents for a reanimation? Or does anyone wish to call it done, and go home as a normal human?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“Teach me, senpai.”

“I’m with her. I’m ready to learn what you have to teach us.”

“Am good. We do!”

“I’m with you to the end, Katira. We’ve already discussed this.”

“Excellent. You will all make excellent Necromancers. There are several reagents you can use for a reanimation. You will find that some of them will not work for you, others only weakly so, and still others that react strongly to your essence type. Remember: you only need three. Find the ones that work best for you, and you should be good. First, I want you all to check your Grimoires to see if another Necromancer before you has given a list. It’s possible,” she said and leaned against the wall of the cave after producing mine.

We each thumbed through our Grimoires looking for a list. It seemed I was lucky, as I had a list for several different experiments, most of which I was unable to even read.

“Instructor? I seem to have a list for not only reanimation, but for several different experiments. A lot of them are impossible to read. They seem all…pixelated. What’s going on?” I asked in confusion.

“You will be unable to read those lists until you clear the appropriate level. Would you mind sharing your list with the others? Let me see it, first,” she said, taking my Grimoire.

“Yes. This is a complete list. Share it if the others don’t have one,” I nodded as she handed me my Grimoire with these words. Seeing Joaquin and Morita-san looking forlorn, I proffered the book.

They gratefully took the book and copied the information, then handed it back. I looked up at Katira and waited.

“Is everyone ready? Make sure you have your Grimoires, and if I were you, I’d grab a snack, as you’ll be out and about almost all day. Get to it!” she exclaimed with a smile.

As the others grabbed a snack and headed out, I busied myself with getting my boots on, and stretching. Once the others had left, Katira came and sat beside me.

“Are you ready, Master? This will likely prove to be a difficult day for you. I wasn’t kidding when I said that reanimation is difficult for multiplying types. Your essence tries to make more of whatever is already there, and for reanimation, what is already there is death. We will have to find reagents that can overcome your essence. Most multiplying types never get to do a reanimation. Those that do must use their essence in a creative way, or simply be able to manifest it without an anchor, as you can. Let’s see if you can be one of the few that can perform a reanimation just like the others,” she said as she stood, holding out her hand.