The Raise the Dead spell was nominally a Divine spell, with dominion over it held by the powers of Good. In short, if the Good powers were opposed to you resurrecting, specifically Aru, who held Eminence over Life, you weren’t coming back by this method. Go try Reincarnation or something.
That said, The Good Powers had to be opposed. Most of the time, it wasn’t an issue, as long as you weren’t heading Down. They were perfectly willing to send you there and let you stay there. The Lower Planes had their own uncouth methods of bringing you back, go experiment with those.
Naturally, such considerations weren’t that active here. I was drawing what Divine power I did from the souls and Faith trapped in the Shroud, but mostly it was an Arcane Domain made in reverent respect of the gods, and with the Faith and belief I was wielding the magic, i.e., doing what an Arcane Domain made possible.
Raising the Dead was associated with both Life and Healing, so swapping it in as my V Arcane Healing Domain Slot was simple. Then it was ten minutes of gathering energy while floating in the air, spirals of life coming together, rebuilding Sergeant Mulligan’s body back to proper health fully intact, slowly teasing his soul back into it, and re-binding his spirit to his body.
Briggs and Sama were watching in satisfaction as this happened, while everyone else couldn’t take their eyes away. They’d never really felt friendly Divine magic at this level (the Golden Swarm definitely wasn’t friendly), and the feeling of greater powers brushing against your soul, the fleeting sensation of coming up against profound forces who really were far beyond you, was not something most of them had experienced.
Those who had, had generally not done so on anything resembling a friendly basis.
The Gentle Repose had kept him intact physically, so there was only reversing the processes that started to occur at death, returning them to the proper state, finishing binding anima to container, and bringing in the final surge of energy to kickstart everything.
Adventurous sorts run into resurrection magic all the time, so it loses the luster... but this was possibly the first mortal-Cast spell of this type on the whole planet, and the audience was private and small. Heck, we hadn’t even told his family he had died, since I was going to bring him back.
I was totally aware the Aruans were filming this, and that Father Bower and Sir Pellier were murmuring prayers under their breath at the feeling of Life, Death, and Good flowing about me, making me look very much like an Angel of Death here to claim a soul... or return it to its proper place.
It would have been nice to actually touch the Divine while doing this, and shake their mental hands in thanks for doing their job... but that wasn’t going to be me, I knew.
There was a final hiss as unwanted additions of bacteria, fluids, and the like were burned from his system, and the First Spark was given to him, a duplication of that energy surge that bound a child’s soul to their body on conception.
Sergeant Mulligan quivered, gasped, and coughed, and opened his eyes. It took him a few breaths to center himself, realize he was laying on a long Disk hovering in midair, and turn his head to see the people staring at him.
“What...what happened?” he asked, and then naturally his eyes centered on the looming bulk of Briggs in his armor. “Uh, sir, something, something!...” he put his hands up to his head, his expression showing his disbelief that it was still intact.
There was finally a roar, and the other Aruans converged on him, shouting, laughing, crying, exulting over the fact that he was back and alive, and they wouldn’t have to bury yet another comrade.
I stepped away, letting the last sparkling remnants of the Life Diamond vanish from my fingers as I did. The Mick watched it vanish, shaking his head at the cost... three million dollars worth of diamond, gone just like that, to bring back a fallen elite soldier.
There were a lot of people who wouldn’t think it a worthwhile trade. Of course, if the logic was turned on them, they’d say otherwise, and might not be at all happy at the fact that both mortals and gods might rule the Valence V wasn’t worth spending on them, despite all the money they might offer.
“At ease, Sergeant,” Briggs rumbled warmly, coming forward to shake his hand. “Congratulations. You have the dubious honor of being the first man to be returned from the dead, and it all being on camera and provable, on the planet.”
“That...” Sergeant Mulligan’s jaw was working. “That all wasn’t a bad dream, sir?” he asked, turning to look up at the sky, his eyes falling into shadow.
As everyone went quiet, his head turned precisely to look at me, and they widened just a little bit.
He swallowed as he said, “You’re Traveler!... The souls were talking about you...”
“Not surprising, Sergeant. They blab to me, too. They don’t want to shut up, as a matter of fact. It’s a good thing you’re not one of them. Although I must say that story about Boots was touching, and no, your girlfriend is fine and you should give her a call.”
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He blinked, and then blushed red. Everyone laughed softly. “Oh... you could hear me...”
“Yes, indeed. And right now, you are two Levels behind your friends, two Name-days on your Weapon, and there’s a lot of Karma waiting for us north and west in a hot spot.” I put my hands together, and began to call up the power of a Restoration. “You’re feeling very weak right now in several ways, but this Restoration will clear that up, but send you right back to sleep. We’ll wake you up before Natural Renewal, and you can Salute Aru for seeing fit to send you back at that time.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He did look a little weak, but getting yourself shoved back into your own body will do that for a person. I invoked the rush of positive energy that would push away the shadow of death upon his soul and restore him completely to full spiritual health, and at the same time give him the mental reassurance and comfort he would need to pull past this experience, and keep on growing.
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There were still diehard Christians out there, and Bible stories were still a thing followed for their mythology, and the inspiration for Divine magic within them.
So, the first and last person to be Raised from the dead, since Lazarus or Jesus, take your pick.
Yeah, that set off a firestorm across the world, as the wealthy and the powerful wanted to know just how it was done, the requirements, pre-reqs, costs, and so forth and so on.
Heavenbound Hall took the specs for the spell from me, posted it, and many a face wanting to know that they could come back if they were killed twisted badly.
A 5000 gp Life Diamond. Where were they going to get such a thing? Moreover, there were no Nine Clerics around who could Cast the spell yet... except for the one who had obviously just done so, and she had just wasted such a gift on a no-name soldier...
I was the first Nine Divine Caster in the world... although I actually wasn’t, I was just cheating in a specific Domain. Still, it did the trick.
Neutrals could Cast Healing spells, but they couldn’t take the Healing Domain, so Arcane Casters were basically shut out of this entirely if they were Neutral. Getting sufficient empathy and harmony with Divine forces to get an Arcane Domain took a lot of Faith, too, which most Arcane Casters were notably quite lax on.
It didn’t hurt I was pretty photogenic, and anyone decrying all that stuff I was spouting on my vids as it being impossible for me to know all that was kind of shut down on seeing me Cast a V. Not to mention there was a verifiable Harse Priest standing right there in the video, Witnessing it all.
Also, the last name of the soldier receiving the first Raise the Dead on the planet eventually leaked somehow. Taking a Mulligan suddenly received a whole new and profound meaning...
My Allegiance was growing, as word was spreading, and people were quietly swearing to my Banner... and they were stronger people, too, drawn by what I was doing, had given away, and the power that I had showed displayed very, very prominently that I knew what I was doing.
When the politicians in DW found out I’d actually been in the city, toured some of the new sites, and had done so completely under the radar, they were naturally angry they’d missed a great photo op.
I was undeterred. Sama and Briggs took off early, having at least three more churches to Imprus they wanted to hit to send a message, while the rest of our group headed for Yellowstone and the area we were going to deploy from. It wasn’t a short drive, and we weren’t in a hurry. Sama and Briggs had a whole day at least before we’d head into the Firezone from our base area, long enough to show people exactly what they should be doing with Churches of Imprus, no matter how well-defended they were.
People were already setting up betting pools in Denver, and Omaha and Salt Lake City were definitely on the list.
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The Yellowstone Firezone was famous as being the second largest single Shroudzone of its kind in the world.
It wasn’t because the Shroudcloud was big. Actually, as such things went, it was pretty small. Even the Deadzone around the place wasn’t actually that large, and the undead didn’t go wandering all that far from it, given the hilly terrain cutting apart all the easy travel routes.
No, it was because the Fireborn inside the place roved out for a hundred miles around the zone indiscriminately, and basically burned everything they came across to ash.
As a result, the Firezone was a long smear on the landscape. From orbit, it would have been a good three hundred miles long and over two hundred miles wide, a land of black ash, red lava, and the scorched remnants of the green forests, hills, and plains that had once been here.
Only the Russian Shroudzone was larger, because of the sheer number of dead there. The Firezone of Yellowstone was huge because of the creatures of fire.
There were seven active volcanoes in Yellowstone now, but the ash they spewed into the sky hit the Haze, cooled down in no time, and rained back down on the landscape, coating the areas around the firecones in grit and grey that turned black under the Haze. Rivers of lava flowed up and down inside the zone, forming lakes and firefalls and burning streams, and things of fire roved the breadth of it, drawing on the power of the massive magma deposit under the former park and the pyromancy it drew to itself.
The Kamchatka Penninsula had more volcanoes, but didn’t mainline the ley lines of fire like Yellowstone did. The areas closest to the park had the highest number of Elemental Fireblooded Sorcerers born in the world. Conversely, the areas around the Zone had the highest demand for Cold Magic wielders in the whole world.
There were no settlements within an hour’s travel of the black char that represented the most advanced edge of the burning wanderings of the Fireborn. Mephits, firebats, occasional warbands of salamanders and azers, firenewts and magmen, and all types of Elementals in forms reminiscent of animals or magical beasts came wandering over the landscape, looking for cool things to heat up and burn, driving away organics, and trying to expand their territory and the winding lava rivers.
The surveyors had realized that the Charlands actually extended further out the more the fire creatures burned. So, if we didn’t want more territory taken, we had to fight!
The main problem was the fact it required magic Weapons to harm just about all the creatures there... or use of Cold. It had taken years to ramp up the state of the troops here and equip elite fireteams with the right kind of Weapons, but they could now send even wandering Greater Elementals larger than mammoths on their way, or whole bands of whatever infantry forces came along. The flying swarms of firebats, fireflies, and similar small fire beings couldn’t hold the ground, even if they were horrible to fight... but enough massed magic helped tear them apart.
That was the situation we were heading into. The Mick naturally didn’t want to drive Bone Marrow into the Firezone, but that was fine. We had a lot more maneuverability riding Disks, anyways, and vehicles with combustible fuel attracted Fireborn like drunkards to free wine.