“At its core, the Sacrament of Ingurgitation is a ritual of transference,” Ur-Namma said.

The elf shuffled down the stairs of the southern tower with utmost care, one hand trailing the stone wall for support. Geezer was at the front this time around, while Oak took care of securing the rear.

“At the consummation of the ritual, the recipients gain some aspects and strengths of the sacrifice, both physical and metaphysical.”

Oak cocked an eyebrow. “A ritual of transference?” he asked. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“It means that we must ritually consume the flesh of the sacrifice,” Ur-Namma said. The fact he sounded ecstatic probably should have worried Oak more than it did, but he was getting used to the elf’s weird antics.

“Frankly, that seems terrible, but I guess we don’t have much of a choice,” Oak said. The way Ur-Namma cackled in response did not reassure him one bit.

“The problem is, the Sacrament of Ingurgitation is a ritual of human sacrifice,” Ur-Namma said.

“Even worse. I’m not about to become a cannibal,” Oak said. “And before you inquire, my flesh is not available for ritualistic purposes.”

“Silly savage. The morality of the act is not the problem. The problem is the fact that a human is much too weak of a sacrifice for our needs,” Ur-Namma replied. “This ritual will require intensive modification before we can use it.”

Oak felt relieved their plans would not require the consumption of human flesh. A great sign. Really sets the tone of our quest, right off the bat. Whatever Ur-Namma was planning to use in the ritual, killing it would surely be an utter pain in the ass.

“So, tell me. What are we replacing the human sacrifices with? Yam-Nahar’s cousin? Maybe a giant if we can find one?” Oak jokingly asked.

Ur-Namma glanced at Oak. The elf had a strange expression on his face.

“You are scaring me a bit right now,” Oak said. He had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. “I was just joking around.”

“Joking or not, you were right on the money,” Ur-Namma murmured. “We need a powerful sacrifice. What could be better than a relative of Yam-Nahar?”

Oak let out a sigh so deep that a canyon would have felt envy in its presence. “We are doomed,” he said and rubbed his tired eyes. “Utterly and completely doomed.”

Ur-Namma just laughed, voice filled with confidence, and followed Geezer down the stairs. The three of them descended in silence for a while until Oak’s curiosity got the better of him again.

“What else did you find? You must’ve stuffed over a dozen rituals in my rucksack,” Oak said. “Did you discover anything useful?”

Ur-Namma shrugged. “Multiple rituals related to farming and the weather. A couple of interesting warding schemes. And one ritual of scrying that could prove very useful to us,” he said. “I believe we can sell the agriculture related rituals for good money. I have never met anyone who does not want to increase the yield of their land.”

“Well, there is finally something we can both agree on.” Oak grunted. The concept of agricultural rituals reminded him of his neighbors' back home, and the Cutter patriarch’s obsession with the practice of planting crops. Jon would have sold at least a couple of children for a ritual that made his fields produce more per acre.

When we get out of Ma’aseh Merkavah, we are going to need to gather a lot of resources. It was an intimidating prospect, and he saw only one real way to solve it.

“In summary, we need the help of the best mages on the continent to modify the Sacrament of Ingurgitation, and we need very expensive and hard to acquire ritual ingredients,” he said. “Wherever we choose to go, the place must also have buyers for the rituals we don’t need, and we must be able to gain vast amounts of coin to fund our activities.”

“Correct. Not to mention the fact that we need allies,” Ur-Namma said. “There is no way around it. Attacking Yam-Nahar and the forces he has gathered during the centuries he has slumbered here without an army would be the height of foolishness.”

Oak ran the thought over in his head, but found no fault in his own conclusion. “Then I know where we must go,” he said. “Our road leads us across the Hundred Kingdoms to Chadash Merkavah. We will journey northwest in the footsteps of those who survived the Doom of this city.”

Ur-Namma stopped and turned to face Oak. “You mentioned this Chadash Merkavah before. Does what you said truly hold water?” the elf asked. There was a calculating look in his eye.

“I have never visited, if that is what you are asking. What I know is based on the words of others, though I have encountered no one who would challenge their claims,” Oak replied. “Chadash Merkavah is the greatest city on the continent. Maybe even in the entire circle of the world. If what we need can’t be found there, it might as well not exist.”

“It is decided, then. We journey north,” Ur-Namma said, and started shuffling down the circular staircase. “Choosing based on rumors and hearsay is at least marginally better than choosing our direction based on a whim.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Oak let the comment about the sources of his information go and thought about the journey ahead. It would be a long one, and fraught with peril. Based on the stories he had heard, the Hundred Kingdoms were not for the faint of heart. Not to mention that they didn’t really have a plan. Only the barebones of one.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Just the way I like it.

***

The war-golem of Empress Aoibheann had indeed punched straight through the roof of the library and the ceiling of the fifth floor. The fall of the broken killing machine had only been stopped by the thick layer of cursed flesh on the floor of the circular ritual chamber, where Oak, Geezer and Ur-Namma had fought the undead dwarves earlier that day.

The broken skeletons of the undead dwarves lay scattered around the chamber, just like they had when Oak had last laid eyes on them. The only thing that had changed was the smell. It was noticeably worse than before.

Geezer took one look at the spindly chunk of enchanted bronze and started hugging the walls of the ritual chamber. The hellhound wanted nothing to do with the golem and showed his feelings on the matter by continuously growling at the broken machine.

Ur-Namma lifted an eyebrow. “I guess that is one way to deal with a war-golem.” he cackled. Then he looked at the hole in the ceiling and tempered his mirth. “I hope all of your solutions to problems do not involve such extensive property damage.”

“Hey, if it works, it works,” Oak said. “The fact we are all in one piece is good enough for me.”

The remains of the golem were sticking out of the floor, right next to the beheaded body of Nisaba. Oak hopped over the fallen tower of flesh, which had connected the Custodian of the Imperial Library to all the cursed flesh covering the entire fifth floor, and made his way to the golem.

He was hoping against all odds that the loci of the golem was intact. By some twist of fate, his prayers were answered.

“Yes!” Oak shouted, and swung his fist in the air. “Wait a moment Ur-Namma. I'm going to pilfer those ghosts.”

“Be my guest. But get it done quickly, if you can,” Ur-Namma said, but Oak was already too engrossed with the golem to pay the elf any attention to respond.

Every spook Oak had ever broached the subject with had hated dealing with golems. There were good reasons for that. A spook was about as useful as tits on a bull when faced with a golem. The minds of humans were hard to find in the Waking Dream. Finding the tightly packed and shielded node of ghosts responsible for controlling a golem was an impossible feat, even if you knew the golem's exact location in the real world.

A human mind was an incomprehensibly vast reservoir of memories. Not to mention that a human mind was constantly thinking and forming new memories and connections. Compared to the presence and weight of a sentient being's actual mind, the tightly knit node of ghosts that a golem relied on to function was practically speaking invisible in the Waking Dream.

After all, a ghost was never anything but an infinitely small imprint of the totality of a person's existence.

The only practical way to breach the loci of a golem was to touch it with your own two hands. Touching the loci made finding the shielded node possible, since you had a connection to the node's physical shell in Creation. For obvious reasons, this was a tall task for the average spook if the golem was still operational.

A good way to get your innards exposed to the elements. He had many advantages a regular spook could only dream about, and if the golem had been fully functional, it would have murdered him with ease. There is always a bigger fish.

Oak placed his hands on the golem's dented head, and dove into the Dream. The familiar shock that came with treading the waters of the Waking Dream inside Ma’aseh Merkavah was blunted slightly by the wraith bolstering his wards.

He emerged through the swirling echoes of pain unharmed and beheld a vision of the future. In the Dream, the chamber of flesh was already rotting away. Maggots crawled on the cursed tissue and tumbled through the air in giant clumps, wriggling and squirming in their longing for corpse-flesh.

Flies buzzed in the empty eye sockets of Nisaba’s skull as the head of the elf floated past Oak’s left shoulder. It almost felt like those empty eyes were watching him. Oak shook himself and got to work. There was no time to waste. He held his connection to the loci of the golem tight and followed the path it laid before him.

Ready for anything, Oak floated to the ceiling and started digging into the rotting meat. Maggots burst from the decaying flesh but he ignored them and carved away with his will, until a tiny, gray pinprick shone among the corpse muck. He reached into the hole he had dug and snatched the node. Finding it without the physical connection would have taken him weeks. Even as he held it in his palm, the node occasionally vanished from his senses.

With utmost care, Oak chipped away at the node’s wards. They were not especially strong, which was not a surprise. A golem’s node survived by stealth, not by the strength of its protections. The purpose of the wards was to protect the node from the currents of the Waking Dream, not from spooks that could never find it, anyway. Using a twisting motion, Oak drilled the ward with Kaarina’s Horror and soon a small crack formed. One by one, ghosts spilled out and Oak grabbed them all.

After a brief inspection, he swallowed them.

+ 10 Ghosts

Oak was thrilled. In a single triumph, he had almost tripled his own reservoir of ghosts, bringing the total number to seventeen. A world of possibilities opened before him. Now that he had enough ghosts to spare, he could allocate resources to ventures other than his wards. There was no end to what he might be able to create with sufficient effort.

At least a couple thought-plagues. Maybe a trauma weapon to rival Kaarina’s Horror. But that would be just the beginning. He had heard of techniques to build structures and pathways that could enhance recollection and memory, even boost the speed of one’s thoughts. Techniques Ur-Namma was sure to have some familiarity with, since he was literally royalty.

With the elf’s help, Oak would build the tools he needed to advance his theurgy to the next level.

A cracked node in hand, Oak made a quick visit to his sanctuary, and in the shadow of the oak tree he hanged the newly claimed ghosts from the branches, and connected them to his wards. There would be time to tinker later, when they had gotten out of the city.

When Oak opened his eyes in the real world, his smile was so wide it almost hurt.

“Got everything you needed?” Ur-Namma asked.

“That, and more,” Oak replied. “Let’s leave this place for good.”