B4C24 - A Fine Line (Patreon)

In such dense, concentrated Death Magick, every word he spoke, every sigil he formed, resonated, like hot metal struck by a hammer. He could see it react, shift and mould itself at the behest of his words, and he carefully studied it, eyes unblinking, lest he miss the key moment.

Once more, he paused the ritual. 

Were his students to attempt such a thing, Tyron would tackle them to the ground to protect them from the blowback, but such was his control that he was able to control the magick, calm the volatility, and proceed unharmed. Having such a potent staff to act as a ritual focus certainly didn’t hurt.

His mother had truly gone all out in the construction of her gift. Tyron felt he was practically cheating when using it. As a focus, it was as solid as a mountain, acting as a bulwark between himself and the power he manipulated, containing it with ease.

Step by step, he slowly unwound the last few sigils of the ritual. An even more difficult feat than simply pausing it in place. With a will of iron and an unwavering grip of his magick, Tyron was in perfect control at all times, never letting a single thread slip from his grasp. 

In the centre of the ritual circle, surrounded by the dense pillar of Death Magick, the hapless spirit wailed and roared, flinging itself around in an attempt to escape its binding. It can’t have been pleasant, what he was putting this spirit through. In effect, he was holding it in the material world, half forming a shell for it, stuffing it partway in, then dragging it out again, over and over.

It didn’t matter. A soul couldn’t feel pain, not from something like this, and Tyron spared no thought for the discomfort of a marshall’s spirit. This was a necessary step, he needed to better understand this process, and it was working.

Every time he restarted the ritual, he changed it, modifying it piece by piece as he searched for something better. 

The flimsy shell used to house a ghost wasn’t sufficient to create a wight. It was the fusion of soul and skeleton that created a more powerful undead. For the revenants, he had learned to pour the spirit inside the bones, allowing the soul to bond to the threads contained within, giving it control over the body and letting them use their Skills in a limited way.

That wasn’t enough for a wight. This was the missing piece, he was certain of it. A new way to house the soul and bind it to the remains, something more powerful, more magick-intensive.

Once again, he started to move the ritual forward. Testing, probing, he spoke the words and formed the sigils at a steady and even pace, guided by his instinct as much as his intellect. 

Suddenly, his eyes snapped to a point in the heart of the circle.  

He’d seen something… something had changed.

His heart pounded in his chest as his face twisted into a wild grin, but his hands and voice remained perfectly steady as he watched, eager for another sign.

There it was! A single spark, green, like a guttering flame had kindled within the plume of Death Magick. Carefully, he continued, feeling around this new manifestation, feeding it, letting it grow. Ever so slowly, the green flame began to expand, growing larger as it feasted on the dense power around it. So much energy began to flow to this new creation, Tyron moved to throttle it, unwilling to let it consume too much lest it go out of control.

The larger it became, the more clear its nature was. It wasn’t a flame, not exactly. More accurately, it seemed like a cross between a dense mist and fire. It drifted and floated with the slow, lazy movements of a mist, but flickered around the edges, shifting and warping as a crackling fire might. The colour, however, was consistent, a vivid, ethereal green.

When he judged it was of sufficient size, he cut off the flow of power and moved to the final stage of the ritual. In a few short minutes, he bound the captured soul into this new substance and ended the spell. 

Tyron leaned forward, eager to see what would happen. 

With the ritual cut-off at last, the power sustaining it was allowed to collapse, dispersing around the circle, but still confined. In the centre, the strange, green substance… collapsed to the ground. Frowning, Tyron watched, and slowly, his patience was rewarded.

It was moving.

At first, he wasn’t sure if it was just the natural, ephemeral movement of the mist, but no, it was definitely shifting on its own. The spirit within was able to control it, whatever it was. However, not very well. Almost like a puddle of ooze, the trapped spirit nudged this way and that, unable to do much within this new form.

After a time, Tyron entered the circle himself and reached down to physically touch the shifting green flame.

It was cold, freakishly so. Much like a fire radiated heat, this flickering substance radiated cold, to the point he felt his finger was burned from the chill. Even so, he managed to touch it directly before pulling his hand away.

It was… odd. A mix of physical and… not. Part magick, part material, it seemed to exist in a state between the two. And the ghost was able to inhabit it just fine, even interact with it….

This was perfect.

It required an immense concentration of death magick to create, but of course it would, creating a wight was supposed to be difficult! With this, he had the final component he needed!

Elated, he ordered two nearby skeletons to scoop up the ghost and carry it into the Ossuary. There was a lot he still needed to do before Filetta could be reborn!

~~~

Tyron worked in a frenzy, no pause to rest, no time to eat. No matter how fast he went, he felt as if it was impossible for his body to keep up with his mind. The first breakthrough had put a crack in the dam wall, and it seemed everywhere he turned, new secrets were leaking through, so many he couldn’t possibly hope to snatch them all.

One moment he would be performing tests on what he had come to call Spirit Flesh, the next he would be perfecting a new structure of conduit magick, only to leap over to advanced threading techniques a few minutes later.

Gradually, all the pieces were being assembled, everything he needed to finally take the next leap. Despite the unrelenting sense of urgency he felt like a spike through his chest, Tyron was meticulous in everything he did. No compromises could be allowed, everything would have to be perfect.

After a period of days, he couldn’t hope to say how many, he stood before the altar, bloodshot eyes moving from one component to the next, weighing and assessing. He nodded to himself, then leaned down to inspect the remains themselves.

Filetta’s bones had been as flawlessly prepared as he knew how. No expense had been spared, no steps had been avoided to ensure these bones were as strong as possible.

Bone Salt had been used to remove even the tiniest scrap of flesh, reinforced with mineral solutions, saturated with dense Death Magick, bound and aligned to ensure no particle of energy leaked out, they were easily the best bones he’d produced. Then he had gone a step beyond even that.

The enchanting work he’d performed had been… excessive, some might say. With extreme attention to detail, he passed his gaze over every single bone. Sigils and arrays had been bound into almost all of them, from the toes right up to the individual vertebrae and of course, the skull. Inside and out, the skull was covered in sigils that had been carved ever so finely into the bone itself. Within, it housed an array of cores that dwarfed those the normal skeletons held.

His best undead would be stronger, faster, and hold a greater reservoir of power than his revenants could dream of.

When everything was prepared, he took a deep breath, and went to fetch Filetta’s soul from the recess it had been stored in. She didn’t wake when he picked her up, but had begun to stir by the time he placed the stone down at the head of her skeleton.

“What… what is happening? How long has it been?” she rasped.

“It’s time. You’re about to be reborn, Filetta.”

The spirit fell silent as Tyron walked around the altar, making his final preparations.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

Perhaps she was still hesitant, unwilling to move forward with their agreement.

“It’s this, or I release you back to wander until your spirit is drawn to the realm of the dead,” he reminded her.

She had no physical presence, but even so, he could sense her shudder. She did not want to go back.

“Fine,” she breathed and fell silent.

A good thing she’d agreed. At this point, Tyron wouldn’t have been able to prevent himself from going forward in the event she’d refused.

Raising his hands, Tyron took a deep breath, and began to speak.

It was the Raise Dead ritual, but so heavily revised as to become almost an entirely different thing. Words of power thundered through the Ossuary as Tyron wove sigil after sigil, no hesitation in his voice or hands. Power roiled through the air before pouring into the bones before him.

As the magick continued to flow, four skeletons stepped forward, each positioned at the corners of the altar, and activated the cauldrons there. From four points, the dense black mist boiled into the air, only to be captured by an invisible syphon, arcing overhead before being drawn down to the bones. Tyron kept going, his words slamming into the dense magick, giving it shape and purpose, even as he drew up and poured out the energy contained within himself.

Eventually, that tiny spark ignited, deep with the rib cage, and Tyron fed it, unfettered this time, allowing it to feast on the dense energy he provided as it grew and expanded. While he didn’t slow its growth, he did shape it, directing the Spirit Flesh to expand along the lines he had laid out for it, like pouring molten metal into a mould.

The ghostly flesh grew, and where it met the bones, it clung to them, then expanded along them. From the ribs, it crept down the spine, up to the shoulders, then the neck and down to the pelvis. He fed it more and more power, never ceasing in his efforts. It took hours of laborious work to fill out the skeleton, but eventually he had succeeded, draining himself, the cauldrons and even the Ossuary dry of magick. Despite the cost, it was successful.

The bones were now encased in a new body, one formed of shifting mist and icy green fire. He could still see the bones within, the skeletal grin and hollow sockets staring at him through the Spirit Flesh. 

When it was awake, it would be a frightening sight.

Tyron was exhausted, but his work had only just begun. He gathered up the staff of his mother and planted it in the prepared spot, using it to hold the ritual in place, locking the magick in its current form.

The next part would be… difficult.

Tyron gathered up the gloves he had prepared and activated the runes on them. He reached out toward the Spirit Flesh, and felt the cold bite at his fingers, but it was muted, warded off by the enchantments he had prepared. Hopefully, it would last.

He plunged his fingers within the flesh and immediately felt as if he had stuffed his hands in ice. Without the gloves, he would likely lose his fingers in a matter of minutes. As it was, he would need to endure for hours.

Concentrating, he drew his hand back slowly as he wove a sigil with the other.

As his hand came out, threads of Flesh came with it, bound to the tips of his fingers. So far so good. Carefully at first, then with growing confidence, he began to weave.

First, he needed to thicken the threads he had, using the method he had developed after learning rope-making from Georg. Once that was done, he needed to weave the flesh into muscle and sinew. This was immensely more difficult than working with regular threads. The Spirit Flesh didn’t like to be bound, didn’t like to hold a shape, and trying to force it to sit exactly as he wanted wouldn’t end in success.

Instead, what was required was to weave the flesh into the suggestion of what he wanted. Too rigid, and it would shift back to mist, returning to formlessness. Too soft, and it would never take to the shape at all, remaining as mist. 

When done perfectly, it would remain as he had left it, sitting in place, tied to the bones, and ready to function.

This process dragged on as he was forced to unbind and rework certain sections over and over again until he was satisfied they would function as intended.

When it was done, he collapsed back from the altar, snatching his hands away from the cold. He desperately wanted to pull the gloves off, his hands felt as if they were shards of ice, but he knew they were better off being warmed by the enchantment inside than out. Even so, he shoved them into his armpits, only to yelp as the cold bit into his flesh.

“Holy fuck!” he cursed. “If I lose my fingers…”

Every mage’s worst fear.

However, over the next ten minutes, they slowly warmed up, and he eventually pulled his gloves off to reveal his fingers had turned purple, but at least weren’t frostbitten. He thawed them for another ten minutes before he moved to the next stage of the process.

He’d prepared bone armour for the wight that was almost the equal of his own. More enchantments were carved into it, providing additional protection, resistance from harm and even a mini-cauldron that could produce a black fog of its own in a pinch. With care, he attached each piece in the correct place, affixing it to the remains. When that was done, he turned to a more complex issue.

The conduit he would form between himself and this undead was going to be unlike anything he had made before. After all, the wight needed to act as a commander, but he refused to allow his undead to be tied to it directly. Allowing the skeletons bound to the wight to die when it did was unacceptable. Instead, he would turn himself into a conduit, allowing the wight to issue commands through him.

It was exceptionally delicate work, with layer after layer of controls and safety mechanisms built into it. By the time this was done, he was well into the second day of the process. He was drained beyond belief, but it was impossible for him to stop now.

With his magick recharged and a rich cloud of ambient energy in the Ossuary, Tyron lifted the staff and began the final stage.

Sonorous words rolled from his tongue as he once again picked up the Raise Dead ritual, binding the undead to himself, and finally, lifting up the spirit of Filetta, taking her soul and placing it into the body he had prepared.

As her soul nestled into the cavity in its chest, there was a bright flash of light that filled the Spirit Flesh and burst outward. As the ritual reached its crescendo, the mist and flame of the ghostly body moved with greater energy, as if coming alive as it bonded to the soul placed inside it.

He spoke the final word, brought his hands together and cut off the flow of power.

It was done.

In the depths of the hollow sockets in the skull, purple light began to glow.