B2C47 - Cave of Bones (Patreon)

Tyron huddled in his cave and tried not to feel too miserable. He was helping people, he reminded himself. Good people, who had fought and bled for their homes. People who had shown him a little kindness and appreciation, something that he’d sorely needed.

“You feel like shit, don’t you?” Dove asked him.

“It’s fine, “ the Necromancer replied shortly.

“Not all sunshine and roses, is it?” Dove mocked him. “When I was a Slayer, I got paid handsomely for my efforts, was lionised by the people and the ladies fell over themselves to land in my lap.”

The skull fell silent as he reminisced on those wonderful days and nights. Especially the nights. The drinks had flown freely and his bed had seldom been cold. Back when he’d had a mouth for drinking and a cock for screwing. The good times.

“But you get none of that,” he continued, “sitting in a cave, chewing on mouldy bread and hoping the people you rescue aren’t going to kill you for it.”

Tyron shoved a hard piece of crust in his mouth. He really had to work his jaw to get through it.

“Isth not mouldy,” he said, mouth still full of food.

“Not yet, anyway.”

The Mage finished his chewing and swallowed, the loaf settling as a solid lump in his stomach. Would he even be able to digest it?

“What’s your point?” he sighed. “You want me to pack up and leave? Abandon these people?”

“Yes. That is what I want. After you release my soul, anyway. To be clear, I want two things. First, release my soul, then, get the fuck out of here. In that order.”

“You don’t want to ogle Yor, naked?” Tyron asked, brow raised.

A moment of silence.

“I want three things,” Dove clarified.

The young man chuckled and poked the fire once more. It was cold up here. Bitterly cold. The influence of the rift was growing stronger by the day, and after three nights up in the mountain, he was starting to yearn for the lower ground.

Twice, he had mounted a charge further up the mountain to find the rift, and twice been rebuffed. The first attempt had been thwarted by a sudden storm, the second by a surge of rift-kin. There had been a steady trickle of monsters making their way down the mountain, but this had been a larger pack of almost a hundred. On the difficult terrain, his skeletons had struggled to battle uphill, but eventually, they had fought off the kin. Drained of magick and with many minions in need of repair, Tyron had reluctantly retreated on Dove’s advice.

“I want to die, kid, but I don’t want to get you killed to achieve it,” the former Summoner had admonished him and he had agreed, after considering his options.

Here they were on the third night, no closer to the rift itself, exhausted, cold and weary beyond words. In some ways, it had been nice to sit and stay in one place for a few days, but this was hardly the ideal location for it, in a small cave as the wind whistled down from the mountains, bringing an unnatural chill along with it.

May as well keep at it, he told himself as he ordered the next of his undead inside. They aren’t going to fix themselves.

Near constant fighting had left many of his skeletons with cracked or missing bones, each of which required his attention.

What I really need is a Skeleton Doctor minion. An undead that can mend the others so I don’t have to spend all this time doing it.

In a perfect world, Tyron would have minions able to perform most of the menial chores required to create and upkeep his undead. The amount of labour required to create a functioning skeleton was only increasing as time passed, and the same went for maintenance. After every battle, he had to commit to long hours of work, replacing any undead that were lost and fixing any damage.

Perhaps Necromancers would utilise the same Master Apprentice system that many Mages did. A Master would be able to palm off many menial tasks to the apprentice, who would be able to gain experience and practise their Skills in return.

It would be a better system, but Tyron had an irritating itch if he knew one of his minions wasn’t functioning as well as he could make it. How could he trust someone else to do the work? Even now, he hadn’t finished replacing the weave in just under half of his skeletons. Taking them apart and stitching them back together took over an hour each.

Massaging the fingers of his right hand, he sighed and got to work. Two minions later, he groaned and flopped onto his back. It wouldn’t be so much of a pain if he didn’t have to disassemble and then reassemble them every time.

Unstitching the musculature and then putting it back together doubled the work. It was honestly impressive he was able to do it as fast as he could.

I’d love to have a break right about now. Which means….

As if summoned by his moment of idleness, he sensed his undead had begun to fight nearby.

“Fucking bones!” he swore as he picked himself up from the floor.

“Another group of happy friends from beyond the rift coming for a visit?”

“Seems that way.”

Skeletons were directed toward the fighting, along with the ghosts as Tyron readied himself. His cloak was pulled from the rock he’d hung it from and thrown around his shoulders before he collected his sword and buckled it to his belt.

It wasn’t always easy to tell if the surge of kin rushing down the mountain pass was small or large. Sometimes ,a couple of the swine monsters ran ahead of the pack, leading him to leave it to his minions, only to lose multiple skeletons when the reinforcements showed up. Now, he made a point of showing up personally. If he continued to allow his minions to be whittled down, then he’d never make it to the rift.

“You want to tag along?” he asked the skull resting atop a small rock.

“Sure, why not? Might see something new.”

Tyron snatched him up, shouldered his way through the heavy cloth blanket he’d hung across the cave entrance and stepped out into the bitter cold.

It was like being slapped in the face. The wind cut through his cloak and vegetation crunched underfoot as he walked, lined with a frost which hadn’t been present only a few days before. He wasn’t high up enough for snow to fall, but thanks to the rift, that would likely change before long.

Each breath steamed in the air and he snatched his fingers up into his sleeves in an attempt to keep them warm.

“Looks cold,” Dove observed, “not that it bothers me none.”

“One of the benefits of being dead.”

Yor’s offer of vampirism was looking more pleasant by the day. She didn’t seem to feel the chill at all.

Outside the cave entrance, five skeletons armed with a variety of one-handed weapons and shields were gathered. His elite guard, as he mockingly thought of them. After his run in with the archer, he didn’t want to be caught without protection again, so he made sure to keep these five close by.

With a reasonable circle of protection, he advanced toward the site of the fighting. Ten of his skeletons had engaged now, though against what, he couldn’t be sure. He instructed them to form a line and support each other as he walked, reaching out to see if any of his ghosts had arrived.

One was close enough and he quickly snapped out the spell to see through its eyes. Hazy, ghost-vision filled his mind’s eye, the environment and details blurred when they weren’t obscured by the strange, billowing fog only the dead could see. Forcing the ghost to focus on what he wanted it to look at, he saw his skeletons battling against a handful of the weaker rift-kin. When he made the spirit turn, he could see more, including several of the larger ice monsters, striding down the mountain.

“Ah, SHIT!”

“Watch your tongue, boy! That’s an unusually strong curse for a delicate flower such as yourself. Bad situation?”

He didn’t reply, instead focusing on striding forward with greater speed as he mentally gathered his full complement of undead for the fight.

I haven’t managed to recover from the last fight, and already more are coming. I need to get to the rift!

Did he really need to get to the rift? Not really. So long as he drew the attention of the slayers to it, they would be able to take care of the problem. However, the moment he gave up on it and retreated, he would have to honour his agreement with Dove and release his spirit. Despite everything, Tyron still wasn’t ready for that.

He didn’t want to be alone.

The sounds of the clash could be heard before he saw it. The snarls of the kin and ringing of steel as the skeletons hacked, slashed and stabbed at their foes.

Shortly after, he was amongst them, taking position behind the first row of undead and coordinating the others as they arrived. A moment later, the slayer-revenant joined him, the purple fire flickering within its ribcage illuminating it from within. He kept it close, choosing to commit the other three to the melee. Archer skeletons took up position and began to fire, their poor skill compensated by the unthinking fury of the rift-kin. You didn’t need to aim much when the enemy only charged, or stood in place to fight.

Wanting to finish the fight as fast as he could, Tyron rattled off his support magick in quick succession. Death Blades to enhance his minions’ weapons first, then he sought to relieve the pressure by firing bolt spells into the thick of the fighting.

All this activity drained his magick rapidly, but he couldn’t afford to hold back. If he did, his skeletons would eventually win, but they’d drain just as much of his power and sustain significant damage in the process. An overwhelming victory in which he pushed out as much magick as possible, as fast as possible was the best result.

To that end, he reached out with Death’s Grasp the moment a humanoid ice creature came close to his line. Seized in the grip of the black magick, there was nothing the monster could do as his skeletons leapt forward and battered it to death.

Things would go better if he committed his best revenant to the battle, but he held it back for a variety of reasons. He never had issues with the others, but this one…. It felt wrong, in some ways. Plus, it didn’t hurt to have his strongest undead in reserve.

The fight dragged on as Tyron flung spell after spell into the rift-kin while they rushed down the mountainside and into the waiting arms of his skeleton force. He lost a few minions, which grated on him, but eventually, he won out, the last of the monsters falling to the frosted ground with a rage-filled squeal.

Raising his aching hands to rub at his eyes, Tyron took in the scene. More skeletons had been battered and needed repair. Dead and dying kin littered the ground, their blood already freezing and making the footing unsteady.

He gathered the most damaged skeletons to him and sent them back to the cave after a brief examination. The rest, he set to clearing the field and hunting for cores. The skeletons weren’t very good at extracting the small gems, hacking the monsters apart more often than not, but he didn’t have time or energy to do it himself.

Undead crawled over the slope following his direction and Tyron gazed up, toward where the rift must be.

“I’ll make my push tomorrow,” he said, “I can’t afford to wait any longer than that.”

“Good idea,” Dove concurred. “The rift is more active than I expected. Your strength is growing, but one bronze ranked slayer isn’t going to be able to hold back an entire rift worth of kin by himself.”

A skeleton stepped up to Tyron’s back, shield snapping into place right before an arrow thunked into the hardened wood. Tired as he was, Tyron almost wanted to throw back his head and howl in frustration.

You just saw me fighting off a horde of monsters and you want to take a shot at me NOW?

He whirled around, fire in his eyes.

“Don’t be fucking stupid,” he roared at the unmoving rocks and scrub, “there’s a rift here, a new one! This is what caused the break at Woodsedge! The Slayers need to be informed and a new keep built. Why the fuck are you shooting at me?!”

Righteous anger filled him, burning hot in his chest, but it was doused when a bland-faced marshal stepped from behind a tree over a hundred metres away and spoke.

“Because you are a murderer.”

The words themselves may not have shaken him as much, were it not for the cold and factual way they were delivered. It wasn’t hyperbolic, it was a simple fact. Tyron had committed murder, and to have it stated so baldly shook him.

That feeling was pushed aside.

“That’s true,” he admitted, “but there are bigger things at stake here. How many lives will be endangered if this isn’t dealt with? How many have I saved by keeping the kin at bay?”

“We will deal with that, once you are dead,” the man said, as another marshal stepped out from behind a stone.

“Idiots,” Tyron grated, his ire igniting in his chest once more.