Fantasy Economics 101 - Chapter 13 (Patreon)

There's a first time for everything, including necromancy

"This is sooo exciting!"

Elkayla's enthusiastic voice was carried far and wide in the eerily silent night forest, though there was not a single soul listening in. The sun went down what felt like ages ago, and the skeleton and the hermitess were sitting on one of the toppled stone steles littering the familiar clearing.

"I've never done anything like this before!" Elkayla chattered on in audibly high spirits and swung her legs. "What about you, Mister Raol?"

"Do you mean staying out this late, or the ritual?" the skeleton responded, his voice sounding contemplative as he glanced over the nearby mound of earth surrounded by glowing crystals and a large, smoldering magic circle. "I've done my fair share of the former, but as for the latter, this is my first time."

"Then it's both of our first times!" the young woman flashed a smile and then threw her head back and stared at the sky. "How long until the Witching Hour?"

"I haven't the foggiest idea."

"The book said the crystals should tell the time, but I don't see any change," Elkayla mused and hopped off the stone to take a closer look at her handiwork.

In the darkness of night, the ominous blue light of the crystals, the very same ones used during the ritual that brought Raol back to the world of the living as an undead, cast long, eerie shadows. Despite the summer heat of the day, the air felt cold and humid at the moment and filled with the thick scent of upturned forest floor and mushrooms. While the skeleton could barely distinguish these odors due to his deadened senses, he felt that there was something else in the air as well. It was hard to describe it, and it wasn't as much as a scent as it was a sensation, and while calling it 'death' sounded rather melodramatic, it was the only thing he could think of at the moment.

"Mister Raol? Do you see anything different?"

His eye-lights blinking, he turned his head to face the direction the young hermitess was pointing. Soon, he shook his head.

"No. The mist is still being slowly sucked into the crystals, but otherwise, nothing new."

That was the best way he could describe what he saw. Knowing that the turbulent fog was ambient magicka gave him a rudimentary understanding of the purpose those glowing pieces of rock served in the ritual, but beyond that, he was entirely clueless when it came to matters of mysticism and magick. Fortunately, Elkayla was knowledgeable enough for the both of them, and after extensively studying the necromancer's grimoire, she perfectly reproduced the process. Or so she claimed, but the skeleton had no reason to doubt her words.

What they were attempting was considerably less complex, or visually enthralling, than the grand ceremony that brought Raol to un-life. It was closer to a séance than raising the dead, something a true necromancer could have achieved at any time or place. Yet, due to their inexperience, they had to return to the place of death, use the grimoire, the source of the methodology itself, as a catalyst, and wait until the Witching Hour to maximize their chances of succeeding. In spite of that, nothing was guaranteed yet.

"Look, Mister Raol! Look!" Elkayla's voice was tinged with genuine thrill as she pointed at the amorphous crystal on the other side of the mound. "It changed color!"

Raol also jumped off the fallen monolith and made his way over to her side. Just as she said, the color of the crystal deepened, and the rate at which it was devouring the ambient magicka increased by leaps and bounds. Soon, the other stones around the circle went through a similar change, and the whole clearing, along with the stone ruined standing stones, were bathed in a shade of eerie blue. There was a soft wind rustling the leaves, rising in force with each passing second.

"I think that's the Witching Hour we were waiting for," the skeleton noted calmly, although, on the inside, he was more than a little apprehensive.

In stark contrast, the young hermitess let out an excited sound and parted the veil obscuring her face. Eyes sparkling, she was staring at the circle in anticipation, not wanting to miss a single detail. However, all the tension slowly began to dissipate as there was no further reaction. The crystals were still glowing, and the wind was still blowing, but nothing else."

"Is this normal?"

"I don't know?" Elkayla answered with visible puzzlement and pointed at the grimoire sitting in the middle of the magick circle. "We set the magicka condensers, drew the formula, and placed a personal item belonging to the deceased in the middle. The book said that's all we needed to do."

"Wouldn't there be a chant too?" Raol asked, and the young hermitess craned her neck to look up at him with questioning eyes. "It's necromancy, but at its core, this is still a ritual, right? I'm no expert, but those usually have some kind of incantation, don't they?"

"Maybe, but the book never said anything about it…" Elkayla placed a finger on her lower lip, and after a few breaths of thinking, she let out a soft hum. "It's worth a try. Do you have a good incantation in mind?"

"Me?" the skeleton blurted out in alarm, his eye-lights turning into pinpricks for a moment. "Why would I?"

"Mister Raol is the arch-wight. Shouldn't it be natural for you?"

"Here you go with your arch-wight talk again…" Raol grumbled, but seeing that they wouldn't get anywhere by arguing about it, he turned to the circle. He wanted to get it over with as soon as possible, but seeing the expectant glint in the hermitess's eyes, he resolved himself to put a hint of theatrical flair into the process. Setting his legs apart, he let the silence linger for a few more breaths, and then he slowly extended his fist. Then, he suddenly flexed his fingers and uttered a single word. "Arise!"

He wasn't expecting anything. In truth, he was only playing along to amuse his companion, yet contrary to all common sense, the entire magick circle flared to life. The wind, previously only lightly blowing around them, rose to a stormy crescendo, and as the crystals poured all the magicka into the ritual formula on the ground, the indistinct shape of a human could be seen gaining form in the middle.

Finally, with one last hurrah, the circle shone bright blue, and then extinguished, like a blown candle. The crystals did the same, and before long, there were three people standing in the clearing. Or rather two standing, and one floating above the ground. The translucent man had a well-defined torso, arms, and head, but everything under his waist was indistinct, like a wisp of smoke. He was clad in a robe, colored the same as the rest of his body, and set in his wrinkled face, a pair of softly glowing eyes blinked in surprise, and then in recognition.

"Um… Hello?" Elkayla greeted the apparition, and it was only at this point that Raol realized she was hiding behind his back. As peculiar as that was, it didn't hold the candle to the first words that came out of the necromancer's mouth.

"You… You miserable fools!" the old ghost screeched as he beheld his own, semi-transparent hands. "What manner of delinquent job is this!?"

"Uuu… E-Excuse me?" the young hermitess tried to call out to him again, but it only made the angry ghost turn his ire her way.

"Why am I a common shade?! You abject dilettante! You should have brought me back as a wraith! Or if that was beyond your meagre talents, a gheist, at the bare minimum! Just what kind of idiotic, witless reprobate taught you the art, you miserable little—!"

"That's about enough," Raol cut in, startling the ghost of the old necromancer.

"You…?" At first confused, something suddenly fell into place in the mind of the newly risen spirit, and his face contorted in anger. "Youuu! You wretched creature! You killed me!"

"No, I most certainly didn't," the skeleton pointed out, trying to sound as calm and non-confrontational as possible.

They were here to ask for the help of the old necromancer, to help them decipher the research notes at the end of the grimoire, and to do that, they couldn't antagonize him. However, tried as he might, the ghost was already riled up, and without warning, lunged at Raol with his hands extended, as if trying to strangle him. The skeleton, acting on instinct, pushed the young hermitess back, lest she would get caught up in the struggle, while his other hand lashed out in an attempt to keep the ghost back.

The old man didn't even try to avoid his backhand, both blinded by range and trusting his incorporeal nature. Yet, it soon proved to be a miscalculation, as the moment skeletal hand met ghostly flesh, there was a flash of green light, and the specter of the necromancer was sent careening through the air, accompanied by a vail of pain and disbelief.

"Aaaooo!" the spirit shrieked even as he fell onto the ground, but after a few breaths of nail-biting silence, his crumbled form sprung back up and his eyes, no longer maddened by anger, but instead clouded by apprehension, glared at the skeleton. "You! How can you have an astral body!? That's impossible!"

"Mister Raol is an arch-wight," Elkayla commented even as she scampered to hide behind Raol's back again, willfully disregarding the way he was gesturing for her to stay back.

The necromancer, his cowl fallen during the previous exchange, scoffed at her. His wispy beard and thinning hair were in disarray, and on his face, as if burned into his translucent blue skin, were four green marks corresponding to the skeleton's fingers.

"Foolish apprentice! There's no such thing!" Even as he was talking, the wounds on his cheek were healing at a visible rate. He rubbed them with his hand, and after he ran his fingers through his hair, they were almost completely gone by the time he leveled a scathing glare at Raol. "You! You're Rakan of the Bloody Hand, aren't you?"

"No," Raol responded by reflex, only to hastily add, "I mean, yes. In a sense."

"It's complicated," Elkayla amended, and the old man scoffed again.

"Don't try to fool my eyes!" the necromancer bellowed, trying to look intimidating, yet without a lower body, and with his appearance as disheveled as it was, neither Raol nor Elkayla showed much of a reaction to him. "I have raised you from the grave with these two hands! Obey me!"

"No."

The old man blinked, then groaned with effort, and finally, angrily flailed his hands.

"I said, obey me! I'm your master!"

"Technically," the young hermitess spoke up again, peeking out from behind Raol's back, "You died, and then Mister Raol finished the ritual summoning you, so doesn't that make him your master?"

"Preposterous!" Huffing and puffing, the old man pointed an emaciated finger at her and yelled, "Where is your master, apprentice? I must talk with them and remedy this…" He paused and pointed at his missing legs. "This outrageous state your amateurish meddling put me in!"

"Oh. So it's outrageous when you're missing important parts of your body, but you didn't care when you brought me back like this?" Raol hissed, and the lights in his eyes shifted and morphed to imitate a skeptically raised brow. The old man didn't get it.

"Silence, minion! I wasn't talking to you!"

Feeling like he was talking to a brick wall, Raol exhaled a long breath. Or at the very least mimed so, just before his arm lashed out again and grabbed the ghostly necromancer by the collar of his robes.

"What? Unhand me, you wretched th— mmmfff!"

With one the other hand clasped on the necromancer's mouth, Raol turned over to his companion and spoke in a perfectly cordial voice.

"Kayla? Could you please get the grimoire and wait for us in the tent?" He didn't wait for her to answer and turned a pair of glaring eye-lights at the struggling ghost in his hands next. "We'll be right back, just as soon as I teach him some basic gods-damned courtesy."

Startled, the old man desperately tried to get out of the skeleton's grasp. He was unable to overpower him, his fingers holding onto him like vices, and soon, his pleading eyes turned to the young woman with the veil over her head. However…

"All right! I'll make some tea!" Elkayla exclaimed with a sweet smile and walked past the pair, to the middle of the circle.

At the same time, Raol turned ninety degrees to the left and casually walked into the thicket surrounding the clearing, accompanied by the panicked screams of the ghostly necromancer.