6kv Chapter B5: Potential
Chapter B5: Potential
Chapter B5: Potential
Book of The Dead
Tyron was furious. More than furious, he was incandescent with rage. Were he not occupied with the coming battle, he would have been kicking and spitting, lashing out to try and find a way to vent his anger.
Of course, it was difficult to fully find an avenue to direct his fury since it was largely directed at himself.
After what he had done to Filetta’s soul, the visions of the Unseen had descended on him, and much of what he had thought and supposed about the power of Soul Magick had been confirmed. All of that, and so much more.
How could he have been so foolish?! Dread Lords, mages and Necromancers of unfathomable power, created kingdoms of dust and death in the Realm of the Dead. Zealously guarding every square inch of their territory, battling and scheming against each other without end. Why? Why would they bother?
For the souls. He’d known it was for the souls. Specifically, for the Soul Magick they contained. True Necromancy, true power, it all revolved around the energy that could only be found there.
Now that he knew what he could do with it, Tyron found himself desperately wishing he could turn around and go back to the Realm of the Dead.
More. He needed more!
He was only able to extract the tiniest trickle from the orb he had created, barely anything at all. After performing the same working on every wight who had reached their maximum level, the reserve of energy it had generated was almost totally exhausted.
There would be just enough left if things came to the worst.
Yet there was so much more he could do if he had more of it! What he wouldn’t give for a chance to scoop up just a tiny bit more. Even thinking about it was maddening!
It was the interweave of Death Magick and soul magick that had been the key. Both energies were related to each other. In a sense, soul magick was a higher, more concentrated form of Death-aligned energy. Tyron still didn’t know why human corpses and human souls contained such power when horses, dogs and cats did not, but it hardly mattered to him.
Around him, the miasma that he had created over Foxbridge guttered and danced as the Golden Legion’s conjured breeze continued to drive it away. He was sure they were watching him even now, not that there was much to see. Atop his newly remade construct, he continued to remain almost completely still, his mind racing through the conduits that bound him and his minions together. There were a dozen different projects that demanded his attention, and he had none to spare for his enemies.
They could look all they wanted. What was truly important, they wouldn’t be able to see anyway.
Master Willhem. Is it ready?
For days now, his former master had been toiling over a particular enchantment. A large and complex array that the demi-lich had been carving into the cobblestone road that ran past Tyron’s family home. Not exactly the easiest medium to work with, but having now ascended to gold rank, Master Willhem was able to muster a larger portion of his old skill.
Not yet.
Although he waited, that was apparently all the information Tyron was going to get from the old master. Even in death, the man was as taciturn as ever. If one thing had changed about him, it was that he was no longer as greedy as he had been. Wealth had little meaning to the dead, after all.
Focusing his mind, Tyron turned back to his own project. All of the best skeletons had already been raised as undead, leaving only the scraps and incomplete remains that they hadn’t been able to put together. These were good for turning into weapons and forming into constructs. After losing all of his skeletal giants in the Realm of the Dead, Tyron was keen to replace them. Cumbersome and expensive they may be, but they were able to pack a hell of a punch, with a skeletal weave thicker than shipping rope.
After employing all of his new methods, he was more than satisfied with the first specimen and hoped to have four more ready before the Golden Legion launched its assault.
A whistling noise caught Tyron’s ear. In less than a second, it had risen to a shriek as it drew closer at a rapid pace. A sudden impact and the sounds of shattering wood was followed by a spray of splinters that reflected harmlessly off his helmet.
Frowning, he turned his head to see a portion of the mantle had risen to block an arrow fired from the direction of the army gathered outside the edges of Foxbridge. Concealed in a rolling purple cloud, the Mantle of the Imperator was woven of spirit and bone, an unliving cloak of the dead that was capable of acting without his input to protect him. Of course, it was capable of much more than that, and he was well pleased with it.
Fired from such range, even a gold ranked archer wouldn’t have been able to penetrate his armour, or cause significant damage to his person even if it did. With a constitution as high as his, Tyron’s flesh was as hard to puncture as an Ironbark tree.
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What were they doing? Firing an arrow at him out of nowhere, did they really think that would have been enough?
Unlikely. Since he was out in the open, they simply took the opportunity to fire at him and see what happened, force him to reveal some of his cards. Which meant that...
Almost on queue, he watched as a hail of arrows rose up in the air, arcing high above before plunging down toward him.
With size and weight far greater than what a normal archer would be capable of firing, these truly were arrows that only men and women of gold rank could use. Incredible accuracy as well. Every shaft arced towards him perfectly, so much so he thought half would hit each other before they even reached him. As it turned out, they had accounted for this possibility, staggering their shots by fractions of a second to ensure every arrow would find the mark.
Impressive.
Impressive and meaningless.
Each of these arrows could punch through a wooden shield, even at this range, but Tyron’s defences were immaterial in nature. From close range, these archers could punch an arrow through his armour and straight through his head. But from this sort of extreme range?
Ignoring the threat, Tyron turned his back and continued to focus on the task at hand. Bone forging for the skeletal giants was difficult work, and far more complex than simply melting bones together. Structure and composition were important, as was compatibility. It wasn’t possible to take any old thing and turn it into noctic bone, the quality had to be of a high standard, particularly for constructs.
From behind him, a horde of spirits and skeletal hands emerged from the mantle, extending outwards in a swarm, screaming in silence as they shattered, deflected and consumed the arrows that rained down towards him.
Doubtless the spirits trapped within the mantle hoped that by using their spectral forms to tear apart the bolts, they themselves might be freed from the chains that bound them. It was a false hope. An ingenious piece of spellcraft, enchanting and bone forging, the mantle would be their prison until Tyron himself chose to release them. Which he might. He didn’t relish the thought of his former neighbours being bound in such a way.
Though the mayor would remain, no matter what.
After the battle, however, he may have much more powerful souls to bind into his cloak. Hopefully now the idiotic archers would leave him alone. He had four demi-liches currently engraving arrays throughout Foxbridge, and he needed to control all of them to ensure the task was done to the right standard.
If he had a dozen Master Willhems, Tyron would already have turned Foxbridge into an impregnable fortress and armed his horde with enchanted weapons and armour to rival the Golden Legion itself. Perhaps there was a graveyard outside an arcanist school somewhere. He could only hope.
Power was still flowing towards the centre of town, pulled in by the arrays he had created previously. Even so, it was barely enough. Every drop of magick he could get his hands on was being used or stored for the battle, and soon enough his enemies would cut off his supply, of that he was certain.
Denying his access to magick was the basics of the basics, though Tyron had taken steps to make it difficult for them.
As long as he had access, he would continue to pull in all the arcane energy that he could and funnel it into his work. For a while, it seemed as though his foes were content to keep conjuring their gale, peeking at his horde, perhaps counting his numbers and trying to discern his defences.
There wasn’t anything that Tyron could do to stop them. He’d used his ghosts to count their force days ago, but there wasn’t much he could learn by looking. The presence of a platinum ranked soldier wasn’t something that he had expected to confront, but he would have to overcome it nevertheless. So he ignored them. Let them look, let them waste time. He was getting stronger with every minute that passed, they weren’t. If they wanted to give him an extra day, or even an extra hour, he would make use of it.
Although, it appeared as though they hadn’t finished examining him yet. Even though the wind continued to blow, Tyron could feel the magick building in the distance. Mages working together, weaving power between them.
Sighing, Tyron turned back just in time to see a streak of golden fire rise up into the sky. Even from this distance, he could feel the destructive power of the spell, and he felt an unexpected anger spark in his chest.
As he watched the flames reach the height of their flight and begin to descend towards him, it was all too easy to imagine that these were the soldiers who had visited Foxbridge before, using this exact spell to burn down the Steelarm Inn, to destroy the house he had been raised in.
What’s more, he felt as if he could sense the eyes of the commander of these troops, staring at him, as if he were nothing but an insect under a looking glass to be studied and examined. Prodding with arrows, now with spells, just to see what he was capable of. Would they continue all day if he didn’t retaliate?
Tyron raised his hands and spoke the Words of Power.
Carefully prepared bones, buried just a few inches beneath the surface a few days ago, detonated directly beneath the massed ranks of the Golden Legion.
As the golden fire descended, a shield flickered into existence, created and maintained by the demi-liches gathered in the city square. For a brief moment, Tyron’s ears were filled with the roar of the flames and his eyes blinded by the flare of golden light.
In the distance, he felt the bones detonate, shards spraying up beneath the massed soldiers, causing chaos in the ranks. Only for a few seconds, however. Despite the surprise attack, there wasn’t anything a few shards could do to the most heavily armoured troops in the Empire.
However, it seemed they received his message. Keep messing with me, and I will mess with you. Next time, it wouldn’t end with just a few bones detonating.
Tyron returned to work as the Golden Legion observed for another hour. After that, the mages let the wind drop and once again the miasma began to fill the air around Foxbridge. Through his ghosts, he watched as they retreated, returning to their camp.
After a night of strategising, they would either lay siege to the town, or come and fight. If he was going to bet, they would likely do both. After bombarding his position, they would move into Foxbridge to clean up the mess.
Whatever they chose, he was prepared. Whether he lived or died would be decided on the following day.