Chương 24: B6C23 - The Prodigal Skull

"You look bored, kid. Good thing I got back to provide the light entertainment you need to stop yourself from going insane and murdering everyone and then yourself." There were many things Tyron could have said about how Dove looked, but he refrained himself from the worst of them.

"You look... well travelled," Tyron offered. It was as polite a phrase as he could possibly utter. Dove, to be completely accurate, looked like shit scraped over moldy bread. As a soul implanted within an onyx carving of a skeleton, he wasn't much to look at even when he was brand new, but right now he had clearly been through the wars. Cracked and in places just broken, his once finely crafted housing was a complete mess; even parts of the skull were missing.

Looking closer, he noticed that Dove was missing three fingers on one of his hands, which would seriously impact his ability to cast magick. Normally the skeletal construct would drape himself in a cloak, along with various bones, maybe a snake, but right now he was wearing what were best described as filthy rags covered in blood, ichor and other ghastly, unspeakable messes that Tyron didn't want to guess at. He was utterly filthy, and to make matters worse, he absolutely stank.

"I am, indeed, well travelled!" Dove declared, resting his hands on his hips proudly.

"I have journeyed into the wilds beyond, the Realm of the Dead, and that ditch over there."

"Why the ditch?"

"I fell in."

"Ah." Dove paused for a moment before leaning closer, which only brought his... unique odour that much closer to Tyron.

"There's something different about you, boy. You seem, almost human. Are you feeling well?" Frowning, Tyron used his staff to push the offending skeleton away.

"I've always been human," he stated evenly. Dove snorted.

"Barely." The Necromancer sighed. He didn't really want to spend too much time thinking about how much he may or may not have changed due to the influence of the vampires on his mind, and for good reason. Even considering it was enough to infuriate him, which wasn't productive, and he worried that if he spent too long examining his own thoughts, he might end up in a spiral of self doubt that he simply didn't have the time or patience to endure. As a result, he had decided not to think about it as best he could.

"If I was sick, then I'm better now." That was all he intended to say on the matter. He was far more interested in what had happened to his former mentor.

"You said you went back to the Realm of the Dead? Don't you only travel there with your consciousness? Did you throw your physical self off a cliff before projecting your spirit?" If he sent his mind there, his body should be unaffected by whatever torment was inflicted on him. Something else must have happened.

"Not quite," Dove said.

"I did indeed travel to the Realm of the Dead in spirit, and suffered mightily for my failure to doom this plane and everyone in it while I was there." It was difficult for a skeleton to shiver, but Dove pulled it off. Tyron was certainly interested to hear about his experience, but it seemed as though the former Summoner wasn't especially interested in elaborating. If Tyron was going to avoid certain topics, then Dove was more than within his rights to do the same.

"However, I did successfully manage to establish two new contracts, and I took straight to the wilds to fight monsters and gain levels, as all good Slayers should. The tales of my exploits will sadly die with me, as I battled alone againts the endless kin, but believe me when I say they were fucking legendary, Tyron."

"I bet. You know... you could have just stayed with me and I would have found plenty of kin for you to fight. I've been smashing up every rift around. Your help would have been more than welcome."

"Bah! I needed to go one-on-one with the beasts, to bond with my contracted spirits and experience the freedom and duty of the Slayers. I had to connect with my roots."

"And almost get yourself killed in the process," Tyron noted.

"That too. As is tradition. It didn't really feel like it used to, given that I'm already dead and all."

"That would have detracted from the experience, I suppose."

"I made it work." Looking at his battered frame, Tyron could only shake his head.

"I'm not really sure how we're going to fix you. We don't have a ready supply of onyx, nor a specialist to craft a skeleton out of it."

"You're a clever prick, I'm sure you'll figure something out." Dove seemed incredibly unconcerned, having full confidence in his former pupil's ability to resolve his problems. Tyron probably could work something out, frustratingly, but he didn't have time. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"I think Master Willhem might need to take a look," he said.

"But first I suggest you get yourself clean. You stink." Dove looked as offended as a blank, carved skull could look.

"He doesn't even have a nose!"

"He likes things to be clean. Go dunk yourself in the river or something, it's the least you can do if you want him to repair your body for you."

"I suppose so. Fine. Well, what have you been up to?" Tyron waved a hand.

"Go and get fixed up, we can talk after. You look like you're about to fall to pieces."

"Emotionally?"

"That too."

"He has jokes! I feel like you fell on your head or something. Fine, I'll be back soon. Where do I find Willhem?"

"Look for the lich over that way," Tyron gestured without looking. He didn't need to see to know where his undead were, especially not Master Willhem, who was literally the most expensive minion he had under his command.

"Lich? Someone's moved up in the world." Dove wandered away, whistling to himself, seemingly cheerful despite the terrible things that he'd obviously been through. Perhaps he had continued on his road to recovery, finding a sense of meaning and purpose in his un-life once more. Tyron hoped so. Fatalistic Dove was... difficult. With the Undead Summoner moved away, Tyron was able to return his focus to the testing he was currently conducting, only for his attention to be dragged away once more by Filetta.

"How did he find us?" she muttered.

"What?" Tyron asked, a little annoyance creeping into his voice. Filetta glared at him.

"You weren't annoyed when he disturbed you."

"I'm not annoyed at who is disturbing me, I'm annoyed at the repeated disturbances."

"You aren't the least concerned with how he found us?" she demanded.

"He's been gone for weeks. Goes to the Realm of the Dead and gets worked over by the insane, super powerful Mages there and then just walks up to our camp out of nowhere? It's suspicious."

"It's a little suspicious," Tyron conceded, "and I don't doubt that his contract has been modified. At the same time, I'm pretty sure he used a Soul Eater to find us. We're the only source of souls that are moving around out here. The rest are stationary."

"That... thing?" Filetta shuddered.

"Pretty useful for tracking anything with a soul. I wonder how far away they can sense them."

"Don't experiment with one," Filetta begged him, "they freak me out." It made sense they would be one of the few things she actually feared as an undead. In fact, those creatures might even be able to prevent Master Willhem from regenerating himself via his phylactery. He hadn't considered that. Shaking his head to prevent himself from getting sidetracked, Tyron focused back on the task at hand, causing Filetta to sigh and sidle up next to him.

"What are you even working on that has you so fixated?" she said, resting a ghostly hand on his shoulder as she peered at his work.

"I'm making precise calculations about the rate and amount of Death Magick being transferred between these two skeletons," he said, scribbling notes into his book. By his standards, the implement and array he had cooked up to measure the arcane energy was crude and unwieldy, but it did do the job to an exceptionally fine degree. Each time the device detected energy transfer, it emitted a pulse of light. Each time it registered a set amount of magick had been generated, it made a ticking sound.

Tyron, in all his wisdom and power, was hunched over a tree stump with a book open on the wood, the device in one hand, a pen in the other, recording flashes and ticks per minute between two of his undead minions standing nearby.

"This is... exciting to you?" Filetta asked him doubtfully, looking at the columns and tables on the page with meticulous rows of numbers.

"No," Tyron replied, only half listening.

"I find it dull and repetitive, which is why I am also working on some undead wyverns and attempting to craft a new spell. This process is so simple that anyone could do it, but it also happens to be so important that I don't trust anyone else to do it right. These calculations have to be perfect. No flaws, no mistakes, no tiny errors. Perfect." He scribbled a few more lines into the book, frowning, then put the device down with a sigh.

Flipping back a few pages, he examined another, similar table, then flipped back to the new one, peered at it, and grunted in satisfaction.

"What was that?" Filetta asked.

"What's with the flipping and the sighing and the noises?"

"Are you actually interested in this?" Tyron asked, growing exasperated.

"I'm a lot more busy than I appear. You understand that, right?" He was doing exactly what he had said he was. Working through mediums, he was currently hard at work weaving on a wyvern skeleton, while also tinkering with a new spell concept via a demi-lich.

"I wasn't before, but you said it was super important, so now I am," FIletta said, patting him on the head. He scowled and she laughed.

"My new feat increases the rate of energy undead create. You know that undead share and generate trace amounts of Death Magick, right?"

"I get the basics of it."

"Well, the more undead you pull together—well, even bones and remains do this, but undead do it a lot faster than those—the more you gather, the quicker the rate of exchange and the greater the energy generated. The feat I chose ticks that rate up higher. I had taken these measurements in the past, wanting to understand the rate of exchange, and also the rate of growth for each undead added to the horde. That way I could calculate out exactly how much energy would be generated by any number of undead.

What I'm doing now is recalculating that formula to take the new feat into account."

"Oh," Filetta said, sounding disappointed.

"Is that all?" Tyron rolled his eyes, then pointed to the table on the page in front of him.

"According to my calculations, my new feat has effectively cut in half the number of undead needed to reach a net positive energy generation while standing still. It's around fifty thousand skeletons now."

"Net positive?"

"As in, they generate more energy than they consume by existing." That was only counting the energy they generated and consumed by themselves, not the energy pulled in by Tyron's arrays and cores embedded on each and every minion he created. If his minions were powered solely by their arrays, then the Death Magick they generated was entirely profit.

"So your skeletons are making magick, not consuming it?"

"Exactly," Tyron nodded with satisfaction, closing the book of notes in front of him.

"I'll have to do some field tests with larger amounts of undead present, but if it works out, then the horde is already large enough to produce a significant amount of excess magick." That energy would suffuse the air around them before gradually dispersing into the Realm, which was likely something the Old Gods wouldn't be happy about. They wanted less magick in the world, not more. Tyron would need to ensure it was stored and properly deployed. The possibilities, though, were almost endless.

The feat selection had worked just as he had hoped it would. Feeling almost giddy, he couldn't help but rub his hands together. There was so much he needed to do before reaching the Southern Province, and this was another job to add to the list, but he was excited, his imagination already running wild. What could he create with a near-infinite source of magick?