Book Of The Dead

“Fucking… shit!”

No matter what he tried, Dove was unable to get the Unseen to acknowledge him. He performed the status ritual over and over again, but nothing happened.

He pressed his hand, his skeletal hand, to the paper and enacted the ritual, but where once he would have felt the blood flow from his finger and onto the page, now he felt nothing. He didn't have blood, that much was understood. He was as dry as a slayer's balls two hours back from a rift.

Strictly speaking, not a single part of his current body was, or had been at any time, organic. He was a statue carved in the likeness of a skeleton, not actual bones, so even the potential for blood had never existed in him.

It was difficult to explain, having something that had been an intrinsic part of him just… not work, was maddening. It hadn’t bothered him as much when he was just a skull, but now that he could move, could cast magick, he wanted it back.

He wanted it back so badly it was like a dog gnawing on what was left of his abused soul.

The onyx skeleton gripped the paper tight, ripping it along the edges.

“Haven’t I done enough for you, fucking son of a bitch!” he growled. “I fought the kin, isn’t that what you want? Isn’t that why you came to this fucking world? HELP ME!”

Of course, it didn’t answer him. The people of the empire hadn’t called it ‘the Unseen’ for thousands of years because it had a habit of making itself known.

Filled with disgust, he threw the sheet down to the forest floor. An all too familiar despair welled up in him, like an old friend come to smother him once again. Dove chuckled bitterly. Feeling sorry for himself had become a favourite pastime of his over the last few years, it was almost his natural state of being. Unlike the past, he refused to let it take hold of him anymore. Wallowing in pity wasn’t his style. Wallowing in other things… definitely. Just not pity. If he was forced to exist in this gods-riddled world, then he would find a way to fucking thrive. Dove was not some vampire’s plaything.

There had to be a way. There had to be.

But what was it? The status ritual had existed in its current form for… who knew how fucking long? Kids learned it at the age of three, all that was needed was some words and a smidge of finger dexterity. The most basic piece of magick, so trivial it didn’t even appear on the status sheet it created.

That ritual wouldn’t work for him, he knew that now. Communicating the information of the Unseen through blood couldn’t work, he had no blood, so he needed a new medium.

In the distance, he could hear skeletons fighting in the dark and briefly considered going to help. The small container of magick he contained was refilled now, and his undead vision was equally as mediocre during the night as the day, but he didn’t bother.

If he couldn’t summon the Unseen, get a Class and levels, then there wasn’t much point in killing the kin.

“How am I supposed to come up with a new status ritual out of the blue. How? With what?” he spat into the frozen night air.

Tyron could probably do it. The fucking kid was a once-in-a-generation genius, the likes of which Dove had never seen. He piled up mysteries like other people piled up hangovers. No matter how much magick he managed to pull out of his backside, there always seemed to be more in there.

If anyone could figure out how to recreate literally the oldest ritual known to man, it was that smug prick, but Dove didn’t want to ask him. He was done going begging, cap in hand, to Tyron and hoping the Necromancer could fix his problems for him.

Except… no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t come with even a way to begin trying to construct a status ritual. Dove was a good mage, possibly even an excellent one, but there was an enormous difference between proficient rule-following and creating new rules from nothing. Give him a complete set of sigils, and Dove could perform the spell, break down the meaning of the individual components, even suggest improvements or modifications, but creating something from scratch?

It was an entirely different matter.

“FUCK!”

Frustrated, he kicked a loose rock, sending the stone flying out into the darkness, then growled in frustration when he noticed he’d cracked his own toe. Just… perfect.

Irritated, angry, frustrated and gloomy, Dove turned his back on the night and trudged towards Tyron’s cosy little cave, wishing he had some pockets he could shove his hands into. One couldn’t satisfactorily trudge while swinging their hands like a farmer in a fucking field at festival time.

He brushed aside the heavy blanket covering the opening, light and presumably warmth washing over him as he did so.

“Hey, kid,” he began a little awkwardly, then stilled.

Tyron looked… utterly insane. Hunched over that ridiculous table, eyes half bulging out his head, he was scribbling away in his book at a furious pace, whispering and muttering to himself, eyes glazed over and almost drooling.

“Fucking hell!” Dove exclaimed, wondering what had possessed him, but it didn’t take long to realise what was going on. Inspiration had struck once again and the Necromancer was lost in his own mind.

Despite the outburst, Tyron didn’t flinch, if anything, he only grew more feverish as the moments ticked by.

Dove sighed. Without physically tackling him to the ground, it was unlikely he’d get any help from his erstwhile protege for the time being. Instead of forcing the issue, he decided to fold his bony legs, pull out his own notes, and try to work on a resolution to his status problem.

With a little luck, some of the genius aura sparkling around the fucking kid would trickle his way.

~~~

By the time he realised time had passed, it was already morning. Tyron blinked wearily, his entire body aching as he stretched and groaned. Being hunched over the table for ten hours straight hadn’t been kind to his muscles. Thank the Abyss he was as durable as he was, or it would have been far, far worse.

Hands trembling slightly, he reached out to the pages in front of him, flicking through them as his eyes quickly scanned the sigils and patterns scrawled on each. The longer he looked, the more confident he became. It could work. It would work.

A broad grin split his face as he stood, the pages still clutched in his hands. A ritual on this scale… it was mind boggling, far beyond anything he’d attempted before. He couldn’t wait to make the attempt.

“Slow your roll, dickhead,” a dry voice echoed through the small cave.

Tyron turned to see Dove curled up into a little ball of bones leaning against a rock wall, his own book open across his knees, pen in hand.

“Blood and Bone! I didn’t see you there.”

“I’m sneaky. But aside from that, you’d better hold your horses for a second and take a few breaths.”

“What do you mean?” Tyron frowned.

“What do you mean?” Dove mocked him. “I can see it plain as day, it's written all over your face. You’ve worked out some stupid bullshit, and now you want to run out and try it immediately.”

“It’s not stupid—and I got it from levelling up, I didn’t figure it out myself.”

The skeleton leaned to the side and cupped its cheek on one hand, again, a disturbingly human gesture.

“Interesting… So it must be some kind of spell or ritual. A big one.”

Tyron’s eyes brightened.

“It’s a ritual,” he enthused, “and it’s insane. Have a look at these sigil patterns and tell me if you’ve ever seen anything like it.”

As he rushed forward with the book extended, the skeleton held up a hand to stop him in his tracks.

“No. Go wash. Eat something. Drink some water and put on some clean fucking clothes. What would your mother say if you tried to cast a complex ritual for the first time in this kind of state?”

She’d be appalled. Tyron took a deep breath then nodded begrudgingly.

“Fine,” he muttered, then turned to leave.

“Put the book down,” Dove called.

The young mage looked down to see the book of notes still clutched tightly to his chest. With extreme reluctance, he placed it down on the table, each finger lingering on the cover as if bound there with glue.

With a final, monumental effort of will, he dragged himself away, almost throwing himself outside of the cave as he brushed aside the blanket covering.

He blinked.

What were all these people doing here? Not many, perhaps a dozen. They looked up at him, gathered in a small cluster, about twenty metres down the hill. He looked down at them, suddenly wondering if he still had drool on his chin.

“H-hello?” he said, hesitantly.

The villagers, which is what he presumed they were, clapped their hands together and bowed at the waist towards him. Were they followers of the Old Gods? That made the most sense. Suddenly wary, Tyron watched them, cautious of what they may do or say. Would they demand protection of him, as their gods had promised?

Apparently not. Rather than say anything at all, the group turned on their heels and left, filing back down the mountain towards Cragwhistle in silence, leaving Tyron wondering just what had happened. He shook himself.

He didn’t have time for this! There was magick to be about! As quickly as he could, he washed himself using the soap and water enchanted core he’d purchased for the trip, before putting on fresh clothes, ripping into a breakfast of bread, cheese and a little fruit, before he staggered back into the cave, still choking down the last of the loaf.

“Gruvv!” he exclaimed through a mouthful of food.

“You fucking idiot.”

“Dove!” he tried again, after swallowing. “Come on, look at this, you won’t believe it!”

Almost against his will, the skeleton allowed himself to be pulled to the table where Tyron began to flick through the pages, excitedly explaining the sigils and patterns within. Despite himself, Dove felt himself being drawn in. It was interesting.

“This is dimensional magick,” he muttered, reaching out a finger to trace across the page. “This section here… this is forging a connection with another realm.”

“Not just creating a connection,” Tyron enthused, “look here. What do you make of this?”

If Dove was capable of frowning, he would.

“This…” he trailed off.

This was something different.

He himself was quite capable at dimension magick, considering his former Class had involved bringing sentient beings from the Astral Sea to this realm, it was to be expected. But these sigils… this was a type of magick he hadn’t seen before.

“I don’t believe these sigils are forming connections… I know how to identify a destination and reach for it. This is… more like… creation?”

Tyron slapped a hand down on the table exuberantly.

“That’s right! If I’m not mistaken, and I don’t think I am, this ritual creates and connects to a location.”

The amount of magick required to do something like that would be… absurd.

“Making a… a what? Out of what? Where would you be making it?” Dove asked some very reasonable questions.

“An Ossuary, out of magick, somewhere,” came the replies.

“A… a what?! What in the name of fuck is an Ossuary?”

“It’s a resting place of human remains, usually a building. We don’t see them much these days, but I’m told worshippers of Rot used to store their dead in Ossuaries, letting the flesh, well, rot, until only the bones remained. Supposedly, there are thousands and thousands of skeletons stored in them,” the Necromancer sighed, wistful. “Sadly, nobody knows where they are.”

Dove poked him in the arm.

“How are you an expert of these places all of a sudden?”

“It’s the name of my new Class. Didn’t I tell you? Lord of the Ossuary.”

“Maybe you did, I’m not sure. Must be a hell of a Class to start with a ritual like this,” he tapped his finger on the page. “I’m assuming this was level forty-two?”

Tyron nodded confirmation and Dove tried to whistle before remembering he couldn’t.

“Fuck. Well, if you’re going to do this thing, close to the rift like we are here is a good spot. Plenty of ambient magick to soak up, but I’d make sure your ritual site is carefully prepared and your mediums are well in place before you utter a single word.”

Tyron struggled not to roll his eyes, but he couldn’t argue with any of the advice. With a slight smile, he turned to his packs and began to rummage through them, emerging with a long staff that he held gently in both hands.

“What in the name of shit?!” Dove exclaimed. “That’s beautiful! Where did you get that from?”

Tyron ran his hands along the intricately carved wood.

“It was a gift from my mother. She planned to give it to me after my Awakening. My father got me a sword as well. He was always an optimist.”

Dove approached and cooed over the fine construction of the mage staff.

“Hole–ee–shit. That’s nice, that is. Look at the enchanting work done on it! What did they put into this thing? It practically shines with magick… I can see it even with my ass-backwards skeleton eyes.”

Mages would often mock the martial Classes for their obsession with weapons. Swordsmen and women never shut up about their blades, would sleep with the damn things if they had half a chance. But, truth was, mages were just as bad when it came to two things: ritual foci, and staves.

A good staff was a magick amplifier, a ritual focus and a handy stick to whack things with all at the same time. Everything the aspiring mage needed. However, getting a good one was… more expensive than most practitioners of the craft could justify.

What Tyron held in his hands was top-shelf. In fact, it was more than that. This wasn’t something you could buy off the shelf. A staff like this would only be made on commission, and only if you supplied the materials yourself, because you couldn’t buy what wasn’t on the market.

“They bought you this… for your Awakening?” Dove choked out. “That’s absurd! If Beory herself had a staff any better than this, I’ll eat my own femur.”

Tyron shrugged and didn’t reply. That was what they were like. Grand gestures weren’t uncommon from his parents, but they typically weren’t this grand.

“I’ve been looking for an excuse to use it, this seems like a great time.”

He grasped hold of the staff firmly, a bright light sparking in his eyes.

“Time to do some magick.”