B5 Chapter 16 – The Fly in the Ointment

With his status confirmed, Tyron destroyed the paper, ripping it up and chewing the pieces to destroy any remnant of writing on the page. Task completed, he stepped out of the tent and into the open air of the camp. The sky boiled overhead, the air mixed with so much magick that the sky no longer looked like it should. It was eerily similar to what he had seen beyond the rifts, if not quite as violet.

Clouds rolled like colossal waves, bolts of coloured energy rippling across their surface and occasionally stabbing down to the ground with a booming crash. It was these strikes of raw arcane energy that formed the crystal, he’d learned. It was a way for the magickal storms to discharge their excess power into the ground, and sometimes a locus was formed at the point of impact, condensing the magick into crystalline form. These would be struck again, over and over, sometimes shattering, sometimes growing larger or more dense.

Since the storm never truly stopped, and had been running for several hundred years, it was no surprise the shards had come to dominate the landscape in the manner they had. Tyron’s theory regarding the bolts of energy went further. Much of the magick that poured through a rift suffused the air overhead. It didn’t flow out over the land like water, but seemed to distribute rather evenly in all directions. To change a realm into one that produced kin, concentrated points of magick needed to be formed, which meant gathering large volumes of power in small locations. The energy discharging from the clouds above into the ground seemed to be a key means by which this was achieved. If they were able to cut off the flow of power to the sky, the change overcoming the land might be, not reversed, but hopefully slowed.

If not, then perhaps the world was truly lost.

All around him, his undying minions continued to guard the walls they had dug with their own, skeletal hands. None of the necromancy students were out and about, doubtlessly resting from the previous days’ exertions. There was still plenty of time before they needed to depart, so he wasn’t bothered, rather, he was grateful for a little time to himself.

He moved away from the tents, well aware of the effect his spellcasting could have on a someones’ rest, until he was right against the wall, close enough to reach out and snatch one of his minions’ ankles. Which he did, seizing hold of the skeleton and pulling it down to the ground where it landed in a tangle of limbs, flailing and, surprisingly, cursing.

“FUCK, you fucking fucker! That would have hurt if I still had skin!”

“Well, you don’t.”

“It’s still rude! Here’s me, pretending to be a skeleton, fucking expertly mind you, when you wander over and pull me off the wall! If you wanted to talk, you could have just said so!”

Tyron didn’t want to explain that he had a particular dislike of Dove impersonating his minions. Not because he felt like Dove was diminishing his own self-worth, but rather because his minions were supposed to be… his.

“You’d had your fun. Time to rejoin the world of those with self-determination.”

“It’s kind of fun,” Dove said, picking himself up and brushing down his bones, in so doing removing streaks of the chalk powder he’d used to make himself look whiter. “There’s something freeing about just letting go and doing whatever the skeleton in front is doing. No need to think, no need to feel, you just need to… be. No wonder the skeletons are always grinning, they’re such happy bastards.”

“I think that’s more to do with the fact they don’t have lips and can’t conceal their teeth.”

“That brings me to another thing. Are you manually attaching the teeth to each skeleton? Because only a complete psychopath would go around attaching the teeth to each individual skeleton.”

“You got your wish, Dove. You’re out here, ready to examine the rift. That doesn’t mean I agreed to listen to your inane babble for any length of time.”

Dove placed his hands on his hips and shook his skull.

“You’ve changed, Tyron. You used to be fun. Do you remember that? When you were fun?”

Tyron thought for a moment.

“No,” he stated after careful consideration. “No, I don’t think so.”

Dove stared at him silently for a minute.

“You know what, I can believe it,” he said finally. “Look, I was happy to just blend into the background, you’re the one who decided to give me a firm tug. Could have bought me dinner first.”

“Go annoy someone else, Dove,” Tyron stated evenly, eyes narrowing with a faint hint of anger sparking within.

Sensing he was beginning to step into dangerous territory, Dove made a hasty exit. Tyron was fairly confident he’d stashed his armour, robe and likely the ridiculous snake skeleton he wore somewhere for the journey, probably packed into the luggage the students brought with them.

The Undead Summoner practically skipped through the camp, clicking his heel bones and cackling like a mad thing.

So much for letting the students sleep.

Resigned to it all, Tyron could only shrug his shoulders and move on. He didn’t know exactly why Dove had wanted to see the rift for himself, but he suspected there was a loose connection to the nefarious contract he’d been forced to sign.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Had probably been forced to sign, Tyron corrected himself. Dove, being Dove, may well be keeping the true circumstances to himself. While he had once been an altruistic person, beneath his self-deprecating, unserious exterior, the man he had been was long dead. As the only being with access to his Class in the entire realm, as far as Tyron was aware, Dove was in a unique position to say whatever the hell he wanted and have nobody question him on it.

Raising his hands, Tyron began to cast. Words of power rolled like thunder as he rapidly formed sigils with his hands, letting the magick flow and take form. The more powerful he became, the more he learned and studied arcane energy, the more enthralled with it he became. Moving and shaping his magick had never been so easy, his mind and will had never been stronger, and yet the perfection he sought seemed to always be out of reach. No matter how well he manipulated the magick through words and gestures, it was never as good as he felt it could be.

That gap, between what he knew was possible and what he could currently achieve, was like a burr buried in his flesh. It would be maddening if the pursuit of magick weren’t so all-consuming for him.