B6C1 – Soul Fall

“Such a waste,” Tyron grumbled to himself, walking through the fallen camp. What remained of his horde surrounded him now, having emerged from the surrounding woods and out of the river’s depths where they had hidden after he was captured.

There was an impossible amount of work to be done, as always, and, as always, he would be relying on his undead to complete it. First of all, the dead needed to be gathered, stripped of their armour, sorted and organised by their roles and responsibilities in life, then butchered.

That task had already begun, skeletons picking through the camp and dragging the dead, and in some cases not quite dead, soldiers of the Golden Legion towards a gathering point outside the palisade wall. Several wights and demi-liches were gathered there, coordinating the next steps without Tyron’s direct interference.

To process this many fresh bodies, though… and in such a short time frame, would be difficult, to say the least. His supply of alchemical reagents, used for cleansing and strengthening the bones, was almost entirely depleted after raising the horde before the battle. Hopefully he could find more of what he needed within the camp, or perhaps somewhere in Foxbridge? He hadn’t gone through the dockside warehouses all that carefully before, he’d been focused on other things, but it was possible something useful would be sitting there, waiting to be shipped to a larger city.

It was a long shot. If he couldn’t find what he needed, he may have to move downriver. Waybridge was roughly halfway to Kenmor, and if there was enough of it left standing, he likely would get the components he wanted there.

As to the waste….

He’d never wanted to use this spell. It was immensely powerful, and could even be used against many forms of undead, but since it consumed the soul, that meant he wouldn’t be able to turn any of the fallen into wights, demi-liches or even revenants.

This was an unprecedented harvest of level seventy-nine corpses! Of course, the materials themselves would be of the highest quality, refined and empowered by the Unseen to an incredible degree, but it was such a waste to turn them into rank and file skeletal soldiers. Just thinking about the wights and demi-liches he could have produced from such high-grade components and souls angered the Necromancer deeply.

Thankfully, he’d managed to salvage something from the General. If the battles they were going to fight continued to increase in scale and scope, then having a central figure to help coordinate between the wights would be incredibly helpful. Tyron had to dedicate most of his attention to spellcasting, after all.

At the very least, everyone who died at the battlefield could still be harvested. Many dead had been stuffed into the Ossuary before he’d been captured, along with the dozen or so who had been raised before it ended. Almost exclusively front-line Soldiers, they would likely be better revenants than wights, lacking in leadership skills, but they would be excellent combatants if he poured in all of his strongest techniques.

Filetta strode towards him, Dove trailing along by her side, so Tyron stopped to wait for them.

“Are you alright?” Filetta demanded as she approached him, her immaterial flesh grasping at the handles of her twin blades.

“You completely fucked them up, kid!” Dove whooped, throwing his hands in the air.

Ignoring the latter, Tyron held his hands wide and showed himself to his former lover.

“Still in one piece,” he said with a slight, crooked smile.

“I can see where you were bleeding,” she scolded him. “Your skin is basically red from the chest down.”

“Well… there were complications.”

“Complications?”

“Swords.”

“Where were the swords?” she grated.

Tyron looked down and pointed at himself.

“Here, here, here and here. Getting them out was a pain.”

Dove laughed while Filetta reached out and shook him.

“I’m healed,” he assured her, feeling oddly touched by her concern. Even if he’d died, he had contingencies in place. In truth, he had never really been close to death inside the camp, they had simply been too slow in arranging their ritual. “Not a scratch on me. I’ll wash up soon.”

“Good,” Filetta huffed, finally letting him go and stepping back, allowing Tyron to turn his attention to his former teacher.

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“Oh, so now you have time for me?” the undead Summoner said.

“Yes.”

“Well… good then. Kid, you fucking did it! You smacked the Empire right in the dick! I… I genuinely didn’t believe it was possible.”

Looking at his former mentor, Tyron frowned a little.