B6C4 – Advances

Rested and as driven as ever, Tyron threw himself into his work, marching forward tirelessly as he worked on more and more relays. Soon enough he had torn through the supply of wagons they’d looted from the camp and he had to start making those as well. It was more efficient to have his minions cut down trees and make them from wood than to use thousands of bones on each one, so he was quite grateful a few of his wights had a modicum of carpentry knowledge. Without the appropriate tools, there were limits to what they could do, but the relays didn’t need anything particularly fancy. As long as it was robust and relatively flat, he could make it work.

Ruined Foxbridge once again became his home and workshop, a hive of undead industry as he replenished his horde, conducted repairs to damaged minions, crafted new constructs and orchestrated multiple expeditions at the same time. His stock of cores was low, so a force had been dispatched to hunt for kin. Now with a dozen relays in operation, he sent a full twelve thousand minions north, reinforced with wights and revenants. Not only would they harvest cores from the unending waves of rift-kin, but he would also act through them and tame the rift there, once they’d fought their way close enough.

With what remained of his limited pool of supplies, he was able to finish another four relays and dispatched them further into the province. Following the river, they would come to Weighbridge soon enough, where he would be able to plunder supplies from what remained of the warehouses and docks, as well as bones from the smouldering ruins of the city. Once that was done, he would have his minions raid every cemetery and burial ground in the area, shoring up his stockpile of bones.

By the time he’d done all he could, another week had passed. Once again starting to feel fatigue begin to creep in on the edges of his awareness, Tyron sat under the stars, weary but satisfied with what he had achieved.

If he concentrated, he could feel his connection to his minions via the relays, strong and clear despite the growing distance between them. As the bulk of the horde closed in on Woodsedge, the fighting grew more and more intense as the packs of monsters grew larger and more frequent. So far, he hadn’t had to intervene much, but that would change over the next few days. Reaching through the relay and casting spells through the demi-lich in control of it was oddly difficult, which bothered him, since it shouldn’t be any different than if they were standing next to him, but it was still manageable.

He hadn’t rebuilt his horde only to allow half of them to die fighting against kin. At least they were harvesting experience for him.

Indeed, he had reached a point where, not only did he no longer have to personally fight to progress his Class, he no longer needed to be even remotely present. Should the relay system work out, he could command battles in every province of the Empire at the same time without leaving Granin.

Not that he would be satisfied to dispatch his enemies from such a distance. What Tyron had in mind for the nobles of the Empire was a little more personal.

Only with all of that done was he then finally able to sit down and plot his next move.

Filetta found him working at a table his minions had dragged to the middle of the market square, sitting on what had once been General Crow’s chair. Given his Constitution, it didn’t make much difference to Tyron if was sitting on a rock, but he appreciated the thought someone had put in. It was a particularly comfortable chair, after all.

“What are you scribbling away at now?” she asked him.

As always, he was busy, furiously scratching away with pen and ink in one of the several volumes he carried with him.

“Updating my notes. There are several sections that need to be revised regarding constructs. I’ll need to add several new pages regarding what I’ve learned about dimensional conduits as well.”

Talking didn’t stop him from writing. His hands never stopped moving, scratching words, arcane symbols and little, annotated diagrams in neat columns down the page.

“You’re including your knowledge of dimensional conduits?” she remarked, surprised. “Isn’t that sort of information highly restricted?”

“By the Empire? Yes,” the Necromancer replied without looking up. “I don’t have any reason to keep it a secret. Especially not from the people on my side. Besides, I highly doubt anyone would be able to create them without the aid of the Unseen before reaching Platinum rank anyway.”

If he was saying that, then the reality was likely even worse. Perhaps people would need to achieve an even higher tier than platinum to create a dimensional conduit without help. Over and over again, Tyron had proven how exceptional he was, but he occasionally seemed to think that others were much closer to his level than they actually were.

Like a bird flying in the sky, looking down and wondering why everyone else was walking.

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Not for the first time, she wondered why she had ever thought she would be able to kill him. Of course, she hadn’t known exactly who, or what, he was back then. She had been catastrophically wrong when judging just how dangerous he was, and the end result was her death at his hands. She no longer blamed him for it, not really. It wasn’t easy to let go of all of the resentment and anger she still felt, it was her only life after all, but she was getting there.

She stood by his side as he finished his notes, capping the pen and putting it away carefully before stoppering the ink and storing that as well.

“Done for now?”

“Almost.”

With practiced ease, he flipped to the back of the book and neatly tore free a blank page, placing it flat on the table in front of him and pinning it down with one hand. The other he held out to her.