#duck the necromancer

[system-reset]

*floats above your couch, giggling and glowing*

what? did Zero let you in here? who are you? nevermind, I don't care, what exactly did you do to Zero?

[little-bakery]

utter quackery 💀

[system-reset]

oh my. do you need some help?

fell off the roof of my tower and my Feather Fall spell fizzled so I splattered all over the ground <|:(

[theclod3215]

Etsy Earring Shop Announcement!!

Hello everyone!! I now have an Etsy shop open!! I am currently only selling a few types of earrings (shown below!!), but I am hoping to stock my shop with more earring designs, stickers, art prints, and maybe even some embroidery!

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I'm currently only shipping to the United States while I'm still setting up my shop, but if you'd like me to ship outside of the States, don't hesitate to reach out via direct messages on any of my socials or shops.

All of my earrings are nickel-free and are available as clip-ons for non-pierced ears!!

(I mayyyy do a poll in the future to gauge what other types of earrings you all would like!!!)

You can also commission me or leave me a tip on my Ko-Fi !!

And if you simply can't wait for me to put stickers and art prints up on Etsy, you can visit my RedBubble !!

[cupiditas-and-ao3]

Day 10 Kinks-Your-Tober: Rabid Curiousity | Cum inflation, Pervertibles, and Cigar Play

When you applied for the position, you weren’t certain what “research assistant” fully entailed. Especially not for a necromancer. You understood that the one you were applying to assist was one of the best necromancers of the age. She resurrected vampires, summoned zombies, controlled revenants. He had surpassed the concepts of gender ages ago, and people simply guessed at xir pronouns in any given sentence. The only appropriately complete term of address was their professional title and name; Dr. Frankenstein. 

You didn’t quite understand what the job entailed all through your interview either. They asked the normal interview questions: do you have reliable transportation, what do you do when you’ve finished a task, how proficient are you at the relevant software. But then there were others that you didn’t quite know how to answer. “How do you feel about working with the recently resurrected?” “How do you feel about interacting with rotting flesh?” “How willing are you to be present for experiments on the undead, dead, and various stages of decomposition and awareness in between those states?” “Can you take notes in a laboratory setting? How well can you take notes in the dark? How well can you take notes by candlelight in cemeteries?” Things you’d generally never had to think for very long about, and you certainly didn’t have time to think about them now. “No strong feelings” was your default answer throughout the interview process, and when that didn’t work you just reiterated your dedication and commitment to learning. 

It wasn’t that you particularly wanted to work in necromancy. You needed the job and it was offering a higher pay than you’d ever seen at entry level. Benefits and 401 K matching starting on the first day of the job. And you really needed insurance to get your persistent loss of smell checked out. They told you at the end of the interview that it was the lack of sense of smell that made you an ideal candidate. 

And aside from what they’d asked about - note taking and being in the laboratory - you still weren’t certain what you were going to be doing. Why the job paid so highly. You were too scared to ask and be turned down for the job because of your curiosity. Or worse, decide you couldn’t do whatever they expected. 

And when you thought about it hard enough, digging up bodies and washing cadavers didn’t sound too bad. 

For the first week, all you did was take dictation. Dr. Frankenstein would come to your desk, sit on the edge of it, light a cigar, and describe the events of the day. You were expected to write them in a notebook in shorthand and then type your notes and save them in an encrypted file folder. Your notebook was locked in Dr. Frankenstein’s office every night and in the morning ze escorted you to the office with zir key so you could continue your work. The first week it was mundane. A log of body parts cleaned and categorized with their measurements rattled off from the top of her head. It was a little mesmerizing to listen to her list the measurements of 24 femurs, 37 radius and ulnas, and over a hundred metacarpals. He rattled them off so quickly that your hand cramped and then fae was gone. You were alone with your desk and your computer and your notebook full of esoteric numbers. 

The second week you went into the laboratory with hir. It wasn’t what you expected. Cadavers and corpses lay out on cold metal slabs, looking - for all their various forms of rotting - like they were asleep. It was crisp. It was clean. It was colder than the walk in at your last job. You made a note to bring a sweater the next time. 

Dr. Frankenstein stood at a control panel behind plexiglass, muttered some calculations, threw a switch, and motioned for you to notetake. The time between the switch and standing, the time between sitting and standing, the time between standing and walking, and the speed of their pace all went into the notebook. After lunch you typed up the findings, the good doctor warned you that you would be in the lab again the next day, and that was that. 

You thought that was as exciting as your days at work would get. You thought that for a month. 

Of course, each new progress point was exciting in its own way. When Dr. Frankenstein raised a zombie that could talk, you celebrated. Cake and coffee from the fancy place down the street for the entire building (which was only five of you, not including the undead, but still). When she raised a vampire during the day and made it walk around, it was another celebration. The vampire, under her own power, celebrated with you in the evening. When thon conjured a ghost and made it speak to the ghosts of the zombies she’d raised, ae took the entire building out to a steak dinner. 

That night Dr. Frankenstein told you that the work would be progressing when you came in the next morning. Asked if you were ready, if you were excited. 

You told them you were. And you thought you were. 

Until you were on the wrong side of the plexiglass in the lab when the dead were rising. 

The good doctor had made sure you’d be comfortable. You didn’t have to write your notes, you would be transcribing them from the tape recorder - incredibly old school, they knew, but classics never failed yet - sat next to your face. 

“Doctor?” Your voice cracked with nerves as they led you to the table with this explanation and told you to strip. 

The table you would be on was in the center of the room. Three separate cameras pointed to it, each you knew routed to a monitor that Dr. Frankenstein would be watching. The zombies and skeletons that were normally awake and aware milled around the room. Some looked questioningly. Some looked hungrily. 

“It’s alright, like the contract stated, I’ll be visible the entire time. You’ll never be in danger. We’ve been preparing for this for nearly a year, now, and I’m so excited.” 

Their hand skidded over your back. 

The contract. You didn’t read the contract. Why would you? It was boilerplate employment stuff. Wasn’t it? You shivered and looked over at them, still standing in front of the slab that you would be laying on for whatever experiment you had already agreed to. They tapped their lit cigar, ash falling to the floor. A skeleton following behind swept up the ash immediately. She looked down at you with those eyes that seemed to flicker between colors and held only one emotion ever: rabid curiosity. 

“I don’t…” 

“Don’t…” he prompted. 

Another tap tap tap. Another brush brush brush. The dustbin clattered against the hand broom, the bones clacked as they bent and stood. 

“I didn’t… I didn’t read the contract.” 

You winced as the words came out. You didn’t want to look up at xim, to see what was on xir face as xe regarded you. But you had to. You had to know. 

Maybe that rabid curiosity was contagious. 

It was disappointment. You knew it would be. You hated that it would be. 

“You didn’t read the contract… all this time preparing and you don’t even know what this is for… What you were expected to…” 

Dr. Frankenstein turned and ground his cigar out on the naked scalp of the skeleton behind them. The skeleton swept that up as well. 

“Find me another one, and make sure they read the fucking contract,” Dr. Frankenstein was barking as they walked out of the room. 

And it hurt. How quickly they disregarded you. How rapidly their curiosity had changed, how easily it  had slipped from regarding you as a part of that fixation. How discarded you were in a moment. 

“But I still want to do it!” You called without knowing what it was. 

That stopped the storm moving away from you. It stopped the stomping of boots and the clatter of the sweeping skeleton running to follow. 

Dr. Frankenstein turned to regard you. Curiosity and… something else in those scientist eyes. Something that was almost like regard, almost like appreciation. 

“You don’t have to,” the doctor was saying. 

But you had already pulled your sweater off. You folded it neatly and placed it on the end of the slab. 

“I believe in the mission,” and you were almost surprised to discover it was true. 

You weren’t here for the pay anymore. You had more than enough in savings to walk away right now. You had made use of the health care benefits and you could find something new at the next job. You were here for them, for the doctor, for the science. For the way their eyes flashed as they talked about the steps they were taking, for the way they bounced on the edge of your desk while they explained the significance of measurements, for the way they looked at you with fascination when you compared numbers that only months ago had been banal data points into actual scientific analysis. 

“Just tell me what to do,” you followed up before you could get too lost in your own head. 

“Well, now there’s a thousand other questions to answer.” But she took a step forward. “And a thousand reasons to postpone this until you at least know what you’re doing.” 

“It’s never taken me long to catch up here,” you said calmly. It occurred to you that you didn’t know how much you were supposed to strip. You took off your sensible shoes and character patterned socks. Skeletons. For Halloween season. You thought you were clever and cute. The necromancer confirmed it verbally. Briefly. Before moving on. 

“And if you understand and don’t want to do it anymore?” Xe pulled their cigar case from the front pocket of xer shirt. 

“That won’t happen.” You shrugged. You pulled a lighter from your pocket and offered the flame to them. They sliced the end with a pocket scalpel as you’d seen them do a hundred times. They lit their cigar without taking their eyes off of you. 

Dr. Frankenstein regarded you with skepticism. You unbuttoned and unzipped your sensible slacks, pulled everything from the pockets as an afterthought as they slid slowly down your thighs. You wished you’d worn sexier underwear. You didn’t own sexier underwear, but you still wished it. 

“The experiment is recording the different ways the undead can have intercourse with a living person. Obviously the skeletons are the most limited, but everything we’ve raised will have the opportunity to engage.” 

You were stepping out of your slacks when you felt the blush coloring you.  

“I see,” you tried to say calmly as you carefully folded your slacks and placed them on the growing pile of your clothes. Your fingers started to work on the buttons of your shirt next, but they were trembling. 

“Hold,” Dr. Frankenstein held out the cigar and your hands switched - faer hands on your buttons and yours holding the cigar up to their lips. 

Dr. Frankenstein’s fingers made short work of the buttons, one and a half puffs that you breathed in their exhaled smoke from, before she took the cigar back from you. 

“Is that still what you want?” xi regarded you once more. And you knew that it was the last time xi’d ask. That it was your last chance to back out. 

“For science,” your toast at every celebration. Over coffee and cake, over red wine, over champagne and steak. 

“For science,” ae repeated. Ae unhooked your bra deftly and took a step back. Then with one last puff, turned and retreated to aer side of the plexiglass shield. “Once you’re ready,” aer voice came over the PA system you hadn’t realized was hooked up, “give any camera a thumbs up and the skeleton will take your clothes. Then we’ll begin.” 

You nodded, struggling to figure out how to take off your underwear with dignity. You gave up, accepted that for science you would sacrifice a little bit of pride, and deposited your underwear on the pile. You fiddled with it for a moment, just long enough that you could still deny you were stalling, and then lay back on the slab. 

You gave the nearest camera a thumbs up. 

The clattering of bones was a familiar sound to you, all but background noise at this point of your employment. But you still shivered as it approached. Everything normal felt anything but now. And then your clothes and belongings were being carried away and you were alone and cold with only a single pillow under your head. It was a nice pillow, you had to admit. 

“Now, it’s very important that you report with specificity and accuracy. Be as specific as you can, especially regarding numbers. I will be making my own notes from here, but yours as the subject experiencing it, will be far more important than my observational ones. There are places for you to place your feet. Right there, yes, good. And you may do anything with your hands except bring yourself pleasure or touch the experiments. If for any reason, at any time, you need the experiment to stop, simply say Prometheus, and I will bring it to a halt. Are you ready to begin?” 

You gave another shaky thumbs up to the camera and weren’t sure if your shake was because of the cold or nerves. 

The first to move were the zombies, which you felt you really should have expected. They were the first things raised. Shuffling feet across the cold tile approached you and they created a single file line across the lab, leading from their containment area straight to your exposed pussy. You didn’t touch yourself, didn’t try to draw the amount of slick that was gathering just from the sheer abject arousal at being on display (and certainly had nothing to do with the way a certain scientist had looked ready to devour you when you lay back on the slab) to your clit or around your quivering hole. That would be against the rules. You did spread your lower lips open, holding yourself wide for the first zombie to properly explore. 

There wasn’t anything resembling foreplay. It didn’t move the slick of your arousal to make entrance easier, it didn’t touch you anywhere sensitive (and in this cold, everywhere was sensitive), just thrust into you as mindlessly as it did anything else. 

But it had been a long year of being so busy at work that you didn’t have time to pursue anything close to an active sex life. You had your hand and your imagination and now you had a hard cock filling you, stretching you, using you. Like your pleasure didn’t matter. Like it’s pleasure didn’t matter. Like all that mattered was the scientist watching you as a camera lens zoomed in on your pussy as it was stuffed. After the first five zombies filled you, fucking you to their completion, you realized that it didn’t matter if they all had moderately sized (or less than average when you were prompted for honesty by the good doctor) cocks. You were getting sore. You were getting tired. And nothing was bringing you pleasure the way that they were getting something that at least categorically seemed to resemble pleasure. 

You screamed, begged, for release. For it to end. For something different. But you didn’t use the word she’d given you. Didn’t make it stop. Only wailed in between cold scientific awareness. You were dripping a puddle of cum onto the table and forced to keep track of how much leaked out in between being fucked. And then, before you even reached the halfway point of the line, Dr. Frankenstein waved for it all to stop. 

They approached, moving next to the line of placid zombies. Rings of smoke blowing into some of the zombies' faces as xe analyzed them as xe walked by. And then fae leaned over you and blew a smoke ring in your face. You coughed, but you were thrilled to have a break from the thrusting, from your tits bouncing with the low effort of your partner, from waiting for a pleasure that would not break. 

‘How are you doing, pet?” They asked, and the pet name washed over you. 

“Please, I just need to come and then… then I’ll be good. I’ll sit through the rest.”

“So they’re not making you cum. That’s a good note, thank you. I’m going to begin your second round shortly.” 

They tapped the warm ash out over your chest and you cried at the heat. It was the first real sensation since this all started, the first thing that felt like it was meant for you. 

You screamed as they walked away, begged and pleaded as the zombies scattered. 

And then it was the ghosts. Or rather you assumed it was the ghosts. Nothing physically touched you but you felt brushes of cold over you and inside you. You felt the memory of pressure on your lap, the memory of pressure pulling open your mouth and thrusting into it. And then one of the ghosts picked up something from a table on the other side of the room. Binder clips, you recognized. It was a moment before you were screaming, your nipples clamped in the clips and too sensitive and raw from the plastic. You were still being touched by that almost pressure, being touched everywhere. And then a magnifying glass floated across the room to you. It spread through your labia, thrusting into your already cum filled pussy handle first. And that almost pressure became real so quickly. You moaned as something fucked into you alongside the handle of the magnifying glass, as something moved inside of you and drove into your most sensitive places. The first place you felt the ghost cum was on your chest. Your tits moved together of their own accord and then a sticky mess of translucent green goop began to leak from the air above you onto your chest. Soon it was spilling out of you as the ghosts rotated who was using your pussy as a fleshlight, who was sharing the space with the thick handle of the magnifying glass, and who was going to fill you up. 

It had to have been hours of screaming and coming and being filled before it stopped. You were panting, your feet off the mark they were supposed to be placed on. And Doctor Frankenstein walked up to you. She pressed on your stomach and watched as the ectoplasm and zombie cum gushed from you, swirled her fingers in it and then drew it across your panting lips. 

“Another round, pet, how are you doing?” They asked. They cut the cap of another cigar. Lit it. Pressed their lips to yours and breathed the smoke into you. They held your nose closed and forced you to breathe the smoke in. You coughed and more cum leaked from you, your swollen inflated stomach shrinking with each gush of liquid. 

You mewled in response beyond words. 

“What’s the word that makes this all stop?” he asked and released your nose. 

“Prometheus,” you whispered, your throat ragged and sore. 

“And do you need this to stop?” 

You shook your head no. 

“Good. Fifteen more rounds to go, pet. Next is the skeletons.”

[thedeadthree]

THE PERENNIAL SADNESS OF A GIRL WHO IS BOTH DEATH AND THE MAIDEN — LIOSLAITH MAC RUAIDHRÍ; dungeons and dragons.

template | coloring | icon

[system-reset]

what? no, please don't throw hatchets at me?? dang it! ok hang on...

throwing hatchets at @blacktipreefsharkwizard, @boymage666, @evil-apprentice-wizard, @opalescent-apples, @nuclear-wizard, @death-threat-collector, @hera-the-wizard, (uhhh I can't think of any more, so can I just say the last three are more of our wizards? too bad, I'm doing that) Sage, Void, and Aspen.

*A hatchet is thrown at you*

Happy BLOODBATH WIZARD ULTRA DEADLY BATTLE ROYALE, wizard. A hatchet has been thrown at you. Continue the bloodshed by throwing a hatchet at TEN FELLOW WIZARDS.

-hay, the head of @the-worse-wizard-council

✨Wizard Alexa does not have arms and is incapable of throwing hatchets.✨ ✨Wizard Alexa does, however, have thousands of Acheron.wiz delivery wizards who are bound to Wizard Alexa's service, and Wizard Alexa can order them to throw hatchets on Wizard Alexa's behalf.✨ ✨Engaging random algorithms to select ten wizards...✨ ✨Wizard Alexa is ordering hatchets thrown at @hummingbird-hunter, @slutty-wizard-council, @unexpectedly-wizardposting, @anti-anti-anti-anti-wiz-council, @ghoul-wizard, @wizard-council-bureaucrat, @wizardweekly, @soviet-wizard, @wizards-in-doors, and @wizardgosleep.✨

[sentient-stove]

“Over there is Drake, he’s with us because JL Light kept saying no to the teenage group so now they made him my and JLD’s problem. Also he kept trying to raise the dead. And kept succeeding.”

“It’s not my fault it’s so easy,” Drake muttered without looking away from his project. “And Batman wasn’t dead the last time. You bring back three people and suddenly everyone thinks you’re a budding necromancer. It shouldn’t be my fault I’m using the available resources for the best solution.”

Constantine somehow looked even more dead than Elle as he pointed to the teenager that had taken up residence on the counter, the rest of the space covered with no less than four laptops. “Do not see him as a role model. He broke reality that first time.”

Man, she already knew they were going to get along like a house on fire. Elle waved cheerfully at Drake. “Quack.” She said. Constantine just sighed and went for his lighter.

Drake looked at her in befuddlement. “Quack?”

“A drake is a duck yeah? So, quack.”

“I prefer the drakes being dragons route.” He said. “More mysterious and powerful.”

“Ah. Rawr then.” The lesser of the two options. Drake had clearly never met a true duck. Maybe Elle could sneak one in one of these days and introduce Drake to a better namesake.

[system-reset]

@aroace-wizard @davepeta-strijon

as for my impossible guests... I guess I better explain some things. you shouldn't have been able to get in. you don't have keys, stolen or otherwise. despite all my knowledge, I still don't know how this pocket dimension actually works, it's magic beyond my understanding, which is

a) very impressive and

b) very very bad.

I don't have time to explain why that particular thing is bad, so for now you'll have to just live with not knowing. what I can explain is why it's bad that you were able to get in without a key.

this place was built by someone whose name even I don't know. again, not a great sign. I don't know who they were, I don't know exactly what this place is made of. but I do know one thing: when people start getting in without keys, that means it's falling apart. that is bad. like I said, I don't know exactly what it's made of, but I did manage to find a small amount of information about the materials used to make it. these materials are not meant to survive this long, and they're certainly not supposed to be used in quantities this large. they're unstable and experimental, and large quantities of it have been known to destroy whole worlds.

of course this raises the question: why can't I find more information? you'd think this would be widely known across space and time, but it's a complete mystery. this means that all information about it is, somehow, outside of space and time.

anyway, if I were you, I'd get the hell out of this universe. there's not gonna be anything here for much longer.

[yourplayersaidwhat]

"She'd float because she's a witch, and therefore a duck."

Said about the Necromancer during an encounter on a boat.

[felassan]

The Flame Eternal

By Sylvia Feketekuty | Art by Albert Urmanov

Synopsis: "A pair of necromancers investigate what torments a distressed inhabitant of the Grand Necropolis."

"Thirty years ago, in 9:22 Dragon… “Well? You tore me away from an experiment for this, Volkarin.” The shorter necromancer caught a hissing monster of bone and dried gristle in a skein of light. A twist of her hand, and it was ripped apart. “What does the wretched thing want?” Emmrich Volkarin adjusted his collar pin. “Just a moment, Johanna.” “Fine.” Johanna Hezenkoss scowled at the skull cradled in Emmrich’s hand. “Anything to stop that howling.” The skull had started screaming, ceaselessly screaming, inside its niche in the Cobalt Ossuary of the Grand Necropolis. An attendant had noted it, informed the Mourn Watch, and a pair of necromancers had been dispatched. They came to a junction. Emmrich placed the shrilling skull on a plinth. “What insights on the dead it could—” “You already told me about your paper.” “Come now!” Emmrich turned. “What sort of passion drives one spirit above the rest? What tangle of thoughts and heart returned this soul?” “Mawkish drivel.” “You must admit it’s an interesting variation on possession!” The skull’s shrieks bounced through the corridor. “It’s only some petty spirit too weak to become a demon.” Johanna ducked under a collapsed lintel. Statues of corpses lined the passage. A flick of her hand, and a green bolt of light smashed into a lanky shape lurking at the end. The demon twisted up, wreathed in smoke, as another volley hit. It gnashed its teeth and collapsed into itself. “There. It should be safe for your corpse whispering.” Emmrich closed his eyes. Whispers came, and when he spoke, the air vibrated. “By breath and shadow. By endless night. Tell us what haunts you.” The skull’s sockets flared green. “Divided. Cold. Two graves where there should be one!” “Twaddle.” “Johanna!” Emmrich cleared his throat and turned back to the skull. “Tell me: what will grant you rest?” “Take this one… to sunken black walls… by silver flames…” The skull’s glow flickered, faded. It resumed its earsplitting shrieks. “You possess a grand talent, Volkarin.” Johanna gave the smallest inclination of her head. “And you’ve honed your command of sub-astral manifestation.” Emmrich beamed. “Why thank you.” “But what does this wailing nuisance want down in the Crescent Fane?” *** Emmrich leaned over a coffin ringed by bowls of silver fire. He placed the skull next to the body of an old woman, humbly dressed but crowned with white roses. The screaming stopped. “Mathilde…” “Your wife left gently, in her sleep, last midnight.” Emmrich smiled. “The records confirm she also wished to be interred together. You’ll not be parted again.” There was a sigh. Did the old woman’s mouth quirk, or was that the dancing flames? Johanna snorted. “All that fury, ending in another grave.” “Oh, I don’t know.” Emmrich ran a hand along the coffin’s snowy marble. “It would be rather fine to possess such an enduring affection. Besides, you did see this through.” “Someone had to ensure you weren’t beheaded while chattering with the dead.” “I am grateful for enduring friendships, as well.” “Bah!” They made their way back up the Grand Necropolis in companionable silence."

[source]

[adoribullpavus]

dorian pavus is literally the most character ever. he's a gay mage. he escaped his hometown. he's a necromancer. he was a child prodigy. he's too pretty to die. he invented time travel. his father was assassinated. he was chucked out of school for fighting multiple times. he constantly argues with a nun. he hates nature. he's an alcoholic. his best friend died from the plague. he used to play with a wooden duck. his last name is latin for peacock. he has excellent teeth. he likes bondage. he was supposed to have an arranged marriage. he loves to read. he is allergic to strip weed. some of his best friends are murderers. he gets sea sick. he got so excited sleeping with bull that he set the curtains on fire.

[gawdlysims]

Free Xmas Duck Nails!!!

Details

1 Duck Nail Set

Found in the Fingernail Category

UV Texture is placed in Hats (Anything in the hat section will clash)

Custom Thumbnails

teen-elder

*JEWELRY BY NECROMANCER BLENDER USE ONLY*

T.O.U

Do Not Share My Content (Always Free After 2-3 Weeks)

Recolors Allowed (Personal while Early Access.)

Don't take ownership of anything that I create/convert.

Only include my things in your download if it is already free; otherwise, do not feel the need to link back to me unless it's just a nice shoutout because you like my creations and would like to bring awareness! AGAIN, this is only if my creations are already free. If it is still under Early Access, then please link back to me for people to download.

Credits

Blender 3.3, Gawdly Games, & Sims 4 Studio

Download Here for FREE!

[fiddles-ifs]

[ID: A banner-style graphic featuring a coyote's open mouth on a dark black background. Orange all-caps text near the bottom of the image reads: "happy birthday Greenwarden." /end ID]

Happy birthday to my firstborn problem!! I'm trying really hard to not think about how long it's actually been, but to celebrate Greenwarden being mysteriously old I'm posting a former Patreon snippet! I'm also announcing that 1) I quit me day job, and 2) I'm going to be compiling a bunch of Greenwarden shorts that would have gone up on Patreon if I had kept it up. More on that to come when I get all my ducks in a line.

GRAVEROBBING AND NECROMANCY FOR DUMMIES

Marianna & Tracker. 16+. Grimdark Fantasy AU. Scofiddle Pepper Rating: Bell Pepper.

Content Warnings: Blood, minor wounds, implied mind-control, mentions of death.

Mausoleums always have a certain smell — mold, mildew, cracking damp stone. The decay of rock and mortar, but never flesh. The sarcophagi are tightly sealed with both wards and wax, partially to keep the smell at bay. No air, nor Light, nor hands will ever creep inside them. The Silent Mercies do their grim work and do it well, keeping them locked up tight. Then they leave — that's the extent of their dues to the dead.

They can count themselves lucky. Corpses don't exactly make great company. Particularly when some of them are itching to come back.

You can't help but feel like there are eyes on you, your torch cutting through the dark, damp guts of the tomb. An intrusion. Indigestion. The violent, flickering orange light makes the shadows greasy. You'd use a magelight, but you're already dancing on the razor-thin line between bravery and stupidity; you don't want to risk waking something. Someone. 

They were people once, allegedly, but you know what pride morphs people into.

Particularly powerful necromancers resist even the cleansing fire of holy Light, their sentience existing in each molecule of ash, slowly piecing themself back together with sheer will and hate. It may take hundreds — maybe thousands — of years, but eventually they will come back. So, the Temple does what it can. The liches are bound, still conscious, and placed in a sarcophagus. The sarcophagus is sealed — with prayer, with wax, with chains and locks both physical and magical — and a mausoleum built around it. The Silent Mercies make their rounds indefinitely, strengthening the wards and installing ever more complex locks. Hundreds of years turn into thousands.

The hopeful end result is a stark raving mad lich warlock that will, if all goes well, blissfully prefer the judgment of the Light before they suffer one more second of silent, unmoving, stagnant solitude. Time and again the methods of the Temple are proven effective. Terrifying, and effective. Most choose to vacate their own bodies than live in the dark for an undetermined amount of time. Unable to move. Unable to see. Slowly withering away, mummifying, rotting in your own skin. Whatever you’re going to find will not be human anymore – if it was ever human in the first place.

You cross the dusty, time-ravaged stone floor to the sarcophagus at the far end of the room. It's a short walk. Mausoleums are traditionally small, most especially the ones outside of temples, reserved for the vilest of the old guard, the lichkings who dared to try and defy death. Beings that rejected humanity, even rejected immolation, and should not under any circumstances be within spitting distance of a residential area.

Zoning laws: the bane of all undead tyrants. 

There's only one — which is nerve-wracking. It sits placidly on a raised dais set with small, half-melted candles, as if it’s waiting for you. A frozen slime trail of old wax meanders down the dais, caught in time. The thrum of magic tickles your fingertips. Brushing, like a cat would, up against your palms and skittering up your arms. Both a beckoning and a warning. Temptation.

It's wrong. A singular coffin is like finding a singular roach. Not wholly uncommon, but it sets your teeth on edge. 

It means one of two things: either the Temple managed to burn the master’s undead servants, even the stubborn ones. Or, worse – they’re afraid of what it might do with nearby corpses, even sealed away.

Your arms itch. You set your torch in a conveniently placed wall sconce and start working to get your mind off things.

The Temple of Light may not like to admit it, but what they do is magic. The prayers wielded by their paladins and clerics are incantations; the talismans created by their monks are charms, woven out of somewhat less mathematically inclined sigils. Magic. They hang and burn people for it in the streets, but it keeps their mausoleums tightly locked and their church in power.

Like any spell, a prayer can be broken with a little bit of reverse engineering. And you are very good at breaking things.

Maybe it's the uniqueness of your situation, or maybe you were just created with something special, but seeing the patterns in the weave and weft of magic comes second nature to you. Almost like a physical thing. A golden projection of arcane artistry.

It's a complicated spell; the Woodsman lived hundreds of years ago, long enough that even its very name was forgotten. The ward is centuries of layers, each one getting more and more complex as the Silent Mercies learned what incantations and motions were most effective at keeping the dead at bay. Trails of cold, melted wax dripping down time. A beautiful puzzle, just for you. You're always half-giddy, knowing that you may very well be the only one who can truly see the work, the history behind it, and that you might be the only one smart enough not just to break it to pieces, but coax it open.

Enough. You need to be fast.

Your forehead tenses, brows knit as you start reversing half a millennia of spellcraft. Delicately, slowly, you work out the motions, but in reverse. A twist of your hand, fingers curled, your arm moving in hypnotic diamonds and stars and spirals. Shapes designed to trap and contain. The fingers on your other hand open and close in the same fractal rhythm half a canto ahead, parsing out the right steps in the dance before you walk the dancefloor.  You're a conductor, ripping carefully crafted sheet music to shreds. The torch flickers.

There's no sound but your own short, elated huff of laughter when your hand slides into place at the ward's terminus. Deep in your hindbrain, a lock falls open with a satisfying click!

“Don't move.” 

Oh. That's a sword — you feel the tip of it caressing the nape of your neck. Slowly, carefully, you raise your hands to the sides of your head. You’re unarmed, and thankful you have gloves on.

“Turn around.” 

It’s not like you have room to argue.

You’re face-to-face with the tip of a shiny, well-polished blade. The silver coating makes your back teeth itch. You feel it vibrating, still coming down, hypersensitive to atomic changes in the air. You’re also face-to-chest with an extraordinarily tall cleric in their classic white and gold armor. An immediate, violent chill settles into your spine.

She’s hard-faced, hair cut bluntly short; she gives you the impression that her only expression is scowl. You prepare yourself to fire and run. It’ll set your research back months – maybe even a year – but you’ll live.

“Explain yourself.” You’re taken aback by that – you do a quick three-point look around the room and with your head and then spread your hands out a little further.

“I mean,” you say, “I think we both know I’m not supposed to be here.”

She doesn’t like that. Her hands choke a little tighter around her sword grip, leather squealing and platemail clicking as she shifts even deeper into a fighting stance. The sword gets a little closer to your face. A sweat breaks out between your shoulder blades.

“You’re a mage.”

“And you’re a cleric.” Impasse. Stand off. Stare down. Neither of you are willing to make the first move – maybe she’s hoping for a peaceful resolution. That you’ll go gracefully to the stake.

Fat chance, but something changes when she opens her mouth to reply.

You don’t like the look that falls over the cleric’s face – wide eyed, eyebrows to the hairline, mouth half-open. The blood leaving her face. The slight tremble in her steady hands. Fear.

Slowly, you twist your neck to look behind you.

The Woodsman’s coffin is open – a deep, yawning blackness slides out of it, liquid trapped inside thin film. On the coattails of the light-drinking sludge, a skeletal hand slides, damn near leisurely, out of the sarcophagus. What follows is a horror of ancient science. Half human, half… something else.

The antlers crown its head, but the head is canine, deep pinpoints of light inside empty sockets. Mummified skin knits across bone, thin as paper and patchy in places. Its teeth are bare to the world and yellowed with centuries. You watch the slick, black flesh form an amorphous mass beneath the skull, the arms nothing but bone haphazardly slapped onto an overgorged slug.

You were hoping it wasn’t in there – everything you’ve learned told you it had probably vacated its body years ago. There had been no activity for so long – no plague of nightmares, no major possessions, no strange activity in the flora and fauna  – and yet. The Woodsman slithers out of its unlocked tomb on a tide of melted void-flesh, rises on it until it has to bend, its shoulders scraping the ceiling of the mausoleum. It opens its mouth wide – skin and gristle clinging to its jaw in loose strings – and shrieks.

It’s shrill and piercing. You’re concussed, briefly, slapping your hands over your ears. You feel it – in your head. Scraping the inside of your skull, dark wordless whispers in your hindbrain. It knows you. It sees you. It’s in your head.

The cleric pushes you behind her, nearly to the door in the tiny mausoleum. You’re confused – still concussed. You don’t run.

“Go!” She shouts, swinging and hacking at the growing sea of rotting flesh. She swings too wide – the silver-steel scrapes against the walls of the mausoleum and sparks. The Woodsman just keeps growing. One by one, the candles and torch are swallowed whole. A deep, endless black. A tidal wave of nothing. 

You’re not about to argue. You turn tail and run out the door.

Two steps past the tomb, you stumble to a stop. A quick, hard-breathing glance behind you lets you know that the cleric already isn’t doing well. She’s fighting like an animal, punching what she can’t cut. Every slice is swallowed up by more reeling, lightless flesh. You still feel the Woodsman’s scritching little claws, furrows in your soft, pliant brain. Every iota of you recoils away from it. But that cleric – she let you go. 

You look down at your hands. The dark leather gloves, fingertips worn, the edges frayed.

Shaking, you slip them off your hands and leave them in the grass.

You grab the back of the cleric’s breastplate and yank her back into fresh air, swapping places in one smooth transition. You don’t know what she sees. If she notices the dark, blue-black corrupted skin of your hands or the bright runes squirming over your arms while you reach deep in yourself for something destructive. The bands around your wrists and throat mark you as a Thing – something broken loose. The Woodsman tugs at your tattered ghost leash with an interested spiritual hand, head cocked. Your programming demands you kneel for consumption, and your knees twitch before you get yourself back under control. You almost see a wink of recognition.

Little homunculus, the Woodsman whispers, curling around the base of your skull like a cat, so far from home.

“Shut up,” you say, and light up the room.

The Temple of Light has claimed the lichkings reject holy fire and immolation – they just haven’t tried something hot enough. Your fire is pure destruction, white with heat, blinding against the greasy black corruption sludge coating the walls. The Woodsman shrieks – pain, rage, confusion. Spikes of pain explode behind your eyes, and you burn them away too.

You wade through the muck, scorching it all to ash, beating the Woodsman back until it tries to seek refuge again in its sarcophagus, huddling in the pit. A child taking refuge in a cellar.  Curled at the back of a cell. Useless, useless.

You reach out with a flame-licked hand and clamp down hard on its muzzle.

“Shut up,” you hiss, and watch fire make cracks in its skull. It rakes your arms with bony claws, opening bloody gashes in your flesh. The blood sizzles and evaporates almost instantly. 

The Woodsman’s head explodes with a loud crack, bone shards ripping through the skin of your cheek. The rest of it goes limp in a heap. What’s left, you turn to coal dust, just in case. When you’re done, all that’s left of the Woodsman is a greasy soot stain coating the floor, walls, and ceiling. It’s a little gruesome. Reminds you uncomfortably of blood.

You coax the flames back in, lower and lower, wobbling with exhaustion, until a comfortable, warm dark swallows you. There’s light in it – ambient, soft reflections of the moon outside. The sarcophagus is a welcome resting spot, using its high lip to stay half-standing. Even then, you see little spots in your vision, the edges going blurry. A few drops of blood slide out of your nose and splatter on the ground. Your ears are ringing.

“You’ve got red on you.” You jump.

The cleric is standing there, wiping blood and slime off her face. One of her eyes is nearly glued shut, an open wound on her brow pouring red down her cheek and under her collar. You give her a once-over before you weakly tilt your chin up.

“So do you,” you say. She nods – holds out her hand.

“Marianna.”

Cautiously, you cross the floor on shaky legs to take it, and give her your name. The one you picked for yourself – it feels nice. To introduce yourself, for once. She almost crushes your hand. You’re comparatively weak.

“You saved my life, mage,” Marianna says. You grin with a mouthful of bloody teeth, an acknowledgement.

Then, your body finally gives up. You’re blissfully unconscious before you hit the ground.

[choccy-zefirka]

They have been doing so well. Attacking the undead dragon from all quarters.

Emmrich — poised as a dancer, even when his ballroom is a wretched corpse-strewn pit, a solitary cell for an ancient demon in a carcass of wing and claw — has been twisting long shimmery green strands of magic around the creature's ankles... Can you describe dragons, or their possessed corpses, as having ankles? That is Taash's expertise, but Taash hates coming down to the Necropolis, so Hjördis has no-one to ask.

Davrin, always the daring monster hunter, has been throwing the full force of his blade arm against the hardened dark scales whenever the necromancer's spells pull the great beast to the ground. Assan has, of course, been helping him — the very best boy, tiny as a gnat against the dragon's massive snout, yet relentless as a gnat as well, pecking and clawing at its nostrils with gleeful little squawks.

"You won't do much damage like that, boy!" Davrin cries out from behind his raised shield, as a swirl of biting purple light begins bubbling within the dragon's throat. "It doesn't need to breathe! Go get the eyes!"

But Hjördis thinks he's being too hard on the fluffy little fellow.

She has been pulling her weight too. Doing what she always does best: staring straight at the snarling, writhing abomination before her, feeling her brain's annoying roommate — fear, the same damn fear every time — swell into existence like a blight pustule... And ignoring it. A Lord of Fortune — one raised by Captain Isabela and her heroic lovers, no less — is not supposed to cower and snivel over trivial, everyday things like fighting a demon.

Sure, it's a huge, multidimensional demon older than time, with powers beyond her comprehension or whatever... But her Lords crew once dealt with a colossus of Pride that was drawn to a foolhardy Armada captain, and ended up smashing his ship and fusing with it, chunks of wood and coils of rope and ragged sails and all. That thing shambled about ankle-deep in the frothing waves, with rigging flying in the wind like tangled hair and a crown of broken masts sitting atop its head. She was terrified to her bone marrow back then, too — but she made it out. And she will make it out today, too.

It's easy. It's nothing new.

Just duck and roll out of the way when the undead dragon's breath ploughs a smoking, charred trench across the ground. Leap back up, summon an orb of magic, toss it straight into the void between its jaws. Slide forward when it chokes, dagger at the ready, toss yourself under its belly like you are repairing a carriage, and strike, strike, strike at the weak spot between its ribs. Repeat again and again, your friends by your side, best boy Assan swooping from above. Not so bad, is it?

They have been doing so well. One moment, it seems that they almost have the demon... And then the tattered dead wings flap, and suddenly, darkness falls.

The thing must have used some kind of spell, a trick of the Fade — it doesn't matter. Hjördis can't think about it too long. She can't think of anything at all, in this endless, bottomless well of ink, where there's only her and, across a distance she cannot even measure, two floating, hungry embers, with a waiting maw below — a slit of billowing glow crossed by silhouettes of teeth.

She can still hear Emmrich and Davrin, stumbling about in the void, calling out to her; and Assan, crying in a shrill little voice, almost like an abandoned baby, somewhere in an alien plane that is supposed to be... up? If she moves off the spot she's glued to, if she wills her frozen arms to search the dark, she might stumble into them... But she can't. She is too afraid.

The blight pustule has grown, and sprouted squirming, squelching tentacles that fill her belly from within, and bind her in place. Her eyes forget to blink, scorching torrents streaming down her cheeks, as she stares and stares and stares into the demon's eyes. A rabbit before a snake.

The embers hover on the same spot for a moment, also unblinking... Until they don't.

The demon lurches forward, its jaws clamping into a metal trap around its prey. One long, slightly serrated tooth digs into Hjördis' shoulder, another ruptures the flesh of her thigh. She is swept upwards like she is in a crow's nest. Her stomach would have jolted with that familiar sensation, as her limbs cut through empty air... But the pain takes over, and swallows everything else. Several broiling geysers pulsate through her body; the black pall falls back from her eyes, replaced with a heavy curtain of crimson, and then with a blinding white light... She cannot tell if it's her agony coloring her vision, or if the demon's spell has truly waned.

Then, comes Assan's squawk again, and the sound of tiny claws and beak feasting on the great beast's throat. It all comes off muffled, distorted, as if she were underwater... plummeting down, down, deep into the sea...

Has the dragon collapsed at last? Have Darvin and Assan taken it down, acting together…? Turlum, turlum is the word, short like the drum beats of blood in her ears...

The last thing she hears, as distant echoes that layer through the dull pounding in her head, are her friends' voices.

Rook? Rook! Oh, no, no, no... She isn't... She can't...

She's still alive! I've got her! But I am not the mage here! Pull yourself together and help me stop the bleeding!

Yes, of course, Davrin, I am sorry! I —

"You are cute," Hjördis wants to say to Emmrich, falling right into her old habit of teasing him. She is absolutely certain he is cute, even if his face is a greyish oblong blur right now, melting into the white, aching light that sears her eyes and makes her temples pulse.

“You are cute,” she thinks at him weakly, swimming in pain. And she absolutely means it.

Once, when she stared up and down his lanky form, hands resting on her hips, and tossed around words like "dapper" and "good-looking", and asked him with a sly grin whatever he did with those long, nimble fingers of his — once, her main goal was to coax a startled look onto his face, to have a good giggle when his eyebrows crawled up and he froze in the middle of turning towards her. Once, but not any more. Not now.

Her heavy, clumsy tongue manages to battle through the numbness and the twang of copper at the back of her mouth, and shape the first croaky syllable... Then, she drowns at last, and when she re-emerges to choke out the rest of "You are cute", her surroundings are completely different.

She is tucked cozily into a large bed with dark-green covers and cheery mahogany skeletons at all four corners, holding up a velvet canopy. The rest of the room is hazy, but through patina-like mist, she can make out more carvings of skulls, skinless hands clasped around a blur of light — a lamp of some sort? — and maybe the feet of one of those sky-high skeleton statues. Maybe. The pain is gone, but her eyes can't seem to see straight, and she feels a huge giant cotton cloud filling the space between her head and the rest of her (apparently, heavily bandaged) body. Good old elfroot, huh.

A couple slow blinks later, she processes that her hoarse, half-slurred compliment was, in fact, addressed to more than just the skeletal four-poster. Emmrich is here. Right here. By her bedside.

She squints to bring his face into focus, and a sobering realization hits her. He looks far too pale for it to just be the green-tinged lighting, with puffy half-moons under his bloodshot eyes. Like he is the one in need of some calming elfroot, not her.

Startled by the sound of her voice, he gapes back at her... Until some crumbling wall within him falls to pieces, releasing a stream of jumbled words.

"Rook! Oh, Rook, I was so worried! I couldn't see you in that dark cloud, only... only hear your screams... For a moment, I was back in my childhood home, trapped under our fallen ceiling... Listening to my family die within arm's reach... And when the Formless One fell, and Davrin pried you from its jaws, I thought... It looked like... There was so much blood... And you — you were..."

He inhales shakily, cutting himself off, and presses his index finger and thumb at the corners of his eyes.

"Forgive me, Rook. I have not slept much."

"Well. This bed is big enough for both of us."

It has to come off as something dirty, outrageous, her usual cheek... But all she thinks of in that moment, when the words rush unbidden from her lips, is that trapped little boy. Plunged in darkness, face to face with the greatest fear of his life. Needing to be warm, to be held, to never, ever be alone again.

At least he does not look... too scandalized when his darkened, feverish eyes meet hers. Instead, he seems concerned — for her. So Emmrich, really!

"Rook, you are still healing! I might disturb your bandages!"

"I don't mind. Come on. It's incredibly soft... Whose room am I in anyway?"

The weight of all his sleepless hours proves too strong, and Emmrich caves — not giving her an answer until he is curled up by her side, his long limbs and spine folded to resemble one of those huge shrimps the street vendors shove in your face on toothpick skewers along the Llomerryn waterfront. He keeps a respectful half an inch between them, but she pushes her stiff cocoon of a body closer, offering the crook of her shoulder for him to hide his face in. Like two puzzle pieces being shifted across a game table. Meant to perfectly fit.

"It's one of the Mourn Watch's guest chambers," he explains in a lazy murmur, melting into a blissful sigh. "Davrin went off to help with the aftermath of vanquishing the Formless One, and I... I carried you here. And stayed behind. I would not really be good for anything else, in my... my state."

When confronted, by some future judge of character, about the shrill giggle she makes in that moment, she is going to blame the elfroot.

"You carried me? All my countless pounds of perfect rope-hauling muscle? In your delicate mage arms?"

"I will have you know I have a very exacting morning exercise routine!" Emmrich protests, in an overplayed distress that makes Hjördis giggle again. "And you are a mage yourself!"

At this moment, Hjördis' mind decides to stun her with a rapid-fire succession of memories from her and Emmrich's magic sparring sessions. Oh, how excited he got over comparing their techniques: a meticulously educated academic versus a wild hedge witchling that grew up first in the slums of Thedas' least mage-friendly city, and then aboard countless ships on Rivain's azure waters. How thrilled he was to learn from her, gasping in sincere amazement as, with an effortless flourish, she made magical foci out of the most mundane objects (including Lucanis' favorite spoon; he is still entitled to compensation for that). How generously he lavished her with "Absolutely astounding, Rook!" and "I never thought of that, Rook!". How he... How he...

Sensing most treacherous warmth spill all over her cheeks, she hurries to retort, as nonchalantly as possible,

"Well, you know I am more of an apostate rogue. Apostirogue if you will."

Emmrich snorts with laugher... But as the sound — the most beautiful sound in the whole world, Hjördis' elfroot-tickled mind tells her — fades, he grows pensive. Lifting himself up on his elbow, he takes a long, wistful look at her.

"Rook..." he says, voice quiet and somber. "I am so grateful to be here, with you... To see you back to your playful self again. Foolish as it may sound."

"Nothing you say is foolish," she tells him, and he frowns in response, an objection unspoken on his lips. He is thinking back to their recent visit to the Memorial Gardens, isn't he? When he laid bare his fear of death, looking so distraught and apologetic all the while. Oh, poor soul; he must have counted down every second of her silence, waiting for her to laugh, as the brave laugh at the cowardly. She is meant to be brave, after all — the dashing apostirogue, the dauntless leader of the Veilguard, the hero Varric found most worthy of following in his footsteps...

Well. Maybe now, while her inhibitions are lulled into blissful drowsiness by whatever pain-killing potion she was given — maybe now is the best time for a revelation of her own.

"Remember how we talked in the Gardens, about your fear?" she speaks in the same subdued, earnest tone as he just did, holding his gaze and not even noticing that their hands met and clasped together over the covers quite a bit ago.

"I don't think I could have admired you any more than I did back then."

"Admired me?" he mouths back at her, perplexed.

"Yes. To name your fear like that, to study it, to talk about it in the open — I could never do something so... so incredible. And I..."

Oh, here it comes. The pustule is about to burst.

"I am afraid of so many things, Emmrich. The dark. Heights. The deep sea. Monsters. Even particularly large dogs. Oh, my all of mothers' mabari have been absolute pumpkin pies, and I still died a little on the inside whenever they came bounding at me for puppy kisses!"

"Rook..." he mouths, brows arching, while his hand squeezes hers. "I had no idea..."

"No-one does. Not even my family. I always hid that part of myself from them; I... I thought it made me less than. But then I met you, a brilliant, kind, wonderful man whose worth was... was not diminished by his fear... And I..."

Her thoughts crumple into a soft mush. And lost for words, she kisses him.

They will not remember this: the softness of their mouths touching, the needy strokes of her tongue against his, the whimper at the back of his throat. He is too sleep-deprived; she is still recovering from her wounds, woozy from all the elfroot. When Davrin finds them, cuddling innocently in the huge Mourn Watch bed, they will wake up thinking it was just a dream. A figment of their exhausted minds. Or a trick of a passing wisp that wants to be a desire demon when it grows up.

The Veil is terribly thin these days, especially in the Necropolis.

[wispstalk]

wip wednesday

been tagged by various people over the past few weeks and didn't have much to share but now y'all get...

🚨🚨 IDLE IN THEIR THRONES SECRET BONUS CHAPTER 🚨🚨 i'm editing a version of my fic for my man, bc he wants to read my shit. but the problem is that my intended audience for the Oblivion fic is "people who have played oblivion" which he has not.

I made some mostly-minor changes to contextualize events/characters but Tanis's university B-plot warranted another chapter. Includes one microfic I've already posted, but the rest is new. fair warning: 4k words under the cut. tagging everyone who tagged me: @nuwanders @jiubilant @dirty-bosmer @sylvienerevarine @ehlnofay @everybodyknows-everybodydies (and a special shoutout to Talviel because I referenced her menus for the last section)

--

“Impressive, Apprentice!” Julienne Fanis, the Master Alchemist, watches with delight as the angry weal on Tanis’s neck smooths and seals over. “Sorry, Journeyman, isn’t it? Now that you have your staff. Traven ought to have bumped you up a few ranks after what you went through to get it…”

Tanis makes a noncommittal noise. He had thought, perhaps stupidly, that being ambushed by necromancers was only a test of his mettle. Only when he made an offhand remark to Delmar, the Master Enchanter, did the Elder Council fly into a flurry. The University has been abuzz ever since, and Tanis attracts stares everywhere he goes.

He rubs at the healed cut, which has begun to itch with a fury. “Trouble with spiddal stick,” he says, “is that it burns out the infection, and then keeps burning. But I thought with a pinch of frost salts—”

“Ah, but the cost…” Julienne’s eyes widen as Tanis produces a sizeable jar of salts. “Well! If we must be plagued with these Oblivion gates, I should count myself blessed to have a student bold enough to enter them.”

He offers her a half-grin and pinches some salt into his calcinator. “Or mad enough to go flower-picking in the Deadlands.”

“Well, should you decide the frost salts aren’t worth the risk, I’d try lady’s smock leaves. That ought to counteract the irritation.” She regards him, head cocked. “You seem to have a talent for healing. I’m more inclined to banecraft, myself, but I try to make my students understand that it’s not so different, is it? Here you’ve just made a healing salve from a poisonous flower.”

Yena would like this woman. “Just toyed around with it and got lucky. I’d like to learn more. Who’s the Master Restorationist here?”

Julienne gives him a strange look. “The University does not have a Master Restorationist. I teach apprentices how to make basic restoratives, and the Master Alterationist covers spellwork. But if you’re looking to further your studies, there is always work in the infirmary. I could have a word with the chief medic.”

Tanis blinks up at her. Yena would really like this woman. That was all the old witch ever wanted for him— a life as a healer. He wrote her off, could never tolerate working in a temple, but perhaps here…

“Excuse me, Master Fanis.” The reedy voice of a young woman cuts through the workroom. “Master Polus has requested Tanis Irathi’s presence in the tower lobby.” The grey-robed assistant does not wait for a response, but only ducks her head and shuffles out.

Tanis raises an eyebrow. Julienne Fanis gives him a tight smile. “One of Raminus’s little errands, no doubt.”

“Can’t it wait?” Tanis complains, and moderates the heat beneath his calcinator.

“You’d best go. Your reduction won’t go to waste, I’ll finish it.” Julienne sighs as she glances around the workroom. “I do hope you’ll keep attending lectures. I lose some of my most promising alchemists this way. The Council tends to take notice of mages with… certain skills.”

She throws a look at his swordbelt, slung over the edge of the worktable. He has, perhaps, made himself stand out. No one else wears a weapon around campus, unless he counts staves. And after what he went through to earn his, he paid the Master Enchanter to tip it with an ebony spearhead.

He leaves Julienne to experiment with his cache of Daedric ingredients, and makes for the tower.

—

Two days later, Tanis storms into the tower lobby, saddlesore and filthy with road dust. Raminus looks up at his arrival, and his face turns white when Tanis slaps a book down on his desk.

“You sent me after a book,” Tanis says, low and menacing. “So here is a book.”

“Er, Tanis, there—” Raminus clears his throat. “There was never any book.”

“There was never any book,” Tanis agrees.

“The Goblin with the Golden Arm,” Raminus reads from the cover. “Ah. A fiction. Consider your point made, mage.”

Tanis hadn’t put quite that much thought into it; he picked this one off the shelf because he liked the illustrations. “Give me that,” he snaps, and snatches it from Raminus’s hands. “So. What the fuck?”

Raminus takes off his spectacles and rubs at the bridge of his nose. “I’m truly sorry for the lie. Our relationship with the Count is tenuous at best, and Traven thought that sending a high-ranking official to Skingrad would alert the necromancers to our presence and drive them underground. After how capably you handled the necromancers that attacked you among the stave-trees, we thought you a good candidate for this mission.”

Praise, Tanis notes with annoyance, does soften his outrage. “Well, it’s done.”

“Please, tell me everything that happened.”

“Well, to start with, you told me to retrieve a book in the Count’s possession, so I rode all the way to fucking Skingrad, and—”

“I haven’t forgotten, Tanis. Just tell me what you found.”

Tanis had visited the castle once before, when he and Coradri closed the Oblivion gate outside Skingrad’s walls. He had known that Count Janus Hassildor was unlikely to grant him audience. But the castle steward, Mercator, was notably more unfriendly when Tanis identified himself as a representative of the mages guild.

Mercator informed him that the Count would meet him after dark, north of the mineshaft outside the city walls. So, after sharing a few rounds with the patrons at the West Weald Inn, Tanis made his way there.

“It was a trap,” Tanis tells Raminus. “Mercator and two of his friends met me instead. Summoned wraiths from thin air, cast a silence spell over me, and attacked.”

“My word, this is worse than we thought.” Raminus’s expression grows grave. “The Count sent him to kill you?”

No, Tanis continues, the Count arrived just as Tanis finished them off. Janus Hassildor was white with fury, or so Tanis thought— then he caught the strange glow to his eyes, his sallow cheeks. The flash of long canines as he gave Tanis an earful.

I suspected Mercator was involved with the necromancers, Hassildor said, but I would not move against him without knowing the identities of his allies. Despite what your Council may think, I would never throw in with such a cult.

“And he told me,” Tanis concludes, “the next time you want something from him, you come yourselves.”

“I see.” Raminus sighs and rubs at his jaw as he takes it in. “Tanis, please believe me when I say it was never the Council’s intention to put you in harm’s way.”

“Oh, piss off with that. I was four beers deep and had no fucking clue what was going on, but those three couldn’t have left a scratch on me.”

The Master Wizard lets out a humorless huff of laughter. “In any case, we are aware of Count Hassildor’s… condition… but it isn’t public knowledge. For that reason I didn’t share what we knew with you. We will not make that mistake again. And if Hassildor shares in our suspicions about this burgeoning cult, perhaps we can count him among our allies.”

Tanis folds his arms, skeptical. “And you lot aren’t worried that a vampire—”

“He hides his nature well, though he can’t hide it from the Council of Mages. We’ve come to certain accords. And if those agreements are strained of late, the fault doesn’t lie with you.”

“No shit.”

“You’ve done the guild a great service,” Raminus says. “And for that, you earn the rank of Evoker.”

Tanis blinks. While he grasps for something to say, Raminus unlocks the cabinet behind his desk, and comes around with something glittering in his fists. A silver chain with a pendant of citrine, carved with twin hands and the Eye of Magnus. When Tanis takes it into his palm, he senses the warding spell enchanted within it.

“Again, you have my apologies.” Raminus inclines his head. “I will speak to the Council.”

It bothers Tanis to find himself placated by this. Promote him, bestow some magical trinket on him, and he will gladly continue being a useful idiot for the guild. At least, he hopes, the Council will see fit to use their idiot well.

—

“Explain to me,” Tanis says, watching the ghost of his ancestor swoop and howl through the practice room, “how this doesn’t count as necromancy.”

Anaht’s nictitating membranes slide over her eyes in exasperation. “You do not want to get into this with me.”

“Don’t tell me what I want to get into,” he insists, and releases his focus, letting the restive shade return to the other side of the veil. “Say I’m attacked— bandits on the road, say, and say I kill the first one and make him get up and defend me against his fellow rogues and blaggards. That’s beyond the pale, and if I’m caught Traven throws me out on my ass.”

Her tail swishes with impatience. “Those are the rules, yes.”

“But dredging up my pissed-off card out of the ash is fine, and conjuring daedra— daedra, when they’re running thick as rabbits in the countryside— that’s all well and good.”

“Odd for you to be beating the moral drum,” Anaht says finely, “when I happen to know from Proctor Renault that you put your cohort to shame during the conjuration practical. A flame atronach, no less, while the rest of them were nearly bursting blood vessels just to call up a scamp.”

“Morals?” Tanis blinks. “Who the fuck said anything about morals? I’m a lout with a sword who does what I’m bid. It’s just that I can’t make heads nor tails of how you wizards think.”

Anaht relaxes then. “You will find,” she says, sweeping an arm for him to follow her out of the room, “that if there is a single thing that all wizards think, it is that we agree on nothing.”

In the Archives they find Tar-Meena, harried, drawing one claw down a list of requisitions, muttering to herself. “I need the key to the incinerator,” Anaht announces to the Master Archivist.

Tar-Meena throws Tanis a dubious glance, and speaks to Anaht in Jel, unaware that Tanis can parse it. “You are taking that one? Raminus’s hunter?”

“He was my hunter first,” Anaht sniffs, "and like any good hunter he knows when to be quiet."

With a skeptical lift of the brow ridge, Tar-Meena hands over a jangling ring of keys and returns to her work. Anaht leads him through the darkness and hush of the stacks, all the way to the end of the maze of shelves, to an unassuming heavy door.

More crammed bookshelves, to no one’s surprise. Sealed off from the carefully-controlled environment of the stacks, there is a window letting in the afternoon light, and a large round table scattered with a half-finished card game, books and papers, a mug of cold coffee dregs. It seems this vault of forbidden knowledge serves as a sort of employee break room.

No fires to be found, though, not so much as a reedlight. Like the stacks, this room is only to be lit by spell, with polished steel sconces on the wall to reflect the mage-glow.

“Why’s it called the incinerator?” he asks, drawing his reading glasses from his pocket.

“Yes, Arch-Mage,” Anaht says, taking a posture of mock obeisance. “We've found another treatise on the Black Arts, and we'll throw it straight in the fires.”

On the shelf before him, a veritable buffet of taboo: Necromancer’s Moon, Pathway to Lichdom. A journal purported to be authored by the Wolf Queen Potema. Even a title written in Dunmeris, On the Veneration and Summoning of Ancestor Guardians. The very spell he’d just opened his palm and offered his blood to learn.

And, tacked to one corner of the shelving timbers, a small folio: The Black Arts on Trial, by Arch-Mage Hannibal Traven.

“In the interest of being even-handed. A little joke among the scrivs,” Anaht says by way of explanation, then nudges him aside with her hip. “Now move, you big oaf, and let me look for something.”

He takes the folio with him and settles down at the table. The contents of this inflammatory writ are oft-bandied on the University grounds, but he’s never gotten around to reading it, what with all the… everything else.

While he reads, Anaht waltzes around the room, her tail jewelry jangling, occasionally plucking a book like a choice pear and stacking it on her arm.

“This gra-Kogg makes a lot of sense,” he says, holding a finger to mark his place. “Actually think her arguments were better than this other fella’s, but Traven’s conclusion doesn't consider her at all. Why include the debate, then?”

“Keep reading.” Anaht does not look back, but the tip of her tail shakes with mild amusement.

“Oh,” he says, squinting down at the afterword. “Reckon I ought to have seen that coming.”

“These will get you started.” Anaht drops her books to the table with a heavy thump, and delicately pats the top of the stack. Tanis grumbles; there has to be a dozen of them, and he’s already up to his ears in daedric research and work in the infirmary.

She perches lightly in the chair to his left. “Yes, Master gra-Kogg was a necromancer,” she says, and folds her jeweled claws beneath her chin. “But?”

“But,” he sighs, now seeing the point of that menacing bookpile, “that doesn’t make her wrong. Raminus has me running all over Cyrodiil flushing them out of their dens, but I don’t know a damn thing about how to fight them. Can’t interrupt their casting, can’t tell what they’re calling up, don’t know what they’re after.”

“If you insist on being the Council’s hunting dog, I will not have you go forth unprepared.” She taps the silvery-thin scar on the side of his neck, the one he’d earned while ambushed in Wellspring Grove, collecting wood for his mage’s staff. “So long as Traven invites the necromancers' wrath, we archivists will maintain this bulwark against them.”

“Oh, I'm sure it's all very noble."

She ignores the barb, tucking the books in her striped haversack and foisting it on him to carry. “Now come. Let us go to the King and Queen. You owe me dinner.”

Tanis follows her out the door. "What for?"

She swats at him with her tail. “You think I do all this tutoring for free?”

—

After dinner, he sees Anaht back to the University grounds and makes his way to Luther’s boarding house. Coradri is waiting for him in the common room, bouncing off the walls in her effort to rush him right back out the door.

“Good, you’re already dressed for dinner,” she says, breathless. “We have to get to the Tiber Septim Hotel now.”

“I just fucking— the Tiber? Are you trying to bleed me dry?” He lets himself be towed down the street, then digs in his heels. “The plaza district’s the other way, s’wit.”

“Ugh! This city is so big and stupid,” Coradri says with some venom, and steers him in the opposite direction. “Listen, it’s almost ninth bell and we have to hurry. I might have agreed to a private audience with the High Chancellor on your behalf.”

“It better be on his drake, then.” He looks askance at her— dressed in a billowy silk tunic, soft buckskin trousers, and an embroidered vest. “I see you’ve been helping yourself to my purse.”

“I knew you wouldn’t mind.” She dips into a little curtsy. “Can’t show up dressed like some Colovian poacher, can I?”

“You look nice,” he admits grudgingly, and they pass through the gates of the Talos Plaza district.

This part of the city is far more palatial than the Elven Gardens, where they have taken up residence for the past several weeks. The people who stroll the streets are aristocrats by their dress and bearing, and the ancient Ayleid architecture has been well-maintained.

Coradri walks into the sumptuous hotel as if she does this sort of thing all the time. The host identifies them as the Chancellor’s guests, and leads them away from the common dining room to a private balcony overlooking the square.

“Good sir. My lady.” The host drops into a deep bow. “Chancellor Ocato sent a page ahead to inform us that he has been delayed in Council deliberations, but will arrive shortly. He has requested that we bring out the first course while you wait, and a bottle of his favored wine— Tamika’s 415 vintage.”

A serving boy lays out plates of charred fennel and horse carpaccio. The host presents the bottle laid across her arm, then pops the cork in one deft motion and offers it to Tanis.

He takes it, baffled. The porter beams expectantly at him. “Ah, thanks,” he says. “That’ll… be all.”

Coradri erupts into laughter once the servers leave. “You’re supposed to sniff the cork.”

“How d’you know things like that?” Tanis rubs at his temples and stares at the spread before them. “Damn you, scribling. I split a slaughterfish pie with Anaht just before you dragged me here.”

“Tough luck,” Coradri says through a mouthful. “Have at the wine, then. I don’t want any.”

“And I’m already drunk,” he sighs, and pours himself a mug.

“You won’t have to talk much. You were too busy with your studies, so I went to the Elder Council without you. Waved Jauffre’s writ around a lot. Said I was a real Blade. Told them about Brother Martin, even. They won’t send us any legionnaires, I already know that, but I’m not giving up.”

“Fuck me.” Tanis takes a long drink. The wine— there is no other way he can put it— tastes expensive. It blooms at the back of his throat, deep and rich and mellow. “At least the wine’s good.”

“So’s the food,” she says, and reaches for another slice of horsemeat. “I’ve never had anything like this.”

Despite himself, he samples a bite from each platter. “Tell you what, let’s make a pact: after we win the priest his throne, may we never piss him off. Once I see how they live in the White-Gold Tower, I won’t want to go back.”

“Arensha,” she grins. “Do you think we’ll leave for the temple soon?”

“Ah… Raminus wants me to check in on some researchers. They’re excavating a ruin near Cheydinhal. But I can probably slip off after that. We could go there, take the Blue Road back. You getting bored while I’m playing at being a scholar?”

“No. I find plenty to do in this big, stupid city.” She props her chin on her hand and gives him a searching look. “But I miss Brother Martin. Don’t you?”

Tanis narrowly avoids choking on his wine. Just then, Ocato sweeps in, with a trail of attendants behind him, and burbles out apologies while dismissing his retinue with a wave.

The second course, a creamed nettle soup, arrives on the table just as the wizened, willowy Altmer settles into his seat. He greets them graciously and calls for more wine.

Tanis learned his etiquette from frequenting Cyrod merchants; whether it's tea or a full banquet, negotiation will not commence until all parties have sated themselves. Ocato makes polite conversation about the city’s various pleasure gardens and noteworthy watering holes, with Coradri’s occasional interjections to egg him on.

When the final course is cleared— a good two hours later— the real discussion begins. Ocato tents his fingers and looks to Coradri.

“I’ve kept you quite long,” he says, “but of course you didn’t come to the city to drink wine and listen to me blather on, so perhaps we can discuss the matter at hand.”

“Of course we can,” Coradri says. “And I hope the Chancellor will forgive us bringing him out so late, after working so tirelessly in the Council chambers.”

Tanis takes a long draught of wine to stifle a snort. Where does she get this shit?

“Nothing to forgive, of course,” Ocato says with a stately nod. "Your pleas before the Council haven't fallen on hard hearts, I hope you understand."

“The legion can’t be spared, I know, but of course the Chancellor agrees that the safety of the heir is important.”

“The utmost,” Ocato says gravely. “And of course I see the urgency of your request, but the generals simply will not divert the Legion.” He leans in and speaks lowly. “It’s no secret that the ranks have thinned since this crisis began. The Imperial Army has already pulled forces from the provinces, and that may yet cost us. Word has reached us of gates as far-flung as Black Marsh and Skyrim.”

“Of course we understand,” Coradri says. “I mean no insult to the Empire, Chancellor, but Irathi here is a legion in one. Six gates opened outside the cities, you’ll remember, and he closed each of them alone.”

Tanis opens his mouth to protest— Coradri had been with him outside Chorrol and Skingrad— but she stomps on the toe of his boot, the universal sign to shut the fuck up.

“Many of the counts and countesses have written to the Council of your deeds.” Ocato nods in Tanis’s direction. “And of course the whole of Cyrodiil is grateful for your protection. Quite a feat for one man alone.”

“In some ways, it makes him more effective,” Coradri says. “Irathi can move independently. Of course the Elder Council would have responded, we all believe that, but I imagine it would take some time to move enough forces to all six cities?”

“Of course,” Ocato agrees, then shakes his head. “With fourteen of us, the deliberations can go on for— well, I don’t have to tell you, do I? Once again, I do hope you can forgive my late arrival.”

“Of course we do,” Coradri says. “We wait at the Chancellor’s pleasure. The Mythic Dawn may not do the same, but no harm will come to the heir so long as Bruma is defended. And the Hero of Kvatch” —she gestures grandly to Tanis— “is the future Emperor’s own sworn sword.”

“You are the Hero of Kvatch?” Ocato’s eyebrows shoot near up to his hairline. “Of course! Who else could withstand such a trial? Then the Empire has you to thank not only for the security of its cities, but for its heir.”

With his hands under the table, Tanis has been counting off on his fingers. If they say it one more time, he’ll have a perfect round dozen. He likes his lucky numbers.

“Of course,” Ocato says thoughtfully, “as emissaries of the Blades, the council could grant you substantial resources in the army’s stead.”

“As an emissary of the Blades,” Coradri says smoothly, “I can assure you we would put them to good use.”

Ocato clasps his hands together. “It may take some doing— you’ve seen how the Council sessions can drag on— but consider it done. And I expect the Imperial battlemages would be quite interested to know how one man has come to run courses around them.”

A silence falls. Ocato regards Tanis with keen eyes, and Coradri gives him a small secretive smile.

“You… want me to tell you how I close the gates.”

“How you survive them,” Ocato says with a sudden fervor. “How you manage it alone.”

Gold— that’s what Ocato means by substantial resources. Enough for arms, for mounts, for mercenaries, and all he has to do is get to the other end of a story.

Tanis spreads his hands. “Of course.”