#serioth

[greywizard-reporter-jim]

Becoming a Necromancer, day 8.

Having realised my true calling, and the sheer boredom of Tax Magic (I'm not having a midlife crisis, you're having a midlife crisis!), I have decided to become a necromancer! The path is long but I know it'll be worth it.

Ahem.

EAT SHIT, SERIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTH!

Ah, today is a wonderful day! Serioth, as I thought, ambushed me as I was making my way towards Gavamont's tower, but I was ready for him! He cast a Circle of Anti-Teleportation, using a scroll, but...

Well, my researches have reached a breakthrough, and I stood up all night yesterday to exploit it. You see, the different schools of magic are not something natural. It's an artificial construct we use to classify spells and types of mana, but they can overlap. Necromancy and Tax Magic are no exception! This is a basic concept, but realising it opens many door. I don't have to abandon anything in order to be a necromancer! I'm still me! Grey Wizard Jim! I'm just learning new things.

So, without further adue, let me introduce to you...

The Skeleton Mafia Debt Collectors!

My very first proper necromancy spell! Serioth didn't expect that one, and he did NOT like it either! They managed to wound him, and I managed to run away, and reach Gavamont's Tower. I did lose my previous journal in my escape, though. It saddens me a bit, but this is not a day for weeping, and I've got bottles of wine in my bag of holding. I think I'm gonna open one.

This is a day for celebration! To new magic! To new horizons! To new friends!

[battlemageserioth]

Tracking down Ex Wizard Council Member Jim, day 2

The recent actions and events related to Tax Wizard Jim have led the Council to reclassify Jim as a threat. I, Battlemage Serioth, have decided that it was my responsability to track him down, as I was the one to introduce him to the Council.

The fugitive is currently still free. With the approbation of the rest of the Council, I, along with a team of battlemages, have entered his Tower. No traps were laid, and the fugitive was not there. It's a cold trail. No worthy artifact or document were in the fugitive's Tower. All items found were disposed of, in accordance with Procedure 923-1.

As of now, I will try to hire the services of another mage in order to locate Jim. A divination expert, or an artificer with sufficient knowledge should do the trick.

[ahno-nimus]

SERIOTH VICTIM OF MEMETOVORE.

SERIOTH VICTIM OF MEMETOVORE

Serioth of the Council has sent me a journal, in which he states that he is the victim of a memetovorus entity. This is apparently responsible for his recent discrepancies. According to the journal, as far as it is understood, he believes it may have something to do with his investigation into Werill, also of the council. As of the latest entry, Serioth intends to confront Werill. While I must admit that this publication has not supported Serioth in the past, but we wish him luck in this endeavor. Stay Safe Serioth.

[humm-bird]

@thewizardcouncil

Whelp, @greywizard-reporter-jim turned himself in. I'll state my opinions on his sentence once we have convened on this topic..

[lvlzmj]

190616 ‘Once Upon a Time’ Hongdae Fansign Serioth ✧ do not edit.

[humm-bird]

Yeah, Serioth got drunk as hell and ranted about how you betrayed him and how much he loved you. I have no clue what this means, but it sure as hell happened.

so wait so is current wizard council drama just serioth and jims messy wizard divorce because, and maybe it’s just the bog water and radiation, that’s what it sounds like to me

[wip-wizard-in-progress]

On the recent situation:

Fuck the wizard council, eh to the recently fired councilmember Jim (Respect you for quitting, don't respect you for wizard-councilism, averages out to neutrality), and Serioth was the only good part of the wizard council for standing up for the civilians, unlike the rest of the council which was only focused on themselves.

[ratazom]

In this time of sadness and confusion over the loss is the other wizards of the Red Confederation, I must remember the good things in life. Like the fact that I resurrected Serioth just for him to get dunked on repeatedly for weeks.

[greywizard-reporter-jim]

Who created the most forbidden spell? The answer might surprise you.

-by reporter Jim

__________________

Forbidden spells! Love them or hate them, they occupy a central place in wizard politics. From Ketamine Ape to Instant Dehydration, their effect and their power made the Council create new legislation. But who made them? And which one is the most forbidden, with the most damning legal consequences?

First of all, it is important to know that when they make a spell forbidden, the Council tries to find the creator of the spell, and strikes a deal with them. In exchange for complete anonymity, and a generous sum of gold, the spellsmith vows to never share the formula, and to destroy all existing documents related to it. This makes finding them complicated, but sometimes, they refuse the offer. For exemple, Doliprane, the creator of Baguettify Bones, was "disposed of" by Council member Liriam himself, as most wizards know, in the controversial duel of 1989.

What people generally don't know, is that authorized and forbidden spells are not the only categories in the Council's archives. One spell is considered worse than forbidden. There are no laws around it, as it is a state secret, and the formula, as well as most mentions of it, have been purged from Council record. This is the Apollyon-class spell.

Thankfully, an anonymous source has given us access to some of the archived documents, allowing us to know what the spell is, and most importantly its creator.

The Apollyon-class spell was allegedely created thrity years ago, to get rid of the warlock Arsæne the Crimson, by none other... Than Council member Serioth himself. Usually, the use of such a spell is considered treason, but Serioth used his Council immunity, dodging all charges, and still has a seat there to this day, which begs several questions. When will the Council act? Are they ever going to? And most importantly...

Who can stop Serioth from casting Banish to Twitter again ?

[ratazom]

Ah, worm curses. Really takes me back.

Bored?

Consider getting into curses! It's never boring to make worms pour out of the eyes of people who've wronged you,

and when you run out of those you can always move on to people who've mildly inconvenienced you instead!

[battlemageserioth]

Werill's Serenade

Episode 2:

"Show me the City of Towers!"

The booming voice of the battlemage echoed in the hall, as the mist before him started swirling, taking new colours and shape... Before morphing back into a grey mass floating in the middle of the room. Serioth muttered "Damn it", under his breath, before trying again.

"Show me the City of Towers."

Again, the fog moved, as if disturbed by the wind, but again, the image dissipated long before it could become clear.

"Please show me the City of Towers?" he tried, wincing.

Same result.

"Show me the City, damn you!"

"Are you okay?"

Serioth jumped, and turned around. Jim was standing in the doorframe. He was wearing an oversized robe, had a tired look on his face and a coffee cup in his hand. The battlemage frowned.

"What are you doing here? You told me you were going to sleep!"

And Jim needed to rest. The spell he had cast to save him left its mark. The necromancer was sickly pale, his eyes were glassy, and he had a bony silhouette. It wasn't that he was extremely thin, though he had alway been the thinner of the two, but his nearly white skin was almost translucent, leaving his bones visible. His long brow hair now had long strands of white, and his legs were slightly shaking. He was slowly recuperating, clawing his way back to the world of the living, but he still looked like one of the dead.

"I did sleep. Nine hours, in fact."

"...really?"

"Yeah. You've been staying up all night."

"Ah."

Jim crossed his arms, squinting at him.

"You've got to rest, man. I swear, if you manage to die after I made you a lich, I'm gonna kill you."

"You can't-"

"Shut up."

Serioth sighed. Jim was at his most annoying when he was right. He could see it in his own reflection, and in his years of studying magic. To be on the receiving end of so much mana had consequences. It wasn't wild magic in any way, filtered through the incantations of necromancy, the days of continuous rituals it had demanded and of course, Jim's own magic, but that was irrelevant. Mana was the force of change. And change him it did. His skin was scarred where the magic had flown, in great patches of bony white, on his torso and his back. He was quieter, having to make a conscious effort to be heard when he talked, and even his shadow was somehow thinner. Sometimes, it stopped following him entirely. None of it was permanent, but he had to take care of himself, to avoid letting his grip on the living world weaken, and becoming nothing more than a wraith. And he hadn't be doing that. His moustache, usually impeccably groomed, was a mess of brown hair going in every direction, and his muscular figure was hunched over by the weigh of fatigue.

"...fine. I'll get some rest."

"And drink some water."

"And... Drink some water. Yes. Whatever."

Jim shook his head, and sighed.

"Good. I can't believe you managed to live this long while treating yourself like shit."

"It made me strong."

There was a moment of silence between them, as Jim turning around to leave through the door.

"No. You were strong already. It just made you tired and hurt."

Serioth didn't know what to say to that. He watched him leave and sighed. Maybe he did need some sleep. Staying up all night was just unreasonable.

He looked through the window on his right, then frowned. How did he not see the sun rise? How was he not seeing it right now? This window was on the east side of the tower, he was sure of it. Was it that late? Afternoon? No... No something was wrong. He could feel it. Serioth clenched his teeth, and sat down. Maybe Werill's memetovores incident had more effect on it than he thought. Maybe he was becoming paranoid. Still. It felt so much like when that... Thing was attached to his neck. This feeling of losing touch with reality, after noticing the smallest inconsistences in...

A scream. Serioth froze. It was Jim's voice. The battlemage jumped out of the room and rushes into the corridor. The scream was still echoing, but somehow, he knew the something had stopped. The silence... Around the scream, somehow, was heavier. And then, he saw it.

It was above Jim. A great thing of skin and teeth. A bald, naked head, tall as a standing man, at the hand of a gigantic neck. Its eyes were two white, sightless orbs. Its flesh was almost visible through its grey, scroll like skin. And its maw... No word could describe the gaping, terrible thing that it used as a mouth. A black holes that did not simply swallow light, but consumed and erase it entirely. It was barred with pointed teeth that looked like those of a deep sea fish, dripping with blood from the wound it had inflincted on Jim, as the necromancer was trying to keep it at bay with a dagger that looked ridiculous in comparaison.

A false hydra, seeking to consume Jim.

Serioth jumped to action, animated by old reflexes. He knew he could not let that thing sing. The mage raised his arms, and a great spear of ice flew down the hall, catching the beast in the neck. There, it exploded in a sphere of water that gargled the song the hydra tried to let out once again. The head retracted, but Serioth did not give it any chance. He closed his fist, and a ball of fire struck the things head, exploding. The beast screamed as the smell of burned flesh invaded the tower. Finally, the scream was cut short, as a disk of ice flew through its neck, slicing it clean. The head fell, shriveling up under the heat of the flame, and Serioth finally allowed himself to bend the knee and try to catch his breath. Not for long, though.

He rushed towards Jim, who was lying on the ground, and winced. His leg looked horrible. Blood completely covered it, and the fact that it was still attached surprised the battlemage.

"Jim! Are you okay?"

Jim smiled, clenching his teeth.

"Yep! Just peachy!""

"Not the time. Stay still, I'll heal you."

The mage put his hands on the wound, and a green light started glowing from it as it closed.

"What... What was that..?"

"A false hydra. Worry about it later, right now, you'll need rest. Healing spells take energy from your body-"

"I know how healing spells work," said Jim, already sounding sleepy.

"Alright, alright. Don't move I'll get you to bed."

He took the necromancer into a princess carry, and stood up. There, he froze.

The neck of the false hydra was slowly retreating, like a wound tentacle. It stretched on and on, into the forest below, and out of sight.

[humm-bird]

So! I'm taking it upon myself to summarize everything that happened to me before Watts showed up.

There's likely a lot of history that I am missing, likely with Gavamont, Ratazom, and Evilwizard, but this is just what I know. Forgive me if I mess up any details.

Before I joined the Council

When I first showed up, I got into a ruckus with the Council. Basically, they were (and still are) enforcing their laws and shit on a place where the gods had repeatedly told them to fuck off. That place is my home dimension.

This incident was specifically about taxes. I got into an—honestly very unfair, given that it took place in my home dimension and practically everyone there wanted the Council to fuck off—court case against the Council's only tax wizard at the time, @greywizard-reporter-jim.

The Council lost, and the god of justice (who really should take it's job more seriously, but I digress) teleported an adult thermonuclear moth into the City of Towers.

Unfortunately, I was stupid and told the Council that the moth was close to detonation and they promptly handled it.

I got Jim fired (sorry bout that) and started hanging out with him. Pretty cool guy, not gonna lie.

We did various things to fuck with the Council, including causing havoc at the... uhhh... I think it's called the Vault of Relics? Something like that. Anyways, all you need to know is that it's where the Council keeps their super powerful magic items. Side note, that was my first test of my Mithril Hydra!

Anyhow, while the bureaucratic fucks were distracted, Jim stole a bunch of documents from their archive.

We kept trying to fuck them over until I realized that I couldn't just defeat them. That's when I made my deal to join them to try to make change via policy rather than force.

Also, pretty soon after Jim started doing crime, his ex, @battlemageserioth, came after him. The story of how they got together is long and complicated, but basically Jim seduced Serioth to get a position on the Council. They were actually kind of in love but they were both complete messes at the time so it didn't really work out.

Working for the Council

I quickly became better acquainted with Serioth, and had a... friendly rivalry, I guess, with him. Basically, he was very devoted to the Council and didn't understand that it was pretty shitty.

He was tracking down Jim, but Jim learned how to combine tax magic an necromancy. Those skeleton mafia debt collectors are quite formidable.

Around this time, @djitch wanted to be a cook for the Council. I put in a good word with her, and she's currently working at a restaurant in the City of Towers that I cannot remember the name of.

Next big event!

The age of gretchen (aka everyone panics about a monster that ended up as a friendly eldrich horror)

Okay. So. @gr3tchn. You might know her from fucking with M.M. recently. She is basically the concept of hunger given physical form.

When she first appeared, I was one of the first people to respond. Uh, actually, before that, some context.

On Raazaa, attacks by monsters are very common. The big ones are by far the most dangerous. Well, except for the mermites. Those things will fuck you up. Anyhow, as a consequence of the preferred method of deterring giant monsters, my first response to seeing one is generally "hit it until it goes away."

I blasted a giant hole in Gretchen (sorry bout that) and she just turned into another mouth. By the by, she could barely talk at the time. The blast also sent a bunch of chunks flying everywhere.

Let's make this quick. Various pieces of Gretchen messed up a lot of stuff and met a lotta people. For example, @effervescent-and-frothy used to be a wizard but is currently Gretchen's... daughter?

@feyosha figured out that Gretchen changes based on context. For example, the bit that mothered Effer became very motherly, the one that visited @wizard-council-librarian became very studious, you get the gist.

By this point, Gretchen was fully sentient and I was just being stupid and rude by trying to fight her.

FeyOSHA "defeated" her by having sex with the giant eldritch horror. Not my kind of thing, but I don't judge.

...

Let's see... the next big event was...

Oh. That motherfucker.

Werill.

Serioth started having weird memory lapses. Nobody knew what was up until he wrote down that it was some sort of bug. He also was suspecting something up with Werill and a certain spot in the Board's chambers.

First, some background on Werill. He's a power-hungry shithead who was on the Board of Archmages, proposed a bunch of greedy bullshit, you get the gist.

Serioth went down a secret passage in the Board's chambers and found a massive underground... cathedral? I don't know. Anyways, Werill was in there, along with a LOT of memetovores. For those who don't know, a memetovore is a weird bug that eats memories.

Werill monolouged for a while before he sicced the little fuckers on Serioth and my guy barely escaped.

I heard all the commotion and went down to investigate. Werill was kinda kicking my ass too but I summoned my mithril hydra and that pretty effectively squashed the memory-eating bastards.

I managed to capture Werill, but I couldn't hope to kill all of the bugs and they had access to the underground portal room so they quickly fucked off to a buncha parts of this multiverse.

Now, cut to Serioth real quick. He and Jim are (I think, I could be wrong) still yearning for each other and Serioth's nearly memoryless subconscious lead him to Jim's old tower.

Something you need to understand is that Serioth was a revenant, clinging onto life via his duty to the Council. Now that the Council has betrayed him, he's fading away.

Anyhow, Jim turned him into a lich so that Serioth could live.

As for Werill, he's got a fucking false hydra in the ruins of the Council portal room, and we need to deal with soon.

[ratazom]

Hi Ratazom, this is Jim. I really need your help. Serioth placed a glyph of localization on me. Could you get rid of it please? I have gold to pay you.

Ling and lang and blood and bone

Regional jokes for anglophone

Context change and lock in place

Follow carefully at a pace

Serioth can huff my balls

Break friend Jim's imposèd walls!

[gavamont]

Give ���em a shout, they’re usually an alright bunch.

@gavamont, now that I've learnt magic, do you think the wizard council would grant a dragon a license?

[greywizard-reporter-jim]

Lichdom

Jim's Journal

Necromancy, in its broadest definition, is the use of magic to control entropy, but also what once was. Skeletons, for example, can't move by themselves, but they represent the idea of a body that once could. Of course, death is a big part of this. It is the frontier between what is and what isn't, and clever uses of this frontier make a huge part of most necromancy spells. It is, however, interesting to note that actual death is not a necessity. Wraiths, for example, can be summoned even without the death of the original creature. If the creature in question went through enough of a change, its previous state has "died", and thus, can be summoned. Some people can even be haunted by themselves, as the wraith believes that a doppleganger has invaded their home.

Liches function on a similar principle. At first glance, Lichdom might seem like an outlier. A ritual of Lichdom is cast to preserve a body, not destroy or raise it. However, this is ignoring the fact that the ritual demands the death of the subject. The simpler (but not easiest) way to achieve this is to just that. The future lich kills themself, usually using poison, and raises their own body under their control. This, however, requires tremendous quantities of mana. A post mortem spell is extremely difficult to cast, to fail such a spell means actual death.

One way to circumvent this is to have someone complete the ritual for you. This option, however, also has its caveats. First, you need someone you trust completely, of course. The person can do anything to the would-be lich, including raising them in their service. Second, it is a huge strain on the person completing the ritual. Messing with death is no trivial matter, and if they aren't careful, the ritual can rend their very soul apart. Even if they are, the spell has consequences on the body, sometimes permanent ones, and can hinder the caster's ability to use magic.

Finally, the third option is to kill a part of oneself. The killing part is as not difficult as it sounds, and does not have to be a moral sacrifice. Parts of a person die all the time, mainly when we take decisions. The part of ourself that vouched for the other option dies, if we are certain enough, and that is enough for the ritual. However, the hard part is knowing exactly when it dies, and casting the ritual at this exact moment. Usually, it is easier when one is confronted with a moral conendrum, as they are ready to cast the ritual.

This is the option I will take.

First, because I cannot ask anyone to risk themselves to get me to Lichdom. There are people I would trust with my life, but the risk for them is to great. Second, I do have a moral conendrum to solve.

Do I want to be a lich?

Despite what I said to Serioth, I'm still unsure. The Council's members are a permanent danger to me and my loved ones, and I don't want to live on fear of the day they'll catch up, but immortality is often a curse. A painful one. I don't know if I'll ever be ready to see the world wither around me as I remain.

So the plan is simple. I'll go to @ratazom 's tower (thank you for proposing your help, by the way), and use one of the artifacts I stole. Jaress the Pink's Orb will allow me to "store" the ritual. Once my decision is taken, I'll use it, and become a lich.

Or I won't.

[battlemageserioth]

Tracking down Ex Wizard Council Member Jim, day 3.

The recent actions and events related to Tax Wizard Jim have led the Council to reclassify Jim as a threat. I, Battlemage Serioth, have decided that it was my responsability to track him down, as I was the one to introduce him to the Council.

I have located the fugitive, thanks to the help of Divination Expert Advilis. I make note of the fact that Council Member @hummbirb refused to help in catching an ennemy of the Council.

The current plan is to intercept the fugitive before he arrives at Gavamont's tower, as intel suggests that he wishes to seek refuge there. I have a dome of anti teleportation ready. Direct confrontation should make short work of Jim, and once he is dealt with, I'll bring him back to the City of Towers, so that he may be judged.

It might be unproffessional to do so, but I admit that the idea of finally seing Jim pay for his crimes against the Council is satisfying to me.