Adamant Blood

Mark had imagined that the Necromancer Understanding Party would have been like that Bittercap Mausoleum; dark, massive, and full of undead. But this place was right down the road, and this was the Winter Ball, so the party place was more like a rec center gathering than anything else. This particular ‘rec center’ was one of many buildings around Domal’Takela that had once served as planning areas for dragon-feeding and dragon-sized get-togethers, for the human parts of the empire. So it was big. But it had been refurbished for modern day human-only usage, so it was quite nice. Not undead-y at all. Or at least not as bad as Mark had expected. There were still undead here and there, but they were hidden, and Mark was rather certain that many of them were familiars, rather than real undead.

Little bats hanging on sills, bright red eyes scanning the world.

A ghostly woman, misting on the edge of the ground, peeking up from the grasses.

A shadow filled with teeth, blending into a corner of the wall over there.

Small things.

But the lights were bright, music was in the air, and… it was weird music. Mark watched as a bunny startled in the grasses and then raced away from the building, terrified of everything happening in that direction. Some sort of vector in the music brushed against him and then moved on, and Mark recognized the music as a ‘stay away’ ward. Rekaro and the arcanaeum at the settlement had gotten extremely proficient at making those, and Mark got even better at spotting them—

The front doors were open, and a pale, thin man stood beside them, bowing. He was not human. He wore a thin, diaphanous cloth that might have been mist or his own skin. He also had golden manacles on his wrists and feet, and low-slung batwings hanging off of his back, like black shadows.

He had no vector.

Mark and Addavein walked past the bowing guy, who was absolutely some sort of summoned undead. When Mark glanced behind himself, the guy was gone.

Overall, the inside of the main room was shaped like a symposium; a stage, chairs facing the stage, and tables around the edges. Some people were serving food, and other people were eating. Except for their positions in the grouping, it was hard to tell the necromancers from the rest. They all wore all sorts of normal clothes, but a few of them wore black and grey robes like the ones Tombsigh had showed up wearing to the Green House, with his fellows, about 2 hours ago. Black and grey robes hung on hooks on the walls, but were also folded over chairs here and there.

Overall, everyone here seemed joyous in small ways, but pretty much every single one was holding back, like a dam waiting to flood the world. Some of them wanted to talk about Big Things. Others wanted to let loose in a way that Mark kinda felt was more like… letting out a fart? Maybe? It was a weird sensation to be Unionsensing—

“No black and gold, hmm?” Addavein asked the air, looking ahead as he walked alongside Mark.

“Don’t see any? So no archmages. Are there a few in the Empire?”

“Of course.”

And then Tombsigh and some other guy were walking their way. The second guy had a whole row of quite nasty stitches trailing up and down his face, like someone had sewn his entire head back together. One eye was blue and the other was red, which was strange as heck. Other than that, he looked like a normal guy, and he looked happy to see Mark.

Addavein looked at the guy, and he knew him.

The stitched-guy knew Addavein, as well.

Mark couldn’t tell how they felt about each other, though; maybe it was some sort of animosity? Or professionalism?

Tombsigh happily said, “Greetings again, Mister Careed! We’re all very excited to work on this project.” And then he introduced the stitched-face guy. “This is Stitcher.”

Codenames, then, Mark thought. ‘Tombsigh’ probably wasn’t called ‘Tombsigh’ to his family, so of course there was a degree of distance between life and work. Mark was called ‘Blackvein’ in battle, after all, so it was understandable.

Mark said, “Nice to meet you, Stitcher.”

Tombsigh said, “Stitcher is one of our best Necromancers and Skillers, so he came out of his usual hidey hole to visit us here tonight. He’ll be leading the main discussion on turning people into books of life without actually harming them, or their soul, or anything else.”

Mark’s eyebrows went up—

“It’s all theory, for now,” Sitcher said, voice deep and craggy. “We can get 95% of the way there with current understandings, but actually doing what you’re requesting us to do is something that is beyond us, because we’ve always been missing that last part— Or at least some of us are missing that part. If you would have gotten Capture then you’d have that part inside of you, even without the soulhouse. I am referring to the portion of your soul which will house the dormant other-person, of course. The personal demiplane. The only real question is if you want to focus on that, or to develop a broader, deeper base, first, and how fast this Understanding can actually happen, and if it will stick around without the deeper, broader base to serve as a foundation.”

Mark nodded. Understanding magic was great in the moment, but unless you actually knew what you were doing then when the magic finished, you’d end up with some miracle magic or artifact in front of you with no idea how it worked at all. Mark said, “I need to understand how it works, at its base, so we’ll start in that way then proceed toward that goal of a book of life. If it takes a while it takes a while, though I hope it won’t take too long. I expect it to take multiple Parties, and I also expect to be called away to war… soon.”

Tombsigh and Stitcher took that last part very seriously.

Tombsigh said, “Then I’ll make the first speech, and we’ll go from there— Ah.”

A small vector flickered in another room, and then Walaria opened a door into the main room. She was looking fine in a slick black witch’s dress, with a pointed black hat over her bright red hair. Silver chains adorned her chest, shoulders, and waist, and each chain had a different holy symbol on it. Mark recognized the Witch’s Star, the Eternal Ankh, the Cross, and the Candle, and of course all of the Pantheon’s symbols, but a few of them escaped him. The holy symbols dangled, jingling as she walked toward Mark. She even had one of Mark’s diamond-like Extended Protect spheres hanging off of a silver-chain belt. That sphere was joined by a crystal skull, and a bright silver star. It was a uniform, for sure, and her belt seemed to hold most of the power of that uniform.

Mark was on edge the instant he understood that.

Everyone else in the room was on edge, too, but they bowed. Tombsigh and Stitcher bowed and backed away from Mark.

Mark and Addavein did not bow at all. Addavein worried a little, and Mark did, too. Why was she wearing what had to be some sort of witch’s battle armor?

A question spilled out of Mark before he could even think about it, asking, “Is something happening?”

Walaria easily said, “This Understanding Party is happening, but I need to change something about it. I understand you gathered the full Transcendent Series of Skills. This is unexpected, and a boon. So I need you to do some Skiller learning and then I need you to put those Skills into one of our new potential archmages. Perhaps he doesn’t need to be an archmage if you can pull off such a Skilling, and that would be most beneficial to Aluatha.

“In addition, I need you to figure out how to rip out the Binding in a person without killing them, so you can put three other Bindings into them. You will start with an undead creation, first. Mindless. Go in and out a few times with your undead, ripping them apart and putting them back together, and when you’re confident you can do it to a person, then we’re going to do that, if you agree.” Walaria asked, “Do you agree?”

Mark thought for a moment. There was probably a natural progression from Necromancy to soulwork to Skilling to making books of life. So he said, “Sounds like a natural progression of needs, to me, unless I am completely mistaken?”

Walaria said, “Sort of a detour, but a necessary one. I imagine the Skills Necromancer and Curse Monger, together, would accomplish the leader’s share of the lifting. Can you use both of them at the same time?”

Everyone in the room was very, very interested in everything happening right now.

“Not without… I mean. Yes. But also no.”

Walaria eyed Mark a little. “No?”

Mark definitively said, “I’m not rebuilding my house for temporary gains, and I think that’s how I would have to do it… though I could try making another floor for the house… No. I don’t think it works that way.”

Walaria wasn’t convinced.

Mark said, “System Call, Help: Can I make a second loadout with different Powers? Display answer.”