81st Day of Ash, 122nd Year of the Age of Steel
Cyran took the bowl of ichor freshly made and ‘stabilized’ from Masagh when it was a uniform consistency. Emerande watched as the High Arcanist placed the arm in a jar covered in swirling runes etched into stone. He carefully poured the ichor over the arm, directing it towards the open wound of the limb. Both he and Emerande were holding their soul totems in their free hands and directing aether into the working with them.
Masagh watched as the runes on the jar began to glow with the same eerie grayness as the ichor had. Arthur was still standing at the edge of the circle, large and imposing. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be actively focusing on the working of the ritual circle. With every outward breath a pulse of lamination went through both his soul totem and the runes of the circle.
“It’s important to give it enough power, because this isn’t just some zombie carcass we want to be suitably efficient.” Cyran began as they brought the jar over to the circle. “We want to imbue this arm with the endless potential of what you, a ghoul of the elder bloodline, could ever ask of it. Such a working is not trivial.” He turned and smiled reassuringly at Masagh. “Not trivial, but not out of our depth either, don’t worry.”
After they had placed the jar into the circle, its runes too began to pulse with Arthur’s breaths. A link between two of the pieces of magic. The tethering was beginning. Masagh stood and stepped closer, observing the necrotic working. The runes on the circle were the familiar Nio Uvverece but the runes on the jar were a different script he did not know. “Why are the runes different on the arm jar?”
“Ah, all my containers scribed in Nio Uvverece are in use right now. No matter, the differing script doesn’t influence the ritual at all, it bears the same intent.” Cyran waved it off. He and Emerande walked to a shelf of stone jars of different shapes. Each took one of the squat jars carefully in both hands and returned to his side. “This is Marrow Gum, a vital proponent of the ritual to come. We will use it to graft the bone of the new arm to your own, essentially.” Cyran explained, pulling the lid from the stone jar and showing him the material within, soaking in ichor.
“Does it have to be in the ichor?” Masagh asked.
“Yes, for storage. And the jar has script of preservation and strength.” Emerande said, indicating her jar.
Cyran directed Masagh to stand in the ritual circle. “You can step with here now, Lady Creth and I will apply the marrow gum to both bones and then I will conduct the binding before we move on to the flesh.” Masagh stepped into the circle and the swirling, pulsing vapor rose around him. He felt the latent aether of the circle, like a static energy, all around him.
“How does it work?” Masagh asked, holding up the stump of his arm. Cyran grabbed the bicep gently and applied some of the marrow gum with his fingers. Masagh watched the master work with a vague sense of unease. He had come to terms with the loss of the hand as much as he could in the day or so since it had happened. But it was an entirely different challenge to stare into your own gaping arm wound and watch someone touch the bone there. He turned away and breathed deeply.
“Don’t worry.” Emerande murmured from where she held her necklace of three soul totems in her hand. She was watching his face with a neutral expression. As he met her eyes she stepped into the edge of the circle and the runes pulsed a brilliant grey. Instantly Masagh felt rivulets of energy tricking up his calves and shins. She had brought so much power to the casting just by adding her soul totem.
Masagh began to get an inkling of why Emerande had been sent to tame this continent for the Undead Empire, and why when all her vast resources had been torn from her, she remained standing. His mother was a mage of prestigious power.
“We apply the marrow gum to the bones, set them, then I invoke a binding using a bit of the latent aether in the circle.” Cyran said. His conversational tone and academic focus on the proceedings did much to calm Masagh’s nerves. It helped that he could separate the instance of himself receiving a new arm through an unknown necrotic ritual from the much less intimidating lesson being taught by an elder sibling. He had been through so many of those…
When Cyran was happy with the marrow gum on his arm he turned and repeated the process of the now ichor soaked arm in the jar. The High Arcanist pulled the arm from the jar. It now glistened with the pulsing grey ichor and vapor swirled in intricate patterns above the limb. Cyran moved it about a bit and then turned to Masagh.
“Hold yours down at your side naturally, please.” He asked kindly. Masagh obliged him and felt the arm placed against his own. “See unlike rune magic, we use the latent aether in the world to work. Moving it to the ichor and thus into the corpse, then with runes we give it purpose, task, and restriction. It is like how the aether is put into the blades you forge with Arthur, though we use ichor.”
Cyran gripped his hand around the point where Masagh’s stump connected with the limb. Aether swirled, increasing the pace of the static sensations caressing his legs. They began to rise higher, trailing up his body and across his chest. The energy raced over his body and coalesced around the wound. In the wound. In the bone. He felt a dull heat begin to ignite deep in the wound. Masagh wondered vaguely if it would become unbearable. He opened his mouth to ask Cyran how much hotter it would get.
Before he could speak the heat dissipated and Cyran turned to the second jar. “Right, that done. Lady Emerande, if you please with the Sinew thread?” He kept his hand around the wound and looked to Emerande expectantly.
Lady Emerande opened the second stone jar. Within was a pinkish thread, bundled neatly in spools and also soaking in the grey ichor. The rim of the jaw pulsed with the same grey runes. She carefully extracted one spool and pulled from her belt a long curved needle.
“And this is for the skin.” Masagh said.
“Correct. Sinew thread is made from the sinew of living beings. We use human mostly but orc is also very tough. I once made a magnificent flesh golem with orc that was able to withstand quite the beating back in the day.” Cyran mused with a fond nostalgic smile, his explanation derailing. “What was I saying? Ah yes the sinew thread, we will use this to seal up the skin and do a similar binding, then all that is left is the final binding. It is best to do it in there three staged you see.”
“Cadrilion’s genius was in her fracturing of the ritual into the three specific stages.” Emerande said and she motioned Cyran to move his grip. He held the arm in place by the wrist and she began to guid the curved needle through the flesh, sewing it in place. “By tasking the aether separately, it divides the tasking of the graft and allows for a more proper rationing of ichor and aether to each of the tasks.” The needle burned where it punctured his arm and pain shot up his arm as it tugged the sinew thread through. But he could also feel that familiar necrotic heat as the sinew thread wove. Tendrils of sensation shot down the arm.
Masagh got the odd sense of the static crawling coursing down the attached limb briefly, as though it was his. Emerande continued her lecture as she worked. “Before Cadrilion such workings were done quicker and with less refinement, but they took longer to heal and the limb would sometimes have less mobility. It was a great boon in the Empire when it was discovered, and our house has kept a copy ever since. My mother transcribed this copy herself.” Emerande paused in her work to indicate the book sitting on the table.
“Yes, it’s quite helpful for a whole myriad of necromantic workings, really.” Cyran said. “I will have to show you some of the more exciting ones once your arm heals a bit.” He watched Emerande work and clasped his hands together. Masagh found himself smirking. He had never known Cyran to be so excited, save for in the laboratory. The man was a true prodigy amongst the necromancers and world mages, but he was really an academic. He lead the Bonecasters as if they were a scholastic order and focused his attention on their tasks because they were interesting. Nothing was really framed around the overarching goal of the house.
Masagh had always found him endearing, though. Any conversation with Cyran was sure to lift the weight of the blanket of paranoia that covered the house on most days.
“I’d like that.” Masagh said, watching Emerande finished the stitchwork. She placed her hand over the wound now and Cyran took the spool of sinew thread from her. Immediately Masagh felt a torrent of static coursing over his body from the ground. He felt it dancing across the soles of his feet and jumping between his teeth. She commanded the aether as though it were her own. It raced its way to the wound.
“Yes, golems in particular.” Cyran continued, unaware of the intensity of Emerande’s working and its effect on Masagh. “We don’t use them as much now, because they aren’t exactly subtle. This technique does allow for quite a bit of subtlety and nuance in the animation of a thrall however. In particular to impart dexterous skill almost requires Cadrilion’s three part-“
“Cyran. The final binding?” Emerande urged her son gently. He glanced over and saw she had finished the flesh binding.
“Ah, right you are Lady Emerande.”
For the final binding Cyran added his command of the aether in the circle to Lady Emerande’s and Masagh felt more uncomfortable than he had before. The runes glowed and the aether coursed across his skin once more. Eventually the feeling diminished and the runes faded. Emerande and Cyran both let go of his arm as the circle dimmed. The magic had been cast and the aether released or used.
Masagh lifted the arm, a slightly different shade than his normal pale grey. The line of sinew thread stitching was fine and expertly done. On either side of the thin circle of stitching that had attached the limb there was a thin circle of runes in Nio Uvverece. The remnants of the binding that his mother and brother had conducted.
The three necromancers stepped back and Emerande indicated he should try to use the arm. Masagh told the hand to make a fist with his mind. The fingers, still unfamiliar to his eyes, sluggishly curled. Everyone smiled and Emerande clapped once.
“You see, ah, the one part method would have required three days of recovery before even that motion was possible. I would reserve motion to grasping and releasing gently for the first day or so and we can work on more complex exercised after the graft becomes more comfortable.” Cyran rattled on, smiling down at their work like a father would at a child that had just performed a simple trick.
“Not such a waste of time now, eh?” Arthur said, smirking and gathering up the materials from the circle. “Necromancy.” He added at Masagh’s blank look.
“Oh yes, not a waste of time at all.” Masagh admitted, admiring his new limb.
