A Piece of Purpose
Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2023 1:02 pm
8th Day of Frost, 123rd Year of the Age of Steel
Most of the laboratory at the Creth Compound was bustling with activity, surprisingly. All of the Bonecasters were in attendance. Two pairs worked on different projects at once. The two youngest bent over a surgery table in the fat side, carving and stitching some thrall. Another pair were infusing ichor and storing it in larger batches, no doubt for some big project on the horizon. And Arthur was beating away at some project in the Runeforging side of the lab.
Masagh made his way to the quiet corner where he had set up his own small project a few days before. He had left Indira to read contentedly in the library down the hall. This would be a dull process, and it was only half of it. Masagh stopped at the circle he had drawn onto the stone tiled floor. The chalk runes were a knotwork of paths and vortexes leading to interspersed glyphs of soul control and aether power. Within the circle was a bone bowl he had painstakingly carved out of some animal pelvis and inscribed with the same runes at Arthur’s insistence that Masagh suddenly create his own set of tools.
The impassive Bonecaster had made and presented him with a Featherlight bag as well. It was not a gift, Arthur taking the funds for the bag’s creation out of Masagh’s account with the House. That did not explain away why the big mage had taken it upon himself to build a thing that required so much investment. Did each Bonecaster receive one in time, and he had simply spent enough time here to justify it? Or did Arthur have some other reason for gifting his time and talent on the bag.
The thing was a treasure. Masagh had reached in and felt around, realizing the space within had been enchanted to encompass far more than the actual bag’s interior. Taking his new auraglass to it he had found the thing exuded an aura of Traversion. Did that mean the item used a portal of some kind to replace the interior of the bag with some other place? Masagh would need to ask the Bonecaster.
Masagh bent and peered into the bowl within the circle. The Aetherite Dragonshard he had played in there was a small one, but didn’t need to be particularly large. It gleamed now with a white glow and a single trail of mist rose and swirled from it. His fresh ichor now completely absorbd.
Well that was steps one through four done in the tedious process. Masagh was finally getting around to building a batch of soul totems for this season. Before he had learned the art of necromancy by assisting others with their work. Now he was at the point where the lessons in that were few and far between. Not to mention, he had no other tasks to occupy him besides his studies in the lab. Masagh suspected this may have been a peripheral goal of Emerande’s when she expelled him from the Knights.
Well, then he would have to attack that goal with a fervor of his own. His opinion of the world magics had drastically changed during his period of tutelage with Arthur. There was only so much he could do towards his purpose with a sword, it was time to truly learn how to create.
Masagh stepped into the circle of runes. He reached down and lifted the faintly glowing gem from the bowl. Most necromancers would need to ingest such a thing, muscling it down the throat. Being a ghoul, Masagh had a slightly more grisly way of doing it. Although it cut back on the dangers of not being able to remove it from the body after it was prepared.
He summoned his Ghoulblade. The two handed sword flipped slowing through the air before him. He guided it in and the tip slashed lightly across his abdomen where he neared his naked torso. The thin line began to ooze ichor, but Masagh tucked the gem within the wound, grimacing at the dull pain of it. He could feel the thing leeching a tugging trickle of his aether within.
He sat down, curling around the wound and letting the blade disappear again. As the wound began to heal itself, Masagh focused on his next task. He must infuse a fragment of his soul into the crystal now. What was a soul though? Did he simply sit in silence and let the gem steal what it would from him until he felt the process finish?
No. The creation was supposed to be about exerting one’s will. That needed to start at the creation process.
Instead he pictured the gem as a room, a space of glass dimensions. A void that needed to become home. As he let out a slow breathing sigh, Masagh relaxed and pictured himself standing in that room. This soul totem would become an instrument of his designs. In that vein he would fill it with a portion of his soul that was focused on those designs.
He pictured the many tales his mother had told him of the Undead Empire. Their people safe and comfortable in their own homes. A society of belonging. He heard her voice telling him of the wonders the now ancient and almost forgotten bastion had brought to the world. He pictured the oath he had sworn in front of his family, in front of Cynfael. He poured it all into the crystal, hoping to give it strength with his willpower.
He pictured the many lives that had gone into their shared dream of building a new empire for the Graveborn. Cynfael stood unyielding in the sunlight, battling Vitalitasi on all sides. His face stood out in perfect detail even as the sun burned it away. Calliope was again ripped apart by the shadow creatures that had plagued the world. Cleon, strong Cleon, there one moment and gone another. Vasile gone as well. Faces and names flashed past, and Masagh felt the weight of his years on his shoulders.
He poured it all into the crystal, filling it with that which simultaneously tested and tempered his resolve. Then his mind went to his mother’s anger. The movements of her lips as she said the words that had stripped him of his duty to the knights. She may have removed him from his obligation to her, but he found his duty to his people remained. It was the hard center of his being. He was a swords man, but if you took that away he was still him. He was a Creth, but take away him name and he was still him. He could even take his face away through magic, but he was still himself. If robbed of that duty to his people, Masagh could not find himself in the scraps that were left.
So he put that into the crystal. And now he knew that it would be enough.
Masagh blinked as he felt a faint sense of nausea. As a second wave hit him the room around came more into relief. He could make out the forms of Arthur and Indira having in front of him. Another wave hit and he blinked away the obscurity from his vision. When had he fallen into such a deep daze.
“-think it is about ready.” Arthur was saying.
“He’s been sitting there for nearly twenty hours…” That was Indira’s slightly worried voice.
Masagh coughed and pulled the dagger from his belt. He heard Indira gasp as he cut open his abdomen along the same line as he had done before. He ground his teeth together and pushed his fingers inside until they touched the hard surface of the soul totem. Pain radiated from the wound, but it was a familiar pain. After more than a century of flesh wounds and fighting through them, the tearing of his body had become intimate in a way it was not for the redveins. He knew what imminent death felt like and when he needed treatment. This pain was so strong not because it was deadly, but because he needed to relax enough to retrieve the totem.
Pulling it free with a bit of mess, Masagh curled around the wound again. He set his forehead to the stone tile and groaned.
“Are you okay?” Indira asked, concern in her voice.
Masagh only grunted.
“He will be fine.” Arthur said flatly. “We regenerate if the wound isn’t in a vital area.”
Indira huffed. “The stomach isn’t vital?”
“No, wounds to the stomach take about twenty minutes to kill someone, highly inefficient.” Masagh growled. “Not a killing blow for a ghoul, especially such a shallow one.” He turned to indicate his already mending stomach gash.
Masagh held up the Soul Totem before him. It swirled with glowing pale mist and emanated a sort of pulsing warmth in his fingers. A bit of his soul, fractured and broken apart, set to a certain purpose. It was much like he, one Creth set apart to a certain purpose. He looked up at the both of them.
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