Chapter 61 – A Necromancer Teaches an Arsonist

  Palmira returned to the guildhall in a daze, stumbling in alongside a couple of her older coworkers. While the festival was still technically in full swing not everyone was willing or able to party all night long, and so when ósma and Charles begged off the rest of the night she’d followed them back.

  The old orc himself looked as exhausted as she felt, rubbing a massive hand across his face in a way that elongated his already deep frown. He stumbled over to the bar alongside Charles, the two of them looking like they were half ready to fall onto the counter, to the amused glower of Bettina.

  Palmira herself didn’t join them, instead retreating to her room. She had a lot to think about, and she didn’t really want to be around anyone else while she did so.

  As she arrived in her room she barely took a moment to throw off her robe before she fell back onto her bed, drained.

  It had been a long night. Several long nights, in fact.

  She raised a hand absently, letting flames flicker across her fingers. Shadows danced across the ceiling, and for a while she distracted herself with a little shadow puppet show, forming shapes in the dim light as all thought slowly drained from her mind.

  ‘Query,’ Malocchio’s voice was stronger than before, the newly refurbished mace watching her with a strange look in its eye. ‘Our Lady has been watching her hand for a long time. Is there an issue?’

  There were many, and that was the real crux of the situation, wasn’t it? So many problems, and so little solutions.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she sighed at last, snapping her hand shut. The fire was snuffed out in an instant, not even smoke remaining. “David, Sinbad, Rosalina… it feels like every week some new problem shows up and it’s all I can do just to not die.”

  “…Well,” Morte hedged, speaking up for the first time since she’d returned. Though he didn’t sound half as confident as normal. “I don’t know how to deal with Sinbad’s problems. But when it comes to Rosalina, I may have an idea.”

  Palmira jerked up so fast she nearly gave herself whiplash. “What!?” her eyes snapped to his skull incredulously. “You do? Why didn’t you say so earlier!?”

  “Because it is not the kind of thing I’d suggest lightly. Even now, I’m worried what your reaction might be. Are you sure you want me to tell you?”

  She opened her mouth to agree, before she paused. Because if Morte was reluctant to tell her, there was probably a good reason.

  Still…

  “It doesn’t matter what I want,” she shook her head firmly, “There’s more at stake here than my personal feelings. If you know a way we can stop Rosalina, then the least you can do is tell me what it is. We can decide where to go from there after.”

  “That’s a remarkably mature viewpoint. You must have learned it from me, surely,” he huffed out a laugh. “If that’s how you feel, then I think it’s high time I teach you about Necromancy.”

  That… well, it wasn’t what she’d expected him to come up with, but at the same time it wasn’t all that surprising now was it?

  “…Oh,” was all she found herself able to say. Wetting her lips, she asked, “I thought you said I didn’t have the disposition to be a necromancer?”

  “You don’t! But do you remember what I told you when I first brought the study up? There’s a difference between knowing how to do something and knowing how to do it. I’m not going to teach you necromancy so you know how to raise corpses from the dead—I’m teaching you necromancy so you can put them back in the ground.”

  That… okay. Okay. That was much less worrying than where she first thought this was going.

  “But wouldn’t Holy magic work just as well for that?”

  “Eh, normally I’d say yes. But there are two issues with that. Firstly, as I told you before, you also lack the disposition for Divine magic—you simply don’t have enough faith in any deity to call down a miracle. You’d have better luck just burning the zombies than trying to pray them to death.”

  She wanted to feel offended by that, but the worst she could muster up was a huff.

  ‘Query. Would not simply burning the undead be enough to destroy them?’

  “Again, normally yes, but we aren’t fighting your garden variety necromancer here. Rosalina’s a fire mage who’s leaps and bounds stronger than Palmira; fire isn’t going to do us much good here. Which leads into my second issue: Rosalina is already a master of Holy magic, to a level you’ll never be able to compete in. And yet she is still raising corpses like it’s the Goddess’ own mandate. Therefore, I’m doubtful Holy spells will even do anything against her zombies. That’s why I think we need to go about this through Necromancy. Rather than try and destroy them, we’ll instead sneak in the back door and shut them down from the inside.”

  That all sounded well and good, but there was one thing that seemed off to her about that idea.

  “But she’s teamed up with the Lich-King himself. If I can’t out-Holy Rosalina, how would I out-necromancy him?”

  “Who says you’ll need to outperform him?”

  “What?”

  “Think about it. Think back to the other living weapons you’ve met, me and Vita. What’s one thing in common between the two of us?”

  Palmira frowned, considering. Well, they both contained a soul, both had boney parts, both were a type of magic weapon… wait…

  “You can’t use magic,” she realized. “And Vita, can she not use magic either?”

  “She can use a little bit, but that’s more down to her age and connection to the Goddess. She cheats, is what I’m saying. But you are correct—a core part of us living weapons is that we are imprisoned souls. Magic is an impression of the soul, and so anything we do is as trapped as we are. And because of that, I very much doubt it’s Aethric raising those corpses.”

  ”You think he taught her necromancy,” she realized, eyes widening. “Like you want to do with me. And she only had a couple zombies with her… do you think she’s only recently learned how to raise the dead?”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “Exactly! This isn’t a field she’s already mastered—I doubt she’s barely more advanced than you. And if you can out-pace her—or at the very least overpower her in this one specific area—then that can give you a fighting chance whenever you two meet again!” Then Morte coughed, settling a bit. “Though that’s a long way off. First, now that you’ve heard my pitch, are you willing to learn necromancy from me?”

  Right, right. She’d gotten so excited at the thought of that woman having a weakness that she almost forgot what exactly it would entail her learning.

  Necromancy was a sin. It was defiling another’s flesh for personal gain, one of the greatest taboos of the Goddess. It was, plainly put, evil.

  But she wouldn’t be raising the dead. She’d be laying them to rest, if in an unorthodox manner.

  That was still a risk, though. Would the church see it that way? Would the Goddess herself accept that reasoning? Was she really willing to risk her immortal soul over this?

  …Though from what she’d learned of the Goddess recently, how much of a risk truly was it?

  “Ugh,” she huffed, rubbing her eyes. Glancing down at her other weapon, she asked, “What about you, Malocchio? What do you think I should do? Do you think it’s worth it?”

  The mace blinked one of its eyes at her. ‘Confusion. There seems to be little risk. Any advantage is good, and We are confident Our Lady will easily master this new magic.’

  Ah, she should have expected that. Shows what she gets for asking the crime against nature for moral advice.

  But he wasn’t wrong. She needed every advantage she could get.

  “Fine,” she sighed at last. “I’ll learn necromancy. But only the theory! I refuse to raise any corpses, got it? This is solely to put them back in the ground!”

  “Of course, of course,” Morte agreed, quickly enough to make her wonder if he’d actually heard her. “We’ve hit a bit of a slump in the Cosmology department anyhow; it’ll be good to take a break from that for a bit. Broaden your horizons, as they say!”

  Palmira just grimaced, knowing that tone of voice. Shifting to get more comfortable on her bed, she settled in for a long lecture.

  “The first thing you should know is that necromancy is, at its core, similar to most other forms of magic. There are many people who would claim that it is not, that because of its unholy nature it is something completely different. These people are deluding themselves through a sense of moral superiority, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make. The point is that because necromancy is still magic, it changes from person to person.”

  “You mean like how I focus on ‘Movement’ for fire, while other people might focus on ‘Heat’ or ‘Destruction?’”

  “Exactly! Now, there are two common ‘branches’ of necromancy. Physical Necromancy and Spiritual Necromancy. The former is more common, mostly because it is easier for the average layman to access. Though some people liken it more to targeted telekinesis, that tends to miss what is actually going on. These necromancers focus on the existing mechanisms in living bodies and leverage them to their advantage.”

  “You mean like muscles?” she asked, absently shifting her arms in response. The idea that someone could highjack her body after death was already horrifying enough, and now she couldn’t help but become hyper aware of her own flesh. “Is that what they control? Wait, though, what about reanimated skeletons? They’re just bones…?”

  “Ah, I was getting to that, but good to see you thinking ahead! Yes, these necromancers control not only muscles, but flesh, blood, nerves, cells, anything they can get their hands on. By poking and prodding these unused body parts with their magic they can usurp these existing structures and control them like puppets. But as you brought up with the skeletons, these necromancers’ greatest weakness is that flesh rots. The longer a corpse is raised the less useful the body becomes, until it’s little more than a pile of rotten flesh. This is why physical necromancy is seen more as a fool’s study, and most common amongst self-taught necromancers.”

  “Seen by who…?” she muttered, before remembering where her staff was from. “Right, never mind. What was the other one then?”

  “That is Spiritual Necromancy, and it on the other hand is more… abstract. Rather than the body, it focuses on the soul. I, for example, am a product of Spiritual Necromancy, being a soul trapped in my own skull. Rosalina has likely used it to do… something, to her body, what with the fact she no longer bleeds. Due to that I’m fairly confident that she learned from this branch of study, especially since the Lich-King himself is the one who taught her. As such, this is also the branch I will be teaching you.”

  Palmira sat up a bit at that, though she also frowned. “This is interesting and all, but why only two branches? All the other magic you’ve taught me seems a lot more… personalized?”

  “Oh, that. Well, you aren’t wrong, but I’m trying to be considerate here by teaching you the standardized routes. If you want a more personalized version, it’ll have to involve more… practical aspects.”

  “Ah,” she grimaced, before nodding quickly. “No, no, you’re right. I’m good with just this, thanks.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Morte hummed in amusement. “So, having given you the rundown of what necromancy is, it’s time for your first lesson, and the most important one when it comes to Spiritual Necromancy. First thing’s first, you need to learn how to perceive a soul.”

  Palmira blinked slowly. That hadn’t been what she expected to learn tonight, but she supposed it made sense. “So, how do I do that?”

  “Well, there’s a great many ways. Many more than even I know. But luckily for you, you’ve already learned a spell that can act as a framework to jump off of.”

  She did?

  Ah, wait, she remembered now. “My stargazing spell,” she said, to which the staff agreed. “But how do I go from seeing stars to seeing souls?”

  “Well, who’s to say they’re any different?”

  That… “That doesn’t help, Morte!”

  “Fine, fine, spoil my fun why don’t you. To answer your question, you already divide your sight between ‘Heaven’ and ‘Earth’ when casting that spell. There the goal is to remove the ‘Earth’ aspect from your vision so you can only see the ‘Heavens.’ In this case, the base mechanics are similar. This time you just need to divide your vision between ‘Physical’ and ‘Spiritual.’ Once you do that, you’ll be able to see souls no problem.”

  “That’s easy for you to say, you’re not the one who has to do it,” she grumbled, but shifted into a meditative trance regardless. After casting the spell in pitched combat falling into the proper mindset now was almost trivial.

  In an instant stellar dust ignited in her irises and the world fell away, only the stars remaining. The constellations consumed her vision, dividing the black sky with blinding light.

  Her eyes opened and she frowned. No, no, that wasn’t what she wanted to do.

  She tried again, only to instinctively look for stars again. But this time was a bit slower, enough that she was able to better grasp what she was doing and begin to shift it. Just a little, but enough that the next time was slower still.

  And so she continued. For perhaps minutes, for perhaps hours, it was difficult to tell as she was. The world shifted between her bedroom, the stars, her bedroom, the stars, her bedroom, the stars, on and on and on.

  Until, finally, she had a breakthrough.

  The world fell away and was replaced by stars, but now there were new ones. Strange colors like flickering flames, oddly shaped and sprinkled amongst the constellations. And right where Morte’s skull should have been was something that glowed, like the light of a quasar burning and bright.

  She was so shocked by the sight she instantly lost control, and no matter how much she struggled she couldn’t get it to work again.

  “Well, that’s to be expected,” Morte hummed, watching her flounder. “Few spells are mastered in a single night.”

  “But I almost had it!” she hissed, frustrated. “If I can just get it to work…!”

  “Ah, I know that tone. No, I think you’re done for tonight,” he scolded her gently. “It’s late, and you were already tired when we started. If you stay up any longer it’ll practically be morning! Get some rest, Palmira, you’ll be less frustrated tomorrow.”

  She grumbled at that, and forced herself to try a few more times. But Morte wasn’t wrong, and each attempt was worse than the last.

  Begrudgingly she finally gave in, her sight fading back to her bedroom for the last time.

  “I’ll get it tomorrow,” she compromised, much to her staff’s amusement. But he seemed to agree, and as she settled in for the night she could admit to herself that she felt somewhat hopeful.

  It wasn’t much, only a single spell. But given time it could be more, and that was all that mattered. Next time she wouldn’t be quite so helpless.

  Rosalina wanted to become the Goddess. And perhaps she could.

  But until that day she was just a human.

  And as the Goddess decreed, all humans died.