Iamblichos' Journey, Part II: Necromancin' Ain't Easy
"Come along, my boy, come along," Ezum said insistently. "You wouldn't want to linger behind. You won't like it if you meet what lives here, no indeed, you won't like it at all." Ezum's apprentice Uquur snickered softly and shook his head.
"So we are here to look at a book? I didn't think they read much in... places like this. What IS this place, anyway?" Iamblichos hated the way the walls here seemed to suck up sound. They had been walking for several hours through the ruins of a massive fortress. Vines climbed over the mounds of fallen rubble, but the broad streets were still open. An eerie quiet filled the city; there were no birds or insects, only the whistling of the constant wind as it blew past the exposed stones.
"My boy," came the exasperated reply, "you simply don't listen. This is... was... the ancient fortress of Terrorsplattered. Huge place, very impressive in its day! I remember... well. Take my word for it; this place was quite central at its time. Terrorsplattered and its sister fort Planesseduced to the north were the bulwarks of the goblin kingdoms of the south! They were rumored to be unbeatable."
"What... happened?"
"Well, rumor was wrong, as it almost always is. Local human kingdom rounded up an enormous army under the banners of the Nation of Scrubbing - clean name for a dirty bunch." Ezum snickered. "They destroyed both forts almost six hundred years ago. Nothing here now but pleasant memories."
"So... nothing lives here now? It's not like the humans to leave a site unoccupied, despite how it feels here." Iamblichos looked around uneasily. "What does cause it to feel like this, anyway?"
"Well!" The old dwarf looked pleased. "You are improving! It only took two hours to get the first decent question out of you! That, my boy, is why we are here." The old dwarf stopped and looked like he was going to start a lecture on the spot. "Terrorsplashed, in addition to many other things to recommend it, was founded by a... being... named Cim Gristlecobras. Not only was this city..." Ezum's lecture was suddenly interrupted by a quiet hissing from his apprentice Uquur.
Uquur said softly "Master, that name should not have been spoken here. The walls remember. The watchers come."
The first sound Iamblichos had heard for hours started in the ruins around them. There was a muttering sound that slowly grew in intensity. Far off in the distance, unseen trolls hooted in alarm; there still seemed to be some denizens, though they had seen no signs of habitation since entering the ruins. As the sound got louder, some of the rubble began to shift, tiny stones rattling down into the street from the ruined buildings to either side.
"Blast! I should have... well, no matter. You do the blue shield, I will take red, and we'll cut left at the next intersection. We ought to be near the entrance anyway. There's enough material here to raise an army, but raising anything at the front door like this would cause more trouble by far than we could handle ourselves." They scurried forward, the human bent almost double to fit under the dwarf-sized wards. The blue and red spheres overlapped to form a shifting violet light. Strange shapes had risen from the rubble, looking almost like goblins but made of ghostly flickering almost-there shadows. They were like the figures visible in dreams; not there, then very there, then gone again. The violet light seemed to render the group invisible, but the almost-goblins drifted down from the rubble on every side. Soon they were taking two steps to the side for each one forward, trying to work their way around and through the swelling crowd.
"Enough. Feh, bloody ghosts. Here. Go left, and then down the steps. Quick, my boy, keep up... can't make the bubble any bigger, I'm afraid, come along." Yawning open in front of them was a stairwell leading down into the rubble-strewn depths. Something about it seemed familiar to Iamblichos. He knew he'd never been here, even in a dream. This was beyond anything he had ever imagined. Still, there was something... It looked like something he had seen recently.
"The slab!" Iamblichos blurted out, immediately clapping a hand over his mouth.
"What? What are you babbling about?" Ezum looked over, and then comprehension dawned. "Oh. Yes, very good! You got there eventually. Yes, these stairs are made of slade, which is what the slab is made of as well. Well done. Not a material that appears on this plane, save by supernatural means. If you see it, and you aren't dead already, you have an excellent chance of dying within the next sixty seconds." Ezum sighed and worked his shoulders. "Uquur, we will drop the shields once we get on the stairs. I will need all my energy at the bottom. Have the bottle ready." The apprentice nodded and fell back, guarding the rear as they descended into the depths.
"Here." Ezum stood in front of a scowling face made of slade, its hair streaming out like it was being forced out of the wall at high speed. Its eyes were closed, and its face contorted into an expression that looked like it was in horrible pain. "Now this will be delicate. Bottle, please." Urquur passed over a flask that sloshed heavily; Ezum opened the flask and chanted a short sentence, splashing the fluid inside onto the face. Blood ran down the features. He chanted again, splashed again. As this continued, the eyes on the face opened. In all his life Iamblichos had never beheld such a hate-filled expression. Whatever this thing was, it wanted very, very badly to kill them... to kill HIM, especially, since it could tell that he was still alive in a way that they other two weren't. The mouth slowly opened with each chanted phrase, wider and wider, far wider than any creatures mouth should open.
"Cthruk, cthruk, cthruk, ek hnugmur mnambuspu!" With a final flourish, Ezum poured the last of the blood directly into the middle of the now open doorway, on the flagstone that (minutes before) had been a tongue. The eyes still glared down impotently, wishing destruction on them all. On the other side of the face, a perfectly normal corridor led down at an angle, torches burning - a view that was remarkably unnerving for its pure ordinariness. "Well, come on, either it worked or it didn't." Ezum hustled off down the corridor.
"What worked? What do you mean if it didn't?" Iamblichos scampered behind his ancestor, Uquur bringing up the rear again.
"There are beings here that could slaughter us like puppies; the formulae that I just used should prevent that. Oh look, here's one now. Been here before. Worked that time, no reason to think it wouldn't work again." They trotted past a headless statue carved of some unknown metal, every edge of its body terminating in razor-sharp blades. It didn't move. "Looks like I remembered it right, doesn't it? Excellent. Now, let's go have a look."
"So what does that demon have to do with all this?"
"Well, as I was saying upstairs, when Cim built this fortress, he included this place; a demonic vault where he stored all his knowledge. He's quite dead, died in the war; but all this," the old dwarf waved his hand vaguely, "is still here. His notes are still here as well. Invaluable resource for these difficult questions."
"Notes?" Iamblichos was used to feeling lost during his ancestor's piecemeal explanations, but this was a good one even by Ezum's standards.
"And here we are! Now, just do us all a favor and shut up for a bit, would you?" The old dwarf muttered as he approached a casket made of the omnipresent slade. He pressed a few of the symbols carved there, and the top lifted up. Two of the adamantine statues stood on either side of the chest, and Iamblichos watched the old dwarf very gingerly lift the book stored in the chest. The sideways glance at the statues was almost too quick to catch, but Iamblichos saw it. That look scared him more than anything else. The old dwarf was putting on a game face, but Iamblichos knew that showing any emotion at all meant that the old necromancer was terrified.
"Yes... yes... emu-demons, ostrich demons, flame fiends, werebeasts..." Flip-flip-flip went the pages. "Oh THAT'S a juicy bit of gossip, hadn't seen that before..." Ezum was near the middle of the book now. "How to forge bronze colossi... would still love to have that formula, but where the hell would I get a slade foundry... Ah, slabs. Demon-made, pre-existing, god-forged... Excellent. Yes, yes... Yes... we know that, yes... " The old dwarf dropped the book heavily on the chest and cursed. He looked like he was going to have a temper tantrum; his undead face turned as purple as a beet. He closed his eyes and said "We. Are. Fucking. Idiots."
Whipping around, Ezum announced "Right," he said, "let's go."
Uquur said "Master, may I...?"
"Yes, of course, sorry, I forgot you had questions too. You have ten minutes, then we're leaving. No index; if I remember correctly, breeding animal-human hybrids is covered near the back. Be quick." Uquur dove into the text while the old dwarf glared at Iamblichos. Sighing, he spoke.
"Well, the solution to your problem is both glaringly obvious and soul-crushingly simple. It's obvious that Tikes and I are just not thinking clearly. You aren't in your body any more. You won't fit in there any more. Fine. It needs to be with you while you read. You have to consume it, and then it should all work properly."
"Consume... what?" Iamblichos could scarcely believe his ears.
"Back you go to Doomforests, and bring your original corpse to Sanctumcoal! We'll handle the rest!"
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Topic: The Hastening of Doomforests (Read 452563 times)