Necromancer's Requiem

I

Consciousness came to me all at once.

 Not like waking up, where you slowly drift away from Morpheus' grasp — it hit me like a damn jackhammer to the nose. All at once, I felt every phantom pain from every battle I had ever faced, every bit of agony, saw every last damn memory of my long 15 years.

And suddenly, I could feel again. I could feel myself again. And let me tell you … it felt absolutely disgusting. I was surrounded by some sort of soft, wet, fleshy substance on all sides; it even stuck to me at parts of my skin, though I could not for the life of me figure out where or how, as it was too dark to see.

Still, I could hear my own thoughts. I was alive again. I «was» again, so to speak. How in tarnation…?

Taking in as much air as I could, I began to struggle to pull myself free. First came the arms — by pulling at them with all of my might, I found that the weird strips of whatever it was that had attached to the skin was torn apart. Next came the legs, which were even easier. Now able to move myself, I stated to push agains those weird, fleshy walls that surrounded me while clawing myself up —

It was — long. Long. I called and clawed and continued to struggle, but even as I steadily rose, I didn't get out. It was claustrophobic. Worse than claustrophobic. It was maddening.

I clawed, and clawed, and clawed — 

And emerged, gasping for air, at the top of this soft abomination. Sweat and whatever other weird liquid I had been partially submerged in trickled off my skin and dropped down back into the thing I'd just escaped, wetting my long hair in such a way that it fell over my face. My hands trembled as I finally, finally managed to take a hold of solid ground, pulling myself away completely from whatever monster had swallowed me.

Only after my feet left the wet disgrace that I had been in did I let myself breathe in and laugh in relief, collapsing entirely to the ground beneath. I lacked the strength to even keep myself upright, but it didn't matter; I'm not sure if you've ever felt it, the type of relief that assaults you after you realize that you've narrowly dodged a terrible thing. 

It's… all-consuming. Absolutely overwhelming. And it felt amazing like few other things I had ever experienced in my short but storied life. 

I was alive.

I was alive, and I had two arms, and a torso, and working lungs, and a beating heart.

I was alive. How on earth had they managed to save me? If I'm not mistaken, the very last thing I did was liquify my own brain and mummify the rest of my body. Not even a Saint could heal me from that, I don't think. So, how…?

I paused. Something… Something was wrong.

I could not feel my implanted mana cores. Throughout my life, I had resorted to implanting mana cores, the small organs that regulated the flow of magical energy through the body, into myself as a way to get around my low natural ability. As opposed to remaining with only two like most noble magicians, one in the heart and one in the base of the spine, I had proudly managed to make myself a beast who had as many as 9 magic cores in his body.

Instead, I only had one.

What…?

Dread settled in the pit of my stomach as I let that facts sink in. My magic cores were gone. My destroyed limhs and organs were back. I was alone, and had climbed out of something wet, dark and fleshy.

In an instant, I knew what had happened — and let my eyes wander to the pit I had crawled out of, a place I had been, perhaps unconsciously, avoiding looking at until now. A giant, dark red bubble surrounded by huge, ribcage-like bones that protected it, torn apart from the inside at the top on the place I had escaped. Inside, I could see pulsating flesh.

This was «Necropolis». My most powerful Spell, which created a sentient Obelisk from a mountain of corpses and gained a limited sentience. I had two «Necropolis» in the world, and they acted as everything, from spell focuses to information modifiers. This… thing certainly wasn't an Obelisk anymore, but it had once been. 

It was «Necropolis». I was sure of it.

But «Necropolis» were supposed to cease to exist a day after I died, falling apart under their own weight after lacking the magic to sustain themselves. So how is it… that this thing was still active after all this time?

And how is it that it was able to —

"Create a living clone of me based on the memories I had as I died…" I murmured, eyes wide as I finally realized the scope of what had happened. 

…

….

....

It wasn't impossible. The nature of the connection between myself and the «Necropolis» was such that, if it had enough sentience, it could absolutely pull more memories through «Communicate», as long as it could pay the extra cost itself. But the Obelisk wasn't supposed to have that much sentience… and, most importantly, if it had done such a thing, what happened to my original communication in the first place?

This Obelisk… it hasn't saved my life.

It had created it. And the amount of energy necessary for that was astronomical. It was impossible for it to supply that much by itself with the resources I had left it with. 

I rose to my knees, shakily stumbling under the sudden pressure of my own weight. My throat felt dry, and my shoulders heavy. I could feel the connection between the current me and this twisted Mother Necropolis thrumming under my mind, a constant presence, a comforting reminder. It felt… not alive. It was, after all, technically an undead creature. 

But more aware. It felt more aware than I had ever known it to be.

"How did this…"

It should have been impossible. But clearly, it was not. Miracles didn't happen. Everything happened with a reason, and explanation. Something had altered the situation to such an extent that the current Me was a being who could exist.

I looked down at myself.

My body looked the same as it had been a day before I died… no, that's not true. As usual, I looked frail and delicate, with a lean figure and pale, soft skin. My fingers were long and thin, and I realized a bit belatedly that I was very, very naked. Every proportion, limb and detail looked the same…

But two things were off. First, the colorarion; I had always had a darker skin tone than most due to my nation of origin being in a sunlit place, but the current me was a person with skin as pale as snow. And, secondly, I felt tired, but fine. My chest didn't hurt. 

Of course.

This new body would not have been just like my old ones — alterations would have been made, both by accident and on purpose. The lack of melanin was probably the former. The lack of an illness that had been slowly killing me, limiting my constitution… definitely the latter.

I flexed my hands a few times in slow experimentation. They moved just fine.

This…

I turned my eyes to the «Necropolis». It hummed, thrummed and buzzed with awareness, though I noticed it was slowly fading a bit. Whatever energy it had been fed, because that was the only explanation, it has likely dedicated almost entirely to the creation of my new body, keeping its own functions to a minimum.

That energy had now been entirely expended. It would continue, then, to slowly but surely deteriorate, fading away forever… it's duty was done. More importantly, I had no way of feeding it energy myself.

I felt a little bad, then, for insulting the Obelisk. It had almost singlehandedly saved my life and given me life, and was the very reason I was present to do anything at all. Though it looked disgusting, this necromantic servant of mine had somehow developed a higher awareness and chosen to save me.

And now it was withering. Still, it almost lit up in anticipation at my attention.

"You…" I paused. "You have done well. Thank you so, so much."

And so it was that I was returned to the world of the living.

=======

I walked out of the chamber where I had kept my «Necropolus», and into the winding hallways of my complex. I knew, instinctively, where it was that I had been brought back to — one of two places where I had maintained an active Obelisk, the ruined city of Adstow.

Adstow had been destroyed long, long before any of us at the Alliance had ever even heard of one another. It had been an old and tragic story for hundreds of years already by the time any of our great-grandparents had ever been conceived. A story of grief, pride and the things it can do to you.

Adstow was also very, very cursed. Not as much as Hellade, of course, but cursed nonetheless. Which meant people avoided it and it's island on principle — which, in turn, was the very reason I chose to make it my home in the first place. 

By the time I ascended to the spotlight, I was 12 and a prodigy. The sick little duckling of Erenen's academy had turned out to be quite a star — a genius in the fields of biology, medicine, vitamancy and the area I had chosen to specialize in, necromancy. Though my battle prowess wasn't all that high just yet, the Alliance had chosen to make me something of a symbol of the next generation's potential — which in turn meant some people wanted me very, very dead.

War was just like that. But in the end, they gave me access to essentially unlimited resources and all but gave this island to me. Which would turn out to be the best thing that could ever happen to me — Adstow itself was big, but it turns out that their underground complex was massive, a mess of caves and never-used sewers and dungeons and tunnels and god knew what else. 

In life, I had kept the place near and tidy at all times. Now, it was covered by a thick, unsightly layer of dust that irritated my very sensitive nose immediately. This…

I only had one Magic Core, but even I could deal with something like this. So I extended my hand toward the hallway in front of me, closing my eyes and focusing.

"Aplis, Dubulta, Sanu, Veja, Plattos — «Gust of Wind»!"

From my palm, the emerald green magic circle was pieced together from my thoughts — and, a second later, a fierce gust of wind erupted, twisted and roared throughout the corridor, ripping the dust from the walls and floor and pushing them away and away in a straight line. At least this part, for now, looked decent — though actual cleaning would still be necessary.

It sounds fancy, but «Gust of Wind» is a tier one magic, and thus remarkably simplistic. You only need one magic circle for it, which means it's perfect for use with the single magic core I currently had access to. With the first circle, you set up everything you needed; make it green for the Wind element, add the runes for wide for widespread application, add a double cross for straight application, release.

Strangely, though the one core I had access to was active, I could barely feel the pull. A high-quality core, then; it made sense. Though it doesn't look it, this body of mine would have to be pieced together from the many corpses I and the Alliance had fed into my Obelisk over the years. Commoners and soldiers usually either never or barely developed their center cores, much less their lower ones.

I had been a fluke — and even then, my lower core had only developed to about 14% of its capacity. Instead of trying to piece together organ X from many organs Y, the Obelisk chose to make the best Y it possibly could — and amazingly high-quality core with which I could survive on while I got my bearings.

It wasn't as good as having two mediocre cores, honestly, but it was pretty damn close. Again, though, it just made me wonder where the energy for this all even came from.

Ah, damn it. The more I thought about it, the more the mystery bothered me. I'd never been one to leave well enough alone. But first… I had to figure out what the hell had happened.

I continued to walk throughout the complex, my steps tapping against the cold floor. It was cold, and, because I was still remarkably naked, I couldn't help but be deeply bothered by that; I could feel myself trembling a bit as adrenaline stopped flowing through my veins. From the Obelisk room, which I remembered was on the 7th floor, I could cross two hallways and get to my second laboratory. 

So I headed there, crossing the hallways and stopping just in front of the door to my laboratory. As usual, the door was closed shut, with brilliant blue runes I had engraved on its surface keeping it so for the foreseeable future. Thankfully, though, there was a password.

"Animus."

A rumble.

The door slowly, slowly slid open for me, revealing the large room I had spent so many days in. As opposed to the outside complex, that had been clearly assailed by time and dust, the second laboratory was about as clean as it had ever been — no, perhaps even cleaner. It only made sense; this place had been sealed for ages, and I had made sure the place was sterile myself. Which in turn made me question where the dust on the outside had come from, but that was a problem for future me to solve.

I looked around slowly. Cauldrons, vials, magic circles, jars with living creatures in them and a remarkable number of papers stuck to the wall caught my nostalgia from the get-go. My research notes. My custom spells. Everything that had made me a threat… 

Ah, that's right.

The me of now was not the me of then. And… for now, I lacked the mana cores to sustain more than two circles at a time. I had power, but no versatility — that was the use of multiple mana cores, as opposed to my one high-quality one. I could pump out remarkably powerful spells, but they would be simplistic. 

...well, whatever. I'd deal with that later. 

First … I rode a hand to my mouth and, wincing a bit, bit down on it. Hard. Pain spiked through it as my (apparently a bit sharper than they had been) teeth pierced the skin and drew blood from my hand, which dropped down into the ground and filled my mouth with the taste of copper.

"Oi, Lurline.". I called out, taking my now-injured hand out of my mouth. "By our contract, I offer now my blood in calling."

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Finally, by the time the fifth drop of blood hit the ground, the small puddle of red erupted into smoke as dark as night and a hand erupted from its surface. 

I took a step back, biting at my lower lip slowly in anticipation as Lurline clawed out of her realm through the gate I had now made. A woman with skin of a pale white, with dark-red markings dancing across her skin and with lines under her eyes shining a low, threatening light. She was clad in a beautiful white dress like that of a princess, but the fabric was thin and seemed to dance with the passing wind. Her hair was a long, long mane of light pink that contrasted interestingly with her skin.

As usual, Fairy Queen Lurline towered over me — but I met her eyes still, and saw surprise there, as well as other emotions I could not identify.

"Oh, my." She murmured, stepping closer. "I had felt a familiar energy in this summon, which was why I followed through, but to think it was you…"

"A familiar energy?" I paused, furrowing my eyebrows. That's not how it worked; she should have recognised...my...blood. A blood that no longer flowed through my veins. Shit. I sighed. "Damn it, so I lost my contracts, too."

The being frowned at my troubled expression. The Fairy Queen, Lurline, was expressive like that; in her culture, expressing one's emotions freely and beautifully was the greatest joy one could hold. Fey took pride in their fickle nature, in their hearts and their wraths alike. 

They could be cruel, and most certainly were, but they were loyal to those who caught their fancy. 

"It really is you, then?" The woman asked, an odd hint of melancholy to her voice.

It felt strange. But I would not let it bother me for now — so I smiled. And I nodded.

"It's complicated… but yes. I have returned, Lurline."

My summon chuckled.

"Then I welcome you back to the world of the living, Kyo."