From within the cavernous depths of the Deadmines I sat in the center of a ritual circle, several streams of fel energy surrounding me as I tested how it connected to the arcane.
A dying Defias thug moaned out as his life-force was pulled away, easily powering the ritual in my own life-forces place.
Fel was destructive, chaotic energy, it was dangerous in that it warped the flesh and ate at the soul. It was also far more potent than other forms of magic.
It took comparatively little efffort to gather enough fel energy as compared to other fields. There was a reason the most dangerous and often corrupted warlocks where those who had once been mages.
Fel was powerful, and easy to call upon. The only issue was using it for anything subtle.
Still, I had a feeling Felendren would have been an unnatural talent in it, as I was now it was absolutely captivating how far I had come in so short a time.
The past few weeks have been a nice vacation from the outside world.
When we returned to Westfall, I left Ebonlocke and Stoutmantel in Sentinel Hill to rule over the land while I studied magic.
I grimly told them I was preparing for a journey to Outland, and that I needed the time to ready myself.
In a way I was telling the truth.
Our forces had little to spare for any war effort.
We had recently directed the majority of our fighting men and the remainder of my harvest golems to Duskwood to clear out the undead and worgen once and for all.
Which meant whatever was sent beyond the dark portal would be far too little. I had volunteered personally, seeing the opportunity for what it was. Outland was dangerous, but it had knowledge and artifacts of untold power.
Only if I was powerful enough to take them however. I would need strength to gather what Outland had to offer, and strength to prove my country something to take seriously.
If Westfall proved itself weak in a matter of worldly peril the other factions would take note.
My people had taken it as a personal sacrifice, their noble lord willing to risk himself so others would not have to.
Volunteers to the military had been coming in droves.
Over the past month I had been studying fel magic, and helping to prepare the gnolls for their transition into my personal soldiers.
The inscriptions had come along nicely, but I still needed to prepare golem cores and armor for most of them.
I had used one of my own personal cores, and a little of the Goblins time to complete one.
The gnoll once known as Hogger stood behind me, clad in iron plate carved in hundreds of enchanting runes to both keep the metals integrity, and animate it.
He was eight feet of muscle and cold rage, covered from head to toe in armor more commonly seen on a knight than the savages of the wilds. Due to a mistake in the crafting process, the upper skull of the creature was replaced with metal.
From behind the iron eye sockets of the creature a muted and murky green glow softly emerged. In its hands a well crafted battle axe, large even for him, was held easily in one hand.
I had named him First-Hunt, out of relative respect to gnoll custom. I would be taking him with me from now on, as a test to his potential as a warrior.
I had little doubt he would be a force to be reckoned with.
Unfortunately not everything was going so perfectly.
I opened one eye as a blood mage walked through the door. "Apologies my lord, but it is as you predicted."
I sighed, absorbing the energy floating about the room, already knowing what he meant. "The dragon has progressed as well as we could have imagined, but it is growing more and more unstable."
That dragon was what was going to win me Outland if I had anything to say about it, but it was not without cost.
I had been going through every kind of magic I had on hand with the it. Since the day I had brought it with me we had been meticulously putting it through the most ambitious magic gauntlet we could put together.
We had started with the arcane, carving hundreds of sigils into its bones, tearing the flesh from the dragon and then healing it when our work was complete.
These where to increase the durability of its bones, and saturate it with magic known to have a level of control over all other forms.
Once we had covered the entirety of its skeleton in the script we began using chronomancy and blood magic to force its growth, before we began on the next round of inscriptions to be used.
Necromancy and voodoo where carved in equal measure to its flesh and its newly expanded and healed skeleton, now as individual ritual markers to properly hold necrotic and spiritual energy.
Several blood runes where added along its spine, as a matter to passively ease healing and self sacrificial magic.
We made certain to carve several sigils of custom make along the skull and between each inscription to make every change seamless and interconnected.
Most recently we used fel runes, added as ritual aid and protection from malign mutation.
We had only recently added power to the non growth related symbols, and it was already coming undone before hand.
Which meant we would be using up the trolls blood elixir very soon, and considering the rate of which the dragon was already falling apart meant I needed to leave immediately.
I had not spent weeks of effort and thousands of gold in magical reagents to have a magical pile of flesh the size of two cart horses. A stabilizing factor was needed.
I stood up. "Ready the ship then, we have no time to lose."
It seems its time I went home.