Chapter 2: Lessons
The Grand Necromancer walked in to the large formal hall of the mausoleum, his ears rented with the anguished screams of one of his apprentices. He did not know which one of them was screaming at this point, but he knew it would do well to stop them. The order of Rathma had only survived up to this point because all of its practitioners knew what could happen if any conflict had arisen between members, and apropos, conflict was avoided. Something was different than normal, however. His three apprentices were all relatively amateur necromantic apprentices. Inside the hall there was a large amount of inward mana burn and raw magic talent. This talent was so huge, that at first, Faust could not help but tremble when he felt it in the Cycle. The Great Cycle of Being seemed to be more balanced now by this great power, a power that frightened him...What could have been? The power signature was strange as well. It reminded Faust of....Her. The dark woman, the memory of whom he had kept locked away inside his mind since his younger days of adventuring... Why would he be sensing this now? This energy was alive and poignant, almost a threat to him, even though he was the Grand Necromancer.
For reassurance, Faust looked down upon the medallion he always wore. It was designed out of gold, a gift from a blacksmith he had met on his travels, and its headpiece was made to be in the shape of a skull itself. The skull was a marvel to anyone who had seen it. Shaped and made by Faust himself, only the frame of the large circular skull was made of gold. The rest of the skull was made out of three different color jewels; red, deep blue, and yellow, each making up at least 1/3 of the skull itself. It was a...Token from the days of his most famous quest, and held within it amazing magical power.
When he walked into the hall itself, he could tell that the injured was Raeson. Even though Raeson's face was covered with his hands, Faust MMIV could still tell. His heir, Faust MMV, was standing in the corner of the hall, near a wall, and watching as his cousin was tormented by whatever action he had taken. Taking it among himself to resolve the conflict, which he assumed was a duel gone bad, Faust MMIV summoned the spirit of a long-dead magi from the ethereal plane. With luck, and an amount of skill that only came from decades of study in the necromagic arts, he summoned forth a minion of the element of ice. He had learned how to seek out the magical signatures of certain elements by studying with a wandering band of Zann Esu sorceresses on his journey to the Burning Hells, and it helped him to this day. The Zann Esu had also provided him with another powerful tool, but that was something locked within the deep recesses of his mind.
Bringing himself back to the present, Faust quickly ordered the mage to freeze Raeson, which it did with perfect, concise precision. After its job was done, Faust banished it back to the realm it came from. It had no purpose, so it was destroyed. When you rose to power, you left no excess for enemies to exploit. That was his code of survival. After Raeson had been frozen, Faust wasted no time. The rivalry between Faust's son and his nephew were intense, and Faust speculated that his son would kill Raeson if he were given the chance. Channeling his energy, Faust sent a normally useless bone spear shard at his son, piercing his arm and sending him to the wall. Normally, bone spear was a worthless spell, and only used for practice for the ultimate bone attack, where the necromancer summoned and used a malevolent spirit to cause permanent damage to the soul of an enemy by steeling part of it away. Once you were scarred with a "bone spirit", you never healed.
With a cold and determined expression, Faust MMIV spoke to his son....
Faust MMV sighed inwardly as his father stepped into the hall. The noxious and volitile fumes of the exploded corpses still hung in the air, but the equally menacing atmosphere of the Grand Necromancer seemed to scare away the very fumes from the hall. Raeson could sense his father's dread power filling the hall, pushing aside the smell, and piercing his very soul. His father looked with a menacing glance at him, and then gave a glare at the whole hall. Even Faust, who was used to the dank and morbid atmosphere of the tomb, who never flinched at touching dead flesh, whom was never bodied by skin-slippage, whom never mind the excessive body fluids or the rigor mortis, felt himself shrink in this man's presence. This was the Champion of Rathma who had felled the three Prime Evils, and restored balance to the Great Cycle of Being itself.
Faust's first instinct was to bow, but as he tried, a great pain shot through his right arm. The shard of bone had been solidified, and it still pinned him to the wall of the tomb. With a shameful and amazingly appropriate look of pure mortification, he prepared to glance into the cold, grey, deathly, lifeless eyes of his seemingly immortal father. However, it was not as he had expected. His father's eyes, which were normally filled with the grey void of death, now seemed to be filled with a sort of fire...An eerie, almost unexplained fire that Faust, as his son, had never seen captured in those haunting orbs, even at his father's most intense moments of passion.
Something was going on. Had he violated a sacred code? Had something gone wrong in the ethereal plane? Was something interrupting the Great Cycle of Being? Now that Faust had thought about it, he did feel something out of touch with the Cycle. All necromancers were connected to the Great Cycle of Being from their first day of being initiated as an inductee into the Priesthood. For Faust, that age was very young, so he was somewhat sensitive to the Cycle, but not so much as his father was. However, this disturbance Faust felt...It was very similar to the feeling he felt when the Prime Evils were roaming the mortal plane.... Except; It seemed to be emanating from his own father...
Before he could think about the matter any more, his father began to speak. At the same time; a single, emotionless, nonliving entity walked into the room. One of his master's Clay Golem's no doubt. One of the Grand Necromancer's great any mysterious talents, he could manifest any number of Golems he chose, almost as if they were lesser skeletal beings. It never made sense to any of the necromancers who were part of the neighboring priesthood, not even to those in the highest echelon of the Priesthood. Everyone just assumed that brushing with the very masters of Hell and coming out alive was enough to do that to someone. With a lifeless gaze, and a strength that came only from being a minion of the dead, the golem lifted the block of ice that was Raeson and carried him away, in order for him to seek medical attention, of course.
With his cousin out of the room, Faust could see that his father was not the happiest person in Sanctuary, so he prepared himself for a long speech.
"Do you know what your place in this world is?" The Grand Necromancer asked, his voice full of point and malice. Faust looked up at his father, and stared him directly in the eyes. However, the necromancer's gaze was too hostile and piercing to hold for long. Within two seconds Faust had deterred his gaze in defeat.
"I am a Priest of Rathma, master. I live to study the Great Cycle of Being and shift the boundary between life and death." Faust said this line with the air of a well-rehearsed line in a play, his father, however, was still stern in his look, and continued on.
"Exactly! You are a Priest of Rathma, known as a Necromancer to all other sides of the world. Tell me, how long have the Priest of Rathma been at work, Faust, my son?"
"The priests have been in operation since the time before history, before man had obtained the concept of a written language from the Heavenly beings. We are as old as time itself, for man was always looking to forsake death in some way. We have since then learned to accept death as a part of life."
His father gave him an encouraging, yet still wrathful glance, and a nod, then he continued;
"Yes.. The priests have had activity since well before the rise of modern civilization, or even the archaic languages. That time is millennia upon millennia upon millennia.. We have endured just as long, if not longer than the ancient clans of the Zann Esu, the Horadrim, and the Vizjerei. However, we are different from them in one fundamental difference. The Priests of Rathma have never, ever had to form a branch like that of the Viz-Jaq'Taar to police ourselves. Every priest has stood together, in one group since the foundation of our order... Do you know why?"
Faust opened his mouth to answer, but he was stopped;
"It's because we have no ego!! The Order of Rathma still exists because every priest has known in his heart from the start of his training that he is no better than this!!!" At that point, with a wrathful flair and energy Faust's father pointed at a corpse on the ground, and went back to his lecture.
"If one priest lets hubris and ego cloud his mind-Just one, than the order could be plunged into a violent, opinionated war like that of Horazon and Bartuc that splits it apart a forces us to take sides!! With the Priests of the Dead fighting a war, we would never recover, and our order would be banished from Sanctuary forever by our own selfishness. If we are to stay together, we cannot have juvenile apprentices like you taking a test of skill too far!! Dueling is considered an honorable practice of competition and skill, but you are never to kill your opponent without their consent to such a duel! You know that Raeson was not willing to stake his life, and yet you were just as willing to take it away from him!!!"
Faust's father had finally connected the lecture to what had happened like Faust knew he would eventually. Now he was in major trouble, he knew. He had never seen his father this angry at anything before. Something was setting into a strange mood, something Faust couldn't explain.. Impatiently, his father turned away in disgust, and Faust saw something that he had never seen before. On his father's neck was a gold amulet with a large centerpiece. The piece was finely crafted, made of real gold, but the center was the trick. It was a skull, made up of three jewels, all three red, blue, and gold respectively. For some strange reason, Raeson thought that this was the source of the strange force he had felt emanating from his father earlier, but he just shrugged, and watched as his father stepped out of the room, probably to check on Raeson. Faust returned to his own quarters of the tomb.
Faust MMIV walked inside his grand yet morbid room inside his the mausoleum his family lived in. In the corner he could see his faithful assistant, one who had originally been held against his will, but had eventually decided to stay without regret. Faust looked at him, for he seemed to have a strange look in his eyes. As Faust looked at the ancient face, he could see that it was hundreds of years older than himself, and filled with ancient magical gifts, but still under his control.
"The minions have reported a disturbance." The hidden assistant said calmly.
"Well? What is it? You should be able to see them."
"Yes... I can. A small party of Viz-Jaq'Taar. They're like the normal parties that come by every once an a while, except-"
"Well, that's simple! Let the minions take care of them!" Faust interrupted. The man, who seemed slightly annoyed, continued;
"Except, she is with them."
The mention of that person made Faust seem even whiter than he had been before. With an almost shaking turn, he faced his companion.
"E-Erias? She's here? That means that the Vizjerei and the Zann Esu have aligned against me??"
"It means that they're thinking about it, sire."
"We need to get rid of that party. I will go myself-"
Now his own companion, who moved closer to the single torch that lit the room, cut off Faust. Ancient clothing, which was now worn to rags, hung on his thin body, which had been nourished by magic rather than physical sustenance. The ancient runes of the Horadrim also covered his uniform, and his face was almost unearthly.
"You could...Send the boy, the uninjured one. Your heir, if I recall."
The thought of sending his own son to battle a threat that seemed so much above him disgusted Faust, and in retribution he rapped his hand against the yellow section of his medallion, causing it to waver slightly in its golden casing. This caused the man in the corner to shake and exclaim in pain, as well as commence heavy breathing. Despite the pain, the man continued;
"You felt it today.. He has an aura you cannot deny. If you do not keep him in check, his power and ego will over run him. It would be best if the party killed him and you did not, it would keep the Priests from being suspicious. Everyone knows that the other mage clans do not exactly agree with your kind. No one would bother questioning your story."
Faust thought about what the man had said, and it did make sense. With a calm, unnerved air, he looked at the wall of his room. Lining the room, all of them up against the wall, were multitudes upon multitudes of skeletal warriors. Pointing at one, he sent it to go retrieve his son. He had a mission to fail.
The Grand Necromancer walked in to the large formal hall of the mausoleum, his ears rented with the anguished screams of one of his apprentices. He did not know which one of them was screaming at this point, but he knew it would do well to stop them. The order of Rathma had only survived up to this point because all of its practitioners knew what could happen if any conflict had arisen between members, and apropos, conflict was avoided. Something was different than normal, however. His three apprentices were all relatively amateur necromantic apprentices. Inside the hall there was a large amount of inward mana burn and raw magic talent. This talent was so huge, that at first, Faust could not help but tremble when he felt it in the Cycle. The Great Cycle of Being seemed to be more balanced now by this great power, a power that frightened him...What could have been? The power signature was strange as well. It reminded Faust of....Her. The dark woman, the memory of whom he had kept locked away inside his mind since his younger days of adventuring... Why would he be sensing this now? This energy was alive and poignant, almost a threat to him, even though he was the Grand Necromancer.
For reassurance, Faust looked down upon the medallion he always wore. It was designed out of gold, a gift from a blacksmith he had met on his travels, and its headpiece was made to be in the shape of a skull itself. The skull was a marvel to anyone who had seen it. Shaped and made by Faust himself, only the frame of the large circular skull was made of gold. The rest of the skull was made out of three different color jewels; red, deep blue, and yellow, each making up at least 1/3 of the skull itself. It was a...Token from the days of his most famous quest, and held within it amazing magical power.
When he walked into the hall itself, he could tell that the injured was Raeson. Even though Raeson's face was covered with his hands, Faust MMIV could still tell. His heir, Faust MMV, was standing in the corner of the hall, near a wall, and watching as his cousin was tormented by whatever action he had taken. Taking it among himself to resolve the conflict, which he assumed was a duel gone bad, Faust MMIV summoned the spirit of a long-dead magi from the ethereal plane. With luck, and an amount of skill that only came from decades of study in the necromagic arts, he summoned forth a minion of the element of ice. He had learned how to seek out the magical signatures of certain elements by studying with a wandering band of Zann Esu sorceresses on his journey to the Burning Hells, and it helped him to this day. The Zann Esu had also provided him with another powerful tool, but that was something locked within the deep recesses of his mind.
Bringing himself back to the present, Faust quickly ordered the mage to freeze Raeson, which it did with perfect, concise precision. After its job was done, Faust banished it back to the realm it came from. It had no purpose, so it was destroyed. When you rose to power, you left no excess for enemies to exploit. That was his code of survival. After Raeson had been frozen, Faust wasted no time. The rivalry between Faust's son and his nephew were intense, and Faust speculated that his son would kill Raeson if he were given the chance. Channeling his energy, Faust sent a normally useless bone spear shard at his son, piercing his arm and sending him to the wall. Normally, bone spear was a worthless spell, and only used for practice for the ultimate bone attack, where the necromancer summoned and used a malevolent spirit to cause permanent damage to the soul of an enemy by steeling part of it away. Once you were scarred with a "bone spirit", you never healed.
With a cold and determined expression, Faust MMIV spoke to his son....
Faust MMV sighed inwardly as his father stepped into the hall. The noxious and volitile fumes of the exploded corpses still hung in the air, but the equally menacing atmosphere of the Grand Necromancer seemed to scare away the very fumes from the hall. Raeson could sense his father's dread power filling the hall, pushing aside the smell, and piercing his very soul. His father looked with a menacing glance at him, and then gave a glare at the whole hall. Even Faust, who was used to the dank and morbid atmosphere of the tomb, who never flinched at touching dead flesh, whom was never bodied by skin-slippage, whom never mind the excessive body fluids or the rigor mortis, felt himself shrink in this man's presence. This was the Champion of Rathma who had felled the three Prime Evils, and restored balance to the Great Cycle of Being itself.
Faust's first instinct was to bow, but as he tried, a great pain shot through his right arm. The shard of bone had been solidified, and it still pinned him to the wall of the tomb. With a shameful and amazingly appropriate look of pure mortification, he prepared to glance into the cold, grey, deathly, lifeless eyes of his seemingly immortal father. However, it was not as he had expected. His father's eyes, which were normally filled with the grey void of death, now seemed to be filled with a sort of fire...An eerie, almost unexplained fire that Faust, as his son, had never seen captured in those haunting orbs, even at his father's most intense moments of passion.
Something was going on. Had he violated a sacred code? Had something gone wrong in the ethereal plane? Was something interrupting the Great Cycle of Being? Now that Faust had thought about it, he did feel something out of touch with the Cycle. All necromancers were connected to the Great Cycle of Being from their first day of being initiated as an inductee into the Priesthood. For Faust, that age was very young, so he was somewhat sensitive to the Cycle, but not so much as his father was. However, this disturbance Faust felt...It was very similar to the feeling he felt when the Prime Evils were roaming the mortal plane.... Except; It seemed to be emanating from his own father...
Before he could think about the matter any more, his father began to speak. At the same time; a single, emotionless, nonliving entity walked into the room. One of his master's Clay Golem's no doubt. One of the Grand Necromancer's great any mysterious talents, he could manifest any number of Golems he chose, almost as if they were lesser skeletal beings. It never made sense to any of the necromancers who were part of the neighboring priesthood, not even to those in the highest echelon of the Priesthood. Everyone just assumed that brushing with the very masters of Hell and coming out alive was enough to do that to someone. With a lifeless gaze, and a strength that came only from being a minion of the dead, the golem lifted the block of ice that was Raeson and carried him away, in order for him to seek medical attention, of course.
With his cousin out of the room, Faust could see that his father was not the happiest person in Sanctuary, so he prepared himself for a long speech.
"Do you know what your place in this world is?" The Grand Necromancer asked, his voice full of point and malice. Faust looked up at his father, and stared him directly in the eyes. However, the necromancer's gaze was too hostile and piercing to hold for long. Within two seconds Faust had deterred his gaze in defeat.
"I am a Priest of Rathma, master. I live to study the Great Cycle of Being and shift the boundary between life and death." Faust said this line with the air of a well-rehearsed line in a play, his father, however, was still stern in his look, and continued on.
"Exactly! You are a Priest of Rathma, known as a Necromancer to all other sides of the world. Tell me, how long have the Priest of Rathma been at work, Faust, my son?"
"The priests have been in operation since the time before history, before man had obtained the concept of a written language from the Heavenly beings. We are as old as time itself, for man was always looking to forsake death in some way. We have since then learned to accept death as a part of life."
His father gave him an encouraging, yet still wrathful glance, and a nod, then he continued;
"Yes.. The priests have had activity since well before the rise of modern civilization, or even the archaic languages. That time is millennia upon millennia upon millennia.. We have endured just as long, if not longer than the ancient clans of the Zann Esu, the Horadrim, and the Vizjerei. However, we are different from them in one fundamental difference. The Priests of Rathma have never, ever had to form a branch like that of the Viz-Jaq'Taar to police ourselves. Every priest has stood together, in one group since the foundation of our order... Do you know why?"
Faust opened his mouth to answer, but he was stopped;
"It's because we have no ego!! The Order of Rathma still exists because every priest has known in his heart from the start of his training that he is no better than this!!!" At that point, with a wrathful flair and energy Faust's father pointed at a corpse on the ground, and went back to his lecture.
"If one priest lets hubris and ego cloud his mind-Just one, than the order could be plunged into a violent, opinionated war like that of Horazon and Bartuc that splits it apart a forces us to take sides!! With the Priests of the Dead fighting a war, we would never recover, and our order would be banished from Sanctuary forever by our own selfishness. If we are to stay together, we cannot have juvenile apprentices like you taking a test of skill too far!! Dueling is considered an honorable practice of competition and skill, but you are never to kill your opponent without their consent to such a duel! You know that Raeson was not willing to stake his life, and yet you were just as willing to take it away from him!!!"
Faust's father had finally connected the lecture to what had happened like Faust knew he would eventually. Now he was in major trouble, he knew. He had never seen his father this angry at anything before. Something was setting into a strange mood, something Faust couldn't explain.. Impatiently, his father turned away in disgust, and Faust saw something that he had never seen before. On his father's neck was a gold amulet with a large centerpiece. The piece was finely crafted, made of real gold, but the center was the trick. It was a skull, made up of three jewels, all three red, blue, and gold respectively. For some strange reason, Raeson thought that this was the source of the strange force he had felt emanating from his father earlier, but he just shrugged, and watched as his father stepped out of the room, probably to check on Raeson. Faust returned to his own quarters of the tomb.
Faust MMIV walked inside his grand yet morbid room inside his the mausoleum his family lived in. In the corner he could see his faithful assistant, one who had originally been held against his will, but had eventually decided to stay without regret. Faust looked at him, for he seemed to have a strange look in his eyes. As Faust looked at the ancient face, he could see that it was hundreds of years older than himself, and filled with ancient magical gifts, but still under his control.
"The minions have reported a disturbance." The hidden assistant said calmly.
"Well? What is it? You should be able to see them."
"Yes... I can. A small party of Viz-Jaq'Taar. They're like the normal parties that come by every once an a while, except-"
"Well, that's simple! Let the minions take care of them!" Faust interrupted. The man, who seemed slightly annoyed, continued;
"Except, she is with them."
The mention of that person made Faust seem even whiter than he had been before. With an almost shaking turn, he faced his companion.
"E-Erias? She's here? That means that the Vizjerei and the Zann Esu have aligned against me??"
"It means that they're thinking about it, sire."
"We need to get rid of that party. I will go myself-"
Now his own companion, who moved closer to the single torch that lit the room, cut off Faust. Ancient clothing, which was now worn to rags, hung on his thin body, which had been nourished by magic rather than physical sustenance. The ancient runes of the Horadrim also covered his uniform, and his face was almost unearthly.
"You could...Send the boy, the uninjured one. Your heir, if I recall."
The thought of sending his own son to battle a threat that seemed so much above him disgusted Faust, and in retribution he rapped his hand against the yellow section of his medallion, causing it to waver slightly in its golden casing. This caused the man in the corner to shake and exclaim in pain, as well as commence heavy breathing. Despite the pain, the man continued;
"You felt it today.. He has an aura you cannot deny. If you do not keep him in check, his power and ego will over run him. It would be best if the party killed him and you did not, it would keep the Priests from being suspicious. Everyone knows that the other mage clans do not exactly agree with your kind. No one would bother questioning your story."
Faust thought about what the man had said, and it did make sense. With a calm, unnerved air, he looked at the wall of his room. Lining the room, all of them up against the wall, were multitudes upon multitudes of skeletal warriors. Pointing at one, he sent it to go retrieve his son. He had a mission to fail.