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B4C46 - Engineering
🕑 Added 2024-09-12 02:00:03 +0000 UTCTyron had never expected that choosing to specialise in skeletons would require him to become such an expert in physiology. It was entirely possible there were medical professionals out there who knew less about muscles and ligaments than he did. Bleary eyed, he stared at the diagram in front of him, covered in intersecting lines, each representing a thread of magick of a specific thickness and tension. For the extreme levels of force these magickal joints would need to bear, his measurements couldn’t be off by a hair. It had taken a great deal of iteration to arrive at this design, and his initial tests had been promising, but would they really stand up under the weight? He was still sceptical.
“Is it really necessary to go to these lengths?” Filetta said from over his shoulder. The wight leaned forward to inspect the sheet, shaking her head as she beheld the complexity of it. “Just looks like nonsense to me.”
The Necromancer frowned, irritated at the interruption.
“Yes, it’s necessary. Without all of the work I’d put into learning these things, you wouldn’t be able to move half as well as you do now. If I want to create something better, then I need to push the design further.”
“So why do you have all of this… meat?” she asked, gesturing with one skeletal hand toward the rest of his table.
On the stone surface was a scattered assortment of bloody remnants, chunks of meat and bone that wouldn’t look out of place in a butcher’s shop.
“They’re joints from various animals. Horse, cow, bull… I think that one was a tiger.”
“Where did you get that from?”
“Trader from the south.”
“What. They were selling tiger parts?”
“No. They were selling a tiger.”
“Oh.”
Filetta absorbed that in silence for a moment.
“You’re a sick pup, Tyron. You know that?”
“I’m not out here cutting up animals for no purpose. I am attempting to learn.”
“About what? Bodies? Didn’t I teach you everything you need to know about those?”
It wasn’t possible for a skeleton to smirk, but her tone managed to convey everything it needed to.
“Taught me a lot of things I didn’t need to know,” Tyron muttered.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Look, all of these animals put more force through their joints than a person does. I wanted to see what structural differences there might be in the hopes I could learn something that could be applied to my project.”
“And were there?” Filetta asked idly, poking about the various detritus on the table.
“Do you care what the answer is?” Tyron said, exasperated, finally leaning back. Clearly, Filetta wasn’t going to let him work until she’d said whatever she wanted to say. He may as well get through it quickly. “Yes. These might be four-legged creatures, unlike us who are bipedal, but their musculature in particular was an interesting study. None of it was directly applicable, but useful nonetheless.”
“Huh,” the wight grunted, and he couldn’t help rolling his eyes.
“Filetta. I need to work. What is the problem? Are you bored? Do you need something to do? A new purpose in life? If so, go find it on your own, I have things to do.”
“Very charming. Very helpful,” Filetta drawled. “That’s your solution to a possible existential crisis? Deal with it?”
“Filetta, you were a thief,” Tyron said, pinching his brow. “I am not trying to be offensive, but questioning the meaning of living, or unliving, and any sort of moral quandary involved therein would be profoundly out of character for you.”
“I may have grown a conscience with all this free time I have on my hands now.”
There it was.
“So you’re bored. What do you expect me to do about it?”
“I’m not bored, you ice-cold prick! I’m worried about you!”
Tyron blinked. Then blinked again. For a moment, he worried that he may have misheard. Perhaps he’d been working too hard.
“You’re wondering if you misheard me. Aren’t you?”
“Not at all,” Tyron deflected, brow creased. “I was… just thinking why in the world you would be worried about me.”
“Because you’re killing yourself! You’re working yourself to death. I understand you’re determined to annihilate your enemies, I guess, and achieve vengeance, but does it matter if you achieve all that if you die in the process?”
She walked over and after an awkward pause, placed a hand on his shoulder. It was no comfort, given how cold and dead her bony fingers were. Tyron sat, feeling like a hostage in a moment he desperately didn’t want to be a part of. There were so many layers here that he didn’t understand that made it almost impossible for his head to get ahold of it. He felt as if he were grasping after a spell from a discipline he wasn’t familiar with. The structure of it was there, but the specifics were completely blank.
“By the Gods, you’re awful at being human,” Filetta said. “It’s almost a miracle that you reached human level twenty at all. I can see you running a bunch of nonsense through your head. Look, just stand up. Turn around and face me.”
Tyron considered resisting, but didn’t bother in the end, and was pulled to his feet and spun around. He found himself facing Filetta, the wight, in all her undead glory, spirit flesh and all, with one hand on either shoulder. There was no human emotion left to see in her face or eyes, there was nothing but the bone of skull, and nothing but the light of magick in her hollow sockets.
“This isn’t that complicated. I might be dead, but you aren’t, and even though you killed me, I kind of hope that you might have a happy ending. In a non-sexual way. That’s not too hard to grasp, is it?”
“It is a bit.”
“Shut up. I just want to know what’s going to happen when this is done. Let’s say you kill the Duke, you destroy the Magisters. The whole province falls into chaos and despair. What happens to you afterwards? Is that the end of your story?”
It was difficult to process this, but one thought struck Tyron immediately. He shook his head.
“Filetta. You are a lot nicer than I thought you were.”
“Fuck you.”
Was he some sort of failure of a Necromancer, being pitied by his own minions? What was he even supposed to say? That he planned to live a long, happy life after bringing the Empire to its knees and putting the entire realm on the brink of extinction? Or that his own survival was any sort of priority?
He had the option to pretend he intended to survive his vengeance on the Western Province, because he did, but only so he could continue to the rotten core of the Empire and bring down the seat of power of the Five Divines themselves.
Instead, he decided to be honest.
“I have no idea,” he replied, not bothering to conceal his bone-deep weariness. “How this will end, and whether or not I’ll survive, I have no idea. We’ll find out when we get there. At the very least, I know it’s not uncommon for people in my particular line of Magick to wind up as some sort of lich, but I have no plans in that direction.”
Filetta observed him through the burning orbs of purple light that were her eyes.
“That was a more honest answer than I expected.” She patted him on the shoulders with each hand. “Good job.”
She turned back to contemplate his handiwork.
“So… when are these things going to get moving?”
I really need to go to sleep.
The change of topic was too quick for his brain, it took him a moment to catch up.
“As soon as I figure out how to properly form their leg joints, they should be ready.”
“Aren’t you done?”
“I’m not sure… there are a few elements–”
“Bah. You’ve been scribbling away at those pages for days. Have some confidence! I thought you were good at this stuff.”
It was awfully tempting to point out that developing entirely new magick in just a few days was quite a remarkable feat, but there wouldn’t be any point. In a sense, she was right. He was ninety-five percent of the way there, but pushing to achieve that final little smidge of improvement would take him just as long as he’d spent on the project already.
“Fine, I’ll get started on it, then. If it stops you from nattering at me.”
“Nattering? How dare you? I didn’t live long enough to become old enough to properly natter. Thanks to you.”
“Yes, yes. I’m awful. Now be quiet.”
He’d been working on this particular construct for months, off and on. His darkness cauldrons had been the pinnacle of his achievements in the field of creating Death Magick constructs so far, but they were relatively simple in the grand scheme of things. What he was attempting to make now was immensely more complex, to the point he had probably been too ambitious for his second project in this field.
So far, his testing had consumed an unfathomable amount of bones, but thankfully only those which had performed poorly on quality testing.
It almost felt strange to be in a position where he had so many materials coming in he could afford to reject some. An incredible amount of wealth, from a Necromancer’s perspective.
All the pieces needed to assemble the construct had been built and lay about the study on the floor. Each was as refined as he could make them, and fully enchanted, the arrays and cores embedded on each. That had been the easy part, relatively speaking.
Throwing the last of his concerns away, Tyron grasped two components and brought them to his work area. He stared hard at the two pieces, constructing the image of what he needed to accomplish in his mind.
“What happens now?” Filetta asked in a hushed voice.
“What happens, is that you be quiet, so I can concentrate,” Tyron stated, his gaze unwavering.
A moment later, he brought up his hands, ghostly threads dangling from the tips of his fingers, and he began to weave.
The patterns required a wide variety of threads, some thicker, some thinner, each bound together in an intricate knot that would form a functional connection. His hands danced and spun for over an hour as Filetta watched from the side, occasionally offering a snide comment that he didn’t even hear.
When it was done, he cut off the threads, lowered his hands, and leaned forward to inspect his work.
“Is it… is it finished?”
“I think so,” Tyron replied, frowning as he tried to pick out as many details as he could. It looked as if he’d been successful in replicating his design, and there weren’t any obvious errors that he could detect. Hopefully it worked as well as his tests indicated it would.
“So, what does it do?”
The Necromancer turned to her, puzzled.
“What do you mean?”
“Well… you’ve been working on this for a long time, right? Now that it’s done… what does it do?”
He looked back down at the surface in front of him.
“It bends,” he said.
Filetta looked shocked.
“That’s it? It bends?”
“It’s a knee,” he said, exasperated, “what else is it going to do?”
The wight cocked her head to one side then looked down again.
“Isn’t that a bit big for a knee? If those are leg bones, then this thing would be…”
“Large,” Tyron confirmed, “very, very large.”
He turned and took in the rest of the components scattered around the study, then sighed.
“It’s going to take a long time to put this thing together.”
Comments
BubblyGhost
Seeing as he only has 2 wights currently. . .outlook isn't great lmao
Suastes Jiménez Miguel Angel
Does Tyron want to make a giant golem? Not that it wasn’t awesome, but... isn’t it a little simple and unimaginative? I didn’t expect Filetta to care so much about Tyron. I wonder what his other servants thought of him, those who have not gone completely crazy.
Andrick
Bone golem? This made me think that he was making skeleton horse that functioned at black cauldrons for a second
Alexander O'Brien
Skeleton Gundam, Launch!
Gabus Deux
Nah tyrons never letting this grudge go
CentaureHeart
If all is lost having this guy explode could actually be good. In case of emergency.
Redc05
Bone giant
Dan K
Was wondering when he’d get around to making bone constructs.
Seamole
What if it's big enough to become a skeletal piñata? Okay that's just ridiculous and if something can break the big guy, the impact would probably damage the inside too
Seamole
Giant horse
Seamole
I thought it was going to be an undead course at first until he started mentioning the cauldrons
Svensonsen
I hope he becomes a lich
Gopard
Thanks for the chapter!
Ledski
I really like filletas character. Honestly I was kinda hoping he would move his relationship with Laurel onwards. She did slight him in the past, but I feel she already paid enough of a price. Maybe they could learn to work together and pehaps find companionship
Xzeno
Sounds like Tyron is on his way to making skeleton siege machines
CentaureHeart
By the way, his next Wight should be his old arcanist master (if he was willing). That dude could help him improve his design for eternity and speed up the creation of undead as well.
Forint
Stages. He's just a sewer necromancer right now. Better than cave, but nowhere near castle. Remember the title, it's not an ancient artifact, it's his book. He's not Harry Potter or even Dumbledore, he's Merlin. He's Him.
CentaureHeart
Agreed, it would be cool if at some point he managed to put a revenant in it, or even a Wight.
CentaureHeart
I hope that's next, any good army needs cavalry (medieval army).
CentaureHeart
It's not like it started off like that. Until his parents died he was still pretty innocent (relatively). I feel like we've actually seen his character change and evolve according to the different situations he was in. Right now yeah, we're in the mass murderer phase.
CentaureHeart
It actually feels nice to see him not snapping at someone. It was bound to happen, hopefully it keeps happening
CentaureHeart
Tyron's curse is that he keeps making sassy skeletons.
Roger Mayol
Hope to see a mamut rolling in the streets
Runaway_Cactuar
Dang, I had my money on Death Knight. It was gonna be so cool building an undead horse.
Runaway_Cactuar
I mean, the story is nowhere near the end. Ty might feel this way now, but he might lighten up later.
conkerer
Given that Tyron has confirmed the extent of the emotional manipulation and is not identifying moments when it is influencing his decisions, it makes a lot of sense that he is taking time to think things through more often now. If you know anything about therapy, awareness is the most important step to deprogramming yourself from anything, be it addiction, habits, or trauma. The next step is letting the automatic response fade before taking action, which he is starting to do consciously. Honestly it's incredible character growth showing that he is taking control of his impulses, even if he doesn't have a long term plan yet
Bookworm bibliophile
I feel like this is credited to filetta own initiative to help tyron. It even sprised him.
braeden winstead
Yeah the vampire mind magic slowly wearing off could definitely contribute to the change along with what you said, I just personally felt it was a bit fast. Still not going to complain about a some character development tho!
Isiah Debarros
He already has that so probably giant
Isiah Debarros
I mean he can only really start planing for after when he fixes what the vamps did to him
Gabus Deux
The difference is, filetta is a soul, bound into an undead form with her consent and most of her mind intact, the beef between her and Tyron wasn't enough to form hatred between them, it was just business in a literal sense. Neither of them wanted to kill the other specifically, so there's not really any hard feelings. Similar to dove. The difference between our other wights, is that they were childhood friends of his that betrayed him when he needed them most and would have condemned him to horrible torture beyond imagination. So to me, it makes sense
Moosh7
I was interpreting this as the result of him teaching those other necromancers and otherwise interact more with non-psychotic people leading to more tolerance for questions. Then again I thought there was some kind of permanent effect left over from the vampire mind tampering that made him more callous or something? The state of Tyron's mind is like a mysterious plot point unto itself.
Taylor
Thats really interesting. Your issue with Tyron is exactly what makes him such a compelling character to me! He’s gone from an innocent child, looking to make his parents proud and help people to a shortsighted, arrogant man who thinks of nothing but vengeance. He cares nothing for his own emotional or physical health, pushes everyone close to him away, and then smothers all the damage it does to him with his necromantic work. I love his character so much!
Dylan Alexander
Yeah he needs an endgame or a solid goal beyond, kill them all and achieve ultimate vengeance. Hell I’d even take his ultimate goal to become some sort of dimensional god of necromancy so he can learn from multiple worlds/realities until he perfects necromancy.
Seamole
A bone colossus! Damn that's cool
Hayden Leech
Yeah that’s kind of my beef with the story. It just seems like a really long self destructive suicide note. He plans to do as much damage as he can and probably die. It’s not the most engaging motive. Atleast to me.
Rahsheem Reid
Bone giant.
Andrew
Thank you!
braeden winstead
This chapter feels like a pretty sharp change in Tyrone's character to me. He's very suddenly accepting of outside opinions and has a willingness to discuss he didn't have before at all even with Elisabeth especially considering he's talking to a necromantic minion. Filleta also seems remarkably friendly considering being undead makes them inherently hateful especially towards their own killer and slaver. Perhaps this is just my own bad take but it seems to me this same conversation 10 chapters ago would have been Tyrone threatening to send filleta to the abyss until she lets him work the end
Bookworm bibliophile
Honestly the world or the worlds are big. It would be waste if he doesn't explore it.
Bookworm bibliophile
Short but sweet
ShadyTundra
Horse?
jak0b
Woohoo! Personal development!!
Theweird12345
It's really heartwarming to see the concern the undead army has for their master. Or well, this particular one. I understand that there's a really low chance that he will survive this. But I really hope Tyron manages to fulfill some sort of happy ending
Normalname
We making giant skeletons? Don’t forget the bombs when they die.
