Nym was flipping through a book on necromancy when Archmage Veran appeared in the library. The old man glanced at him casually, did a double take when he saw what was in Nym’s hands, and cleared his throat meaningfully.
“So I met a wight who could talk today,” Nym said without looking up. “Never saw one of those before. Seemed like it might be important. It was leading a group of ghouls in an attack so that it could steal that book over there.”
Nym gestured towards the pale leather tome he’d taken from the wight. “I’m no expert in the matter, but if I’m understanding what I’m reading here, that wight was bound in service to a necromancer.”
“Hrmmm. Yes, they have begun to appear more frequently over the last few weeks,” Archmage Veran said. He peered at the book without touching it. “Some sort of body snatching ritual perhaps? I will assume this vile concoction came from the same source.”
“That’s the part that concerns me. I was doing a fly-by and saw ghouls attacking a plantation, being led by a wight. The whole attack was a distraction to allow a second wight to slip in from the other side and break into the manor house. They had a secret basement full of all sorts of stuff, including that book and potion.”
“A local necromancer then,” Archmage Veran said thoughtfully. “Or possibly a whole family of them.”
“Someone from the plantation? Or someone who used to live there maybe. They knew exactly where the hidden laboratory was, but had to tear it apart to find what they were looking for in it.”
The old man’s brows furrowed as he thought. He stared off into the distance, obviously turning something over in his mind, but not yet ready to share. Finally, he said, “I would like to see this plantation you visited.”
“Really?” Nym was surprised. With all the important matters taking up the old man’s attention, he hadn’t expected this to rate high enough to warrant a personal visit. Nym had thought he’d ask a few questions, maybe get a better idea of what was going on, and then the whole matter would probably be turned over to the army for further investigation.
“Yes, this is… concerning. It brings up old memories from twenty years ago, issues I had thought long resolved.”
Nym waited, but Archmage Veran did not elaborate. He just stood there in silence for another minute or so, absently flipping through the book Nym had recovered. He started in place when Nym said, “Did you want to go right now, or do you need some time?”
“Now is fine,” the old man said. “Yes, the sooner, the better.”
They teleported together, with Nym leading and the archmage using him as a beacon to follow. The two of them appeared in the sky near the plantation, as had become Nym’s preference. There was less risk of bumping into something if he was off by a few feet here or there that way. It had only been a few hours since the attack, and the fire pits were still going below. They glowed a sullen red in the night and the shadows of farm hands moved around them, shepherding struggling limbs back into the flames.
Nym waited while his mentor went through a string of divinations and scrying. His face sagged with each spell and he suddenly looked decades older. “This is getting more troubling by the moment,” he said. “There have been some other reports… I’ll get little Jaspar to compile them for me.”
“When you’re done mumbling to yourself and being mysterious, do you think you could fill me in?” Nym asked.
“Ah, yes. My apologies. Let’s head home and I’ll tell you all about it.”
They teleported back to Archmage Veran’s sanctum and took their spots in overstuffed and extremely comfortable arm chairs. A book floated down from one of the shelves high overhead and landed in Archmage Veran’s outstretched hand. “Let me see now,” he said, flipping through the pages. “I haven’t had time to do much journaling in more recent years. Running the Academy is enough to fill anyone’s day, and this problem with the Veil has aged me beyond my years.” He paused and chuckled. “Though perhaps not as much as my training under you did.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nym told him honestly.
The laugh died in the archmage’s throat. “Ah, yes. Quite. My mistake.”
“It’s fine,” Nym told him. “I’m sure I’d think it was funny if I could remember.”
There really hadn’t been any way to hide that he wasn’t Exarch Niramyn, though he hadn’t shared the cause of his transformation to a child-like state or the reason he’d removed his own memories. The less people who knew, the better. He was already trusting Archmage Veran’s discretion more than he wanted to. Circumstances hadn’t left him with much choice.
“Twenty years ago, we were investigating a rash of disappearances around a town called Waring on the southern border of the Great Forest. There were some suspicions of bandits early on, but people kept going missing who had no reason to be on the roads. Unless the bandits had taken to breaking into houses at night, it seemed unlikely that they were the cause.
“In the end, we traced the disappearances back to a remote farm. The family that lived there was on bad terms with Waring due to the threat of them losing the property over taxes owed. They’d had a string of bad harvests and blamed it on a neighboring farm a few miles away for sabotaging them. The family from that second farm had all disappeared, which was how we linked it to the perpetrators.
“The oldest son had some talent as a mage, but couldn’t be spared to actually leave the farm for training. He had gotten his hands on a few necromancy books though, and decided to slaughter and reanimate certain villagers to use as free labor. The family went along with it for the most part.
“Further evidence uncovered at the farm revealed a plan to cash in on one last profitable harvest and then abandon the land, as the taxes owed on it were far more than it was worth and they were looking at facing debtor’s jail once it was taken from them.” Archmage Veran paused. “That’s not really relevant to this discussion. My apologies for getting carried away.”
He cleared his throat and continued, “We found labs hidden under the farm house, which were sealed up after the capture of the family. The necromancer fled into the forest and eventually managed to tear the Veil in a foolish attempt to summon a powerful undead guardian. He was stopped, of course, and I personally did my best to repair the Veil. I believe we are all familiar with how that turned out.
“The one point of interest that sticks out to me is that the necromancer had a brother, believed to be an accomplice who knew at least a little magic himself. Some of the rituals used in reanimation were too advanced for me to credit the necromancer with accomplishing. My theory was that the brother perished in the spell that tore the Veil, claimed as a sacrifice to draw the reaper’s attention.
“Waring itself claimed the farm, which had been expanded by a tremendous amount in a short time, and the town banded together to keep it running. Whatever experiments the original owners had been doing provided for a marked improvement in the soil quality. I can only speculate at what specific rituals were used and the loss of human life that made up the materials. Regardless, Waring continues to be a highly profitable farming community today, and its plantation, built on the site of the original farm, is its most valuable stretch of land.”
The journal rose back into the air and floated to its place on the shelf overhead. Archmage Veran fell silent while he waited for Nym to process the new information. Eventually, Nym said, “There must still be a connection between that plantation and the tear in the Veil. I’m assuming this isn’t secret knowledge?” The archmage nodded, and Nym continued. “Then surely someone from the military has investigated. For that matter, why didn’t you clear out the labs decades ago?”
“Oh, we did. I assure you, there was nothing related to necromancy in those rooms when I was done. Someone else has been using them since then. The real question is who? I was under the impression that the townsfolk were going to raze that farmhouse to the ground and build something new, and that the labs would be destroyed in the process. It appears someone changed their mind and built onto the house until it became the manor that stands there today.”
“So it could be any of a hundred people who knew about the labs years ago, or any of the thousands of people who might have been told about them since,” Nym said. “That’s not exactly a small suspect pool. What will you do now?”
“I will be doing very little, I think. You, on the other hand, may find yourself quite busy over the next few weeks.”
“Me?” Nym squawked. “Why me?”
“These are the kinds of jobs I have apprentices do, and you’re already familiar with the background. Come now, where’s your sense of adventure? Where’s your curiosity.”
“I’m not your apprentice,” Nym said sourly.
“Details! You are studying from my library, benefiting from my lessons, and staying in my home. You are an apprentice in all but name.”
Technically speaking, the only thing Archmage Veran had agreed to was to help Nym craft a conduit that reached the fifth layer. Everything else was just the old man being a gracious host. Nym ground his teeth. He should have seen this coming.
The truth was that he was curious though, and as long as the investigation didn’t drag him into the middle of the army’s territory, there probably wasn’t much harm to it. He was not the same mage he’d been a few months ago when he’d helped defend an outpost from a ghoul attack, and it would take something more powerful than anything he’d come across in the forest to hurt him now. At least, it would as long as he wasn’t careless.
“Fine. I’ll do it.”
“Excellent. Now, come with me. We’ll see what we can learn from this wight you encountered.”
Nym followed the archmage out of the library, confused as to where they were going. “Why not just teleport back to the plantation?” he asked.
“I have moved the body to the sanctum to better study it,” Archmage Veran said.
Nym missed a step. He hadn’t noticed anything extra being teleported when they’d left. They hadn’t even looked at the body when they were at the plantation! But soon enough they were in a medical bay, one that Nym had stepped foot in a few times to reference some of the medical texts stored there.
Archmage Veran gestured and a new shelf appeared above the ones already visible. The books on it were much closer in appearance to the one Nym had brought back than anything else he’d seen in the sanctum. Several floated down and opened up as they landed on a table. Floating in the center of the room on a bed of arcana was the body of the wight Nym had killed with lightning.
“There are ways to temporarily part the Veil and summon the spirits of those who have passed beyond them. It is not something done lightly, of course, and those who lack a delicate touch can cause terrible damage. I trust I need not lecture you on the results of such damage if left unattended. If you’ll look at the book with the blue binding, we’ll go over the spell needed to speak with the dead. It is, of course, of the third circle.”
Nym spent a few minutes reading about the spell and studying the construct that was described over the next few pages. Archmage Veran was right; it would take a delicate touch to properly put it together. Some of the dangers the book outlined if the spell was cast incorrectly sent shivers down his spine.
He wondered if learning this spell made him a necromancer. “Isn’t this illegal?” he asked.
The archmage just chuckled.
Nym was flipping through a book on necromancy when Archmage Veran appeared in the library. The old man glanced at him casually, did a double take when he saw what was in Nym’s hands, and cleared his throat meaningfully.
“So I met a wight who could talk today,” Nym said without looking up. “Never saw one of those before. Seemed like it might be important. It was leading a group of ghouls in an attack so that it could steal that book over there.”
Nym gestured towards the pale leather tome he’d taken from the wight. “I’m no expert in the matter, but if I’m understanding what I’m reading here, that wight was bound in service to a necromancer.”
“Hrmmm. Yes, they have begun to appear more frequently over the last few weeks,” Archmage Veran said. He peered at the book without touching it. “Some sort of body snatching ritual perhaps? I will assume this vile concoction came from the same source.”
“That’s the part that concerns me. I was doing a fly-by and saw ghouls attacking a plantation, being led by a wight. The whole attack was a distraction to allow a second wight to slip in from the other side and break into the manor house. They had a secret basement full of all sorts of stuff, including that book and potion.”
“A local necromancer then,” Archmage Veran said thoughtfully. “Or possibly a whole family of them.”
“Someone from the plantation? Or someone who used to live there maybe. They knew exactly where the hidden laboratory was, but had to tear it apart to find what they were looking for in it.”
The old man’s brows furrowed as he thought. He stared off into the distance, obviously turning something over in his mind, but not yet ready to share. Finally, he said, “I would like to see this plantation you visited.”
“Really?” Nym was surprised. With all the important matters taking up the old man’s attention, he hadn’t expected this to rate high enough to warrant a personal visit. Nym had thought he’d ask a few questions, maybe get a better idea of what was going on, and then the whole matter would probably be turned over to the army for further investigation.
“Yes, this is… concerning. It brings up old memories from twenty years ago, issues I had thought long resolved.”
Nym waited, but Archmage Veran did not elaborate. He just stood there in silence for another minute or so, absently flipping through the book Nym had recovered. He started in place when Nym said, “Did you want to go right now, or do you need some time?”
“Now is fine,” the old man said. “Yes, the sooner, the better.”
They teleported together, with Nym leading and the archmage using him as a beacon to follow. The two of them appeared in the sky near the plantation, as had become Nym’s preference. There was less risk of bumping into something if he was off by a few feet here or there that way. It had only been a few hours since the attack, and the fire pits were still going below. They glowed a sullen red in the night and the shadows of farm hands moved around them, shepherding struggling limbs back into the flames.
Nym waited while his mentor went through a string of divinations and scrying. His face sagged with each spell and he suddenly looked decades older. “This is getting more troubling by the moment,” he said. “There have been some other reports… I’ll get little Jaspar to compile them for me.”
“When you’re done mumbling to yourself and being mysterious, do you think you could fill me in?” Nym asked.
“Ah, yes. My apologies. Let’s head home and I’ll tell you all about it.”
They teleported back to Archmage Veran’s sanctum and took their spots in overstuffed and extremely comfortable arm chairs. A book floated down from one of the shelves high overhead and landed in Archmage Veran’s outstretched hand. “Let me see now,” he said, flipping through the pages. “I haven’t had time to do much journaling in more recent years. Running the Academy is enough to fill anyone’s day, and this problem with the Veil has aged me beyond my years.” He paused and chuckled. “Though perhaps not as much as my training under you did.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nym told him honestly.
The laugh died in the archmage’s throat. “Ah, yes. Quite. My mistake.”
“It’s fine,” Nym told him. “I’m sure I’d think it was funny if I could remember.”
There really hadn’t been any way to hide that he wasn’t Exarch Niramyn, though he hadn’t shared the cause of his transformation to a child-like state or the reason he’d removed his own memories. The less people who knew, the better. He was already trusting Archmage Veran’s discretion more than he wanted to. Circumstances hadn’t left him with much choice.
“Twenty years ago, we were investigating a rash of disappearances around a town called Waring on the southern border of the Great Forest. There were some suspicions of bandits early on, but people kept going missing who had no reason to be on the roads. Unless the bandits had taken to breaking into houses at night, it seemed unlikely that they were the cause.
“In the end, we traced the disappearances back to a remote farm. The family that lived there was on bad terms with Waring due to the threat of them losing the property over taxes owed. They’d had a string of bad harvests and blamed it on a neighboring farm a few miles away for sabotaging them. The family from that second farm had all disappeared, which was how we linked it to the perpetrators.
“The oldest son had some talent as a mage, but couldn’t be spared to actually leave the farm for training. He had gotten his hands on a few necromancy books though, and decided to slaughter and reanimate certain villagers to use as free labor. The family went along with it for the most part.
“Further evidence uncovered at the farm revealed a plan to cash in on one last profitable harvest and then abandon the land, as the taxes owed on it were far more than it was worth and they were looking at facing debtor’s jail once it was taken from them.” Archmage Veran paused. “That’s not really relevant to this discussion. My apologies for getting carried away.”
He cleared his throat and continued, “We found labs hidden under the farm house, which were sealed up after the capture of the family. The necromancer fled into the forest and eventually managed to tear the Veil in a foolish attempt to summon a powerful undead guardian. He was stopped, of course, and I personally did my best to repair the Veil. I believe we are all familiar with how that turned out.
“The one point of interest that sticks out to me is that the necromancer had a brother, believed to be an accomplice who knew at least a little magic himself. Some of the rituals used in reanimation were too advanced for me to credit the necromancer with accomplishing. My theory was that the brother perished in the spell that tore the Veil, claimed as a sacrifice to draw the reaper’s attention.
“Waring itself claimed the farm, which had been expanded by a tremendous amount in a short time, and the town banded together to keep it running. Whatever experiments the original owners had been doing provided for a marked improvement in the soil quality. I can only speculate at what specific rituals were used and the loss of human life that made up the materials. Regardless, Waring continues to be a highly profitable farming community today, and its plantation, built on the site of the original farm, is its most valuable stretch of land.”
The journal rose back into the air and floated to its place on the shelf overhead. Archmage Veran fell silent while he waited for Nym to process the new information. Eventually, Nym said, “There must still be a connection between that plantation and the tear in the Veil. I’m assuming this isn’t secret knowledge?” The archmage nodded, and Nym continued. “Then surely someone from the military has investigated. For that matter, why didn’t you clear out the labs decades ago?”
“Oh, we did. I assure you, there was nothing related to necromancy in those rooms when I was done. Someone else has been using them since then. The real question is who? I was under the impression that the townsfolk were going to raze that farmhouse to the ground and build something new, and that the labs would be destroyed in the process. It appears someone changed their mind and built onto the house until it became the manor that stands there today.”
“So it could be any of a hundred people who knew about the labs years ago, or any of the thousands of people who might have been told about them since,” Nym said. “That’s not exactly a small suspect pool. What will you do now?”
“I will be doing very little, I think. You, on the other hand, may find yourself quite busy over the next few weeks.”
“Me?” Nym squawked. “Why me?”
“These are the kinds of jobs I have apprentices do, and you’re already familiar with the background. Come now, where’s your sense of adventure? Where’s your curiosity.”
“I’m not your apprentice,” Nym said sourly.
“Details! You are studying from my library, benefiting from my lessons, and staying in my home. You are an apprentice in all but name.”
Technically speaking, the only thing Archmage Veran had agreed to was to help Nym craft a conduit that reached the fifth layer. Everything else was just the old man being a gracious host. Nym ground his teeth. He should have seen this coming.
The truth was that he was curious though, and as long as the investigation didn’t drag him into the middle of the army’s territory, there probably wasn’t much harm to it. He was not the same mage he’d been a few months ago when he’d helped defend an outpost from a ghoul attack, and it would take something more powerful than anything he’d come across in the forest to hurt him now. At least, it would as long as he wasn’t careless.
“Fine. I’ll do it.”
“Excellent. Now, come with me. We’ll see what we can learn from this wight you encountered.”
Nym followed the archmage out of the library, confused as to where they were going. “Why not just teleport back to the plantation?” he asked.
“I have moved the body to the sanctum to better study it,” Archmage Veran said.
Nym missed a step. He hadn’t noticed anything extra being teleported when they’d left. They hadn’t even looked at the body when they were at the plantation! But soon enough they were in a medical bay, one that Nym had stepped foot in a few times to reference some of the medical texts stored there.
Archmage Veran gestured and a new shelf appeared above the ones already visible. The books on it were much closer in appearance to the one Nym had brought back than anything else he’d seen in the sanctum. Several floated down and opened up as they landed on a table. Floating in the center of the room on a bed of arcana was the body of the wight Nym had killed with lightning.
“There are ways to temporarily part the Veil and summon the spirits of those who have passed beyond them. It is not something done lightly, of course, and those who lack a delicate touch can cause terrible damage. I trust I need not lecture you on the results of such damage if left unattended. If you’ll look at the book with the blue binding, we’ll go over the spell needed to speak with the dead. It is, of course, of the third circle.”
Nym spent a few minutes reading about the spell and studying the construct that was described over the next few pages. Archmage Veran was right; it would take a delicate touch to properly put it together. Some of the dangers the book outlined if the spell was cast incorrectly sent shivers down his spine.
He wondered if learning this spell made him a necromancer. “Isn’t this illegal?” he asked.
The archmage just chuckled.
