The magic invaded the corpse and spread through its limbs. It was a slow, steady progression that spiraled out from the construct imbued into its chest, taking a solid minute to reach the hands and feet and then sweeping back up to the construct. Each time the arcana cycled, more of it was left behind and the body regenerated closer to pristine condition.
Once the corpse was fully infused with arcana, Nym activated the second step. He twisted the construct, pulling on it in certain places so that it collapsed down into a new shape and feeding it more arcana. Pulled on strings of magic, the wight jerked upright. At this point, it was more or less whole again, though there were still burns across its body from the lightning bolts.
The arcana tethering Nym to the wight split apart, leaving it with nothing but the magic he’d already invested in its body. It looked around, confusion evident in its expression. “What is this?” the wight growled.
It reached out a hand towards the two living humans in the room, only to be stopped by a barrier that circled all the way around it. Experimentally, it tested the barrier, even going so far as to cast a few subtle spells, but nothing broke the magic. Nym waited patiently for it to finish.
“I have some questions for you,” he said once it gave up prodding the barrier that was keeping it trapped. Nym produced the vial full of murky black liquid. “This potion, what does it do?”
He was pretty sure he already knew the answer, or rather, that Archmage Veran had known the answer and told him. Whoever imbibed it would have their soul ejected from their body, leaving it open for possession. If a clever spell caster could manage to fully transplant his consciousness into the victim, he would effectively gain a new body.
Nym wanted the wight to confirm it, to make a rational choice. If he had to invoke the contingency spell they’d woven into the body before reanimating it, then the whole exercise would be pointless. He needed the wight to choose something besides mindless hatred. It had already shown it had the capability to do so.
Some undead existed as nothing more than a bundle of impulses steering a meat suit. Ghouls were perhaps the most famous example of those. They destroyed and they ate; that was it. Unless something capable of actually thinking came along and took over, a ghoul would never change its behavior, never learn.
Physiologically speaking, there was more to them than that. Unlike other undead, their bodies were actually made of some material from beyond the Veil. That was why they regenerated from anything short of being reduced to ash and never, ever stopped. That was why an endless wave would just keep pouring out of the tear unless steps were taken to hold it shut.
Wights were different. They were the reanimated corpses of actual people, complete with their memories and abilities. But when they came back, they also got a bundle of impulses to drive them. Most wights couldn’t overcome that, and bent their talents and knowledge towards destruction and carnage. Every now and then though, a wight who’d been strong enough, or smart enough, or maybe just lucky enough, could control that bundle of raw seething hate.
That was what they needed, and based on the fact that it could talk and was talking, Nym thought they just might get it. If so, they could bargain for its help. It could reveal who’d bound it prior to Nym slaying it. They could wrap this whole mystery up in the next half an hour, if only the wight would come to the table and bargain.
He was metaphorically holding his breath, waiting to see what the wight would do. It stared at him from the other side of the barrier, eyes unblinking, hands clenching and unclenching. Nym waited. Finally, with a grimace, the wight said, “It’s a catalyst for another spell.”
Nym fought to keep his expression calm, to act like he’d known the outcome all along. “What does the spell do?”
“I do not know the details. I was only given instructions to retrieve it by any means necessary.”
“Who gave those instructions?”
The wight’s eyes glazed over and its mouth clamped shut. Archmage Veran had coached Nym thoroughly before they’d reanimated the wight, and one of those lessons was not to play games with it. He was to ask the questions, wait to receive the answers, and ignore its attempts to subvert or redirect the conversation.
This felt different though. The wight almost seemed to have lost that spark of unlife that animated its body. Something was wrong. He kept his eyes locked on the undead, but heard movement behind him. The archmage must have sensed something had changed too. He took a step forward to stand next to Nym and peered at their captured wight through the barrier.
“Interesting,” he said. “The necromancer who originally bound it built contingencies spells into its very soul to ensure its loyalty. It may need a jolt of arcana to shock it out of its trance. This will be a tedious interrogation, it seems. You’ll need to focus on asking questions that don’t revolve around the necromancer but which indirectly hint to him.”
“Got it,” Nym said. “Anything else before I shock it out of whatever loop it’s caught in?”
“Hmm… nothing immediately important comes to mind. I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
Nym grumbled to himself under his breath. It would be easier if the old man would just do it himself, but he’d insisted Nym could use the practice. Reluctantly, he got back to work and conjured another pulse of arcana to sweep through the wight’s body. It blinked a few times and looked around, that initial look of confusion back.
Then its brain, or whatever it was that generated thoughts for it now, caught up and it focused on Nym again. Once he was sure he had the undead’s attention back on him, he asked, “Where were you taking the potion to?”
“Cave in the woods,” the wight spat out, almost unwillingly. It seemed surprised in itself that it had answered. Nym’s binding was holding, but the compulsion was a delicate thing. Too much force would cause it to snap and drive the wight into a rage. They might never coax it back from that. Too little though, and it wouldn’t answer their questions.
It was a fine balancing act, but if it failed, Nym hoped it would fail on the side of too little compulsion, and that they could tempt it with their contingency plan. He didn’t want to go that far though, since according to Archmage Veran, it would cost them quite a lot of crests, not to mention time that they might not have.
“Why this cave?” Nym asked, hoping he was skirting far enough around the question of who the wight would meet there.
“Connects to the underground network,” the wight said.
Nym blinked. That was new. “The what now?”
Behind him, he heard the archmage shift in place. It looked like Nym wasn’t the only one who’d never heard of an underground network.
“It’s a bunch of tunnels and caves that open up to various points,” the wight explained.
“Well that explains how the undead kept getting behind the army’s front lines,” Nym said with a frown. He shook off that thought before he got too far away from the point. There would be plenty of time to examine it later. “Does this network stretch through the entire forest?”
“I don’t know,” the wight said. It seemed more relaxed and willing to answer questions now. If Nym wasn’t staring at a pasty white face that still had that little root-looking pattern on it from being hit with his lightning spell, he could almost think he was having a casual conversation.
“Are there a lot of undead in the caves?” he asked.
“Mostly ghouls and the wights who know earth magic.”
Nym thought back to that wight who’d tried to capture him, and the missing earth mages from the shelter. He’d assumed the ghouls had eaten them based on the few tattered scraps left behind. Maybe that wasn’t the case though.
“They’re digging their way out,” he realized. “Something got smart and started converting the army’s work force over to wights.”
It was perfect. The ghouls could dig and, directed and assisted by earth mages turned wight, they’d make miles of new tunnels every day. The workers wouldn’t tire. The wights would use earth magic to compact and clean out the dirt, then stabilize the tunnels. If anyone found one of the exits, a tidal wave of undead would fall on them before they could escape. It might even mean a new wight to continue the work.
This was way bigger than Nym was expecting. He’d thought he’d be tracking down a necromancer holed up somewhere nearby, probably isolated except for some undead minions, and that the majority of the work would be figuring out where he needed to go. Instead, he was looking at an operation that would probably require hundreds of mages and soldiers doing some nasty, close-quarters, underground fighting against swarms of undead.
He wasn’t even sure how it would work. Ghouls didn’t die, and it wasn’t like they could burn them in the tunnels without burning up all the air they needed to survive. His imagination painted a vivid scene of screaming men being buried under thousands of grasping and clawing arms, of limbless ghouls flopping around biting at anything they could reach. It would take magic greater than Nym’s to survive something like that.
Nym glanced back at Archmage Veran. “Do you want to take over?” he asked. “This is kind of getting out of hand. We’re way past hunting for a lone necromancer now.”
“Hrmm… yes, I suppose I’d better,” the archmage said with a sigh.
Almost gratefully, Nym relinquished his position. What followed was a series of rapid-fire questions that made his head spin. Apparently, his idea of delicate was far different than his mentor’s. Archmage Veran shot off dozens of questions in the span of a few minutes, everything from how many wights were in the tunnels, how many were former army personnel, if there were any living humans down there, how many exits there were, what was in the middle, if any areas were off-limits, if any other wights were going on similar missions, and finally, what the wight knew about any long-term plans.
A lot of those questions went unanswered, not because the wight was unwilling or unable to talk, but simply because it didn’t know. A few times, Nym thought it would clam up again, but Archmage Veran must have had a good idea of the shape of the spells preventing it from talking. It reminded Nym a lot of his own interrogations when he was still geased. There was a lot of information that could be teased out, as long as he knew what questions to ask.
“That’s enough,” Archmage Veran said. “You may return to your rest.”
The wight looked confused for a second, then terrified, and then its eyes went dead and it fell over, just a corpse once more. Archmage Veran stood silently, staring at the wall and chewing on his beard while he thought. While he waited, Nym used greater telekinesis to put the wight’s body back on the table. No doubt there’d be more questions in the future. He started on the preservation spells the book had described, but cut them short when the archmage shook his head and said, “Leave it. There’s no time for that now. Come. We’re going to have a busy night.”
Without another word, Archmage Veran swept out of the room. Nym trailed after him, wondering just what exactly they were going to be busy doing. They never had quite managed to piece together why the wight needed instructions and potions for a body swapping ritual after stumbling across something far more urgent, but whatever wanted it almost certainly was behind the underground tunnel network.
He wondered if the tear splitting open had been a natural progression of events after all, or if something had taken an effort to hasten it along, something long dead perhaps, but looking for a new meat suit to walk around in.
Nym had no desire to meet such a creature, but he suspected he would be before much longer.
The magic invaded the corpse and spread through its limbs. It was a slow, steady progression that spiraled out from the construct imbued into its chest, taking a solid minute to reach the hands and feet and then sweeping back up to the construct. Each time the arcana cycled, more of it was left behind and the body regenerated closer to pristine condition.
Once the corpse was fully infused with arcana, Nym activated the second step. He twisted the construct, pulling on it in certain places so that it collapsed down into a new shape and feeding it more arcana. Pulled on strings of magic, the wight jerked upright. At this point, it was more or less whole again, though there were still burns across its body from the lightning bolts.
The arcana tethering Nym to the wight split apart, leaving it with nothing but the magic he’d already invested in its body. It looked around, confusion evident in its expression. “What is this?” the wight growled.
It reached out a hand towards the two living humans in the room, only to be stopped by a barrier that circled all the way around it. Experimentally, it tested the barrier, even going so far as to cast a few subtle spells, but nothing broke the magic. Nym waited patiently for it to finish.
“I have some questions for you,” he said once it gave up prodding the barrier that was keeping it trapped. Nym produced the vial full of murky black liquid. “This potion, what does it do?”
He was pretty sure he already knew the answer, or rather, that Archmage Veran had known the answer and told him. Whoever imbibed it would have their soul ejected from their body, leaving it open for possession. If a clever spell caster could manage to fully transplant his consciousness into the victim, he would effectively gain a new body.
Nym wanted the wight to confirm it, to make a rational choice. If he had to invoke the contingency spell they’d woven into the body before reanimating it, then the whole exercise would be pointless. He needed the wight to choose something besides mindless hatred. It had already shown it had the capability to do so.
Some undead existed as nothing more than a bundle of impulses steering a meat suit. Ghouls were perhaps the most famous example of those. They destroyed and they ate; that was it. Unless something capable of actually thinking came along and took over, a ghoul would never change its behavior, never learn.
Physiologically speaking, there was more to them than that. Unlike other undead, their bodies were actually made of some material from beyond the Veil. That was why they regenerated from anything short of being reduced to ash and never, ever stopped. That was why an endless wave would just keep pouring out of the tear unless steps were taken to hold it shut.
Wights were different. They were the reanimated corpses of actual people, complete with their memories and abilities. But when they came back, they also got a bundle of impulses to drive them. Most wights couldn’t overcome that, and bent their talents and knowledge towards destruction and carnage. Every now and then though, a wight who’d been strong enough, or smart enough, or maybe just lucky enough, could control that bundle of raw seething hate.
That was what they needed, and based on the fact that it could talk and was talking, Nym thought they just might get it. If so, they could bargain for its help. It could reveal who’d bound it prior to Nym slaying it. They could wrap this whole mystery up in the next half an hour, if only the wight would come to the table and bargain.
He was metaphorically holding his breath, waiting to see what the wight would do. It stared at him from the other side of the barrier, eyes unblinking, hands clenching and unclenching. Nym waited. Finally, with a grimace, the wight said, “It’s a catalyst for another spell.”
Nym fought to keep his expression calm, to act like he’d known the outcome all along. “What does the spell do?”
“I do not know the details. I was only given instructions to retrieve it by any means necessary.”
“Who gave those instructions?”
The wight’s eyes glazed over and its mouth clamped shut. Archmage Veran had coached Nym thoroughly before they’d reanimated the wight, and one of those lessons was not to play games with it. He was to ask the questions, wait to receive the answers, and ignore its attempts to subvert or redirect the conversation.
This felt different though. The wight almost seemed to have lost that spark of unlife that animated its body. Something was wrong. He kept his eyes locked on the undead, but heard movement behind him. The archmage must have sensed something had changed too. He took a step forward to stand next to Nym and peered at their captured wight through the barrier.
“Interesting,” he said. “The necromancer who originally bound it built contingencies spells into its very soul to ensure its loyalty. It may need a jolt of arcana to shock it out of its trance. This will be a tedious interrogation, it seems. You’ll need to focus on asking questions that don’t revolve around the necromancer but which indirectly hint to him.”
“Got it,” Nym said. “Anything else before I shock it out of whatever loop it’s caught in?”
“Hmm… nothing immediately important comes to mind. I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
Nym grumbled to himself under his breath. It would be easier if the old man would just do it himself, but he’d insisted Nym could use the practice. Reluctantly, he got back to work and conjured another pulse of arcana to sweep through the wight’s body. It blinked a few times and looked around, that initial look of confusion back.
Then its brain, or whatever it was that generated thoughts for it now, caught up and it focused on Nym again. Once he was sure he had the undead’s attention back on him, he asked, “Where were you taking the potion to?”
“Cave in the woods,” the wight spat out, almost unwillingly. It seemed surprised in itself that it had answered. Nym’s binding was holding, but the compulsion was a delicate thing. Too much force would cause it to snap and drive the wight into a rage. They might never coax it back from that. Too little though, and it wouldn’t answer their questions.
It was a fine balancing act, but if it failed, Nym hoped it would fail on the side of too little compulsion, and that they could tempt it with their contingency plan. He didn’t want to go that far though, since according to Archmage Veran, it would cost them quite a lot of crests, not to mention time that they might not have.
“Why this cave?” Nym asked, hoping he was skirting far enough around the question of who the wight would meet there.
“Connects to the underground network,” the wight said.
Nym blinked. That was new. “The what now?”
Behind him, he heard the archmage shift in place. It looked like Nym wasn’t the only one who’d never heard of an underground network.
“It’s a bunch of tunnels and caves that open up to various points,” the wight explained.
“Well that explains how the undead kept getting behind the army’s front lines,” Nym said with a frown. He shook off that thought before he got too far away from the point. There would be plenty of time to examine it later. “Does this network stretch through the entire forest?”
“I don’t know,” the wight said. It seemed more relaxed and willing to answer questions now. If Nym wasn’t staring at a pasty white face that still had that little root-looking pattern on it from being hit with his lightning spell, he could almost think he was having a casual conversation.
“Are there a lot of undead in the caves?” he asked.
“Mostly ghouls and the wights who know earth magic.”
Nym thought back to that wight who’d tried to capture him, and the missing earth mages from the shelter. He’d assumed the ghouls had eaten them based on the few tattered scraps left behind. Maybe that wasn’t the case though.
“They’re digging their way out,” he realized. “Something got smart and started converting the army’s work force over to wights.”
It was perfect. The ghouls could dig and, directed and assisted by earth mages turned wight, they’d make miles of new tunnels every day. The workers wouldn’t tire. The wights would use earth magic to compact and clean out the dirt, then stabilize the tunnels. If anyone found one of the exits, a tidal wave of undead would fall on them before they could escape. It might even mean a new wight to continue the work.
This was way bigger than Nym was expecting. He’d thought he’d be tracking down a necromancer holed up somewhere nearby, probably isolated except for some undead minions, and that the majority of the work would be figuring out where he needed to go. Instead, he was looking at an operation that would probably require hundreds of mages and soldiers doing some nasty, close-quarters, underground fighting against swarms of undead.
He wasn’t even sure how it would work. Ghouls didn’t die, and it wasn’t like they could burn them in the tunnels without burning up all the air they needed to survive. His imagination painted a vivid scene of screaming men being buried under thousands of grasping and clawing arms, of limbless ghouls flopping around biting at anything they could reach. It would take magic greater than Nym’s to survive something like that.
Nym glanced back at Archmage Veran. “Do you want to take over?” he asked. “This is kind of getting out of hand. We’re way past hunting for a lone necromancer now.”
“Hrmm… yes, I suppose I’d better,” the archmage said with a sigh.
Almost gratefully, Nym relinquished his position. What followed was a series of rapid-fire questions that made his head spin. Apparently, his idea of delicate was far different than his mentor’s. Archmage Veran shot off dozens of questions in the span of a few minutes, everything from how many wights were in the tunnels, how many were former army personnel, if there were any living humans down there, how many exits there were, what was in the middle, if any areas were off-limits, if any other wights were going on similar missions, and finally, what the wight knew about any long-term plans.
A lot of those questions went unanswered, not because the wight was unwilling or unable to talk, but simply because it didn’t know. A few times, Nym thought it would clam up again, but Archmage Veran must have had a good idea of the shape of the spells preventing it from talking. It reminded Nym a lot of his own interrogations when he was still geased. There was a lot of information that could be teased out, as long as he knew what questions to ask.
“That’s enough,” Archmage Veran said. “You may return to your rest.”
The wight looked confused for a second, then terrified, and then its eyes went dead and it fell over, just a corpse once more. Archmage Veran stood silently, staring at the wall and chewing on his beard while he thought. While he waited, Nym used greater telekinesis to put the wight’s body back on the table. No doubt there’d be more questions in the future. He started on the preservation spells the book had described, but cut them short when the archmage shook his head and said, “Leave it. There’s no time for that now. Come. We’re going to have a busy night.”
Without another word, Archmage Veran swept out of the room. Nym trailed after him, wondering just what exactly they were going to be busy doing. They never had quite managed to piece together why the wight needed instructions and potions for a body swapping ritual after stumbling across something far more urgent, but whatever wanted it almost certainly was behind the underground tunnel network.
He wondered if the tear splitting open had been a natural progression of events after all, or if something had taken an effort to hasten it along, something long dead perhaps, but looking for a new meat suit to walk around in.
Nym had no desire to meet such a creature, but he suspected he would be before much longer.
