Kevin Curry
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Chapter 17: The bones of the past
🕑 Added 2022-06-06 15:19:27 +0000 UTCWhatever that mysterious spellcaster was, they continued to attempt to act against Casimir as he scouted out the kobold warren.
When military and adventuring intersects, the adventurer generally has to adjust their work as appropriate. Not just in the sense that a military unit requires more… babying is accurate, although he’d never say it out loud to them. The individual soldiers, even the strongest ones, aren’t as strong as an adventurer of equal experience, due to many minor differences compounding into a larger picture. Adventurers are better equipped, they’ve experience in more varied terrain, they’re more used to surprises and being ambushed, and acting as a unit will always be slower than the reflexes of a veteran adventurer. Also, they demand more detail in their maps.
But also because the military has access to more resources than an adventuring guild, much less a team would have. When an adventuring team has a map where all the exits to the dungeon are labeled, they use that information to know where to put little traps to slow down any attempts to escape, or to make it easier to track the fleeing monsters. The military just parks an infantry unit and some fortifications next to each and every one of them, twenty men each on a rotating shift. With another set of shifts of diviners keeping attention on any magic strong enough to make a fresh exit, with even more soldiers and fortifications dedicated to keeping them safe and to muster in the event of a breakout.
Are they concerned about the spellcasting monster undermining their foundations? Nope. They have enchanted stakes that reinforce the ground and interfere with any other attempts to affect it, which both prevents that problem and also lets them stick a temporary fort on swampland, much less the heavily root-threaded soil in this part of the country.
So in some ways, Casimir’s job is much more difficult. In others? Easier than ever. But today, ‘more difficult’ is the name of the game.
“What are you doing here!?” Casimir hissed at the collected novice adventurers.
“We’re questing.” Peter said as if it was obvious. “You said it was probably safe to quest a bit as long as I kept my senses open for spies.” Well, yes, but that was because Casimir was fairly certain that whatever was pulling John’s strings had burned their network and retreated to avoid getting hunted down, with the kobolds being the distraction to give them enough time to go. At least, that was Casimir’s conclusion after acting on the extra information John had once he got the really good interrogation spells going.
But ‘the enemy is laying low’ is not the same as ‘walk right into their allies base and pick a fight’. “You’re telling me someone put up a quest for dogsteel.” The steel that was created by kobolds was the main reason anyone could make money out of attacking warrens, but it was only a worthwhile endeavor in two circumstances: if there was a supply shortage of good steel, or if you could con some suckers into accepting way too little money for it. “How much are they paying?” The guild shouldn’t have even posted a quest, given that it’s a military operation now…
Illivere responded first: “Five silver per ingot.” Given that Casimir made sure to teach them how to shape metal into ingots for easy looting and transport, that was potentially quite profitable for their level… if it wasn’t for the fact that it was too dangerous.
“At least you’re not getting cheated…” Casimir admitted. “But this is a quest that’s too difficult for novices.”
“Unprepared novices, maybe.” Peter bragged. “All we need to do is take down those fancy secret doors and kill any kobolds that try to stop us.” Except for the fact that Casimir’s been riling them up all week and they’ve been coming out in groups way too large for the kids to handle.
“This isn’t a normal kobold warren.” Casimir insisted. “I told you guys that last time you were down here. Just wait until the operation tomorrow, you can scavenge the dogsteel the knights leave behind, maybe even protect them from a flanking attack.”
Hanna and Faron finished harvesting the secret door he had found them scavenging, five dense ingots of dogsteel scooped into their loot bags. “We’re done!” Hanna proclaimed, satisfied with a job well done. Then she noticed Casimir’s expression. Squeaking in fear, she hid behind her much larger teammate, peeking out from behind his waist to make sure she knew when to run.
“It’s good to see you again, sir.” Faron said respectfully.
Casimir rubbed his temples, doing a quick check of their surroundings. “Kobolds incoming.” He said, noting two separate grounds approaching. “This way.” The familiar rumbling of the stone monster’s tremorsense echoed throughout the cavern to Casimir’s magically attuned senses. “Quickly.” He added.
To their credit, Casimir’s students moved without complaint, Peter even grinning at how the argument ended without having to concede the point. Unfortunately, unlike whenever Casimir moved around after being noticed… the students couldn’t conceal their steps and position from the stone monster’s senses. While Casimir did his best to provide some distractions, attempting to throw the monster off, with an extra four pairs of feet Casimir could only curse as stone aspected mana surged, cutting off their escape with a stone wall that rang with reinforcement magic. Magic that Casimir probably didn’t have the oomph to break through.
“Well… crap.” Casimir said as he drew his sword. It had a more permanent set of enchantments now, the design inlaid with a mithril/silver alloy. With his Master’s improvements to the sharpness, he should be able to cut through kobolds without getting the blade stuck in a corpse, which is one of the most common ways one loses their weapon when battling groups of monsters.
As the kobolds advanced, the students fell into a support formation to Casimir. The hall they were trapped in was wide enough that Faron and Peter were able to fight at Casimir’s sides, holding back the press of bodies with their magic and ferocity in melee. Illivere focused on supporting Peter, while Hanna instead supported Faron.
They had learned lessons from their last engagement with these enemies, and quite honestly Casimir could admit that their assistance in keeping the dog men’s numbers from being leveraged against him was vital in him not dying. Hanna channeled her magic into effective spells that could kill multiple targets with minimal friendly fire, like Wind Disc and Lightning Bolt, and helped hamper their advance by using some life spell that Casimir couldn’t immediately identify to have mushroom-vine things gather the corpses and bind them into obstacles the kobolds had to maneuver around. Illivere was radiating some kind of active mind spell at the kobolds, and as active magic was a lot more difficult to identify effects with than more organized magic, Casimir was pretty sure it was why the kobolds kept getting in each other’s way and kept going around the corpses instead of trying anything clever with them.
Suddenly, the rumbling sensation of the stone monster’s tremorsense echoed once more throughout the battlefield… but the pulse didn’t come from the central cavern.
“Ah, Casimir.” Said an impossible voice. “It’s been a while. How’s David been, lately? Luci wouldn’t forgive me if I didn’t inquire while I had you.”
The kobolds had stopped coming, with the last of them cut down. Casimir focused once more on his magical senses… of course. “Magnus.” Casimir said, as calmly as he could manage. “Kids, remember the monster lore lesson from three weeks ago. It’s relevant.”
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The guild hall was pretty busy this time of day, as word had gotten around about an elite-ranked adventurer teaching lessons and a lot of the other novices and standards decided to listen in, which Casimir allowed.
“Today we’ll be talking about revenant-class monsters.” Casimir began. “Undead monsters, as you know, manifest in improperly warded areas where the bodies of intelligent beings rot, potentially years after the body can no longer be identified. The quality of the undead depends on how magically potent that corpse is. They can also be created artificially, although the specifics of that is forbidden knowledge.” Artificial monsters were something that has been pursued by military researchers for centuries. Undead were the only kind that is widely known to be possible, and while Casimir did know the theory behind it; as it was a combination of negative, curse, and enchantment methodologies, it was forbidden for a reason.
“Revenant-class undead are the strongest varieties. While the specific level of magical power required can vary, if you have an elite or heroic adventurer die on a job… You’ll want to recover the body.” Unless the soul was destroyed with negative magic. While it’s not the preferred method of preventing high tier undead from forming, it has been confirmed to work. “What distinguishes a Revenant from a more ordinary undead monster is that it retains full memories and prowess from when they were alive, with additional powers and properties as well.”
“Which kind of revenant-class undead depends on the nature of the deceased’s magic. This is relevant because a Revenant will have additional powers on top of their magic based on what they were. A wizard forms a lich, which is a projection. Their monster core is external to their body and usually hidden, they cannot be permanently destroyed until you have destroyed their monster core. Sorcerers instead form Wraiths, which are kind of like… loose and heavily aspected mana coalescing around their core, which floats around and has a certain set of magical defenses to allow them to move, speak, etcetera regardless of their mana type. It’s the closest any monster ever gets to being a proper spirit, honestly.”
“Sir!” Faron said as he raised his hand. “Are Wraiths different based on the mana aspect of the sorcerer?”
“Yep.” Casimir replied. “Air, fire, force, mind… Wraiths that are formed from those are fast and have fragile cores that can be relatively easy to destroy. More solid aspects, like metal and stone… Those are massive pains to deal with, as they armor their cores more densely than dragonscales. Pray you never have to deal with a Stone Wraith, as they’re smart enough to stay underground, where their home field advantage is nigh insurmountable.”
Now, where was he? Oh yes, Mummies. “Now, one of the things that distinguish the four primary categories of spirit mage is what kind of Revenant they spawn. Priests rise as mummies, for example…”
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“David doesn’t like talking to me, so I’m afraid I can’t say much on how he’s been doing.” Casimir said as he paid close attention to what kind of magic the Stone Wraith was doing during the discussion. Nothing yet, but that didn’t mean much, given the environment.
“She’ll be devastated.” Magnus said without a trace of sympathy, a joking smile on the floating stone mask that was his face. His monster core was still mostly quiescent, the reinforcement enchantment he placed to cage them didn’t have an active mana feed. “With that out of the way, I believe it’s time to move on to the primary matter of business?” Which was killing them, naturally.
“How do you exist?” Casimir asked. “I thought it was impossible to become a revenant if you were killed with soul-shredding.”
“That would be telling.” Magnus replied. “Oh but where are my manners? I believe I still need to be introduced to your little loadstones there.”
“Of course.” Casimir said. “Students, this is the Wraith formerly known as Magnus Stonefist, The Indomitable Pillar. Magnus, this is a novice-ranked adventuring team I’ve been teaching. I’ve become a teacher at the Academy, you know.” Pointing to each individual student, he introduced them by name. “This is Peter, Faron, Illivere, and Hanna.” Casimir made sure to emphasize the pronunciation of Hanna’s name, to be clear on the difference between her and Hana.
“Charmed.” Magnus replied, shaping a stone hand that stroked his stone beard. Was he distracted enough? “I wouldn’t have taken you to be the teaching type, but then again, you were always very dwarfish when it came to your magic, quite respectable in your dedication to mastering your spells. Not like David at all.” In hindsight, they really didn’t treat David very well as a group, did they? He was only kept around because he was Luci’s little brother… “I suppose it does make sense that you would eventually retreat into some research program eventually.”
“What’s taking so long?” A decrepit feminine voice rang out from nowhere. The sour taste of space magic suddenly invaded Casimir’s senses, as a Mummy wrapped in cloth scriptures depicting the Nine Blasphemies of Helel, erupted from nothing. “You know that the Master wants this…” Luci turned towards the group, and Casimir started sweating at having to deal with two elite-ranked revenants. “Oh, you’re just being a coward, I see how it is.”
Casimir resisted the impulse to shout in offense. He thought he had a pretty good shot at at least scoring a mutual kill! Which is pretty good given the circumstances. Casimir subtly drew his knife in his off hand, unlike Wraiths, the special properties of a Mummy had to do with advancing their magic, rather than making them difficult to kill, and it would not be the first time he had to kill a Revenant of a friend. He can do this.
Magnus, on the other hand, was very offended. “You know as well as I do how slippery this bastard is. He’s the one who killed the Master the first time, after all.”
“With help.” Luci insisted. “Those brats are not helping, those are acolytes at best.”
“Which is meaningless.” Magnus retorted. “Casimir couldn’t protect a chicken coop, so they’re not an exploitable weakness.” Casimir was suddenly reminded of a journal he read in Master’s study once, about another adventurer’s experience with fighting the Revenants of dear friends. Invariably, Revenants savored inflicting misery on those they knew in life, using words and cutting insults. Master always thought it was because the soul that was used as a component for their formation resisted using violence against those they loved in life, and used harsh language to provoke a fight rather than be the first attacker.
“Should I kill them first, then?” Luci said, with an odd wavering in her voice… Casimir was probably imagining things, Master’s theories on the remnants of personality in Revenants were incredibly optimistic, and couldn’t possibly be true… right?
Still, if her theory was correct… he could maybe get them talking more, right? “Hey Luci.” Casimir asked. “How does your casting work, as a mummy? We talked about this before you died, remember? Does your understanding of the magic you used in life expand, or is there a replacement spirit that grants you echoes of your old magic?” Luci always favored the second explanation, but Casimir thought it impossible for a spirit to be able to grant such a wide variety of magic to former spirit mages.
“That’s a secret!” Luci snapped, sounding a bit more like herself… well, more like her grandmother, anyway.
“Does that mean I’m right?” Casimir baited, giving his best roguish grin to his former teammate.
“No!” She insisted. “I’m right, and don’t you forget it!” Gotcha.
Magnus seemed to understand what she just did, as the stone mask that formed his face shattered with the force of his palm meeting it.
An opportunity! Casimir leapt backwards, stabbing his stiletto into the right spot to shatter the simple but powerful stone reinforcement enchantment with a quick negative siphon, using the absorbed mana to blow a hole in the wall. His students did not need any orders to rush through that wall. As Casimir ran, he gathered mana and released it in a scattering pattern into the stone, creating unstable mana voids and growth points that created a small tremor… and absolutely ruined Magnus’s ability to affect the stone around them for at least a few seconds.
Another weakness to Revenants was that they tended to fight exactly like their old selves. If you push them to make a snap decision, they’ll leave behind the inherent sadism and violence that a monster would ordinarily have and just do whatever they would when alive… which a lot of the time is still pretty violent.
Luci, on the other hand… her first impulse when a fight breaks out is always the same: blind everyone. An immensely bright flash of light shot out from the hole, accomplishing absolutely nothing as Peter had already integrated the Sunsight curse into the regular set he passed out to his allies for most situations, so he could do the exact same trick Luci just pulled.
Which meant that the group had time to reach the nearest exit, rushing out into the military fort in a panicked mess. They were already ready, as Magnus’s opening salvo had put them on high alert. The revenants were smart, however, so they didn’t pursue and instead retreated back into the main cavern, the only place that Casimir had yet to get close enough to map.
Knight-Commander Carpenter arrived, scowling at Casimir’s students. “Report.” He barked out.
This is not going to be a pleasant conversation…
