Working through his minions was something Tyron had grown accustomed to, it was what a Necromancer did, after all. But it wasn’t just being in direct control of these minions he was worried about. Without wights or revenants to lead them, adding their skills and abilities to provide punch and durability, his base skeletons were on their own. He hadn’t fielded such a weak force in a long time, even if the numbers were still significant.

Two thousand skeletons in total marched out across the rolling dunes of skulls, a blend of mages, sword and shield, archers, along with his skeletal giant constructs. As their skeletal feet tread lightly across the unstable ground, he rode with them, his consciousness sunk deep into the conduits as he looked through their eyes.

It was fascinating to see. To him, the Realm of the Dead was desolate, filled with nothing but darkness and dust, but to the undead, the dark meant nothing, since they didn’t need light to see. Through the eyes of the skeletons, he saw the ebb and flow of power in this apparent wasteland. Strange winds blew, creating eddies in the purple mist that covered the ground and filled the air. He swore he could see faces in the mist, leering and howling without sound, but every time he tried to focus on them, he couldn’t find them.

Perhaps it was just a trick of the eye, or perhaps there was so much more he didn’t understand about this place.

Without flesh to weigh them down, the skeletons were light, and with Tyron’s expert weaving, they were well-balanced and nimble. They skated across the surface of the dunes, making excellent ground, until, just before an hour had passed, they ran into the first sign of trouble.

Bone hounds, a small pack of three, slunk out of the dark towards the skeleton horde. Tyron had seen one of these creatures before, Dove had contracted one to act as a summon, yet here, they seemed even more fearsome. Shoulder-high on a man, covered in bone spikes and with distended jaws hanging shockingly wide, he knew they were more than capable of ripping a huge number of skeletons apart if he didn’t intervene.

The hounds circled, eyes gleaming with smoking green light as Tyron centered himself. Under his command, the skeletons formed ranks, shields in front, bracing themselves against a possible charge. Yet he only devoted a portion of his attention to these manoeuvres. The rest, he devoted to the mages.

Each skeletal mage contained their own pool of power, nothing compared to what Tyron himself had, but collectively, enough for him to work with. Focusing on a single skeleton, Tyron seized control of its movements, directing them precisely as he raised its hands and began to form sigils.

Unable to utter the Words of Power, there was still a great deal he could do with sigils alone. All of the most powerful magick was performed with harmony between the two, but a great many spells could be adapted to be silently cast, and it was this method that Tyron relied on now.

With a limited pool of resources to draw from, Tyron focused, keeping the spellwork tight and controlled. There wasn’t much point casting any of his curses. Death Blades would infuse his minions’ weapons with Death Magick, but the bone hounds weren’t vulnerable to it whatsoever. Likewise, the Shivering Curse would drop the temperature to beyond freezing, but as creatures who were, if not undead, very close to it, they wouldn’t suffer at all.

Instead, he focused on direct damage. Bone Lances formed over the skeletal mage’s head before they speared through the darkness. The hounds dodged in time, skipping to the side with shocking agility for creatures of that size. The beasts reacted angrily, preparing to charge, and Tyron immediately switched gears.

Casting spells through a minions was hard, and even if his gold Class allowed him the control to make it possible, Tyron found it almost impossibly frustrating. The hands didn’t move the way he wanted them to, every sigil felt awkward and poorly formed, and the lack of voice crippled his spell work, limiting his options and further taking him away from his comfort.

As an additional layer of difficulty, he had to work the magick remotely, drawing on the pooled energy of the skeletal mages rather than from himself. It had taken him an annoyingly long time to grow proficient enough in the technique that he was confident using it in battle, something he could acknowledge he wasn’t used to. Magick came naturally to Tyron, so having any sort of difficulty casting spells caused him to feel unreasonably frustrated.

The sigils formed, not as quickly as he would like, but they formed nonetheless. As the hounds began to charge, arrows flew, peppering their thick hides, but not deterring them. When his spell was complete, a Death’s Fist formed, the magick flowing through the air like smoke to form around a hound. Despite another agile dodge, the magick wasn’t so easy to avoid, and the hand formed around the leading hound. The Death Magick wouldn’t hurt it, but holding the monster still would be enough for the moment. Arrows pincushioned the beast, focused around its head, and the hound thrashed and fought against the spell holding it in place.

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Already the skeletal hands were moving as Tyron continued to form sigil after sigil, shaping the magick and giving it purpose. The mages only had so much arcane energy to draw from, so he was focused and controlled. A spear of bone formed beneath the trapped hound and speared upward, rising from the ground and ripping through its guts.

With a silent, shuddering howl, the creature fell still, the burning light in its eyes fading and growing dark. The other two hounds threw themselves into the massed ranks of skeletons, and Tyron split his focus as best he could, manipulating the dead to form tight defensive ranks, keeping their shields up and weapons ready as he continued to form his next spell.

The weight and power of the hounds was enough to smash through the first ranks, but with so many skeletons on hand, they quickly pressed in around the creatures, stabbing and harassing, not giving them room to move. Another Death’s Fist took shape, finding its target quickly and gripping the hound tight. Skeletons closed in, blades stabbing, while Tyron flowed into his next spell.

A Bone Lance stabbed out, piercing the remaining hound in the side, and Tyron flicked out several sigils in rapid succession. The lance shattered, tearing into the strange, living flesh of the creature, causing it to shudder in pain.

Hampered by the spells, the skeletons were able to close in and finish the job, stabbing again and again until the hounds were unmoving on the ground.

The Necromancer released his grip on the skeletal mage and frowned. It hadn’t gone as well as he would hope, several skeletons were damaged, a few others torn apart by the snapping jaws of the beasts. Repairs could be made, but he was disheartened by how vulnerable his base minions proved to be without him being there in person to support them, and without their souled-undead leaders.

Even so, he still felt he had made the right decision to stay behind. He had no idea how well the Death Lords were able to locate souls, and if he were found, even once, this jaunt would be over, as would his dream of vengeance. He couldn’t take the risk, so his minions would simply have to perform as best they could.

The corpses were gathered for study and the horde moved on, Tyron looking through their eyes.

For hours they roamed the dunes around the camp, and though they ran into other creatures native to this place, beasts and monstrous entities that lurked in the darkness, they did not find what he really wanted. The souls proved elusive, and the Necromancer grew frustrated, wondering if he was missing something.

Eventually, he decided to release his wyvern to help the search, letting it take to the skies, rising in a lazy spiral as it flew overhead.

He’d been loath to let it loose, worried it would be more easily detected by those looking to find it, but he didn’t feel like he had a choice any longer. The longer his skeletons were out of the protective field, the more likely they would be found. Thousands of undead represented a significant amount of magick, after all, even if they would largely blend into the surrounding blanket of dense death-aligned energy.

When the wyvern was high enough, Tyron switched to see through its eyes, and cursed a moment later. Immediately, he saw what he was after. Drifting lazily through the mist, green, smoke-like spectres, like fish in an overhead sea, were the souls that he sought. Not many of them, they were few and far between, but having found them at last, Tyron had a new problem.

How was he supposed to get them?!

Irritated, he recalled his horde, the skeletons swiftly moving over the dunes to return to the concealment array. They had fought as well as could be expected, and brought numerous corpses for Tyron to work with, just not the prize he really wanted.

He allowed the wyvern to circle a few more times to confirm what he’d seen before ordering it to return as well.

Hand resting on his chin, Tyron remained seated in place on the ground, thinking, as Dove approached.

“So you found them, then?”

Wordlessly, Tyron pointed upwards, and Dove nodded.

“They aren’t always up there. I think they sort of, rise and fall, like a tide. I have no idea why, of course, but Soul Eaters aren’t getting them while they’re up there.”

“I thought you were about to tell me they could fly.”

The skeleton shivered.

“No, they’re scary enough without that. I can’t even imagine. In fact, fuck you for making me try.”

Tyron chuckled.

“I have to agree with you. It was a… disturbing creature.”

“Try being inside one.”

“I’d rather not.”

They fell silent, both looking upwards into the darkness, though they saw very different scenes.

“So now you’re going to go up and get them?” Dove asked distastefully.

“I am,” Tyron replied.

The souls here were empowered in ways that the Necromancer still didn’t understand, and he wasn’t going to hold back. If they proved to be the answer that he needed, he would seize all that he could.

All he had to do was work out the best way to get them.

In the end, it turned out that he’d overthought the situation. He had brought literal wagonloads of supplies with him into the Realm of the Dead, including several of the Soul Traps that he’d used to capture the spirits of the living in order to prevent the Divines from snatching away the ghosts of their believers. With a few adjustments, he sent the wyvern up once more, a stone held in its jaws. It took some time for the relatively cumbersome creature to catch up with one, but eventually it did, and the soul was sucked away into the stone.

Eager to begin tests immediately, he ordered the wyvern to return and took the now glowing green stone from between its teeth. Retreating to his desk, Tyron grinned a rare grin.

There was magick to uncover.