Steve was shocked by
Sathirena's words. So he laid his hand on her firmly, but compassionately,
"I will not shorten your life to bring them back, I will find another way. I understand that this is extremely important to you, and we will do this, but we will do so the right way, and I know we can do it without having to sacrifice anyone. When I begin I will no longer be aware of my surroundings, but little warning: stay away from the stew that will cover the floor."
As Steve finished his words the pots of stew, and his assistants showed up. After some direction the ritual began. Steve's helpers carried the pots to where they would go: One poured on each body, and five placed in a pattern around the outside to provide the extra energy, and act as conduits for the ritual.
As the ritual began each pot was poured on top of each bundle of bones the stew flowed around covering the floors and the assistants, even those standing next to the five pots on the outside. In the middle of the ritual, where Steve knelt with his arms outstretched, the stew circled around, but did not enter as if blocked by some invisible force.
The first pot on the outside was emptied. Steve located all the souls that the bones belonged to. He lowered his hands into the stew. The second pot was emptied. Tendrils of pale blue light snaked through thestew to where the bones laid and as they reached the bones they began to glow as Steve had connected his reach to each of them.
The third and fourth were emptied in quick succession. As soon as the third was emptied the tendrils reached up through the bones before shooting through the air back over Steve's head where they spun together and intertwined before shooting of in random directions, but as they did so their ends also disappeared as they ripped through reality. The magic tendrils flowed ever inwards disappearing into those voids. The energy in the stew began to run out, and then the real magic began.
Suddenly the assistants who had poured the stew fell to their knees, they grasped at various parts of their bodies, as if every part of them had suddenly stopped working at once. Some grasped their hearts hoping to get it to beat once more, others grasped their throats as if it would help them have even one more breath. one grasped his head as he felt his very brain dying. Their bodies fell into the stew before becoming just another part of it as they dissolved. After their bodies were gone their souls were next, to those with the skills to see such things the glowing balls of light that were their souls that hung in the air without their bodies were then dragged to the ground, the stew bubbled and boiled where it touched them. It looked almost like a person flailing as they tried to remain above water. Slowly the shine began to
fade from them. All the while the tendrils that reached into the void shone with a previously unseen strength and lustre. Now the magic that flowed through the sky radiated power, so much that the stew rippled away from it in waves.
Suddenly the tendrils finally stopped flowing in, and just as suddenly as they stopped they reversed direction. They began to flow backwards. The air around the room was thrown into turmoil as their seemed to be a great infinite vacuum attempting to suck anything it could, even light, in though any gap the tendrils left, while the tendrils as they came in had an opposite force pushing everything it could away from where they came demanding the space to be their own. Soon a balanced pattern began to form where the tendrils would do a great pull pushing everything back, before a gap would for that would then pull before the tenrdil would reabsorb its slack thickening itself again, and filling that gap. It was almost like a heart beat.
At long last the light of the souls came through the void, unexpectedly at the moment before they passed through there seemed to have also been a hand that had been pulling them away from the hole, but as soon as they came though the hand was gone. The tendrils pulled the souls back into the bones that belonged to them wherever they were. Some of Steve's animals that had simply watched from a safe location walked through the stew and pushed over the last cauldron of stew. With that each set of bones erupted in dragon's breath of each dragon that was given unlife once more.
Steve fell back finished, and exhausted, before grabbing his right ankle, as he suddenly felt a burning sensation.
"AAARG, Well? It's finished. AAAHHH, where are the chefs? I would have thought they would have liked to see what their hard work brought."
Steve nursed his foot.
