Private Tales Unquiet and Overgrown

[Vereshin]

A layer of residue did not deter Vereshin as he slid his feet across damp earth. With his irises rolled into the back of his head, he raked two sticks together, carved with ridges in their smooth finish which sent a raucous across the site. Lost in time with the noise, he listened only to the murmurs of those who had fallen on the battlefield long ago. The shrill scraping of the twigs drowned out the surrounding noise, isolating only voices still singing their war cries and searching for a new post. As he listened more intently, he could hear the pound of drums. Vereshin wondered if some of them even knew that they were dead.

As he raked the sticks together, his lips moved in time with their motions, softly reciting a spell to draw a single spirit near him. He paused, fixated on an uncertain shift in the drums. The sync of their beats changed as he placed his foot in a certain direction. Suddenly, he felt his toe slide beneath a root, which caught his ankle and caused him to lose his balance. With his vision absent for the moment, he fell forward, his knee colliding with the mud. His eyes rolled back to the ground before him, allowing him to see exactly what he had tripped on.

The root which had caught his foot emerged from an ivory hole. As the mud oozed through his fingers, Vereshin crawled forward on the ground and arched his head downwards, peering with deep intrigue into the eye socket of a skull.

"Hello there friend." He gasped in delight and stared with wide, glowing eyes. Creasing his brow in thought, he remained on all hands and fours as he tried to discern the path of the root, which appeared to have grown through the eye socket and out of the neck, then into the ground. Even though the air was frigid, Vereshin felt heat travel through the ground. The drums changed their rhythm again, this time becoming louder and a distinctive voice boomed, although Vereshin could not tell where it was coming from. He looked around, still kneeling in the mud, then rose to his feet.

"Don't worry, we'll have you a new body in no time." Vereshin said to the skull with a wink, not mentioning what form his new body might take. He brushed the mud off his hands and unhooked the ceremonial dagger from his belt, before leaning down again.

With what little strength he could muster, Vereshin hacked at the root which had tripped him. He took to a sliding motion with the knife, cutting the root like a turnip and freeing the skull. The end snapped off, allowing him to dig his fingers into the mud. He felt around for the mouth of the skull, as well as the other socket and repeated an assortment of profanities beneath his breath as the shape slowly came lose. Mud squelched around his hands and by the time the skull came free, he was filthy. As the skull popped out of the ground, the impact sent him tumbling onto his backside, the skull wrapped securely in his arms.

"Aha! A fine looking specimen you are." Vereshin chortled, turning the skull over to check for any cracks or missing pieces. It seemed to be fully intact. Indeed, it was massive compared to an average human's and would serve as the focal point for creating a formidable shard. "Do you remember your species? I can tell that you're not an Orc, you don't have any tusks." Tilting his head vigorously as he looked at every angle of the skull, he combed through the energy which it emanated in attempt to source any remnants of a soul. The voice pounded with the drums, letting him know that there was a spirit still bound to this structure of bone.

Vereshin took a moment to revel in what he found, smiling broadly to himself as he sat in the mud. The smile drooped as he scanned the area for Orc patrols and he stood in haste. He picked up his ritual sticks and carried them under one arm, with the skull in the other. While the bundle was a lot for him to carry with both arms, he walked back to the edge of the battle ground with little trouble. The drums continued to beat and the spirit responded partially, still trapped in the split between matter and void. He had been forgotten in unmarked resting place, overgrown and deprived of a proper burial, which meant that a necromancer like Vereshin was able to communicate with him without any ritual preparation.

"Never quite reached the Void, did you? I'll see to it that you have a proper service." Vereshin chimed away to the spirit, struggling to carry both the skull and his sticks. At the edge of the battleground, a small hovel stood against a tree where a forest covered the ground for miles. Local shamans had helped Vereshin erect the primitive house while he was practicing in the area, a token of good faith from his fellow necromancers. Upon arriving, he flung the sticks down, then pushed aside the tattered curtain which he was using as a door.

"Home sweet home, until those bloody Orc patrols chase me away." Vereshin said as he held up the skull to show him the interior of the house. A circular wall surrounded a small fire in the center, which heated a bucket full of water. He placed the skull on a log as he checked the fire. The embers had died since he set the water down to boil, meaning that it would be nice and warm when he gave himself a good once over.

Balthazar

 

[Balthazar]

Returned from Death

The spirit Vereshin had grasped writhed with frantic, vengeful energy. A heady, pungent sensation arcing through the local mana in the air that left no doubt whatsoever in the minds of those who came near. This spirit may be dead, but it was NOT gone. At least, not gone for good. As Vereshin carried the large skull away from the battleground the spirit's writhing energy became... something akin to remorseful. A lonely, deathly cold sensation weaving into the spirit's being as it's skull was taken from the resting place of it's brethren. At first, Vereshin's words did not seem to interest the spirit, least of all the promise of a new body. However... the spirit reacted to Vereshin's promise of "a proper service" with acute emotion.

Blazing, burning hatred fumed through the spirit's senses and through it's connection to Vereshin. Raw, unbridled detestation would be the answer to the Necromancer's pro-offered service. Not AT the Necromancer himself, but rather at those the spirit understood it would have a chance to wreak his horrible vengeance upon as Vereshin mentioned the possibility of an Orc patrol chasing the Necromancer away. The skull itself clasped in the Necromancer's grasp becoming slightly warm to the touch at the unnatural fury piercing it's way through the veil through their bond. It took a few moments, until the skull was set down beside Vereshin to be exact, for the spirit to calm itself. It's emotion flowing, unfiltered, like a raging river in it's semi-existing state.

Indeed with no physical form to exert or any other way to expend it's now-awoken senses, a variety of flickering scenes and images of what little spirit remembered would be given to Vereshin. The scene of he and his fellow soldiers, of various races and stripe, being ambushed by what appeared to be Blight Orcs. The desperate, crushing violence of the ambush and then... the sight of the lone Orcish wizard who had burnt them all to cinders with an exceptionally powerful spell. A faint memory of the immolating heat still remaining as the spirit squirmed within it's bone-pearl prison. Formless and name-less, lost and vengeful, did the spirit dwell among the mud, dirt and detritus for centuries. Battles over and over fought upon the ground above it's resting place. Disturbing the spirits that dwelt there as much, or more, than the ground itself as more and more mortal beings perished upon it's unforgiving, mucky embrace.

Now that the prospect of vengeance upon the Orcs of the Blight-lands had been laid before the spirit it began to become even more restless. The inherent, woven-into-it's-very-being, Necromantic energy coursing into the air around it. The flames Vereshin had been so keenly interested in becoming black and wicked, boiling the water much more intensely as the spirit began to seem.... impatient. A lone, piercing red pinprick of light appearing in the shadowed depths of the large skull's eye-socket. A faint, though still deep and assertive in tone, voice echoing faintly from the place between Void and flesh rasped "Revenge......."

Vereshin ​

 

[Vereshin]

Energy pulsated from the mold left in the earth, only to trail along behind Vereshin's feet and embolden the further he carried the skull away from it's resting place. A voice, disquieted by a disruption in the it's place in time, called to the mage through what connection remained between the earth and the essence by which it was carried. Stopping to lean against the log which acted as his door frame, Vereshin placed two fingertips heavily against his temple and tried to listen to the spirit's message. What began as a violent rage dwindled, still holding onto the mortal air as it fell to a mournful pitch, as though to convey the last regret held by the owner of the skull before he had meet his end.

"By the Void!" The dark mage exclaimed, his fingers still pressed against the side of his forehead. He waited for a moment, slowing his breathing as he concentrated and read the signs which pounded throughout the walls of the hut. He held the skull in front of his eyes and marveled at the size, before walking around the fire and placing it on a log beside the wall.

At the mention of giving the spirit a proper service, Vereshin immediately sensed a change in the energy surrounding the skull. A nova of passion traveled from the skull to the necromancer, communicating the the owner's eager will to grasp such a promise, one which Vereshin had offered lightly. In truth, he harbored a far more sinister fate in mind for the skull which stretched far beyond the limits of an adequate burial rite. The mud filled eyes stared into the glowing eyes of the necromancer, who paced backwards with his hands outstretched, reveling in the arcane information falling from his guest.

"Most certainly." His word carried the weight of a promise granted in a certain way. Striding around the fire, he arrived at a mound of used cutlery and picked up a spoon. "I will grant you the rite which you were denied." Vereshin held up the spoon and walked towards the skull, which he then picked up and carried to the door. He shoved the spoon into the lower orifice and scooped out the mud, flinging it at as far away from the house as his slender wrist could allow him, each time berating it with a verbal "pift". Once the mud was emptied out from the skull, he turned it around and looked at the ground through the eye sockets, It was as hollow as it had been when the warrior's flesh first left his bone.

"It would seem that we share a common enemy." Vereshin said to the skull as it warmed in his hands. The rage of the spirit manifested in a tangible form as he spoke of the Orc Patrols, making him wonder if it had been a battalion of Orcs which had defeated him in his final battle. Vereshin carried the skull inside and placed it back on the log, humming a tune to himself as he removed his belt and flung it aside, along with the spoon. As the skull sat, Vereshin allowed the spirit a moment to calm himself while the mage focused on getting clean.

The embers beneath the bucket of water crackled, dwindling in the chill of the air as the spirit's mood tempered. Vereshin pulled the mid-stained surcoat over his head, along with his boots and trousers, which he left in a pile by the wall, making a note to clean them when morning arrived. A draft escaped through the primitive door and pierced what fabric remained on his back, causing him to wrap his arms around his shoulders beneath the cold. A layer of wood shielded his feet from the ground beneath and shifted as he walked to another log beside the fire, where he sat down on the opposite side to the skull. Using a clean rag which he had fashioned from an old robe, he worked up a lather with a herbal soap and the warm water from the bucket, then vigorously rubbed away the layers of mud which from his hands and feet.

As he directed his attention to cleaning himself, the spirit presented a series of visions to Vereshin. He halted in his movements and looked up at the skull, soap still dripping off his fingers as he waited in expectation, provoking the spirit without a word to regale the story of his previous existence. Imagery, inconsistent from any frame of time, projected a tapestry of violence which amounted to the battle which had placed the warrior in his resting place. The visual communication proved to Vereshin that he had been correct in his assumption about the warrior being defeated by Orc forces. What he had not expected was for the last foe which the warrior had faced to be a mage like Vereshin himself and one of Orc descent. Scores of fire cast by the Orc mages hand engulfed the warrior and his battalion through the vision presented before Vereshin's eyes, the smell of smoke even filling his nose as the scene became tangible.

Vereshin left a soapy residue on his skin where he had cleaned away the mud, all the while paying attention to the vision which the spirit had pushed the boundaries of the Void to show him. The necromancer appreciated the gesture and took it as a sign that the spirit was fond of him, a bond which only a necromancer could claim to hold with the entities which they manipulated. The scene of the Orc mage incinerating the last of the warrior's troops played out in Vereshin's mind, then made way for a long segment of discontent silence. He could only assume that the vision now conveyed the the time which the warrior had spent buried in the Blightlands, robbed of his glory and denied a proper burial, left unquiet and overgrown by the elements, forgotten to the ages, until now.

The vision waned as the present day arrived, when Vereshin himself had come across what remained of the great warrior. He creased his brow in intrigue, a sigh of contemplation hanging on his mouth. Wringing out the rag, he picked up the bucket and poured the water over his hands and feet to wash away the layer of soap. With some water still left, he placed the bucket back on the fire and padded across the wood in search of his serum. He flung aside the filthy surcoat and found a glass bottle, which by the looks of it had been carried around for quite some time. He poured the moisturizing serum into his hands and rubbed it into his hands and face.

Vereshin flung a thin scarf around his neck, then dressed in a long, black tunic and trousers. He folded the scarf across his breast, leaving it peeking out beneath the collar of the tunic, which held in place with a belt around his waist. He left his feet bare, enjoying the feeling of the wooden planks beneath the soles as he walked around the fire. With his every stride, the planks shifted, jilting upwards above the earth which he called his temporary home. Once more, the spirit began to rile, churning the water in the bucket and bringing to the boil. Vereshin the hem of his tunic around one hand and lifted up the bucket, placing it away from the fire.

Wrapping his hands around the skull again, Vereshin lifted it above the center of the fire and in the process, opened his mouth and began to sing. An exotic melody, comprised of necromantic sermons, fell from his lips at a strained pitch. The closer he held the skull to the flames, the darker they shifted in hue. From a brilliant hue to a red which mimicked the colour of blood, the flames parted as the skull was lowered into their midst. A few of the flames brushed the side of Vereshin's hands, singing his skin and leaving red marks which he would need to treat, not that he minded.

From the entrance, he found the two carved sticks from earlier and rubbed them together in a ritualistic pattern as he chanted the many calls of souls long departed. The flames dulled from a deep red to an unmistakable black, spitting embers with the fury of the spell. As he grasped the fragments of the spirit dwelling within his home, Vereshin pulled their voices inward, applying the energy to a foci which would serve as the source of his creation. He moved his feet slowly around the fire, raking the sticks together and opening up a line of connection between the spirit and the physical world. The necromancer's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he was presented with the image of a warrior.

"He who has been robbed of his glory in the mortal realm, hear me." He chanted the words as he poured more energy into the flames. The raking of the sticks drew the pieces of the spirit together, riling their cheated passions with the life of the fire. In between the dark sockets of the skull, the eyes glowed a vibrant red which stood out amidst the black flames. Amidst the noise emanated from the sticks and the cracking of the flames, the spirit discerned one word. A word which Vereshin swallowed up and delivered, scraping the sticks a final time and responding with a sentence of his own. "Your revenge, you shall have it." The mage chanted.

Balthazar