• Solo • Through to the Marrow (Memory)

[Obriviyanah]

7th of Ashan
711
(Aiden: age 14)

With the swipe of Aiden’s arm, the Marrow collapsed once again into a useless pile of bones. The skull clattered down last, rolling off a splintered rib cage and drawing a macabre arc across the wooden floor.

“Good.” Tobias waved his hand. “Now, again.”

Aiden groaned softly, but he wearily complied. He flexed his fingers briefly, then folded them back into fists. The bone pile in the middle of Tobias’s parlor, rattled suddenly. And then, gradually, they began to reassemble themselves back into the shape of a person.

Nearby, Tobias leaned against his desk. He was thumbing through a book of arcane notes.

“You never answered me before.”

The youth rolled his eyes. Another one of Tobias’s cryptic conversation starters.

“Which time,” Aiden asked without enthusiasm.

“How did you ever come to learn about my professions?” Tobias wetted his thumb on the tip of his tongue and turned a page. “I am very thorough. The thought of a child stumbling upon certain facts of mine is… upsetting.”

A child? If Aiden wasn’t so tired, he’d be insulted. Perhaps he was only fourteen, nearly fifteen, but he hadn’t felt like a child in at least a year. Since his mother told him about the Yludih.

The Marrow stood tall, now fully assembled. It hung slightly to the side with an imperfect posture, as if hanging on a string. It chattered its teeth oddly, just as it had before. Aiden wasn’t sure what compelled it to do that, because it wasn’t him.

“Why do you work for them?” Aiden asked after a long pause. “The Shadow Quarter.”

Tobias lifted his head. It wasn’t the response he was looking for, but he seemed to be in a patient mood. After appearing to mull it over for a few bits, chewing thoughtfully on his tongue, he resigned to the question and looked back down at his book of notes.

“It’s complicated.” He turned a page. “To put it succinctly, I am indentured. It’s a forced contract.”

Aiden glanced back at him. He could only manage to take his attention off of the Marrow for a moment, so he quickly turned back to the thrall. There was no magic gesture or word to give command to the Marrow, but it helped him to wave his hands in certain ways. As he twisted his wrist, the Marrow began to pace the room.

“Why?” The skeleton ambled along slowly. Its bony feets struck the wooden floor in a way that reminded Aiden of hoofbeats. “What do you owe them?”

“A blood debt. I took the life of one of theirs.”

Aiden felt a tremor flash through him like a bolt of lightning. The Marrow reacted more outwardly. It whirled around, leveling its dark, eyeless gaze at the elder necromancer.

“A woman?” Aiden asked softly.

Tobias smirked, working out quickly what Aiden was asking.

“No, it wasn’t.” He retained focus on his book. “It was a long time ago.”

[Obriviyanah]

Tobias was rudely interrupted as an array of bare phalanges clasped around the book in his hands. The Marrow pulled the book away from him, and then clumsily held it between both of its bony hands. It mimed Tobias, appearing to read the notes written on its pages, even as it held the book upside down.

The elder necromancer watched solemnly. Neither impressed nor amused, he only folded his arms impatiently. However, he made no move to get his book back.

“Charming.”

Aiden smiled to himself, albeit briefly. He made the Marrow turn the pages of the book.

“My mother worked with your lot,” the disguised Yludih answered at last. “She wrote about you a little. Had one of your letters.”

Tobias’s gray eyes shifted calmly from the Marrow to his apprentice. The look on his face was carefully, deliberately blank. The balance of friend and enemy between Tobias and Aiden seemed to be continually shifting.

“What was her name? I never worked with any Silversons.”

When Aiden smiled again, it was bitter. When she was his mother, she was Amelyscira, an Ithecal woman. Ylanikinteh, her true name, was a woman who he only came to know a little over a year ago. She had too many names, and too many lives to mention. And none of those were his mother.

“Amelia,” he lied. “But I think she used an alias when working with your type. I don’t know what it was.”

His answer to Tobias was measured. He didn’t trust his master knowing that he was Yludih. It felt like he was beginning a life built on lies. Was this Amelyscira’s existence? Was this why she always seemed so empty and distant?

“Ah. Smart of her.”

Tobias’s reply was stiff and terse. Aiden wondered if he somehow detected the lie.

The Marrow wilted in place, losing some of its ether supply. The book of notes began to slip out of its hands until Tobias leaned forward and snatched it back. Aiden hardened his focus, and wordlessly commanded it to simply pace the floor again.

“How do you feel, Aiden?”

The necromantic thrall continued its staggering pace. Aiden was mildly in awe of his own influence over its bones.

“About what?”

Tobias pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Physically, boy. Physically, how do you feel?” He gestured at the Marrow. “Any weakness? Nausea? Hunger?”

“I’m fine. A little hungry, I guess.”

Tobias clapped his book shut and set it on the desk behind him. He stood up straight, and when he spoke again, his voice was deep and commanding.

“Release it.”

“What? Why? I feel fine this time.”

“Release it, boy. You’ve done well, but don’t push yourself too far or the spark will begin to change you. Overuse of magic can cause horrible mutation.”

The Marrow collapsed at once, falling midstep in a graceful cascade across the floor. Aiden turned to Tobias, wearing newly born appall.

“Mutation?”

Tobias gestured upward with his chin toward the bones.

“I will explain. First, clean that up. I shall fix a light meal.”

[Obriviyanah]

“There are many dire perils to Necromancy, and indeed all magic. I know previously you’ve said you don’t care, but it is my duty as your teacher to inform you.”

Tobias sat at his desk, as usual, neatly cutting apart the venison on his plate. Aiden reclined on the sofa at the far end of the room, his own wooden plate on his lap, content to tear apart his dinner with a fork. The room was warm with the smell of salted meat and root vegetables.

The Marrow’s bones had been gathered up into a green satchel which now sat at Aiden’s feet. All but the skull, which sat prominently on the arm of the sofa next to him. Wordlessly, it attended dinner with them.

“It isn’t your duty to do anything,” Aiden replied between bites. “I don’t believe I’m formally enrolled as your student.”

The elder necromancer slammed his fork down onto his desk and stood at once. His dark gaze speared Aiden from across the room. He flinched and paused mid-chew.

“Duty is a principle one lives by, not some given order. Without it, we are lawless scoundrels without purpose or dignity.”

Aiden was still for a second longer, then cautiously began chewing again after a ghostly nod.

Tobias took his seat again.

“I have chosen freely to take you as my apprentice, and as such it has become my duty to guide you, as it is your duty to obey me. To violate this is betray our agreement to each other, Aiden. Is that understood?”

Quietly Aiden sighed, but he obediently nodded. As was his duty, apparently.

“...Yes, Master.”

“Now.”

Tobias resumed cutting up his dinner, and then he only resumed speaking after he was finished chewing. His manners during meals were always extraordinarily polite. Aiden had come to doubt his original assumption that he was as lowborn as the rest of the peasants living here in the outskirts of Rharne.

But what did it matter?

“Mutation is the foremost concern. Necromancers, specifically, have been known to smell permanently of rot.”

Aiden choked on his foot for a moment, and coughed into his hand.

“Excuse me, what?”

Tobias tipped his head in wordless affirmation of his previous point.

“It’s a common witchmark for necromancers. I was fortunate that mine manifested as a… peculiar sort of appetite. You’ve inherited this from me, I expect. Judging from the way certain items in my larder go inexplicably missing.”

Aiden was quiet. His chewing only slowed as his eyes trailed guiltily to the side.

“It is your initial mutation, unavoidable. There will be others as you progress in skill, but if you live in equilibrium with the spark, Aiden, and you may prevent unsavory turns. Don’t overstep beyond what you can recover from.”

Tobias slid his book of notes across the desk.

“Grave Touch. Ghost Call. Death Mark. These are the consequences of giving more to magic than you can afford. These and others are detailed in this book. You will read it”

[Obriviyanah]

Aiden took the book out of Tobias’s hands as he came to gather his cleaned plate. As the necromancer withdrew across the room, he began to flip through its earmarked pages. Tobias’s looping script spilled along the pages.

“Do you remember what I told you during your initiation?”

The question floated from the man currently walking away from him. Aiden looked up and made a face at the back of his graying head.

“Master Acothley,” he began eloquently. “The only thing I remember is being certain that I was going to die. Horribly, as you said.”

Tobias disappeared into the next room with the collected dishes. When he reappeared, he wore a small smirk. Aiden rolled his eyes and resumed flipping through his new book. Meanwhile the elder necromancer returned to his desk. He began to prepare some new ink and parchment for a new batch of letters for the Shadow Quarter.

“So, no,” Aiden continued. “You’re going to have to remind me.”

“I told you that all thralls wake up hungry.” Opening the desk drawer, Tobias began to inspect his collection of quills. “Indiscriminately hungry. If there is one iota, one sliver of free will that necromantic thralls possess, it is the powerful, raw drive of hunger.”

Aiden looked aside at the skull resting by his elbow. He rested his hand on its smooth, domed top, giving it life for his own amusement. Unable to do anything else, it chattered its teeth again in its unique way.

“Even Marrows?”

“The hunger is irrational.” Tobias has selected a long pheasant feather, whose tip he wetted in an inkpot. “The thrall is an imperfect being, animated by ether. It craves true life, and the only way it knows how to acquire something is to consume it. Alas, it can never attain true life this way, or any other.”

Tobias pointed his quill to the skull.

“So yes, even Marrows, which don’t possess stomachs.” He looked down and began writing. “If I were a morbid man, I’d find the idea a little… funny. My point is, keep your wits about you, necromancer. If you falter, thralls have been known to devour their masters.”

Aiden slowly shifted his attention from Tobias, back to his captive skull. He lifted it in one hand, watching its jaw open and close on its own as he stared into its empty eye sockets.

“Who are you kidding, Master?”

Aiden pulled the life back from the skull and then shoved it into the pack at his feet with the rest of the bones.

“You are a morbid man.”

[Octopie]

Unlocking Your Rewards!

Comments

Young Obri is very cute, as is the thread considering what he's playing with like a puppet. It was an interesting look into what it would be like to have a young magic user practicing something so dangerous. It's was a well-written piece!

Points

10

Can be use for magic? Yes or No

Note: Obri used novice level magic, and practiced using an ability consistently, however, points are awarded per competency level as well and Obri already is technically at competent so he cannot gain more exp by using non-competent magic. But you still get your lores to level up. If you have any questions, please PM me.

Knowledge

Skill
5x Necromancy knowledge
1x socialization

Non
NA

Loot

• Tobias's book of necromancy notes (detailing known mutations)

Wealth

NA

Renown

NA

Injuries

NA

Skill Level: Appropriate