Boards & Conquest.

Midgard’s most famous strategy game. Originally a battle simulation developed by the Academy to train tacticians against Convergences, it had soon become a popular hobby among Avalon’s population. Two to three players could field figurine armies from the Nine Realms on more than twenty-five maps, and decide who will win Ragnarok. The goal? To defeat all enemy commanders before they defeated yours.

Tye had been obsessed with the game since his necromancer apprenticeship, and he continued playing it well into his undeath. After two weeks of hard work since he discovered the Spring, he had finally found the time to enjoy himself a little.

“You always play a Fire Giant/Dark Elf army,” Annie complained on the other side of the board, as they assembled their figurine armies. The tavern was quiet today, many adventurers having moved to greener pastures after the dungeon’s ‘condemnation.’ It suited Tye just fine, who preferred to play without background noise. “It gets dull.”

“But it works, if the win-loss ratio is any indication.” Unlike Annie, who experimented with many armies for fun, Tye was an optimizer; he changed individual units, removed outdated pawns, altered the spellcaster/rogue/fighter/crafter ratio, and favored incremental improvements. In time, he would build a ‘perfect’ army that none could defeat.

“I don’t see why you like them so much,” she said, assembling a mixed Human/Light Elf army. They settled on a ‘rainy plains’ field for added difficulty.

“Fire Giants have the most powerful and disciplined infantry, while Dark Elves have excellent summoners.”

“About that, I am working on a summoning spell for the academy.” Annie began the battle by spreading her forces. Her army composition could summon many weak unit reinforcements, focusing on quantity and guerilla warfare rather than Tye’s overwhelming firepower. “A permanent teleportation system between two points in space.”

“Like a portal between the realms?” he asked, investing most of his resources into fire giant siege mages.

“Sort of. When you try and fail to cross the barrier between worlds, there’s a huge magical backlash. I figured, what if we exploited this reaction? When you throw a ball off a wall, it bounces back. Instead of making the failed spell propel the target back at the original place, I thought the momentum could be turned to teleport people in another place.”

“And since you need only a minimum amount of SP to hit the world barrier compared to the following backlash, you could create a teleportation spell at a very low cost and thus a lasting ‘portal’,” Tye guessed her trail of thoughts, “Annie, that’s brilliant.”

“You think?” she asked, swooning at the praise. “My tutor thinks it’s too hazardous.”

“Your tutor lacks vision. That spell could revolutionize travel, trade, and warfare. Sure the first trials will cause collateral damage, but once perfected? It will be worth it. In the pursuit of science and magic, everything is permitted.”

His praise clearly improved Annie’s morale, because she started playing more aggressively. Damn it, the necromancer hated elf archers. They could poison units and chip away at their health. “Tye, have you created spells? You told me once that you had the [Magical Prodigy] Perk, and Archmage Calvert said that you needed to invent a spell to get it.”

“Two of them, Tier III both.” Actually twenty-four and all the way up to tier VIII, but most of them too ghastly for Annie. In response to her soldiers’ harassment, the necromancer started bombarding the archers with fireballs, keeping his siege mages safe behind a line of fire giants. “I’m currently working on a third.”

“No, seriously?” He had expected her to call him a liar, but she trusted him unconditionally. It warmed his cold dead heart. “Which one?”

Tye briefly hesitated to tell her something that sensitive, but her passionate gaze won him over. He searched in his pocket and showed her a pure white alchemical stone. “It’s an [Albedo Stone], a device with curative properties. It’s no [Philosopher’s Stone], but it should become a catalyst for a universal healing spell, available to any spellcasting class.”

“Fascinating,” she said, examining the stone with magic with rapturous interest. Most healing spells were reserved to specialized schools, such as [Prayer] or [Blood Magic]. “It’s so complex I can barely understand its composition! How did you make it?”

By draining Yggdrasil’s sapling and the water of life, refining both with Alkahest, before finally adding human blood to the mix. “Trade secret.”

“Mmm…” Annie observed the battlefield, where Tye had built a near-unbreakable defense. “Tie?”

“Tie,” the necromancer agreed. Technically, he could win, but her constant reinforcements would make getting to her main commander a time-consuming chore. His siege mages lacked the range to threaten her command post too. “Rematch?”

“Takeru wants me to help with his Commander Tactics homework,” Annie replied sadly. Apparently, while the archer aced solo tactic exams, he was hopeless at directing a group. “We’re leaving back to the capital in two days, dawww. Can you come with us? Please?”

“I still have business here,” Tye replied. His troops were busy renovating Nastrond, and he kept making breakthroughs since he had opened the cathedral.

“I hope you reconsider my friend,” the voice of Lady Yseult cut through the background noise, as she approached their table. “I would love a group trip.”

While both Tye and Annie nodded politely, the latter looked a bit uneasy in the priestess’ presence. “You will travel with us?” the witch-in-training asked.

“I intend to visit my beloved Tristan,” Lady Yseult said. “After what happened in the dungeon, I realized I should take some time off and surprise him.”

Oh? Then Tye might actually take her up on the offer. He had always wondered how that shining knight would hold up to his lover’s paintings.

However, the capital was the Academy’s seat of power, magically protected, and staffed by the Royal Knights. While his cover should hold, the necromancer would rather avoid unnecessary risks. “I can’t say yet.”

Lady Yseult nodded gracefully, before putting a hand on Annie’s shoulder. “Could I speak to Tye privately? This is about a private matter.”

The young witch looked very unhappy with the suggestion, so Tye reassured her. “We’ll play tomorrow morning at the shop if you wish.”

“Fine,” she complained. “But please change your army next time. I insist.”

“As you wish,” Tye replied, amused, while his protegee left while whistling.

Lady Yseult watched Annie cross the door to the tavern, before sitting in her place. “She sees you as more than a mentor and a friend.”

“A childish crush,” Tye replied, having no interest in romance. “She will get over it.”

“I feel you would make a good couple,” Lady Yseult insisted. “She is lively and makes you smile. Surely there is enough room in your heart for love.”

“Doubtful,” Tye replied. He yearned to find an apprentice though. Someone he could teach his order’s secrets and carry on the Great Work. Could Annie be that person though? She had refused the offer of peace in the tunnels, and remained loyal to the princess. “What did you wish to talk about, milady? Or perhaps did you come to play a game?”

“You know I always lose,” she replied, amused by the challenge.

“That’s wrong, you won our first match.”

“You did not protect your commanders well back then, but unfortunately you learned your lesson.” She shook her head. “I wanted to talk about your new miracle cure, Walter. It worked.”

“So the cancer is truly gone?” he asked, instantly serious.

“The cancer?” She smiled. “I feel healthier than I have ever been, my friend. Dare I say, you made me a year younger. There is something I need to show you.”

She took his hand inside her own, and briefly showed him her stat screen; unlike the necromancer, she didn’t use a Perk to falsify her information. She was an open book, and her fingers felt so warm to touch.

Yseult Whitehand

Level: 45 (Bard 16/Vestal of Balder 20/Muse 9)

Type: Light Elf-blooded human (Humanoid).

Party: Church of Balder.

He skimmed through her improving stats and Personal Perk until he found a new addition.

[Minor Lifegift]: You gain resistance to [Diseases], including magical ones, and you recover twice as much HP from healing effects.

“When did this appear?” Tye asked in astonishment, as she broke the hand contact.

“Right after the last treatment,” she replied. “You didn’t know?”

“That’s unforeseen. I had promising results on plants and animals, but a personal Perk of this magnitude, in a human?” Truly, the waters of the spring, combined with alkahest, yielded miraculous results; and he had given her a weaker version of his current elixir. “Have you told anyone else?”

“No,” the priestess declared. “I thought you should be the first person informed of your discovery.”

“You may be a unique case, with the treatment having only reasserted your elf ancestry,” Tye replied, although he hoped otherwise. “Calling it a discovery is a bit too early.”

“I thought you would be more enthusiastic, my friend.” Lady Yseult smiled. “Then allow me to be happy for both of us. I cannot express in words how thankful I feel. You saved my life, Walter.”

The necromancer smiled. “Do you remember what you told me the day we met, after you spent a full day helping me acclimate to the city?”

“That life is too short not to help one another.”

“It resonated with me,” Tye admitted. “I felt a certain connection, that we may be kindred spirits, even if we have our differences.” Their respective opinion on death and deities in particular.

“I have thought the same, and I now consider you a person close to my heart,” the fair lady said. Any other man would have fallen at her feet upon hearing this. “And this is why, while you have done great good in Lyonesse, I sometimes wonder if you are wasting your talents. If you managed to create a remedy this powerful with your current resources, imagine what you could achieve with the Academy’s support.”

“Maybe I have progressed so much because I dodged the bureaucratic red tape,” Tye pointed out. “I do my best work alone, and the treatment I used on you, milady, is far from perfected.”

“I understand your desire for privacy,” the priestess said. “But, if I can do anything to help you make this medicine available for everyone, please, never hesitate to ask me.”

“I will,” he replied softly. “However, I would be thankful if you could keep it to yourself for now. I do not want any attention until I have the refined product.”

“You fear you could be targeted?” Yseult said, suddenly afraid for his life. “By whom, Calamity Cults?”

“Or criminals,” the necromancer replied, before realizing that the priestess cared a bit too much for his safety this time. “There is something else on your mind.”

“The congregations of Lyonesse discuss things, Walter,” Yseult said. “Even Hel’s. So, imagine my surprise when I learned that you didn’t come to pray or offer tribute to any god since you arrived in our beloved city.”

Tye focused back on his board’s pieces. And here he had hoped his visits to the priestess would have been mistaken for him praying to Balder. “You are asking if I am faithless?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Whether you decide to serve a god or not is your private choice. However, Walter, I do fear for your soul. You are unlikely to die in battle, and if your faith proves lacking...”

“Paying lip service to a god whose teachings I do not adhere to will not help.”

“I know this sounds cynical, Walter, but the alternative is far worse.” If only she knew. “Certainly there is a god whom you can recognize yourself in, one who can spare you the torments of Helheim? Freya, the Vanir goddess of magic? Or perhaps Mimir, god of wisdom?”

“I am not paying lip service to a disembodied head.” He would rather trust in his magic than any deity’s goodwill. “Did I ever tell you of my true name? Not the one given to me by my parents, but the name by which I am known to the Yggdrasil Prophecies?”

“You told me this story,” she said. “And according to my research, you should indeed survive Ragnarok. But Walter, fate can be changed. Earthlanders have challenged destiny once, and there is no telling when they will do so again.”

Tye would know.

One of them put him six feet under, thirty years ago, and proved that prophecies were hogwash.

“I see that reports of your demise were greatly exaggerated,” Mockingbird noted, as he stepped down from his carriage.

Tye shrugged it off, all business. This time he had brought Hagen with him as additional security, the dullahan riding on the back of a skeletal horse; Mockingbird herself had summoned a cadre of thugs and assassins to this gathering.

As the necromancer asked, the ruffians had also brought seven corpses and moved them in a line on the ground. Since he did his best to lay low and with no new adventurers challenging the dungeon, Tye had been forced to ‘outsource’ his search for material.

“Good,” he said, after checking on the corpses. “Who will be the living candidate?”

“Dolan here,” Mockingbird waved at a looming old man with long gray hair and beard. The thug must have been an experienced fighter, considering his muscles, size, and mighty posture. “He is an escaped convict meeting your requirements. Due to his crimes and age, he is almost certain to end up in Helheim, and so agreed to your testing.”

“At my point, any chance for added longevity is worth the risk,” he replied, his icy blue gaze completely serene in the presence of undead beings.

“What got you condemned, my living fellow?” Hagen asked.

“Love,” the man answered while looking at the Dullahan with strange insight. “You?”

“Loyalty,” Hagen replied, his fingers holding tight to his weapon. “But please tell me more, I love romantic stories.”

“I got a new wife, Laura. A young, pretty flower in her twenties; treated her like a princess, but I couldn’t satisfy her and she started meeting some noble brat. She made me a laughingstock, so I bashed her skull against a wall.”

While Tye frowned in distaste behind his mask, Hagen seemed curious. “Last time I checked, adultery is punished with death in Avalon. I thought authorities looked the other way in those kinds of cases. Or at least they did in my time.”

“I may have killed the bastard who put his sword where he shouldn’t too,” the old man replied with a vicious smile. “Alongside his wife, so he knew how it felt.”

Oh, well. And here Tye thought he would feel guilty about the testing process. “Drink this,” the necromancer offered the convict a potion, so darkly crimson that it could be mistaken for blood. “I tested weaker versions with encouraging results, but never on someone as old as you.”

“I’ve got a high Vitality,” the man replied, before swallowing the elixir whole like a beer.

The result was nothing short of spectacular.

Dolan aged years backward, losing a decade per minute. Wrinkles vanished, white hair turned blonde, and scars turned into pure skin. The effect lasted until Dolan reached the prime of his twenties, and didn’t continue afterward. “Fffffuuu—” the convict struggled to find his words.

Happy that he wouldn’t age backward into a toddler—the reason why he had treated Yseult with a weaker variant—Tye put a hand on the man’s shoulder and activated his [Lifedrain]. He quickly stole a year of his time, and stopped there.

“As I thought, my theft of years Perk still works,” the Ankou noted, while the gathered thugs looked at the scene with awe. “My elixir restored you at the prime of your life, Mr. Dolan, but didn’t grant you eternal youth as I had hoped.”

“I may not be immortal, but I can start again as a new man,” Dolan replied with a happy smirk. “You’re not a wizard, masked man; you’re a mirac—”

“[Death X].”

Dolan dropped dead on the ground.

Note to self: the elixir didn’t make the subject immune to violent death either.

“Disappointing,” Tye said, moving on to the second round of testing and raising his [Albedo Stone]. “[Proto Naglfar].”

Black magic spread from his fingers to the stone, using it as a catalyst. The spell manifested as a ray of otherworldly light, shining upon the corpse. Once the magical shining died down, a short silence followed.

And then Dolan opened his eyes.

His mouth widened, gasping for air, while life returned to his cheek; still, the shock made the convict thrash around a bit, as his heart started pumping blood back into his frigid body. “Holy mother Frigg,” one of Mockingbird’s assassin bodyguards cursed, as Dolan fidgeted on the ground, still reeling from the sudden resurrection. “Is he…?”

“Undead?” Walter shook his head, as he analyzed his patient’s body with magic. “No, Mr. Dolan is alive, although not well. He lost 120 HP, 40 SP, and 4 points in all other stats. The spell works, but only on someone freshly killed.”

“How do you know that?” Mockingbird asked.

“Chief couldn’t raise any of the corpses in storage, and they are all old and dusty,” Hagen replied.

“Oh, that explains the other part of your order,” the crime lord nodded to herself. “It makes sense now.”

“W-what are you doing to me?” Dolan panicked.

“Testing, Mr. Dolan,” Tye replied softly, before swiftly killing him again. “[Death X].”

And so, the poor murderer was once again raised from the dead, whether he liked it or not.

“Same loss as before,” Tye observed, making note of the uncontrollable shaking of his test subject. “The spell can work repeatedly, but stat penalties stack. The good news is, the elixir’s effects are apparently permanent. He kept the [Minor Lifegift] perk the potion gave him.”

“What happens if a stat reaches zero?” Mockingbird asked, more and more interested. He could almost see the gears turning in her head, as she tried to figure out how to profit from this.

“I assume the subject can no longer be revived.” Tye wouldn’t test it that far. He couldn’t risk leaving a mortal man permanently dead, even a lowlife. “Mr. Dolan, that will be all for today. We will simply observe your recovery from now on, check if the penalties vanish with time.”

“Sad, I was anticipating a third round,” Hagen mocked the convict.

Dolan was too scared to answer and crawled away. Mockingbird waved her hand dismissively, and two thugs helped him back to his feet. “That’s not enough,” Tye declared. “I need to perfect the elixir further.”

“Perfect it?” an assassin bodyguard couldn’t help but speak up. “You spit in the face of the gods, and this isn’t enough for you?”

“If he can die from trauma, it’s not true immortality. The final elixir should also permanently stop aging, in addition to restoring the subject to prime physical condition.” Tye wanted people to never die from anything. No compromises.

“Many people would settle for a second youth,” Mockingbird replied. “So, you wanted the corpses to test your spell’s limits.”

“Sharp,” he confirmed, observing the ‘sample.’ “How old are they?”

“Each one is one day apart, as you asked,” Mockingbird replied. “That one is from yesterday, that one two days ago, and so on for a week.”

Perfect. He started with the freshest corpse, the remains of a beheaded convict. “[Proto Naglfar],” he cast, but the corpse didn’t rise up. Stubborn, the necromancer had Hagen attach the head back to the body, before casting [Repair Corpse] to fuse both parts. “[Proto Naglfar].”

The corpse’s eyes opened, gasping for air.

The two and three days old bodies were raised, but not the four days old one. Full repairs didn’t change anything.

“Three days,” Tye observed, as the revived criminals struggled to acclimate to their newfound life. “Although the stat penalties don’t change, three days after death is the hard limit. Neither can it raise a corpse missing a vital organ, although it can undo the rot and decay.”

As he had suspected, the necromancer needed to heighten the spell’s potency to tier ninth to raise any corpse, no matter the age. Maybe even the tenth.

Congratulations! For making progress on your quest for immortality, you earned a level in [Infernal Alchemist]!

+10 SP, +1 VIT, +2 INT, +1 LCK.

Yes, he could do better than this. “That’s already amazing,” Mockingbird said with genuine praise. “How much?”

“For what? The elixir, or the spell?”

“Both.”

“The perfected elixir of immortality will be free for everyone. Of course, the more funding and test subjects, the faster I can produce it.”

“That’s a mistake,” she replied. “Making it free. I know people who would sell their soul for this stuff, even in its current state.”

“I have enough souls,” Tye shrugged. “I intend to make it freely available for everyone. Immortality should be an universal right.”

“Some would say that it should be forbidden. It will allow monsters to live forever.”

“Medicine helps criminals live longer. Should medicine be outlawed?”

“You’re preaching to a true believer, my dead friend,” Mockingbird replied with a smile. “Still, you mistook me for a woman who repeats herself.”

Tye chuckled, amused by her sheer audacity. “I need trolls or hydras, to reverse-engineer their regeneration and perfect the elixir. I also want information, about a [Death Knight] operating in Logres.” His own attempts at magical divination had been predictably blocked.

“Lord Medraut?”

The Ankou tensed, like a snake ready to bite.

“So you can be surprised,” she said. “That’s good to know.”

“You have dealt with him?” Tye couldn’t suppress his lust for more information.

“Not directly, but my organization supplies everyone.” Her smile turned dark. “Including Calamity cults.”

Tye thought he had misheard for a moment. “Which ones?”

“Fenrir’s and Loki’s.”

One wanted to eat the world, the other to throw it into bloody chaos. “Medraut would never help them.”

“Then we’re speaking about a different [Death Knight] operating in the Logres region. If you are unsure, I can serve as an intermediary. Maybe even set-up a meeting.”

“I would love that,” the necromancer replied icily. “But do you know what he is doing in Logres?”

“Oh, you know, the eternal Calamity pitch,” she chuckled. “Destroying the kingdom of Avalon, burn Midgard, the usual.”