Lifeforce – a type of energy produced within bodies of every living creature. Part of it is constantly utilised to sustain it, while the rest remains stored. The reserves are usually consumed whenever the creature is affected by various ailments, such as wounds or illnesses. The speed and effectiveness of those processes vary greatly between species, however they are usually slow and subconscious.

Clerical magic – or various other effects resulting in healing – often interacts with recipient’s innate Lifeforce leading to its more efficient utilisation.

The amount of Lifeforce which a creature produces and stores can be increased. The increase may be passive and steady – like when putting a strain on a body; through physical training or by exposing it to greater amounts of mana – or more noticeable and sudden – examples include using various alchemical solutions, spells and rituals, receiving direct blessings from deities. In most cases, the gains from the latter group diminish over time.

It is worth noting, that an extreme strain leading to a near-death experience, usually also leads to a sudden spike in the amount of Lifeforce produced afterwards.

Most spells manipulating the power of Lifeforce belong to the school of Necromancy.

- the excerpt from ‘Encyclopaedia Arcana – L’

Reria was standing inside an enormous hall filled with expensive looking, extravagant decorations which her family could have never afford. However, what immediately caught her attention, was a sight extending beyond the room’s window.

The endless plains, covered with purple grass, stretching all the way to the horizon, connecting with the sunless, crimson sky. For a moment she thought that strangely shaped objects floating in the distance were clouds, yet under her scrutinous gaze they turned out to be huge chunks of land magically suspended in the air.

Mesmerised by the harsh, alien but somewhat beautiful view, she stood by the castle’s window, the passage of time forgotten.

Sometimes, she caught a glimpse of a distant creature, either flying or struggling on the ground. Most were unknown to her, yet there were some she recognised. Creatures, that as far as she knew wouldn’t live on her Plane.

„It’s been a while, my little spark,” a familiar voice called her.

Broken from her trance she turned around to see a smiling gorgeous woman wearing an ornamented dress. Had she not had a pair of dark-red feathered wings and eyes filled with otherworldly wisdom one could have mistaken her for an impossibly beautiful human.

“Ashara… Why...How? Where are we?” Reria greeted her Patron and immediately blurted.

After a moment of thought, she followed with a bow, somehow ashamed. She had no idea what behaviour was expected for their second meeting, yet decided it would be fitting, considering both the atmosphere of this place and the regal aura of her Patron.

“Once it used to be a centre of one of the greatest cities in the universe, but now it is nought but a dream, just a fragmented piece of memory.”

Even if Ashara was dejected by her behaviour, she gave no hint.

“I called you there because I saw that you‘ve been working very hard on developing my gift. Surely, someone like you would do even better if I grant her more support. Succeed in one small task and you shall receive power that you desire.”

****

It’s been three days since her talk with Ashara.

Reria still couldn’t believe the newest gift she received from her Patron. The Eldritch Sight, Ashara called it. She could now enhance her vision to be able to directly see the flow of mana around her. Everything glowed with hundreds of colours, she could see the streams of mana circulating through bodies of people, auras radiating from them and from enchanted items.

The closest thing to the sight she had now, was that single experience she had during the meld. Reria believed that just with this ability alone, she would move by leaps and bounds in her understanding of magic.

And it was just a tease of what she would receive after completing her task.

‘The power. The knowledge. To never be so weak like back then, to never be at someone’s mercy.’

Reria shook her head and deactivated the sight.

She quickly noticed that it wasn’t an ability which she could maintain constantly. With all the ambient mana around, it was hard for her to see anything that was further than 10 meters from her. It was simply obscured by colourful mist. Moreover, not only maintaining that sight was constantly draining her mana, it was also a case when switching between it and her normal vision.

‘I will probably get used to utilising it.’

Reria looked around the street.

The atmosphere in the city was tense. People were accusing their more solitary or outright strange neighbours of being cultists. Three nights ago, few commoners attacked and killed a family inside their own house; apparently, one of their children was deformed, enough to draw suspicions towards them. The culprits were hanged the next day; this along with increased patrols should make townsfolk think twice before attempting another lynch.

“Instead of strolling down the streets, guards should check the sewers,” she heard someone saying, “The cult is preparing an army of undead there.”

“As if they would stand a chance against them. It is the Church job to go there, and what are they doing? Asking us to pay money to protect the graveyard from necromancers! They should have taken care of this years ago!”

“And the nobility, what are they even thinking? They are preparing a festival! Are they going to use us as meat shields against vampires? I am staying in my home surely!”

“You can return home as soon as the sun goes down, they are planning the party to last for two days. My buddy in the city guard is already pissed because they were ordered to stay on duty during that time constantly.”

“My friend is working for Lawketts and they told him the same, apparently we are going to see even more soldiers on the streets than now.”

“They should be rooting out those Rat-lovers instead of wasting time…”

“Well, Uther knows that I could use some good party. I heard about a bard who is going to perform in ‘Belching Dwarf’, they say she is a beautiful elf. The tickets are almost sold out already.”

Reria moved further away from the agitated group.

‘How am I going to complete Ashara’s mission? My party is already adamant on going to Grasshaven tomorrow, even more after the last mishap with Arde.’

Remembering their confrontation and ridiculous accusations of soldiers she laughed. People looked at her strangely, but seeing her clad in wizards’ attire quickly turned their gazes. Maybe afraid that she might be a necromancers’ accomplice.

‘They would have probably helped me if I had told them more… But I can’t provide them with an evidence solid enough to make them break their contract on the last minute.’

Her suggestion to travel south from Leisha to investigate rumours about a cult working with fiends was met with strange stares.

“We met fiends on the north, heard of necromancers here, it is too much to believe that there is another evil cult on south… And we already have a job, Reria,” was Tori’s only comment.

‘Maybe if I was willing to tell them about my Pact...’

Reria sighed; she was afraid of hostile reactions to such a reveal.

She really wanted to help Ashara. After all, if not for her intervention she would have been already dead… Or not. Her last moments might have been horrid enough to probably turn her into a lingering specter.

Reria shivered just from thinking about such fate.

Ashara might be one of the handful living persons who actually cared about her, so does it matter if she was from Lower Planes? At least she gave her no reason to doubt her words, unlike priests of deities from Higher Planes spreading lies everywhere.

‘Uther’s light shields the weak who trust him. Those who follow the path of Shiela will live a peaceful, fulfilling life. Utter bullshit. To think that I was once like those fools here, trusting the church to protect me…’

She laughed bitterly.

‘And those divine bastards hope to gain more believers by claiming that beings from Lower Planes corrupt souls, take them as a payment in their deals. Some maybe, but Ashara? She never hinted wanting such a thing from me!’

Sauntering further, still deep in her thoughts, she suddenly spotted a familiar figure leaving a tavern.

‘Hmm… I haven’t seen her for a while. I was sure they’ve already left the city. Maybe that’s my chance.’

Reria smiled approaching the girl.

****

In a dark room a hooded wizard stood near a ritual circle. Inside it laid a corpse of a vargr. On a table not far away from them, inside various alchemical utensils, an ominous concoction was boiling. Next to the opposite wall was a row of cages in varying sizes, their contents covered with sheets of material.

As the wizard was finishing his incantation the vargr's corpse twitched. Then it slowly rose to its paws. Yet the wizard wasn’t watching this.

With his eyes closed, throughout the whole chant, he was fully focused on the sensation of something still clinging to the beast’s body. After having experimenting for a few days, trying to animate the monsters as soon as he has killed them, he was sure that it was its soul. His chant fastened its separation from the flesh, leaving only a loose, flickering thread that linked them together. However, being unable to perceive the soul directly, he almost immediately lost the hang of that feeling, only sensing the familiar hollowness that was already being filled with his mana and energy drew by his spell from somewhere.

The wizard opened his eyes, looking at the fourth beast he has animated today. He removed a dagger from his belt and cut through the undead monster’s side. No blood came out of the wound.

He began another incantation, feeling slight dizziness as some lifeforce left him and entered the body of his test subject. In seconds its wound closed, but similarly to his earlier tries, lifeforce seemed to dissipate somewhere.

“With my new spell, Life Transference, I can not only mend wounds of the living, but also the undead. But the undead, contrary to the living, can’t store excess life force even for a time. Is this because their soul is gone, or maybe it is simply because their body is just…dead?”

Ion spoke to himself, taking a moment to check the potion he was trying to brew. His progress in alchemy was much slower than the one he made with magic.

“If I could remove a soul from the body without killing it, I could confirm whether the body alone would suffice to produce lifeforce.”

Still deep in his thoughts, he poured a little of distillate from a beaker into a small vial. Levitating it with Mage Hand as far away as possible from himself, he removed a sheet from one of the cages, immediately receiving angry growls from the vargr contained inside. Not for the first time annoyed, that he didn’t know how to alter Hold Person to make it work on non-humanoid targets, he casted Web, conjuring layers upon layers of the sticky webbing inside a small area around the creature, making it impossible to move.

The vargr tried to lash out in anger, but after receiving few superficial cuts from Ion’s dagger it stopped, apparently aware of the futility of its efforts. Sometimes Ion wondered whether those evil beasts, often used by goblins as mounts, were more intelligent and cunning than people suspected. Manipulating the Mage Hand, he shoved the vial inside creature’s jaws.

For a few minutes he looked at the beast expectantly.

“Really, nothing happened?” he sighed, “Maybe I should try to refine my earlier recipe, it worked partially, at least…”

His earlier version of a healing potion could fasten closing of the wounds, but as a side effect, just smelling it caused one to almost immediately fall asleep, sometimes also causing hallucinations, making it useless for anyone trying to drink it during a combat. He managed to reduce the adverse effects by mixing it with a common herbal ointment. Afterwards, It could heal most slashing wounds within three to four hours, but one still was dizzy and required to stay in the bed for a time. It still wasn’t useful in a combat, but as it was more distilled, using the same amount of components more people could be treated.

Contrary to his expectations, Sae was delighted when he told her about the results; to the point that she took almost the whole remaining batch of his potions before he had more time to turn them into the ointments.

“Well, maybe the effects will be delayed?” Ion decided to check on the vargr later and returned to the table, beginning to work on potions again.

His thoughts shifted back towards magical experiments again.

“So far, I don’t have a way to expel a soul without killing the body in a process… but maybe I could be able to bind a soul, force it to remain inside an undead body? Then I could check whether the presence of a soul is enough to prevent lifeforce from dissipating. I believe that fully severing the soul isn’t required to create an undead, so maybe there is a way to stop the natural process…”

He suddenly froze.

“What am I even thinking about! It would be no longer creating a mindless golem, but trapping a soul inside an undead body! Even if it was only an animal, retaining some of its sentience, exposed to the endless hunger… would I create a ghoul this way? No! There are the lines I won’t cross!”

“We will see… it always begins with little steps…” the amused voice Ion heard inside his head made him drop a vial.

After his run-in against Heinrich, Ion was beginning to discern some of the thoughts he had as not entirely his. Sometimes they seemed to be a quiet whisper at the back of his head, one he was not sure whether it was real or just his imagination. From time to time, however, they were similar to this occurrence; the statements during which he could almost grasp a sight of Vision-he speaking.

While such occurrences were rare and apparently benign, they were still disturbing.

'One more reason to do more research about possessions, mind-affecting spells and similar topics.'

Ion has already told Sae that he would like to head west after they finish their work here. While his plan to earn more gold with alchemy wouldn’t work – the elixirs just took too long to brew and his tries weren’t showing the results he hoped to achieve – just by selling raw materials he could probably cover his living expenditures for a while.

Sae didn’t like his idea at first, but as soon as he mentioned that by heading west he meant leaving Rikse and travelling through Nelroddir and Cirran to eventually enrol Aethera University, she became interested at the prospect of the journey and wondered whether the rest of their group would also be willing to sign up for a trip like this.

Even if he still wasn’t sure how his condition could be defined nor had any guarantee to find help there, he believed it would be his best bet. If he couldn’t find an answer in either Aethera University nor Cirran, the greatest city in the world, he had no idea where it would be possible.

However, Ion had to admit that as much as those occurrences when he heard the voice of Vision-he inside his head were unsettling to him, there were also merits to them.

During one of his earlier experiments, when he tried to achieve a better control over Life Transference, he tried to direct his lifeforce to mend and straighten the broken bones of a vargr. Repeatedly. He was trying to overcome the feeling of dizziness which assisted the spell.

It was then when he heard Vision-he shouting.

“Foolish apprentice! How many times I have told you to be careful when manipulating your lifeforce? If you cross a threshold, your body won’t be able to make up for the lost energy, the spell will be fuelled by your lifespan.”

Fearful, after this event, he started working with lifeforce almost solely after he drained it with Vampiric Touch from the monsters Silverfords kindly provided to him; better to be safe than sorry.

Also, the very same night, he had a dream in witch Vision-he was teaching a few students how to manipulate the lifeforce. At one point he spoke the exact same words Ion heard during his experiments. This made him wonder whether ‘the voice’ he hears sometimes commenting his actions isn’t simply another manifestation of his visions triggering, not the ‘real’ person talking to him.

‘Still, it would be helpful to learn the reasons behind this.’

Judging that it is about the time when he should meet with Lara and Sten, he refreshed the illusion spell he sustained on himself, armed protective wards within the room and left.