Of all the subjects The Matriarch would go on to learn various forms of magic. She figured it would be useful for her coming adventures into the multiverse, and she had no qualms about the darker and the taboo. She did not have any basis of reference regarding the ethics and legality of certain types of magic, a trait she would ultimately share with other deities even though she did not know it. Of significant note was the subject of Necromancy and Blood magic.

As a young deity born of the aetherius, she spent much of her time studying Yggdrasil and norse lore. The aether, an old and ancient concept seemed to be an energy that flowed through the entire multiverse. It’s source is only hinted at in some ancient grimoires, some thinking that the gods themselves breathed life into the universe and that very breath became the aether. In reality, this overplays the various god’s roles in the multiverse’s creation. They are born, made, spawned and designed like anything else but the actual origin of all existence still eludes the gods themselves. They are functionally immortal but they still live and die like so many others. That however, is a subject for another time.

It was the concept of immortality that drew her to the subject of Necromancy. The passage of time meant very little to her personally, but as she read more on mortal lore she noticed a trend. There was an ever present anxiety upon the concept of death, to the point of personifying it. Death became a person, something tangible that they could ultimately defeat. Through technology, medicine, and even magic they extended their lifespans in order to defeat this abstract concept that their mortal souls will eventually join the aether.

While she never intended to mass resurrect swaths of populations, she still pinpointed a problem that she could possibly assist in. So she got to work.

The aether is a flowing force that keeps various multiverses together. Through her studies she found that, while lacking a sentient consciousness that mortals could understand, it still had its own intelligence. It could be effectively petitioned, just as all magic users do whenever they cast the most simplest of spells. Effectively asking the universe permission to make fire into their hands, and then proceed to cook their morning eggs because that damn stove pilot light went out again. The aether never truly says “No, this cannot be done” except in the rarest of cases (one example is that of Chaos - another lesson for another day). However, ‘petitioning the aether’ is effectively the closest comparison.

The same works for dark, deep, or ‘evil’ magic. The aether is intelligent in its own, unknowable way but it holds no judgement on how gods or mortals use it. This is a fact that The Matriarch surely could take advantage of. Necromancy was an interesting topic to her, originally thought to be pissing in the face of the natural order of things (and many mortals think that very thing), but some types of death magic have many practical uses. She thought of a saying whenever she was argued with; “People forget that while death magic can take life, it can also give it back.” It was her justification for essentially popping into some universes and ultimately engaging in graverobbing. Her estate held a lab, a sort of morgue and holding facility for corpses where she would experiment within. She had a nexus that allowed her to pop into various mortal realms (and otherwise), but she kept her presence secretive as to not alert locals. She still had so much to learn after all, and did not want to interact whilst unprepared.

Magic functions ever so slightly differently in every timeline she entered, Matriarch noticed. Asking the aether for permission still only goes so far. Some spells were less effective at times, so this was a fact she had to take real note of and could be a threat in the future (which is why she also endeavored to self train in some martial arts). Regardless, there are some fundamentals to Necromancy she had learned through some trial and error, as well as utilizing dozens of grimoires to effectively triangulate the truth.

Firstly, there was a window of effectiveness. Two weeks after death is the most ideal window of time to resurrect a corpse. She had done so and monitored certain mortal’s lives after giving them the gift of a second life. After some upheaval in their home and work lives, they typically carried on as normal. Most even continued to live well into their eighties or nineties, though their health seemed to have declined more rapidly after a certain point.

That’s when she discovered the second point; the aether demands a trade. Not so much that all magic requires such a thing, but necromancy effectively drains a certain life force from the subject and engineers a different kind within. It is a death magic after all, so resurrected subjects are typically instructed that some time has been shaved off their lifespan. Most never mind, as they are typically eager to return to their families.

Thirdly, something the Matriarch dubs as the ‘yellow zone’, two to five weeks is when certain side effects become more apparent. After the initial resurrection, subjects are far more sluggish and slower to attune to the life they’ve been given again. Their lifespans are also much shorter, their health dropping a decade or two before their timeline’s life expectancy. The idea here is that part of their essence has already passed into the aether, and petitioning it to return what has been taken becomes too far a demand. Even if their spirit had lingered, their very soul continually passes through a course of time (this very thing causes most ghosts to turn mad over the course of decades or for some of the strong willed, possibly centuries).

Yellow-zone subjects can still live mostly normal lives, but at a depleted capacity. They’re prone to more health problems and they also hit earlier in their lives. Some medicine and magic can alay this, but they will eventually pass sooner than they probably wished for.

There are two other tiers. There’s an orange zone, which is roughly one to two months. It is everything that the yellow zone offers but worse. The Matriarch reserves month-long resurrection for information gathering rather than worrying about the subjects quality of life - Which will soon rapidly decline. Breaking one of her own rules, she had met with some mortals and utilized an Orange resurrection to a higher classed noble family whose grandfather passed without making it clear which family members acquired which assets. She kept her personal interactions brief, but she was ultimately paid a sum of gold once the matter was properly settled. Gold is typically useful no matter the timeline, so she made a storage facility to keep various treasures.

Finally, they can go into the red. After two or three months, the corpse is just a corpse. Their essence has been absorbed into the aetherius, and petitioning it to bring back life to the corpse yields unfavorable results. In common parlance, the subject effectively becomes a zombie. The more polite term in mage circles would be “ghoul”, their actual formal term. Some intelligence can be forced into them, but they essentially become subservient creatures to their summoner. What was once held within their minds, is long gone at that point.

There are exceptions, like an aforementioned strong-willed ghost hanging around for a long period of time. Since their soul is still present, necromancy can be used to mend the corpse and force their soul back into their original home. This still leads to potential health risks, especially that of mental.

Speaking of exceptions, all of this varies slightly in every universe. What has been documented above is just the typical ‘average’, and the Matriarch makes it a point to make sure the subjects know about the potential variance. Even if a subject was resurrected within a day of their death, there’s always the risk of health issues in their future.