Chapter 3: The ritual

“Master Korpus, master Korpus! Everything is ready as you requested it.” The young man said as he eagerly waited for his next orders.

“Finally! It took you long enough.” Korpus was complaining as he was studying a book in his hands. “Go and tell your master that I will want to speak with him once everything is over. If he can’t prepare a simple summoning ritual quick enough, he will never became a decent lich.”

“As you wish, master.” The young man bowed and left the room in a hurry.

Korpus sighted: “Today’s young people are so lazy. They would have been turned into skeletons and send to the front lines two hundred years ago for this kind of sloppy work.”

Right now Korpus was sitting in his laboratory. He was preparing for the summoning ritual for a few days now and was becoming quite nervous as it took more time than was necessary. Old books and apparatuses were lying all over the place. Also bones, all types of bones were scattered around the place. Some of them were from animals, others humanoid looking.

Despite of being newly built, laboratory looked old. Dust was already lying everywhere. On one side of the spacy room was big, sturdy, wooden table with metal shackles for hands and feet. It looked ominous with old blood stains here and there. Right next to table were knives, saws, pliers, metal hooks, needles, everything in various sizes, as if token right from some torture chamber.

On the other side, there stood a large library with all kinds of books and tomes. A lot of them specialized in black magic and necromancy. They looked old, so old one would think they could fall apart when somebody takes them out.

Right in the middle of the room there was huge hearth. Right now blue flames from it were licking cauldron firmly stationed above it. From cauldron was rising thick, black smoke, which was trying to find its way out of the room.

Not too far away from it was Korpus, sitting comfortably in his seat. Smoke and dust didn’t bother him as he was used to it. When he finally finished his reading, he stood up and quickly checked contents of cauldron. Bald skull with empty eye sockets looked inside as they slightly shone with cold blue shade. He, Korpus, has body of a skeleton. As one of the greatest necromancers, he abandoned his humanity few hundred years ago when he started working directly for queen as one of her lich lords. Silky black robe with simple design was enveloping his skeletal figure. Only fingers with large rings and his white skull with everlasting smile were visible.

“Hmm, it will be ready soon. I must make haste.” He muttered. He was in foul mood as he hated being in hurry. When one becomes undead, the time stops being an enemy. Determined to finally finish his task, he takes his staff as he leaves laboratory.

In deep thoughts Korpus slowly walks through the camp. This is already the third month that undead legion came to Celum forest, homeland of wood elves. Path to here wasn’t that hard as the forest is close to the borders with Abandoned plains, which are one of the territories of undead kingdom.

Their First legion stayed only on the edges of the forest as they started to corrupt the land and trees. With corruption they moved deeper inside. This process was slow, but it was necessary. If they went right in, legion would be weakened from nature power of forest and elves would detect them right away. On corrupt lands they have an advantage and if they were careful enough elves wouldn’t be able to spot them so fast, leaving them with less time for preparation. But forest was stronger than they originally predicted and corruption was spreading too slowly.

It took them three long months to develop corruption strong enough to finally take some roots on these fertile lands, and they were still only behind the edges of the forest. It gnawed at his mind, because this process should be faster with so much vegetation and life for corruption to feed on. Korpus was almost certain that elves already detached an army to deal with them. He needed to speed up the process, so it can’t be easily purged even if they were chased out by army.

Their camp was a quickly built establishment. It wasn’t sturdy and it was uncomfortable, at least would be for humans or other living beings. Undead didn’t care thought. They didn’t have a need for sleep or comfort. Exception being few servants and slaves who were still amongst the living, but nobody really cared about their opinion. They were there to serve and obey, and that they will do, alive or not.

As Korpus stormed through the camp he could see large numbers of skeletons. Legions army foot soldiers. They were armed with rusty swords, or wooden clubs and simple bows. Their efficiency was in high numbers and in the fact that it didn’t matter how many of them died on the battlefield. As long as capable necromancer survived the encounter they could be raised again and again to go to battle.

Then there were quite a number of death knights, heavy infantry of the undead. Each one of them measuring roughly around 2 meters. Encased in heavy black and blood-red armours and wielding flails, swords, war-hammers and shields or two-handed versions of these weapons. One of the best killing machines of the undead. When coupled together sturdy enough to survive even the charge of a cavalry.

Last and not so numerous part of this small army were phantasms. With their semi-incorporeal bodies and lack of presence, they are perfect for scouting and assassination missions. Some of them even able to get through walls or objects. They never leave a trace and when they move they don’t make any noise. Only somebody with high magic ability or perception can effectively spot them.

Korpus, finally arriving to the right place, could see the prepared summoning circle on the ground. With diameter around 4 meters, the outer layer was drawn with strange, curvy glyphs which created outer ring. Inside of it was carved pentagram to the ground which has 5 small empty circles in each corner of the star symbol. Quickly checking it he nodded with satisfaction.

“You took your time Malthazar. You will have to be more efficient next time.” He reprimanded the man standing near the circle.

“I’m really sorry lord Korpus.” The man apologized bowing his head slightly. “But it is still quite hard for me to perform magic in these woods.”

Korpus remembered that Malthazar was one of the new necromancers and this was actually his first mission. Fresh out of the school he was entrusted to Korpus for his probation period.

“Don’t worry about it.” Korpus sighted heavily as he waved his skeletal hand dismissing the issue. “It can be hard even for us, liches, to conjure in these lands. Are the sacrifices ready as I required?” As he asked this 5 elven children in steel chains were brought before him. They were found playing in the woods few weeks after the legion arrived to the woods for the first time. When phantasm scouts kidnapped them, Korpus decided to use them as sacrifices for this summoning.

Elven blood was magically strong and in case of children also very pure, one of the best catalysts for his needs. Staring at his skeletal face they started to tremble with pure fear, without strength left to even cry.

“Don’t worry little ones.” He told them in elven language, which he learned few centuries back out of boredom and curiosity. “I don’t torture if I don’t need to. I promise you, your death will be quick and painless.”

As he told them this, the children were brought inside the summoning circle, each to the different corner of the pentagram.

Finally, with everything in its place Korpus started the ritual: “Mənim xidmət bu hədiyyə mübadiləsi qarşılanma, bizə məlum olmayan yaşamaq edənlər onun yeni ustası kimi mənə güc və hikmət vermək.“ [Those who live beyond our understanding welcome this gift and in exchange for it step into my service and give me your strength and wisdom as your new master.]

As he spoke with evident concentration, Melthazar and 4 phantasms prepared ritual blades and readied themselves. When Korpus finished invocation he gave a sign and sent his magical energy through the staff in his hand to the summoning circle. Melthazar, together with phantasms, slit the throats of children with one deep cut, almost cutting their head of. Young blood gushed forward in five arcs and dyed the whole circle crimson red.

Small lifeless bodies were left on the cold ground and as blood slowly left their veins, their bodies started to rot. In the end only their frail, white skeletons remained. Then, in the middle of the pentagram a presence started to form. As if it were being constructed from blood and all rotted flesh stolen from a minute ago, a body of creature started to appear. Sign that devil from the abyss accepted the deal proposed by Korpus. It took only few seconds until whole body formed and then finally, imp appeared.

* * *

Sun was slowly setting as it shined its last warm rays of light onto the busy streets. People, now preparing for the approaching night, hurried through the city to quickly finish their tasks for the day. Merchants closing their stores for night, guards were starting to patrol the streets, pubs and inns becoming louder as more people wanted to rest after the day of hard work. All of this was overseen by Abhedia fortress, which was proudly standing in the middle of the city. Right now silence enveloped the huge structure and only sign of life were few lights flickering in its windows. There, in one of these windows, stood a shadow as it silently observed sunset.

“I know this isn’t exactly the right time, but scouts returned with their reports.” Man’s calm voice reported as he entered room, but only heavy silence answered him. “Sahodariya, are you listening to me?” He asked her now worryingly.

“Yes I heard you Amrag.” She answered him with quiet voice, still facing the sunset.

Worried about her he said: “You should go and stay with him. Or even better go and take a rest. At this rate you will only worry and won’t accomplish anything. Meantime I will look after the matters here.”

At his words she quickly turned to face him and angrily retorted: “He is my brother, of course I’m worried!”

“I know and I’m not saying you shouldn’t be,” he tried to calm her down. “I’m just suggesting that you should go and see him.”

After a short silence he could heard her sobbing quietly.

“I can’t. It’s my fault that he is in the hospital. What should I do when he won’t wake up? I can’t even think about it. Every time I see him…” The tears were starting to show in her eyes as she was on the verge of crying.

Amrag seeing this putted down the documents on nearby table and embraced her in tight bear hug.

“You can’t blame yourself honey. It was an accident, so promise me you won’t blame yourself for it. It will slowly destroy you at this rate and I’m sure that Tom wouldn’t want that.” He told her as he gently caressed her cheek and wiped her tears.

After she calmed down a little, Sahodariya lightly nodded. “You are probably right, I -”

“Damn sure I’m right!” He told her firmly before she had any chance to blame herself again.

“Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done without you.” She finally smiled and kissed him lightly.

“Don’t worry about it, you can count on my full support in this matter. If you want, we can go see him together.” He reassured her, still holding her in his arms.

“No, I need to finish this first. Too many people worked really hard for me to just toss it out of the window.” She said as she pointed at the reports on the table. After all, right now she was Sahodariya, the guild master of Soaring Wings guild and one of the currently highest-level players in RealmWalker. Soaring Wings being one of the most popular and famous guilds in RealmWalker, could be hard to control if one wasn’t prepared to dedicate his everything.

RealmWalker is known for being a hard-core, role-playing game, so players always need to act in their character while being in the game. In RealmWalker their avatar is their real personality and they should forget everything about the real world. This is the first and most strictly watched rule by the developers and it is punishable by deleting an account if it is heavily or repeatedly violated without a good reason.

So when Sahodariya needed to finish something, the needs of Sarah in real world must have been put on a wait-list.