The corpse of the Soul-Devouring Dragon burned. The amount of mana in a naturally formed stormcloud was immense, even if the amount of mana in that particular one was on the small side, as it wasn’t fully formed. If Casimr didn’t already ensure that all of his students were protected against such hazards, they would all be blind and deaf from the flash and boom of that spell. “And that!” He announced. “Is why any military that can afford it buys literal barrels of alchemized mana and brings mages that can use the stuff.” He kicked Luci’s head up, catching it by the blasphemous litanies that wrapped around it. “Nothing else can outmuscle that kind of magic.” Even the strongest of divine miracles could only match them, and priests paid steep, personal prices to invoke such power.

He examined the face, spending a moment to remember her, as she was in life. He wasn’t sure how long he did so, but Hanna poked him, seizing his attention. “Right, we need to follow through.” He said, tossing the head into his bag. “Looting, then we go back to the dragon’s lair. Chop chop!” He added, clapping his hands for emphasis.

His students leapt into action as Casimir instructed them how to properly harvest useful materials off of powerful undead, although there was a significant amount of guesswork on the undead dragon. Afterwards, Illivere twirled her new artifact spear and leapt towards the revenant’s base, leading them all to the entrance. Casimir was pretty sure he knew where it was, but Illivere definitely did, so he just followed her.

The Soul-Devouring Dragon and his cronies were holed up in a massive cavern, clearly purpose-built as a dragon-sized lair with supplemental facilities scattered around like model sets, just on the floor waiting to be crushed by the inhabitant who was properly sized for the room.

The phylacteries of liches were not difficult to find, once you locate their general position. Monster cores were high-density impure mana, mixed with precise ratios that all monsters of that kind shared, with revenants being one of the big exceptions to that rule. In particular, they had an exotic mana aspect within it, noted in scholarly writings as ‘death-aspected’ mana. It was only present when the undead were animate, so it was difficult to study. Tomes of necromantic lore, which study the undead extensively, were very difficult to come by, so Casimir knew basically nothing about it. Well, except that it stank. It made it impossible for them to hide their natures.

“Petranis, the Dragon, and one more.” Casimir said, nodding to himself. One of them must be one of the passengers he destroyed when dusting Magnus. Still… “Okay, pay close attention to what I’m doing.” Casimir instructed his students as he carefully dismantled the pseudo-curse that was responsible for reconstituting the Lich’s body after destruction. Sure, he could just smash the things, but phylacteries were valuable. After about a minute of careful work, the death-aspected mana vanished from his senses, proving that he had successfully destroyed it. “Hmmm…” He wonders… “Next.”

Petranis’ phylactery wasn’t any harder to disable than the other Lich’s. It was a little easier, in fact, due to the fact that he had contaminated it a little bit when casting that tracking spell. It was like a tiny light helping him see what he was doing. Carefully, he focused his mana senses towards the death-aspected mana, as revolting as it was. When he spiked the last little bit of the reformation spell, dismantling it, the death magic… fled. It didn’t vanish, it went somewhere. “Hello…” This has potential. “Is that you, Malice?” He asked rhetorically.

“Teach, what are you doing?” Peter asked.

“Ah, don’t mind me. Hopefully you’re learning something from watching me disable these phylacteries. I know I am.” Casimir said, before moving on to the big one: the Soul-Devouring Dragon’s phylactery.

A regular lich’s phylactery was fairly ordinary, in the sense that they usually all looked the same: a sealed urn made from ivory while decorated with black diamonds, too small for proper cremation, with a glowing monster core inside. Prying or smashing the thing open was enough to kill it, but you could get more money for it if it was still sealed, as long as it wasn’t going to reform a very angry undead wizard.

A dracolich’s phylactery was different, apparently. It appeared to be… some kind of drum? It was still made of ivory, stained black and with wickedly sharp flourishes like a barbed skeleton, and it used flawless diamonds as decoration. An inverted color scheme… One end was wide, but covered in a dragonscale tarp that Casimir hesitated to touch.

Still, his mana senses could clearly smell the vile concentrations of death-aspected mana, thicker and more potent than any other example. How to… He started to carefully probe the phylactery’s matrix with his tools, testing its structure. It was always something of a combination of a curse and an enchantment, but it was closer to a curse, so he referred to it as such. This one… had some differences.

“I found some papers.” Faron announced. “They are unencrypted and detail the resources of the rest of the organization.”

“That’s great.” Casimir said absently. “Little busy.” Okay, so that bit is the same as the regular phylactery, and that bit is different. The dragonskin has part of it etched on the back, but oddly it was one of the similar parts, not the different one. It did remind him of an auto-function…

Hanna came back into the room from where she vanished with Chestnut, the spirit that she hopefully just summoned. Her arms were once again flesh and blood, and not skeletal with an appearance that was suspiciously close to the starmetal spear that Illivere had started communing with when Casimir started on the dracolich’s core.

He was really wishing that he did more research on exotic objects. He’d have some kind of containment circle design on hand if he did. But… he did have some extra trap disarming gear that might be helpful… there’s stuff in common between disarming traps and dealing with dangerous materials…

After some frantic digging through his various magical storage spaces, Casimir had the phylactery suspended in the air, his most protective gloves on, and with his most expensive set of magic channeling tools. “This should help.” With this new setup, he tested the phylactery by tapping the dragonskin, producing a thumping note that confirmed that it was, in fact, a drum. Magically, on the other hand… it responded. It didn’t do anything, per say, but the force of the drumbeat traveled down the complex magic, which was promptly rejected. It reminded him of an encryption enchantment, where it did something in return for a stimulus of a particular pattern, like a specific musical piece. Was there any part of this that… there. That’s the metaphorical tumbler for this lock.

After a few more test taps of the drum, Casimir determined… that he could not just pick this lock. These kinds of musical passwords… they weren’t that hard to just destroy and bypass that way. He didn’t usually work with things that he couldn’t just break if he needed to.

“Hey Faron.” He said. “Any music in those papers?” This was probably something that Malice needed someone he didn’t directly control to do. “For a drum, if it specifies.”

Given that Casimir spent the last few minutes tapping on a drum, it was no surprise that Faron immediately understood the purpose of the request. “Ah, I’ll look, sir.” he said.

“Me too.” Peter said, with Hanna humming in agreement as they split the pile of papers.

While they approached that problem, Casimir continued to examine the mysterious mana aspect. While he’s sure that he’s far from the first person to study the special mana type crucial for the functioning of undead, with the context of Malice as the God of Monsters… it’s clearly one of that spirit’s mana types. One of these parts of the spell matrix that he doesn’t understand, which is about half of it, for a generous definition of understanding, has to relate to this mysterious mana aspect.

He suspects that it’s a mirrored aspect, like ice is to fire. But it’s definitely not mirrored to life, because that was his first guess and he’d be able to pick it out if all he needed to do was find a flipped life aspect utilization segment.

“Found it!” Peter declared, holding up a page. “It goes dun, dundun, dun-DUN, du-” Faron whapped Peter upside the head. “Uh… here you go, Teach.”

Casimir stared at Peter. “Do you know how to read sheet music?” Casimir asked, because he was planning on using it as a guide to his tests. Peter nodded. “Then put on my gloves and play it.”

After a moment of everyone getting ready for something crazy to happen, Peter tapped out a small ditty on the drum. Casimir paid very close attention to the spell matrix, seeing the tiny pulses of force mana tapping the drum initiated travel down to the proper spot to be read by the enchantment.

At the conclusion of the music, the drum erupted in mana, and immediately started to reform the Soul-devouring Dragon’s undead body. Illivere’s artifact spear quickly ended that threat before it could become a problem, but Casimir was already disabling the matrix as quickly as possible, having already determined the most efficient way to do so.

Just as before, the death-aspected mana bled away the instant Casimir compromised the matrix. However, after the surge of death-aspected mana from the invocation of the reformation of the dracolich, it bled away over two seconds instead of an eyeblink, an eternity’s difference. It was bleeding… down?

Casimir reviewed the information his mana senses were giving him. Yes, definitely down. Did it arrive in an upward direction? He used a little burst of mind mana to sharpen his memory even further than he already was. …it did. He had a little bit of trouble comprehending the distance, though. It was further than any other distance he’s traced a connection through before. Which meant it was more than one thousand miles. Has anything ever gone that deep? Gravity cultists, if anything…

Still, he’s hit the dead end. He’s magically memorized the structure of the matrix, even if he doesn’t understand it, so he can study it later. It’s not like he won’t have time over the next semester. “Well, that was the last thing we needed to do, I think.” Casimir said. “Y’all go over everywhere?”

“Yes sir!” Faron declared. Casimir used a much louder stone magic pulse than usual to see if there were any still-hidden areas.

Sensing none, he went down the other list. “Checked every room?”

“Yes sir.”

“Checked the furniture for hidden compartments?” Casimir asked.

“Yes sir.”

“Checked underneath everything?”

“Yes sir.”

“Took everything of value?”

“Yes sir.”

Casimir clapped his hands. “We’re done here!” His student’s expressions melted into relief. Casimir gave them a wide grin. “Let’s go home.”

----------------

If they really booked it, and hired a ship to go to Anima at full speed, augmented by their own magic… they’d still get there late. Thus, Casimir needed to hire a long distance portal. It was a service that didn’t have any real consistent provider, but there was an informal network among wizards capable of the feat that allowed them to open long distance portals by collaboratively casting at both ends. The tricky part was, of course, getting a hold of two. Fortunately, the Adventurer’s guild kept records of where any such wizards have set up shop, so he could accomplish multiple tasks in one go. Also fortunately, the Academy had such a wizard, so Casimir just needed to get hold of just the one.

“That sure looks like an undead dragon head.” Stated Guildmaster Limeshaper as he stroked his beard. “Never thought I’d see something like this.”

“I was surprised too.” Casimir said as he placed on the table the last proof of death of the Revenants, Luci’s head. “I’ll deliver this one to the Helelites personally.”

“So this was just you and the Cursed Study Group doing this?” The dwarf asked incredulously.

“I did the hard parts.” Casimir assured him. “It’s a lot easier when you know all of their tricks.” Like how comparatively vulnerable Magnus was when he was using his stone transport, or that Luci’s best spells can be relatively easily defended against via curses. Or that the Soul-Devouring Dragon prefers to use the swallow and digest method of magic absorption, which opens the door for the trick he pulled to keep him still and magically occupied. He had been planning that move for weeks. Admittedly, he was unsure if it would work after the Malice revelation, but the storm cloud allowed any extra power to be rendered moot.

“...Huh.” He said, thinking hard. “...You’re all promoted.” Casimir’s students whooped and started celebrating at the news.

What? “Really?” Casimir said, surprised. “I guess it might be warranted for me after that quest,” He’d argue against it, but he did just complete two technically heroic-ranked quests practically back to back, so he could understand why someone else would think him worthy of the rank, if they didn’t know how much of an information advantage he had for both. “...but my students haven’t been adventurers for even a year. Is promoting them to veteran really a good idea?” He asked.

The dwarf snorted. “They’ve earned it. They weren’t just incidental in your completion of this quest, but instrumental. Is that right?” He didn’t share the sensitive bits, like that baffling trick Hanna pulled, but he didn’t take all the credit. It wouldn’t be right.

Casimir pursed his lips as he resisted his first impulse. “..I suppose.” He eventually conceded. “I couldn’t have done what I did if I had to fight the dragon’s backup.” It was surprising how willing enemies were to let Casimir stall and set up complex magic if it meant that they could gamble on their backup killing his students before the reverse happened.

“Without an exam, their promotion would be considered probationary anyway.” Guildmaster Limeshaper added. “They won’t be pushed too hard. Besides, isn’t school going to start back up again soon?”

“Yeah, I’m going to need to get a portal opened up back to the Academy if we’re going to make it back on time.” Casimir said. “Do you know anyone who can open it from this side?”

“Aye.” The old dwarf replied. “The guildmaster at Rorik’s Outlook is capable of it. That’s a dungeon town about two hundred miles to the southeast from here, on a mountain.” He shrugged. “He may ask you to help clear a tricky monster or two, though.” Dungeon towns were only founded for particularly large and complex underground areas that accumulate monsters, ones that could spawn monsters faster than an adventuring team could clear it.

Come to think of it… “I’ve delved there before, actually.” Casimir said. “Like… nine years ago? Somewhere around then.”

“You’ll not have met Seasplitter then.” Guildmaster Limeshaper said. “He retired from adventuring about five years ago. Unless you met him as an adventurer, he was ‘The Sky Splitter’ before deciding to settle down for a while.” Really? Family name of ‘Seasplitter’ with the epithet ‘Sky Splitter’? He shouldn’t talk, but still…

Nevertheless, Casimir nodded along. “Don’t think I have.” It’s a big world out there, he’s met maybe one in twenty elites and heroics in his career, and that’s a generous estimate.

“Well, it’s going to take weeks to process all of this. You better get going.” The guildmaster said, tapping the head.

“You already know where I’ll be in the next several months.” Casimir replied. “Just get everything sent to Anima and I’ll make a trip to the capital once it’s there.”

“Will do. Safe travels, Hero Toomes.” The guildmaster said, grinning at Casimir’s new title.