“There’s obviously a Skill you’re missing,” Dove groaned for the eleventh time that day. “If it were possible to do what you’re trying to do without it, then you would have figured it out already.”

Tyron ground his teeth as he tossed aside another shin bone. Shins made the most sense for swords, since they, along with the bones of the forearm, namely the ulna, were the hardest in the body, and about the right size.

“I know,” he finally retorted as he reached across to grab another from the box to his right. “I also know what the Skill is: Bone Compression, I passed it up at level thirty six.”

“I can’t believe this. You mean all this time you knew what you were missing?”

“Yes, I knew. If I already know how to shape bones thanks to the bow making Skill, then what’s the point of buying nine thousand other ways to manipulate bones? It stands to reason that I should be able to figure out how it should work given what I already know.”

“That’s not how it works, fuckface.”

Dove wandered over and poked him with a skeletal finger.

“Just because you’ve picked up some stuff without having to ‘pay’ for it doesn’t mean everything is just going to drop into your lap! You’re trying to gain a Skill you don’t have, and another Skill you don’t have at the same damn time! You don’t know how to compress bones magickally, and you don’t know how to form a sword from one, even if you did!”

He put his hands on his bony hips and shook his head.

“No wonder you haven’t been getting anywhere. This has been a waste of time.”

Tyron scowled and shoved the skeletal construct away with one hand. Dove shrieked and covered himself.

“Who said you could touch my pelvis?”

“I made your pelvis.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to ravish me without permission.”

“Balls of the Gods, Dove, if you don’t shut up, then I’m going to wire your jaw shut.”

“I’m bored! It’s great to have a body again, but I can’t leave your fucking basement, so the level of enjoyment I get out of it is pretty fucking limited!”

“I’m not all that sympathetic,” Tyron muttered as he focused on the shin once again.

How was he supposed to compress the damn thing? He was getting better at shaping bone the way he wanted to, and quite a few of his efforts looked like functional swords, but they just plain weren’t. It was like dough. Exceptionally hard dough, but still dough. He could shape it, mould it, stretch and flatten, or squash the whole stupid thing into a ball if he wanted, but he couldn’t change its density. He couldn’t make it into a ball, and then squish it into a smaller one.

Actually, the ball analogy worked fairly well, so he began to adjust the shin, stretching it in some places, pressing it in others, as he attempted to create a round shape out of it. The exercise was more difficult than he’d thought, and required a significant amount of concentration, effort, and magick expenditure on his part.

“Oh, you don’t care about my suffering? Why am I not surprised?”

Tyron continued to work as he argued with his former-mentor.

“Oh no, you can’t walk around the city and have to stay here practising magick. How terrible.”

Dove stared at him, the purple flame burning in his empty sockets, then threw up his hands.

“Of course you think it’s perfectly fine. Living as a hermit in a cave practising magick is your idea of paradise! Some of us want more from life. In fact, almost all of us want more from life. You’re the weird one.”

“Dove. I went through an enormous amount of effort and personal expense to create that body for you. I wove it to the best of my ability, enchanted it, bound the entire thing to your soul. It was a long and painful process, and I went through all of that in an attempt to bring you some measure of happiness in your life.”

He glared up at the skeleton.

“So forgive me if I’m not all that patient while you prattle around my study whining about how you can’t drink, eat or fuck. I don’t care. I. Don’t. Care. You can help me with what I’m doing, or study and practise your own magick, but if you keep whinging like a whipped dog, I swear I will crush that fucking skull and leave you to Yor forever.”

Finished saying his piece, the Necromancer looked down and continued his moulding, fuming silently. Dove watched him for a long moment.

“You’re cranky. Something stressing you out, kid? Other than the ever present threat of death hanging over your head. I wouldn’t stress about it. Death can be a lot less permanent than you think.”

A grimace flickered over Tyron’s face.

“Yor has already told me my soul is likely to get seized upon by one of a number of Vampires if they manage to sniff it out after I die. I’m tempted to make arrangements for the Abyss to take it upon my death, just to avoid the possibility.”

“You… never told me that.”

“Dove, you’ve been so wrapped up in yourself you haven’t had the time or attention to pay to anything other than Dove. Which I understand, given how shitty everything is for you, but there’s been no reason for me to go blabbing to you about my worries.”

“Well, there is now. Whatever is bothering you has gotten you so worked up you’re threatening to destroy this incredible specimen of perfection.”

The former-summoner ran his bone hands suggestively over his skeletal frame, which managed to get a smile out of the younger mage.

“That’s the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen.”

Normally, his skeletons moved with a ruthless efficiency, even the revenants. Once Dove had gained his full form, he’d began prancing, dancing and engaging in all sorts of very un-undead-like movements. It was strange to see, to say the least.

“Just wait until I show you what I’m capable of when I’m fully equipped,” Dove boasted, thrusting his bare, bony hips forward repeatedly.

“I’ll kill you. I mean it.”

“Fine.”

Thankfully, he stopped.

“What’s bothering you? It can’t just be that you are still failing to make a sword. Actually, what the heck are you making right now?”

Tyron held up his completed sphere.

“I thought I’d mould it into a ball shape and then try to compress it. Essentially, if I manage to make the ball smaller, then I’ve succeeded.”

“But you would need to apply force equally from all sides, wouldn’t that be harder?”

“Maybe it's harder in practice, but it seems easier conceptually. I don’t have to worry about where I should and shouldn’t be trying to compress, I just try and compress the whole thing.”

“That makes sense,” Dove mused, scratching at his bone chin. “I’m not distracted, though. Out with it, spill your problems into the open so I can point and laugh at them.”

The ball in his hands stubbornly refused to shrink, no matter how he pressed or manipulated it, but he didn’t give up.

“I’m just stressed. There’s always too much to do, and with the advancement approaching, I’m worried it won’t be optimal. I can’t afford to miss out on a Class Advancement that suits my goals and needs.”

“Your needs are rather specific. Something that supports a large number of powerful undead that you can use to fight and level against the rifts and against the empire. Essentially, you need to be on the path of Arihnan the Black.”

“Exactly,” Tyron said. “I need an army of minions, nothing else will be sufficient. Having come so far, the thought of failing at this point is just… unacceptable.”

“Which is why failing to make a sword is pissing you off so much.”

“Probably. I don’t know, Dove, I just don’t understand why this thing won’t fucking shrink.”

He was trying to use his hands and magick to press on the ball from all sides at once, but all that happened was the bone cracked, forcing him to repair it.

At least he was training his Bone Mending at the same time. Part of his irritation stemmed from the fact he was certain there was some sort of unified bone modification Skill which would allow him to perform all of these functions at once. Mending, Shaping, Compressing, probably Merging as well, he just wasn’t high enough Level to access it. The thought of wasting multiple Skill selections, and then losing them to an Advanced Skill down the line filled him with dread.

“Look, kid. You’re already fucked. A lone wolf, going up against an entire empire full of expert wolf-killers. Rebellions like this get cut off at the knees a couple of times every century. The odds of you succeeding are infinitesimal.”

“This is real encouraging so far.”

“I’m just saying you should relax a little and go with the flow! The current course of action is already certain death! Not much room to go down from there.”

The skeleton construct considered for a moment.

“Or you could let go of your need for revenge and live a quiet life enchanting. You do have that option.”

“No, I don’t.”

The Necromancer stared at the sphere in front of him as if by his will alone he could condense it.

“I don’t care how powerful they are, or how many get in my way. They will pay for what they’ve done.”

He said it simply, as if stating a universally accepted truth. Up was up, down was down, Tyron would have his vengeance.

“Well, in that case, I think you need to pick up the pace. You’ve got what? Forty of your new bony boys? I’m not sure that’s going to cut it against the empire.”

He’d worked tirelessly to hone his Skills and Spells while perfecting his ability to create undead over the past month. While maintaining the stock in the shop and keeping up appearances, he had devoted every spare waking hour to his craft. The problem wasn’t that he hadn’t been working hard enough, it was the lack of progress.

His current minions may be the strongest he’d ever created, but there weren’t enough of them, and he was only gaining twenty a month. He still needed more. He needed ghosts, and powerful revenants to anchor his force. Weapons for the skeletons had to be secured, and then he needed to start fighting.

None of it could happen until he Advanced.

He was on the precipice. He just needed to find the courage to fling himself off the edge.

Like forging a blade, he was trying to create the perfect version of himself. Right now, he was in the fire, unsure of when he could pull himself out. There was no way to be sure, so he may as well just go for it.

“I’ve decided,” he said firmly. “Tomorrow, I’ll perform the status ritual. Delaying any further is only going to drive me insane.”

“Good man!” Dove clapped him on the back. “Good to see a bit of ‘Fuck you!’ energy back in your eyes.”

Metal changed in the fire. It grew softer, more malleable. Only when you took it out could you make something useful with it. Shape it.

The sphere of bone weighed heavily in his hand. He tilted his head as he gazed at it.

Bone, as it was, could be shaped, he could do that much, but he couldn’t hammer it. There needed to be a qualitative change before something like that with metal. Cold metal couldn’t be compressed, it had to be heated first. So what did he have to do to the bone before he could compress it? Heat it? That didn’t make sense, it would just crack.

Dove was talking, but Tyron was no longer listening.

What could he do that he knew could create qualitative change within bones? Death Magick was the answer. It was the only form of energy that remains could accept.

He’d taken the Death Infusion Skill a while back but hadn’t yet found much use for it outside of a few experiments. He could pour Death Magick into an object via touch, transmuting the neutral energy from his body into the more dangerous form. It allowed him to kickstart the saturation process of remains whenever he wanted. He hadn’t tested it yet, but he could use it as a weapon in a pinch, a literal touch of death.

Wanting to understand more about Death Magick, he’d picked it since it allowed him to produce the stuff on demand, but since he hadn’t found a way to utilise it when creating minions, he hadn’t devoted the time to the Skill he should have.

There were trace amounts of Death Magick in the sphere of bone presently, but that could rapidly change. With a frown of concentration, he began to infuse it with arcane power.

Death aligned energy flowed from his hand and into the ball as he watched it carefully. The light around his hand began to darken as he poured out more. More.

The sphere was saturated now, but he didn’t stop. More power. More Death. The ball itself began to darken as he continued, the bone going from a bleached white to an ominous, smoking black.

Now.

Suffused with so much power, the bone didn’t behave as it had before. He could sense the difference. Taking the sphere in his hands, he gripped it physically, and also with his will.

He pressed.

“You prick. I can’t believe you figured that out.”