[TLQ-B2] 4. Chamber of Genesis (Patreon)

IV

Chamber of Genesis

Morgathis’s eyes rested on the chair under my buttocks. Again, she flashed a smile. “I really am a genius.” Another moment passed, one wherein she no doubt continued to shower praise on herself in her mind, before she turned back to me.

“I could tell you about the War…but we’d be here for days, and I don’t have that much time.”

My senses narrowed on her core. Already, the energy I’d inserted into the vessel was fading.

“That said,” she continued, “if Cebas is still alive and active, it’s important that you know of it in its broadest strokes…we’ll speak on it if you finish the Chambers I’ve set up for you on time. Claiming the inheritances left there are what’s most important.”

“What exactly do these inheritances entail?”

I had an idea, of course, but it paid to be certain.

“Now, why would I tell you that and ruin the surprise, hhm?”

“This grandchild is just interested in what grandmother has left her, that’s all.”

A smirk. “I wasn’t born last night, child. Buttering me up won’t get you anywhere.” She slid out of her seat. “Come.”

I followed behind her. Our pace was measured, so we’d take a while to arrive at the chamber entrance.

“Those undead of yours are well-raised,” she said. “I don’t recognise their classes.”

“Your praise warms my heart, Grandmother. I didn’t have a teacher, so I experimented as much as I could.”

Semi-true. Though my father had been in my previous life, he preferred a ‘hands-off’ approach to teaching. Then again, there’d been enough necromancers around me for me to study and learn from—

My head tilted. “You can see their classes?”

“See?” She side-eyed me. “I suppose I am. More specifically, I’m studying their cores.”

I blinked. “So you don’t see any words?”

‘Words?’ her face asked.

I considered whether to mention the system—

I pointed at my skull. “I can see their class names over their head. It’s a special ability.”

—and decided on a half-truth.

She hummed. “That’s a strange power. I’ve never heard of it.”

She asked me for some particulars. I gave them while skirting around the overarching topic of the system.

Though Grandmother didn’t seem like she was going to scheme against me, appearances could be deceiving. I’d keep it to myself for now.

Grandmother changed the topic once we were within stone’s throw of the entrance. “Tell me, child, what do you know of the birth of undead?”

“Birth of undead…?”

She nodded. “How the first undead was created.”

I knew a lot about the births of undead. But that was all information from my previous life.

“Nothing at all, Grandmother,” I said.

“So I expected.” She sighed. “I should’ve planned a contingency that would’ve ensured my descendant’s education.”

We stopped in front of the entrance. “Well, it’s no matter I suppose. The ‘genesis’ this chamber’s name refers to is exactly that—the creation of the first undead.” Grandmother caressed the door. “it’s a beautiful process, and you should learn how to do it.”

My brow raised. “But—”

She held up her hand. “You can already raise undead. I’m aware. However, that is using our modern techniques. What I’m referring to is the primordial method of raising corpses, as the First of the Dead did before us.” For my sake she added: “That’s our great, great, great grandmother, with a few more greats added in between.”

I hummed. So raising without the use of frost shards? That wasn’t anything else than what I’d been doing before.

“Frost necromancy is powerful,” Grandmother continued. “However, it’s important you’re aware of your roots. Only then will you fully appreciate its advantages.”

My mouth parted to speak—

“I know, I know,” she interrupted me. “It sounds difficult. If it eases your mind at all: it took me weeks to master the technique myself. But given that you’re my granddaughter, I suspect it will take you less.”

I shut my mouth, considered, then said: “I’ll do my best not to disappoint, Grandmother.”

She nodded sagely. “That’s what I like to hear. Open the entrance.”

A process that only required me to place my hand on the surface and think of opening it.

“Once you’re inside,” she said as the great door displaced the air, “the chamber will drag your spirit into a mirror reality. It’s so you can experiment without affecting the actual corpses. The chamber will aid you in raising them when you succeed.”

Huh. That was pretty advanced. “How’d you built an enchantment like that, Grandmother?”

“The spirits helped me. It was part of the deal we made.”

Leave it to a necromancer to broker a thousands deals in their lifetime.

A wholly black room revealed itself once the entrance opened fully. Three corpses knelt around a raised platform. They were…not human. Nor orc. Even kneeling, the entities dominated most of the chamber. Compared to them, I was an ant.

“Giants…” I murmured.

“True giants,” Grandmother said. “Not the offshoots that fled beneath the mountains.” Her black heels stabbed the floor. The three giants were arrayed around the podium.

Grandmother pointed to the leftmost giant. “Meridyth the Triumphant.”

A veil draped over Meridyth’s head whose ends reached all the way to the small of her back, hiding her from view entirely except for her hands, which were locked in prayer.

Grandmother pointed to the centre. “Billy the Rock.”

The biggest of the three. Covered in plate. His hands were locked around the handle of a two-handed mace whose head rested on the ground.

Her finger went to the last. “War Counsellor Durand.”

Unlike the others, he was mostly naked, wearing only a cloth that shielded his privates. This allowed me to see the grooves in his skin—marks of age. In his hands, the giant held an open tome whose title I couldn’t read. He read from the book while hunched over an anvil made for his size. Only then did I spot the crude hammer resting beside his legs.

“A smith?” I asked.

She smiled. “The best of his kind. He’ll equip your undead with what they need, forge your strongholds wherever. You’ll find that the other races will also request his services, should you play your cards right.”

Services like that were an excellent way to broker deals or trade for resources.

“I just need to raise all three of them, Grandmother?”

A snort. “I suppose. But don’t try to rush it. You should raise them to their full potential. Half-ass it, and you’ll find yourself with three mindless servants you need to command manually.”

“Hoh,” I intoned. “They’re bound servants?”

Undead could grow intelligence, but the rate at which an undead could do so differed based on their base class and the quality of the corpse…too many variables. Therefore, the easiest method was to fill the corpses with other spirits that were already intelligent. Usually, you forged pacts with those spirits while they were alive and bound them to one of your dead vessels after their life expired.

“The spirits inside these giants are of themselves,” Grandmother said. “They didn’t want anyone else in command of their bodies.”

‘Interesting.’ The fact that I’d gain three intelligent servants was invaluable.

My attention drew to the rear of the trio, where more figures knelt. These were not giants but a mix of human soldiers and beasts.

“Practise on those before tackling the giants,” she said. Then she turned around, her dress not producing a single whisper as she did. “You’ll be sealed inside the chamber until all dead have been raised.”

“All of them?” I did a quick count. There were a little over fifty soldiers here. I may know how to raise all of these undead already, but raising fifty soldiers would tax my miasma. I’d run out after about six corpses. Should I try to raise one of those giants…’Maybe one a day.’

I turned around. “Grandmother, I’m in quite a hurry. Can I not only raise the giants?”

“Yes, yes, wars, idiots need killing.” She waved me away. “I’m aware. Unfortunately, this chamber was designed with the aforementioned requirement in mind. There’s no changing it now.”

I sighed. “Then I’ll try to make it quick.”

She chuckled as she came to stand outside. “Quick, huh. Well, they do say one’s descendants are always more gifted than their elders.“ The doors slowly closed. “I have faith you’ll break my time.”

“How long did it take you exactly, Grandmother?”

“Two weeks, give or take.”

Two weeks…she must’ve been using a very primitive technique indeed.

“Don’t burn your mana channels, dear.” She placed her hand on her mouth and blew me a kiss. “I look forward to your results.”

The doors shut, cloaking the chamber in darkness. It was but for an instant. Runes engraved into the walls flared, chasing away the shadows and showering everything in a frozen hue.

I turned to the kneeling dead, each waiting for me to touch their skin and drag them from the deepest depts, where their souls were patiently waiting.

There was a demarcated square in the centre of the square where I was supposed to sit. Doing so would activate the ‘soul warping’ enchantments in the chamber.

I didn’t sit down immediately and instead took some time to study the enchantments. The lines of frozen light running through the walls crawled into the floor and converged on the seat.

“I don’t recognise any of them.”

Like the giant’s book, they were all written in a runic language. The runes on the wall did look similar to those on the book.

“Some kind of classical language, maybe?”

Whatever it was, there was no way for me to confirm the enchantments would do what Morgathis said they would.

“Do I have to activate the enchantments to raise them?”

I strode over to one of the smaller undead, some kind of bipedal wolf creature, and placed my hand on its hairy skin. Its skin was tough. Tougher than stone.

‘I see.’

To be certain, I checked some other undead as well and found their condition to be same.

‘They’re all stuck in stasis.’

Their cores and insides had been completely sealed off, meaning my miasma couldn’t reach them. There were methods to get around this, but none that I had at my disposal. Even if I did have them, the energy circulating through this chamber was likely tapped into an enchantment causing the effect. I’d have to fight an entire room’s worth of energy just to raise a single corpse.

It’d be more time consuming than fruitful.

‘Guess there’s no choice.’

There was always a chance I was dealing with a necromancer trying to steal my body…but Morgathis’s shell had no real core. Even if this chamber left me a soulless husk, she wouldn’t be able to raise me or take control of my body. Unless she was literally out to murder he descendant for no reason, I needn’t question her motives.

With a sigh, I headed to the seat and settled into a cross-legged position. The moment I did, the chamber began to hum. I closed my eyes. An invisible force tugged on my chest. A feeler. A test to see how much would be required to displace me.

‘Soul warp, huh.’ It’d be the second occurrence since coming here.

“Let’s see what they have in store for me this time.”

The second tug yanked me out of my body.