Chapter 132: Side Story – Moric 1: Woes of the Dead

GamingWolf

Surprise! I hope you safely entered the new year! (And that this one is a little bit better than the last.)

This picks up where the Neria mini-arc left off. 

Moric rattled his teeth as he watched the Demons turn into smoke, the tell-tale glimmer of their souls returning to rest twinkling within. He turned and looked at the two Beastkin that had come to his aid, the fires that burned in his empty eye sockets returning to their normal blue.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice enunciated by the rattling of his bones as he took a step towards the newcomers. “I had not expected to meet the [Ancestral Guard] this far from your City. But, where are my manners,” he continued, bowing slightly. “I am Moric, a Lich in service of the Great One.”

“Kemeria,” one of the golden-furred Beastkin said as she pointed to herself, before gesturing at the other. “And this is Neria.”

“Ah, a Kellborn I presume? The daughter of Moria, perhaps?”

“You know my mother?” Neria asked, taking a couple steps closer. “Have you seen her?”

Moric lowered his head at the question. “No, I have merely been informed of her disappearance. Many of those who serve under the Great One have been asked to be on the lookout for her.”

“Oh,” the Beastkin said, her ears twitching slightly and tail lowering.

“Do not worry,” Moric said, his bones rattling soothingly. “The Great One has promised to find your mother, and he always keeps his word.”

His words did not have the desired effect, as the Beastkin’s ears lowered and her tail dropped even further. Moric wanted to say something further, but he found himself lost for words, the orbs of pale blue fire in his eyes dimming slightly.

“I apologise,” he said, inclining his head gently. “I forget that those not of the Deremkyir usually don’t share our faith in the Great One.”

“It’s fine,” Neria said with a sigh. “I had just hoped that I would finally get some news about my mother.”

“What are you doing here anyway?” Kemeria asked in an obvious attempt to change the topic. “I know there is a mine not too far from here, but your kind rarely leaves the desert.”

The fires in Moric’s eyes burned a little brighter at the question. The Lich was always happy to inform people of his quest. “I am trying to raise a family!” he said. “Awfully hard at home where the corpses are rationed.”

“Corpses are rationed?” the woman asked, her ears twitching. “What?”

“Only so many people die each year,” Moric said with a slight shrug. “And some do not want to be resurrected.

“I am just trying to find a family to raise on my own,” he continued, tapping his fingers against his bony chin as he mumbled his next words. “Finding one that has been buried together and in which every member is willing to live again is harder than you’d think.”

He had found many tombs of noble families, but communions were not always possible. And when they were, it seemed that it was invariable that one or two members of the family did not want to be brought back. Of course, he could resurrect them anyway, but that would go against the laws of the Deremkyr. Disobeying the Great One's laws was a good way to find a permanent end.

“Wouldn’t anyone you use your magic on turn into your slave?” Neria asked, the dark crystals the Demons had left behind floating into her waiting hand. “Isn’t that how necromancy works?”

Moric’s bones rattled in disgust at the question. “A true necromancer would never bring back a soul without their consent! You not only risk the wrath of the Great One, but of the world!

"Forcing the dead to rise does not bring back their souls," he continued. "They would then require a piece of mine to function, and would not be able to evolve." He then gestured to the zombies that had returned to etching various runes into the ground. "I was once like them, one who was willingly brought back, but I worked to understand magic and became a Lich by the grace of the Great One.”

“Is your Great One a God I have not heard of before?” Neria's eyes didn't leave the other undead, still at their task of etching runes into the stone.

“Not yet,” Moric replied with a happy rattle of his bones. “The Great One is a [Demigod of Death]. Through him we can use holy magic to banish demons.” He paused for a moment, tapping a bony finger against his jaw. “If your belief is strong enough, that is. But then, you are not truly of the Deremkyir if your belief is weak.”

A loud caw caused Moric to look up, his fiery eyes easily spotting the Dustwing Falcon circling overhead. The Lich could feel the panic of the monster, its instincts telling it to attack him to protect its master while its training told it that all was well. “Your Falcon is not used to my kind, is it?” Moric asked, shifting his gaze back to the Beastkin in front of him.

“No,” Kemeria replied, her words followed by a sharp whistle that caused the bird to swoop down and land behind its master.

Moric had liked animals during his life of flesh and blood. Ever since he had risen again as an undead, though, the joy of having a pet had been made impossible. Sadly, the Great One can't yet fix that.

He had been unlucky in that regard, having been revived immediately after his death. While he did not know exactly why, the sooner a body was revived, the more of its memories it kept. And if you waited too long, you could only make a normal undead with a piece of your own soul.

The deserts of Solito were unique, as far as Moric knew. Souls passed on slower here — a circumstance that made the rise of the Deremkyir possible. Also brings a lot of Demons.

He sighed as she watched the woman gently brush her hand along the feathered neck of the bird, the noise it brought forth from him just another, quieter, rattle of his bones as he had no lungs.

“I hope the presence of my kin and me are not too distressing,” he said after a moment of continued silence. “The lesser living are usually very confused at our lack of mindless slaughter.”

“Perhaps,” Kemeria said as she produced a fish to feed to the bird. “But she was merely alerting me of a large group of undead coming our way, not really confused about it.”

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“Ah, my reinforcements,” Moric said. “Though we no longer need them, thanks to your intervention.” A sign from one of the zombies caused Moric to raise his bony hand, and add, “Please stand back, the ritual is ready.”

The two Beastkin did as he asked, even the large bird taking a few steps back. His workers followed suit, the zombies quickly leaving the large formations of runes they had etched into the stone.

“Do you not want to wait for your reinforcements?” Neria asked, her nose twitching slightly as a few zombies passed in front of her.

“By the Great One, no,” Moric replied. “The only one who could come here to help on such short notice would be Joshua, and he would only try to take the ritual for himself.” His eyes shifted to the winding path that led up the mountain — the one the reinforcements would undoubtedly take — and mumbled his next words. “He always lords his status as a Greater Lich over everyone.”

He let a bit of his mana flow into the runes his workers had made. The light seemed to be sucked into the formation, the surroundings dimming as the magic took hold.

Finding lost souls was a hard task and if it were possible, Moric would be sweating from the strain. Luckily he could not, and the only visible cue that showed how much effort he put in was the slight dimming of the fire in his eyes, something he was pretty sure the two Beastkin would not be able to interpret properly.

Moric’s hands moved in front of him, his mana flowing from them as he guided it deeper into the ground. The ritual he had set up added ambient mana to his efforts in amounts he could not hope to bring forth alone.

His bones rattled in anticipation as he felt the presence of death and decay drawing his mana in. It called to him in a way that pulled at his very marrow. The souls he had been searching for were here, he could feel it.

Why some souls did not move on was beyond him, but he would do his best to help them. The offer was either a chance to live again, or a helping hand to allow them to pass on and avoid the risk of becoming a Demon consumed by hatred for the living.

Just want to raise a family, Moric thought to himself as he slowly channeled his mana into the halls of death below them. He did not know who these catacombs belonged to or how long the souls had stayed there, but he did know that at least a few of them were a family. That they were bonded by Fate.

He had not tried to raise a new undead in a few months, too busy with his duties to the Great One, but now that he was doing it again, Moric felt at peace.

His mana gently flowed around the bodies of the dead, slowly attaching itself to the fine threads that trapped the souls in the mortal realm. The physical world left his senses as he tried to commune with the first soul, pushing his mana closer.

As soon as his magic touched the faint remnant of the person still bound to the mortal realm, Moric felt his consciousness shift. The sensation was not new to him — everyone who wished to talk to a soul would have to enter the realm of the dead, at least partially.

He would now have to experience the limbo this soul had had to endure for countless years. His body was still left in the mortal realm, outside his control, while his mind was in the realm of the dead, unable to move on and doomed to slowly forget its life.

There was no relief for these souls in the Great River, no forgiveness of their sins and no appreciation of their virtues. Just an endless abyss of nothing in which they would go insane. He had only been there briefly before he had been revived, but even that small moment had been enough for him. A glimpse of the nothing, a small taste of dread, of forgetting who he was while being fully aware of what was happening. Moric would not wish such a Fate on anyone.

The soul he reached out for flared the last remnants of its magic, a reaction he had seen a great many times before. For how long this particular soul had to have spent in limbo, its magic was surprisingly strong, requiring a not insignificant amount of Moric’s own magical might to deflect it.

He tried to convey his message of peace — his offer — but the soul just continued its barrage. Either it was too far gone to understand him, or it wished to remain as it was, perhaps seeing limbo as a fine punishment for itself.

Moric tried again, reaching out with his mind to try and show the lost soul the way out; a new life with its family. There was a brief reprieve in the surprisingly strong onslaught from the lost soul, the idea of family seemingly able to appease it.

Another push of his magic reached out to a different soul, one that shared a bond with the one he was already talking to. [Fixtures of Fate] pulled them together, merging the abyss the souls had dwelt in into one, reuniting them.

A wave of mana washed over Moric’s mind, stronger than anything the soul had shown before. Luckily this one was not meant to push him away but filled with the warmth of love. It wrapped itself around the soul his skill had brought over, gently pulling it closer to the first one he had contacted.

Carefully, he reached out again, his offer of peace and a promise of a new life unchanged. Neither of the two souls responded to him, their magic darting back and forth between them instead.

He focused on his skill again, sacrificing more mana to the System to bring the third soul into this abyss; to reunite it.

Fix its Fate.

It was his mission. Given to him by the Great One. Find the broken family, fix their Fate. Offer them the chance at a new life — a chance to live the life that had been taken from them.

He did not know why the Great One had tasked him with it — what made him worthy of the skill he had received — but he would not question the Great One, who had lived through what these souls had to endure; pulled himself into the Great River and was rewarded for it. Tasked by the world itself to guide those that have been lost.

Moric would do all he could to aid the Great One in his quest. Sacrificing the last bit of his mana, he activated [Fixtures of Fate] one more time, pulling the last of the bonded souls into the abyss they now all shared.

The mana that flowed between the four souls shuddered and shifted subtly, expanding around them for a moment before it drew back. Almost as if breathing. Moric could feel his own magic resonate with the rhythm, drawing him in — inviting him to join.

To take their offer of life.

And he took it.

GamingWolf

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