Once the bodies were safely stowed in his study, Tyron took a moment to think about Filetta’s proposition. She wanted them to discuss the sale of bones at an upmarket eatery inside the walls? It didn’t seem altogether prudent, in fact, it seemed like out and out madness, but she wasn’t to be dissuaded.

At least he would be able to appear with his Elten face and not his Lukas one. Detaching the entrepreneurial enchanter from any criminal enterprise was of utmost importance, and if he were honest, he didn’t want to spend any more time in Filetta’s presence than he absolutely had to.

But he did need bones.

He was able to craft bows and arrows from them already, it shouldn’t be too hard to work out how to make swords and axes given the knowledge he possessed. If he could figure that out, he’d save himself valuable Skill selections and save a fortune in outfitting his minions.

I need to test how well bone adapts to enchantments as a material, he thought to himself. If it’s better than metal, that would be an unexpected plus.

Getting a random mix of bones should be much easier than sourcing whole, intact skeletons, so hopefully, they wouldn’t gouge him too much. They may be useful for practising his threading technique also, another core skill he needed to work on.

With a shake of his head, he pushed any thought of the upcoming… discussion from his mind. He’d been waiting two weeks for more materials to work with, and he’d be damned if he’d waste the opportunity in front of him.

After the butchering and disposal was complete, Tyron began to study the remains in detail. He took his enchanted glass (he really needed to come up with a name for it) in both hands, and began to pass it over the bones.

About the size of a large dinner plate, the lens didn’t allow him to see through it in the traditional sense. When he stared at it, what he saw was the tiny threads of death magick within the bones, rather than the bones themselves.

It was fascinating to see the process of saturation so early in its cycle. A healthy, living person contained not a trace of death magick in them, and nor did a terminally ill one, he’d checked. Only after a person died did their body begin to take in ambient magick and transform its attribute. Slowly, over time, the process accelerated, saturating the bones fully and giving rise to wild undead. Though this didn’t occur in all places. Some locations, it seemed, were more conducive to the formation of death magick than others.

Most gravesites, for example, were selected with this in mind, and built in places where the dead wouldn’t stir. Though people had to be careful. If they buried too many in too short a span, that could give rise to undead.

Tyron thought that phenomenon was due to the newly dead being more capable of forming links with each other, thereby sharing and multiplying the death energy they contained.

For this reason, most of the deceased in Kenmor were cremated. Though there were many private plots outside of the city, and very few, very exclusive ones within.

He moved from one slab to the next, carefully annotating the progress of the saturation in each, and once again set his silver wire experiment. If he could identify which were more capable of sharing energy from their saturation growth, then he wouldn’t need to use the wire at all in future.

For the next step, he approached a heavy sack he’d slung in one corner and opened it, removing a handful of the fine crystals within. He let them trail through his fingers before he fetched a heavy leather glove.

Bone Salt, this substance was called, though it didn’t really relate to bones, or affect them at all, which was why he wanted it. Merchants in the core trade used it when they bought fresh cores from slayer expeditions to clean them. By rubbing the core with the alchemical salt, a reaction would occur between organic matter and the gem, removing any blood, ichor or grime that remained.

Merchants, and more importantly, Arcanists, did not like to work with filth-encrusted cores.

As he understood it, the Bone Salt shouldn’t react to his own living flesh, but he didn’t want to chance it and lose a hand. He hauled the sack to the middle of the room, removed a handful and began rubbing down each of the skeletons, one by one.

It was a painstaking process, given the absurd number of bones in the human body. Two hundred and six bones, for twenty skeletons, turned out to be a lot of bones. He wasn’t too fussed with the smaller ones, rather he wanted to make sure the larger bones were scrubbed clean.

The hypothesis went, that by removing any trace of flesh and blood, the skeletons would make better… skeletons. Either the threading would take better to the bones, or the Raise Dead spell would perform better, or the death magick would accumulate faster inside the bones if there weren’t superfluous matter around.

He left five skeletons untouched by the salt as a control group, keen to see the differences between them. Careful observation over the next few days would hopefully teach him a great deal.

Unwilling to test too many ideas at once, he reluctantly let his efforts rest there and turned his attention to other matters he could spend his time on. The Raise Dead ritual. The cornerstone of the Necromantic arts. As his last feat selection, he had raised the level cap on this ritual yet again, and he was determined to reach it before he achieved level forty.

It would be a difficult thing to achieve, he gained levels as an Undead Weaver for advancing his craft as well as for using it. Even if he created no minions at all, simply learning and discovering enough to reach his goals may bring him to the advancement. Hopefully not.

Opening his old notes, he began to pore through them, taking what he thought was valuable and discarding the rest as he began to compile a new base from which he could build his understanding of this complex piece of magick.

Since those early days, his knowledge of conduits in particular had expanded dramatically, and those early writings appeared exceedingly amateurish in his eyes. What he could construct now, compared to back then, would be a difference of night and day. If done correctly, he could reduce energy waste between himself and his minions by nearly half compared to what it had been before.

Engrossed in the work, he lost track of time until after lunch the following day.

~~~

“Shit, shit, shit!” he muttered as he stormed down the streets of Kenmor.

Between his examination of the remains and the sigilwork he’d been doing, reconstructing the conduit magick in Raise Dead from the ground up, he’d completely forgotten about his meeting with Filetta until it was almost too late.

He’d been so flustered, he’d almost emerged from the sewers wearing the wrong face!

I should have worked out a spot where I could switch identities outside of my own home without arousing suspicion…. I could have gone to Yor’s….

A dangerous thought, one he pushed away as soon as it intruded. The venerable hadn’t been wrong when he said Tyron had turned to the coven far too easily. This was something he could solve himself, without bartering or favours, so he should.

His backup plan had been to emerge from the sewer in a neglected part of town, then head to a clothier for a new set of clothes, and then to an inn equipped with bath facilities to get rid of the stink.

When he emerged, Elten had never looked better, in a fine set of pants with an elegant robe layered over his silk shirt. Freshly tubbed and scrubbed, Tyron felt more refreshed than he had in years and made a mental note to schedule a regular wash as part of his routine.

He’d been getting by with soap and cold water for too long. A little civilisation might do him some good.

All of his preparations took time, however, and the evening bell rang across the city just as he arrived outside the Golden Gateway.

An opulent building, to say the least. The entire facing was formed of cut marble, with decorative carvings and statues lining the street outside. A line of people, dressed far more finely than he, waited in line, perfuming themselves and fluttering fans as they gossiped and laughed in the cooling air.

Somewhat hesitant, and unwilling to be late, he approached the oversized gentleman at the door, who immediately frowned at him.

“I’m here to see Filetta?” he said, hopefully.

“Get to the back o—Filetta, you say? Would you be Mr Elten?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Step right through, sir.”

Under the envious gazes of those still in line, Tyron stepped inside, only to be whisked to a private dining room before he could acclimate himself. He got half an impression of ornate flower arrangements and gleaming silverware before he was sat at a table across from Filetta, who looked… different… than what he was accustomed to.

“You scrubbed up pretty well, Elten,” she smirked, taking a sip of dark, red wine and eyeing him over the rim.

The Necromancer shifted uncomfortably.

“Ah, thank you. You as well,” he said.

This was a profoundly uncomfortable environment for him, though he tried not to let it show.

“I’ve never eaten here before,” he said. “I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I’m afraid I’m a little underdressed.”

Filetta herself was stunning in a tight-fitting green dress that left her shoulders bare, her dark red hair tied up with curls hanging loose behind her ears.

He’d not realised she had red hair… it was too dark in the sewer to notice, or perhaps he hadn’t been paying enough attention.

You idiot, that’s not her real face. She can change the colour of her hair just as easily as you can.

“You probably didn’t expect the thief you do business with to eat in such an upmarket place,” she smiled as she said it.

Tyron winced.

“Not to worry,” she assured him with a wink, “our privacy is assured here. This place has close ties to my kind of people, if you take my meaning.”

“Ah,” he noted.

She must have noticed something in his expression, and she chuckled lightly, swirling the wine in her glass before draining it.

“I’m guessing you didn’t expect we would meet somewhere like this? You probably expected something a little more… rustic?”

He nodded, seeing no reason to mince words.

“I did. Going from our… previous place of business… to this,” he gestured around the spacious and meticulously appointed room, “is something of a shock.”

Filetta grinned.

“I don’t have much reason to come here, most of the time. In my line of work, I deal with sailors, thugs and petty crooks more often than not. It’s nice to have an excuse to bring a client out here. I enjoy a taste of the finer things every now and again.”

“And I presume you would rather wait to talk business?”

She smiled again, that slow, predatory smile.

“I would.”

Tyron settled back in his seat with a sigh. Although this was a pleasant environment, and though he may be reluctant to say it, the company was stimulating, a part of him was still back in his study, calculating and taking notes. Filetta clearly appeared interested in him, even he could see that much, though he was utterly unable to determine if those intentions were sincere.

The entirety of his romantic experience could be summed up with a childhood crush on Elsbeth that had never gone anywhere.

How was he supposed to act in this situation? He had no idea.

“I had you pegged as a thinker,” Filetta said, and he jerked his gaze back to hers and found her laughing silently. “You were a million kilometres away the second I said you’d have to wait.”

That’d been rude of him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m not very accustomed to…” he waved a vague hand, “... this.”

She nodded sympathetically.

“You’re a virgin?” she enquired, arching one brow.

“Yes,” he nodded.

Filetta blinked, then laughed, her hand slamming into the table.

“Usually, men are far more embarrassed to make a revelation such as that,” she chuckled, her eyes dancing with mirth.

“I hardly think lying would have done me any good. I’m not the best of actors,” he pointed out.

“No, no. I’m starting to get a better sense of who you are.”

She eyed him, with interest.

“You’re not the social type, you’re a thinker, a little awkward, but there’s a fire burning in you just below the surface that just…” she shivered, “... warms me up inside. So let me be blunt, because I think that’s the kind of approach you will appreciate the most.”

Thank the gods, Tyron thought.

Filetta placed her hands flat on the table and stared him directly in the eye.

“As you are well aware, Filetta is not my real name and this is not my real face. The same is true for you. I like this arrangement, it creates a separation, a sense of distance, of mystery, if you will. Secondly, I sense an air of danger around you, an intensity that I find fascinating. I have no interest in learning more about what you do, or why you do it, I have a different purpose entirely in mind.”

She leaned forward, and Tyron leaned forward also as she stared straight into his eyes, her expression serious.

“I want to fuck,” she said, and leaned back.

Tyron blinked… several times. She watched him carefully as she poured herself another glass of wine.

“That’s… direct,” he said. Then he frowned, “and unwise.”

“It is, both of those things. But I know that you will agree. I have a surefire method of persuasion that works on people like you.”

He couldn’t imagine that would be the case, but something else bothered him.

“Why?” he asked.

“I find you fascinating, and I have an unhealthy interest in dangerous people. For some reason I can’t quite figure out, I feel you are very dangerous.”

“And why would I agree?”

She pouted at him. He rolled his eyes.

“You’re lovely, of course, but entangling myself with a member of a criminal enterprise seems excessively foolish.”

“Because,” she purred, “you’re having trouble raising your race levels to twenty.”

Shit.

Filetta grinned and raised her glass.

“What’s your Constitution score like?” she asked.

He stared at her with hooded eyes.

“High.”