[ NOTE: this is a direct continuation of my previous journal, Search. ]
It took Fiel most of that day and the previous night to come back to the Gilded Hollow. He carried Samantha on his back at first, healing her periodically when his strength permitted. Then she was able to walk alongside him, and finally, once she was fully healed and sufficiently rested, he rode her again.
All the while, the necromancer was thinking. Spells and runes and formulas were spinning in his head. He meticulously analysed each one, kept some in the back of his mind while rejecting others. Things he learned, things he lived, and things he could experiment upon.
When he arrives he is dirty, exhausted, famished…. but focused.
He passes through the golden arches like a ghost, seeing only runes and symbols, hearing only his own mutterings. If anyone would try and talk to him, he would raise a limp, dismissive hand, not stopping to acknowledge them.
Samantha is back in her pen, but the griffon stays with whoever decided to take care of him that day. Even Eloise, the old raven who had since moved from Godslost Swamp to his new place was chased away. He needs to be alone. No distraction. He needs to focus… and he needs to make sure he would not risk the lives of the living creatures at his workshop.
He spends a couple hour meditating under the nearby waterfalls. To rest, to revitalize, and to purify himself both body and mind for what is to come.
Furniture is pushed aside, books and notes are consulted over and over, magic incense is burned and runes are drawn over of gilded floor. Fiel checks the accuracy of his marking five, ten, twenty times. This is only the second time he does something like this.
The first…
He keeps his greatsword nearby. He’s not going to let himself be surprised again.
The hat and pistols are placed in the center. The norn’s heart aches for a moment when he feels the leather under his fingers. He pushes the pain away. He is here to fix this.
Bringing a soul back is never an easy task. It would be more convenient if the person only recently passed away, and if their body was present, to offer a physical link to the material plane as well as an “imprint”, a reference to find the right soul, but in the absence of one, the objects they used the most would suffice.
Fiel will bring Jesse’s soul back. Then he would guide the necromancer to where his body laid, and then, they could attempt to resurrect him. And if he couldn’t, well…
Well at least he would be able to say goodbye.
Blood is spilled over the line of green phosphorus, his blood. He begs Raven, and his less sought-after divine patron, Grenth, for help and clarity of mind as he kneels down at the edge of the circle and recites the incantation.
There is a crackle of energy. The air around the golden platform grows electric, like right before a storm, but cold. A void slowly forms above the center of the circle, a spinning speck of darkness that grows and grows, absorbing warmth at it did. The portal widens, and Fiel struggles.
A tear between world is not something to be done lightly. The chaotics energies that permeates all worlds fight it, try to fill the gap. The opening falters but the necromancer holds, even as the tear saps at his own energy. Shadows creep closer, attracted by the ripples. They peer through the hole, shapeless, hungry, desperate. Lost souls caught in the maelstrom between the planes, fiends and demon oggling at him through the gestating opening like famished dogs looking through a butcher’s shopwindow.
But Fiel was waiting for them. Wards are triggered, protective spells uttered. They whip at them, chase them away, or at the very least keep them at bay. He is not going to fail. Not today.
When the portal seems on the verge of collapsing, or the demons to push through, he thinks about him. About his purpose. About the things he silently promised to him, and to himself. It galvanizes him. Straightens his back when he buckles. Reels his consciousness back when the waves of dark power threaten to knock him out.
One last incantation, one last word, one last influx of power from him to the portal, and it snaps open. A gloomy, slowly pulsating circle of pure darkness, from which cold, distant murmurs wafted through, like frigid mist from a block of ice.
The necromancer was kneeling there, spent, exhausted, panting, and victorious. A portal to the Underworld, where all souls would eventually go, stood open in front of him.
Now, for the next step.
This one was less of a ritual, and more something that relied on his intuition. He whispers words of power, calls out to the spirit of the one he was looking for. His guildmate, his friend, his one-time protégé, his partner in crime-solving, his lover.
Fiel feels his soul ride over his words, pulled within the void-space filled to the brim with noisy silence while his body remained, knelt at the edge of the circle, heavy as a stone.
He calls out his name. A few faces, incorporeal, blurred, nameless, turn with hopeful interest. But they are eventually pushed away and ignored, the necromancer’s spell finding no hold on them.
He does know how long he sat there, searching. His perception was split between two worlds. It could have been a few minutes, it could have been hours.
They come and go, a constant flow of spirits, a stream, a river, a waterfall of deceased mortals…. but none responds to Fiel’s call, stirs at the memories he projected. None replies to the name “Jesse Ironwood”.
The norn panics. Fear laughs in his ears, mocks his despair and his foolishness.
How can that be? Did he do something wrong?
He checks the circle, recites the spells in his mind. Everything was correct. Not one misshapen line or mispronounced vowel. Everything went as it should have…. so why can’t he find him??
His head spins. Hunger, exhaustion, panic… he’s starting to fade. Failure is a cold and sharp blade in his heart.
Raven, no… he pleads, grief blinding him with tears like hot lead. Grenth… I beg you… don’t let it be so… please… you are a fair god, you do not keep souls in your grasp ike your greedy predecessor… Why would you keep him from me? Why would y–
And then it hits him. It hits him so hard that for a moment he remains there, wide-eyed and frozen.
“…………………….Oh, that MOTHERFUCKER.”
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