Twilight of the Damned Chapter 10
Imported from SF2 with no description.
Diagrams, equations, soul flux—all came together on the blackboard. Heinrich began working on this spell when he heard the Imperial Navy had lost control of the airspace around Four Rivers. Until now, such acts of necromancy had only been theory, at least on this scale. Even now, he was only mostly confident it would work. It would take a dedicated lab and years to be one hundred percent sure. Time he absolutely didn't have.
A bang of metal on wood was heard on the door. "Come in," Heinrich responded, not turning around to look at who came in.
"Sir, you wanted to be made aware of when Specialist Quint had woken up." Heinrich nodded his back still to Sergeant Hostetter. When he turned to look at him, he stopped in surprise.
"Well, I'll be. You finally did it." The sergeant's transformation was deep. He was now much closer to his former self, when he had just been a skeleton before. Somethings were different. Muscles were replaced with pistons. Soft amber orbs glowing where there used to be eyes. The biggest change, though, was the legs. He adopted the digigrade legs of his hybrid wolf form. The mechanical tail was a new addition as well. An arc of electricity sparked across its wickedly sharp pronged tips.
"Impressive change, Sergeant," he said, approving of the outcome. Hostetter beamed with pride.
"Yes, this form is a blessing from the Lord of Gears. And I'm glad to be fully functional again."
Heinrich looked back at his spell. "We'll need it for sure. Make sure you and your people are ready. We are going to get out of here. I am going to see our specialist."
Quint
While she had never personally experienced it, having molten lead poured directly into your still-living bones would probably be less painful. Granted, she didn't expect to live going all in when all she had were pocket twos. Mutilating yourself in a desperate gamble to save your team was not typically something you lived through. She needed blood, and what she did required an ocean of it.
"Welcome back to the world of the living." Slowly turning to the voice on her left, she saw Colonel Falkenhayn. The two Felides looked at one another for a moment in confusion for him being there, the other in smug amusement. "I know it feels like your bones are made of glass shards. Each movement drives them deeper into your body. I'm going to need you functioning in a few hours."
He fished through the jacket pockets. For a moment, the scars under their pectoral muscles were visible. She idly wondered why he didn't have a shirt. Before she could give voice to her query, he handed her a small notebook and a medallion. The small object had the vulpine skull of a Vulpi with two small diamonds inlaid in the eyes. Just holding the medallion, she could feel it brimming with nethergy.
"The notebook will help you get back on your feet. The coin will serve as a temporary nethergy pool for you. I would recommend you avoid using any internally stored nethergy for the
time being. Last, should we get out of here, I would like to invite you to be my apprentice. Skills can be taught. Drive is much harder to find, and you have that in abundance."
Quint was silent for a moment. Never in her deepest fantasies did she ever dare dream that a State necromancer would want her. "If you’re interested, that is. I know not everyone wants to—"
She cut him off. "No, I accept!" She yelled, fearing the chance would slip away from her. She immediately regretted yelling. He molten knife of pain lanced through her chest. She heard gentle laughter next to her as she winced from the pain.
"All right then, Specialist. Once we get out of here, I'll follow up with you."
Before Quint could say anything else, he got up to leave. "I need you in the square in two hours. Read the notebook. It won't take long."
Seemingly done with the small visit, he turned and left the room. With the colonel gone, she turned back to the small brown leather notebook she had been given. Opening it was the standard black paper with silver ink that necromancers favored.
A quick flip through the notebook let her know only three pages were filled in. Those three pages held a set of simplified sinew matrix diagrams. Just looking at them, she saw that they seemed simple enough. However, what really caught her off guard was how heavily abstracted much of the matrix was. She didn't know what those parts did, only that they were hidden from her.
Quint was sure that if they were expanded, this matrix would be many times more complex than what she was looking at. However, seeing as all the work was done for her. It was a little issue to imprint the six points of the sinew matrix onto the six anima nodes. The spell took effect using the medallion as a nethergy source with an anima link.
Like a switch had been flipped, all the pain in her body vanished. "By the moons." She breathed deep, and each breath no longer felt like an exercise in self-mutilation. After a moment of bliss that followed her inflicted torment, she got up. The infirmary still had hundreds of wounded. For now, though, there would be one fewer to take up a desperately needed bed.