The Complicated Unlife Of Malefor Kolwezi

[Hallow]

A Brief History of the Order of Hem
An Idiot’s Guide to NeRomancey

By the Wizard Hallow

The idea of necromancy (Romancing the dead to their graves) is universally reviled as a form of necromancy, and it is thus considered by most as tainted, perverse and best left well alone. When the College of Magic drew on the forbidden to use necromancy to rebuild Anebrilith, to use life to create another instead of using life sources to empower yourself or prolong living, there was a spark of hope for the less psychotic members of the discipline.

Thus, when the greatest practitioner of necromancy ever to live (at least, until Malefor finds out how to leave the tower) walked into Anebrilith and levelled it (or at least, got his minions to cause a bit of a kerfuffle) few people ever thought necromancy, the very thing to nearly end Raiaera, would in fact became it’s salvation, and from the most ironic of gifts, Beinost was born.

It was in this troubled time, seeing itself at the foot of a temple of opportunity that The Order of Hem came to be. As the ideological bastard child of the Arch Mage Hemlock Alabaster (Bastion to the citizens and the other heads of the College Schools) and the chance encounter one has with the premier necromancer himself, it seeded a need to put to rest the wandering dead with death itself. At the heart of necromancy, the Order believes, there is in fact a great deal of good waiting to be set free.

It is only a poor wizard after all that blames the pitch forks, screaming and excommunication on his tools. Thus, Hemlock has vowed to teach the practitioners of necromancy its virtues, so that the art of necromancy itself can change, and be welcomed alongside thaumaturgy, sorcery, destruction and evocation as a discipline to be studied without fear when the College Arcana is restored to its resplendent and ritualistic opulence.

Sadly, the Order has come to hold itself in quite high regard amongst the hierarchy of Beinost. High Bard Varalad Del Tirin has declared the Order to be a temporary ally and crucial gear in the rebuilding process of Beinost, but it is only a matter of time before the Bards swing their blades at our necks, eager to find a new enemy to blame for the corpse war.

Perhaps we are tolerated because we are doing a good service, as many outcast tribesmen and actioners of once forbidden practices have been in the past. Perhaps it is because the Tel Aglarim and its citizen levy are desolated, and virtually without impetus to defend the country against opportunist neighbours who would seek to subjugate the High Elves…

Personally, it is the view of this particular historian (it is the victors who write the annuls of time, after all) that the Order of Hem is tolerated, because all of the wayward hedge mages, festering shadow shamans and high browed and hatted criminals who turned to necromancy under the turn screw of the Death Lords are kept firmly in place, firmly in line, and the Order has become a form of penitence for the crimes it still believes will one day, with the guidance of the Black Iron Helms, become an inspiration and wizarding tour de force.

Ashley continued to repeat the pages of his hobby book to steel his nerves, and to prevent himself from raising his fingertips to the liche's scrawny neck to snap it like a twig. Of course, he possessed no such power, and the thought of trying seemed ludicrous. It was precisely because necromancers tricked, stole and enslaved the lives of others that they had become so reviled and hunted down throughout the long march through history. Ashley was sick of it.

He eventually plucked up another form of courage, which wizards across Althanas preferred to swords and indeed, most of the time, to magic itself.

"Don't do it," Malefor said bluntly.

Ashley didn't listen, he had gone beyond reasoning.

"Not since Aroen the Lightforger and Gerth of the Crying Wolves gave their lives on the Plains of Gisela has Althanas seen such a sorry excuse for sadness!"

Being clever was deadlier than even the wizard Blueraven's Siege Arcana.

Hallow, quite attuned to the angry shadow magic the liche brandished every now and then to reaffirm his authority as the master, and not the pupil, saw the blast coming seconds enough to clench his teeth. He felt naughty, like a school child who had dared to challenge his teacher.

Instead of a cane, however, the force of a mountain falling collided with the Black Iron breast plate and knocked him so fast of his feet he barely had time to scream.

"I warned you."

[Hallow]

There were once three hundred and fifty thousand people in Raiaera. It was difficult to answer the question of how many people there were now, but the literacy level remained approximately at a percentage of ninety two. It was a large enough number of people, Hallow thought as he pushed himself away from the stone wall at the foot of the stairwell to be universally understood as he swore.

“<Son of an elf!>”

“Half-elf, actually,” Malefor said snidely, tucking his hair behind his pointed ears. He kept one skeletal finger pointing accursedly at the wizard.

“You can smite me a thousand times; it won’t change the fact that what you did was wrong.”

“Wrong by the standards of which Thayne exactly?”

Hallow walked forwards a few precarious steps, his head still reeling from where it had shot back under the duress of his impact and collided with the brickwork. He didn’t dare investigate, but it sure felt like he had left some of skull clinging to the architecture.

“Absolutely any of them I wager.” He spat.

“The thing with the gods is, Hallow, they tend to change their minds about their reasoning. I am not bound to the Thayne, because I have gone so far beyond their reach.”

They stared at one another in the dawn light and candle’s glow, ignoring the heaving corpse that stood as a barrier between them. Every now and then, its arms convulsed and the sound of its heart beat grew so loud they both subconsciously thought it would crack open the rib cage and dance across the carpet to spite them.

“You used me.”

“What do you call keeping me here, then? We use one another, which is the very nature of intuitive learning, of mentorship, of…” the liche stumbled with his words, and flies flew out from his ethereal lungs, “friendship.”

The Tower of Crows shook, the Tower of Ravens wobbled, and the half derelict Tower of Owls rattled.

“I’m sorry?”

Malefor examined the pained expression on the young wizard’s face, and couldn’t quite be sure if he was having difficulty breathing on the merit of his well-placed hex, or if he was struggling to come to terms with some age old conundrum.

“I said friendship, was that not the right term?”

“Friends don’t fire Amanita charges at one another!” Ashley’s voice rose on its own merit, without the need for vociferous lies or the application of a well-timed flourish.

“Oh.” Malefor almost sounded disappointed, but only almost.

“They certainly don’t trick their friends into tearing their soul apart to empower forbidden magical conduits,” the anger started to slip from his tongue and he slumped his shoulders forwards. His chest was growing tighter with every breath, and he looked down at the intricate golden spiral work on his enchanted armour.

Even in the seconds he had allowed himself to extend the Shadow Brand down over his neck and into two long streams over his chest, the sheer force of Malefor’s spell had dented the framework of the Order’s traditional garb without a thought for the empowering defence enchantments that had kept it gleaming.

“Or ruin their best robes,” he fanned out his arms and looked with disappointment at his tattered vestments.

[Hallow]

“At it's core, necromancy is blood magic. I cannot offer my soul for the workings of the spell, so you had to. The living have become somewhat attached to the notion of their spiritual selves, so I didn’t ask, for fear of letting our efforts go to waste.”

He floated forwards through the autopsy table and set his surgical knife onto the edge as he passed. The candles burnt brighter as he gained momentum, and died as he picked up the book and snapped it shut.

“You only had to tell the truth,” Hallow dropped his arms to his sides, defeated and worn out.

“I shall remember, next time.”

“I sho-” Ashley caught his tongue, and stared at the liche, or rather, through the liche. “There’s going to be a next time? You mean I have to do this over and over?”

Malefor thought for a moment, before raising a finger to the metaphorical wind of ideas and opened the book. He rifled through the pages, careful as he heeded his own warning to not touch any of the words until he found the spell he needed.

“Here,” he turned it and held it out, as Hallow had done as his assistant. He offered the incantation as a wizarding oath.

The page began ‘On Blood Magic in Surgery’, claiming its author to be a Doctor Kolwezi of the Tower of Crows Infirmary, in the Grande City of Anebrilith. Someone had crossed out Anebrilith and carefully inscribed Beinost in red ink next to it. Ashley scanned it, taking another note to ask the liche about his life when they weren’t at war with one another over ethical codes.

“Merely a formality, apparently, my soul is in the small obsidian stone we have quite casually placed on an autopsy slab, next to a patchwork man and I’m supposed to be okay with formality.”

Malefor snapped the book closed, content Hallow had understood the meaning but clearly hurt. He floated back through the table and turned, pausing to set the book on the small table next to his utensils of enquiry before he picked up the soul stone.

“Blood magic is an oath. A life, however temporary, must be given death in bargaining. This spell however, is a temporary exchange in every sense of the word.” He waved a finger at the incision in the simulacrum’s chest and it snapped open under the duress of his command.

“When the moon rises at its next full cycle, the soul stone will shatter and you will regain what was levied against your success.”

With a gentle hum of energy the liche placed the stone into the chest cavity and pressed the folds of bone and muscle closed.

“Do you promise?” Hallow asked pleadingly, slowly shuffling to the table edge to tend to stitching the wound closed.

Malefor smiled in a way that promised to at least try, but he couldn't quite bring himself to give his word. He smiled as his pupil threaded a large darning needle with leather string, and leant in to get a closer look.

Ashley nodded and pierced the skin with a hiss of air and a sickening soft tear, “that is good enough for me.”

[Hallow]

A wizard’s promise, however, was only worth its weight in words if the wizard speaking it was the sort of person that believed in oaths. You could bind a man to stone, sunder him with iron and cleave him in two with a well-placed curse, but to truly tie him to his promises, you had to have conviction, honour, and preferably, actual blood to swear on.

It was a wizardly practice to take on your master’s strengths and mannerisms and eventually, outright become him. In that tradition, Hallow only pretended to believe Malefor. Though he was slowly becoming aware of the man’s once good intentions, he had no doubt in his mind that one day, his decision to allow the liche to remain in resident in the Tower of Ravens would be a tragic mistake.

He pulled the last knot tight and cut the leather string with surgical scissors.

“Good.”

“What now?” He looked up at the liche, twiddling the loose ends with his fingertips. The smell of worn leather comforted him, like a fine whiskey or wood smoke.

“Now? Now we sleep, it is nearly night fall and we have been through too much today to warrant a trip to see your client.”

A liche had one simple weakness, sunlight. Even as the dawn turned to morning Hallow could see the once radiant and spectral form of his master waver. He nodded with a yawn before he stood back from the table.

“I guess I shall see you in the morning.”

Malefor nodded again and looked one last time at the simulacrum. It almost seemed peaceful, despite the occasional twitching and the intense heat which radiated from its chest. Without further fanfare, he vanished.

Hallow observed the curious movements of the abomination they had created. With fatigue swiftly setting in and his armour in much need of repair, he pulled the tattered edges of the Shadow Brand into a neat scarf and turned to make his way to the stairs.

“You live a complicated unlife indeed,” were his final words before he clapped three times and extinguished the dying embers in the candle wicks. The simplest expression of a tired man's mind cast the autopsy room into silence and twilight at the end of another long day.

Somehow, he didn't need a wizard's notion to know that tomorrow would be a lot, lot longer.

"I suppose I'd better read up on a few small things before he surprises me like that again," he chided himself as he climbed up the stairs with weary attempts at grace. By the time he entered the very pinnacle of the Tower of Ravens he had managed to feebly unbuckle the straps of his chest plate to set it down at the top of the stairwell with a heavy clunk.

Relieved of a heavy burden he returned to the bookcase with a spring in his step. He reached up to the very top shelf for the copy of Care And Feeding Of A House Corpse and fell into the comfort of his well worn reading chair. It would not be long before his mind met the narcoleptic end of a studious devotee to the tutelage of Malefor Kolwezi, but he opened the book and read on all the same.

The silence of dawn and the cawing of crows from the three spires of the crumbling infirmary echoed out over the hubbub of waking Beinost.

Spoils:

The Churlishness Of Beinost: Hallow's skill with surgical instruments has progressed swiftly, and he now understands the finer points of stitching together flesh, anatomy and it's associated knowledge. He gains one skill level in Surgery and Anatomy.

Craft Soul Stone (Below Average): Hallow can craft and enchant soul stones, anchors for spirits to tether them to corporeal bodies for the time between creation and the next full moon. Any creature created with a soul stone cannot and will not harm the creator, but each stone requires a part of the owner's soul to exist - as such, only one such item can exist at any one time, and it allows some of the pain and senses and memories of the host spirit to transfer between the simulacrum's mind and Hallows', so has considerable repercussions for him if he is not ready for the temporary and traumatic union.

[The International]

The Complicated Unlife Of MaleforKolwezi

You’re getting a big high five moment in this one. I’m starting to get you now. You’re what the professionals call a ‘seat-of-the-pants’ writer. You have an idea, you sit down, and you pump it out in a few exhilarating sessions. Your intrigue and enthusiasm shines through your writing. However, it makes for a tough editing process if there is one. There are a few other approaches to first draft writing. Look them up and see which one may be fun to try or just hit me up on AIM (even if I’m not on). Edit-as-you-go, Snowflake, and Outline Paradigm.

Plot Construction 18 /30

Story 7 /10 – Is JK Rowling your next door neighbor, because I’m almost seeing a Harry Potter for the grown and humorous, which is great because I’ve always aspired to make a Harry Potter for the grown and sexy. Anyways job well done. It provides what a conventional story should provide, and you kept its progression simple, which was a wise thing to do since the subject of your story (necromancy and other forms of wizardry) was complex in a beautiful way.

Strategy 6 /10 – Loving the wizard’s voice, and how you had your characters interacting, but I felt that your setting was a bit lost to the reader at times. That hurts this score.

Setting 5 /10 – As amazing as your dialogue was I got the bare minimum when it came to the Setting. Now I think you’re on the right track with the setting, because most of what you gave me was through Ashley in a third person limited description. If Ashley is the focus of your narrative then you’ll have to make sure whatever you mention is important to him or will serve a significant purpose later on in the story. What you have to do is make more of the setting important to Ashley.

Characterisation 21 /30

Continuity 9 /10 – HIGH FIVE. If anyone else besides Hallow reads this, if you want The International to jump for joy, take Althanas lore at level fucking zero use it, and build upon it like he’s done. Amazing job taking the concepts of wizardry by way of College Arcana, giving it detail, life (no pun intended) and running like an Olympian with it! What I would love for you to do is apply these concepts on a slightly larger scale. This was a personal story. Now take it to a community very much like you do with Lillith Kazumi.

Interaction 6 /10 – The characters were very back and forth with dialogue which kept things interesting. There was a lot of narrative summery throughout this quest that could have been turned into action, dialogue and description. Take the point where you mentioned Malefor’s wife for example. Instead of just outright explaining it to the reader you could have done a flashback to the scene where she had been lost, or used some more dialogue between him and Ashley to talk about it.

Character 6 /10 – Me likey Ashley, but I’m going to go back to your best character (in my opinion) Ruby La Roux. The reason I like her may be because I’ve perceived her to be a bit of a drama queen (haha. Get it?!). Most of her dialogue is enhanced significantly with facial expressions, body language, tonality notes, very little internal dialogue (which is a good thing), and no narrative summary. We know how she feels about something because of that little smirk on her face or that hand on her hip. Put that in Ashley especially if you know your story is going to be dialogue heavy. It gives your reader a powerful emotional experience.

Writing Style 19 /30

Creativity 7 /10 – You’ve always been good at the straight forward literary devices.
Mechanics 6 /10 – Watch your spelling in terms of fanciful vocabulary that we can’t use spell check on. “An Idiot’s Guide to Neromancy” comes to mind. I wasn’t sure if you were doing that on purpose for something that went over my head.

Clarity 6 /10 – Nothing much to be said here. It was all understandable. The lack of setting and some description might have taken away from this category.

Wildcard: 8/10

Total 66 /100

Hallow gains 858 exp and 200 gp

The spoils are humble enough. I'll grant them.

[Letho]

EXP/GP added.