The necromancer groups huddled together, tossing out ideas like kids arguing over how to build a sandcastle.
Norris, sat back on his creepy bone chair, watching. Looking at the mages arguing, he nodded in satisfaction. He believes that their isolation from each other was because they lacked communication with each other.
Argument itself is a kind of communication.
Norris looked on at the chaos.
Veyle, the banshee, was speaking to the revenant, "Your curse and hex takes a long time to prepare. Our mind manipulation is quicker and more suited for battle. I've been thinking, why don't we combine. "
The revenant, Kenes just looked on and agreed without say much.
Mortimer, the lich looked at them conversing and began writing something down.
This might seem like a conversation without much stress but it's not.
Norris was sure it's otherwise. He looked on in amusement at the spectrals and revenants. They had quickly gotten used to the psychic network.
"After berating each other online, they come offline to act like mature adults. Classic
"
After arguing and berating each other on the network and coming to a conclusion, they acted chill in front of everyone.
Norris doesn't try to listen to what was said out of respect. Though he's sure that sensitive information wouldn't be said in the psychic network.
Norris looked on at other groups forming collaboration. The ghouls and zombies on the other hand were having a big argument without bothering to do so over the network.
Silas, the zombie spoke slowly and methodically trying to get his point to Grisel , who was eating rotten meat elegantly, "You gluttons. We can't cooperate if it keeps on going like this. When you're not eating, you're on the way to eat. Your magic even takes on your characteristics."
Grisel the ghoul though wasn't having it. "At least it's quicker and more effective", she paused and took a bite of what looked suspiciously like a lesser zombie, while chewing she continues,
"Unlike you zombies. Slow and methodical. But on the battle field, you're a ghouls next meal".
Seeing that they weren't going to be done in a while, he turned his gaze towards the lich, Mortimer who had been observing others and the mummy, Amunet.
Mortimer seeing Amunet coming towards him started the conversation. "Well let's work together to create something glorious out of the ancient ways of the people of the desert", he began with satire.
"While we trust in our traditions which have not only protected us, but helped us ascend after death to an exclusive race, mummies ", Amunet spoke with hidden pride, "Changes in tradition will make it more efficient and serve us better. Unlike the new flashy ways you study". She requested for help while not forgetting to throw a jab.
"Hmmmm, why not create a contract capable of binding magical contract between you and lesser undeads. Your magic involves summoning a Sovereign Pact—an oath bound by desert magic. Am i correct?", Mortimer asks while shifting his monocle.
This little action set a stage for Amunet who happily started his explanation, his fingers traced glowing hieroglyphs in the air, "I'm summoning a Sovereign Pact—an oath bound by desert magic. Allies who swore it gained strength, their magic intertwined like threads of a burial shroud.
But betrayal meant the Sands of Subjugation: skin dried to parchment, limbs stiffened into bandaged stone, until the oath-breaker became little more than another relic in my tomb".
Mortimer nodded as he tweaked the glyphs. "Tradition, but with teeth", he complimented.
These earned him some points with mummies. With that Norris observed as Mortimer began suggesting his reforms, "Well there is also deserts in the death realm. In fact the death realm as a whole will mostly be called a desert except for special areas affected by magic. Why not try tweaking it a little. Elevating it a little "
Amunet lowered her head a little, in thought.
Norris looked away. At this point, It was a done deal. No matter how much Amunet valued tradition, she was a mage first. Mortimer knows this as well.
Norris got up, walking closer to the test site. The spectrals and the revenants were about to start their combination magic.
Nothing too special. But that's in theory. Everyone came closer in case something went wrong. Mages change the world, but the world also has a say in how it's changed.
The combination went smoothly. The mentally damaged zombie, a spy given to them by the territory for experiment was mentally restored. But his body too the damage instead through the hex.
The spectrals and mummies around were recording data. This would be use to increase.
Norris and the other undead nodded. The magic was working fine. Nothing too special but effective. Even a mentally sublimation undead warrior would be damaged if all spectrals casts spell on it. But that might not be enough to take it down.
The instinct of a warrior at this level was frightening. But once it's reflected in its body, Everything changes. Of course this was just preminalry results.
Seeing this result, everyone departed. The different mages went back to cataloguing their studies. Having studied different branches of the same thing, bringing all these knowledge together might enhance the war potential of the group.
Of course there are still some 'bottom of the box' spells and knowledge that won't be shared.
The zombies and ghouls had come to an understanding of how they were going to go about their spell combo. As for further practice, Norris was sure they wouldn't be able to do so anytime soon.
He calls on to Lister. He looked up at this assistant of his who was left alone and avoided by the mages. He felt sorry for him but only a little.
"Having free time, Mage Lister", Norris attempts to start a conversation.
"Well mage Norris, there's nothing much I can do. Most death knights are warriors. My study also doesn't align with any of them", Lister shrugged perfectly fine with his situation. Norris seeing this felt less guilty.
"Now, Lister, if I may? Our summons will be effective in creating diversions, being cannon fodder, decoy and what not. So we will need to work together for effectiveness."
While Norris was about to continue, he received a message from the psychic network that made him stand up. Lister also stood up and they both went towards the test site.
A broadcast had just come in. The lich and The mummy combination is about to happen.
Modification of the mummy spell. The lich uses their talents to try change the pact from desert in the material plane to the death realm.
The air crackled with a wrongness that made even the undead uneasy. Mortimer the lich and Amunet the mummy stood at the center of the ritual circle, their magic braided together—golden desert hieroglyphs snarled with jagged necrotic runes. The pact they wove wasn't meant for the living world's sands. This was the Death Realm's desert, a place where the ground wasn't sand.
It backfired spectacularly.
A vortex tore open above them, not a storm of sand or shadow, but a writhing, colorless void. It didn't roar. It unmade. Stone dissolved where it touched.
A ghoul's arm, straying too close, withered to dust mid-swing. Grisel stared at her disintegrating limb, more annoyed than afraid. "Tastes like… nothing," she spat, her jawbone already regrowing.
The energy wasn't evil. It wasn't anything. It just… was. And it erased.
Panic flickered across even the liches' skeletal faces. Mortimer's death-spheres fizzled like damp fireworks. Amunet's sand rituals evaporated mid-incantation. "It's not magic!" Mortimer hissed, "It's just the death realm response to the pact! We can't control how it will"
The vortex lurched toward them, insatiable.
"Feed it!" Norris's voice cut through the psychic network, calm amid the chaos. He started summoning and leading them to the vortex.
Grisel understood first though a little differently. With a feral grin, she rallied her ghouls. "We're already rotting! What's a little more?!" They charged, hurling themselves into the void, swallowing wherever the heck it was. Flesh evaporated, bones powdered—but ghouls regenerate….as long as they kept eating.
Lister summoned and led his summons to help the ghouls stall.
For three glorious seconds, their endless regrowth stalled the vortex, like throwing wet logs on a fire.
Silas, the zombie scribbling calculations on a shard of tombstone. "It fluctuates every… 3 seconds!" he shouted. "Hit it then!"
Mortimer and Amunet didn't thank him. They didn't need to.
The lich's death-sphere created using control of death energy into a ball, wrapped in the mummy's ancestral sand, an innate spell for mummies, arced into the vortex at the exact moment its energy dipped. The void stuttered.
Veyle the banshee seized the opening. "Fear's a weapon too!" she snarled, her wail echoing not through air, but through the psychic network. Every mage's terror—of obliteration, of failure, of being forgotten—flooded the vortex.
The vortex collapsed, leaving a crater of glassy ash.
The groups stood in shaky silence. Grisel regrew her fourth jaw of the hour. Mortimer observed everywhere with detached interest. "A… learning experience".
Silas and the zombies were going around performing restoration on whoever needed it.
Amunet said nothing. Her bandages hung in tatters, revealing dried skin.
Norris was seen talking to an orb, "ASPECT was there any way you could have helped. Maybe with calculations and stuff like that".
ASPECT replied, "We will know in times to come but I'm sorry I couldn't be of much help ". It seems it's voice was a litlle down
Norris though just shook his head, "I'm not into child labour. You've already helped enough with the psychic network. Keep up the good job".