B6C6 - The Ruin and the Rise

B6C6 - The Ruin and the Rise

“Tyron, lad,” Worthy beamed as he enfolded his nephew in a bone-shaking bear hug.

At least, it would have been a bone-shaking hug to a normal mage, or even to a silver ranked warrior. To his uncle, Tyron felt as tough as a mountain. Clearly the boy had gone through some changes while he was gone.

“Uncle Worthy,” Tyron said, clapping his uncle on the back while the huge man pounded on his own. Finally he managed to push the older man to arm’s length, wrinkling his nose. “You stink, Uncle. Where have you been?”

“In the field killing monsters,” Worthy replied as if it were obvious, which it probably was. “You think your aunt would let me walk around the house like this? You must be out of your mind.”

“Found any wyverns?” Tyron asked, perhaps a little too eagerly.

Worthy looked at him, a wounded expression on his face.

“You’ve been away for months and as soon as you get back all you care about are some stupid bones? You wound me, lad.”

“I apologise. But did you find any?”

Worthy burst out laughing and threw an arm around the younger man’s shoulders as he guided him deeper into the city. As pleasant as it was to receive such a warm welcome from his Uncle, Tyron would rather the man keep a little distance.

He really did stink.

“Aye, lad, we did,” he said, raising the Necromancer's spirits immediately. “More than one, in fact. I think they’ve been delivered to the folks in that school of yours.”

“That’s great news,” Tyron said, already imagining ways he could improve his wyvern design. With more of the flying beasts under his control, their flying charge would become even more devastating as they descended on the battlefield.

“Stop thinking about working,” Worthy said, shaking his nephew lightly. “At least wait until you’ve got some of your Auntie’s stew in you.”

Interestingly, Tyron did find himself looking forward to a proper home cooked meal. Out in the field, he’d been satisfied with whatever the wights and skeletons had managed to bring him. Wild vegetables, various herbs, small game that they brought down and inexpertly cooked over the fire. Having creatures who barely remembered the sensation of flavour preparing your meals didn’t make for the best culinary experience.

“I can see you’ve been through the wars out there, boy,” Worthy said softly. “Do we have to worry about any of those Golden Pricks coming over the mountains?”

“For the time being, no,” Tyron muttered in reply. “They’ve been taken care of.”

Worthy’s eyes widened. “That must be a hell of a tale.”

“It’s something.”

As they began to move inside the city, Tyron drew more and more inquiring eyes. People began to peer out of buildings or even step out and gather in the wide streets. The Slayers travelling alongside his uncle moved to spread out around them, not actively pushing people away, but creating a loose barrier. 

Tyron had what little of his horde he’d brought with him over the mountains trailing behind a little, and he could see that people were muttering and pointing. Perhaps they were concerned over the apparent damage the undead army had taken. In a way, they weren’t wrong to be concerned. Many undead had fallen, and if the skeletons here represented the sum total of what he had, then he did indeed return greatly diminished.

The deeper they went into the city, the more people gathered and the louder the conversation became. Unadorned, not wearing his armour or raiment, he probably didn’t appear all that powerful either, adding to their concern. 

To their eyes, he was simply a young man with dark hair, relatively thin and not especially tall, dwarfed by the size of his heroic Uncle.

Putting the gathering crowd and rising chatter out of his mind, Tyron instead focused on the city and people he saw around him. It had been months since he’d last been here, months that the hundreds of thousands of refugees had used to improve their lives and their environment.

Clearly there had been some effort to gather workable soil, or perhaps someone had discovered a way to gather some from deep below the ground, because almost every house he saw had a small, potted garden of some sort. Water produced by magick wasn’t the best for watering plants, it lacked the necessary minerals, though that could be mitigated with careful use of certain earth related spells. Someone must have figured someone out to water all of this, because the splashes of greenery were everywhere.

That wasn’t the only change. Where once the buildings and streets had been dominated with rubble, ash and dust, they were now clean, the road clear and well maintained. Each house had a door of some sort and some sort of boards to cover the windows against the wind.

Considering how choked the air could get with crystal shards when the breeze was high, he could see how important it was that they find a way to keep them out. Looking closely, it didn’t seem as if they were using wood for most of this construction, but something else entirely. A lack of lumber had been one of the major sticking points in raising people’s quality of life before Tyron had left, and he couldn’t help but be curious to know how that bottleneck had been solved. Making doors and window coverings out of stone wasn’t ideal, after all.

If the people had a reliable and accessible building material, then all of the improvements around them made a lot of sense.

Perhaps sensing his curiosity, Worthy helpfully filled him in on a few details.

“There’s really only one thing you can get your hands on out here in the wasteland,” he said, “and that’s crystal.”

“They’re using crystals for building?” Tyron said, shocked.

“Well, it turns out that if it’s treated right, you can suck the magick out of it, to a point, then harden it. Took a while to figure it out, but once they did, people jumped on it. It’s still a bit more brittle than you’d like, not exactly hardwood, and if it shatters, it’s a damned mess to clean up. Otherwise, it works well enough for simple things. Holds up in the storms, makes an amazingly flat and smooth surface. Perfect for tables and the like.

“Also, people tend to be a little less violent around furniture that can shatter and kill them if they lose their temper. An unexpected side benefit.”

Worthy grinned broadly and Tyron couldn’t help but shake his head. Never in a thousand years did he imagine that the crystal growths that speared out of the barren soil all over the wasteland would have some sort of practical use. Normally, draining magick crystal of its power would make it incredibly soft, almost like chalk. Whoever figured out a way to strengthen it was a genius.

Nobody would ever think to do such a thing in the Empire, since magickally charged crystal was incredibly valuable and rare. Out here in the wasteland? It was everywhere.

“Most of the power gets siphoned into your warding totems,” Worthy went on, pointing out one such pole that rose high above the surrounding buildings. “Or used to fuel enchantments in the centre of the city. All in all, things aren’t so bad here. Although I could do with some more meat. A man can’t survive on vegetables alone.”

“I probably should have rounded up some cattle on my way over,” Tyron mused.

Almost all of the animals left behind had been slaughtered by the rampaging kin who roamed the land unchecked, pouring out of unguarded rifts. Despite the danger, a few herds had managed to survive by dumb luck. His skeletons had encountered several groups while roaming for materials. 

“Over here, lad,” Worthy directed him, leading him towards a seemingly less populated street. “Most of us Slayers have moved out this way. It’s a little less crowded.”

Curiously, much of the gathering crowd, now in the thousands, wouldn’t follow them down the newly-repaired stone road. Those who did, undeterred, were given affronted stares by the surrounding Slayers until they too retreated.

“People have a lot of respect for us here,” Worthy said by way of explanation. “They try not to get in our way and stay out of the district. It’s become something of an unspoken rule.”

It wasn’t unusual for people to have a healthy regard for Slayers and the work they did. Out here, that was probably doubly true. Worthy led him into a decent sized building with two floors and a small garden out the front. Instantly the smells wafting into the street set Tyron’s mouth to watering.

Waving and joking with the other Slayers as they peeled off and moved to their own abodes, Worthy finally lifted his arm from Tyron’s shoulders and pushed him through the door.

“We’re home!” he announced loudly.

“Go and wash,” Meg called from the kitchen. “I didn’t get this place clean so it could smell like your armpits for the next three days.”

“Is that any way to welcome your mighty husband home from a brutal journey of fighting for his life?” Worthy complained.

“Shush your mouth and go wash,” Meg hurrumphed, not bothering to enter the room. “You’ll get all the welcome you want once you’re clean.”

“And what about your dear nephew? Are you going to leave him standing in the doorway, woman?” 

Instantly, Aunt Meg leapt out of the kitchen with shocking agility for a woman of her age.

“Tyron!” she exclaimed, her eyes watering as she saw him.

In moments she had him enfolded in her arms, sobbing into his chest as he awkwardly pat her on the back.

“I’m home, Aunt Meg,” he said.

It took a little time to calm her down, and for Worthy to finally be harried into cleaning up. Once everyone had settled, they sat at the table, a large helping of stew in front of them, which Tyron wolfed down. 

“It’s hard to make anything but stew out here,” his Aunt apologised for the tenth time. “No flour for bread, hardly any meat, our options are very limited.”

“I don’t think he’s complaining, dear,” Worthy observed as Tyron continued to shove spoonful after spoonful into his mouth.

“I think your cooking has improved,” Tyron observed between mouthfuls. “Did you gain skill levels?”

Meg smiled, the dimples in her cheeks lined with wrinkles that hadn’t been there during his Awakening. The years had been hard on all of them, but perhaps his Aunt had suffered the most, worrying and stressing over family that she couldn’t do anything to help.

“I did,” she said proudly. “It turns out that getting creative with limited supplies is a good way to push yourself higher. I’m now a silver rank!”

Tyron’s eyes widened. 

“Wow! That’s incredible, Aunt Meg!”

Silver rank was hard to achieve for non-fighting Classes. If she were still a chef for the inn, her food would have been an attraction known throughout the entire province. 

“Your Aunt won’t say it, so I will,” Worthy said, reaching to touch her shoulder. She smiled at him and he warmly smiled back. “She’s been cooking meals and providing for the hungry for months. I’m not surprised she gained a few levels along the way, she’s worked herself to the bone to keep people fed.”

“It’s nothing,” she said, clearly embarrassed. “I’m not out there fighting like you are.”

“I’m sure the people are grateful,” Tyron said.

It was a nice moment, there with his family, a warm meal in his belly and the promise of a soft bed for once. Perhaps if he were anyone else, Tyron would have been able to relax, to shrug off the burdens that weighed him down, if only for a little while, but that wasn’t who he was. The relay was nearby, surrounded by the undead he had brought with him, and through it, he kept tabs on the goings on of his horde. He issued orders, cast spells and watched over them, always.

And the anger. The anger never truly left him, even now.

“Well, lad, I think you’ve got a hell of a story to tell us,” Worthy said, leaning forward. “Let’s hear it.”