by nobody103
"I'm pretty sure they're undead," Zorian said.
"What, really?" Lukav said, squinting at the closest boar. "My vision is a little blurry right now. Is it… is it really trying to wriggle towards me still?"
"I think so, yeah," Zorian confirmed.
Lukav barked out a stream of words in some Khusky language that Zorian didn't recognize. He was pretty sure they were swear words, though, so maybe it was better that way.
"I'm sorry," the man said after a few calming breaths. "I don't mean to be rude. I want to thank you, young man. I was lucky you happened upon me when you did. I surely would have died otherwise."
"Well, it wasn't entirely luck," Zorian said, causing the man to give him a hard look. "You are Lukav Teklo, yes?" The man nodded. "I have been looking for you based on the recommendation you received from one of my friends, one Kael Tverinov."
"Ah, Kael!" Lukav immediately brightened. "Great kid, shame he stopped coming when he got engaged to that witch girl. I was hoping to recruit him as an apprentice, but I'm afraid Fria got to him first and unlike her, I didn't have a cute daughter of my own to tempt him away with. Talented alchemist, that boy. I'd ask you how he's doing, but we can do that in my house, when I calm down a little."
"That would be fine," Zorian said. "Though I want to take a look at these undead boars that attacked you, first. I'm pretty sure someone just tried to murder you. I don't think undead boars arise on their own."
"Oh no, definitely not," Lukav agreed. "Minor undead like that are basically flesh golems, only with an enslaved soul or spirit placed inside instead of an automation core. The only 'naturally' arising undead are ghosts and other soul entities. Alanic was always very clear on that. Not sure who would try to kill me of all people, but apparently I pissed off a necromancer somewhere. Just my luck. I'll report this to the guild and have them deal with this, but feel free to examine these things as much as you want in the meantime. I'm kind of curious myself, but divinations were never my thing so…"
Zorian nodded and got to work, using an alteration spell to bind the legless torso of the nearest boar so it wouldn't trash and move around before moving to analyze it.
As he feared, he didn't find out anything particularly useful and was forced to leave the scene to the guild investigators. At Lukav's advice he re-summoned the severing disk and chopped all of the downed boars except one into smaller pieces that no longer moved. Lukav claimed that one undead boar was enough for the guild investigators and he didn't want to risk the attacker picking them up, sewing the legs back on and sending them after him again.
The last intact boar was buried deep into the soil via another alteration spell from Lukav, there to wait for guild investigators to arrive.
"Zombies, skeletons and other undead are not nearly as easy to make as stories make them out to be," Lukav explained as they made way towards his house. "Easier and cheaper to make than golems, sure, but still a significant expenditure of alchemical ingredients and time. Losing a dozen zombies like that has got to be a major loss for whomsoever is targeting me. No sense in letting them recuperate loses by leaving the zombie boars in fixable condition. Alanic told me to always destroy any disabled undead after the battle, just in case their maker is around to fix them back up. I didn't think I'd ever be in a position where that advice would be useful but there you go."
"Forgive me, but is the Alanic you're talking about Alanic Zosk?" Zorian asked.
"Why yes," Lukav confirmed. "I suppose Kael recommended him too?"
"Yes. He actually gave me a pretty long list of soul mages – you were just the first name on the list." He wasn't really, but it hardly mattered. The man motioned him to continue. "I need your help with a piece of soul magic I got hit with. I don't feel comfortable talking about it here in the open. I hope you'll hear me out when we get to your home."
"Fair enough. But unless you got hit by a transformation curse, I don't think there is much I can do for you. Alanic is actually a better bet – he's no curse-breaking specialist, but he knows the basics of the field at least. Of course, it would have been even better to seek the help of the guild, but I'm guessing you have a good reason for not wanting to get them involved."
"I do," confirmed Zorian. "And while I realize that the chance of you being able to help me is slim-"
"Hey now, those are fighting words," Lukav warned.
"-I still hope you will hear me out and try to help me. It's entirely possible that you hold a crucial key to solving my problem, even if you are unable to give me a total solution. My problem is not a curse, exactly. It is exotic enough that Kael recommended Silverlake as a possible solution if all else fails."
"Say what?" Lukav asked incredulously. "He recommended that crazy old witch as a solution for something?"
"I know," Zorian sighed. "I heard from a reputable source that she asked for a grey hunter egg sack from the last guy who asked her for help."
"Now that's just ridiculous," Lukav snorted derisively. "Someone is pulling your leg. Not even Silverlake would do that. Anyway, I'll see what I can do. It's the least I can do for someone who saved my life."
✦ ✧ ✦
After they had reached Lukav's house, the man penned a quick report to the nearest Mage Guild representative and paid one of the village boys to deliver it to Knyazov Dveri while they talked. Apparently the kid was a very good runner and had done such things for Lukav in the past. Regardless, it took a full hour for Lukav to tackle Zorian's problem, during which Zorian explained Kael's rather tragic situation to the man and Lukav gradually calmed down and waited for the potion he ingested to take care of his concussion.
"Horrible. I thought that hearing about Kael would cheer me up after this whole ordeal, but it only makes me feel even more depressed," Lukav said. Zorian stayed silent, content to wait for Lukav to continue. After a few seconds of being lost in his thoughts, the man shook his head with a sigh. "Well, I think the potion did its work by now, since staring into the lamp no longer hurts my eyes and my head no longer feels like it's been stuffed with wool. Do you think you could tell me more about your problem now? The house has some basic wards to shut down scrying but it's not professional work, just something I had a friend make for me. The village doesn't have enough ambient mana to support anything substantial in terms of permanent wards, anyway. I guess we could go to Knyazov Dveri and hire a private room in one of the more expensive inns, but that would cost a pretty penny and I'm kind of averse to spending money like that."
"It's fine," said Zorian. He had already analyzed the man's warding scheme as practice and found it adequate. Slightly worse than Zorian could manage with a full day's work or so, but far better than a hastily erected privacy scheme that had been his original plan.
After a few seconds to collect his thoughts, he began to talk. Telling the man about the time loop was absolutely out of the question, of course, but that didn't mean he had to be totally vague about his situation. He told him how he stumbled upon a fight between a lich an unknown mage, and was caught in the crossfire, getting hit by an unknown soul magic spell in the process. The other mage dispelled it, but the damage had already been done. After spending several weeks sick, he seemingly recovered, only to find out later that the spell had left its mark on him after all. Here Zorian went a little vague, refusing to state what the consequences he noticed were, simply insisting that the issue was private.
"Difficult," Lukav said unhappily when Zorian was finished. "Knowing what the consequences were is a pretty crucial clue as to what the spell actually was, you know? You are sure it has nothing to do with transformation?"
"Absolutely," Zorian confirmed.
"Not even partial transformations?" The man asked. "Remember, not all transformations are total or involve obvious physical changes. The vast majority of magical enhancements are actually transformation, even if they only do things like increase your strength and agility – they all call upon attributes of some other creature to do their thing, transforming the user in so
me non-obvious way."
"I didn't know that," Zorian admitted. "But no, it's still not a transformation effect. It's actually more of an out-of-body experience, with my soul periodically leaving the body and then snapping back to it. So magical augmentations are generally transformation magic? Is that why they always seem to ask for animal parts and the like?"
"Astral projection?" Lukav asked. "Hmm, makes sense. Some soul magic spells definitely weaken the links between the soul and the body if used incorrectly, and you said the spell the lich cast on you had been botched. Not that letting the spell run its course had been a good idea, mind you, but some of the necromantic arts are just as dangerous if dismissed incorrectly as they are in their raw form. You're definitely right to seek help over this. And yes, the parts of animals and magical creatures are there provide an example of what you want to the transformation spell. 'Eagle Eye' spell literally gives you eyes on an eagle, for instance. Transformation magic is very useful for such augmentation because it is very easy to reverse."
"It is? I thought transformation was dangerous," said Zorian. That's was what they were taught in the academy.
"Well… maybe a little," the man admitted. "But compared to the alternatives, it is incredibly safe. You see, when you cast a regular transformation spell on yourself you are essentially putting clothes on your soul. Don't look at me like that, it's what it is. Yes, the official term is 'transformation shell', but they're basically like soul clothes. You can put them on, see, and you can take them off. Even if you mess up the spell and can't turn back or you get locked into an alternate form by a malicious opponent, you are still just a dispel or a curse-breaking session away from returning to normal. Your soul is still intact and unchanged beneath the transformation shell, and once the spell is gone you revert to your base form. The problem is that sometimes people overreach and end up transforming too far, so you end up with a mage, say, transforming into a troll in both mind and body and killing his entire family before the spell runs out of mana and he reverts back to normal. Or they attach the transformation shell too firmly to their soul and can't change back, and are then stuck in the form of a sparrow or something and can't talk to people or meaningfully interact with their environment. That's why a lot of people don't do transformation via invocations and rituals any more, and just buy transformation potions from people like me who know what they're doing – no chance of messing up, just drink a potion made by an expert and you're golden."
"Ah."
"On the other hand, when you're literally messing with your body chemistry and using alteration on your flesh, you're usually doing something totally irreversible," Lukav continued. "Human body is a complex thing, and I don't think anyone really understands enough about it to meaningfully improve it. Most potions that aim to enhance the real body with some exotic concoction are basically stimulant drugs with addictive properties or cause hard-to-cure damage if used often. And alteration spells that aim to alter the flesh directly have heavy drawbacks that make them hardly worth the effort and are often a total bitch to undo. I should know, I got called in often to help out with the fallout created by such magic. But we're getting off track. Come with me and I'll see if I can do something about your problem."
Lukav led him into his basement, past several locked doors, until they reached a spacious underground chamber. The huge spell formula on the floor in the form of two circles, one large one and one small one, each of which was ringed by lots and lots of magical glyphs, was a dead giveaway that this was some kind of ritual room. The fact that the room was perfectly cubical, with identical dimensions in all direction, was a further confirmation – flawless geometric shapes were always better for holding magic than anything remotely irregular, which was why Ikosian artifice featured a lot of circles, triangles, cubes, pyramids, cylinders, domes and so on.
Other than the ritual circle on the floor, the room was empty and featureless – likely to minimize magical interference from anything else. Zorian hoped he would not have to get naked for this – he had heard some of the more delicate magical scans were actually bothered by clothes and the like, and wasn't at all enthusiastic about that possibility.
Thankfully, Lukav's instructions didn't turn out to be that bad.
"Alright, leave any magical items on your person outside the room and then step into the center of the big circle, right into that big empty space," he told Zorian.
Zorian was more than a little apprehensive about leaving his magic items behind, since that would leave him totally defenseless. Especially the three innocuous-looking steel rings he had hanging on a necklace tucked into his shirt. Those rings were the latest iteration of his explosive suicide device that he had been steadily refining throughout the restarts. Anyone could make an explosive device with a bit of spell formula knowledge, of course, but making them stable enough not to go off by themselves yet capable of going off on a moment's notice whenever he gives a signal? Shrouding the explosive mana core with enough divination blockers to make the bombs invisible to wards designed to detect those very kind of devices, thus allowing him to take those things literally everywhere he went, including the tightly warded academy facilities? Making them small and convenient enough that they weren't a chore to carry around? Not everyone could do that, he was sure.
In the end he decided to remove everything except the necklace. Getting killed by betrayal would suck but ultimately just be an annoyance, whereas getting stuck in some kind of soul mutilation ritual without means of suicide would be irreparably catastrophic. He just didn't trust Lukav that much, even if his empathy was telling him the man was honest enough and harbored no hostile feelings towards him.
He quickly put his spell rod, shielding bracelet, bag of small explosive cubes (kept for offensive purposes) and the experimental automation core he had been fiddling with in his spare time into a small pile next to the door and walked inside. Lukav was already sitting inside the smaller circle, which also had an empty space in the center of it that could accommodate him easily. Zorian copied the man and promptly sat down on the stone floor inside the larger circle. He had a feeling this could take a while.
Apparently Lukav's magic couldn't detect the necklace, because he said nothing about it.
"You don't have any kind of soul shell on top of your soul," Lukav decreed after 15 minutes of examination. "I kind of expected that. The sickness you said followed the spell that hit you strongly hints that part of your actual soul was affected. Let's see if I can detect any foreign bits in your soul then…"
Now this was the part that Zorian definitely cared about. He had been wondering for quite some time how big of a chunk of Zach's soul did he end up with and whether it was having some kind of effect on him that he was unaware of. Hopefully Lukav would be able to shed some light on that issue.
After more than half an hour of spellcasting and lots of frowning, Lukav was finally ready to give his report.
"Weird. You definitely have something woven into your soul, but it's not like anything I've ever seen. Actually, you have two somethings. One is some kind of complicated bit of spellwork woven incredibly tightly into your soul, definitely not soul-stuff but not something I recognize either. Very weird that something so complex could result from a botched spell. Not calling you a liar but it doesn't make sense to me. The other something… well, it's definitely a piece of foreign soul stuff fused into your own soul, but I don't think you have much to worry about that. It's not a spirit or some soul parasite, and it seems to have all but dissolved into your own soul. In a year or two it will be gone entirely, completely assimilated."
"What kind of consequences will that have?" Zorian asked worriedly.
"None, I think. Your soul appears to be converting it into just another piece of itself rather than trying to keep it distinct. So there shouldn't be any major personality shifts and you probably won't get any nifty abilities from whomever or whatever it was that donated a part of their soul to you. Though, I guess it is possible that the fragment h
ad affected your personality to an extent when you first got it, before your soul had the chance to assimilate it sufficiently, and such influences may linger still. Do you think and act radically different ever since the incident?"
Zorian frowned. "To be perfectly honest, yes, I am quite different from how I used to be. But I'm not sure how much significance to attach to that. The incident was very traumatic, and so much has happened ever since then…"
"I understand," Lukav nodded sympathetically. "Your life has taken a completely different course after your fateful encounter with the darker side of magic. You would have changed anyway, and any changes caused by the soul fragment would have been lost in the noise. If you want my advice, you should not worry about it. You are who you are right now, and the fragment is all but gone. If shifters can claim to be the same person after stapling an animal soul to their own, then I'm not sure why a little nudge from a soul fragment should worry you."
"It's in my nature to worry," Zorian said. "Though admittedly the fact the fragment will be gone soon does make me feel better."
"Well," said Lukav, rising to his feet with an audible pop of his joints. "I'm glad to have allayed at least some of your fears, but this is as much as I can personally help you, I'm afraid. For the strange spellwork in your soul, you will have to talk to Alanic. He tends to be very suspicious of strangers and unannounced visitors, but I'll accompany you to smooth things over since you did save my life and all. Is there anything else you wanted my help with?"
"Well, not really," said Zorian. "But if I can trouble you some more, what can you tell me about shifters? You mentioned them several times while we talked today. Are you in contact with the local wolf shifter tribe by any chance?"
"No, not really," said Lukav, shaking his head. "I mean, I could locate them if I had a week or so, but I'd really rather not. Talking to them is annoying, and they don't like me very much ever since I tried to buy the shifter ritual off of them that one time."