Time for Oss. No lore for Zharr Vyxa so had some fun. Trying to make each unique. Hope you like it.
The Brazen Bastards.
A Beginning
Part 4.
Oss Crookfinger.
Oss was dead. He knew that. He had known it for a while. How could he not know? How long had he been a Soulsmith? One hundred? Two hundred years? You could not handle the souls of the dead for that long and not recognise death. He must have extracted, forged and bound countless numbers of them. So he was dead. Oss knew that. Yet he was tangible. He had a body. He walked, he talked. He ate for Hashoot’s sake. And it wasn’t Undeath. No, he was sure of that. He knew the oily, viscous feel of Necromantic magic. Undeath was an occupational hazard if you worked with souls. There were always gates between death and undeath that could open. But working in Shyish they were more like a revolving door. He had seen his fill of the undead. Probably more than most Soulsmiths. So what was it? It couldn’t be the armour could it? Sometimes he regretted ever making it. Yet the thought of losing it filled him with a cold terror.
He looked around. Unzi wasn’t in armour. He did have that particularly disturbing jewel in the head of the rod he carried. Oss’s fingers itched to get a hold of that. But that was very different magic from his armour. Porco barely wore any and Karpok’s was leather and tusks. Unless it had been made from particularly ancient Necromantic walruses he did not think it would count. Yes, the new warrior Zhiekward wore armour. And good stuff, if he was any judge, but magic? No. Maybe they each carried something different that had brought them here.
Sargoth had warned him. Every Soulsmith knew you took new bones and bound souls into them.
‘ You don’t know as what’s in old bones. Don’t know what the mix will do if there’s summat left.’ ‘Old bones is often still intact for a reason.’
Yes, Sargoth had known. But Oss had too. It had not been an accident. He had felt the power in them. That is why he had used them for Hashoots’ sake. The armour was much more powerful. It magnified and focussed his own magic to a shocking degree. After putting it on he had advanced rapidly through the guild. Others had noticed of course. He had never been that talented before. There had been whispers. He laughed quietly to himself. If they had been the only whispers he could have dealt with that. It was the ‘other’ whispers that had caused the problems. That still caused the problems.
They had started soon after he had put the armour on. Insidious, subtle. They could almost be his thoughts, but they weren’t. Even now he sometimes struggled to know which ideas had been his and which theirs. The experiments were theirs. Surely they were theirs. He could not, would not have thought of them. They had been successful, mostly. But not well received. His methods were regarded as unorthodox, unnecessary, and risky. It had become increasingly hard to replace assistants. Even the hobgrot slave masters had began shunning him. It had been ridiculous! His weapons were stronger, his constructs deadlier! His genius had been ignored. The whispers were right about that. Fools, hidebound fools. They had asked him to leave. Him. The best of them. Well he would show them. We would show all of them. We would bide our time. Build our strength. With our knowledge we could assemble an army of constructs. An army of undead. We would return to Zharr Vyxa not as a rogue Soulsmith, but as conquerors, rulers of those who had doubted us. They would bow before us. They laughed . A deep soft resonant sound.
Oss stopped and closed his eyes. Breathing deeply he slowly separated his thoughts from theirs. It was easy to get lost. He had to guard against that.
He looked around at his companions. No one seemed to have noticed. He did not think he had said anything.
Concentrate. Ignore them. Concentrate on the problem at hand. Why was he here? What had brought this disparate group together? It was not Necromancy. So, what was it? Where was it? He paused. That posturing fool of a sorceror was right about one thing. Wherever it was, it was better than the other place. Even the whispers had not liked it there. The fighting, the killing, the … wrongness of it all. He had hated it. Hated it and feared it. Yet he had fought. So long. So many fights. He tried to remember them but his mind slid away from the memory. The feeling stayed, but the details eluded him slipping like smoke through his fingers. Had it been a test like Unzi said? He shivered in his armour. If that had been the test, did no one else but him worry what they had been ‘chosen’ for?
Oss was dead. He knew that. But he also knew he was still here, somehow. He knew he wanted to stay alive, dead, undead? Whatever it was. To do that he was going to have work with these cretins. He supposed they would have their uses. He could manipulate them. They were no match for him. Even the sorceror. He talked to much. It was a sign of insecurity. Yes. They would be useful. They could be used. Even the savage. Alive or dead, eventually they would serve us. Eventually they would all serve us.
They laughed again.