Umbra strolled leisurely, hands tightly clenched behind his back.
Cold purple eyes swept the dark temple, where he nearly killed Ragna yesterday.
No trace of broken pillars.
Everywhere seemed as though nothing had ever happened.
One of the mysteries he had given up frivolous attempts to uncover.
Presently, he looked straight ahead, his eyes seeing through the gloomy temple to the very end.
With a soft mumble, he waved his hand in a small sweeping gesture.
The torches all lit up simultaneously, beginning from those closest to him, till the very far end.
He surveyed the other end.
It looked no way paranormal; just a regular round altar with a jagged hole in its middle, out of which it filtered slivers of pale red light.
Shimmering with mystery and unspoken power.
That must be it.
A shaky breath betrayed his composure but he went on.
He had spent the last few hours finishing up the 'Reaper's Journal' …
To be precise, the limited edition of the Journal which the Nakamai royal library possessed.
The Reaper's Journal both served as a basic and advanced manual for necromancy.
It had about two thousand pages, a frightening number for an incomplete volume.
The original, rumored to be in the possession of its writer, the Great Immortal Necromancer, Hex Dimah.
His name sounded ordinary enough, but he was of demonic origins.
Not Incarnaians. Demonic.
Even rumored to have lived in Nessus for a while.
How it happened, no one really wanted to know.
But these were all myths.
The original Reaper's Journal had been written in an archaic tongue.
This made deciphering really hopeless to the current generation ( if they ever found it, that is.)
Comprising of thousands of scrolls (also another myth), It was the medieval guide for advanced or Dimensional necromancing, as it was called.
Only three Incarnian warlocks were reputed to have read the full text of the Reaper's Journal,( all myths too)
Subsequently, they had achieved the miraculous Dimensional necromancing.
The book had been bequeathed to an Incarnaian kingdom in the past.
But in the chaos of war and uprisings, the trail of the Journal had darkened over the years.
Even Ragna himself had no idea where his own edition came about.
Evidently, the original book had been recopied over and over. But parts of those copies were misplaced too.
Thus, modern necromancers had to dwell on half truths, fatal experiments and murky memories as basis for achieving regular necromancing.
No one even tried to go beyond that. Dimensional necromancing hadn't been attempted in the last thousands of centuries past.
Necromancy became a dreaded art, even among modern day sorcerers.
The perks were tempting but the downsides also bore weight.
Thus said, it was near impossible to find a necromancer nowadays.
Well, Umbra had a firm resolve to steer his path to success.
If only three people had ever achieved that abstract form of the Dark Art…
Then he, Umbra, would be the fourth, even without reading the original edition.
He had been reading and rereading the pages of the limited edition of the Journal since he was seven.
Now he had mastered the rudiments of that art. Never knowing that it would come in handy all that while.
A subtle art, it was, treaded on by great sorcerers and done with utmost mind engagement, together with mighty essence concentration.
Presence at a graveyard was required not minding whether the necromancer was an expert or novice.
In other words, only necromancers seeking death practiced theirs in any available place.
A different location multiplied the difficulty level of the art exponentially.
At the same time, it put the life of the necromancer in a dangerous balance.
Graveyard presence relieved the stress of reanimating any random body, and forcing a pair of unlike body and soul into mutual subservience.
Umbra knew all these, but had stubbornly ignored Ragna's advice to go down to the Royal Cemetery.
It was also noteworthy that only a few necromancers had managed to actually resurrect a person for eternal servitude.
An impossible feat by the way.
Necromancy for immortality wasn't possible, as summoned souls perished alongside their summoner.
Others merely aimed to reanimate for hours or days at most.
But Umbra was going to achieve all unknown feats in necromancy.
Just his belief though.
But then, most necromancers were powerful sorcerers who had managed to transform their sorcery into necromancy.
Still, none of the attempters of the dimensional necromancers survived their interaction phase.
Still Umbra maintained a positive optimism.
The past didn't matter in his case. After all, he was an exception. A prodigy.
Those little gaps he was completely oblivious to…well, his powers could make up for those gaps.
With such an enormous reserve of unpredictable powers, he could confidently override whatever requirements he didn't know about.
That was only if his locket slackened a little bit, and that was a very good possibility.
So he had only mild problems left; what to do if the locket didn't re-boost up in time, after the necromancing.
"..."
Umbra stopped dead in his tracks, realizing that he had no solution to this unavoidable paradox.
If it happened.
Suddenly, a faint smile of realization crept into his face as confusion changed into clarity.
His supposed father.
He had almost completely forgotten that he had a very high ranking demon constantly watching out for him.
Probably, as long as Ragna wasn't lying.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
His footsteps went on, a monotonic sound that shattered the chilling silence at intervals.
Umbra halted, a few more steps from the wide staircase leading up to the altar.
He glanced up at the altar, and slight spasm of fear swept through his frame.
The ghost of an anxious expression flitted over his face.
He banished those emotions from his mind, adorning his confidence with a fake smile.
Tap!!!
He put his leg on the first stair, and looked up again.
A wave of fear swept through him again, rattling his tendons.
Backing out wasn't an option. Not when he had gotten this far.
The journal had depicted necromancy as a clear elaborate art, with only mild challenges.
But now, regardless of all the literal reassurances, fear gripped him.
Because he knew that, most books lied. Especially books about practical stuff.
"Nah bro, now's no time to be scared…You're the Prince of Darkness…nothing could possibly go wrong…"
What a big fat lie.
A lot could possibly go wrong. Everything could go wrong.
Umbra took a slow deep breath.After all this, he would find his mother…and his friends.
That was his consolation and motivation alike.
Just a childish belief he held on to. His friends were dead but for some reason…
'Sigh'
Clenching his fists stubbornly, he began to climb up the stairs.
Eyes narrowed in concentration. Lips tightly pursed to prevent a random gasp escaping.
As he got nearer to the top, purple aura began to swirl around him at will, wrapping around him like a cloak.
He reached the apex, now standing on the same level with the altar.
He locked his studious eyes on it, looking for anything arcane.
Its blandness made it more off-putting than usual.
He glanced at it with wary eyes, then suddenly startled.
He'd just noticed something slightly disheartening.
He shuddered, not due to fear.
The temperature had noticeably dropped by a good number of degrees as soon as he got up here.
But that wasn't his earlier suspicion.
Something was wrong. He could feel as though he was being watched.
He approached the altar slowly.
Semi silent whispering noises flitted around. Not one, not two either.
Company. He had company.
The book warned about this; it said to listen but not to take it seriously. But at times, the book quoted, the voices were more right than wrong.
"You can't scare me", his voice echoed powerfully, boosting his faltering confidence.
Umbra strode forward readily.
He approached, then stopped and studied the altar again, more carefully this time.
Because he could see something he couldn't before.
Glowing runes.
He bent over and squinted to check them out. He made sure not to touch the altar, even with his clothing.
Just then, the whispers arranged themselves into a distinct fluttering voice.
"You may not visibly show fear…"
Umbra virtually strained all his heightened senses to hear it, yet it came in snatches to him.
"...But we can feel it inside you. You –"
"Who are you?" Umbra's fear yielded at last, and mild annoyance replaced it.
One might have wondered why, but Umbra was creepy enough not to be affected by sudden whispers.
Whispers about him even.
Which for a regular human, could be the height of all things creepy.
The air around him charged up, heating up the very atmosphere at that chilly top.
"Show yourself!"
Eerie silence echoed around him, greeting him with a very glaring but quiet taunt.
Literally bouncing off the walls, and wrapping around him like a cold wind.
He hated it.
He hated being ignored, whether by friends or enemies.
But now, he had no other choice than to wait. More outbursts won't clearly help.
"We can't…" the voices replied, apparently unmoved by his rough outburst. However, it went on to drop something intriguing.
"We know what you're here to do, but we can only offer a wager."
Umbra's rage quietened down at an unbelievable pace.
He stopped his scrutiny of the altar too. His attention now arrested completely by that.
"A wager? What could that be?"