The revelations Corvin extracted from Serian's mind reshaped his understanding of necromancy and of Lloth herself.
Elarith had once been a living Priestess of Lloth, a commanding figure not just in title but in knowledge. She lived during the early Sundering, a time when planar boundaries frayed and the Evolving Nightmare was first glimpsed across Verthalis. Lloth, perceiving the threat for what it truly was, chose not to intervene. Instead, she withdrew from Verthalis altogether, vanishing into the folds between planes, knowing that even her supremacy might not halt what was coming. What Corvin now knew shook the foundation of common belief: Lloth was never a true goddess by divine birth, but an alien entity from a realm far beyond the comprehension of mortals. Where magic and technology coexisted in seamless supremacy.
Compared to the mortal species of Verthalis, Lloth had been a superior lifeform, her very presence bending the rules of mortality and magic alike. And she had not died, nor ascended. She left. Voluntarily. Her final act before departing this world was to bestow fragments of her knowledge, necromancy included to a chosen few.
Elarith was among them.
With secrets that would warp the minds of lesser beings, she chose not to build schools or leave written tomes. Instead, she trained a select few zealots she handpicked and forged through unrelenting ritual and devotion. Her understanding of necromancy was not rooted in forbidden chaos, but in structure, bilogical clarity, and purpose. Her vision was clear: undeath not as curse, but continuity.
Every necromancer she trained was bound to her vision. And when they fell to age or blade, Elarith preserved them, not as mindless undead, but as functional extensions of her legacy. They retained memory, identity, and loyalty.
The undead in Serian's laboratory were not random creations. They had all once been students of Elarith herself. When death came for them by blade, age, or failed experiment, Elarith raised them again, whole in mind and memory, preserving their intellects as guardians of her legacy. They continued their work with clarity and purpose, unbroken across centuries. Each taught the next generation of zealots, each a candle ignited from Elarith's original flame.
Corvin stood in the presence of a network centuries old, self renewing, patient, and terrifying in its clarity. These were not mad dabblers in undeath. This was a dynasty.
And it had thrived unnoticed beneath Umbraveyn's soil.
From Serian's memories alone, Corvin had already begun piecing together the hierarchy and nature of the undead around him. As the weight of that knowledge settled, he turned his focus inward. His daily limit of thirty spores would be well spent here.
He began with the weakest of the undead necromancers. One by one, he sent his spores fine threads of intention and hunger. Latching them to withered minds and waiting souls. None resisted. None noticed.
He worked his way upward through the inner circle of Serian's old peers. Each offered something new: a ritual, a breakthrough in soul containment, a forgotten theory in structural resurrection. He did not touch Elarith. Not yet. Her presence was still unreadable, her power shielded under layers of reverence and forgotten rites. He would not make the mistake of moving too soon.
When the thirtieth spore dissolved, Corvin stood still.
His eyes narrowed, then widened, as the influx of centuries of necromantic knowledge settled into place. He saw the connections between anatomy and enchantment. He felt the possibilities of reviving not just corpses, but the purpose of a mind. Hundreds of rituals etched themselves into his thoughts. His new affinity, Death now stood proudly at S-.
He said nothing. Left no word.
He simply departed.
There would be a tomorrow.
Behind the main chamber, behind the walls carved with praise to Lloth, Serian's mind had revealed a secret: a hidden chamber, sealed and enchanted, housing another twenty necromancers in hibernation. They were not like the active ones. They were meant for more.
Corvin would return.
Siphoning was not enough.
He would absorb them all.
After leaving the cave, Corvin moved into the forest where the trees were thick enough to swallow moonlight. With a touch of Earth magic, he hollowed a chamber beneath the roots, shaping a dome of soil and stone, then strengthened it's walls and sealed it. Once sealed, he sat cross legged at its center and began to meditate.
There was too much to sort through. Hundreds of memories. Generations of voices. Rituals competing for primacy in his mind. Necromantic theory, anatomical precision, ancient elven dialects, soul binding glyphs.. it all needed order.
He opened his eyes hours later. A new day had come.
With practiced ease, he cloaked himself, leaving the chamber behind without a trace. His target: the secret room.
He passed through the sanctum like a wraith. Serian and Elarith were still at their rituals, there were seven more necromancers, all undead yet none the wiser. The hidden chamber beyond lay untouched.
Inside, twenty necromancers lay in repose, each entombed in stone coffins inscribed with ceremonial runes. Their stillness was not death. Not yet.
He approached the first.
The question lingered: did he need to kill an undead before absorbing it?
Corvin shrugged. Only one way to find out.
He placed his hand on the forehead of the sleeping necromancer and pushed. Resistance met him, a wall of awareness not fully dormant. With a sigh, he sent a pulse of lightning through his fingertip. Not enough to reduce the body to a charred husk, but certainly enough to override the enchantments binding it.
The corpse twitched.
He didn't stop.
More jolts followed, sharp, short and clinical. After the eighth, the resistance broke, and Corvin felt the absorption begin.
A slow smile crept across his face.
This was no apprentice. This had been one of the original priests, trained directly by Lloth. Her memories were vast. Her secrets were precise. And more importantly, her mind held knowledge about the rest.
He moved to the next coffin, then the next. A flick of his fingers. A whisper of death.
As he advanced, he looked more like a noble sampling wines than a predator ending lives... or unllives to be exact. He hummed quietly. His steps were light. Why wouldn't they be?
He was buying history. And everyone was on sale.
These necromancers would continue their unlife, not as priests, not as teachers, but as whispers in his mind. Exactly where they belonged.
As a heartfelt thank you, Corvin left the remaining necromancers untouched. Let them enjoy their eternity in peace. He had more than enough.
His Death affinity now stood at S-. But that was just the beginning. With each priest absorbed, his magical spectrum had shifted. All of his basic and secondary elements now surged proudly at S+.
Plant, S. Blood, S. Healing, S+.
Given the wealth of anatomical, phsyological and pathological knowledge now embedded in his thoughts, it would have surprised him to be rated any lower. The rituals, the precision, the cellular insight, all of it congealed into an internal library more complete than any scholar alive.
Space, already advanced from previous conquests now thrummed at A-.
But most tantalizing were the two new additions.
Gravity and Aether.
The first came naturally. Gravity was order, pull, presence. Easy enough to understand, given his previous life, education and work in elemental manipulation. It folded into his spellcasting as if it had always belonged there.
Aether, on the other hand, was elusive. It drifted at the boundary between magic and spirit, an ambient resonance that didn't obey the same laws as his other elements. Even with the centuries of knowledge siphoned from Verthalis's most brilliant necromancers, it remained a mystery.
And that made it exciting.
There were still puzzles left in this world. That alone made Corvin smile.
He rose, refreshed and empowered, with more to harvest and more to learn. His steps whispered through the forest, already seeking the next legacy to claim.
It was time to practice some death magic and maybe get some pets.