by Marty Myers
Hank’s eyes lit up as he heard the masters idea. “Yes that does sound like a good item to make,” he said. First, we need to pick a good choice for the physical trap,” his master said. Hank thought for a minute and then brought down one of the three smugglers skeletons from the upper floors. “ You said a skull would make a good housing for the ghost trap. After I am done with it could it be put back into use as this boneheads head?” “ Ah yes,” Provoas said, “ an excellent choice. These bones have soaked up much Dark essence. They will make an excellent trap and yes you can eventually return it to its original purpose if you decide to. You might also consider using the rest of these bones in further experiments but that will be up to you.”
Hank disrupted the underpinning chants holding the skeleton together and Lord Provoas caught the skull. He said, “ now think of the chant and inscription you will need for the spirit trap. There are a few variants in the grimoire depending upon your needs. Since you will be reusing this over and over I would suggest the general chant as it has a better range, duration, and overall durability.”
“ Some necromancers paint the symbols on the object while others like myself prefer to inscribe them right into the bones his,” master said. Hank focused upon the information rushing into his mind and reclaimed his essence with his aura from the skull and then re-infused it. He found he was able to hold the skull in midair simply by willing it to do so. Then he pictured the symbols he needed and using the same techniques he had developed with cutting the stone of his dungeon. He carved out the intricate runes one by one as he chanted the spells vocal component. With the amount of Dark essence within the skull and his own further focused within the spell Hank laid into the skull he found he did not need any additional spirit or components to complete the spirit trap.
He made sure not to activate it as he had several ghosts serving him already and he did not want to lure them from their posts. “So where should we send this to first,” Hank asked his master who was watching his work most intently. Provoas said, “ well there are a few places I have often thought might harbor an unbound spirit or two. But before we set this trap out it would be wise of us to set up a summoning and containment circle to hold the spirits once we have caught them. This is where many inexperienced necromancers make the mistake you were about to by not being prepared in advance.”
“ Generally speaking you should be able to handle most of the spirits who might fall into a trap such as this one. However once in a while, you may find you have caught a bigger or more potent spirit than you expected and are ready to subjugate. It can be hard to tell from the outside looking into the trap and some spirits are particularly gifted with talents tailored to be deceptive. So its best to have a second line of confinement ready when you open the trap to harvest your catch.”
Again here there are several variations you could create, but the standard circle set against spirits is often the best one when you don’t know beforehand what type of spirit you have caught.” Hank and Provoas together chanted the incantations as they set a circle to summon and contain spirits. We are combining our powers in the making of it,” his master said. This ensures it is as strong as it can be since you may end up holding multiple spirits within it for greater lengths of time than you would within the trap itself. It needs to be stronger and more resilient to hold them. ”
“ Since you yourself are a form of spirit you should also inscribe an exception to its power here so that it does not impede yourself. Normally such a circle would not be able to hold you for long, however, because I your master have helped create it. It would be much more potent against you than it otherwise would be if I had not had a hand in its creation.” Provoas continued to lecture Hank as they worked to finish the circle. “ If you are not careful the same thing would work against you doubly so with your own energies being invested into its making. Heed this fact as many a necromancer and dark magician has been foiled by the use of his own tools turned against him at one time or another,” he said.
“ I generally place an extra bit of magic into my creations which allows me to unravel them and absorb the remainder of my energies invested within them as a fail-safe against just such a circumstance. I add it into the crafting if I think there is any way they could one day be used against me. It is a bit of a complex piece of magic. But its well worth knowing as I will not allow myself to be defeated by my own hand.” Provoas demonstrated the chant and inscription to Hank and taught him how to alter it for use in various workings.
“ Now you are ready. I will show you some likely places you might catch a wandering spirit. Provoas pulled out another book he had among his stack and turned towards the back. “ We who are of the Dark are generally a secretive bunch and so mapping out an area inclined to the darkness isn’t something you will see from us very often. But there was once a peculiar fellow. A self risen wight named Carson who had been an explorer and cartographer in life. In his living days, one of the ways he had made his coin was by supplying other adventurers with reliable maps which showed them dark places of interest or led to unexplored ruins. He became rather adept at discovering these places and because he rarely ventured far within them he survived quite a while longer than most adventurers do and was able to hone his talent to sniff the darkness out.”
“ What he didn’t realize during his lifetime was that he himself was naturally gifted with a lot of dark essence and that it acted as a lodestone within him allowing him to more easily be drawn to such locations. In time he took one too many a chance just as most adventurers do and met his end. Luckily for him death wasn’t nearly so final as the place he expired in was quite immersed in dark energies and after a short time he rose again as a wight.”
“ He haunted this location for a while and preyed upon other adventurers who came to explore the place. Ironically some of them carried his own maps back to him and from this he got an idea. He would continue much as he had before selling adventuring parties his maps, only now his goal was to lead them to their own demise so that he could reap the rewards. He did this for many years until his reputation became suspect.”
“ It was then that a lich named Agula the Shrewd ended up finding him and taking him into his service. He then turned his knowledge and skills to another purpose. His new master sent him out to discover and map more undiscovered and untapped Dark spots so that it could make use of them. It stashed relocated remains within these areas and let them soak up the dark energies there for years before either making use of them itself or trading them off to others who coveted more potent minions.”
“Agula was something of a Dark merchant prince who could see the value in the art of the deal. He wasn’t the most powerful lich magically speaking but his business savvy, wealth, connections and supplies served him very well in his time. After many more years of successful commerce, his dungeon was eventually discovered by the forces of the Light and destroyed. The tales of the size of his horde of treasure still are sung of by adventurers. He and his wight are gone but a few of his maps yet remain and are coveted by those of us who still remember him. Provoas turned another page and showed Hank an old yellowed map which he carefully folded out of the book. Most of Agula’s caches of bones and other ingredients have long been discovered and looted. But some of the areas he stashed them in remain relatively undisturbed.”
“ Some are very hard to reach by normal means, while others are small or ill-suited to being occupied by larger groups of darklings so they remain mainly empty. A lone spirit or two though could easily arise in such a place and be content to haunt them. Master Provoas pointed out three or four likely locations on the map as well as a couple he knew of that had been sanctified in the intervening years. You should choose one of these and see what you find Hank,” he said. Hank memorized the map and prepared to set himself to scrying.
“ That reminds me of another story I wanted to share with you,” Provoas said as he folded the map away and put the grimoire back in its place. “ Once there was a very luck
y dungeon who as he grew in size discovered an ancient skeleton of a dragon trapped within the stone beneath his dungeon. The dragon’s skeleton was unfortunately not intact enough to raise. Imagine if it had been. A true bone dragon, unlike the pale imitations we sometimes fashion would have been a truly magnificent achievement. My but that would be an outrageous find since they have always been exceedingly rare and also generally careful not to allow their remains to fall into our hands.”
“ At any rate, as I was saying, he found the remains of an ancient dragon who had become one with the stone. After carefully thinking about his find he chose not to remove the bones and use them as alchemy ingredients or for magical components. Instead, he slowly infused the bones with his own aura letting his essence soak in year after year into the great beast’s remains until he, at last, overcame the last of the creature’s aura and could claim it as part of himself. With that accomplishment, he gained some of its strength and abilities as his own. He then carved further enchantments carefully into the bones and infused it with even more of his own being until he and the dragon’s remains were as one.”
“ Finally, a day came when he was the dragon and the dragon was he. He could feel the other dragons in the world and one day a young one of its kind wandered close by. He was able to call to it. He had set aside a large treasure trove for this day within a cavern that he opened when it approached. He lured the dragon to his dungeon and was able over more years to gradually bend it to his own desires. He was careful not to push too hard, but it came in time to be his familiar and through his bonds to it and the ancient remains he grew powerful beyond what most dungeons could even dream of.”
“Unfortunately, he developed some of the dragon’s flaws along with its many strengths. He became overly greedy, proud and terribly arrogant. Eventually, he chose not to follow the commands of the Darkness thinking himself to have become too powerful to have the need to fear the Dark any longer. And this,” said Provoas leaning closer. “ is why today you have no dragon dungeon brother Hank.” Hank was chilled by the Liches sudden reminder of his own circumstances. He had thought that he and Provoas were having a bonding moment there for a minute.
“ Do not misunderstand me Hank,” Provoas said. “ I am proud of you and your accomplishments, to have come so far in such a short amount of time my apprentice shows great promise. You are rising fast in the Dark’s estimation. Your powers swell and you are very young yet for a dungeon with much potential growth still ahead of you. You could perhaps even become one of the great Dark Ones of this age.”
“Just Don’t let your pride swell up until you too disregard the threat the Darkness truly represents,” he said. “ I know my own place is by the Lord Dark’s side, for I have already reached most of my goals and aspirations under his banner. You have yet to truly find your place in this world. Let it be to sit high with me at my master’s side instead of being brought low by your own anger, angst, and hubris young man.” With these words, the lich turned and walked off to check on his own experiments before the Darkness preparations arrival took up his attention once more.
Hank left his masters quarters and returned to the scrying pool. he teleported the ghost catcher to the scrying chamber and tried not to think too hard about what Provoas had said. He already knew he was playing with fire in thinking about resisting the Dark. Even Llywelyn and Alastor his two other conspirators and two much stronger people than him dared not directly oppose the Lord of Darkness. At best they could chip away quietly at their bindings and hope their masters did not take notice them loosening the chains of their bondage a tiny bit.
No one could stand up to a Lord here in this realm. Only another Lord even dared to oppose one of their kind. Very quietly in his own mind, Hank thought about the one being he knew to have bested the Darkness. He almost dared not think the name of the Lord of the Seas even here within his own mind. He instead firmly placed these thoughts in a partitioned off hidden area as Llywelyn had shown him and returned to what he had been doing.
Chapter 36
Hank focused upon the scrying pool and brought up an image in his mind of the map he had been shown. He focused on the details within it and imagined himself hovering high above. He chanted the scrying and with a push of dark power and will he found his view come into sharp focus. He was above a deep rocky ravine leading off into a broken canyon with a tiny trickle of water far below. To Hank’s eyes, it appeared that small drifts of sand, dust and dark essence were swept over the edges of the walls of the canyon to drift down past the edge of light to the floor of the canyon below. Much of it ended up in the dark waters which gathered the essence up and slowly carried it deeper and deeper into the canyon.
Hank followed it until he found well-hidden runes carved into the walls siphoning and shifting the darkness from the waters into a cave system. Hank slipped into the cave and felt a tingle of some foreign magic here. It was subtle and relatively weak and primitive to his senses. He discounted it almost immediately as his attention was caught by the sight of three small scraggly green creatures scrounging about the cave floor that could only be goblins. The impression was confirmed by both his dwarfish memories and his shared thoughts with Llywelyn. They certainly didn’t look like much as Hank surveyed them. They wore little more than loincloths and were armed with crude stone knives and wooden clubs. Even for goblins, he thought, this band looked primitive and poor.
One thing Hank could see in their favor with his expanded senses was that most of them had a relatively high affinity for the dark essence which flowed through their caves. Most of them looked to even be able to manipulate it to hide themselves in the shadows and darkness. Hank watched them forage for a bit longer before continuing past them and exploring their caves and tunnels.
He found himself following the thin thread of magic until he found a larger settlement of perhaps sixty goblins settled within a cavern, There where a set of totem poles that stood bracketing a large tent in the middle. It was the first of its kind that Hank had seen here. The rest of the goblins seemed to camp out next to small fire rings with a just few stones marking boundaries between fires.
When he approached the tent he found a better-dressed trio of larger well-fed goblins setting around a larger fire. Two of them could perceive his scrying. They were practitioners of magic of some type, probably shaman’s by their looks and the small spirits hovering around them. The other one had the look of a warrior, he was larger and darker skinned and armed with an actual metal sword. He even had a helmet and a bit of armor strapped to his chest. Hank thought he could maybe even be the goblin chief.
The older shaman grunted and glared at Hanks scrying while the younger one looked on it with curiosity and intelligence gleaming in his eyes. “ Well, young one,” the older shaman said, “ this is the spirit you have summoned for your final test. It is not one of our tribe’s totem spirits but instead an outsider unknown to me. It is at least a Dark spirit of some kind although I know not what exactly it is. It could just as easily bring trouble down upon our people as it is to be of help to them.”
“ You will need to bargain with it or coerce and bind it to your will.” As the old shaman spoke Hank rechecked his defenses which were still in order and further warded the scrying pool against outside influences. He then looked again at the little bit of magic he had been following here and saw that it might indeed be a primitive summoning of some kind. He now saw the dark energy was easy to unravel and absorb which would make it attractive to a small spirit to consume and follow back to its source. Hank felt embarrassed before he laughed at himself. So he had made a rookie mistake and followed the breadcrumbs. At least it was with a relatively harmless encounter with some goblins he thought to himself.
He projected his voice through the scrying and laughed again at himself and the goblins. The warrior seemed upset and angrily got to his feet at hearing this. The old shaman meanwhile calmly watched the scrying viewpoint and his apprentice and kept up his commentary on the situation. “ Th
is is fairly typical behavior, many spirits have a weird sense of humor. Some of them will try to intimidate or bluff you by showing how unafraid of you they are with their laughter.”
“ Others will immediately resort to curses or threats or even to making spooky or outlandish noises to distract you. Some smarter of more powerful spirits will launch attacks or immediately try to escape or spin wild lies to deceive you. It is your job as a shaman to decipher what each spirits behavior means before you choose the wrong way to deal with it.” In a way, this situation was actually helpful to Hank in his own quest to capture and bind spirits as he would soon be on the other side of the equation. This convinced him to let the lesson play out a bit further to see if he would learn anything more from the old goblin’s teaching his apprentice.
The young shaman spoke up. “ I Haman, a shaman of the Dark Sunken Caves Tribe have summoned you spirit.” He waved a rattle around which gave off a feeble light and a little dark essence which spilled out into tiny droplets which fell around Hanks scrying. He felt the very beginnings of a spirit circle trying to form from this before the magic’s encountered his own and unraveled. The older shaman frowned upon seeing this and stared more intently in Hanks direction. Haman again waved his rattle around and added a chant to it which strengthened his second attempt. It lasted a few more moments and reached about halfway around Hanks construct before it too gave out.
