((OOC: Private for Ven.))

“Traditionally, the nature of necromantic resurrection requires the absence of a soul, or rather the use of a body from which the soul has departed. Technically, the art of necromancy claims dominion over all bodies reanimated in the absence of holy magic. Because the art is considered taboo in most cities, there are few laws concerning the manipulation of souled undead. The difficulty of such a task prohibits most occasions for its implementation, as well. Nonetheless, there has been enough documentation of relevant attempts to warrant a short meta-analysis of the practice. The following includes techniques for trapping the soul inside its body, and in so doing gain control of sentient undead.”

A Review of Necromantic Strategies for Souled Undead
By Galdres Adlathil-Emberin
In the Journal of Deceased Studies, Vol 16

At some point, all of the students and acolytes in the northwest wing would notice that the shallow layer of graveyard dirt in their greater workshop had been raised in one spot. The mound was marked by a perfunctory gravestone, more to ward it against disturbances from visitors than to commemorate the nameless corpse that waited below. The body beneath was not unknown to those who frequented the workshop, for it had been constructed over the course of ten days on a nearby table. So it was that ten more days passed in wait beneath the soil, only one-tenth of a complicated ritual that only the goddess herself completely understood.

On that tenth day, Chae dismissed all others from the room. She was wearing plain robes, apparently prepared for a messy event, and carrying ten large summoning crystals in a bag on her back. She set to work embedding the gems into the walls and floor, surrounding the grave in a complex configuration that caused them to glow faintly with the accessed power. This was the only light in the room, and it would be spent when the soul was summoned. 

The body itself was not one person but many, pieces of criminals and other donated humanoids sewn into something greater than the sum of its parts. Notable additions included the skull and mind of a student who had died in an unfortunate alchemy experiment, though the face had come from a handsome Endapanoish elf who had desired his remains be used at the Library, as well as a lithe pair of legs from a thief who wasn’t quite swift enough. Its chest had been branded at the center in the shape of a ten-spoked wheel, though the dead skin was incapable of inflammation and the sigil was made less of risen pink flesh and more of a peeling ashen film.

Though coffinless, the body had also been buried with other items of arcane significance. The talons of ten owls, to bind the raised creature to her power, had been placed around the ankles and wrists in lieu of hands or feet; a poisoned dart, tainted with a potent wolfsbane potion, had been stuck in the dead stomach to grant a resistance as well as to evoke the stalking intuition of the wolf; the left eye had been covered with a black opal, to enhance magical aptitude; and on the right eye had been set a small gear from the tinkering workshop, to encourage an analytical curiosity.

All that was left was the soul. Chanting in the fell language of undeath, Chae lit a black candle and held it before her. Her whole being was focused on the traits she desired: stealth, perception, athletics, loyalty, inquisitiveness, greed. This would define the soul that she summoned, much like she had been summoned, from another world. But unlike the ritual that had restored her to her own body and bound her to a makeshift phylactery, this soul would be trapped in a cage of her creation—and bound to the power of her divine will.

Existing without consciousness, the awareness of the soul was scattered across the cold stream of space. Time held no domain in this realm. The soul drifted aimlessly, eternally. There was no desire. There was no thought.

In between the fabric of the void tore through a voice that shook and burned all in its path, seeking with omnipotent power among the drifting entities. The river of countless souls was pierced with an alien inquisitiveness, and each soul sought desperately to propel its incorporeal form away from this abominable power.

The soul had no way of knowing what was making its way through the void. It drifted along as it must, onward for eternity. When the voice came upon it, the soul was scattered and dissected before its might. Flashes of energy coursing through the soul projected outwards into space images of another plane of existence; color and light and sound poured out into the river in vast pockets. 

Suddenly the surrounding entities knew the anguish and joy from past lives once more, and their forms quivered with the memories. They crowded hungrily around the pockets, yet were burned away by the booming voice as they neared. The voice surveyed the memories and prodded until it found what it sought.

The pockets burst and receded within the soul and the voice enveloped the shade in power. It screamed backwards from whence it came, heedless of the entities swarming behind its retreat. With the single soul in tow the voice of power burst through the passage connecting the two realms, and it was slammed shut behind it.

Mist began to pool around the bare feet of the Goddess and a dark wind caused the flame of the candle to flicker and dance. The air became icy as her very will was made material. Deep beneath the dirt the implements of her ritual hummed with energy. The grotesque stumps of flesh at the end of the corpse’s limbs slowly pushed outwards. Bone and muscle stitched itself together and stretched out towards the owl’s talons before it. Bird-like scales black as pitch formed on top of this mass and molded to form the shape of  human hands and feet, and the black talons snapped into place where nails would normally have been upon them.

Deep within the bowels the poisoned dart dissolved into a black mist, only to be absorbed into the center of the corpse. Upon its dead face the black opal and copper gear gurgled. Snaps of bubbles erupted from their surfaces, and the once solid objects began to melt and seep into the crevices beneath the lids of its eyes. 

A moment passed. The eyelids fluttered. The claws scraped against the dirt weakly. Each of the pieces sewed from other bodies vibrated with shadowy energy, then the owlish hands abruptly tightened into a fist. The eyes flew open but dirt filled them immediately. No sound came from his now gaping mouth. His limbs struggled and clawed futilely against the heavy soil, but strength was building within him. 

The creature knew not where he was, but felt himself drawn towards the direction of the surface. He scrabbled, he tore, and he fought against compacted earth. 

And the ten-spoked wheel burned with grey mist upon his chest.  

Gradually, and yet somehow all at once, a new presence joined her. She found it, cherished it, took it, and possessed it. Though her arms did not move, Chae pulled him to her like a golden anchor on the rope of her divine will. Her chanting was not interrupted even by a breath, her voice as magical as it was biological. Arcane fingers laid the soul down within the unseen body and stretched it into place like a woven lattice on a loom, held in place by the alchemy that dissolved into his new being. Together they existed in more than one plane, but in each bound by threads of 

The earth began to stir. The ritual was complete. Her chanting ceased, severing her connection to spent power. The crystals had gone dim and then dark. For a long moment, there was only silence.

Except the candle was still burning, flickering wildly in a windless room, shadows dancing on her expectant face. The air grew thin with its consumption, though the flame did not grow. She could not feel that change, but she could perceive their bond stretched thin by the prolonging, feel his infant will bloom of its own accord. Quickly enough she dropped it, its flame extinguished by the soft dirt between them. All that was left was darkness.

He would not see her, but he would sense her. Her divine presence was intense to anyone with arcane senses, but so too was their bond a screaming reminder of her proximity. Perhaps it would overwhelm his new mind, freshly ripped from the ether, but to the goddess it was electric. She dropped to her knees—it was not a far fall—and began to dig with her hands toward him. The soil reached between the gaps in her flesh and was caught against the grooves in her bones, but she did not care. She wanted to see him, this culmination of one hundred days’ work. Her voice was sweet, but resolute. Demanding, yet understanding.

“Arise, my champion,” she said lowly, his cold face cradled in her tiny hands. “There is work to do.”

The darkness was suffocating, absolute. It filled the gaping maw of his mouth that flapped about as dug, and compacted underneath the black talons as he clawed. But still that need burned in him and drove him onward, on towards the voice that whispered through the moist cracks of earthy darkness.

The dirt parted. A wind touched the tip of his black, scaly finger. He shivered against the alien sensation, but redoubled his efforts. More of his claws broke through, then his fingers, then his hand. Something forced its way into his palm and he gripped it by reflex. The object was soft, cold, and gripped back. It pulled, pulled and tugged on his arm until more and more of the darkness cleared away from his body. 

It was a stitched up thing, that which crawled up from the dirt. It was made up from bits of other corpses and melded together like a quilt of dead, pale flesh. Instead of hands and feet the corpse-thing wore the armaments of a bird of prey. Black scales were rough against the hands of it's creator. Its head, cradled upon the goddess's knees, bore a handsome, smooth face sitting beneath long tresses of silky black hair. Its features were still and barren, until her voice echoed through the chamber.

His eyes opened. The left was a vibrant copper, shining and alert. The right was pupil-less, but was instead an inky black with not a trace of white anywhere in the entire eye. Both flicked to focus upon the face above him. His mouth moved hesitantly, as though working around a great weight. Whispers of sound shook from his lips, soft and first but slowly growing in volume. He spoke a single phrase, over and over until it was loud enough for her to hear.

"I…I am awake. And I am yours to command. But," He paused, his expression becoming confused. "I cannot remember… what I am. There are so many pieces, all shouting, all screaming in me. I cannot bear it. Please, tell me."

For a moment, Chae felt something strangely familiar in her cold heart, something warm and glad and proud. For a single, solitary moment, she remembered what it was like to make whole, to heal. But then her creation spoke. Where she expected the gracious contentment of a healed patient, she was met with fear and confusion. Such was the nature of necromantic resurrection; Chae herself knew what it was like to be thrust out of the eternity of death and into messy, bulky reality. She tried not to let her disappointment show, fashioning instead a mostly genuine mask out of patience and pity.

Her hands moved to separate the stray hair and soil from his face, though with the dirt on her own hands it was a futile effort. Mostly it was her cleric’s instinct, long since buried beneath worthier talents, which remembered that touch might bring him comfort. Perhaps it would have the opposite effect. Still she spoke softly through the darkness, only the faint light from under the door illuminating their Madonna.

“You are a tapestry of purpose,” she answered. “An amalgam of perfect parts. You are a revenant, an undead creature called forth by the lich queen to serve. You are an alchemist, a night stalker, an assassin, and a scientist. You are an agent of knowledge, born of the Great Library itself.”

Then there was a phial in her hand, and she was tipping it to his mouth. Truly it was only water, but so was it a test of his trust, his obedience. The water would not drain from little glass, so that he may drink until his thirst was quenched. Chae expected that to take a long time, so she continued. “But truly your being is a thing you must explore for yourself. You will have memories. Use them. You will have instincts. Investigate them. Only you can say what you are, in the end. Now,”

She moved away from him then, standing in a recommendation that he do the same. She could only hope that her size would not distract him, as it did so many others. “I have given you life, among other things, but there is one thing which I cannot give. What is your name, my agent?”