Despite turning in late I could not sleep immediately, despite the constant failure of my casting of Grave Familiar I still wish to try and find a solution. After closing the door to my room I move towards my desk. It’s only a small room only eight feet across and seven wide with my bed under the window on the far wall with a storage chest beneath it. Off to the right is my desk which has scrolls on it, spare parchment, and a drawer underneath. Moving over I pull the stool out from beneath my desk to open the drawer in order to pull my quill and ink out before sitting down. Soon I begin to go over how the spell works once more from the beginning.

  “Okay, the ritual for Grave Familiar when used on a skeleton failed but not completely, according to Elrich it formed the base ethereal musculature like his skeletal animation does.” I mutter under my breath at the same time as I place my candle down next to me on the desk. “From what I understand most animatic spells tend to follow a similar pattern of creating replicas of the casters' musculature over a prepared structure. Even golem makers follow a similar pattern when crafting their golems.”

  Pausing, I pull out a scroll on the process of making golems along with Elrich’s notes on the skeletal animus spell and look them over. According to Elrich the skeletal animus spell creates the ethereal musculature and connects it to a skeleton. However this musculature needs constant refinement, restructuring, and refreshment over time as it wears out or the casters skill improves. Also the forming can be altered so it will be fitting for what they will do as a bow wielding skeleton will not have the same musculature as one with an axe and shield while wearing armor.

  As for the process of creating a golem it generally creates a more simplistic musculature. However golems tend to have greater strength due to its musculature being more direct and using a metal frame as a base. Most golems however have a limited range of motion in their limbs due to their structure unlike a skeleton that can closely mimic the motions of a living being.

  “From Elrich's observations of my attempts to cast the grave familiar spell it the failure point seems to be in how the mana is being infused in the musculature. When I cast the spell it seems to only allow me to supply the mana for the creation of the musculature and nothing else.” Grabbing the book Torex’s parents gave me last year I open it to a diagram of the musculature I created with the spell. Looking it over I examine it once more compared to the version made by skeletal animus looking futilely searching once more for a missing part of the musculature’s network.

  “All the attempts we made to supply more mana into the network and strengthen its connection have failed so far. Even draining a mana orb to reinforce the casting has failed to produce results.” I bemoan while hunched over the desk. “It’s almost like it's missing a mana source but the spell should draw it from me for the skeletons movements unlike an infected zombie would.”

  Almost despite myself that statement on a zombie reminds me of a lesson Elrich gave me on why no one sane necromancer uses zombies. It’s all due to the distrust caused by a few individuals that discovered how to create infectious zombies to get past their inability to control more than ten undead at once. Due to animated undead’s constant drain on the mana from the caster it is hard to manage more than ten at a time. However an infected individual still generates their own mana from their core so the caster just needs to maintain control instead which costs drastically less mana. Unfortunately the infection takes days to work so it caused a spiral effect of a fleeing bandit infecting a town when he died and rose as an uncontrolled zombie leading to a ban on zombie like undead.

  Nowadays most necromancers use less than ten undead so they can both cast spells while empowering the undead they have. All the while they slowly regenerate their own mana at a positive rate. Once an individual reaches the expert tier those individuals are able to manage more than fifteen undead due to having decades of experience and being protected at all times in combat.

  Going over my thoughts on the matter and my notes I wonder out loud, “It’s almost as if my animated skeletons are missing a core themselves and need a power source. I could consider asking for a low rank magical beast core to embed into the skeleton to supplement the network.” Before I snorted at that thought reminding myself of what I was told last time I asked about using a core. “Even a low rank beast's core has hundreds of more important uses than a temple ward’s spells.”

  With a grimace I lean back in my chair before hearing a voice from the door. “So you were not aware of how loud you were talking or that the window is open right now would that be correct Thomas?” Speaks Cleric Jacob with a small frown on his face.

  Looking over to see my window is indeed still open at this moment I turn back to the cleric and slump slightly while looking to the side. “Sorry, I did not realize I left the window open this morning and for my volume.” I mumble out while putting my notes to the side and capping my ink well up “I’ll head to bed now. my apologies again”.

  “It is fine Thomas just be mindful of your surroundings especially in the sleeping quarters thankfully it is still early in the night for most to be bothered and I interrupted you before it could truly wake others up.” Spoke the Cleric softly. “Now do get some rest. I feel like you will need it in the morning. Good night Thomas.” He says before closing my door softly.

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  With a sigh and a mumbled goodnight to Jacob I snuff my candle out and change into my sleepwear and lay down to rest. The night is filled with dreams of the spell working and the start of my own journey. For a good two hours before I feel a tapping on my shoulder waking up to see a skull looming over my face illuminated by the green light from its eyes and a small candle in its right hand. With a groan I begin to sit up as Nicol backs away to the door and beckons for me to stand.

  “Welp I guess Elrich found out about my talent or that I disturbed Jacob again.” I mumble grogily as I grab my trousers and coat and haphazardly throw them on and grab my book and the scroll containing the results of the journey’s path ritual. Once I am ready I turn to the skeleton saying. “Alright Nicol lead the way and please do not drag me around.”

  Without hesitation the skeleton turns on its heel with a slight scrape on the ground and marches away with me right behind it. Without pause we make our way to the main hall and file out the main entrance heading right for the mort house. As we approach the door opens with Elrich standing in the entryway, his form illuminated by the light from Fulusmorn overhead.

  “Good you did not waste our time by being lazy. Come in, we have testing to do. Also do not complain about the time, it's also a punishment for disturbing the others earlier.” Elrich orders while destroying my notion of trying to get him to push this off until the sun is up.

  “Alright, I suppose Bishop Reginald told you about the fact I used the journey’s path ritual earlier?” I ask before yawning for a moment and continuing, “Also please tell me you have some tea inside waiting for us already.”

  Elrich snorts, “Of course I have tea for work this early. As for your other question Regi did indeed inform me that you cast the ritual but not of its results do you still have your scroll?”

  Nodding, I step inside and see he emptied the slabs and cleaned them off. It appears Elrich set one up as a table once again even so I move to that one and place the scroll down.

  “Here you go, In short I reached rank eight and selected two talents, Flame Caller, and Grave Ignition.” As I sit down I notice Elrich has already opened the scroll, his eyes gazing over the information. With a shrug I grab the pot on and the cups and pour each of us a cup of tea.

  “Hmmm, Grave Ignition an interesting name and its description is indeed an oddity, a flame that burns in the core of graves.” Pausing to take a sip of the tea I set in front of him he looks at me. “Have you cast your ignite flame spell yet after selecting this talent?”

  “No I have not yet but even if I did shouldn’t that talent affect the Grave Familiar spell only?” I question him confused

  His response is immediate, “That is not accurate. In truth you see the talent associated with your affinity spell tends to apply to all spells you learn even if it does not state so. Take Lauren’s persistent infusion talent it will not just affect the light infusion but all infusion spells she learns. It can even allow certain spells such as ignite flame to have a lower mana cost over time so the flame it makes can be held longer.”

  Mulling over this information for a moment it does explain why Torex’s electric jump applies to every spell he learns and how it would impact his future choices. Looking at my palm I speak, “Alright lets test this out then.” as I raise my hand palm upwards and ignite a small flame in my palm.

  The green flame I have grown used to seeing appears once more in my hand faster and more intense than before thanks to the flame caller talent. Peering into the flame as it flickers and dances casting the soft green glow across my face. Looking up I meet Elrich’s eyes as he places a candle in between us. Without needing to be told I move my hand towards the candle and manipulate my mana to maneuver the flame onto the tip of my fingers in order to ignite the wick. Once I’m done I move my hand back and cancel the flow of mana into the spell in order to snuff out the flame on my palm.

  As the green flame vanishes from my hand I look back across at Elrich the green glow of the candle I lit illuminating our features.

  “Well that is an interesting change I must say.” Elrich speaks with a grin forming on his face.

  “What, did you notice something with the spell when I cast it?” I question

  “You could say that, it is an interesting conundrum I'm seeing but I think we might be onto something now.” He states while leaning forwards to look at the candle's flame “Just one small thing of note recast your Ignite Flame spell would you.”

  Giving him an odd look as he stares into the flame I shrug before lifting my palm and once again casting the spell “Okay not sure what that will do but if your surrr….” Trailing off as the color of the flame on the candle registers to me and I cast my spell, reigniting the flame on my palm that shines with the same green.

  “Seems like something did change after all didn’t it.” Elrich states as my eyes lock onto the flame as I cancel and recast the spell and each time the color remains steady. While I do so Elrich lights his own candle with a green flame before we cancel our spells causing his candle to change to yellow and mine remain a steady green. “I think we might be onto something, what do you say?” As his grin gets wider both of our eyes remain locked on the pair of flicker candle flames.

  “I think you might be right, Elrich.” As I take note of something else, something only I can tell, a small but consistent drain on my mana reserves that vanish as I reach forward and manually snuff out the green flame.