“So they see me hunched over this grave. With spade in hand. Well, I suppose I cannot fault them.” Iben el-Qahhar, or simply, was hands deep in a corpse. Delicately feeling his way up the intestines. “None the less they attack me! I had to run for my life then. Pleading for wisdom wouldn’t have worked then. And that is the story of how I was banished from the fair city of Hayik. Ah, such a wonderful city it is! Almost as beautiful as Karay they say. I hope I can go back some day. When they see the light. My light. They will, of course. When they see what my magic can bring to them. Oh imagine the prosperity and freedom I could offer if only they let me study a little bit longer! Then again, I will admit that some parts of my study are a bit unorthodox.” He said with a smile as he pulled one of his bloodied hands free to show. Before he plunged it in again. “I’m happy to have found this ruined place though. I wonder who build it. It looks old. Very old. Do you think the gods made it? Maybe this was their throne room. Oh, in that case I should give a sacrifice. Wouldn’t want to offend the gods, oh no! Anyway, be a dear and hand me that knife.” He outstretched his hand out towards the skull he was talking to. Which remained unmoving for a moment.
 
“Oh right, silly me. You can’t speak yet.” He said, as he leaned over and grabbed the knife himself. “You know, you do spout a lot of silent wisdom despite being an unliving, unmoving skull.” He said to his boney assistant while he cut the intestine and pull it out. “I wonder who you were when you were alive. Maybe you were like me. Oh, what would that say about me? Do you think I’ll die here too? I hope not. I’ve got a lot of things to do. Oh this poor fellow?” He pulled out the stomach and observed it. The organ had some strange coloration on it. “Probably a toxin from the berries. There were no scratch marks on him so it wasn’t wild animals. Ah, a sad fate but it happens. I’m just happy he decided to donate his body to my research.” The second he lost interest in the stomach he tossed it in the big bin behind him.
 
“Flesh can be so annoying to work with sometimes. I mean look at this fellow.” He pulled up the arm. It was stiff as wood. “Unbendable! Arms are supposed to bend! The maggots will fix you right up though friend. Don’t you worry.” There was still a great deal of work to be done and Iben diligently continued to remove all the organs in the body. None of them were any use for him though. He even managed to scrape away almost all the skin and flesh. It wasn’t enough though. It wasn’t clean. That had been his first mistake. He hadn’t worked with a clean skeleton. So he just threw the bones in a large box with some other human flesh and a lot of maggots inside it. “See you in about a week sweeties!” He said, before he closed the lid and then walked over to the next stone table.
 
Upon it laid the skeleton in humanoid formation. Spread out so he could observe each bone. He pulled up a few clay tablets with runes of his own design. They were a relic from a previous life. The part of his study that transcended the metaphorical death he had experienced. None the less they were a testament to his own ingenuity and  creativity. Or so he liked to brag. It was perhaps his only vice. Well no, it was just his greatest vice. “Right.” He said as he traced his fingers over the lines he had made in the clay so long ago. “Ah, here it is.” He said as he picked up one tablet of clay and set it in some sort of lectern facing towards the body. He crawled on top and lowered his hammer and chisel to the skull. But before he began, he saw his skull assistant sit there, watching him. “Ah, apologies good friend. I didn’t mean for you to see this. Here, let me help you.” He said as he got up and turned the skull around. So it would face away from the skull that was about to be carved.
 
It took an obsessive few hours before Iben had finalized the first rune. After that he chose to eat and sleep. What was, after all, a genius if he was exhausted? Dangerous. So after a good nights sleep and a wonderful dawn, for which he praised Mâh and Cyru respectively, he went about to carve the rest of the skeleton. All around the joints and the connection points. Only by midday did he finalize the carvings upon the skeleton.
 
The second he was done he grabbed his gold-tipped staff, another relic of his previous life. He raised his arms to cast the spell and spoke the words he had made up himself. For a second the runes glowed with soft, blue light. When the glow vanished, the bones began to move. Joints bend. The ribs remained attached. “Yes! Yes, rise! Rise my dear! Rise!” Iben yelled in his excitement. The skeleton managed to sit upright without crumbling. Which had been more of a success than He had managed before.
 
Then it tried to stand up. The second it got up, the weight of the bone shifted. It lacked the human ability to quickly move its feet or shift its weight. Instead the imbalance only got worse. In a second, the entire body came tumbling down. The crash broke the connections between the joints. Making the skeleton fall apart.
 
Iben just crouched down. “Hmmm.” He said as he was rubbing his chin. Others his age would’ve had a respectable black beard going but not him. he couldn’t grow a beard to save his life. “Balance still seems to be an issue. But we’ve made progress, dear old friend. Lots of progress. The laws and guidelines seem to hold though. It stood up on its own. Yes, yes I think we are making good progress.” He gathered the bones again. Luckily none of them were broken or fractured. Carefully he rearranged them on the slab of stone. How much longer could it take until he figured it out?
 
How much time had passed now? A year? More than a year? Perhaps. Maybe. Iben’s research had hit a ceiling with making a skeleton walk. It would appear that bipedal walking was a far more delicate and precise act than he had previously assumed. Sadly it only left him with a new appreciation for his own ability to move around.
 
“Okay. Okay, come on now. Just one… step… at a time.” He carefully said as he held the moving skeleton up like a lover trying to walk again. “Yes, yes, just- wait no! No no no no!” After three steps the skeleton once more fell apart. “Gods damn it!” He yelled out into the morning sky. “Damn you all! Damn you! I have worked for weeks! Tirelessly! I have prayed to all of you! All of you! Not one came here to help me! Not one! Here I am, trying to help the world and there you are doing nothing to help me!” In his rage he even threw a femur away with a frustrated shouted. Suddenly the warmth of the sun was muddled. He looked up and saw a myriad of colors.
 
“Wha-“
 
When Iben woke up, night had already fallen. Had he slept through the day? No, no not slept. Something had hit him. Not a rock. Something else. He scrambled up. The moon hung high in the sky. “Again…I suppose.” He let out a resigned sigh as he gathered the bones. The femur was broken so he had to loan one from another cleaned skeleton. Once more he arrayed the skeleton upon the slab of stone. The carved skull was useless now. He would have to tweak the runes again.
 
The next morning he continued his work. But as he began to carve the runes into the skull, he found something else in his mind as well. After so many years of carving the same sort of runes he could do them with his eyes closed. Yet now the runes came out tweaked. Thinking nothing of it, he continued the work, cast the spell and slowly guided the skeleton to stand up. “Yes. Careful now. First step. Yes, good. Good. Second step. Excellent! Third step… Good! Wonderful! Do you think we can go for a fourth step?” He carefully guided the skeleton forward. The fourth step worked out as well. In fact, as he watched the hips of the skeleton, its movement seemed less stiff and more fluid. Still it was nothing like a human but it was much, much closer. “Do you think I could… release you?” The skeleton didn’t answer. So Iben, slowly, released it and bid it to continue on. When the skeleton took its first step alone, he held his breath. Then the next step came. Something crept up Iben but cautiousness refused to make him believe. Not until the next step. He watched as it took its next step. Its foot came down and… nothing happened. It didn’t crumble or fall. “Oh heavens be praised! Heavens be praised! What a blessing!”
 
[hider=Summary]Iben is a joyful led rummaging inside a corpse to clean it out while talking to a skull. Then he tries to raise a skeleton and make it walk. The second it stands up it crumbles. Turns out bipedal walking isn’t that easy. But he preservers.
 
For years. Until he snaps and shouts at the gods that he is trying to help the world and nobody is helping him. Until a multi-colored miasma knocks him out. When he wakes up, he feels like he has no other choice than to proceed with his research in the meager hope that it will work now. He ends up carving a slightly different set of runes into the skull and commands it to move. To his own surprise it manages to do so without issues. The breakthrough makes him insanely happy.[/hider]
 
[hider=MP, DP & Prestige]
[b]Qael’Naath Start: 5MP/5DP[/b]
- 1DP >> Create Holy Order with title: Motive-Runes I – These specialized runes are required to be carved into a skull. The skeleton is then able to walk (on two or four legs, depending on the design of the skeleton) and use any other limbs without falling over or crumbling. These skeletons do not move very fast nor are they able to traverse bad terrain.
 
(Upgrades for future titles: able to move upper chest and arms (so it can hold things and do various other motions with its arms), allow the skeleton to traverse tougher terrain and/or move )
[b]Qael’Naath Stop: 5MP/4DP[/b]
 
[b]Post Length:[/b] 8.3K
+4 Prestige >> Necromancers
[/hider]