Memoirs of a Necromancer

I was always obsessed with dead things. More so than the living. The living are deceitful. The living have agendas and more often than not they hide them. It’s hard to determine if you’re being used for something, if you’re entertainment or if someone genuinely cares. If you’re a prey or even worse, just a plaything.

Dead things have one agenda. Mine.
After all, I command them. My Minions.

Of course necromancy is frowned upon. I still don’t quite understand why. I mean, who does it hurt if I breathe new life into a dead baby dragon, to be at my side and lend me company. The illusion of a friend. Summon old bones to defend me, a Deadra to ride and a ghost to heal. What of it, that I have the ability to enhance my protection by assembling a totem from the disregarded.

The dead don’t mind, their spirits are long gone. So why do the living…
Again, agendas – or fear – maybe?

Regardless of the social fury surrounding the art I have found a way to practice it.
It is an artform after all.
Those were the words my teacher used, an old, shriveled man. Ghastly at times, with a spiteful laugh that made even my skin crawl. But he was smart too and cunning and his agenda was very clear: to learn, to teach and to broaden his mind to new possibilities. I mean there was another one but I shall get around to elaborate on that topic later.

I can honestly say that I admired him a bit.
So much so, that my family got worried about the amount of time I spent in his company.

He taught me how to summon even the biggest monstrosities. He taught me how to provide power to my allies and take it from my enemies.
How, you wonder?
Well, there was quite a bit of “sneaking around” involved to be entirely honest.
Bones don’t grow on trees but they are left to rot in cemeteries, places of worship, battlefields, dungeons and my personal favorite: prisons.

Why are prisons my favorite? One could assume the hassle of breaking in would deter people of my profession from using those bones.
Well, I don’t want to sound superstitious or anything, but it always seemed to me as though prisons and foes have more potent bones. As if they were tougher somehow.
Now of course no studies have proven this feeling of mine and my mentor used to call me deranged for thinking so in the first place, but I think even he still had a thing or two to learn.
Of course you would rather catch him dead than admitting that he could learn something from me.

Yes, that is disdain you can detect in the words I use.
Don’t get me wrong, I learned a lot in my time with him.
But do not mistake my ability to recognize the successful passing of knowledge for fondness or even respect.
I digress. Once again.
Malidic always did say my mind was easily distracted.

Back to the point. I was talking about my artform, profession or illegal activities. Depending on how you want to look at it.
I tried for a very long time to do all of it all at once. Particularly since that one day.
Through the method of proper experimenting – theory, practice, error, back to the drawing board – I found that my talents lay elsewhere.
I am NOT very skilled in attracting enemies. They are a bit too scary and I just don’t have the nerve or bravery to run into a fight head on. Never had it, probably, unless there is something or someone worth fighting for, never will.
Definitely not one for killing things. Yes, yes, I can hear the uproar “but you’re a Necromancer, you deal with dead things all the time!”. Correct. Dead. Not un-aliving them.
They are already dead when they are being used by me. I don’t have any problem with the bodies still being warm, but I do not want to be the one sniffing out that light in their eyes.
I would much prefer to stay at a safe distance. Use the already deceased to give them one last moment of glory.
One last moment to shine. For the right cause of course. Again. Mine.

Now if only there was a way I could do it all, I don’t think I would anyhow. Seems too daunting.
At one point it seemed less daunting than asking for help. But I guess it is time to jump over my shadow and find a companion to help. An actual person, although with every fiber of my being I do not trust people, but maybe there is someone out there I can trust. Someone who knows pain as I do. Someone fighting the same battle as me.
The battle with death – although my parents didn’t intend my interpretation of that name.

I do take that liberty of interpreting the name my parents gave me a bit differently.
They found me in a swamp. In Murkmire of all places. Who leaves an infant in a swamp. Unprotected, in the middle of nowhere.
When my parents, or well, the people I came to know and love as parents found me I was very sickly already close to taking my last breath. And in true Argonian fashion they gave me a name to help me walk through life. Or in their words “strive”.
They always had a nick for the theatrical.

They loved me. I know they did. They made sure I wanted for nothing.
Nothing but freedom.
To make my own choices. To make my own mistakes. I couldn’t stay in their protection forever. They wanted me to strive. But only so long I strove in their path.
Only so long I followed in their footsteps and surpassed them in their accomplishments.
They loved me very much. But as big as their hearts were, their minds were small.
I still remember the day I told them I wanted to follow Malidic and learn from him.

… A dark day it was … but I guess I can always take solace in the fact that even though they had hoped and wished differently, they have always loved me.

Enough of that.
Let’s focus on the turning point in my life. You know, everyone has that one or maybe series of events that truly shapes them into who they are meant to be.
In my personal and very unpopular opinion there is not much to do but accept it.
Then again as you may have noticed by now, I am quite excellent at doing or thinking unpopular things.

We were on the topic of me admiring a living man. A man I thought was straight with his agendas. He had been a practitioner of Necromancy all his life, he said. He did prefer Mannimarco’s methods. Rather than Vasterie’s. I am not going to give you one of his history lessons on Necromancy as with enough time spent in a library you will find enough conflicting stories yourself. All I can say is that Necromancy has the potential to be both cruel or soothing to a soul depending on the intent and application of the artform.

Now whilst Malidic was a cruel man, and therefore preferred to inflict as much pain on the subjects he used, I was never all too fond of hurting anyone. So I developed my own version of the application.
To start a dialog with the souls used if they still reside or, to respect the bones if the souls have long passed on.
I do have to say, speaking with the dead is fairly easy. They are just so much more reasonable than the living. Maybe once deceased there is a clarity overcoming the mind? Maybe the dead do know more than the living.
But that is a philosophical question for another day.

Even though our approaches to Necromancy differed strongly I still respected Malidic for his knowledge, expertise and devotion to teach and learn new findings every waking second.

But then one day I came across an odd scribbling of his.
In which – much to my devastation – he planned to kill me, keep my soul and all my knowledge trapped and use it for his own twisted version of bringing justice to the world.
He had the theory that through my dialog with the souls I intended on summoning I had a much deeper understanding of the craft and therefore could help him tame much bigger souls, much more powerful beings. Maybe, so was his hope, even Daedra, which had been long forgotten.
Blasphemy of course, but he yearned for power and to a madman, reason is beyond grasp.

It was on that day, that I lost the little faith I had in the living. It was on that day that I decided to keep all interactions to a minimum. Keep to myself and work on becoming the best at what I do.

And so my journey continued.
Surrounded by people, yet truly alone.

Until the day I met her. A light so bright it melted the darkness that had encased my heart.
And all I wanted, all I protected, all I needed to succeed in – was to make her happy.