Never Die Twice

In the end, Walter Tye walked out of Hel’s dungeon carrying Asclepius’ phylactery in his hands, and nothing else. Hel had vanished alongside her servants, probably intending to wait out for Medraut to strike first.

The necromancer’s followers hadn’t said a word for the entire trip, mulling over what they had learned. Tye, considering the situation critical, hadn’t held anything in reserve; truth be told, the necromancer desperately wished to find a solution. The more brains working on the matter, the better.

For uncovering the darkest, secret lore of the Nine Realms, you earned four levels in [Loremaster]. You earned the [Runelord] and [Craft Yellow Sign] class Perks.

+30 HP, +80 SP, +8 INT, +4 CHA, +4 LCK.

[Runelord]: You understand, speak, read, and write all languages. Additionally, you can craft [Runes] instantly, and without needing a surface; if you do so, the symbol will fly in the air for ten seconds before disappearing.

[Craft Yellow Sign]: You learn to craft the heretical rune known as the Yellow Sign. Those seeing it, except you, must succeed a Charisma check or suffer from permanent [Madness] and [Enthrall] ailments. Whether the target resists the effect, as long as they still remember the sign, you can use [Mind] magic on them regardless of the distance.

“Tye…” Annie mumbled as they left the depths of the dungeon for the open skies. “Can it be done?”

“What?”

“Destroying a soul?”

That was the question Tye had hoped to avoid because while he had a theory, he couldn’t prove or disprove it. “The law of conservation of matter and energy postulates that neither can be created nor destroyed, only transformed,” the necromancer said. “If we apply the same principle to souls, then they cannot be destroyed, only transformed.”

The fact their souls were trapped in an endless cycle of death and rebirth through the will of the Yggdrasil System would tend to confirm it. If Hel was truly the World Tree’s gardener as she claimed, feeding it the souls of the dead, then the true destruction of a soul would go against her agenda.

However, she had also started acting very irrationally lately. Her intentions towards him made Tye shiver in disgust.

“Then where do the souls go when someone is killed by an Earthlander?” Annie kept asking.

“The waters of Yggdrasil,” Lady Yseult spoke up darkly.

“The likeliest possibility.” Tye nodded, glancing at the skies where his undead servants brought souls back to the Nastrond portal. He immediately noticed their numbers seemed to have thinned. “Sacred Weapons probably return the souls of their victims to the waters, transforming them back into primordial energy. The soul loses its individuality and memories, absorbed into the Yggdrasil System and reborn during the next cycle.”

“So we can extract a soul from the waters,” Annie said firmly.

“It would be like extracting a specific drop of water from the ocean,” Tye replied grimly.

“Neither Medraut nor Hel will give us time to prepare,” Hagen spoke the harsh truth.

The deific necromancer nodded, before raising a hand. A gargoyle in his service, carrying lost souls towards the portal, approached. “Where are the others?” Tye asked him.

“Demons and dark elves, my lord,” the gargoyle replied. “Loki’s servants are gathering in large groups. They attacked us wherever our paths crossed, but never gave pursuit. It was as if they were waiting for a signal.”

Tye had considered returning alone in the dungeon and killing Loki personally, but decided against it, at least in the short term. Yes, the trickster god was a cruel being working to hasten Ragnarok, but he was a foe of the Aesir first and foremost. While the Calamities’ victory was the worst scenario possible, Tye would rather keep the gods’ attention divided rather than entirely focused on his person. Better let these petty deities slaughter each other, and exploit the chaos.

It had worked for his previous incarnation.

The thought made Tye bitter. He truly started to resent this constant feeling of déjà vu, of walking the same road without awareness of it.

“Tell the others to sound a full retreat,” Tye ordered the gargoyle. “We cannot afford to take more losses, and we have what we came for.”

“You no longer want to free these poor souls?” Lady Yseult asked with a frown, much to his surprise.

“Have you changed your mind, m’lady?” Hagen replied, amused.

“I admit that what I have seen today... broadened my perspective.” Lady Yseult glanced at Tye. “What happened to the Princess, to Prince Arthur, and so many others… While I defended it once, it is now clear to me that this place is built on injustice. I do not condone your lies, but… I understand your motivation, Walter. Helheim has to go.”

Tye was too modest to boast about his righteousness, although he truly wanted to. “I will empty this place,” the necromancer promised. “But I expect dangerous times ahead, and the more we spread, the easier it will be for Hel or her allies to tear us apart.”

“What Hel did to Takeru…” Annie shook her head. “She has to pay for it.”

She would.

As they reached the portal on foot, a white vampire rat crossed it, carrying a letter in his mouth. Tye used telekinesis to open it, reading the report signed by Mockingbird. As he analyzed the content, he fell into a deep, worried silence.

“Walter?” Lady Yseult asked, sensing his unease.

“Camelot has been sacked.”

Annie gasped, while Lady Yseult frowned; only Hagen didn’t sound surprised. Tye handed over the letter and let them read the horror for themselves.

Medraut had marched on the capital, already in chaos two weeks after the royal family’s destruction, and torched it to the ground. The surviving Royal Knights dispersed, the skulls of Jarls and commoners alike were piled up into a pillar taller than the city’s walls, and twenty thousand prisoners had been fed to giant wolves and snakes.

According to Mockingbird, ten undead warriors fought at Medraut’s side, each a match for the strongest of the Royal Knights. Their victims had been raised as undead thralls, to slaughter the citizens they protected in life.

The message was clear. The Calamities’ forces had risen to wage a war of annihilation under the banner of their chosen champion. They expected no quarter and gave none. Mockingbird also noted temperature was dropping all around Midgard, winter coming three months early.

Ragnarok was approaching, centuries ahead of schedule.

“What about the Academy’s remnants?” Annie asked, panicked, as Lady Yseult kept reading. “The army?”

“They retreated,” the priestess replied, her face pale. “The churches asked them to secure the northern regions and not to engage with the invaders yet.”

“They won’t stop Medraut?” Hagen seemed confused. “Why?”

“The Aesir and Vanir consider his victory inevitable,” Tye guessed. “They believe he will destroy the root and start Ragnarok, so they keep their soldiers in reserve for their own final battle.”

Silence stretched on until Annie broke it. “Tye,” she said, “we need Gwen.”

“Annie—"

“She’s the only one who can convince the Royal Army to help,” his apprentice pointed out. “Not you, not me. Her.”

“Chief,” Hagen spoke up, “She is right. The princess can become an asset, if only as a bargaining chip.”

“You said she was more trouble than she was worth hours ago,” Tye replied, astonished by his sudden change of tune.

“She is troublesome,” Hagen agreed. “But at least she will fight for the living. Even if she can only convince five hundred knights to join, that means five hundred people we can throw at Medraut. If he has raised the Royal Knights from the dead, then he outnumbers us in power and numbers.”

“After all the troubles she caused us—”

“Plans must be adapted to changing circumstances,” the Dullahan cut him off.

“You said an apprentice should explore paths their master hasn't considered,” Annie insisted. “This is one.”

“If you hold on to old grudges without thinking rationally, you will become ruled by them,” Lady Yseult added. “Isn’t it the reason why the Death Knight is marching on us today? Do you wish to tread the same path?”

Tye winced, but the arguments hit the mark. He had been letting his grudge against the royal family dictate his judgment. The princess was now opposed to both the Aesir and Hel, the latter having enslaved her brother.

Mmm… perhaps she could indeed be turned against his enemies after he purged her of Hel’s divine essence.

“She has only ever seen your ugly side,” Annie argued further, “And I’m sorry to say that, but you have an ugly side. If you can sit around a table and speak—”

“I tried to parley,” Tye reminded them. “You all blew me off.”

“After you murdered the young Lamor and Sir Sigurd in front of the princess, before trying to kill her too,” Lady Yseult pointed out, her face darkening. “You are not innocent in this conflict, Walter.”

The necromancer marked a short pause. “I will think about it,” he said, “after we oversee the situation in Nastrond.”

Annie made a face, but that was the best deal she would get, and she wisely didn’t push it. “Walter,” Lady Yseult cleared her throat, “I wish to assist in the city’s defense.”

Tye immediately understood what she meant. “Are you certain?”

“I have no more faith in my god,” Lady Yseult replied, before smiling sadly, “But… I have faith in you, Walter. I believe you have good intentions, and while I do not condone the chaos you spread to reach your current place, you fight for life. I will not worship you, but—”

“I do not ask for worship,” Tye replied. “Only for forgiveness.”

The priestess’ smile turned happier, and she offered a slow nod.

Lady Yseult’s [Priest of Balder] class transformed into [Priest of Nidhogg].

The Pale Serpents may have fallen… like a hydra, they were growing new heads.

Twenty miles.

Such was the range of Tye’s [Dark Lord of Nastrond] Perk, centered around his cathedral; it allowed him to sense almost everything within Lyonesse and its surroundings.

As he sat within his center of power, the root of Yggdrasil now black as charcoal and its waters foul and purple, Tye closed his eyes and focused. The phylactery of his old mentor Asclepius pulsated with energy next to the cathedral’s murals, slowly reforming the lich’s body.

After closing the portal to Helheim, Tye had immediately ordered martial law and for all his forces to mobilize. Hagen, whom he had put in charge of the city’s defenses, gathered every soldier available and organized them into groups. Most were undead raised by his master’s power, and a few immortals had signed on, including Mockingbird, Percy, and a few others.

But they were too few. Most civilians and refugees had fled north, to join the kingdom’s remnants. They didn’t understand the threat ahead of them, or perhaps they still thought the Aesir would offer them greater protection than Nastrond’s forces.

Meanwhile, Medraut had established a large camp in the west but hadn’t made a move towards Lyonesse yet; stopping just short of the twenty miles frontier. With each day, cultists from all of Midgard, barbarians from the west, monsters and other horrors joined his ranks. Many in Nastrond wondered when Medraut would make a move, but the necromancer already knew the answer.

When the Convergence with Muspelheim, the one Arthur and Gwenhyfar had originally come to reinforce Lyonesse against, would start in one month… fire giants would join this army and march on the root. Tye’s divinations told him Surtr himself, the mightiest of the Calamities, would rip the tear open.

The stakes were clear.

If Medraut reached the root, he would destroy it and start Ragnarok.

With Avalon in chaos, this was the Calamities’ best chance to earn their freedom. They would throw all their forces into the fray to ensure Medraut’s victory. As for Hel, she would use the battle to weed out the undead, and then finish off the survivors with her pets before restarting the Cycle.

Tye only had one month to prepare, and every second counted.

Hagen had settled on an unusual strategy, meant to maximize the enemy’s losses of life and delays with no regard for supply lines. Mages rebuilt the walls, gargoyles erected new moats around the city, bombs were placed everywhere, and ambush slimes released in the countryside. All infrastructures were dedicated to producing weapons or golems, the elixir distributed to every fighter, every corpse raised. Lady Yseult raised magical barriers capable of repelling enemy demons, while Annie bunkered in her workshop to produce magical items.

In short, Lyonesse and its countryside would become a huge dungeon.

For as long as the root remained beyond Medraut’s reach, the dead would pile up on either side, only to arise thanks to Tye’s own [Calamity Force (Age of Undeath)] Perk. While they had the advantage in numbers and levels, if the Calamities’ forces couldn’t take the cathedral quickly enough, their own dead would rise against them; and Tye’s own abilities would prevent them from teleporting into the city.

While he left the tactical details to his lieutenants, Tye focused on internal security; he could read the mind of every person within his sphere of influence, even those of Loki’s priests. Two hundred infiltrators and cultists had been arrested so far, their souls extracted and bound to servitude, their corpses raised to join the legions of the undead.

Would that be enough?

“My lord.”

Tye’s wandering mind returned to the cathedral, his eyes opening to glance at a reborn lich.

Asclepius was exactly as in his apprentice’s old memories, although denied his mighty artifacts and magical items; the phylactery, now safe from Hel’s grasp, had rebuilt the lich’s skeletal body, but not his clothes. With a snap of his fingers, the undead warlock summoned a hooded cloak of shadows to protect himself.

“It has been a long time,” the lich said, observing the undead Calamity before him with respect, pride, and reverence. “When I left you, you were the apprentice. Now you have become the master.”

“One can never truly master anything.” Tye joined his hands; in his Calamity form, he towered over his old teacher, their prior relationship inverted. “There is always more to learn. I see that now.”

“The only limit to the accumulation of knowledge is time,” Asclepius nodded, observing his former apprentice closely. It had been decades since they last met, and Tye expected something warmer, more familiar.

Instead, a rift of doubt had opened between them. Tye decided to dispel it immediately.

“Did you work with Loki, Grandmaster?”

The answer came immediately, with no hesitation.

“Yes.”

Tye’s fingers tensed.

“But in all things, I have always been your faithful servant,” Asclepius said, bowing slightly. “And I shall prove it right now.”

Every time an undead had started paying homage to him, Tye had sensed an invisible link forming between them. But this time, Asclepius established no new connection; he reawakened an ancient bond, older than Tye’s own birth, slumbering for so long that he had forgotten its existence.

Asclepius’ [Priest of Loki] class transformed into [Priest of Nidhogg].

“You were a priest of Nidhogg, here, in Nastrond,” Tye muttered mentally, his old master nodding. “So it was true...”

“The trickster and I used each other,” the lich said. “The fool wished to avoid his well-deserved fate, I needed a patron to power my spellcasting. I offered the same agreement to Odin, exchanging knowledge for safety; I put them against each other, biding my time until your glorious rebirth. While working for opposing forces, both were always more similar than different.”

“So it was all for the Great Work?” Tye asked, eager to find a justifiable explanation for his mentor’s behavior. “You did not plan to help in causing Ragnarok?”

“Ragnarok…” The lich shook his head. “I aimed to transcend this pointless cycle of life and death, as my lord did. As for the Great Work, it stands before me, poised to rule the Nine Realms.”

Walter marked a short pause afterward. “Grandmaster?”

The lich raised his eyes at the Calamity, his hollow eyes shining with an intensity that Tye found almost frightening.

“My lord Nidhogg… you… you are a supreme existence that transcends this pointlessness. You are the first undead, a creature older than time, defeated yet never destroyed. Children cannot rule the Nine Realms. There can only be one ruler of the world… and who could be better suited for it, than a being older than it?”

It was the same intensity Tye had once seen in Lady Yseult’s eyes when she spoke of Balder once. Except Aclepius’ devotion had never wavered, even in the depths of Hel. “I have no desire to rule,” the necromancer protested. “I yearn for immortality, as you taught me to.”

“Our research was but a step. Don’t you see, my lord?” The lich froze for a moment, coming to a realization. “Your memories haven’t returned.”

“No, but I have completed the Great Work all the same,” Tye replied proudly, showing his old master the [Necromancer’s Stone] and the elixir production systems, pumping the waters of Yggdrasil. “I created the elixir of life and the perfect resurrection spell. If we can push back Medraut, then immortality for all will finally be within reach.”

He expected congratulations, but his old teacher remained eerily silent.

“The potions and spells you crafted are wonderful inventions,” Asclepius finally said, sounding a little disappointed. “But they pale before the glorious era your mere existence brings into this world.”

His lack of reaction bothered Tye, more than he would like to admit. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“The human condition is a mere step stone towards a greater state,” Asclepius replied. “Undeath, and the immortality it represents, is the pinnacle of evolution, the perfection which all life naturally aspires to become. When the gods tried to lay him low, Lord Nidhogg prophesied the coming of an Age of Undeath. An eternal era without death, without gods; the wheel of fate broken. An era you naturally bring into being, merely by existing.”

“The [Calamity Force] Perk?” Tye frowned beneath his hood.

“Your existence hastens Ragnarok, like rot in an apple,” Asclepius said. “But when the tree will die for the final time, it shall rise again; not as a seedling, but as an undead. You are the Great Work, Walter.”

A world of undead and immortals, rebuilt on the ashes of the old?

This… this was what Medraut was fighting for, alongside the end of this cycle. What he said he was fighting for, following Asclepius’ will. “You would let the Nine Realms be destroyed?” Tye asked, aghast.

“My lord, if we let Ragnarok happen, we can reshape the next universe into the deathless world you envisioned,” the lich said. “One free of these false gods fighting over the scraps.”

Walter’s shoulders sank, as he realized the [Death Knight] had spoken the truth. His old master had conspired to end the world, and then raise it from the dead like any human corpse.

“I have no desire to bring Ragnarok,” Tye said, disappointed in his old teacher’s secret ambitions. “I shall bring immortality for all, but I have no desire to see the cosmos set ablaze as a stepping stone.”

“Whether or not Ragnarok happens is of no consequence,” the lich replied callously. “So long as you exist, the Age of Undeath will begin. I simply suggest it as the easiest option.”

Had he always been like this? Then again, Tye himself had accepted starting Ragnarok as a potential fallout of his plan. But now that he had achieved his ambitions and found a workable road to immortality for all human beings, he saw it as a waste of resources, and most importantly, a huge risk for the universe.

Walter Tye may have been Nidhogg once, this was no longer true.

“I shall not start Ragnarok,” the necromancer insisted. “Even if Medraut thinks otherwise.”

“Your wishes are my own,” the lich said. “As for Medraut, I foresaw his madness. I fear he will not bend the knee.”

“He will not relent,” Tye agreed. “He has raised an army and joined the Calamities in your name. To destroy the root.”

“Medraut is lying to himself,” Asclepius said. “He cares no longer for the Great Work, but to take vengeance on a world that was unfair to him. I can try to talk him out for you, but reason cannot touch a heart ruled by passion.”

Yes… if Tye had Cywyllog, she could have talked some sense into her husband. “I still wish you to try.”

The lich obeyed, ever loyal to his grand purpose.

But instead of relief… Walter Tye had never felt so alone.