Threads of the Soul

Once the mage was dead, cleaning up the rest of the Hemogoblins was child's play considering they weren't exactly tactical geniuses. After all, they simply kept throwing themselves at the wall, hoping that their numbers would do all the work for them, which was a somewhat sound tactic until it resulted in your numbers being completely culled. So not especially sustainable.

The orb of undulating blood that had hung in the air had simply collapsed when Seth's hail Mary attack struck true, bursting like a macabre water balloon and flooding the field with a tidal wave of blood. The crimson liquid seeped into the soil, making every step they took squelch and suck at their shoes.

But none of that was of concern to Seth. His mind was elsewhere. He had left the control of all his puppets up to the Spirit Animal, even Corvus. Although it was easy for him to do so because the group were currently recovering after the long battle, the puppets were put under orders to dig holes while Corvus was simply sitting to the side 'resting'.

The holes being dug were, naturally, graves. Although he could puppeteer the bloodless corpses that the Hemogoblins had left, but just the thought of it felt… wrong. They were people after all. With the skeletons, it was easier to disassociate with their previous state and treat them more like monstrous undead. But these corpses still looked fresh, so much so that if it wasn't for the gaping hole in most of their chests they would simply look like normal, living people as pale as Seth himself.

Not to mention, Necromancers had a notoriously bad reputation. Who would want to fight alongside someone who desecrated corpses on the regular? To fight and die alongside someone that could bring you back as a lifeless husk of your former self to serve them for eternity.

He could only imagine the horror if one of these corpses were puppeteered and came face to face with someone who knew them in life. No… On all levels, it was just wrong. He hated even thinking about it. The skeletons would be the line, nothing fresh. Not anymore.

There was also the consideration that he was not a necromancer. While he could mimic one, and was currently doing so through his persona of Corvus. At his very core, he was not a Necromancer. He was a Puppeteer. Even though he had been using his threads all this time, he had lost touch with that simple fact.

He had made some progress with the mannequins, especially with the enigma of existence that was Bob, but as soon as he discovered skeletons and creatures like the Ghoul he could puppeteer he fell back into the role of a simple Necromancer. He was limiting himself in the pursuit of immediate power.

[By connecting the threads to an inanimate object, the object is converted into the puppet of the user.]

Scrutinising his mutations description again, he focused on the wording of the last few lines. Those were what were important, not just what they said but also what they didn't. Inanimate object, that's all it said. Clearly corpses came under that description, but so did the mannequins.

He was never limited to corpses, it was stupid to ever focus so much on them. But it also never said that the puppets had to be human shaped.

His eyes drifted towards one of the blood drained animals the Hemogoblins had slaughtered alongside the humans. Without moving, as to not arouse suspicion with the others, he sent his threads over to the animal. Moving them on instinct, they connected to the limbs of the creature and to its body.

Although the body stayed utterly still, as still as the dead thing it was supposed to be, Seth felt the connection form inside his mind.

Just like with all the rest of his puppets, he could see the world from its glassed eyes. He knew that, if he wanted, he could stand it up and add it to his army. But instead, he broke the connection and retrieved the threads.

His puppets were not limited to human style bodies, but he still felt like he was thinking too small.

He thought back to his duel with the mage, how he had killed it with the impossible dagger throw. How it had suddenly turned in the air at the last minute to pierce the mage through its head.

Although the dagger had shattered from the impact with the ground after the fact, he knew that there was something there.

Wrapping his threads around a nearby arrow, he plucked it from the ground and pulled it into his awaiting hand. He twirled it between his fingers for a few moments before gripping it tight, his mind drifting to what had been different about that dagger to allow it to move like that.

'The puppets don't need to be human shaped… But who says that they even have to be bodies at all? I mean… Why can my threads even touch things like this in the first place?'

Opening his hand, Seth looked at the threads wrapped tightly around the thin, metal shaft of the arrow. He had always done that, wrapped them around like it was a hand. Ever since he had discovered that his threads could interact with small objects, he had been using them like some sort of telekinetic grasp. Treating them like just extensions of his fingers, always wrapped fully around the objects. The only time he didn't do that, was with the ones that floated around him.

But those required only one thread to make them float.

Tilting his head, he narrowed his eyes and slowly unravelled the threads that were so tightly wrapped around the arrow's shaft. Then, once no threads were touching it, he slowly guided a single thread to gently touch against the shaft. Not wrap around it, just touch it with the very end like God reaching for the hand of Adam.

Yet even without wrapping it around, the moment the thread made contact the arrow began to float. With merely a thought, Seth was able to make it rise and fall, just like he had done with all the others.

He knew that if he wished, he could use the thread like a rope and tug the arrow through the air like it was a balloon. But he wanted more than that. A useless balloon was not enough.

'If one in the body makes it float… Where do the rest go?'

He considered the arrows movement through the air, not only its natural flight but how the dagger had moved before. Unnatural curves through the air and what would cause such things, how it should move to create them.

Eventually, he settled on a thread at the very tip of the arrow's point, as if it was going to pull it through the air in its usual flight. Another thread was placed on the butt of its shaft behind the fletching, almost to act as a brake, then another two on either side of it to act as steering.

The moment the final thread connected in its rightful place, a chill flooded Seth's body as a new connection was made, forcing him to let out a startled gasp.

An arrow had no eyes to view the world with, so no new sight was added to Seth's mind. Instead he could feel it relative to himself. He knew its distance, to the millimetre if he so wished, and its orientation in the air.

With a thought, an order from its puppet master, the arrow floated into the air once again. Stepping back, Seth left it suspended in the air as he observed it curiously. For a few moments it didn't move, glued in the air as if atop an invisible pedestal, before it began to spin like a drill. Starting slow, but quickly building up speed, the air being sucked in as it formed a spiral around the rotating point of the arrow head until finally it rocketed forward.

Tearing through the air, the arrow shot towards the remains of the once troublesome mage. Yet before it pierced the already decaying flesh, it jerked to an unnatural and impossible stop. Its tip was barely an inch away from the corpse, before the arrow reversed its course and landed back in Seth's hand.

Looking at the arrow, at the unlikely puppet, resting in his outstretched hand, Seth couldn't help but laugh. His grin so wide that it nearly touched his ears as he tossed the arrow back into the air, commanding it to weave through the trees without a care for natural flight.

While the humanoid puppets were restricted to the movements of their body, and ultimately what Seth knew how to move said bodies to achieve certain outcomes. He didn't need to concern himself with limbs or complex movements. It was simply like flying a drone. Accelerate, brake and turn.

An arrow was made to fly, so fly it did. And what a wonderful flight it was.