Beneath the Victory - Part 3

An individual building sat on the edge of the center province with nothing attached to it as though it were distinctly being avoided. There was no sign, just a plain door that Emery approached without hesitation. Victor watched from behind as he was already quickly sobering up.

“Victor, the morgue is through here, I’m sure Felix is already downstairs.”

The general groaned before stomping his way over to the door. Emery held it open and laughed to himself.

“Like an angry child.”

Emery led the two of them down a flight of stairs. The deeper they got, the colder it became.

“What’s going on down here Emery? Why do I feel like my teeth are about to start chattering?”

Emery turned around and made eye contact with the general.

“This is no ordinary morgue my friend, this is the work of a flowcrafter.”

Victor cocked his head back and to the side as the two entered the room to see Felix and another man standing across a table from him.

“General, this is Edmund Barrow, a flowcrafter who has designed a morgue in which we can preserve bodies in.”

Edmund grinned broadly under his mustache, taking Victor’s hand and shaking it enthusiastically.

“Thank you for the introduction Emery. Mr. Warwick, I’d like to introduce you to the modern age of autopsy performance and storage.”

Edmund walked the general over to the left side of the room.

“If you see here there are numerous large drawers along this wall. Go ahead and pull one of them.”

Victor grabbed the icy handle and dragged it backward.

“Oh god!”

He turned away in disgust.

“Why is there a corpse frozen in your drawer? What sort of disturbed place is this!?”

Mr. Barrow reached his hand to the general’s shoulder while waving the other.

“I apologize sir, I should have explained beforehand. I discovered early on in my flowcraft studies that I was able to adjust the temperatures of my flow quite accurately. Enough to create cool water and even freeze it.”

He closed the drawer.

“I befriended Mr. Montclair early in our days of magic, even before our disciplines were assigned. He often took me to the back of the Ascentia houses that his family owns.”

Victor put his hand up interrupting Edmund and looked over at Felix conversing with Emery to the right.

“Are you telling me all the Montclair Houses of Ascentia belong to his family?”

Edmund called his attention back with a wave.

“Yes sir, and it was quite common that funerals were held at those locations. That’s where I discovered I could freeze corpses.”

Victor reverted his attention to Mr. Barrow.

“So what’s the benefit of this concept?”

Edmund pointed to the sheet covering a large object sitting on the table. He walked over and revealed the body of the undead soldier. Victor approached it from afar.

“So your ability to control the temperature of these bodies preserves the corpse from decaying. Is that what you’re telling me?”

Mr. Barrow nodded his head confirming the guess.

“Yes, it seems that a large percentage of our bodies are made of water and my flowcraft abilities allow me to manipulate that.”

Victor stood closer to the body eyeing it with disgust.

“So, flowcrafter Edmund Barrow, your excitement with meeting me earlier wouldn’t happen to have something to do with a connection to my military rank would it?”

Edmund scratched his head looking down at the ground.

“Well, I just…the military has so many corpses they encounter. It’s a lot more respectful of our soldiers to preserve their bodies for a respectful burial than simply to dump them in mass graves when they’re no longer useful.”

The general looked back at the left wall of drawers organized to fit at least twenty bodies on one side.

“It’s an interesting proposition, now that things have relaxed, I’ll actually be at my office in town. Bring a full documentation of how your system works as well as a backstory for it.”

Mr. Barrow’s eyes lit up as he smiled ecstatically.

“Yes sir, I’ll have it first thing tomorrow.”

Emery turned away from Felix and waved for the general’s attention.

“Are you two finally finished with the sales pitch? There’s work to be done.”

Victor’s eyes lined up with Emery’s.

“Were you in on this too?”

Emery scratched the back of his head, eyes wandering off.

“Well I’ve known Edmund for some time and when he presented the idea to me it made a lot of sense. I didn’t plan this interaction, but I figured it would happen at some point.”

Emery looked back at the body on the table.

“General, Mr. Montclair and I have spent the last few minutes discussing what’s in front of us.”

Victor nodded while stroking his chin as Emery grabbed the sheet and moved it further down the body revealing the lower half. He held out his hand and with a flash of light summoned his scalpel from earlier. He proceeded to point out a line across the stomach of the body.

“Notice the line here stretching from one side to the other. We believe this is the point where the bottom half attached itself to the top half.”

Victor analyzed the highlighted line.

“It looks as though a welder tried to perform fleshcraft.”

Emery nodded as his brows lined inward and mouth straightened.

“It is quite shoddy workmanship, but it’s for that reason that we’ve concluded this couldn’t be the work of standard thanaturgy reanimation.”

Victor pointed to another object beneath a sheet.

“I don’t suppose that’s the head I removed?”

Felix covered his mouth as he gave a chuckle.

“It is indeed, I got a nice look at that too and we believe that may have also been previously attached to the upper body.”

Emery pointed to the neck lining where Victor’s sword made contact. A little bit beneath that was a similar looking welding job as the stomach area below.

“This undead soldier did rise multiple times so who’s to say that it hadn’t already been beheaded once before.”

Victor releases a large sigh of disappointment.

“So what’s the reason it stopped returning to life in the end? If we go off the presumption that it was already beheaded then there’s no reason that my work was any different.”

There was a simultaneous pause among the group as they reflected on the order of events until Emery snapped his fingers.

“The man with the wagon!”

Victor looked at Emery, his eyebrows curved down.

“Who?”

Emery smacked his hand against his forehead.

“The guy who picked this man up, he looked like he was talking to this body after it was deemed permanently dead.”

The general tilted his head up envisioning the moment.

“Are you talking about the death wagoneer?”

Felix leaned a little over the table, hands steadying him with his grip on the edge.

“He must have been reading this man’s death rites.”

Victor turned to Felix.

“And what exactly are death rites?”

Emery gave Victor a small nudge with his hand.

“How could you not know what death rites are when all you do is kill?”

Felix and Edmund chuckled a little until seeing a stern look on the general’s face.

“Death rites are when someone pronounces a soul to rest. They read their name, approximate time of death and cause of death.”

Felix jumped in to contribute.

“But this man is from Fenmarch, how is it possible that the wagoneer knew this man’s name?”

Everyone went silent again for a minute.

“Gentlemen, I apologize, but it is getting late and I have to be home for dinner. Is it possible we could meet again later this week?”

Emery snapped back to reality with a small grin on his face before they headed out of the cold morgue. He kept his head down trying to avoid anyone from noticing. Finally the door opened up and sunlight graced their skin again after a dark and icy experience.

“I’ll have my proposal for you in the morning, General Warwick.”

Victor gave Mr. Barrow a nod.

“Well if you no longer require my assistance, I do have other things to take care of before my own dinner. If anything comes up though, you both have an open invitation to the Montclair house.”

Emery waved at Felix taking off as Victor simply watched.

“He didn’t seem too bad Victor, I had a good talk with him while Edmund was pitching his idea…”

Victor interrupted.

“You looked like you had an idea as we made our way out.”

Emery gave a heavy sigh while tilting his head back.

“Was it that obvious? I thought I hid it well.”

Victor smirked at Emery as he placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Let’s just say I have a theory, but I’m going to have to speak to that death wagoneer. Is there any chance you’re aware of who that was?”

The general puffed out his chest.

“I know all the names of the soldiers in my division, but as you pointed out on our ride there, that wasn’t my division. You’d be better off speaking with the interim general, Marlan Strove. He was promoted as the next man in line, but he’s questionable as someone fit to lead rather than follow. You’ll likely find him back on the Northern Front at the base camp.”

Emery shook the general’s hand.

“Thank you my friend. I’ll find my way there, you go get some rest and I’ll report to you as soon as I can.”