Book 3 Chapter 13: Oil

++If you live as long as I have, millennia uncounted, then it is a statistical inevitability that you will experience some…embarrassments. This cannot be helped. It does not make them go down any easier, though.++

- From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, ‘The Great Lich’. 1,891 A.E.

There was a scramble once I reached the site of my refinery. Alira was not the only Winzorth graduate I had taken on under my employ, and Sethira was not the only member of her cult. All told I boasted a good fifty magicians of the Third or Second Class, plus Alira and Sethira who were both comfortably in the First Class and Third Class of Highmage respectively.

It was a significant labour pool, and relatively cheap. Many of the female magicians in Garamon were under-paid and discriminated against in their field, assumed to be less competent than their qualifications would imply. This was excellent for me, as it let me poach them from other employers while still offering significantly lower wages than the industry standard.

Misogyny, apparently, had its advantages. Provided it was aimed at someone other than you.

Blakely had been in charge of my land while I was gone, and I was pleasantly surprised to see him still standing before it when I returned.

“I did as you told me,” he said without being asked. “Looked into local labour and hired them, out of the funds you left.”

I had given him a total sum of four hundred crowns from which to draw on local labour, he handed me just over two hundred when I asked. I blinked at the bank notes and coins.

“This is…more than half what you were supplied,” I noted.

I had given him ten percent more than I thought he would need, to guarantee that he did his job while not overly tempting him to skim from the funds. I had not been expecting to receive this much back. I had not expected more than a few coins in change at all.

“Good thing about Poloira, is everyone needs work,” Blakely grinned. “People hear about this place being some refuge, or a new world full of opportunity and a brighter future. Stupid cunts. There’s only so much opportunity to go around, so most of them just end up competing for work with all the other idiots who had the same idea.”

“That’s horrible,” Alira cut in. “So you just took advantage of a bunch of immigrants?”

“Yeah,” Blakely nodded. “Who are you?” He stepped in close and very overtly sniffed the air around her, then scowled. “Magician?”

Even I did not know how he came to that conclusion, nor whether it was blind luck that it was correct.

“Do not sniff my subordinates, Blakely,” I told him. He scowled again and backed away.

“I got two hundred labourers, with a few hundred more who were interested but past the quota.”

In short, he had done exactly what I had asked, and gone the extra mile to secure additional workers in the future should I need them. I had not even requested that he do the second part.

“Nevermind Blakely,” I replied. “Sniff whoever you want.”

“Fuck you!” Alira snapped as I moved on to other matters.

“Sethira, can you get the magicians situated?” I asked.

“Sure,” my fellow lich replied. “Where though?” she gestured around us, indicating that the flat plane surrounding my new oil field was, in fact, both flat and a plane. The closest thing to housing it had was the cavern of my leyline.

“You are a group of fifty magicians,” I noted. “Start working on shelter.”

The good thing about my new magical labour force was that they covered each other’s weaknesses. Garamon magicians were schooled in mathematics, engineering and physical sciences of the sort that went very well with construction. Even the bulk of mine, who were not from Winzorth but instead taken from other Institutes, each knew nearly as much as dedicated engineers would.

Sakhent’s followers were a different sort of asset altogether, with magic that was less mingled with the material sciences of modern Garamon, but practiced by other, ancient schools that had never occurred to the people of the Empire. None of them could emulate Sakhent’s custodians, but enchanting sculptures or statues with some semblance of animacy was considered a middling technique within the city of Orapathaqi’s schools.

I intended to have them both work to the best of their abilities, first with the Garamon magicians building structures and quarrying stone, then with the Orapathaqi magicians producing additional labour through their artificial servitors.

After all, creating your own minions had more uses than just bodies to throw into combat. In fact, the difference between a successful necromancer and an idiot, in my experience, was always the ability to recognise that. And since Orapathaqi’s animated creations were not strictly illegal, I would not even have to hide them.

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Sethira’s role in organising them was the most important one, freeing me up to turn my attention to the mundane workers assembled.

“Do all of you know who I am?” I asked them as they lined up before me and waited for instruction. They were a weedy and unimpressive lot, even by the standards of the lower-classes.

None of them answered in the affirmative, which was fine by me. “I am your new employer,” I told them all. “These oil fields are mine. We will be building a refinery here, and you will provide the manpower needed for it. Each of you will be paid well for your work, and provided with housing nearby. The only condition is that you do as you are told, when you are told.”

The good thing about recruiting from the disenfranchised is that it generally gives you subordinates who are willing to work without asking questions. My pep talk did not take long, and did not need to be at all inspiring. Wider society had already done all the work for me, and the construction began.

I was not tied down with monitoring it as much as I could have been. Blakely oversaw much of the mundane workers, apparently having some experience with that from his time outside of the army, while Sethira and Alira monitored the less educated or experienced magicians. This meant that I was free to do as I had been looking forward to for quite some time.

Continue learning to fly.

Levitation was already something I was confident in. I had periodically practiced it since first acquiring a stable form of the ability, and was now more certain in my ability to hover, drift and gently bob around through the air. Further tweaks had seen to it that I did not move in all the tiny, rocking motions that may have thrown off my aim under normal circumstances.

But that was not flight. It would not carry me over long distances at any significant speed at all, and if I attempted to make use of it in battle I would, in most cases, merely be making myself a far easier target. I needed to hover and propel myself at the same time.

That was the tricky part.

Easy as Lord Dread, with that almost unearthly magical precision and dexterity that left mana so eager to obey me that it almost took more effort not to have spells occur as I thought about them. But as Isabel Vornholt, it was as tedious as anything I had ever done. More so.

Early efforts proved the utility of my shield amulet, because if I had not possessed an item able to independently protect me, without any focus on my part, I would almost definitely have died. More than three times, I crashed hard into the ground. Once I accidentally tossed myself so far to one side that I flew right over the sandy patch of land I had been working on, and landed in a section of oil.

A deep section, as it happened. My impact speed was such that I was submerged in the viscous fluid almost before I knew what was happening.

Very quickly, I realised that my shield enchantment had a weakness. The oil was not striking me, not crushing or burning, it was simply holding me. Holding me, and letting gravity do its work.

I began to sink down into the dark grip, and my head was already submerged—my vision blacked out—by the time I realised what was even happening.

Oil. Isabel Vornholt, Lord Dread, prodigy of prodigies, the inventor of necromancy and great adversary of the Gods themselves, was about to drown in oil.

That would not do, obviously.

I propelled myself upwards with all the force I could muster, but the thick currents around me were carrying as much of the detritus onto my shield as I could displace with each moment. All I was succeeding in doing was freeing up room beneath myself to sink faster. I had to stop after a moment. Could I produce an omni-directional blast to make room? I attempted it, and for a brief moment I was surrounded by air instead of oil, but I continued sinking anyway as enough of the dregs remained stuck to my shield that the added weight was too much for my levitation charm to bear.

Then the walls closed again and wrapped around me. This was absurd, ridiculous! If I were encased in stone I would be free already, simply blasting the matter apart and hoisting myself up from the ruination, but this was not the same at all. It was not raw force I needed but application of it, the careful and prolonged, deft-handed effort to clear away my prison one gallon at a time.

And I did not have that time, because I was sinking more by the moment. My lungs began to burn, my body undergoing all the primitive panic responses that ancient meat had decided made it marginally less likely to be eaten by wildlife.

It occurred to me that I might actually die like this.

The sheer indignation of thinking that caused a new surge, and my brain moved like never before. The aether shield around me held, so I focused on forming up a new one. Slightly smaller, closer to my skin, just strong enough to hold back the oil and weak enough to be made near-instantly. When it was done I began working on charging up a new blast of force and released that.

Had someone detonated a bundle of dynamite down beneath the oil, it would not have caused so great an effect. Again my way was cleared for a precious moment, and again the oil was clinging to me, dragging me down. I banished my original shield, letting much of the detritus fall away with it and instantly removing hundreds of pounds from myself. Now when I threw more force down beneath me, pushing off the discarded aether for extra thrust, I flew up fast and was clear of the liquid before it could slosh back into place. I drifted over to land beside the oil field, panting.

I had already gathered quite an audience, headed by Sethira.

“You managed to escape,” she noted. “Impressive.”

“Shut up,” I gasped.

“No, really,” she continued, grinning with an almost cat-like glee as she saw the state of me. “I mean, oil? I’m amazed, I thought for sure you’d met your match.”

“Silence.”

“Oil,” she repeated. “Oil! Surely this was a battle of the ages, they’ll be talking about it for generations to come. The great Isabel Vornholt on one side, and oil on the other.”

“Do you not have work to do?” I asked her.

Sethira looked like she had more to say, then paused and smiled wider. “Of course, my lady,” she giggled as she walked away, at once reminding me how mortal she tended to behave, and how much I wanted to strangle her into unconsciousness.

Oil. This one, I would have to work hard to remove from the history books. It was a humiliation too far.

On the other hand, it had given me a good idea regarding upward thrust for my new flight spell…