Editing Kulmorost Divided (section)

====Of Necromancy====
Excerpt from Dwarven ''"Val-Embor Brumgaurd's fun with magic volume 3"''

"Although some may tell you the act of reanimating the dead is an impossible task, in my own studies l have proved otherwise, although l'll tell you necromancy, while possible is somewhat impractical as the amount of magical energy one must use to keep a deceased body animated much outweighs the usefulness of the dead body. Such foolish proposals of an "army of the dead" is utter nonsense.

all of my experiments are conducted on (mostly) healthy human males captured during a raid on Dwarvish settlements in the northern mountains as well as a few recently dead human corpses 

One of my first experiments was whether one could force the soul of recently deceased man back into his body, though the humans resisted interrogation of other Dwarven mages while alive l thought l might be able to gain some insight after bringing them back. l resolved that the sooner l could bring back the spirit to the body the better my chances of success would be, after suffocating one of the human males in a contraption of my own design, l complete the rituals making a number of animal sacrifices and life essence transferals l was successful in my endeavor, the humans eyes started moving about once more as life returned to the body, though the eyes still looked like that of a dead man l was assured he could see as l waved my hand in front of his face. After the humans initial response of great confusion and discomfort l decided to start the questioning. l was unsuccessful in my efforts of exacting information, l told the human if he answered my questions l would return him to the dead, instead of acting reasonable he instead decided to scream in what could be described perhaps as "spiritual agony" cursing my race and my family before fading back into death after a number of hours. this is not much more than l should have expected from these barbarians "

"in my second series of tests l found that returning the body of the recently dead to life was the easy part, getting the dead to perform intricate tasks was the tricky part. One way l found was by carving instructive runes into the sternum of the dead, either descriptive of a specific task like "protect this one from danger" or a much broader one like "follow instruction"

using these runes on two different bodies l had one with "protect this one from danger" and the name of my then assistant Bal-goran Runemar and then gave instruction to the other once dead man to kill him. the instruction given to the second was successful, perhaps too successful, although the dead seem to increase in strength they lack all skill in their fighting, preferring to randomly tear at the flesh and disembowel the target as opposed to ending their life quickly and mercifully, as Bal-goran found out first hand when the second dead broke through the defenses of the first, completing its given task. My assistants untimely death, though saddening had provided me with another body to experiment on (perfectly legal as he had signed his bodily rights to me for experiment purposes long before his death). using the method described in the previous log l brought back my assistant and asked him of the events that had transpired, he described it as being "quite unfortunate" and "less than ideal" before mirroring that which l described in my first experiment, a kind of "spiritual agony" before fading back to the other side while sobbing and crying out for his mother 

"continuing with my task l invited my other less experienced second assistant (whom l thought wouldn't be needed for these experiments) into the workshop to help with my work. As one could expect he looked somewhat concerned with the current state of my workshop, a number of animal carcasses now littered the workshop floor along with the still twitching bodies of dead and then for a short time not quite as dead human specimens, oh and one cannot forget the disembowel corpse of my deceased first assistant, but l digress. My now first assistant saying nothing of the horrors (or his very recent promotion to my first assistant), was happy enough to help out with further experiments. 

The third and final trial may have been the most successful albeit the most mentally and physically taxing of the three. This time combining parts of previous experiments, l sacrificed the lives and essence of a few beasts, carved runes into the deceased l wished to bring back and then most importantly l gave some of my own life energy to the body, in short binding my own will to that of the dead. l used only small amount as not to dramatically reduce my own lifespan, l calculated l could give the body around 5 hours of animation with all of these processes combined. SUCCESS!! lthe body rose this time, without screaming nor showing any signs of incredible stress. After questioning how the body about recent human activities he was quite cooperative, telling me all that l wanted to know and speaking only when told to. After a time l decided to perform a few simple tasks, l had him collect some of the entrails and generally rearrange a few things in the workshop. After this l decided to take him and my now first assistant for a celebratory drink at the local tavern and let me tell you people at first were quite alarmed to see an undead human wobbling around the streets, but they became calm after l showed them he was entirely bent to my will by having him..."

"Dance to my assistants wonderful flute musings, garnering a few stares and many, many laughs from onlooking Dwarfs. After arriving at the pub my assistant and l partook in some of the finest wines and spoke to some fine Dwarven maidens, though l must admit we lost track of the time and soon enough the spell had worn off. we were alerted to this when the undead man started screaming and clawing at his eyes in a most uncivilized manner before slumping to the floor. We had the owner of the fine establishment keep the body in one of the backrooms ensuring him we would be back for the body the next day when sober and rewarded him a gold coin for his troubles. 

In all regards l wholeheartedly enjoyed my time with necromancy and will return to the subject every once in a while when l think of more experiments. As l stated in the beginning of this chapter necromancy is entirely possible, but somewhat impractical, one would need an almost unlimited about of life essence to keep even a single undead bound to his will for an extended amount of time, making notions of an "undead army" quite impracticable. 

The incarnations, spells, runes and other misc items l used for these experiments as well as diagrams can be found on the next page. Always be careful around humans, alive or dead. Have fun and stay safe!!" - (Val-Embor Brumgaurd's fun with magic volume 3)