My Workplace is a Figurative Magnet (A Brave Frontier Fanfiction)

Soul-flayers

Ever since he started out as an apprentice, not long after his arrival in Atharva, Shida knew of what people said behind his back. How talented he was, how creepy he was, how dark, how seemingly cruel... all are words that spoke of the shady to-be necromancer.

But none of that mattered when it came to his (future) research. So few subjects in his hands, and so many waiting to be discovered out there!

However, to do that, he had to learn more about magic. Necromancy was something he had insufficient grasp with, and he had to learn from the best to master it. The possibilities of what he can bring to life, how long he could maintain them... oh, he simply had to know.

But that was the hard part: the learning process he had to go through every day.

"Brat! Get me that cookie over there, and don't you dare ignore this request from your master!"

Shida's potion was boiling so how was that less urgent than passing a treat over?

"Poor form! Do it again! And fasten your robes while you're at it, I might see your underwear!"

Poor form indeed, but his robes were perfectly fine!

"Questioning my teachings? Shida, another thousand-word essay on how are mandrakes are born, what their uses are, and how to easily subdue them!"

Another essay? Mandrakes were significant in alchemy but gods this had to be the fiftieth time Shida wrote an essay.

Bran the sage, whose fondness for sweets is always greater than the need to be caring, was his teacher. Shida had heard of the phrase "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," but the apprentice was wondering if the quoter did not take sanity into account. And if the sage ever found out Shida's interest in the dark and death arts? That would be disastrous.

Regardless, Bran's teachings were effective. It spoke in the number of apprentices he has now, particularly the ones currently in the same room as him. Shida had mastered control over the Dark element, secretly implementing it in reanimation. It was just little skeletal rats and rotting birds, but soon with more practice, the self-styled dark magician would go further.

That, and he had a project of his own.

Shida looked up from his notes as his classmates filed out of the room, looking relieved and chattering excitedly about what they will do after their apprenticeship ends. It was a week before Bran himself considered his current batch of apprentices ready for the world, and Shida was no less anxious to be done with the old man.

The dark-wielding apprentice stood up, smoothing out wrinkles on his plain-looking black robes. His ashen gray hair contrasted somewhat with his clothing and blood red eyes, and it certainly made him stand out a little, but it did not matter much to him.

Everyone had gone, except for a girl with curly, reddish brown hair tied back in a short ponytail, and clad in green robes accented with red lines. Her amethystine eyes scanned the room, checking for any stragglers until they stopped at Shida.

Shida nodded at her, and together, they went out of the room.

~*~

In an nondescript forest...

Purple light died down around them as a dark purple figure finished chanting. The ground was littered with dead and decaying human bodies they used for their experiments. The stench of rot permeated the air, with nature around them invisibly objecting to the desecration of life happening before them.

The demon had a great black horn on either side of his head, with pupil-less white eyes that did not tell much. He was covered in plate armor that had varying colors of violet, black and dull grey, and a duller red hip cape that was ragged. No skin seemed to show.