The summoning circle shimmered in faint lavender, scratched not into the stone floor but into the mana itself. A feat no ordinary mage—certainly not one of the third tier—should be able to attempt, let alone control.
But Morte was not ordinary.
He didn't reach into the grave or pull at the veil between life and death. He reached inward—deep into the place where ideas stirred before becoming spells.
He whispered.
Not an incantation. Not a command.
A concept.
::You will not remember the living.
You will not echo the dead.
You will be shaped of thought, and bound to nothing.::
The circle warped as his mana flowed into it. Not with cold precision, but with creative impulse—like a painter pressing emotion into canvas, like a child dreaming up a friend who never existed.
The air thrummed with tension.
And then it blinked into being.
A figure coalesced from ambient necrotic mana—long-limbed, lank, woven of dark essence and shadow-thread. Its body shimmered faintly, as though stitched together from old parchment and mist. It had the shape of a humanoid, but its edges were imperfect—an unfinished drawing that moved like it had read about humans in a book, and tried to imitate them.
Its head tilted to the side. It took a step.
Graceful.
Curious.
Then its fingers twitched, mimicking Morte's.
Not because it needed to—but because it thought it might make him comfortable.
It moved like a marionette freed from its strings—each gesture a half-remembered dance, not quite human, not quite alien.
Just... improvising.
"Do you speak?" Morte asked softly.
::Name me.::
The creature spoke directly into Morte's mind, but it wasn't an uncomfortable feeling to Morte
Morte stared at it—no soul, no memory. No grave or prayer. Only intention given shape.
"You are Null."
It bowed. Not like a knight, but like a squire learning to move in armor.
I am Null. Your thought made real. Your will to be made reality.
He blinked. "What does that mean?"
::I am not your servant. Nor your equal. I am your shadow bound to you and by your side always.
The words were disjointed but carried a strange emotional resonance, like an actor improvising in a play that hadn't yet been written. Morte could feel the thing learning—not absorbing facts, but mirroring ideas. Testing tone. Mimicking rhythm.
The air around them dimmed as Null reached for something unseen, fingertips brushing against latent mana like a painter checking the grain of a canvas.
It was thinking.
Alive? No.
But becoming.
Morte stepped back, breath shallow. What he had done was not necromancy. It wasn't summoning. It wasn't even a spell, really.
It was art born of mana, stitched together by instinct.
And now it was watching him.
Not with loyalty.
Not with fear.
With curiosity.
Necrovia, the Inner City – Lair of the Great Dead
The candles in Morte's workshop had long since burned down to flickering stubs, casting elongated shadows that clung to the black stone like leeches. Null hovered beside him in near-silence, its shimmering body of woven mana occasionally pulsing with pale light—like a heartbeat, but only sometimes.
"Still no stabilization," Morte murmured, scribbling a rune in midair, watching it spark and dissolve. He wiped sweat from his brow, his pale violet eyes narrowed in thought. "You're drinking too much from me… you're too empty to sustain yourself. If we don't find a more permanent solution if i ever rum low on mana you'll more than likely fade away."
Null tilted its featureless head, the motion puppet-like—almost birdlike—but hesitant, as if it somehow understood it was incomplete. Morte knelt beside it, touching its core. The mana was intact, the lattice holding, but it had no tether, no heart. Not yet.
"I'll figure it out," he whispered. "I made you from nothing. I can give you something."
Before Null could respond—or flicker in acknowledgment—a low tone echoed through the chamber. A chime, deep and sonorous, from the bone-laced corridors beyond.
A summons.
Morte rose, brushing dust from his long coat. He gave Null a final glance. "Stay here. Practice mimicking the glyphs. If I'm not back by dusk, deconstruct." Null bowed stiffly in acknowledgment, like a marionette awaiting its next command.
The chamber dimmed after Morte's footsteps faded.
Null did not move immediately. It stood perfectly still for several heartbeats—though it had no heart. Then, slowly, it turned toward the wall where Morte often drew his runes in flame.
A pale shimmer of mana gathered at its fingertips.
It lifted a hand—hesitant, childlike—and drew a glyph into the air. Not one it had been taught.
Not one Morte had ever used.
The glyph flickered, unstable, and dissolved.
Null tilted its head.
Then it crouched low and traced a circle across the cold stone with one hand while the other hovered above, weaving lines of mana. It wasn't elegant. It wasn't right. But it was something. It had seen the patterns—reflections in the air when Morte worked late into the night.
And it wanted to try.
It paused again, unmoving. Then turned to face the mirror hanging crooked on the wall—an old, tarnished thing that Morte used to monitor his aura.
Null mimicked his expression. The way Morte furrowed his brow when puzzled. The slight parting of lips when lost in thought.
The mirror didn't reflect a boy. Only the blank, shimmering puppet. But still, it stared.
Trying. Becoming.