Gravine peered out of his emerald green prison, gratified that the petulant young wizard had finally given up his useless defiance and was instead contemplating in silence, as he should have from the beginning. Soon enough the disrespectful upstart would learn his place, and pay Gravine the fear and respect that everyone else did, as they should. As soon as Gravine managed to coax the wizard into entering his domain, he’d find himself as trapped as Gravine himself. 

While Gravine loathed his prison of magic crystal, it did have some benefits. He no longer had to concern himself with such tiresome considerations as eating, sleeping, aging, and other nuisances that came from having a body. He could hear the slightest whisper for miles around, though he had to know where to focus his attention. His sight was no longer limited by darkness or physical barriers. 

But there were other limitations that hindered him. It was difficult to pick out any one conversation when there was too much noise or other sounds in the area. Light, particularly sunlight, overwhelmed his magical senses with its abundance of colors both seen and unseen by mortal eyes. For Gravine, trying to see outdoors in daylight was about as useful, and pleasant, as staring at the sun itself. So places of darkness and quiet were where his perception was clearest. For locations of clamor and brightness, he had learned to rely on servants. 

Acquiring servants had also been a limitation for Gravine within his prison. Or so he had thought at first. For, while he had been a mortal with a body of his own, he had been able to use physical force and the magic that he channeled through his body to threaten and compel others to do his bidding. Trapped in his prison, he was capable of little more than talking to those outside his prison. That is, until he learned that others could enter the prison with him, as long as they did so willingly. 

It was all thanks to a line in the enchantment that held him imprisoned in the stone. “To end thy reign of terror and grief, this stone shall hold thee, thy power, and thy allies who would offer thee relief.” 

When the enchantment had first been activated by those meddlesome mages more than a century ago, the effects had been devastating. In one fell swoop, everything that Gravine had devoted his life to building; his armies, his magical talismans, his wealth, his network of spies and conspiracies, and even his very heart, mind, and soul; all of it had been trapped and contained inside his insufferably small cell. 

Of course it was only small when viewed from those outside in the mortal realm. For those trapped within, it contained a limitless void whose walls were forever impossibly out of reach. But the fact that the entirety of his vast former empire could be contained within an object of such unremarkable size and shape was an unbearable embarrassment to Gravine. 

The necromancer did take some measure of satisfaction from the fact that it had cost the lives of an entire conclave of mages and enchanters to build and and activate a prison strong enough to hold him. But it was a small satisfaction. For although it had cost them dearly, it had also worked. Despite a century of effort, all attempts by Gravine to escape his imprisonment had failed. 

That was not to say his time within had been completely devoid of progress, however. While it was true that Gravine was still unable to escape his prison, he had learned how to invite others in, and gift a portion of his power to flow out. The trick was convincing those he invited to choose to enter. 

This required far more subtlety and patience than he ever had to exercise during his mortal life. At the height of his power, Gravine could demand nothing less than complete loyalty and obedience from those under his rule, and deliver swift punishment without mercy or hesitation when they displeased him. The strategy had been direct, brutal, and incredibly effective. But that method didn’t work within the prison. 

For one thing, complete and utter loyalty were now useless to Gravine. The moment someone outside the prison became truly and wholeheartedly devoted to Gravine and his cause, the enchantment on his prison would bind them within as completely as Gravine himself. But as long as their loyalty was shallow, hesitant, or limited in any way, then such partial allies would retain their physical freedom outside the prison, unaware that whatever small portion of their souls had become loyal to him were now trapped within his domain. 

And once within that domain, Gravine would no longer be limited to mere words. He could offer trades. He could exchange a portion of his own vast power for an equal portion of their loyalty. The more loyalty they offered, the more power he could give. But because complete loyalty would result in complete imprisonment, he had to tread carefully with servants becoming overly zealous. Even the ones with potential, like Laronius. 

Gravine found that pain and punishment were effective tools to curb such enthusiasm. And in the rare moments he was completely honest with himself, he had to admit that it helped provide some amusement to his otherwise agonizingly dull existence. Fortunately for Gravine, the same portion of loyalty that allowed him to exchange some of his power also gave him an equal portion of power over such a hapless ally. The more of themselves they gave, and the more power they accepted, the more punishment and control Gravine could inflict upon them whenever he wished. 

If there was any way out of this arrangement, none had ever found it. Like a fly caught in a sticky web, any struggle to escape the snare only led to a soul’s further entanglement. The more bitterly they fought for freedom, the more Gravine could sink his hooks into them. All he needed was the smallest step into his domain, and he could draw them in further and further, with no hope of escape. 

This was exactly how he had made a puppet of the idiot minotaur upstairs, as well as every other servant he commanded within the fortress. Vdekshi may have been able to justify to himself that his first tiny portion of loyalty to Gravine was necessary and even selfless, but the moment the oaf was willing to trade even a tiny sliver of his soul in exchange for the power he believed he so desperately needed, Gravine got his hooks in and never gave an inch back. 

And now it would be this foolish young wizard’s turn soon enough. The brat’s initial attitude of defiance had annoyed and offended Gravine, of course. The willfulness of youth always grated against his nerves. He considered it the height of arrogance that anyone would consider themselves capable of making a valid argument against him. 

And yet, Gravine knew that such defiance was also useful to him. For the stronger his prey was willing to fight back against his control, the more fully he could ensnare them, the more power he could grant them, without risking them giving into him completely. All those bratty remarks and comebacks simply told Gravine that this was someone willing to struggle and pull once his hooks were in. And he could practically see this pathetic bald child preparing himself for those hooks. 

After all, no one can resist making a deal once they’re desperate enough, and Gravine had orchestrated everything about the situation as desperate as possible. He had ordered Laronius to separate the wizard from his friends so he would be scared and alone. He had also ordered the vampire to deliver his captive to the complete darkness of the dungeons practically naked so he would feel disoriented and vulnerable. Once suitably humiliated and afraid, he would offer the first bait. 

He had ordered that filthy wererat Mutt to find some unused magical trinket within the fortress that he could use as an early bribe to both sway him towards Gravine and  provide a false sense of security. “I don’t care what it is,” Gravine had told Mutt, “just make sure it’s something the brat can’t resist, and Vdekshi won’t notice is missing.” The sniveling wererat had tried to to ask some pathetic question in response, so Gravine had hurried him along with jolt of pain that clearly conveyed that he wasn’t in a patient mood. 

The harsh motivation had obviously worked on Mutt because the object he delivered had evoked such a strong response from the young wizard that even Gravine was impressed. And Mutt rarely did anything that left Gravine impressed. 

The moment that the young prisoner had accepted the gift and put on the cloak, Gravine had expected to sense a small portion of the wizard’s soul step across, or at least near, the boundary of his domain. He was surprised, and more than a little annoyed, when he found that hadn’t been the case. But it was fine, he had told himself. Even if the brat was so spoiled that he didn’t realize he owed Gravine a portion of loyalty for the gift, certainly he could bully such loyalty out of him by threatening to take it back. 

The threat had an immediate effect, just as Gravine had expected. There had been a moment of sudden fear, panic, and then… something else. A shift of some kind that Gravine couldn’t quite place, but he was certain the shift was in his favor. A shift in priorities perhaps. A shift in loyalty. Something was happening in the petulant mind of the wizard that was making it slow down, open up, and relax its defenses. He had barely put up a fight since. Gone was the defiance and resistance, and in its place was a suggestible and agreeable little boy just waiting to play along right into his snare. 

Within moments, he would finish delivering to Shon the speech he had given to so many over the centuries regarding the righteous justification of his cause and his necromancy. He would end the speech as he always did, with an offer of power. And, as always, the fool on the other end would accept. And, as always, Gravine would get what he wanted. 

A new servant. A new plaything. A new victim within his trap to provide entertainment as it pulled and struggled against his hold. And this time as he imparted a portion of his power, he would be able to manipulate his new servant into using the magic he already possessed. What a bargain! 

“So Shon,” Gravine said as the wizard stared forward with a glassy gaze. “Knowing everything that I’ve told you, I’m ready to make you an offer. And I believe you’ll find it impossible to resist.” 

Shon shook his head a little, the glassy look disappearing from his face. “Oh I’m sorry,” said the youth with a bratty smirk, “were you saying something? I was kind of lost in thought.” 

Suddenly, the door to the dungeon burst open, and in rushed the minotaur Vdekshi holding a blazing torch. Shon screamed and ran to the far side of his cell, shouting, “You are so much bigger than I imagined!” The stupid oaf looked back and forth between the young wizard and the staff which housed the necromancer’s green prison. Gravine could do little but seethe with fury that the idiot had intruded on his plans, and wondered how he could have possibly found them. 

“Look, we had a deal,” said Shon, taking a nervous step forward. “I tell you where your missing staff is, you get this emerald lunatic away from me, and I introduce you to my friends who are on their way so we can all get to the bottom of this peacefully. Right big guy?” 

The angry minotaur turned to the prison of Gravine and snorted. “Agreed. Perhaps together we can finally start unravelling the web of lies this one just loves to weave.” Vdekshi then pulled a ring of keys from his robe and unlocked Shon’s cell before walking over and retrieving the silver staff that held the crystal prison. “Speaking of deals, I would caution you against making any with my prisoner here. They always come at a terrible price.” 

“Who, Gravine?” Shon asked. If Gravine had not been so shocked at the current turn of events, he would have cursed at the brat for having the audacity to actually speak his name aloud. “Nah, I wouldn’t worry too much about that. I doubt he has anything I’d be interested in.” 

Gravine was about to unleash a scathing rebuke when Shon’s voice cut in again. “In fact, that idiot is so bad at negotiating that his first plan was bribing me with something that was already mine. I mean, what kind of creep even does that?” 

Vdekshi’s booming laugh that followed seemed to bounce off every wall and fill the entire stairway out of the dungeons, completely drowning out the string of obscenities that Gravine was attempting to hiss at the bald brat.