(Want to know a little more about Molkhun Dahkem and his artcraft...?)
With a meticulous twist of his wrist, his tweezers clamped between his fingers, he managed to dislodge it from its socket. His movements became smooth and precise. This time, a few gentle tugs were enough to extract the roots without any difficulty. They were impeccably preserved. The tooth seemed to him to be of a perfectly adequate size for his project, and its ligaments were of a calibre well suited to reuse. He adjusted his glasses on the tip of his nose, tilted his lamp and brought the enamel up to eye level; he could thus distinguish the harmonious crenulations of a promising premolar, with no impact on the porcelain, no imperfections in its opacity, no dulling. The tooth had served for some thirty years before ending up between the cold, metallic fingers of the forceps, and was so well maintained that it could still be used for several decades. A satisfactory result, which joined the previous encouraging extractions in the glass jar reserved for them. Little by little, he would end up creating a large template of models that he could use as inspiration to design one of his first subjects—the clay model of a life-size neoskeleton that served as their perfect reference.
Although he probably did not consider himself as such, Molkhun worked like an artist. He was meticulous about detail and the absolute rigor of his work, and therefore insisted on having a wide range of different shapes and materials at his disposal to work with and then replicate with care. Collecting, storing, and cataloging resources was a habit that dated back nearly half a century; so with both feet firmly planted in the cult of the Worm and obsessed with the same goal, he had been taught the arcane secrets of breath, bone and flesh, forbidden practices that were passed down only orally from master to future master, in complete and irrevocable respect for the pact of the anchorites. The spectacular nature of the teaching of all this knowledge made the subject difficult to access and its instruction particularly challenging. Unlike most schools of conjuration magic, which are mainly based on willpower, the pure use of magicka and its twists and turns, flesh involves, like alchemy leading to pottery, the creation of a receptacle and a constant supply of raw material to be bent, distorted, and reshaped. One cannot create a body from naught, and a work as basic as a flesh atronach could not be imported from another plane as easily as one might order from Infurnace. All this demanded a vessel of the exact alchemical composition, with a mathematically calculated supply of raw materials, and flawless weaving of fabrics and bones (often reinforced with steel to compensate for the lack of supplies or their brittleness). It was normally much easier to procure average bones than preserved meat. The considerable number of conflicts in Tamriel called for mobility in order to constantly move and resettle near places where accessible bodies would be fresher and their abduction less noticeable. The Planemeld provided an unprecedented amount of tissue and viscera across the continent—a veritable rain of cripples and corpses, a blessing—which allowed the Worm anchorites to make great strides in their respective fields of expertise.
Sinew architecture differed from butchery in that it did not merely necessitate fresh, high-quality raw ingredients sliced into juicy pieces; it also required infallible knowledge of the body and an extensive understanding of its functioning, which brought this science closer to surgical operation (a very recurrent cover and civilian application of the arcane that Molkhun used frequently).
It was generally here that the acolytes split into various sections. Not all were equal in their commitment to the discipline, and not every cell had access to sufficiently well-preserved clay to study its structure adequately, so many of them would knock on the neighboring door, that of Necromancy.
Necromancy, like surgery, is both a twin sister and a component of carnemancy. The fundamentals involved in the use of these two forms of magic are intrinsically linked and even reciprocal, but necromancy has the advantage of requiring less precision to achieve a satisfactory result. As surprising as it may seem to the uninitiated, necromancy is an art in which it is relatively easy to take the first steps. Few become masters, however, but many progress quickly, at least in this field—dead flesh, bones that have already lived, the fact that one does not wish to restore perfect mortal functioning but rather to manipulate the shell like a puppet make necromancy more approachable for beginners. Of course, there are infinite layers of subtlety in its use, and any promising necromancer knows that a good reanimated corpse requires careful preparation and a perfect ritual, but the dead that are manipulated for menial tasks do not need energy to be devoted to preserving their consciousness and have the good taste not to demand that their vessels be constantly supplied with nourishment and that their meridians, tendons, and muscles, smooth or otherwise, sound as accurate as an instrument with countless strings. Necromancy is affordable, less demanding in its early stages, which makes it particularly infectious, and therefore particularly conspicuous…
That is why Molkhun favoured carnemancy. He found it more noble in its exactingness, more difficult to domesticate and, inevitably, much more desirable. It required complete self-sacrifice in learning, a strong stomach in its procedures, and unfailing precision to keep the subject alive or be able to breathe life back into them. Every ligament, every adipose tissue, every thin layer of dermis, down to every cartilage, every vertebra, he dislocated, incised, structured, reattached, sutured, and restored everything that could be used to build a perfect neoskeleton—and to build a perfect neoskeleton, he first had to compile a collection of perfect references.
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