Ritual of the Rot

This spell is a part of the Deconstruction spell chain and can be found in the Deconstruction rune stone.

It becomes the ambition of every seniumancer who understands well what waits for the body after death to become that body - to become a Lich. The seniumancer who has trained themselves within the runic family of Deconstruction has done so with the intention of transformation. They have learned the patience of The Fade and the hunger of The Worm and the power that is rot itself. They have gained intimate and profound knowledge and understanding of the order that is entrophy and decay. To become the agent of decay, to become the Lich, this is the seniumancer's purpose. 

The Worm has been working toward this for a long time. From the first crude burst of rot against an enemy's armor, through every field of decay and mental diminishment and patient corrosive expression of its hunger, The Worm has been learning the seniumancer. Learning what they are made of. Learning every layer of them; the flesh, the bone, the reserves of will and magic that keep them standing. It has never turned that knowledge fully inward. Until now. 

The Ritual of the Rot is not cast. It is performed deliberately and with great anticipation, with preparation and full understanding of what is being offered. The seniumancer gives The Worm permission to do what it has always wanted to do, what it has been circling around since the first time they reached for each other. They let it consume them. Not forever. Not completely. But enough.

The flesh goes first, The Worm taking it with the efficiency of something that has been waiting patiently for this exact moment. What remains when it is done is the seniumancer reduced to their most essential and indestructible form; bone, animate and terrible, a lich in all but permanence. In this state the seniumancer cannot be killed. They may be dismembered, pieces scattered, rendered unable to act, but what The Worm has claimed cannot die, for it is already beyond death. Soul costs are halved. Runic speed doubles. Runic power surges by 2d12. An Aura of Fear radiates from the lich form without effort, and every physical strike carries the full rotting touch of Decaying Edge as The Worm expresses itself through the seniumancer's every action.

When the duration concludes The Worm releases what it took and the flesh returns, reluctantly, wrapping itself back around the bones. The seniumancer is stunned for 1d3 rounds afterward, not from pain, but from the particular disorientation of having been The Worm's willing host and now being simply themselves again. The Worm does not resent giving the flesh back. It knows it will have it eventually. It can afford to be patient about the rest. The seniumancer grieves, wishing once again for a way to fully become The Worm's Lich.