6

The sight of all of these aspirants around me fills my heart with joy! This is exactly what we’ve fought so long and hard to achieve! This is exactly what I sacrificed so much to get. I couldn’t stop myself from letting a smile fall onto my face. Though there was still much to do, so much still to do. But now, we might finally have the power to achieve what we set out to do so very long ago. This is the power of the Aspect of Death. This is the power that Kaje had so very generously bestowed upon me.

Bestow might be a little misleading, but he practically did! He should have never left his arm so exposed, I could have helped myself from taking it for myself! And what was he doing with it anyway? Letting it rot away? No, he was given it for a reason, he should be so grateful to have that beautiful power! Well, at least I can better utilize it, all it cost me was my arm! Not that I was doing too much with it anyway, it is much better utilized for study and practice now. You know, I should really check back on Kaje again, and thank him for helping me out so much.

“Adiun! Compassium, I’m heading down to the cells!” I shouted. Both of them looked over at me from across the catacombs.

“Need us to go with you, Tyrannus?” Compassium asked. Well, it wouldn’t be bad to have some company with me.

“Sure, come along with!” I shouted back at them. Compassium I knew I could trust her, she was with me the whole way through. She might be a little too merciful, however. But, in time, that will fade. There should be no mercy for them because they showed us none first. Adiun, now he was more like it, although perhaps a bit too monstrous for my taste. He lacked that flare of the dramatic. Too quick, too efficient. He didn’t destroy their moral. I chuckled, maybe I could teach him that as well.

They made it up to me, and I motioned for them to follow. We started down the path toward Kaje. Our catacombs were filled with the aspiring ones. Each of them had that spark in their eyes, that same spark that I had so long ago. Every day it seemed like there were more of them around, oh I couldn’t be happier! And that stench of rot and decay! I never felt more at home!

The undead wandered the halls around us. I could hear them moaning, and even sometimes screaming. Those moans would strike fear and terror into the hearts of our enemies. It dawned on me that I haven’t put any research towards making them louder, or terrifying, I should really get to that. Fear was an efficient motivator and deterrent.

Finally, we made it to the cells where Kaje was kept. I turned the corner, and, well, there he was. That broken, bloodied, mess. His ribs were showing through his skin, and that skin too, was a dark gray color. And that poor stump he had now! That was all that was left of his legacy, his power. I made sure he would never rot though, all it took was one drop of blood every day to sustain him. Well, more or less keep him alive, at least. Was alive even the right term anymore? He was dead for all purposes. Ok, alive enough! There we go!

He didn’t even look at us approaching him. I knew he could hear us though.

“Kaje! How are you doing?” I asked him. He didn’t respond to me.

“Hello?” I asked him again. I knew he would never respond, but it was fun to ask anyway.

Adiun walked up to him, brandished a sword, and plunged it into Kaje. Kaje gasped for air, and coughed up blood.

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“Adiun! That is so very rude of you!” I told him. He looked back at me. That sadistic smile he had on his face immediately fell, “Kaje is our quest, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him!”

Adiun looked down onto the floor. Averting his gaze from my eyes. Was I that scary? I hoped so! If I wasn’t, I felt like I would have been doing this whole thing wrong! I looked back down at Kaje. He never even brought his face up to meet mine. That type of grit, even when a sword is plunged right through you, warms my little heart so much!

“Compassium, take Adiun and make him think about exactly what he’s done!” She looked back up at me, wide-eyed. I widened my eyes at her. She looked away from me and grabbed Adiun, and took him from my sight. I knew that she wouldn’t punish him too harshly, that; 's exactly why I asked her to do so. Hell, maybe I shouldn’t change that merciful part of her, it had its uses.

I crouched back down, Kaje was now staring right down at the ground.

“I’m sorry about that,” I told him. “He’s a little too eager, but he has his uses!” Kaje didn’t say anything.

I gripped the sword by its handle and yanked it out of him. Blood came pouring out, but very quickly healed up. I don’t think I ever told anybody else this, but that always freaked me out. I used the sword, pricked the tip of my finger, and squeezed a little drop of blood out. I grabbed Kaje’s face, and rubbed the blood on his lips.

His body convulsed, and spasmed. And he started growling at me. I backed up, staring at the beautiful mass. And then, as soon as it started, it stopped. He was back to his usual self! I crouched back down, and sat at Kaje’s level.

“You feeling better now?” He didn’t respond.

I sat back down. What would even get him to respond now? A smile crept on my face again. I think I knew just the trick.

“I haven’t seen Winrad at all recently,” I said. “You think he’s finally forgotten all about you, Kaje?” He didn’t respond.

“Personally, I hope not, I’ve always wanted to see what a dragon would look like as a creation.” I kept staring at Kaje. “Would he be all bones? Hell, maybe he could sit up on that throne for me, making sure it’s warm while I’m out.” Something in him stirred. He brought up that, disgusting, diseased face and stared right back at me.

“I don’t care what I have to do, or who gets in my way I will fucking kill you Tyrannus, I will kill you.” He said. “I will kill you, and anybody who even passed you by on the street.” He stared right into me now, this was getting good. “I will tear you apart slowly, and painfully, begging, hoping that something will kill you if only to end your suffering, and only then, will I pierce your disgusting, rotting heart.” Snarling like a rabid dog…

I stood right back up, Kaje was staring at me with that blazing rage. I did this to him. Something in me clicked. I finally found it, I finally did it! He was my perfect creation. I felt that familiar smile across my face again. “Do you promise?”

After I left that prison, something, enveloped me. Pride. It had to be. I felt that smile creep cross my face once more. What was Kaje even capable of now? If he ever were to escape, he would hunt me down. So why does that excite me so much? The small squeaks of mice filled my ears. Then the plunging of a dagger. The beginnings of an experiment, and the beginning of every necromancer’s journey. Who knew a rodent could hold so much power?

I entered the dimly lit room. Necromancers, and aspiring ones at that, giddy with excitement about their first reanimation spell. One of them had bright green tendrils fall from the tips of their fingers, into the now writing corpse. The rat turned, and snapped back to undeath. And there were others in the cage. This crypt, was filled with them before we had arrived here. Now, there wasn’t any life scurrying around that we didn’t already know of. There were, too many costs, too many things that could go wrong. I opened the cage, and gazed into the eyes of another rat. I gently grabbed the creature, and closed the cage back up once more.

I couldn’t tell you why I did it, hell I couldn’t tell you why I do most of the things I do. But some part of me felt like it needed to happen. I walked out of the room, and set the rat down onto the floor. It scurried toward where I had just come from, back into that dank prison.