After roaming around for some time I felt that something was amiss. I hadn’t encountered any undead even though I hadn’t been in this area before. After noticing this I paid more attention to my surroundings. There were neither corpses nor undead. I pondered about a possible reason for a bit, but It didn’t take me long to find it.

 While I was walking through a corridor three skeletons came around the corner. I prepared to fight them, but they were followed by more skeletons. Five, ten, then twenty. Altogether it was twenty-seven undead.  I couldn’t hope to defeat that many enemies, so I turned around and began running. It wasn’t hard to get away since I moved faster than the skeletons, but it didn’t serve to alleviate my worries.

 ‘Have the necromancers noticed that someone has been destroying undead?’ It would explain why the skeletons began moving in groups. If the enemy was capable of destroying small groups without casualties, then gather a large force and start a search. It was a valid strategy.

  Unfortunately, it made it very hard for me to collect crystals. I would have to gather from destroyed undead and acquire a stronger body before resuming the hunt. My growth would slow down a lot. These new circumstances also complicated my plans for reaching the central tower, since I couldn’t rely on the undeads memories. 

While mentally grumbling I continued to search the castle. It was the same everywhere I went: Broken doors, devastated rooms, destroyed furniture. Damages on this scale couldn’t come from only the fight for supremacy. The undead army had to have put a lot of effort into making the castle as uninhabitable a possible. Maybe they wanted to hinder anyone who would want to retake the castle. I couldn’t be sure about the reasons and while the living quality of the castle didn’t affect me, I still wasn’t particularly happy about it. 

Despite the general destruction I managed to find some books that seemed interesting. There were books about history, fairy tales, military strategy, politics and a many other topics. I gathered them in a few of the smaller rooms and marked these rooms. This way it was easier to collect them later, if I ever felt the need to do so.

 Luckily I didn’t encounter the undead hunting groups too often. Sometimes I managed to destroy one or two undead by attacking the ones at the back of the group, but this method was inadequate to completely destroy these groups. I would have to constantly follow them and after every attack it would have been necessary to run away. It was better to avoid them until I could fight on equal ground.

I continued my search. It was harder without the skeletons memories, but since I already knew the general area the tower was located at, it was only a question of time. As I wandered further from where the undead had entered the castle, the places where fights had occurred became sparser, but the number of participants seemed to have increased. Presumably because the defenders had opportunity to organise in groups.

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 These spots were littered with destroyed undeads, giving me great opportunities to collect crystals. The some of the memories had a bit of useful information because the undead had come through ways I hadn’t been to yet. But since the central tower was somewhere in the opposite direction, I couldn’t get clues regarding it.

 At least I managed to slowly piece together a map of my immediate surroundings. There were still some white specks but I made good progress in mapping out the building. It brought me a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. It was similar to when I won a difficult fight. Overcoming a challenge was fun.

This also influenced my decision to help the humans. I wanted to set myself a challenge, since it didn’t seem like would have any problems if I simply wanted to survive. Taking care of the humans would increase the difficulty and therefore make it more interesting. In a way the changed behaviour of the undead also provided a challenge I would have to overcome. It only motivated me to think of new tactics and ways to fight groups. Still, currently I couldn’t hope to win so I had to find other ways.

 On my way I came across an area that opened to the sky. At the time I was on the second floor, but quickly climbed out of a window and down to the ground. The open field was a flower garden. Or at least it had been. The flower beds were disrupted by many footprints and a few corpses, too damaged to become undead. The trees and many of the flowers were burned. The place was a mess. There was hardly an unaffected plant.

At least it gave me the possibility to get a quick outside view of the castle. This gave me an idea. I began climbing the wall and, after some difficulty got onto the roof. From here I could see more of the castle, but not everything. There were many roofs located higher than the one I was standing on, blocking my view. But, and that’s the important part, I could see the castles towers, including the central tower.

It was a huge construct, but had sustained heavy damage. There were multiple holes along its height. But now I knew where to go. Bad news was, the spectres that were patrolling above the castle also saw me and immediately started their attack.  

At first I didn’t notice them because they were relatively small compared to the outstretched castle scenery. Unluckily they didn’t have the same problems. When I became aware of their presence, I already could see projectiles coming my way.

 I hurried to climb down towards the garden and jumped into a window on the third floor. Then I began to run. It didn’t take the spectres long to follow me through the window and give chase.