Bob was surprisingly mellow when we arrived back at the cave. She shot Pecs a dirty look or two, but otherwise seemed to be deliberately ignoring him. In the absence of new orders, my burly bodyguard had continued his assault on our walls. The laboriously crafted stone structures were little more than rubble on the floor. Bob was in the process of salvaging the wreckage, but wasn’t having too much luck.

Fortunately, between salvage and spare material there seemed to be enough that we could build at least one full wall from it. I had the realisation that this was probably all we needed. The stone walls made our cave practically invisible, even from up close, but if all it took was a few attacks from a hulk to destroy, then the walls clearly didn’t serve well as a physical barrier.

I winced a little internally as I tried to guess how many hours Bob and Leggy had wasted on the wall effort, but even as the world’s smartest zombie, I probably couldn’t count that high. At least the pair had earned the [Stoner] title for their efforts, though I hadn’t got around to applying it to Leggy yet. It gave a solid bonus and took nothing more than time and a few hundred knapped rocks to earn. In time, I hoped to turn the entire tribe into [Stoners], in the absence of better titles. Top tier titles like my [King of the Braindead] title were hard to come by.

Pecs stood amongst the wreckage with a big grin on his face, oblivious to the angry glare Leggy was giving him. The [Rot Zombie] was a lot less serene than our [Crafter], and I absently wondered if it was the rabbit brains Bob had taken to chewing that kept her calm. She had picked up the habit a few days ago, and I was convinced that the tasteless animal brains were warping her mind.

Bob was one of our elite, and I needed her sneaky wit at full strength. I had tried to get her to stop eating rabbit brains, but she didn’t listen to me. Generally‌, I could guide the horde in the direction that I wanted, but my influence was less effective when trying to make zombies do things they didn’t want to do, and Bob had always had a rebellious streak. Ultimately, her habit wasn’t high on my list of priorities.

Instead of stopping to confiscate the rabbit brains I directed Abs back to the skull shrine chamber. I laid out the blue boxes of my party to see who had gained levels. The fight had decimated our fighting force, but it wasn’t all bad news.

Hans had also levelled up, and was now level eight. I recalled that he had chosen his level seven ability without me, and a quick switch over to his perspective showed me that he had already dismissed his level notification, and was staring at his available attunements, which briefly showed one available slot before Hans bound the [Reaper’s Robe] to himself. Together with his bronze rank [Brain Scan] the jet black robe pushed his intelligence to the mortal threshold.

Reaper’s Robe: +2 Intelligence, and increase maximum capacity by 1 for each creature killed up to a maximum of a thousand. Looses 1 capacity per day. (983/1000)

Brain Scan: +1 Intelligence, adds 2 fear to the target, and provides insight into the target

‘Hans good?’ I asked our tribe’s [Elder] though the party chat.

‘Yes my liege, I am well,’ He enunciated clearly with a strong sense of satisfaction attached to his thoughts.

‘Sound different.’ I commented.

‘Yes sire, I hypothesise that my new intelligence allows me to use [Made to Serve] to its fullest extent,’ He explained smugly. I realised that his new way of talking reminded me of Voulos and I grit my teeth. Then again, despite using overly big words, he didn’t sound ‌as condescending as my former master.

‘Ok…’ I stalled.

‘That is not the end of the good news sire. When I view the remaining time on my mission I have the option to trigger an event to use my previous efforts as a catalyst for completing the mission immediately, much like when we researched stone tools,’ He explained.

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Hans and I talked a little longer, and with my permission he completed research on [Mining I]. The blue box warned that there was a small chance that failure would lead to a cave in, which was why Hans hadn’t taken the risk at a lower intelligence, but with him past the mortal threshold the chance of failure stated at one percent.

Before starting work on the mine I checked in on our last surviving [Warrior]. I also took the time to get him to pick a bit of gore out of my ear. A small chunk of Abs’ spleen had somehow made it in there from my time inside her abdomen. The battered [Warrior] was level seven now, and much like Leggy, had automatic levelling turned on. Interestingly enough, the system had picked a familiar zombie skill and what I assumed were abilities derived from his [Warrior] job.

Zombie

20:32, 38th of Iosi, 1465 3A

Total Level: 7 (Bronze)

Type: Zombie (E)

Attributes:

Dexterity: 5

Strength: 13

Vitality: 13

Wisdom: 4

Intelligence: 2

Charisma: 2

Affinities: Nether (100%), Poison (50%), Fire (-25%), Holy (-100%)

Traits:

Made to Serve

Flesh Construct

Skills:

Meatshield

Abilities:

Unarmed Strike

Rush Attack

Bite

Brace

Stab

Such a unique mix of skills and abilities warranted a name, even if the [Warrior] abilities seemed a little lacking. The battered zombie was ‌quite unremarkable by himself, but had several metallic feathers still embedded in his flesh. On account of these feathers, I called him Crowe.

With Crowe and Abs escorting me I went into the main chamber of our little cave complex. I was pleased to confirm that the mining innovation allowed me to place a few zombie-made tunnels with the crafting interface, and once Bob and Leggy were done covering the cave entrance they could start expanding our home.

I tried to strain my brain and remember what was supposed to come next. Somehow we were supposed to go from a small group of fodder minions to an unending horde. The problem was that for every step forwards it felt like something pushed us back. The crow fight had given good experience for those involved, but we had lost four zombies to the fight. That put a dent in the gains we made from rounding up wandering zombies in the woods. I would get Hans to do the count later, but I estimated that we were back down under fifty again.

The second problem was that the zombies I had I didn’t really know what to do with. So far I had been sending the new arrivals to the shrines to generate more faith, which would help us move towards our [Shaman’s] mission, but that would not help us survive the next time the system dropped a cave troll on us.

We could just keep bumbling our way through the missions that the kingdom system gave us in the short term, but we also needed to set some goals of our own. I needed to have some kind of plan.

At a polite request from me, Crowe began scratching on the wall next to the shrine with a fresh spear he liberated from the [Knapping Station]. He borrowed some chalk as well, and tied it onto the end of the spear. I was taking a leaf out of Voulos’ book, not the one he kept spells in, but the tome he used to record things in. It was one of those items he kept in his vault, so we hadn’t been able to loot it from his corpse. As the cave wall filled up with words, I tried to put myself in the mindset of my old master, and even recalled Hans from the mine to help.

1- Surviv -

1. Stay hiden

2. Kill angel

2- Grow

1. Find zombiez

2. Make zombiez

3. Leggy kan make some

3- Brainz

1. Animal brains taste nasty

2. Goblin brains? Crowdelia not approve, dey outnumber us

3. Over da mountan???

With careful lines Crowe filled the wall with our needs. I focused my mind on the first, struggling a little to keep focus as the adrenaline from earlier ebbed and my emotions calmed. I was at my most cunning when the stakes were high, and in the thick of action. My lopsided charisma made it difficult to think things through impartially.

I really missed Cordelia’s advice.