The next day, Clavi jogged alongside me to Oirk. Wanting to test his speed, he capped out pretty quickly at a bit under 10 mph. That was still enough to drain my Stamina, but luckily we had to slow down a little further. His slick bony feet didn't garner much traction, and would trip up when sprinting.
Running while practicing the <•Magic Dart•> variation, after around an hour I put Clavi away. Vamp warned against letting others see the undead, and he probably knew best about the matter. Maybe. Vamp wasn't actually undead, maybe he was like an albino lamprey or something. Well, even if he was a true vampire it didn't change the fact that the undead probably wouldn't be looked favorably upon, despite my rising status among the goblins.
The population density grew higher as I approached the dome, and a path was cleared, my presence making waves. I wondered how the goblins were recognizing me, different clans were a little easier to tell apart, but other than the very unique Iyrkraal it was difficult to differentiate individuals. My features weren't all that unique…
Hmm. I realized I yet again forgot about that reeter sap on my cheeks. It just wasn't something of note in most of my actions, cosmetic changes slipped the mind quite easily. At least it protected me from being attacked in the current situation.
As I reached the center, enough notice had been stirred up that Ychk came out to greet me among the masses. He slouched, in a human manner, not the omnipresent goblin hunch, looking like the past few days drained the life out of him.
“Greetings Ychk, I come for the chikan.”
“Yes. It is prepared. Follow me to the chikan.” Speaking without accent and in technically correct, albeit brief snippets, Ychk did not seem keen on conversing. I didn't know enough about him to figure out was wrong, so we went to the chikan stores in silence. A pity, as I was unable to adequately show my speechlessness as a result.
A chikan is ever so slightly larger than a chicken, around the size of a kickball. Instead of a bloated look, they were rather muscular, and while not very dangerous, it wasn’t exactly easy to catch them in the wild. Nevertheless, back on the outskirts of Oirk a mountain of chikans had been piled up. The word literally only barely does not qualify to be used; the Khtraal produced a mound about two meters in height and with a shallow angle of repose. How many chikans is that, over a thousand?
“That’s...certainly a lot. Hahaha~” A bit stunned at first, it was an unexpected windfall. With the ability to infinitely store and preserve them, I managed to acquire a good Quest Reward. There wouldn’t be any worries about starving to death; and
Without ceremony, I already had begun tossing chikans into my inventory even as I asked for more. When given an opportunity, take it! There’s no such thing as too much, and chikans swiftly vanished into Inventory, with the help of
“Is that enough chikan?” A goblin voice surfaced, cracking slightly.
“Hohoho~, Khtraal said he would collect chikan for two more weeks. My eyes are not so much larger than my stomach that this one payment is more than I need.” Smiling, I continued to slurp up the chikans. There were quite a number and needed to be dealt with quickly; Khtraal had probably put off the chikan hunting until yesterday, but about one in a hundred seemed to be on the verge of going bad. “How long do chikan stay fresh? There don’t seem to be any flies or other insects around.”
“It is kroi…” Ychk responded slowly, as if confused. “Ah. Humans do not smell. Burn kroi, so bugs do not come.” Gesturing around, ashes lightly speckled the forest floor. Hard to distinguish against the ground, they’d gone unnoticed. Quite a useful plant, I wondered if I could get a hold of any.
“What does this kroi look like? It seems to be quite a helpful thing.”
“I will show you. Just do not ask for it.”
“Yes-yes, our deal was for the chikan not the kroi.”
After a few minutes and a few thousand chikans, the last one was greedily absorbed by Inventory. Ychk took showed me to a bramble building that stored the kroi, a familiar looking leaf with an orangey tint to its veins. Thinking back, the kroi leaf had probably been grown in the farm plots along the side of the road near Glaucen. Since it had the properties of an insect repellant, it could be used to help keep foods edible longer. The goblin store of the leaf wouldn’t match their population, but then again they did seem to be more the type to eat their kills fresh.
I didn’t bumble about with the logistics of feeding hundreds of thousands of goblins and swiftly left Oirk. There were still things to do in the area.
Heading deeper into the forest, it was time to do more scavenging. A battlefield of such magnitude could not disappear in such a short span of time, but it was clear that swathes of goblins had already torn through. Weapons, and even some of the rags, had been removed from the dead, and perhaps only one in ten of the bodies had no sign of becoming someone’s dinner. Unlike the pile of chikans, this place definitely has the drone of insects; several bodies completely covered by the shiny black carapaces of untold beetles.
Luckily, the insects didn’t seem to have proliferated through the graveyard, only appearing in a few patches on the excessively savaged bodies and open entrails. That didn’t mean they weren’t a ticking time bomb, no doubt their population would explode in the near future and sweep over the forest of flesh devouring all in their wake. I didn’t have any faith that they would just leave piles of clean bones to pick up from behind, so I set to work.
Other than the carrion critters, there were no mammals in the area (however I did spot a few cute lizards). It seemed that despite their slight presence, after the insects came, the area was abandoned. Endless creaking and chittering from the swarms that sounded like the spawn of an eldritch abomination probably put off most of the wildlife. Yet combined with the earth still steeped in sticky blood and surrounded by dead so mangled you couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began, I just felt nostalgic for Underworld. There just weren’t many places in the real world with a strong presence like that place did.
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Whatever reason it truly was, the area lacked sentient occupation. As a result, I freely used my necromancy. Like with swordplay, Clavi could learn a limited amount of butchering and dismantling, but anything too complicated would have him leaving nicks on the bone. Zog dragged over the larger corpses, and the hand spiders had an easier time than usual; goblins weren’t the most relaxed eaters, and left a lot of chunks easy for Hans und Freunds to haul. Between all of us, we were working quickly, yet the scale of the battlefield was too big.
I wasn’t dreaming of cleaning up the forest, but this was a bonus level where the coins are liberally scattered about. After a certain amount of time they would disappear, and while it wouldn’t be a loss, you certainly want as many as possible. Speedily stripping bones, I still only placed something in my Inventory every few second, and whole bodies were few, though Zog was doing his best to collect them.
Slightly slowing my paring of useless flesh, I recalled the excess death imbued bones from my Inventory. Making multiples to choose the very best for Clavis, I had enough for three more full skeletons and a few extras. Extras, but only from making the very best skeleton possible with my ability, the pieces were still incredibly high quality. Concentrating for a short while, I decided that I would go for quality, and try and use all my mana to bring them to life.
If you play Underworld and are familiar with Necromancers, you realize that this isn’t something present in game. Unless it drained your mana permanently, a Beacon necromancer could create huge amounts of insanely strong undead. Using excessive mana to empower my creations was a trait of the world; it was a combination of directly making the mana in the spell shape ‘more dense’, as well as it being used to merge more Negative Energy into the spell shape. A larger labor force was required to swallow the resources, but mana regenerated and I wanted my minnies to be a cut above the rest. It took 45 minutes between creating each new skeleton, but that was time well spent.
It wasn’t a haphazard or slipshod job, a lot of effort went into each one; but compared to the dedication and excitement I had for Clavi, it didn’t really match. Haldi, Ru Xi, and Ter; three good skeletons, but not quite as good as their silly senior student. Well, Ter’s bone structure probably wasn’t female, but she also wasn’t a goblin. Close enough, no one here would get it anyway. Not quite as fast or strong, and not learning as quickly or adept with their hands, they weren’t bad at all. No no no, the three were still excellent compared to normal students, or rather skeletons. With their addition to the team, things went by faster.
Faster wasn’t fast enough! Imbuing bones with death energy needed to be done piece by piece, consuming large amounts of both mana and time. It took the whole day making those sets of bones while making Clavi, and I only ended up with four. Manual labor need not reach the heavens, but I also did not wish to use materials that could be used for top quality minnies on drones. Even low quality mats could reach a higher realm with effort, I just needed time.
I spent an embarrassing amount of time deliberating on whether or not to create an abundance of weaker minions. Mana slowly refilling, like an hourglass in reverse, pressured me to make a decision so I could use my mana in the most optimal fashion without a bit being wasted. Almost completely refilled I let out a sigh. With a clatter bones fell from my Inventory, and several skeletons sprung up.
If I were to create an undead horde, so long as each one brought back one body of equal quality they would have already paid off their production cost. The longer they were around the more profit I could make, and if the number of usable bodies on the battlefield were slowly decreasing, it was better to just quickly summon more. There were still plenty to replace what I used on them.
Setting to work, about every 20 minutes another skeleton would rise up. After collecting their first body, every fifth one would be tasked with helping Clavi and the other three elite skeletons clean off bones. Bodies went through an assembly line, eventually making it so
At the moment, I was intensely focused on optimizing the situation at hand. Skeletons could act on slightly more complex orders than the hand spiders, but I still had to fine tune them occasionally. My soul formed more and more minor attachments to the skeletons, and while controlling them put a bit of a strain on me, curiously when looking at the soul, each one was totally unique. That at the very least made it easy when remembering what skeleton was supposed to do what; they were names without names.
Only when I started feeling it was getting late did I reevaluate my surroundings. Though covered in blood and muscle tissue, I couldn’t see any whole bodies or bones. It may have been a thick forest, but the visibility wasn’t all that bad, especially since the charging goblin hordes trampled all the shrubs. Over two dozen skeletons started to idle about in my vicinity, a small throng of the undead.
Where was I going to put all these guys?
A/N:AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!