Another body hit the rapidly growing pile behind her as Josephine heaped another moron who chose to challenge her. Sighing, she looked at the nearly forty corpses she had just created, a direct result of people refusing to listen to her.

A woman stepped into the courtyard of the office building. She was dressed in light track pants, a long-sleeved shirt and a combat vest. “Ma’am, Brett is here to see you again,” she said, standing professionally at attention.

Josephine turned from her grisly task to take in the young woman. Ardele had been one of the six young women she had rescued during a bandit ambush gone wrong. They had been traveling from a settlement they had just raided with their spoils, including several new women who were destined for short, brutal lives. Unwittingly they came across her when she was lost in thought and thought it would be a good idea to hit her in the head with a bat. A tactic that had worked for them every time prior to this one.

It hadn’t gone so well for them.

The powerful {MYRMIDON} had quickly dispatched a dozen pieces of scum and rescued the woman. It was then that she had received a message from the System, prompting her to take in an apprentice. Curious, she had accepted and the System had offered Aeginian Swordsman as a class to each of the rescues along with a binding apprenticeship contract.

Ardele had been the first to accept and had quickly become Josephine’s right hand. She had been a leader for her settlement before the attack. Being versed in advanced administration, logistics, and trade the woman had become empowered through her new combat-based class. The other woman received the same class but came from a variety of more mundane and average backgrounds. All of them quickly became powerhouses, however, following their master's footsteps to becoming full {MYRMIDON}S themselves.

“Tell him he can either wait or fuck off,” she said simply. Her apprentice saluted and headed quickly out of the building as Josephine watched her back. Her Six, as they called themselves, had quickly approached others in the area and built an organization around their quiet, severe master. That was when they garnered the attention of Brett, the so-called bandit leader.

He had originally shown up from the territory next to theirs to demand their immediate capitulation. But the man had instantly been taken with the beautiful warrior, changing his tune the moment they met. He had come by regularly to try and woo her into his camp through a variety of means, even going so far as to stop raiding the groups that were within her territory. One that she was trying to unite now before continuing her search for Ray.

She figured that he would enjoy having a base to operate out of, and if he already had one she would cede the territory to him and go back to being his sword protector. But that still left the bandit fuck and their annoying leader, Brett.

Schooling her face, she gave a mental sigh and headed out front. Ardele was standing nearby with several of the Six. Brett was there as well, talking to the air, to himself, and to any of the Six that seemed that they would remotely pay attention. Normally Josephine wouldn’t pay attention to his prattling, but what he was saying now immediately caught her attention.

“- was when then ran into that damn dungeon. I fucking swear, who drags Elves and Goblins around with them? Stick to your species I say! The rest can either die or serve. It's disgusting,” Brett practically yelled as she walked outside to the front of the building.

Blinking at that, she narrowed her eyes. Most of the people she had met were very much like Brett, power first, humans second, and everyone and everything else was a distant third and a valid target. The only one she knew of who actually paired up with other races that she knew of was Ray.

Walking quickly over to the bandit leader, Josephine got right into his face and stared down at the shorter man. “Repeat that again? Who were you chasing?” she asked calmly. The girls around her discreetly reached for their weapons. They more than knew by now the tendencies of their master.

Brett stammered and swallowed nervously, “Hey baby! It's been a while! Glad to see you’re, uh, as energetic as always!”

“Repeat what you just said. I want to know the story,” Josephine said again, not twitching a muscle as she stared down into Brett’s eyes.

He swallowed nervously and took a small step back, getting a bit closer to his men. “Right. Yeah, I mean sure baby. Sure thing! See, I found that fucker that hit us before that Integration thing happened. The one that was burning all of our outposts in the city? Yeah, he showed up to talk with the tinkers in my territory. Brought along some weird-looking elf guys and a couple of Goblins. And a dog! Can you believe that? A damn dog!” he said incredulously. “They hid out for the night somewhere and managed to survive the night somehow. I caught up to them this morning but lost them when they ambushed my guys with a bunch of those undead pukes finally caught back up to them right before they dove into the dungeon. I was so close to finally frying his ass too!”

“So he was alive,” Josephine muttered to herself, stepping backward. She looked up at Brett, who had narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously.

“What do you mean, ‘so he survived’? Sounds like you know this fucker?” he practically snarled, all attempt to impress the dangerous woman forgotten. “I’m beginning to think that you aren’t interested in me baby, something I take very, very much to heart. Now I hear that you know this guy that’s been a serious thorn in my side… it makes me think you’re just stringing me along you know?”

Josephine straightened. “Your misconceptions are your own, I have no interest in them. Something I have made abundantly clear. The fact you continue to bother me simply tells me you are both foolish and persistent in the extreme.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“You gotta know what you want to get it, baby,” Brett sneered. “But I think the time for a proper wooing is over. We can get to know each other with you chained up in my bedroom. Oh yeah, baby, I think that would work out perfectly.”

She only stared dispassionately back at the man. “Yeah, you and your little friends would make a welcome addition to my collection,” he said, practically drooling as he ogled her. “At least until I pass you down to my lieutenants and their men. Get em’ boys.”

Brett took a small step back as his dozen bandit enforcers rushed forward to grab Josephine and her apprentices. The apprentices, however, were not about to allow their newly found master to sully herself with the blood of fools. Adele and two of the Six charged into the bandits and began hacking them to pieces.

Adele’s weapon of choice was a long spear which she used to deadly effect. She stabbed, spun, and riposted, each attack cleanly dispatching one of Brett’s men. The second of the Six that was present utilized a long curved Chinese sword. Her flowing attacks wove between the enemy leaving body parts and bodies in her wake. The third and final member of the Six that was present used only her bare fists. Each punch caved in a head, shattered ribs, and broke bones.

Brett watched in growing horror as his squad was dispatched with lethal efficiency. They had lasted less than a minute in combat, against woman, whom they outnumbered four to one.

As the last bandit fell Josephine stalked forward. Drawing her blade, she brought it up above her head and paused for a moment. Holding his eye contact she dropped the blade without a word, bisecting the man cleanly. Turning, she walked away from Brett’s body as it exploded into motes of light. A mere doppelganger, he had never actually been present. Something that Josephine had been well aware of. The coward had been watching from afar from safety while his clones did all the dangerous work.

“They will come after us soon enough, so we must be ready. Uniting this territory quickly is our immediate goal. Then the bandits will be eliminated. Get your sister apprentices and let us move quickly,” she ordered, the trio sprinting off to find the others. As they departed she muttered to herself, “It doesn’t seem like Ray is too far off. When we meet again I can present a few new territories as an apology for being absent for so long. He shouldn’t be too upset.”

***

Screams filled the air as the Lich watched Vell torture Nell with a dispassionate and detached air. Nell, still living one of the duo, had held on remarkably well even after the heart slug had been inserted into his chest. The creature had to be in immense pain from the slug and with torture on top of it the undead monstrosity was surprised that his guest hadn’t broken yet.

Turning away the Lich examined his workstation. After his encounter and retreat from the humans, Orkin, and Aelvin who had broken through his defenses at the island, he had concentrated more on creating a phylactery. Something he had put off prior to the Integration to focus more on securing the island territory. He should have made it immediately and found a place to hole up, but hindsight was, after all, twenty-twenty.

The small obsidian pyramid had precisely six hundred and sixty-five runes carved into it, attaching the Liche's soul to the device. It would serve as an anchor for its soul and provide a way for it to come back into the world of the living should its body ever be destroyed. It also spread miasma into the area, converting all life it encountered into undead life slowly over time. It was a must for any master of the undead. It only needed a single rune to be complete. A run signifying his own name.

Why he continued to hesitate was beyond him. Perhaps his arrival onto this world had made him soft. He had enjoyed his interactions with the living so far, and completing the phylactery would ensure that a portion of this world was thrust into undeath. While being an immortal undead was great, at least in its opinion, the living were usually far more fun to interact with. Being full of life and with free will and choice often led to some amusing and entertaining choices.

A fresh round of screams filled the room, causing the Lich to look back briefly. He was annoyed at his current situation, another factor in his holding off the completion of the Phylactery. Nell had held out admirably for far longer than it had originally thought he would. But the Lich needed the information in the avian's mind. The only way to do that, and ensure that it was accurate beyond all doubt, was to tear it from the creature’s mind forcefully.

After all, if you design an esoteric reactor that pulls on the fabric of reality incorrectly and turns it on the results are rather explosive.

This required the Lich to ensure the information it got was accurate. It simply couldn’t trust Nell to provide accurate building instructions. If their ship had still been intact and available it would have been a different matter entirely… but the vessel was, unfortunately, not accessible at this time. This left the forceful conversion of Nell and Vell into undead as the only option to move forward. But they couldn’t be any regular undead, oh no. It would have to turn the pair into Wights, intelligent undead that retained their memories.

It had toyed with creating more Liches, but it didn’t need any more competition at the moment. Maybe in a few hundred years when it was bored again and needed an existential threat to liven things up. Until then, however, there was a new world to explore. Things to kill. Sentients and local humans to torture as entertainment. One human in particular came back to its mind. Again.

Shaking its skull, it moved its thoughts back to the phylactery. Immense power was required to kick start the device, thus the Liche’s requirement for an esoteric generator. The catch twenty-two had annoyed it for the last several days as it attempted to break Nell down to a state where the avian could be converted into a Wight, much like Vell had been.

The Lich mentally sighed and turned back to the torture session. It was going to be a long day and making living things scream could only entertain it so much. Maybe it should go take control of a few undead in the area and see what shenanigans it could get up to? Yes. Yes, that sounded somewhat enjoyable. It had heard of some humans nearby that preyed on others. They were in a place not far from the Liches' current home. He had heard other humans and sentients speaking about them as he had observed them covertly.

He was sure they had been referred to as bandits.

Rubbing its bony hands together, it grabbed its cloak and staff. Turning to Vell it said, “Keep on with the torture, and don’t let up. Be careful not to kill him. We need him broken, not dead.”

Vell the Wight nodded, “Of course Master Duces. It will be done,” the undead said in a monotone voice.

Duces the Lich shook his skull again. New undead, intelligent or not, always lacked personality. It was why the living were so entertaining to it. Sighing mentally once more, the Lich tossed its cloak over its shoulder and walked out of the door. It had things to find, kill, and raise. Its jaw chattered in a poor imitation of laughter.

All in good fun.