...Traces of Blood Sacrifice Located…

….Viral Load Connected to Original Rune Placement…

…Necro-System Activation in Place…

...Blood Sacrifice Reserves Minimal…

...Alternative Function for replacement candidate located…

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

The last thing I recalled was a voice. Not human though, not anything organic. I instinctively became aware of it but failed to stop myself from speaking aloud myself. All that surrounded me was pure blankness, the complete absence of space and time. A void in which I was aware but not understanding of the nature of my reality. I was either dead or transformed. I spoke again to the voice trying this time for answers.

Hello?

I can’t see anything or even more. Hello? Is this still a dream?

...Necro-System Warning Ignored…

...Direct Link Established with Candidate Designate: Insert Name Here…

Hello? I can’t hear anything but I know that there’s someone there. I can sense you. On the edges of my senses. I know you’re there. Heavy. I’m heavy and slow. My body, my form has been changed. Heavy.

I could sense a presence, a mind of a type beyond my own but whether it was a spirit for good or evil I couldn’t place. All that mattered was securing my own freedom and then revenge or thanks would come along soon enough. Talk. All living sentient beings liked to talk and this one would be no different, punishment or reward would come soon enough. The blankness comforted me in a way, it made me secure that there was no direct threat to my being.

No.

I can operate my own mind without brainwashing or support from whatever you’re meant to be. I don’t care if you’re a demon from the twenty hells or an archangel but you can send me back to my afterlife. I can sense you. You’re close. Heavy. I can’t feel my arms or legs and there’s a weight there. Breathing. I’m not breathing either. Either you killed me and decided to harvest my dead corpse for pieces or you stole or traded my soul for use in an experiment.

Rats. You expect me to kill rats when I’m blind, deaf and can’t sense anything except for my own form. I’ve been kidnapped by a necromancer and turned into a skeleton knight or another abomination. The Church of Light will hunt me down or the Dark Church will use me as cannon fodder. Not breathing. I’m not breathing but I’m self-aware.

No. We’re done here.

Far better for me to express a strong opinion than capitulate. I stretched my senses further but beyond the presence and my a weight on my frame there was little else I could picture. The magic that this being was using was far beyond my own knowledge. Still, they wanted control and gave me tasks, this meant that they wanted me. For skill or slavery I didn’t know but I would be given relative freedom soon enough. The blankness remained a comfort.

‘Did I say that we’re done here? Oh, my voice. Pretty good, given that I’m not inclined to refuse a good offer I’ll bite. The afterlife can wait for me a little longer. How about you...what’s that word you used...activate. Yes, you can activate my senses and give me a little control over my new body. Using a Death Knight body to kill rats will be a breeze.

Even an abomination with a little flesh on my bones will do a decent job. I’ll agree to you deal. Insane though it is. Nobody can kill the Dark Lord. The same goes for the other side. The Light Lord. They’re both immortals fighting their never-ending war, using up mortal lives like harvesting wheat. Nothing to say of the horrors and creations they forged. You expect me to fight demons and angels?. Forget it. You know all this. What’s my name then Necro-System? A construct needs a name. A golem needs a name and a choice. Give me that at least.’

Freedom. A voice. A choice to make for an insane being, perhaps a god which had chosen me to undertake an insane task. To destroy or contain one of several immortal beings on the continent which commanded entire armies. Blank.

Everything remained blank except the sound of my own voice. I didn’t recognise my voice but it was my own. I would make it so. I may not be aware of my surroundings but I would take my own name and voice as a good start.

Masters and Mistresses always slipped up when they made mistakes with their slaves. #

Remember. What they did to you. How they treated you. REMEMBER!

A memory of a man. Or a woman. Shouting at me. Mocking me over and over for my lack of magical skill and inability to cast even the most basic of necromantic spells. Berating my low-born status, my lack of intelligence, the way I smelled.

Blaming me when experiments when wrong. And then I found something in the mountains searching for corpses, a broken chariot with wings which had been right at the very top of the peak.

Freshly hot to the touch with a body wrapped in blue inside before smoke began to rise and an alarm sounded out, I took the dead corpse and ran back to to the Master or Mistress. I ran as a massive explosion rang out behind me leaving no traces of the once broken chariot except dust, dirt and a gaping chasm on the mountain.

Remember. Remember.

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I had brought the dead body back into the ruined castle, as part of the blue outfit had rubbed off against my skin causing me to itch and burn. I had ignored it and dragged the corpse to my Master or Mistress and they had been...been...excited. Angry. No. Beat me. They beat me and…

Beating me when I...no. The memory left me as soon as it arrived. The voice of the god or powerful spirit rang into my senses once more shocking me back into my new reality.

I tried to recall details but both the face of my Master or Mistress and the face of the figure wrapped in the shiny blue outfit were gone. No. The figure had no face. They wore a mask. A shiny reflective mask, not like a knight but round and smooth.

The voice ran out once more. Echoing inside my mind, forcing me to listen and forget the memory. I would remember. I would recall eventually but first I had to listen. I would listen to survive. Being beaten had taught me the value of shutting up and listening first.

‘No. I don’t care for your offers. Necro-Mechanical is a mouthful on its own. Shorten it. Necro-Meca Knight if you did turn me into a Death Knight after all. You promised to awaken my senses and let me see my surroundings. Being able to sense life forces means that I am an undead but I’m not questioning my own existence or even my lack of memory. You’ve resurrected me and I know a little of my own but clearly not enough. I remember a figure in blue, a broken chariot with wings which exploded. I will choose Necro-Mecha. Stop calling me a candidate and awaken my senses. I want to experience this new body of mine. Are we in agreement Necro-System?’ I replied in the hope that this broken spirit would listen to me.

I would ask for my name to be confirmed and earn my freedom in turn. The powerful spirit accepted my request so easily as though it was inconsequential. Given that the plan was to remove an immortal being who had lived on the continent for as long as human history I...how did I know that. What continent?

The voice had never told me nor had a memory come back. I was a being. Alive before this. Sentient with intact memories. The god had made changes not only to my physical form but mental as well. More words came into my mind. Why couldn’t I remember? I had a Master or a Mistress once. What had happened to them? Did they kill me in a sacrifice for power or a deal with a demon? Was this a demon?

‘Necromancy. What a surprise. Killing rats should be a simple enough task with a weapon in my hands. I’m prepared for my new body, give me a surprise and we’ll grow together to take control of the Dark Empire. Not that it makes much sense to me. Unless you plan to make me an immortal, destroying his armies and servants and then breaking through his defences is no easy task. Back to it. Open my senses up. I have a direct awareness of you and a sensation of weight to my form but little else.’ I responded to the direct orders of this vague rogue spirit.

False confidence had always been one of my few virtues. Once when I had been in the village a wild boar had attacked my friend and I had pretended not to be...not to be...village?

Remember…

No. Forcing myself to try and remember was only sending me in a pure cycle of confusion. I had to refocus and try to understand my present situation.

Finally. I would have awareness and a higher degree of control over my own situation, as opposed to being told by a god what to do. Choosing my own name was one, discovering what form I had been inserted to was another. A memory. A man who had magic, death magic. Evil by standards. Gone. The memory was gone. Too fleeting for me to take in details. More like a dream.

….Necro-System Designate Necro-Mecha Sense Activation in Process….

….Designation now classified as Necro-Mecha….

...Experimental Artificial Units are presently unavailable….

….Resetting to basic command and reward system….

….Initial mission parameters set….

….Memory Adjustment Process….Complete.

A whiteness in front of my eyes. Then a blackness within. Two of them. I pulled my vision back a little to see a grinning skull in front of my eyesight. I turned my gaze downwards towards the rest of the skeleton, it was strapped in a chair or a mounted seat.

Behind and below it lay metal which enclosed the structure. I reached out my hand to touch the white bone but nothing happened. Fearing that my arms were gone I looked for them and found nothing, no limbs, no body, a complete absence of physical form but I remained.

‘What is this. A skeleton. Mine? No flesh or traces of it and...I don’t have a body. A spirit. Or a ghost to inhabit this...room? Metal. No. Weight, there is weight that is me beyond this room. A construct or a golem. You have trapped me as a living soul inside a construct after a failed experiment?’ I asked.

‘Was that me? That skeleton was me and I died? Given that I can’t even touch anything I’m not sure how you expect me to take control of the entire Dark Empire. Unless you’ve provided me with ghost powers like life drain or life steal. Or I hijack that skeleton and remotely pilot...this metal egg. Is there a reason that I’m stuck inside here?’

I focused my attention on the skeleton back inside the metal. The fact that there wasn’t a single piece of flesh on it was odd, it clearly hadn’t died recently. I found that inside the small chamber I had relative unrestricted freedom, it was when I tried to push my...essence, my spiritual form to the walls enclosing me in there was direct resistance.

Making the best of my ability I zoomed around the skeleton, I had no clue if it had been a man or a woman but after taking a closer look there was a type of strange necklace with flickering lights attached around the neck bone and melded in with the upper ribcage.

I had memories of magic, not my own, but it was cast. I knew at least how magic appeared, flashes, and lights and a smell of ozone but that necklace was wrong. Entirely wrong. I was certain that it was no magical artefact, nothing where strange lights turned off and on randomly and the fact it made clicks.

Either that thing wasn’t from this world or it had been created by an existence of which I had no clue about. Deciding to see the limits of my current form I decided to compress myself, to limit my vision until I could examine it in better detail. The edges of the strange necklace and attached wires were smooth, far too smooth to have been made by even the greatest smith in existence.

I tried to touch it, to move closer and to my surprise the thing responded. Part of it unfurled and wrapped further around the ribcage and neck of the skeleton. I recalled plants that moved underwater, their fronds moving as the waves ebbed and flowed. Frogs used to live there.

I moved my spirit form away from the strange necklace in case it could touch my non-physical form. The way it was wrapped around the skeleton as though spreading itself and binding wasn’t a nice sight to me eyes. Nor was the fact the fact that it could sense me.

Wait. I was told that I had exterior senses. I can see. I can hear and I can move inside this metallic egg. I didn’t feel angry or sad but there was a strange sense of satisfaction at seeing the skeleton. A gladness.

A memory teased at me like a long forgotten dream, there was someone had arrived from a destroyed village, the only survivor. A stinking peasant with nothing but torn rags, a starving stomach and a painful throat from lack of water….they had….they had entered a ruined castle and….and….nothing.

The god system wanted to keep giving me a task. Clearly, it wasn’t intelligent but it responded to my commands.

A memory of failing to read basic letters and struggling came into my mind. I was beaten for each letter I misspoke and rewarded with sips of water and bites of stale-brown bread for each one read aloud correctly.

‘Necro-System. I require basic education in how to operate this...form. Then we can kill rats and get all the sacrificial blood you need. Maybe even a Goblin or two or they still live around here. I know my memory is damaged badly but clearly you need. Me. Educate me first. Fill my mind with what that strange necklace is to begin with. Are we in agreement god-system?’

<…...Basic Education Suite Enabled. Loading…..loading...loading....>

A sharp pain filled what passed for behind my eyes as I fell into a state of non-being once more.