I fell down into the dry drainage chamber in the sewers and crinkled my nose at the smell. My senses were already dialled up so much now compared to a normal human it was like I could taste the foul air in the sewers. I then groaned and rubbed the side of my head, that had been close so damn close.

I hadn’t thought I could use the ritual that Saleh had used to spy on me like a portal but it took something out of me I was certain I’d rather have kept. With what the mutations that had occurred when the potency of not only true dragons blood but also from the energy rich blood of the two cultivators I’d drained mixed, I’d lost enough.

I’d lost Liche’s gift in that second bout of rebirth I suppose I should call it. Instead I could return from death if I had the willpower to do it but after everything I’d already been through that might be harder done than said. I was tired, so damn tired already and I just kept putting more and more work upon myself. Then again once the first parts were over I could relax more and spend the time I wanted to with Akasha and Morice. The two were good kids and I wanted to at least give Akasha a good childhood with what little time I had left before she grew too old to be considered a child.

I sighed again as I was partly lying to myself as there had been another reason for me to leave so abruptly. I had almost torn that man’s throat out just to slake the thirst that had grown in power considerably after my newest rebirth. I suspected after the rather visceral reaction to trying bestial blood that to slake this thirst I’d need a sentients blood.

Though it was all so typical wasn’t it? Nothing in the world came free and I’d lost some of the powers and abilities I’d had for the sake of new ones. And here I was whining about it, I’d been given more chances than most and I just kept whining.

I slapped the side of my face and groaned as it was delivered a lot heavier than I had intended. My previous mental strength relegation techniques didn’t work any more so I’d had to learn to walk again. Literally. It had taken an hour just to relearn how to walk instead of launching myself forwards to where I intended to land.

Thankfully that night of learning was spent pretty much only on relearning very basic things but I wouldn’t be picking up anything fragile just yet. I wouldn’t dare even touch Akasha before I’d gotten full control over my body once more.

Another ripple ran through me and I had to redouble my focus to keep my current form. Apparently I’d unlocked two new forms unrelated to the usual of just growing my carapace over myself like armour. I could now turn into that three meter tall giant monster thing from before but I could also turn myself into a travel form which I hadn’t turned into yet since I had no idea on how to do so. I knew about it because of my status and that had changed rather drastically after that second round of change after that huge dragon had left but now it was like my body wanted to shift again.

Thankfully I had only really had Nidhogg in my soul space which had been devoured with all it’s contents to fuel that original change. I’d left pretty much all of my minions back at the manor to make sure Morice and Akasha were safe while I was away. I guessed my paranoia had some good come of it I wryly chuckled to myself.

I had reconnected with my own minions when I had come back and the mental flood gates that opened with information and updates had been rather enlightening. Especially when it came to a particular lord Keakian while dealing with him. Normally I’d have allowed my anger and instincts to take over and struck the man dead but I couldn’t. He didn’t know that of course but I had given my word not to do anything harmful to the empire for my safe haven and he was an ambassador. His murder or even disappearance would lead to questions and possible trouble if not an outright casus belli on the empire from Nomgolir. That couldn’t be allowed to happen, at least from my own actions anyway.

I’d require agents of my own that could act independently and even possibly use to lay any groundwork I’d need when I’d finally deal with Wolfsgarde. Hmm, agents to possibly create cults to distract and divert wolfsgards attention while I prepared or had another operation in the works. I pondered a bit more on those possibilities but I’d require to really train the agents I’d wish to use. The most efficient way to get agents loyal to me and me alone and properly trained enough would be to train them from childhood but was I really that type of person?

I shook my head, if I was going to do something I had to be certain of it. Thankfully right now I was heading to the blackmarket arena that Emperor Alocia had asked me to look into as a distraction from my thoughts. Of course I intended to destroy the place and kill most of them down there. The rest would be sent running with one of the little guys in my hand to track them all down and get more information. In the palm of my hand was a revised version of the original scavengers. Small bone spiders about the size of my thumb which had been very hard to craft but took so little power that twenty counted for only a single slot in the minor skeleton limit that I had. I’d make just over a hundred of them and use them to spy on the arena since it was due tomorrow if my days were correct.

That would give me enough time to pin point the less useful of the audience and plant these on the rest. I created two more full sized scavengers and sent them out to gather bones and useful material for me while I spent a bit of the materials I already had on hand to create more tiny skeleton spiders. Hmm… I’d have to come up with a name for these things if they prove effective enough to be a mainstay wouldn’t I?

I pondered on this while I smoked and walked leisurely allowing the smoke from my pipe to mask most of the smell in the place. All the while tinkering with making more and more little spiders. I even threw in a few skeletal rats with bones coloured by shadow infusion for good measure but instead of the one slot for twenty of the spiders these only came out to around eight per slot which was still good in my opinion. Campbell had been right.

The rats I sent out to scout and map the sewers for the scavengers to know where they could harvest any materials if found and which routes to avoid. By the time I’d managed to build two more scavengers to go and fetch me some more material I arrived. It looked like there was a huge underground chamber under the capital. The part of the sewers I’d been in connected to a huge natural cavern that collected the run off from the sewers into a single passage that went somewhere else. What I was interested in was the sort of old western crossed with a shanty town city that was built on the other end of the cavern.

Normally one wouldn’t be able to see it as well as I could. All you could see was the faint lights in the city itself fighting against the darkness of the underground making it almost otherworldly in appearance. Like some strange fey city had decided to put itself there. I on the other hand wasn’t bothered by the black of the cave and could see the city for the strange shanty town that it was. I kinda liked it, it had this air of a run down old western vibe with a bit of the more Persian and Arabian mixed in from the city above.

Kinda made me think of some strange Bollywood old western interpretation of the Aladdin story or something, all with an arena built into the wall the town was built against.

I paused as another idea came to me and I rubbed the abdomen of the spider in my hand. For the body itself it was bone plates interlaced to hold the small balls serving as joints for the legs but the abdomen was different. Like I’d used for the scavengers I drew inspiration from the skeleton of a puffer fish so that it could be expanded and possibly used to store something. I created a mana stone the size of half of my little finger while visualizing mana threads and their varied manipulation and then placed it inside the abdomen of the skeleton spider. As I raised it the abdomen fused with the mana stone and to my surprise this one gained the ability to use mana threads like normal spiders too.

I smiled as I watched the spider dangle down on a mana thread from my hand before it went right back up like a yo-yo. I found myself a nice niche in the cavern that was close to but relatively unnoticed by the shanty town. Releasing my spiders into the town in batches once I’d upgraded the one’s I’d already made before the experiment to grant threads to the spiders.

My guess had been right after the first few had spied on the shanty town. The tournament was tomorrow but all the real players and almost all of the participants of the tournament were there. Apparently that Anubian I fought in Bedelev had fought in another tournament a few days ago and had been injured in his match. He’d won the match but wasn’t in any state to continue in a match against someone that sounded suspiciously like Abhorash and I smiled at that. He was determined to get experience and forge his own martial path. I was oddly proud of him that he’d managed to go through that tournament without anyone finding out he was undead. Perhaps he was much more intelligent than I’d given him credit for. I filed him away as the type to only speak when they have to but consider everything before acting.

Then again unlike him I had a connection far stronger with my created minions. I still felt a small connection to him but it was more that I could know his general direction and if he was alright. It wasn’t the near mind to mind touch I had with Vashanesh, Ashes and Dust when in close enough proximity or that vague extension of myself with the less intelligent ones. Those I could now command with just barely a thought. I guessed the now three full years of only mana training and a little mental and martial training to break it up a bit had affected me more than anything after my latest rebirth.

I was a lot more in control now I wasn’t as instinctive as before and I was aware of everything around me for almost a full fifty meters now. A combination of my mana senses and my natural rather highly developed senses. This made my connection to those I had created feeling like threads extending my awareness to tiny flickers outside the vast extension of my awareness. Like tiny little candle flames in the dark.

It was sort of comforting as it pushed away any feeling of being alone I might have. If I felt alone I could just reach out to the brightest flickers and touch upon the mind behind it. Then the realization of what I was doing hit me and I recoiled into my own mind, closing off everything and retracting my awareness to just my own body.

I took calming and centring breaths as I meditated to keep myself contained within myself. Everything had been running on adrenaline and I was so familiar with my old training area with the council I hadn’t rested enough or gotten the time to actually realize the scope of my new senses and how… well strange it all was. If before my eyesight had been upgraded from the black and white to around 360 pixels this was like going from black and white all the way up to 8k definition. It had been jarring in the beginning but then the animals on the mountain grew restless and all headed for me in small herds or groups. Though in the end that culminated in the horde in the end when I’d been slowly driven to seek better areas to fight in that ended in me fighting at the end of a large canyon.

The sheer instinctual drive to survive that had driven me for the majority of my stay in the mountain range after the ancient dragon I still didn’t know the name of had left. I had been given a chance to get familiar with moving my body to an actually usable degree combat wise with the council before I’d woken up as a pack of strange lion goat things had descended upon me moments after waking up. Then it all devolved into a kaleidoscope of teeth and claws and blood.

That small time I’d been given to stop and think when Saleh had been spying on me at the end was the only real breather from running and killing I’d been given since waking up. I shook my head and opened my eye again and stood up.

I looked down at the strange mix of boar fur I’d magically treated to be wearable and mana infused shadows that made up my impromptu clothing. The tiny little strings of smoke and smoky after image when they moved made me smile a little. Letting my inner edge lord out a bit I almost wanted to find some hapless hero and go all Bane on him talking about being born in the darkness and whatnot. Then I thought better of it and began to incorporate my scales into the clothing as well. It took a while, almost a full hour to finally get it right and not have my current form spontaneously expand into the large form I’d most likely call my elder form or whatever the travel form would be.

However I also knew I’d have to be able transfer between all three forms freely soon. My true self as it were was in flux, I had to figure out my forms. How to use them, how they felt and then choose which one would be my truest self as a form. I already knew that the form I was in now wasn’t it, I felt restrained. Like my skin was too tight against me, like clothes that you’ve outgrown years ago but refuse to admit they don’t fit properly any more.

If that large form was to be my true form then I’d have to grow comfortable in this one if I was to be able to move around more freely. I couldn’t have everyone running away from me just at the sight of me, then again… no it’d be just more trouble than its worth to walk around in that form. I doubt I could pass it off as some ancient dragon of a species no one has heard about. Then again if my title as void dragon was any indication didn’t that sort of say I was.

But the voidborn were creatures I’d never heard of before but I had fought one before. There had been a cult I’d had to eradicate in one of the demonfolk cities that Wolfsgard had conquered. The thing was a lovecraftian horror. All mismatched shapes, mouths, claws and eyes, the few tentacles it had sported had normalized it for me somehow.

It had made it so similar to the creatures of lovecraftian horror I’d seen pictures of or what I’d seen in other media. Seems you can be desensitised enough that when you’re used to pain and death something like that freaks you out just that little bit less that you need to survive. The fight and birth of the thing had haunted quite a few of my nightmares for a while after that though.

From what Sutek tells me I should be able to tap into some sort of information packet related to what my titles actually do. Somehow I wasn’t allowing that information to come through with any of my void related titles.

On the other hand after Sutek had explained to me how I had gotten the information related to my others after a meditation session. None of them really did much but to be some mark of achievement but two did do something for me.

Title: Beloved of Mana

Effect: You have touched upon mana and it found your touch worthy. It will come easier to you and follow your commands more willingly than for others.

Title: Dragon slayer

Effect: You’ve slain a mighty dragon! Some of its power is now yours as the dragon found you worthy to bequeath some of its power to you. Your body will swell with the strength and vigor of a dragon for you now are member to a group of select few.

I still felt a bit bad for the Dragon slayer title as what had happened with Nyrunth and it made the title feel hollow. Like it stained my personal honour in a way. I wouldn’t call my self the king slayer if the king I slew just turned his neck to me and allowed me to chop his head off after all. This felt rather similar and undeserved while I still couldn’t throw it away as that would also dishonour Nyrunths sacrifice as well.

It all left a bad taste in my mouth and a weird feeling that I couldn’t quite place. I knew back on earth honour was an outdated concept but here it actually mattered still and I wanted my word and honour intact as it were. It was the same reason I was looking for Trolgar.

Even if I found him in a state where death was preferable I would help him how I could. He had helped me when I had feared I’d get stuck in a rather long cycle of endlessly drowning over and over again. I hadn’t realized it at the time but if that had happened I doubt I could have been even able to function as well as I had up till now. Not that it was able to be called much of being functioning as I’d constantly been looking for any excuse really to lash out at anything that might threaten me.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

My melancholy lasted a few more moments of inward contemplation before I snapped out of it and got back to business. On a whim I called for Vashanesh to come to me with the last two remaining Ushabti as guards. I felt in the mood to throw myself into experimentation to get my mind off things and back on task.

I reached out to the bone rats I’d made to scout out the sewers had found out they’d come across quite a few dead homeless people and older skeletons. Even a few animal skeletons too. I thought it over and spent the last of my lesser skeleton minion slots on scavengers to bring this treasure trove of materials to me. I took a few minutes to scout the full cavern and found a spot that would allow me to work undisturbed yet still be in easy striking distance to the shanty town. I estimated by the people in the town having recently gone to sleep I could work for a few hours in peace. It also gave me an idea for a few vampire related experiments.

After all weren’t all the people in that shanty town the undesirables of society? Well no one would miss them in my opinion and the emperor had said I could do this my way. Well I’d gladly use a few of them to see the full capabilities of the basic vampiric conversion skill. If it was promising I might find a new hobby for when I went after the gangs in the city later. I also liked the idea of a contingency plan if things turned sour.

The emperor wouldn’t be able to spend resources to chase me if an army of vampiric thralls suddenly pour out of the sewers after all. I smiled to myself.

I judged the emperor to be an honest man but one had to be able to be hard when in his position. If my presence might jeopardize his empire outside of our deal and the benefits outweigh the risks in his mind then I know he wouldn’t hesitate. I of course didn’t really know if that day would come or if in that situation he’d choose an outcome not ideal for myself but I still wanted to be prepared. He was only human after all I thought as I smiled a rather predatory smile.

Then I was startled at the thought again. I knew I hated humanity rather vehemently now but when had I stopped fully counting myself as not one of them? It had always been a sort of after thought in my mind before since I thought like a human so ergo I must be since I’ve been human for so damn long. Now however? I thought it through and felt a sting of revulsion towards humanity not because they were humans but oddly enough because they were mortals. I filed all of that into something to unpack when I had peace and quiet for some serious introspection later. I hadn’t realized my ego thought me immortal now.

I chuckled self-deprecatingly as I shook my head. I guessed I needed some rather specialized shrinks now. I laughed at myself in a low tone then at that thought before reaching out and finding that Vashanesh had arrived now. Though the vibe I was getting from him was a nervousness I hadn’t taken him for the type to be. He was still just on the edge of where I could see and stayed out of my view for some reason.

It took a bit of mental prodding but I found out why he’d stayed a bit hesitant to show himself to me as he’d modified his form a bit. I guess I couldn’t leave him idle without a task or he’d get… creative.

Last I’d saw him he had been this skeleton mummy looking thing with four arms and vampiric facial features. The lower arms were triple jointed and came out just bellow the shoulder blades and all the joints were balls instead of normal ones to allow for greater range of movements, even the fingers.

Now? Well he kept the sort of Egyptian skeletal vampire warlock type armour I’d created out of bones but they had turned black with thin lines like someone was highlighting the edges of the armour as well as a few runes, hieroglyphs and other arcane symbols also white as they were etched into the armour at key places. I could feel the mana that went into it was minimal but the runes were pliable since it was made out of bone and Vashanesh could manipulate it as he wished with bone crafting.

In the centre of the chest guard was a slot for what would be a rather impressive mana stone in the shape of a sort of elongated hexagon. In the very centre of the slot was the beginnings of the mana stone.

As I took a closer look at it I realized that he must-have gotten quite a bit of my knowledge when raised as it was the densest mana stone I’d ever seen. It was just a bit bigger than my pinky finger curled but could already hold in the same amount of mana as a normal one the size of my fist. Once completed that stone would hold a frightening amount of mana. City destroying levels if the stone exploded.

Then it was Vashanesh himself that had changed. His spindly slightly longer than normal upper arms had thickened a bit and now looked more like a normal man’s arm but sculpted from bone, with claw tipped fingers that also were just a tad too long to be normal. The ball joints were rather well incorporated into the overall design so you wouldn’t spot them unless really looking. The rest of his body had filled out much the same but still stretched just a bit too much in to be considered healthy. With how his limbs looked his chest made it seem like he was a normal person suffering from anorexia only in his chest and abdominal region. Coupled with the slightly too long limps made it all very uncanny valley for me to look at. A subtle kind of wrong to normal sensibilities and expectations. I liked the change.

His hooded head finished the ensemble as he’d removed almost all of his teeth safe the upper and lower canines and connected the missing parts with bone and slightly elongated the skull as a whole as well in a downward direction. His chin bones were much more defined and now his slightly angry tilt of his eye sockets were now turned into a glowing blue fire for eyes in a perpetual look of fury.

I whistled low at the sight of him. “You’ve been busy I see.” I said with a slight smile as he shuffled over to me with the two lesser Ushabti flanking him. They were simply two skeletons looking like the skeleton of the Egyptian god Anubis so like the Anubi just larger and with thicker bones with great two handed versions of a Kopesh as weapons. I grinned a little as I noted the skeletal ears I’d added on as little personal touch of my own.

“I am sorry for changing my form my lord.” Vashanesh bowed his head a little. “I’ve been working with the three classes you granted me and have been attempting some experiments of my own with my own body as a base.” He said from his bowed position, his voice still sounded a little like parchment, raspy and sonorous but now it had an added ethereal quality as under his main voice it sounded like three more whispered the same words as well. I liked it.

“Raise your head. Your doing what I had in mind for your kind of undead anyway. Normally I’d describe your kind as Necrotechs but apparently that word is for a specific class that’s a higher variant of necromancer. But I digress you are supposed to look over and find the best way for us to use the minimal amount of material to created the best type of skeletons we can as well as work on more specialized tasks such as armouring, artifice, enchanting or other necromancy related subjects. Hell I’m thinking of having you help me design a fortress inside a mountain once I’ve gotten situated enough here and gotten a few scouting parties of Skeletal Ravens out to look over the north.” I said with a jovial tone. I was surprised by his change but it was a pleasant one. It showed me that while loyal till the end as all or most of my minions were he was still his own individual.

I felt a sense of relief trickle from Vashaneshs connection to me and smiled as he raised himself up, now no longer hunched but with a straight back of a proud man. “Thank you my lord. I feel then that it is for this task that you’ve called for me?” He bowed his head a little and then asked.

“Yeah I’m thinking of trying a few things out and creating a few more Ushabti and steal a few of the mortals over in that shanty town and try out my vampiric conversion.” I said as my smile turned from jovial to predatory.

A low chuckle came from Vashanesh and I suddenly wondered how he could speak with a sealed mouth and then I figured ethereal vocal cords or something. “An excellent Idea my lord. Might I suggest a few variations of them?” He asked and I nodded at him with my smile still in place.

It was about one and a half hour later that the first hapless man was pulled from his bed were he slept. Two mummified Anubi with long claws on their finger tips and dressed only in a tattered cowl and the same Egyptian type hip armour that I’d often seen in such media of mummies. Their glowing blue ethereal eyes were nothing more than twin flickering blue flames in their empty sockets. One had clamped pretty hard on the mouth of the man to stop him from screaming and he’d pissed himself on the way. I chuckled as I could feel his pain a bit, if these two suddenly shook me awake and then kidnapped me I’d pretty much soil myself rather thoroughly out of fear.

It didn’t help that the two had a lesser fear aura about them and the man was almost frothing at the mouth from fear when he was finally tossed before me.

I’d decided to adopt what I had called my elder form but now I realized I felt the most at home in it now. I still had to figure out how to turn to the other form but that was neither here nor there. The man was bumbling to himself in whispering tones as all he could see in the dark was the four glowing blue eyes staring down at him. I reached out and gently held onto his face which made him flinch and begin to recoil but at the strange ‘ssshh’ sound I made froze him in his place.

I forced his mouth open and dripped a single drop of my blood down his throat and then let him go. He was immediately grabbed, bound and gagged by the Ushabti stalkers as I called them and pulled to a secluded corner to weather out his changes away from the work area me and Vashanesh had designated.

I smirked as I turned back and only bothered now to have the boar skin wrapped around my waist for modesty’s sake. I looked over at the prepared types of Ushabti that myself and Vashanesh had designed. The first I’d made we ended up simply calling Ushabti soldiers as they were the base model that we’d only slightly modified from the original by making their bones denser and planed to equip them with actually forged arms and armours. Then came the aforementioned shadow infused Stalkers who also had viscous twin bone daggers along with their claws to act as scouts, thieves and assassins as needed.

We’d made three more types so all in all I now had a selection of five different types of Ushabti. One was the Ushabti Sorcerer that had mana crystal rods inside the middle of all their limbs and spine with a brain shaped one in their skull and small claws made of the stuff. I’d made these with as little mana as I needed to create them so these were poor quality mana stones which I needed if I wanted to raise them with the raise skeleton skill instead of it’s lesser variant or the spectral variant I could do.

I got the idea of having them meditate and focus on improving their own quality by refining their own mana stones on their own. Since skeletons couldn’t internalize mana as that apparently was the prerogative of the living they had to use the ambient mana to do any magic. Most mage type skeletons that spammed out spells were relying on skills and the like to do it. I wanted a better class of undead to serve under me. I also hadn't been able to help but notice Vashanesh taking notes as he looked at his own hands in thought. I was certain that if I helped him out with more sessions like this both of us could learn a lot from one another. I’d noticed it with how he thought when we were discussing the upgraded version from the normal lesser Ushabti and he’d gone with the same ball joints as he had, saying they were better.

After the Sorcerers came the royal guards. These had much denser bones to the point of steel like strength and looked more like white marble statues of Anubis by some ancient Greek sculptor come to life. With sleek and toned bodies and lifelike limbs but with much better ranges of motion as even their fingers were ball jointed so they could grab something holding onto the back of their hands. These were armed with bone Kopesh’s and a sort of kite shield but all in an Egyptian theme even with their light half-plate like armours who’d been enchanted with runes for strengthening both armour and wearer. For now most of what we were making were proofs of concept as I wanted to have rods and sheets of strong metals incorporated just under the skin layer of their bodies and inside their limbs for more toughness and strength. In their chests were also hearts made of mana stone along with a brain with the rest all mostly filled in with dense bone in a way that still allowed them a full range of motion.

The idea for those two was to make these Royal guards capable of spontaneous casting or empowerment with internal mana reserves but I also wanted them to be capable mage killers. They’d be a nightmare to fight if they could cancel or even rebound spells cast at them while still capable of tearing apart standard warriors with ease by pure dint of skill and strength.

Then came the Inquisitors. They wouldn’t really work like inquisitors but had a similar function. A blend of a lesser version of the royal guards and sorcerers with a ritualistic obsidian dagger made with a shadow infused mana stone made as dense as I could for structure rather than capacity. With their sort of half mummified look as we didn’t wish to make them as dense as the royal guards with half rods instead of full rods of mana inside their limbs but with both a brain and heart of mana stone like the royal guard too. I also decided to make twin veins running from the skull face’s nostrils to the corners of its eyes, the soft glow of the mana stone would work well with the shadow infused bones black colour that was the same as the Stalkers.

We then clothed them in tattered robes made slightly armoured with bone plates while holding it all together with an Egyptian theme as the the rest of them. I infused the robes with a blend of shadow infusion, mana infusion and a very tiny bit of spirit energy which made the robes almost appear alive as they very lightly moved now draped over the inanimate undead. Their overall look was something akin to a priestly battle mage blend complete with that flat crown thing with a small Anubian skull at the front for decoration. The armour was white as bone while the skin of the inquisitor was black and so were his robes and I found it contrasted quite well.

There were ideas for support and ranged versions that we had decided to have wait for later we’d named Necrachs and Hunters respectively. I had the idea for hunters because we’d been talking about rapid fire mechanisms to help the hunters fire volleys on their own and the legolas bow attachment had come to mind. As long as we could find a sort of belt fed version then we wouldn’t have to take a long time to reload the thing and all the hunters would have to do was crank a lever with an attached trigger to fire the bow. I had ideas on grafting the entire mechanism as their arm and maybe supersize them for rapid fire ballista type artillery. I had a devious grin on my face at the thought of how terrible that would be… for the enemy.

The necrachs would mostly work along side those of the type Vashanes’s would be as their assistants and those who’d maintain those minions we’d store for later. My plans for the future did span decades after all and I’d make sure I wouldn’t just throw everything I had at Wolfsgard, perhaps a standard sort of army first to see their defences and the like? Then an army of elite units and the real advanced types we’d make in the future as the second wave to utterly crush them. I chuckled darkly at that idea, a delicious sort of horror for Wolfsgard to suffer if the first army did enough damage. Of course if I was close to doing them in with the first army then I could keep that latter army for a rainy day when I’d need them.

That made me think of a two fold base of operations with one being the place were the elites are made and levelled up without any interference from the outside world. I’d have to go over it with Vahsanesh when the time came but I suspected then I’d have to have the outer base able to be assaulted easier.

I was pulled out of my musings when I noted the change in the man brought by the stalkers. He was convulsing while I saw vampiric canines grow in his gagged mouth and claws push themselves out of his finger nails. I watched with a sort of detached fascination and curiosity as the man lost himself in the change. What was left of the man was a snarling near feral attack dog I could command at my will but I couldn’t trust them to feed on those I commanded them to attack. I’d have to see what happens to those bitten by a vampire thrall like this.

I stared at the drone before me and then looked at the two stalkers that had stood watch over the prisoner while he was changing. With a mental flick at them I sent them to go get me another prisoner to continue my experiments.

I went on to raise the Ushabti we had made though the sorcerers, Royal guard and Inquisitors went on to take spectral skeleton slots as I ended up wanting them able to think for themselves. I didn’t bother with names for now. I’d make my minions prove themselves to earn names and I’d elevate them for it. We’d spent pretty much every material the scavengers had managed to get us bone and fabric wise in creating the Ushabti but we did have a single corpse of a homeless man I intended to try out if vampiric conversion works on the already dead.

Turns out it doesn’t, instead it sort of twisted in on itself and dried up to frankly an unusable state. I sighed at the waste of material but then shrugged as the Stalkers brought in another frantically resisting victim of the night.

I had the vampire thrall take a bite of him but prevented anything but a single bite before I separated it from the man a little too hard. My first vampire thrall had been a level 15 rouge but now it was more a chunky smear on the cave wall.

I grimaced and then had the stalkers fetch more to be convert into thralls while I observed what would happen to the man now crying on the floor after being bound and gagged. This time I wanted a clean person if they could find one as I wanted to see what would happen if I drained someone of blood and if I tried vampiric conversion in that same state so I’d need two but with my thirst I was rather certain I’d need a few more to be fully slacked.