Walking into the bell tower, she took in the sight of where Memna had been hiding. She found it... wanting. It was a rather small room, similar to the size of her core room, though much taller. In the middle of the room, a long rope trailed down from above. A few bottles, most of them empty, sat in the corner alongside a bundle of rags and robes. With no sense of smell remaining, she couldn't say what fluid was within them. Memna likely slept here. She started climbing the wooden, spiralling staircase, It took some time to climb the steps, but eventually she arrived at the top. Here, the walls opened up to expose the world outside of her church. Inside of the arched walls, there was a large bell attached to the rope. Yet... no spawner?

Looking out into the village, the air brushing against her bones, its temperature a mystery to her, The Master examined what would soon become her domain. It seemed, from her position, that the church was built at an angle compared to most of the village. Staring off to her right, she saw mostly farmland that was being looted by a few small groups of chaka and a handful of buildings that were likely to be houses. A well stood in the center of the path, firmly between the houses, while the farms were built off to the side to trail along the outer edge of the village. Small, wooden fences separated the farms from the forest outside, the trees forming a natural barrier.

Turning slightly to the left, she made note of the mill. While the farms continued to follow the perimeter of the village, stopping as she moved away from the rightmost edge, there were far more homes the further left she turned. Out, past the houses, was a large encampment of chaka. Even at this distance, she could see the loathsome things milling about... their numbers were far higher than she'd hoped. The graveyard around her church was a decently defensible area due to its high stone walls, but the chaka would have the numbers advantage at her current capacity. She was looking at a war of attrition. Her minions could respawn, whereas the chaka could not. As long as she could defend her small enclave, she would slowly be able to push the chaka back - or even wipe them out entirely. Continuing to turn to the left, she was now facing the majority of the rest of the village just in time to watch her skeletal hand scuttle home. Once it arrived, she sent it to 'North-East Town Path' rather than explore any of the buildings. There were more houses, more farms, and trees. The road, here, led out of the village. Without any knowledge of Wanderer's Rest, she couldn't tell what the larger buildings were as their purpose wasn't immediately obvious. Finally, she turned to look to the church roof... and calmed. There appeared to be a pedestal in the center of the roof. That must be the spawner.

Spawner - Gargoyle - Inert

Claim? [10 Anima]

This spawner's cost was double what the others had been. Was this because of the amount of spawners she had, or was this monster inherently stronger? It seemed, now, that she could choose between expanding into the graveyard or gaining 'gargoyles' for the same price. I'll probably take the graveyard first... but I'll need to think on it. Descending the stairs, The Master entered the church. She had time to kill and chaka to vivisect... but then, an odd thought wormed its way into her skull. Just how strong, exactly, was her connection to her minions? Turning to a skeleton, she addressed it silently. It was two levels lower than her, freshly spawned, and so it wouldn't be a threat. Attack me, she commanded. Recognition flared in the skeleton's eye sockets but it didn't move towards her no matter how hard she prompted. She scratched her jaw with a bony finger, spotting a nearby hand on the ground. So, my minions refuse to attack me. Next test... hm, you haven't levelled up. Come here. The skeletal hands were significantly less valuable in a fight than her skeleton foot soldiers and she didn't know if she even possessed a way to harm the ghosts that floated idly around considering their intangibility - noting this, she sent a ghost to 'North-West Town Path' to scout unimpeded - so a hand would do just fine. It came to her willingly, and she immediately stomped it into the ground, its body shattering under the force of her foot. with a soft crunch.

You have slain Skeletal Hand, Lv. 1

The lack of anima was unsurprising - she'd been informed that she couldn't gain it from her own minions. Yet there was a certain... inkling... that she had. A rat could harm her - would try to harm her - and snuffing it out gave her experience. Not much, but something. Perhaps, since her minions could not attack her, there was no experience to be gained? Did they need to pose a threat to her in order to give experience? Then, what if she were to... you two, two hands that were skulking under the pews crawled out into the light, seeming to return her gaze. Kill each other. This time, there was no hesitation. The two hands immediately leapt at each other, scratching and swiping in a fierce, if not particularly inspiring, melee. Memna looked on curiously but said nothing as the duo fought, and when only the victor was left standing The Master eyed its status, satisfied. While she had been unable to command her monsters to fight her, and the strange system that governed her wouldn't reward her for slaying an enemy that was quite literally incapable of ever fighting back, it had no such qualms about doling out experience to her minions if they were to fight to the death. A useless snippet of information for now, she mused, but once the chaka are no longer a threat... perhaps I've a plan to make use of it. Seeing Memna's curious expression, The Master twisted her skull towards him. "It was an... experiment," she offered to the bemused acolyte. "I gained the information that I was searching for, and now I'm going to research the anatomy of these 'chaka' that infest my village. Do not bother me." At least, this way, her skeletal hands could be useful in some form - even if they turned out to be useless ambushers. Still, those who had levelled and her paragon would stay. She was interested to see what they may evolve into. If a useless spider could become a ranged combatant in just one evolution, then it would be foolish to discount the hands entirely based on their current form alone. Additionally, their smaller size made them useful for scouting missions where not being detected was important. The ghosts could simply observe unimpeded, but if she wanted her minions to be entirely unseen then the hands were less conspicuous.

Speaking of chaka... The Master needed to capture a live one sooner than later and interrogate it. She would prefer to understand them before spawning them as minions, but perhaps asking a more loyal minion directly would serve her best. Assuming that those she spawned could even speak. The chaka were the hardest to gain a pattern for as of yet and she suspected that had something to do with their intelligence rather than their strength - they weren't powerful, a group of them were almost outclassed by her level 1 skeletons, but they were capable of speech and understanding. That alone made them interesting as she had assumed that her case was unique among monsters. Would her spawned chaka retain this ability? Possibly - probably - but she wouldn't know until she could actually do so. Before that. ideally, she needed to know about their habits. If chaka required food, she would need a larger food source if she wanted high level chaka. Memna was still useful, so he would be prioritized above a replenishable resource like minions. After all, even if the chaka starved she could simply spawn more. She could not, however, spawn another Memna. Not yet, at least.

Now, where did I put that dagger...

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Progress towards unlocking pattern - Chaka: 45%

Five fresh skeletons lay out on their slabs, each disrobed. She would have liked to gain more progress, but it seemed that getting a full 10% from every kill was asking for a lot. Perhaps if she knew what each fleshy mass inside of their body actually did, her knowledge could grow faster. But that would require her to understand them - see them in action. And with dead bodies, that wasn't possible. At least she'd grown to understand their anatomy - the differences between a male and female chaka. She was no expert, not yet, but there was a clear line between the two sexes. Their dimorphism was more striking than that of rats, but less extreme than some species of spider which that pattern had granted her knowledge of. Females tended to have longer horns, wider hips... initially, she'd assumed that the differences in color may play a role. It seemed, however, that it didn't influence anything in particular. Their hearts were on the right side of their body, their lungs small but double in number for some strange reason. Their brains were large for their size, but not as large as she had expected. Even their stomachs were small, though perhaps that was a result of a limited diet rather than a natural occurrence. Their other organs, however, she was unsure of.

Recalling, and including, her first chaka's skeleton, she had four males and two females. Not enough to be truly conclusive yet. Fortunately, she had an entire village worth of specimens to go through. By then, The Master was confident that she'd have a far greater understanding of chaka biology. An examination of their armor and weapons only yielded the same thing each time - they were crude, something she'd already known. Every material was either unknown or the system felt the detail was unnecessary to add. The only upside was that, since she'd taken her time and attempted to gain better control of her absorption, the time had stretched on and her anima had replenished. It was dark, now. But she saw just as well as she always had, even at night. Claiming the graveyard, she still had two anima left over. Commanding Ajax to bring his skeletons forth, The Master told Esther to take watch and to order her ghosts to continue exploring the nearby town.

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Stepping out onto the stone path, The Master found herself treading through a rather unpopulated graveyard. After a thousand years of existence, she expected it to be far less... sparse. Perhaps not every body was buried here, then. Once her minions had secured the courtyard, guarding the iron gate , she began to wander the sparse, bluish-green grass until her senses were pulled towards another spawner. It was an open grave - the only open grave. Darkness swirled within, obscuring even her own vision. She felt a surge of relief as she took in the notification.

Spawner - Zombie - Inert

Claim? [5 Anima]

The Gargoyles would likely be a qualitative change, then... or there was something else affecting their cost. It didn't matter yet, though. She'd be claiming this spawner first. More soldiers and faster was preferable to stronger monsters after a delay. If every chaka decided to attack at once, she'd likely find herself overrun. Perhaps she'd caused the problem by not claiming the gargoyle spawner first, but the walled off cemetery felt far more defensible than the inside of a church. Being honest with herself, she didn't regret either expansion. One gave her knowledge and a vantage point, while the other improved her defences. As long as her minions held this chokepoint, she could bleed her enemy dry.

Examining her map, she had scouted the entirety of the north of the village. With the chaka encampment located in the south, The Master had instructed her minions to stay closer to her territory. When she began to expand outwards, she would allow them to move further out into the less safe areas. Any lost minion would be free experience to her enemies. She was interested in the section of the map marked 'Pig Farm,' as well as an area she had spotted which, with Memna's help, she had discovered held a series of chicken coops. These were, thankfully, from what she saw, faring better than Memna had been - the chaka surprised her in their foresight. Rather than simply kill and eat the animals, they had made rudimentary attempts to feed and water them. She sent a ghost to each of the two animal farms and Esther into a building that she had seen a lone chaka wander into, likely there to loot, instructing them to drain the life of the weakest looking creatures. Or, in Esther's case, to assassinate a vulnerable enemy. The experiment was twofold; first, to see if she gained any anima and to confirm that, if she did, it didn't matter whether creatures were killed within her dungeon or not. Secondly, she wanted to see how a chaka would compare to a simple, level 1 ghost. In the meantime, she sat by the spawner. The moment her anima reached 5, she would be claiming that spawner. Then, she could decide between one paragon and (theoretically) five gargoyles.

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Esther suppressed a chuckle as she passed through the wall of the house, her unnaturally-wide eyes scanning the room for movement. Returning to life - if you could call it that - had been an interesting experience. Her memories - like those of her master, she suspected - were fragmented at best. Of these, only a few stood out. One; her devotion to The Wanderer was unending. It always had been and it always would be. Now that she had returned, things would go back to how they should have been. Two; the Ajaxidae could not be trusted. While she suspected that Ajax, their progenitor, had been as great a man as the stories said, it had been a long time since he last drew breath. His descendants no longer had The Wanderer's interests at heart - at least, not as they once had. The boy, she would watch. She couldn't tell if his devotion was hiding something sinister or if he truly was a mere acolyte. She would observe... and if he stepped a toe out of line he'd find himself a drained husk.

Movement. As she drew in, she came to her third and final memory. She had been a healer, once. A [Witch], if she recalled correctly. Herbalism was her calling, far different to the more brutal vivisections that The Wanderer had been performing in her attempts to learn what she had briefly described to her as 'anatomy.' Esther knew plants and their effects... not much about bodies. She had been a sweet young woman, eager to assist her people, and in 'usurping the duties of our church', or 'foul witchcraft' as the others had been told, she had been condemned to death. Initially, her kindly nature had given away to rage as her spirit slowly burned itself up. Now that she had gained a slightly more corporeal form, her anger and sorrow had withdrawn to be replaced by giddiness. Her God had returned her - her God. Floating behind the unaware creature, she giggled at the thought. The chaka turned, his eyes widening in shock. yet, staring down at him were a pair of even wider ones. He opened his mouth to scream and her ethereal claws raked into his body, the noise catching in his throat. Her attacks sapped at his energy and he gasped, weakly swiping back at her. His claws, like hers, went straight through her body. Only, she didn't seem bothered in the slightest. A mean cackle rang out as he attempted to run for the door but the spirit continued her onslaught, the chaka's stamina ripped from him with every strike, until he collapsed to the floor unconscious. She grinned, hovering above him, before plunging her arms into his chest and draining the life out of him. As his body withered away, revitalising anima flowed into her ghostly form and she sighed contently.

You have slain Chaka Scavenger, Lv. 2

Experience has been acquired.

Peeking out of the house, she sent a retrieval command to one of the skeletal guards and languidly drifted back to the church. Hopefully, The Wanderer would appreciate her gift.

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All three ghosts had been successful. The largest haul of anima, unsurprisingly, had been from Esther's raid. Even after claiming the spawner, however, The Master still had four anima left. The pig had given two while the chicken had spared a measly one. Each of their patterns had been added to her bestiary, albeit locked for now. She watched as a zombie rose from the grave. It was human, unsurprisingly. Its flesh clinged to its bones stubbornly despite its decaying nature, and it somehow seemed to possess even less intelligence than her skeletons. At least they had retained some vestige of their previous lives. No - it was clear immediately to The Master that these zombies would be completely mindless meat shields. That allowed her marginally-more-intelligent skeletons to focus on dealing damage and defending key areas. She found herself content with the monsters, but unwilling to spend another five anima on a paragon just yet. Ajax could assume command of them easily, integrating them into his melee unit until then.

That just left her with 6 anima to gain before her gargoyles would be ready. Although killing the animals may have solved that problem in the short term, they could also feed Memna without her having to expend additional anima or hope for a raid. At least she'd had the foresight to store away enough chaka flesh that, if she needed to, she could feed him for some time and still wipe the creatures out. Without an urgent need, however, she would allow them to live. They weren't a threat and chaka still gave more anima than the animals. Once she had expanded to the farms and dealt with the chaka, she'd consider culling the animals and replacing them with her own spawned ones. She took a moment to examine her new pattern, walking alongside a skeleton who had brought back a dead, drained chaka corpse. Pausing momentarily to order her hands to scour the north side of the town for any rats they may find and kill them, she returned to the zombie pattern.

Zombie - Knowledge Rank 1

An undead monster. Zombies are able to take a lot of damage, but their manipulation suffers as a result.

This makes them poor at performing certain tasks that require precise movements. They feel no pain, however, and will pursue orders with a single-minded focus.

Variants: Human Resources: Bone Evolutions: Unknown

Type: Minion - This creature is equally capable of defence, combat, support and utility roles.

Minions, at a lower level than other monsters, may obtain classes like a sapient race would. This will influence their creature type further. The decision is up to the discretion of their master.

You cannot create a creature spawner at your current Knowledge Rank. You can spawn this creature for [4 Anima]. Capacity: 1/5 Base Anima Yield: Unknown (Dungeon monsters will not yield anima for their master.)

As she thought, then. They were more durable than her skeletons, but somewhat less versatile - though they were still able to take up any role, it seemed. Breaking away from the skeleton hauler, she climbed the bell tower. She would wait for her anima to replenish there and take watch over the town. That's what she really needed... a paragon that could watch from the tower and relay information and commands to her minions. For now, though, she would fill that role. She doubted her accuracy would be of much use from here, but at least she could fire her [Osteobolts] if need be.

She watched as her skeletal hands spread out, searching for small prey.