I suddenly awaken within the obsidian halls of this ‘shelter’ to someone sitting down next to me. In the process of waking up from nearby motion, I make the strangest yodel of a yelp that has ever escaped my maw. A few seconds of confused processing later I finally notice that I’ve been joined by a short badger creature with strawberry blond hair thats wearing tattered blue robes. Ah, a dvergr, a dwarf. The woman looks just about as confused as me. The portly badger is holding her hands up to show she has no weapons, and is leaning away from me while looking at my eyes with a face that screams worry.

”S-sorry I didn’t intend to wake you up.” the woman says, lowering her arms slowly to wrap around her stout self. “I just figured you looked kind of alone here and was going to sit near by so you didn’t feel lonely. I’m Gwen by the by.” Her hand reaches forward, which I lean forward and sniff before realizing she meant for me to shake.

I give a grunt of acknowledgement as we proceed to sit in silence for a while before I’m fully roused from slumber. My tired eyes starting to become more clear as my body starts the biological processes that prepare me for a days activities. Observing my environment, I'm in that shelter I ended up in before. Its rather dark, with smooth and tall walls. Glowing screens and luminescent eyes being where the majority of the ambient light comes from. I can see better than I normally would considering the lighting. There are windows near by that show lower floors to this shelter, with more people down below.

Before I get too caught up in my thoughts I turn to look at the patiently waiting dvergr in an attempt to mimic what a normal individual does when they interact and finally respond with some semblance of sapience. “I see. I appreciate the sentiment but it’s entirely unnecessary.”

Shortly after I finish speaking, my entire body tenses as I finally start to become aware of how much pain I’m in. My head hurts, my arms, my legs. I notice that the scrapes I saw before look deeper than I had initially thought. My fight or flight must have kept me from registering how bad my state was.

“Are you okay? How are your injuries? Do you need a necromage? Though you’re a lich, that doesn’t mean you should ignore your pain.” Gwen inquires in quick succession, as she gently places her badgery paw on my shoulder.

“I’m fine, I can handle healing on my own. But uh… can you tell me how everyone can instantly tell that I’m a lich and why its treated so casually?” I respond while rubbing a wound on my arm gently. Wasn’t necromancy and lichdom normally shunned? Back at home it was treated as a necessary evil by people who didn’t use necromancy. Even if any souls animated were there willingly or the meat and bone were vacant, people still looked at it with scorn.

“Ehe, uh, its just on my core HUD. You have a core, right? I thought I saw you fiddle with one earlier if I'm not mistaken.” she simply answers as the badger lady ignores the second half of my question. I open my hand and look at the core that was still there. I forgot to put it away, or did I take it back out? Gwen reaches down and touches the core before the display starts showing within my eye. “There, I have it connected to your implant. Also hooked you up to the local network, for some reason you were disconnected.”

I’m suddenly bombarded with messages from within my vision, my minds focus shifts in a way I didn’t think was possible, observing my vision from farther away with more information contained within it.

OC-OC Implant Online!

Welcome to OC-OC OS! Please wait while you’re connected!

Connecting to Network..

Network Connected: Archive Access

Downloading OC-OC firmware Update…

I look over at the dvergr with my brows furrowed in confusion. She just smiles politely as my vision is flooded with text

Download Complete!

Installing…

Installation Complete!

Now introducing our Co-pilot VD!

Determining default core personality for VD…

Personality found! Moderately wise-ass personality found!

Please choose a name for your personal Virtual Daemon Co-pilot!

What? I wish things would calm down a bit, there are too many things happening at the same time. Hold on… wait, doesn’t that imply that my core actually WAS making fun of me earlier? And name? I’m already bad at naming…

Would you like to let the Co-pilot name itself? Y/N

I uh… is it hearing my internal dialogue? I guess that tracks with everything else up till now, sure. I don’t really care.

The dialogue now shifts so a little skull is next to the text.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Name Chosen: Cal-Cium

Get it? Because calcium and you’re a lich and all? You can just call me Cal then!

”Okay, I care now! This thing is worse at naming than I am. Let me think of a name then.” I huff out loud, responding almost reflexively in my frustration. This makes the badger companion sitting to my side bounce in surprise.

After a few moments of no response from the VD, I tried again. “Can you hear me, uh… Cal?” I asked, with Gwen next to me looking more and more confused.

Affirmative.

“Then let me rename you, Cal. That bad pun is bad.”

I’m sorry Siga, I’m afraid I cant do that.

See, now that was worth it~! Ahaha~! Anyway, what name did you have in mind? I kind of like the pun-tential of Cal though.

… Siga? Is that the name of the body? “I... guess I don’t really care, whatever you want. It doesn’t really matter.” Rubbing my temples doesn’t help lower the spike in blood pressure at the thought of having to deal with this wise-ass.

I look over at my badger friend as she again pats me on the shoulder. Overlaid in my vision is some kind of HUD, showing her name which I already know, and a dvergr… a dwarf. Yea, I could tell by looking at her. And uh, its saying she’s a sapient undead and a Hugrskald with an estimated level of… of around 2000? “Did you end up with a bad VD personality too?”

“Yup. This one thinks its real… punny.” I simply answer in a monotone voice as my gaze moves around the room. Seems like a large minority of individuals here are undead. Lich, vampire, draugr, skeletons, wraith. However, all of them look alive. I guess soulskins are common here. And everything vastly out levels me.

The man who carried me earlier is sitting across the room chatting up a group of ladies. Human, not undead… immeasurable level? No class info? His name is a title, The Duke? I’m just going to call him Duke if I have to talk to him again.

Would you like to go through the orientation? It looks like you’re already using the OC-OC HUD correctly though~! I can start it, and you can just say skip if you want~

Uh…

Initializing OC-OC Orientation!

Welcome to your new OC-OC HUD, let us introduce you to the new features of generation 7089!

As if on queue, the building started to shake. My badger put her arm over my head and shielded me with her body slightly, but didn’t even remotely cover herself. Looking up, she seems confused but otherwise unconcerned.

Cal… what did you do?

Suspending orientation! It wasn’t me…

Detecting larger than normal amounts of Makta centralized in the lower chambers of the building. Warning, OC-OC implant not rated for fine results, no additional information. I will be entering emergency silent mode. I will only chime in when necessary.

Adjusting my senses, I close my eyes to aid in seeing the Makta myself. It’s a crutch of a novice, but its been so long. There is indeed a large flow into one location just on the lower level behind me. Gwen quickly props herself up on the seat which draws my attention, causing me to open my eyes again. Within a second I see movement out of the corner of my eye, causing my vision to dart back ahead where Duke and a few others are running out of a door and down some stairs.

“Hey, whats going on?” I ask quietly, looking back to the dvergr. Her arm letting up on me, allowing me to get up and look through the glass as well. She doesn’t answer, but continues looking as I now kneel in silence.

Below, I see a coalescing of aqua colored Makta, forming a ball of glowing liquid. After a few moments of staring towards the sphere, I see the Duke run into the room right before the orb with a few others catching up moments later. It slowly starts lowering to the ground, before a 30 foot tall skeletal knight abruptly bursts from the liquid and extends its foot towards the large human.

The blond haired, muscular human puts his forearms up to block the kick, and is just punted immediately through an adjacent wall as if it was made of paper. If I'm not mistaken, Duke looked more annoyed than injured as he flew off…

Looking at the skeleton in better detail, it has a shimmering aquatic halo that seems to have numbers rotating through it, and the skeleton is covered with some kind of ooze or slime, as if someone built a soul skin without trying to make it look aesthetically pleasing but left it in its default appearance. It was wearing some kind of blue metal armor with green faintly glowing accents, with some form of fitted tight fabric under it. The left arm was free from any clothing, which it proceeded to lift up, and a floating orb of the glowing liquid turned into a spear in its hand.

Before I can watch any more of the event unfolding, Gwen picks me up as the chair I was seated on folds into the wall. She then gently drops me down on the floor and joins me so we’re out of view of the massive undead. Just as we are out of sight, the glass behind us shatters with some kind of explosion a few flashes of light.

In a panic, I reach out to look for necrotic Makta unrelated to the skeletal knight. The Makta of will, soul, and bone which is untouched by another necromancer. This is something I haven't done in ages and as such it feels almost new to me. I can sense some from within the shelter, good. I have it move to me, and form a layer around me for protection, forming what vaguely looks like a confluent monolayer of viscera over my clothing and across my fur. The surface level wounds on my current body heal almost instantly, and the additional necrotic mass can be used to heal me if I’m seriously injured again. Looking farther out for something more useful, I see huge masses of strange semi dead material outside of the shelter. Its writhing, moving, grasping, but obviously dead. Its not undead though, and it doesn’t feel right. However, I reach out anyway, and try to bring it to my will.

Oh, its uh, the Makta is moving strangely. The mass of strange flesh collects into a much, much larger than the entity currently assaulting the floor downstairs. Bones and sinew crunch and snap: muscle and mucus squelch and squish as everything moves into place. Over time it becomes apparent that it is taking a shape very reminiscent of me, viscera coating and all but much larger. However… its… not under my control. I have no connection, I'm not telling it how to form or what to do like normal, not making a contract with a preexisting soul... but the thing fed on my will to shape it. Gwen grabs me by the shoulders and faces me towards her. After I'm fully turned to face her, she places both hands on my cheeks and squishes my face. “What did you do? What the fuck did you do? Don’t try to touch the god-meat! Everyone knows never to touch the god-meat!” she asks in a shouted whisper.

“The what?” I rasp in a panicked and hushed tone. My ears splayed back in panic as my chest starts to burn. Its still using my will, my Makta somehow. I don’t have a lot, and it’s obviously not enough to animate all of that.

“Okay, head trauma it is. No necromancy right now, okay? We’ll be fine, you’ll be fine.” the frustrated woman sighs, before the ground shakes even more violently and dust fills the room.

It suddenly becomes apparent that the meat outside, after taking full form, has made an entry point into the complex as the sounds of rubble surround me. The dust and rubble was cleared instantly with a single swing of its hand. Using my makta sight I can see the thing looking towards me, even with a wall between us. The creatures mouth curls up slightly in a smile that extends far, far beyond where it has any right to and a deep, disgustingly wet multi pitched laugh starts to escape it.

The aquatic necro-knight was knocked over during the meats entry. As the knight gets to its feet again, the air is filled with the uncontrollable laugh of the meat beast. It has tears starting to form at its hollow, sunken eyes. The gigantic carrion doppelganger almost looks manic with laughter as the knight tossed a glowing magic spear directly through its snout.

This seems to have only entertained it further, smiling wider as it glared at the knight now.

“What the fuck is going on why can’t reality just give me a bit to think on whats going on?” I quietly say to myself while grasping the sides of my head.