“Raise Minion”
The words are spoken in a soft yet firm voice over the corpse of a deceased mercenary. The young man who hired him, a necromancer named Matt Bringer, gathers himself against the minor eldritch winds summoned by the spell. He isn’t desperate, though he should be. The men he hired ran away at the foot of the dungeon, and only a concealment spell keeps him from being found by the orcs that slew his sellsword. Only determination for the dungeon core keeps him going, though, in his haste, he doesn’t notice his unfortunate timing.
For above him, the stars have aligned in a strange equinox that mirrors a parallel world. A world without magic, where only the illogical aspect of the universe is life itself. In this world lies a young man named Greg Segara, who met a tragic end when a truck driver’s brakes gave out at an intersection and t-boned his car.
It is very unfortunate for Greg, who sees his life flash before his eyes before suddenly finding himself lying on cool dirt and tall grass.
The spell worked… though Matt’s glee turns to dismay once he realizes what has happened. Because instead of an undead minion powered by mana and his will, he instead sees a confused young man in the body of a skeleton soldier. And if Matt was a more inexperienced craftsman, he wouldn’t have noticed; the soldier is bone white with a hint of gray, and its body hums with the familiar haze of mana that radiates off the milk-white bone in soft waves. But in the empty eye sockets that glow with mana-infused life, Matt sees it.
Intelligence.
And as Matt recoils in horror, Greg slowly gets up, confused and feeling rather disconnected from his body. The last thing he remembers is getting hit by a truck. But instead of waking up in a hospital room with feelings of exhaustion and dull aching pains, he returns to the world… wrong. And naked. And lacking skin. Or muscle. Or blood vessels. Or anything remotely associated with normal life beyond his skeletal frame. But even that is wrong, Greg has been painfully aware of how short 5’7 was for a man, but in this new form, he is easily 6’2. Maybe even 6’3 buuut….
“WHAT THE FUCK!!!!”
Greg, the skeleton warrior, screams as the horror of his situation becomes readily apparent. Unfortunately for Matt, the sound wobbles the logical constraints of his own concealment spell, and the prickles of imminent danger draw goosebumps along his skin. Matt is going to die soon. And knowing this fact and realizing how far he has to come, he resolves to fix this problem as he rushes toward his undead minion.
“Please calm down!” Matt pleads in a shouting whisper. His hands instinctively clasp around Greg’s mouth, and the skeleton fights him off. They tussle for a moment as they exchange pushes and shoves. Greg’s skeletal body proves surprisingly strong despite lacking muscles, and Matt’s desperation builds as he attempts to prevent the skeleton from doing something rash. Their fighting draws their attention away from the creeping orc; who has followed the sound of the human-like voices and has not received his proper fill of violence. He is only moments from discovering the pair and will no doubt enjoy bashing brains and cracking bones.
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“Please—” Matt begins, but the skeleton punches him in the face.
Matt has taken some bludgeoning damage!
The System chimes at Greg, which to Matt’s surprise, instantly calms him.
“What is that voice in my head!?”
Matt stares at Greg, his first failure, and picks his next words carefully-
“That is the System… who, who are you and how do you hear that?”
The question briefly riles up Greg, whose eyes glow intensely with conflicting emotions. But then, looking at Matt now for the first time and more intently, a thought occurs to him… the young man may be responsible for whatever this unlife is…
“My name is Greg... I was in a car accident”—Matt does not know what a car is, but he doesn’t interrupt— “and now I’m, I’m…”
“An undead minion.”
“And you’re a necromancer,” Greg points out, which causes Matt to recoil. He tries and fails to quickly come up with an explanation, only managing to stammer out a weak, “H-h-how?”
“Well, I’m some type of zombie—”
“Skeletal warrior,” Matt mumbles—
“And,” Greg continues, “you’re not afraid of me so…” He looks Matt up and down, taking into account the flowing robe, the sash he wears around his waist, and the heavy black boots and the white gloves that have holes poked in for his fingers. He doesn’t look like a necromancer, Greg thinks. He’s not covered in tattoos or skulls, but kinda baby faced and looks closer to a stereotypical wizard from Harry Potter.
But here he is… even in the semi-conscious haze, Greg Segara remembers the one phrase that carried him to this world and the man in front of him, his voice burning with power. Greg points a shaky finger at Matt, his eyes burning with impotent rage—
“You did this to me!”
Matt raises his hands in the universal sign of helpless futility despite not being innocent. “I did not,” he protests, though the denial doesn’t help as the memory of what happened to Greg and what he felt as he traveled across the boundaries of space and time to this weird place solidifies.
“You did!” Greg gets up, and in his anger, a sword and shield materialize-
Greg has equipped a basic sword and basic shield.
Matt, realizing what is about to happen, starts to scramble backward as his minion approaches.
“You did!” Greg spits as he stalks the young necromancer. “You brought me here. You stole my body. You will send me back!”
Matt, to his credit, has been thinking about a way to send Greg back to the ether for a while, but unlike a normal minion, Matt cannot merely “dismiss” the skeleton once summoned. And now faced with the physical threat of being murdered by his own creation, Matt tries to buy time.
“I can’t!”
Greg pauses, thinking for a moment about his options, how normally you’re at the mercy of the one who summoned you, and how unlikely it is in any video he ever played for a minion to eat the person who made him. But this isn’t a video game, no matter how many times that thought occurs to him, and Greg does not want to spend the rest of his life without a real body. He will kill Matt if he has to, nothing to lose there, and figure out a way back or find a cure.
It is this thought that puts a grin on Greg’s skeletal face and makes Matt’s blood run cold. That and the outline of a seven-foot orc.