I wake up in a tangle of robes. I don’t remember passing out, but I’m just laying in my enclosed garden. I repair the mild damage I’ve done to my garden before moving past the hedge and into a small lake of miasma.

“Didn’t I pick that up?” I look around in confusion, pointing at the offending mist while trying to recall if I’ve stored the condenser. “Hmm…”

I’m tempted to dig it up and bank it, or just bank it if I don’t feel like putting in the effort to walk over and manually dig it up, but decide to just leave it. Apparently the poisons are more dangerous than the miasma within my void. I shrug, make sure to confine it to just the lake bed, then notice a shifting frothiness.

“Ah…” I nod as I remember that I didn’t finish bottling the spa Qi. Then I wonder if I should literally just turn it into a Soak. “There’s a thought…”

I transfer to the kitchen before skipping around the perimeter trying to figure out the best place to go from Soak to snack. Thinking of snack reminds me that I’m going to have a room of bins like the Red Silk Sect had since it reminds me so much of a candy store where you bag your own shit. I’d like some of this, and some of that, and you can’t go into a sugar coma without these!

“Sugar squirts…” I mumble, cackling to myself as I spin slowly.

I’m just gonna do the hollowed out block thing again. I push up against my boundaries when I try to make another block below the already submerged kitchen, so I create another block below the cook jars. Don’t need a door if I can just transfer between the two spaces. Security! I clench my fists and thrust them skyward in victory, maintaining the pose as I walk in the direction I set the stone, hollowing it out before transferring to it.

I stand in suffocating darkness, arms raised, wondering what the fuck. Oh! I forgot to picture what it looks like, and active heating scripts glow. Fuck. Pretty sure I’m not claustrophobic, but somehow being in a dark, entry and exit free stone cube buried underground is mildly upsetting. I cackle as I stand on the shore of the lake, arms still up, just trying to get over the fact that, if I couldn’t transfer, and if I didn’t know where I was, that would’ve been an unmarked grave. There’s a thought.

I finally lower my arms, as I mentally dump all the bodies I’ve accumulated and not yet absorbed into the room. It’s much faster to strip and bank their shit, but this way I can snack intentionally versus just automating it. Feels more real. So. Room full of stored corpses, glowing moss on the ceiling, a Tenebrous Orb -- I don’t remember the glowing rocks tasting like anything besides rock. Can I change that? -- placed just below the center of the ceiling and set to glow and hover.

I transfer back into the mass grave and I’m nearly crushed.

“Fucking soldiers,” I gasp as I transfer back to the shore.

I forgot that I’d banked so many new bodies on top of my coal run rampage. I tend the jars, set more shiver thorn to jelly, more tea to cook, then dump all the bodies into the lake bed.

What’s immediately upsetting is that some of them start moving around in a jerky fashion as they pick themselves up.

“Mm-mm. Nope. Fuck all the way off,” I shake my head as I storm over, head bowed, one hand raised palm out before I close my fist to raise one finger.

I know they’re not gonna stop. I know holding a hand up isn’t going to do anything. I know wagging a finger to show my displeasure isn’t going to make them feel ashamed of their actions. I also know I’m gonna eat some zombies after stomping some zombie a--.

One of the bastards whips around, keeps its fucking balance, looking like not a morning person, roars, and fucking launches itself at me in rapid order. I scream like a bitch, and I’m adult enough to admit it. I duck as it lands in front of me, sweeping its arms together, the bear hug of nope going over my head as I cower and run with my hands over my head.

“What the fuck?!”

Undead aren’t supposed to be this aggressive and coordinated! Fuck! I dumped them in the miasma and the fucker’s dressed like a soldier! Did I just accidentally a properly scary undead army? I keep shouting fuck you as the asshole keeps using fucking techniques, -- not just blind swiping, it looks like he’s actually trying to fight, -- backing out of reach while trying to decide if I want to fight it, -- fuck you, Silent, this isn’t funny! -- or just soul suck. Watch this be the one time soul suck comes with taste and it’s rotten pickles…

[Piercing Shot]

[Successful Use 108/100]

[Qi -30]

[Karma -5]

[Current Condensed Qi: 1,831,227/23,824,895]

[Current Qi: 1,847,621/957,945,100]

[Current Karma: 95,299,582/107,275,977]

[Max Will: 9,579,451]

[Mortal Wallet: 12E,692K,180P,687R,179Da,155De,105k]

[Spirit Wallet: 0Dr,0Ph,0Th,1325Di,126Co,10680St]

I correct my stance as I note the walking corpse looking distracted. It peers back over its shoulder like it heard someone call its name, -- or maybe it remembered its wife told it she’d kick formerly-his ass if he came home late again. No sex for you! Ever again! Scary woman… -- and I wonder what fucking stance I’m taking. When it turns back to me I cock my head away, giving it side-eye as I recognize that it recognizes me. Like I’m some kind of celebrity or it thinks it remembers me from somewhere. It even raises a finger to point at me.

I mouth “what the actual fuck?!”, afraid to make noise, and slowly stand up, straightening and backing away in an effort to look non-violent. It blinks head going back as it processes what my stance change means before I’m sucker-punched by another vengeful corpse. I thank Silent Howl for the information as it hauls me to my feet, -- no, seriously, what the actual fuck?! -- get my hands around its neck as it wraps its gauntleted hands around mine, but I’ve got a soul suck while it’s opening its mouth.

Fucker coughs in my face and staggers back like my breath is bad. I pause as I realize I’ve never brushed my teeth and I clean shit off of me by eating it.

“Eugh,” I recoil away from the thought of how bad my breath might actually be.

I’m gonna go chew and scrub with some shiver thorn. Tingly.

My attention comes back to the fact that I’m being attacked when I block a sword strike with my arm, -- why? What? What the fuck?! -- and defend my former attacker from the first zombie – fucking why?! -- who is apparently either trying to stop the undead or protect me. That’s new. They both look at me in confusion before turning to one another and pointing. In recognition?

“I’m gonna be sick,” I shudder, one hand on my hip, the other pinching my forehead.

They both grunt before the one with the sword taps on my shoulder. I glare at it and the bitch does a polite sweeping bow while indicating the other angry zombies milling around in my fucking lake.

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“Fuck you,” I flip him off and I swear he gives a little self-satisfied smirk. “All the way.”

[Piercing Shot x4]

[Successful Use 112/100]

[Qi -30 x4]

[Karma -5 x4]

[Current Condensed Qi: 1,831,227/23,824,991]

[Current Qi: 1,851,531/957,945,100]

[Current Karma: 95,299,967/107,275,977]

[Max Will: 9,579,451]

[Mortal Wallet: 12E,692K,180P,687R,179Da,155De,105k]

[Spirit Wallet: 0Dr,0Ph,0Th,1325Di,126Co,10680St]

I tag two flail-y boys as they roar and stomp along the corpse-bed, then double tag the last one when I don’t see any other targets, sucking the soul shake until I realize I might have just double sucked the last one. Can’t feel bad about phrasing, ‘cause I might have accidentally fucked them. Metaphorically.

Sword boy just watches the newbs, sword sheathed, thumbs hooked into his swordbelt, and his second raises a hand and grunts loudly. I turn to look at him, wondering if he actually did just say “hello”. A check of the logs translates the grunt to be “hey”, but close enough. Everyone but double-suck turns to acknowledge “hey”, the two new guys who only got hit twice carefully picking their way through the corpses to come over while double-suck just stands staring at their hands with their back to us.

“Don’t like that.”

When I check my logs the four are just chatting about not being able to take me out, but it seems fair enough, and wondering if the monk bound me and saved them from death. Double-Suck? Double-Suck knows he’s dead.

Well. Yeah. So are the --. Oh!

I slowly bring my hands to my mouth to cover my “Oh, shit!” face while turning to look at the others out of the corner of my eyes. They think they’re still alive? How?! Can’t they see they’re all busted up corpsey? I calm as I realize that they can’t see their injuries because of their armor, but their faces look pretty gnarly. I slow turn to point at Double-Suck thoughtfully, because Sword Guy could see Second as a corpse before I nibbled his soul, but Double-Suck can see themselves, and probably the others, as the corpses they are. Not sure how I’m gonna put them down without pissing off the other four.

“Huh,” I cross my arm over my chest while resting my cheek against my free hand.

I get rapid-fire pings, just one word at a time, from Silent Howl, telling me to add them to the party. I can do that? I send out an invite and watch as the four shrug while looking at one another, then quickly populate my team roster. A Private Message from Silent Howl as his cackling echoes faintly in the distance as he crows about insect controlled corpses. But that’s not right.

From my understanding corpses can be puppeted by stuff like those fuckers from the valley, but these guys are just ghosts occupying their own flesh. I’m not sure if I ate their grudge or what all I consumed, but they seem friendly enough now. I Will permissions where they can store stuff, but not withdraw or change anything, just in case, and wait for their conversation to end before it occurs to me, probably with extensive nudging from Silent Howl, possibly even Spring Cow, that I should read what they’re saying.

Green Summer said “Hey!”, waving to his companions. So that’s Second. Agile Fighter told them not to drop their guard. Just because the monk stopped me from killing them, they’ve lost many comrades. So… Agile Fighter might be Sword-Guy… He hasn’t dropped his guard so much as resigned himself to seeing what nonsense I get up to next.

Some guy asks if the general is okay, and I’m trying to figure out why there’s a general running around on patrol to get his ass kicked for trying to steal me. I go to my logs to see who has a general title, if it’ll show, and find out that the person having an existential crisis is named Great General. Fuck. His parents sure had high demands for him.

There’s a nervous little shit who can’t believe he almost died, cursing his own shit luck while lauding his friend’s. His friend had said he had a bad feeling about today’s patrol, and wanted to know if Silly Rabbit would take his place. I grimace in sympathy. Dude’s friend just fed him to a meat grinder. He could have called out sick or something, but no, throw the rabbit to the wolves! He needs new friends. I grimace again as I realize he’s got some, technically…

Yeah, they dead.

So Yellow Moon is the one asking about General, but who is Yellow Moon? I look up to see one of the zombies grunting, squealing, and groaning to itself, which matches with Silly Rabbit’s inner monologue, so the quiet guy standing politely off to the side might be Yellow Moon?

I scroll through until I come to the end of people’s inner dialogue just as Great General decides he has the stones to try to go through with his plan with the thought that being undead will make him more likely to succeed. Can’t poison the dead.

“Try it and I’ll kill you the rest of the way,” I shout at him. Motherfucker is still going to try to go through with this?

There’s a ping from Agile Fighter asking me what I mean, and I get to see Great General turn around slowly, cocky as fuck as his eyes shine and he grins. I think he thinks he’s going to turn everyone against me in my void. The bears I was trying to protect, -- never a-fucking-gain, -- and I have no compunction against juicing these randos. I sigh and roll my eyes as I admit to myself that I would feel kinda bad about Rabbit. Yellow Moon isn’t supposed to be here either, he lied about his qualifications, but he wanted to be a roving peacekeeper.

What comes next is the Captain named General giving a rousing speech of how they should all come together to take me down, that their conviction will see they’re victorious. Surely the gods didn’t give them this second chance, -- you absolute asshole… -- in order to let them fail again. Together they can bind me to a good and generous purpose. When the men cheer and draw their swords, turning to me, I watch as Agile Fighter just nods stoically.

My mouth floods, the sky turns bright white before settling into blown out, and my ears ring.

“I’m just gonna sit down,” I slur, slowly lowering myself to the ground. I’m slowly lying down before I realize that sitting down isn’t an option. “Yeah, I’m just going to take a nap…”

As I’m staring at the party chat with my eyes closed I notice that, while there’s no input at the bottom, there’s what looks like a fucking abacus in the top left. When I click on it it expands into a menu with dice rolls and more. I close it, sigh, then demand the universe deal with this bullshit, trying to Will a message into chat. A prompt opens up and I groan before thinking my message, “Everyone died for one man’s greed.” And send.

Fuck… All it takes is some Will, and I can do almost anything in my void. So why aren’t I just juicing everyone. I pan my sight around until I’m staring down at the corpse-bed, noting weird trails and swirls in the miasma, pockets of hazy color that are either cloaking or more spirits gathering. I focus on the area, then do another corpse suck. Anyone drained and spiritless can go back into my bank, everyone else stays until I’m recovered.

There’s screaming around me and I roll away from the sound, counting four people standing, so I roll again before going up. When I shift my vision back further in it’s default third-person, “death from above”, backstab angle, -- zoom out a little, thank you, -- I see that there really are only four people standing and screaming in horror. I wonder where “Great General” is, and get a zoom in on one of the many still bodies, one of them seeming to highlight lightly.

“That’s handy,” I cross my arms, nodding begrudgingly before I go to my logs.

While I’m hoping none of them have bows I get to see that my soul sip lets them see that they are corpses, and I threw General for a loop. He’s not dead dead, but I took enough of his soul away that he’s going to need time to --.

“And~ he’s recovering…” I groan as I see the miasma gently flowing like waves over the bodies, some of the fainter traces growing in strength.

A quick ping from Silent Howl and Spring Cow let me know I’m fucked, -- their messages actually reading that the spirits are being affected by the miasma, but not in its normal mutatey way, and Spring Cow is super excited about his verified discovery that miasma in my void enhances cultivation. I go to my logs to see what’s going on with the four, -- seems like a good idea to keep an eye on them, -- and I get to read how Silent Howl is willing to let Spring Cow have his discovery, but the monk better not take credit for discovering that I can puppet corpses. But~ I can’t.

A quick ping reads only “yet”. It takes me longer than I’d like to admit that I didn’t understand this was a response to my thought and not whether or not Spring Cow can claim that I’m a corpse manipulator. I do nod to myself admitting that being able to get spirits to puppet their own flesh, or at least giving them the ability to evolve it, probably counts as some form of corpse manipulation.