Consciousness slowly returned to the mage.

He didn’t move at first.

The crow, still perched on the wall of the fallen church, did.

Green flames alighted in the otherwise empty eye sockets of the mindless minion.

The awareness and intelligence of the mage observing the world trough the undead.

The sun had risen at least an hour prior. The forest was already full with the songs of the morning birds greeting the new day with enthusiastic fervor, making the mage thank the gods that he had chosen to shelter his ears in the silence of the crypt.

His other two guards were lying by the entrance, still as corpses but very much aware of their surroundings.

His senses returned to his body as they left the crow and he started to rise from his position.

He was still laying against the cushion on the wall and a groan left his throat as the ungrateful back of the wizard cracked forward.

His eyes opened to the darkness of the room, the light of the sun incapable of reaching the interior trough the stairs, and reached for the lantern at his side and lighting up the room.

He slowly stood up, stretching his limbs to drive away the stiffness of his joints, and ran his hands over his face and trough his hair as the [Prestidigitation] spell cleaned and combed his whole body.

The fresh and soothing magic removing the last bits of grogginess.

In the quiet safety of the room the mage picked up the lantern and went over to desk before sitting down on the chair.

He reached his hand in front of him, finger reaching upward, and pulled down.

A book silently materialized in his grasp.

Golden lines and runes engraved on a leather-bound tome.

His spell book.

The most prized and important possession of a wizard.

He gently laid the tome on the desk and opened it. The parchment paper of the pages filled with the arcane writings and the knowledge of all the spells he knew.

His fingers deftly browsed the contents as he carefully planned which spells he would prepare for the day, stopping at specific pages as he begun to cast the complex rituals.

A wizard ability to cast magic was not unlimited after all. The magic to be used for the day had to be chosen at the time the mind was at its most rested state.

The ritual weaving and then storing the spells into the soul, almost bringing them to completion but not quite, leaving the last part to be cast when it was needed by the caster and using up the stored magic.

The only exception being Cantrips or Level-0 Spells, the least complex and thus least powerful of a mage repertoire but having no limitation on how many times they could be cast and how many times in a day they could be exchanged.

The number of spells a wizard could cast depended on his intellect and his experience, both of which directly influenced how many he could store in his soul and how high their Tier could be.

The low chanting voice of the wizard echoed in the crypt as the preparation ritual continued for the better part of an hour before he stopped. The spells finally stored within him and ready to be cast at a his leisure.

He paused for a moment and regarded the words written so long ago on the first page of the book. ‘Malkhias XXXXXX’.

His name, or at least part of it.

Half blotted out the day he had left behind his past and cut off his ties.

He closed the book and the cover shone for an instant.

The tome becoming transparent as it dematerialized; shunted to an extraplanar pocket to keep it safe.

Weaving the spell permanently in the book had been a little expensive but necessary; some of the spells contained in its pages were illegal and he could not risk them ever being found.

Malkhias stood up from the desk and took the lantern before going toward the surface.

The crypt was now empty of any interest to him, the only thing of worth here had been the pages now in his possession.

“Come.” He uttered.

His a voice that was barely more than a whisper.

The undead wolf perked up from the floor and followed him out of the crypt.

Sunlight greeted him for the first time since he gone down the stairs and his lungs greedily absorbed the fresh unpolluted air of the forest; that’s when the smell of rot started to invade his nostrils making him wince.

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The dark animating force of the wolves couldn’t stave off the natural process of decay, but it was nothing that a good application of [Prestidigitation] couldn’t solve.

Another minute went by as Malkhias let the magic wash over the undead minions, all the while reflecting on what his next actions would be.

He had found what he was looking for. The knowledge that the mad Priest had left behind would help to further his research on the workings of necromancy, but Malkhias was no True Necromancer. His main pursuit had always been the study of magic, in all of its forms;

while he had a major interest in the forbidden school of magic he was no specialist.

With the help of the wolves he dragged the slab back into place and sealed the entrance to the crypt once more, sweeping a bit of the surrounding rubble on it to erase the last traces of his meddling.

He dusted his hands as he turned to the crow “Follow from above and look for danger.” and the clumsy avian took flight… barely…

The frenetic flapping of its wings managed to lift it up after a few awkward attempts and the loss of a few feathers. He would probably need to replace the bird soon.

Malkhias looked up at the small black shape circling above the canopy and started walking in the direction of the city, the wolves not straying too much from their master.

He had been attacked by the 3 animals a few day prior to his journey to the church while he was looking for ingredients at the outskirts of Greendam and made quick work of them with his magic.

Reanimating them had required a little bit of materials and preparation away from prying eyes but the presence of the pack of wolves at his side had discouraged further attacks of predators along the way.

On the other hand he had found the crow already dead a little off outside the main road that lead to the city.

The magic that allowed the sharing of the senses with the minion was a 2nd Tier spell that lasted for days after the casting; useful and inexpensive. He looked at the forest trough its eyes once in a while to scout ahead.

Malkhias stopped a few times on the way to harvest some plants and mushroom that could be useful ingredients, both for spellcasting and for alchemy. Since he had left his home he needed to find ways to finance the costs of his research. Selling potions and minor magical items was one way.

The trip would take a few hours as the city was more than a dozen of miles away and he had no intention to hurry. He would probably make it in time for midday.

He could see the edge of the forest now. His eyes shimmered with green as he scouted ahead trough the body of the crow. The travel had been fairly uneventful, but now he had finally reached the Greendam.

Unfortunately that also meant that the wolves could no longer follow him.

Getting thrown in jail would be the best case scenario if that happened.

Leaving the wolves here also wasn’t an option.

If he ordered them to remain motionless someone could find them by accident and alarm the city of the presence of undead and perhaps of a necromancer.

If he let them go they would kill anything that breathed until someone managed to destroy them.

That left only one option: destroying them.

Which meant wasting 3 undead in perfect condition and the 75 gold coins he had spent to create them.

His heart bled a little as he reluctantly raised his arm.

With a word a ray of gray energy shot forward from his hand hitting one of the wolves.

The mindless creature didn’t even resist as the disruptive energy of the cantrip started to destroy the very force that animated it.

The half rotten flesh falling off and rotting into dust as the skeletal frame underneath started to collapse.

It took two shots to put it to rest, and another four for the remaining wolves, leaving behind 3 piles of broken bones and rotten flesh almost completely consumed.

The forest would devour the rest of the remains fairly quickly.

Malkhias started to walk to the trees and then stopped. There were at least a thousand feet of open ground to the city and he didn’t wish to be seen coming toward Greendam from this direction.

He muttered a spell and his form became transparent first and then faded completely as the [Invisibility] took effect.

Since the 2nd Tier spell would last 5 minutes at most Malkhias made his way to the walls at a brisk pace, covering the distance before the effect ended. He did not go toward one of the main gates, the possibility of one of the guards having some means of magic detection was present.

A quick flyby by the crow informed him of the position of any patrol on the wall.

He carefully chose the right position and a favorable moment before climbing the wall.

Weightless.

Barely grazing the stone with the tip of his fingers as his legs remained dangling in the air.

The [Levitation] carrying him over the parapet with no effort.

The tip of his boot touched the battlement only once as he propelled himself forward with otherworldly grace.

He landed in the middle of a street and quickly tucked himself in an alley before dropping the [Invisibility] and donning his hood.

He was finally back in Greendam.