“Animate Skeleton!” I said.

Green energy filled my hands and then covered the battlefield. The flesh was torn asunder as the magic worked its way into the bones of the slain and raised them. Immediately after the fortress defenders were animated into skeletons I started to feel weak. It felt like my mana was being drained from my body. It was sucked out of my body and disappeared into the ground. What the fuck is going on? Why is this happening?

I collapsed to the ground and blacked out after this mysterious force robbed me of all my mana. Eventually, I came to, a little groggy and confused, with a pounding headache. Picking myself up and dusting myself off I quickly went to the Golem carrying my packs and rifled through them. I pulled out several of the centipede meat platters and tore into them ravenously. After finishing them I had a powerful thirst so I started stuffing slime jelly into my mouth. The warmth of my mouth melted the jelly into sweet nectar that I gulped down hurriedly before shoveling more slime jelly into my mouth. You know this would make a wonderful drink and it has a decent regenerative effect when consumed.

I felt much better once the recuperating effects of the food kicked in and my headache slowly faded. I could feel the presence of all my minions lightly through the mental link. But there was a faint impression of something deep in the mental link as if it was barely there. It felt like something barely perceivable at a great distance. This new presence fills me with concern. What could it be with all my minions being accounted for? First things first I need to find where my people are being kept in this fortress. I don’t know my way around. Damn it! I’ll tear the whole place down in search of them.

“Tear it down piece by piece. Leave no stone unturned. Find the door to prison that holds my people!” I ordered my minions.

The Golem and a mass of skeletons started searching through the ruins of the fortress, looking for a door. The Golem tossed the large stones into the distance of the cave, while the skeletons formed a line and passed small rocks until they thoroughly cleaned up the area. With all the rubble removed a door to a hidden chamber was discovered. I walked over as my Golem ripped the door right off its hinges. The broken door revealed a staircase. The skeletons marched down the stairs followed closely by the Golem and me. As soon as I got down the stairs I discovered that what lay beneath the fortress was some sort of labyrinth. The humans must have hidden the goblins here when the alarms went off. A dead slave force does them no good. With a quick telepathic command, the skeletons spread out in small groups to explore every inch of this place.

As they were searching the labyrinth I kept tabs on their discoveries through the mental link. One such discovery immediately attracted my undivided attention. One group of skeletons had come across a large stone door. It looked like a primitive version of a vault from my world. This is a great prize for me. Who knows what sort of treasure rests inside, but it will surely help my people rise in this world. I used our mental link and memorized the route the skeletons had taken so I could revisit that vault after rescuing my people. Moments after memorizing it, I got a mental message from one of the skeleton groups.

Hey boss! We found something over here.

I’m on my way now! Alright got this route memorized now as well. Let’s go, Golem!

I started running, Golem following closely behind, down the correct path. Through twisting tunnels and passageways until I finally arrived at the entrance of a large circular chamber. Upon entering through the doorway I noticed quite a few metal grates covering the floor. I rushed over to one and peered down into the darkness. My fury was reignited when I saw my people huddled together amongst excrement and filth. It didn’t even come close to being as bad as the slave pens were, but they hadn’t been in this prison for long.

One by one my Golem ripped the grates off the cells and scooped the goblins out of the pits with great care. After all the goblins were rescued from the pits they just sat there with vacant looks in their eyes. They were alive but the collars had made them almost comatose. I need to figure out how to remove those damn collars. Killing them would be counterproductive to my goal of saving them so that’s out. Hmm. Maybe a more thorough exploration of the labyrinth would reveal new information.

With a quick thought through the mental link, I summoned half of my skeletal horde to this chamber. Upon arrival, I tasked them with guarding the goblins while I joined the exploration. Attempting to find a way to remove the collars was making out to be quite the task. I traveled to the vault door my skeletons had discovered earlier while mentally commanding my skeletons to break into smaller groups to hasten the search. The path to the vault door took a little over six minutes through quite a few twists and turns. This labyrinth would confound and lead normal interlopers to their demise, luckily for me, I have hundreds of helpers. Honestly, it’s like I’m cheating in a game. Man oh man was Necromancy the right choice or what? Haha!

I could barely contain my excitement and curiosity for what treasures and secrets lie behind this door. My mind was occupied by fantasies of what I might find in the vault that the wall there hadn’t even registered in my mind. My wild fantasies drifted away upon arriving at the door. Ok, get serious. Might turn out to be worthless junk. Stay calm. My Golem slowly raised his fist in our usual way of opening doors, I stopped him immediately.

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“No! We mustn’t do it that way! Whatever is inside could be damaged if we force our way in. I’ve got a better idea.” I said.

The Golem lowered his hand and flashed a sheepish smile and slightly bowed his head. I stepped toward the door and closely inspected it. While I intensively examined the door I discovered a spot that was slightly raised from the rest of the door. Moving my hand to it I gently applied some pressure. After hearing a soft click a small section of the door slid open revealing a strange locking mechanism. Strange indeed. It appears to be a lock but not one I’m familiar with. No keyhole or combination codes. I wonder how the humans opened this damn thing? If they can do it then I refuse to acknowledge that I can’t. I will open this vault!

The more I studied the lock the more frustrated I became. Ugh, I will have what is behind this blasted door. Your secrets belong to me now! I will not accept defeat by a locked door! As my frustration built up I had finally had enough. Placing my hand on the locking mechanism I carefully summoned my magical energy. Slowly, locked in concentration, I unleashed a very small precisely controlled blast of decay directly into the lock. Just enough to penetrate the lock without damaging anything else in or outside the door.

The lock took on a purple hue as the decaying energy entered it. Slowly and surely the magic worked its wonders on the lock. The progress could be measured by the corrosion spreading across it and the dust and debris falling to the ground. The lock proved to be a lot tougher than I thought it would it would be. It took quite a while for the decaying energy to fully penetrate and even longer for the whole lock to turn to dust and crumble. As the lock was destroyed another click, louder than before, echoed through the room. The door then unleashed a sound that reminded me of a decontamination room pressure seal being unsealed. With a whoosh, the door extended from the wall a couple of inches, slid sideways, and disappeared from view. I don’t think this vault belonged to these humans.

I clapped my hands together and peered through the now-open door, smiling. I took a breath to steady myself and then stepped foot inside the vault. Within the vault, I was in shock. The vault was a lot larger than I thought it was. Lining the walls were all kinds of machines and gizmos that DID NOT belong to these humans. These machines reminded me of my old world. Hmm, they look similar but these machines seem way more advanced than anything my old world could dream of. Strange tools and gems were haphazardly strewn about the room. One section of the vault was entirely taken up by bookshelves as far as the eye could see. Just how big is this vault?

Ignoring the treasures and the machines, of which I had no understanding, I walked straight passed them into the greatest library I’d ever seen. Bookshelves that towered into Heaven surrounded me. The sheer amount of knowledge contained right in front of me is unfathomable. I could die right now and I’d die happy. Maybe the collars are a part of this lost civilization's tech? Let's see if some of these books are hiding any secrets about unlocking them. Shush, it’s not an excuse to devour some of this knowledge. I swear! Come on. Are you going to sit there and tell me that if you accidentally stumbled upon some lost technology or literature from another time and/or civilization, you WOULDN'T look? Don't kid yourself! We all would, and if they say differently, well then you are a liar!

I started walking through the shelves determined to select a book at random to peruse. At least that was the plan but as I was trying to decide something strange happened.

A phantom force fell upon me and started to guide my steps like some sort of divine providence. This phantom force took control and marched me up and down the road of shelves, fingers of one hand trailing down a row of books. Eventually, my fingers stopped like they were glued to the spine of the book they rested on. The phantom force exerted itself again and pulled the book off the shelf. The book flew out of my hands after being removed from the shelf and opened right in front of me. As the book opened the words floated off the pages as they wildly flipped from back to front. The words continued to build up in front of the book like a storm cloud. The pages continued to flip until the back cover snapped shut. The word cloud slowly entered my head until it disappeared.

“Oh, neat looks like I can switch between talent trees to spend skill points on different skill trees!” I said to myself while bringing up the new talent tree menu.

Talent Trees

Necromancy I

Spatial Magic I

After opening the Talent tree menu and selecting Spatial Magic a list of skills to learn appeared before me. Alright, I have 13 unused skill points so let's see what we have as options. I wonder what type of skills it will give me. Also, I’ll have to ask Chooftoof why he took control of my body to make me open this book.

1. Spatial Storage – Opens an extra-dimensional space allowing you to store items inside of it. The size of the opening and storage size depends on skill level.

2. Unavailable at this Tier.

3. Unavailable at this Tier.

4. Unavailable at this Tier.

5. Unavailable at this Tier.