Chapter VIII

A couple of hours had passed since Azrael began his routine of casting Control Lesser Undead and meditating. Azrael was currently sitting at the table in the house he was calling his own. He just finished meditating as he opened his eyes and sighed while thinking, 'Alright, now I have all the skeletons under my control. What to do with them though...hmmm.' He looked up and stared at the two skeletons that were standing on either side of the door.

'Those two haven't budged since I ordered them to stand there...Seems like they'll follow any order I give them indefinitely. That's good...Shouldn't be much longer until-' His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. It then opened and three skeletons walked inside. 'Haha, right on time.'

They stopped in front of the table and stood there unmoving. Azrael looked at these three skeletons and then ordered, “You three, stand to the side over there.” He pointed to the wall by the door to the bedroom. The skeletons nodded and proceeded to do as told. Once the skeletons were there, Azrael stood up and walked outside of the house.

The moment he got outside he saw three different piles of objects to his right. He moved over to them and examined them closely. One was a pile of only bones. The second was a neatly stacked pile of swords and shields. The third was an organized pile of a mixture of leather and chainmail armor. 'Hahaha, superb. They were actually able to sort them properly. Huh, odd. The tome said that the lowest tier of skeleton didn't have any intelligence. If that was so, then how did they sort these items?...Ah well, whatever, doesn't really matter that much I suppose.'

Azrael then turned and looked to the left side of the house. There were currently thirty-five skeletons standing in rank there. After each meditation session Azrael would have five new skeletons under his control. Each time he would order the five new skeletons to stand in ranks right next to his house. 'Hmm...' Azrael called out, “Twenty of you, step forward!”

Adhering to his command, twenty skeletons stepped forward. “Good. You twenty, come over here. Equip these weapons and armor.” The twenty skeletons moved over to the piles of sorted goods. They immediately began to put on the leather and chainmail armor. Then they each picked up a sword and shield.

Looking over the twenty armed skeletons, Azrael was grinning on the inside. 'Hahaha! Excellent! I now have warriors! Well...they at least look like warriors. They'll need to kill a bunch of creatures to evolve into actual warriors, but at least they look the part.' After he finished looking them over, he ordered, “You twenty, follow me.”

Azrael, with the twenty skeletons in tow, walked to the house that was next to the one he was calling his own. He entered it and looked around. Nodding he thought, 'This one will do. I don't want these skeletons all outside, otherwise if anyone comes by the village it'll be bad news.' He turned to face the skeletons and ordered, “Clear out everything inside of this house. Throw it outside, behind the house. When your done, wait in front of the house for me.” The skeletons all nodded in acknowledgement, then moved to begin emptying out the house. Azrael walked outside and headed towards the fifteen skeletons that were still standing in ranks next to his house.

He arrived in front of them and examined them while pondering something. He brought his hand to his chin as he was in deep thought. 'Hmm, being able to orally order them is good and all, but if there is ever a situation where I need to be silent...Hmmm, well it's worth a shot I suppose.' As Azrael stared at the skeletons he ordered them mentally, 'You fifteen, stand on one foot.'

The fifteen skeletons all complied by lifting a foot of the ground. Azrael rejoiced mentally, 'Yes! It works!' If a skull could smile, that's what he was doing right now. “Alright, put your feet down.” He ordered and the skeletons did as told. “Hmmm, the fifteen of you are to lay on the ground in front of this house and not move. Act like corpses.”

As he ordered them, they all nodded in unison. They then spread out a little bit in front of the house Azrael was calling his and suddenly they all collapsed as if they were puppets whose strings had been cut. 'Good. If anyone comes by they would probably inspect the village due to the burnt down houses and the decrepit appearance of the rest. This way they'll see the skeletal corpses as well and probably investigate them. If that happens at least I'll be able to lure them in and ambush them. If necessary, I can use the skeletons to buy time for me to escape.'

Azrael moved back over to the house where he had ordered the skeletons to clear out the inside of it. As he approached, he saw all twenty skeletons standing in rank waiting for him at the front of the house. 'They finished already?' he thought as he arrived. “You all finished clearing out the inside already?” Shaking his head he thought 'Bah, what am I doing? They can't answer-”

The skeletons all nodded, answering his question. “E-eh!? You all can understand me?” They all nodded once more. 'What is this!? That tome said that skeletons are the lowest tier undead and have no intelligence. Wait...maybe since I'm different from normal undead...are the ones I create different as well?' Azrael looked at them all then asked, “What is 2x2-1? Hold up your fingers to answer.” None of them moved to answer the question.

'I don't understand...they aren't answering, is it because they can't? Let's try something simpler.' He then asked, “What is 1+1? Hold up your fingers to answer.” Once more none of them moved. 'Huh...' He thought for a few minutes before coming up with a possible rationale. 'Maybe...they can understand what I say and can answer simple inquiries, especially if it has to with their previous or current orders? That's most likely the situation...I guess only time will be able to answer my question.'

Shaking his head to keep his thoughts from going rampant, he moved to the back of the house to inspect what the skeletons had done. Once there, he saw all of the furniture from inside of the house. 'Good, so the house should be empty now.' He walked back to the front and into the house. After seeing that the main room of the house was empty, he proceeded into the bedroom and just like the previous room, it was empty as well. 'Good, now let's test the range of mental orders...The twenty of you outside of the house, come inside now.'

Azrael walked back into the main room of the house, as he did so he saw all the skeletons filing in. 'Excellent, so mental orders can work at a range too. The extent of the range though, I still need to figure out.' Once all of the skeletons were inside he ordered, “Alright, all of you are to stay inside here unless ordered otherwise. Should anyone besides me or one of the skeletons come inside here, you are to kill them immediately. Understood?” They all nodded in unison.

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'Good, now time to test the range of mental orders.' He walked outside of the house and to the center of the village where the ritual with the pentagram was located. Once there he looked back to the house he was calling his own. He ordered mentally, 'Skeleton with the bloody robe, come out of the house and stand at the door.' A breath's worth of time went by and a skeleton wearing a bloody robe walked outside of the house. It then stood at the door motionless.

'Haha! Great! So it works at moderate range too. Given that the skeleton was standing by the bedroom door, it would have taken a second or two, to actually get to the door that leads outside and then come out. So are mental orders instant? Only one way to find out.' After he thought this, he mentally ordered the skeleton in the bloody robe, 'Raise your hand above your head.'

The moment he finished the thought, the skeleton instantly complied. 'Hahaha! Yes! The orders were transmitted instantly!' After celebrating in his mind, he ordered mentally once more, 'Lower you hand, you may go back to your former position inside of the house.' The skeleton did as ordered and walked back into the house. As it did so, Azrael was thinking. 'Alright time for another test.'

Azrael walked out of the village and glanced around. He noticed that there were fields of corn on either side of the dirt road that led into the village. 'Hmm, another good place for an ambush should anyone come here.'  He walked down the road for about a quarter of an hour, at this point the village was becoming harder to see.

'Alright, so coming out this far I can still feel the connection with all of the skeletons. Well, time for the test...Skeleton in the bloody robe, walk into the center of the village and raise your hand.' After ordering it mentally, Azrael proceeded to return to the village.

When he finally returned he was elated to see that in the center of the village stood the skeleton in the bloody robe with its hand raised in the air. Azrael approached the skeleton and said, “Haha, excellent. Lower your hand and return to your former position inside of the house.” The skeleton nodded and then ambled away.

'So the range of mental orders so far, seem to be pretty extreme. Maybe it has something to do with the connection I feel to all of the skeletons. This is good. If that's the case, then if the connection ever starts to feel weak, I'll know I'm nearing the limit of my range.' Having finished his thoughts, Azrael started to stroll back to his house.

Once Azrael arrived in front of his house, he glanced at the pile of bones that were still there and suddenly had an idea. 'I wonder...if it's possible...then that would be amazing.' Thinking to there, he walked in front of the pile of bones. Looking at them he raised his hand and uttered, “Raise Lesser Undead.”

As soon as the words fell, black mist seeped out of his hand and travelled to the pile of bones engulfing it. After a few moments, a figure covered in black mist stood up from the pile, scattering the other bones. The mist lingered for a moment before it vanished. What stood before Azrael was another skeleton. 'This...this...incredible.'

Through the connection he had with each undead he creates, he can feel just how powerful they are when he is in close proximity. What he felt from this undead was that it was just another low tier skeleton. But this meant that after defeating an enemy's undead, he could then raise it into one of his own undead. He was at a loss for words thinking about this. 'There were twenty skeletal warriors before, so there should be enough bones remaining to raise nineteen more skeletons. With them, I'll have a total of sixty skeletons. Hahaha.'

Azrael had cast Raise Lesser Undead five times and then meditated. He did this for a total of four times, raising twenty more skeletons in total. 'Hahaha, yes...now then...The twenty of you, go into the crop fields directly outside of the village, lay down on the ground and act like corpses.' Having ordered them all mentally, the twenty of them all nodded in unison and then marched off to perform their orders.

Azrael then moved to inspect one of the other fifteen skeletons he had laying on the ground acting like corpses in front of his house. Upon close inspection, one wouldn't be able to tell that they were actually undead. Their previously glowing blue eyes were completely extinguished. They looked and seemed like ordinary skeletal corpses, with their bones slightly scattered.

Having finished inspecting them, Azrael was satisfied with everything so far. 'Hmm, I should test how fast their reaction time is.' As he thought this, he looked towards one of the skeletons on the ground and then ordered mentally, 'Stand up!'

As soon as he finished ordering it, the bones that belonged to this skeleton all started to connect together, forming into a complete skeleton. Once they all connected, the skeleton stood up. 'Hmm...not bad, it only took a little under one or two seconds...Lay back down, act like a corpse.' After ordering the skeleton to return to its former position, he glanced behind him towards the backs of the skeletons marching towards the crop fields. 'Well, with all of this settled it's only been a few hours. I think it's time to read a tome.' As Azrael thought this, he turned back around and headed inside of his house.

Once Azrael was inside of the house, he glanced towards the three skeletons standing by the bedroom door. Seeing that everything was copacetic, he slightly nodded, then sat down at the table. Once there he glanced towards the two skeletons standing on either side of the door. Once more he gave a slight nod. 'Now then, time to read up on some more death magic.'

He pulled the tome, The God of Death's Revised Death Magic, out of his interspatial ring. This time, the tome appeared about eight centimeters off the surface of the table. It then landed on it with a light thud. 'Hmm, not bad, I'm getting better at making the items appear where I want them to.' After thinking this, he looked at the tome and then opened it up to where he left off. 'After reading this tome for an entire night, I was only able to read about five percent of the way through it. I'm sure there's got to be more spells in here...Time to read.' Having finished his thoughts, Azrael delved into reading the tome.