image [https://i.imgur.com/yFu9mOD.png]
VIII
The Levelling Dead
I stood cross-armed and frowning in the manor house. Though I said I would work on the orcs, I couldn’t raise a single one.
‘My miasma levels are a problem,’ I stated.
Miasma was similar to mana, the raw energy I used back when I was still a Necron. But I had never had an issue raising corpses—whether it be a single one or thousands at the same time, a flick of the wrist was enough.
Yet that was then.
‘How do I solve my current problem?’
Sepharin K. Vrost =
{
Skills =
[Lesser Frost Necromancy, Lesser Frost Manipulation, Minor Miasma Control,
Minor Necromancy, Minor Frostmancy]
Racials =
[Icy Veins, Goliath, Overbearing, Callous, Vorst]
Miasma =
261/895
Skill Points =
1
}
I’d learned to call up the status screen. I studied it. Was Minor Miasma Control influencing the rate at which I regenerated miasma? An intuitive sense told me it wasn’t. Not necessarily.
But then what?
I took a seat on the floor. If miasma and mana were truly similar, there should be comparable ways to train and control it. My sight turned inwards. I envisioned an astral projection of myself, an outline of my physique without any features. Dark energy swirled inside me, nestling in every limb and organ, clouding my astral body. There was a single spot of blue—a diamond-shaped crystal—in my right arm.
That’s my undead soldier. I’d retrieved it on the way back through the town when I found it crawling over the ground with two broken legs. The orc had overpowered it. Luckily, we found the greenskin before he could get away.
I focused on the miasma and watched for a while. There was a flow to it. A minute one. A “trickle” was a better descriptor. Miasma rotated through my body, attracting bits of energy from the world outside as it did. That was my regeneration.
No wonder it’s so slow, I thought.
In order to regenerate miasma, I had to draw it from outside. However, the rotational speed of my miasma was directly proportional to the pulling force. The faster my energy rotated, the faster it would attract more energy to it.
If I focused, I could speed up the rotation. The problem was that it was terribly inefficient. In order to rotate miasma, I needed to grab hold of it all at once and impress my will onto it. But the surface area was too large. Grabbing it would see most of it slip through my fingers. Kind of like spinning a heavy wheel with my bare hands. The harder I pushed, the more energy would slip away, lost to the sheer size of it. A better option was to concentrate on a small part—spinning a compact wheel instead of a heavy, laborious one.
Or, in other words: a core.
Though this body didn’t have one, it didn’t mean I couldn’t create one.
I pushed my disabled soldier out of my arm to clear my energy ways, told it to guard the entrance with the others, and prepared myself. It had been at least a thousand years since I formed my core as a Necron, but I remembered how.
First, the gathering. I dragged the miasma furthest away from my stomach closer to my centre. The energy crawled up my legs, down my skull and past my forearms. The pressure within me build as the energy converged. It was a slow process but it couldn’t be rushed.
It finally finished after what felt like an hour and thus came the last part: I took hold of all my miasma and piled it together, pushing it into an octahedral shape, roughly the shape of a raw diamond. The formation fell apart the moment I created it. But every revolution it stuck together more. It was tough on the spirit. I paused frequently, taking deep breaths. Careful and controlled breaths. Waiting for my heart rate to settle. Then I continued. Gathering together the lost shape, compressing, shaping. And gathering again.
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And then finally I was finished.
I opened my eyes with an exasperated sigh and glanced down. The elongated diamond was a glowing black and blue to my magic-senses. It was about the length of an orange and the thickness of a nail. Not big at all. But mana was dense.
The result of my effort was immediately noticeable. When I took hold of the crystal and spent energy rotating it, the speed was visible to the naked eye. Before, it had taken an entire night to refill my miasma. Now, it would be a matter of a couple hours.
This wasn’t all I could do. Enhancing the rotation speed and increasing the quality of the core were but a few. But for that I would need to prepare Sepharin’s spirit.
[Frozen Miasma Core created!]
{Skill points awarded for achievement: 3}
Frozen Miasma Core =
261/895
‘Interesting.’
More skill points. I wasn’t certain what I could use them for, and to be honest, I was too tired to think about it.
I hauled myself off the floor. My three undead were waiting, spread out in a triangle formation in front of the door, Caster in the back and the soldiers at the front.
Huh. So they had some awareness of best-practise combat. Good to know.
‘Warden!’ I heard a shaking voice when I opened the exit.
I blinked. ‘Captain. You’re still here? Why are you waiting outside?’
‘They wouldn’t let me in, Warden, so I decided to wait.’
I looked up. The sun was gone and darkness ruled the night. ‘How long did you wait?’
‘Two hours at a guess. Did you finish with the bodies, Warden?’
I stared at him. The blood on his armour had frozen over, and flakes of white were stuck to his beard. Not for a moment had I stopped to consider what randomly spending my time on cultivating would mean for someone else.
And I don’t even know his name, I thought shamefully.
I would figure it out first thing in the morning…No. Morning was too late.
‘Captain, what’s your full name?’
He looked taken aback but answered: ‘Malakai Brownhammer, Warden.’
‘Malakai Brownhammer,’ I tasted the name. ‘You can be more informal with me when we’re in private, Malakai.’
Now his eyes went wide. ‘As you say…Warden.’
I smiled. He would warm up to it. ‘Let us return to the manor. I’ll tell the maids to prepare a warm bath for you. You deserved it.’
He didn’t say no.
image [https://i.imgur.com/z6G5s0x.png]
They brought be the corpses to the shed in the morning, and I spent most of the forenoon and afternoon raising them.
[Army Overview] =
{
Undead soldier, lvl. 1] x 1
Undead soldier, lvl. 3] x 5
Undead caster, lvl. 5 x 1
Undead soldier, lvl. 10 x 1
}
I had found a way to list all of my soldiers in a neat format, which saved me both time and space in my head.
The level 1 soldier was the one with the broken leg, which had unironically not achieved anything yesterday except charging into the orc frontline and getting slapped around, buying time for Malakai and Caster to do the work.
I cut him some slack. He had been outmatched.
All the orcs were baseline lvl. 3. Better yet, Durak started as a lvl. 10 soldier. Because of that, I had discovered an interesting facet of my power.
n the light of the crystal in the shed, I narrowed my eyes and focused on the black orc.
[Class Upgrades available for Undead Soldier lvl. 10]
[Options] =
{
1. Warrior (+1)
2. Squire (-2)
3. Captain (+2)
}
If I recalled correctly what Lucian once told me, classes were umbrella terms for what was essentially a profession or trade. Being in a class enhanced certain aspects of a person.
‘A squire can turn into a knight.’
Did the ‘-2’ mean Durak had less potential of becoming a squire than he had of becoming a captain or warrior?
I looked the black orc over once. ‘You definitely don’t strike me as a knight.’
Though I considered for a moment, it wasn’t a consideration at all. I wanted to see what upgrading to another class would do, and the choice was an easy one.
[Undead soldier specialisation changed!]
Undead soldier lvl 10. —> Undead captain lvl. 1
Total of twelve skill points gained!
Bones snapped, the echo roiling through the freezer. Durak grew even taller than he already was. His arm muscles stretched against his skin, and the blue glow of his eyes deepened.
I licked my lips. The energy disturbance his body created in the miasma around us had doubled. My attention turned to the skill points. Twelve…one for every level and two because of the bonus? It added up.
‘What can you do with your skill points, Durak?’
He didn’t answer. The mindless undead had no words for the living.
I frowned. Skill points made one stronger. If I couldn’t find a way to spend them, my soldiers wouldn’t reach their full potential. Neither would I, for that matter.
A thought occurred to me. Though my soldiers were dead, they still had their instincts.
‘Durak, spend your skill points.’
He shivered. It was the sole sign that something had happened. That, and the way my other undead’s presence in the room grew. I peered. A transparent blanket spread from Durak’s shoulders, shrouding the other undead. Captain’s Cloak, the name appeared in my head.
I breathed out sharply. Is he making them stronger? Makes sense that a captain would have such a skill.
‘Is there anything else you can do, Durak?’
He opened his mouth and roared.
Demoralising shout.
The reverberation pounced through me, and suddenly my limbs felt heavier. My vision whirled minutely as I looked at my other undead and found their countenance twice as menacing as before.
Both area-of-effect spells, I mused. Interesting. But I wanted to know if he had anything that would make him do direct damage.
‘Durak—’
The door to the shed burst open.
‘Warden!’ Malakai screamed. ‘Are you alright?! Are we under attack?’
I glanced over my shoulder…and chuckled. His left greave was loose, and he didn’t have his helmet on. He must’ve just been clocking into his shift.
‘Everything is fine. I was running some tests and Durak responded in a way I didn’t foretell. That’s all.’
He sighed. ‘Please, tell us next you start experimenting, Warden.’
I nodded at the multiple guards behind him, all staring wide-eyed at the dead orc. ‘I will. However, please, dress properly before rushing to my aid next time, Captain Brownhammer. You won’t fight off an orc like that.’
He coughed into his palm. ‘Understood.’
The guardsmen left, whispering amongst each other, and my attention returned to my undead. I would figure out another time what abilities they were hiding. For now, it was enough knowing they were perfect candidates for raising. Humans got antsy when I raised their own, but orcs? There was a big chance they would accept that.
…unless we were speaking of Levi that is.
I shook my brother from my head. I had more pressing matters to engage in.
It was time I visited Castle Frost.