Something pulls at me. A desperate plea echoes through earth rich with ancient death, disturbing magic that has lain dormant for centuries. The plea carries power, its is not strength, it is regret, and it calls upon the lingering calling. 

Blood calls to blood.

Someone anyone, please. I'm sorry. Protect...

I wake to the taste of ash and iron on a tongue I no longer possess. My first conscious breath draws nothing into lungs that no longer exist. Instead, magic pulses through hollow ribs, an unnatural current that powers this skeletal frame.

I lie in black soil rich with old blood, my bones pulling together in response to that dying wish. The battlefield stretches endlessly around me under a dark sky in mid day. 

Countless weapons protrude upwards from the ground like iron markings, spears, swords, halberds, and stranger weapons whose purpose I cannot guess. Between them lie the remains of those who wielded them, bones bleached white by years of exposure. Some wear scraps of ruined armor, others the tattered remnants of robes or leather.

But there are fresher corpses here now. Three bodies lie broken among the ancient dead, their blood still wet on the blood stained ground.. A patrol or scavenging party, their flesh torn by fangs that left shadows instead of wounds.

One still clutches a torch that sputters in a puddle of his own blood. Another's hand reaches toward the distant shapes of walls I can barely make out through the darkened haze. The third, the one whose final wish pulled me from oblivion, died first trying to defend the others. His blood seeps into soil already saturated with the sacrifice of those who came before

A system window suddenly materializes in front of it. It is blue with a bluer light. 

[Status: Awakened Undead]

[Level: 1] [Class: Skeletal Knight]

[Core Skills: Undying Frame (Passive): You cannot bleed, feel pain, or suffer fatigue

Death's Grace (Passive): You move unhindered.

Soul Echo (Passive): Unknown fragments guide your blade]

The information settles into my consciousness, natural and unbidden, it is simply there. I push myself up, bone scraping against rusted armor and rusted weapons half-buried in the earth.

My body moves with unsettling ease, joints clicking into place without muscle or sinew to guide them. Each motion is powered by the same dark energy that roused me to consciousness.

I am untethered.

I look down at myself. Rusted chainmail hangs from my skeletal frame, and a notched longsword lies within arm's reach, its blade dark with ancient blood. When I grasp it, muscle memory that should be impossible guides my hand. The blade comes up in a perfect guard position.

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Their killers haven't gone far. Shadows gather between the ancient weapons, taking shape,  wolf-like forms of where shadows take to bone, with eyes that glow red, the red that marks them as monsters of some kind or another. They've circled back to their prey, ready to feed on cooling flesh. Steam rises from their jaws, they've already feasted on the fallen patrol.

[Encountered: Pack of Shadow Hounds (Level 3)]

[Pack Tactics: Shadow Hounds deal additional damage when attacking with allies]

The nearest beast turns toward me, sensing the unnatural magic that drives these bones. It launches itself at my throat, thinking me a target it can't understand, it is moving faster than any natural creature should.

But this body, this hollow frame of bone and patchwork armor, moves and moves quickly.

I pivot, the beast's jaws snapping shut on empty air as my sword cuts through its shadowy form.

Five more hounds circle, their steps leaving smoky trails in the air. They abandon their fallen prey to focus on this new threat. Their coordinated attack tells me they have an intelligence, they move to surround me, to overwhelm with numbers what they cannot achieve alone.

Knowledge floods through me, sword forms I never learned but somehow know. This body might be new, but it remembers war. I meet them with steel and purpose, my blade tracing lethal arcs through their shadowy forms.

I cannot tire. I cannot feel pain. Each blow they land chips bone or dents armor, but I fight on, driven by magic and memory.

A jaw clamps down on my sword arm, tearing it free in a shower of ancient metal and yellowed bone. I drive my bare skeletal hand through the beast's skull in response, fingers closing around whatever passes for a spine in its shadow-flesh. It dissolves into wisps of darkness that sink into the blood-rich soil.

One by one, its pack mates follow. My sword, still gripped in my severed arm, continues to strike true as I wield the limb like a macabre flail. When the last shadow hound falls, I kneel beside my scattered bones. The dark energy pulses stronger, pulling them back together. Each piece clicks back in place as my body rebuilds itself, until I stand whole once more.

[Victory! Pack of Shadow Hounds defeated!]

[Level Up! You are now level 2]

I turn to the fallen patrol. Their blood now indistinguishable from the ancient stains that mark this field.

I kneel beside the one who died protecting his companions. His face is locked in an expression of desperate hope, not for himself, but for those he tried to save. That expression calls to something in these hollow bones.

His belt pouch contains a letter, the parchment stained with blood.

The ink remains legible.

Third patrol this week. More shadows gathering each night. Haven's walls are strong, but we need supplies. The children haven't eaten proper food in days. We have to venture out further, risk more, beyond the killing fields when the shadows are dormant. Gods help us all.

I look, partial memories coming to me.

The walls he reached for loom closer now, a silhouette in the distance. Haven, the name comes without context or memory. But I see shadows gathering in that direction, darker shapes moving in the mist. Whatever killed this patrol has brothers, and they hunt between here and those distant walls.

Behind me stretches the endless battlefield, and beyond it, four distant horizons each promising their own darkness. To the north, a forest writhes with unnatural motion, a wrongness felt even at this distance.

To the east, black towers await and in the west the horizon glows with hellish forge-fires, and to the south, there is only broken spires. 

But for now, shadows gather close at hand, between these bones and walls that shelter those who still draw breath. The patrol's cooling bodies remind me that the living are fragile.

They need food. They need supplies. They need protection.

I do not know what I am. I do not know why I rose. While darkness gathers,  something compels me forward. The urge has no name yet, but it drives these borrowed bones toward Haven where hope lingers and the dangers that await its people.