A young teenager strode down narrow corridors with dull steps, his candle holder illuminating the way forward.
He saw two boys his age from the corner of his eye, dressed in black robes just like he was. The duo heard his steps and turned to face him, but was left with open mouths when he walked right past. They looked at each other with strange expressions after he was a fair distance away.
“Mortimer’s been weird these past few weeks.”
“Do you think he got possessed?” the other glanced the way Mortimer left with a deep frown.
“It’s impossible without master Igor noticing. Maybe he hit his head?” they snickered and turned to leave in a different direction.
Mortimer stopped his stride in front of a familiar wooden door while and turned an iron key in the lock. He shut the door behind him and took in his quarters, he had a wooden study and chair, shelves carved in the stone walls, a wardrobe, coffer and stone bed. It was too cramped and dusty, it felt uncomfortable to live in here at first, but he got used to it after a while.
He’d been running errands for Master Igor all day in the town of Crowshire, and it was night time when he finally returned. He left the candle holder on his study to light the darkroom, and sat on his bed, kicking off his boots and massaging his sore feet. After huddling up under a thick blanket, he couldn’t help but recall the past few weeks here while trying to fall sleep.
This world was no longer his own, and his body in this world was not his either. The body he was inhabiting once belonged to a thirteen-year-old neophyte, named Mortimer. He was learning necromancy under Master Igor and lived in these subterranean catacombs together with thirty other neophytes. The original has been studying here for only a short year, and he’d spent all of it on studying some fundamental topics and learned two essential utility spells that he now inherited.
The place he lived in was called The Black Ruins Catacombs and were in the ruins of an ancient city, they spanned over hundreds of kilometers underground. The area they occupied was just a small section by the entrance and was insignificant compared to the entire place. It was rumored that it was called the black ruins because thousands of years ago, an elder dragon scorched it to the ground.
While he kept all of Mortimer’s knowledge and knew the language, he was having a hard time adapting. This world was a place where magic was possible, and it was filled with countless types of horrifying monsters. The change was overwhelming him with stress, his past world was peaceful and conflicts were isolated, while here he had to live in adversity and with the threat of danger at every corner.
Only his will to survive was pushing him forward, he didn’t want to die or be abandoned, so he followed orders and did what was expected of him as Mortimer. He got on with Mortimer’s memories, but rumors soon started spreading among the other neophytes that he suddenly changed.
The oddest thing about this world were the numerical values defining his physical body and knowledge in the back of his mind. It felt like an intangible sense organ, all he had to do was will it and he'd have them displayed before him.
Basic information Mastery Name: Mortimer Race: Human Anatomy(beginner) Enchanting(beginner) Age: 13 Class: Neophyte Necromancer Soulscouring(beginner) Attribute values Spells Strength: 2 Constitution: 3 Soul Branding(utility) Soul Trap(utility) Dexterity: 5 Spirit: 6 Soul Scouring(utility)
He had heard other neophytes speaking about it like it was the most normal thing, just like they could always see, taste and feel, it was always there for them. He had also heard that certain magical items could. Mortimer knew it was not normal, how could you quantify a living being? It felt wrong and invasive.
Mortimer fell asleep while recalling his experiences, the dim candle burning out shortly after. He had feeding duties tomorrow morning and didn’t want to be late. Ditching chores in this place was one of the worst decisions you could make, he didn’t want to be assigned anything dangerous as punishment.
The next morning, Mortimer had puffy eyes and was walking through the corridors with hurried steps, getting him the attention of all the neophytes he passed by. When he arrived at the kitchen’s entrance, his partner for feeding duties was looking around with a frown. She was a young girl wearing the same loose robes as him, with brown hair in a ponytail and freckles on her pale skin. Mortimer recalled from his memories she was called Melissa and was a 1st step neophyte that came here at the same time as him.
Her frown disappeared when she recognized Mortimer, and a faint smile took its place. “You’re late.” she put her hands on her hips.
“Sorry.” Mortimer avoided eye contact and pulled open the kitchen door for her.
Under the instructions of the neophyte in charge of the kitchen, they both started loading the prepared buckets filled with raw animal meat on a large metal trolley.
“What happened?” she gazed at him from between the trolley’s shelves.
“I had to go do chores in Crowshire yesterday, came back late and tired.”
“See anything interesting on your trip?”
“All the townsfolk took their children inside and everyone avoided me.”
“How boring.” She grinned and got behind him. “You were late, so you’re pushing it.”
Mortimer grumbled but nodded, leading the heavy trolley down the corridors with Melissa following closely behind, the wheels leaving trails on the dirt floor. Other neophytes they passed by looked at them with envy, feeding was one of the daily duties you could finish the fastest, then you had the rest of the day for yourself.
The trolley stopped after entering a prison hall through a large metal door, there were around a dozen cells within it. The cells were locked by rows of thick iron bars that sprouted up from the slots in the ground and reached up to the ceiling. It looked like a complex mechanical cell system that an artificer would make, and it had a locked control panel in the center of the hall.
Only half of the cells were populated, and they imprisoned large humanoid abominations in various development stages. The smallest of them was two meters tall and still looked like their original selves, while the biggest ones were four meters tall and were horrifying monsters. They had protruding razor-sharp teeth, large powerful bodies with gray skin and sickening black veins popping from under it.
Mortimer was pale-faced and his heartbeat was erratic when they stepped inside the hall, all he could hear in the room was the inhuman growls of the abominations. They stopped in front of every occupied cell with the trolley, Melissa emptying a bucket of feed into every one of them with sweaty hands. After emptying all the feed buckets, they rushed outside the hall with the slobbering of the eating abominations in the background.
They let out collective sighs of relief when the heavy door leading to the hall was closed behind them. “Master Igor’s experiments are terrifying….” Melissa was shivering, holding onto Mortimer’s arm.
‘More like he’s a lunatic turning men into monsters with alchemy.’ Mortimer thought inwardly.
He gently removed Melissa’s hand off him. “It’s finished.” he started pushing the trolley forward.
Melissa pouted when he removed her hand, her shivering abruptly stopping.
“Jerk.” she clicked her tongue after she was left behind.
She ran up to catch up with the trolley and asked. “What you doing later?”
“I’m busy.”
Melissa frowned but didn’t speak further, silently following behind the trolley. They returned to the kitchen, and after the neophyte in charge confirmed they’ve completed their duties, they left the kitchen.
Mortimer was on the way back to his room, now that he had some free time, he planned to spend the day practicing engraving a lesser strength enchantment. He planned to use that enchantment on the body of his first undead. His only choice to survive in this foreign world was to abide by its rules and become stronger, and it was predetermined that his only path forward was as a necromancer.
While Mortimer was fantasizing about his newest project, Melissa ran up to him and got his attention. Mortimer stopped in his steps and looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
“You're going to be working on your skeleton soon, right? Need any help?” she put her hands behind her back and looked up at him.
Mortimer held his chin in thought. Melissa was a complicated topic for him, because the original Mortimer had a close relationship with her before, and now he was in his place. His first reaction weeks ago was to ignore her or give one-word answers and hope she got the hint to leave him alone, and while their relationship cooled down, she never stopped trying to talk to him or see what he was doing. It seemed futile to make her leave him alone by ignoring her, instead, she grew more invested in bothering him the more he dodged her.
“You focus on alchemy right?” she nodded. “Then can you make me a coating resin for bone, the type that softens blunt damage?”
She put on a smile. “No problem, that’s nothing too hard. I’ll give it to you tomorrow.”
“Come to my room when it’s done.” he nodded at her before leaving. Melissa stood there in a daze after Mortimer left, pondering intensely if the word ‘come to my room’ had any underlying intentions or not.
Once back inside his quarters and alone, Mortimer opened a drawer and fetched an engraving nail along with a femur bone from the pile inside. He sat down on his study's chair and recalled the steps to enchanting from memory.
First, use an appropriate tool corresponding to the material you’re planning to enchant, it needs to be sharp enough and have good maneuverability.
"Check, the nail doesn’t look very impressive but it can go through bone."
Then you need to decide on the enchantment effect and where to position it, so it’s not easily damaged when the item is in use. An ordinary material can only bear one enchantment, only extraordinary materials can bear more at once.
"A lesser strength enchantment is a good beginner rune set for practice, it’s very versatile."
The rune sets picked are then to be accurately engraved in the material, or else the enchantment will fail at the final step when infused with a soul.
This step was the most difficult, any distraction would ruin it. “Bone isn’t flat, it’s too hard to get the runes right on something so curved…” he rubbed his temples with a frown.
Mortimer spent the rest of the day practicing the rune set for lesser strength on junk bones, he only had a single lesser soul essence to use for enchanting. If he failed because his engraving was too inaccurate, it would be wasted, and he couldn't get another one in the short term. Using a lesser soul essence for enchanting would make it work for only one year, but he imagined he’d make a better undead by then.
It was night time by the time he stopped, there was a pile of engraved bones sitting on the floor, and his hand tendons were sore. ‘This should be enough practice on this one, for now. I can’t improve much further in the short term.“ Just when he was preparing to take a break, something unknown alerted him.
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Dexterity: 5(+1)
Mortimer widened his eyes, this was the first time he saw one of his attributes increase. "Spending so much time engraving raised my dexterity... it does make sense, all I've been doing lately is practicing it."