Sebastian Durn cursed as he felt the connection to some of his creations fail. The gnomes had found him sooner than he had hoped, and there was still so much work to do. His current project was almost finished, and he needed just a few more minutes to bring his work to fruition.
Sending a mental command, he activated all the zombies strewn about the logging camp, as well as the few surprises that he had hidden among the trees. Nearly a hundred zombies of several body types were placed as his outer layer of defense. The number had been steadily growing as the local predators and scavengers were attracted to the smell of dead flesh.
Once they began to feed on Sebastian’s undead, they would be overwhelmed and converted. The number of creatures blundering to their final demise had diminished over the last day, and he would soon have to send his creations out to hunt. Links for over a dozen of his zombies disappeared in a second at the same time a loud whooshing sound was heard from outside.
The gnomes and their infernal machines were here, but he had just the counter for that. Emptying his mind of any thoughts, Sebastian connected the final stitches to the bear corpse he had been working on all afternoon. Its effectiveness might not be worth the effort, but the path of a necromancer was one of several failures for each success.
Infusing mana into his creation, Sebastian took a step back as the creature reanimated and stood on the quartet of human legs that he had grafted onto it. For the basis of the creation, he had used the body of one of the bears his minions had brought down. The rear legs of the bear were removed and grafted onto the bear’s mate, which had arrived later the same day as its hapless counterpart.
The sounds of battle outside picked up and his zombies were dropping too quickly. He needed to reinforce them if he was going to buy enough time to finish this creation and make his escape. Reaching out to the earlier experiments he had stored inside the lumber camp’s buildings; Sebastian sent them into battle.
Doors slammed open and the undead monstrosities poured out of the various barracks buildings, eliciting rather pleasant screams of surprise and disgust from the newest groups of gnome soldiers that had joined the attack. With the battlefield stabilized for the moment, Sebastian looked back on his creation and considered the final spells he wished to cast on it. His concentration and dedication to his craft were recognized by the system as it announced the creature’s information.
You have successfully crafted an elite undead creation. A creation of this caliber may receive up to three persistent spells from tier 1 or lower. The persistent spells must be targeted at specific, viable locations on the undead creature.
Once infused with the spells that you have chosen, no further changes can be made. All undead created with this same pattern will automatically have the spells you have chosen active upon creation. The following points on the body may be infused with a spell.
1. Up to two heads.
2. The main torso.
3. The legs used for locomotion.
4. Any pair of arms, regardless of original species.
5. Any ranged weapons of a similar type.
Another of the loud whooshing blasts was heard outside and more of his undead fell. His creatures were losing the fight but were inflicting serious casualties on his foes. Before he finished this last, critical choice for his new creation, he needed to make sure he wasn’t disturbed. Sebastian linked to the last defenders still not engaged in the fight, taking a moment to meld his vision to one of the creations to gauge the true status of the battle before he completed his work.
In the tallest branches of the trees that could support their weight, a score of undead bobcats, birds of prey, and a few humans heard Sebastian’s command and sought out targets below. Sebastian was now linked to a bobcat, a rather large member of its species that was in a tree to the north of the camp. Below, a squad of gnomish infantry advanced. Picking out the last gnome in line, Sebastian leaped down.
The body he was piloting landed right on top of the unsuspecting gnome. The force of the impact shattered one of the bobcat’s legs, but it didn’t need that leg when his prey was already on the ground. Stunned, the gnome soldier didn’t react fast enough, giving Sebastian the chance to rip out his throat with the bobcat’s teeth.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The body he was piloting faltered as several spears pierced it. The gnome’s other squad mates stabbed the zombie bobcat before it could do more harm. His connection was severed, which was fine with Sebastian, he had spells to cast. A grin at the corner of his mouth formed as he felt the curse of undeath take hold in the gnome his bobcat had just killed. In a few more moments, another undead warrior would join his ranks.
He quickly assessed his creation. It had the torso of a bear, but it walked on two pairs of human legs. It had taken some time to find two human corpses with nearly the same length of leg to avoid making his creation walk with an inefficient gait.
From the front of the torso, three pairs of arms were fused. Instead of grasping hands or claws, Sebastian used what he seemed to have the greatest abundance of, which were human heads. Each arm ended in a human head that would snap and tear into anything it touched. A further improvement that Sebastian was proud of, was that each arm was double the normal length.
It had taken some time to fuse two arms ends to end, but it had worked out well, giving his creatures much greater reach. From where the head of the bear had been, two gnome heads sprouted. They were sourced from hunters that had stumbled upon his camp early on the first day. Sebastian had hollowed the gnome heads and connected them to special organs crafted inside the bear’s body.
The organs inside the bear could generate incredible pressure and propel an object held inside the gnome’s mouth a distance of almost twenty yards. For the ammunition, he grafted bits of bone and claw to severed tongues, storing dozens of them inside the hollowed-out gnome heads. It was here, on the pair of heads topping his creation, that Sebastian cast his first spell.
A tier one, Infect with Undead Curse spell, was applied. Anything the gnomish heads spewed out would now infect the target, spreading the curse with only a minor scratch. The three pairs of arms ending in normal zombified heads would naturally inflict the same curse, but for a ranged weapon, he needed to infuse it with a spell directly.
On the bear torso, Sebastian grafted the spell, Cloud of Corruption. When killed, the creature would burst open and spew forth a cloud of necrotic gas, corroding and infecting any flesh that it touched. With one choice left, Sebastian infused one pair of arms with Necromancer’s Call. When the main creature died and erupted with the necrotic cloud, the enchanted arms would detach from the body and attack on their own, slithering toward the nearest foe like a snake or worm.
“Now my pretty, let’s go play with our guests,” Sebastian said, unable to contain a giggle as he anticipated the fun he was about to have. “Oh, the rest of you may follow and protect me as the master has commanded,” he ordered the other undead in the room with him.
Sebastian had taken the lumber camp supervisor’s lodging as his own after capturing the place. Inside, he had a dozen undead that functioned as both bodyguard and jailor. His bodyguards were Improved Ghouls, that had been raised by Pharox himself and assigned to help Sebastian. Faster, more intelligent, and much stronger than a regular ghoul, the improved versions required a tier three spell to animate.
He found the improved ghouls rather uninspiring, but his master had forbidden him from attempting any experiments on them. If Sebastian disobeyed, the ghouls would turn on him, shredding him before any of Sebastian’s creations could intervene.
If he tried to do anything outside the orders that he had been given, the ghouls would disable or kill Sebastian. The severity of his offense would determine how brutal the punishment would be. Through the master’s link with the ghouls, Pharox would know the moment Sebastian disobeyed.
He was fine with the restriction and the bodyguards, for now. Sebastian’s power was growing and would continue to grow as the campaign to pacify the region continued. Soon, Sebastian would have the power to sever his ties with Pharox and strike out on his own, but for now, he obeyed.
Surrounded by his ghouls, Sebastian followed behind his newest creation, relishing the terror it was causing among the ranks of the gnomes. His creation was working as the perfect distraction. Looking over the lumber camp, Sebastian could see that, despite the finely crafted undead that he had raised, the gnomish army was too numerous for his forces to defeat.
To the west, there was only a handful of gnomes. That thin part of the encircling army would be his egress point, and he charged in that direction, losing one of his ghoul bodyguards as a magic missile from one of the gnomish machines punched into its hip. The ghoul was still functional, but it could no longer keep up.
Pulling on his mana, Sebastian unleashed a Cloud of Corruption on the small group of gnomes barring his way. All but two succumbed to the cloud, gagging and retching as their bodies died. Sprinting forward, four of the ghouls pounced on the unaffected pair of gnomes, their powerful claws and teeth shredding through the chainmail armor they wore with ease.
Bolting through the gap in the line, Sebastian ran toward the sawmill; if the gnomish army hadn’t penetrated that far, he had a chance. His most recent creation was impressive, but what he had forged inside the sawmill put it to shame. It was a true masterpiece, a masterpiece that would buy him the time needed to escape and rejoin his master.