Damerian looked over the flood of people that were affected by his drug, standing listlessly, staring at him with vacant eyes. All his planning may not have been a total waste, as his spell had worked but now there were cities worth of people with broken minds amassed in one spot. He modeled his drug after several top-secret mind-altering drugs that created so called ‘sleeper agents’. He took all the research from those drugs to the next level, then further than that. Of the last thirty-seven years, the first twelve were dedicated to the development of the drug. All his knowledge of the human body, mind and spirit gained from endless schooling were distilled into it. It was a work of art meant to corral these people for sacrifice and it had worked flawlessly. A shame the spell was marred by such a miniscule imperfection.
As Damerian sat on the edge of the stone lattice, collecting his thoughts, ready to receive instruction from RULE, he heard movement. The scuffs of shoes dragging across asphalt. He looked into the sea of people, wondering if someone had somehow regained a semblance of thought through his drug. The sound grew quickly as he searched for its origin. Picking out movement should have been simple but there were so many people packed into such tight quarters that just the rise and fall of their chests from breathing made it difficult to find. As Damerian continued to search, the sound grew in a different way. More than one pair of feet were now being dragged across the pavement.
For one person to break the drug was one thing, but multiple was astounding. He thought these people demanded further study. Quickly he stood up and retrieved his flashlight to make the search easier. Shining the flashlight into the crowd in the direction the noise was coming from, he saw them, and his heart began beating faster.
With the light on them, the two figures stopped chewing on their neighbors and turned their heads, mouths dripping with blood, to the flashlight.
“Zombies?” Damerian croaked, still tired from running and casting. He quickly grabbed the scroll once more to scan it again in a panic. Damerian thought to himself the impossibility of these events. He hadn't included any animation in the spell, it should have just killed all it touched, feeding the spell itself to send the invitation. Still scanning the scroll, Damerian noticed the sounds growing louder, two had become four, then again eight. The zombies were multiplying at a speed Damerian didn’t think was possible.
Collecting his belongings, he made his way carefully along the stone lattice. It was wide enough to walk across but he was tired and not the most physical of specimens. He decided to get some distance from the zombies, just in case he couldn’t control them. After all, the spell may have animated one of them, but it most certainly wasn’t by design.
Damerian looked over the crowd again and saw the number of zombies growing by the second. Fortunately, the crowd was packed tight, limiting their movement, but eventually that wouldn’t matter. There would be half a million of them looking for food, or, based on the current trend, looking to make more of themselves. This level of animation was absurd. If it were a simple curse-based animation, it should take the bloodcurse anywhere from two to four days to worm its way into a person’s brain and make them undead. This bloodcurse seemed to take seconds. It was truly astounding and equally terrifying.
Having moved far enough, Damerian once more clapped his hands, drawing the attention of the zombies. He spoke a simple command. “Opri.”
The zombies didn’t stop. They instead attempted to push through the dense crowd, unsuccessfully. Due to the drug having basically shut off all thought, the zombies started pushing people over, into others around them creating a small domino effect until the bodies’ combined weight stopped any others from falling. Damerian did what he thought was best and fled. Tired as he was, it looked like more running was in order.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Damerian made his way to the opposite side of the large fountain’s lattice and climbed down. The people were all packed on the other side of the fountain, taking up every inch of free space outside of the dividing line that he had previously run through. The growing pack of zombies had several thousand people to push through before they could escape. That, or continue multiplying, which would be far faster. He hoped they weren’t any smarter than a normal zombie. Damerian continued to flee towards one of the many safe rooms he had stashed around Temuco, still awaiting further instruction from RULE.
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Stefan released the accelerator, approaching the gate to the cabin's simple dirt road. Pressing the button near the top of the windshield, the gate swiftly opened inwardly. As Stefan drove through, he pressed the button again, closing the gate behind him. He snuck another glance in the rearview mirror to check on his boss’ mood once more, only to see he wasn’t there. Stefan sighed and sped back up to reach the cabin. If the boss decided to leave the vehicle early, he really was mad.
Stefan pulled the car over in front of the cabin and decided to make a phone call, trusting his boss to not completely lose it.
“Car, call Natalie Fintest.” The car responded with its pleasantly feminine, robotic voice and the call connected after a single ring of the phone.
“Good evening, Stefan, it must be serious for you to call this late in the evening. How can I help?”
“Serious is the understatement of the age, our Master is more angry than I have ever personally witnessed. We need to cancel all meetings for at least the next week, maybe longer. Push back the V Motors unveiling of the new V Sport model. Slow production of the V Phone Seven and push any of the reveals back by a week, I have a feeling things are going to be tense for a while. If you can think of anything else that may have needed our Master’s personal attention, delay it. I will be with the Master until I am dispatched and likely will not be able to handle any administration.”
“Understood Stefan, I’ll get to it immediately. Have a good evening.”
After the call ended, Stefan dropped the public persona he held as his Master’s driver and assistant. He needed to be more than just a human lackey. He needed once more, to become his Master's Right Hand.
Stefan removed his sunglasses and stepped out of the car, looking over it to view his Master’s cabin. It was a humble-looking cabin, made of stacked logs in a typical rectangular shape and angled roof. It was large, for the type of building it was. The oddity was its complete lack of windows. The small walkway leading to the wooden porch was made of a patchwork of stones and gravel. He walked slowly across the walkway, mentally preparing himself for what was to come. The gravel crunched loudly with every step until he reached the porch. He stood before the door, stalling for a moment to finish getting his thoughts in order and knocked once.
“ENTER!” Bellowed his Master.
Stefan entered the cabin, which looked absolutely nothing like the outside would suggest. Every inch of the interior was either dripping with opulence in the form of ancient rugs, famous paintings, artifacts and tapestries or littered with technologies far ahead of their time. Sections of the air held both two and three-dimensional holographic projections of future products for V Industries or live news streams from around the world. The cabin's main floor was considered a war room, but the true wonders of the cabin came from its several underground floors. The floors below them held either ancient artifacts of power, or technologies that resulted from his master’s Sight.
“Stefan, you have permission to access all sub-basements to contact the Weathermaker. Afterwards, proceed to sub-basement six and fetch my Regalia and my spear. I anticipate a fight. If the necromancer cast a spell as large as it felt, they must be preparing for battle, and I intend on granting them one. I will show them why I was once known as The Impaler."