An exhausted Heidie curled up on some dry ground and stared at a magnificent night sky. She had finished six and a half minions, Sergeant Spear-Arm included. The other five with proper hands and crafted shield and halberd.

Heidie had used what she could of the pile of viscera to craft them some crude armor. Very crude armor. Heidie had really just molded pieces of hardened skin, about an inch and a half thick, across their bodies where it wouldn’t interfere with the moving of their joints. The remaining pile of gore had gone to the crows.

Heidie had wanted to stop after completing the third undead soldier, thinking she would sleep through the night. However Lome’Matar insisted she keep going. Uncertain of when the barrier he constructed would actually fall, he told her that she should prepare for the worst case of it dropping tomorrow.

Finding a flashlight in one of her classmate’s backpacks, Heidie gave it to one of her new handy minions and taught the undead how to gently click it on and off. Illumination was nice even if it wasn’t totally necessary. Mana probes didn’t really need light to function but Heidie still wanted to see what she was doing on occasion.

Heidie had worked until exhaustion took her and she could work no more. Now, she struggled to sleep. The smell of the clearing had not been improved by the passing of time and the deboning of several bodies.

Heidie was filthy, itchy, and trying very hard not to think about home or how incredibly, completely fucked she was. Both the present and the future looked pretty bleak from where Heidie was sitting.

All in all it wasn’t turning out to be a very peaceful night. At least exhaustion was on her side.

The night sky was beautiful. More stars than Heidie had ever seen and a gorgeous view of a galaxy lay above her. Larger than the moon Heidie was accustomed to, a new and strange moon drifted overhead, shining with a weak bluish light. Heidie watched the stars and finally managed to finally drift asleep before dawn came.

Waking up to a demon screeching at her to get back to work wasn’t pleasant. Sleep deprived and pissed, Heidie cursed at him for a little while and then started what she hoped would not become her new morning routine. Dig a hole for waste, use and bury said hole, use a very small amount of water and a relatively clean shirt to wash her hands, and eat a couple pillaged energy bars with a gulp or two of water.

Heidie looked at the half-full box of energy bars. It wouldn’t last longer than another day at this rate. Two if she really was really stingy. She needed to find another source of food soon. There were some backpacks she hadn’t gone through yet, at least.

Heidie wondered how people who knew what they were doing rationed food in emergency situations like this. Her immediate instinct was to look it up. Unfortunately that was not in the cards right now. Heidie sighed. Internet, you will be missed. I never appreciated you enough...

Wincing as she stood up, Heidie tried to ignore the stench of rotting flesh. The smell was worse than yesterday. She looked at her completed minions. They were standing at attention where she’d left them last night. Unmoving, they were like deathly still statues.

“Sergeant!” Heidie called to them. The spear-armed minion’s head snapped up, staring at the almost college student, blue dots burning brightly in its skull.

“I am heere, Mistresss” the servant hissed. It’s speech seemed better than yesterday, but still not quite there.

“Scour the clearing with the other soldiers and pile all of the remaining bodies there,” Heidie pointed to a good place a fair distance away from where she slept and ate. “In the process find every backpack and container you can,” Heidie pointed to where her own backpack and the several she’d already gone through lay. “put them next to this one. Don’t damage them. Bring them gently.” The Sergeant and soldiers roared to life from their motionless stance and immediately started scurrying around, gathering up the remaining bodies and backpacks. Overturning machines and checking underneath them.

Heidie left the undead to their work and returned to the half-finished creation from last night. The reinforcement of this future soldier’s skeleton was not yet finished, but at least Heidie had deboned enough last night to complete the job.

Randomly pulling another medium sized bone from her pile, Heidie got back to the molding. The barrier might fall today. Heidie planned to start taking stock and packing up as soon as her seventh soldier was completed.

A few short hours later another soldier had arisen. They picked up their shield and halberd, hissed out words of loyalty to their master, and joined the other standing at attention.

Ignoring the pile of corpses her soldiers had neatly arranged, Heidie went for the backpack pile instead. Seven soldiers was good enough for now. She could go back to making more after she was done getting ready to move.

Sitting down next to the assortment Heidie reached for one and started snooping through it for anything critical. Her gaze was distracted by her minions standing there, doing nothing.

“Hey, demon.” Heidie tried to get Lome’Matar’s attention.

“Yes, dear student?” the head replied with a kindly smile. He wasn’t even showing teeth with this one. The demon already had his fun waking his sleep deprived student up.

“The soldiers I made: is there anything useful they can be doing?” Heidie asked.

“Not unless you have a specific task you want done.” Lome’Matar replied. “There is no productive use of their time aside from what directly benefits you and I. Undead created from more powerful techniques from later circles can learn and grow in power but what you have now are merely a step above automatons.” Lome’Matar’s smile started to show teeth and his voice filled with mania

“You have me and my years of research and advancement of this field to thank for what intelligence they do have. My spells are far superior to those of the average necromancer. You think a normal undead created by some first Circle acolyte can infer what backpack is? No! This is the result of a thousand years of study and improvement!”

“Okay.” Heidie went back to rooting through the backpacks.

Trying not to show his ego had been bruised by the indifference Lome’Matar decided to ignore the slight for now and went back to planning Heidie’s future training schedule.

Oh, it would be an extraordinary training schedule. So few acolytes in their physical education ever had access to healing magic that would allow them to keep the gains of their work. The demon smiled widely as it all started to take shape in his mind.

Backpacks picked through, Heidie now had a fair number of useful things. There was a reasonable selection of what one might find in a typical college student's backpack here. From the particularly well prepared there were a few flashlights, some spare batteries of various kinds, some more energy bars, candy, a few water bottles, and a couple bags of mixed nuts.

From one student’s bag, less prepared but interesting nonetheless, Heidie had found a heavily used pipe, a large baggie of weed, and a large, mostly filled bottle of miraculously unsmashed vodka.

There were also a handful of smartphones in working condition, one unsmashed laptop, and a large assortment of miscellaneous school supplies.

Heidie was pleased. This solved her immediate food issues, at least for a day or two. Heidie packed everything up in as few backpacks as possible and then started placing them on her minions. Sergeant didn’t get a backpack. His undroppable shield made getting it on him annoying. Fortunately the bulk of the important stuff, and Lome’Matar, easily fit in six backpacks with some room to spare. Heidie’s own backpack would be as minimal as possible: only a few bottles of water, some food, and light personal belongings.

Her minions outfitted, Heidie was prepared now. She took a few minutes off from crafting more undead to eat lunch. Right as she was about to unwrap her energy bar, Lome’Matar raised warning. The barrier was becoming unstable. There were only a few minutes left before it failed, exposing the clearing to the outside forest.

Heidie quickly wolfed down the energy bar and took another drink of water. Wasting no more time she grabbed her backpack and rallied the undead.

Lome’Matar’s head was shoved into an otherwise empty backpack attached to one of the undead soldiers and the pack was zipped up as far as his horns would allow.

“Which way do we go?” Heidie asked Lome’Matar.

“West.” Lome’Matar replied through the canvas concealing his face. A faint green light sprung into the air and pointed out the direction.

“The majority of the spiders came from the east before returning the same way. We should leave in the opposite direction immediately. Our presence may have already been noticed before the barrier was raised.” Lome’Matar’s voice sounded deadly serious.

“Leave anything that cannot be easily carried behind. When the barrier falls I will be able to take in the area around us with my mana sense. I will warn you of threats before they get too close. Make your way as quickly as possible.”

Heidie felt her throat constrict. Being out in the same forest as that spider she had seen filled her with dread. The way it jumped from tree to tree was the stuff of nightmares. It was just so fast.

Worse still, there were six and a half bodies left. Heidie couldn’t just let them go to waste. She gave up on crafting them and just raised the corpses as they were. Were they just moderately intelligent zombies? Maybe... But more meatshields were always nice.

When the barrier fell it was obvious to the prospective necromancer. The sound of birds and moving water that was suddenly present was a dead give away.

“Move now!” Lome’Matar ordered. Heidie’s group moved, her undead in a loose circle around her.

Swiftly walking Heidie’s group passed through the foliage. It was wet terrain. Much of the area was partially submerged by anywhere from a few inches to a few feet of water. There were extended areas of dry land Heidie tried to keep to in her trek, but it was impossible to walk any distance without getting wet feet.

Nothing’s in the water. Nothing’s in the water. Nothing’s in the fucking water… Heidie repeated a mantra to herself as she and her minions waded through a murky, knee deep path of wetland. College student, demon, and undead continued, direction sometimes corrected by Lome’Matar’s green fairy fire-like light.

Sounds of nature were scarcely interrupted, except by the soft impacts of undead feet, splashing, and Heidie’s occasional grunt or curse. Matters carried on in this fashion for around an hour before Lome’Matar broke the silence.

“We are being followed. Two spiders. They are keeping to the trees and shadowing us from a few hundred feet back.” Heidie felt a little panicked by that.

“What do we do?” She asked, trying to keep the terror out of her voice. Two of them? Oh Fuckbiscuits.

“Keep moving. Don’t look back or try to spot them” The demon said. “They are just watching, for now. Scouts, most likely. It may not be worth it for them to engage us if we are leaving their territory. If they get closer I will notify you to take up a defensive position”

Heidie and her strange procession continued on, although the human portion of the undead and demonic menagerie was considerably more stressed than before.

An hour passed. Then another hour. An exhausted Heidie finally had to take a break. This terrain was awful. Her feet hurt a lot. Sediment from the water beds had gotten into her shoes and was really just screwing up her day. Also the knowledge she was being followed by not one but two giant spiders was also screwing things up a bit. Honestly, there wasn’t much that wasn’t screwing up her day somehow, but the sediment in her shoes was still pretty high on that list.

Heidie washed her shoes out in one of the many wetland reservoirs around the solid ground she was taking a break on. She was followed and surrounded by her entire force of undead soldiers as she did so. No moments of going off for herself for this young necromancer. She’d seen enough horror movies to avoid the trope of going off by herself for a moment's privacy, only to be immediately ambushed. Not gonna happen here. Not when she knew some of the dangers in these woods were following close behind.

Heidie looked at her feet. They were chafed and rubbed raw in spots. Her shoes and socks were wet too. Not a good combination. Heidie groaned as she put her washed socks and shoes back on. This was going to hurt. She could keep going for a bit but pretty soon the condition of her feet would not allow her to continue.

At least she could probably get one of the unmodified zombies to carry her. She wasn’t sure if she trusted it to do so and not fall over at some point though.

Forcing herself to stand back up, moved away from the waters edge. Heidie spoke up to the demon head in a backpack.

“Can you share that healing spell now? I’m going to need it soon.”

Lome'Matar was about to answer but stopped, sensing something.

"Ready your defenses, a beast is coming!" the demon warned. Heidie gave an order and retreated to the center of her soldiers as they raised the shield wall. Her zombies spread out to the sides.

One of the zombies was suddenly crushed by the charging figure of an enormous black tiger! Easily seven feet tall, the large beast swatted another zombie to the ground and pounced on a third, savaging it in fierce jaws. The undead soldiers shifted to face the threat, shields and halberds raised.