Vanalath paid no mind to the door that fell with a clatter behind him, focused as he was on controlling the seething heat of his mind. He was angry enough that his hands shook. He detested the way this anger made him unable to keep a tighter lid on his actions.

Rage was unproductive. It was motivating in a fight, certainly, but wild and uncontrolled in almost any other setting. He knew this, but how could he control it? Flashes came to him, ideas dredged up from his long forgotten past. Training. Breathing exercises.

There were no breathing exercises he could do to calm himself now, though. Drawing air into his lungs felt almost unnatural, and he only did it when he needed to vocalize something. Perhaps he could try something similar, however? Ignoring the dull gazes of the undead in the grass about him, he located a relatively secluded patch of ground and sat, closing his eyes. Then, he delved inward.

It was a struggle. The anger permeated his every thought, clouding his perception and dulling his mind. But eventually, he was able to latch onto something: his surroundings.

Much like during his meditation when he was traveling to the final village with Kalaki, Vanalath found that he could picture everything around him with unexpected clarity, even when his eyes were closed. He saw, in a radius around himself, the ghouls where they lay, silent and unmoving. He saw the larger rocks scattered occasionally about the hilly field, resting on the ground where they’d fallen thousands of years ago. He saw, if not the individual blades of grass, at least the great collective: a sea of dead stalks. They stood—like the ghouls and the rocks—completely stationary. A picture in his mind.

A slight breeze blew back a few dark strands of hair.

No, that wasn’t right. The grass couldn’t be still, as the wind was blowing. Surely, then, the grass swayed, as his own hair did?

The picture in his mind began to change, taking on a new form. As the gentle westerly wind pushed, the grass bent. As it lessened, the brown sea rose again. He saw the great billows forming in the distance, spreading through the field, and collapsing onto themselves like waves on the shore.

It wasn’t just the wind. Everything his senses could discern helped him build a picture of his surroundings.

When a cloud moved overhead, blocking the glaring reflection of sunlight off the white peaks above, Vanalath sensed the slightest change in heat. The breeze picked up slightly, and the grass responded. A slight rustling gave away the movements of a fidgeting ghoul rearranging itself to be better concealed.

And his sense of smell. Nothing quite helped him build this imaginary world as much as his nose did. The breeze carried with it distant aromas, though in this valley the scents were all tainted with the pungent bite of death.

He could have lost himself in the motions of the world around him if not for one single irritant.

The itching. The incessant, never-ending itching. With his emotions now dampened, it was more noticeable than ever. Whatever it was, it was apparently unconnected to his mental state since it was more prevalent than ever. The thought of spiders returned to him. Could there really be bugs in his skull?

…murderer…

Vanalath’s eyes flew open and he turned around, searching for the source, only to find nothing. He hadn’t been snuck up on, and the undead nearby would have been roused anyway, had someone tried. No, that noise hadn’t been physical. It reminded him of the ghosts he’d faced in the dark fog when returning to the necromancer’s cabin the first time. Their voices seemed as if they were almost inserted directly into his mind.

Is it possible…?

Closing his eyes once more, Vanalath strove to achieve the same meditative trance. It came more easily the second time now that he didn’t have to fight his anger. Instead of his surroundings, he focused on the itching. As he did, he began to notice something interesting. It was certainly in his head, as he’d thought. However, wasn’t something else taking up that space already? Something even more mysterious than ghostly whispers?

It was the storm of energy: the enigmatic source of dark mist which he called upon to strengthen his Howls and command ghouls. This force resided in his head, too. He attempted to visualize that storm to see if his hypothesis held true, and indeed, with the slightest shift in perception he saw it: a small cyclone of black fog that swirled eternally within him.

The prickling sensation came from the same place as this dark cyclone.

This itching was never something physical to begin with, though he may have thought it was. It was a mental—or perhaps a magical—force. Now, when he concentrated on his internal storm, he began to hear small voices.

Monster…

Where am I?

Help us.

…have to run.

Vanalath spent so long in his trance listening to the voices in his head that he didn’t notice when Kalaki and Anamu exited the necromancer’s cottage and rejoined him, hiding in the grass by his side.

When he finally opened his eyes, glowing runes flared to life in the space before him.

[Ability increased]: (Lv.1) -> (Lv.2)

That wasn’t the only change. Even doing his best to ignore them, the itching voices didn’t lessen or vanish. Instead, they were now loud enough for him to hear without meditating, as if they’d been galvanized into action now that they knew they had a captive audience in Vanalath. Though he couldn’t really call it an itching sensation any longer, it had become an even greater irritant than before.

Well. This had been a mistake.

No longer willing to meditate upon them in case they grew even louder, he stood. Upon glancing around, Vanalath wasn’t surprised to find two ghouls patiently waiting beside him. What did surprise him was their appearances.

Kalaki had a simple black scarf wrapped around him, leaving only a slit for his eyes. Far more distinct than that was Anamu, who bore the twin to Vanalath’s frowning mask. Before, when he’d been choosing masks, he came across it, but remembered thinking that the smiling expression was far too exaggerated. This opinion hadn’t changed. The painted wooden face looked out of place on a walking manifestation of death, but the bared teeth were at least somewhat fitting on the savage ghoul.

A voice came from behind him. “We had to make do with what we had. What do you think?”

Turning, Vanalath appraised the figures who had just stepped out of the necromancer’s cottage. Shambling in front was the freshly-reanimated corpse of the hunter Kalaki had killed. It still wore the red and orange-feathered headdress, which appeared to Vanalath even more ridiculous than Anamu’s mask. Iokina was right behind it, her steps sluggish. She wore no mask, but her appearance was more than enough to make men shudder.

Then, his attention turned to the necromancer. Vanalath hadn’t forgotten what she had done earlier, but as if entirely disinterested in that, she was instead was busily inspecting the three ghouls.

“Hmm… no, the image is all wrong. Kalaki looks far too menacing,” she said. “I suppose we’ll have to find something better later, but for now at least your Brands are hidden.”

Demon.

The sudden invasive thought distracted Vanalath, causing him to miss what happened next. The grass by their feet rustled, and a small white blur shot forth. It weaved between Anamu’s legs and raced towards the necromancer, too fast for even the agile ghoul to react.

By the time Vanalath returned to his senses, the creature was beyond his range. His mistress didn’t appear concerned, however. She smiled and stooped over, lowering both her hands to the ground separately, as if offering the creature its choice of climbing spots.

The creature hesitated when it reached her, then chose her left hand, climbing the sleeve of her robe until it came to a stop on her shoulder. Vanalath, recognizing that it wasn’t an enemy, slowly relaxed his hold on the sword’s hilt. Anamu was more wound up, and it took a low growl from Vanalath to get him to stand down.

With it finally still, he could tell that the thing was a skeleton of some small animal. Though its sockets were empty, Vanalath sensed it looking down on them with something approaching contempt. This, more than anything, clued him into the fact that it was a cat. Or, it had been a cat. Its bones appeared to be held together by black wire, though how it moved around without muscles was still a mystery. Doubtlessly it was a creation of the necromancer’s.

The woman in question, ignoring the gazes of the other undead, was currently rummaging around in her pockets. After a moment, she pulled out three objects: a feather, a pebble, and an arrowhead, and held them up to the cat. It contemplated for a moment, before reaching out with a paw and selecting the pebble. The pebble was put away, but she kept the feather and arrowhead up. The cat then selected the feather, prompting a smile from his mistress, who finally pocketed the other two objects.

“It seems we’re in luck,” she said. “Whiskers has just returned from scouting the enemy camp.”

…Again, his mistress’s naming sense left Vanalath feeling concerned. The bare skeleton didn’t have a single whisker to its name.

She continued, “They’re located at the Standing Stone of the northeastern pass. They don’t seem to be too worried about undead sneaking up on them, as they’ve only placed a normal watch—which is a correct move on their part. Ghouls have no chance at sneaking up on a group of alert scouts, even if most of them were only recently deputized by Orimo. The smell alone would alert them from fifty yards off.”

The evolved ghouls didn’t smell nearly as bad as the unevolved, but she had a point. But in this case Vanalath couldn’t help but wonder: if they weren’t going to sneak up on them, then what was the point of waiting until they were asleep?

“Rise!” the necromancer called out. All around, the undead who had been hiding for hours climbed to their feet.

She performed a rapid headcount.

“One hundred thirty-six ghouls, not counting you five,” she said, referring to Vanalath and the others. “Fifteen total are evolved. Roughly one in ten. We’ll scatter them. Under cover of darkness, there’s very little difference between a lesser and an evolved ghoul. That is, until the latter is ripping out your spleen.”

The last phrase was accompanied by a wicked smile.

Vanalath wondered if they were going to head out right that instant, but the necromancer apparently had a few more preparations to make.

“Ghouls from Yayu, step forward!”

There was a shuffling amidst the ranks of undead, and eight lesser ghouls emerged to stand before her.

She frowned. “There are more of you than—oh, I see. They don’t even remember where they’re from.”

Turning to the cottage, she called out. “Boy!”

Kaipo emerged from the doorway and ran over to stand at attention. Vanalath had expected more hesitation from the cowardly ghoul, but perhaps his fear of disobedience had overcome his lesser misgivings.

“Go through all these ghouls and pick out the ones from your village. Don’t miss a single one.”

Kaipo did as he was asked, finding the people he grew up with and pointing them out. When he was done, twenty-nine ghouls were assembled. The necromancer went through them, confiscating the few weapons they had and redistributing them to other ghouls. Vanalath was at a loss as to her reasons for this, but his mistress didn’t seem too keen on explaining herself.

Finally, she divided all the ghouls into groups of ten. The evolved were put at the head of the groups, with the exception of Vanalath’s trio. Iokina wearily accepted her command of a larger group of twenty undead.

Once everything was done, Vanalath had a sudden thought and growled, pointing out the corpses he’d had his undead haul back with them from the prison.

Following his finger, the necromancer spoke. “Hm? Oh, I see. It was good thinking to bring those back with you, but it would take far too long for me to reanimate them. That ritual was a special case, you see. Unless I can find a more fitting vessel for the Deathstone and remove it from inside you, we won’t be able to perform a ritual like it again. We’ll leave these bodies for later, though I suppose I could at least perform a charm to slow decay. Let’s see…”

After going inside and retrieving a satchel, she started walking in a circle, murmuring a quiet incantation. Periodically, she reached into the pouch and threw a handful of white dust onto the pile of bodies. There were no visible changes when she was done, other than the fact that a bunch of corpses now had dust sprinkled over them.

Vanalath was pretty sure that whatever she’d done wasn’t even magic, but decided that it wasn’t any business of his whether or not his mistress wanted to throw sand on dead bodies.

With that taken care of, one final thing was distracting him. Iokina stood at the head of twenty ghouls, but she lacked something.

Vanalath remembered, back when he’d fought her, the bodyguards that she had employed: five lesser ghouls, large males bearing weapons. He never met them in combat, but their movements had made an impression on him. They worked together to a degree he’d never seen ghouls achieve before. Under Iokina, they displayed an evolved level of intelligence. At the time he had attributed it to the female ghoul’s commands, but now she appeared to be without any such useful subordinates. Perhaps she required specific subordinates to bring out her full capabilities?

Once Vanalath found the ghouls he was looking for, he strode over to find that them all together. After ordering them to follow, they fell into step just behind him. The necromancer looked on with something nearing amusement.

“We could have left ten minutes ago if you weren’t so fussy, Vanalath,” she said. “What are you up to this time?”

Ignoring the jab, he finished rearranging the ghouls such that the five bodyguards were back under their stitched-up leader. Iokina looked at him, the barest hint of a question in her intelligent eyes. The stitchwork on her face made it so that she couldn’t even close them entirely, but their nearly golden luster couldn’t be masked by any of the necromancer’s surgeries.

Don’t disappoint me, he communicated with a growl.

After a moment, a short jerk of her head signaled an affirmative, and Vanalath turned away without a further word.

At that point, something in the movements of the bodyguards seemed to catch the necromancer’s attention. They had immediately circled Iokina without prompting, taking up defensive positions as if it were the natural thing to do.

“Wait a moment,” she said. “Let me see you five more clearly. Step forward.”

They did as commanded. Leading with their left foot, they all took a step, passing around Iokina smoothly. For each of them, it was the same motion. They traveled exactly the same distance and ended in the exact same relative positions to each other. It was an uncanny degree of coordination.

Then, his mistress reached down and picked up a small rock. Without warning, she tossed it in their direction.

“Catch,” she belatedly said.

One of the ghouls in the middle of the group reached out and caught the stone, fumbling slightly. None of the other four moved a muscle.

Now, that did seem odd. There was no sign of visible communication between them. How did the middle ghoul know to catch it, and the other four know not to interfere? Vanalath was certain that his hunch had been right. There was something special about these ghouls. Even without that, his mistress’s reaction told him plenty. Her breathing had quickened, and there was a glint in her eyes that hadn’t been present before.

“…Shamblers,” she whispered. Then again, louder: “Shamblers. We’ve struck silver.”

Vanalath expressed his confusion by a tilt of his head.

“Worry not, Vanalath. You will see the value of this find in time. No, let’s not be overeager. They may yet fail.” Her voice dropped lower until it was a mumble. “But if they survive…”

Lifting her head, she cut herself off. “Enough delays. We’re leaving at once. Either the hunters will perish before daybreak or we shall be eating ash.”

- - -

Why did you kill us?

Status Effect: has reached a higher level of integration with your body.

- - -

INFORMATION

Name: Vanalath

Titles: , (⁎)

Race:

Level: 33

Abilities: (Lv.1), (Lv.2), (Lv.1)

Class:

Level: 23

Skills: (Lv.2), (Lv.1), (Lv.1), (Lv.0)

Status Effects: , (temp)

STATISTICS

Strength: 29

Vitality: -

Stamina: 31

Agility: 26

Dexterity: 19

Ichor: 4

Miasma: 14