I don’t know how long I had been unconscious when my master incapacitated me, but the sun had long since disappeared beneath the horizon by the time we finished up. I still had an ability and a skill waiting to be chosen, but in the end, Voulos decided he would sleep on it. He had spent a long time contemplating ways of applying my kingdom title without losing control of me, but despite his great power, he feared losing control over me too much to risk it.

Once Voulos finished fiddling with my sheet for the night, he had a drink of fine wine from an ornate goblet and ate his dinner. This small feast of steak and potatoes was delivered on white porcelain plates after he rang a small spectral bell. At first, I thought the plates were levitating in the air, but when I squinted I could make out a hazy silhouette of a spectral servant carrying them. This servant periodically refilled my master’s goblet, and by the end of the meal, his stone grey cheeks had taken on a rosy tinge.

After his appetite was quenched, Voulos used flesh magic to give me a makeover. He was a little tipsy from the wine, so his work was far from an artistic masterpiece. Nonetheless, his raw skill with magic made his work passable. He first made the base of my neck flat so that I could stand upright without falling over, like a sculpted bust. Then he grew fresh pink flesh to repair the damage I took from my tumble down the cliff.

To finish up, Voulos blasted me with a dark bolt full of nether energy. This attack would have killed anything with a pulse, but I greedily sucked in the energy to restore my health. My face rapidly healed and my decaying flesh rejuvenated itself. The result was a lumpy mess, covered by a mix of ash grey and baby pink skin. By zombie standards, I was quite a looker as undead fashion leans more towards looking as horrifying as possible.

Before he passed out in a drunken stupor, Voulos took me to a cold storage room and balanced me atop a stone coffin. Before he shut me in, he simply told me to level up my [Flesh Scent] and he would check on me in the morning.

Unlike the corridors of his dark tower, the storage room contained no torches, lanterns, or windows, so total darkness enveloped me as the heavy door scraped closed. Even my night vision struggled to make out anything more than outlines.

As an undead monster, I had a positive affinity with the nether. The forces of undeath are key members of the dark alliance. One benefit of this arrangement is that we get to see in the dark. That didn’t make me feel much better about being abandoned in a cold room all night.

Fortunately, I wasn’t alone in the darkness; all around me, my kin stood silently. Before my mind had been awakened, I would have been content to simply sit in the dark, but an active mind demands stimulation. Even if I had been feeling lazy, I had a task to complete, and I was compelled to get to work. I flared my nostrils and activated [Flesh Scent]. A plethora of information bombarded my malformed snout, and I realised that the storage room was even more crowded than it first appeared.

The coffin I sat on contained the desiccated corpse of an undead wrapped in dry linen, and there were four similar coffins stacked beneath it. Hanging from the ceiling were several cages stuffed full of undead vermin, mostly rats and bats. Near the back of the room, there was a massive pile of zombies shoved up against the wall and stacked like lumber.

Every undead shared a similar scent, but they came in varying flavours. The bats had a metallic tang to their smell, whereas a pile of zombified dwarves had a more earthy aroma. The many human corpses dominated the room with a generic dead person smell.

Unfortunately, the initial novelty of my ability soon gave way to boredom, an alien concept to my mindless kin. I tried to yell out. However, I soon discovered that without lungs, the words wouldn't leave my mouth. It was like a ship without oars or sails being stuck in the harbour. My [Flesh Scent] ability could pull air into my nose, but I had no way to exhale.

Unlike before, I remembered how to count, so amused myself for a while by trying to identify and count all the undead in the room. As the night wore on, my ability to distinguish smells grew by leaps and bounds, as did my boredom. I tried to count the bats in one of the hanging cages I could see, but was getting frustrated. Each time I counted the bats, I kept on coming up with a different number. One, two, three, four, five, six, eight, nine, ten… and again I was off by six from my previous count.

Regardless of my boredom or my growing frustration, I felt compelled to continue spamming my [Flesh Scent]. I didn’t use the ability continuously because it had a cooldown period of about a minute, giving me plenty of time in between to think. I had so many questions about everything and so few answers. When was the master going to return? Where had he gone? Why did he pick this ability for me? Who was I?

[Made to Serve] let me retain knowledge from my previous life, mashed together with some knowledge from my master. This gave me my mastery over numbers, but it didn't tell me much about who I used to be. It didn’t care about my previous life, only the relevant information it could salvage from my rotting brain. I couldn’t remember my name, but if Voulos told me to guard a phylactery, I would know exactly what he meant.

I spent almost an hour trying to remember my old name before I gave up with an annoyed click of my tongue. The quiet click sliced through the dead silence of the room for just a moment, but long enough for me to realise what I had done.

Happy to have found something to entertain myself with, I experimented with the full range of sounds I could make. It wasn’t exactly impressive, but I found I could click my tongue, squelch my cheeks and pop my lips. I had finally found something to entertain myself with! Needless to say, this kept me entertained throughout the rest of the night.

When I heard Voulos coming down the stairs in the morning, I went quiet in anticipation of his arrival. The door opened, and he entered the room, ordering the zombie horde to part in front of him.

“Good morning Zed, I thought I would inspect your progress before I sat down for breakfast.” He said.

“PFFFFFFFT!” I replied as I let out the loudest squelch that I could to let him know I was unhappy with him leaving me in the dark all night.

In a sight as rare as a bathing troll, I rendered Voulos speechless. He blinked a few times with his mouth wide open.

“That is an… interesting skill to have gained.” He said with narrowed eyes.

“Pfft.” I replied in agreement. I didn’t quite pick up the disdain in his voice.

“Stop that noise and communicate clearly.” He abruptly commanded. I attempted to comply, but though my mouth formed the right shapes, no noise escaped.

“That… is inconvenient. I will have to think of a remedy for it. In the meantime, why don’t I take you with me to breakfast.” He said, to which I clicked happily in response.

Back in Voulos’s bedroom, breakfast floated in on freshly cleaned bone-white plates and set themselves down on the table. Before Voulos sat down, he casually reached out and created a forearm sized portal in the air. He nonchalantly reached through and pulled out a jewelled silver crown. He placed it on my head and told me to attune to it before he started tucking into his food.

Attuning the crown came naturally, and as I linked to it I felt myself cross over another charisma threshold. The jump this time was less pronounced than the last, but even so, I felt myself change. My emotions deepened and became more complex, but the larger change was an outward one as the connections I had to those around me solidified.

The smell of cooked meat drifted into my nose, and my [Flesh Scent] identified it as a slice of flesh taken from a pig’s belly and cooked. Voulos noticed me flaring my nostrils and told me I could stop for now. My growing sense of empathy told me he found it off-putting.

I felt a weight lift from my mind as the compulsion loosened. “That’s enough for now. Let's have a look at your gains.” Voulos said. He activated [Minion Management] before calling up my character sheet. I saw the ability had become stronger, which explained why everything had become smellier as the night went on. I also had time to see what the crown he gave me was.

Flesh Scent - Level 3:

No Cost

30 Second Cooldown

Amplifies the smell of living and non-living flesh by x6 for 14 seconds.

Princess Tiara: +2 Charisma and makes the wearer more attractive to Princes.

“I am a little hesitant to take Khali’s crown out of the vault, but I want to see what options crossing the second charisma threshold unlock. This artefact is just as powerful as Vonn’s ring, and the Yasmon dynasty would be livid if they knew I had it. I took two priceless artefacts from my greatest enemies and gave them to a lowly minion. It’s almost poetic.” He said with a broad smile, as he regarded me and my new crown.

The tiara felt nice resting on my forehead, but I remained displeased at my master for leaving me to rot overnight. I furrowed my brow in annoyance, but Voulos seemed to mistake my sour expression for offence at his words. “No need to be upset. For a zombie, you certainly show promise, but a zombie is still just a zombie. You had to sink ten levels into an E tier race to evolve to C tier. Despite that, I am rather impressed with the progress you’ve made with [Flesh Scent]. I had forgotten how beneficial intensive training could be. Back when I was a fledgling necromancer, I micromanaged every single minion, but those days are long past.” He reminisced.

Voulos had barely touched his food, too easily distracted, and instead tapped the table as the gears in his mind turned. “In those days, I had to heal minions individually with [Necrotic Bolts]. It was so ineffective… The gap between copper and bronze tiers is nothing compared to the gulf between iron and steel. [Blight Earth] makes it almost trivial to heal zombies en masse. It’s a bit mana intensive, but perhaps I should set up a training room or two, have them beat each other until their abilities max out.” The tapping on the table paused as Voulos noticed me glaring.

I clicked angrily at him, and the quizzical expression on his face deepened.

‘Did you have something to say?’ A voice asked inside my head. I didn’t even hear him use his skill that time.

‘Yes.’ I replied.

‘Interesting… What is it?’ Voulos asked. The question gave me pause; I hadn’t expected that I would have to explain myself.

‘You left me in a dark room for a very long time. Now say you will make zombies fight.’ I said, after taking the time to rationalise my discomfort.

‘They, and you for that matter, are flesh constructs borne of nether magic. Zombies can’t feel pain; they wouldn’t make very good sword fodder if they feared the blade.’ He explained condescendingly.

‘I have flesh. Flesh can feel.’ I argued.

‘You are an intriguing exception to the rule. Your development is certainly impressive. System driven sentience isn’t rare, it’s a common consequence of higher mental stats. However, it usually develops much slower. Maybe the King title… but it’s inactive… I applied it briefly last night, so perhaps… Nevertheless, you are an outlier: the exception to the rule. The rest of the horde feels pain as much as a nail feels being hammered. They are tools. A carpenter doesn’t worry about the nail's feelings.’ He reassured me.

I was conflicted. On the one hand, I felt a little protective of my braindead kin, but I knew Voulos was smarter than me and was always right about everything. It was a strange feeling, but I felt a sense of wrongness when I tried to disagree with him.

‘I can reassure you I won’t throw you into a fighting pit.’ Voulos said, misinterpreting the reason for my discomfort. ‘I am not cruel without reason. Today we will aim to get your [Flesh Scent] to level 5. With my feral scouts, I usually take the [Bloodhound] upgrade, but I remember one of the other options boosts charisma.’ Voulos explained.

My master had his optimiser's tome open on the desk and as he spoke, he used magic to turn the pages. He spent a moment reading whilst sipping mead from his horn.

‘It would be worth levelling your bite: even if you never use it afterwards, the stat boost will be useful. [Poisoned Bite] comes with a nice boost to vitality and more health is always a good thing.’ He said.

I was struggling to follow along by this point. It was a lot of information for my fledgling brain to absorb, and Voulos was rambling. I furrowed my brow in imitation of him, pretending to be deep in thought to feign interest. After a minute or two, he seemed to realise that he was talking to a wall and went back to eating his breakfast in silence.

I waited patiently for a whole thirty seconds before boredom threatened to overwhelm me.

“tsk tsk.” I clicked at him to get his attention back.

‘Yes?’ He replied.

‘I’m bored.’ I complained through our [Puppet Link].

‘Is that so? Well, you need not fear. I will keep you busy today. We want to upgrade your [Flesh Scent] as soon as possible, don’t we?’ Voulos said.

‘No, that sounds boring.’ I objected.

“Does it now? Perhaps you need a second task to keep you occupied, my little minion. To keep you entertained, we can work on your [Bite] at the same time. We can test my training room idea.”

I protested as he picked at his breakfast, but Voulos had made up his mind. Before he finished his plate, my will to argue had collapsed, and I agreed that sniffing and biting zombies all day sounded like a great idea.

We went down the stairs to a giant stone room covered in runes. Voulos then marched a few dozen zombies into the room and arranged them in a circle, ready to be bitten. He also appointed a large zombie to carry me around. He referred to this zombie as simply ‘Zombie’ or ‘Minion’, just like every other minion in the room. It was up to me to give him a proper name. I could see the fingers of its pale hands when I bent my stubby neck downwards, so I called him ‘Hans’.

Volous took his time casting [Blight Earth], and as he finished, he set a large glowing nether crystal down on the ground to keep the ritual running without him present. He gave the order for me to get started and watched me do a couple of laps of the circle before leaving. As he left, he was complaining about how boring a day of raising corpses was going to be.

Boredom was something I became somewhat of an expert on as the day slowly crept by. Sniff, sniff, bite, sniff, bite, sniff, repeat ad nauseam. At first, I worried about hurting my fellow zombies, but the lack of reaction to my attacks reassured me; they were the nails and I the hammer.

The training room had a window to let in sunlight, and by midday, I was so bored that I began seriously resisting the compulsion to follow orders for the first time. I had flirted with the idea in the storage room, but I finally reached the point where my frustration boiled over.

One giant migraine later, I had discovered that resisting orders was quite painful. As soon as my intent to disobey appeared, so did the pain. The initial headache wasn’t so bad, but the moment I acted on that intent, my mind exploded in agony.

Zombies are known to be slow, stupid, and stubborn. As a result, I suffered through several dozen migraines before I finally got the message. Before I gave up, I made a couple of interesting discoveries. The first was a happy accident, the second a stroke of genius.

Throughout the morning I had been slowly trying to read through my sheet, but it was tricky to activate my abilities with it open, and multitasking was beyond me. I was reading about my [King of the Braindead] title when Hans brought me up to the shoulder of the next zombie in line. I wanted to finish the sentence so ignored the urge to [Bite], and before I gave in to the pain, I noticed that the number next to ‘willpower’ was rapidly draining.

It didn’t seem to hurt when my willpower depleted, but it made me feel distinctly different. Motivating myself to go back to reading my sheet took a noticeable effort, and I felt more docile, with less inclination to consider resisting orders. Fortunately, it seemed that willpower regenerated rapidly, so it didn’t leave me feeling this way for long.

The second discovery was less of a sudden revelation and a more sudden realisation: my sheet was intelligent! Whenever I tried to read it, sometimes more words would appear in blue boxes until they filled my mind. At first, these boxes just annoyed me, until I realised they were trying to explain the unspoken questions I held in my mind. It was almost like having a conversation. I’d think a question and the boxes would reply.

As the day went on, it seemed like the migraines were getting better. The first few had consumed me, but by the thirtieth, it felt less like my brain was exploding, and more like a spike was being pushed through my eyes. That was progress!

There was progress on multiple fronts, and both [Flesh Scent] and [Bite] had improved by the end of the day. The former had reached level five and wouldn’t progress any further, and the latter had just hit level four when the sunlight from the window was fading.

Flesh Scent - Level 5 (Upgrade Available):

No Cost

30 Second Cooldown

Amplifies the smell of living and non-living flesh by x10 for 14 seconds.

Bite - Level 4:

0% Decay

30 Second

Bites the target for 40 piercing damage.

Voulos arrived not long after the sun had gone down, and just as I heard his footsteps coming up the stairs, the nether crystal in the middle of the room stuttered and died. His sense of timing was impeccable, though it left the scrawny zombie I had just bitten with a hole in her arm. Voulos’s day of raising zombies hadn’t left him in the best of moods, and he tersely snapped at Hans to bring me up to his room.

We followed Voulos up a flight of stairs up the staircase and entered his room. It was a little strange how short the staircase was; we only went up twenty or so steps but seemed to have climbed the height of the entire tower. The training room was near to the ground level, I had seen out of the window. My master’s room was almost at the top.

On entering his room, my master took me from Hans and placed me on his desk. He then reached for a drink and devoured a meat pie. Through my [Flesh Scent] ability I could recognise the type of meat, but it took my [Made to Serve] trait to identify it as pig flesh. Rufus had perched on the desk with me, and I got a whiff of the bat’s scent. He had a similar scent to the bats in the storage room, but he had a musk that seemed more powerful somehow. In stark contrast, Voulos distinctly smelt of the living. I couldn’t help but wonder what his brain would taste like. Would his high intelligence affect the flavour?

Once the last crumb of pie was consumed, Voulos pulled up my character sheet. He was once again pleased to see my progress.

“The living and even higher-tiered undead races are held back by their reliance on stamina. Your unrelenting nature is one of the few advantages of your E rank race. You might have accumulated some decay, but I can rectify that with flesh grafting. With results like this, it might be worth the effort. Decay used to be the limiting factor, but no longer.” He pondered.

Voulos continued to lecture as he drank a second, and then a third goblet of wine. At first, I thought he aimed his praise at me, but I soon realised that he was patting himself on the back. He wasn’t the one who had spent the entire day taking bites of undead flesh! I had lost count of how many times I had bitten and sniffed my fellow zombies over the last 24 hours. I clicked at him in annoyance, but he chose not to notice.

Voulos waited until Rufus finished the last bite of mango before he reactivated his [Puppet Link] and reopened my sheet again to read the upgrades I had unlocked. The tiny bat didn’t need prompting and disappeared out the window, leaving me and my master alone.

‘Let's find out what upgrades you have unlocked.’ He said through the links.

‘I did good’ I thought back to him, emphasising my achievement.

‘Yes, you did very well. Well done my minion.’ He replied with an eye roll before pulling up my sheet.

When Voulos opened up the list of upgrades for [Flesh Scent] he took longer to read it through. I was passably familiar with the boxes by this point, but I struggled to comprehend the options laid out for me. With a greater charisma came a greater self-awareness, and I recognised some of my limitations. I yearned to rip and tear my way through the enemy, but I couldn’t rely on Hans carrying me around forever.

Blood Hunter (Unlocked at 5 Dexterity):

+1 Dexterity; The scent of living flesh creates a visible red scent trail. Movement speed is doubled along scent trails.

Flesh Craving (Unlocked at 5 Strength)

+1 Strength; If a living scent is detected then gain +1 Strength.

Flesh Hunger (Unlocked at 10 Strength):

+1 Strength; Each living scent gives +1 Strength for 12 seconds.

Amplify Fragrance (Unlocked at 5 Wisdom):

+1 Wisdom; Creates a pungent burst of fragrance from a scent within 6 meters.

Aroma Specialist (Unlocked at 5 Intelligence):

+1 Intelligence; Provides a name overlay over creatures detected by [Flesh Scent] available as an overlay.

Scent Imitation (Unlocked at 5 Charisma):

+1 Charisma; Scents can be absorbed for up to 10 hours and secreted.

Scent Chameleon (Unlocked at 10 Charisma):

+1 Charisma; Any scent detected can be replicated and secreted.

I knew it wasn’t the best option, but my instincts cried out to choose [Flesh Hunger]. It sounded the most fun, and I instinctively knew it would make my [Bite] attack stronger. Voulos had read the options through twice before he started muttering numbers like a madman.

This stream of mathematics didn’t last long, and before I knew it, he went quiet and focused his attention on [Scent Chameleon]. I knew he was about to pick the upgrade, but I had barely scanned the options. I needed more time so, in a bit of a panic, I mentally yelled at Voulos through our link.

‘No!’ I shouted, and I felt his attention turn towards me.

‘No? Do you disagree with my choice minion?’ He replied. Since my charisma had crossed the second threshold, it had become easier to read my master’s moods, but at that moment, I honestly couldn’t tell if he was annoyed or amused.

‘Wait?’ I asked him.

‘I’m waiting.’ He said with a mental huff, definitely annoyed.

I tried to gather my thoughts as quickly as I could. I didn’t want to annoy the master, but I also wanted to bite harder. A quick scan of the chameleon upgrade confused me further.

‘I want bite harder, kill better. Why change smell?’ I mentally stammered.

“The camouflage aspect is indeed underwhelming, fooling only those who track by scent. It’s more suitable for hiding from monsters with a strong sense of smell than anyone with a class. However, your overseer abilities and skills will benefit from the charisma. I also suspect the next tier upgrade will be more interesting if you ever break past level twenty into the iron tier. As for biting harder, that is hardly a priority for you. Your role is a supporting role. It would be impractical and inefficient to have you on the front lines.” He explained, an undercurrent of irritation still present in his thoughts.

I knew I was pushing it, but I tried one last-ditch attempt to persuade him.

‘I want to kill!’ I shouted down the link with frustration; I didn’t say it was a good attempt.

“Sorry Zed, but I know best.” He apologised with a distinct lack of remorse.

Zed's end of chapter sheet:

Zed

21:46, 43nd of Anoxi , 1465 3A

Total Level: 16 (Bronze)

Levels: Zombie 10, Overseer 6

Experience: 122,464/159,700

Type: Overseer Zombie (C)

Attributes:

Resources:

Dexterity: 6

Stamina: N/A

Strength: 13

Power: N/A

Vitality: 14

Health: 476/476

Wisdom: 7

Willpower: 212/238

Intelligence: 6

Mana: 228/228

Charisma: 11

Soul: 374/374

Decay: 2% (Stage 0)

Affinities: Nether (100%), Poison (50%), Fire (-25%), Holy (-100%)

Titles:

King of the Braindead (Inactive): Access to Kingdom subsystem.

Traits:

Made to Serve: +1 Intelligence, +1 Charisma. Understands system common, and the primary language of its creator (Orcish). Can follow simple commands based on the creator's intelligence divided by 10 (3 words long). Gives access to a portion of the knowledge contained within the host brain, better preserved brains retain more information.

Flesh Construct: Sustained by nether magic, does not need to eat, drink, sleep or breath. Does not regenerate Health. Does not use Stamina or Might, but instead uses Decay.

Overseer: +2 Charisma.

Not Braindead: +1 Wisdom, +1 Intelligence and +2 Charisma.

Skills:

Supernatural Senses: +1 Wisdom and amplifies the user’s senses by x2.

Undead Resilience (Elite): 50% reduction to all non-holy damage taken.

Focus here to see options available for level 15…

Abilities:

Unarmed Strike - Copper - Level 1 (Unavailable):

0% Decay

1 Second Cooldown

Strikes at the target with an unarmed limb for 26 bludgeoning damage.

Rush Attack - Copper - Level 1 (Unavailable):

0% Decay

10 Second Cooldown

Lunges at a target within 2 meters for 29 bludgeoning damage with a chance to push back or knock over the target.

Bite - Copper - Level 4:

0% Decay

5 Second Cooldown

Bites the target for 40 piercing damage.

Flesh Scent - Copper - Level 5 (Upgrade Available):

No Cost

30 Second Cooldown

Amplifies and identifies the smell of any flesh by x4 for 12 seconds.

Chilling Gaze - Copper - Level 1:

No Cost

60 Second Cooldown

A glare that adds 7 fear to the target. Requires eye contact.

Corpse Explosion (Elite) - Copper:

100% Health

No Cooldown

Kills the user and converts all remaining health into an explosion of nether energy and bone that deals damage equal to double the health consumed in a 7 meter radius. This ability kills the caster.

Enrage Zombie - Bronze - Level 1 (Unavailable):

50 Soul

No Cooldown

The user lets out a rage-filled shout at a target zombie to increase its Strength, Dexterity, and Vitality by +5 for 22 seconds.

Overseer’s Aura - Bronze - Level 1:

1 Soul / Second

No Cooldown

+1 Strength to all zombies within 11 meters.

Focus here to see options available for level 12…

Attunements (2/3):

Ring of the Jester (Cursed): +2 Charisma but curses the wearer with [Jester’s Curse].

Princess Tiara: +2 Charisma and makes the wearer more attractive to Princes.

Status Effects:

Minion: Magically compelled to follow commands from [Voulos].

Jester’s Curse: The target is cursed by the jester. The curse can only be lifted by a Sphinx’s laugh.

Geas (Greater): The target will die if they break this geas: Do not change the name on your character sheet.