For several days, I waited for the axe to fall, but as days turned to weeks, my life settled into a grim routine. Each night, Voulos left me with Cordelia, and during the days he had me brought to various training rooms to grind out specific skills. Before handing me over to Cordelia each night, Hans would bathe me in blood, and Voulos would make me explode.

Every morning, Voulos reviewed my growth by reading through my sheet and getting a status update from Cordelia with an unreadable expression on his face that set me on edge. He would always have some kind of criticism of my performance. Why was I wasting the resources he spent on me? Why hadn’t I finished levelling the skill he had me working on? Did I want to get replaced by a newer zombie? Usually, it took him three or four tries to perfect a minion build. Did I want to just be attempt number one?

Often his tusks would be stained red with wine from the previous night. I remembered the first time I noticed I almost giggled as I thought of several cringe-inducing vampire jokes, but Voulos wouldn’t appreciate any jokes at his expense. Sadly, when he drank, he sucked. He was at his cruellest after a drink or two, but he was never exactly pleasant to be around. My loving master had developed a habit of ‘accidentally’ dropping me when he was displeased, or if he was bored.

On the topic of vampires, Voulos’ hunch turned out to be correct. After a few days of relaxing blood baths, I finally met the hidden prerequisite for [Lesser Bloodcasting]. After much dithering back and forth, Voulos locked in his choice. I was a little disappointed, as I had been hoping for the shiny rare [Pull of the Grave] instead. The ability gave me access to a new subsystem, but more importantly, it replaced two of my rotting teeth with a small pair of fangs to round out my dazzling smile.

Lesser Bloodcasting - Bronze - Level 1 (Prerequisites: 10 Charisma, drink the blood of 10 humanoids.):

Gives the user access to first-tier blood magic, gives access to the blood pool.

Blood Pool:

0

Spells Known 1 /1:

Cost

Cooldown

Effect

Blood Whip - Level 1

1 Unit of Blood

No Cooldown

Creates a stream of blood that can be controlled like a whip lasting for 26 seconds. Attacks with the blood whip deal 15 slashing damage.

As the new ability required blood to function, my daily baths continued. However, instead of simply soaking in blood my fangs gradually absorbed the gathered blood until the tub was empty. Each bath increased my blood pool by one, and Voulos confirmed each tub contained the blood of one person. When I asked where he got all that blood from, he alluded to an arrangement he had with a tribe of goblins.

I was delighted to discover that I could control my [Blood Whip] using my mind. While it wasn’t as good as a pair of hands, it allowed me to interact with the world on a whole new level. I could hit things, and I could pull things towards me. That was the extent of what I had managed so far, but with practice, I was sure I could do more. I fantasised about walking around like an octopus on multiple tentacles. I begged Voulos for more blood, but he had other priorities for me.

While Voulos didn’t micromanage my time, he ensured I was never idle. The day after I learnt blood magic, for example, he had two hulk zombies drag a chained goblin into a room and told me to level up my [Chilling Gaze] on it. That particular exercise horrified Cordelia when I recalled it to her, and I nodded along when she condemned Voulos over it. I didn’t tell her I had found it kind of funny until the high-pitched screams gave me a migraine. The next morning, Voulos upgraded the ability to [Stunning Gaze].

Stunning Gaze - Bronze - Level 1:

Variable Willpower.

60 Second Cooldown

+1 Wisdom, A glare that adds 18 fear to the target, and stuns the target for 1 second if their total willpower is less than the amount used to activate this ability. Requires eye contact.

Cordelia had a very different view of the ends justifying the means. More than once, she tricked me into conversations on ethics and philosophy. The questions confused me, so I mostly just guessed the answers to make her happy. We were an odd pair, but Cordelia was the closest thing I had to a friend. I had to lie through my teeth for most of her questions, but that's the kind of thing a good friend does.

Cordelia became a staunch ally against Voulos during this time, though her efforts were not immediately apparent. If she hadn’t told me afterwards, I wouldn’t have even noticed her subtle manipulations against Voulos. This delicate campaign of subtle manipulations didn’t take long to bear fruit.

On the fourth day, Voulos arrived with a chest full of potions. The chest was mostly full of wisdom boosters to push me over the mortal threshold, but there were a few different potions in there as well. He went off on a long-winded lecture that potion making had come a long way since Cordelia’s time. The impromptu gift arose from an argument a few days prior, regarding the golden age of alchemy.

I couldn’t digest the potions, so I had to ask Hans to pour them directly onto my exposed brain through a large crack in my skull. Letting the juices soak into my cerebrum let me raise my wisdom to the mortal threshold for an hour at a time, which did wonders for my focus. My memory was still poor, even with the potions, but with their help, I made actual progress with the click-tongue.

“You not speak me make bad man feel hot.” Cordelia clicked to me, then after a deliberate delay her [Omnispeech] skill translated this as; “You never told me what you did to piss Voulos off.”

“I not… walk back him.” I slowly clicked in reply, which turned into; “I didn’t obey him.” My ability to both speak and think normally had improved leaps and bounds under her tuition, but Cordelia hadn’t been exaggerating when she said the language was cumbersome.

I could make ten distinct sounds that formed the alphabet of the language. Some of these noises were clicks, but it also included what Cordelia called glottalic ingressive and egressive consonants. There were another five sounds that I should be able to produce, but I hadn’t got the hang of those yet.

Cordelia had formed these sounds into just over two hundred different words, mostly using the clicks as I found those the easiest. It took great effort to wrestle those words into a cohesive sentence, even with the system doing most of the work.

However, giving all the credit to the system was disingenuous; without Cordelia, it would have been utterly impossible. She had taken well to the role of teacher and had even gone so far as to completely rebuild the language from scratch twice, just to make it easier for me to learn. It would take a long time for me to master it, but I was slowly getting there.

“He is a bit of a control freak, isn’t he?” Cordelia said, with her [Omnispeech] skill.

“Yes.” I replied, trying to keep my answers brief. I didn’t have the vocabulary to properly express my feelings on the matter. Cordelia somehow picked up on my feelings, regardless.

“You know what I think? I think he is a petty tyrant with delusions of grandeur. I’ve seen genuine power, and this isn’t it. He has a crippling need for control and approval that makes him unable to work with other people. Don’t even get me started on the drinking. I think he is unstable, dangerous, and unpleasant.” Cordelia said with an almost jovial tone that hid the bitterness underneath.

“Now, can you tell me what your name is again?” She asked, determined to drag me through her lessons kicking and screaming, despite my lack of legs.

“Hello, my name is Zed. What is your name?” I clicked back. Fortunately, Cordelia had turned my name into an easy two-click word.

Word by word, and sentence by sentence I slowly moved forward with the unrelenting shuffle natural to my kin. Cordelia got to rest during the day, but for me each day held a different exercise in ability grinding. Getting my copper tiered abilities to bronze only took a day or two each, but the bronze tiered abilities were excruciatingly slow by comparison. It felt like it would never end.

Then, three weeks after our original argument, something finally changed. The sun outside was setting, and I had the rare pleasure of watching Voulos stuff his face before my daily explosion when from inside one of Voulos’ pockets a voice called out.

“Maaaster. Intruders here. Smell powerful. Fight them?” The pocket said. Voulos reached into the pocket and withdrew several flat stones. He passed one stone that was glowing to his other hand and put the rest back in his pocket. After touching a rune on the stone Voulos brought it up to his ear. I noticed that the other side of the stone had a big number five carved into it.

“How many are there?” He asked the stone.

“Five.” The stone replied.

“Is it the conservation druids again? Those fools never give up trying to revive the forest.” Voulos asked.

“Conversation droids?” The stone sounded unsure.

“Are they wearing green robes made of leaves?” Voulos snapped.

“One robe.” The stone replied after a pause.

“And is the robe green?” Voulos said with a sigh.

“No.” The stone said.

“Well… what colour is it?” Voulos asked, clenching his free hand into a fist.

“Red.” The stone answered.

“Ok, so a fire mage. What are the others wearing?” Voulos asked with a furrowed brow.

After a protracted conversation with the stone, Voulos had established that the group of five contained one mage, two likely fighters, a bow-wielding ranger, and a woman in common clothing that hid at least one blade. He surmised it was an adventuring party, with the last member unaccounted for. They were on the edge of the woods and heading in the general direction of the tower. They were almost certainly here to kill Voulos.

During the fragmented conversation, the gears in my head had been slowly turning. Powerful adventurers were dangerous, but the danger was more subtle than it first appeared. Killing a level twenty paladin had pushed me all the way to level sixteen, and past the bronze level barrier. If these adventurers were similar levels, then when they died, any surviving zombies could probably evolve.

Voulos made no secret of the fact that he wouldn’t think twice about killing me, taking my shiny tiara, and crowning a new zombie as the king. A zombie without my injuries, or my attitude, would be far better suited for the title as far as he was concerned.

‘If you are going to fight, does that mean no explosion?’ I said telepathically. Voulos, who had already been on his way out, turned back to look at me.

“What’s that?” He asked distractedly.

‘If you are going to fight, you need to save mana, so no explosion tonight?’ I asked with a smug grin deliberately plastered on my face.

“Hmm, no. I don’t see why that's any reason to slack off. The invaders are still at least a day’s travel from here. We will finish up here, then I will start making preparations.” He said, and I feigned disappointment as he walked back into position in his protective circle.

Voulos had Hans place me in the middle of the room. Hans then walked out of the room to wait by the door. I couldn’t be sure, but I could have sworn that my faithful companion tipped his head towards me in what looked like a small bow. He was smarter than he used to be and was picking up strange habits from Voulos’ other servant zombies.

Hans, Ghost and I still shared a party, and while I was only just approaching the next level, the critters Ghost killed patrolling the woods had increased Hans’ level to five. In a triumph of charisma, I had convinced Voulos to try out an intelligence build for him. The [Vestigial Zombie] evolution had intrigued Voulos, and I just wanted another zombie to talk to. I had reached out to Ghost, but he just ignored me.

Through a combination of a second-hand spellbook, his level three attribute point, and [Aroma Specialist], Hans had crossed over the first attribute threshold for intelligence. Voulos was happy to have an almost risk-free method of levelling minions and added a trio of new zombies to my party just a couple of days ago.

With Hans out of the way, only me and Voulos were left in the room. The gloomy room had once held shelves filled with reagents, but it had been stripped of furniture by hulking zombies to make a suitable space for me to explode in. They had emptied it of everything except the protective circle. The dark obsidian floor around me was covered in hundreds of tiny scratches from the bone splinters of dozens of explosions.

Voulos looked at me, and the same old sadistic grin began tugging at the corners of his lips. “Ok Zed, when I activate [Negate Death], you activate corpse explosion immediately afterwards. Five, four, three, two, one. [Negate…]” As he reached one, I opened up my sheet and changed my name. The pain was sudden and excruciating, but it wasn’t much worse than the pain was every day when I instinctively resisted his order to blow myself up. Immediately afterwards, I activated the last weapon I had in my arsenal.

Dash Attack - Bronze- Level 1:

0% Decay

5 Second Cooldown

Dashes to a target within 3 meters for 44 bludgeoning damage with a chance to push back or knock over the target.

The upgraded version of [Rush Attack] seems mediocre at a first glance. It does only a little more damage; the range is just a tad longer; and it halves the cooldown. It doesn’t even come with an attribute increase like the other upgrade options. What makes it great, however, is that it turns the ability from a rush to a dash.

A rush and a dash may sound similar, but they are not synonymous. A rush accelerates a creature, usually by a factor of ten. That was why I couldn’t use it without aid as I had no movement speed to begin with. To train the ability, Voulos had a group of zombies toss me around. Once I was in motion, the system let me activate the ability to speed up in midair.

A dash is more like a short-range teleport. It moves the user forwards instantaneously in a straight line towards the target. A creature can dash forwards even when they are standing still, which made it an ability I could use whenever I wished.

So when I targeted Voulos with my [Dash Attack] I disappeared from my spot on the floor, and reappeared in front of him, slamming into him and pushing him to the floor. Fortunately, the protective runes of his circle only prevented magical attacks from passing through; protective circles have to be relatively specific to keep the mana costs at a reasonable level.

“... Death]” Voulos finished casting his spell a split second before I slammed into him, and with a smile on my face, I obeyed his final order. I exploded outwards dealing one-thousand and twenty damage. Cordelia had calculated that as long as Voulos had less than fifteen vitality, this should be enough to kill him.

Though I hadn’t planned for this exact situation, everything had played out better than I could have hoped. The adventurers had forced me to act before I was entirely prepared, but it had worked out regardless. Voulos had said that we would have at least a day until the adventurers arrived. That gave me plenty of time to loot the tower and run away. Things were finally looking up… until the smoking corpse of my former master moved.

Zed's end of chapter sheet:

King Zed of the Braindead

20:02, 24th of Iosi, 1465 3A

Total Level: 16 (Bronze)

Levels: Zombie 10, Overseer 6

Experience: 152,148/159,700

Type: Overseer Zombie (C)

Attributes:

Resources:

Dexterity: 6

Stamina: N/A

Strength: 14

Power: N/A

Vitality: 15

Health: 1/510

Wisdom: 9

Willpower: 1/306

Intelligence: 7

Mana: 238/238

Charisma: 13

Soul: 424/442

Decay: 22% (Stage 0)

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

Titles:

King of the Braindead: 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.

Pack Leader: +1 Charisma and ability to form a party of zombies. Party members gain +1 Wisdom whilst within sight of another party member.

Abilities:

Unarmed Strike - Copper - Level 1 (Unavailable):

0% Decay

1 Second Cooldown

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

Dash Attack - Bronze- Level 1:

0% Decay

5 Second Cooldown

Dashes to a target within 3 meters for 29 bludgeoning damage with a chance to push back or knock over the target.

Poisoned Bite - Bronze - Level 2:

0% Decay

5 Second Cooldown

+1 Vitality and Bites the target for 46 piercing damage and a further 30 poison damage over the next 30 seconds.

Scent Chameleon - Bronze - Level 5:

No Cost

30 Second Cooldown

+1 Charisma and scents detected by [Flesh Scent] can be absorbed and secreted to mask the user’s true scent. Amplifies and identifies the smell of any flesh by x5 for 18 seconds.

Stunning Gaze - Bronze - Level 1:

Variable Willpower.

60 Second Cooldown

+1 Wisdom, A glare that adds 18 fear to the target, and stuns the target for 1 second if their total willpower is less than the amount used to activate this ability. Requires eye contact.

Enrage Zombie - Bronze - Level 4:

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 65 seconds.

Overseer’s Aura - Bronze - Level 3:

1 Soul / Second

No Cooldown

+1 Strength to all zombies within 17 meters.

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.

Lesser Bloodcasting - Bronze - Level 1:

Blood Whip - Level 3

1 Unit of Blood

No Cooldown

Creates a stream of blood that can be controlled like a whip lasting for 42 seconds. Attacks with the blood whip deal 10 slashing damage.

Attunements (3/3):

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.

Intellect Ring: +1 Intelligence.

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.

Pack Bonus: +1 Wisdom.