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I carefully take my knife and cut from almost the man’s shoulder, to the solar plexus. It is more difficult when I consider that though the Change made everyone loose some weight, this guy has plenty of fat on him. Thankfully, he’s a criminal, and taking his head in to be identified will let me get the reward for his death.

As I cut from the other direction, I call on my magic to start the first step of the funeral process. Blood flows out from the open wound and seems to create a narrow stream going straight into a specifically prepared set of oilskins. As a necromancer, and one who practices blood magic, I know how to drain the blood from a body efficiently, and blood from a sentient being is an unfortunate necessity for many of the more powerful Blood Magic spells. And as I refuse to kill someone who hasn’t earned it, so my stocks of human blood are almost always pitifully low.

I hear a chuckle from my teacher,” Good, you’re restocking. I thought it would be months before you got more and we could try the next ritual.”

I smile. The last Blood Magic Ritual we did was able to attach itself to a large eagle claw that I had managed to get my hands on. The unique part was that the guy who sold it to me had no idea what he had on his hands, which was a Harpy Eagle Claw. Harpy Eagles are predator birds that tend to nest near harpies. They avoid the humanoid monsters, instead taking certain smaller animals as their prey. However, due to the proximity in which they live to a magical creature, their bones tend to be stronger than a regular birds, while still being very light weight.

I managed to get the blood magic ritual, Blood Regeneration, onto the claw which made me immensely happy. However, the ritual did take up the last of my precious stock of sentient blood. At least this blood was from a human, the last batch, which I’m pretty sure had something to do with why the Blood Regeneration ritual worked, was from a Troll. They’re sentient, even if they are dumb as fuck. And they have a natural regeneration which is just as amazing as they are dumb.

I’m not fond of Trolls. They have a tendency to eat people, and leave the pieces all over the place.

I continue with my work, cutting downward from the solar plexus to the about six inches above the groin. Peeling back the flesh from his organs, I pull out my first Canopic Jar. On it are drawn the wards that will, once linked up with the other three jars, ensure the souls of the dead will travel swiftly to the afterlife. As I start pulling the man’s lungs out first, I start the Chants of Banishment. This man was wicked enough, that I don’t feel any remorse about using everything from his corpse to protect those in this area.

I had come across his wanted poster about two weeks ago. Four dead, all children. All killed by this man, who apparently was linked with the disappearances of several more people. I didn’t know about the others, but for just the children that he had killed, he had earned my enmity.

It took me till two days ago to track him down. The reason the Wanted poster had gone up was because he had skipped out of town ahead of the Lawbringers in Chicago. The Lawbringers were the current equivalent of a police force, most of them being paladins or clerics to one of the Gods that had set up shop in Chicago. That would be Poseidon, Maui, and Sobek. All of them were considered water gods, but they had enough differences between them that everyone was happy.

Of course, my teacher could have had a temple there, but unfortunately he and his compatriots aren’t viewed in the best of lights by the populace currently.

The Chants of Banishment is a divine soul magic spell that directly gives the soul of a deceased to the gods. In my case, that means this man’s soul goes to Anubis, and then he will figure it out from there. Honestly, pretty convenient for me, and I know this guy will get the true punishment he deserves. You don’t mess with kids in my opinion.

As I finish up the process of creating my Canopic Jars, by pulling the last of his intestines out and placing them in the final jar, I quickly focus my Bone Magic to remove the bones from the corpse. Those I stack to one side, which I will later place in my bag of minor holding. Thing cost me a fortune, but it made hiding things like my bones and the bags filled with blood so much easier. I actually have three, one for blood and bones each, and then my personal one.

After I’ve got all of the bones out, and I’m in the process of drying them, I turn to the funeral pyre that I built for this occasion. I arrange the bones in good positions around the fire, as they will dry out completely faster that way. Then I place the body on the pyre, and taking my lighter I light the straw I packed underneath the wood.

As the pyre slowly goes up in flames, it dries out the bones, and with a little more bone magic, I speed up the drying process even more, so that after only ten minutes I’m able to start picking all of them up.

I can feel the Canopic Jars starting to generate the death energy that will sustain the wards that are inscribed on the jars. I’ve take to placing the jars all around the local cemetaries and graveyards, as once I’ve created them and gotten the wards on them, the wards can protect up to a mile around the location from undead possibly rising, and the other ward I have on them, a Blood magic ‘Don’t see me’ ward.

“Well,” I say, partially to myself, partially to Anubis, my teacher, God, and occasionally, Friend.

“Well what?” he says back to me. We have a mental link that allows us to speak over long distances without me performing my prayer rites.

“Don’t give me that!” I say, laughing,” You’re the one who told me to talk to you after I finished this job. What’s going on?”

“Hmmm. Well a couple of things really,” he says, deliberately being evasive.

“Fine,” I say,” Oh, Great and Masterful Anubis, your humble and obedient servant asks what news you have for him, so that he may take action.”

I can almost sense the head nod, before I hear the chuckle. “So first off, I would like to congratulate you on completing basic training. You are now officially a Necromancer, a Priest, and my servant. Before this you had only achieved the rank of Novitiate, however now I am proud to tell you that you are at the Cleric rank in my priesthood.”

I blink, before smiling, “Really, you think I’m ready?”

He sighs, “I do, but even if I didn’t we don’t have much choice. The other Gods of Death and I are in agreement, on this matter, and that is your first task.”

I stay, looking at the fire. I know he’ll get to the point in a moment, but this is one of those things he’s already told me about. Once a priest makes it to the cleric rank, they may be given jobs from the Gods or the upper priesthood. Since clerics are supposed to be the soldiers and movers of the various churches and temples, they need to accomplish so many missions and achieve so many goals, before they can increase in position once more.

The downside of this is that, unlike the novitiates, whom the Gods may speak to freely, and teach directly, they aren’t allowed to do so much for the clerics, beyond giving them access to divine spells and magic, and occasionally answering a prayer. And it stays that way, through most of the ranks, until you become the highest ranked priest on your world for your God.

Fortunately for me, I’m already the highest ranked priest for Anubis on Earth. He doesn’t have many as most people don’t want to take care of the dead, or that have the necessary requirements to become a priest

“Daniel Greyman, as Necromancer Priest of Anubis, I charge you with investigating the reports of Undead in Indianapolis, going there, and clearing out the cursed souls that appear to have taken the city. Will you accept this mission?”

I glare at the fire, “Gladly.”

*****

Unfortunately, I couldn’t exactly pick everything up and go. For one, Indianapolis is a long ways away from where I’m at. Two, I didn’t cherish the idea of carrying a criminals head into a city with undead in it. And three, I was going to need at least a little help to deal with an entire city. Which meant there was only one place for me to go. Chicago.

Thankfully it wasn’t too far. I had picked up the Wanted poster in Grainhollow, a town just outside of Chicago that dealt largely with the farmers. It had a Chicago Adventurer’s Guildhall, a tavern/inn, and a post office. That was pretty much it, as if anyone needed to buy something more, they’d just head into Chicago proper and buy it.

With the head, I was getting a reward of a hundred Iron coins. The currency system of Chicago is a bit different than you’d think as there isn’t much actual gold around. However, the Prince found an almost perfect solution, and that was the Iron Coin system.

The smallest coin amount was a copper. Many of those were still pennies from the United States, before the Change. Fifty of those equaled the “standard” dollar, which is the Iron Coin. From there, ten iron coins could be turned into a Silver Coin, which was the highest coin denomination. A person could turn in five silver coins for a quarter note, and four quarter notes for a Note. The notes were essentially the highest amounts, and no matter what it said on the note, it was only worth four quarter notes. So a hundred Iron coins was equivalent to ten silver coins, which was two quarter notes.

That would feed me for a couple of months, if I was careful with it. Unfortunately, I don’t think I would be able to enjoy that luxury. I’d probably have spent all of it, and then some before I had even left for Indianapolis.

It was time for me to find a party to work with.