The sun only just began to descend as I set out along the road. Magical experiments ate up about the first half of the day, but some miles could still be traversed. There was an exciting feeling, walking along road in a foreign land. Everything also seems so much bigger when you don’t know what’s where. I enjoyed the feeling while it lasted, taking in the surroundings.

It deserves mentioning again, plants grew tall and full of life in this world. Even this humble dirt path along the edge of the forest gave a scenic impression. The verdant grass to the right of the road was full and soft. Walking along such a path let one experience a zen emptiness.

Perhaps there is a little exaggeration in the statement, but until nightfall there was nothing to occupy my attention other than ruminating over nature.

The sun began setting and the sky darkened. I could have used to continue, as I wasn't tired, but decided against it. Since the edge of the forest was fairly sparse, clearing a small comfortable area was no problem.

Sitting down I pulled out some bread.

…

Habit is a really scary thing. Even when you know you something, it can make you act to the contrary. It’s like the realization that you’re only partly in control of your body, and the rest of the time it just repeats past actions.

From the ether, I grabbed a loaf of bread. Food had no taste, but it could replenish health, mana, and stamina as well as give buffs. Beginners were given some to start.

Feeling hungry, I'd thought I should try eating it, totally ignoring how inventory had worked in Underworld. Reaching out my hand, I acted more slowly this time to observe the phenomena.

Just as in the game, a pitch black swirl appeared before me, a hole in space. To start with, it only had 100 slots. Unlimited by stack size or item size, if you could lift it, it could be stored.

In any case it was extra dimensional storage!

The situation was not unprecedented. However this was yet another windfall of unknown magnitude. This sort of ability could likely be abused even more heavily than magic.

Even though it couldn't be seen into, the contents were instantly apparent to the owner. Taking stock, my resources were low, but I was not beggarly. Five, now four, loaves of bread; two flasks of water; a dagger; two health potions(20); two mana potions(30); sewing materials and a firestarter.

Five loaves of bread would sustain me for a while, although traveling would increase consumption. If the settlements in this world reflected reality, farming villages should be fairly close together. With long legs, even if this world was less compact, five days should be enough to reach a village.

My greatest trouble would be what to do when I got there. Most protagonists would be directly thrown into some situation. With the gem-like presence unconscious, I still had no direction. At the moment, I was but an ignorant leaf on the wind.

Even coming up with a broad goal like taking over the world seemed difficult. I didn't know how big the world was, or if it had anything fun to lord over. Ruling over people is almost intrinsically entertaining, but it was hard to envision when all I had seen of the world was a few miles of road.

Really, all I could do was sleep well and hope for something to happen.

Nothing happened that night.

Nor did anything happen during my next day of travel.

I was still seeing people coming from the opposite direction. In facts it was quite the usual occurrence. But they looked like peasants on a pilgrimage or small merchants. There was nothing interesting at all!

I entertained myself by shooting ahead of me. I wasn't actually diverting much attention to the process, this was just something to occupy the mind.

“Psh! Psh! go the darts. Psh! Psh! go the darts.

Maaagic~ Maaagic~

A young wizard on the road

Zip Zap! go the darts. Zip Zap! go the darts.

Maaagic~ Maaagic~

Walking through the unknown”

It is not unusual for me to burst into song if there isn’t much going on. So as I walked, I composed a song about a travelling wizard. Of course it isn’t so much composing as pick a long refrain and then change one of the lines each time.

As I sang, I shot out to compliment the sound effects. Before long, I’d burned through all my mana, and it seemed walking severely slowed down the rate at which it was regained.

You may be thinking ‘Why are you talking about singing? Weren’t you excited to be in this new world? Isn’t this your dream? Why aren’t you doing anything?’

Those are all perfectly valid questions to ask. Singing isn’t really something interesting.

But there was nothing else to do but walk. Walking and walking. Walking. Walk walk walk walk. It doesn’t even seem like a word anymore.

My point is, while I didn’t mind, nothing was happening. It seemed like while I’d gotten close to being in an exciting situation, I’d been stopped just short of it. Being patient and an idealist, I would much rather dither about and have little bits of fun as I waited for the perfect opportunity.

So when the third day arrived, and a corpse broke the monotony, I nearly ran over and kissed it.

At first, it had just been a small lump near the side of the road. Since there were no boulders or rocks near the rest of the road, this drew in my attention. Then I noticed the odd dark brown and puice green coloration.

Unable to not move faster due to excitement, my pace quickened and I soon found myself beside it. My joy redoubled, despite the malodorous scent that lingered around. Stubby yellow claws, a squashed face with sharp uneven teeth, crooked ears, there was no doubt in my mind this was a goblin.

A goblin! Yet another cornerstone of fantasy settings! I wondered how it fit into this world, because there were certain aspects that did not quite line up with usual goblin traits.

Most obvious, and possibly relevant to future safety, was the fact there was a lone goblin. It looked like a small and weak creature as expected, why wouldn’t it hunt in a group? There was a spear in its hand, and it wore clothes, it should possess some measure of intelligence. Explaining this was difficult; since it would be more difficult to sense a lone goblin, I could only remain on guard.

A physical feature that stuck out as well were the claws of the goblin. Usually depicted as human-like, possibly with sharp fingernails, these seemed more like dog claws. The final joint of each digit terminated into a conical talon. Coupled with the old, ill fitted clothes and chipped spear, it could be concluded that the hands of goblins had poor manual dexterity. More spurious theories could be formed, but it would be more reasonable to just store the data to help analyze future events.

Finally, of the least import, the goblin lay on the right side of the road, that is the side from the plains. Goblins in gaming and literature have settled themselves on the plains and in forests. This situation was only a single clue, with numerous scenarios that could render it invalid. But every bit of information helped.

While I certainly had gained insights into the world, that was not the true reason for my jubilation.

This was a dead body.

I was a necromancer.

Looking forward and backwards along the road, and then into the forest and out onto the plains, I confirmed there were no travellers nearby. Cracking my knuckles, I took a few minutes to decide on an optimal choice of action. After all, I did not know how often such an opportunity would arise.

To maximize usage, I would begin with tests that would not damage the body. , a cheap 4 mana spell, that did as it suggested. It was a handy utility for finding bodies for summoning, or even to look out for undead and traps. At a higher level a Necromancer would be able to maintain it permanently at no cost, but I was Level 1.

Upon completing the spell shape, a faint aura appeared. It was void black, blood red and icy blue all at once. At the moment, discerning the meaning was impossible for me, but the blood red and icy blue were slowly giving way to the black, which itself seemed to dissipate at an even slower rate.

Since I predicted the spell would last for 14 minutes, I didn’t wait for it to run out. The road vanishing over the horizon felt like it was just waiting for me to slip up to send some villagers with pitchforks after me.

Next I figured I should try storing the body in my Inventory. It felt pretty odd, shoving the corpse through the void, but I managed. Mostly this was just to make sure, imagine trying to do something like this in an emergency only to have it fail.It was better safe than sorry, and in this instance, I was safe.

Now started the best part, which would begin using up parts of the body. Having done my homework before I became a necromancer, I knew what spells were useful in which situations and would be casting accordingly.

“.” I knelt down next to the goblin. This wasn’t quite of my own will, it was the same as when I cast or many other spells. My body seemed to intuit a ritual, and while I could stop it, that would like balancing on one leg but refusing to move your arms to help maintain stability.

In a very natural movement, my hand scooped out one of the goblin’s eyes. Then I crushed it, the aqueous humor squelching. I’ll admit, it felt gross, but mostly I was distracted by the vision appearing before me.

The scene formed quickly from a multitude of lights, perhaps akin to the pixels on a screen turning on in a random pattern. At this level, it was merely a two dimensional still frame. About three feet wide and two feet tall, a clear image formed of a fairly mundane looking man.

The image was from the eye of the goblin at the time of death, and the man held a pure black sabre. Bloodless and held loosely at his side, it seemed he managed to kill the goblin before it had a chance to react. I couldn't tell if he was a ‘peerless expert’ or if goblins were just too weak.

I’d best be wary if I see him in the future to be safe.

Shaking the goo off of my hand, I prepared to cast again.

“.” This was a quite novel spell, I think more of a thematic addition than a utilitarian one. I placed my hands on the sides of the goblin’s head. A small amount started to go in the spell shape, but then a much larger amount of mana drained from me. Mana seemed to be overwhelming the spell shape in an attempt to make it work, but it failed, everything dissipating without reaction.

This was a curious result. At least there had been no form of magical backlash from this failure. Not knowing if it happened to result from some unlikely spell failure chance, I tried two more times, both failing.

Looking at the corpse, there had to be some reason for the failure. I thought on the effects of the spell; a skull would be imprinted with a message, and depending on the mana put in after a certain amount of time it would repeat itself. Various options would unlock later, but at Level 1 that was it.

Lifting the body by the head, I tried some phrenology. Well it was just feeling around the skull but...wait a sec there.

Thinking on how awkward it was to pull along the whole body with the head, I had an idea.

Taking the poor quality spear, I centered it over the neck. Stomping down as though it were a shovel, I set to work severing the head. The work wasn't strenuous, but neither was it relaxing; it could have been easier if I used my dagger, but I didn't particularly want it getting goblin blood on it. What if I wanted to use it for food?

Detaching the head took a few minutes, I continued checking my surroundings then tried again.

“.” The spell shape appeared and only a tiny portion of my mana was consumed; I suspected it was around the proper cost of two mana this time, plus whatever made spells in this world more expensive.

The flesh withered and turned to ash, leaving only a skull with a dull red glow in its eyes.

“Hello, my name is Yorick.” I said to it. After one minute it would repeat back to me.

In the minute interim, I felt a bit satisfied guessing such an arbitrary limitation. A spell like that needed to only be affecting its target. That might have been why the motion to involved plucking out the eyeball. Well, I could confirm my suspicions.

“Hello, my name is Yorick.” The skull spoke in my voice, magically moving its jawbone. Well time to move on to the next experiment.

“!” This time, I did not expect the spell to work, even if it did waste a good deal of mana. Unfortunately, it wasted a greater deal than I thought. At a predicted base cost of 15, the amount I proceeded to lose was actually more than half of my maximum capacity.

This happened with the failed s as well. It seemed the amount of mana that would try to force its way into the spell to make it work was proportional to the cost and not a fixed rate. Probably about five times the amount, failing to use a costly spell in a dangerous situation would deplete a large amount of my mana. This was good knowledge to have, if unsettling.

During all this, I was intermittently waiting for my mana to replenish. The amount I used, especially in the case of the spell, vastly exceeded my capacity. Though patient, my head flicked back and forth to check for those who may be approaching.

Theoretically I had used 113 of 132 mana, but instead, I’d run out several times over. After a while of trying to determine the wastage, I could guess that about twice the proper amount of mana was being used. Quite terrible efficiency. Was something being done wrong, or was it the way the new world worked? Either way, I couldn’t do much about it at the moment.

Dismembering the hands in the same manner I did the head, I then cast .

The mottled green appendages inched towards each other, the stubby claws pushing off the dirt. They left a little blood on the ground as well as tiny furrows behind them. It occurred at a particularly slow pace.

I couldn't help but feel the scene was cute. It’s like when small animals are futilely trying to accomplish something and are barely able to make progress. These two critters just happened to be goblin hands.

Eventually they met and overlapped with each other. The flesh began to ripple and merge, with excess meat and blood being exuded. As this happened the Hand Spider gradually paled, but still a greenish tint to it. Quivering, the seam where the two hands came together vanished and it stood up on the fingers.

To best envision it, overlap your hands with the thumbs crossing over each other. If you can use your thumbs as pincers, and the sides of your wrists are bumping into each other, that's about right.

My first undead minion! As the process finished, I felt something attach to me, much like the presence from the point-ears. However it felt more like a coarse thread than a gem-like barnacle. When I mentally investigated it, the Hand Spider seemed to grow more attentive.

Was this my spiritual connection?

I began with ordering the Hand Spider back and forth aloud, then gradually moved to less and less externally obvious methods. The outward commands made the connection ‘shake’ to send a message. While I could forgo them, it was difficult to do so only using mental commands. Commanding an army of undead seemed like a daunting task in that moment.

Since seeing the body, 10 minutes had passed, and I felt the chances I would be encountered grew ever higher. Quickly, the last few spells for the moment needed casting.

, a quick 1 mana spell that sent blood...who knows where. I cleaned myself and the Hand Spider off. The spell affected one ‘object’, the limitations of the definition I didn't wish to spend the blood or time to discover.

, this spell had a motion, pushing the corpse toward the ground. For 3 mana, a weak or a portion of a strong corpse would turn to soil that matched the surroundings. It wouldn't work on bones alone.

There were no traces of my necromancy, and to my surprise, Hans was able to be stored in my inventory. There was no way this wasn't going to save me in the future.

Departing from the scene, I almost let out a sigh of relief. After about three more minutes of walking I spotted what looked like a trio of adventurers.

I still hadn't gotten any clues as to what my overarching plot would be two days later, which was when a small village appeared on the horizon.