{Ghost}

While they don’t have quite the same adorable and physical nature as a skeleton, the ethereal and whimsical ghost wasn’t an unpleasant creature either, depending on the style. The wraith who appears to be made of black tatters and flutters about in the wind is definitely a close runner up to a little skeleton, while the specter with a visage of the dead usually looked less than attractive. It was probably because you could usually see rot setting in on the second case.

Forming a ghost in Underworld took the fewest resources of the three main types of undead. After all, the setting was one practically made of dead souls—though using the recently deceased improved their power by a bit. For more meta reasons, incorporeals were glass cannons; considering the damage output of other players they had to be treated as one or two use disposables. Building up a slightly more durable ghost as an assassin class wasn't unheard of, but one needed to be prepared to use an exorbitant amount of resources on the endeavor and to be steeled for great losses.

However, what was the case in Underworld of Armok did not translate to the real world in all cases, and the metagame was decidedly distorted.

Level 10 should be accomplished on the first day, or second if you don't play for very long at a time. While anything could damage incorporeal spirits at lower levels, there was always some class ability within the first ten levels that allowed one to fight them regularly. Since that level could be attained so easily(in-game), not a whole lot of attention was paid to the prospect of incorporeals swarming over newbs who had no effective method of retaliation.

This wolf among sheep is about to get himself a pack.

Low-level limitations kept my options to a minimum. I really only had the option of a Soul Strand, Remnant, or Grave Shadow. These were lesser versions of ideas more commonly understood—Will o’wisps, classic ghosts, and living shadows respectively.

Of those, the Grave Shadow would be the best match for the situation at hand. Though lacking in every other aspect, they were built purely as a creature for attacking. As a lower tier creation, despite being incorporeal, they still possessed a rather visible silhouette and were constantly surrounded by faint winds to keep them from being perfectly stealthy right out of the gate. They also sometimes attracted debris from the body they were summoned from, usually resulting in a cloak of tattered clothing fluttering about them.

Will o’wisps served primarily as a spell vector, but as such they were costly mana-wise; the classical image of a ghost while it could undertake combat oriented functions directly, they were better suited for more complex manipulations, like wielding spectral weapons and whatnot. Since I didn’t exactly have any enchanted weapons of that sort on hand, I settled for the slightly fragile Grave Shadow.

Like with Clavi, I wanted to put some care into my first ghostly creation. I wanted a suitable base spirit or souls to use, but as one might expect, in a goblin lair there weren’t a whole lot of strong spirits hanging around. Soul Power could be used, but the resulting creation would be fairly homogenous and mundane. It wouldn’t have any excessive flaws, but neither would it be capable of greatness; if it managed to survive the upcoming battle, then over time I could patch up the weak points and have a truly excellent ethereal minion.

Since I wanted to go above and beyond necessity, a little deviation from standard practice would be fine.

Walking back over the skulls that bound spirits within, I began examining them, trying to discern what I could. In Underworld, other than specific receptacles, raising spirits couldn’t be used done on items. There were very few spirit-bound items in the first place, but as a meta loremaster, the forumites and I came to the generally consensus that this was due mostly to the process by which most of such items were made. As opposed to the spirit skulls, which looked like they were more or less pinned to the object, in Underworld the spirit acted as the base of the item and was modified into the artifact.

It may have been sketchy to make assumptions based on assumptions, and the fact that as a result I began to look for what probably qualified as defective products further made the business more uncertain, the confidence from leveling up had yet to fully dissipate. So long as I was careful, what could possibly go wrong?

Searching primarily for a monolithic skull that repulsed the souls attempting to corrupt the spirit, a somewhat animalistic skull caught my eye. It was still fairly humanoid so the exact type of animal couldn’t be discerned, but the sharp teeth indicated it a carnivore of some sort. Along the outside, thin, greyish crusts dotted the surface in partial rings. Looking at them, they seemed to be the markings of a poor adhesive.

Many of the spirit skulls had soul-enriched vessels attached to the cranium to corrupt the spirit within, although some were impaled with spikes of a material with a similar function. It seemed the glue on it hadn’t been made well and some of the souls fell off, meaning the spirit within had a better chance to maintain its identity.

Using a combination of senses, the spirit within the canine skull seemed tenacious and vindictive, these traits likely being the reason it could last so long. Granted I wasn’t a full expert on souls and spirits in the new world yet, but even with the help of the receptacle some degradation should occur. The spirit likely possessed some formidable willpower to look so intact after who knew how long cooped up.

A strong spirit trapped in a faulty magical item? That sounded like just the thing to experiment with! You only get one chance to do something for the first time, you should be sure to go all in during that chance!

Making sure there weren’t any better items, I grabbed the skull and set to work. Perhaps because it had no physical form, or because the process required binding a spirit instead of forming a simulacrum, the spell shape lacked the...cubish nature of those meant for skeletons and zombies.

There were still the strange deep-fractal patterns, but they were much smoother, more like an apollonian gasket instead of Sierpinski triangle. Other than that, it gave off a much hotter feeling than any of the spells cast before. Not knowing if it was a fluke or not, I was already experimenting so I tried raising the temperature as high as I could. If I screwed up, so be it, but as the spell shape began to feel more and more fiery, the mana that flowed through it began to feel more stable.

Stability is good, I was probably doing something right here.

Letting my mana flow out like water, the maximum capacity since creating Clavi increased by leaps and bounds, however I hadn’t taken the time to fully recover since making the zombie pack mules. That said, in producing the Grave Shadow, a lot more mana than necessary was expended to try and fill up all the curves accurately and heat it up. Nearing mana depletion, I quit charging up the spell and released it.

Under the gaze of I could watch the process of the spell shape preparing a mana field of sorts for the spirit. A shell of sorts, using my own soul to contain the foreign spirit. showed the spirit vanishing to reappear within the new mana field; changing size to fit like a gas. A new mental connection formed, one much stronger than the ones with zombies or skeletons, yet it still didn’t seem quite as reliable as those with Hans or Clavi.

Those two were just too great, weren’t they? I felt so proud of them.

Visually, an inky black smoke filled an upright shape. Not quite as loose and free as a cloud, nor confined to a single shape, a bit too thin to qualify as smoke, yet too thick to be called a shadow; the Grave Shadow sat at the boundary between a ghost and elemental. Spatially shimmering between three and six feet in height, the form didn’t have to remain the same volume, although it did have a minimum and maximum size.

Coming into existence as its own entity, it should have merely been a force that followed the will of the caster. Considering the actions of my quirky undead, this wasn’t something I assumed to be true, and was not surprised to see a nugget of personality floating within the spirit. It didn’t seem to have developed the sort of proto-sentience that Clavi had, but somehow I could still feel it raging about in place.

It may have been a muted emotion, but it certainly could be felt through the spiritual link between us. While Clavi and I shared a close bond, his antics did not seem to qualify as emotions or thoughts; after all, his soul was just something that I had constructed. I loved Clavi, but it was very clear to me that as one of my first works he had his imperfections. After all, how could it be so easy to create a true spirit from scratch?

I decided against naming it, as the spirit that made it up might remember its name in the future after advancing a few times. This was conjecture, but a spirit capable of surviving inside their own skull was probably worth something. Still, for the moment, it was a regular Grave Shadow, and I wished to test its abilities in the world.

Running it around the underground chamber, it moved in a manner like the gaseous form it resembled. It passed through items, but only those that could not wholly block it. Objects had trouble disturbing it, though having trouble did not mean they had no effect. If enough force was put behind the swing, small distortions could probably be created. Other than wargs, I doubted much could do so though.

At this point in time it would be incapable of passing through walls, or sneak attacking from the floor. Disappointing, but it could travel through the goblin zombies I had made.

The Grave Shadow did not seem pleased with doing so; not that it could disobey my commands in the slightest, but I felt a hatred towards the goblins from it. A rather natural reaction, considering they were killed and then their spirit imprisoned by them. I would rather the Grave Shadow not harbor any thoughts of rebellion, but it was more important to make sure my control was absolute.

Grabbing hold of the spiritual link between the two of us, all emotions could easily be suppressed, like switching off a light. They didn’t totally vanish, they simply became locked away under the mana field that served as the spirit’s shell. There didn’t seem to be any downsides to doing so at all, actually—at least none other than being boring. And isn’t that the worst downside of all?

Not really, but it is still pretty terrible, so I let the Grave Shadow continue to feel emotions, loosening my restrictions and expectations on it so it could try to act on its own. It did not, and hovered in place, shifting in position by a small margin. This further clarified how while a constructed soul may be inferior in some respects, binding a spirit did not automatically mean it could express a personality.

The final portion of my evaluation consisted of the combat abilities of the Grave Shadow. The living shadow tree of minions, while incapable of using weapons as ghosts did, could use both spiritual and physical attacks. ‘Congealing’ its dark form into a blade or point, nonliving matter posed a slight difficulty to it. When attacking the walls of the cavern, it seemed as though the effect was similar to using decay typed energy; though the physical effect it generated could then chip the weakened stone.

It worked much better against living things—I didn’t mind being an object used for testing. So long as the attack wasn’t aimed anywhere important, it wasn’t as though it could do any real damage to me anyway. Capable of cutting and stabbing with a modicum of force, on a similar level to that of a poorly utilized dagger, the main benefit to doing so was the ability for the Grave Shadow to strike at the vitals. After all, even if it wasn’t quite stealthy at the moment, armor could be phased through. Not to mention the aforementioned decaying ability worked quite well on living targets.

The results being more than satisfactory, I began picking out spirits to free from the chamber. They’d still be bound to me, but at least they were getting a chance at revenge and to see the world. It must have been ages since they’d seen the shining, shimmering, splendid sunlight.