“I won’t cast this spell? Apprentice, just hold my spellbook!”

- the last transmission from Guildmaster Leeroy.

“What are you waiting for? Raise them.”

That gave Ion a pause.

‘Is this really what I am going to do? Pretending to be a necromancer is one thing, but this… am I not bordering on really becoming one now?’

Ion reluctantly approached the closest corpse. An old, balding man. If not for his unnatural pallor and lack of breathing, one could say that he was just sleeping; some cleric must have preserved man’s body from decaying.

‘..and from becoming an undead.’

He focused and chanted a spell for Detecting Magic. After opening his eyes Ion saw that the building was emanating faint traces of energy, a feeble runic array at work. If he wished to, he could easily dispel the spell. It was created with mana efficiency in mind, not as a means to stop a necromancer.

‘Should I?’

“How long are you going to stare at him?” Sae said impatiently. “It’s not like they are alive anymore, they won’t mind it. Those are just empty shells, waiting for a burial.”

‘Is creating undead really something evil? According to teachings of the temples, souls are departing to kingdoms of the respective deities, in Outer Realms. A body is nothing but a vessel, allowing a soul to interact with Material Plane. So why not use it again, instead of leaving it to rot? People often claim that a necromancy upsets a cycle of nature… yet why would animating an empty husk do that? Does it differ from just making an automation, a golem? Maybe if I tried to bind a soul, to create a vampire or spectre, then it might. But what would upset the balance of nature more; creating a mindless zombie, or truly resurrecting someone who has already departed? Isn’t it hypocritical?’

Ion supposed that a cultural hate for necromancy was strongly influenced by Uther’s church. One of its dogmas claimed, that aeons ago, in a Plane far away, Uther, assuming a mortal form, fought for a kingdom plagued by a necromancer. One of his disciples, a prince hoping to save his kingdom, in an attempt to gain more power turned towards the artifacts that corrupted him. He killed the necromancer, yet embraced undeath himself in process. He betrayed his mentor, killed Uther’s mortal body and brought the very same ruin he tried to prevent onto his kingdom.

Like many others, he grew up on those stories, fearing and abhorring necromancy. For most people, just a thought that someone would animate their corpses after they or their loved ones die was horrific.

‘But would this cause them any harm? Their souls are already in Soul Planes!’

Still hesitating, Ion remembered one of the lectures Vision-he gave to his students.

“People will always fear what they cannot fathom. Instead of trying to comprehend, they will choose to try influencing those who do understand, to project their anxieties onto them. You can’t be shackled by delusions of those without the power for they will only give you excuses why you shouldn’t reach for more knowledge. The only opinions that should matter to you, are of those more experienced, who walked the Path longer than you. Although even their words must remain only a guidance, for how you thread your Fate is up to you. Learning the Arcane Secrets is treacherous. Each step you take might be your last. Yet ultimately, should you fall, it will be only because of your own mistakes, for if you allowed someone else to decide your Path, you’ve already fallen.”

Ion wondered about Vision-he. For years his father had spent warring against orcs, it was he who remained his guide. The dreams gave him not only insights about the magical knowledge but also knowledge about a life as a whole.

Vision-he was not a saint, that’s for sure. Many things he remembered him doing in the visions were morally questionable, at best. Nevertheless, he cared deeply for his country, the Empire as it was called, and was willing to sacrifice many things to guarantee its continued existence. By many, he was viewed as a brilliant leader, even a war hero.

Granted, he performed experiments on living subjects, yet those were criminals deemed guilty, spies or assassins. They served only as a means of attaining more knowledge…

‘And when he was glorified due to his ability to resurrect fallen by the use of arcane magic, nobody was asking how long he has spent perfecting his knowledge of necromancy. That school wasn’t even viewed with such prejudice in his country.’

Steeling his resolve, he chanted Dispel Magic. Runes on the walls immediately flickered and faded. Now someone would have to imbue them with mana again to make them work.

‘Could a school of magic be evil? Is everything that simple? If someone animates a zombie to protect a village, would it still be an evil act? Does a possibility of casting a Fireball to set someone’s house in flames makes School of Evocation evil?’

Ion removed some tools from his bag of holding.

‘Magic is just a force, it can’t be inherently good or bad. How can you blame a tool? It’s the intent of the one who wields it that matters!’

The young wizard began to draw his own runes around and on the corpse he decided to animate. Of course, there were faster ways, but they required more experience and larger amounts of mana.

“Hand me a dagger.”

He pierced his thumb and chanted, letting drops of blood drip in the corpse’s mouth.

Soon Ion felt, faintly at the beginning, but stronger with each second, a connection between himself and the corpse. The mana he was providing was feeding the body, spreading throughout all extremities. It twitched and opened glassy, lifeless eyes.

Through his connection with the undead, he could see that it missed something. It felt hollow. Due to his spell, the mana was trying to replace the void inside it, yet it was only a temporal substitute, a mockery of a real thing.

The spark. The will. The meaning.

It lacked them all.

The mana, not only that he was providing directly, but also an energy more alien, drew by the spell from elsewhere, was slowly reigniting something inside the corpse.

Ion instinctively understood that what he perceived was the undead’s missing soul. While he wasn’t able to sense it in living creatures, noticing an emptiness in its place wasn’t too hard for him, especially when his spell was still struggling to somehow replace it.

However, it lacked not only a soul.

He could feel that with each drop of his blood, for a moment the undead’s body seemed to be invigorated, even if only for a split second.

‘I’ve always thought that it was just a metaphor. Vision-me sometimes spoke about the Lifeforce, yet I was only seeing a flow of mana watching through his eyes. Were my visions clouded by my lack of understanding?’

Curious, Ion continued to observe the process, mesmerised, his earlier concerns forgotten, at least for a time.

‘It seems the Lifeforce could be directly transferred by blood. I can feel my strength drained much faster comparing to normally bleeding. Is this also an effect of the spell?’

“Is everything all right?” Sae asked in a concerned voice, supporting him as he suddenly swayed.

“I probably gave it too much of my blood. And it was all in vain.”

“What do you mean? It looks quite lively to me…” With a strange expression on her face, she poked the zombie that let a growl in an answer.

“I wondered if feeding it with more would make it stronger… yet it only drained my energy.”

Ion pondered where that energy had gone. The void inside the zombie was no different than before he decided to give him more blood.

‘Lifeforce… does a soul produce it? Or maybe a soul is required to maintain it inside a body? Or is it even more complicated?’

“I start to think that you might be taking your acting too seriously… we are here only to provide some backing to our rumours. Or maybe your new dress is awakening something dark inside?” Sae teased.

Ion blushed as she reminded him of his disguise and mentally ordered the zombie to claw at her.

“Ay! Take it easy, vampire princess!”

The rogue nimbly dodged a clumsy swipe.

“What are you intending to do with zombies, anyway? I would be able to control them for a while but afterwards, they will probably succumb to their instincts.”

Ion could feel through his bond that his zombie craved for blood, flesh. For more Lifeforce. The energies drawn in by the spell made that hunger the greatest desire of the creature. Where once its soul resided, now was only the craving so strong that it will be enough for the zombie to remain animated even after Ion's control over it expires. The creature would surely follow it if set free.

“I want to leave one or two here, closed. I bet the guards would have a surprise when they check the morgue. For the rest, we need them wandering the streets, the more people see them the better.”

“We have around one hour until my sleep spells wear down. If I am to remain in control of zombies as well as to maintain this ridiculous disguise I could animate at most four or five more. It’s quite taxing, you know.”

Time passed and Ion moved around, animating more corpses. It seemed to not matter how much blood he used for the spell; even a single drop was enough. At least if he used his or asked Sae for hers. When he tried to substitute it with blood from one of the sleeping guards (which had to be knocked unconscious again), what he collected on the knife seemed to have no effect at all.

‘Was it because in his case blood was taken before I chanted the spell? That would support the theory that blood in a natural state isn’t a carrier for the Lifeforce.’

He really wished to experiment a little longer.

“Okay, leave one there, and let’s move with others,” Sae said.

‘Eh, the clock is ticking’

They closed the morgue; Ion was sure that the guards could easily handle a single zombie. As they walked towards the exit from a graveyard, he looked at the shambling group that followed him.

Having finished his task, unwanted thoughts assaulted Ion’s mind once more.

‘Isn’t what we have done here simply defiling a memory of someone? How would I feel finding my family member reduced to this? Where lay the limits when searching for knowledge?’

He observed one of the zombies. Earlier, it had a charming, young face. Judging by clothes it could be a merchant’s son. However now its face was twisted, a caricature of a smile on its lips, movements stiff, artificial.

‘Maybe I should have animated skeletons? Preferably of those long gone. They would lack this disturbing individuality that zombies possess. But digging skeletons would have taken too long.’

Ion and Sae approached the graveyard’s gate.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” They heard an angry voice. “We must check the graveyard immediately.”

Before they could react four armoured men entered with their weapons drawn; two of them were the ones Sae knocked down earlier.

“If something happened… young master? Is this really you?” one of the guards stopped surprised, looking at them.

Or to be precise, staring at one of the zombies.

Earlier, his Darkvision wasn’t enough to make out colours, but now, assisted by the torchlight guards held, he could say that the guards' garments matched that of one of his zombies.

“Run!” Sae shouted, swords immediately in her hands. Girl's sudden charge pushed back one of the guards.

Ion sent three fiery rays on another. The man screamed, frantically trying to remove his cape that caught fires. In the same time, he mentally ordered the zombies to swarm the guards.

“Young master, it’s me, Tarmus. Don’t you recognise me? What are you doing? Argh!” The man tried to reason as he retreated. Seeing the undead weren’t stopping he was forced to use his shield to push them back.

Ion prepared to cast another spell. He was already very tired but supposed that he could still handle three or four 2nd circle spells.

“If we fight only more will come, run!” Sae disengaged her opponent and positioned herself to make a clear passage for Ion, fending off another guard. Without the element of surprise, the man seemed to have the upper hand against her.

Ion ordered zombies to just continue attacking, serving as a distraction. He circled combatants, sending another Scorching Ray. As he and Sae rushed towards the city, with his next chant a sticky Web materialised, attaching itself to walls and nearby buildings, hindering movements of guards and zombies alike.

“Don’t harm the young master!”

Seeing that two of the guards were already laying on the ground, he ordered to all but one of the zombies to flee, hoping that they hadn’t killed anyone. Disappearing behind the corner he saw that one of the zombies was stuck in the magical web, but still tried to follow his order to run away. It was swiftly decapitated by the warrior.

“No, we can’t let Lord Marius go! Get up and chase him! Not that direction!” shouts were quieting down.

Sae led him through various streets in what seemed to Ion random directions, before finally ushering him inside to one of the abandoned buildings.

“Quickly, dispel your spell and change your clothes.” She ordered, removing a loose plank from the floor, under which she apparently hid several outfits. She immediately started to change. Ion followed, taking clothes from his bag of holding and removing various decorations Sae attached to his satchel earlier.

“Could you store this inside your bag? Even if it’s quite far away from the spot we fought and I doubt they followed us at all, I wouldn’t risk using this place anymore.”

“You gathered all those clothes in just two days since we arrived here?” Ion looked at the pile with curiosity, his emotions after their frantic escape finally subsided.

“Hey, they are necessary for my work! Just think of them as my spell components.”

“Okay... So what now?” Ion asked while they were putting clothes inside.

“Now we are returning from “Owlbear’s Beck” tavern. Just a young couple going back to their inn after drinking most of the night. If they are searching for two girls, they shouldn’t pay too much attention to a couple.”

She went towards the door and turned to Ion.

“To be honest, this history is more for our companions. Even if we could eventually convince Dorian or Thaleus that what we’ve done was really necessary, I don’t want Ciros to find out. And by the Will of Abyss, if Lyssa even learns about this we are really screwed.”

“As if I was ever going to tell anyone about animating the undead wearing a revealing dress…”

Sae only smiled hearing his comment.