“Those who have fallen, come to me. Rise and break the bonds of death! [Necromantic Infusion].”

Ilinesh’Rakon signaled the scouts to stop, narrowing his eyes at the lone human. Was the fool trying to cast? It wouldn’t get him anywhere, not while under the effects of stone-raker venom. His eyes flicked to the bones on the floor. They didn’t move.

He hissed in his native language to the Lithauri on either side. “He’s bluffing. Destroy the walking corpses and take the mage alive. No biting.”

The scouts grinned and advanced on the undead. Two of them nocked arrows while the rest raised short swords. They were confident in their numbers; low-tier undead were only truly dangerous in hordes, and this pathetic handful of zombies and ghouls couldn’t possibly beat a greater number of armed monsterfolk.

As they approached, the human necromancer suddenly sank to his knees, faint tendrils of grey mist leaving his body. The Lithauri hesitated at the unexpected move and one of the scouts drew back his bow. Ilinesh snapped, “Don’t shoot the mage!”

At this distance, they could see the human’s eyes begin to glow black. He raised his hands, “[Mass Reanimation]. [Horde Gambit: Resistance].”

The human slumped over. Immediately, the bloody bones on the ground moved, skeletons rising from the ground. The Lithauri stirred uneasily, seeing grey fire burning in their lifeless eye sockets. Ilinesh saw two, then five, then ten skeletons rise, several coming out of the tower. They joined the undead in front of the unconscious [Necromancer] with jerky movements, hollow gaze perpetually locked on the monsterfolk.

Five heartbeats passed in silence.

And the undead charged.

The two scouts with bows quickly moved, catching both of the ghouls in the lead with an arrow to the head. At this range, they couldn’t miss. The undead stumbled, but didn’t go down. The scouts shot again, but the ghouls kept sprinting forward. Ilinesh could only stare in shock at the arrows protruding from their skulls. How are they…

He shook his head and snarled at the undead. Resistant to arrows or not, they could be hacked into pieces. The other monsterfolk were bracing, getting in a more compact formation. They were deadly serious with the numbers against them now.

The two ghouls crashed into the Lithauri with no regard for their own well-being, throwing the monsterfolk into disarray. Even as half a dozen blades rose and fell, the ghouls refused to go down. Their desiccated flesh was unnaturally tough and they struck wildly with claws of bone. One of the scouts screamed when a ghoul stabbed into his body, ripping gobbets of scales and flesh off.

Ilinesh frantically angled his sword at it, using one of his few abilities.

“[Heavy Strike]!”

His blade came down like a hammer, shearing through the ghoul’s spine and getting lodged halfway through its torso. The corpse collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, the grey flames in its eyes going out. As Ilinesh struggled to pull his sword free and the injured scout plastered healing paste into his wound, the rest of the undead reached them.

The other ghoul had been dispatched, but there were still thirteen skeletons and zombies facing the eight scouts. Not only that, but the undead seemed to be under a boost effect from their [Necromancer] master. Ilinesh hoped that it would run out before they were overpowered.

He slashed at a skeleton, aiming at its skull. His sword knocked the undead to the side and chipped off a bit of bone, but the skeleton just rose and kept reaching for him. He cut again, desperately trying to sever an arm. The skeleton was battered down, too light to truly take the blow, but before he could capitalize on it he was grabbed by a pair of bony hands.

Ilinesh twisted and bashed the grip of his sword into the skull of another skeleton coming at him from the right side. It released him and stumbled backwards. In the brief moment of respite, he looked at the other scouts and saw that they were similarly able to fend off the undead.

He regained his confidence after realizing that the skeletons were too weak to hurt them. They kept trying to attack, punching and raking their fingers across his scales, but the walking sacks of bones didn’t have any power behind their blows. The only problem was that they didn’t go down.

But their boosted resistance wouldn’t last forever. Hit them enough times and they would eventually come apart. Ilinesh turned to the closest skeleton and began swinging, trying to hit the same spot. Every impact knocked it downwards and Ilinesh would press closer, occasionally having to bat away a second skeleton. After five blows, he heard a crack and his sword dug into a shoulder joint. He grinned viciously and forced the skeleton onto the ground, forgoing his sword to break the arm off with his bare claws.

Using both claws, he levered the appendage up and snapped it off at the cracked spot. The skeleton struggled underneath his weight but couldn’t do anything except scrape at his scales uselessly with its remaining hand. Ilinesh savored the moment, flinging the arm to the side. Just as he was about to try and break its other arm off, something smashed him in the head.

His neck snapped sideways as the blow threw him to the ground several feet away. Fuzzy blackness threatened to overtake his eyes and Ilinesh forced himself not to succumb. To stay down was death.

He saw a human, strangely pale and standing behind the skeleton. It wasn’t the necromancer, but there was an unmistakable feeling of death when looking at it. He briefly wondered how the scouts hadn’t seen it before, but dismissed the thought.

Ilinesh growled and took out a long dagger. Every movement sent a spike of pain to his head, but he ignored it and lunged at the human. It backed up and put up its hands against the strike, slapping the blade away with seemingly little effort. Ilinesh was surprised to see that his blade didn’t even draw blood; a move like that should have at least cut into the human’s skin.

Undeterred, he followed up with a kick, slamming his foot into what felt like a pillar of stone. The human barely budged and just looked at him with a blank face. He tried to stab again, only for the human to reach out and grab his arm.

Ilinesh struggled to pull away, but to no avail. It was too strong. The human began twisting his arm back. When the arm refused to bend anymore, the human—no, this thing wasn’t human—wrenched on the limb. Something gave away and Ilinesh screamed in pain.

The last thing he saw before blacking out was a pair of dark, soulless eyes, staring expressionlessly into his own.

— -

It took a little bit of trying, but the revenant had discovered how to use abilities while waiting in the tower.

[Miasma Sense] was simple, and Anthony hadn’t even noticed. It affected vision, causing miasma to glow brightly while everything else greyed out. It had been fascinating to just look around, seeing swirling lines of pale energy in the zombies and ghouls. It could even see miasma through walls and floors, although it was harder to distinguish the zombies downstairs.

The other thing [Miasma Sense] did was highlight mana. The first time the revenant used the ability, it had felt an irresistible attraction coming from somewhere. It had turned and seen that the source of the attraction was Anthony, who glowed a vibrant gold instead of the grey light of the undead standing in the room.

The moment it had seen the gold light, the revenant knew that it wanted the light with all its being. There was a part of it inside that tried to reach for the light and… was pushed back. No matter how much the revenant desired the golden brightness, the urge died before it could take hold in its head.

That had been mana hunger, a trait in monsters—and undead—that caused them to attack people. Of course, the instinct was suppressed between a [Necromancer] and their undead, which was why the revenant hadn’t found the urge to violently murder Anthony. The revenant didn’t know about that, but it stopped thinking about the confusing matter and turned off [Miasma Sense].

The lights were pretty and all, but they were different from real color. The revenant went to its next ability, [Corruptive Surge]. This time, when it used the ability, Anthony definitely noticed. A wave of death energy sprang out of its body, covering an area around it for several yards. For Anthony, it felt like being submerged in dense mist—a chill in the air that seemed to sink into his skin with supernatural coldness.

He jumped up, dropping his book. “What’s happening?”

The revenant concentrated and tried to turn off the ability like with [Miasma Sense], but nothing happened. It looked at Anthony, “I used an ability. [Corruptive Surge].”

The [Necromancer] relaxed. “Oh. That sounds like a good one. It seems like a type of temporary aura ability. It shouldn't hurt me, of course, and the ability shouldn’t last very long.”

The revenant nodded. Indeed, the energy was already dissipating into the air. Anthony stopped shivering and sat back down. “Do you have any other abilities?”

“[Undead Presence]... two?

Anthony leaned back and gave a slight smile. “The ‘two’ stands for the ability level. Only some abilities have levels, which means you can increase their effect after practicing them and using them for a while. Other abilities don’t have levels, which means they only improve after you take steps to drastically change them into a new one. Anyhow, getting an ability that’s higher than level one right away is pretty uncommon. Hopefully it means you’ll be good at using it.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know much about undead abilities to tell you more. None of my undead have many abilities besides [Miasma Sense]. I’m guessing that [Undead Presence] will help you command other undead or make them more powerful. Or maybe a combination of the two.”

The revenant nodded again. This was interesting! Abilities looked like they were very useful.

Anthony looked thoughtfully at it before picking up his book and reading again. The revenant activated [Miasma Sense] and began looking around the room again, tracing spirals of light in the air. The other undead stood motionlessly in their silent vigil.

Everything was quiet like that for the next half hour.

— -

Eventually, Anthony couldn’t stand it anymore and set down his book. The revenant was staring at its own arms, trying to follow a pulse of grey light through its elbow, but glanced up when Anthony rose from his seat. It looked at him, curious, but he just stretched his arms and yawned. “I’m going to walk around a bit.”

He went downstairs, followed by his zombies and ghouls. The revenant watched their miasma—and mana—signatures grow weaker as they moved further away, although Anthony’s bright golden silhouette was still visible even through the stone of the tower wall. The revenant was about to go back to looking at its own arms when the golden light suddenly winked out.

It walked over to the window, confused, and saw Anthony facing several… people? They were standing further down on the other side of the tunnel and had a faint silvery mana signature, clearly different from Anthony’s bright gold glow.

They were speaking and the revenant heard Anthony respond several times, but nothing could be heard clearly. Until the people started moving forward and Anthony spoke two words.

“[Necromantic Infusion].”

— -

Everything became a blur once the revenant felt the ability trigger. It stumbled and caught itself on the floor, feeling its insides churning as a flood of miasma entered its body. For what felt like an hour, but was actually only twenty seconds at most, the revenant crouched on the floorboards.

The feeling wore off and the revenant rose to its feet, moving to the window again. This time, it saw that a number of skeletons had joined the undead standing in between Anthony and the strange people with silver signatures. Anthony himself was unconscious on the ground and the silver people—that’s what the revenant thought them as—were standing still, looking at the undead.

Seeing Anthony unmoving seemed to trigger something in the revenant. An emotion—anger. That was it.

The revenant stopped thinking when the fury became all-encompassing. Everything seemed to turn grey and the silver people’s signatures suddenly blazed bright. Barely aware, the revenant felt itself leap out of the window and crash heavily onto the ground, immediately sprinting at the things who would threaten its master.

For the first time, the revenant became aware of different… thoughts in its head. They were only whispers, incoherent sounds and vague emotions, but the revenant knew instinctively that they came from its brethren—the zombies and ghouls and skeletons who were united in their desire to kill.

…threat…attaCk…DESTROY

With that last burst of fury, the undead charged. The revenant found itself following along, drawn to its fellow products of necromancy in a frantic rush. The silver people quickly moved to action, attacking the ghouls in the front as the pair of undead crashed into their group. The revenant slowed down, seeing weapons dully gleaming in the soft glow of luminescent moss and light stones in the tunnel.

Something inside the revenant, a cold, calculating impulse that wasn’t the source of the anger, urged caution at these unknown threats. Another impulse screamed for blood. Conflicted, the revenant continued on at a slower pace, wanting to rip into something and yet knowing that it needed to think.

The ghouls had already fallen, but not before bloodying one of the silver people. Blood dripped to the ground, carrying traces of silvery light. The revenant was invigorated at the sight and pushed forward into the mass of flailing undead and silver people.

The revenant spotted one of the skeletons get knocked down. Horrified, it watched as a silver person pinned the weaker undead down and levered an arm off with an ugly snap. Without thinking, the revenant lunged at the distracted silver person, crossing the distance in an instant.

A single crushing blow to the head launched it several feet away, where it staggered to its feet. From this distance, the revenant saw that the silver people were like the snakes in the dungeon—hydra neonates, Anthony had called them—with sinewy, scale-covered bodies. Their scales were different-colored; even with [Miasma Sense], the revenant could tell that the silver people had a duller blend of greys and blues rather than the green of the dungeon snakes.

They were much tougher, too. What had been an instantly killing blow to a hydra neonate had only stunned the snake-person. Not even stunned—the snake-person was already drawing a blade. It launched itself forward and the revenant, drawing on half-formed instincts, barely had enough time to hit the blade away. Its attacker immediately recovered and tried kicking at the revenant’s legs. The revenant didn’t have the time to avoid the attack, which didn't matter because the kick didn't turn out to be very strong.

The snake-person backed away after the kick and moved to stab again, but the revenant couldn’t have that. It grabbed onto the snake-person’s arm and pulled forward. Thinking of the skeleton, the revenant began to bend the arm backwards.

Screaming filled the air as the revenant put more effort into breaking the arm off. After a snap was heard, the arm suddenly became a lot easier to move. The snake-person stopped making sounds, too.

The revenant realized the arm was limp and useless and dropped the appendage to the ground. It looked around, seeing that its brethren were struggling. The zombies and skeletons, while relentless and unflinching, weren’t doing that well against the other snake-people. The revenant realized that it had forgotten to activate [Undead Presence].

It reached inside itself, trying to find the same part of it that activated [Miasma Sense] and [Corruptive Surge]. Suddenly, [Undead Presence] triggered and the whispers in the revenant’s head became much louder.

There was a moment of pain when the feedback became too much for the revenant to bear, but it passed quickly. It realized that the thoughts of the other undead were more coherent, the emotions making more sense.

blood fleSh kill MOnsTER hurt master ANGeR

The revenant tried to tune out the other voices and focus. The other undead had been bolstered by the ability, striking with more awareness and being more coordinated in bringing down their opponents. A dense wave of death energy washed through the area as the revenant used [Corruptive Surge], causing the snake-people to panic. A few attempted to flee, but were quickly ran down and torn apart in savage joy by the revenant.

Once the last snake-person had been rendered into a mutilated corpse, the undead grouped up around Anthony. Abruptly, the revenant felt the dregs of energy from [Necromantic Infusion] disappear and the whispers of the other undead fade into silence. Suddenly feeling drained, it slumped to its knees.

The other undead weren’t faring better. The fire in the skeletons’ eyes burned out, eye sockets going dark. They clattered to the ground into piles of bloody bones. The zombies withered, some simply falling apart as their death magic decayed and their wounds proved too much for their bodies to hold together.

The revenant could only look on dully as its fellow undead collapsed. Time painfully passed and the revenant slowly became aware of sounds coming from further down the tunnel. It turned its head to look and struggled to its knees, the action proving nearly too much for its weakened state. [Miasma Sense] was still active and it faintly saw a mass of silver light in the far end of the tunnel.

More snake-people, then. The revenant wobbled a bit and started walking. Running. There was no strength, no anger to draw on. But the revenant could only think of stopping them from reaching Anthony.

It ran, a single undead flashing across the darkness of the tunnel. The silver light grew brighter.

Brighter.

A single bolt of light streaked through the air and hit the revenant in the chest. It lost what little strength it had and flopped to the ground in silent despair. Even as the silver light reached a burning crescendo, the world went dark amidst an avalanche of grey and blue.

— -

“An undead?”

“Yes. This isn’t a human.”

Nuria’Rakon-Kir finished her analysis of the body and stepped back. The pale figure on the floor, quite similar to a human male, had crumpled after being hit by a levin bolt. Silaris’Rakon-Vor poked at the body on the ground with the end of his axe. It didn’t move, although the black eyes seemed to twitch.

He grimaced. “Filthy creatures, undead. Dispose of it.”

“This isn’t a low-tier ghoul or zombie, Vor-Sanle. It is the product of powerful death magic. With its signature, I could find a necromancer close by,” Nuria murmured.

“Then put the body in one of the cages. We must move.” Silaris stomped away, growling at the other Lithauri to hurry up and move their tails.

Nuria gestured for some of her accompanying warriors to pick up the body. They quickly followed her command, faces twisting in distaste at having to touch the miasma-tainted flesh. The other members of the warband gave the mage a wide berth as she moved to where the human captives were held. The broodguard there didn’t dare question a member of the Kir caste and opened a metal cage to put the undead in. The humans inside shied away from the pale corpse, trying to move away from the opening of the cage in what little space they had.

Nuria savored their fear for a few moments and turned back to the front of the warband. All the Lithauri were moving at a fast march, hauling the life-crystals and slaves further into the underdark where they would be safe from the accursed humans. The main body of the warband hadn’t stopped—couldn’t stop, really—for a single undead, and Nuria had to run back to the front ranks, huffing and followed by her contingent of warriors.

She passed the carts piled high with life-crystals, feeling a strange sense of rejuvenation by just being in their presence. Those assigned near them were lucky indeed to constantly feel their aura. The Lithauri, like all monsterfolk, needed life-crystal energy—mana—to function at a higher level. The mana concentration in most parts of the underdark simply wasn’t enough, so they resorted to taking what they needed. From the humans.

It wasn’t their fault, really. Before the humans had come down from the surface with their armies, there was an age of peace—an age of light. And before that, well…

Nuria shook her head. She tried to clear her head and focus on marching, but memories called. They were as much of a blessing as a curse, and came with her class, [Tribal Evocator]. Every story she had heard as a hatchling during the communions, every fragment of knowledge that she had learned from the elders had became permanently, irreversibly seared into her mind. It wasn’t so bad, except for when she started thinking too much and fell into a trance.

Like now.

Think of something else. Anything. Nuria tried to stop dwelling on the life-crystals, but memories of a previous [Shaman]’s lessons with a tribal mentor came to mind unbidden. The recollection couldn’t be ignored and she stopped resisting when a scratchy voice began speaking.

“Without the energy of the life-crystals, we’d lose our brains. Don’t laugh! It’s true. The lot of us would turn into animals. Just like our ancestors, eh? Look at old Killisia. She’s close enough. But where was I? Oh, yes. If the tribes lost access to the energy of the life-crystals, it would be dark times indeed. Oh yes, very dark. You think that we always had these fancy magic fires? Or metal tools? By rot and stone, of course not! We dragged ourselves into civilization! And it was all because of the Shining One. Without the crystal fields, we’d lose our spellcraft, forging, technology—everything! Even levels and classes, for whoever was lucky enough to get one. Unworthy, we’d all be…”

The voice faded away. Nuria tried to escape the trance, but to no avail. Someone new began speaking. She wasn’t sure who it was, although it hardly mattered. Theirs was a smoother voice, talking quietly as if they were reading, but the words carried weight in a way to suggest purposeful imprinting.

“Before the age of light, the monsterfolk tribes of the underdark went through eons of slow, painful stagnation. Endless fighting over the mana wells saw new territory taken through blood and pain, new tribes emerging—and falling—like droplets of water from a stalactite. Life was just a short, brutal struggle against the other monsters and monsterfolk tribes who had many mouths but nothing to eat. It was truly a pitiless, dark era.

But everything changed when the Shining One came. Nothing could be said about who they were, or even what tribe they belonged to, but their achievement remained in the memories of every monsterfolk who lived ever since. Thus the legend became better preserved than if it were carved into stone.

The details varied from tribe to tribe, but all agreed on two things. One, the Shining One had brought light to the underdark with knowledge about the life-crystals and led the monsterfolk to a new age of civilization. Two, they had been a Triarch.

The Shining One had been one of the rare monsterfolk who were born larger, stronger, and with more cunning than the rest. The monsterfolk used to share that peculiarity with—”

Monsters.

Nuria abruptly snapped out of the trance. She sensed death magic.

“There are monsters ahead,” she stated simply. “Undead.”

The captain of her escorts gave a brisk nod, unsurprised by her sudden words. “Yes, Kir-Sanle. We venture forth.”

He gave several signals to the surrounding warriors and a group detached, moving ahead. They approached the squat, ugly human-built structure near the end of the tunnel with weapons raised. Nuria narrowed her eyes at the building.

All the humans inside should be very dead. At least they had been, when the warband had slaughtered them earlier in their advance into human territory. But by the distinctive aura of necromancy she was sensing, Nuria was thinking that some of the bodies might not be where they had fallen.

Her thinking was correct when a member of the group called out, “Necromancer and undead!”

She saw several shapes on the ground, obviously undead even at this distance, rise and move at the group of Lithauri. With a few flashes of iron, the warriors easily dispatched them and went closer to the human outpost. Several stood guard over the area while the rest moved further into the tunnel.

At the fast marching pace the warband was taking, it wasn’t long before Nuria was able to see that there were a number of mutilated bodies laying on the floor. To her shock, they were Lithauri. The warriors around her muttered at the sight.

The captain spoke up. “They would be our forward scouts. Fallen to the undead.”

Nuria could only shake her head. The sight troubled her, even though she was no stranger to death. Victims of the undead always did that to her. Disgusting creatures, humans, for using those who twisted the deceased into a false second life.

The captain was speaking to the group that had gone ahead. “Where is the necromancer?”

A warrior pointed at a body on the ground. “Incapacitated, Aier-Sanle. We were not responsible.”

It held a similar feel of death magic to the undead that was picked up earlier, although it was surprisingly weaker. Even Nuria’s highly sensitive magic perception could barely pick it up. She inspected the human—one of their males—with disgusted curiosity. The captain stepped over, holding several enchanted shackles.

“The scouts did something right, then. Take the mage with the rest.”

Nuria watched the warriors bind the human necromancer and haul him away. The faint aura of death magic lingered in the air, keeping her on edge. She really wanted to run after the captain and put an end to the lingering miasma, but that was petty thinking. The necromancer was headed for a worse fate anyways. The thought briefly put a grim smile on her face before she composed herself.

The warband continued marching, streaming through the narrow gateway of the human outpost in fluid ranks. The Lithauri dead were taken in special carriers to be ritualized once they got back to the tribe. Once the warband returned to the tribal camp, there would be grieving. But right now, they only had time to move.

The humans always responded quickly. With their trained tunnel crawlers and fast-moving teams of mages and undead, the Lithauri were never safe unless deep inside the Crags. The two-hundred strong vanguard consisting entirely of members of the Vor caste would only buy a scant moment of time, but it was enough to make the humans hesitate before coming after the warband in vengeful pursuit.

And that was all the Lithauri needed. Nuria already recognized several features of the tunnels they were traveling in. Unless the humans were right behind them, it would be too late to stop the warband from disappearing into the depths of the underground.

Nuria already sensed that the mood of the Lithauri around her was rising, even after seeing the remains of a scout team. Who wouldn’t be jubilant—the warband had reclaimed enough life-crystals and slaves to last the next flare. When they got back to the camp, there would be celebrations indeed. The continued survival of the Rakon tribe had been delivered through a bloody strike at the humans.

Of course, there would be a retaliation. The humans would send an army into the Crags and flush out their camp, and the tribe would be forced to move. But the Lithauri were well-suited to be a nomadic race and could find new places to live in.

But for now, they could be content. They wouldn’t have to be monsters. They could live.