Chapter 4:

My sleep was fitful and plagued by nightmares. I was chased by inhuman, shambling monsters only to discover that the monsters were me when they started devouring everything that I am, leaving nothing but a lifeless, hateful husk behind.

I woke up with a gasp, a strange taste in my mouth that I couldn't quite place. Pushing off from my cold pillow I looked around in the dim light and placed my hand in something sticky on the ground.

Looking down I saw the mutilated creature that I'd been using as a pillow and the memories came rushing back. With the memories came a deep horror. Hunching over I heaved, my stomach turning itself inside out and dumping the contents back onto the Lurker.

Panting I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. My hand felt sticky and crusty. The smell from having my hand so close to my nose sent me into a new bout of dryheaving as tears clouded my vision. Come on Rodge, this can't be true. This is just a bad dream, this isn't happening. I'm going to close my eyes, count to 10 and then open them up. When I open my eyes again it will all be gone.

When I opened my eyes I found that the nightmare was still real. Shaking I staggered towards the closest wall. Leaning against it I collapsed. Pulling my legs against me I cried into my damp, jeans-covered knees.

I don't know how long I sat curled up in self-pity, only pulling myself together when the need to relieve myself grew too strong. Even in my dazed state I knew better than to foul my only known source of water. Or well, foul it more than it already had been.

On unsteady legs I wandered up the sloping tunnel, into the areas lit by the luminescent lichen.

Revulsion once again rose as I could see my hands, and the formerly dark blue shirt now splattered in the brownish red and yellow of blood and gore. The smell I'd been ignoring until now rose. Sickly sweet and nauseating.

Looking around to make sure nothing dangerous was around I went to one of the depressions, hunched down and slid my jeans off.

Later I returned to the darkness, sans one shirt-sleeve. Having had some time to gather myself and think, I had started making up what could generously be called a plan.

Hesitantly I started on step one. Trying not to come into contact with the now bloating corpse of the human I had tripped over upon first entering this room I grabbed his shirt and pulled. The body moved slightly before a tearing sound could be heard. With a whoop I gracefully fell on my ass, a piece of fabric clutched in my hand.

Next I tried to walk into the shallow water on the other side and push with my foot. However the slippery surface threatened to make my lose my balance and I stopped. I considered using the corpseflame since it was supposed to be able to reanimate corpses. Though remembering yesterday and how it must have affected me I wasn't very sure. I couldn't remember a lot of being me, but how I was after using the flame really didn't feel like me.

Focusing on my status the window opened up

Name Roger Peabody Level 3 Paths Semi-Risen Allegiance Health 98% Mana 210/120 Health regen 0.01%/sec Mana regen 0.7/sec Humanity 100% Humanity restoration 0.01%/sec STR 9 AGI 9 END 9 DEX 10 VIT 8 INT 14 Honor of Valhalla 2 Skills Completely unremarkable Conjure corpse-flame 1 Honors of Valhalla

Looking it over it seemed a lot had changed. The humanity had once again been restored along with the mana. However the health remained stubbornly at 98%.

Feeling where I remembered getting hurt, I checked first my hand and then the leg. Feeling no obvious injuries there I moved my hands to under my shirt, feeling where the spear had stabbed into me. I was filled with existential dread as I realized how close to death I'd come. Pushing past the dread I felt a little lump where the wound should be. Exploring it more, it felt like something hard was under the skin.

Fuck, did I pull out the broken off bone-shard? Fuck, I didn't did I? And now the skin has healed over it... Fuuuuuuuck... I'm so gonna get an infection from this... Considering ways to get the shard out I arrived at two conclusions.

1.I didn't have any knife or anything to cut it out with. And 2. I really really didn't want to cut into myself to get it out. Settling on these conclusions I decided that the bone-shard probably wouldn't kill me if it remained for now.

Having settled on that I decided to do a little experiment. Focusing on my status I kept track of my mana and humanity as I once again summoned the corpse-flame. When I counted to 5 the mana and humanity were at 96.5% and 188/210 respectively.

Conjure Corpse-flame Has reached level 2

Conjure corpse-flame will now have a longer range it can be controlled at as well as a slightly reduced humanity drain.

Seeing this message I let the flame go out. Hmm, well, I didn't feel that different from my humanity going down. Maybe a little calmer but that was about it.

My hesitance to use the flame on the body was lessened and I turned towards it. Crouching down by it I once again conjured the flame. In the light I saw a bloated asian face that felt a bit familiar. Maybe someone from my group that had managed to escape the ambush?

Brushing my thoughts aside I focused on the flame, imagining it floating from my finger into the corpse. At first nothing happened, then it flared as if buffeted by wind and moved. Gracefully the flame swooped down into the chest of the dead man. Sitting in the darkness I had my eyes wide in anticipation. Nothing happened, then nothing happened some more. Finally when I started to consider what I might have done wrong I felt something against my leg.

Screaming and jumping backwards I fell on my back, scooting away from whatever was out to kill me now. Focusing on a wheezing sound from in front of me I noticed the hands on the corpse twiching and moving. Astonished I sat there watching. Over the next minute or so the corpse started twitching more and more. Fingers, hands and then arms. Soon the legs kicked and the neck craned.

The entire body spasmed and then suddenly it fell deathly still.

Chime~

A human has been reanimated under your control.

A level 3 ghoul is now yours to command.

* Necromancy added at level 1*

Necromancy level 1

Using unholy energies you are able to raise and control the dead through various spells and rituals.

You could also put curses on foes and objects.

Beware budding necromancer, the dark arts are reviled by most beings and gods.

Your necromancy level limits which spells and rituals you can use as well as strengthening their effects.

Infuse a corpse with unholy energies to create your grimoir.

I pondered the meaning of these messages. I didn't feel like being 'reviled by most beings and gods' was a good thing. But then again being trapped in a cave with psychos and monsters without any way to defend myself was something that probably was even worse for my chances of survival.

I decided that I probably had no other choice than to seize every advantage I had, and the power to command an army of the dead seemed like it could prove to be quite the advantage. Speaking of commanding the dead, the apparently reanimated corpse still laid still, unmoving like... Well... A corpse.

Slowly walking over to it I nudged it with one of my sneakers. The bloated body didn't react at all. Trying something else I instead tried ordering it. “ehm. Stand up?” I said hesitantly.

As soon as I had uttered the words the ghoul started rising up with jerky motions. Fumbling around a bit on the slippery floor, it eventually stood up, staring right at me with hollow eyes.

“Uhm, raise your right arm.” The ghoul did as I said. “Now raise your left arm.” Again the undead followed my orders.

“Okay, now throw them both in the air and wave them around like you just don't care.” A small smile tugged at my lips viewing this, possibly the first one I could remember. The sight of a flailing corpse was horrifying but at the same time oddly amusing. Huh, maybe something inside of me has finally snapped.

Eventually growing tired of watching the flailing ghoul I started revising my plan. Addendum, step 1.5, create a grimoir.

Okay, so I needed a dead body. I guess the lurker thing would make do? Though the whole 'infusing my unholy energies' part seemed a bit unclear.. Well, how hard could it be?

Walking over to the diminutive corpse I wrinkled my nose at all the horrid smells coming from it. The natural smells of a dead lurker did not seem to be improved by my old vomits that caked it. Trying to ignore the smell I crouched down and placed a hand on one of its webbed feet, trying to avoid touching any of the grosser parts.

Touching the thing I began experimenting. First focusing on the reserve I had felt empty when I used the corpse-flame. After a few seconds I could feel some strange energy flowing into the corpse but nothing seemed to happen. Checking my status I saw that about half of my mana had been depleted.

Huh, okay. Apparently that didn't work out, though getting a feel of my mana is always good I guess. Right, unholy, undead, necromancy..

Getting an idea I started transmitting my mana while trying to focus on that strange feeling I had in the fight, when my humanity lessened. The emptiness, the hunger, the longing and the hatred. Caught up in reliving the horrible memories it took me a few seconds to realize that a dark smoke started rising from the corpse. A twitching of the foot made me jerk away and I watched the smoke whilst disgusting, squelching sounds emanated from inside it.

Deciding that walking up the tunnel away from the sounds would be better for my stomach I set off. Still not seeing any sign of life I decided to use another of my honors of Valhalla to create a loaf of bread.

Happily munching of the fresh bread I considered my position. A fresh source of water and an undead guardian probably meant that I had a somewhat good place to stay. The lack of food was a concern though. I would probably have to go out and search for food or ways to get more honors of Valhalla. And for that I'd need a way to find my way back here. Seeing the breadcrumbs on the floor I got an idea. Maybe I could leave a trail of that to help me find my way back! A brilliant idea, truly I'm starting to get this situation under control.

But first I'd probably want some way of lighting up my new home. The lichen were an obvious solution. Given time they would probably regrow in the scraped off parts, though some immediate light would be nice.

Looking around I found a large, thick patch of lichen. Trying remove it in a whole piece I heard the now familiar chime in my mind.

Grimoir created.

The dark gods aligned with undeath and necromancy realized that their potential followers kept being killed off before meeting up with others of their kin that could teach them the spells and rituals. So they have created a shortcut for getting incantations. Using the spell “extract soul” you may fill your grimoir with soul energy and then use that to unlock new incantations.

It seems the process is completed. I thought to myself. Hurrying with the lichen I got a piece the size of a torso loose and started walking down the tunnel again.

The lichen didn't illuminate as much as I might have wished for but atleast there was a 2meter wide circle around me where I could make out the ground. Looking around on the shore a bit I found what appeared to be the grimoir. A small scaly book the size of two hands side by side.

Putting the lichen down I picked the book up. It seemed to be in good condition and was slightly warm to the touch. Opening the book I started to flip through the pages. It appeared to mostly be blank pages except the first page where lines, text and numbers were present. As well as the second page where at the top of the page was the title “extract soul”. The page was filled by descriptions and incantations for how to extract the soul from a recently deceased creature. It seemed that the amount of time you had to extract the soul varied, but generally was about an hour.

The page also told that the amount of soul energy extracted depended on the soul where powerful creatures and humans gave the most. That did not please me very much. I'd grown more comfortable with the thought of killing creatures like the lurker, but humans? And then using their souls for my own purposes? That did not sit well with me.

Flipping back to the first page I looked through what looked like a tree-diagram. 3 starting points that branched out to more and more places the further down the page they went. I scanned the page and the parts of the tree that had text.

Soul energy: 0

curse of doomed meditation.0/100 Create ghoul. 0/100 Extract soul 100/100

/ / /

Soul shield 0/500 soulbolt 0/500

I figured that the numbers next to the names was the amount of soul energy that was required to unlock the incantations. Though how many souls and of what kinds would be needed I had no idea.

Deserving a well-earned rest I sat down by the lichen with my new book, opened the second page and started reading, trying to understand and memorize.