I move all the items away from the entrance and create a small hatchery for a few eggs, I also call a few Inscribers, these are the dwarves that use their beards and paint to write magical scripts on objects. Only my best Inscribers come forward, the works is straightforward but also a bit complicated: They have to write a special array on the entirety of the egg, the array is simple enough, it will enchant the egg to absorb and adapt to the mana around, so if the egg is in a place with high fire mana you will get a bird with affinity to it, an actual normal animal will never be born deep inside my dungeon, the necrotic mana is way too dense, I do wander what is going to come out, I can use my skill to see it is an chicken egg so… a skeleton chicken?

The mercury is a lot more immediately useful to me. I can make some… interesting traps with this. I will make one on the mouth of the cave.

The crabs have been quiet since the giant shrimps, I imagine they are congregating their forces or something, getting ready for a final showdown.

I’m not too worried, by now my army has a thick black haze all around them, the necrotic mana is dense enough that engaging in melee with them is a death sentence. My drones see movement, some crabs are sliding in the mud and water and approaching my army, their numbers are suspiciously low, three groups each with a dozen crabs. The crabs stop before even coming close to my army, they raise their claws upwards and through the eyes of my undead I see mana shine from them, my mages start shooting.

In less than a second the crabs lose all their color becoming bone white husks, the waters around them gain a deep sapphire blue shine that spreads around and becomes a large ring around my army. The area shakes, the water bubbles and the bright shine starts sinking deep into the mud.

Crab shining with vitality burst through the floor, surrounding my horde of undead completely. It doesn’t end there, pistol shrimps also burst through the ground with mudmancers behind them, a second force encircling my army, they start shooting my drones, which have to fly higher or farther away to dodge all the shots and soon start taking shots at my army proper.

Irax releases his bow, shooting sprays of arrows on the crabs and maiming them, but the things have such vitality that even when they lose half of their bodies they can still fight. The help is appreciated though, even if he didn’t really finish the job himself, with their insides out to the world the undead have an easier time filling them with necrotic energy.

It still is a grind, the constant bombardment of the shrimp means my whole horde has to stay on the defensive, too many sure shots can take most of them out of the fight for a while. My army finds themselves in a weird rhythm, a groove almost. They defend a bit, then when the opportunity presents itself they attack and take a step forwards. Those who can, like Kaiman and the mages, start firing back at the shrimps, slowly their ambush starts unweaving itself.

The mudmancers move, they all take their little squads of firing shrimp and move, sliding away they all gather together in a single line and start focus firing.

A few undead are broken and fall, but they are soon replaced and protected, deep within the black mana their bodies start reknitting themselves, my horde advances another step.

The crabs again relocate all the shrimps trying to move to a more advantageous position, trying to find a weakness to attack. I see my army slowly reorganize itself, I see their plan forming. The crabs also see the army shifting, and they see their chance.

The mud controllers see a weak point, a point where smaller skeletons are bunching up, they see easy prey for their water launchers and so they move, the firing line slides so they can have easy aim to the skeletons and start firing.

Only to be immediately fired against, the skeletons start dodging and advancing towards them, the mud controllers panic and a few of them die on the counter-fire.

The smaller skeletons were Stinger’s, she is in fact right in the middle of them dodging and advancing on the crabs, who panic and start moving away, pulling the shrimps. Stinger’s advance was more of a feint, one that worked, the crabs have lost a few of their numbers, meaning the rest now have to put more effort to move their groups, this trick will probably not work twice, not that we need it.

My horde keeps advancing, with each step they are closer to victory. The mud controllers try to move, but everytime they are thwarted by Kaiman, who shoots large lances of bone in their way, or Merlin and his mages. And soon Stinger charges against them, the whole army running right behind her, she is being covered by Merlin and his mages.

I can feel something passing through the army, I can see the veil of necrotic energy all around it, the way that Stinger is right at the front and is still enveloped by it, almost like the cloud has a tendril, like it doesn’t want to let her go. Stinger is faster than most of the army and I can see that thin tendril of dark energy getting thinner, I follow my instincts and tell Merlin to not let that happen, Merlin stops sending his rays and focuses on strengthening that small connection. Stinger hits the enemy line and after a few seconds so does the rest of the army.

When they join her I feel something pass between all of them, the necrotic energy all around them thins, not because it got weaker, but because it was suddenly absorbed by all of them. Then I feel it.

{The Dead March}

All of them got this skill, and it seems strong, I can already see black mana start exuding from them, making the necrotic mist all around them even stronger than before.

{The Dead March}

Increase necrotic mana and all necrotic abilities.

The more undead with this ability the stronger the effects.