Chapter 4

I used the newborn skeleton to look around my surroundings for the first time. I was in a natural looking cave room. The entrance of which had been blocked off with worked stone and a solid looking wooden door set snuggly into it. The room was lit with a largish brazier a couple meters away from where my heart pulsed. In total I’d say the room was about 12 meters long by 10 meters wide with a natural looking ceiling some 4 meters up.

None of which really stood out. What did draw my attention was a bloody diagram around my heart. A nine pointed star had been gouged into the semi flat stone floor. The star was surrounded by a 7cm deep trough in the shape of a circle full of old and drying blood.

In one corner of the room a pile of bodies lay haphazardly strewn. In addition to myself, the two skeletons, there were 4 black robed figures, and two bound and gagged humans.

I could not see the faces of the robed figures but I instantly knew which one was my master. “Not my master!”

I took all this in in mere seconds. The one I knew only as master stepped forward, but was careful not to move over the bloody circle. The light in the room left her hooded face completely in shadows, but I got a sense she was smiling. She turned to the other robed figures and said something. Then she pointed at my skeleton and said something else. Two of the robed figures nodded and left out of the room. She turned back to me and said, “Dungeon, give me control of the Skeleton. You will direct it to listen to me and only to me.”

My instincts screamed that her request was wrong! The skeleton was mine! I could not… no would not give it up! But all the screaming and ranting in the world would not help. Before I could even fully process the issue I had sent the mental command to the skeleton, “You will listen to the master and only the master. You will serve her now.” Uttering the mental words sent a shiver through my body. I cringed as the sense of the skeleton was ripped from me. In an instant it went from being mine to being nothing but another instinctual warning of danger.

As the world went dark and lonely again I sighed in despair. I was so wrapped up in my new world as a dungeon that I had not realized what I was missing. Now I longed for the familiar senses of sight, sound, touch, and the others. Sure I could kind of hear with the vibrations in my area but it was still lacking.

The two skeletons stepped out of my circle and disappeared from my world. Feeling them leave my attention was drawn to the circle. With a low growl I thought, “That is what is keeping me from expanding. I need to figure out a way to break free.” My thoughts of rebellion was interrupted.

“Dungeon! What did you do to that skeleton! It fell apart! You will absorb the energy of this slave and create me a skeleton that will remain intact!”

I kind of did a mental shrug, well of course it fell apart nothing was feeding it magic. Now that I considered the issue I knew that there was a difference between the Raise Skeleton spell and my created skeletons. With the spell there was a large amount of magic stored in the creation. That magic was slowly spent to keep the skeleton together and working. My skeletons did not have that battery. They needed a constant supply. Now not much I figured I could have 100 skeletons before it even totaled 1 mana in upkeep, but it was there none the less.

Another figure fell into my dungeon area. She had her throat cut just like the last one. I felt really bad for the woman… no she was only a girl maybe 14. But not bad enough not to be sucking her dry of that precious magic energy leaking everywhere!

As I took the last of her magical energy I consoled myself that if I could help her I would. Right now though I was stuck in a circle and unable to disobey my master, “I do not have a master!” I sighed in resignation at this frustrating trend.

Using the abundance of new energy the child’s death gave me I created a new skeleton. Knowing what was coming next I preempted the master… “Nope.” And issued the same commands to obey her and only her. Additionally I instructed my newest creation to draw its magic energy from its master. As the sense of this new skeleton disappeared and became the itch of a trespasser, I sighed. It was hard not to look through the skeleton’s senses while I could. I had resisted though knowing it would be a brief and pointless visit into the greater world.

A moment later the master necromancer “Yeah that works!” gave me the instructions to transfer the skeleton’s control to her. With a wicked grin ‘if I had a mouth’ I realized that she had not known I already did it. In a mental dialogue I played out the thoughts, “So, if she cannot tell what I tell my minions… Then maybe she has no way of knowing what I am actually doing. Perhaps if she doesn’t give me direct commands or poorly worded ones I can get out of this circular prison.”

As my mind raced with possibilities part of me noticed the skeleton pick up the corpse and leave my prison. That prompted a new line of thoughts, “Why did she not raise this one as a skeleton too? Is the spell so taxing she couldn’t? Or maybe she really did not need another one? What about all those bodies too? Why keep them if not to use them?” I had many questions but no answers. At one point I even tried to send a mental command to the lost skeletons but got nothing. Then in frustration I tried to contact the master… necromancer. Frustrated I gave up on that too when nothing happened.

With no access to more familiar senses again I lost track of time as my mind wandered and I attempted to contact anyone. I even tried to talk with the goddess, but she was proving to be very good at ignoring me. Eventually I moved onto other thoughts.

If I could not expand outward, maybe I could expand upward and downward? I could feel that even now my territory wasn’t an exact sphere. It was kind of annoying really. Like an itch that I could not scratch. It seems my instincts wanted me to have a perfect sphere of territory. With a mental shrug I started to use the left over energy that I had acquired to expand. It took more concentration to force this expansion but slowly my domain grew.

As my hearts pulse grew slow and sluggish I stepped back to see my results. I had expanded to just above the floor. Upward I still had not reached the cavernous ceiling, but I was closer. My territory now resembled a column roughly a meter wide and two meters tall.

I could now fully ‘see’ the etched star and the globs of dead flesh left from the corpse turned skeleton. First I studied the star. It had a thin silver bar laid into the etching. The bar was full of runes and markings that I couldn’t figure out any meaning to, but regardless I spent enough time to commit each and every one to memory. When I was done with that I focused onto the dead man’s flesh. This time I used the same sense I had on the skeleton to get a complete idea of its makeup on a sub-atomic level. With a start I even realized how I could substitute magic for many of the cells normal functions. I was rewarded with a prompt!

Learned New Spell: Raise Zombie

Duration: Instant.

Cast Time: 2 minutes

Cost: 1 Corpse, 200 Mana

Range: 10 meters +0.5 meter per level of caster

Description: Allows the caster to raise a corpse into a new zombie who’s completely under the control of its creator. Corpse must be with-in range.

Note from Ellinoria: Alex why would you want to do such a disgusting thing? Forget about this spell!

Looking over the new spell I smiled. Then thought about something that caught my attention. Remembering the information on my Raise Skeleton spell I saw the cost listed as 100 mana. That is about what I got from each of the deaths. Not too big of deal there. But, what really had me excited was that I had not needed that much energy “No it is called mana. The spell description says so.” to cast the spell. If my count was right and I really did not see how my new anal attentive attention to detail was wrong. Then I only used half the mana listed in the spell description! That means if the … master necromancer thinks it will take twice the mana that it really takes for me to cast it… then I’ll have spare. My excited thoughts kind of died coming to that lackluster conclusion.

“So I will have extra mana. What should I do with it?” I began to consider possibilities and wait for the return of the robed figures.

Dungeon Statistics Sheet

Name: Alex

Species: Dungeon

Variant: Slave

Level: 2 5%

Common Statistics

Health: 10 / 10

Health Regen: None

Mana: 10 / 200

Mana Regeneration: 1 / Day

Core: Diamond / 2cm sphere

Strength: Locked

Dexterity: Locked

Constitution: Locked

Intelligence: 10

Will: 10

Charisma: 10

Stat Points: 2

Dungeon Statistics

Type: Undecided

Territory: 1m

Rooms: 1

Floors: 1

Dungeon Species: None

Dungeon Points : 10

Population Statistics

Family: None

Slaves: None

Minions: None

Inhabitants: None

Pets: None

Titles / Achievements

List: Yes / No

Titles / Achievements

Title: Touched by Divinity

Your soul has been touched by a God or Goddess forever altering you.

Effect 1: Astral Projection

You can project your soul into the Astral Plane between worlds.

Effect 2: Unknown

Effect 3: Unknown

Effect 4: Unknown

Effect5: Unknown

Public Title: Yes / No

Achievement: Touched Ellinoria

You have touched the Maiden Goddess Ellinoria in an intimate way.

Effect 1: Mindspeak with Ellinoria

Effect 2: Connected to Woodlands and Fae

Effect 3: Skill Sylvan

Effect 4: Locked

Effect 5: Locked

Skills

List: Yes / No

Skills

Creation (Dungeon): Beginner: 3 10%

Mana Control Beginner: 8 43%

Show Affinities: Yes / No

Death Affinity: Beginner: 1 10%

Show Languages: Yes / No

Language – English Advanced: 97 85%

Language – Spanish Beginner: 51 3%

Language – Japanese Novice: 3 92%

Language – Sylvan God-Like: 100 100%