Now that we are more securely established I have decided to create a surrogate to represent me, using my own flesh and blood I made a skeleton that is a copy of my own. This makes it much easier to control and allows a good amount of my actual power to be used, unfortunately it still is weaker since unlike my actual bones these new ones are not so used to the manipulation of my powers. I also cannot risk having more than one for security reasons along with that it is not pleasant to make them. I have to literally cut myself heavily for the blood and fragments of bone. The estimated strength is high silver, rather down a few ranks but still the most powerful thing here if I need to suppress the group by proxy. I unfortunately can't use it for independent work since I have to be the one using it or it collapses.

I never actually showed my face to any of the acolytes having been wearing cloth masks and cloaks so now I get a bit more identity security. After swathing myself in a heavy robe with bone plates hidden in it along with a bone mask and cloth no one will know about my surrogate. Since I made this proxy of myself of course I disguised my heart beat and my life force was always dim to other’s sight thanks to the necromantic energy soaking me. Half the time it will be me moving around in person, the other half is my surrogate. I wonder what anyone will think if they saw under the mask of this one. Well anyway the days after the battle have certainly been fruitful but then again I never allow them to not be.

I decided since I had the time to pay a visit to the newest intakes, I made some facilities for the craftsmen and they have been working on basic life goods for now. The most menial work is being handled by my peons made by the acolytes led by a knight I can spare now that things are more plentiful. I do not plan on having them make any vital work till later, after they feel indebted to me sufficiently to have true loyalty. I asked around about the conditions but it is good for them, better than before but such is the lot of a tinker group. The religious lot are in another nearby village working on farming duties and supplied by the tinker group along with food from the other peon villages till they can stand on their own feet.

I turned some of the excess meat and viscera from our hunting expeditions into fertilizer along with burying some of the animal bones in the land to enrich it. As a finishing touch I am using a 4 plot system along with having there be emplaced mana stones to clear out some of the miasma in the sky so that light comes through more easily, of course said miasma is concentrated to be used elsewhere from the pillars.The plants grow well and the refugees now enjoy better sunlight.

They are quite happy to be allowed to worship however they wish and especially the worshippers of Veuna after getting a consecrated shrine to her in the village though the others made some makeshift ones. Looks like the worshippers of the goddess of magic have a bit of decent potential though no training, I will wait over time till some want to join me as acolytes. They are especially cooperative since it is apparent that I follow the same goddess but we will see for now how loyal they will be. Being crowned founder of this sect could be interesting but I do not feel like arranging such religious affairs so keeping that possibility for later.

The selected leader of the tinkerer group who was the one who spoke out before to me, a Sebastian informed me that he had overheard the priests talking about another bigger expedition going to occur. Apparently the one we just had was only partially sanctioned by the larger church body, they jumped the fence to get a headstart of the actual official expedition. This group will be larger by a good degree though he did not know how big. There are rumours of holy knights though he knows for sure that the priests mentioned church levy and kingdom troops being part of it.

Unlike this adventurer group I can expect more chaff and decent elites. This may be a test of my defenses depending on how many they can muster, I doubt that they can muster enough good troops to counter the amount of knights and mages I have but pure numbers could be a problem. Ironically since it is usually the undead who outnumber the enemy, here we have an established human kingdom and religion trying something. In comparison I am an upstart necromancer with some forces I managed to scrounge together, an annoying dynamic that may force me to act personally. I could fight much of this army by myself but that would reveal too much of my capabilities, true it would take time to actually muster anything worth a legitimate threat but still not what I would want to occur.

After finishing asking about what he had heard and other information on the forces of this land I returned to the shrine inside the castle to think. This being a holy shrine of my patron I feel calm here, I have never had a god to worship or have faith in before this and it feels.. Nice. There is also the pertinent fact that she can more easily hear me at her first shrine so some information please. Regardless this is a high risk uncertain reward situation the church is getting into though, perhaps they are declaring this crusade in order to unify themselves or did the gods get a bit more direct with their summons.

It would not be the god of the Holy LIght himself that I know. Looking over the information I was sent on the god of Holy Light I know that he is personally a vegetable. The fool got too power hungry and got what he wanted and more, he tried as much as possible to amass power and got turned into essentially a giant mana crystal. He has no more will of his own and is now a massive ball of holy power that his servants and worshippers can still call on. If the church of Holy Light is behind this then perhaps one of the god’s surviving divine servants are edging things on in secret.

Whatever happens I just need to continue my efforts to strengthen my power, my numbers grow as ever and my chosen elites prepare themselves. I have not been slack in personal strength either, there is not much time for learning new spells but I can improve my stores of power. With so much miasma I can easily store up necromantic energy, my miasma reserves, or even improve my mana pool. While I am a necromancer I still have a few tricks up my sleeve using regular spells especially with this nice divine artifact helping in that category. Digging around more for potential enemies I learned a little pertinent information.

From the word of those born in this kingdom the strongest is a high mithril knight named Carl Devi Yematen leading an order known as the Blue Bears who are the strongest knight group as well. With this being the strongest in the local area along with the strongest holy paladin known as Doren who is a mid Mithril holy paladin I do not need to worry about any one on ones but numbers may well tell the battle. I estimate that I have about two or three months before they reach the outskirts and about a month till they reach this fortress after gathering supplies. That is some time away but still I do not like it, I want the protection that only distance can offer, if I can increase the distance we are from the border it would triple their preparation time in comparison to travel time due to the lack of resources further in.

“Perhaps I can offer some help on this little event of yours”

‘Good I was hoping for this’

“Yes I can hear some of your thoughts though mostly only anything related to the dungeon or other pertinent things, which is mostly what you do in this room anyway. I have some privacy for my servants not that you ever thought about anything deviant here anyway”

“I am not some perverted youth fresh into puberty, I have had my years of life to live and experience things and this is not the situation to do such things in”

“I can understand, your thoughts about the church are most likely true but I cannot know myself as you recall my vision is restricted here. The thing I wanted you to recall are the other features of the dungeon system, so far you have used the duplication, item creation and building system along with the management but there are others. The agros de mortis has several natural locations that undead frequently crawl out of and the increased chance for the area in general of course. You can take better control of these locations to gather troops to bolster yourself and you can make use of the system to switch your locations with others in your domain as long as you do not have enemies near those locations. Not only that but you can also create what would be known as ‘proper’ dungeons, you know what dungeons are supposed to be?”

“Hmm yes, I certainly forgot about those parts. A dungeon was originally for adventurers and countries to be able to obtain otherwise unobtainable materials. I assume that the system knows about these locations and how to perform such actions?”

“Yes, you will be able to find out such things from the system. I do not have much else to speak about so farewell and be careful of that shadow I felt earlier”

“Of course my patron, farewell”

Hmm I especially like the sound of those natural sources, can I change it to be shall we say improved now? And that idea of adventurers and material, can I pull it off now then. We shall see as this is quite a bit up my priority list after that talk, perhaps relying on distance is not as needed anymore if I pull things off correctly.