Despite the precariousness of his situation, Eric was still filled with a sense of awe and wonder as the world came alive with the brilliant rich palette of color he had always associated with his favorite fantasy games, the rich verdant forest rustling with the hints of countless secrets and eldritch lore against a backdrop of fairy song and musical laughter just a single shadowy step, or perhaps a world away.

Yet that wasn’t all he sensed. The swirling restless spirits of the recently departed were also swirling like wisps in the ether. Wisps that he could summon forth, or abjure, as he chose.

So long as he had an appropriate vessel.

Fortunately, his greatest fears with title boons that boosted mental stats seemed to be put to rest. He had refused to touch Charisma, Scholarship, or Willpower when leveling up, which would effectively give the System carte blanche to ‘help’ him think better, however it so chose.

The very thought made him shudder.

Yet he still felt completely like himself, even after multiple mental stats had been boosted by title boons granted by a newly ascendant Earth itself. Arcane Potential and Soul Reserves just felt like expanding resource pools, or increased stamina at the gym, and even his boosted Willpower seemed to translate as an absence of fatigue and despair more than it did any sort of alien shift in his persona.

Fear, regret, excitement, adoration, any active emotion? Sure as hell, those feelings hit him as hard as ever. But the negative sensations of exhaustion and apathy that would plague him after getting harangued by his mother or flubbing a scene were now utterly gone. Which was remarkable, considering the countless hours of summoning, fighting, and desperate struggles on two worlds he had been forced to endure without a good night’s rest. Yet instead of despair and exhaustion, he still felt oddly bright and focused, like he had just grabbed a full eight hours sleep.

But Willpower boost aside, he was still as vulnerable to the gut-twisting dread of imminent death, the same as any man. Such as when his danger sense screamed at him to MOVE NOW!

A heartbeat before his summoning circle was blasted apart by cannon shot, Eric refusing to call the odd keening sound he had uttered anything like a whimper, even as he tore through the grasslands faster than any cheetah, needing only a desperate surge of will and the last dregs of his experience pool to suck up the gloriously galloping quintet of mighty revenants racing by his side, their massive silhouettes making it impossible to hide.

His spike of terror at peril just barely avoided, his dismay at the absolute shredding of his soul-bound summoning prize transformed to wonder as his creations were claimed by the ring Samuel had insisted he take as his own, Eric only now fully appreciating just how priceless the artifact was.

Ring of Summons

Store any Pristine Balanced creation within your ring! Limit: 1 Conjoined summons per Necromancer / Summoner Perk Earned. Power of summons: Unlimited.

A true treasure, Eric thought, grateful to find that his final conjuration counted as pristinely balanced, perhaps because he had managed to summon a perfectly willing and, as far as he could tell, ideally infused revenant within each of his 5 linked pentagrams.

His smile froze on his cheeks as he forced himself to look towards the massive keep he was racing towards once more as his two remaining Tuskers split off from him to race in a tight circle about the keep to both distract, and keep all eyes away from him. For all his Strength, he still felt chills when gazing at the death dealing monstrosities above.

Cannons that had struck a target close to two miles distant, in the final golden rays of a setting sun only now dipping below the horizon.

He had broken the arcane connection between him and whatever shaman had been firing before. He knew it. Even a quick look at his dirt and bloodstained armaments spied no trace filaments of doom attaching him to any practitioner that he could sense. And his understanding of Shamans was that they could enhance accuracy against still targets to terrifying degrees. But the massive 24-pounders back in Gilton made it clear that it was accuracy alone that they enhanced. Not range, or there would have been absolutely no reason not to snipe with the far more maneuverable and shorter ranged bronze cannons.

Which meant that he was probably dealing with either human or an orc possessing an artillery class. And experience penalties aside, at medium or long range, with a clear line of sight, it was probably the deadliest weapon Eric had ever faced.

Immediately changing his plans, he immediately summoned his stored Tuskers and had them join the others, all of them now racing around the keep, seeking to harry and distract the increasingly scattered orcs who now found it far harder to detect anything but the massive tuskers slamming into them before fleeing away as the dusky gloom deepened, Eric no more than a dark shadow hunched over and racing through the waist-high grass.

Stealth check successful!

Because right now, it wasn’t about trying to eliminate all the orcs, it was about constantly changing angle and velocity so that the cannon-using orcs were both distracted by and unable to hit Eric’s revenants. And if his Tuskers managed to trample a few orcs here and there? So much the better.

Eric’s pounding heart had finally steadied to a far more sane rhythm, racing through the grass being effortless for him now, lips curling in a smile of excitement when it seemed that the coast was clear, the keep walls now right before him, the cannon he had spotted so poorly angled from his position it was just a sliver against the moonlight, roaring away at the zigzagging tuskers. And much to Eric’s dismay, actually bringing another one down.

Right before death turned to glimpse his way.

Eric’s smile froze to ice when he saw the massive long gun twist and move in ways that should be impossible for a piece of primitive artillery weighing three tons. Not without toppling right off the battlements.

But Eric had come too far to believe that physics had anything to do with the brave new world he found himself on.

Off like a shot, he began sprinting in a tight zigzag for all he was worth, racing right for the brownstone keep walls before leaping through the air as his danger sense flared like mad and the sound of a cannon’s boom thundered through the air.

Eric bit back a cry as what felt like several hail stones skipping across his back and helm, smacking hard enough that he knew they had left bruises, forced to wonder just how close he had come to death, save for Mithril armor and a 25 Damage Resistance.

And he had only suffered the most glancing of blows, a few stray pieces of grapeshot, unlike the massive spread of pockmarked stone that was now the keep’s own wall, just a short distance away from where Eric was now desperately scrabbling up the side.

“No fucking way that thing can shoot 90 degrees down. No fucking way!”

In that, at least, Eric was sure he was right. No more than 80 degrees, the spread alone having just nicked him as he sprung to the parapet, wide-eyes catching the bright heat signatures of a handful of orcs wielding spears, all of them guarding a short, weaselly-looking man who was snarling and cursing as his hands caressed the massive 24-pounder cannon before him.

“The shithead’s faded into the gloom, I lost him!” The stick-thin man wearing ragged military surplus with a bobbing Adam's apple declared, glaring out into the distance.

Eric wanted to sigh with relief, but his heart wasn’t having any of it, beating a fierce, staccato rhythm when he saw the scrawny man abruptly manhandle and maneuver his massive killing tool. Eric shook his head in stunned disbelief. There was no way in hell that scrawny figure should have been able to back up and twist the cannon mount enough to lever it free of its port and slowly turn it to face along the length of the parapet, clearly not giving a shit for the handful of orcs who would also be caught in the line of fire.

Because Eric had already been made, and the weaselly bastard now flashing a killer’s smile Eric’s way had been bluffing, when he had been cursing into the gloom, needing only a couple of seconds to twist his cannon around to blow Eric to kingdom come.

“Got you, motherfucker!” The gunner declared with a triumphant smirk.

“Pure fucking bullshit!” Eric screamed, the farthest thing from flatfooted as he sprang into action. Because that rat-faced man’s class might indeed have allowed him to pivot his multi ton cannon around as easily as another man could move a tree branch through water, but that was still a hell of a lot slower than what Eric was capable of, now racing so fast his foes had time for no more than a single blink before he howled and leaped over a half dozen musketeers and spearmen, narrowly avoiding a shot to his foot and only one actually having the presence of mind to thrust against Eric’s armored legs. The orc missing completely before they were all blown apart to bloody paste as the cursing gunner who had opened fire.

Rat-Face’s wicked burst of grapeshot left nothing but corpses in Eric’s wake, all the musketeers lining the western battlement shredded to paste.

Yet it completely missed a furiously howling Eric, or so he had first thought, glaring at a now terrified-looking Rat-Face, the hunched over man now lurching back and desperately reaching for an antique looking pistol in a shoulder holster before he blinked against the sudden flash of moonlight reflected of fiery red mithril, and continued to blink in dazed incomprehension while his head arced high over the bulwark as his body collapsed in a fountain of blood.

Quickness check made! You have successfully cleared Fatal grapeshot blast!

You have taken 1 medium wound!

Mobility temporarily impaired.

You have critically struck Level 22 Gunner!

You have successfully decapitated Level 22 Gunner. Experience earned!

You have successfully stored 3-ton Long Gun in ES space!

Eric felt a fierce surge of satisfaction when he claimed the 24-pounder with a slap of his hand, his inhuman strength alone declaring his right to Claimance by brute strength as well as victory in battle, the system making his appropriation as smooth as silk.

Though he hissed in fury when he detected no signs of black powder crates, steel canisters of grapeshot, or cannon balls.

Hard eyes quickly darted around for something, anything that would explain what the hell had happened. Was the dead Classer somehow gifted with some sort of arcane shell summoning ability?

A thought he had no time to answer in the split second between making his kill and claiming his massive prize before the handful of orcs on the far side of the gunner who had been completely clueless in the dark until the cannon had roared caught sight of Eric and raised their muskets to take out the intruder.

You have successfully darted below your foes’ line-of-sight.

Iado skillcheck made!

Peripheral Meridians have suffered Mild Occlusion. You are unable to channel Windfire!

Yet before a single 9 Quickness orc could line up his shot, Eric embraced the techniques he had struggled to master under a Cultivator determined to push Eric to his absolute limits, happily pounding Eric with spears and clubs of air until he finally learned to understand how best to wield the mithril weapon now in his hands.

And never had the difference between a skilled cultivator and a handful of orc troops been more apparent then when Eric completed his kata, spinning around to catch sight of half a dozen confused-looking orcs only then registering the killing wounds they had received, the battlement now covered in a spray of bloody entrails, arterial showers, and heads toppling to the ground. Surprisingly, despite them being lowly musketeers, all of those orcs had been kitted in full suits of armor. Yet neither cast iron chain links nor steel helmets had been able to ward a single mithril blow.

Eric hissed, his flash of triumph becoming the wince of a once more over-extended experience pool, his arms throbbing after he had tried, for just for a second, to infuse his blade with a storm of spiritual fire. A fire that had instantly fizzled out when the sharp burst of pain throbbing through his arms made it clear that he was already paying a price for his necromantic arts, and he’d best not compound plaque accrual with outright damage.

Eric sighed, giving a frustrated shake of his head as he spun around, hawk-like eyes looking for fresh trouble even as he despaired of being able to use his newly discovered abilities any time soon.

Because he was already close to bursting with potency that demanded release, one way or another, and there was only one outlet at hand.

If there was one mixed blessing to be had, it was that the cannoneers on the opposite wall of the keep were still distracted by massive tuskers harrying the ranks of the orcs below, the enormous, and Eric suspected, System-generated keep a good hundred feet on all sides. Because if the farmost cannoneers could barely make out the silhouette of those massive tuskers amongst the hew and cry of over a hundred men, if they assumed the roar of the cannon on the farmost keep wall was just one more shot among the many that the human Gunner had taken… that meant a few more precious seconds before his foes realized that something was seriously amiss.

Of course, Eric having just extinguished the handful of torches with a touch and his will, such that his area had become one with night’s caress, had no doubt brought him a couple more precious seconds as well.

But lazy and slothful or not, with all their attention on the spectacle of seven… shit, make that six surviving mastodon-sized tuskers below, the orcs weren’t complete idiots. Even now he could hear several sharp guttural barks in his direction from the battlement at right angles to his own.

He was damn well aware that he was running out of time.

He gave himself 20 seconds at most.

Time enough to both claim the Classer’s body and everything he had carried on him with the help of his ES Space, before immediately embracing the evolution that according to every game he had ever played or book he had ever read, was the heart and soul of battlefield necromancy. As to whether or not it could possibly be construed as ethical was another matter entirely.

Not that he’d let that stomp him for a single hot second.

Not when he had declared war against the entire orc faction, he thought, gazing down at the butchered corpses before him.

Where the spiritual beasts he had asked, his most hated foes he would force.

Eric clenched his jaw and steeled himself for a contest of wills like no other as he smacked the skull of one fallen orc after another with his blood-stained fist.

He stumbled for just a second, his mind was instantly filled with the furious screams and howls of countless warriors pulled from their eternal slumber.

He braced himself for the most gruelling fight of his life.

Shocked to find it no more difficult to direct the smoky spirits of his foes into their former vessels than it would be to scoop water in his hands from a bowl and pour them into multiple cups.

A little bit messy, requiring a small degree of effort, but in truth, no harder than that.

As for the spirit’s furious struggles against him, they felt no more significant than ripples on water’s surface when the land far below trembled and shook.

Ripples that bothered him not at all.

Eric was unable to resist an awed smile when the corpses at his feet began to twitch and writhe, blood and entrails slithering back into their former keepers like snakes and maggots wriggling in reverse, decapitated skulls reclaimed by spasming pseudopods of flesh reeling in their grizzly harvest as one corpse after another began to twitch and shake, whole once more save for pulsating ebony scars that squirmed and twisted over their now pale blue skin.

Then all six bodies abruptly stilled. Before opening their wide milky-white eyes once more.

Tusked maws abruptly opened to give vent to bloodcurdling shrieks as they lurched to clumsy feet and glared with inconceivable hate Eric’s way.

Before the crimson sigils upon each of their sloped foreheads blazed with eldritch fire, each and everyone one of them crashing to their knees, forced to obey the will of their new master forevermore.

Adept Spirit Mastery perk: Forced Obeisance has compelled your former enemies to fight by your side once more!

Willpower check successful!

Multiple Critical Success modifiers include Path of Dominion, Essence of Dominion, and a greater than 30 point Willpower differential between you and your targets!

Hidden Perk Revealed! Adept Mastery of Rituals of Summoning and Binding allows you the perk of Instant Transcription!

Any Necromantic Sigil you have mastered you may instantly scribe in blood upon your prey for a modest expenditure of Potency and a basic Willpower check!

Essence affinities are in effect with all blood-infused Instant Transcriptions!

Essence of Flame is in effect!

A basic skill check allows your Sigils to burn through any competing Necromancer’s ritual bindings!

Claim their revenants for yourself, while leaving your competitors to foot the bill!

Essence of Dominion is in effect!

Even sworn enemies forced to eternal Unlife will find it almost impossible to resist your summons!

Note. You have embraced the darkest of resurrections, forcing your enemies back within their own shells at a cost that is but a fraction of the potency earned with their deaths! A Binding skillcheck is needed to prevent former foes from flying into a frenzy!

Willpower modified skill check successful!

Your fallen foes kneel before your might!

(Corrosion penalties minimized: You are currently in a State of War with your targets!)

And how sweet a rush it was, Eric thought with a fierce smile, to see all his foes groaning their hate, forced to embrace living death by his will alone.