I had just found that I couldn’t connect with Blink when the skeleton came to a stop before me and held out its hand.

I yelled, “What do you want!”

Then I saw the little black crystal. I knew what it wanted. It was doing what I told it to do. It could do the tasks I gave it, unlike me. I couldn’t keep the people I cared about alive, but I could bring down the whole place around those who hurt the people I cared for.

I growled out. “I might have failed them, but I will make you pay.”

I snatched the crystal from the guard’s hand and brought it up in my interface.

Shade Crystal

To activate break crystal

The shade will be bonded to the one who broke the crystal

Remote activation is possible with a high enough control level

I took the smallest of the crystals and threw it to the ground. It shattered like glass on a stone floor. An inky black fog or smoke started to float up from where the crystal hit the ground. It slowly changed from an indistinguishable cloud into a bird. Perhaps even a crow if I was going to be really generous.

I focused on the shade, which was more complicated than it should have been. It almost seemed like it didn’t want me to be able to see it.

Shade

Undead (Claimed)

HP NA

Mana NA

Soul 45

Weight between NA

Armor rating NA

Weapons

Life exchange

Non-intelligent shadows of a spirit. These are the echoes of life, the remembrance of things past. They take the shape of what they were or what they remember they were. But, unlike wraiths, they aren’t tormented, as they are what is left behind when the spirit moved.

Shades are the least invasive and most loyal of all undead. However, they tend to be the shortest-lived. They are incorporeal and so can pass through anything except for souls and soul shielding.

When they attack, they touch something living. They exchange their death for the life of what they touch—one point of soul for one point of health. Every ten points they remove is a permanent loss until a blessing in a temple is given to remove it.

Shades do not replenish their souls.

Spiritual and magical attacks will cause damage at 1/5th normal damage.

I smiled. This would make a much better scout than the skeleton guard had. I thought to it to fly down the tunnel. I watched as it took off, then flew right out of sight. I flipped my vision over to it.

That change took a while for me to get used to. It wasn’t so much vision like what I was used to thinking but more shapes with a glow around it. The shade could pick out reasonably well what the tunnel looked like as it flew. Then as we approached the door, I started to freak out.

The door was huge and glowed brightly. The shade crow hit the door and flew right through it. I felt it get noticeably weaker and pulled up its stats again. The door had shaved off 20 of its soul points, bringing it down to just 25. The image I saw started to fade, and within two seconds, the shade was either completely gone or my control over it was severed.

I yelled and banged my hands down on the armrests of the throne. I wanted to get up and pace, but I couldn’t. The only thing I could do was hobble back to the file room and claim another skeleton. Then I would have to wait until I had enough mana to do it again.

I would have thought that I would have gotten an interface if I were granted the Crypt with the title. I paused my anger long enough to pull up the crypt.

If I hadn’t had a headache already, I would have when I pulled the crypt up in the interface. The number of options was slightly staggering to me. Each drawer was listed along with what was in it. There truly were thousands of drawers, some holding groups listed as swarms, and some had single listings across multiple drawers. It was almost like the drawer system was set up as a movable spreadsheet.

I smiled as I thought about that. A giant real-life Excel workbook where the cells represented real space and the pages were different walls. As that thought hit my mind, the endless pages of parchment floating in my vision turned into the crisp lines I used to. Each drawer was outlined with a thick border. Unlike in Excel, however, there were no empty cells. Instead, each one was full and labeled.

Then another page of parchment appeared in my mind with lists of other things: rings, staffs, knives, and robes. Hundreds of items were listed in what seemed to be the order that they were either added to the place or perhaps remembered as the Staff of bleeding death was listed directly after five gold coins of joy and proceeded ring of minor illusion.

I had hit the mother load of loot, but nothing listed said anything like replacement feet or missing leg. Nor did any of the items seem to tell me how to get out of this place nor how to turn off the siphon.

At this point, I hoped that the mana siphon was why the shade vanished on me and that something else wasn’t out there in wait. I also had just a little hope that the reason I couldn’t get a hold of Blink was the siphon blocking it somehow. I wasn’t sure if that was just me wishing, but at this point, that bit of hope and a lot of rage had me going.

With the help of my trusty guard skeleton and his halberd, I walked back to the file room. As I left the dais, I noticed two large poles near the throne. It took me another few moments of painful walking before I smiled. The throne could be turned into a palanquin of sorts. This would mean that if I could get enough undead, they could move me on the throne.

Another thirty minutes and I had with me eight more guards. Each was a lizardman, as that was the file room section closest to the door. With them carrying me on the throne, we returned to the file room again. This time through the tunnel.

As they lifted me, I noticed that my view of everything in the crypt vanished, but when we got into the file room and they sat me down again, I could connect to the system. I smiled a little and started working to get the minions I thought I would want.

While the twenty-foot-tall skeletons seemed like a great idea, I felt I was more likely to be fighting inside than fighting to get inside. I didn’t need to even think about claiming the undead battering ram. I couldn’t even think about what it would look like and didn’t want to get it.

I was already shutting my brain and emotions into the little box called rage. I didn’t need to see a battering ram that had been built or made by necromancy. I also stayed away from everything that just seemed a bit too far. Abominations, Amalgamations, Apocalypses, Inflated Skin, Skin traps, and the hand swarm all were left alone as just not happenings. My brain could understand that none of those were things that I wanted.

I pulled out four banshees that each came in a small bag. When I opened the bag, the banshee flew out. Then it bowed to me and started to hover around. I shuddered a little when they flew past me, but I didn’t even have to claim them now. It seemed that because I was on my throne, or perhaps my title made it happen that everything I went to claim was mine.

I found in the listing 180 death knights with mounts. I wanted to call them up right then and there, but there was no reason. I was inside the walls already. This was close fighting, and we would be fighting other undead and a few people.

I was about to leave with what I hoped was enough after pulling up several hundred warriors of different types and dozens of mages when I came across a section that made me pause and smile. Most of what I had been looking at had been humanoids or messes. However, I came to the area with the beasts.

I could see how having a few hundred Hell Hounds could be useful. Then I smiled as I saw wyverns, mountain lions, and all sorts of other large beasts. I pulled dozens of them down until I felt I was pushing the edges of what I could control.

Then I saw it, I didn’t know what I would use it for or why the last Deathwalker had made it, but I pulled out the mummified bee hive and swarm. Fifty thousand individually mummified and wrapped bees. Each bee was only half an inch long, but I was sure they would be useful to me.

I pulled the hive onto my lap and felt out across my control. I had just over a thousand undead that were mine to command. It was a lot, but the mental strain wasn’t too bad. If I got down from the throne, I knew most of them would return to being unclaimed. What I didn’t know and was worried about was if they would jump up to their max level or stay at the reduced level that I could control them at.

I cracked my knuckles as I shunted the pain from my eye away. “Let’s go visit a lich, shall we?”

* * *