by Han Yang
The monastery held no defensive towers, palisades, or a moat. The interior of the short wall showcased a dozen basic one-story buildings. Everything pointed to a plain, basic monastery. That is, except for the statue in the center of the town dedicated to none other than Arax.
The shirtless god stood holding a sword and shield, arms outstretched as if welcoming a falling rain.
Maybe I would need to kill this hybrid after all.
“What do you -?”
I was cut off mid-sentence when a tremendous bolt of power shot down from the sky, slamming into the statue.
You have triggered a church’s defensive minion.
“Whoa, those are ten thousand Zorta,” Asha blurted, his eyes glazed as he read a similar notification. I snickered. “What? I find the church’s mechanics fascinating. I’ll kite the big guy and have the minions get the girl.”
“There’s not even a champion in this region,” I said.
He shrugged, increasing his voice as he rode away, “Arax can only have so many champions, and there’s a whole lot of regions. He’s first for a reason.”
Asha nocked an arrow, sighted the massive defender, and fired.
The projectile pinged off a blue shield, and the defender zapped out an arc of electricity. Asha’s stallion leaped over the attack, heading further away from me and the monastery. Thankfully, he did so with the defender slowly chasing him.
My minions caught up, and I led them into the city.
A monk rushed to greet us with a squad of infantry wearing Lind colors.
“I assume you know why I’m here,” I said.
He eyed the thirty armored skeletons then turned to see the faltering resolve of the guards at his back.
“We cannot give her up freely. We swore an oath to Tesana,” the monk said.
“This is an Arax monastery,” I said in confusion.
Charlie never slowed, defiantly pulling me closer to a slaughter. Mini clanged his swords, and I had everyone stop, bringing us back from the brink.
“Arax is a god of Nordan, not a competing god of Tesana. The devout do not push away the needy,” the monk scolded, his tone haughty. “Those who worship other gods are welcome here, especially when they grant donations to our cause.”
“Ah, you were paid to watch Delsy, and you think Arax is a neutral god. I assure you he is not. You have three minutes to leave the monastery. I am at war with Arax and will provide quarter to those who -”
Snap!
Bang!
A hole in the sleeve of the surprised monk’s robes told me the monk had fired a small hidden crossbow. I glanced down, seeing a dent in my armor.
My ability to deduce the situation didn’t reduce my shock. “You shot me. Six hells, you flipping shot me!”
I sneered, leveling my sword.
“Bring me the hybrid and raze the monastery,” I commanded. “Restrain those without weapons.”
Asha arrived with a tired horse, shouting, “A patrol nears. Be grateful they only leveled the defender to one because it’s dumb and slow.”
The guards all glanced at one building, backing up slowly.
Mini charged into their loose formation like a bull. The lidka arrived the second they tried to team up on the minotaur.
The eight men never stood a chance, scattering under the sudden pressure of the undead. Charlie surged forward, knocking the monk down, stomping his chest, and creating a sickening snap; his demise was over before I could even fight him.
At least the man died with a dagger in his hand. Other monks streamed out, fleeing without weapons.
“Don’t kill the defenseless,” I ordered.
Charlie carried me beyond the short fight of armored men versus skeletons.
Mini simply fought too efficiently, and the lidka only added to the slaughter. A lightning bolt slammed into a lidka, causing a flash in my vision.
Lidka 7 has died, costing you 100 mana. You have one hour to revive or collect the Zorta from the body. Cost to revive 133 Mana. Current Mana 55/155. (YES) - (NO)
You lack the mana. Consume .011 Zorta to restore one hundred mana and revive lidka 7. (YES) - (NO)
I selected yes.
A cloud of black magic swept across the fields, swaying the barley. The dark material slithered near the ground, like a dense fog, until it coalesced around the dead lidka. The air crackled with power, drowning out the cries of fight.
When my minion stood again, I saw them attacking the central tower. Mini tore chunks out of the metallic podium in an unnatural manner. Magic was clearly at work.
“You’re seeing the destruction of a church,” a female voice said from my side.
Delsy?
The woman carried a crossbow which wasn’t aimed at me. Her face… it startled me. She stood on par for the height of a man. Her soft cheeks, an odd snout, and a friendly smile. Very disarming if she weren’t able to kill me. The hybrid had found me while I cast and had decided to spare my life.
I shifted, glancing down at her. Charlie asked for scratches, as if already knowing the outcome of our talk.
“Are you ready to learn necromancy?” I asked.
“Are you sure I should be learning from you?” she quipped.
“You’ll die if you stay,” I said dryly.
She snickered. “Twist my arm, Mr. Mancer.”
“Name’s Damien,” I said, offering her a boost up.
“Delsy, and I know I have to go. I want you to know that not only do I not want to, but I consumed your reward,” she said.
I held my arm out, not taking it back.
“Zorta is not everything,” I said.
Delsy eyed me hesitantly, not wanting to accept it, but knowing she had to. Her resolve tightened and she slapped her forearm to mine.
I yanked her up hard, swinging her behind me. Feeling like we had overstayed our welcome, I charged the podium, seeing what would happen when I struck it.
A quick swipe of my sword revealed a notification.
You have attacked a church of Arax. The church is at 1/1000 hitpoints. In order to destroy the church, you must destroy the defender.
“That’s lame,” I grumbled, seeing Asha weaving between the building and the defender looming closer. I shouted, “Retreat!”
Mini ran to two dead bodies, tucking them under his arms and sprinting toward the portal.
“Why are they grabbing the dead?” Delsy asked.
“Uh… they’re my minions. I’m big on looting. Yeah, see, even the lidka are snagging the guard’s bodies,” I said.
“They were good men,” Delsy said.
“Hmm…” I tried to find the right words.
Charlie saw a growing enemy in the distance, spurring us forward.
I held on tight, seeing my army outpacing the defender. Eventually, the defender reached a stopping point, blasting a poorly aimed arc of lightning at my retreating army.
Boom!
A bright explosion of electrical magic missed horribly. However, it revealed our strength. Whomever commanded the knights in the distance decided to wait for reinforcements. Or maybe it was a plant from Nettle's team. They made it seem like they wanted to stop us but had to wait for more troops.
The great thing about the undead was that they didn’t tire and we didn’t need to slow our arduous pace.
“Where are we going?” Delsy asked, grunting while she clung to my armor.
“To a distant town called Seqa, a town friendly to Necromancers,” I said.
I never commented again about the soldiers she spoke highly of and who I had turned undead. In a perfect world, they’d be worthless, they’d respawn, and I’d never have to live with the fact their families would miss them.
In the world I lived in, they were the unhappy truth to war. Not everyone came home, and not everyone won.
After a hard ride, we arrived in the forest. We didn’t stop, but we slowed our horses. When the skeletons caught up, we kept a steady pace, riding for half an hour to our starting point.
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I expected a double cross or for a griffin army to block our departure, but none of that happened. I honestly thought the queen had set this up, and therefore our escape was hesitantly allowed to happen, likely excused as a nighttime misstep or something.
“Who’s that?” Jark asked as we entered a devastated clearing.
A literal land bridge went from the road to the portal. Everywhere I looked, the landscape ceased to exist. To the sides of the bridge, huge swaths of forest ceased to exist, as if a god had reached down and scooped up the soil to bedrock.
“I’m Delsy, champion of Tesana, and -”
“Stop, please, where we go, you’re Delsy the necromancer. None of you heard that she was a champion and none of you will remember anything besides what I said. Toss the dead into the portal,” I commanded.
Mini stomped by me, chucking two dead soldiers into the portal. The counter stayed at three. Bell and Kerny didn’t count, just like the dead guards.
“Good, all the minions into the portal except Asha,” I commanded.
The skeletons and revived minions rushed into the portal. When it was just us, I said, “Go back and forth until you know the counter is at a hundred and closes the portal on this side.”
“As you command,” Asha said.
I rode into the portal with Delsy still clinging to me.
CHAPTER 48
Town of Seqa
“Rumor has it, someone stole a champion right out from under Arax,” Caitlyn said, walking her spider queen body around to Tesana’s Champion. “The old gods have deemed it a breach of faith in his abilities, slapping him with a small fine.”
“I cannot confirm or deny these accusations,” I said with a mischievous smile. “I did manage to bring home an enemy champion.
Caitlyn snickered, wagging a finger. “Such a shame for any nefarious plots you might have. I struck a deal with Tesana…”
“Uh, you did what?” I blurted.
“Your protege will be building her own church in this town. She happens to have enough Zorta in her body to do exactly that and upgrade her necromancy skills a few times. Delsy just needs the practice,” Caitlyn said.
A purple magic oozed out of her spider queen frame. The tendrils of power twirled around the dead, animating the soldiers’ corpses in her church.
They started to synchronize their movements, dancing in a ghoulish manner.
“Gross,” Bell muttered, her eyes unfocused. She held up a hand, collecting her thoughts before politely asking, “What was the deal?”
“You know, us gods have treaties just as mortal empires do. Us saving her champion, giving her a home, and letting her build a church in a growing city were easy for me to extort. I received a nice boon, and you don’t need to kill her champion. If she dies on her own, or from someone you don’t control, it’s not my problem,” Caitlyn said with a happy tone even if her connotations were dark.
“No boon to us?” I asked.
Caitlyn let the dancing bodies hit the floor.
She reached the blank portal that currently rested offline and placed a palm to the frame. The church shimmied until the entirety of the stonework vibrated. The intensity magnified until my boots quaked. I spread my legs for balance with concern.
A blast of light blinded me, forcing me to raise my arms to cover the intense magic. A fraction of a second later, the church dimmed, and everything changed.
A spreading mirage condensed, and in the new reality, the church doubled in size. A blaze of light flickered with a sucking noise, concluding the transformation.
The church’s single door now was a double door. A ramp allowed easy access in and out. The stairs were gone, and the widened space of the interior echoed differently.
The portal chamber itself flared orange again, and most of us, myself included, drew weapons, worrying the Lind Kingdom opened the portal again. Instead, the coloration went yellow, telling us we needed to select an exit point. I slid my weapon away. The portal now read 150 at the top of the frame.
“Relax,” Caitlyn said. “When you upgrade a portal, it resets. This was a boon to you and me. We gained a free two levels on the portal and a bigger church. Now, play nice. This goddess has to go hide from Arax and pretend to be the boring bottom tiered god that I am.”
I held up a hand. “Will he know it was me?”
“The monk was a priest. Charlie crushed his lungs with you trying to reach him with your sword. Your face is engraved in his vision and therefore Arax’s vision. The same image that, I would have to assume, Toneba has recorded from trying to find you,” Caitlyn said then vanished in a poof.
“Damn,” I said, for multiple reasons. “I wonder if an old healer can amass an army to try to break down our doors.”
Tarla came over, using a rag to scrub my face intently.
“Six hells, woman, what is that for?” I asked, trying to avoid being mothered.
“Your face was caked in blood, Damien. You’re a Necro Lord, not a Blood Lord,” Tarla said, and I raised an eyebrow. “Bell, you had something to say?”
Bell always became a tad shell-shocked around Caitlyn. She idolized her god while I casually conversed with her.
“I… Thank you, Damien. We’ve faced life and death a few times. At first, I thought we were betrayed by this Nettle you seemed to believe in. His agents sent to reclaim his lost Z and our goods. When a goblin resurrected me, I knew differently from Tarla. You stayed alive, and by doing so, saved the day. Thank you,” she said in a heavy tone.
“Shucks, Bell, you’d do the same,” I said. I turned to Delsy. “What’s your cultivation at?”
The young woman froze, her yellow tigran eyes glazing over until she replied, “One.”
“Fighting?”
She huffed. “Pathetic.”
I rubbed my temples. “Sit down, try to claim the dead. Outside of the church. Don’t stop until you reach necromancer three and these eight undead are your minions.”
Asha and Jark began pulling the dead out of the church.
“Won’t she need Z to get started?” Bell asked.
“I thought I was going to have to hide a lot of things, but Caitlyn revealed most. Delsy has a lot of Z to work with. A goodbye gift from her aunt. She’ll run out eventually, but not until she’s ready for level five,” I said.
Delsy returned and said, “A Nessio is asking me which building I want to claim for my church.”
“Pick one of the empty warehouses. Then claim it for Tesana. Add that to your to-do list,” I told the young woman. “The dead are on a timer, so work that first.”
She left for a second time, and I headed to the map table. I saw the size of the table, and the map itself, had increased by fifty percent as well. Good, I thought. We needed more space.
Nessio cleared her throat as she entered the church.
“I see Caitlyn created a new expansion. The planet literally grew to fit her upgrade,” Nessio said.
“Yes, well, the gods are gods after all,” I replied, adjusting to give her my full attention. “How has your break been?”
“I came to talk about all the new tools. They seem to be going to only your people,” Nessio said in a deflated way.
I saw her pain from having to even say anything. Nessio clearly didn’t want to be complaining, but someone had compelled her to speak up.
“Ah, yes,” I said, leaving the table.
I stepped out and into the city of Seqa. The dim magic of the underground sun illuminated like a bright moon. That was the closest we came to night.
A pack of surly dwarves waited outside Nessio’s estate, likely awaiting news of a resolution.
I approached the group, eying them with a frown.
“The tools are mine. I didn’t buy them with your gold, or your battle prowess,” I said, and they went to quibble. I held up a hand. Nessio did as well, backing me up. “We can do work for ownership or some sort of deal. Nothing in this world is free unless you steal it, loot it, or get lucky and find it. All
I ask is for a fair exchange.”
“Define work,” Nessio said, speaking up for the dwarves.
Honestly, it was probably good for them to see us negotiate in a public manner. The fact we hadn’t planned out government out was beginning to show.
“There’s empty shops and homes that even I’m using for free without taxation. Which, yeah, if this was tax money well spent, and you did one in ten chairs for common areas, I would have no issue granting you a free tool. However, they cost money. I don’t care how that cost is repaid. Just make sure it’s something fair,” I said with a huff. “Does that make sense?”
“You’ll spread tools out if their use results in some common production also. The goods sold will get a ten percent tax until the tools are repaid?” Nessio offered.
“A temporary tax is fine. At some point, it needs to not be me, or you, financing a city, but I can easily support more Seqa citizens working for the common good,” I said proudly, not finding a candidate to pat on the back, so I stood there awkwardly.
“You still owe me seven Zorta,” a dwarf in the back shouted.
I frowned, turning to Nessio.
She shrugged and said, “I haven’t paid them back their fractions yet. I’m waiting until the debt is completed.”
“Consider Nessio paid in full and give her time to parse the Zorta back to you,” I said.
This ended the discussion, and for the most part, resulted in the dwarf leaving in a decent mood. I would consider that a win.
“Thanks for the compromise and for repaying the debt so quickly. Next order of business is cleansing the centaurs in the valley,” Nessio said.
“Umm… I need a scryer because we need to know if the minotaur horde is still in Tarb. I have it from a decent source that an enemy champion is looking for me. All information points to me being here. If a human army is coming, and we remove the centaurs…” I said, letting the logical conclusion hang.
“They won’t defeat an army. Scryers are about as rare as a necromancer. There’s decent Zorta repopulating that area, and if we hug the valley and head directly to Zozo Hold, it is only four days or so,” Nessio said.
