The sun peaked over the horizon, glaring down at its hateful new world. Filled with death and hunger, but also hope. That’s what I felt at least, looking at the small awakening Riverrun. There was a chance we could all not only survive this new world but thrive in it. But in order to do that we needed to work together, and not all of us were keen.

  I scowled at the sight of Tyriel and her newfound gaggle, Bianca and Erica followed her around like lost puppies. And what was his name, Aaron? Yes Aaron, he seemed to be more on the fence about me and preferred to stick to his own ways. If I understood correctly he was interested in setting up a forge and becoming a blacksmith. Though he knew very little about that sort of thing. Which only gave my plan for specter mentors more merit.

  I approached the Winterbound I had left behind for the Trial and crouched down next to him.

  “How’s the reading going?” I asked, stifling a yawn.

  “It is going very well, my lord,” The Winter Bound answered, “I’ve learned a lot in a short amount of time but I haven’t had a chance to put any of it into practice.”

  I nodded my understanding, reminding myself that while I had been gone for a few weeks, maybe months, only a few minutes had passed in Riverrun. “Well, keep doing what you can. I have a plan that you’ll need to assist Eustace in carrying out.”

  The Winterbound nodded, “As you wish, my lord.”

  I stood but stopped before turning away, “What’s your name?”

  “It’s Khatar, my lord,” He responded with a small smile.

  I thought back to Castien and the others, “Well, welcome to the team Khatar.” I turned and walked away towards the forest, Myer would be reporting in soon and we would know how to proceed in securing our frontier.

  I slipped into the trees and waited patiently in the clearing the General had departed from the previous day. Elden standing resolutely beside me.

  It wasn’t long before the familiar forms stepped out of the tree line, dragging corpses behind them. Seven Gnolls were tossed to the ground in front of me.

  “My Lord,” Myer saluted, “Your first official patrol has returned and is ready to report.”

  I raised an eyebrow, “It’s unlike you to be so formal,” I poked at the warrior.

  “I felt a great and sudden shift in our connection and deemed it appropriate.” Myer answered matter of factly.

  I waved away his explanation, “There’s no need for the formality. Report on what you saw and let’s detail a plan to secure our holdings.”

  Myer nodded, “As you say. The forest is filled with Gnolls attempting to integrate into the existing ecosystem. Harrying the Goblins that have claimed land to the North and interrupting our food supply by trampling through the Hunting Grounds Lady Robin has established.”

  I nodded, “And how do you suggest we go about dealing with that?”

  “We should take the offensive and give the Gnolls something to worry about, increasing our presence in the frontier would be the logical first step. But we need more proficient soldiers and scouting units for any effort to be effective.”

  “As it happens,” I smiled, “I have just the thing. But first you’re going to need subordinates.”

  “Sir?” Myer replied curiously.

  “These seven will be your first, I’ll raise Revenants from them but with artificial souls so it will be your responsibility to teach them. That’s the trade off for not binding existing souls.”

  Myer nodded slowly, “It will take time but it should work.”

  I glanced back at his small contingent of zombies and counted mentally, “And with twenty zombies already at your disposal you can begin the process of creating squads. We’ll increase the count as time goes on but I’ll need more corpses to do that.”

  Myer nodded, “We’ll return as many as we can. What about armaments?”

  “For now you’ll have to loot any equipment you can find until we get a smithy up and running in the village.”

  “Will they make such equipment for the undead?”

  “They’ll have to, an undead will be teaching them how to do it.” I chuckled.

  Myer grimaced but nodded, “That is true I suppose.”

  I shrugged, not really caring about anyone’s unwillingness to aid my endeavors anymore. At the end of the day I had the means to create my own settlement if I wanted to and could supplement my supply needs if it became necessary.

  I looked down at the corpses, from the looks of it they were in decent enough condition to be animated. Though with their new status as partially incorporeal, I wasn’t sure if that mattered as much anymore.

  “I’ll get started on raising these,” I said, “Take a break and relax for a bit.”

  Myer nodded, walking back towards the undead and setting them into a relaxed circle around the clearing.

  I took a breath, this would be the first time I used my new skill and honestly, I was excited. I raised my hands and focused on the corpses, a dreadful mist raising itself from the ground to encase them. Teal flames sparking within the dense enclosure. It took several minutes, maybe an hour to finish raising the corpses. Carving out their independent mana channels using ghostflame and imbuing it with just the right amount of death energy and mana. But before long they stood before me, the spark of intelligence coming to life behind their teal eyes.

  I looked at them curiously, spectral energy coalescing to replace the broken bits of muscle and tissue. One of them had a purely spectral lower jaw. I grinned at my newest creations, mentally labeling them with numbers until I could figure out better names. Or, I paused, when they became intelligent enough they could pick out their own. Yes that’s what I’ll do, I’ll let them pick their names.

  I turned my attention back to the Seven Revenants, “Welcome back to the land of the living,” I greeted, “I am your master and this is General Myer, he is where the bulk of your orders will be coming from and will be teaching you about the new world you find yourselves in.”

  In unison they snapped their heads towards Myer and gave him their full attention, it was a little unnerving. Myer chuckled awkwardly at the sudden pressure mounting on his shoulders. But he straightened himself and began to issue orders to the Seven. He already had his orders, I needed corpses. Soon there would be murders of undead crows flying through the skies and wolves prowling in the underbrush to aid the more traditional undead forces. I smiled internally at the thought, my army was growing and would only get bigger. But I needed to make use of all of my skills to improve them.

  I would need to find a purpose for the Shades, Ghouls, and the Winterbound next. I cringed at the thought of continuing to use Ghouls, I despised their hunger and knew it would bite me in the ass one of these days. But perhaps, with further evolutions it could be abated. If I were to continue using ghouls I would need to speak with Grigori. But once again I needed corpses to do that. And I only had the one shade for now, which still needed to be fixed. So my next course of action should be the specter tutors and summoning more Winterbound. But for that I’d need to talk to Eustace and Aaron, maybe Robin would want a second Hunter to help train any new recruits.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  I held out my hands, preparing to cast the ritual that would summon more Winterbound when I received a curious message from the System.

  Notice: Winterbound [Castien] would like to rejoin your service.

  I blinked, so he wasn’t dead.

  Notice: Required recuperation time has been reached.

  So they’re like Shades and Specters? They can die but eventually they’ll reform? That’s useful.

  I focused and brought Castien and the squad that had accompanied me during the later portions of the Trial forward. The Winterbound knelt immediately.

  “My lord, we are happy to see that you survived,” Castien said, “We have awaited your call.”

  “Took you long enough,” Syndra poked, “Making us wait thousands of years.”

  I frowned at Syndra, “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged, “All I’m saying is that you took your time,” She looked around, “But at least the world isn’t burning down all around us this time.”

  “Are you saying,” I hesitated, “That thousands of years have passed from when we escaped the Brood Mother?”

  She looked at me confused, “Yes. Why? Did you not realize?”

  I shook my head slowly, “It’s only been a day since I left the Trial.”

  “Time travel,” Elden surmised, “That explains why little to no time passed while you were gone.”

  “Time travel?” I looked over at my spectral advisor, “Why would the System do that? How would it do that?”

  “It is called the Chrono System,” Elden shrugged, “And Sirus was known for manipulating time. It could be that the System inherited that ability.”

  “So I actually was in the Abyssal War? Not some kind of facsimile?”

  “It seems that way,” Elden replied, “Unless time passes much differently where the Winterbound hail from.”

  “It does in some regards,” Castien added, “But not to that extreme. As far as I’m aware at least.”

  I furrowed my brows in thought, “We’ll discuss more of this later,” I rubbed the bridge of my nose, a dull ache forming in the bands around my head, “Castien, I want you and the others to resume your role as my honor guard.”

  The Winterbound nodded and stood, “Yes sir,” Ashryn said with a smile.

  “Now then, let’s go see if Eustace is feeling up to talking about some plans.”

  We arrived at the edge of the village several minutes later to the usual sight, however, Tyriel and her entourage appeared to have left the village. Leaving only Eustace, Aaron, Robin, and Harald walking around the village. Eustace and Aaron were closer to the center of the village discussing something excitedly. Harald seemed to be watching the horizon, lost in thought. Meanwhile, Robin was field dressing what looked to be four or five Deor.

  It seemed everyone was ready to get to work. I approached Eustace and Aaron.

  “A smithy would be fantastic,” Eustace was saying, “But we don’t really have anyone with that type of experience yet. Nor do we have many raw materials to work with.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Aaron replied, frustration coating his words, “But we aren’t going to get anywhere working off only the things that this System provides. We need more simple things and tools, it can’t be that hard to make such things.”

  “I think you’re underestimating just how difficult forging is,” Eustace sighed, rubbing his forehead.

  “I could help with that,” I interjected, “There’s sure to be a spirit of a blacksmith roaming around that I can make a deal with.”

  “No offense Crowley but I don’t want an undead forging all of our things, it’s bad enough you’re doing most of the patrols.” Aaron growled.

  “How about an undead to teach you how to do it?” I asked, ignoring his insult.

  “I-,” He paused, considering what I had said, “What do you mean teach?”

  “I mean exactly what I said, I can summon the spirit of a blacksmith, make a deal with him to train some of our people to be blacksmiths, and then once you’re all experienced enough I’d release the spirit.”

  “Could you do that for other professions?” Eustace asked, light shining in his eyes.

  “As long as I can find a spirit for it I should be able to.” I smiled at the gears turning in his mind.

  “The idea has more than just merit,” Eustace practically bounced with the words, “We could do so much more here if we aren’t dependent on the skills people show up with.”

  Aaron nodded his agreement reluctantly and added, “But you still have the issue of a workforce.”

  “I might actually have something for that too.”

  Aaron looked at me and rolled his eyes, “Of course you do.”

  “What’s your plan Crowley?” Eustace asked excitedly.

  “I can make more intelligent undead to act as foremen, with the less intelligent undead to act as workers. All you’d have to do Eustace is give the orders to the Foremen and they’d handle the rest.”

  Eustace held his chin between his fingers, nodding along, “That could work. A tireless labor force would do more than save us time on all the construction we have to do.”

  “Tyriel’s not going to like this,” Aaron mumbled.

  “Too bad,” I shrugged, “We need things to get done quickly and we don’t have enough people.”

  “How soon can you get this force together?” Eustace asked.

  “I’ve sent out patrols to hunt surviving Gnolls so I can start the process,” I replied and paused to do the math, “Depending on what I’m able to scrounge up it could be anywhere from a couple days to a week before I have a sizable force. But I’ll send them to you as I make them.”

  “Perfect,” Eustace clapped his hands, “I’ll start putting together the list of things we need and set them to work the moment they get here.”

  “Excellent,” I smiled, his enthusiasm contagious, “Ask around and see what else we could use a Spectral Tutor for. I need to go report to Harald before I do anything else.”

  Eustace nodded and walked briskly back towards his tent.

  Aaron watched me leave, mixed emotions playing across his features. Something between disgust and hope.

  Harald stood off at the edge of the river that bordered the western flank of the village, staring off into the rushing currents. He turned his head towards me when I stopped beside him.

  “Crowley,” He greeted with a slight nod, “What brings you here?”

  “A report on the frontier,” I replied, “We have an unknown amount of Gnolls integrating themselves, or at least attempting to, with the local ecosystem.”

  “It’s likely that thousands survived their initial assault on the village,” Harald sighed, “Not to mention whatever amount attacked other settlements.”

  I nodded my agreement, “I think we should take an offensive stance, hunt them down and eliminate the threat before it becomes unified.”

  “I agree,” Harald said, “But we don’t have the manpower for that kind of operation. And we can’t just rely on your undead forever. The rest of us need levels too or we’ll fall behind.”

  “Then we’ll need to step up our recruitment, we could send Robin out alongside Tyriel to cover more ground.”

  “We could, but then we’d be out our primary hunter. I was going to task Tyriel, Bianca, and Erica with the job,” He turned to give me his full attention and eyed Castien, who had been standing off to my right and slightly behind, “And who is this elf?”

  “This is Castien,” I motioned with my hand, “He and the rest of this contingent are my honour guard. But are you sure about sending out those three? I don’t think they’re suitable for the job.”

  “Their suitability is not affected by their disdain for you and your practices Crowley,” Harald scowled, “And we don’t have a choice, the village needs to be governed so I can’t leave, we need a steady supply of game so Robin can’t leave, and the construction efforts need to be heavily focused so Eustace can’t leave.”

  “The village needs to be governed?” I questioned, “I agree with the rest of your points but there isn’t a pressing need for governance. There are only eight of us.”

  “And are you suggesting I leave with them?” He pressed the words, “Why? So you can govern in my place?”

  I blinked, “No, I have my duties. I was only suggesting-”

  “Stop suggesting. I have your report, leave the workings of the living to me,” He eyed me, his stance taking a hostile tone, “Go back to your corpses Crowley.”

  “What the hell?” I stepped towards him, “Since when-”

  He stepped forward, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword, “You have your orders,” He scowled, his voice stern.

  I frowned but stepped back, eyeing him up and down with Spectral Sight, his soul was the same as the day before. The Abyssal Power he had claimed hadn’t made progress to claiming him. Instead of attempting to argue the point further I walked away. Castien and the others hot on my heels. Had that been the reason for his sudden change in attitude? That I was walking around with an honor guard? I shook my head to clear the thoughts, I could think about it later. For now, I had spectral tutors to summon and deals to make.

  I nodded simply and walked away, there would be no point in arguing with him further until I had cemented myself further into the village. Hopefully the Spectral Tutors would provide me the support I needed to be a full fledged member of the settlement rather than just a tolerated necessity. The walk back through the village was uneventful and it allowed me some time to consider all that had happened in such a short amount of time. And to confront some thoughts I had set aside when I returned from my Trial.

  Just over a week ago I was a sick dying man, with no future to think of. And now I was a Necromancer, put through the trials of flame and war. What would I become given enough time?