Chapter 37: The New Unlife of Tronvill
Pile the bodies up, stab someone a few times and watch them die, gather Dark energy, read the spell, summon the soul, and crush its pitiful or non-existent resistance.
Then start over again.
Aleric raised dead until his hands were shaking from exhaustion, and his tongue stumbled when reading spells. His apprentices slunk away to rest somewhere long before that.
Then Aleric spent several hours, ate a meal prepared by an undead housewife (delicious, hot, and nail-free), and returned to his grim work.
Murder, spell, soul, repeat.
He wasn’t the only one busy.
His servants were also working hard this entire time. Especially Samuel.
Capturing and corralling all the prisoners was only half the work—after that, Samuel spent day and night running himself ragged trying to fit them all in, make sure that none of them died from thirst or shock, and keep some soldiers close enough to guard them all.
Of course, Samuel was undead and couldn’t grow tired. But if he wasn’t, he’d drop dead by the end of this day.
All that labor was exhausting, but the results were as clear as the new day that rose over Tronvill.
Two hundred new undead servants were busy working for their master, and there were still people waiting for their turn to become undead.
For this, Aleric sacrificed so many people that his clothing and the ritual site became soaked in blood. He had to order his servants to make him a hot bath, first in many years.
But from the constant spellcasting, Aleric’s mana reserve grew by a third!
Out of the new servants, the most notable were various tradesmen and the town’s burgomeister, Ditrich Markson. In life, the plump and aging man Ditrich managed the town’s business and gathered a tithe for Count Arstain; in death, he managed Aleric’s business and made jokes about the dead not having to pay taxes.
Now Aleric had Samuel to manage the military and Ditrich for various logistics. This included gathering bodies, looting the buildings, getting more carts to carry all this stuff, and making the undead smiths fix all the battered armor and weapons in Aleric’s possession.
Samuel’s armor was first in line. Aleric also found his right-hand zombie a new sword—not as good as his old blessed one, but better than the temporary replacement Samuel was using so far.
With so many zombies walking around, doing various tasks, the town looked almost fine from afar, if quieter than usual. It was only up close that a person could see the pale skin of former citizens, or skeletons carrying things alongside them...
For many farmers who approached the town, thinking to sell their goods, the realization came too late. Wights were easily destroyed, but they were light on their feet and eager to give Aleric more corpses.
By evening, despite Aleric’s hard work, there were still plenty of corpses and living people. Enough that Aleric felt like getting a few assistants.
"I think you had enough practice, ’apprentices’. I can feel that your energy has grown stronger. If you can cast Pain five times in a row, you can cast Raise Undead Slave, too," he said to his gathered apprentices.
Now that the Leshmann siblings had time to rest, they looked much fresher than before. Their clothing also grew more fancy thanks to more trophies. They all listened to Aleric eagerly.
"Spine Staff, you will teach them this spell. And I will have lunch in the meantime."
"What a wise use of your resources, master! Of course, these... flatulences of a proper necromancer could learn only the smallest drops of my knowledge. But I will teach them to the best of my ability."
Aleric’s apprentices gasped in shock—all except Rita, who had heard the staff talk a few times before.
Instead, she protested.
"Hey! What’s that fancy word? Sounds like an insult..."
"You ignoramuses! Even my smallest vertebra still has a higher status than all four of you combined! Listen to lessons in respectful silence!"
Aleric quietly passed the staff to a nearby zombie and ordered him to stand somewhere at a distance.
"If you don’t learn quickly, I will just not teach you anything," Aleric threatened before moving aside.
His undead servants prepared a dining area: two wooden boxes that served as a table and a chair. The "table" was covered in a pristine white tablecloth, stolen from somewhere—the efforts of a servant who went out of her way for her master.
The Leshmann siblings glanced at the spread of food on the table with slight envy. They were eating whatever they stole, so far, even if they were stealing well.
But Aleric’s threat forced them to focus and look away.
Even Rita went quiet and just listened to all the lessons that Spine Staff generously mixed with insults toward the Leshmann siblings’ talent.
By the time Aleric took his Spine Staff back, his apprentices were trying to raise their first undead slave, with mixed results. Aleric himself went to speak with Samuel and Ditrich.
"What’s your current progress with assigned tasks? Report."
"The prisoners are getting more unruly, now that they understand that they are being turned undead, master," Samuel reported. "But there is more space and more people to keep them in check. I put the most annoying ones in the town’s jail, separate from the rest."
Then was Ditrich’s report. The plump man took off the beret hat from his bald head and bowed to Aleric.
"The inventorisation is a third of the way through, Master Fenn. The forges are working at full capacity repairing weapons; and what we can replace, we do. There was an arsenal with weapons for the militia, where I took some armor and weapons for our new ’involuntary recruits’." Ditrich laughed as if it were a funny joke. "There should be enough for two hundred soldiers, and for the rest, clubs, pitchforks, and hoes will have to do."
"How long would it take until the army is as well-equipped as this town can provide?" Aleric asked.