The next day, Mori, Fara, and VII were all in ATHENA’s dynamo room, all working on seperate projects. VII was experimenting with the mana types they had taken from the dynamo, all contained in mana crystals the size of Mori’s eye socket. Fara was sketching down compact designs for the dynamos, previous iterations scattered around her own desk. Mori was painting a slab of metal with runes, her armor reflecting her concentration.
After a few more minutes, she put her brush down and raised the plate, looking at it with a big grin, “I got it!” she cheered, “We can start now!” she yelled, rushing over to the Talonec suit with a big grin, “You guys ready to see history being made?”
VII and Fara turned from their own work and followed Mori to the table, “We’re ready,” Fara replied.
VII sighed, “I always love giving my units life. It’s nice to see their first few moments of existence,” she said, “Well, unlife in your case, but that’s beside the point. Let’s get started.”
Mori nodded, smiling as she took the pile of organs contained in an ice box-- they decided to split the undead into organ-made, flesh-made, bone-made, and blood-made for the time being to gauge any differences among them-- and opened the small hatch right above the heart. The bulkhead-like hatch opened without a sound and Mori began to squeeze the organs into the necromass chamber. The smaller or longer organs, like intestines, kidneys, various glands, and the spinal cord, were all easy to put in. She ran into trouble, however, when she tried to put larger organs, like the stomach, heart, liver, and lungs, into the chamber.
She opted to press them into the chamber, crushing the carefully-made biological tissues into masses of bloody flesh. She ignored the crushing; the organs were only there because pulping them into a soup made her death mana treat the resulting slurry like tanned leather or cleansed clocksteel. In the end, she filled the chamber with most of the organs, with only the spleen and trachea left remaining. Mori pondered for a moment, then lined the remaining organs up with the small opening and pushed them inside with an increasing amount of strength. The last two organs were pressed in and Mori closed the hatch before any could spill out. She turned around to see how her spectators fared with the display, “Mori… that was disgusting,” Fara remarked.
“If you were not my friend, Mori, I would have assumed you were a mad necromancer with a display like that,” VII added.
Mori gave them flat looks, “I’m flattered,” she replied, taking a towel from the side to wipe the spilled blood from the shell, “But this is what we all signed up for, right? Why are you guys looking at me like that? I never hid my methods or anything.”
Fara shook her head, taking a breath, “It’s one thing to explain it. It’s another to watch as someone crams an entire dwarfs-worth of organs into a ball the size of a pair of lungs. Just… please tell me that’s not what you’re planning on doing with the flesh.”
Mori shrugged, “That’s exactly what I’m planning on doing with the flesh. The blood and bones should be easier, though. I’m crushing the bones and pouring the blood in, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to watch. Alright, now, let’s see if this works…” Mori picked up the slab of clocksteel from beside her and raised it. Gathering mana, she pushed it through the slab and cast the most coherent and complicated raising spell she had ever made. The shell shuddered, rocking violently, before suddenly becoming still.
Then, it sat up.
Looking around, it spotted Mori, Fara, VII, and ATHENA before looking back towards Mori. It stood, standing at over six and a half feet tall. Its armor was thick, but was not as proportionally thick as the fifteen foot tall knight Clockwork Fury and Jel found in the old Cyst. It was all sleek and aerodynamic, similar to Mori’s armor before her ascension. The helmet, however, was very different. It was exactly what Mori remembered a hoplite’s helmet was. The two eye slits were covered in glass and had runes that, much to Mori’s confusion, granted the undead sight. The rest of the face and head was featureless, with only another rune on its face meant to devour the mana from the atmosphere.
It stepped up to Mori and knelt, bowing its head and remaining there for a moment. It then looked up, as if awaiting her orders. “Looks like it worked,” Mori remarked, pulling the Talonec up and grabbing it into a crushing hug. Metal creaked and cracked before Mori could remind herself that the undead was somewhat fragile. She pulled away, checking it for damage. There were a few cracks on its armor, branching into trees of damaged steel, “Uhm… Am I really that strong?” she asked.
“You are,” VII chuckled with Fara, “But there’s also the fact that we didn’t design it to withstand crushing atmospheric pressures like, for example, your hugging.” The Talonec did not seem bothered, and Mori could see the cracks reforming at a visible rate, “Well, that’s working too. What else did you give it?”
Mori smiled, “Okay, I’m calling you Pandora, since you are holding plenty of bad things. For our enemies, anyway. Can you do a test for me?” It nodded, “Thanks. Try to move through the light coming from the floor.” Pandora nodded, disappearing with a gust of displaced mana rushing past them. Mori, through her natural connection with her undead, could feel Pandora hiding on ATHENA’s upper structure. She smiled, turning to that spot, “Good! Now try using the shadows!” she yelled. She heard and saw nothing, but the undead suddenly appeared in the shadows of her palm.
Mori turned her palm downwards, sending Pandora into the physical world as it suddenly appeared in her hand. It landed onto the ground with a dull thump, then stood, “Nice work,” Fara said, “What else can it do?” Mori laughed nervously at Fara’s question, “Mori… I don’t like that laugh. What did you do?”
Mori winced, “I… may have added a strengthening feature…” Fara gestured for her to continue, “And… I may not have been able to get the effort-based reward method of the system, so… I substituted. With… umm… combat…”
Fara stood stunned and with a growing scowl while VII raised an eyebrow, “Just to be clear, you mean ‘Combat,’ not ‘killing,’ right?”
“Of course!” Mori replied, “I wouldn’t make my children have to kill to become better! It just might make them a bit… battle-junkie-ish. They might start picking fights with things they can’t beat just so they can become better and more powerful. They might develop a culture of battle and fighting because of it, so… Yeah.”
VII chuckled, her scowl gone, while Fara sighed, “You had me worried there, Mori. I thought you just created a caste of undead mass-murders. That would not have been good,” she remarked.
“I’ll say,” VII added, “I once met a people who had something similar, but they consumed the souls of others to grow in strength. That was… not fun. Not only were they incredibly immoral, they were also nearly demigods in power once the last few of them slaughtered the rest of their species. Very annoying, I’ll say.”
Mori shuddered at the thought. She could only imagine what being ripped apart and digested would feel like compared to being torn to shreds and dissolved. When she thought about it for a moment longer, she realized that they likely felt the same, “Well, either way, I didn’t want them to be like that, so I intentionally made them grow from battle instead of slaughter. Hopefully they won’t do something like that. Right, Pandora?” she asked.
The undead quickly shook its head, putting its hands up as if to placate her, “It’s pretty smart,” Fara remarked, “Did you make it sentient?”
Mori paused, switching to soul sight and staring at Pandora’s soul. It was red like everything else and, like every other zombie she raised, there was no aura of S. energy around it. What was there, however, were sparks of S. energy. Ones that flickered out the instant they began, but were still appearing, “Hey, VII, what does it mean if there’s a bunch of S. energy sparks? Pandora has a bunch and they’re… happening a lot.”
VII’s contented soul suddenly roiled in surprise, “Wait, you can’t be…” Mori heard a pause, “By the gods you’re right! Mori, question, did you somehow feed mere existence into strength? Because those sparks are the soul trying to become sentient. It’s a big difference, but long story short, that’s how normally non-sentient things become sentient. The soul just has to become powerful enough.”
“So, that’s good?” Mori asked.
VII smiled, disabling her soul sight at the same time as Mori, “Yes it is. Very good. It’s on track to become sentient, maybe even sapient with enough battles. So, yeah. Good.”
Mori smiled, turning to Pandora, “Alright, go find your rifle and do… something. If you want to spar, find Fury. He won’t deny a sparring partner. Learn about your body, and teach your soon-to-be siblings on battle tactics. ATHENA and VII should have your little buddy soon enough. Go on, then,” she said, sending Pandora away through the door, “I think that was a success. Just imagine an army of light speed armored undead… that’ll do the trick. I hope.”
“The chances that a small army of the Talonec units alone will be able to defeat the enemy is small. I suggest using more resources than merely the Talonecs and their helpers. Air support from the death knights is preferable. Once locomotion is available for myself, I may be able to provide fire support. Assuming Mother allows me to,”
“I’m not a tyrant, Ath. Not anymore, anyway. Just make sure that you are protected, that we are at full production capacity, and that we can move. You can have as many guns as you want after that,” VII replied.
Fara’s face lit up, “Oh, don’t forget to make the beam crystal condensers! Actually, if you want mana beam cannons, I can help with that.”
ATHENA paused, “I will hold you to that,” she replied with an eager inflection to her voice. Fara smiled and returned to her work while VII pulled Mori to her desk. She pointed to a pair of mana types and asked what Mori thought was happening. After seeing the air freeze between the two runes, Mori gave her own theory. They spent another hour debating the question before writing down their best few hypotheses. Mori liked it. Working alone was fun, but working with friends was just as fun, if not more so.
If they ever visit earth that is going to confuse a few people