“Is it normal for Wilbur to be so rat-like?” I asked, walking into the library several hours later.

     Ahn’Khareen’s head turned slowly to look at me. “…Wilbur?”

     “Yeah, Wilbur.” I gestured towards my shoulder towards the skeletal rat, which squeaked a greeting towards the larger skeleton.

     Ahn’Khareen sighed. “It is a little-known fact, but almost every necromancer names their first creation, at least until they recognize the folly in naming such temporary and expendable things. I must admit I named my first creation as well, centuries ago. In response to your question, it is an answer in two parts. Firstly, the actions of your creation are tied with the concept in your mind when you cast your spell. You were thinking of how a rat behaves, or rather how an idealized version of a rat behaves, and thus… Wilbur took on those behaviors. Secondly, you used more power than was strictly necessary, and thus imbued your creation with more autonomy. I would council against that in the future, as skeletal soldiers are not ideal candidates to give autonomy to.”

     I shuddered at the thought of that and nodded. “I’ll be more careful in the future.”

     Sliding into one of the seats in the library, I stared at Ahn’Khareen. She was reading a book, a massive black leather-bound tome, and didn’t look at me for several minutes. Wilbur carefully made his way off my shoulder and down my arm onto the table, and I carefully tugged at the magical string connecting me to it, making him sit down and look at Ahn’Khareen.

     Eventually she looked up from the tome, slight annoyance in her tone. “Yes?”

     “So, what was your first creation?”

     “Pardon me?”

     “You said you named your first undead creation, what was it?”

     I felt like I briefly disassociated from my body as I said that the complete insanity of the sentence making me question whether I was still sane. When had this become normal?

     Ahn’Khareen sighed again, I could have an existential crisis another time, now was time for gossip.

     “Why do you wish to know? It is not a worthwhile topic of conversation.”

     “Please? I hardly know anything about you, yet I’ve been your pupil for almost three months now. At least tell me this?”

     Ahn’Khareen was quiet for a long time, so long I was afraid she would just ignore my presence there completely.

     “Very well. My first creation was a cat. It was my cat actually, before she had died.” Ahn’Khareen’s green eye-flames dimmed slightly. “I had loved that cat, and it broke my own heart when hers gave out. My parents had given her to me as a kitten you see, and she had grown up alongside me. This was when I was still young, so in the rashness of youth I broke into the restricted section of my village’s chapel and found a book on necromancy to bring her back to life.”

     “Wait, you became a necromancer for a cat?”

     The flames in her eye sockets flared. “I became a necromancer to bring back the only creature that had ever given me unconditional love. The only creature that would comfort me. You would do well to watch your tongue.”

     I gulped and bowed my head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.”

     The flames returned to their normal size. “I should be the one to apologize. You could not have known, and without context it does seem ridiculous. Yet to me then, it was the most serious thing in the world.”

     It was quiet for a long moment as we sat together.

     “So, what was her name?” I asked softly.

     “Mea, after the sound she made when I first held her.”

     “What happened to her?”

     “The local priest found what I had done and destroyed her. I was then severely punished for my transgressions against the gods.”

     “That’s horrible!”

     “Yes.” Ahn’Khareen whispered. “It was.”

     She stood up, collecting her tome. “That is enough for now. I have answered your questions, and food is prepared for you in the kitchen. Eat if you wish. Otherwise, I expect you to study the necromantic rites I have given you and continue to refine your skill over controlling your creation.”

     Ahn’Khareen left the room in a swirl of darkness, her black dress disappearing into the inky void of the hallway beyond and leaving me alone to regret my words. I hadn’t meant to bring up bad memories, but somehow, I had managed to stick my foot in my mouth once again.

     “Well shit.” I muttered to myself. “That didn’t go well.”

     Wilbur squeaked at me, and I looked down at the tiny skeleton on the table with a frown. Ahn’Khareen could say that I had poured too much energy into Wilbur, I had given him too much autonomy, or that my intentions had given him more rat-like behaviors, but for some reason those didn’t quite add up for me. Granted those were all probably very true since I wasn’t the best necromancer, but Wilbur was just a little too… alive for the explanations I had been given. It was disconcerting how rat-like he was to say the least, but at least he didn’t have a mind of his own. Didn’t he? He did do his little squeaks by himself which was a little concerning.

     Almost as if reading my mind, which was probably the least surprising thing considering he was tapped into some part of my mind, Wilbur clambered up my arm and held onto my shoulder, which was apparently becoming his new place to rest. He wasn’t heavy, so it didn’t exactly bother me, although the fact that a skeletal rat was a few inches away from my face was not my idea of a good time.

     “I don’t need you going all Skynet on me.” I said to him, eliciting another squeak. “You see, that’s what I’m talking about, right there.”

     Sighing, I conjured a ball of mage light and had it follow just behind me, illuminating the hallways as I walked back towards the laboratory. Ahn’Khareen apparently didn’t need any light to see, and the supply of candles had dwindled to nothing quickly until I had learned the light spell. Just the sheer number of times I needed to cast the spell every day almost dwarfed any other spell I cast, with shield coming in at second place thanks to Ahn’Khareen’s ambushes.

     I rubbed at my eyes, still considering the problem of Wilbur. Would I have taken Ahn’Khareen’s offer three months ago, before I had come to this world? Had the past three months of my life conditioned me to accepting the knowledge of necromancy? I didn’t want to think that was possible, but the fact was I just didn’t know anymore.

     Things were so confused and jumbled up that I had a hard time wrapping my head around everything. I liked Ahn’Khareen, or at least I thought I did. She was harsh sometimes yes, but at others it seemed like she cared about me. The incident when I broke down when first learning magic stood out to me, but it was rather hard to read her thoughts, considering she had no facial expressions or body language to speak of. She had even shared something very personal to her with me, even when it had obviously hurt her to do so.

     Space. The realization slowly dawned in my mind. This is getting just too big for me; I need some space to get away from it all.

     Of course, the lair didn’t have much personal space. While it was big enough to get turned around in and most of the rooms were empty, Ahn’Khareen had a scary ability to find me wherever I went. If I really wanted to get some space, I would have to go outside and that was just ridicu-

     I stopped in the middle of the passageway, struck dumb as I realized that I could go outside. Ahn’Khareen had never forbidden it, and in fact I had to do it several times when I was cleaning to take care of the dirty water. I had just never gone further out into the forest because… well because goblins were out there.

     Except like I had beginning to realize, I wasn’t the same man I was three months ago. I had magic now and I could protect myself from those monsters. I could go outside, breath the fresh air, feel the sunlight on my face. If anything tried to attack me… well, I would stop it. I could do that now, and I would never have to feel the fear of being hunted again.

     I laughed. It was a hesitant thing at first as nobody really laughed in Ahn’Khareen’s lair. But it continued to build up in my chest as the thought of freedom raced through my mind, and the laughter spilled out of my chest. I must have sounded like a madman, but it was just too funny that I hadn’t realized I could just walk out of the lair until now.

     After a minute of unrestrained hysterics, I slowly wound down, leaning against a wall as my laughing transitioned to quiet chuckles. At some point I had started crying, and I wiped the tears away with the rough cloth of my brown robes.

     “Wilbur.” I commanded, and the rat perked up. “Go to my room. Stay there until I come back.”

     The rat squeaked softly in concern, but I shook my head. “No, I need to be alone. Go.”

     It hesitated but scampered off my shoulder and down the corridor. I waited for a minute, and a feeling of… completion filled a small part of my mind. Through the strange connection that Wilbur and I shared I could tell that Wilbur had followed my orders, which was a feeling of relief. I liked the little guy, or at least I thought I did, but he was still a skeletal rat with all the creepiness that it entailed.

     Feeling fifteen pounds lighter, I changed my course and strode through the great hall towards the passageway outside. It wasn’t a long walk, but with every step I swore I could taste the sweet fresh air wafting in from the woods. Small ventilation shafts were spread all throughout the lair to carry air in and out from even the deepest reaches of Ahn’Khareen’s home, but only the entryway’s air truly felt clean. Once I reached the passageway outside though, I couldn’t help but hesitate.

     It was a beautiful summer day with a few scattered clouds dotting the beautiful blue sky, birds were chirping, wind gently blew the limbs of the trees, and I could hear the soft burbling of the river nearby. It was so majestic that it took my breath away, and I could do nothing but stared bright-eyed at the sights and sounds around me. Yet I knew danger was in those woods. Ahn’Khareen told me that she had “dealt” with the goblins who had chased me, but that didn’t mean others weren’t still out there, or any other kind of threats.

     The only way to know was to go out though, and I couldn’t spend the rest of my life in that cave, despite how nice it was furnished. Taking a deep breath in and making sure my spells were ready, I stepped forwards into the forest.

 

--##--

 

     It was easy to forget how nice the outside when I had been inside all the time. Living underground for three months was strange, as it was easy to lose track of time, or to forget what the sun felt like. For a good thirty minutes I just sat on a mossy rock and let the warmth of the sun wash over me. Right then it didn’t matter that it wasn’t the sun I had spent my entire life under, its heat was the only thing that really mattered to me.

     After some time pretending to be a lizard sunning itself on a rock, I decided to wander for a little bit, letting my mind process everything that had happened to me over the past few months. It had really been a lot, I had been snatched from my home, pressed into service as a cleaner, then accepted as an apprentice and taught the basics of necromancy. Walking in the woods for the first time in far too long, I closed my eyes and cried. It didn’t last a long time, and it wasn’t full on weeping, but I let myself cry because it was all just too much, and I needed an outlet.

     Maybe about five minutes later I wiped away the tears with my hands and grimaced at how dirty they were. I tried to wash my hands as much as possible, and I had practically scoured the top layers of skin off after touching Wilbur, but Ahn’Khareen’s lair didn’t have any soap. Why would she after all, she was a skeleton. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t really cleaned myself either in three months. I had taken bird baths to be sure, but since the lair didn’t have a bathtub, I had to make do with wiping myself down with a cloth. As I walked down a small game trail, more than anything else I desperately wanted a shower, or even a bath.

     It took me another minute to realize that I could, in fact, have a bath. Or at least the next best thing, considering Ahn’Khareen’s lair was right next to a river. Swearing to myself at my stupidity for not thinking of it sooner, I made my way back to the entrance of the lair, then followed the same path I had made on my first day here to go back to the river.

     It wasn’t the wind that made me shiver as I stared at the river, but the fact that I could still see in my mind’s eye goblins chasing me as I stumbled out of the water. I had been standing here, right here, when I noticed Ahn’Khareen cave. If I hadn’t been so perceptive, if I had ended up a hundred yards upstream, I probably would be dead right about now.

     Shuddering again at the thought, I turned and walked downstream. I kept going for a good thirty minutes, trying to get as far away from the entrance to Ahn’Khareen’s lair as possible. While I appreciated her knowledge, skill with magic, and even some of her kindness, I didn’t want the thought of her to be lurking around me while bathing. Some lines had to be kept uncrossed.

     Eventually I found a decent spot where the river widened, and the flow of the water slowed from a torrent to a gentle burble. With only a little hesitation I stripped off my clothes and dipped a toe into the water.

     “Fuck that’s cold.” I muttered to myself.

     I didn’t know what season it was considering I spent all my time underground, but the water was freezing cold despite the day being quite nice and warm. Still, I supposed I would rather be cold and clean instead of warm and dirty. Taking a deep breath in, I waded into the river.

     It was incredibly cold, to the point where it was almost painful, but the river got quite deep in the middle of the wide section. I could stand with the water just above my hips, and if I sat down on the bottom, it would come up to my neck. Regretting every course of action that had brought me to this point, I bit the bullet and dunked my head into the water.

     That made the experience a little more bearable now that my entire body had been drenched, and I took the time to get some running water through my hair. Back home my hair had always been a little bit on the longer side, simply because I couldn’t be bothered to get it cut, but without any kind of barber or hairdresser near a lich’s lair in the middle of a forest it had grown out quite a bit. At least I didn’t have to worry about my beard growing out, which was a small miracle by itself.

     Despite Ahn’Khareen not having any kind of cleaning supplies, to my complete lack of surprise she had many very sharp knives. I had been mildly concerned at the number of fileting knives she had but had tried to ignore the implications, although unfortunately now I knew for a fact that they weren’t used for fish. Still, she had lent me one that was small enough, and after several unfortunate accidents I was able to get a decently clean shave.

     I wasn’t sure if I had gotten used to how cold the water or if my entire body was going numb, but the longer I spent in the river the more comfortable it became. And considering how long I had gone without a proper bath or shower, regardless of the cause I decided that the lack of discomfort was a good thing.

     “Next time I’m going to have to bring a hand towel.”

     The combination of the running water and me scrubbing at my skin was getting rid of a lot of the built-up filth that hadn’t been removed from my bird baths, but next time I came out here a cloth would help a lot. Now if only I had some shampoo things would be even better, even though the water had gotten rid of most of the oily feeling my hair had been getting. I seemed to remember reading something about making shampoo from some the juices of some avocados, salt, and herbs, but I didn’t know if that worked. Or where I could get avocados in the first place, but I filed the idea away for future thought. Maybe other kinds of fruit would work?

     After maybe ten minutes in the river, I was feeling much better than I had before, and I let myself just float in the water for several minutes, staring up at the sky.

     “What have I gotten myself into?” I asked the clouds, drifting gently across the sky.

     No answer was given to me, and I sighed, getting my feet under me, and standing up, making sure to shake my hair out a little so it wouldn’t stick right to my back.

     Of course, it was right then that I noticed the woman standing on the bank across from me, mouth open as she stared at me.

     It was like a plank of wood had been slammed into the back of my head, and my mind whirled. There were people around?

     I swallowed nervously. This was the first person, the first real person, that I had seen since I had come to this world. I had to make a good first impression.

     Raising my hand in greeting, I coughed slightly to clear my throat. “Uh, hi?”