“Kal, please stay for a moment. I need you for the next experiment.” His sister’s voice stopped him from going his way. He had been busy helping her for the entire day, but he could not blame her. He was the only one she could ask.

Her craft did require a certain amount of secrecy depending on the specifics.

“Of course. But are you sure you don’t need another one?”

“Yes. I’ll be fine with just this much. I won’t make a mistake, after all.”

No further conversation flowed between them for a few mintues and only the sounds of them shuffling themselves and various items around the room remained. A candle here, another inscription of magic chalk there, it was a ritual that easily used up all that the room had to offer.

“And you’re certain you’ll be able to miniaturize this all eventually?”

“Yes. Doing this on a battlefield would be no different from suicide so I have to. Kal, I’m your sister. Stop doubting me on something this simple.” As she said this she shooed him away and began chanting, her arms drawing various glowing symbols in the air that flew to take their spots across the inscribed ritual. It was beautiful to listen to, but not the focus.

Kal was busy taking notes of every single thing, making sure to record no matter how insignificant it may be. He didn’t need to be reminded anyway, as his sister’s craft was extremely interesting to him in the first place.

Mana began flowing through the countless lines on the ground, the walls and even the ceiling as they lit up with an azure light that seemed to focus on the middle of the room, the place where the ritual’s focus laid.

And as it progressed, not only the Mana moved towards it. The materials that were arranged in certain spots also began dissolving and floating to the middle, resembling a gorgeous swarm of butterflies as they converged on that spot and formed a sort of barrier around the focus.

And despite all of this happening, the ritual did not take more than a minute before completion. A bright light burst out, white and pure as if blessed by the goddess herself.

And in the middle, the origin of this burst, was the focus of this entire ritual, the thing that both Kal and Kuna had been paying particular attention to.

They began observing it from every possible angle, inspecting various traits by moving it around and even injecting Mana into it to investigate more in-depth.

Thus they reached one conclusion.

“Hmm… So this is the limit for now. I already miss the abundant Mana of the Goddess’ Realm.”

“Well, you are technically dabbling in something that should be beyond mortal ability. Can’t really expect to succeed immediately without non-mortal support.”

“And you know as well as I do that I won’t settle for that.”

“Yup. But until you learn the particulars I guess this is all you’ll produce for a while. Plus, not every fault can be fixed by throwing more Mana at it. Having to learn low-scale control like this is also a valuable experience.”

“Yeah right. I’ll just parrot those words back at you once I resurrect you as no more than a rotting goop of flesh. Let’s clean this up. Please grab a broom and help.”

They got to work without another word, all three of them busily cleaning up the aftermath of the ritual. Or rather, the traces of it. Kal and Kuna erased all chalk marks, while the third person in room busily swept it all away.

Luckily it went much quicker than last time. After all, last time failed and only the two of them, people rather distanced from housework, had to clean it up by themselves.

Even just a third person sped up the process tremendously.

Once work was done Kal could return to his studies and left Kuna alone with her newfound companion, whom she immediately turned towards.

“So, how is it? Feel any different than when alive?”

She received a short nod in response.

“Think you can write what exactly changed?”

A short, pensive turn of the head, and another nod. She did not waste any time and handed them a pen and a sheet of paper upon which they scribbled their feelings.

It read as such:

‘MOt oR SkiLLs lAcki Ng

mMemorY aN d Thg outs … wEiRD

FeeEllings… HA PPY’

She studied it for a moment, before turning to them and bowing.

“I am very sorry. I wanted to do my best, but this is all I could manage. I will make sure to try make a better body for you once I’m better.”

The being hastily shook its head and pointed at the last line it had written. The white, bony fingers were clear against the brownish parchment and black ink.

“I am still sorry. I know… already being alive again somehow is fun for you but… Whatever. It’s… it’s fine.”

The skeleton she had created was extremely flustered and could not respond properly. It was difficult to deal with its own thoughts, now the being that was supposed to its Master was being subservient.

It was happy enough to be alive again and ready to give its all for this person.

The person that had kept it company in Death.

The person that had gone through such an effort just to give it its life back somehow.

It could not hate her, especially not when she was so saddened to be unable to make it stronger.

It wanted to help this person become their best, so she could help more and more spirits in its shoes, just like she helped it.

And even if it didn’t. It knew instinctively as an artificial Undead.

The curse of Necromancy would not allow the Undead to disobey the Master.

No matter how soft-hearted the Master may be, it is the ugly fate that comes with the practice.

It held its bony hand over the place where its heart used to be in prayer as it tried soundlessly comforting its new Master.

And it was then that it barely noticed.

The shackles upon its soul that should bind it did not exist.

***

A dark and dreary night, fog setting in all around the hill. No voice to disrupt this atmosphere, only sounds to strengthen it. Unidentifiable shuffling, the cries of Owls and maniacal cackling.

The perfect place to maintain the secrecy of this craft.

The materials were abundant in this cemetery.

Mistakes could be made with this much backup material.

Only a single, hooded figure shambled about the place, setting up small grooves in the dirt and drawing lines here and there. It was a ritual that almost took up the entire hill in size, even though it was really just lines and grooves.

A large-scale ritual to create as much chaos as possible.

The vaguely humanoid figure, fully obscured by the mixture of weird fog and oddly moving shadows, began chanting, its arms drawing rough symbols in the air out of the shadows that surrounded it. Its voice was crackly and unpleasant, the words undecipherable.

The shadows began flowing through the grooves that had been prepared and emitted an eery light, a dark and sticky perversion of light that could not reach very far.

And as it progressed these shadows escaped the boundary of the lines and broke into shards. Moving around the ritual grounds and towards the various graves, these shards resembled a swarm of locusts as they descended on the graves and pierced the earth.

The figure simply stood, continuing its chant as the hours passed.

Then, the earth broke apart signalling the end of the ritual.

The humanoid walked around the grounds to begin observing whatever foul beasts it had made.

It vaguely looked around the hundreds that had risen up and judged them to be good enough.

Not like it was expecting anything from lowly foot-soldiers, although it was still slightly disappointing considering it had to use its Master’s power for a bunch that pathetic.

The figure did not bother filling up any of the inscriptions it had made and simply made the group of creatures follow it in leaving this place. Its business was done.

The being did not care for the creatures it had raised, the shambling mounds of flesh that barely stayed on top of bones in places. They were disposables and it could always make more.

They needed only throw themselves at the enemy when given the command.

The spirits that were barely conscious in those zombified corpses were in anguish as they followed the being.

Their cries of pain could not be heard as anything but groaning.

The person that had ripped them from peaceful Death.

The person that had made them go through such effort only to end up with this shallow excuse for life.

They could only hate that being, especially with the indifference it showed.

They wanted to rip it apart, feast on its flesh and return to peace.

They wanted to prevent more Spirits from ending up in their situation.

But they knew instinctively as artificial Undead.

The Curse of Necromancy.

The could feel it strongly pressing down on them and their minds.

The shackles upon their souls that bound them were in full effect.