Deathcreator Book One: A Flesh Golem's Ascension Page 15

  "I mean Harolf actually picked a fight with one of the adepts. Can you imagine that? An aged tailor picking a fight with someone who was born, bred and raised for necromancy. They say that when the adept won he had his flesh golem dry hump Harolf for more than an hour while people just laughed. I mean when the masters where called, instead of breaking it up they just joined in festivities sending some of the initiates to fetch wine. There was food served and it actually became a pretty fun party." The masked guy spoke, then laughed as if imagining it.

  Yep, that sounds like Dipshit. That has to be who they are talking about. His real name was Harolf huh. It kind of reminds me of a friend of mine's name back from my world, Harold Faulkner. We would play a popular card fighting game from time to time but he went by Haraldef.

  "The masters actually did that?" The red guy said absolutely flabbergasted.

  "Ah, it's just a story so it was probably exaggerated. My only question is how he actually managed to get the book. It's no easy task. Someone had to have been helping him." The masked man replied.

  The red guy seemed to finally catch his breath and spoke. "At least he was foolish enough to brag about this cave he used way up in the mountains and how perfect it is for private experiments." He began coughing again.

  The masked guy said. "Yeah, I heard he had plans to take his girlfriend up here until that story got around and she dumped him."

  "Who do you think told us where to find him." The red guy spoke between coughs.

  It looks like these guys are about ready to move. What should I do. If they get to my cave they'll find Lina and Leera. Neither of them are helpless, but these guys are definitely magic users and it's highly likely that they are still asleep.

  I could try to talk to them, however they are both tied to necromancy and would probably just see me as a flesh golem and attack. Although, I don't really look like a cobbled together undead anymore and I do have a pulse. I might just fool them.

  I could go to the cave, grab the girls and flee but they are too close now for that to work. I could also just ambush them here, surprise may give me an advantage. I'm more than certain that I could kill them both in one swing.

  From the conversation they were having I felt like these guys weren't that bad. They just sounded like coworkers around the water cooler. It didn't hurt my opinion of them that their subject of choice was Dipshit's stupidity.

  I decided I would go with a combination strategy. I would come out to talk, then if they attacked I would run in the opposite direction to pull them away from the cave.

  I canceled dark shroud.

  I stood up, and placed my weapon back on my back.

  I yelled in Therossian "Hey, is there anything I can help the two of you with?"

  They both jumped at the sudden sound. The red guy clasped at his chest for a moment before they both turned slowly to face me. They stared at me with dumb expressions as if trying to figure me out.

  The one in the red seemed to be appraising me. his eyes stopped on my harness and he spoke. "Where did you get that, um, fine garment your wearing?"

  "Off a guy I killed in that cave over there." I honestly responded.

  His eyes went wide at my admission. Yeah, I probably should've known that murder was frowned upon here.

  "Did... Did." His speech was interrupted by another coughing fit. I wonder, do they know about allergies here?

  It finally looked as if he had finished as he took a long inhale, but then the coughing resumed as the masked man and I just stared at him waiting patiently.

  "So, how are you doing?" I asked the masked guy while we waited.

  "Not too bad, how about yourself?" He responded.

  "You know, just killing sha'dwargs and pissing off dryads, normal stuff." I said.

  He gave a hardy laugh unbefitting of his frightening appearance and nodded knowingly. I noticed a strange quality to his voice, something I couldn't identify.

  Finally the guy in red seemed to calm down. He spoke. "Did he perchance have a book with him?"

  I crossed my arms and nodded. This is probably where things get ugly. He looked feeble, but the two of them had made it through these woods and up this mountain just fine in the dark. They even had the confidence to stop to have casual conversations. They definitely weren't weak.

  He locked eyes with me and spoke. "Do you have it?"

  I debated lying that I sold it or that I never saw one, but I've always been an honest guy, well mostly.

  "Funny story about that. I kinda absorbed it, then pushed back out the remains later when I converted it's god fragment into mana." I said as I gave an awkward forced smile.

  The old man went pale. He had an expression of utter disbelief, like when you tell a child that Santa isn't real. Not that I had done that. Well maybe once or twice, but they deserved it.

  The masked guy pinched the bridge of the nose on his mask and hung his head.

  The man in red spoke again in a voice that sounded like he was fighting the urge to yell. "We now know that you know what it is, but to make up such a preposterous story like that." He appeared to calm himself down a little before resuming. "Are you trying to provoke us?"

  It was true though. How do I convince them? I remembered what Mors had told me about Soul steal complete.

  I activated soul steal. Green flames shot from my eyes and a few random souls in the area flew into me.

  The guy in red grabbed his chest again and fell to his knees. The guy in the mask moved over to him and knelt beside him, the whole time he never took his eyes off of mine.

  I canceled soul steal.

  The old guy pulsed with a green light before falling forward. The masked man took several hurried steps back as the red guy erupted in green flames.

  His cloak and robes quickly burned off, followed by his skin, muscles and organs. The green flame was sucked violently into his eye sockets and finally seemed to be satisfied as the remaining flames diminished, leaving only his skeleton. The guy in the mask took off his cloak and laid it on top of the skeleton as if covering the dead.

  I started to ask him what the hell that was when the skeleton moved it's arms, pushing itself up to it's knees. It's bones were singed and the remaining tendons had fused to them in a strange way that held the bones together.

  It spoke in an ethereal voice. "So it finally happened huh."

  "Yeah, it looks like you were successful. Congratulations." The masked man replied flatly before helping the skeleton to it's feet.

  "Wow, I feel a lot lighter on my feet now." The skeleton stated to no one in particular.

  I let out a forced laugh.

  "Just what the hell is going on here?" I asked.

  The masked guy replied. "Oh, he's a lich now. That was what his goal was. Basically he forged a soul prison inside himself as he died and bound his own soul to himself."

  "Oh yeah, that." I replied in mock understanding.

  "Still, I just don't know that I could go down that path. I mean you lose the ability to enjoy food, drink and most importantly ladies and lady zombies." The masked man said as his eyes glazed over momentarily.

  The skeleton stared up at the masked man with it's jaw open for a second before speaking.

  "Your bizarre preferences aside. I've given up on most of that at least twenty years ago. I'm an academic. I will be fine with just my books."

  It looked back over to me and brought it's bony finger up to it's chin. "So, I guess you may have been telling the truth after all. I have only read about that level of skill in books far older than any of the kingdoms today. How did you obtain it?"

  "I'm a fellow selfbound undead, though I've gotten past that limitation as well." I replied.

  "Ah then you must have had a few millennia to master it." The lich said while nodding as if it had reached it's own conclusions. It moved it's hands from it's chin and continued. "That book however was one of our most sacred relics. It was only ever entrusted to the current heads of our order, and most of them were stil
l not a fan of using it, what with the soul eating and all."

  "Do you know what god it was that inhabited or created it?" I asked.

  The lich laughed as it spoke. "Oh, no, there's no way to tell that. It's just always sort of been here." The lich stopped chuckling and turned deadly serious. "I do know one thing about it though. If we don't have the book, then we need to have at least something to show for it."

  I turned on sense life, soul steal and dark shroud as I cast weakness on them.

  I drew my weapon slowly and exhaled fog as I spoke in the most sinister tone I could muster. "Are you two sure you can harm something that can absorb the book of souls?"

  It was a strong bluff on my part, but I hoped they would take it.

  The lich's mouth dropped open as the masked man stepped to get in front of him, his eyes wild with panic. The lich spoke hastily. "Of course we didn't mean you!" It started waiving it's hands in a placating gesture.

  The masked man relaxed and stepped back to the side of the lich.

  I think I won that power-play. I deactivated everything once more.

  The lich spoke again. "We mean Harolf's body, at the very least we need to show proof that he's dead and barring that we need his soul."

  "I kind of absorbed that too, well absorbed some, used some for materiel and I might have eaten some at one point. I also converted his soul to mana so there may be an odd bit of him here and there, but nothing I can give you really." I replied.

  I couldn't see an expression from either one of them for obvious reasons, but if I had to guess I would say they were wincing.

  "I can give you one thing however. Wait right there." I walked off to the corpses I had left in the bushes. I separated the small bear's remains and dragged it out to them.

  The masked man looked at me like what's this?

  "Masked man, you may want to go grab a snack or something because we're going to be here for a while." I said

  "It's Ralphus." he responded

  "What is?" I asked

  "I am. I'm Ralphus." he said

  For some reason I feel like that name should belong to an old guy with his belly hanging out.

  "Okay Ralphus, I'm John." I replied

  Ralphus burst out in a laugh.

  "You have such a strange name." He said.

  I stared at him blinking my eyes for a minute and decided to just move on.

  "Alright my fellow selfbound, I'm about to give you a treat." I said as I gestured the lich to come over to the bear corpse.

  "You may call me Barzealis. May I ask what we're about to do here?" He said.

  Damn people and their names here, why can't it be Steve or Josh.

  "Sure, we're about to make you a body to go over that skeleton." I said with a reassuring smile.

  The lich's jawbone once again hung open before it replied. "We've tried flesh constructs before and not only are they ugly, they all rot after a while."

  "I assure you, mine are top notch. Worst case scenario, you'll just have to shed the flesh suit and return to what you currently have." I replied.

  It tapped the side of it's skull with it's finger for a while as if contemplating.

  "I'll even let you pick how you want it. Any preferences?" I asked, trying to hurry this along. The girls will be missing me soon.

  The lich shook it's head as if to start to say no, but then thought better about it. "Do you have any examples of your work?"

  I wasn't about to let them ogle Leera and Lina. I pulled a fair sized chunk out of the meaty part on my arm. Then I separated an equal amount of flesh from the bear and fleshcrafted it to my arm. I then sealed and blended it. I showed him my blemish free arm.

  He nodded approvingly.

  "Okay, now that that's settled, any requests? I could even turn you into a woman if you wanted." I told him.

  Ralphus seemed to be looking on with interest.

  "Gods no, who would want that. No, just make me average build, nothing fancy and give me black curly hair with an impressive beard." He said as he lay down next to the small bear.

  I began imediately. I melded him with the bear stripping off the hair from the skin and grafting the muscles on top of his bones. I did a minimum amount of sculpting, just keeping him human. I gave him an average face and normal brown eyes. I evened everything out and melded my finger on to use blend.

  Yep, that's a normal guy. I might have embellished a bit here and there. Let's just say he might give dating another try now. I started the heart I gave him. It had moderate mana regen at around 5 per hour.

  Mors sent me an alert.

  Fleshcrafting Level 6:

  All Fleshcrafting speed is increased.

  You may now unlock the potential of a flesh constructs brain when fleshcrafting to learn mental abilities.

  Well, that was awesome. I wish I had that before I remade Lina and Leera, but I didn't exactly know how to make use of it yet.

  I disconnected my finger and gestured for him to sit up.

  He sat up, and examined his hands, flexing them as he got used to everything. He felt his face and his nethers as he smiled.

  "Great job! I would call this an astonishing success. Quite speedy as well." He said now speaking in a strange mix or normal and ethereal voices.

  He felt his chest for a moment before his face looked up at me as if afraid to believe what he was feeling. "My heart, I think it's actually beating. I never would have believed that this was possible."

  "Yep, welcome to the start of your living undead life." I said with a smile.

  He rose to his feet, stepping around carefully as if feeling the ground for the first time. Ralphus once again placed the cloak around Barzealis.

  Barzealis looked at me and smiled. He held out his hand and I shook it, being careful not to squeeze to hard.

  "The book was indeed a one of a kind rarity. However there are several other god artifacts and ancient tomes in the world. One thing is certain though. In all my studies and in all the history of my order there has never been a living undead before. The idea of it is simply too preposterous to ever work, but here I stand. The realized goal of necromancy. We may not have found the book, however we did find something that wasn't written in it." He broke off the hand shake and turned to walk away as if afraid I would change my mind and try to take his body back.

  "I don't have the words to thank you enough for what you've done today. In a weeks time I will send Ralphus back with whatever I can find for you from my personal items, along with some parts you may find useful." He started walking back through the trees in a mix of eagerness and disbelief as if the world was new to him once more.

  Ralphus approached me and whispered. "When I come back, I have a request for you. I also run the parts supply depot so maybe we can work something out." He handed me a fair sized piece of amber then ran after Barzealis.

  Given what he had said about zombie girls earlier I was frankly a little worried about what his request might be. I tucked the amber into my harness.

  I looked up at the sky. It was now early morning. I had apparently worked on Barzealis all through sunrise.

  I gathered the diminished remains of the small bear and dragged them to the sha'dwarg. I threw them on top and hauled it all back into the cave. Leera and Lina were sitting across from each other eating some of the bobcat and chatting happily with one another.

  It looks like Lina had tried on her mostly uncured gopherkini. I feel kind of guilty about the quality of clothing she has to wear. I made a mental promise to seek out better options in the future.

  I used stalk and stopped to listen.

  I heard Leera speaking mid sentence. "Yeah, I know, but we need at least one maybe two more I couldn't move at all after we were done last night."

  "Me either! There's just so much that comes out too, it's like he has a never ending supply." Lina responded while tenderly placing a hand on her stomach.

  Leera's expression turned sad for a moment before she spoke. "Do you think he's avoid
ing telling us about his past?"

  Lina responded. "I don't think so. He was probably just trying to make us happy after what happened. He probably thought we would be sad after we saw our son from before he remade us."

  "It was strange, wasn't it. Knowing that you and I were once mates in a previous life." Leera said sounding contemplative.

  "I have never told the boss, er, John, but I remember a little bit of it. Not anything solid, but the feelings stayed with me. They were sad. I felt so unhappy, insecure and incomplete. I think I lived that entire life in fear." Lina replied while looking downward.

  "And I lived more than sixty years alone, while my other half was also unsatisfied... No offense." Leera tried to chuckle that last part away.

  "None taken, I wasn't meant to be male, only he saw that. Not only did he give me the body, but he made me feel desired. He made me his, all the way to my soul. I know I can never belong to anyone else no matter how many lifetimes I live through." Lina replied in a self assured voice.

  Leera spoke. "I know what you mean. It was like all that time I spent was just in waiting for him. Then he just swoops in and gives us everything we always wanted. Even though we are mates, he doesn't just use us. He still makes me feel loved. Did you know I have teeth." She pointed her finger between her legs before continuing. "Down there."

  Lina looked at her with inquisitive expression while responding. "You have what? Down where?"

  Leera leaned back and slowly spread her legs as Lina dropped her food and moved closer. Leera flexed her body and winced in pain, letting out a small yelp.

  Lina jumped back in surprise while Leera relaxed and healed herself.

  "I think it was his way of telling me that I have a choice, that I'm not just for mating. His way of showing absolute trust in me. I don't think he would ever hold anything back from us, unless it was to protect us. But I sometimes worry he takes on too much alone." Leera said still breathing heavily.