A skull rolls down the street.
That picture was unusual all in itself, but taking into consideration that the skull was rolling down a street covered in blood and the butchered remains of the population of a small village, well, the real question would be, what the heck happened here?.
Short answer: War.
Long answer: The Glorious Empire was throwing a hissy fit, and the nearest population to the border of the domain of the city-state of Heaven's Peak paid the butcher's bill. Due to how the Glorious Empire was a human-centric nation with a deep abhorrence of magic; they are still butthurt about how an Overlord from the past tore them a new one; they seek out an adequate enough target to show Heaven's Peak; and by extension the other nearby city-states and countries; their displeasure about the negative of the isolationist city to join the Empire under the banner of the recently ascended Solarius the Sixth, the emperor of the Glorious Empire and, supposedly, a powerful demigod.
Of course, the finest nuances of the politics at play here were lost for the majority of the population, not to mention how the slaughtered village has zero to do with any and all external affairs of Heaven's Peak, but the Empire needed a demonstration of strength to let the world know that the Empire was a rising star, and everyone will either join or burn. The mountain town of Kharos was chosen as a sacrifice for such a bold statement.
Kharos was just a village on the bottom of Heaven's Peak's main mountain chain, one of the many agricultural villages that Heaven's Peak needs to feed its population, which is the usual mixture of humans and demi-races. The main agricultural product was goblin's cabbage, or gobage, and animal products like milk, meat, and wool. Gobage's fields are common all over the continent, the green vegetable could grow to the size of a full cabbage in a month, and it shares the green colors of the average goblin. The village had about two hundred people living in it, farmers most of them, with a couple of hunters, and the needed artisans to keep the business running. All of them were killed by a brutal charge of the elite chivalry of the Empire, and the entire city was reduced to rubble, with the main street of the village turned into a slaughterhouse.
Which leads to the original statement, a skull rolling down the street.
It was obvious to anyone seeing the skull, that the flesh-free bone was utterly annoyed, frustrated, and seriously confused. For a bleached human skull, it was mindbogglingly expressive, with the bone moving in some unnatural ways to convey the previously mentioned emotions. Being the most obvious among them at the moment, frustration. Taking into account how the only way of motion available for the skull seemed to be rolling around with the dexterity of a toddler, well, frustration and annoyance were to be expected.
From where did the head come from, and how come it was actually moving?.
To answer that, a bit of context is needed.
In the World; as the planet was more commonly known; monsters and demi-races were common. Among the monster races, the undead are one of the most common types. Dark magic, deep grudges, necromancy, and the list of causes for the rise of the undead are long and varied. Most likely, the village of Kharos would become a haunted place in the future, with zombies, ghosts, and maybe an advanced type of undead roaming around the place.
On a side note, that was also the intention of the Empire, they were so savages on purpose, to create an undead spot and force Heaven's Peak to deal with it, Of course, no one would ever believe that the Empire would have anything to do with the massacre, but some words dropped here and there during the diplomatic meetings, and the timing of the massacre was too perfect for anyone with an ounce of political savvy to realize who was behind the massacre, and why. Still, it was a bloody hissy fit from an Empire that ruled over a third of the continent, but with an egomaniac at the reins, such occurrences were inevitable.
Anyhow, with the corpses left around like that, sooner or later, the undead will rise. There was no one to perform the adequate funeral rites; or a simple bonfire where to burn the corpses, the most used method to prevent undead risings; and the grudge of the locals for their killers would be one for the ages, so that could be the origin of the roaming skull. If the undead surged from among the many victims of the carnage, then it was a very unusual surge of undead monsters. Typically, undead in these kinds of circumstances would be zombies, perhaps an advanced type, and lots of ghosts, wraiths, and skeletons that would raise off the more broken corpses and the local graveyard as the village becomes more and more haunted, instead, the only undead seen was a skull rolling down the streets and looking mighty pissed about the world in general. By the way, intelligent undead are rare, and mostly among the advanced ranks of monsters, individuals like the infamous liches, vampires, and the sort.
Of course, such disquisitions about the why and how the skull came to be were precisely the last thoughts running inside the empty brain cavity of the skull.
Ruins of Kharos Village.
Day 1.
Monster Rank E:
Lost Soul Lvl 1
Blessings:
Blessing of the God of Nature and Souls
Job:
Farmer: 86
Skills:
Animal Husbandry
Farming
Shovel
This is insulting.
It was already bad enough to wake into this accursed new life inside of a bucket full of rotten flesh, water, and blood. The gruesome mixture bubbled for a long time, as I screamed my existential dread to whoever may listen up or down there, by the way, none answered. After my initial freak out, I discovered that I was able to absorb the horrid mixture; small mercies, I did not taste it, and turn that into an energy of sorts that I used to free myself from my bucket container.
I jumped out of the bucket and I fell teeth first into the cold stone floor of the main road of Kharos. How do I know the name of the village? No idea. How do I know the names of some of the corpses around me? No idea, how do I know that the decapitated corpse over the bucket was the origin of the skull that I was inhabiting right now? Well that was an easy deduction, but the problem is that I knew that the corpse was not me, ergo, the skull was not me, and that I was a stranger in the strangest land. Worse of all, I did not even remember my name, I mean, I knew that the corpse was called Andrew, but I also knew that I was not Andrew, but to make things worse, I did not remember my bloody name before I was turned into a fumbling skull of the bloody floor.
Covering my mind with the armor of resignation, I tried to move, trying to find the mental click that would allow me to do something more than shuffle around like a maraca, which led to the discovery that I could not move beyond add some minor kinetic impulse to my form, which followed by me rolling down the streets and growing inhumanely frustrated, annoyed and utterly furious with whomever deity of random omnipotent asshole that had found funny shoving me into an empty magical skull of some sorts. My patience did not last long, I barely managed to roll my way out of the main streets and into what I thought was the house of Andrew before he was murdered.
My forehead clashed against the stairs of the house, making me feel something that could be generously described as pain. Good to know that not only my emotions are very muffled; otherwise I would have been still screaming my heart out about my surreal situation; but my physical sensations as well. Not my pretty good senses. I am certain that I needed optics in the past, but now I could see and hear pretty well, on the other hand, touch was dead, and smell and taste were muffled. At this point, I just chalked it to the absurdity of my status as a living skull?. I don't even know what the heck I am.
Not that it was all that difficult to guess that I was some kind of magical monster, most likely, an undead of some sort. That line of thought turned into a hundred lines as I wondered about how in the blazes I knew about monsters, magic, undead, and all kinds of knowledge that covered all sorts of topics, from the inane to the academics and the esoteric. Good thing that I was undead, otherwise I knew that I would have been experiencing the mother of all migraines, but taking into consideration that I lacked a physical brain… that was another thought that spiraled into the bottom line of what the heck is going on here.
On a more practical note, climbing the stairs of the entrance of the house of Andrew presented quite a challenge. As if I was something out of a morning cartoon; another thing that I have no idea how I knew; I propelled myself up by pushing against the floor with my lower jaw, repeating the actions a couple more times to reach the door of the house, and then opened my jaws to angle my empty eye sockets and deliver the mother of all nasty glares to the handle of the door that smugly hanged out of my reach.
My soul-deep sigh was enough to cover the stairs with a fine layer of frost before I resolute myself and jumped at the handle.
I failed miserably and fell all the way down to the bottom of the stairs.
A soul-searing groan of frustration and despair later, I fumbled to get into position and jumped up again.
It took me a dozen attempts but I managed to bite the handle, and due to the weight and gravity, open the door of Andrew's house.
Maneuvering at the entrance to bypass the door, I rolled into the house of the body from where my skull came from and stopped in the middle of the entrance hall. I knew the house, and I knew all of the good memories that Andrew had about the house. Andrew was a humble farmer of Kharos, a young human male of about twenty winters of age, who had received the blessing of the God of Nature and Souls. Thanks to such blessing, his crops were always abundant and healthy. Andrew was an honest soul, a young man who lost his parents in a monster attack, doing his best to live his life as a farmer and who was sweet on one of the blacksmith's daughters, memories of a short yet good life flashed through my mind, something akin to a movie, I saw the images, but the sensations attached to that memories were gone.
However, and again, I don't know where the knowledge come from, I was surprised that someone with such a powerful blessing like the one from the God of Nature and Souls was just a humble farmer in the middle of a remote frontier village.
There are five great Gods in the World, along with a cavalcade of gods, lesser gods, demigods, and other powerful entities that could bless individuals. The mechanism of such blessings looks really random, sometimes a god will bless a non-intelligent monster, sometimes a human, and sometimes an intelligent monster with some of the stranger occurrences being a fire slime being blessed by the demigod of ice, or a vampire with the blessing of the god of the sun, etc. In any case, those blessings are always a boon for the creature, no matter how incompatible they may appear. Andrew had quite the powerful blessing, yet, he was just a common farmer on a remote corner of the domain of Heaven's Peak.
Odd.
With that in mind, now that I am the skull of Andrew, I also had such a powerful blessing, along with a couple other skills and a job that I take were Andrew's skills when he was alive. This world's esoteric system was surprisingly flexible, yet, it was blatantly obvious that it was just a system, with all its flaws and loopholes. It was then that I realized that I was a bug in the system. I should not come into existence, or at least, not in the form that I am right now.
To make a very complicated dissertation about how reality works and how it has been blindsided with extreme prejudice, monsters like me should not have jobs.
Humans, demi-humans, and mixed blood can have jobs, and monsters have ranks; although I would have called them evolutionary paths, and all of them can have skills and blessings. I am a monster, technically, an undead, so, that means that I should not be able to take jobs. Yet, I had a [Farmer] job, and a quite the high level as well, now that I think about it. Jobs are the answer to the monster ranks, each human, demi-human, and mixed blood can earn a job and become proficient in it with time and investment, earning power and even evolving into new jobs.
There is no such thing as happenstance, if I was like this, that means that someone; my money was on the God of Nature and Souls; had a hand in turning me into something new, but I haven't the foggiest about why on earth did he do it, or what is the purpose of my existence. Such ignorance about the purpose of why I was brought here, and the ignorance about anything about my past that was not academic knowledge, really irked me something fierce.
Sadly, there is little I can do about any of that right now.
Rolling around the small but cozy home, I was at a loss about what to do. My options were quite limited, not to mention how even moving around was a chore and a half, I was like a newborn human baby, but without the social structure that allows babies to grow into adulthood. During my brooding, I rolled near one of the sacks of gobage that Andrew had picked up the last days, and with nothing more to do, I clumsily managed to climb to the top of the sack and chew on the strange vegetable.
Much to my utter surprise, it was bloody delicious. I chomped down on the green vegetables with delight, and before I knew it, I had already chewed through the whole sack. Of course, that left me like a skull inside of a vegetable burlap, but I did not care at the moment. Discovering that I had a sense of taste was quite a welcome boon. After some rolling and not little grumbling and huffing, I managed to get out of my cloth prison, and as a just reward, I climbed to another sack of gobage and devoured it as well. My sense of taste was muffled, but when I ate the gobage, I could taste it perfectly fine.
Without anything better to do, I bounced around the house, doing all kinds of experiments, trying to acquire a new way of moving around, and testing what I was able to eat, what had taste, etc. It was quite vexing at the beginning, due to how I was unable to do anything but bounce around like the toy of a toddler, but I managed to get some interesting results, with the added discovery that even if I did not feel any kind of physical tiredness, I did feel sluggish due to the emotional and mental stress that I have been accumulating during the entire day.
Nesting myself on the pillow of the only bed in the house, I just emptied my thoughts, something close enough to sleep overcame me not much after.
Ruins of Kharos Village
Day 2
Monster Rank E:
Lost Soul Lvl 25
Blessings:
Blessing of the God of Nature and Souls
Job:
Farmer: 86
Skills:
Animal Husbandry
Farming
Shovel
Realm
I am really glad that the only witnesses are the undead shuffling outside of the house because I would have died of embarrassment if anyone witnessed me flying around the house like a skull comet high as a kite and cackling like a madman.
It was impossible not to feel elated at the discovery that I could float around, thanks to my new skill, Realm.
If I understood the skill right, it basically allowed my soul to impose its will on the natural world on a physical basis, which more or less translated into a telekinesis of sorts that allowed me to interact with the physical world. Tremendously limited at the moment, but more than enough to help me improve my situation by leaps and bounds. After some hours of experimenting, I reached the conclusion that Realm was akin to a muscle, the more you train, the stronger it becomes, and the stronger my soul becomes, the stronger Realm would become, it was a magnificent skill, I am not going to lie.
At the moment, I was only able to lift about ten kg of weight, more than enough to float me around, and to manipulate my surroundings. In the beginning, I was only able to manipulate two or three things, but on the afternoon of the second day of my awakening from this world, I was able to manipulate half a dozen things at the same time, and I knew that my Realm was in an infant state, with time and investment the potential was limitless.
Out of curiosity, I made dinner.
My unusual capability of feeding, completely disregarding how it usually works, confused me to the extreme, so, I decided to see if there was a difference between raw ingredients and cooked ingredients. I knew quite a bit about cuisine, and thanks to my recently acquired skill to move things around, I was able to cook myself quite a healthy stew. I was aiming to make a beef stew with potatoes and carrots, but I had just discovered the gobage, and I used it to substitute the carrots. With all the ingredients adequately cooked, I dropped the sliced potatoes and gobage into the pot, covered it, and let it shimmer over the fire. I more or less calculated that it would take an hour to reach perfection.
Floating out of the house through one of the windows, I was not surprised to see zombies shambling around the village. It is a common belief that the sun is anathema to the undead, but that's not an ironclad rule, there are undead that are perfectly able to operate under the sun. In this case, the recently rising zombies and skeletons; the remnants of the massacred villagers; were stumbling around the ruins of the village. As far as I can see, there are no intelligent undead variants around, and after a quick survey, I counted a hundred and twelve undead on the ruins of the village. It was late afternoon, and due to the year's season, the night was already creeping over the agricultural fields. Contrary to popular belief, the sun did not work always against the undead, true enough, night is the domain of the undead, but the sun being anathema for the undead was not all that of an ironclad rule.
Flying around some of them, they ignored me, perhaps due to how I was an undead as well. During the short time that I observed them; I had a stew on the fire, and I did not want to burn it; they lacked any coordination, and they just bumbled around, directionless, and only a couple of them seemed to clumsily repeat some actions that they did when they were alive.
The stew was bloody delicious, by the way.
With my metaphorical stomach full, and burning with curiosity about everything around now that I am bloody mobile, I floated out of the house through the window; after barricading the door, so no undead stumble inside and make a mess of the place; and proceeded to investigate all the ruins, seeking anything that could be useful for me. The tragedy that befell the village happened barely two days ago, fortunate enough, there were no fires, but the attackers did not have a problem in crushing buildings, so the majority of the houses were reduced to rubble. On one hand, there are a lot of goods that I could recover, on the other hand, collapsed buildings are a chore and a half to clean up.
The absence of sunlight did not bother me in the slightest, I was more than capable of "seeing" even in the complete darkness. The undead lacked purpose or direction, and if my knowledge holds; even if I do not know where it came from; they will just shuffle around, and protect the place, indifferent to anything else. The few, barely ten, had picked up some weapons, and circled around with them, seeking for any interloper. There was no pattern on the undead, they just stumbled around the ruins of the village, the only thing was that they did not abandon the borders of the village.
Kharos was not precisely a thriving city, it was a small agricultural village at the bottom of the mountain range where Heaven's Peak. Two hundred souls were massacred for reasons that I could not fathom, that endured the harsh conditions of the land and made a living out of their vegetable fields, and a bit of animal husbandry for meat, wool, and milk.
Exploring the village, I found several interesting spots. A carpenter, a small blacksmith, and even an herbalist, or an alchemist, something along those lines. Any and all animals were either taken by the aggressors or run to the wilds. Once the dust settled, the animals should have come back, but with the undead around now, the animals were unable to return. It was easy to guess that the monsters would be preying on those animals soon enough.
Bonking the head of one of the zombies, the one that groaned the most, I tried to start a conversation, to see if I could ignite their intellect, or if I could even control them.
"Hello there", I saluted and the zombie slapped me as if I was an annoying fly.
That was rude as hell, however, the zombie did not take any more actions, either he did not see me as a menace, or I was basically irrelevant to him. I admit that I was a bit miffed, and I pushed the zombie back, which considering that I have a ten-kilo strength was not precisely an all-mighty push. Petty vengeance felt good, nonetheless.
Hundred and twelve undead, among them, thirty-two skeletons, and those were actually the ones that gave me quite the welcome surprise.
Realm was a godsend all on its own, but to my eternal surprise, Realm was also able to connect me with the skeletons. I could extend my soul; I guess; into them, and semi-puppet them around. I can order them, but their actions were surprisingly semi-autonomous. Anyhow, having more able bodies was great.
"Hello there", I repeated myself, saluting the skeleton under my command, and even if it did not answer me, I did sense a reply. It was small, like a newborn's grip, but it was there.
"Now, this is a surprise", I spoke aloud, uncaring about the undead around us.
Some came closer, attracted by the noise, but they did nothing beyond walking around.
"I fell something there, my bone friend", dark humor was one of the few things that I had left. "Can you tell me your name?".
The eyes of the skeleton ignited with blue flames, two tiny sparks, barely bigger than a glint, but beyond that sudden flames, and the sensation of a presence on the skeleton, I received nothing more. Such a pity, I would have loved to talk with someone. Not only to ease the creeping sensation of loneliness that I was feeling but to compare the common sense that I inherited from Andrew with another person.
By the time the sun peeked through the horizon, three more skeletons had joined my task force. It has taken me all night to pick up the more sturdy or healthy-looking skeletons, connect with them; the phenomenon of the blue flames repeated on all of them; and form a solid enough connection and coordination between all of them and myself. Even if I was no longer burdened with physical components, trying to manipulate four bodies at the same time was hard, alas, I fully admit that I was having a great time with Realm.
The beginning of third day of my existence as a skull began with a strong breakfast, I wanted to consume all perishables in Andrew's house before they rotted, and to see how much I could consume, and if hunger was a possibility for me. Cooking with my four minions was also an excellent exercise for my Realm.
Ruins of Kharos Village
Day 3
Monster Rank E:
Lost Soul Lvl 30
Blessings:
Blessing of the God of Nature and Souls
Job:
Farmer: 86
Cook 5
Skills:
Animal Husbandry
Farming
Shovel
Realm
Soul Bounds:
Skeleton X4
With the sun rising, the system that governs this world informed me that I had a new Job, Cook, and that I was soul-bound to four skeletons. If I could, I would have raised my eyebrow.
Mentally shrugging, I continued chomping on the feast that I cooked with the help of my four skeletons and wondered about what to do next. I have a task list the size of an encyclopedia. The idea of moving out of Kharos filled me with unease, something bounded me to this place; again, I take it was the remnants of Andrew; but I was savvy enough to know that Heaven's Peak is not going to leave something like the ruins of Kharos village to fester. The place was prime material for the undead. Along with physical undead roaming around, I was also able to feel the barely cognizant ghosts and wraiths in the village, any necromancer worth their salt, or any and all undead monster would find this place absolutely perfect to set up shop. Me included, by the way.
One skeleton stood inside the house, distance seemed nothing to the soul bound that I have with them, and the other three accompanied me outside. Kharos was not a massive village, two hundred people lived there, so it was easy to navigate the village, even with the broken buildings and gruesome remains. Undead do not give a damn about hygiene, which means that all of the corpses and pieces that did not raise up as undead have been unchecked for two days.
"S2, S3 pick a shovel and start digging at the east of the village, S4 with me", I ordered my skeletons, as I moved into the buildings that could hold anything useful for me.
S4, the last of the skeletons that I bounded accompanied me to the buildings that could hold something useful for me, and to seek out an appropriate house. Andrew's house was nice and cozy, but apart from the memories; akin to a movie to me; it lacked anything of usefulness for me, ah, except for a tiny altar to the God of Nature and Souls that I will move to my new residence. After a bit of work moving the rubble and pushing the undead out of the way, I decided to pick up the herbalist shop as home. With a bit of work, I could connect it to the blacksmith; the buildings were close enough; and both had enough storage space for all the food I could rescue from the rest of the village and whatever I could rescue from the abandoned fields that are going to be inevitable preyed on by the forest creatures and monsters.
At midday, S2 and S3 finished the mass grave that I ordered them to dig, and together with S4 and me, we proceeded to push into the grave all of the village corpses and remains that had not turned into undead. S1 to 4 were armed with the weapons and armor of the squad of guards that protected the village from the occasional bandit or monster, bounded to me as they were, they were leagues above the other undead around, and it was easy for them to destroy some of the zombies or skeletons and add them to the incoming funeral pyre. The thing is that I do not know why did I do that, why I took down those specific zombies, in retrospect, they were the more broken, crippled, or mutilated, but some zombies and skeletons seemed perfectly fine, and yet I commanded my skeletons to destroy them. Another chalk to the I don't even know what's going on here pile that was growing way too big for my tastes.
We put the corpses on the pyre, and S1 dragged the small temple of Andrew in front of the pyre. After I chanted the funerary rites taken from Andrew's memories and the skeletons stood in prayer, we fired the pyre and took turns attending to it for the rest of the day, and a good chunk of the night. It was a dangerous task, but it was necessary.
During the process, I also learned some interesting facts about myself, my bonds with the skeletons, and other things.
First of all, I could only bind four skeletons, no zombies, and I could still manipulate things around me, yet, my focus has to be on the telekinesis, so my skeletons tend to act of their own volition, way more mechanical and rigid than if I was controlling themdirectly. I could manipulate weapons, although, with ten kg of force as best, I lacked the finesse and the raw strength to fight competently, stabbing undead that did not defend themselves or drop the weapon from above, right at the heads, was still feasible.
Realm was absolutely perfect, but it was still in its infant state.
Another curious detail was that even if I could feed on the flesh of my undead brethren, it was tasteless and hollow, nothing like the stew that I ate last night. Alternatively, during my exploration of the town, I devoured a lot of the meat that the local butcher had in storage and it was delicious. I did not experience hunger, or at least not in the same manner as the living do. I did not feel hunger, just the desire to feed.
Odd if nothing else.
Way past midnight, the pyre finally burned itself, leaving only charred remains. S1 and S2 will deal with the aftermath, S3 and S4 start moving things to my new house, and the renovations that are needed to make the place adequate enough for my short-term plan. Meanwhile, I will be busy making myself a well-earned dinner. I had access to the kitchens of all the houses that had not been broken down, which meant that for the moment I had more than enough supplies to fuel my strange hunger.
For the moment, I had all the food that I could need, and thanks to Kharos being an agricultural village, I had quite the treasure trove of common ingredients, with the drawback that most of the vegetables were sacks of gobage. Still, any chefs worth their salt will be happy with such a pantry.
Tonight's dinner was fried pork with gobage and roasted potatoes.
Realm proved itself invaluable once again, as it allowed me to make the work of four persons in the kitchen all on my own. Slicing the pork chops, mixing the marinade, cleaning the potatoes, attending the kitchen fire and boiling pot, etc. It did not take me long to prepare quite the fried feast. Gobage was a surprisingly versatile vegetable, in my opinion, at the same level as onions, without the drawback of making you cry. After frying enough chops to feed half a dozen people, I set up the table and proceeded to devour the feast in front of me.
Once fed, I floated to the bed on the second floor of the former herbalist house/shop and willed myself to sleep until the sun warmed up my skull.
Ruins of Kharos Village
Day 4
Monster Rank F:
Holy Skull 1
Blessings:
Blessing of the God of Nature and Souls
Job:
Cook 25
Farmer: 88
Grave Keeper 5
Skills:
Animal Husbandry
Cooking
Farming
Grave Magic
Realm
Shovel
Soul Bounds:
Holy Skeleton X4
Okay, what the hell?!.