And we're lost. Seems like my directional senses are still in dire need of improvement. Well along the way we ran into some goblins and a few ogres and in the heat of battle kind of lost track at some cross paths, but I think we're still on track, just taking a longer route to the home of the undead.

  At least our numbers grew a little bit, the undead ogres and the one goblin shaman or druid is an improvement on my chances, while the regular goblins, well they will be good cannon fodder I guess. I'll guess for now I focus there are quite a lot of cross paths coming up.

  And after what feels like hours of walking, we are now standing on the side of the river opposite to where the horde of undead stand like a bunch of mannequins. I order the four undead ogres to stand in front of me, acting as a sort of meat shield with their hulking bodies, barely towering over me. At the same time, the undead basilisk children crawl under their legs to the front and wait for my command.

  I'm a little nervous, I'm not going to lie. I'm mentally taking deep breaths and just for good measure, I check on the other side trying to see if there is any unusual kind of undead, like a construct or some bigger monster, but so far it just a bunch of zombies of various humanoid races. Humans, dark elves, dwarves, then there are a few larger goblins but nothing out of the ordinary. Beside the zombies there are a few skeletons too, but those are the same except the lack of flesh on them.

  Okay, I give them the command and the four ogres slowly step to the sides, making a small gap for me. I and the undead basilisk children start accumulating acid into our throats. Fuck, this tastes horrible. Then I lock onto a zombie that was probably a female dark elf, relatively young looking missing half of her face, barely having any of her platinum silver whitish long straight long hair, and I guess its eyes gouged out by someone or something.

  Then I proceed to the next step and start collecting mana into my throat muscles casting a body strengthening basic spell on it and like a professional footballer, shoot it across the river towards the target a relatively large ball of dark greenish ball of acid, the undead basilisk children following up with me at the same time.

  All of them hit their targets, the female dark elven zombie's head corrodes away completely, instantly killing it, even though I'm not sure if that is the right word. The same happens with some other zombies and skeletons. They also sprang into action just as our acid balls hit five of them, and now are sprinting towards us.

  Then we shoot again at them taking out five undead once again, the others ignoring them and trampling over their corpses crushing bones and whatever left of their flesh and organs. Then before I shoot one more, I give a command to the undead goblin shaman or druid, and it starts channelling mana into its rotten right hand and tail, until a ball of flames the size of an average rock appears in the air in front of its tail and above its palm.

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  I quickly order the undead basilisk children to shoot a few meters away from the edge of the river on the opposite side, similarly to me. Then I watch as the undead goblin shaman shoots the fireball in its hand at the long acid pool, combusting it as the first few undead steps on it, lightning them up in an instant. Sadly, it only halts them for a bit, so I and the undead basilisk children start shooting smaller acid balls at them.

  They ignore the wall of fire and just sprint into the river, lightning up the dark water while slowly making their way towards us. Seems like they are supplied with enough negative matter to not be taken away by the raging water, then the first three undead, a zombie and two skeletons, reach the wall and their hands burst out from the water. Two of the undead basilisk children swiftly shift their decaying heads towards them, and shoot the hands, corroding them quickly.

  That seems to be enough, and those three are quickly swept away by the river, and the next three or four undead start bursting out from the water, hanging onto the few nearby pebbles and boulders in the ground.

  While we are shooting at those who reach this side, the goblin shaman keeps shooting at the undead still on the other side, who now start slowing down after many of them fall dead burning to the ground. I'm relatively thankful that I don't have my smelling yet.

  Their numbers got reduced by quite the margin. It is time to move onwards. I'll give the command to the undead ogres, and they spring into action, jumping over to the other side, right into the fire. The burning undead ogres don't waste any time ignoring the flames burning their rotten flesh, hitting the closest zombie or skeleton near them, sending them flying back a few meters in many pieces.

  I follow them with half of the undead basilisk children and the undead goblin shaman, leaving the rest to finish off the few undead still in the river. Now, how do I get over that side? I really should have absorbed an ogre for some extra strength. Well, moon elves are nimble and all, so I should be able to make it if I have the momentum. Yeah, let's do that.

  I walk back a few meters and ready the vessel's leg muscles, and then start sprinting towards the river and jump. Mid-air, I cast a ward around the vessel's body and land at the end of the wall of fire. I quickly walk out of it and cancel the ward, the few flames attached to the visible mana fall down to the ground, some of it disappearing in the air.

  Well the others are still on the other side, but they are the ranged part of my force, so it's fine I guess in the end. For now, let's focus on taking down the rest of the undead here. I turn back and the number of zombies and skeletons have been reduced even further. There were at least a hundred or so when we arrived, and now there are fifty or so remaining, fewer as I'm standing here watching and recounting.

  Seems like I'm a natural-born necromancer. I'll guess I can leave the rest to the ogres. Now which way is the necromancer controlling these, I wonder? Well going forward is never wrong, or so far hasn't been wrong.

  Just as I'm finished pondering, what appears to be an undead construct with the head of a Minotaur appears in the darkness, charging towards me...

  Undead Part I: The Raised

  

  
• Raised Undead are those whose souls were either called back from the cycle of reincarnation, the afterlife or immediately bound by the necromancer and imbued with necrotic energies/negative matter. Or in some cases a demon, aberration or an entity of Death taints the soul and brings it back in some form, binding it as their slaves.


  
• Even if the corpse is fresh or just died of natural causes, over time negative matter/necrotic energies will slowly decay, rot the flesh. A zombie after a 100 years will turn into a skeleton with blackened bones with a slight dark purplish hue to it, while a skeleton will get to that stage much sooner.


  
• Their corrupted souls are also visible, under the bones or the rotten, decaying flesh appearing as dark energy with dark purplish hue without any recognizable features of the unlucky victim. In the case of shades, wraiths and other non-corporeal raised, they do retain facial features and even some others, like scars inflicted on them in their moments of death if they were bound in sudden, immediate death, but their facial features will turn into a skeletal, demonic, nightmarish visage.


  
• Ghouls are an exception to the loss of facial features to an extent, partly because they are Raised Constructs, meaning that in post-raise their physical body has been altered by the Necromancer, Demon or any other entity by magical means usually. They usually resemble a pale figure, with no eyes and jagged razor teeth dyed black, animal like retractable claws capable of cutting even metals and often as nimble as the elves. They are often called the Hounds of Deathcallers. In the past the Ur-Reaper used them as his hounds, berserkers sent to cause fear and mayhem.


  
• In most cases undead can use their own version of the basic spells like Body Strengthening, Telekinesis or Levitation. And in the rare cases they also gain the magical knowledge of the one raising them, allowing them to use Fire element spells even if they didn’t have an affinity for the aspect of magic.