Whispers of a Dead Empire

Chapter 5

A new screen appeared before my eyes when I selected the companion option. I could decide between three templates, but I'm not sure which I liked more. A zombie seemed pretty dope, and so did a ghost. But I think for getting started, I will go with a skeleton. It should smell better than a zombie and should be able to do more than a ghost. I clicked the option, and my screen flickered once more.

I quickly read through the list and nodded my head. It was a shame that I couldn't customize it. That would have been pretty cool. But this is alright. Now, what the question is, what classification was best? A simple mob would be far too weak, mostly because I wanted something to help defend me if things went south. At least until I could get on my feet and fight for myself. So that left just a boss and the optional boss. My eyes bounced between the two options for a while before coming to the optional boss category. It would be nice to have something powerful. I confirmed the choice, and another screen appeared before me.

What should I name it? It is a skeleton, so should I do a pun? I do like my puns. Should I call him bones? No, that was a little too over the top. Maybe something subtle would be nice. After all, this will be a public name. I thought hard about it for a while. Since my affinity was that of undeath, maybe I should give a subtle reference or at least something from my world. In that case, think I'll name him Kharon. The ferryman of the dead would be a reference from my world, and I doubt that anyone here would understand that. That is if there wasn't anyone else like me. Maybe if there was this would be a clue that I wasn't from here. I typed the name in, and a strange circular rune set appeared in my vision that shifted with my head. I positioned it carefully in the spot I cleared out and activated it. A large circular magenta-colored rune appeared on the ground. It pulsed with an unearthly light and began to rotate clockwisethe rune began to flickered and pulse as magical power coursed through it. The center of the portal opened up, and the crown of a white skull slowly rose. Then a set of blood-red eyes appeared. Then that was followed by a tall, lanky body. Once Kharon completed his rise, the portal flickered once before vanishing, leaving this tall skeleton in its place.

My new companion looked around the building for a moment before it fixed its gaze on me and dropped to a knee. "Your will is my command." The sound of bone crashing into stone echoed across the room. Its masculine voice was raspy and seemed to grate over itself as the words rolled out of its jaw.

" Hello, Kharon. My name is Calixa. I am new to this life so please guide me to the best of your ability." I figured I would try to be somewhat amicable since I would be working with him for a while. It wouldn't do to push away my only chance of success.

"Of course." Kharon stood up and looked around the outpost. "What is the first course of action, mistress?"

"First, please teach me how to layout my domain and what to do as a domain god." That was a simple enough start.

"Of course. Have you checked your status sheet or the domain page?" Kharon's voice echoed around the room as he paced to get a feel of the lobby.

"No, I haven't. How do I check them?" I shifted uncomfortably and let out a chuckle. I had no idea that those things existed so far, but I was also dumb and didn't think about doing that.

"For your status page, you just have to summon it mentally." I nodded my head and did what he told me to do. A moment later, a screen appeared.

I looked them over and nodded my head. My stats didn't look too bad, and for the most part, they were self-explanatory, I mean, I used to skim over the D&D wiki just to read the lore, so I had some idea of what each meant and how to level them. "I see. Thank you, Kharon. I'm going to go off on a limb and assume I access the domain the same way as I do my stat sheet?"

He nodded his skull and clacked his teeth together in agreement. I mentally summoned up a spreadsheet of my domain a few seconds later as I got the hang of it.

Underneath the domain spreadsheet was a large map. The small outpost we were currently at was directly in the center. From this perspective, I saw that most of the area around us was a massive forest. There was that decently sized lake that I passed earlier. There was also a legend on the side that helped explain some key locations. One of which was a mine that was roughly two kilometers out from where I was. I wanted to know what this place was before it became the ruins it was now. The more I look over this map, the more the curiosity got to me. Maybe I can use my powers to skim over some of the books I saw earlier. They should have something for me in there, right?

"What's the first thing that I need to do?" I asked as I dismissed the screen and saw that the skeleton was standing where he was summoned. I liked to get down to it, just standing around didn't quite do it for me. It didn't matter that I was in another world. All that mattered was that I had a job, and it needed to get done.

"First, we need to summon a few mobs, and then start designing your domain. You can either do it manually or use your essence to absorb various materials and create items, though the efficiency isn't quite the best. I would recommend setting up the foundation of the buildings that you want and letting your mobs build it for you."

I nodded my head and resummoned my templates, "Alright, how do I do summon the mobs? I'll worry about building stuff in a bit."

"Select the template, and then find an area to summon them. The lowest tier mobs are relatively inexpensive. You should be able to summon a large amount of them if you so desire." I looked through the template and selected the zombie, and the screen blinked and then asked me how many I wanted to summonjust one for now.

The familiar rune appeared though it was much smaller than before, and the summoning process began once more. The runic circle began to spin, and a zombie clawed its way from the ground, much like the creatures from the old movies that I enjoyed growing up. A low moan was forced from the zombie's throat as it stood up. I took a moment to look it over. Its flesh was putrid green and was turning to liquid in some places. Its clothes were tattered and caked in dried blood and radiated a repulsive smell. Half of its face was torn away, revealing bone, and part of its teeth and jaw. It clacked its teeth together and began to stumble across the room before it fell face forward into the ground.

I chuckled at watching the zombie struggle quite a bit. Kharon found it funny as well and expressed it through a bone-rattling chuckle. "Zombies are not the brightest of the bunch. They will wander around unless they are given a directive. But be careful because they may even wander outside of the domain, which could spell trouble unless you have restrictions set in place beforehand."

That would make sense. I would have to work on that; I would hate to piss off whoever lived out there merely due to my mobs wandering around mindlessly. "How do I command the zombie?"

"You can either issue a verbal command or do it mentally. Though I recommend you do it mentally, so you can paint a clearer picture for the zombie to follow." I gazed at the zombie and forced an image of it standing still into its mind. A few short seconds later, it stopped moving and just stood there, quietly waiting. I brought my menu back up and summoned a basic skeleton next.

Once the summoning process finished, a gleaming white skeleton stood before me. It wasn't anything too special. Just a normal adult skeleton, however unlike Kharon, its eyes were just two deep black voids. It rattled its teeth together, and the noise echoed around the lobby. The noise was unnerving and very creepy to hear and made me shudder for a moment. Just staring at a skeleton that was moving around stirred a strange emotion in me, though I couldn't quite place what it was.

Now, it was time to see what the specter was. I summoned one and wasn't disappointed. It was a floating mass that held the faintest silhouette of a human without legs. Its body was a faint whitish-green that was almost transparent. The noises it made were a bit fear-inducing and completely ethereal. Good, this was nice. It lacked the repulsive smell of the zombie and the uncomfortable feeling the skeleton instilled in me. I glanced over to my essence pool and saw that I didn't use all that much summoning these three. "Kharon, what do you recommend for me to summon to use as a worker base for the time being?"

"Well, they are all skilled at something, so it's best to have a blend. Zombies are strong, so we can use them for manual labor. The skeletons are a bit more nimble and have better use of their hands then the zombies would, and the specters can be used to move around things in hard to reach places with their mobility, though I wouldn't quite place too much faith in them. They can't control what they can interact with physically" I nodded while I looked through my menu. That was good. I made a motion for everyone in the room to follow me outside. I needed space to do some mass summonings, and I didn't want to share a room full of zombies; otherwise, I would end up vomiting from the smell.

I quickly mass summoned ten more of each mob, bringing me up to eleven of each. So thirty-three mobs total. My essence took a small hit, but it was alright. I wasn't planning on using it for a little while longer, at least until I figured out what I could do with it. Right now, it was time to issue jobs to them and get things underway.

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