A tall young woman with fair skin and red hair, adorned in some shabby and bent looking armored plates pushes a vault door open and steps in. She approaches an altar. Upon the altar is a magic tome with jewels engraved on the cover and spine. The woman takes the book and wordlessly holds it. From within the girl’s head, a masculine and serene voice echoes in her thoughts.
“A new hand reaches into the unknown. You! What dark secrets do you seek? What enemies do you desire to smite? What fathom of nature do you provoke? What eldritch wisdom do you grasp at?”
After those words echo in the girl’s head, there is nothing. No response.
“Uhh… Hello!”
No response.
“Uhh… girl? You have me here! Apherward the Mote of Dark Secrets. Sentient magic spellbook. Imparter of magic secrets… Hello?”
No response. The girl, not a child anymore but not yet an adult, stares blankly at the tome she picked up as she stands before an altar. Her pupils are pinpoints and unmoving.
“Hello!... Well, this has never happened before… Ahem! Child! Take me from this prison and I can promise awe inspiring magic powers. Kings kneeling before your might. To bring your loved ones from death itself. Hello!”
No response.
“Well, I’ll say that in my millennium of sentience, this is certainly a first. Girl! Are you dead? Injured? Set upon by a baleful curse?”
Still no response. Within the girl’s head, it speaks.
“I suppose I’ll just check for myself.”
The tome of dark magics peers into the girl’s status. It draws upon the worldly knowledge of this girl granted to it by the grace of the system. A natural facet of the world that guides the functions limitations of all creation.
Ren
Level 3 Classless
Strength: 6
Magic: 8
Agility: 4
Vitality: 3
Titles: None
Skills:
Swordsmanship Level 1
Housekeeping Level 1
Status: Minor injury
Right Arm Cut Severity 1 Bandaged
The sentient magic tome looked everything over. As far as it could tell, the girl who is holding him is fine, save for a minor cut on her right arm. Although, a new question presents itself. As far as Apherward knows, it was stored in a castle vault by the Irvan Kingdom. Some ages ago, King Gervan Allutus Irvan slew its last holder. Its last holder was desperate to bring his dead wife back from the dead. The king discovered he was using Apherward the tome of dark magics to do it. Once slain, the king had Apherward sealed in a vault for who knows how long. Then a thought occurred. Is Apherward doing something wrong? It hasn’t spoken to a mortal in ages. In either case, someone snuck into the vault and now has him. It was going to work with this girl whether It liked it or not.
“Well, let’s see if the will is weak enough for me to outright take control.”
The sentient book wills the body to move. The girl’s hand twitches a bit. Then begins to flex her arms and move with a weak sort of rigidity.
“I wrest control of your body from you! Girl? Or, Ren? That’s your name, right? Whoever you are, respond!... Please.”
At those words, the sound of men in plate armor rushing through an underground hallway echo from the other side of the vault door.
“No!”
The tome wills the body to turn toward the source of the noise.
“No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! Not again!”
Apherward the Mote of Dark Secrets is a magic item. Apher Kirakaus was a wizard of supreme power. He destroyed himself in a bid to unravel the secrets of magic and the arcane arts. The result was, his form being destroyed and being made into a tome which gains his sentience. Over a millennium and some years, it had beckoned the weak to its bidding and enact its desires. In response, the tome was taken and sealed in the vault of the of the Irvan Royal family’s castle. Apherward has known isolation and loneliness for what feels like thousands of years now. This girl, whoever she may be, is its only chance at escaping this vault.
With an unfamiliar body, it forces its will onto the mind. Puppeteering the hands into a strange dance. The hands begin to glow and as magic accumulates in the girl’s hands. With a final flourish, the glow envelops the entirety of the body. A spell had been cast. Apherward, the sentient magic item, had been equipped.
Gained Magic Capacity
Ren learned Icebolt Level 1. Level capacity has been met. Level up to increase level capacity.
Ren learned Fireball Level 1. Level capacity has been met. Level up to increase level capacity.
Ren learned Haste Level 1. Level capacity has been met. Level up to increase level capacity.
Ren learned Raise Zombie Level 1. Level capacity has been met. Level up to increase level capacity.
“Haste” the girl named Ren says without emotion or inflection.
With blinding speed, the body shoots out of the vault room and onto a stone wall opposite it. In the hallway are several men in clean decorated armor who look up at the girl in a sudden shock.
“Shit!” one of the armed and armored men shouts. “She’s got Apherward in her hands!”
“Kill her! Kill her now!” another yells.
With frightening speed, the girl performs some sort of spell and a bead of fire shoots out at the man in the lead of the others.
“Fireball.” the girl says.
The bead then erupts into a ball of fire and engulfes him and 4 other men.
“What the?” one of the surviving men yelps.
“Icebolt.” the girl says plainly.
In the time it takes for the 3 unharmed men to react to half of their unit being incinerated, the girl casts another spell and 3 arrows of ice catches them in the neck. In the time it takes for a heart to beat once, 7 men in plate armor are dead and dying. The men with pierced necks gargle and flail at their lethal wounds and the men who were incinerated are still screaming before collapsing and falling silent.
“They’re still trying to seal me.”
The girl approaches the bodies before stopping.
“Agh! I could have used them! I could have created zombies with magic, but I incinerated them.”
Necromancy. The magic that taps into the force woven into the living and the dead could be used to create zombies. However, the body’s condition is important. The bodies of the 4 men who were incinerated now have burnt muscles and tissue. They would make for poor zombies as they are now. Apherward examines one of them.
Terry Hall
Level 14 Warrior
Title: Sir, Knight, Wife Beater
Skills:
Swordsmanship Level 5
Shieldmaster Level 2
Sleep Resist Level 2
Status: Severe burns, In shock, Dying
Head Burning
Torso Burning
Left Arm Burning
Right Arm Burning
Left Leg Burning
This man was well and truly dead. There was no point in making him a zombie as his body is now. A message from the system of the world confirmed it.
Level up!
Ren
Level 3 Classless -> Level 4 Classless
Strength: 6 -> 7
Magic: 8 -> 9
Agility: 4 -> 5
Vitality: 3 -> 4
“I’m panicking. I must calm down. I… I only have a single window to be free of this place. I can’t wait another thousand years or however long it’s been for another chance. No! I can’t wait another 5 minutes for another chance.”
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The girl searches some of the bodies that aren’t burning at the moment. The search stops when a dagger is drawn from one of the men’s boots. The dagger is then plunged into one of the dead bodies and used to draw a strange circle in blood. Some arcane hand waving later, and the body rises again as a zombie.
“Raise Zombie.” the girl speaks.
The body rises and stands with sword and shield at the ready. The girl drags another body onto the circle of blood and raises that one too. Then the last of the 3 unburnt bodies.
“Search them for valuables and tools!” she points to the 4 men burning.
The new zombies begin to rifle through the pockets and pouches of the men who used to be in their unit. They procure 4 well made swords and shields, that they themselve carry. Some coin pouches with money are also found and piled. After that, just personal effects that are useless in a prison break from beneath the royal family’s castle. The coins would need to be counted later, and Apherward is no stranger to the concept of inflation of the gold coin, but that would need to be handled later. It then occurs to it that the girl it has effectively possessed is also wearing armor and a sheathed sword is at her hip. The armor is of lesser quality than the armor of the men, but it is doubtful that their armor would fit the girl’s body. The girl draws the sword at her hip and… only half a sword meets the underground air. The sword’s blade has snapped in half. The handguard and grip hold a blade that has been broken. Thankfully, 4 finer swords of stronger make have become available. The girl tosses her broken sword and takes up one of the finer blades. She then has the zombies carry the remaining swords and shields.
At the end of taking stock of their equipment, the girl in shabby armor carries a new sword at her hip and the undead carry 2 swords each, 2 shields, the armor they wore in life and a few pouches that jingle with coin.
“Well, girl, by equipping me you have access to a bounty of knowledge over the arcane.” the book speaks into her mind. After some time of having no response, it just continues. “Well, I’m just going to grant you more magics. If you want me to stop, just say so.”
There is no response. The book can do nothing but give up for the time being. It just imparts new spells onto the girl.
Ren learned Stone Wall Level 1. Level capacity has been met. Level up to increase level capacity.
At the end of the hall was a staircase leading upward. At the top of the stairs was a door. Trying the handle, the door didn’t budge. Trying a fireball, the door exploded outward.
In a gallery inside a castle, men in royal armor and garb were picking up the pieces after an assault on the castle. Display cases were smashed and bodies of castle guards and thieves strewn the floor. Blood pooled beneath the feet of the men cleaning up the mess and left bloody boot prints in the extravagantly expensive carpet. A raid on the castle, backed by some unknown party, had managed to smuggle crooks, mercenaries, thieves and other low lives into the city and into the castle. They had some help from a foreign power, but these men weren’t exactly flying the country’s flag while they were raiding the castle’s archives, treasury and gallery. It hasn’t even been an hour after the whole mess ended and a few documents and treasures had gone missing. As these men and women were sighing while they worked, a fiery explosion erupted from a stone wall.
“Holy mother of golden geese!” one guard exclaimed. “The secret vault entrance just exploded!!!”
“Wait! We had a secret vault?” another guard asks.
Stepping through the debris, a girl in shabby armor and red hair walks out flanked by zombies wearing armor from the castle guards.
“Who is that?!?!” a guard exclaims.
“We’ll ask her in the dungeon. Capture her!!!” a tougher looking guard commands.
The girl looks over the room she just walked into. There were some 80 guards in view of some kind of long hallway. As great as Apherward’s power and ego are, it doesn’t want to risk a fight against these odds ill prepared. The zombies stand in a defensive formation, and the unknown girl wildly waves her hands.
“Stone Wall.” she says.
The stone floor shoots up to tear the bloodied carpets and creates a smokescreen of dust and rock. Looking for possible exits, the window was the closest option. A zombie went first, and would either catch the girl or at least serve as some kind of cushion. Then another zombie. Then the girl. Then the last zombie.
“Aw! What?” a guard screamed, putting a shield in front of him preparing for a desperate assault.
Others prepared for another round of fighting, but none came. Instead they heard the sound of a glass window shattering. In response, some guards rushed into the dust to find that their capture target had leapt out a window.
“Well…” a guard just stared blankly at the window. “Shit. What am I going to tell the lord of the castle?”
“Hang on, I want to go back to the secret vault.”
“Tha- that’s not important right now.”
“We searched the gallery and we got an all clear. If we knew there was a secret vault, then maybe we would’ve secured the place properly.”
“I- I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Gods man! I turned my back to that wall for, like, half an hour. What if I got stabbed in the back?”
“Ugh! Gods preserve me.”
“So are we just going to let her get away?”
“NO! BLOW A WHISTLE!!!”
“Gods! Fine.”
A guard pulls a whistle from around his neck and blows into it.
As the girl leapt out of the window, Apherward now sees that it just sent its only chance at escape out a window some 200 or 300 feet high. Apherward is a sentient magic item, but it can feel its stomach come up to its mouth at this realization. The girl just emotionlessly stares at the ground, but Apherward screams inside her head.
“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”
Before the girl splats on the ground, she is caught in the arms of a zombie. The girl is serene, and perfectly calm despite the fall. The sentient book in her hands is violently shaking. The other zombies easily land as the armor they don clanks and their bones squeal after some stress.
“Whoa! Okay!... Okay. I- I’m free of the depths of the castle.”
Then a whistle above her sounds and the moment of calm is broken. Apherward doesn’t have a heartbeat, but it has a feeling akin to adrenaline. The thought of being stuck in an empty room again gives it cause to panic. The girl and the 3 zombies rush out of the castle and into the city.
The city is very unfamiliar to Apherward. Ducking into an alleyway, it tries to take stock of the situation.
“Hey girl! Hey! Where are you? You can’t be some empty shell! I witnessed you walk into the vault alone and take me from this place.”
No response.
“Hey! The door was very loud and squeaky. I heard it for sure. That vault door might have been enough to wake the dead.”
While speaking inside the girl’s head, some shady looking figures approach the girl and 3 armed and armored zombies. One of the alleyways the girl and company ran through seems to be occupied.
“Hey there folks.” a man with slicked back hair says approaching the group. “You castle dogs bothering a cute girl? You can’t just treat a girl like some crook.”
The girl looks up at the man with slicked back hair. There are some 7 rough looking men surrounding them in this alley. They weren’t wearing armor or anything like that. They had some knives and at least one had a butcher’s cleaver. The girl stops before them, unresponsive. The book thinks this is annoying. The girl simply responds.
“Kill them.”
In response to that, the 3 zombies draw their weapons. While the zombies handle that situation, Apherward thinks some things over.
“I can control this body reasonably well. The girl also has potent magics. Even if it’s just me casting the spells.”
One of the zombies thrusts his boot out into the abdomen of one of the men and he slumps over. The zombie them steps forward and quickly plants it’s sword into the man’s neck and pulls it out in one fluid motion in a forward stride. Getting a better look at the zombies, they see a hole in the neck of the zombie. It now dawns on them that something isn’t right with these men.
“Even so, it’s been a long time since I had a body. At least I remember how to walk and move. But the girl should still be here. Maybe I shouldn’t worry about that now. I have a body to work with. Maybe I can try trading myself to an aspiring wizard or trader. Whoever this girl is she isn’t an archwizard, but her magic is decently powerful. Maybe later. For now, what can I do? I need a future. Maybe find wandering and lost people and promising great power in exchange for servitude won’t work like it did all those years ago. I need something more.”
Another zombie expertly swipes at a man’s neck and follows up with a shield side tackle on a different man. The shield finds the other man’s nose and chin, and the man flies back some distance and becomes unresponsive.
“For now, I can use the girl to leave the capital. Let me see. I can force her to change classes.”
Class promotion. Classless -> Mage.
Ren
Level 4 Classless -> Level 4 Mage
Strength: 7
Magic: 9 -> 14
Agility: 5
Vitality: 4
The last of the zombies makes an upward swing that launches a man upward. It then rushes under him to get at the man behind him where it is followed up by a diagonal swing from hip to shoulder, bisecting the man into 2 pieces. The man who was launched upward falls to the ground. The zombie turns to stomp on his head with enough strength to crush the skull.
“This seems fine. I cannot gain levels, but with this, the girl can. I should have done this sooner. Now she gains the stat benefits of being in the mage class. If she leveled up while still classless, she would not have gained the stat benefits of being a mage. Actually, the zombies are in a fight. Through my power, the girl should gain power from any kills the zombies make. How are they fairing?”
A zombie bashes a man’s head with it’s shield and then stows both the shield and sword to grab him by the legs. Then he uses him to bludgeon a different man over the head. After swinging a man into another man 4 times, both of them are beaten and broken.
“Oh. They’re doing exceedingly well. Although… are zombies supposed to move like that?”
Level up!
Ren
Level 4 Mage -> Level 5 Mage
Strength: 7 -> 8
Magic: 14 -> 17
Agility: 5 -> 6
Vitality: 4 -> 5
As the battle comes to a close, the girl doesn’t look up. The tome in her hands take this time to look around. Apherward, would be wide eyed with its mouth hanging open if it was still Apher Kirakaus. The zombies are holding their weapons. They’re in a fighting pose reminiscent of trained fighters. Zombies aren’t so… well put together enough to even use swords properly. The typical zombie reaches out with their arms and bite. This is… very strange. 3 zombies can easily take 7 unarmored people without issue, but this… this is far beyond the scope of zombies. After recovering from the surprising performance of the zombies, Apherward puppeteers the girl again.
“Search them for valuables.” she says.
The zombies go to rifle through the men’s belongings. There are 7 of these men, but they have some 20 coin purses and pouches. 20 purses for 7 men was suspicious, but happily looted. Counting the ill-gotten gains, Apherward notices a minor detail in how the gold coins are minted with less purity than they once did so long ago. Aside from that, there is 218 gold coins on the girl’s person at the moment. There are 3 swords and 4 shields of high quality that can be parted with easily. The first step is selling them off. The girl enters some unfortunate arms shop.
“2 gold.” the store owner says.
The girl gives him a blank stare.
“If I bloodied your nose, would you get serious?” the girl says.
The store owner has a harsh and unimpressed expression on his face.
“No.”
Some 10 minutes later, the girl and the 3 zombies march off with another 60 coins. The merchant got the goods and a bloodied nose. The next step is to get out of the city. The city would be on high alert after the stunt the girl just pulled. Patrols have stepped up and the city gates are on high alert. Thankfully, the supreme tome has a plan.
“Raise Zombie!” the girl says before the 7 men slain earlier in the alley. Unfortunately, of the 7, only 4 are usable. Level 1 Raise Zombie didn’t quite work on bodies that have been bisected or had their skull crushed. While Apherward was here, it decided to check the status of the zombies.
Zombie
Level 16 Zombie
Strength: 26
Magic: 0
Agility: 14
Vitality: 25
Skills:
Swordsmanship Level 4
Status: Lethal injury, Undead
Neck Cut Severity 7
Apherward was confused. How did a level 4 or level 5 mage make a level 16 zombie? Using level 1 Raise Zombie no less? What should happen is that the spell should have made zombies that matched the girl’s level. But she was level 5. This was a level 16 zombie. Apherward didn’t understand. Unfortunately, it didn’t have the time to fully understand the how and why of it all.
The plan was simple. Sick the 7 zombies on some city guards near a city gate. Then just sneak past everyone. It’s a strange thing when 3 zombies launch men into the air, to leap up after them to perform an air combo. The troops at the gates and cityfolk has now seen zombies air combo their compatriots. Meanwhile, the girl has long since used the distraction to escape through a city gate. It was simple and it went off without an issue. The zombies would be slain and felled eventually, but that’s neither Ren’s or Apherward’s problem.
Before the girl lies a winding road. Without a map or knowing where this road leads, the girl starts marching down the road. There is nothing to do but make the trek from this city down this road and maybe find salvation elsewhere. This girl would be it’s hope and it’s future. Unfortunately, 6 hours of walking later, the girl collapses on the side of the road.
“Fuck!” Apherward thinks to itself. “I forgot. I forgot this girl needs to eat and drink and rest.”
Apherward reaches out to try and get a sense for the girl’s sense of pain, hunger and other important survival instincts. It finds nothing of the sort. It tries to will the girl to move, but there is no strength in her arms and legs.
“Of all the things! Of all the stupid things! I starved or fainted or something! Gods damn it!”
It thinks about the 278 gold the girl has now and how it’s all worthless. The girl was in a populated city and it just forgot to eat. It was created from the ego of a brilliant wizard thousands of years ago, and hasn’t needed to eat or felt hunger ever since it became a sentient book. Forgetting to eat is embarrassing to say the least. Now it has no guarantees of making it anywhere. There is a chance that it could be found by some greedy merchant and sold off to some aspiring arcanist, but the chance of someone who knows the legend of Apherward the Mote of Dark Secrets can find him and turn him over to the royal family all over again. For all its knowledge, for all its power, this simple tome is helpless in a girl’s pack by the side of the road. The book begins to get desperate.
“Screw it! Today is the day I pray!”
Supremely desperate, Apherward prays to the unknown void that is the world in hopes of it traversing to the divine realms and tickling the ear of a divine entity.
“Gods above! I plead to thee! Spare me-… uhm… spare this gentle girl whom I have… okay. Perhaps I don’t know what I’ve done to the girl, but please send someone to save the girl. Saving me would be nice too.”
Silence. At best, a crow in the distance caws. Apherward gets the distinct sense that the crow isn’t responding to the book’s telepathic communications. A supreme intellect was felled to simple hunger. It’s hands now lie in whatever fate has in store for it and the girl.
Ren
Level 5 Mage
Strength: 8
Magic: 17
Agility: 6
Vitality: 5
Magic Capacity: Clear
Titles: None
Skills:
Swordsmanship Level 1
Housekeeping Level 1
Spells:
Ice Bolt Level 1
Fireball Level 1
Haste Level 1
Raise Zombie Level 1
Stone Wall Level 1
Status: Minor injury, Starving, Exhausted, Dying
Right Arm Cut Severity 1 Bandaged
