“Hand in your axes and hatchets.”
The skeletons turned in their tools and readied their weapons, their blades gleaming before their eyes. It seemed that they knew what was coming next.
After gathering the logging tools, Jay took them a little further away from the swamp water.
Getting to slightly drier ground, he made two large bone piles. One, for his throne, and the other for his skeletons.
After assembling himself a little outpost, he sat in this throne and began give his commander orders.
Blue stood by Jay’s side while the rest of the skeletons knelt.
“Blue, you’re in charge of them. I want you to hunt as many of the flaming lights as possible. I don’t care how much any of you get injured - I want you to prioritize aggression and killing speed. That bone pile is for eating, and if any of you die I’ll just re-summon you…”
Jay took out his crucible; the large bone bowl he used for fire pits.
“… When you gather more of those amber spheres, place them in this.” He pointed to the crucible.
Jay waved his hand, shewing them away - but he gave one last, silent order.
(Keep Lamp and Dark patrolling nearby. Just in case.)
Blue nodded, and the rest of the skeletons rose to their feet.
Blue began to craft some extra daggers for the smaller skeletons, while the larger ones bolted off into the fog. Jay sensed all of them charging away, all except for Lamp and Dark, which lingered just out of sight, hidden in the fog.
After receiving new daggers from Blue, the smaller ones paired off, probably to hunt in packs, and the last to leave was Blue, which gave Jay a respectful bow before disappearing.
Jay had a slight smile as he listened to their bones clinking away into the heavy fog, and the sound slowly disappeared until it was quiet.
“Ahh,” He relaxed, leaning back into his chair. “It feels nice to be alone.” He whispered to himself, and a gentle smile appeared as he let his eyes close, drifting off into a short nap.
[20 Exp] [20 Exp] [8 Exp] [8 Exp] [8 Exp] [8 Exp] [8 Exp] [8 Exp] [8 Exp]
Some time later, Jay heard some amber spheres tapping and rolling into his crucible, and he awoke to a number of exp notifications.
Before he could crack his eyes open a skeleton rattled away, disappearing into the fog before Jay even realized which one it was.
Probably Blue.
He glanced around at the fog, then the bones below his chair, glad he didn’t spot any slithering bugs crawling up to burrow into his ankles.
Stretching his arms, he left the throne to gather more of the breaking shard’s; the amber spheres.
“Ahh” he yawned, glancing back at his throne, which was really just a chair on a pile of bones.
It’s comfortable, but kind of pathetic. I need to make a room or something. If it’s bone, then I should be able to use living blueprints and easily pack it away.
The fog was getting darker, and Jay had overslept, but he was determined to make himself a room for the night.
As for going back to the island and sleeping in the shack, well, that was not an option.
The smell is bad enough, but who knows what a lonely old hag would do? Jay shrugged, he would rather sleep outdoors.
(Dark, come closer and witness me. You can teach the others later.) He commanded, knowing Dark and Lamp were still close, protecting their master from the shadows.
Dark sprang from the fog without much noise at all, and its glowing eyes appeared before its skull did.
Scary little bastard… Jay thought, then got to work.
“If I want to store it as living blueprints inside the gauntlet, it will need to be all bone. First thing I’ll need is a floor… Dark, dig out a large square for me, about one inch deep.” Jay pointed to the ground, and the skeleton got to work while he marked the boundary.
The hole was a 10 foot-wide square, and would be filled with molten bone and made into a single floor panel.
Jay watched Dark as it dug, and using claws and daggers to move dirt was a problem, making it more time consuming - as well as that, there were some gash marks in the dirt, which would leave sharp edges all over the bottom of the floor once it formed. For now, it didn’t matter as it was a floor, but if this were a wall it would look quite bad - at least on the outside.
Hmm, it’s large enough to roll out my swag inside, and later I could add a desk for study, Jay thought, already planning out his room.
As Dark slowly cut the dirt out, the idea of having a portable room was something that made his heart begin to flutter, and he could only imagine how much easier it would make traveling. Jay couldn’t stand to wait any longer.
I better help Dark out, he thought, but didn’t bend down to get his own hands dirty - of course not - he was a necromancer.
Jay quickly grabbed some bones and melted them into a flat semi-circle shape. He attached it to the end of a long femur bone, and created the world’s first bone shovel. Another novel tool.
“Here.” Jay held it out, and Dark tilted its head to the side in wonder - but then sprung forwards. It threw its twin-daggers into the ground. They pierced the earth near Jay’s boots, landing perfectly next to each other as it grabbed the shovel.
With the shovel, it was able to dig out a flat hole, and easily removed the excess dirt.
Jay smiled as he watched, keenly waiting for his creation. While the fog grew darker, he took out his luminous orb. Adding a little mana to it, it released a comfortable warm orange glow that chased away his sleepiness along with the dark.
Jay usually would have worried about whatever was out there seeing his light, but after using shade vision and looking through the fog himself, he knew that only Lamp was close enough see its glow.
[8 Exp] [8 Exp] [20 Exp]
More leeches and another light. I wonder if they’re more active at night.
After Dark finished the square 1-inch hole, Jay had it fill in the gaps it daggers had cut, and flatten it out with its new shovel, and then he began phase two.
(Lamp, Blue, come back.)
Jay took a piece of bone from his pile and held it over the square mold. When Lamp and Blue returned, Blue attempted to help fill the hole, but he didn’t let them add bones directly to the hole.
(Wait. Do it like this…)
Jay added mana to the bone in his hand, and let it melt away, drooling and dripping into the mold. This would stop the solid bones from making dents in the dirt, which would have shown up later once it solidified.
The skeletons both nodded and grabbed bones, melting them into the mold too. They ran out of mana before it was finished, but made it past the half-way mark, which Jay was quite pleased with.
Alright, I can finish this myself.
(Return to duties.) Jay waved his hand, and after Dark got its daggers back, the three of them disappeared into the fog.
Jay melted more and more bones into the mold until it was full. To fill in the hole, he guessed that he went through about ten skeletons worth of bone, each of them were of the helvetian variety that were left over from the revenge pact.
The bone square was all melted, but each melted part was added separately, which would cause cracking problems, especially if he were to walk on it.
“Okay, here we go.” Jay talked to himself, taking a deep breath as he held his hands out.
A glowing cloud of necrotic mana formed between his hands, and grew into a large ball, going up to his elbows.
He crouched down, lowering it and holding it over the bone square.
The insipid mana quickly dived into the large bone mass and began to melt it together.
Jay released his control, and for a moment the entire square glowed green.
Somewhere between liquid and molten, it became perfectly flat, and Jay saw his reflection in it for a moment. But under his command, the mana dispersed, leaving a perfectly flat bone plate behind.
Yet that was not all Jay had gained from this giant crafted plate.
< [Research Acquired] >
[Necromantic Construction]
[1%]
“Necro…mantic?” Jay raised a brow, seeing his new line of research.
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