Chapter 126 - Tier Ten

  The first morning after setting up my new Domain went by pretty quickly, mostly because there was so much to be done that even with a huge pile of undead, it was a lot of work. Patches left most of the ratkin behind, taking only a small delegation with him to reach the rest of his people. He told me before he left that he’d return soon with however many ratkin wanted to join my fledgeling community. I had a feeling it was going to be a good number, but how many, I couldn’t say.

  After he’d left, I went outside and surveyed the damage. The fields where we’d fought were a true mess, and fixing that was going to require a lot of effort. It needed to be done, though; the zombie bodies were already beginning to stink, and it was only going to get worse the longer they sat in the sun.

  I was surprised to find that my forces had been augmented. Two dozen tier two skeleton warriors had appeared overnight, joining the rest of my force in guarding the Domain. Through my connection with the control stone, I knew that was simply a benefit of the tier two Domain. Every Domain came with its own miniature defensive force, and the higher the tier, the more troops you got.

  “How are we going to get all this cleaned up, anyway?” Kara asked, staring at the field.

  Zombie bodies were everywhere. There were a few ratkin and humans who’d died that night as well, but we’d already removed their bodies from the field, wrapping them in cloth to prepare them for some sort of funeral rite. I was leaning toward cremation as the best bet for the post-Event world, since buried bodies seemed to have an unfortunate tendency to not remain that way.

  “Well, I can clean up some of it by myself,” I said, pulling out the crystal I’d won from Lyonius last night—the tier ten Animate Dead stone.

  “Holy shit, that thing is huge! What spell is it?” Kara asked.

  “Animate Dead.”

  “What tier is it? I’ve never seen one that large.”

  “Ten,” I said. She stared at it, mouth open. I chuckled at the look on her face. “Yeah, I know. It’s a big deal. Reaching tier five gave us special bonuses. I don’t know what reaching tier ten will do.”

  “Why haven’t you tried it on to find out?”

  “No free slots,” I lied. “I’ve been thinking about removing the Contagion crystal, but I don’t know…”

  Kara arched her eyebrow at me. “Seriously?”

  “What?”

  “I watched you pull this with the Charisma stones, then again with the Domain stuff. You do this a lot, Selena. You hold back, when you ought to be pushing forward. We’re behind you every step of the way here, but you need to be willing to step up. What if something else comes at us, and you being tier ten is the only thing which stands between us and getting eaten?”

  I sighed. She wasn’t wrong. I was hesitant to take on this sort of thing. I’d have been way more comfortable taking orders from other people and letting them be in charge while I just worked to help people out. But reality didn’t seem to care about my preferences. Over and over I’d been forced into roles that weren’t comfortable, and here I was again.

  “I guess I can see about slotting it in,” I said. I held the stone in both hands, concentrating on it.

  With a pop, the Contagion stone came out. It hadn’t shattered, which was good. The spell was only tier three, but that was still something I didn’t want to lose. With a black crystal slot empty, I allowed the tier ten stone to be absorbed, slotting itself into the open position. Because that opened yet another slot, I could put the Contagion back in, but I had another idea instead, and dropped the Dark Pulse stone I’d gotten from Lyonius in. I wanted to see what it was capable of. It seemed like a powerful spell when the Forgotten King used it on us, so I’d give it a whirl and see how well it performed.

  Magical Stones

  Point 1: Black Stone (Tier 6) - Control Undead

  Point 1, Second Ring: Black Stone (Tier 5) - Augment Undead

  Point 1, Third Ring: Black Stone (Tier 10) - Animate Dead

  Point 1, Fourth Ring: Black Stone (Tier 3) - Dark Pulse

  +

  Point 2: Black Stone (Tier 7) - Animate Dead

  Point 2, Second Ring: Black Stone (Tier 5) - Heal Undead

  Point 2, Third Ring: Black Stone (Tier 2) - NightVision

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  +

  Point 3: Black Stone (Tier 6) - Drain Life

  Point 3, Second Ring: (Tier 3) - Health to Mana

  +

  Point 4: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Will

  Point 4, Second Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Agility

  Point 4, Third Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 7) - Stamina

  Point 4, Fourth Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 5) - Strength

  Point 4, Fifth Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 5) - Intellect

  Point 4, Sixth Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 5) - Will

  Point 4, Seventh Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Charisma

  +

  Point 5: Yellow Stone (Tier 2) - Flight

  +

  Point 6: Empty

  +

  Control Stone (Tier 2) - Domain Active

  Spare Stones

  Black: Animate Dead x1, Augment Undead x5, Contagion, Contagion (Tier 3), Control Undead x22, Curse (Tier 3), Curse x2, Drain Life x4, Harm (Tier 2), Harm x15, Heal Undead x2

  Clear: Strength x6, Agility x1, Intellect x7, Will x3, Charisma x8

  Green: Entangle (Tier 2), Entangle x3, Stoneskin (Tier 2), Stoneskin x4, Charm Animal x2, Healing Infusion (Tier 2)

  Gray: Natural Armor (Tier 2)

  Brown: Alchemy x2

  Control Stone (Tier 1) x1

  The Dark Pulse spell flooded my mind with data: how to cast it, what it did, and so on. The spell would certainly be interesting to experiment with. But the Animate Dead spell was almost overpowering in how much of an impact it made. Once it was fully socketed, I rocked back on my heels, barely able to focus through all the raw information coming my way.

  “You okay?” Kara asked, placing a calming hand on my shoulder to steady me.

  “Yeah, just…give me a second. It’s a lot.”

  I had a sixth point opened up. That was weird and new! Ever since the first day the Event hit, I’d only had five points. But now there was a sixth; the pentagram of crystals I could see in my mind’s eye was now a hexagon. I’d opened another spot, when I hit tier ten. That was seriously game-changing. With a new slot, I could socket another color and add an entirely different branch of spells. I told Kara what had happened, and she was as excited as I was.

  Then I looked at how many undead I could animate, now that I was tier ten for the spell.

  “Tier ten is five hundred and twelve tiers of undead,” I said in a stunned voice. “Add in the sixty-four from the tier seven stone, and I can Animate five hundred and seventy-six tiers worth of undead. I’ve got like fifty tiers worth, right now.”

  “Well, I guess that solves the cleanup issue,” Kara said.

  “Huh?” I didn’t get it at first. But then I did. “Ohhhhh. Yeah, that works.”

  We both went out to the battlefield and I set about Animating the dead. All of them.

  It took time. Even with my Will as high as it was, I could only cast Animate so many times in a row before it ran through all my mana. But I kept at it, slowly raising the entire zombie army back to life. Well, most of it, anyway. By the time I was done I had over five hundred zombies under my command.

  “This is insane,” I said, staring at the force in front of me.

  “No, this is amazing,” Kara replied. “With this, you can build yourself a real Domain. Set up a castle. Carry supplies here to keep your people in good shape over the winter that’s coming in a few months. Have enough guards to protect everyone. Selena, you’ve got an army now, one that is going to give anyone who might bug you serious reason to pause and think first.”

  I chuckled at that. “Wonder what Turner’s gonna think?”

  “Turner is going to shit a brick when he finds out,” Kara said, cackling evilly. “I, for one, am wholly in favor of that.”

  It was evening then, and time for some rest. Even with my skill as high as it was, I couldn’t Animate all of the slain undead. There were just too many of them. Lyonius had been using the Control Undead powers of his wraiths to manage the extra size of his horde, I figured, but I didn’t have that, and we still needed to get rid of those bodies before they did more damage to the soil. We wanted that land for planting crops. I set some of the undead to patrol the borders of my Domain while the rest carried the dead zombies up the hill toward the mall.

  I had them stick the ‘spare’ zombie bodies in the Chipotle next to the mall. None of the food inside was still edible at this point anyway, and I’d always thought Chipotle was a great restaurant to eat at if you wanted to get sick, so now it definitely was.

  We set up a roaring fire outside the farmhouse, and everyone enjoyed an evening of sharing food, drink, and stories of the battle we’d survived. It was a near thing, and we all knew it, but that only added to the gusto with which we approached our celebration.

  Farnsworth came over to me, not long after it was fully dark, and sat beside me near the fire. “You did well out there.”

  “Thanks. That means a lot, coming from you.”

  “Colonel Turner won’t be thrilled with another local Domain, but he’s going to have to live with the consequences of his actions,” Farnsworth said.

  “We should head over there before too long, let him know everything that happened,” I said. “He’ll know that the mall Domain fell, and he’ll know a new one is here. He’ll likely assume that I’m in charge of it. But it would be good to let him see us in person. I want to make sure things are still okay there, too. When we left, there were a lot of upset people on the base.”

  “Yeah, I was one of them,” Farnsworth said. “Which reminds me. I don’t think Turner’s going to be especially happy seeing me return. I don’t suppose you’d allow me to remain with you?”

  I stared at the man: career Air Force, older than me, greying hair, with a wealth of knowledge about battle and survival that would almost certainly come in handy over the months to come. The obvious answer was yes, but I needed to know something first.

  “You willing to take orders from me?”

  “I did during the battle,” Farnsworth pointed out.

  I nodded, because that was true; he had. “But taking orders on a battlefield and doing it in peacetime are different things, I think.”

  He acknowledged that with a nod.

  “I want to be sure you’re on board, for real,” I told him. “Not just running to us because Turner’s mad at you. He’d get over it quickly enough if you went back.”

  “He probably would. But after what he did, how can I trust him again?” Farnsworth asked. Before I could say anything else, he went on. “Yes, Selena. I’ll follow your orders faithfully. I’ve been led by officers younger than you before, but I’ve rarely met a junior officer that I actually wanted to follow. You’re something special.”

  “Then I accept. I’d be glad to have you.”

  We continued to lightly work on plans throughout the evening, finally deciding that we’d pay Turner and the Guard a visit the day after tomorrow. We wanted to let them know how the battle concluded, and also that the people who’d come with me were staying, as Alfred and his friends also asked to remain.

  I smiled when I thought about the upcoming meeting. Turner thought he knew me before? Oh, he was in for a serious shock, now!