Luke and the Fog Creeper slammed into a branch lower down with a crunch. Thankfully, he was on top, and didn’t suffer the bulk of the damage. But dropping down fifteen instead of thirty feet wasn’t much of a difference with how much he was jolted. Luke felt the discs in his spine all slam into one another, and his legs went fully numb as something important snapped. He still had his grip on his sword, and the fall with the implanted blade had killed the Fog Creeper.
Ripping the sword out of the slowly-turning-to-goop monster, Luke elected to use another Grim Harvest to heal himself instead of a Pale Flame Bolt.
[Health: 78 / 125]
[Mana: 61 / 81 {126}]
[Stamina: 58 / 98 {123}]
Luke felt sensation return to his legs; a dull, muted throbbing.
Note to self, he thought as he pushed himself to his feet, Even if my Health doesn’t show it, I can suffer broken limbs and incapacitating blows. Health is just an overall measure of how close I am to dying again.
He imagined that a well-placed decapitating strike would instantly kill him, and once more cursed the fact that he could not use Arts or Aspects while helmed. He had the gorget, which was something for neck protection, but a lucky headshot could end his new life.
Or maybe not, he thought. Perhaps I am more durable. My head was melted from acid, and I recovered from that.
He looked up across the branches up above and saw the combat was faring about as well as he could have hoped or expected. Kriskarns had died and fallen, or lay whimpering, yowling on the forest floor below. The same was true for Fog Creepers, who were not in states of dying, but actively turning to goop as their corpses decayed to reveal little Essence Shards all about.
There were still four Fog Creepers, one kriskarn, and his undead one, Pierce. Luke knew he needed to thin down the Fog Creeper numbers more, and was about to yell for Garran to focus fire. But, the man’s bolts spoke before Luke could, and Garran’s next shot arced overhead from whatever hidden perch he had secreted himself away on. The bolt slammed into the eye of one of the monsters, and it went tumbling down to the forest floor.
Well, that’s one of them.
Luke knew he couldn’t get up to the next branch, and instead he called out, “Pierce! To me!” The Undead mount jumped down with ease, and Luke threw his leg over and mounted his steed. “Go! Fight!”
Pierce did a weird full-body wave motion starting from the head, and then leaped up five feet to a branch, then another ten to the heights that they had been fighting on. Once up there, rather than dismount once more, Luke chose to stay on the steed. Instinctively, he kicked his heels back to goad it on—and the undead mount picked up on his desires, or perhaps his will and intent. Pierce jumped forward, claws going for the upper legs and hips of one of the Fog Creepers, which put Luke right at its head-height.
As the mount’s skeletal, sharp razors sank into bark-covered flesh, Luke swung his sword in an overhead strike. It caught the Fog Creeper’s arm, which had been brought up to block, and sliced it clean off before going down into the skull and biting deep. The thing perished, going slack, and Luke ripped his blade back. His mount, thanks to its multiple legs, didn’t lose footing as its target perished, and backed up a few steps, giving Luke a moment to assess again.
Two Fog Creepers remained, and one heavily injured kriskarn did as well. Luke opted to kill one of the two remaining monsters, and went right for it. The same routine played out—Pierce’s claws sank into the meat of the upper legs, rooting the enemy and keeping them from moving away. It counter attacked, bringing clawed arms to bear, and Luke blocked one with his shield, while the other one slammed down onto his mount’s shoulder.
The injury didn’t phase the Undead creature, and Luke’s aim was true as he struck a vicious horizontal slash that cut right through the bicep, cleaving the arm off fully. The rest of the swing had enough force and momentum to go halfway into the torso, and seemingly by resonant command, Pierce flung his body weight into a rotation. That, combined with Luke’s steady hand, resulted in his sword cutting in a bit deeper—but more importantly, the weight of the movement sent the foe flinging off of his blade and down to the forest floor below.
Resonant command? Luke thought. Why’d those words pop into my head? Does it have something to do with what the Necromancer said about ‘resonance signature’? Some type of sympathetic response between Undead controller and minion?
Luke figured that was his best guess and would stick to it until he could learn more. In the present, there was still a fierce fight between the one injured kriskarn and Fog Creeper. “Back off,” Luke ordered, and Pierce backed away.
The two kept fighting: monster versus animal, apex against apex. But, the kriskarn, with its superior armored hide won out, and the Fog Creeper went crashing to the forest floor. The animal turned to Luke, hissing, but heavily injured.
Garran shouted, “Don’t kill it!”
Luke spared a glance at Garran, who was jumping from tree branch to limb towards him. “Why not?”
“I have an Art!”
Luke returned his gaze to the kriskarn, who kept posturing…but it was obvious it was too heavily injured to fight. Perhaps the defensive display of raised hackles, bristling fur pushing between angled scales, could deter most animals…but Luke wasn’t one of those. Still, he stayed put.
Garran got up behind him, and Luke heard the smack of his boots on the wood. He passed Luke, and raised his hand. The man said aloud, “In the name of the Hand that guides mine, you who are without kin, I welcome you to mine.” A blip of bright, green light flashed out from his palm, like a flash from a camera.
Luke saw the same green flash in the kriskarn’s eyes, and its body sagged down to the branch, where it began to lick its wounds. “Did you…tame it?”
Garran practically giggled with excitement as he jumped a few more branches to get next to the thing, who he bowed to respectfully before sitting down in front of. “Yes,” he whispered, just loud enough for Luke to hear him. “Please, heal with what you can.”
“If you get the Essence Shards from the foes,” Luke replied.
Garran nodded and put a hand onto the tamed animal’s head. It whined in response, presumably from pain, and Garran said, “I know, friend. Soon enough. My ally can mend your wounds a bit. What is your name?” Garran then leaned forward, and Luke could only hear a mix between a growl and a purr. “Ah…Fang. And you’re a girl? I’m sorry.”
Luke sheathed his sword and reformed his shield into the kite, out-of-the-way version on his arm. “Can you talk to it now?”
Garran nodded as he pet the animal. “Yes, in a way. We understand one another, thanks to The Blooming Hand’s grace and my Art. We do not speak in each others minds—not yet at this early stage of the bond, anyways—but we will gain resonance over time.”
There’s that word again, Luke thought. So it seems that summons and bound creatures have similar restrictions to some extent.
He dismounted and looked at Pierce. “Go down below and kill the survivors.” The steed leapt off the branches and headed down the lower boughs, as Luke walked over and used Grim Harvest to heal not just himself but the still-injured Fang, and tried to suppress his Chill Field, to reduce the radius, while keeping it manifested. To his delight, he saw a little icon appear in his HUD that was like a knob, currently set at 10 feet. He willed it to rotate down to less than an inch, and the black and blue sparkles of the aura around him faded, until they were only next to his armor.
“So…how does that work?” Luke asked. “The whole…resonance.”
Garran looked up at Luke. “Some Classes like mine can form bonds with animals when they are injured enough. We can only have so many bonds—represented by something called our Bond Limit—”
Luke thought, Like my Command Limit.
Garran continued, “—and resonance is how…attuned you are to your companions.”
“I have that,” Luke said aloud as he walked to the edge of the branch and peered over to see Pierce killing off the surviving kriskarns below. “At least, I think I do. The Necromancer that tried to raise me mentioned something about it.”
Garran held his hand up, with index and middle pointed and the other three curled in. “There’s two types of…companions. Summoning, which is literally manifesting a companion from raw magic and your god’s will, is the first. People who can do that can’t have more than their Summon Limit.” He lowered his middle finger. “Then you have what I can do, which requires an animal who accepts the Bond.”
Garran lowered his hand. “In both cases, the longer they stick around you, the more they respond to your thoughts. The same goes for how intelligent they are.” He chuckled. “I have a pet Griskin back home who legs eggs, and she’s a dunce. Barely responds to my thoughts despite having her for four years.”
Luke used another Grim Harvest and then had to wait for more stamina to regenerate. “I have something called a Command Limit which tells me how many Undead I can control…and Pierce down there seemed to respond to my thoughts during the fight.”
“No wonder, “Garran said as he scratched Fang’s lower jaw, eliciting a purr from the animal. “Kriskarns are pretty smart for animals.” He chuckled. “With Fang here? I probably won’t be able to have any more Bonds. But, that’s fine…I’ve always dreamt of a kriskarn accepting one from me. Having to beat an animal to a pulp to get the Art to work just never sat right with me…but who am I to argue against the gods?”
Literal game mechanics, Luke thought as he looked away. Just like in Pocket Monsters back home, you have to beat something senseless to get it to submit. That’s fucked up. At least I do the mercy of killing the things before raising them to serve.
That thought, and how easily it came across his mind, sent a wave of discomfort down Luke’s spine. Still…he knew he wasn’t wrong. Better to end the suffering and raise the corpse than beat it to submission and nurse it back to health. That seemed far more fucked up.
“How much does having one kriskarn cost you?” Garran asked.
Luke shrugged. “Haven’t checked yet…but that brings up a question. I have images and words in my vision—”
“Ah, the words of the gods, yes. Everyone experiences that in some way when they use their Arts or ask their god for information about their Aspects. I see a small sphere, full to the brim with green light, when I think about my Bond Limit. Generally, the rule of thumb is the bigger, or smarter, the more expensive the Bond is.”
So they do have a heads-up-display, Luke thought. Their world is gamified and they don’t even know it. Their whole magic system is based upon…well, a video-game-like system, and they’re none the wiser. The only difference is in the setup—I get raw numbers and statistics, while they get symbols and vague shit like an orb partly filled.
Pierce leaped back up to the high branches and stood next to Luke. “All done?” Luke asked. It gave a little nod, then laid down on its stomach.
Fang didn’t seem to mind the presence of the undead kriskarn, and nuzzled up close to Garran. “She’s pretty hurt still,” Garran said.
“Give me some time here,” Luke replied as he absentmindedly sat down and scratched Pierce’s head, even though his Undead companion didn’t respond to the gesture. “I need mana and stamina back.” He then glanced down over the branches to the forest floor below, where Pierce had neatly stacked up kriskarn corpses. “And…I’ve got more minions to raise.”
After a good hour of Luke letting his mana and stamina build up to heal the group, he mounted Pierce and went down to the forest floor. Garran, mounting up on Fang, did the same, and while Luke set to raising the kriskarn corpses to serve him, Garran went about collecting Essence Shards: returning with eleven in total. He gave all eleven to Luke. “You get them all this time,” he said. “I got a Bonded animal out of the whole thing.”
Luke didn’t dare look a gift-horse in the mouth and accepted the shards. As he looked across his small cohort of six kriskarns—Pierce included—multiple messages played across his vision.
[Experience Gained: 740. Current Experience: 979 / 1000.]
[Resistance Increase: Blunt (0%) → (1%).]
[Aspect Increase: Melee Familiarity (Blade) 6 → 7 (Gain +7% damage with bladed weapons).]
[Art Increase: Marrowsteel Plate 3 → 4 (Absorbs 14% of your Health worth of damage).]
[Black Guard 6 → 7 (While active, reduce all damage taken by 7%).]
[Pale Flame Bolt 6 → 7 (Fire 2 bolts with each use, which must target different creatures).]
[Chill Field 3 → 4 (Apply a 4% slow to Living Creatures, and a 4% acceleration to Undead Creatures).]
[Grim Harvest 5 → 6 (Restores/Damages 8% max Health).]
[Infuse Weapon 3 → 4 (4% of the inflicted damage is converted to the applied Power Type).]
[Corpse Retainer 5 → 6 (Increase Command Limit by +1).]
The voice of the god of Death, The Last Warden, resonated through Luke’s mind—actively talking to him this time, and not like the last series of message which were akin to a recording.
[You will notice your Command Limit is strained at 45 out of 47, despite only having six Undead.]
Yeah, Luke thought back. Do you have some type of scaling chart for size or intelligence?
[For size alone. Their intelligence is based upon what they once were. Kriskarns have naturally high resonance because they form tight-knit familial packs: hence why your raised minion responds so readily. I shall display to you the chart, modifier, and some examples from your world—based upon your memory. That should give you a good point to go from.]
You’re being awful helpful and talkative right now.
[I merely guide.]
Thanks.
There was no response, save for a chart that flickered into Luke’s vision. There was no audible accompaniment.
[Size - Size Modifier - Size Example from Earth.]
[Tiny - 0.25x - Rat.]
[Small - 0.5x - Dog.]
[Medium - 1x - Human.]
[Large - 1.5x - Horse.]
[Huge - 2x - Elephant.]
[Enormous - 4x - Tyrannosaurus Rex.]
[Colossal - 8x - Blue Whale.]
Luke did some quick math and determined that each kriskarn was considered ‘large’ sized, thus why his Command Limit was so filled up with only six Mindless Undead. That also meant if he had Echo Dead, they would be far more expensive if they were bigger.
Oh, but how cool would it be to have an Undead Dragon who could talk to me—a fully Awakened Dead? I’d be the Undead dragon rider. Fuck, that goes hard.
Even then, Luke still had to yet tackle the moral and ethical question he had once posed to himself reared its ugly head. Luke muttered aloud, “Do animals have souls like us?”
Garran went, “Pfff…no. Animals are just…animals. Souls are for people.”
“What about really smart animals? Like dragons?”
Garran’s eyes went wide at that. “Dragons?”
“Erm…yeah. You know: big, scaled, winged apex predators with the ability to spit out elemental harm—like a fire breath.”
Garran shook his head. “Not around here, and they’re not called dragons. Silly name. They don’t drag at all. If anything, they are quite adept fliers. Those are called elemaws. They are smart…but don’t have souls. Could you imagine how cruel the gods would be to let us eat things that have souls?” He shook his head. “Our priestess, Melkin, would forbid us from eating meat if that were the case.”
Luke thought, Well…that’s one bit of silver lining, I suppose. I don’t have to worry about any moral or ethical dilemmas when it comes to Awakened Undead that are animals.
As he mounted Pierce and ordered the other kriskarns to follow, and Garran mounted his own now-healed-up steed, Luke couldn’t help but fantasize about flying through the skies on a giant, skeletal dragon.