.
The corpses can stay outside for an hour longer, either the coldest days in winter have passed or just putting them to work makes them last longer. It's been awhile since the village was decimated by the plague, it's behind me but it eats at my thoughts, my powerlessness...
The corpses handle tasks differently it seems to depend on what they did while they were alive... Maud and husband corpses work well together, mixing herbs and spices and collecting and checking traps and Theron works well with cutting trees and leather works. Not as good as he used to be, but better than the others. The corpses don't have personalities but behave noticeably differently.
They don't tire but they can break joints and fingers due to over exertion and some of the corpses are sturdier than the others like Theron and Coel. I use the dark mana to fix the corpses, stuffing the corpses with dark mana just takes them back to how they were when they died, without the swelling of the glands though so they look more alive just with the dead eyes. It's just scary how alive they look now. The only way to decern that they aren't alive is: they are blue and purple from no blood circulation, they don't breathe and they are cold to the touch. It was so weird the first time I decided to wash them but they get dirty too and then it hinders their sight they don't blink and they use up the dark mana and after awhile their blood coagulates and their movements get slower. The dark mana animates them, wherever there is death and decay I can refill my mana from it.
After reinforcing the perimeter with a wooden fence and trenches with pikes, the fields are too big to fortify I can have a decent garden inside the village. And I've built up the houses and we'll and animal shelters, had to slaughter some of the animals couldn't house them all...
Also since I don't get sick I've spread the plague inside the village to cultivate death and decay... So I can refill myself and the corpses. And when I'm infected and sick I create some death mana and I can use that to heal myself and create death mana, the sicker I am the better... It's disgusting but that's the nature of my powers, that I've come to accept. I still feel pain and I've vomited blood, I almost died once from the plague I woke up with difficulties breathing, had to heal myself with the death mana quickly... Sometimes after I've refilled the corpses they look more alive than me.
I Need illnesses that kill me slowly like cancer or aids, maybe tb... Something that I can get without it killing me by surprise... Maybe worms but they might eat my lungs while I sleep...
Maybe I should smoke and drink excessively, syphilis maybe... Hmm, a wound in battle perhaps. The foods contaminated I share it with the animals and rats...
The village is fixed, contaminated, I reanimated some rats they can collect things for me if I have a clear picture of it in my mind... The live rats avoid my zombie rats though, so I control their movements a bit.
I've closed the village gates quite well don't want the plague getting out and calling attention here...