Aleric closed his eyes and imagined himself ruling a kingdom… A place where nobody would pursue him. Where people would treat him with respect. No, with reverence!
But he had to return to reality.
"A kingdom? Only one that starts and ends in this crypt. The doors are locked."
"I was given the power to open and close the doors of this crypt, master. Ask, and I will open them."
"Yeah... But then the people outside will surely kill me. Unless you can help me with that, too?" Aleric eyed the staff with hope. It had a lot of magic in it... Surely it had amazing powers inside. "What can you do at all?"
"I am a vessel for great Xarvain's knowledge, master. You can also use me to focus your magic. Besides that, I don't have special powers. But I can teach you many spells that can kill people and bring them back from the dead."
"Doesn't the study of magic take years? I don't have years to spend..." Aleric mentally calculated the amount of water he had brought with him. The results weren't promising. "I probably don't even have a week."
The staff's jaw moved as if it laughed silently.
"With your innate talent, master, a basic killing spell should take much less time to learn. All you need is to transform some of your mana into Dark energy and direct it at a living target. If you focus, you should feel your magic energy inside of you. It's often called 'maen' or 'mana' for convenience."
Aleric nodded, touching his chest.
The magical energy was with him for six years, although he never knew what to do with it.
"I feel it. But how do I transform it?"
"You have surely done this before, master, when you awakened this power. Focus on this feeling and repeat it."
Aleric frowned. The memories of this fateful day were so full of fear and sorrow… There was so much emotion that he barely remembered anything besides it.
Usually, he avoided thinking about his mother's death too hard. But today, Aleric pushed on, trying to recall the moment when she hugged him back.
And then he felt it—a chill of death on his fingertips. An eerie blueish-green energy was glowing on the fingers of his right hand. It was the same color as the Spine Staff's eyes.
Aleric gasped.
"Is this… Dark energy?"
"Yes, master. This amount will surely be enough to kill a regular human! And you summoned it so easily—usually adepts need years of preparation to just wield it without harming himself. But since you are death-touched, your own Dark energy will never harm you, master!"
Aleric stood up, looking at his hand. The more he focused on this energy, the better he felt it. He also felt the amount of mana that was spent on creating it—perhaps a tenth of his total reserve.
The Dark energy wasn't fully under Aleric's control, but it stayed in his hand like a few tongues of flame.
He squinted, aiming into a corner of the crypt five meters away, and flicked his hand. The Dark energy flew from his fingers and hit the wall with a "poof", then dissipated without leaving a single mark on the stone.
"This wasn't impressive or deadly at all," Aleric muttered.
"This spell, 'Pain', is much more impressive than it sounds. Not only does it kill, but if you put enough Dark energy into it, the killed person will immediately rise as a zombie. Since the zombie is imbued with your Dark energy, until it dissipates, it will fight on your side."
Aleric smiled and clenched the fist that was still tingling from the Dark energy.
"Yeah, that sounds much better."
Even if this wouldn't be enough to kill all his pursuers, a few zombies will surely distract them enough that he could hide. Especially if he killed their tracking dogs first.
"I can teach you more complex combat spells, master, but since you will need to learn starting from the basics, this will take a bit longer," the skull staff said. "Also, if you send the Dark energy through me, I will help you direct and aim your spells better."
Aleric nodded and looked toward the stairs up.
The crypt's doors blocked all sounds from the pursuers, and Aleric believed that they would withstand an assault for a long time. But a crypt like that would surely attract even more attention from the Church. What if his pursuers called for reinforcements?
He didn't want to be near this place when a squad of paladins or clerics with powerful Light magic came to open this crypt up. It would be much better to leave the place when his pursuers didn't expect it, but before help could arrive to them.
"It was near sunset when I came here. If I wait a little longer, my pursuers will be at their most relaxed and vulnerable," Aleric said. "While I wait, Staff, you can teach me how to use the Pain spell better. And where to get more mana for it."
***
Outside of the crypt, a group of six Church's templars was staring at the enchanted doors in frustration. The ghoul they were chasing all the way from Broomwood was inside, but they couldn't reach it. All their attempts to push the crypt's doors open didn't move them for even a hair's breadth.
It was also getting dark.
"Enough, men. Stop," Darrick, the squad captain, said. "It's dark, and this place is so full of Dark energy it makes my skin crawl. Look at the old gravestones... I won't be surprised if we meet more than one undead here."
He turned to Mondin, the youngest initiate in the squad.
"Mondin, ride back to Broomwood and send a message to clerics that we found a place in a dire need of blessing. They should send someone who could blast this door open."
"Yes, sir!"
"The rest will set up camp. And we need sentries..."
Without Mondin, there were only five templars left, along with two tracking dogs, to watch the crypt and the old graveyard. Darrick didn't like these numbers, but he knew they couldn't leave a place like that unattended until reinforcements came. This was their job–to smite the undead creatures born from ambient Dark energy or left from old necromancer experiments.
All the templars had scale armor, combat axes to decimate undead, and some holy water. Against a wild ghoul or even a self-taught warlock, this was enough. Darrick doubted he would see anything more serious.
This ghoul was strange, though. The dogs barked at its trail like on a trail of an undead, but undead usually stole poultry and children, not shoes.
***
The statues that "guarded" the crypt looked almost alive in the light of templars' bonfire. Darrick, who was keeping watch while his men slept, couldn't stop looking at them.
He was afraid if he turned away, they would pounce on him.
Still, when he heard a screech of stone and saw the crypt's door open, he jolted.
"Alarm! Get ready!" Darrick shouted, pulling out his axe.
His men were sleeping in their armor and with weapons nearby. As soon as they heard the words, they jumped to their feet, gathering in a formation around the bonfire. Their dogs and horses woke up too, snorting and whining in fright despite being trained to not fear undead.
Strong Dark energy was coming from inside these doors, and it felt as if someone was walking over Darrick's grave.
His templars stood around in a loose formation, preparing to meet the danger. One of them, Rois, pulled out a vial of holy water and prepared to throw it.
From the shadows inside the crypt, a figure in a dark cloak emerged, holding a curved staff. Only strands of white hair were visible from under the hood at first.
Then light of the bonfire fell on Aleric, and templars gasped.
Never before have they seen a creature like him! Although he looked undead, his gaze was angry and stubborn and too sentient for any undead they knew of. They only heard legends about creatures like him: liches and vampires, nobility of the undead. Both were as dangerous as they were rare.
"Light, protect us..." Darrick muttered, then shouted. "Brothers, get ready! Rois, throw!"
At the same time as Rois threw his vial, Aleric raised the Spine Staff. Blue-green energy flashed from his fingers to the staff and shot from the skull's eyes, aiming at Darrick.
The vial of holy water hit Aleric's side at the same time the bolt of energy hit Darrick's leg.
Aleric hissed in pain. The holy water, infused with Light energy, felt boiling hot on his skin! But if he was a true undead, it would've melted his flesh like acid.
Meanwhile, Darrick felt like his entire body was set on fire and encased in ice at the same time!
He screamed in agony and collapsed as the Dark energy of Aleric's spell consumed him from inside. The sight filled Aleric with vicious joy. Revenge! Revenge for years of being pursued!
"Captain!" Rois shouted. He knelt near Darrick to try and help, pulling out another bottle of holy water.
"We will cover you!" another templar shouted. He and the rest of them charged at Aleric. "For the Light and the Magister!"
Aleric smiled and shot another Pain spell at the closest templar. Thanks to the Spine Staff and some practice, his shot easily hit the target. The templars' armor was no protection against Aleric's magic.
A second man fell in agony, rolling down by inertia. The power Aleric felt at this was intoxicating…
At this moment, Darrick stopped convulsing. The next instant, his undead body lunged for the throat of Rois who was leaning over him.
...But the satisfaction from watching his enemies' bodies rise and lunge at their comrades was an even better feeling!
To the horror of templars, the second fallen man crawled and grabbed the legs of the man nearest to him.
For the first time, Aleric could stand up against all those who tried to kill him, and he wanted to laugh at this thought.
The zombies created by the Pain spell couldn't do much harm to the templars on their own. They were too stupid to use weapons, and their fingers couldn't breach the templars' armor, while templars were well-equipped to fight undead.
Even Rois, as shocked as he was, had chopped off Darrick's wrist already with his axe.
However, the distraction created by the zombies have let Aleric throw more Pain spells at his leisure!
One, two, three... Each of the templars died in agony before they could even run up to Aleric! The last to fall was Rois, as the farthest away. Now his zombie was standing aimlessly near all the others.
A couple of dozen meters away, five tethered corpses were watching this in animal panic. The dogs have run away already—the natural fear of Dark energy has won over their training.
Aleric smiled broadly at the sight. Bloodied and dirty, some of them missing limbs from the fighting, the zombies still looked better to him than any person he could recall, because they were his.
His Dark energy was animating them like puppets, and Aleric could feel it. They could never betray him or turn on him.
It was too bad that this Dark energy was already waning. The Pain spell could only animate undead temporarily. By Aleric's estimate, these zombies would fall flat in less than an hour.
It was also a good thing there weren't many more hunters. Just on these, Aleric had spent a half of his mana reserve in addition to what he had lost during practice. He could recover this mana by resting, but that would take time.
"What a glorious victory, master," the Spine Staff said. "And now you have some corpses to study reanimation spells on."
Instead of replying, Aleric walked closer to the panicking horses. Like all animals, they tried to get away from him, which he ignored. Instead, he looked around at the soft forest soil. The light from the bonfire was enough for his undead eyes.
'It's just as I feared...'
There were horse tracks going away from this camp.
This fight was only the beginning. The templars have sent a message to the Church, and it meant there would be more of them coming for him.
But now, Aleric was done running.