“I need to take a walk,” Isu said haughtily, firing a quick sneer at Elyse. “I’ll come back… when I feel like it.”
Without another word, she strolled out of the camp and disappeared into the darkness of the woods. These little solo walks of hers were starting to make me a little suspicious.
“I was beginning to enjoy that,” Rami said. “Please, Elyse, continue.”
Elyse beamed before she started waxing eloquent about her first time. Rami seemed more intrigued by the minute, and I laughed to myself at how aroused she was no doubt becoming.
But Isu was a more permanent fixture in my mind. I mentally commanded a squad of skeletons to follow the former death goddess, then entered the mind of the foremost skeleton. I watched Isu’s form shift through the trees as I followed her from within my undead warrior. Isu turned around, and I attempted to dive behind the cover of a tree, but my skeleton was far too slow.
Isu had seen me.
“Vance? Is that you inside your skeleton? I will be left alone.” She waved her hands in front of her body and suddenly she vanished.
Had she truly become invisible? Or was she just hidden to the eyes of my skeleton? I transferred my mind to a different skeleton, a little further back from the first one. This second undead warrior was also unable to spot Isu in the forest.
Was this part of her powers as a necromancer? Could she hide herself from the gaze of undead creatures?
Well, I would leave her be for now. But I did need to learn what she was doing on her little walks, that much was clear.
For now, however, I had more things I wanted to discuss with Rollar, so I removed my mind from my skeleton and commanded the skeleton squad to patrol the area around the ruins before I made a beeline for Rollar.
“Rollar,” I said as I walked over to him. He had taken his helm off and stowed his hammer away. He dropped down onto one knee and bowed his head as I approached.
“Lord Vance,” he said, “I am at your service.”
“You don’t have to do that every time you see me, you know. You’re not in the Splendorous Army any more.”
“A fact I am well aware of. As are my men.” He gestured at the survivors from the battle, who were now readying camps and attending to the wounded. “What do you call your army?”
“The Army of Necrosis.” I smiled. “Anyway, tell me about Kroth. How long have you and your men been camping here? And what, if anything, have you found in the temple of the Tree God?”
“Nothing,” he answered with a sigh. “Come, I’ll show you.”
“Give me a moment,” I said.
I had acquired many souls from the battle, and I wanted to see what new ability I might be able to purchase. I closed my eyes and sent my spirit to the strange ethereal realm with my giant tree. Cranton’s sapling was still there, and it had now grown to almost my waist.
“Good job,” I said with a smile. “I really wasn’t sure whether you were going to fuck it up, Cranton, but you seem to be doing well.”
I doubted he could hear me, but it felt right to acknowledge his growth.
I walked to my giant gray sentinel and stabbed Grave Oath into its trunk. The souls were siphoned from my dagger into the mighty tree. I looked up and saw a new item was now clear of fog. It was much further up than the other ability items I had already unlocked, so it took some time to scale the trunk and arrive beside it.
It was a skull with a jawbone that moved up and down, as though it were laughing.
“What exactly are you going to give me, eh?” I asked the item as I sidled along the branch and reached out for it.
When my fingers closed around the laughing skull, a jolt of power rushed through me. With a simple flick of my will, I returned to the real world.
“What happened to you?” Rollar asked. “You closed your eyes for a moment, and your body became still. So still that I thought you might have died.”
“I acquired a new spell,” I explained. “I’m not sure what it does, but I’m going to give it a whirl.”
I focused on the laughing skull in my mind, drew upon the dark energy at my center, and thrust my hands forward. Nothing happened.
“Was. . . was something supposed to happen?” Rollar asked.
“I must be doing it wrong.” I went over to a nearby corpse, flies buzzing around it. Again, I channeled my dark energy, sending tendrils into the corpse. “You might want to step back a little,” I told Rollar as I continued feeding the corpse energy. “I’m not sure what’s about to happen.”
As my death-energy flooded the corpse, it started to quiver and shake, before its skeleton burst from its flesh suit and jumped to its feet.
“A skeleton! Very nice!” Rollar exclaimed, clearly impressed.
“I already have this ability,” I muttered under my breath. “This isn’t the one I just acquired.”
“No matter,” Rollar said. “I’m sure it’ll come to you shortly. Why don’t you think on it while we advance toward the Tree God’s temple?”
I nodded, lost in thoughts of what I might have done wrong and how I could correct it.
“These abilities you have,” Rollar said, “they are truly wondrous. If I were to be made Fated. . .” He paused before he repeated himself, as though I hadn’t been listening the first time. “If I were to be made Fated, I would prove very useful with such abilities.”
I smiled at Rollar. “Serve me well, and I might just do that. But you have to prove
