[imported_Horacio]

Life Begins After Death - Part I

And Now...

Death Has Its Benefits... - Part II

It has been another month, and the mainland is no place for me anymore. I need solitude, and need not be disturbed by wanderers. I stole a boat out of the Trinsic Harbour, and sailed south until I hit land. “This odd shaped island will do just fine” I thought to myself, as I began clearing out a space for my new home. Not a fan of jungle though, but it’s quiet. I began to build…

My physical appearance is beginning to change for the worst. My hair, what was once black as the night sky, is now turning grey, and beginning to fall out. Both of my arms have succumbed to the rotting of my body. They are now almost bare bone from my elbows down. What I cannot get over the most are these damn bugs and maggots. I feel the maggots as they squirm through my intestines, eating me from the inside out. Worst of all, my face...My left ear has fallen off, and from there, my face has begun to rot across my cheek. Green flesh is not appealing. I can now only enter towns with a helmet, or a mask.

I now understand what “The Watcher” meant by building armies. This “Book of the Dead” has taught quite a bit on necromantic magic. I followed a ritual as cited in the book at the Vesper Cemetery. This spell, animated a skeleton right out of the ground! Incredible. I then heard a scream. Across the graveyard, I saw a short, chubby man in dirty brown overalls attempting to sprint to the exit. The skeleton began to chase him. It was unfortunate that a grave digger was on duty. I wish he wasn’t, for the skeleton I summoned quickly caught up to him, and began choking him to death. By the time I made my way over to them, He was dead. As I walked closer to the dead body, it began to glow. Then, a bright light shone before me, and…I felt full again, almost…alive, but just for a moment. I looked back down at the gravedigger. His body was pale white, like he had been dead much longer than he should be. Did I…just take his soul? I told my new skeleton servant to pick up the body as I chanted “Vas Rel Por”.

Upon exit of the gate, I found myself in front of a small, familiar home. “Augustus, open the door quickly!” I yelled.
“Grim? I wasn’t expecting you, one moment” Said Augustus from the other side of the door. The door opened, and the light from inside caused me to squint. “Heavens, what have you gotten yourself into now?” Sighed Augustus, once he saw the corpse holding skeleton. Once my eyes had adjusted to the light, I was able to see the house within, as well as Augustus. Augustus Lee is quite tall, around 6'7m with long Silvery-Blue Hair. He too, is dead like me, but he still has blood running through his veins, other people’s blood. Augustus is a Vampire, loyal only to himself. For a Vampire, tonight he looks quite pale, and he seems to be the only one who I can trust and depend on nowadays. He understands me, and helps me with my crossover from living to dead.

“It seems you are progressing well. You are already raising the dead. Hurry up, come inside, and bring that pile of walking bones with you!” Said Augustus with a large grin on his face. I went inside, and the skeleton followed behind me. The home looked like any normal home. Looks like any normal human could live here. “Come, bring him downstairs” Said Augustus, as he swung open the hidden passage behind his bookshelf. Augustus and I began walking down the dark, stone staircase. The corpse carrying skeleton followed behind us, until it began making a strange sound. “How long has this skeleton been animated for? Spoke Augustus hastily.
“Hmm…about 20 minutes now, why?” I responded.
“It’s only being animated, and that doesn’t last forever!” He said as he looked back at the wobbling skeleton.

The skeleton began to shake, and then out of nowhere, just fell apart in the stairwell. The corpse he was carrying had fallen and, along with the mess of bones is now falling towards us. Augustus Swiftly jumped down the stairs, but I was caught off guard. The corpse, the bones, and my lifeless self tumbled down the remaining stairs until we hit the ground. In the fall, my body had gotten tangled up with the gravediggers, and the pile of bones lay around and on top of us. “Pull yourself together.” Chuckled Augustus. I stood up, only to realize that my left hand was gone. I began rummaging through the bone pile until I found it. I picked it up, and like two magnets connecting to one another, my hand connected back to my wrist magically. “Seems I should say Ouch or something” I said smiling. That was the first time I had smiled in weeks. It felt…good.

“Well, are you going to tell me what happened here? Why do I have a dead human, and now a pile of bones in my house?” Said Augustus with a raised eyebrow.

I explained to him what had happened in Vesper…

*10 minutes later*

“So…it just attacked the man out of nowhere? That can’t be. The skeleton only listens to what its master tells it to, and YOU were its master. You are telepathically linked to your follower until the effects of the spell wear off, which it did in my stairwell” Explained Augustus.

“But I didn’t tell it to do anything” I replied

“You didn’t have to tell it to, your mind told it to kill him, there’s no other explanation.” He shot back.

I sat there in self thought for a moment. “I…I’m not a murderer though…I didn’t want to kill him. I didn’t even know him. But that feeling when I stood over him…so refreshing. I felt alive again!” I told Augustus.

“Listen, Grim. Every walking dead person needs some sort of renewable energy. Mine is Blood. Maybe your body needs life energies to stay strong.” Said Augustus while he examined the dead Gravedigger.

I looked at the Gravediggers body under the light of the basement. The body was pale white, and the skin looked all shrivelled up, almost leathery. “It looks like all the moisture has been sucked out of his body.” I said.

Augustus pulled a shiny dagger out of his belt, and cut the left wrist of the corpse. To my surprise, blood flowed out of the shrivelled veins. “Hmm…something seems off with this blood.” Said Augustus as he dipped his finger into the growing pool of blood. He put his finger in his mouth, turned to his right, and spat. “This blood tastes horrible! It’s like…all the nutrients have been taken out of it!” Said Augustus as he spat again.

“I think my theory may be correct Grim. Have you not come across anything in your book yet?” He asked

“No, I am only about half way through, there is no index in this book, and it’s all written in Runic. Some of it is very hard to make sense of” I said.

“Well you better get to the part where it explains what you just did to this man. If this is your source of food, and maybe even keeping your appearance more human, you might be in trouble. You might have to become a murderer…” Augustus warned.

“Feel free to stay here, as the streets are no place for your studies” Gestured Augustus.

I stood in silence for a moment, staring into the lifeless eyes of the Gravedigger. I turned to Augustus. “N…No I have a home now. You can find me on Amoeba Island. Quiet, no humans, just a few snakes and alligators, nothing I can’t handle.” I said to Augustus as my eye contact shifted between his, and the dead Gravedigger. I pulled a rune out of my backpack and handed it to Augustus. “Hmm…these bones…and this corpse may come in handy if ever I need some protection” I thought to myself. I chanted the same spell as I did in Vesper, and the skeleton began to put itself back together. I turned to the Gravedigger. He was sitting up, staring lifelessly at me. “Looks like I’ve got some company at home now…well, at least until the spell wears off again” I said sarcastically.

“Well, I doubt they will make for good conversation” Augustus said, laughing lightly at his own joke. We both laughed for a moment, and then I chanted the words “Vas Rel Por”. I extended my bony, skeletal hand towards Augustus. “Until next time” I said to him. Augustus grasped my hand, and shook it firmly. “Yes friend, until next time…”

The Skeleton and the Gravedigger walked through the red gate, I followed behind them. I was in front of my home back on Amoeba Island. I looked at the small stone structure I had built practically from scratch. That’s probably why my hands and arms are already bone. Too much manual labour. I went inside, and the skeleton and the Gravedigger stood outside the entrance, almost if they were guards. As I walked in, I caught a glance of my face in the mirror. The skin on the left side of my face was no longer green. It was almost…pink! “Killing that man did seem to refresh me in more ways than one! But is my appearance worth killing people over?” I thought to myself. I pushed the thought aside for now, as I sat in my corner desk, opened up my black book, and began reading…


*Meanwhile*

Somewhere…or maybe Nowhere…In a pitch black room sat the tall pale man, “The Watcher”. In a meditative trance, with his eyes closed he did what his name implied... he watched. “I see what you see boy…Yes…Keep reading. Learn…Grow Evil…Feed!” Thought the Watcher…He laughed menacingly.

[imported_Augustus Lee]

He stared at the spot Grim had summoned the gate for a long moment after the gate closed. A hand rose to his chin, drawing a finger along his jawline as he contemplated the events that had just taken place. With a small nod to himself, he turned and approached the large black alter that stood near the back wall of the basement. His hands moving to smooth the pages of the large, ancient, black leather bound tome that rested there.

Flipping through the pages, he stopped having found the one he sought and drew a finger down through the lines, mumbling words from another world and drawing a runic symbol in the air with his right hand, the hand of power. The rune blazed in the air for a moment in a shade of red, and then shot towards the wall. A rift taring open between realms where it impacted the wall.

Leaning over, he snatched up a torch and lit it from another hanging on a sconce near the rift before stepping through. Immediately he was covered in cobwebs and dust. A flurry of coughing and hands waving to break the webs proceeded, followed by much swearing in Drow. He'd grown fond of the language in his youth, having taken a Drow mate, and he still found himself speaking the language when frustrated or angered.

After clearing a substantial amount of the webbing and dust from the area he stood in, he gazed around at what remained of the Lee Family Archives.

There was rubble strewn here and there from when the castle had been attacked nearly an eon ago. But enough of the archives survived to remain useful. He picked his way through the aisle of books until he came across the section near the back. The section his father had locked off from him when he was a child. The section including the darkest of magics.

He followed the titles along until he found the Book of the Dead his father had aquired from his native land of Krynn and took the tome down, brushing his hand along the surface to wipe the dust away. On the surface, in the five chromatic colors were the five heads of Takhisis.

"Maybe I can find something in here to help the man..." He tapped his fingers along the binding before nodding to himself once more and making his way back to the rift. He stopped a moment near the rift, gazing down at some of the corpses that littered the floors, those he'd stepped over without a thought. You got used to these sorts of things when you went somewhere frequently he supposed. A little shrug rose from his shoulders. But then he saw corpse of the Drow he'd been thinking of moments ago, and a small frown creased his face. "Then again...maybe in helping him...he could help me." Moving to stand next to the decayed corpse, he knelt down and lifted the body of Sshivradrastae in his arms, resting the book across what was now only her rib cage. He proceeded through the rift then and lay her body across the alter, turning to inscribe the rune that would seal the rift once again.

That done, he turned and moved to lay the corpse in a cot set several feet from the alter, the cot that was only there for nights of late study. But for now it would serve as a resting place for his former lover. He turned back to the alter then and opened the Book of the Dead atop the ancient tome that rested on the alter, and pulled a stool over to sit, hunched over the book. He began reading and absorbing the knowledge that was once forbidden to him, in an effort to help both himself...and his friend. And maybe even, if he dared to hope, his long lost Silver Rage.