I felt my master taking control of the [Puppet Link] and knew that I only had a moment to act. I focused my attention and selected the [Flesh Hunger] option mentally. However, instead of the rush of knowledge that had accompanied my previous acquisitions, an extra box appeared.

Unable to select option; minion character sheet settings are set to ‘Master Controlled’.

My attempt at rebellion didn’t please Voulos at all. He took a moment to read the box before angrily dismissing it. Without saying a word, he chose [Scent Chameleon] and threw me at Hans. Only as I sailed through the air did Voulos order him to catch me. Hans tried his best, but dexterity is hardly his best attribute and I dropped to the floor.

Scent Chameleon - Bronze:

+1 Charisma and scents detected by [Flesh Scent] can be absorbed and secreted to mask the user’s true scent. Amplifies and identifies the smell of any flesh by x5 for 12 seconds.

“Pick him up. He has work to do.” Voulos ordered, as he chugged the rest of his wine. It left his lips blood red in contrast to his ash coloured face. With his tusks he looked a little like an upside down vampire. He picked up the salt shaker from his desk before making for the door.

Hans lugged me down the stairs behind our master. I was feeling a little guilty for disobeying him. He was the master, and I the servant. So why did I still hate the upgrade he had forced on me? Voulos gripped the staircase rail as we descended, and the way he walked reminded me of the shambling gait of a ‘slow’ zombie.

Not all zombies are raised equally. Some don’t make it past the first threshold, also known as the ‘bestial’ threshold. Even with Voulos’ aptitude and use of cold storage rooms to preserve corpses, a significant proportion of his horde are made with a dexterity below five. The average zombie wasn’t exactly fast, but these geriatric shufflers are slow and clumsy, even by our standards. In the close quarters of the horde, their lack of agility wasn’t a big deal, but the twisting staircase would be a tough opponent for them.

Luckily, Hans seemed to have his dexterity past the first threshold, and had no issue going down the staircase. He moved slowly and surely, his bare feet slapping against the cold stones. The only light was from the bright blue torches on the walls, flickering unnaturally slowly. We passed a narrow window, but the storm that swirled around the tower blocked out any light from the night sky.

The steps seemed to go on and on, once again messing with my perception of the tower’s height. When we eventually came to a stop, we were in front of a door covered in glowing squiggles. Voulos opened the door with a series of gestures, but his body obscured them from my view. The door swung open of its own accord, and we crept in.

Inside the room was a large circle of squiggles surrounding a seven-pointed pentagram… or a septagram? Is that even a word? I wondered if these squiggles would make sense if I had a higher intelligence, or if they were just random lines on the floor. The system-common on my sheet looked like gibberish before I became smart enough to read.

Where the points of the star touched the circle, several black candles sat on the floor. Voulos went around the room, lighting the candles and covering the squiggles with salt while he rambled away. My incessant clicking noises reminded him of a pirate captain he killed. Without further explanation, he started loudly grunting in a strange language. It wasn’t orcish or common, so [Made to Serve] couldn’t help me understand. I had no idea what he was saying.

When a semi-translucent figure appeared dressed in a tattered naval uniform, I assumed he was the pirate Voulos had been talking about. He surely swore like a sailor, for within seconds of being summoned, my cuss word vocabulary had expanded significantly.

“Then, after all that, ya raised the dead crew to row ya t’ rest of t’ way! Ya arrogant corpse-fucker.” The angry ghost shouted.

“If I hadn’t taken control, then we would have all perished. Don’t be so naïve, Jornack. If you had killed the elf as I suggested, they wouldn’t have been after us in the first place. Had we turned back, the navy would have caught up. It’s only because of me that any of your crew made it out alive.” Voulos yelled back.

“Eat shit and die, Voulos. Is always someone else who has to take t’ fall for ya bullshit. Ya think ya saved them? How is Trista? Oh wait, she be dead too ‘cause ya-” the pirate captain shouted, but Voulos cut him off.

“[Dominate Undead]. Enough!” Voulos bellowed.

“I didn’t summon you to reminisce about old times, Jornack. You are here because I want to know about the language of your homeland. I remember you and your brother clicking away and talking about me behind my back. Could you teach those clicks to my minion? You may speak.” My master said, his fiery anger giving way to a cold insistence.

“Yer a paranoid narcissist. We weren’t talkin’ about ya. Not everything revolves around yer bloody ego. Why would I help ya? Ya killed me and my brother. Why would ya even want to learn t’ chitter?” Jornack asked sullenly.

“Why should you help? You know the power I wield over the dead. What makes you think that you have a choice? As to why… I’ll indulge your curiosity. My minion can’t speak normally, and can only make clicking noises. I’m building him into a soul caster, with a level or two as a bard. For that, he needs to have a voice.” Voulos explained.

What followed was a brief conversation about Jornack’s native tongue. Voulos had to compel the captain to talk at first, but once he got going, he spilt everything. Jornack hailed from a tribe that was known as the chitterang, who traded goods across the Outus desert. Unfortunately, though the chitter made use of clicking consonants, they made up a relatively minor component of the entire language.

Voulos swore as he dismissed the pirate, but before the ghost disappeared, Jornack let loose the most explosive string of curses yet. It was lewd and excessively graphic. I was unaware that Voulos did such things with dead bodies, but I was rather ignorant of such mortal urges in general.

That encounter left Voulos in a sour mood and he spent a good few minutes pacing the room and drinking from a silver flask hidden in one of the many pockets inside his black robe. Initially, I thought my master was having a drink to steady his nerves, however once the last drop had passed his lips he began carving squiggles into the flask using a small, emerald flame emanating from his index finger. Once the silver flask was covered in squiggles, Voulos took a moment to examine his work.

“Ok, if I can’t use a living language, then I’ll make my own. Bloody useless pirate.” He complained. Then he placed the silver flask inside the circle of squiggles and started the ritual anew.

It took a few attempts for the summoning to work this time. My master was a little unsteady on his feet and would occasionally stumble over the strange arcane grunts. When the ritual finally succeeded, the only visible sign was that the flask started rocking side to side, then tipped and fell over.

From the toppled flask, a blue and white cloud spilt out. The cloud expanded to fill most of the circle, then it condensed into a translucent figure. Unlike the pirate, this new ghost seemed more… ghostly. Her form was poorly defined, though it was a vaguely humanoid female. Aside from a general shape, her form lacked any other distinguishing features. Her skin rippled gently like waves in the ocean, and her form tapered off at the waist like smoke from a flame.

My master hailed this new spirit as Cordelia the polyglot, famous [Diplomat] of the second dragon war. He laid the compliments on thick and gave her a friendly smile, but she was not pleased to meet him. She returned Voulos’s greeting by naming him a vile sorcerer who consorted with devils and dark magic. Voulos corrected her on the former, but not the latter. Cordelia threatened retribution from her god, at which point Voulos snapped. With a quick gesture, he summoned ethereal chains that wrapped around and constricted her phantasmal form.

The appearance of the chains led to a standoff between the two of them. They held the ghost in place while Voulos swayed on his feet. Every time Cordelia tried to shout at Voulos, he made a fist and the chains tightened. I could feel the animosity rolling off the spirit, but eventually, she learned to hold her tongue.

At Cordelia’s silence, Voulos laid out what he required from her. He explained he wanted her to create a language for me within my physical limitations. As Voulos introduced me, Cordelia glared at me. Her featureless face made it difficult to gauge her emotions, but I could feel her disdain upon me.

Cordelia’s voice trembled with fear, but the job had also sparked her professional curiosity. She listened in closely as I clicked, clacked, squelched and popped. Unfortunately, after all that, her conclusion was not very optimistic.

“I believe I can create a language for your abomination. However, using those noises will make it cumbersome and unintuitive. It would be like making an entire language of signal flares. Unless your minion is some kind of savant, it will take years for him to learn it.” She said, with a hint of condescension. Her voice still wavered, but the defiance was back.

“That’s unfortunate, you had best get started, shouldn’t you?.” Voulos replied with a sadistic smile.

Cordelia waited for Voulos to continue, but instead, he turned and began shambling towards the door.

“Why do you need a zombie to speak a language that nobody apart from it and myself will ever understand? If you want to talk to your pet, can’t you just use a spell?” Cordelia shouted after him with a barely suppressed snarl.

“I can already speak to him telepathically. That’s not why I need it to talk. It needs to be capable of soul casting.” Voulos replied.

“This thing is a bard?” Cordelia asked.

“Close enough.”

“And you want me to make an entire language for one zombie?” Cordelia asked incredulously.

“Yes. It doesn’t have to be complicated, just needs to be recognised as a language and let it cast. I will check your progress in the morning, and I better be impressed, or else. Zed, listen and learn. Now I’m just going to go lie down for a bit. See you in the morning. Oh, wait… before I go, [Telepathic Bond].” He cast the spell as he walked out the door.

After Voulos went to sleep, I was left alone in a room with Hans and a ghost, who made it no secret that she despised me. Volous had frightened her into holding her acerbic tongue, but I certainly didn’t intimidate her. Creating a language from scratch appealed to her professional vanity, but she was far from excited to be working with me. If anything, I was the only impediment in what would have been an otherwise exciting project.

“No, that was a voiced bilabial click. I asked you to do a nasal bilabial click. Like ʘ̃, not like ʘ̬. ʘ̃, not ʘ̬ damn it! I’ve told you 5 times already. Kunya! Ut var greben? How much did your brain rot before that stinking gompta turned you into this unholy abomination?” Cordelia said in one particularly intense diatribe with a combination of system common, goblin and a language I didn’t even recognise.

I didn’t know how to react to the Cordelia situation. My charisma gave me insight into her emotional state, but it didn’t tell me how to soothe her rage. My mind was only just over the second threshold for charisma but was still in the realm of beasts in wisdom and intelligence. It left me unbalanced, like a horny teenager talking to a pretty girl.

Cordelia was right; I was a stupid zombie with a half-rotted brain, but it was hardly my fault. According to the system, I was literally the smartest zombie in the world, even if that was a low bar to clear. A day ago, I had been little more than a mindless construct of necrotic energy and flesh. I remembered only fragments of that time and even less of my life as a human.

Over and over I tried to placate my teacher but got nowhere. Eventually, at about 3 am, she snapped at me one too many times and brought things to a head.

“... you need to move your glottis up to drive the air over the sides of your tongue with your tongue apical to the alveolar ridge. It’s not that hard, you braindead babosi.” She berated me.

‘Shut up!’ I telepathically yelled as loudly as I could, shocking her into silence for the first time in hours.

I had been trying to put my feelings into words for hours, but I still needed a moment’s silence to gather my thoughts.

‘I know I’m stupid. You need speak easy or I won’t follow. Big words not make you smart. It makes you stupid, just like me, because you know I won’t understand.’ I said, putting my pent-up emotions into words. ‘You say I’m bad, but you have been mean to me all night. So maybe you are the evil one! You say I am an adon… adonination… abomination, but so are you. You are a ghost!’ I said with all the charisma I could muster.

Cordelia shuffled awkwardly when I went quiet, her liquid ectoplasm agitated like a storm at sea.

“I am not undead by choice. I was happily dead in Minassa’s realm when-’ She said.

‘I not chose to be zombie! I don’t choose anything. Master chooses what I am, and what I smell!’ I declared.

‘What you… smell?’ Cordelia asked, confused.

My little speech was the most I had said since I gained sentience. Speaking from the metaphorical heart seemed to allow me to express myself better than I could otherwise manage.

A tense standoff developed as we looked at one another, confused and angry. What a pair we made. Cordelia broke the stare first, or at least I think she did. It was hard to be entirely sure where she was looking with her ectoplasmic form.

“I’m sorry Zed.” She mumbled to the wall.

‘It’s ok.’ I lied. I still wanted to bite her face off, but instincts borne of my charisma told me to keep that to myself.

“I was a [Diplomat] in life, a good one, and I should be better at keeping my feelings in check. I’ve traded pleasantries with dragons who burnt entire cities to the ground. Zombies are usually mindless abominations, but you are clearly different.” She said guiltily.

Cordelia straightened her back. As she changed her posture, something in her voice changed as well; a degree of confidence reentered her voice as she became more sure of her words.

“My skills appear rusty after centuries of disuse, even if my abilities remain intact. For that, I apologise. In the spirit realm, I was at peace. To have my essence pulled back here and twisted into this undead mockery… It makes me sick. I can feel the afterlife calling for me, but I am chained to this ritual circle. I’m stuck.” She explained.

‘I’m a head, at least you have a circle.’ I replied, and I contorted my bloodless lips into a ghoulish smile. She took a moment before responding.

“You are right, it could be worse.” Cordelia laughed.

Our brief exchange did a lot to clear the air. I still wanted to bite her, and I suspected that deep down she still felt that I was an abomination, but we kept these feelings to ourselves. With our ceasefire in effect, I could start an actual conversation with her. Voulos had given us a surprising amount of leeway before he turned in for the night. Previously, his direct orders to practise my skills had left no room for interpretation. His vague order to ‘listen and learn’ gave a lot more freedom.

Cordelia wouldn’t admit it, but the dark necromancer’s ominous threat had motivated her to single-mindedly go about her task. After our confrontation, she relaxed a little, and the conversation wandered. She had died a little under a thousand years ago, but her knowledge of world affairs was surprisingly up to date. Most souls that arrived in Minassa’s realm embraced the peace and serenity of the afterlife, but that didn’t mean they didn’t keep tabs on the physical world through priests and the stories of the recently deceased.

Cordelia was an incorrigible gossip. She kept up to date with her own prolific descendants and anyone else who kept her fancy. Voulos had ordered me to listen and learn, and so took in the news like a sponge.

As far as zombies went I was an unusual genius, and her speculation on the topic led to a tangent about a descendant of hers that lived on the blighted frontier. The boy had nearly lost his life a few years back fighting against the ivory legion. Despite that, the blight had been gradually shrinking over the last decade.

Not everything Cordelia told me was directly relevant or even particularly interesting. She giggled as she informed me that the [Barbarian] empress recently added prince to her harem, solidifying her alliance with Jhagarn. Why Cordelia found such mating rituals interesting was a complete mystery to me.

The conversation was enlightening while it lasted, but as the day approached, Cordelia became harder to distract from her work. I could sense her nerves, and so reluctantly toned down my endless questions. This was difficult because my poor wisdom gave me a rather short attention span, and I found it very difficult to focus on her boring lessons. Her stories were much more interesting. Worse still was that my abysmal intelligence gave me a spotty memory, and we had to keep going over and over the same words.

My [Minion] status compelled me to carry on, but I was getting a feel for its limitations. The compulsion hurt most when I set my will against it. However, what I discovered was that as long as I made a token effort towards being productive, the compulsion only lightly prodded me. Procrastination became my salvation.

When daylight began pouring through the windows, I had practised several unfamiliar sounds and had even learnt how to say ‘Hello’ in this improvised language. Voulos didn’t arrive until almost midday, but he was in a remarkably good mood when he finally showed up. I could tell that Cordelia was afraid he wouldn’t be content with our progress, but we managed to satisfy him.

“So you have invented two hundred words that can describe anything?” Voulos asked as he sipped his morning cup of tea.

“Yes. It’s an ugly language, but I should be able to get the system to accept it.”

“If it works, then why are you so disparaging of it?” Voulos asked.

Cordelia contemplated her words carefully before replying.

“As an academic exercise, it has been very interesting to work on. As an actual language, it feels inelegant and clumsy; everything about it is subjective and contextual. Take your tea as an example. I would probably start with a word that describes a drink, then add modulating words like hot or calm. So I might say ʘ̃ǂ̃ ǀ̬ɓ̥ to ask for a cup of tea.” She explained, perfectly producing the sounds I struggled with all night.

“The system knows what I mean because it is omniscient and can read my intent. A spell such as [Comprehend Speech] would translate the intended meaning instead of the literal meaning. However, if two native speakers were talking to each other, they would have to work it out from context. ʘ̃ǂ̃ ǀ̬ɓ̥ could also mean coffee or a glass of warm milk. Without the system, it would be impractical for actual communication, and that feels a bit perverse.” She concluded.

Voulos stroked his scraggly beard in thought.

“I can see why you decry it. Personally, I find great joy in utilizing the system like this. Once he meets the qualifications, I was considering multi-classing Zed as a bard. Mostly for access to the basic [Ballads], but if he dips two levels, he could learn [Auto-Translate]. By dipping one level, he already misses out on the [Overseer] elite features, unless he breaks into Iron. The question becomes, is [Auto-Translate] as an ability worth missing the attribute increase at overseer nine?” Voulos rambled.

Deciding to strike whilst the master was in a good mood, Cordelia pushed her luck with a request.

“I don’t know if it’s possible, but I suggest Zed doesn’t neglect intelligence completely. I’ve almost finished formulating the language, but with his intelligence at six, it will take him months to become passable and longer if you want him to sing with it.” She said in a cautious tone.

“I won’t ruin his final build for short-term gains. However… he isn’t currently using his last attunement slot. I suppose I could give him one of my old [Intellect Rings].” Voulos grudgingly offered.

Voulos once again parted reality and put his hand through the rift into the space he called his vault. His hand withdrew, holding a plain silver ring. I noted he wore several similar, but more embellished silver rings on his fingers. It took him only a moment for him to attach it to my earlobe with his [Flesh Warp] spell. Having my ear cut open and stitched back together was an odd sensation, but at least it acted as somewhat of a counterweight of the gaudy jester’s ring on my other ear.

Intellect Ring: +1 Intelligence.

Attuning the ring made me feel different, but it was difficult to quantify exactly how. It wasn’t as sharp a difference as crossing an attribute threshold but was still a perceptible improvement. I thought back to compare the feeling with previous changes to my attributes, and that was when I noticed how much clearer my memories were.

I didn't have long to dwell on the memory, however, as I was picked up and passed over to Hands.

“Now then, you and I are going to have some fun this afternoon,” Voulos told me with an evil glint in his eye. “I think I’ve earned a break from reanimating corpses all day long.” He said with glee. I had a sinking feeling that I was going to disagree.

Zed's end of chapter sheet:

Zed

21:46, 43nd of Anoxi , 1465 3A

Total Level: 16 (Bronze)

Levels: Zombie 10, Overseer 6

Experience: 122,464/159,700

Type: Overseer Zombie (C)

Attributes:

Resources:

Dexterity: 6

Stamina: N/A

Strength: 13

Power: N/A

Vitality: 14

Health: 476/476

Wisdom: 7

Willpower: 212/238

Intelligence: 7

Mana: 233/238

Charisma: 12

Soul: 408/408

Decay: 2% (Stage 0)

Affinities: Nether (100%), Poison (50%), Fire (-25%), Holy (-100%)

Titles:

King of the Braindead (Inactive): Access to Kingdom subsystem.

Traits:

Made to Serve: +1 Intelligence, +1 Charisma. Understands system common, and the primary language of its creator (Orcish). Can follow simple commands based on the creator's intelligence divided by 10 (3 words long). Gives access to a portion of the knowledge contained within the host brain, better preserved brains retain more information.

Flesh Construct: Sustained by nether magic, does not need to eat, drink, sleep or breath. Does not regenerate Health. Does not use Stamina or Might, but instead uses Decay.

Overseer: +2 Charisma.

Not Braindead: +1 Wisdom, +1 Intelligence and +2 Charisma.

Skills:

Supernatural Senses: +1 Wisdom and amplifies the user’s senses by x2.

Undead Resilience (Elite): 50% reduction to all non-holy damage taken.

Focus here to see options available for level 15…

Abilities:

Unarmed Strike - Copper - Level 1 (Unavailable):

0% Decay

1 Second Cooldown

Strikes at the target with an unarmed limb for 26 bludgeoning damage.

Rush Attack - Copper - Level 1 (Unavailable):

0% Decay

10 Second Cooldown

Lunges at a target within 2 meters for 29 bludgeoning damage with a chance to push back or knock over the target.

Bite - Copper - Level 4:

0% Decay

5 Second Cooldown

Bites the target for 40 piercing damage.

Scent Chameleon - Bronze - Level 1:

No Cost

30 Second Cooldown

+1 Charisma and scents detected by [Flesh Scent] can be absorbed and secreted to mask the user’s true scent. Amplifies and identifies the smell of any flesh by x5 for 12 seconds.

Chilling Gaze - Copper - Level 1:

No Cost

60 Second Cooldown

A glare that adds 7 fear to the target. Requires eye contact.

Corpse Explosion (Elite) - Copper:

100% Health

No Cooldown

Kills the user and converts all remaining health into an explosion of nether energy and bone that deals damage equal to double the health consumed in a 7 meter radius. This ability kills the caster.

Enrage Zombie - Bronze - Level 1 (Unavailable):

50 Soul

No Cooldown

The user lets out a rage-filled shout at a target zombie to increase its Strength, Dexterity, and Vitality by +5 for 24 seconds.

Overseer’s Aura - Bronze - Level 1:

1 Soul / Second

No Cooldown

+1 Strength to all zombies within 12 meters.

Focus here to see options available for level 12…

Attunements (3/3)

Ring of the Jester (Cursed): +2 Charisma but curses the wearer with [Jester’s Curse].

Princess Tiara: +3 Charisma and makes the wearer more attractive to Princes.

Intellect Ring: +1 Intelligence.

Status Effects:

Minion: Magically compelled to follow commands from [Voulos].

Jester’s Curse: The target is cursed by the jester. The curse can only be lifted by a Sphinx’s laugh.

Geas (Greater): The target will die if they break this geas: Do not change the name on your character sheet.