The doors slammed shut.
I slumped in my chair. The adrenaline crash hit me like a truck.
"Sylvia!" I shouted.
The side door burst open instantly. Sylvia rushed in, holding a bucket and a mop. She took one look at me and winced.
"Shoulder?" she asked.
"Shoulder," I confirmed.
I peeled back my velvet coat. The entire left side of my upper body had lost its structure. It was a dripping mess of grey goo, sliding down my arm and pooling onto the floor. Malakor’s holy touch had destabilized the binding agents in my cells.
"That guy," I gritted out, grabbing the bucket and holding it under my arm to catch my own melting flesh, "is a nightmare."
Sylvia knelt down, pulling a flask of blue mana-potion from her pocket. She uncorked it and poured it directly onto the melting slime.
It hissed. The relief was instant. The grey sludge began to bubble and reform, knitting itself back into the shape of a muscular deltoid and bicep.
"Did we pass?" Sylvia asked, watching my arm reconstruct itself.
"Technically," I said. I picked up the black scroll with my good hand. "But he gave us a parting gift. We have to solve the Northern Famine."
Sylvia pushed her glasses up her nose. "The North? Sir, the ground there is permafrost. And the trade routes are infested with wendigos."
"I know."
"And the Church has an embargo on using necromancy to raise crops."
"I know."
I watched my skin turn from grey back to a healthy, sun-kissed tan. I flexed my fingers. Good as new. Cost me about 500 Mana, but I was alive.
I looked at the scroll again. A week to feed a region that had been starving for a decade. It was a trap designed to kill me. Malakor wanted me to fail so he could execute me publicly.
But he made one mistake. He assumed I played by the rules of a fantasy novel. He thought I would try to grow wheat or pray for sun.
I wasn't going to do either.
"Sylvia," I said, standing up. I felt the familiar buzz of a plan forming in the back of my head—the cold, calculating rhythm of a hostile takeover. "Get the maps of the Northern trade routes. And send a message to the Necromancers' Guild."
Sylvia paused. "The Necromancers? Sir, that’s highly illegal. If the Church finds out..."
"The Church prohibits raising the dead to build armies," I said, a wicked grin spreading across my face. "They never said anything about raising the dead to work in logistics."
I walked to the window, looking out at the perfectly manicured garden where the Paladins were mounting their horses.
"Zombies don't need sleep," I murmured. "They don't need wages. And they don't feel the cold."
I turned back to Sylvia.
"Pack your bags. We're going to the North. We’re not going to grow food, Sylvia. We’re going to build the world's first undead trucking company."
[NEW QUEST ACCEPTED: Supply Chain Necromancy.]
[Difficulty: Suicidal.]
[Reward: Survival. And a lot of confused priests.]
"Let's disrupt the market," I said.
ns216.73.216.10da2
and then Add to home screen.