Necromancer's Descent

2 - Desperation

⦗                             Necromancy skill lvl 1 gained                              ⦘

⦗   Physical Necromancy sub-skill 'Raise dead' lvl 1 gained   ⦘

I stare blankly at the bluish transparent popup that is floating in the air in front of me, much like a VR game menu. It floats unnaturally and eerily over the dark background of metal armor, blood and bodi-

With a jolt my mind restarts, and as I gasp, my mouth and nose fills with the thick stale air of rot, blood and death, causing my empty stomach to turn itself inside out with shock and disgust. I bend over, gagging repeatedly as my guts twist and my body trembles.

Dead bodies. There are dead people as far as I can see, all dressed like knights... but... but their limbs are strewn about apart from the bodies. Their armor is bent and cut through like something tore through it with inhuman strength. The smell of blood hangs thick in the air, and it's like someone took the month old food waste trashcan, and put it out into the bathroom, after someone spent hours dealing with diarrhea.

I stare down at the ground, finally noticing that the ground underneath my feet are multiple layers of human limbs. Where my hands should be, a pair of bony, rough and blood scabbed fingers are clenched into an apron bottom, filled with shining, bloodied jewelry... Insignias. Gold, silver, engraved or painted with coats of arms... These hands that tremble with fear aren't mine. They aren't mine, but when I let go, so do the hands.

What is going on? What is happening?

I look back up again, but there are no one alive around me. Only the popup floats patiently in the air in front of me.

Is this a VR game? Is someone pranking me?

I clench my hands tightly, but fully feel the scabbed texture of my skin... and I don't feel a VR-helmet on my head. If anything I feel the moist air clinging to my hair and scalp.

Then, is it a dream? Can you even smell in dreams? Can you feel? Can you dream the pain of breathing this thick air, or the way my stomach and throat hurts from trying to vomit?

I look up again at the popup. It feels so out of place that I don't know what to conclude.

Something moves on the other side of the popup... in the distance the corpses are moving. They're moving like there's an earthquake right under them or something similar.

The popup disappears, as a horrifying crunching sounds in the distance, making my blood run cold in an instant, and any strength left in my legs vanishes. My body begins to quake, as a corpse flies out of the bunch and slams down next to me with a soul shivering splat and crunch, before twisting and cracking as it rolls past me, like a ragdoll without proper joints.

But... but from where the body was lunched into the air the ground- something rises... a black chitin body rises from the ground, and where it rises, bodies seem to get sucked into the ground where its body had once been.

An enormous centipede stretches itself into the air, towering over the battlefield, while it twists to look in the direction of the body it flung away... this direction. The two glowing eyes lock onto me, and as they do, a loud rattling sounds from it. In an instant as it shifts about in the pile of bodies to face me...