Night Raid

Perhaps too much praise was given to me by Corvus after I gave her an extensive recap of my meeting with Dende and the days that followed. She was bursting at the incorporeal seams with joy. And burst entirely once I told her of my plans for Zorrenor.

Quite amusingly, her mirth was replaced with sheer interest and curiosity once I summarized the training of my officers and told her of my simultaneous progression and plateau regarding Ki.

By meditating on the brink of death daily, I could now begin to sense the necrotic Ki far easier. Even while in my healthy state, albeit with intense meditative focus.

Still, however, I struggled with grasping onto the energy. Much less circulating it through my body. While frustrating, it wasn't all for naught. As it allowed me to grow more attuned to the energy, enabling me to distinguish the dark amoebas against the seafoam-green sea as living creatures. I saw the lingering echoes of the departed as a hellish inferno that surrounded all. And within that bright mire of death, life was a cold black mist.

With that recap came promises of another communion, come my evolution, and so I emerged from my domains to find myself in the dark caverns of the chemical plant. Standing before a tunnel that seemed to stretch on for infinity.

Despite there only being a platoon of shadows, zombies, and skeletons traversing the realm, they've made significant progress scouring it. Not on the front of mithral or adamantine of course, but the fronts of gems, other metals, and a mountain of monster corpses.

Naturally, however, most of those monsters were inedible or unpalatable for the vast majority of the Legion. And I knew not how to work the scales, limbs, and other components without wasting materials. But that fact did not affect my mirth, as the second aspect of the hunt had been fulfilled.

For whatever reason, my grimoire didn't notify me of my confirmed hypothesis until after she returned from her months of hunting. And neither she nor my clone felt the need to tell me through our link.

As I suspected- Corvus refused to tell me- my shadows grew stronger by killing and thus stealing life energy from others. In that way, they used the essence of another to mature or evolve as undead shadows.

That said, I didn't need the abyssal book to tell me of her growth; for the most part at least. She was more… solid than she was before. With a few strands of umbral hair reaching over her arms and less darkness trailing from her body like smoke. Though still, my grimoire revealed all.

Or, it would have. If I could have read it first.

"My name wasn't Lana in life, My Liege. But I adore it nonetheless."

"Oh!" I snorted in pleasant surprise. "You can finally talk! Let's just hope you aren't annoying."

"I hope not to be." She bowed, then stayed silent to give me a moment to read.

[Lana. 3/20: Child Shadow Undead.]

[Shadow Undead Children have evolved to such a point that they are capable of speech. Though they are still half as strong as they were in life if measured mathematically. As children, they are now mature to a point where they can no longer evolve by killing insentient creatures. The threshold to teenhood is fifty living creatures of a sentient race.]

"Interesting." I nodded to myself before summoning her companions. And, as I somewhat suspected, they were all a rank below Lana. Still, however, I was able to read the contents of the first rank, now revealed in my abyssal book of magic.

Essentially, Infant Shadows, or freshly raised ones, were a full order weaker than they were in life while Young Shadows were a quarter as weak. Only fifty kills were needed for an Infant to grow. But a full five hundred was needed for a Shadow to grow into a Child, and ten of those kills had to be sentient.

"So." I turned back to her. "What happened?"

"Thought they could sneak up and attack us," she proudly smirked.

'More like you encroached on their territories.' I thought. Though she heard that just as loudly as she heard me say. "The bodies."

Grinning smugly with no regard for my deductions, she reached into the nearby shadows to throw corpses onto the ground one by one.

They were all short and stout. With grisled faces of gray, patched with either snow-white or amber, almost fiery red beards.

"I let two of 'em run back to their stronghold or whatever." Lana casually explained before I could ask. "Send a message and all that."

"Good. They'll most likely seek to retaliate, even if they know what they're up against. The majority of Duergar are stupid in that way." I grinned at the corpses. Then snapped my eyes back to her. "If their king is no different, kill them all. Give the slaves a choice. And take everything they own. Spare nothing."

Lana nodded immediately. But then cocked her head and smirked at me curiously. "And if the king is different?"

"Then steal everything they own. Spare nothing." I smirked back. Then turned my sights to the corpses littered before me.

"Report."

Simultaneously, fourteen pits of darkness swelled like an abyssal maw. Sprouting umbral hands and boots and mouths that clawed and stomped and bit their way into the material world in a muted frenzy.

When all was said and done, fourteen gray-dwarven men and women were standing before me with their fat fists clasped over their barrel bellies. Their ebon skin was no more. Replaced by a loose hide of darkness that trailed abyssal smoke into the walls behind them. And their hair, once white or burning like the magma within their homes, now glowed with the seafoam green of my necromancy.

More so, their thoughts, emotions, and, most importantly, their memories came flowing into my mind. Memories that they sent my way after being raised and thus learning of my desires.

"Oh, wow!" I both grinned with glee and chuckled in disbelief. And so too did Lana and my other shadows. "They're essentially asking to get raided." I laughed. "And, there's enough of them to give all of you promotions.

"Let's issue the recall."

***

While Amun was confined to the Bodhi Tree's grounds, I- the Doppelganger- was not.

For whatever reason, we thought of ourselves as the same person for just over a decade, though we lived entirely different lives. While he roamed the Material Plane, I followed. Watching both the world of light and the Plane of Shadow pass by like the forest through a car window.

Simultaneously, I was below. In the Domain of Fell that preceded the Under Domain. There, I was with the abundance of material that had been accumulated from the outside. There, I mostly rolled smokeleaf cigars. Then, I was accompanied by the Menagerie.

And occasionally- daily, I was summoned to the world of light to fight against my Doppelganger. The version of me from the world of light.

It wasn't until the undead and I carved our tunnel to the Darkworld that we became aware. Or rather, that we remembered. Our Grandpa Lich brought us to the realm many times during our studies. So, shame on us for forgetting.

Though… it was so far away, the Darkworld, so far back in our minds that we couldn't help but forget about it.

Somehow, we couldn't help but forget that down there, the strange, aberrant energy that was corruptive to all else was enriching. It enhanced our Sorcery in ways like the Shadowfell. But starkly different.

Almost like our bodies have… evolved.

I was in the Darkworld when Lana killed her quarry. Not with her, but on the precipice of the realm, where the industry was thriving, but not thriving enough. Not counting Simion and I, there were around sixty-eight zombies or skeletons and five shadows. A laughably small crew for a monstrously sized job.

Now, they were down one. For I was here, twelve thousand kilometers below ground and hundreds more away from the tower. Below the mountain range that slumbered Cononthoth's mother. But still beneath the ridiculously vast expanse of the Bodhi Tree's territory.

Here, leaning against the bend of a cave, I was in the company of not only Zaraxus and his twenty underlings but Lana and the other 64 shadow undead. Scouted by the fourteen newest additions.

Not only did the Duergar lead us here, but they gave us an accurate mental map of the interior and an accurate reading of their numbers.

The place was an arrow-shaped cavern that wasn't even ten kilometers on the longest side, inclined to about forty degrees. A magma aqueduct ran across the length of it, below which sat a squat dais that housed the foundries, forges, and casting stations of the subterranean mining town.

A ring of towers and residential buildings encircled it. Allowing for but a few gates for the slaves to travel through from their pens overlooking the tunnels and mining holes on the far side. The entrance, just around the bend, was the only point of escape for the gray-dwarf king at the opposite end of the cavern. My destination.

While I was sure there were a few exceptions, Duergar weren't a people to be negotiated or bargained with. They were a kill-on-sight type of people, hostile to anyone intruding upon their territory. That said, I was certain that I, a Drow and a Shadow Necromancer, would be accepted.

Welcomed whole-heartedly by the faces and points of their hammers and spears.

They hated Drow above all other creatures. And there were nearly six thousand of them inside, ready to band together at the first sight of one. But that wasn't the problem. In fact, that was favorable.

The problem was their slaves.

There were over nine hundred goblins inside. Plus another seven hundred fifty-one dwarves. Almost five hundred orcs and another four hundred fifty deep gnomes were in addition to them. And they were topped off by three hundred seventy-four humans.

Considering they were potential followers for me and my allies, they were just as valuable to me as the metals and dead Duergar. But if there was anything I knew about the gray-dwarves, and I knew more than most, it was that they would send their slaves out to fight first.

Assuming, of course, we advanced from the front.

"Alright," I said, normally, though it traveled no further than the pit of darkness behind me. "Priority goes to the shadows. I want all of you to be at least children by the time we're done. Zaraxus' platoon is to cover the slaves from above and bring them to safety from below. I don't want any of them dying, and no enemy leaves the kill zone. Those that have been promoted to teens are to withdraw and take care of their beasts while Lana and Zaraxus are with me.

"Aside from that. Go wild." I grinned as a blood-curdling roar rose from the depths of my Underworld and into my ears. They've been waiting for this for a while now, my undead.

And so too have I.

"On my signal," I said, looking up to the featureless ceilings while a thought or intent formed in my mind.

The darkness, endless and absolute in this realm, reacted to such an intent immediately. After condensing into rippling tendrils, the darkness uncoiled towards the ceiling to silently bore holes through the hard granite before they coiled tight once more, releasing uncountable measures of loose stone to ruin the otherwise perpetual silence of the realm.

I did nothing as the rockfall slid my way on its path around the bed. The ambient darkness, wrapped around me like a cloak, was no different from my Wraith Form. The boulders passed helplessly through me on their way to the guttural shouts and hollers rising to meet them at their destination.

I followed to see six pairs of beady crimson eyes flicking about wildly from squat busts of apparent stone. In the black and white spectacle of my darkvision, I saw the deurgar only as a complex mix of grays before the featureless stone. First six, then twelve. Then more and more, steadily pouring from plain but magnificent doors of what I knew deep down to be adamantine.

Clinging to the wall, and thus melding into the darkness, I slipped over them and crept past the masses. Ignoring them and the sights around me as I made a beeline for the towering structure at the top of the subterranean hill.

The king's castle was painfully a drab structure of finely carved granite set above the mouth of the magma river. Only a few windows, a balcony, and a set of stairs on either side of the structure gave any indication that anyone lived there, though the same could have been said for the other buildings ringed around the forges.

Much of the same was true for the interior. There was only stone and a seemingly endless number of gray-dwarves filling the place. They were spread out behind partitions and various points of cover throughout the estate and beyond. All over, throughout the cavern, commands were shouted or gray-dwarves skittered about to take up defensive positions or belay orders.

Even the king's court was dull. And so too was his throne room.

He sat atop it impatiently. A leathery gray-dwarf with a glistening head and many scars spanning his barreled chest and scowling face.

I watched him listen intently whenever a runner entered with an update on the situation and quickly belay orders in turn, feeling more bemused than amused about his actions. He was no idiot, I could see that much. Yet, the gray-dwarf king was an imbecile all the same. And so too was every gray-dwarf king to sit on his throne before him.

"A city within an adamantine vein," I chortled, more from the sound of a thousand whispers lingering in the shadows than from the stupidity of whoever thought such a thing was a good idea. "The thin line between ambition and hubris is traversed by your people better than dragons rule the skies. Tell me, gray-dwarf king, of the many sleepless nights you've suffered over this day."

I openly laughed as the king's face paled more than was possible for his gray skin. His guards, however, no doubt seasoned veterans, jumped into action promptly. A tight circle was formed around him in just over a second. Seemingly giving him the confidence to puff out his chest and shout. "Who ye be, collapsin' me tunnel? What be yer aim?"

"I am God!" I whispered, and the whispers carried on to repeat the word in a hundred different tones. "Of Devils."

"Fiend!" My undead translated the king's foreign call as he lashed out his grizzled arm. "Get the priests!"

"No good." I giggled through the whispers upon seeing their tracks stomp in place. "That will do you no good. For I am God. The God. Of Devils."

Taking unneeded advantage over their hesitation, I focused inward on the strange analogs of my mana well and affinity core. And again, the corrupt energies of the Darkworld readily accepted my intent and released a surge of darkness to cascade towards my immaterial form before imploding.

Magical darkness roiled across the throne room like a sandstorm, encompassing the gray-dwarf king in the impenetrable night before the black bubble was forced through the windows and door. Carrying my undead soldiers along with my voice, that growled. "We are Legion!"

"WE ARE NOX!"

Zaraxus and Lana carried the call for the entire Legion. The former darted away from me first, skating casually up to the door in just a few strides while his war scythe reared up from his chest and fell just as a dozen gray dwarves burst in.

Their eyes flickered unendingly in a futile attempt to see through my sorcerous darkness, causing them to miss the deft sweeps of Zaraxus' curved blade entirely.

Their cries came as airy gasps before their shriveled bodies hit the floor, splattering flaked skin and dust amongst the stone while a red deluge of potent life energy flowed into Zaraxus from his weapon.

As the fortuitous guards' Usurped Life surged throughout Zaraxus' body, a guttural war cry was forced through his shriveled lungs before he sprinted out the door, forcing my attention back to Lana just as she introduced one of the king's guards' face to the stone of his throne.

Laughing gleefully, Lana reeled the gray-dwarf woman's head back to slam it again. But two more guards came down on her, impaling her with spears and mangling her wicked smile with their hammers. But she turned her beaten face on them and bellowed before lunging back at them.

Knowing she could take care of herself, I lit a blunt and waltzed past Zaraxus and an ever-increasing mound of corpses to take a look around.

The cavern was a mix of beauty and chaos.

Slaves scurried about to their pens everywhere, shielded by skeletons and zombies from the arrows loosed from the shadowed ceiling 300 meters above. Stalagmites in the ring beyond had the backs of gray-dwarves against them, mostly either flaying weapons about madly or hollering through the darkness until a living shadow peered through the veil to bring them to a quick end.

The central aqueduct, however, was relatively empty of bloodshed. With it being their lifeblood, the gray-dwarves were unwilling to bring the fight anywhere near the place. Giving me a more or less clear view of the layout.

The foundries, forges, and furnaces all sat below the aqueduct, within the structure of its foundation. Allowing for magma to drip through a complex chain of enchanted, coke-fed, or air-blown chambers that increased and contained the heat. Keeping the chain of works stations, and thus the adamantine, at a constant 6,375 degrees Celsius.

Even with such ridiculous heat concentrated in one place, there was a surprising amount of safety implements in place. No doubt because slaves were a precious commodity to the gray-dwarves and they'd remain more productive the less singed they were. Everything, the casting stations, the hammering, and the quenching in the magma rivers above, was done remotely by an intricate mechanical system that stole my eyes until I met the end of the aqueduct.

That end signaled the beginning of a mound of bodies that littered the cavern's perimeter up to the king's hall. The murderous cacophony had long since been reduced to a horrendous sizzling of flesh against the hot stone coupled with an acrid stench in the muggy air. The undead, still unseen in the magical darkness, had led the slaves towards the castle from the safety of their pens towards Lana and Zaraxus, standing at the gate beside a kneeling gray-dwarf king.

I imagined myself there and so I was. Transported through the darkness before I could even think to dismiss it, though I held that thought aside. I held all thoughts aside, even after I found myself standing before the king, grinning at my prized undead and my grimoire floating between them.

At least until I said, "report."

It was then that I dismissed the darkness. Released it to spread across an indiscriminate distance and remain and watch as I so watched the color both return and leave the king's face upon looking around to see the thousands of gray-dwarves around him, smiling with teeth and eyes glowing with a seafoam green brilliance.

"Did you ever imagine it to be like this, gray-dwarf king?"

His lips, which had been hung agape for the several minutes he spent gazing upon his undead clan, suddenly curled in indignance and rage. He turned his scowl to me and began to utter some damning Dwarvish words. But before he could even begin to mutter them, Zaraxus casually set his war scythe's blade against the king's neck and pulled.

The dry thud of the king's head and body falling to the stone was heavily outweighed by another wicked war cry from the draugr, one that sent ripples of dread through the suddenly small cavern.

It was a scream of pure ecstasy and bloodlust. Induced by the stolen essence of life and exacerbated by his master's glee at seeing his grimoire appear before him once again.