Champion

I decided to patiently wait for Ash to awaken from what I assume to be a wonderful dream. His smile still plastered on his face the fool didn't even wake up when the woman pushed him off her belly and left. To my dismay, she looked quite satisfied. I suppose at least Ash has that going for him, he can pleasure old fat women.

The rest of the night was short and as soon as I thought about it the sun began to break through the horizon. Like a rooster at a farm, Ash woke with the coming sunrise.

"Good morning Ash. Did you have a nice night? I did." I could tell my smile creeped him out. Of course not before he almost fell off the bed after noticing I was sitting across the room.

"Ancestor? Your hair... Is brown?" Not the words I was expecting.

My hair?

I stood from the chair and walked over to the mirror.

He was right, my hair was no longer white but brown. I had a feeling about what had caused this change but why? Although it certainly wasn't a negative change. With brown hair, I could go about my days more inconspicuously.

But Ash's reaction was too peculiar. Even if he had drunk and taken whatever else fools take nowadays he still woke up in a strange bed with his zombie relative staring him down. If it were me the first thing I would notice wouldn't be someone's hair color.

"I think I know what caused it." I was almost certain that my meal the night before had something to do with it.

That day I learned why. Truly it was the true beginning of my journey with Ash and the day my unlife would change forever, my goals set. Quite significant really.

"Ash I know you've been hiding something from me since the day we met." I knew Ash could see my face through the mirror. I stared at him from the reflection, he would speak the truth today or die. How could I trust someone that couldn't be honest with me? During my life I have cheated, stolen, killed, and worse. I was no saint and being a liar was never something I particularly cared about. But now that I have died and been risen again for some reason I now hate liars, and I made sure Ash knew that.

"Don't lie to me Ash or the consequences are not something you and I want to deal with."

Ash looked calm, he covered himself and began his story again. But first his usual charade.

"Well ancestor I don't mind telling you, I was going to once we reached Amberth anyway."

"Why Amberth?" Why wait?

"It's simple, I was afraid of how you would react. You can blame me this isn't something you just tell anyone. Also, you could have at least covered me up and before you ask, no we will never speak of this night again. EVER!" This was interesting, I have never seen Ash so serious before. Well, it wouldn't matter. If you read my diary you will know that I have in fact never 'spoken' of this night.

"Fine, let's start with how you brought me back then." I had returned to my seat and threw Ash back his clothes.

"Thank you, now let's begin. I didn't lie to you before when I said my robe belonged to a very powerful necromancer. But rather than over exaggerating it I may have slightly under exaggerated it." Ash took a deep breath and continued.

"Even you may know of him ancestor, although no one knows his name as far as I know everyone with at least some higher education in magic knows of him."

"Who?" During my 'life' i was incapable of using magic so I didn't just not have a higher education in magic I had no education in it.

"The Father of Necromancy." Ash was solemn as he spoke the words.

"He raised the first death knight, created the first litch, and even developed the method for some undead to hold their souls within our plane. Those are just a few of his accomplishments. In fact, that man was a monster some even believe he was a divine of sorts. Masters wrestle with a single magic spell their entire lives. It took the first fire mage in history his entire life to create the most basic spell 'Fire Ball'. But The Father of Necromancy literally created necromancy, and developed over a thousand spells for the school in a single lifetime!"

That did sound amazing, I didn't know much about magic but just from Ash's words I could tell that The Father of Necromancy was a genius beyond geniuses.

But then I thought, undead live forever, don't they?

As if he read my mind Ash brought me out of my ignorance.

"Before you think about him turning himself undead and living forever or something like that forget it. Some facts are known to us and one was that he was human and the other is he was mortal his entire life. But that's not the most amazing thing he did. What I'm about to speak of cannot be confirmed and is all just guesses and myths."

Ash had put on his clothes including the dirty robe. He really cherished that robe.

Ash then took a seat on the side of the bed and faced me.

"We are taught that there is a Divine for everything between heaven and hell. Have you ever wondered if there's one for the undead?"

"Why would the undead need a god? We don't pray, I think."

Ash put on a smug smile and continued.

"Does fire pray? Does the earth pray? Well maybe, but I doubt weapons do and there's a Divine for them! Well, we can argue about religion all day and get nowhere. The point is the myths tell us that The Father of Necromancy helped to create the god of undeath."

"That's impressive."

"That's it!? Yes! It's very impressive, he helped create a GOD!"

"Allegedly." As far as I was concerned, so what if he did? He's dead now and there's no proof there even is a god of undeath.

"Well yes allegedly, but there is proof."

"What's the proof?" They say curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. This was oddly accurate in my case. As I would later discover some saying are based on truth.

"You, ancestor! You are the proof. Inside this robe which belonged to The Father of Necromancy is a spell with clear instructions."

Find a champion of old, fallen and broken.

Cover him in the cage of time for only a mothers womb can help him grow.

Use my words to raise him up.

And bring him forth as a champion.

What a cryptic old man. Well, it wasn't very difficultly to discern his words either. Mothers womb as in the earth which is the very being of Mother Earth. Cage of time can only be death. And the rest is self-explanatory.

"So you used that spell to bring me back? How does that explain my brown hair and my desire to eat that fat man."

"So you did eat him?"

Right, I hadn't told him about that. I recounted the night's events with Ash in great detail. Unfortunately no matter how detailed It didn't seem to phase him at all.

I then left Ash to his thoughts for a while as I processed what he had told me.

"I think I know what happened. Well before we continue just so you're aware when I summoned you I was planning to raise you as the champion of the god of undeath. Now that we have that out of the way-"

"Stop." That was quite the bombshell I hadn't thought of.

"Does that mean the last part of that poem or whatever means that I am now the champion of a god?"

"Yes."

"I don't feel like a gods champion." then again maybe I did? What did I know?

"Well, how would you even know? Right moving on from that, I believe what attracted you to that man was a sin he carried. You said he had a ton of wealth with him? Our inn is the cheaper of the two in town."

"What's your point? Also, didn't you say we were staying at a nice inn?"

Ash lightly coughed and continued.

"What I mean is the gods all hate each other, this we know. I wouldn't be surprised if the god of undeath hates the god of greed? Or maybe all the different gods of sin? Which means you killing him and devouring his sin has made you stronger and your patron happier."

"What about the hair?"

"Maybe you'll become more human as you grow stronger? Who knows the only way to find out is to keep going and eat more sin. Greed or maybe all of them?"

Ash was fairly relaxed about the whole thing. Not only that, he just told me to go around killing people and eating their sin.

This fool was definitely not normal.