Christabel's guide to necromancy and world domination

I fell into what?

Once upon a time, there was a land of magic and wonder. Then its stupid people messed up, like people always do. You know, your standard fantasy kind of messing up, but this time they did it a bit too well.

Let's take the elves, for example: stories usually depicts them as wise people, right? Somebody should have really told these elves before they decided that the right way to end their squabble with the unfriendly neighborhood dwarves and orcs was evoking an army of moving warrior trees to do the dirty job for them. Now, I must admit that the moving warrior trees did a very good job at ending the squabble... yeah, you all guessed it. By removing the elves. Very bloodily. Honestly, first rule of creating a magical army is making sure they recognize you as their boss. Bye bye elves (well, not exactly, but... you'll find out later).

Of course, the orcs had not much reason to rejoice, since they had the great idea of joining the cause of your usual generic Evil Overlord. And when I mean generic, I mean mysterious figure in a black cloak who decided to wipe out all life on the planet for unknown reason. Maybe somebody insulted his not-existent fashion sense, I don't know. Okay, technically, I insulted his fashion sense, but that was later. He was already on the path of annihilation, so it's not my fault. And anyway, that was a spoiler.

Back to the orcs, they soon realized that serving an Evil Overlord was only funny in their beloved grandmothers' tales. It involved a lot less fighting, pillaging and looting than those tales, and a lot more building a huge Dark Fortress. It was not even a very interesting dark fortress, mind you, I have seen so much better. The payload was horrible, the food was even worse, and everybody who wanted to leave got a one-way ticket to the Wraith pits. Almost like doing an internship on Earth.

Yeah. Wraith pits. I don't even know how those poor creatures survived being stuck in those holes. Well, except for the handy supply of Orcs.

Anyway, the Elves were dead and the Orcs were miserable. Then, what do you need to make a standard fantasy setting? Dwarves. These dwarves were smarter than the elves, because they did not actually create a living tree army without means to control it. But they somehow still managed to wake up some kind of ancient evil sleeping under their mountains. Now, if I were an ancient evil, I would probably sleep somewhere more comfortable. A tropical island, maybe. Anyway, the generic ancient evil wakes up, he is quite understandably pissed off at having his nap interrupted, and... bye bye dwarves.Blood, screams, the usual stuff. If the world we are talking about had coffee, things would have been very different.

Of course some of the dwarves survived, as did some of the elves. So, what is the most logical thing to do? If you answered start fighting each other for some stupid reason, congratulations, you would fit right in! You will also probably have a great career as a politician. Or die horribly.

You may have noticed I have not mentioned humans yet. That's because humans got extinct. The stories I heard were a bit fuzzy about that, but I have a theory supported by archaeological data, and I will gladly explain it later. Because spoiler.

So, that was the situation when I arrived. No humans, a handful of elves and dwarves bickering, enslaved orcs, an Evil overlord, and an ancient evil on the loose. The last two of these should not beconfused, they are totally different. Add a few dragons who like to set things on fire, weird fairies who found everything very funny, especially the blood and screaming parts, some talking animals and a few demons on the loose (nobody would tell me who was responsible for those, but my suspicions are still on the elves).

My name is Christabel, and I may or may not have accidentally taken over this place.

I know, I know. You are all wondering what kind of stupid name is Christabel. What can I say, never let a woman with a Phd in English Literature name her daughter without supervision. My father wanted to call me Christine, as a homage to the Phantom of the Opera, but by the time he arrived to the hospital my mother had already done everything.