Christabel's guide to necromancy and world domination

I have a job! Wait, what?

It had been a few days since I made myself an accidental little army of skeleton dwarves, and all in all, things could be worse. I was still stuck in a weird fantasy universe with too many cliches and too little coffee, and I was apparently supposed to come up with a clever way to defeat the big bad ancient evil that had killed the dwarves the first time, but at least I had help. And food. Skeletons dwarves did not need to eat, but they could apparently make a delicious steak.

The Lady Captain Bloodhammer Blackforge the Third and her dwarves were far better at their job than they were at coming up with inventive names. In just a few days, they had reopened some of the old tunnels, the furthest ones from where they had met their doom, and made a big nice shelter with warm fires. They had also found a lot of old stuff that had apparently remained untouched after their death. This included clothes, that had somehow survived being abandoned for years, and although their longest trousers and dresses did not arrive to my ankles, at least I was not parading around in my abused gym outfit anymore. Besides, it was nice to feel tall for the first time in my life. And they were great for my new job.

" So, how do they fit, Silveraxe?"

The dwarf in front of me took a few uncertain steps on her newly attached legs, specks of black soil falling down from the squeaking bones on the grass that covered the little clearing we were in, then she shook her head.

" I don't know... the left one feels really good, but the right one is just not right. Sorry, Chris."

" Hey, don't worry. We are going by trial and error here. Sit down, I'm taking it off."

Silveraxe let herself fall on a tree stump, her back to the high cliff that I was totally refusing to watch, and stuck her right leg out, and I yanked it out with a loud pop.

Yep. My amazing new job was trying to find the missing body parts and match them with the right skeleton. Thank God I had taken those Anthropology classes and went to a few archaeological camps... and I was good at puzzles. This was far easier than a 18,000-pieces Van Gogh's Starry Night.

Next to us, a disembodied hand tapped something on another tree stump, and the skeleton next to it snickered, bringing his only arm next to his grinning mouth, the large black rings on his fingers glimmering at the afternoon sun.

" Copperskin thinks you should try that leg on Redarm next... she is pretty sure they were inseparable even in death.", he explained, swiftly avoiding the rocks Silveraxe had started throwing at him.

Yep. Teenager dwarves are pretty much the same of every other teenager, they just have more weapons. Against my expectations, it turned out that dwarves aged just like humans, and lived pretty much as long. Well, these ones were now undead, so we were not sure how long it would last, but you got the point. The three skeletons with me had been the youngest warriors to stay behind when the rest of the tribe had been evacuated, and it felt weird to think they were younger than me... at least until they started teasing each other every two sentences. Then yeah, I could really see it. I felt old.

In the last few days I had rediscovered five legs, six arms, four hands, two heads, and the real reason I had never pursued a career in archaeology. It was exhausting and dirty. But at least the bones in this place were actively trying to be found by rattling and knocking. Most of the dwarves were back in perfect shape by now... well, for a skeleton. The notable exception was little Copperskin, who was still stuck as a hand, but that did not stop her from tapping snarky remarks to anyone else. I was starting to think that her body had been hidden on purpose by her fellow dwarves to stop her from vocalizing them.

The other skeleton, Deepsky, was the Alchemist's apprentice, and since we had still not found his master's head, officially in charge of explaining me everything about Dwarven Alchemy. Which was suspiciously similar to magic, but apparently magic was for coward snobby Elves and, starting two days ago, also powerful sorceresses from unknown lands. Alchemy was based on channeling the energies of the eight elements: Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Life, Death, Light and Darkness. Think Avatar: The Last Airbender meets Fullmetal Alchemist...now lower your expectations. Lower them again. I am sorry, I should really have used another example, another bit of lowering... here we go.

Alchemists could not create things from nothing, they could not transmute something in something else belonging to a different element, and they could not make more or less matter than there was at the beginning. Also, they needed special items of power to channel the energies, and creating them was a long and difficult operation. Apparently, all the focusing items the old Alchemist had were destroyed during the fight, which was really annoying, since I wanted to see some magic... sorry Alchemy.

" Okay, back to work!", I declared loudly:" Silveraxe, stop trying to choke Deepsky, you will make the leg fall. And you don't breathe anyway."

You may be wondering how I was reattaching body parts. Well, easy enough: I had introduced the dwarves to the amazing invention that so many years ago changed our world, leading humans on the way to greatness. And they were smart enough to start mass-producing it in a few hours. Even if I were to die in a few days, at least I had managed to spread the power of duct tape!

Yes. My Anthropology teacher would have totally killed me for using duct tape on bones, but it was magical duct tape on magical bones so no harm done. And besides, it was just a temporary solution until my (in their opinion) or somebody else's (in my opinion) magic took care of it.

Yes. They still believed I was a powerful sorceress and not a clueless dimension-displaced victim. I had tried to explain, believe me... I knew enough about standard fantasy setting to realize that the big secret would come out at the worst possible moment if I did not. But apparently, Tolkien was right once more. Dwarves are too stubborn. No matter how many times I explained it, they thought I was lying to hide my true plans from the Ancient Evil. How the heck that creature would know about me or my non-existent plans, I had no idea.

The dwarves had also reopened their forges to make new weapons for the upcoming war against the big bad Ancient Evil. It was amazing to see how dedicated they could be to fight against the very same thing that had killed them once. Or, actually, how sure they were that weapons that had failed to have any effect on him the first time would be more effective now.

Oh, right. That part was up to my secret magical powers.

We were all going to die.

" Hey, this feels better!", chirped Silveraxe, getting back on her feet. She took a few steps with her new legs, and then jumped up and down a few times.

" Careful now!", I warned her: " I don't want to fix them up again, I have just finished!"

" Oh, right. But you know, I am just so glad to feel whole again!"

Her enthusiasm made me smile. Well, at least I was doing something useful. All in all, my adventure could have started far worse.

Right, I know, you have all guessed it, no need to smile, you little smug know-it-all. This is when things started getting worse.

In the shape of my old friend, Mr. "Red-hair-does-not-go-well-with-tanned-skin" Bat-wings-guy. I really needed to give him a non-descriptive name. And to kick him where the sun does not shine for leaving me alone at night on top of a mountain, surrounded by skeletons, though that part did end up quite well for me.

I also really, really needed to understand why all my new skeleton friends started screaming alarms, while pushing me towards the entrance of the mountain tunnel and looking ready to fight.

Then it dawned on me that maybe I should really, really, really have asked the dwarves to elaborate a bit more on the description of their hated Ancient Evil.

And if you just try saying you guessed it again, I am going to kick you too. Very painfully.

***

Author's note: Merry Christmas, everyone! ^_^ And thank you very much for reading!