Necromancer's Descent

9 - Spick and Span

[AN: It's technically a double chapter, but if I split it into two then the first part would be too boring. Thus: double chapter.]

The feeling of unease hasn't left my body yet, even as I finish eating and drinking mostly naked under a large oak tree. The sky is clearing up, and hopefully the air will start warming up.

I wished for there to be a purpose to my suffering. Be that karma, a devil or a god. Yet, none of those make sense to me anymore. Even if it was a test, a god wouldn't take away my guilt. The moment guilt is taken away, doesn't it defeat the purpose of a test?

I look up at the sky with a soft sigh. It has been a single day since I arrived here, and I've survived being chased by a monster on a battlefield, gotten poisoned, hallucinated, gotten attacked by people, sewed myself up, stolen their lunch and now here I am... in thin bloodied underwear.

I glance to the zombie knight.

I vaguely remember last night, but only as fragmented flashbacks. Yet, the fond memories and personification of him, seems shattered on the floor, after he merely loomed over me... staring at me blankly, while I stitched myself up while screaming in pain.

I take a deep breath and look down at the trail of blood and footprints we have been leaving behind, and then back to the zombie knight absolutely covered with flies sitting on it and eating it...

I shudder.

Those men went hostile the moment they saw him, and they were clearly sneaking when I saw them... had they been tracking us? They might have gone to check up on the weird melty log bridge from last night, and spotted our trail.

If that's the case, then I need to make sure we can't be tracked... somehow... or at least stop us from leaving a blood trail. Even better if people won't immediately know that the knight is a zombie...

I could try to use fleshmending to fix him. It doesn't seem like fleshmending would be used only on living things after all.

Still... what would happen to the bugs currently seeking shelter in his chest? It's like a starry night in there, and his heart sort of becomes the moon, in what is in reality an extremely grotesque situation.

The hallucination from the berries is for some reason still ongoing.

When I checked my skills this morning and found soul sight, I also found out that the skill is apparently something that needs to be activated, so this should be the poison still wrecking havoc on me. The other effects seem to be gone, so it's just the soul sight and glowing eyes.

...while on this topic of soul sight. The knight's heart is really glowing. As in... there's a soul inside his heart. Furthermore, it's leaking. Sort of. Perhaps it's more accurate to say that it has started spreading just a little beyond the lines of the heart, where I am entirely certain it was within yesterday night last I looked at it.

The hunters also called him soul-bound, didn't they?

How did they know, and what does it do?

I hesitantly think back on the situation. From what i recall, he said it after the knight started moving... so his movement must be different from a non-soul bound one?

That would make sense though. Honestly, the way he moves is unnatural. Not just because it's too close to human, but also because he can jump up and cut his way into a monster centipede's eye.