Daily Necromancer 2: Electric BOOgaloo

I can guess what's going through your mind right now. "Oh man, I'm going to be reading about some hot and heavy undead action." The promise of vivid images of rotting flesh rubbing sensually against flushed skin, ghastly wails of ecstasy, and copious outpourings of the bodily fluids you'd expect (and some you wouldn't) are at the very fore of your mind, preparing you for the lewd interlude that's sure to follow.

It's also possible that you're just wondering why I am so God-awful at telling stories and can't just get on with it.

While the latter is a valid complaint, I'm afraid that the events of the "behavioral correction" meeting that Dame Tryamor held with me will have to go untold, both out of consideration for her privacy and because cultists who can't keep secrets are viewed as extremely expendable. Granted, we're basically fodder in the first place, to be used as reagents for the actual necromancers or as food sources for the army of the damned that we support, but it isn't a duty I would be excited to volunteer for. It will have to suffice to say that I was confined to bed rest for a few days.

Fortunately, by the time I was able to go back to pretending that I was doing work my limp went almost completely unnoticed by my coworkers.

Unfortunately, this was because of the conspicuously large cast that covered my entire pelvis and the crutches that I had to use to walk around. Of all of the words I could use to describe Tryamor, “gentle” is not one of them. The looks I evoked among the tents ranged from knowing smiles and giggles from the monsters to knowing looks of sympathy. When Rich spied me from his workbench, a guffaw was his only greeting.

“Shut the fuck up, Rich. This hasn't happened to you once, even after an entire year of being here. You won’t be laughing so hard once you’re pumped like your dick is the new miracle food.” He simply made a poor show of concealing his laughter as he turned back to what I assumed to be work. “Now that I think about it, how HAVE you managed to avoid being sucked dry for so long?”

Rich, with a grin that was either a continuation of his previous Schadenfreude or had sprung anew at the chance to show off, pulled out a crystal vial that was no taller than his thumb and began lazily swirling the liquid inside. Though it filled over half of the container, there was enough movement of the pink tinged liquid to see that it was more viscous than its translucent appearance would suggest. He then proudly displayed it in his upturned palm.

“Monster musk. It’s watered down enough that we can stand it, but it makes it look like I've already been marked by someone else so that I’m a low priority target. I usually go with Manticore because it’s pretty strong and I like the smell, but if I need some heavy duty protection like on a full moon, you can rely on Matango. All of the other monsters seem to really hate those fuckers.”

I scratched my head in annoyance. As much as I hated Rich for coming up with a plan before I did and for not sharing it when he did, I really had to give him credit it where it was due. For a cultist camp, there were surprisingly few necromancers amongst the cultists themselves, and Rich was technically one of them. Our cult is classified as a charity organization, so there are a fair amount of cultists that are relegated to paperwork or any other general labor that could be found in an office, but he was relegated to toying with the bodies of the undead so that if he actually did manage to make mistakes in his line of work they weren't irreparable. He’s inept on the whole, but has rare moments like these remind me that at times he does genuinely have some good ideas. That’s what friendship is about: talking shit about someone until you’re forced to acknowledge that sometimes they aren't complete garbage. I was roused from my deep introspection when Rich continued.

“I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about that any time soon, though. For now it’s pretty clear that you’re a taken man.”

He pointed to the mass of plaster and bandages piled on top of my crotch. There was only one signature, and it read “Property of Dame Tryamor” in lilting cursive writing. She even made her name trail off into a cutesy heart, as if she were a teenage girl signing a friend’s cast. I could attest that there was not so much as an innocent bone in that decomposing body, though; she made sure that the whole process was painful, even when she was signing the results like an artist would a finished painting. She pressed down so hard that I think her pen cracked.

“Don’t worry about it, Rich. She’s a dead girl, so we’re not an exclusive item. You can feel free to go after her any time if you really want to. Or me, I guess. I feel like we have a good dynamic going between us right now though.”

Rich shoots me a slightly disturbed glance, which I can understand. That was a weird tangent. Desperate to move away from that line of thought, I go on.

“Anyways, the cast is because my pelvis was wrecked after her little attitude adjustment seminar. She broke it into so many pieces that I swear that you could snort some of them through a rolled up dollar bill. They actually had to use necromancy to put it back together and bring it back to life.”

“So, they put nether magic into your nether regions?”

I turned to glare at Rich only to see him hiding his snickering behind one hand. His impulse to make bad jokes grated on my nerves normally, and I certainly wasn't in the mood for them at the moment. As I continued to stare angrily in his general direction, I looked for the first time at what Rich was actually doing at his bench. Held in front of him in a sort of vice was a burette containing a liquid of a sickly green color, suspended above a flask that contained another liquid that seemed to be somewhere between red and pink. Droplets fell from the higher container into the one below it in precise intervals, each one producing a vivid violet splash that quickly faded. The clouds of new color lasted for increasing periods of time until, eventually, the entire solution was transformed. Rich pumped both fists into the air so enthusiastically that I was finally moved from my practiced look of scorn.

“Looks like you’re being productive for a change. What are you doing, anyways?”

He turned, looking me straight in the eyes with a deadpan expression.

“I have no idea. All of this stuff was sitting out when I got here, and it looked like the kind of stuff we’d mess around with in high school, so I thought it’d be fun to see if I could recreate one of our labs from memory.”

“That’s highly irresponsible.”

Rich nodded and turned back to his work, then completely opened the valve of the burette while the magnetic pellet spun at its maximum velocity. His face was mere inches away from the violently splashing concoction, but I was beyond caring about his safety by this point in our career. He would probably be more useful to the cause as a monster. Picking up on some sort of unknowable cue giving him insight into my thought process, Rich suddenly spoke up.

“Wait, so if all undead are brought back as girls now because of the demon lord, does that mean they had to recreate your pelvis as a girl’s?”

Before I could even consider coming up with a response, my skin chilled as I felt a sinister aura approach the periphery of my senses. Though I didn't dare to move, with even the automatic processes of breathing and blinking stifled, I could see out of the corner of my eye that a similar dread had taken hold of Rich. My eyes strained to keep still in that look of wary anticipation that we shared, but we both realized to remain like this would ultimately be futile. We both broke eye contact and swiveled around in our office chairs simultaneously to behold what had brought this aura of fear into our section of the tent.

It was a ghost. I cursed under my breath at wasting something as cool as synchronized chair rotation at something that was actually quite commonplace in a world filled with monster girls, especially in a camp that is specifically a home to dead ones. I wasn't terrible fond of ghosts, but I also wasn't terribly fond of any type of monster girl, especially considering a considerable history of distasteful experiences with them of which Tryamor was just the most recent. I stared at her as I tried to put a finger on my inexplicable distaste for this particular ghost, my eyes taking in the pale lavender of her torn dress and the dark bows and light lace that adorned it. She started stammering and sputtering beneath our intent gazes, retroactively justifying at least some of my intense dislike for her, but it remained unexplained.

Fortunately, Rich was more up to the task of dealing with her than I was at the moment.

“Is there something you need?”

Her crimson eyes transitioned from frantically sweeping back and forth between the both of us to settling only on Rich, and she finally managed to speak.

“Well, I, um… yes. It’s just that I, I was sent over here to give you, erm, that is, the both of you, this assignment.”

My God, it was as if she went to an elementary school and took all of the neglected commas so that she could put them all in her own sentences. My eyes narrowed in disgust, which caused her to become even more flustered, but to her credit she made an effort to continue.

“I, uh, was just transferred to this section, department, just recently. My name is Kael’t…”

“Shit, is that you, Bob?”

She froze in terror at my unexpected intrusion, which was damning enough. Despite my deep-seated hatred for the late man, a smirk began to creep along my face. Now it was my turn to revel in someone’s misfortune.

“Oh my God, it IS you, isn't it? Tryamor finally went and finished off the last of the PR team, so you must have really fucked up. It was the name, wasn't it?” I turned to look at Rich with smug satisfaction, enjoying the situation unraveling before us as well as the fact that I was right about the new cult name being terrible.

At this prompting, Rich rejoined the conversation. “And what’s with the name you’re trying to go by now, BOB? I bet it’s an Elvish name, isn't it?”

In the undead community, it is actually quite common for a newly reborn person to take on a new name. As one can observe from wights, vampires, and even dullahan, social rank is quite important to the undead with higher brain functions, and the easiest way to ensure a position of power is to be a part of a well-known noble family. However, because not many are fortunate enough to die as an heir to nobility, and because such claims are even more difficult to authenticate due to the circumstances surrounding being brought back from the grave, the newly risen often adopt a name that seems suitable to their needs. Only Bob, asshole that he is, would choose an old name that would also make him sound like he should have knives for ears.

Naming conventions aside, Bob was left cowering behind a large manila envelope that she held between the tips of her index fingers and thumbs. Given that she had just been turned, it wouldn't have been surprising if she was only able to physically manifest small portions of her body at a time. This gave me an idea.

“Hey, Bob?” I called for her attention in the most sympathetic and kind voice that I could muster. As she lowered the envelope enough that her eyes could peer over it, I extended my arm to my side and swept it straight across the space in front of me. As it so happened, Bob was floating at just the right height so that my hand passed through her breasts. After my hand was clear of her ghostly bosom, she shrieked in girlish embarrassment and flew away more quickly than I had ever seen a ghost move before. It was actually a bit cute, in a way. I picked up the abandoned envelope and turned to Rich.

“I think she likes you. With her, Tryamor, and Berti, you could have your own monster harem in no time.”

My expression was one of distaste. “Don’t even joke about that, you bastard. Besides, monster girls ‘like’ anything with a Y chromosome and a heartbeat. To Tryamor, I’m just livestock that’s able to do paperwork, and Berti just likes playing games with people in general.”

Only receiving a noncommittal shrug as a response, I worked open the envelope to see what was so important that Bob had to be sent to deliver it. I really wished that I hadn't.