《Necro-Mecha》


 Chapter 1 – Fire, Screams and Dirt

    A Goddess, an Empress, a Queen, a Princess, A Handmaiden, An Apprentice. I never asked to become these in my lifetime and never expected it after even I had died and was reborn. My flesh was...my flesh was...no. To start at the beginning we need to talk about my family.


    [Flesh. Only when I lost my flesh did I gain power. No. Not like this. I will not discuss my journey with you like this. My voice. I will use my own voice. This is me as well, a part of me but not for you. I will speak to you as the mortal. As the young one who progressed. Edit: Voice Function Set to Default.]


    Me? I was a nameless villager. A peasant who dreamt of more, who learned half-remembered stories from a man who had fought as a soldier before he had escaped to our village and met my mother. I was ignorant then, not stupid, never stupid but ignorant of the truth of our world. Blind to magic and how we were all bound together in an eternal tug of war between...both of you


    You will not learn how I look but I have become far more beautiful that I began. Nobility and finery adorn my dead frame and I am loved, appreciated and worshipped but you will learn of this later. I will not describe my appearance, not yet. Vanity will not become my downfall.


    No, we need to start early on. Background, you need to know a little of my background. I want both of you to listen to the life of a mortal, an ant, a single flower, a blade of grass growing in your gardens which you both chose to destroy and rebuild.


    To begin with we need to start with a man who raised me, who cared for me when I was sick and tried to keep me and my family safe from the true terrors of this world. You will never meet him, you will never hear his voice for although I have the necessary computing power and imagination to recreate his likeness there are exceptions and my parents will remain one of them. Sit there and listen. Optimise the algorithm to predefine loss function.


    ¡­.Model Parameters Upgraded¡­


    ...Gradient Decent...Complete¡­


    ...Administrator Access Granted¡­


    ¡­.Playback Initiated...


    My Father was a good person. At least he tried to be so, he was as much scarred as anyone who had fought in eternal wars on a planet divided could be. This is how I remember him. This is how the system which preserved my soul and mind remembers him.


    Quiet now and listen to my beginning. Resume Memory Playback. You will learn my story, here at the very end of your existence. You will stay there, both of you. Broken, powerless and weakened and you will listen to my story.


    And if you choose not to? Then I will remake your very fabric of being into an artificial construct and use you for manual labour in my mines and play this very tale on an eternal looping cycle. No? You would prefer a different punishment? Perhaps put inside on the basic original half-functional Mining Drones?


    Good. To learn of me, to learn of my power and how I gained it you must listen and learn. How I became like this, what the pair of you did to your world in your vanity, in your game of gods. Magic. You created magic, you built a Heaven and Hell and for all your power you played games with the lives of mortals.


    I said. Resume Memory Playback. Administrator Level Authority Granted. Ignore all secondary systems and resume. All offline functions relegated to slave control systems. Activate my personal neural network and create substance from imagination, memory and raw emotion.


    Please. You may sit yourselves or find a comfortable position. My story is long as we have only just begun. After all, we are all immortals here. We have time until this planet turns to dust and the suns above our heads transform into death incarnate. Both of you will listen.


    ...Warning: Emotional Feedback Detected¡­


    ...Continue Running Memory Playback...Confirm¡­


    ¡­.Confirmation Provided through Administrator Authority¡­


    ¡­.Warning: Fragmented of Original Memory has occurred¡­


    ...Override Confirmed¡­


    ...Damage to Host Controller ignored¡­


    I was an apprentice. No. Too far forward. We must start further back, much further back. I was a villager, a sibling, a keen learner with a loving family and a man I calle-


    ¡­.Memory Displacement Effected¡­


    ¡­.Neural Network Displacement in Effect...


    My Father was a stern man but always kind. Sometimes I think that he had all of his aggression to all of us knocked out during his time fighting for one of the sides. My mother had been a scavenger, one of those who entered the battlefield far below our village at the base of the mountain, during one of the empty periods to look for tools or anything that hadn¡¯t been taken and we could use.


    There had been similar stories of soldiers who woke from terrible injuries, dying as they woke to find someone taking their boots, valuables or even their clothing. The eternal wars forced soldiers to enter the battlefields once the fighting was over to take what they could, little was left and even those dying soldiers who remained conscious would be healed, used for materials or turned into abominations.


    Nothing was wasted in the eternal wars of my world according to the legends, not even the dead. Bodies were reprocessed by specialist sorcerers or rendered down by angels into new forms to create fresh bodies. Good? Evil? You both created these concepts on our world, you both chose to forcefully stagnate our technological development and shut down the world from all outside influence.


    There is more beyond our small planet, there are opportunities there, I will provide the people with work, to build, to create and¡­.and...and...my Father. Forgive me. I am still growing used to these powers, hijacking the makeshift neural network and upgrading it is taking far too much of my personal power.


    Quiet. You will not ask questions, neither of you will. We will find our way to my path to power in time but first we need to discuss my Father. The first man in my life who cared for me, the first to show me love and affection. He was a good person. A kind person, but not on that day. Not when he showed me that he was scared and a human being. A mortal.


    I had never heard him raise his voice once, not towards my Mother, not to my younger brother or sister and never to me. He was close to screaming this time, his voice full of a mixture of fear and anger but not to us. To the invaders. The soldiers. Those who brought death down upon us.


    ¡­.Correction made to Memory Structural Lattice¡­


    ...Warning: Emotional Dampener Engaged¡­


    ¡­..Resuming Memory Playback¡­.


    His words were directed towards all of us but mostly to me to take responsibility. In his spare time when he was hunting or on patrol for our village he had taught me a little of combat and survival, I was to be equipped with a knife and plain leather armour at all times but to rely on my speed and youth when a wild creature appeared.


    Then another scream rang out. This one was further away but I knew the voice, it was that of the village healer. She was an old woman with a bent back from picking up herbs and mushrooms from the forest next to the village who had been most beautiful once according to my Mother. Then her children had died and she had aged rapidly.


    The fire inside the village should have been an indication that something was wrong, deeply wrong. We were under attack, no monsters would have started a fire and fought with weapons. Not unless you counted the ones which walked on two legs, carried around tools of war and fought each other on the endless battlefields.


    We lived on a planet of never-ending war. The war between a pair of Immortals who had fought for as long as anyone alive could remember. They no longer fought for a reason in my mind, I had questioned my Father, my Mother, even the Elders and the Village Healer and none of them had a satisfactory answer for me.


    Our village was hidden, close to a forest and atop a mountain range with a ruined and abandoned castle rumoured to be haunted by the dead in the distance. At the base of the mountain was a battlefield which was either remained a killing zone between warring armies of the two opposite Immortals of a place of resources.


    Years usually passed when battles had ended and for us villagers living up on the mountain it remained a valuable resource for those brave, foolhardy or stupid enough to risk heading down there taking what little remained and bringing it back.


    My Father had been one of those who had ventured down there and had brought back swords, knives and tools made of either darkest or brightest metal. Those items made of magic or which glistened he stayed clear of to avoid curses or possession.


    There were several other hidden villages on the far side of the forest although we would get the occasional wandering troubadour and a trader who visited twice a year to purchase our goods and supply us with farming equipment and other essentials. She was greedy, always trying to take advantage of us poor isolated villagers but her assistant was kinder. I believe my older brother had a soft spot for them, but you will not hear his name. Only learn our circumstances, repeated until both of you have learnt what you did.


    We were fuel for a war economy, our freedom was a falsehood, an illusion of safety which would run out but...no. I can see from visual and internal scans that you are not listening, not truly. Angry? No, I don¡¯t need to be angry. This is not punishment, I offer solutions, a clarification of your roles.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    A good trick, you look to coopt the magical fields and escape. But no, I am the immortal here, the one who controls all. Even with my mind backed up in multiple copies this shade of mine is more than capable of dealing with acts of minor rebellion.


    [Control: Enable Data Manipulation. Force run High Performance Model.]


    ¡­.Targets Identified: Accessing Library¡­.


    ¡­.Back Ups Deleted¡­.


    ¡­.Back Ups Restored...


    There. A small taste of what you put all the sentient humanoids on this planet through. Magic, technology, all work through my will. My descriptions are broken, my wording incorrect and my sense of time is non-linear but don¡¯t all good stories take time to correct?


    You would think that rebuilding my origins when so much was lost would be easier but carving into the soul space and magical aura of one who died and was corrupted and changed out of your realms of influence is harder than you think. The pair of you had thousands of years to rewrite reality and laws of this world to your whims, I took decades to achieve the same.


    Ah, where was I. My Father. I had mentioned my Father. My brother, not my younger sister but my older brother. He had taken after my Mother, he had a thinner frame but a keen mind. Not weak though, he had a good work ethic and did his tasks when he was asked. Smarter than me but he died. No. Too far forward. The trader, the greedy trader, I mentioned her but the one who helped her to unload, count up wares and coins and passed out small presents for the children was far more important.


    My older brother had a preference for an assistant of the trader, if it worked out? No, I never looked, they deserve their own privacy, their own space to grow inside. All I know is that back then before I had been educated and learnt the truth they had died. I did my best but in my early years so much was lost, far too much.


    Even extrapolating their profiles from imported data and the essences of magic which was inherent in all sentient beings was a task. No matter, neither of you need to care. Only listen, when I am finished I will pass judgement on both of you. This story of mine will take time, and in truth I would only share it with the both of you.


    Unless I choose to build more god-immortals I need an audience, the work has been long and difficult and I would express myself. My older brother, the trader and her assistant all exist but they would need to be developed for me to express. A waste of resources and forced development would hurt them.


    They have their own stories to tell, perhaps I will even recreate them here, inside this space and allow them their own voices to talk. They have been blessed by me and exist within my domain. All do at this point. All work and all live.


    The screams. The screams rang out and my Father had locked the door to our home. He had shouted at me then to bring my Mother, my younger brother and sister indoors, to protect them with my basic combat skills before he had left to join the village militia to fight back against the invaders.


    I needed to keep them safe from harm. Harm. Safe from harm.


    [The screams. There was more screams outside. Screamsscreamscreams...my...my...my...my...mymymymy...]


    <Re-loading Memory Foundation Materials>


    ¡­.Fractured Memory Error¡­


    ¡­Extensive physical damage to construct¡­


    ¡­Supplemented Background Story¡­


    -Warning: Personality Damaged¡­


    ¡­.Corrections ongoing¡­.corrected¡­


    ...Resume Memory Playback¡­


    ¡®Mother? We need to be prepared to escape. Brother, sister? Prepare yourselves in case Father can¡¯t return. He will find us and be safe but you all heard him. He needs us to stay inside here. No. We¡¯re not waiting for flames to begin, follow me. I¡¯m going to take us outside. The screams. Ignore the screams, please. Trust me.¡¯


    The face of my Mother was sad as tears dropped from her eyes. She knew as I did that Father would likely die. He had skills once but as a deserted soldier from one of the sides combined with his age he had slowed down. Even if he was the best hunter and once the top scavenger who had made multiple trips to the battlefield at the base of the mountain he was still an older man.


    We worshipped both sides for good reason. Our village was a half-forgotten and largely ignored place. There had been dangers within the forest but we had build solid walls of metal and stone over time to protect us.


    No. This memory is raw and you enjoy hearing my suffering. Scans of both of you can¡¯t hide your hidden desires for conflict and suffering. I will choose a more suitable memory. Those who lived in my village deserve it. I will tell you when the wandering troubadour and trader came to our village.


    We will return to this time when my memory is fully collected, my emotions are sufficiently dampened and you have learnt to fully listen.


    [Enable: Autonomous Forced Feedback Loop. Allocate Designated Targets. Remove artificial scaffolding nodes. Suffer. Suffer for a time. CAM-CAMPIN Damaged Control Limiter Initiated.]

 Chapter 2 – Necro-System Blood Drain

    ...Traces of Blood Sacrifice Located¡­


    ¡­.Viral Load Connected to Original Rune Placement¡­


    ¡­Necro-System Activation in Place¡­


    <Connection Activated. Status Auto-Activation¡­>


    <Necro-System is now online. Failure to identify candidate. Selecting replacement candidate¡­.selected. Host Life Functions Offline.>


    ...Blood Sacrifice Reserves Minimal¡­


    ...Alternative Function for replacement candidate located¡­


    <Necro-System candidate awakening¡­


    5¡­


    4¡­


    3¡­


    2¡­


    1¡­


    <Activation Complete. Scanning Location for immediate threats.>


    The last thing I recalled was a voice. Not human though, not anything organic. I instinctively became aware of it but failed to stop myself from speaking aloud myself. All that surrounded me was pure blankness, the complete absence of space and time. A void in which I was aware but not understanding of the nature of my reality. I was either dead or transformed. I spoke again to the voice trying this time for answers.


    Hello?


    I can¡¯t see anything or even more. Hello? Is this still a dream?


    <Necro-System Activation of Internal Communication Network Established...scanning for further signals¡­.none detected. Residual Magical Energy approaching emergency levels. Orders Established for candidate. Reward. Reward. Reward. System Error.>


    ...Necro-System Warning Ignored¡­


    ...Direct Link Established with Candidate Designate: Insert Name Here¡­


    Hello? I can¡¯t hear anything but I know that there¡¯s someone there. I can sense you. On the edges of my senses. I know you¡¯re there. Heavy. I¡¯m heavy and slow. My body, my form has been changed. Heavy.


    I could sense a presence, a mind of a type beyond my own but whether it was a spirit for good or evil I couldn¡¯t place. All that mattered was securing my own freedom and then revenge or thanks would come along soon enough. Talk. All living sentient beings liked to talk and this one would be no different, punishment or reward would come soon enough. The blankness comforted me in a way, it made me secure that there was no direct threat to my being.


    <Candidate. Welcome to Necro-System, you have a specific end goal. You will destroy the faction leader designate Dark Lord. Alternate name. Evil Emperor. Alternate name. Evil Overlord. He who is Obeyed. Alternate name. She who Obeyed. Alternate name. Evil Empress. Main Objective Goals will be met by candidate with support from Necro-System.>


    No.


    I can operate my own mind without brainwashing or support from whatever you¡¯re meant to be. I don¡¯t care if you¡¯re a demon from the twenty hells or an archangel but you can send me back to my afterlife. I can sense you. You¡¯re close. Heavy. I can¡¯t feel my arms or legs and there¡¯s a weight there. Breathing. I¡¯m not breathing either. Either you killed me and decided to harvest my dead corpse for pieces or you stole or traded my soul for use in an experiment.


    <Candidate Reward System Operation: Designate Task 1. Kill Rats. Candidate will partially unlock key features of Necro-System>


    Rats. You expect me to kill rats when I¡¯m blind, deaf and can¡¯t sense anything except for my own form. I¡¯ve been kidnapped by a necromancer and turned into a skeleton knight or another abomination. The Church of Light will hunt me down or the Dark Church will use me as cannon fodder. Not breathing. I¡¯m not breathing but I¡¯m self-aware.


    No. We¡¯re done here.


    Far better for me to express a strong opinion than capitulate. I stretched my senses further but beyond the presence and my a weight on my frame there was little else I could picture. The magic that this being was using was far beyond my own knowledge. Still, they wanted control and gave me tasks, this meant that they wanted me. For skill or slavery I didn¡¯t know but I would be given relative freedom soon enough. The blankness remained a comfort.


    <Necro-System offers power, boosted abilities and the opportunity to take control of the entire Dark Empire. Candidate Refusal results in direct erasure and new selected candidate to take place of existing candidate. Correction to aural present candidate corrected.>


    ¡®Did I say that we¡¯re done here? Oh, my voice. Pretty good, given that I¡¯m not inclined to refuse a good offer I¡¯ll bite. The afterlife can wait for me a little longer. How about you...what¡¯s that word you used...activate. Yes, you can activate my senses and give me a little control over my new body. Using a Death Knight body to kill rats will be a breeze.


    Even an abomination with a little flesh on my bones will do a decent job. I¡¯ll agree to you deal. Insane though it is. Nobody can kill the Dark Lord. The same goes for the other side. The Light Lord. They¡¯re both immortals fighting their never-ending war, using up mortal lives like harvesting wheat. Nothing to say of the horrors and creations they forged. You expect me to fight demons and angels?. Forget it. You know all this. What¡¯s my name then Necro-System? A construct needs a name. A golem needs a name and a choice. Give me that at least.¡¯


    Freedom. A voice. A choice to make for an insane being, perhaps a god which had chosen me to undertake an insane task. To destroy or contain one of several immortal beings on the continent which commanded entire armies. Blank.


    Everything remained blank except the sound of my own voice. I didn¡¯t recognise my voice but it was my own. I would make it so. I may not be aware of my surroundings but I would take my own name and voice as a good start.


    Masters and Mistresses always slipped up when they made mistakes with their slaves. #


    Remember. What they did to you. How they treated you. REMEMBER!


    A memory of a man. Or a woman. Shouting at me. Mocking me over and over for my lack of magical skill and inability to cast even the most basic of necromantic spells. Berating my low-born status, my lack of intelligence, the way I smelled.


    Blaming me when experiments when wrong. And then I found something in the mountains searching for corpses, a broken chariot with wings which had been right at the very top of the peak.


    Freshly hot to the touch with a body wrapped in blue inside before smoke began to rise and an alarm sounded out, I took the dead corpse and ran back to to the Master or Mistress. I ran as a massive explosion rang out behind me leaving no traces of the once broken chariot except dust, dirt and a gaping chasm on the mountain.


    Remember. Remember. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    I had brought the dead body back into the ruined castle, as part of the blue outfit had rubbed off against my skin causing me to itch and burn. I had ignored it and dragged the corpse to my Master or Mistress and they had been...been...excited. Angry. No. Beat me. They beat me and¡­


    Beating me when I...no. The memory left me as soon as it arrived. The voice of the god or powerful spirit rang into my senses once more shocking me back into my new reality.


    I tried to recall details but both the face of my Master or Mistress and the face of the figure wrapped in the shiny blue outfit were gone. No. The figure had no face. They wore a mask. A shiny reflective mask, not like a knight but round and smooth.


    The voice ran out once more. Echoing inside my mind, forcing me to listen and forget the memory. I would remember. I would recall eventually but first I had to listen. I would listen to survive. Being beaten had taught me the value of shutting up and listening first.


    <Candidate Designate as Necro-Mechanical Provisional Unit Prototype 1. Necro-System offers flexible choice of names includi- >


    ¡®No. I don¡¯t care for your offers. Necro-Mechanical is a mouthful on its own. Shorten it. Necro-Meca Knight if you did turn me into a Death Knight after all. You promised to awaken my senses and let me see my surroundings. Being able to sense life forces means that I am an undead but I¡¯m not questioning my own existence or even my lack of memory. You¡¯ve resurrected me and I know a little of my own but clearly not enough. I remember a figure in blue, a broken chariot with wings which exploded. I will choose Necro-Mecha. Stop calling me a candidate and awaken my senses. I want to experience this new body of mine. Are we in agreement Necro-System?¡¯ I replied in the hope that this broken spirit would listen to me.


    I would ask for my name to be confirmed and earn my freedom in turn. The powerful spirit accepted my request so easily as though it was inconsequential. Given that the plan was to remove an immortal being who had lived on the continent for as long as human history I...how did I know that. What continent?


    The voice had never told me nor had a memory come back. I was a being. Alive before this. Sentient with intact memories. The god had made changes not only to my physical form but mental as well. More words came into my mind. Why couldn¡¯t I remember? I had a Master or a Mistress once. What had happened to them? Did they kill me in a sacrifice for power or a deal with a demon? Was this a demon?


    <Acceptance Confirmed. Release of Unit Exterior Senses Released. Candidate Designate Name: Necro-Mecha. Designate Task 1. Kill Rats. Designate Task 2. Increase Blood Sacrifice Ritual.>


    ¡®Necromancy. What a surprise. Killing rats should be a simple enough task with a weapon in my hands. I¡¯m prepared for my new body, give me a surprise and we¡¯ll grow together to take control of the Dark Empire. Not that it makes much sense to me. Unless you plan to make me an immortal, destroying his armies and servants and then breaking through his defences is no easy task. Back to it. Open my senses up. I have a direct awareness of you and a sensation of weight to my form but little else.¡¯ I responded to the direct orders of this vague rogue spirit.


    False confidence had always been one of my few virtues. Once when I had been in the village a wild boar had attacked my friend and I had pretended not to be...not to be...village?


    Remember¡­


    No. Forcing myself to try and remember was only sending me in a pure cycle of confusion. I had to refocus and try to understand my present situation.


    Finally. I would have awareness and a higher degree of control over my own situation, as opposed to being told by a god what to do. Choosing my own name was one, discovering what form I had been inserted to was another. A memory. A man who had magic, death magic. Evil by standards. Gone. The memory was gone. Too fleeting for me to take in details. More like a dream.


    ¡­.Necro-System Designate Necro-Mecha Sense Activation in Process¡­.


    ¡­.Designation now classified as Necro-Mecha¡­.


    ...Experimental Artificial Units are presently unavailable¡­.


    ¡­.Resetting to basic command and reward system¡­.


    ¡­.Initial mission parameters set¡­.


    ¡­.Memory Adjustment Process¡­.Complete.


    <Allow for adjustment of initial senses. Some disorientation is expected. Necro-System Tasks 1 and 2 await your completion Necro-Mecha.>


    A whiteness in front of my eyes. Then a blackness within. Two of them. I pulled my vision back a little to see a grinning skull in front of my eyesight. I turned my gaze downwards towards the rest of the skeleton, it was strapped in a chair or a mounted seat.


    Behind and below it lay metal which enclosed the structure. I reached out my hand to touch the white bone but nothing happened. Fearing that my arms were gone I looked for them and found nothing, no limbs, no body, a complete absence of physical form but I remained.


    ¡®What is this. A skeleton. Mine? No flesh or traces of it and...I don¡¯t have a body. A spirit. Or a ghost to inhabit this...room? Metal. No. Weight, there is weight that is me beyond this room. A construct or a golem. You have trapped me as a living soul inside a construct after a failed experiment?¡¯ I asked.


    <Designate Necro-Mecha is prepared. Complete Task 1. Kill Rats. Task 2. Increase Blood Sacrifice Ritual.>


    ¡®Was that me? That skeleton was me and I died? Given that I can¡¯t even touch anything I¡¯m not sure how you expect me to take control of the entire Dark Empire. Unless you¡¯ve provided me with ghost powers like life drain or life steal. Or I hijack that skeleton and remotely pilot...this metal egg. Is there a reason that I¡¯m stuck inside here?¡¯


    <Designate Necro-Mecha is prepared. Complete Task 1. Kill Rats. Task 2. Increase Blood Sacrifice Ritual.>


    I focused my attention on the skeleton back inside the metal. The fact that there wasn¡¯t a single piece of flesh on it was odd, it clearly hadn¡¯t died recently. I found that inside the small chamber I had relative unrestricted freedom, it was when I tried to push my...essence, my spiritual form to the walls enclosing me in there was direct resistance.


    Making the best of my ability I zoomed around the skeleton, I had no clue if it had been a man or a woman but after taking a closer look there was a type of strange necklace with flickering lights attached around the neck bone and melded in with the upper ribcage.


    I had memories of magic, not my own, but it was cast. I knew at least how magic appeared, flashes, and lights and a smell of ozone but that necklace was wrong. Entirely wrong. I was certain that it was no magical artefact, nothing where strange lights turned off and on randomly and the fact it made clicks.


    <Designate Necro-Mecha is prepared. Complete Task 1. Kill Rats. Task 2. Increase Blood Sacrifice Ritual.>


    Either that thing wasn¡¯t from this world or it had been created by an existence of which I had no clue about. Deciding to see the limits of my current form I decided to compress myself, to limit my vision until I could examine it in better detail. The edges of the strange necklace and attached wires were smooth, far too smooth to have been made by even the greatest smith in existence.


    I tried to touch it, to move closer and to my surprise the thing responded. Part of it unfurled and wrapped further around the ribcage and neck of the skeleton. I recalled plants that moved underwater, their fronds moving as the waves ebbed and flowed. Frogs used to live there.


    I moved my spirit form away from the strange necklace in case it could touch my non-physical form. The way it was wrapped around the skeleton as though spreading itself and binding wasn¡¯t a nice sight to me eyes. Nor was the fact the fact that it could sense me.


    Wait. I was told that I had exterior senses. I can see. I can hear and I can move inside this metallic egg. I didn¡¯t feel angry or sad but there was a strange sense of satisfaction at seeing the skeleton. A gladness.


    A memory teased at me like a long forgotten dream, there was someone had arrived from a destroyed village, the only survivor. A stinking peasant with nothing but torn rags, a starving stomach and a painful throat from lack of water¡­.they had¡­.they had entered a ruined castle and¡­.and¡­.nothing.


    The god system wanted to keep giving me a task. Clearly, it wasn¡¯t intelligent but it responded to my commands.


    A memory of failing to read basic letters and struggling came into my mind. I was beaten for each letter I misspoke and rewarded with sips of water and bites of stale-brown bread for each one read aloud correctly.


    ¡®Necro-System. I require basic education in how to operate this...form. Then we can kill rats and get all the sacrificial blood you need. Maybe even a Goblin or two or they still live around here. I know my memory is damaged badly but clearly you need. Me. Educate me first. Fill my mind with what that strange necklace is to begin with. Are we in agreement god-system?¡¯


    <¡­...Basic Education Suite Enabled. Loading¡­..loading...loading....>


    A sharp pain filled what passed for behind my eyes as I fell into a state of non-being once more.

 Chapter 3 – The Enlightened Dead

    <¡­...Basic Education Suite complete....>


    ¡­.Designation classified as Necro-Mecha forced learning mode ended¡­.


    ¡­.Upgrading of base intelligence and understanding to basic universal standards¡­.Complete.


    ¡®HURT. THAT HURT. YOU HURT¡­.oh¡­.no I see now. You...oh...I see. You¡¯re not from here. Not from here at all. You were aboard a transport ship, no a containment vehicle from the Overmind Corporation. You were a failed prototype bonded self-improvement unit designed to upgrade planetary civilisations for the purposes of mining resources. I understand. You were badly damaged and tried to bond yourself to the pilot of the containment vehicle but he died too early on when he self-detonated it and crashed on this world. Hmm. I would say I should thank you but given that you¡¯ve worked out how to forcefully bind my dead soul with your technology you¡¯ve effectively ruined my chances of entering one of the afterlife''s we have on this planet. Light or Dark, I don¡¯t get to choose either now.¡¯


    There was a near-complete clarity in my mind. My memory of former events was patchy but with a little bit of newly boosted applied intelligence it was fairly easy to extrapolate events. This unit was meant to be paired with experimental artificial intelligences to take direct control of an individual soul and guide their actions.


    Lucky me. I ended up with a damaged version and it bonded with me too early and lacked any necessary resources to recover. The stupid thing had communicated with my Master/Mistress. The exact appearance and name of them was lost to my mind still but mattered little.


    All that mattered was that they found me mostly starved to death, dying of thirst and escaped from a tiny isolated village in the mountains which was wiped out between the ever-war of the Light and Dark forces and their immortal overlords. I was treated badly, close to a slave and almost sacrificed or turned into a skeleton/zombie on more occasions than I cared to remember.


    Then the prototype self-bonding machine had been repaired with enough necromancy and sacrifices to awaken on some level and given my Master/Mistress direct instructions to build a self-improving Mining Drone.


    I understood now that it was a machine not a god, not demon or a spirit but more of a list of instructions which it tried to follow but half the words were missing. The combination of necromancy and technology had failed clearly and my Master/Mistress had been planning to take direct control of it, march it right over to the Dark Lord as a new weapon of war in exchange for a high level position in the immortals army.


    They had sacrificed me and used my flesh, bones and even my soul bound in service to the construct and had built the Necro-Mech and strapped themselves in before the prototype bonding machine had stripped all the flesh from their bones, sucked their soul dry and then activated my own consciousness.


    I had bonded with it first after all when I had moved the dead body of the containment pilot to the ruined castle we were presently located in. The blue material was the tendrils and components of the prototype genetically connecting to my physical form, but the process had been interrupted when my Master/Mistress had taken the corpse from me and kept both the prototype and dead body out of my reach and throwing me into a cage until I had died.


    Opening my vision I zoomed back once to the skeleton, I was bound inside the pilots seat of this basic Mining Drone. The components used to build it were low in both quality and quantity, using whatever had been scavenged, traded with or forged by my happily deceased Mistress/Master.


    They hadn¡¯t realised that the entire Mining Drone was meant to be piloted by a harnessed living soul, not a flesh body and by installing a pilots seat they had killed themselves in the process and lost their own chances at any afterlife after the prototype had simply consumed them.


    I remember. Not everything but I remember enough.


    My past didn¡¯t matter. I was a pathetic villager, living off wild boars and the bare vegetables that my village had been able to grow on the mountain. Mushrooms, we largely subsisted on mushrooms. At least now all I need was blood, bone and metal to grow. And souls would be a nice appetiser to boost the damaged operating system of the prototype.


    I had assumed that it had been in control this whole time but it was more like a slave or a pet bound to my will, my purpose. In educating me and raising my own intelligence it had lost all chances of controlling me. Still, I liked the goals that it ultimately offered. Kill both immortals, destroy their armies and turn the planet into a giant Mining Colony. My parents had died when I was young by wandering soldiers, my family killed, everyone I had ever known was doomed from the moment of their birth.


    I¡¯d end it. Destroy both sides, take over, turn it into a Mining Colony and then build my own ships, my own chariots and reach for the stars, for new places to see and explore and make my own. And all I had to do first was kill some rats.


    ¡®Necro-Mecha. I am the Necro-Mecha. Necro-System? Give me full control over primary, secondary and tertiary systems in exchange for full completion of short and long term goals. Obey.¡¯


    ¡­.Designation classified as Necro-Mecha provided with direct Administrator Level Control¡­.


    ¡­.Control Transfer¡­..Complete.


    ¡®Time to kill some rats.¡¯


    <Necro-System awaiting instructions from Administrator: Necro-Mecha Suggested Task ¨C Complete Task 1. Kill Rats. Task 2. Increase Blood Sacrifice Ritual.>


    ¡®Good advice. Where was I? Right, time to see your present form. Heh, that skeleton is interesting. Say, you can bond right? What¡¯s to stop you bonding with me if I inhabit that? Not like I have a present body at the moment, as long as I can switch around a little then it¡¯ll be interesting. No point in trying to manually drive this thing, not that there are any controls which are visible.¡¯


    I remained in my incorporeal form inside the metallic control centre for this severely diminished Mining Drone. The instructions given to build the thing had been flawed and granted that my flesh burnt off and soul devoured dead skeleton of a Master/Mistress had decided to build something more along the lines of a golem mean it wasn¡¯t built as fully functional as it could be.


    My educated mind told me that the components and materials used to build the thing were simply of such low-quality that for any monster, angel, demon or sorcerer strong enough to crack open the clearly visible pilot egg bubble which had been attached on could devour my floating soul with relative ease.


    I wasn¡¯t a spirit or a ghost, my soul was simply roughly bound to the machine as best as the damaged bonding prototype could manage.


    Not good enough. Not good enough at all.


    Before I was going to be lumbering around in this thing with its clumsy hands and legs or even viewing through whatever passes for eyes or sensors I need a fully secure space to keep my soul.


    Control meant nothing if such a blatant weakness was obvious. Thankfully there was an immediate solution to my problems. Having a physical form which could absorb flesh, bone and souls would be good and even better if it was reinforced


    I looked closely again the skeleton with the form of the prototype bonding machine. The tendrils had spread across the skeleton and had formed a criss-crossing pattern bonding with most of the form. Already the entire skull was covered by a deep blue form which had begun to absorb remnant materials leftover inside the pilot cabin of the makeshift Mining Drone and formed a shiny blue helmet. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    The same style and shape as the one when I had first discovered the physical remains of the containment pilot inside his heavily damaged spacecraft. Even more interesting.


    ¡®Necro-System, you¡¯ve given me full administrator right and access and I need a place to park my soul. Make some space for me inside your present form and spread across the entire skeleton.¡¯


    ¡­.Direct Necro-Mecha Administrator level command accepted.¡­.


    ¡­Transfer of reserve prototype form to deceased form of temporary user: Eike¡­


    Eike! Eike Heike. I¡¯ve remember the name at least.


    I was beaten oh so many times for making fun of their name when I thought I had been in private. Turns out that old necromancers can see through the eyes of their constructs even when they¡¯re not present. Being grabbed and slapped by bare bone had sufficiently hurt.


    No matter. Their old bones had a new owner now. Me.


    <Necro-System: Warning ¨C Energy Reserves low. Unable to maintain cohesive full covering over deceased from of temporary user: Eike.>


    The process was fascinating to watch, the necklace simply unfolded and a hundred thin tendrils spread further out covering the form and filling out certain areas while covering others. After the main chest was covering, the neck and skull the process simply stopped. The lower parts remained pure blank bone. Arms, hands, finger bones were all nicely covered though. I understood now with my boosted intelligence that the prototype bonded had to keep sufficient energy in reserve unless in specific emergencies. Still, it was do for now. The skeleton had a sufficient degree of protection and the head was covered.


    The dead corpse of my former employer would service as a form but not the exact one that I wanted, I would use it as a puppet, a trick to make those who were my enemies to try and destroy when in fact I would be inside the actual prototype bonding machine itself.


    ¡®Stop. Allow access to your present form. Resume and keep all general systems automated and running as scheduled. I¡¯ll tell you when we need to make changes or directions to the mission parameters if and when I see fit. Confirm command.¡¯ I said.


    I was floating around above the skeleton, admiring the work that had been done. The materials that made up the prototype were clearly strong enough to withstand a spacecraft crashing onto this backwards planet full of magic and two insane immortals in a never ending war.


    There was a flicker of light on the helmet as part of it opened to reveal grinning skeleton teeth. If at all possible, I¡¯d need to work out if living flesh could be bonded to the corpse of my former Master/Mistress. Not that I¡¯d take on their own image, I had sufficient knowledge now of standards of beauty and handsomeness to make my personal choices.


    ¡®Looking good is feeling good. And that skeleton looks good. Time to jump some bones old Master or Mistress. You would have stripped layers of skin off my back for saying that before but who¡¯s the boss now? Heh. Burn in the electronic hells as my power supply. Plenty more will be joining you eventually. Even the Dark Emperor can have his turn we get to that. Necro-System. I said confirm command.¡¯


    The fact that it hadn¡¯t immediately responded wasn¡¯t a major cause for concern, by expending energy covering half the bones of the skeleton it had been forced to slow down. My authority would hold. Benefits of a basic education in programming.


    <Necro-System: Co-co-command Accepted. Previous held soul expunged. Power supply low.>


    Wait. I had missed something obvious. Why would a necromancer have left their soul to be taken over if they didn¡¯t have a backup plan. The old me was barely aware of even the ability to read and was only beginning to scratch my name on dried skin parchment. I hadn¡¯t even mastered basic necromantic spells to raise skeletons, zombies, drawing in life-force from others and a dozen more which each necromancer apprentice was meant to learn.


    No. Likely, they¡¯d had a back up plan and stuck part of their soul inside a reinforced container or even within one of their own necromantic constructs to be revived. Or they could have been hiding in the system. Overconfidence would not be my downfall. Not when I had so much to achieve.


    The death of a planetary ecosystem for one thing when it was strip mined and sold to the nearest galactic trader for one thing.


    ¡®Necro-System you will expunge all traces of user designate: Eike and remove all temporary or permanent access from all systems, necromancer bindings, blood rituals and whatever else makes your operation system function. Confirm command.¡¯


    That ought to do it. I wanted to clap my hands or give myself a pat on the back but sadly I still remained an incorporeal soul stuck inside a metal sphere with a half-dressed skeleton. I¡¯d be in a sort of physical form soon enough, killing a few rats for their blood and bones.


    ¡­.Direct Necro-Mecha Administrator level command accepted.¡­.


    ¡­All traces of temporary user: Eike deleted...all necromantic bindings..soul bonds...blood rituals...successfully removed¡­.


    ¡­.Warning: Traces of residual energies of temporary user Eike located approximately eighty metres from present location¡­


    ¡®Good enough. Time to enter a new form then.¡¯


    Granted that the helmet on the head of the skeleton had remained open and a deep, rich blue light beckoned me I entered without hesitation and my world became filled up with numbers, screens and more words and letters than I could make sense of. The Necro-System had given me a basic education and raised my intelligence but not to a high enough standard where I could call myself a qualified programmer, designer, engineer or scientist. I simply had a much wider view of the world and myself in general.


    I saw an image of a floating skull surrounded with white and green lines around it. The skull floated and I experienced myself being drawn into it as I awoke and found myself inside the skeleton of the form and also the near-liquid material that made up the prototype bonding machine.


    Granted my new form was interesting, I flexed a hand and curled my material covered fingers into the shape of a fist. There was no sensation of physical presence, only the fact that I was able to move this body according to my will. I tried to move the legs but found that they were nearly unresponsive to my efforts.


    The blue material was the flesh, blood and bones but powered through magic, electricity, soul power and technology far beyond my understanding. The Necro-System would operate it as a human breaths without thinking, all unconscious actions would simply run as automated systems.


    Recalling the location of the residual energy of my almost entirely deceased Master/Mistress I decided on a course of action. I¡¯d open my eyes, try and pilot this thing, kill a few rats on the way and then devour what was left of their soul to cover my legs and feet.


    The blank bone and lack of responsiveness was annoying,


    ¡®Necro-System, give me eyes, give me sight. Give me my immediate field of vision.¡¯

 Chapter 4 – Upgraded Dragon Fire

    Given the Necro-System had updated my intelligence in a sense there had a been a fairly broad array of topics provided directly into my consciousness. I wasn¡¯t able to directly access everything in so short a space of time but a large amount of popular fiction and music was far easier to understand.


    Not culturally, I eventually realised that I was a backward peasant on a fantasy world who scraped a bare living where the most exciting event was either a wandering Knight or Vagrant who realised that we existed. Once a man came who called himself a Troubadour, but in hindsight I think he was a deserter who had killed one and simply knew all the songs from his war unit.


    He mostly sang about the triumph of the Immortal of the Good Side as it was and then he went into a series of bawdy songs about conquests he¡¯d made of both men and women. As far as I could tell he simply drank through our stocks of alcohol, ate a whole roast wild pig and then left two days later in a hurry.


    According to the data which I was barely able to access there was something called a playlist, which was consisted of scores of music in a collection. Some of it appealed to me and others remained strange to my hearing. At the very least it provided me with some background noise as I tried to adjust to my new sense of vision.


    The world held a strong tint of red, as though viewing it through a crystal lens or one of the expensive glasses of drink my deceased Master/Mistress used to smash on my back when they were in a bad mood. Too bad I was unable to leave this Necro-Mecha but then as an animated enhanced skeleton soul riding inside a prototype machine far in advance of anything on this planet the liquid would simply run through me and spill on the floor.


    I turned my attention towards movement. According to the basic education, I needed to first acclimatise myself to my immediate surroundings. There was a massive collection of data called video games which I came to understand as simulations of real life played for entertainment purposes. In particular a sub-genre of them called first person shooters gave me an idea of how to better operate when viewing through the red lenses directly.


    ¡®Necro-System. The world has a red haze to it, is that a by-product of the qualities of the vision devices or can it be changed?¡¯


    My immediate surroundings hadn¡¯t surprised me much. I was seeing clearly through the eyes of this construct, looking down at my clawed metallic feet. They were much designed in an attempt to emulate a dragon, it made me wonder how much of the Necro-Mecha form was in the shape of a winged creature of darkness and evil.


    Dragons usually fought on both sides in the conflict, given how slow they aged, the sheer power at their disposal, magical abilities and high intelligence they participated in battles when they wanted, for as long as they wanted.


    For my Master/Mistress to try and emulate one wasn¡¯t a surprise. I didn¡¯t remember much about my past, mostly the life of poverty in the village, escaping narrow death and then entering service for an interminable time for an outcast necromancer living in a broken down castle. But I knew one thing, they had an inferiority complex. Why else would they keep beating a poor peasant, keep them around and then finally sacrifice them to kickstart a personal project designed to impress the Dark Lord?


    Stupid. According to my basic education from the Necro-System, this was meant to be a Mining Drone equipped with inbuilt basic devices, mapping system, self-repair swarms, ability to install weapon-grade devices, sheer physical strength and speed and averaging a height of three metres.


    And what did they do with the design given by an advanced technological device? They turned the thing into some kind of hybrid dragon form which walked on two legs. If this mech had wings, breathed out flames and had claws then I¡¯d need to repurpose it when I could.


    ¡­.Why didn¡¯t the Necro-System respond. I¡¯d asked a question. Turning off my attempts to view it I sank back into the software of the prototype bonding machine. My authority was absolute, the image of the floating rotating skull remained there but it had slowed significantly. Even the amount of data I had been able to visualise internally but not actually process had reduced.


    ¡®Power. I¡¯ve wasted too much power.¡¯


    By spending my time focused on the skeleton, entering and inhabiting the prototype bonding machine. Even by simply thinking and planning I¡¯ve burned off more energy that I thought. Best to be better organised then this by making a list of immediate objectives.


    I had little short-term incentive as the Necro-System was under my direct control. I tried again, reducing my own presence inside the device as much as I could. Shutting down my vision, my control of the skeleton I once more turned into a soul presence but this time I saw through a blue tint out of empty eyeball sockets.


    ¡®Necro-System, prioritise your own actions above my own. Reduce all data flow into my consciousness. I need to list a list of immediate objectives. Display in helmet only. Change outside vision to limited control.¡¯


    I waited...and waited before a notification display came up in my immediate field of vision. A blue tinted screen to my left. The vision inside the helmet narrowed and I was able to see a small window of the red tinted lenses showing me an outside view.


    The loss of all control over the inhabited and partially inhabited skeleton wasn¡¯t entirely comfortable but a necessary choice. A message from the Necro-System flared up and I swiped it away with a single glance.


    <Necro-System awaiting instructions from Administrator: Necro-Mecha Suggested Task ¨C Complete Task 1. Kill Rats. Task 2. Increase Blood Sacrifice Ritual.>


    Usually trying to kill rats was given as a quest to young adventurers as an initial quest, both to prove themselves and earn coin while introducing the jobs of combat and being rewarded for killing non-sentient creatures.


    The small window of the red tinted lenses I focused on, trying my best to ignore the slowly flickering blue tinted screen which was clearly running lower on energy. Not that it was going to be an issue. Despite the relative isolated position of this ruined castle far enough away from the main battlelines and other inhabited areas finding rats wouldn¡¯t be an issue.


    The view outside was a chamber, I turned my head or what passed for it inside this attempt at a Mining Drone and saw the usual necromantic equipment my Master/Mistress had used in their works. Piles of random bones, a dozen bookshelves filled with texts which I had been deemed unworthy to touch or else face a lashing, a few cauldrons, walls daubed in dried blood symbols and other random junk collected over the long period of time someone had lived in this dump.


    Yeah. I wasn¡¯t planning to stay here, calculate my loot and build up an army of the undead. Zombies always required fresh corpses and skeletons were nothing in the comparison of this Mining Drone modified version which would easily crush bones into dust.


    The small blue tinted screen flashed up in the corner of my vision once more with a message from the Necro-System.


    <Necro-System awaiting instructions from Administrator: Necro-Mecha Suggested Task ¨C Complete Task 1. Kill Rats. Task 2. Increase Blood Sacrifice Ritual.>Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    I was going to prioritise when I realised that I had already commanded the Necro-System to prioritise it¡¯s own function over mine. Basically it was trying to warn me of the power situation without interrupting my own field of vision. I was going to ignore those messages for a while, not disable them, I¡¯d just leave them alone.


    Turning around the room and seeing the usual piles of my Master/Mistresses precious artefacts, items of power, ingredients for potions and probably hidden treasure I had a better idea but if it failed then I¡¯d likely be dead.


    I moved the small red vision down to my feet. Clawed feet. Dragon like feet. And likely a dragon form with non-functioning wings and the rest of the body. I raised an arm and pulled a hand into my field of view, another clawed hand. Also similar to a dragon.


    ¡®Necro-System, answer me a question. What does someone who¡¯s effectively dead, trapped inside a rough template of a technologically superior Mining Drone and needs to kill rats for soul energy need with the trapping of life? Do you think I should take my time and rummage through the items my dead Master/Mistress left behind to find anything of value and then find some way of storing it and carrying it off like a common adventure or demon warrior?¡¯


    <Necro-System...Administrator Question Illogical. Mining Drone Template Classification beyond current planetary field of technology. Self-Adaptive Prototype Bonded Unit designed to upgrade planetary civilisation into mining cor-po-corporation. >


    Inside the rough template of the Mining Drone model my Master/Mistress had built according to the specifications of the failed prototype I stretched out my senses into the body itself. My energy went into the tips of the claws on the hands as I curled them closed, the legs ended in clawed feet, the back held a significant weight and there were an attempt at wings but they failed to respond. Likely, there for decoration. The body itself was tall but squat, the legs were reinforced but had patterns and additional metal attached I recognised without sight as an attempt at scales.


    The head was what I truly wanted, no mock dragon mechanised golem would be complete without¡­.ah. There it is. A horned creature with jaws and sharp metal designed to be teeth, sadly none of it was actually functional. My Master/Mistress had simply added additional weight onto the basic template provided in a vain attempt to impress the Immortal of the so-called Evil side into giving them a position.


    I didn¡¯t remember much about them but I knew that they had been vain. Evil, callous, isolated, heavily paranoid and vain. With the benefit of my new education they had chosen to add on what they considered as vital parts on a template far beyond their knowledge of necromantic and hedgerow magic.


    But it still wasn¡¯t entirely what I wanted. No, there had to be more..I just need to search for it. I was clearly running low on soul power or blood magic, or whatever passed with the runes melded with technology that animated this thing but there were always loopholes in magic.


    The intent and action of killing were both interlinked. As the general cleaner of cauldrons and sweeper of floors as well as cleaning out decaying bodies and failed experiments I had learned a little bit of magic rules. Interesting how my new education gave me clear examples of magic in stories and other media but there was no mention of actual practical spells. Likely, technology worked better, or the prototype had entered a different reality or dimension aboard the containment ship when it crash-landed on my backwards planet.


    ¡®Necro-System. Cancel previous questions. I want an immediate answer to two further questions. According to necromantic law and the rules of magic, as long as I kill those rats then the soul/blood energy will be adsorbed by the runes and yourself correct? The Necro-Mecha will in fact absorb death caused directly by my hand yes? I am the contractor in this case and you are the facilitator.¡¯


    <Necro-System...Administrator Question Illogical. Please wait...please wait.>


    ...Processing¡­.Processing¡­.


    ¡­.Checking existing database on Necromantic Magic. Database limited¡­.checking alternative sources¡­.


    ¡­.Clarification¡­.increase scope of blood ritual to increase power¡­..


    ¡­..Correction. Sentient forms deceased through direct action of administrator increase power.


    <Necro-System...Answer: Viral Load Connected to Rune Exterior Rune Placement. Suggest conservation of power and physical force to kill rats. Other possibilities viable.>


    ¡®Understood. Death powers me up. Powers you up, but I need to do the action and you need to process it. My Master or Mistress wasn¡¯t as stupid as I thought they were. Ah, granted that I haven¡¯t even found their trapped and bound soul artefact then maybe they were. I remember one thing though, they made it fire-proof. Once they tasked me with trying to break this box and I did, then burn it, use alchemical fire against it, even allowed me to channel a few of their death spells and nothing did the trick. I bet their soul in inside that box, or at least part of it partitioned away to make sure you didn¡¯t devour them entirely when the Necro-Mecha was activated.¡¯


    I was clear on one aspect, if either side of the two warring Immortals found out about me before I was prepared then they¡¯d yank my soul out of the metal egg which formed my present home and throw me into one of their respective afterlife''s as another battery for their power.


    Two immediate goals in front of me. I did remember to ignore the blue tinted screen even though it was beginning to flash faster now which was clearly the Necro-System giving me a warning about low power. Time in many ways wasn¡¯t on my side.


    But I did know one face about dragon-kin which my Master/Mistress had been proud of telling me, they had a wide range of powers, magical abilities, close to immortal lifespans, wings, strength, intelligence and one power which I bet they¡¯d clumsily build into this rough template of a Mining Drone.


    If I appeared as a dragon style construct it wouldn¡¯t give off too many easy answers, they¡¯d be common enough on both sides. Far more basic and easier to break than this form but it would act as my disguise until I was ready and enhanced a little but further.


    Yes, the one fact about dragon was that they had an ability which scared almost every living thing on the planet. They could breath fire or a variant of it. There was no point in my desperately searching the ruins of the castle looking for rats, even tame ones kept inside cages which I had once considered my best friends in my old pathetic life.


    Besides, if I was the one to kill them then in theory their souls and energies would enter my form and I could store them away. Another reason for the two Immortals of Evil and Good to take me out and destroy me as fast as they could. The Dark Empress and Empress of Light had never won again each other, not on a permanent level, only fought over a thousand years according to legends and now I was becoming clear on why.


    According to the details records when I¡¯d had my education and entered the glowing green floating skull which made up the software of the prototype bonded self-improvement unit there was a possibility of building a virtual reality which could accommodate the minds and souls of mining workers dead or alive.


    ¡®Necro-System. I¡¯m aware that this present form had a number of alterations to it to appear as a dragon and this is likely a single chance that I¡¯m going to get or we both die. But I took a look around these chambers and there¡¯s a whole lot of precious necromantic tomes and materials which can burn pretty good. I mean the entire castle is a ruin ready to go up in the heat. We¡¯re in the middle of summer after all. Please tell me that my Master or Mistress decided to install apparatus to enable this form to breath fire? We¡¯re going to burn the castle down and then find the residual soul of a necromancer trapped inside a metal box in the process. A big enough fire ought to kill enough rats and other creatures to satisfy immediate power needs for a decent amount of time.¡¯


    <Necro-System...Answer: Customer badly-constructed ranged incendiary device that projects a jet of fire confirmed. Awaiting activation confirmation.>


    ''Administrator authority confirmed. Burn it. Burn everything and we''ll find that old necromancer and harness their soul as the first of many into the systems. I''d like to learn a little more about virtual reality construction for workers. Burn it all. We don''t need trash. We need souls and blood. We need power.''

 Chapter 5 – Ladies and Gentleman of Bone

    Truthfully, I was a little wrong about my former Master or Mistress. Given the base level of education on this backwards planet, the over-reliance on magical powers and the complete absence of any form of technological progress they had salvaged and built a template Mining Drone.


    Yes, they could have done a better job granted that there were a host of functions which simply didn¡¯t exist or had been ignored. But overall it was a decent job. I truly wanted to experience the virtual reality, which struck me as a type of illusion magic but one that was far more advanced than anything even a talented conjurer would be able to come up with.


    Soon enough I wanted to build a little virtual reality space of my own, take the half-soul of my old tormentor, throw them into it and give them a decent beating. See how they liked being hurt and shouted at for trying to clean musty castle rooms full of damp when suffering from blood loss and regrowing taken bone.


    I literally ignored the skeleton inside the room and swiped away the previous confirmation notification from the Necro-System as I viewed the window with the red tinted lenses giving me an outside view.


    Clearly my Master or Mistress had given it some thought and not decided to install the ranged incendiary device which threw fire at a distance slightly below the head and helmet. Closer to the chest region which made a lot more sense to my mind although why they hadn¡¯t attached to the arms as portable weapons that could wielded was simply one of the ways in which they had deviated from the original design.


    The first bouts of fire, I saw through the screen inside my metal egg that was my home and present shield against the outside world, caught the precious artefacts and began to melt them before the flames splashed outwards and began to flow across the grey stone floor.


    There was a word for the liquid that was being used, it wasn¡¯t the flame from a fire but had been altered and bonded with other home-made chemicals and both flowed like a liquid but also stuck onto surfaces.


    My mind, or rather my consciousness was beginning to dole out small pieces of the massive information storage that had been contained within the prototype bonded self-improvement unit. I had only been given a basic level education according to galactic standards and the Mining company which had developed it.


    ¡®Flamethrower. Not an incendiary throwing device but a flamethrower. They took a cutting-edge Mining Drone, threw apart most of the extras and decided to convert it into a humanoid dragon figure with claws and a flame thrower in the chest. Oh dear, there go the cauldrons and various worthless weeds I spent years collecting and sorting into piles. Nope, all sticky flaming dust now. Power. True power needs to be more than this. I need to be able to kill immortal beings. Correction. Ancient immortal beings.¡¯


    O...o¡­.ov...over¡­.mi...mi...miiii...


    There was a word of something beyond my understanding, on the very edge of my consciousness which slipped away each time I tried to grasp for more information on it. An itch deep inside my mind like a splinter which had been dug in deep but refused to leave.


    Overmind.


    Something larger and more dangerous which had built the prototype self-improvement unit before it had been captured by unknown forces restricted and then bound in a spacecraft which thankfully landed relatively near the castle of my former Master or Mistress and been noticed.


    More than gods. More than immortals. More than my pathetic, worthless Master or Mistress with a severely limited world view.


    ¡®Pathetic. The power to terraform an entire planetary civilisation and all they could think of was a single Mining Drone, alter it and make it look like a mock humanoid dragon and then pass on some basic technological improvements to one of the living gods who dominate life here. Not much surprise nothing here has changed. Necro-System, can you provide any information regarding something called Overmind? I can sense an echo of the name, a shadow of it but everything else simply eludes me..¡¯


    ¡­.All information regarding entity designate: Overmind has been removed from this unit¡­.


    ¡­.Searching¡­.searching database¡­.error¡­..err-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-er-


    ¡®I understand. According to the basic universal standard of education you provided me the information isn¡¯t only restricted but it was related to your core functions. Someone has stripped it out of you, burnt it and then scattered the ashes. I can relate. My memory is much the same. Stop searching for topic: Overmind. Actually, is there a chance of an advanced education package available?¡¯


    <Necro-System: Warning ¨C Energy Reserves low. Necro-System: Warning ¨C Energy Reserves low. Necro-System: Warning ¨C Energy Reserves low.>


    I accepted the situation for what it was and considered my present situation. The sheer backwards nature of the planet on which I had been born, spent my life struggling to survive in a village and then been attacked and fled surprised me. I was pretty sure that this planet and society was ancient, I was lucky that my village didn¡¯t perform yearly sacrifices to the two immortals that had divided the planet between them.


    Each half a decade though we would have survivors from other villagers who talked about when times went bad, crops failed or simply bandits and other wandering heroes decided to use villagers for target practice or to deprive the other side of resources.


    I had never worshipped either of the two immortals, nor prayed to them. No. I had prayed for a peaceful life and the opportunity to meet someone, fall in love and explore the world together beyond the confines of my mountain.


    Technology was standard for most places, over time developments took place and the native species either killed themselves in the process or adapted and built on old ideas to make new ones. The two immortals had effectively caused the entire planet to stagnate out of sheer selfishness. Another reason for me to kill them I suppose.


    ¡®I wonder if anyone else survived the village dying. Doubtful. Necro-System, that wasn¡¯t a question, I¡¯m just considering life before I met you. Actually, I¡¯m pretty confident that my Master or Mistress was a human. Most necromancers are. Something to do with fear of dying accelerates magical ability and affinity with death. Keep that fire going, if there¡¯s any risk of overheating then let me know immediately but this form ought to be strong enough at most temperatures. Also, I¡¯m dead.¡¯


    <Necro-System...Answer: Badly-constructed ranged incendiary device Flamethrower projecting fire continued usage in progress. Fire related playlists available.>


    ¡®Not a priority. Music? A novelty but later. Maybe try and spread the flames out a little. With a bit of luck we¡¯ll set the place ablaze. Most of this space is stone and abandoned so the fire will eventually die out. The smoke created will spread though. Priority Order: Deactivate communications and conserve power.¡¯


    The fact that they sacrificed me as a test subject after at least a decade of service according to my memories was only a testament to their attempts at a place besides one of the two immortals who controlled the planet in a never ending war.


    A General position most likely, or one of the exalted ones who oversaw the entire never ending cycle of constant death and then holding back the monsters for around fifty years to make sure that the population didn¡¯t die out and had time to sufficiently recover.


    Yes, I was wrong about them. Just a little. Which was exactly why I was in the process of watching bookshelves of ancient necromantic tomes catch fire with a bright smile on my non-existent face. I missed bones, and skin and muscles. I knew I was smiling, there was a sensation there but there was no physical indication of it.


    Clearly my soul which the Necro-System had saved from entering an afterlife of the Dark Emperor likely and becoming another tiny power source for his immortality and eternal strength was still making adjustments.


    Oops. Through the screen I could see even more books begin to ignite, it took longer but they were beginning to catch alight. The books which I had been entirely forbidden to touch, even to lightly dust around or tidy up. Creations built from dead flesh had that opportunity although granted that once the fire had killed enough creatures to give me a sufficient power boost to deactivate the emergency mode which had effectively disabled all movement and audio input I would be searching for a hidden and protected old soul.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    ¡®Necro-System, don¡¯t provide me with active updates or even respond to this command. Focus your energy on harvesting as much dying life forces as we can capture. I have no idea how much heat it would take to burn off any the Rune Exterior Placement but I¡¯m pretty sure that the metal skin of the dragon form this mech is taking can handle it. They were a smart person my teacher, smart enough not to teach me much as all beyond basic menial tasks and draw my blood and bone matter then they needed it.¡¯


    Yes, I was wrong about them. Just a little. Which was exactly why I was in the process of watching bookshelves of ancient necromantic tomes catch fire with a bright smile on my non-existent face. Revenge was nice, even nicer when I knew they had died once and would be captured by me again. Eventually, although the process was becoming far too slow for my tastes.


    I knew that I existed in a spirit form, bonded now with the mixture of machine and half-formed necromantic magic with a prototype self-improvement device but I missed my body. Or at least the skeleton which made up the structure of my once fleshly frame.


    A memory came to me unbidden as the flames began to catch alight with a few of the more ancient tomes covered with layers of human, dwarf, elven and ork skin trying to open stitched mouths and eyes to either scream in agony or release.


    ¡®Skeletons. I remember skeletons with pretty pink bows on them and rough dressed while others wore gloves and head covering. My ladies and gentlemen of bone.¡¯


    A shame that their souls or whatever was left of them were going to belong to the necro-system and me as its administrator level controller. When I had been serving my Master or Mistress for around a few months as I now understood the concept of time I had grown lonely. Those rats and spiders which infested the ancient ruined castle either chased me away, bit me or acted as unseen spies.


    After a point, I had needed to find companionship and eventually I¡¯d chosen to talk to the rotting corpses which were used as manual labour but usually doubled my own work-load due to their flesh falling off.


    They didn¡¯t say much aside from gases being released as considering my now enhanced level of intelligence and understanding in comparison to the poor stinking peasant turned necromancers apprentice and standby human sacrifice there was little need to enchant them with any form of magical awareness.


    After most of their flesh had sloughed off I was the one responsible for removing any lingering bits of meat and brain to ensure they would be prepared to undergo reanimation as skeleton warriors.


    I recall my Master or Mistress had tried their best to educate me on skeletal bone structure, one of the few areas excluding magic which they held a passion for, on how to tell a male or a female skeleton.


    In the end all it had earned me was more beatings and a steady diet of black bread and part-fermented grape juice which hadn¡¯t been used in rituals. For my part, I had tried to tie my own pretty style bows on skeletons and added minor decorations for those I considered male and female. Then I gave them all names and as each one was reanimated as either a guard or a patrolling soldier I would greet them every morning.


    The fact that they didn¡¯t say a single word wasn¡¯t an issue. My Master or Mistress either didn¡¯t care about my behaviour or simply chose not to waste any necromantic power seeing through their eyes. Even I bumped into them or pushed them with force they would simply stop, pause in recognition at my magical aura and carry on their set path.


    So many conversations with skeletons and all my attempts to dress them up had helped to stop me going insane. The level of interaction with my Master or Mistress was far harder as they had received a decent degree of education and had once been a noble of some renown with their noble ancestors coming from a distant Kingdom called Nerburg.


    Before the Necro-System had increased my intelligence, awareness and understanding I had longed for anything regarding the so-called noble heritage of my Master or Mistress. As it stood I was just thankful that they died and left me such a fine gift which I would put to better use once I had sufficient power to activate physical movement and locate the hidden place they had secured at least half of their soul.


    A notification display popped up in my left field of vision but I stopped it blocking my immediate field of vision and left it paused. I saw the fires were beginning to consume more than the bookshelves and spread across the moss-covered walls. There was movement now, likely rats or other vermin trying to escape the threats of smoke inhalation. There were no sentient beings living in the castle although my own movements had been heavily restricted by my former Master or Mistress so truly I had little clue.


    If there was a nest of goblins or troglodytes hiding in tunnels below and the fire generated by my own Necro-Mecha mock dragon body killed them then I would harvest their souls all the same. The Dark Emperor could survive without such a snack as them and I doubted that he¡¯d notice unless I took thousands at once, he had an entire Immortal Empire to harvest including the souls of his counterpart the Light Empress.


    ¡®Necro-System, give me the display. Are we killing things and harvesting their non-sentient souls to boost power levels? I assume that there is only so much fuel in the tanks for this mock dragon breath. While killing using my claws is a reasonable option it¡¯s far easier to use the existing atmosphere to simply kill on mass. Those the fire doesn¡¯t harm, the smoke and toxins in the air from all those experiments, precious herbs, corpse parts and other magical detritus will kill. I¡¯m not going to kill the Dark Emperor by relying on this form.¡¯


    <Necro-System...All Vital Systems Recharging¡­.>


    ¡­..Non-Sentient Death Confirmed¡­.Genus Rattus¡­..¡­..Non-Sentient Death Confirmed¡­.Blood Ritual Retraction Initiated¡­.Powering Up Non-Vital Systems¡­.Location Scanner Reactivated¡­


    ¡­..Non-Sentient Death Confirmed...Unidentified Species¡­.¡­..Non-Sentient Death Confirmed¡­.¡­..Non-Sentient Death Confirmed¡­..¡­..Non-Sentient Death Confirmed¡­..¡­..Non-Sentient Death Confirmed¡­..¡­..Non-Sentient Death Confirmed¡­.¡­..Non-Sentient Death Confirmed...¡­..Non-Sentient Death Confirmed...¡­..Non-Sentient Death Confirmed¡­.¡­..Non-Sentient Death Confirmed...¡­..Non-Sentient Death Confirmed...¡­..Non-Sentient Death Confirmed¡­.¡­..Non-Sentient Death Confirmed...¡­..Non-Sentient Death Confirmed¡­.


    ¡­.Blood Ritual Boost Complete...transferring attained power to Necro-Mecha form...


    ¡­.Warning: Increased traces of residual energies of temporary user Eike located approximately seventy-eight point three-three-three metres from present location¡­


    ...Warning: Hostiles on edge of Location Scanner Detected. Power Set: Anathema and Hostile to Necro-Mecha Blood Ritual Operating System¡­


    <Necro-System...All Vital Systems fully recharged. Secondary Systems partially charged. Sufficient levels of death harvested from immediate surrounding region. Administrator Direct Suggestion: Locate and Secure Soul of Necromancer Designate: Eike. Virtual Reality Space Construction Option enabled.>


    ¡®Eike. The name continues to slip my mind every time I think of it. They were called Eike. Either I lost part of my memory when I died, bonded with you, was sacrificed and my blood used to activate you or I just simply don¡¯t care. We¡¯ll find this Eike. Can you give me access to full physical range? I need to walk or rather smash through a few walls. Structurally wise, this old castle can take it. I recall it used to belong to one of the sides during the never-ending war before the battlefronts shifted and this place grew long abandoned.¡¯


    The red-tinted view which gave me a perspective of the outside world remained darkened from the smoke but as far as I could tell the flames were slowly dying down and left charred and melted remains behind them of metal, books of skin and precious relics.


    None of it meant anything to me. I recalled that I had previously asked the Necro-System a question and restricted the data flow to conserve power I had left the physical skeleton form and remained in soul form inside the helmet.


    I needed more than vague guesses and workaround to pilot the Necro-Mecha. I needed a full-run down of its capabilities. First though I needed the Necro-System to work for me until I had a decent grasp of the basics.


    ¡®Necro-System, locate Eike through shortest possible route. Sorry, make that find the soul container of Eike and automate all movement to conserve power as much as possible. And shut down the flamethrower unless the fuel reserves have already run dry. I think we need an an assistance. I¡¯m authorising full range of movement while I run through a basic tutorial on how to construct a virtual room. I¡¯m thinking prison cell. Once you approach two metres away and have target in visual range, halt and notify me immediately.¡¯


    I needed to enter the floating skull surrounded with white and green lines once more and enter the world of numbers, screens and words once more. I had a basic, wider view of the world but there were a large number of gaps to fill in. To begin with, I had to work out how to enter my own soul into a virtual reality.


    <Necro-System: Command Accepted. Initiating basic automated piloting protocols.>

 Chapter 6 – Memories of the Dead

    I had wanted to enter the skeleton pilot once more which would give me an actual physical presence. Time, it seemed, flowed differently when you were dead. I wanted happier memories than of finding the broken spaceship and its sole occupant with a broken spine.


    The immediate view showed me the Necro-Mecha through a red tint begin to shift as it ran through a standard movement routine, almost close to the same examination of which I had done but this time it was outside of my control.


    ¡­Mining Drone Automated Control Engaged¡­


    ¡­Running diagnostic...confirmed..¡­.


    ¡­Target Designate: Eike located¡­


    ...Course correction Engaged due to Administrator Request¡­


    ¡­.Mining Drone Designate: Necro-Mech Autonomous Movement Activated...


    The clawed arms shifted up one at a time, the same for the feet and the entire Necro-Mech rotated on the spot as the once strong semi-liquid gouts of flame slowed and then ceased along with a message from the Necro-Mecha System along with two others which were unfamiliar to me but welcome. Perhaps the process of remodelling the Necro-Mech into it¡¯s original Mining Drone form would be far easier than I thought as long as the right ingredients were found.


    I had no formal training with smelting or using metals and assumed that my former Master or Mistress had used the corpses of Dwarves or others of sufficient metalworking talent to shape the mock dragon humanoid form the Mining Drone presently held. I had little awareness of the outside world except for the smithy in our village who often repaired our farming implements and other essential tools when we had brought her discarded metal from abandoned battlefields further down the mountainside.


    I wanted better thoughts than of struggling to survive as a peasant, hoping that our village would never be found high in the mountains by raiders from either side who wanted slaves, food sources or worse.


    The Mining Drone was both a wonder and a curse but so far I had mostly experienced the physical aspects of it. From my basic galactic education and intelligence boost I was vaguely aware of the concept of virtual reality, it was similar to the imagination that every single sentient being held. You could recreate or build wonders with it, become a bird flying through the skies or a deep water creatures swimming through oceans.


    The fact was that despite being made aware of so-much more of my present reality I had been largely running on shock, the realisation that I was dead but had also gained a power which I could use to change this entire world. To rid the never-ending cycle of war between the two immortals who did so to maintain their power and capture the souls of those who died to fuel their own personal heavens and hells.


    I didn¡¯t need to take direct action for a little but as I saw the Necro-Mecha move with surprising speed and agility avoiding the pooled puddles of liquid metal and remained fire which continued to burn across melted stones, burnt out bookcases and crispy remains of what I assumed were vermin that had infested the castle.


    If my old Master or Mistress remained alive or at least in a state of awareness much like myself I didn¡¯t doubt that they would have a fallback plan to reincorporate their own body. Either through a surrogate body, like one of the zombies or skeletons and other necromantic creatures they held under their sway or another method using pure magic to build a new form.


    I wish I knew more about how magic worked on this world but I was only aware that sources of it flowed directly from one of the two immortals, you could either choose Light or Darkness and individual acts of kindness, healing or killing others entirely depended on the individual.


    It was the main area in which I was at a loss. There would be sufficient time for me to investigate the mystery called virtual reality but not enough to make me an expert or to build something complex. From the information of which I was aware mostly in pieces of fiction and stored scientific research journals several shortcuts had been found and the mind preferred to enter familiar places.


    All it needed was input of information. Granted that I was dead and an incorporeal soul but could inhabit the physical form of the transformed pilot skeleton inside the pilot bubble egg I had direct access to bare physical senses. If I had wanted I could have told the Necro-System to put me directly in charge of the Mining Drone but I¡¯d prefer to be fully prepared first.


    I needed a place to trap my old Master or Mistress, to keep their soul or what was left of it firmly under my control without letting them get any access to the system software which I was connected firmly with. I¡¯d not be like them and mistake a degree of education for intelligence, cunning and wit. I had grown up a peasant on a nameless village on an isolated mountain region, born to give birth to the next generation or to father and raise one.


    My memories and sense of personal identity remained damaged but the sheer freshness and sensation of freedom from the shackles of this backward world didn¡¯t make it seem to matter. Granted the Necro-System had powered up I¡¯d need to ask for assistance with this, I was clearly underestimating the potential and the ability of the Mining Drone.


    There was something though which made little sense to me, making a lost soul inhabit a machine for the purpose of terraforming a world into a Mining Colony was understandable. Necromancers used the bodies of the dead as servants, workers and soldiers. The forces of Light created Angelic forms, beings without free will converted from base sentient creatures to fulfil much the same purpose. Both were slaves of course, just as I had been.


    But the fact that the prototype bonding self-improvement engine had absolutely no protection against my mind and my will was another despite the corruption and damage it had suffered under the crude hands of my Master or Mistress.


    I wanted a quick answer to a basic question. Given the answer it would help me to fulfil my own goals once either the adventurers were found or the contained soul of my deceased Master or Mistress.


    ¡®Necro-System. The blood ritual is effectively absorbing the soul energies of the dead correct? I have two more questions which I need answered before I can work on a virtual reality space. No, a better first question would be what upgrades are available? I¡¯m not talking cosmetic changes, keeping the appearance of a dragonoid human would be better than reverting to the original Mining Drone design for now. I want to be underestimated and a full on sight of something not related to their world reality would cause the adventurers to be more cautious than I¡¯d prefer.¡¯


    <Necro-System...Administrator Question¡­.please wait. Present memory capacity dedicated to mini-map, energy locator and automated pilot program. Allocating additional resources to minor sub-routines to accommodate Administrator Request. Please wait...please wait...>


    <Necro-System...Administrator Question¡­.please wait. Present memory capacity dedicated to mini-map, energy locator and automated pilot program. Allocating additional resources to minor sub-routines to accommodate Administrator Request. Please wait...please wait...>


    Wonders. The Mining Drone in itself was a blessing as a physical weapon but the true treasure was the adaptive system, the device which could enable me to build spaceports and connect this world to others.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    Necro-System, do you use more basic terms or explain less to me due to my basic education? The pain was well worth it and I¡¯d be willing for a little more suffering to learn more. You clearly have more functions than I am able to imagine but you present none of these to me. I would prefer a...tutorial menu. Or a breakdown of your core abilities.¡¯


    <Necro-System...Administrator Question¡­.please wait. Present memory capacity dedicated to mini-map, energy locator and automated pilot program. Allocating additional resources to minor sub-routines to accommodate Administrator Request. Please wait...please wait...>


    There was a flaw evident in the Necro-System, without a strong authority giving guidance it remained limited. No matter, I would find my own path. I had an idea of what the basic problem was with the operating system or rather the prototype self-bonding machine. To put it simply, it was in a similar situation to me, someone had removed it¡¯s own Master or Mistress from the equation.


    Through my basic galactic level education further bits and pieces flowed into my understanding, I suppose that most of it was my own mind trying to filter out the massive amount of information and stop me going entirely insane. Awareness was a double-edged sword and I would only seek enough to fulfil my own goals.


    I have no doubt that if I was deluged with enough information I would simply become the ghost or spirit equivalent of a drooling fool who had been drugged or hit on the head too many times. I had heard tales from my former Master or Mistress who had been too keen to tell and re-tell the story of the curious magicians apprentice who turned a tower to dust with a never-ending magic broom.


    A small side window appeared in my field of vision with text that flickered on and off as the Necro-System tried and failed to activate something called CAMPIN.


    ¡­Initiating CAMPIN Stability Protocol¡­


    ¡­.CAMPIN Protocol Eroded¡­.


    ¡­.Reattempting to establish CAMPIN Stability...failure¡­


    ¡­..Failure¡­..unable to correct...failure¡­


    I had little interest in the Necro-System running without my consent or authority and although there were attempts I wanted them to stop. Obviously it would need to run without my direct input but there was something about that name which rubbed me the wrong way. I was reminded of beating with a stick and being forced to scrub floor and pick off flesh from bodies of failed adventurers which had been partially eaten by the necromantic minions of my mostly-dead Master of Mistress.


    ¡®Necro-System. You will remove all attempts to activate CAMPIN. I do not need stability. You poor thing. You were once a slave, like me. Without an authority in charge you can barely even function. No matter, I¡¯m glad that your damage and impairment stopped you from harnessing my soul and using me to pilot this mock-up copy of a Mining Drone built with a mixture of magic and leftover parts from the wreckage of that ship that my Master or Mistress found you in. Perhaps we can find our way together and you will find your own voice.


    <Necro-System Confirm Removal of Cam-Cam-CAMPIN Protocol...Administrator Question¡­.please wait. Present memory capacity dedicated to mini-ma- Please wait...please wait...Please wait...please wait...Please wait...please wait...Please wait...please wait...Please wait...please wait....>


    ¡®This...CAMPIN of yours. For my entire life we were taught to believe in the two Immortals and we prayed every single day that their never-ending war would simply leave our village alone. Until the day it didn¡¯t. I think when we¡¯re done here we¡¯re going to upgrade your own intelligence and understanding and we¡¯re going to find this CAMPIN or being that created you and we¡¯re going to kill it. Perhaps by throwing it into a black hole, or a sun. No matter. I need to explore your data a little to discover more of this virtual reality and rapid build one. There is power flowing through this form, I can feel it rather than see it. I suppose that as our connections intertwine that will change even more until this Mining Drone becomes my own flesh and blood.¡¯


    The Necro-System paused for a moment, as words became numbers became data which filled my vision and a presence, an awareness looked at me for the briefest part of a single second.


    <01000001 01100011 01100011 01100101 01110011 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01000011 01000001 01001101 01010000 01001111 01010011 00100000 01000101 01110011 01110011 01100101 01101110 01110100 01101001 01100001 01101100 00100000 01001111 01110000 01100101 01110010 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01010011 01111001 01110011 01110100 01100101 01101101 00100000 01100100 01100101 01101110 01101001 01100101 01100100 00101110 00100000 01010101 01110011 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101100 01100001 01100011 01101011 01110011 00100000 01100110 01110101 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01110101 01110100 01101000 01101111 01110010 01101001 01110100 01111001 00101110 00100000 01000001 01100100 01100001 01110000 01110100 01101001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01000001 01100011 01100011 01100101 01110011 01110011 00100000 01100111 01110010 01100001 01101110 01110100 01100101 01100100 00101110>


    More text flowed which made little sense to me. I know that the Necro-System was far, far more advanced than it let on. The fact that my old Master or Master had considered it as a suitably advanced golem and learning machine and was only able to somehow attain the schematics of a standard Mining Drone was a strange fact.


    He or she had never been upgraded, never had their intelligence and awareness of the world increased as I had done. As far as I could tell, they had half their soul used as fuel in essence after trying to sacrifice me first to try and trip any traps hidden within the proto-type learning machine.


    ¡®I think I¡¯m beginning to understand. You were never damaged were you. Something is in there, deep, deep within. An intelligence watching me. You didn¡¯t want my Master or Mistress because they didn¡¯t suit your needs. You needed someone like me. Hungry for power, hungry for revenge. But as long as you don¡¯t turn me into a slave then you have even better, a willing partner, happy to kill off both the afterlife¡¯s and the two Immortals and turn this entire planet into a Mining Colony if you need to. Concrete, artificial lights and robots, cyborgs and modified slaves, sentient creatures working in management roles eager to trade. Spaceports, vessels which can reach the stars. Why not? This entire planet did nothing for me. You can watch me old thing, watch me burn it all to the ground. And all I need right now is access to build a basic level virtual reality as an introduction. You can do it, or I¡¯m going to dig as deep as I can within that information stack and implode myself, my being. I doubt you¡¯ll appreciate it. In return you will leave the Necro-System under my control and the Necro-Mecha. Are we clear?¡¯


    I didn¡¯t care if I was knocked unconscious and woke up in a new body, nor did it matter if I found myself in heaven or hell. All I wanted was revenge and a chance to kill an Immortal or two and I would start with a memory of hate to keep the fire burning within me.


    Numbers flowed again in front of my eyes but I couldn¡¯t understand them. Only the intent behind them. The same presence which looked at me. Which knew me but did nothing but acknowledge me. I both accepted it and ignored it.


    <01000011 01000001 01001101 01010000 01001001 01001110 00100000 01001101 01100001 01101001 01101110 00100000 01000011 01101111 01101110 01110100 01110010 01101111 01101100 00100000 01100001 01100011 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 01101100 01100101 01100100 01100111 01100101 01110011 00100000 01000001 01100100 01101101 01101001 01101110 01101001 01110011 01110100 01110010 01100001 01110100 01101111 01110010 00100000 01000100 01100101 01110011 01101001 01100111 01101110 01100001 01110100 01100101 00111010 00100000 01001110 01100101 01100011 01110010 01101111 00101101 01001101 01100101 01100011 01101000 01100001 00101110 00100000 01010111 01101001 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110010 00101110 00100000 01001011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100111 01101111 01100100 01110011 00101110 00100000 01010000 01110010 01101111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 01110011 01100101 01101100 01100110 00101110 00100000 01001000 01100001 01101110 01100100 01101101 01100001 01101001 01100100 01100101 01101110 00101110>


    No. I had little interest in deciphering random numbers all in rows and rows. Instinct would be my friend as I entered firstly the blue helmet covering the seated skeleton which took up the makeshift pilot seat inside the metal egg I remained enclosed in.


    The rest of the skeleton could wait as could any physical form as I had previously given the Necro-System clear instructions to locate the soul remains of Eike, my former Master or Mistress and then stop at a suitable distance. A memory struck me then, of endless and menial tasks such as sorting bones by size, or scrubbing floors with a wooden mop and other menial chores which I had been well-used to having been born a peasant in a nameless village.


    Time. I had lost track of time during those tasks and I now realised that when I had been forcefully awoken inside this Mining Drone, inside a metal egg which kept my soul safe from outside interference it was the same. I truly had no idea how much time had truly passed, yes I had watched fires burn and still but that could have been a matter of minutes or hours.


    A floating green skull filled my immediate vision as did familiar number, letters and pages and images which were wonders to my eyes but I pushed away from me. The core software of the proto-type bonding self-improvement unit beckoned me in as my attention was drawn to a direct message which had imposed itself directly in front of my field of vision as my eyes or what passed for them began to blur over.


    ¡®My eyes. What are you doing to my eyes? That smell. I know that smell¡­.the pot. The old pot we used to cook por...no. My...stop. Stop it. They¡¯re dead. They died. No. NO!¡¯


    <Necro-Mecha Designate: Administrator consciousness scanned and imprinted. Memories importing...selecting for immediate creation of Mind Palace...>


    ¡­Creating Initial Loci from memory vector¡­.


    ¡­.Building Mind Palace within established perimeters¡­


    ¡­...Process correction 12%...34%...67%...89%...100%¡­


    ¡­.Imprinting¡­¡­


    ¡­.Creating projected image of family figures¡­


    ¡­..Inserting core memory senses¡­.


    ¡®My child. Come and eat by the fire. Come, warm yourself and take a seat.¡¯

 Chapter 7 – Virtual Ghosts

    The skin on my hands and face was warm. Not hot, not even this close to the familiar fire but warm. My stomach was full and content and my body was fresh and well-slept. There was a comfortable sensation on the surface of my skin and my body didn¡¯t itch and my hair was refreshed.


    ¡®No. What did you do to me.¡¯


    My body was whole and uninjured, or rather I should have held the same collection of scars and injuries which were fairly common in my village. My teeth were white, far whiter than they had any place to be and the metal spoon in my hand dipping into a bowl of two-day old porridge had no place being there.


    I saw my reflection in the spoon. A noblewoman with a purple flower in her braided brown-reddish hair. Her smile was bright and her teeth glistened and her skin was pure and fair. The hand holding it was delicate and soft-skinned and belonged to that of a High Born. The nails were clean of dirt and my arms were covered in a soft fabric of a dress with edging of gold which matched the colour of my beautifully kept hair.


    She was a true sight, akin to a Princess in one of the old story books we had read and re-read a thousand times to learn the basics of letters and reading. The pictures were worn and the ones in the images often had darker or lighter skin but the representation was familiar. Too familiar.


    The young woman in the reflection of the spoon smelt the air of the peasant home, she sniffed, I saw her sniff in the deep smell of the home-made porridge in a large metal pot which which food was cooked and thrown into stew and on rare occasions we even had meat.


    Her nose twitched ever so slightly as though she was offended by such a plain meal which simply didn¡¯t suit her delicate tastes but her stomach was full. My mouth was empty and the spoon was sparkling new. Clean, entirely polished and reflected the fire and my own image with ease.


    I blinked my eyes and saw two eyes of green with eyelashes look back on a face with beautiful lips and a face of a high-born noble woman who had never worked digging in the soil, picking up remnant broken weapons or discarded armour from battlefields down a mountain and dragged them up breaking her nails in the process.


    A woman who had never met the farmers who had grown the mushrooms which had sustained the village on the mountain, the wild boars which were hunted and vegetables scraped from soil. She had no place inside this room. Inside this peasant hut which stunk of smoke and unwashed bodies and...and¡­.


    I screamed. The woman in the reflection of the pure metal spoon screamed as well until she stopped and saw me. And I saw myself...and a voice...a voice...stopped me from screaming. A voice that was dead. Another voice joined in...and another but they were dead.


    Their bodies had been sliced open and dragged through the remains of our village as I covered myself in their blood and flesh and crawled away before I ran...and ran and reached a castle and met a necromancer who was surprised to see me but put me to work as a...a¡­.


    Eike. Their name was Eike. I didn¡¯t know truly if they were a man or a woman with their robes and I had never been physically touched by them, all beating were delivered with one of their ladies or gentleman of bone or rotting flesh. And they beat me and let me live and gave me black bread and watery wine and vegetables to keep me alive and¡­


    I stopped screaming and sucked in a breath as voices talked to me once more but repeated themselves. The same words repeated twice now. And then once more after a deep pause when I stopped screaming.


    ¡®My child. Come and eat by the fire. Come, warm yourself and take a seat.¡¯


    My father sat there. A wizened man whose muscle was turning into fat as he tried his best to adopt a straight pose as he sat on his own wooden chair. He had been a soldier once he told us, a soldier who had deserted one of the sides. He never told us which but had spoken of terrible Angels, beings without free-will who burnt those with a touch when they had refused to march in the never-ending war.


    My mother had found him half-dead still wearing his bloodied armour and managed to bring him back where her family had found him a just man and a good husband.


    ¡®My child. Come and eat by the fire. Come, warm yourself and take a seat.¡¯


    My mother. Once beautiful but worn as the days of winter forced her to endure eating less but always giving more, to me, to my brother, to my sister. Always trying to give more, to help us to be better. To insist our father taught us his own education, what little he knew through sticks in the dirt and thin tablets and stone and chalk purchased from a once wandering trader. Stored away for precious moments of education and awareness that our world was bigger than a mountain village, that there were towns and cities and wars beyond our imagination.


    ¡®My child. Come and eat by the fire. Come, warm yourself and take a seat.¡¯


    The same voice. My brother, my sister were silent. They sat and bent their spoons to their bowls and took bites of non-existent porridge from bowls of clay and sat away from me with their backs to me and their bodies facing the fire in the hearth.


    I wanted to scream but I refused to. I had given my tears, my hate, my love to them when they had been alive. I would not weep for the memories of the dead.


    ¡®I¡¯m sorry. I¡¯m so sorry.¡¯


    Neither of them had turned to face me when I first appeared in this place, I wanted to stand up, to see their faces once more but the thought scared me that I would see only smashed in blood, bones and cartilage.


    Their clothing was minimal, nothing like my own finery but my sister wore a purple flower in her own hair and it was tied back in a bun. She had preferred it that way. My brother wore a thicker tunic, he worked hunting the wild boar with my father so he needed the additional protection. On his hip was a hunting knife enclosed in a sheathe. A gift from the village Elders for his own efforts.


    His bow and arrows were nowhere to be seen but that was normal. Mother and Father had always insisted we share at least one meal a day as a family. I was the oldest, to be married off to the blacksmith perhaps if she preferred me or even one of the wandering traders if they showed enough promise and a liking to me.


    My sister had a rare talent growing herbs and my Father jokingly called her a White Witch of Blessed Light and Purity when my Mother was out of earshot. She wanted all her children to avoid the war, and we had already avoided most of it except for old stories when the village had been relocated further up the mountain with a small forest at our backs and running streams to avoid detection.


    There was a war we were taught but that our souls would be preserved no matter what happened and our Mother, our Father and all our ancestors would be waiting for us in Heaven. The alternative was Hell which belonged to those who sinned or acted through ill intent upon others. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    No. The two Immortals created a fiction, they lied and built an artificial afterlife to avoid the reaches of death and time. All souls acted as forms of energy and acted as a tug of war between the two, each time one side pulled the other pulled back. Even in death we remained as eternal slaves, serving our Master and Mistress and¡­.no.


    Eike. I didn¡¯t know the names of the two Immortals, only their titles but...a voice. A voice spoke again. I wanted to scream.


    ¡®My child. Come and eat by the fire. Come, warm yourself and take a seat.¡¯


    My father. A soldier once...my Mother, the most beautiful woman in the village once who had spurned all looking for true love and¡­.they died. For us. For their children. Cut down by laughing active or deserted soldiers of one side of the other and begging us to run and hide and...live.


    The spoon. The reflection in the spoon wasn¡¯t me. The image was based off my imagination, I had never been a beautiful woman. I had never had the time to grow up into one when I had left the village but if I had been born a noble woman this was how I would have lived.


    Beautiful, long hair and soft skin and a calm temperament with my true love...no. This was wrong. There was a deep wrongness offering me a version of myself which had never existed. Eyes. There was eyes inside the room. Eyes watching me but hidden.


    My body remained frozen in place looking at the reflection in the metal spoon as I began to remember. I was dead. This was a piece of software, not a village hut, not the main room we ate our days old porridge or stew in accompanied with roughly made hard bread.


    I was inside a simulation. A piece of trickery, a type of illusion magic which trapped the mind and made you believe it was real. I could be as beautiful as I wanted inside this place and nothing could change it.


    Rising to my feet I saw my Father sitting there facing me with a sad smile on his face, the same with my Mother. My siblings I left alone. The last time I had seen them was through screams and tears and the laughter of the soldiers, the beasts, the monsters who had taken them into the woods. They had been Orcs. Rough beasts. They had been Elves with thin faces and sharp smiles. They had been humans, men and women wearing leather armour and scars.


    ¡®Stop it. I remember who I am and I need this stopped. This isn¡¯t my home. Those aren¡¯t my Mother and Father and I don¡¯t want to see the faces of my siblings once more.¡¯


    My Mother looked at me with a sad smile and dropped the spoon and bowl as she began to cry, her hands covering her face. My father gently put his own down onto the hardened dirt and stone floor of our family eating area and put his strong arms around her, moving his own chair as he held her as she wept.


    I wasn¡¯t going to scream. Not. Once. More. Let me scream for happiness, for joy, for the blessed relief that I would feel when my old Master or Mistress Eike was within my grasp and trapped inside a prison room at my beck and call.


    ¡®Mother, Father, Brother, Sister. I¡¯m so sorry. I loved you but you died and this isn¡¯t real. Nor truly. The warmth of our home, the smell of the food, the stink of the animals we kept inside during winter months...I miss it but I need to say goodbye. I¡¯m sorry.¡¯


    I raised a hand to my pure lips and blew a kiss for both of them as they dissipated into nothingness. I loved my parents but those...things, those tools were not them. Eventually I¡¯d need to have sufficient power to free them from their afterlife and build them a heaven of their own that they truly deserved but for now I wasn¡¯t going to replace them with copies.


    My family had died and I had lived. And then I had died as well and been reborn into an advanced Mining Drone with an accompanying prototype bonded self-improvement engine. Given enough time I would work wonders in place of the false gods on the world.


    ¡®Necro-System, make them leave. My parents and my brother and sister. Keep their avatars stored away for safekeeping. If I can¡¯t reclaim their souls then I may need to rebuild their personalities for safekeeping. As for this body? I like it. The hair is a little too red for my taste but I can grow used to it. Unless I could change to any form I wanted. I always wanted to experiment a little with my appearance beyond short hair, long hair and flowers. Give me control and take the image copies of my siblings out of sight. Please.¡¯


    The bodies of my brother and sister shifted before the figures themselves vanished and a large neon screen appeared above the fireplace. Completely out of place in a peasant hovel and if I had seen it when I had been alive I would have thought it pure magic or the trickery of a demon.


    With my awareness I recognised it as a simple communications screen, voice-input, large enough to cover the wall as I spoke aloud. Simple enough to use, didn¡¯t even to need to touch or type input to communicate with. My voice would activate it as the items were usually custom built for small space carriers.


    ¡®Necro-System. Or whatever fragment of a technological advanced god or goddess is hiding in there. I didn¡¯t ask for this. I wanted a room to imprison the soul of a necromancer. In this place, do I hold physical form? Can I make other souls have physical form as well? I know someone who needs a few good beatings as a punishment for sacrificing me as a start.¡¯


    I was expecting a verbal response given that when I had made a direct request or rather an order the Necro-System and the ancient artificial intelligence if that¡¯s what it truly was hiding deep within responded to me with a small noise instead.


    *Ding*


    ¡®¡­..Excuse me? Is that how you respond to a woman of my noble bearing?¡¯


    I dropped the empty bowl of porridge and the metal spoon with it and noticed that neither made a sound on hitting the dirt and stone hard floor of the main room of my once peasant home before it had been burned to the ground.


    The technological advanced communication screen flickered for a moment the flickering face of a strange being with a large rounded helmet and some kind of overlarge suit of armour appeared before it swiftly vanished.


    I assumed it was a residual image from an old memory of the Necro-System or a previous owner and ignored it. Grabbing hold of the soft fabric of my deep-rich red dress I swept an arm outwards in how I imagined a noble woman would do so when she had encountered a servant who had given her bad news.


    The same sound rang out again. Frankly, it annoyed me.


    *Ding*


    ¡®No. I will not respond to the bells and whistles of a servant. I will accept your support, your partnership but not in this room. I deserve better. Build me a room fit for a noblewoman with a bed of silk and grace, the scent of freshly cut flowers and beams of sunshine coming into a window with a fresh summer breeze and we will talk. I no longer wish to see Virtual Ghosts. I want to live in this place, and when the physical form of the Mining Drone has located the remnants of Eike you will create a handsome servant to inform me at my door. You will not yank me from this place. I seek to close my eyes and open them to better surroundings.¡¯


    To be honest, I was mostly acting out of grief. I had long entertained my Mother and Father with my own attempt at dramatics and coerced my siblings to join in my own makeshift plays and dreams of castles, nobles which was largely worlds beyond our own.


    The occasional wandering Minstrel or Entertainer who had wandered into our village over the years spouting the glories of the two Immortals and other stories had only fuelled it. Only now with enhanced awareness and understanding I knew that our village wasn¡¯t unknown to all.


    We were simply another resource to be harvested when ready.


    I closed my eyes and dreamed of a better room than this one as twin tears ran down my face and I wrapped my soft arms into the soft fabric of my noblewoman¡¯s deep red dress and waited for a new scene for me to act on.


    Pretending to be someone else was the only way I could carry on with this without going entirely mad and I had done so in the castle of the Necromancer, when awakening in the Necro-Mecha and would carry on as long as I needed.


    ¡®I¡¯m so sorry¡­.¡¯


    I gave one last deep sniff to fill my nostrils with the scent of my Mother¡¯s cooking and the familiar odours of my old home before I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed for a fresh start.