Evil Sorcerer System 12 (Patreon)

Aia helped me with the last of the crossbow bolts. I took my time healing the wounds this time. Meanwhile, I had my Skeletal Knights gather up the bodies. All told, I had about forty knight corpses to work with. The rest had been dragged away by their fleeing comrades, either as wounded or as corpses.

"You were incredible, Alden. Terrifying, but incredible. Now I see why the Order of the Golden Sword fears sorcerers so much. Can they all do what you did?" Aia asked.

I shook my head and fought to talk between coughing up mouthfuls of blood.

"No. The ones I've met aren't as capable. But I suspect somewhere out there is a land of sorcerers who can do a whole lot more." Wheezing, I forced myself into a seated position. My healing spell was making new blood to replace what I'd lost as fast as it could, and I was starting to feel the pressure building in my skull.

By the time the Skeletal Knights had finished gathering the corpses, I was fit enough to be moved. I had them craft a stretcher out of wood and lashings, which took some help from Aia. But eventually they had something to carry me on.

"I presume Jandon is somewhere safe?" I asked.

"Yes, I know a hiding place near the old graveyard. Some of the stones conceal ancient mausoleums. He's in one of those," Aia said.

I grimaced. "I hope you checked for any leftover Skeletal Soldiers from the other sorcerers. They might have posted guards, and those skeletons would attack anything living."

I had my Skeletal Knights fan out to search the area. Sure enough, we found a few skeletons. But they were easy enough to dispatch with a single Counterspell, after which I raised them myself as Skeletal Soldiers. The weaker undead could serve as scouts just as well.

When all was said and done, I had something of a small army at my disposal and no short-term goals beyond repairing my body enough that I wouldn't die the moment I fell asleep and stopped channeling my healing spell.

Jandon was hiding among the graves, just as Aia said he'd be. We had a tearful reunion, followed by profuse apologies on his part for swiping my book.

"What you did was dangerous, Jandon. Very dangerous," I said sternly.

"Yes, Mister Alden," Jandon said shyly.

I let out a chuckle. "I bet you'll never pull something like that again, right?"

Jandon nodded vigorously. "Right."

What the boy had been through was punishment enough. The fault was partly mine for tucking the book under a bedside table instead of behind some sort of magical lock and barrier.

All in all, I'd made it through the battle in one piece. My only problems now were an acute shortage of points and a body full of holes.

I could heal the wounds easily enough, especially with Aia hunting and providing food for me and Jandon. That kept my mana generation high enough to focus on Flesh Sculpting. All the holes poked in my body had torn apart the mana channels I'd made, but putting them back together was easier than designing them from scratch.

Which brought me back to my other problem. An acute lack of points. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, I did feel a bit cheated that I'd gotten nothing out of the closest life-and-death battle of my life. Thankfully, the System provided the following day.

Today's Quests:

Quest 1: Instruct an initiate in spellcraft for one hour. (100 evil points)

Quest 2: Build an undead army. (500 evil points per unit)

Quest 3: Proclaim sovereignty over newly conquered lands. (10,000 evil points)

I realized I could accomplish all of these, at least to some extent.

"Skeletal Knights, bring me the corpses of the fallen knights. And search these graves for old soldiers whose skeletons remain." I waved my knights off. I could walk around now with the help of a crutch, but I preferred to focus on repairing my body and teaching, which I was about to begin.

I turned to Aia and Jandon, who were both eating strips of meat Aia had cooked for breakfast.

"Now, I'm sure both of you are curious about how magic works, aren't you? I'm willing to teach if you're willing to learn. You won't be learning any spells today, but I can tell you what sorcerers can do and what they can't, based on my own limited experience."

Jandon was the first to agree. Aia was a bit more reluctant, but soon she was agreeing as well. It wasn't the same as with Master Theragrim and his apprentices, but two hundred points an hour for sitting down and talking was nothing to scoff at.

Quests Completed! +600 evil points.

By lunchtime, my Skeletal Knights had returned with nearly three hundred corpses. Some were ones the dull-witted Skeletal Soldiers had missed when Master Theragrim and his apprentices were doing the same work. Others came from the hidden parts of the graveyard Aia had shown me.

I started casting Skeletal Soldier myself on the weaker corpses. The stronger ones that met the requirements for knighthood received the full Skeletal Knight spell.

This turned out to be the right move. Skeletal Soldiers would only ever count as a single unit, no matter how many I summoned. Only when I put a Skeletal Knight in charge of a formation did I get the full five-hundred-point reward. I spread the skeletons out until I had three units, along with an elite strike force consisting entirely of Skeletal Knights.

Quests Completed! +2,000 evil points.

As for what I was going to do with this surprise army...

"Go forth to the nearby villages and declare these lands the domain of the Sorcerer King," I said to the commanders of my improvised army.

The Skeletal Knights saluted, while the Skeletal Soldiers followed mutely behind them. Truthfully, they weren't doing anything besides carrying a single scroll to drop off in each nearby village. My goal wasn't actual conquest, just enough to satisfy the System.

Normally, this would have taken a lengthy siege of Lamford and a battle with the Archcleric and Knight Commander Rufus. But Lamford had already been besieged and was on its last legs. And the Archcleric and the Knight Commander were dead. All I was doing was making it official.

Quest Completed! +10,000 evil points.

The points rolled in, and I breathed a sigh of relief. We weren't out of the woods yet, but now we had options.

"Are you sure it's wise to declare yourself ruler of these lands? The knights might be dead, but it's only a matter of time before the Order of the Golden Sword sends more. And they'll probably be a lot stronger this time," Aia said cautiously.

"I agree. This conquest is in name only. We're going to have to abandon this territory soon. When that time comes, this undead army will cover our escape," I explained.

"It still seems... a bit much." Aia shrugged.

I drummed my fingers across the table. This would probably have been easier before I explained the basics of sorcery to Aia and Jandon. Now that they knew how spells worked, I couldn't pass the System off as part of my magic very easily. Nor would explaining the full details of it make much sense to someone born in a medieval town.

"I get rewards for doing certain things, Aia. If my behavior seems illogical at times, that's likely why. I'll have to think of a better way to explain it eventually, but for now you can blame any odd behavior on my part on the System."

"I... can't say I follow. But it clearly works, and I'm no sorcerer myself. I'll follow you wherever you're going, love," Aia said with a smile and starstruck eyes.

***

By the end of the second day, I had finished repairing my wounds. No one had challenged my rule, though I had no doubt an army was already on its way. I had my skeletons hunting down travel supplies and preparing for a journey.

When the third day rolled around, we had enough supplies for an emergency escape, but my skeleton army still hadn't been attacked. I was waiting for the distant patrols to be wiped out. That would be my signal to run.

It must have been taking the Order of the Golden Sword longer than expected to rally their forces for a true offensive. I decided to use the time to begin work on the second chapter of the Grimoire of Soul Refinement.

With working mana channels, the next step was to craft a mana reservoir. My body was still sore all over from the work I'd done repairing it with Flesh Sculpting, so now was as good a time as any.

I focused on the center of my body and started carving out a little pool, like an extra organ connected to all the mana channels I'd just rebuilt. Figuring out the process took another day. It would have taken longer if I hadn't spent so much time preparing for it. When it was done, the change I felt was small but immediate.

When I regenerated mana, it took far longer to reach that feeling of being full to bursting. Unlike before, I now had a mana pool, small though it was. It would take months of slowly enlarging it before I could start the book's third chapter, but already I felt stronger than I'd been going into the battle with Archcleric Maldon and Knight Commander Rufus. Not strong enough to want to do it all again, but strong enough to push all my spells to the next level, at least as far as raw mana went.

A few tests revealed that where I could once cast five Fireballs and fifteen Dark Bolts on a full mana supply, now I could manage twice that before running out. And that number would only grow from here.

I was settling in to browse the System store for spells that might help with our escape when someone approached the graveyard. Once I ruled out a hapless villager or more knights, I knew exactly who it was and decided to let her through. Now that I was no longer walking with a limp, I was open to seeing guests. Even sorcerer guests.

I had my skeletons bring her in. She was clearly starving and looking for something to eat. She must have been sleeping in the woods ever since the battle at Lamford.

"Isolda, we meet again. You look hungry. Here, we have some leftovers." I gestured to the dried and cooked meat Aia had prepared the night before. Isolda tore into it like a ravenous beast. I watched her stuff her face for several minutes before she finally needed water, which one of my skeletons was already fetching in anticipation of her thirst.

After drinking and slowing to something more polite for company, Isolda seemed to finally register where she was. Her clouded thoughts cleared enough to let the exhaustion seep through.

"Master Reed, it seems you've saved me again. Thank you." Isolda fought to stand and bow.

I gestured for her to remain seated. "You're exhausted and your mana regeneration is nonexistent. Niceties can wait until you're fed and rested. But I am curious about what happened at Lamford."

Isolda munched slowly on her food and began to speak. "Our army of skeletons got pinched between the town militia and the knights. We had to force our way into Lamford early just to avoid being run down by the horses. Master Theragrim thought we could keep reinforcing our army by raising skeletons from the militia as we killed them. But the Skeletal Soldier spell is more difficult than anything most of us have ever cast, and for me at least it takes an hour and a lot of mana. We couldn't keep up, and the knights forced their way through our lines.

"Eventually they whittled our forces down. Master Theragrim knew we'd have no chance against knights in direct combat, so we used the remaining skeletons as a distraction to escape. But some of us had to stay behind and control them so the others could slip away. I was one of those who stayed. The rest didn't make it. I barely reached the woods, and I survived only because I fell into a muddy ditch by the side of the road. The knights walked right past me a dozen times."

I combed my fingers through my hair. It seemed Master Theragrim had likely made it out alive, though it had cost him a few apprentices.

The way he'd handled the siege of Lamford spoke of a man who knew nothing about tactics. Letting his forces get hammered between the defenders on the walls and the knights outside them was a foolish move. If he truly had dreams of making himself a feudal lord, he needed to study more than spellbooks.

"You may eat and rest here. Tell me where Master Theragrim was headed, and I will try to find him for you," I said.

Isolda's eyes lit up. "You'd do that? Thank you, Master Reed."

I gave her a thin-lipped smile in return. What I was doing was no favor.

After all, I needed someone to distract the Order of the Golden Sword while we made our escape.

<Note>

Total points: 12,610