Shadows Raised

Hours later, Han returned—it was time to go. Joseph joined the group waiting by the door: roughly fifty people, maybe half actually useful. The rest were old, malnourished, or otherwise struggling. Cliques existed, sure, but there was also an unspoken thread of unity in the air.

Joseph and Han took the front as they set off while Lianhua remained towards the middle-back to keep people organized. Before leaving, Joseph asked to ride in a cart so he could work on magic. Han refused—no extra burden on the others—walk.

‘Fine. New plan.’

A ridiculous idea sparked—necromancy. Maybe he could revive one of his Rukvar corpses to push a cart. He had no clue how, but the potential was too good to ignore. He pulled Han aside for advice, got what he needed, and sprinted off under confused stares. Lianhua asked why he’d left; Han just said he had something personal to do and went ahead.

He retraced the route fast, reached the starting chamber, and climbed to his old perch. He picked the most intact Rukvar corpse, doused it with water, and started.

Han’s warning replayed in his head: “Necromancy? Most places despise it. A few tolerate it—but they’re rare.”

Seeing Joseph unfazed, Han had continued: he didn’t believe all dark magic was inherently evil, but necromancers were usually… not good people. If Joseph insisted, Han would share what little he knew—even though it wasn’t practical instruction.

He’d told a story about a notorious necromancer who rose from nowhere, replaced corpses in graves with reanimated versions, then, on a day of surging dark energy, unleashed them.

Villages, towns and cities burned in a single night. The man didn’t even harvest the aftermath. He vanished, and much later Han’s party found a lair—mad scribbles, but notes too.

Han’s take-away: necromancy isn’t “making a corpse move” or true resurrection—it’s reclaiming a soul and imbuing it into a vessel, usually its original body. With multiple ways of going about that from a sacrifice, immense power to gather remnant souls clinging to bodies or summon a soul from the underworld—something Han strictly warned against. Suggesting to instead attempt to aggregate lingering traces of souls instead, Joseph stuck with that thought.

“At our level,” Han had said, “it’s basically impossible. The mana cost, the strain, let alone a lack of appropriate tools and potions. But your Spirit stat might bridge the gap.

Don’t expect any results, but if you do succeed, only summon one, don’t let it become a skill yet, and try to mask it as puppeteering if anyone asks.”

Back in the chamber, Joseph worked with that in mind.

He braided Magic and Spirit into an incorporeal weave and pushed it into the corpse, imagining it saturating every fiber until the whole body hummed. With Spirit Sight, he searched for remnants and willed them to gather. At first—nothing. Then, faint black motes began to gather over the chest.

Excitement flashed in his eyes, driving him to keep going. Mana and spirit bled away; a flash of pain drove through his skull from the strain. Gritting his teeth, he compressed the wisps into a single cluster and forced it back into the husk, picturing it reintegrating. A shroud of black mist rolled over the body.

From the miasma, a man-shaped silhouette took form, as if clawing itself out from inside the flesh. It settled into the Rukvar’s outline—but all smoke, no color, no substance. A shadow absorbing all light that dared shine on it.

He studied it. ‘Did I subconsciously copy something from a novel?’

Cross-legged, he tested it. “Move the corpse back into the hole.”

No response.

“Walk forward four steps.”

It complied—four steps, then stopped.

He spent his rest testing its capabilities. ‘It can only handle simple directives: walk this way, follow that, pick up, drop. Layering steps works, though—like those school robots you program with basic commands.’

Strength-wise, it was a bit weaker than the original but still strong. Questions chewed at him. ‘Is this necromancy? Can it hide in my shadow? Could I repeat this with the Elder Rukvar?’

Thinking carefully, he decided against any further actions. Still… a formless shadow wasn’t exactly a walking corpse to most eyes, still he searched around for cloth and remnants of leather strips.

He threw together a rough cloak then eyed the summon. “Jump down.”

It turned, bent those smoke-thick legs, and hopped. BAM. It hit the scorched floor with a dull thud. Wisps tore free from its legs; it seemed to shrink by almost a foot.

He climbed down to check. ‘Feet, ankles, lower legs—gone. So damage dissipates from the impact point but the rest stays.’

His mana was still nearly empty. With the headache fading, he used only Spirit, pouring it into the shade. Slowly, new ankles and then feet grew back—lighter and less dense than the rest for a while.

Pleased, he threw the cloak over it and laid down to wait. An hour later, he heard the group approaching and splashed water on his face to wake up. Han arrived a bit ahead of the others, did a quick, tight-lipped inspection, and finally nodded—he’d vouch for its obedience. Joseph could see Han’s mind, flickering between regret and respect.

He quickly whipped up a concrete cart, slotting the pieces together and attaching leftover rope to the front, finishing just as the main group arrived. Joseph had the shade pull him across the chamber, then set up his little space in the cart—layers of hide and cloth for a decent bed and the sack as a hard pillow.

Han had already briefed a skeptical Lianhua and reassured the rest about the ominous figure. Outwardly, there wasn’t much fuss. Inwardly, he caught the little things—the way people gave the cloak a wide berth, the muttered prayers, the twitch in their eyes whenever it shifted.

Being told by Han they where taking a short break, handing out rations and letting the less healthy individual regain their stamina, Joseph laid back in his cart, observing the group casually.

A few hours in, raised voices snagged Joseph’s attention. A knot of the scrawniest, most desperate faces, blending together regardless of their gender, age, or ethnicity. Privately dubbing them the “rat folk”, they clustered together, trying to guilt and bully Lianhua into forcing him to dismiss the summon.

When she refused, their coaxing turned to aggression. They cornered a malnourished girl—maybe sixteen, skin and bone—and pushed her to his cart to be their messenger.

He watched, amused despite the sour taste. So much for Han’s rosy picture of camp unity—under pressure, they shoved a starving girl forward as their mouthpiece. The girl approached, shaking from fear and exhaustion.

“C-can you please get rid of that monster?” she whispered. “Everyone’s so nervous… they can’t even rest or eat properly.”