There exists a small city underground, where those who practice black magic, and dark shades of all sorts of other magic congregate. Due to its popularity with necromancy specifically, it’s come to be known as necromancer’s rest. By those who know, of course.
Most necromancers don’t just walk around with an army of undead and such, so quite often, they bind their undead servants to a location, and dismiss them to this location when their job is done, after a hard day’s work. Many necromancers have at least some small plot of land, a shack, a pile of coffins and such in Necromancer’s Rest, and so their undead servants tend to spend a lot of time here.
Most undead servants, especially those lower ranked servants, tend to have damaged throats and such, and so have difficulty communicating. If it were possible to fix this problem, most necromancers don’t seem to be in any sort of rush to fix it. They see their undead minions congregate and go to pubs and such, and they think it’s just fragmented memories of their past life leading them to act like real people.
In reality however, sometimes working stiffs just need a place to relax and unwind after a hard day’s work. As I was saying, most necromancers think their undead servants can’t speak, but those at Necromancer’s Rest have developed a speech system that works with their damaged vocal cords and such.
I will be translating for you, dear reader, and telling you of their time here, and the tales told by the dead at Summoner’s Rest.
Zombie Number One, often called Number One by his peers, had just come back from another gruelling campaign, and after being stitched back up and dismissed by his master, he went to the pub to unwind.
Soon after walking into the pub, before he could even get a glass of swill from the undead bartender, he was beckoned by a table of his friends, and some people he merely tolerated. “Hey, it’s the number one zombie!” said one of the latter, much to his consternation this was a somewhat common nickname for him.
He ignored them aside from a wave, until he got his swill, then he begrudgingly joined them at their table in the corner of the dark dank bar. “So, I guess by the look of things you fought everyone off single handedly.” said one of the others he tolerated, usually.
“Hardly.” said Number One. “It was a mess, dozens of us fighting in some cramped dungeon, we were fighting through some cultists or whatever for some rock or something, I got torn apart almost immediately. I’m not sure why he even still summons half of us.”
“Why does he?” asked an acquaintance.
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Number One finished taking a long gulp from the stein, and most of it went down his throat, while some of it came out from unstitched holes on his neck and poured down to his chest.
“Well.” he began. “I guess I haven’t told most of you, but ever since the master was a child, when he made me, his very first zombie, he’s always liked the idea of having a big hoard of zombies. And other sort of undead servants and such. Hence naming us with numbers, he thought he’d have so many it wasn’t worth giving us real names.”
“Some of us didn’t even get a name in the first place.” Said one of his friends at the table.
“Yes, but at least you’re not stuck with Number One.” said number one. “Most of us can’t remember much about our old lives, including our names of course, me included, but I’d still prefer not being called the number one zombie when my arms are barely on.”
“Yeah, but at least your name’s not shite or shite or something.” said another undead servant, from another table.
“Well yeah, I guess there are worse names, and I guess he was in a bit of a hurry back then anyway. So he probably didn’t have much time to think of any good names anyway.” said Number One.
“What’s the story with you bein’ made anyway? What was the rush?” Asked an acquaintance.
“Right, I was getting to that, if you guys don’t have anything to do for a while, I could tell the whole story.”
“It’s not like we’ve got anything to do, I haven’t been summoned for months. Go ahead and tell us the whole thing. How was the number one zombie created?”
Number one finished his swill and began to tell the tale. “When I was made, the master was still a boy, just eight years old if you can believe it.”
“That’s a bit young.”
“Yes, but he had to. The villagers were probably going to kill him, and his best defense was his skill in necromancy.”
“Why were they trying to kill him?”
“For studying necromancy.” said Number One.
“Right, makes enough sense.”
“I wasn’t there the whole time, but when I was created, the boy had a few books and scrolls in a cave, and journals of his research on necromancy. Guess he finally put his knowledge into practice once the town was looking for him.”
“He’d dragged a few bodies from wherever. Doubt he killed them himself because they weren’t exactly the freshest even then. I think he should just hack the flesh off of us and make us into skeletons at this point.”
“You don’t mean that, you wouldn’t even be able to taste the swill.”
“I don’t taste much anyway, and what I do just tastes like dirty water.” said number one dryly, thirsty for more swill.
“I’m pretty sure that’s what it is.” said his friend, who had dug through his pockets to take out some bone fragments, the currency used for the cheapest establishments run by and for the undead servants at Necromancer’s Rest.
“Here, I’ll buy us all some drinks, you just hold on a second. I’ve already heard it, but I don’t want to miss the good bits.” said his friend, as he went off to buy everyone a round of swill. Good, frothing, almost warm, dirty, filthy, dark swill.
The men at the table cheered and number one held his tongue, what was left of it anyway, until his friend returned with full steins for everyone. He’d also brought a large bowl of peanut shells, taken from the necromancer’s bar. They didn’t have much of a flavor, but they were salty, and they were good to crunch on while listening to a story, and drinking good swill.
It was a vicious cycle of eating peanut shells and drinking swill at The Deadman’s Bar.
