Chapter 11: Chapter 11: Ritual Site

After having taken the soul of the Orc, Lorthic thought of using its body to create an undead servant, having seen the footprints of the lizardmen scouts, he thought it would be best to have an extra pair of helping hands if he was to defend the village, that and he didn't want to personally deal with a few weak lizards.

He asked Braska to prepare the corps for him, thinking that the old shaman would know how to do it and in the end, it turned into something that looked like an evil ritual about to take place.

It was quite late, with the moon hanging high in the sky, the Orc's body was lying down in the middle of a circle of candles, lying between each candle was a single human skull.

Lorthic was speechless when Nevarre leads him to the area where the corps had been prepared. 'I only asked them to clean the corpse and maybe cast a purifying spell or two on it, not to set up some demonic summoning ceremony, and by the way what pig demon god would except the corpse of an orc?'

Lorthic wanted to curse but held it in, seeing how Braska was standing at the side of the ritual circle rubbing his hands together and looking all too proud of himself as if he was some demonic summoning master about to unleash evil upon the world.

When he saw Lorthic, Braska was ecstatic, he had already seen the miracles of Lorthic's magic and couldn't wait to see what kind of undead he was going to create, thus Braska took out evrything he had to help Lorthic with the grand ritual of summoning a powerful undead.

"Lorthic, evrything is ready. With this and your awesome power, we should be able to create a Warrior Rank being of mid-stage!", Braska yelled in excitement.

"Right", Lorthic said while smiling wryly. "Anyway, let's get on with this alrea...", feeling something tug at his robe he turned around to see Annabel, she was pale-faced and shivering all over.

"What's wrong?", Lorthic asked as he lowered his head in worry to closely examine the girl.

"Wha-what are you go-go-going to do", she stammered as she glanced at the orc body inside the ring of candles and skulls. 'Are they planning on summoning a demon?'.

"Hahaha!...", Startled by Lorthic sudden laughter Annabel took a few steps back in fright as she looked at Lorthic with terrified eyes.

"Oh come now, do I really need to summon some lowly demon to do my bidding, I am just going to create an undead servant, nothing else. Really, to think you would actually think of me as some Demonoligist or a mage versed in the art of summoning.", Lorthic said with a smirk, thought his words didn't alleviate Annabell's worries.

"You're a Necromancer?!", she cried out in disbelieve.

"What did you think I was?", Lorthic answered her question with a question of his own. This girl that has been so terrified of him decided to speak to him now of all times about these matters, did fear bring out the bravery in her heart, or was it that she just couldn't take the pressure anymore and decided 'what the hell' and asked him about what was happening?

"...", Annabel was without words, true, what did she think he was. He was obviously a mage, seeing that she hadn't seen him wearing any sort of armor or carry a weapon. The fact that he could take the souls of others should have given her a clue, though there are many other occupations that could take others' souls. His thinking wasn't wrong since it looked like he was summoning a demon into the corps of the orc while sacrificing the souls he had gained in return for a powerful helper.

"Did, you really think I was a demonologist?" Seeing as Annable remained quiet, Lorthic couldn't help but ask her dumbfounded. Where has he ever shown that he had any kind of link to demons, to say that he hated demons would be an understatement.

There had been many instances in his past where the gates of hell would open and hordes of demons would attack the world. In fact, there was a gate inside the kingdom of Glorica, and each time it opened he stood in front of the gate and stopped any demon from trying to enter.

He had lost count of how many demons he had killed, and it infuriated him to no end that no matter how many he killed they just kept on charging at him like mad dogs, there was not even a hint of tactics or strategy, even when a powerful demon came through it merely attacked him while laughing and saying some bullcrap about how his soul would taste delicious or how his bones would make excellent chew toys for the demons hell hound, but in the end, the demon died after a single spell and Lorthic has left fighting hordes of other demons. Even with an undead army fighting for him it was still tiring since the demons came without end until the gate closed which could take to anywhere from a single day to ten years.

"Well, let's make some things clear, I am a necromancer, I am not involved with any kind of demon summoning nor do I have a connection to them other than killing a few in my lifetime, and before you ask I am not going to eat your soul", Lorthic said, and added the last part when he saw her want to ask a question he already knew she would ask. "Anything else?"

Annabell shook her head and then bowed towards Lorthic, "Please forgive my foolishness, Lord Lorthic", she said.

"Don't worry about it and the name is just Lorthic, not Lord or saint or god, just Lorthic. I don't care for those titles so don't use them on me and don't expect me to use them on you. Got it.", Lorthic said casually to which Anabel nodded.

Having sorted that mess out, Lorthic approached the orc's body, Anable surprisingly followed him and stayed just inches away from him, it would seem he had regained some little bit of trust from her again. 'Honestly, how can somebody have such an indecisive personality, either you trust me or you don't, don't go jumping across the line like that choose a side and stay there, Lorthic thought, not being able to understand the mind of a teenaged girl.

Standing in front of the orc's body Lorthic raised his hand, Braska held his breath while Nevarre looked behind him from some distance away from where he was relieving himself against a tree.

[Raise Lesser Undead]