I walk north in search of the park. I didn't go out much before the calamity, only to places I thought I could get a story, and all of those were not at the park. Mostly, people getting exposed for taking bribes. Far too many people in this city were taking bribes.
I finally see a tree before entering the park, and I can faintly hear the sound of living people. I make sure all the runes on me are covered before entering the camp area. There are some children playing, but everyone seems tired in a way that the tents are makeshift and dirty, but everyone is alive. I look for the mage a few people notice they had not seen me before. But pay me no mind, and after a bit, I find him on a hill looking out at the city.
"Hello, Sir, are you the mage I've heard about?" He has a staff, robes, and gives off a noble and knowing aura, but he might like me more if I'm polite about it. "Are you trying to gain favor with me?" He noticed that's concerning. "But yes, I am a mage. I'm Theo. I was a great mage in my world." Great mage? That must mean he has strength, but if he were that strong, could he have had the power to save the city? But the most important questions come first. "Did this calamity appear in your world, or did your world cause this calamity?" he looks at me for a moment before responding. "My world also fell victim to this system and has been torn to nothing; even the very gods of my world have come here, albeit weakened like me." For a moment after saying he was weakened, he gauges how I look; he's trying to see how I feel about that. "That's horrible. If you were at your prime, you could have helped so many more people." He looks for a bit before responding. "Absolutely, I can't let this world fall like mine did." I start asking my questions. "Great mage, sir. What is the difference between normal mages and great mages?" he responds, "A normal mage is simply someone who can use mage craft to influence mana and does not necessarily use circles, but a great mage is someone who has mastered it to the point of the seventh circle. An archmage is someone who is eight circles or higher. But since you're asking this, I'm assuming you are a mage, especially since I can feel mana in you at an abnormal level." He's far too dangerous to talk to, especially because I don't know how he would feel about necromancy. "I was given the class pyromancer. I can show you if you want, but I'll need some wood ash and paper." He responds, "It's fine, it's just you remind me of someone I met long ago." I still need to know how to write down the spells without needing to make new ones every day. "I'm sorry to bother you further, but I must ask, do you know any way to cancel magic in paper so I can write them down and use them without them bursting into flame after a day or so?" he responds simply. "at the beginning of the stack of paper write one with a cross or X if that symbol in this world also means stop or cancel. But you can't do that for buildings or large areas; it has a range. It also won't work if too much mana, it puts in the spell, it gets overpowered, but it should work under normal circumstances. You could even make a basic grimoire with this rune." I've learned all I need for now, and I don't think anything could kill him, so I'll leave for now. "Thank you for teaching me so much, great mage, but I'll need to be going now." he looks at me, walks away smiling and waving, and just before I leave the range of speaking, he says. "It's amazing how fast you have adapted to this new world."
I get back to the morgue and enter Wagner is still alive, although he looks exhausted. I check on the leather, which is done stretching, and turn most into lace to be used for stitching. and use some for a book cover, I gather some paper, I cut some leather to size, first I put the paper in an orderly stack before using glue on one side of it, and then using some lace to tie it together, and then glue it to the leather cover I made. It feels great to make things you haven't before. I get some blood and draw the X's in the interior of the covers. [You have made a |lesser| grimoire] Lesser? [Lesser is the lowest rank of item] great, so it's just barely considered in that domain, at least it is one.
Can make more zombies now. I should turn the big guy into one. The zombies and I drag him onto the table before I start looking at him. I shattered most of his skull with the butcher's knife. But that might be fine after all, he will be a zombie, they don't need functioning parts. I grab the scalpel and almost carve the rune into his head, but then I realize I haven't cut out his heart yet. But what would happen if I did that? What's the result? I don't know if the reason they follow me is because of the chain rune or because of the fact that I'm the one who animated them. I grab a random weak body before cutting the skull rune into their head, but it doesn't move. Wait, none of my zombies can move things if they don't have the runes on them. So I carve the runes that look like strings onto the eyelids, and they open and just stay open. I didn't order them to open, so that's strange; it's not under my control, but I can feel my mana in it. But what would its goal be? I tie it down and carve the appropriate runes into one arm. The moment I do it instantly tries to grab my throat. So how would I stop it? I cut the rune on its head, and it stops. Then I carve the rune into a different part of its head, and it begins to move again. Then I plunge a knife into its heart, and it fully stops. So that means the heart is the core, but that skull rune animates it. Either get cut it gets disabled. But why not put both the chain and the skull rune onto the heart? I grab a body without a head, one I thought useless before cutting to its heart, cutting the chain rune first, then the skull rune, before cutting the other runes in, and then it begins to move according to my will, even without a head, but like the others, it cannot see for itself but its eyes are not closed it just has none. I carve the string rune into the eyelids one one of the zombies before ordering it to pick up a pen I throw behind by back, not seeing where it lands, and it does it has sight. meaning it can find stuff for me, but it probably can't find stuff I don't know the look of. Still, that is useful. I carve the runes into the giant man, but leave his heart in his chest, and also carve the runes into his eyelids and jaw.
I should experiment more. [Your runecraft has leveled up, and your zombie-making skill has changed from koine zombie-making to zombie-making with koine zombie-making included as a category in that.] Right, the zombie I made is technically different from the ones I made with koine. But this also raises a question: what is the limit on what I can make? Can a zombie have multiple cores, more arms, or eyes? What is the limit here?