Vassal Vengeance

“Ugh, I really need an assistant so I can stop scuffing up my floor like this,” Faust said with a strain. The black cat wore purple robes and a matching tall, curly hat that was struggling to stay on top of his head. He stopped dragging the heavy sack across the floor as he reached a splintering glass-paneled cabinet. With one hand, he opened the right-side door and gently pulled on an old, stitched-up patchwork teddy bear. There was eventually a click behind the cabinet, and so Faust closed the glass door. Then slowly, loudly, the cabinet moved aside to reveal a dark egress.

“Alright, come on,” he mumbled as he once again started to drag his cargo into the tunnel. The corridor wasn’t lit at all, but his lime-green eyes adjusted well enough for him to see as he carefully walked backwards down stone steps. While he was able to support his end of the sack well enough, it still made him cringe each time he heard the other end smack the next step. “Should get a-- hnngh-- lift or something...” Thunk. “What do they call it? A dumbwaiter?” Thunk. “This is probably killing my back.”

Eventually, he reached the end of the stairs. He sighed and quickly dragged it the rest of the way, to the center of a room most would describe as suspicious, if not downright sinister. With his baggage finally finished being transported, Faust took a moment to let out an overly loud sigh of relief. He stretched his back out and popped his claws as he reached towards the ceiling, then did a few twists to finish the process.

“Alright. Time for this to work... and not fall apart for the millionth time.” He stepped over to a wooden desk, lighting a half-melted candle. The light provided vision for an unmarked black book on his desk, which he easily flipped open to a page that had been opened too many times before. The page was written in runes of a long-dead language, with some diagrams of a humanoid figure and various symbols strewn around it. Fortunately, Faust was an expert.

He read over the page again while fumbling for a knife with his free paw. He whispered the words to himself until he felt like he had it memorized, for real this time. “Okay,” he said louder to himself. “The laws of nature are just suggestions. You can do this.” He walked back towards the bag in the middle of the room, lightly flipping the knife back and forth in his hand. It was a rather ornate thing with a carved red handle, though it appeared rusted on the sides of the blade.

Faust undid the sack’s drawstring and started pulling it away from the other end. Its cargo was soon left lying on the cold, stony ground: a body. To be specific, it was a lizard. A random villager, still wearing a simple, tan vest. He had nice, green scales when put in the bag, but now they were all approaching a color matching the floor. Faust bunched up the sack and tossed it in a corner, then turned back to the body, knife at the ready. “Honored dead, we thank you for your sacrifice; soon you will be dishonored undead!” He shook his head after saying the line. He always wondered if it was really necessary to the process. Regardless, he sliced open their wrists and began to paint the floor red.

After an annoyingly long time, the lizard’s blood finally found itself redistributed on the floor in an intricate, star-like pattern, with runes scrawled in a circle around that. Eleven slightly bloodied candles were lit in gaps between the runes as well. Faust wiped sweat off his forehead, careful not to bloody it in the process. “Okay. Now I... Shit.” He walked over to the book again, quickly skimming for the next part. He repeated the words to himself and then walked over to a spot on the ground in front of the lizard’s head and sat down with his legs crossed.

He cleared his throat and began to speak as loudly as he could manage. “B qnzarq fbhy, erghea gb lbhe obql!” Nothing happened, but the candles seemed to flicker from some unfelt draft. “Gurer pna or ab rgreany erfg sbe gur hawhfgyl xvyyrq!” There was a twitch, wasn’t there? Did he see that? He raised his arms in the air, calling upon something beyond him. He started to shout, “I KNOW YOU’RE THERE! Fb erghea, erghea gb lbhe obql naq erghea gb ZR!” The body within the circle started to contort, the sound of crunching bone and scales smacking against the ground filling the room. “XABJ GUNG V OEBHTUG LBH ONPX, NAQ FREIR ZR!”

All of the candles blew out at once as he finished, and the body stopped moving. He sat in the darkness for a few seconds before saying, “God dammit. Guess I better go figure out what I did wrong this time!” As soon as he stood up, the lizard in the circle jerked upright, making him jump.

Slisk suddenly woke up, freezing to death. He couldn’t see, and he could hardly even feel the ground beneath him. But he knew it was hard. Not his bed. So where was he? He tried to speak, but his jaw felt heavy, and it just came out as “Hmmmf?”

After recovering from the scare, Faust was ecstatic. His own zombie, at last! The lizard was looking around slowly, blankly. He got a good look at his eyes, somehow having flipped around since last time he saw them: Black irises with yellow pupils. “Interesting,” he whispered to himself, almost in awe. “Hello? Do you have any intelligence in you? Any awareness?

Slisk heard a voice close to his side. It sounded almost muffled, like he was hearing it through a wall, but he could understand. “Whm ther?” He still couldn’t move his mouth well, but he was able to turn his head in the direction of the voice. He was starting to develop some blobby vision, though he could tell the room itself was dark. Two green dots seemed to shine in the distance.

Faust’s claws could be heard clicking against the ground as he jittered up and down. Finally! He knew he was a real necromancer. All his peers thought he was creepy and dumb, but now he would show them how half-wrong they were! “I, my resurrected friend, am your master! Faust! Lord over life and death! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!” He’d been waiting for the day he could finally use that laugh. It felt great to let it out here, in front of his creation, instead of in front of his mirror.

The loud, overdramatic introduction was able to finally penetrate the dullness surrounding his senses. With his hearing triggered, his mind seemed to ‘warm up’. His vision was restored next, providing him with a view of his supposed master: A rather insane-looking black cat. Barely above his eye level, even though he was sitting on the floor. His sense of touch still wasn’t quite there, besides a distant solidity underneath him. He looked down at the floor to make sure it was there, and he could tell it was stone, and that would be cold. But the feeling of it sapping heat from him wasn’t there. All of him was cold. And was that... blood, in the lines around him? He looked at his hands-- pale. He couldn’t seem to get his scales to change color. He looked up at the cat and said, “WHT VU DMN TMM?”

Faust briefly faltered, unsure how to take that response. He expected a zombie to have a little less... awareness. He wasn’t sure what he tried to say with so much energy, but he wasn’t about to let it ruin his moment. He put both paws on the undead lizard’s shoulders and said, “Don’t you see?! I brought you back from death! Now your soul is forever bound to me, and together, we will accomplish great things.” He stared into those yellow eyes as if it would drill his point in further, though as he did, he realized he was getting ahead of himself. His eyes slid to the side as he added, “Well... after we get you some more brethren.”

Slisk still had no idea what was going on. He was dead? When did that happen? Everything felt so foggy, and he wasn’t sure how much of it was from being... dead... or from something that happened to his memory. He knew his name. He knew he had friends and family. He thought he was alive not long ago... wasn’t he? He struggled to remember, groaning and putting his head down. He finally managed to open his mouth, not unlike a rusty box, and rasp out, “Whaaat... haaappeee... to meeee?”

The necromancer backed up, readjusting his purple hat as he did. He nearly laughed as he said, “Isn’t it obvious? You died... and I brought you back.”

“But... hooooow...”

“Well, it’s really quite a long story, involving a lot of dark magic and rituals I had to research and unearth, but if you really want to know--”

“HOOOOW... DIIIID I DIIIE?”

This gave Faust pause. His fur stood up on end under his robe as he fumbled for a response. He was never a very good liar. The first thing he thought of, he said immediately. “I... don’t know?” The zombie looked back up at him. It felt just like when he was being judged by his peers, even if Slisk’s face couldn’t move well enough to give any expression. Defensively, he balled up his fists and yelled, “Don’t look at me like that! I don’t!”

Obliging, Slisk’s eyes turned downward. Blown-out candles were around the bloody star, with strange (if legible) glyphs between them. He had no idea what to make of it, but something next to all of that grabbed his attention. It looked... familiar, somehow.

Faust’s anger cooled off after he got no response, but once he saw his vassal’s eyes freeze on something, he had to look down to see what it was. It was that ornate red knife of his. He’d just put it down after slicing open the lizard. With all the subtle grace of a completely innocent person, he kicked the knife backwards towards his desk. Slisk immediately looked back towards him, and he quickly said, “Wh-what were you looking at? That was just, uh... my ritual knife. Just for rituals.”

His zombie reptile didn’t respond. Instead, he was fixating on a memory that was reforming in his mind. It was coming into clarity just like his senses did earlier. He gasped sharply, feeling a knife slide into his back-- or the memory of one. He reached back there, feeling a hole in his vest and then a hole in his flesh. Bloodless and cold now, but not then. Then, the knife had been pulled out of him almost immediately, and he whipped around to see his assailant. He couldn’t make out all the details, but those lime eyes with that expression of surprise and anxiety were unmistakable. After all, it was right in front of him.

The situation was unraveling very quickly. Faust didn’t hear anything about zombies remembering how they died! Or even thinking to begin with! Now, as he saw Slisk stand up, he realized once again just how tall he was. Before, it was no big deal-- backstabbing is really quite easy once you get the hang of it, and it works on every height. But seeing him from the front, staring at him-- he knew he was in danger. He glanced back towards the knife, wishing he hadn’t kicked it away. He glanced back one more time at his abomination, just standing there. Then he turned to run.

Or he would have, had he not been suddenly stopped by a cold, scaly hand wrapping around his tail. His hat fell off as his escape was cut short, and he turned around to see Slisk blankly staring at him, his tail in a viselike grip. He reached back to try and pull it free while grunting, “Let... me... go! I command you!”

No such thing was happening. Despite his lack of control over the finer facial features, he was downright furious. And for all his retained identity, there was one thing that was new: a hunger. It felt bottomless, but here he had a way to resolve it. With more ease than he expected his undead body to have, he yanked the cat towards him and lifted him into the air. This elicited a yelp, but what really freaked Faust out was when he felt cold tongue against his paws.

He winced away early, expecting to feel terrible pain as a chunk of flesh was torn out. But that pain never came. Instead, he just felt sharp, short teeth holding his feet there-- and then even more cold flesh. He looked back to see his legs leading into the lizard’s gullet, rather clearly bulging out of it after another swallow. Faust yelled, “S-Stop! What are you doing?!” He tried to wriggle and twist around, but he clearly wasn’t going anywhere. “Let me go right now, or I’ll-- I’ll unrevive you!”

The threat didn’t give Slisk pause. He doubted Faust was even capable of acting on it, considering he hadn’t already. Even if he could, he would welcome returning to oblivion over being what he was now. But existentialism could wait. Right now he had a very filling meal to handle. And really it was more filling than he could’ve imagined, with the cat’s warmth now flooding his insides. He continued to swallow, reaching Faust’s waist now. He let go of the tail, instead opting to support the cat’s back to guide him in.

The feeling of cold meat slowly engulfing his body was almost worse than what was actually happening. He continued to flail, adamant that he was “NOT about to become zombie food!” But he wasn’t accomplishing anything physically. He struggled to remember a basic cantrip that could help him out-- he’d spent so long focusing on necromancy that his fundamentals were rusty. The situation didn’t help either. So instead, he popped out his claws and started swinging.

He managed to get some good slices across the lizard’s face and deep across his gut that was beginning to bulge, but it didn’t accomplish anything. Slisk didn’t even wince-- there was no blood to bleed or pain to receive. Soon, as he came up near Faust’s shoulders, the cat became incapable of moving much at all. The last thing he managed to say was, “Y-You’ll regret this, abomination!” Then cold saliva slathered the back of his head as his vision went dark, and a glk pulled him down.

Slisk was glad he didn’t have to breathe through that ordeal. He finished up the two arms dangling out of his mouth and then let out a sigh of relief when he was done, out of satisfaction rather than necessity. He looked down at his belly, a grotesquely distended thing now that the cat was entirely inside it. It blocked his view of his feet and much of the ritual circle directly beneath him, all the while shifting and struggling. He rubbed over it with his hands, enjoying the warmth trapped within.

For his part, Faust was trying his best to escape. Without magic materials or memory, the best he could do was try to physically push himself out or claw his way out. Much to his surprise and horror, that didn’t work either. Here, he was beginning to realize, the flesh was tougher. Whether by magic or some other feature of reanimation, the digestive system was tougher than his skin on the outside-- and much more alive. Cold liquid was starting to soak through his robes, and it felt distressing (he couldn’t tell if painful would fit) against his own skin.

Slisk felt his struggles renew, but he was pleasantly surprised the claws didn’t make their way out of him. The gash across his gut seemed deep, deeper than the jagged marks on his face, but it didn’t matter. The cat was his, and so was revenge. He just had to relax and let his stomach digest. For the first time, he felt comfortable in his skin again, and he stretched up as he settled into the feeling. However, after doing so, he felt something heavy drop from his middle and splat onto the ground.

He looked down, expecting to see one very upset and wet cat, but instead he saw something that got his deadened face to twitch in surprise. His stomach, the entire organ-- simply hanging out. It was still connected to his insides by two fleshy tubes, but the rest of it just sat there like a wet bag. One with someone still struggling inside it; while Faust was startled and confused by the slight fall, it didn’t change his circumstances at all.

The very edges of Slisk’s mouth were able to curve slightly up for the first time since his reanimation. He shifted down into a lying position, elbows propping himself up on his own stomach and digging into Faust’s confines. Slowly, he was able to taunt, “Seeeeems... you got out, buuut... not how you wannnted.”

Faust tried his best to push the elbows off of him, but it accomplished little. His strength was diminishing, and the juices disintegrating his clothes and fur weren’t helping. Still, he managed to weakly respond, “You’re NOTHING without me... If you... If you let me out, I’ll...” He couldn’t think of whether to offer nothing or threaten nothing. He decided to drop it instead.

Slisk found himself further amused by that. He tried to prod more of a response by smushing his meal around. The cat certainly sputtered and complained some more, but it was clear he was out of gas. Not to mention, they were both becoming aware that he was far worse off than he thought. Being mixed around revealed that he was considerably less solid than he thought. Oblivion was quickly encroaching on Faust’s mind, meanwhile something like sleep was encroaching on Slisk's. It helped that his own stomach acted as a rather nice waterbed, given the consistency of the one inside.

*/^\*

The lizard woke up several hours later, alone and cold again. The mixture in his guts had seemingly managed to drain away-- all that was left was a stomach full of bones. It clattered as he stood up, still hanging outside his torso. He gathered it up in his hands and started trying to shove it back into its cavity, but it seemed like the jumble of leftovers wasn't going to make that easy. After a minute of struggling, he growled and dropped it.

Looking around the room for a solution, there wasn’t much he could tell would help. A lot of magical stuff he couldn’t make heads or tails of. But by the desk, gleaming dimly at him, was that very ritual knife that started all this. He smiled again, amused by the fittingness of it. Every move he made caused his gut to clack, but soon he had the knife in his hand. With more strength than the cat was able to exert earlier, he plunged it into his stomach, slitting it enough to empty it out. He dumped the skeletal remains onto the floor unceremoniously, joined by a few purple scraps lucky enough to survive.

As he dropped the knife to the floor, he noticed odd carvings on what appeared to be an upper arm bone. Lifting it to get a closer look, he could see now that it was letters, a sentence. He had never seen writing like that before in his life, but now it somehow seemed native to him. Naturally and nearly automatically, he read out, “V envfr lbh sebz lbhefrys.”

The moment he finished, the bone in his hand started to shake. All of the bones on the floor were once again clattering around, this time trying to reorganize themselves. Slisk backed up, dropping the humerus. While fear didn’t register anymore, he still knew he should back away. The various bones were starting to become something distinct now. They built from the ground up, magically suspending themselves in the air. It quickly became obvious what they were building. And soon, the last piece fell into place: Faust’s skull, which promptly lit with a wisp of lime-green light in each eye.

Faust looked across at Slisk and then down at himself. He was a skeleton! As a construct that was mostly magic, his new body took no time at all to get used to. He flexed all his fingers and toes, giddy at seeing them operate without flesh in the way. He looked at the carving on his arm, which seemed to be fading now that it had been used. He looked up at Slisk and seemed to grin. It would’ve been harder to tell if not for him proclaiming, “FAUST! LORD OVER LIFE AND DEATH!” His cackling laughter came again, though it rattled now. His bony tail clicked against the ground as it swept back and forth, his demeanor shifting once more. “I didn’t expect to have to use my self-resurrection contingency so soon, but ah well!” He brought up his claws and said, “I have no use for you anymore, so I’ll send you back to the void now!”

The lizard put up his hands defensively to block the attack, but none came. Faust’s swipe seemed to inexplicably fall short. They both appeared stunned by it, then Faust went for another swipe. Once again, he missed. The necromancer looked down at his hands, trying to figure out just what was wrong. Then he ran over to a bookshelf, scouring for one in particular. When he found it, he quickly pulled it out and flipped to the page he was looking for.

He couldn’t believe what he was reading. If he had known, he wouldn’t have tried this-- he could’ve jury-rigged something else up. Maybe some sort of necromancy that would automatically trigger upon his death-- but then, he’d barely managed to resurrect someone else. As he stood there reading over the same passage a few times, Slisk shuffled over to see what the fuss was about. He was able to easily read over Faust’s shoulder a section that, translated, said, “This magick ties your soul to that of your resurrector. When they read that which is written into your bone, you will return and be bound by debt.” And notably, at least one condition involved being unable to harm that person.

Slisk smiled, putting a rotting hand on Faust’s shoulder, causing him to jump and drop his book. Then he said, “Seems like... you’re stuck with me now...! Would’ve been a... helpful condition for you...”

Faust groaned as loudly as he could manage. He let his skeleton collapse, falling to the ground in a jumble, though he couldn’t turn off his consciousness so easily. He just looked up at the ceiling, struggling to believe just how things had turned out. Skeletonized by his own zombie. There was certainly humor to it, but he wasn’t laughing. He supposed fair was fair-- Faust killed him, Slisk killed him back. And now that he was thinking about his situation... maybe it wasn’t all bad. Being undead had its own perks, even if his intention was only to raise others.

He smiled too now and began to reform his body once more. Slisk was slightly unsettled to see him bouncing back already, but it wasn’t like things could get worse for him. The cat put both hands on his shoulders again, just as he did earlier (though it was harder when Slisk was standing). Faust then said, “We’re going to do great things together, you and I! Think about it-- two undead, one of them a master of raising undead! Who could stop us?!”

Slisk wasn’t sure he actually had an interest in domination, but... he certainly couldn’t go back to his old life. Plus, Faust was rather funny when rendered completely harmless. So he responded, “Agreeed... but...” The cat’s skull tilted to the side as he left the sentence hanging. Then Slisk grabbed Faust’s arm, pulled it away from his body, and bonked Faust on the head with it. “As loooong... as you remember who’s... in charge here.”