Maxwell took a long moment to think on how exactly he would make the catacombs. It wouldn't be easy, as it would no doubt require the help of the smog root fist to make it work. As they were, as it currently stood, effectively in charge of the entire underground part of his kingdom and with their building of a maze as well as the work Wormer had done. He would have to figure out how to assimilate a catacomb into the current underground domain without causing structural problems.

  While there was no time like the present, Maxwell thought to himself, and besides, the quicker he got the smog root first up-to-date on his plans, the faster they would be done. He would also have to get with Wormer to make sure he didn't derail whatever he might have been getting up to.

  Wormer at this moment was not doing anything but supervising. He watched his apprentices work on the beetle that had laid siege to the necropolis above. As both Worense and Worack were interested in the creature. Though both for different reasons, as was the usual between the two. Worack was interested in the beetle's magical horn. While Worense was interested in the beetle's tough and necrotic shell.

  Luckily for Wormer, with his apprentice interested in different parts of the beetle, he simply had to separate the different parts and let his apprentice get on with figuring out how to use the creature's natural magical abilities. They seemed to be making enough progress when they weren't making comments about the others' work. Which, as usual, happened often, which he found both endearing and frustrating.

  "Still expecting to find any use out of that dead and broken shell, Worense?" Worack said, his voice filled with mocking mirth at the thought of such a thing. Worense lifted his head from his work to look back at Worack; his smile set into a mocking grin as he responded.

  " I'll find more use out of this shell that held up well against an entire army than you will out if that discount wand masquerading as a beetle horn." Worense said, his voice filled with the same mocking mirth. The two apprentices were now staring daggers at each other, more than willing to escalate the argument over choice of study.

  Wormer was not, of course, and so put a stop to it. "Enough, you two; we need more study and fewer pointless arguments." Wormer says his voice is authoritative and his eyes are hard. So both apprentices gave a quick "yes, sir" and returned towards their study of their chosen part of the now entirely dead, necrotic, dark fey beetle.

  Wormer watched the two of them for a while, a tense silence filling the chamber after his breaking up of the last argument between his two apprentices. He hoped those new dark worm fey born in the special chambers nearby would not be as argumentative. Though knowing his luck, they would just be forced into picking either Worense's or Worack's side. That would make things far more complicated than he was probably ready for.

  In the end he couldn't find it in himself to dislike the argumentative nature of his two apprentices with their rivalry. For so long he has been alone; his only contact with others vaguely disgusted him, but they wanted him to help with some task of theirs. As Wormer's mind turned over the pleasant situation of his clan growing in numbers, making sure he would never be without a clan again, he found his attention grabbed.

  A nearby smog root fist had reached down from the ceiling and touched his shoulder, passing along images from the physical connection. The images showed the temple catacombs but far larger and connected to the new city of the undead above. It would seem his king wanted him to help build catacombs for the new city. He immediately sent back his assent through the roots and began making his way towards the chamber they would begin from.

  "Come on, you two; we have work to do." Wormer said to his two apprentices, who both looked up in surprise at the sudden command but were quick to obey. The two quickly jumped up from their work tables and ran after their master and elder. The three took a bit to get to the chamber they would start working from.

  The smog root fist, on the other hand, was already working to get everything ready for the building of the necropolis catacombs. They first brought down what was left of the hero's corpse, pulling all the shattered bones and torn flesh into the chamber, as they had been told it was to be used in the construction of the catacombs.

  They ended up creating two small separate piles, one for bones and the other for flesh, with a final small pit for all the dried blood they had managed to collect with their thorough search. So the smog root fist waited for Wormer and his apprentices to walk the last few chambers and halls to get to the starting chamber. They did so impatiently, as they were eager to begin, as they always were when being of service to Maxwell.

  Luckily for Wormer and the other two, he made it into the chamber before the smog root fist decided to try and speed up his journey. He and his two apprentices had wide, shocked looks on their faces when they entered the chamber. At first there was a long neck bone in the center with several pieces of a person surrounding it. Wormer started to ask himself mentally what exactly he had agreed to when Maxwell himself spoke to them seemingly through the bony neck.

  "Good you are all here. I have need of your help once more to help and continue building the underground part of my realm." Maxwell said, his voice echoing in the chamber that housed his neck. Wormer and his apprentices responded with an immediate, respectful "Yes, sir." Then Wormer asked a rather important question.

  "How exactly are we going to incorporate pieces of a dead hero, sire? Do you wish to reassemble him for a single chamber?" Wormer asked with a voice filled with both curiosity and weariness. As he wasn't entirely sure of his skill to reassemble a normal pixie body, much less one that was so dismembered.

  Maxwell thought on this question for a long while. How to best use such a damaged but potent resource. He looked at the piles and came to a conclusion. He would simply continue with the same building strategy he had used above ground. Which was designing three different structures that would be put together. So in this case, three different types of chambers to hold the different parts.

  As he thought on this plan, he saw he had used three a lot lately when it came to construction. This made him wonder if this would cause three to become some kind of sacred number to his undead kingdom at a later point. "Sire?" Wormer asked hesitantly to Maxwell, which brought his attention back to the task at hand.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  "Yes, I am here. I have pondered and come to the decision that I will design three different chambers, one to hold bone, the next to hold flesh, and the last to hold blood. We will simply use these three chamber types and fill the lower levels of the necropolis with them to form the catacombs." Wormer said with confidence, "Sure, the idea would work, as had the other three building construction plans."

  "All right, sire, so while you work on these chamber designs, we'll begin working on creating the empty chambers that will be made into these special chambers and the halls connecting them?" Wormer asked, trying to be sure of their current task. Wormer gave his assent, and so Wormer, Worense, and Worack left to expand nearby smaller chambers and create new hallways or reinforce old ones even further.

  Maxwell focused on the three piles of material he had before his gaze, thinking of creating what would essentially be burial chambers to contain said different pieces. So which part does he start with? Maxwell thought deeply on this for a moment and came to the decision of crossing bone first, figuring that would be easier than the other two. Luckily enough, while he had been thinking on it, Wormer and the others had already created a chamber for him to experiment with the creation of the new burial chambers.

  He first took half of the bone of one of the heroes' fingers and had the smog root fist bring it into the new chamber. He thought about where to start and decided to decide first to seal the bone. He gathered up nearby stones left behind from digging and used his necrotic smog to wrap around the stones and formed them around the small bone in the center of the room.

  In no time at all he had his little bone entombed in solid stone. Now onto the second part: figuring out what could be done with it. He pumped necrotic smog through small cracks on the rock. He felt the bone within its new tomb and began looking for its potential. It was not hard to find in the end; the bone was filled with the emotions of the dead hero.

  The desire for glory, the need to show superiority to all that stood in his path. So with no better idea, he took those feelings through the necrotic smog and began to form something from them. First came form as the necrotic smog mixing with the feelings from the bone formed into the shadow of the dead hero's form. As he added more necrotic power to this new shape, one of its fingers began to harden, turning into a bone that sharpened and lengthened, then curved, creating what was essentially a kind of finger bone dagger.

  The forming of the bone finger dagger seemed to be the final step of the creation of the new undead. It looked around at its surroundings for a moment, then began thrusting and slashing with its bone weapon, getting the feel for it, Maxwell guessed. Then once it was done, it left the chamber and began making its way down the halls.

  Maxwell had the smog root first track the creature just to see what it was up to. Though in the end this seemed to be a good plan, and so he filled the lower half of the chamber with necrotic smog, making the floor essentially not seeable through it. This would give the bone obelisk plant plenty of material to use.

  So with bone taken care of, he moved on to flesh. A new chamber was already ready for him as it had been formed while he had been working on the first. The smog root first brought the bits of flesh and muscle to the new chamber. Maxwell looked at it a moment, trying to figure out what could be done with it.

  Maxwell thought on this a long moment, as was seemingly his habit. He filled the bits of flesh and muscle, which he believed came from one of the hero's shoulders. He felt the feelings that were buried in it. What he found surprised him, as it was filled with a different feeling than the earlier bone. These bits of flesh and muscle held misery at what happened.

  The sadness of its smooth skin being shredded and of its powerful muscles being torn apart. There was a need there, a desire from beyond the grave to be handsome and strong once more. Maxwell was not sure what to do with such emotion, so he decided to experiment using his necrotic wind and simply hope for the best outcome.

  First he dug a small pit in the center of the chamber using his necrotic smog hands. Then he filled said pit with necrotic wind. Slowly the feeling of the dead was drawn out and mixed with the dead flesh and necrotic wind. Maxwell watched in surprise as an incredibly small amount of flesh seemingly grew out of the dead flesh, filling with necrotic wind, causing it to balloon upward.

  When this was done Maxwell found himself looking at a kind of flesh balloon. It had no lower half and was floating midair with a poor attempt at the previous hero's face. This flesh balloon then simply floated down the halls. "While then that was interesting." Maxwell said to himself aloud but decided it was good enough, as this new chamber was now producing undead.

  So now with two done, he looked towards the third and final material: the dried blood of the dead hero. The smog root fist moved the dried blood somehow to a new chamber where Maxwell found himself thinking of what time it was once more. He decided that the first thing to be done was to create a container for the blood. He grabbed more nearby stone and slowly, using necrotic smog hands, made a large stone bowl in the center of the new chamber.

  The dried blood was quickly put in, and so Maxwell did as he had done with the other two and searched for the feelings within the material. He found pure need within the blood. The need to move to keep fighting within the blood to never take a step back from any fight. So he gave that feeling form by feeling the bowel with necrotic smog mixing it with the dried blood. Slowly the dead blood spun within the bowel, and then bit by bit something seemed to get out of the bowel as if it had been wanting beneath the surface all along.

  It was a blackish-red liquid that formed a rough outline of a torso with a solid pillar of blood for legs. It flowed itself out of the chamber and into the hallways with the others that were roaming around. So with the chambers made, he passed the knowledge to Wormer. He was surprised by the sudden information and a little disturbed by the contents, but he got to work making more chambers of the three designs quickly enough.

  Maxwell hoped the usual scroll would appear to show him what exactly he had created. As he wasn't entirely sure what the three new types of undead were, and he would rather not find out about any problems with their nature suddenly later. Luckily his thoughts seemed to be listened to, and the purple scroll quickly appeared to tell him of his new creations.

  Maxwell, upon seeing the event, turned to look into the hallways and saw it was true, and those firstborn were already fighting amongst themselves for each other's different parts. Maxwell thought of interfering but came to the conclusion that he shouldn't, as the scroll stated this was a natural, recurring part of the undead chambers of his new catacombs.

  So Maxwell turned his attention back to Wormer and his apprentices to check on them. He need not have worried; they were already interrogating the new chamber designs, and so his catacombs were taking great shape. So with that taken care of, Maxwell turned towards the last thing for the hero to take care of and spun the hero's blade in one of his necrotic smog hands, pondering on the future to come with the weapon.