Daughter of Death

At first, it took them about an hour to dig out and bury a coffin. Then, at the third one, Twilight remembered that Woofy, being a wolf, a cousin of the dog, could certainly dig, so she asked him to help them, making it much faster. Thanks to that, they were able to dig a dozen graves, adding a dozen ponies to Twilight’s undead army. Six earth ponies, four pegasi, and two unicorns. About halfway through the night, Death Speaker had to knock out the guardian again as he had been beginning to wake up.

Because she was more familiar with unicorns, being one, she decided to give a piece of her soul to one of the unicorns, a mare that her tombstone said was named Star Eyes. Having no time to work on a personality for her, she gave her a blank one, like she did to most of her undead last night. The only ones who didn’t have a blank personality were Woofy and Tabby because, being her guards, they needed to have a tough personality.

Star Eyes was probably fated to be her main commander however, so she will have to give more work to her personality later, once she has time.

Having a blank personality meant that they mostly acted like Twilight with what was coming from her soul pieces within them, with room to learn and develop into their own beings. It helped that Twilight was still a child, so her young mind, transferred to the undead through her soul pieces, made it easier for them to learn and develop into beings other than clones of herself. And it made it easier for her soul pieces to adapt to their new bodies too.

Star Eyes could develop into a good commander if Twilight regularly made her command the other undead, helped with some books on “how to be a good commander” or something like that, but it would be faster if Twilight crafted her personality herself into what she thought would make a good commander.

And so, just a few minutes before the sun would rise, the group left the cemetery, starting their journey back to Klugetown where they will grab the necessary tools to start to work on building Twilight’s lair in the jungle.

During the journey, as soon as they rested for Death Speaker, Twilight used the occasion to work on Star Eyes’ personality.

Remembering what her brother told her, she gave her the two main qualities of a commander: charisma and audacity. Twilight, however, had difficulty thinking exactly what made somepony charismatic, so she went with her non-existent gut. Somepony who will treat her underlings well, confident, fun but who could get serious in an instant, and smart (of course, being a piece of Twilight, she was naturally smart, so she didn’t have to change that).

With most of the undead being mindless minions, it wasn’t really needed, but the undead to whom she gave independence will probably mind that.

She will be able to judge the situation and act accordingly without Twilight being forced to be at her side constantly. She will be able to make plans and improvise. She will be able to send the right minions to do the right tasks. And she will be able to give good advice to Twilight.

All she will need after that is experience.

Once she was done, Twilight stared at Star Eyes who gave her a salute.

“Commander Star Eyes, ready to serve, mistress.”

“Don’t call me that. Call me…” She sighed. “Call me Princess, I guess.”

Beside her, Goldie grinned.

“Also, uh… At ease. No need to be formal with me.”

The skeleton mare relaxed. “Very well, Princess.”

“So, uh… You already know what I’m planning, so once we are back in Klugetown, prepare everyone. We will go to the jungle to start digging the lair once we have the tools.”

Not long after that, they continued the journey through the desert.

Not long after they started, Death Speaker said, “You should also think of a plan for your lair. How you want the layout of the rooms and hallways to be. I will give you some paper to draw.”

“Uh. You are right. Thank you.”

So, back in Klugetown, while Death Speaker went to buy the necessary tools-axes, pickaxes, shovels, saws for cutting the wood into planks to make stuff like chairs and tables, chisels and hammers to sculpt the stone (because Twilight wanted to have brick walls and paved floor), etc…- Twilight began to think of what she wanted for the layout of her lair.

For starters, what room will it have? A library, of course. It will be a good start.

Normally, being an undead lair, it wouldn’t need rooms such as a kitchen, a dinner room, or a bedroom, but Death Speaker told her that he wanted to live with her so he could continue to teach her necromancy and magic, so she will have to add all that stuff. And she will have to think of adding a hole in the ceiling of the kitchen to let out the smoke whenever they cook.

A room to train in magic, of course. No doubt that there will be lots of magical accidents that may result in explosions as she will learn about it, so a large and solid room will be needed.

A study, where Death Speaker will teach her.

A room for potion making too. She knew nothing about potions, but it was part of what Death Speaker will teach her. As he said, a wizard worth his salt could brew any potion. It also meant that they will need a room to store ingredients, and she will have to regularly send her undead to search for them.

Oh, right, a storeroom will certainly be needed too.

She couldn’t think of anything else, so she wrote down the rooms she had in mind. She will ask Death Speaker’s opinion once he comes back.

Goldie looked at the list and said, “You are forgetting an armory.”

“An armory? Why would I need an armory? I don’t want to attack anybody.”

“But your undead may need to defend themselves. The whole world will be pretty much against them. And you. And if you add an armory, then you will have to add a smithy to make the armors and weapons.”

“I have no idea how to forge!”

“Then your undead will have to learn. Or you will have to buy them in Klugetown, but I don’t know if Death Speaker will have the money.”

Twilight looked at the list, then hesitantly put armory and smithy.

“We will have to find metal,” Twilight said.

“I remember a spell to find veins. If you can learn it, it shouldn’t be hard to find a deposit of iron ore.”

Twilight nodded, then proceeded to start drawing the plan of her lair with the rooms she listed. She started with an entrance room, just after the stairs leading down to her lair from the surface. From it, she drew a hallway to the right where she put Death Speaker’s apartment, his bedroom, kitchen, and so on. She made it close to the entrance mainly to make it easier to transport stuff to and from outside, because she doubted they would be able to add plumbing. It meant that she will have to place the entrance to her lair somewhere close to a source of water.

Done with Death Speaker’s apartment, she returned to the entrance room, which she guessed now that she thought about it will serve as a guard room, and drew at the left the armory, then the smithy.

Behind the entrance/guard room, she drew a hallway linking the library, the study, and the potion room. The library and the study were both at the left while the potion room was at the right, just before the study. She placed the room to store ingredients just behind the potion room.

At the end of the hallway, she placed the storeroom.

Finally, from the study, behind it, she placed the magic training room.

So far, the plan looked good.

Later, when Death Speaker and Sunshine returned with the bought tools, she showed the plan to him.

“Mmh… Yes, it’s mostly good, except for the magic training room. You should place it further away for security purposes. Separate it from the rest with a long hallway.”

“Okay. Any other rooms I should add?”

“A room for your undead to spend their time in when they aren’t outside. Since you gave souls to a good number of them, you should find ways for them to pass time. And you too by the same occasion.”

“Oh, for that, you can count on the library. If they are like me, then they will love reading books. Uh, maybe I should make the library bigger.”

“Still, some kind of… game room would be a good addition. You wouldn’t want to spend eternity bored to death.”

Twilight gave him a flat look. “I’m already dead.”

“Which makes it worse.”

“Death Speaker is right. You won’t be able to spend time by pranking others like I did,” Goldie said. “Having a form of entertainment will be nice. You will already have a library, but the number of books you will have will be rather limited for now, and it will be difficult to get new ones, so games will be good. If you can send undead to find board games, it will be nice. Also, I spied a few Ogres And Oubliettes games if you are interested.”

“Alright, I’m adding a game room,” Twilight said before she looked at the plan. “I will turn the hallways linking the guard room to the library and the other rooms into a T, going between the library and the study, and it will lead to the game room. I will put some distance between it and the other rooms so the noise made there will not bother the ones reading, or me when I’m studying.”

“Leave space in the hallways for expansions in the future. You never know,” Death Speaker said.

“True. I may need to eventually dig a second library if I manage to collect enough books.”

“You intend to steal other libraries? There is only this way I can see you getting so many books.”

“No! I refuse to steal other libraries! But… Maybe bookstores… A book here and there… From time to time… Unless we manage to find books in Klugetown.”

“Rarely of pony origin.”

“You mean, books from other countries?” Twilight said, and Death Speaker would swear that he saw the little purple flames inside her eye sockets turn into stars briefly.

“Yes.”

Twilight squealed and began to jump around the minotaur while repeating “Yes!”

Death Speaker raised an eyebrow. “You love books, uh?”

“Yes!”

Death Speaker wasn’t sure if she answered him or if it was another of her repeated “Yes!”

He chuckled.

Finally, with everything ready, they left Klugetown, going toward the jungle, Twilight with her whole army and Death Speaker bringing all the undead in his basement along with Sunshine and his vulture.

A few days later, they arrived at the jungle. The two then sent their undead to search for a water source, and before long, they found a river. Twilight also used the spell Goldie talked about earlier, the one to find ore deposits, that she learned on the way to the jungle thanks to one of Death Speaker’s books, to search for a deposit of iron ore hopefully not far from the river so they won’t have to go far to get it for the smithy.

Twilight was able to locate several deposits, but impossible to tell what kind of ore they were as most of them were underground, so they will have to dig. There was another spell to identify what kind of ore there was, but she hadn’t been able to learn it yet.

While she searched for the deposits, Death Speaker determined a good location for the lair, not too far from the river but far enough that they wouldn't risk accidentally digging into it. He found a spot with a good landmark in the form of a tree older and larger than the others. While they will have to cut some trees to make place for the entrance, they will leave this one.

When Death Speaker showed the spot, Twilight agreed right away and ordered her undead to start clearing the trees (except the big one) and dig, and Death Speaker did the same with his undead, leaving Sunshine to command them.

They found limestone, and Death Speaker taught Twilight and her undead how to make mortar for when they will start to sculpt bricks, telling them that they will have to make a lime kiln to make lime, one of the ingredients.

And so, the making of Twilight’s lair began.

Of course, at the same time, she used the occasion that she was in the jungle to find more dead animals to reanimate, making them help with whatever they could do. Dumbo, the elephant, for example, was very good at uprooting the trees using all the weight of his skeletal body. It was much faster than cutting them with axes. Woofy, along with the other wolves she found and a few other animals that could dig, helped the undead with shovels. The soil here revealed to be very deep, so they had to dig a while before finding the top layer of rock.

And it was only the beginning. It promised many months of constant hard work.