Chapter 3: Chapter 3: March of the Ant

The morning sun filtered through the thick canopy above, casting dappled light on the forest floor like the fingers of some bored god doodling with shadows. Abraham Ludacris, amateur necromancer and professional introvert, sat hunched on a rotting log with his chin in his hands.

His cloak, torn and stained from yesterday’s series of poor events, smelled faintly of corpse grub and vomit. His own.

In front of him, the undead giant ant stood at attention. It towered above him like a cursed monument, its cracked carapace pulsing with streaks of eerie green necrotic light. Faint smoke curled from the crevices in its joints.

The creature’s antennae twitched rhythmically, as though tuning into a forgotten frequency only bugs and weirdos could hear. Its eyes, once dead and glassy, now glowed with a spectral radiance that would’ve unsettled anyone not already emotionally numb.

“So,” Abraham muttered, “this is my life now.”

The ant clacked its mandibles.

“I wake up under an alien sky, resurrected a dead ant that may or may not be smarter than me, and then another undead, and now we’re best friends. Or coworkers. Or frenemies? What’s the undead etiquette here, really? Almost being killed and became friends with that killer? That was insane for sure.”

The ant tilted its head, almost thoughtfully. It stepped forward, lowering its front leg like a decayed drawbridge. Abraham stared at it for a moment before sighing.

“Fine, yes, let’s continue my descent into magical insanity. Giddy-up, death bug.”

With a surprising amount of grace, Abraham mounted the ant’s back and gripped a jagged ridge in its carapace. It felt disturbingly natural, like he was the dullahan riding his skeletal horse.

The ant set off, navigating the uneven terrain with practiced ease. Branches creaked and snapped underfoot. The beastling Undeads followed behind. Small woodland creatures fled at the sight of the lumbering death-beast and its pajama-clad rider.

“So what’s the plan?” Abraham asked aloud. “Find civilization? Raise an army of reanimated chipmunks? Discover a dark prophecy and accidentally fulfill it?”

The forest offered no response, which was probably for the best.

They traveled for hours through thick brush and haunting silence. Abraham had begun naming rocks out of boredom. Rocky Balboa, The Pebble Formerly Known as Prince, and Sir Stabbington the Jagged. He was mid-monologue to a particularly mossy boulder when the trees suddenly thinned, revealing a clearing.

At its center loomed a weathered stone mausoleum, half-buried by time and ivy. It jutted from the earth like a crooked tooth, its roof partially collapsed. A single glyph, etched into the stone in curling lines, glowed faintly, pulsing like a heartbeat.

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“Oh look,” Abraham muttered. “Some plot development right there.”

The ant hissed lowly, a sound like crumbling bones. It moved protectively in front of him. The beastlings shrieked, standing behind the ant with twitching joints.

“Easy there, Mandibletron. We can handle this.”

Cautiously, Abraham approached the entrance. As he got closer, the glyph reacted, flaring with ghostly light. A pulse of energy flowed outward, raising every hair on his body.

He reached toward the symbol with a shaky hand. Necromantic energy pooled in his fingertips, forming unstable sigils of pale green flame. As his fingers brushed the glyph, it accepted his magic like an old friend.

The stone door groaned open.

Stale air gusted out, thick with dust and the faint scent of burnt toast and wet socks. Abraham gagged. “Great. Haunted by expired breakfast.”

Inside, the chamber was circular. Four stone coffins lay in cardinal formation. Tattered banners hung from the walls, each depicting a different insect, as if the original decorator was both creepy and very committed to a theme. Bones littered the floor. Some were humanoid. Others... weren’t.

“This place is one rat away from becoming a horror-themed Airbnb.”

The ant followed, towering behind him like a loyal meat tank. The beastlings tailed not far behind.

Abraham cautiously approached one of the coffins. His boots crunched on bone fragments. He poked the lid with a staff he found somewhere.

Nothing.

He sighed in relief, then immediately flinched as another coffin behind him creaked open.

"WHAT THE FUUU*****K?!”

From the opened coffin emerged a skeletal figure, humanoid but hunched and twitching. Its arms were too long, fingers sharpened into bone claws. Mandibles jutted from its cracked skull, twitching hungrily. Green mist poured from its joints like leaking ectoplasm.

The ant charged without hesitation. It tackled the creature with a screech, slamming it against the stone wall. Bones snapped. The creature swiped with elongated claws, scraping sparks from the ant’s armor-like hide. They wrestled for control, mandibles snapping, claws gouging. Dust and shards of bone filled the chamber.

“Go! Get ‘im, Antsy!” Abraham cheered, pumping a fist. The beastlings do the same beside him with a cheerful expression. And where even they got those flags they swaying? It seems like they didn't want to intervene.

One final stomp from the ant shattered the skeleton into a dozen limp fragments. The battle ended as quickly as it had begun.

Abraham cautiously stepped forward and examined the debris. Nestled among the bone shards was a fragment of a glowing amulet. Its surface shimmered with glyphs that shifted when he wasn’t looking directly at them.

He reached out. The moment his fingers touched the fragment, power surged into him; cold and electric, like brain freeze in his soul.

His jaw dropped. “I get loot now? Real loot? Does that mean I’m a protagonist in some way?” he turned to one of his undead behind. "Do you think so, ugly face?"

The undead tilted its head.

The ant clicked twice, clearly unimpressed.

“Alright, fine, I’m the backup comic relief. Whatever, dude.”

He pocketed the shard, adjusted his belt (which was mostly just rope), and turned back toward the exit.

But before they could leave, a low rumble echoed from beneath the mausoleum. The remaining coffins trembled. The floor cracked slightly, revealing a subterranean passage sealed by more glowing glyphs.

Abraham stared.

“Okay. That’s not ominous at all. Definitely not the entrance to an underground dungeon full of ancient secrets, moral dilemmas, spider skeletons, and plausibily more loot.”

The glyphs pulsed again. But this time, he backed away.

“Let’s not get cocky,” he muttered. “One spooky basement per week, yeah?”

They exited into the clearing. The sky above was beginning to darken, tinged with purple clouds that swirled with arcane pressure.

As they moved through the forest, Abraham noticed the trees beginning to thin again. The ground felt more structured, the air heavier. Civilization might be near.

But so were more enemies.

His hand tingled with anticipation, or maybe early-onset spell rot. Who knew?

Then the voice rang inside his head again.

'You're now on the next level of necromancy. You'll be able to resurrect more undead than before. Back then four, and now five.'

He grinned. “Oh good. Now I can have my own dead boy band. How about we call it Wrong Direction? That's sounds cool, to be honest with you.”

The ant clacked its mandibles approvingly, the beastlings clapped excitedly.

Together, the former librarian and his beast undeads moved onward, ready, or at least sufficiently caffeinated, for whatever this world of monsters threw at them next.

***