The night grew on and the moon began to dim. The hours to make the more powerful unliving servants where coming to an end. The body of a man dressed in a tradesmen's apron was placed on a table. Next to him was placed a dead woman in a blood-stained dress.
The mans was likely one of the masons who had died of disease in the guilds siege. He had no external wounds but the leather apron he had on was stained with vomit. The rats stood clear of the body. The mage concluded that the diseases inside the corpse were alive enough to deter hungry scavengers.
The Lady seemed to be from a good family judging by her dress. If not for the brown blood stain that covered the front and back it would be a beautiful white. She had a stab wound in her neck going in from her back and out the front. The wound had been stitched shut most likely by Scab. Her face was covered in tear smeared makeup.
Syringes filled with black liquid arrived beside the table as the mage pulled a jar out of his cloak. Inside was his missing eye floating in embalming fluid. He used his magic to look at himself through the pickled eyeball. The world through the separated eye was devoid of color and could only make out vague shapes from inside the jar. Both the bodies had already had one eye removed in preparation for what came next. A cocooned solder was brought to be used.
The rats opened the silk sack and grabbed the weekend man. The scoundrel in orange moaned and struggled against his captors to the rat's amusement. Albie handed one a bone saw. The creature scurried over to the man and began to remove his arms. The former bandit screamed as the mage took his eyeball from the jar.
The shriveled organ healed in the mages hand. Soon the mage could see clearly through the eye again. He faced the orb so it could not see him and the knife he used to cut it in three. He still felt his vision split and his eye break as if it where still in his socket. One fragment of the eye was healed fully and dropped back in the jar to soak. The others were placed in one hand as the mage stabbed the other pooling blood in his palm. The mage soaked the eyes in the blood carful to keep the fragments of tissue form fusing together creating two blood stones out of the bits of eyes. The stones were placed in the empty eye socket of each corpse the free space filled with mage blood.
The two long needled syringes where stabbed into the corpses hearts and the black fluid released into the cadavers. The bodies convulsed as the black liquid consumed the hearts. The pair of developing flesh wights began to the mind of the mage as he once again touched the border between life and death.
The experiences where chilling. The sensation of being eaten alive muscle by panicking muscle was vivid and the mage knew he was feeling the death of an orange coat. Trying to move an adrenalin fueled arm only to find the muscle unable to move because it was in the belly of a dead man. The panic washed over the mage as he tried to create a mind for the dead mason.
He felt his body melt away in acid and burn in toxic flames. The confusion of the ambush and the orange coats desperation to retrieve their banner. The mage felt the will of men falter and turn to despair as hope of victory and escape died in a sea of teeth. Adrenalin turned to confusion as he was ripped of a horse and cracked his head on the pavement. Cooking alive in armor he believed would protect him as a swarm of bees ate him from the inside out.
These new ways of dying mixed themselves into the deaths of the city and those who perished in the hospital. Looking up at a man in an orange coat. Unable to move. Tired and missing a leg helpless except to raise a week arm as a bayonet pierced his ribs.
The mind of the mason complete the mage switched to pulling a mind together for the dead woman. A memory fading out on what should have been a wonderful day. A girls wedding ruined as armed men in orange coats spilled in on the event. The groom skewered before the bride's eyes. The sun priest screaming for her to run. Then a pain in the neck and a quick descent into the darkness.
A man in sorrow gasped for air as his wife's murderer laughed before him. The suffocating man a sun mage his opponent an evil man who also blessed by the sun. Hatred grew into desperation as he coughed uncontrollably. Unable to burn in the scorching flames around him thanks to his blessings but unable to breath when surrounded by the fire. Unheard curses wheezed out between coughs as the world went black.
After a hundred more deaths played out in his mind the dead woman had a mind. The wights looked at their creator with reverence. The disarmed solder was brought to the tired mage. The man to week to resist was touched by the moon mage and drained to ease the pains shared with the dead.
Albie looked at his new children looking at the dead man and woman.
"I name you Puss and Tragedy," he declared. "Listen to your elder sibling Scab and help him in his chores. He is the oldest of your kind and a bright child. Learn from him so we may gain our revenge on those who wronged us.
"Yes father," responded the wights getting of the table and stretching death stiffened limbs.
"Our family grows," Cried Scab in excitement across the mind link.
"Bags still has bestest Babies!" shouted back the rat.
"Week living flesh," responded the wight.
"Smelly two leg," responded the rat.
"Stupid! Rat brained fool!" snaped Scab.
"Smelly two leg!" retorted the rat.
The newly risen wights looked at Albie. They had yet to learn how to fully control their bodies but the slackened jaws and looks in their eyes spoke of confusion.
"Stop arguing you two you are scaring the young ones!" ordered Albie.
The voices in his mind quieted.
"I shall return to the lab to work on the birds," he declared. "Scab teach your younger siblings the ropes. Bags… continue being a good mom."
Yes, was the response he got as he walked to the moon laboratory. Inside cages full of crows shrieking for help.