After over a year, Dezen finally considered himself strong enough to start his plan of protecting caravans. He already had found a few customers, so he just had to wait for them to come to Aren.
Another part of preparation was making spells.
Dezen, with the help of Alex, thought of dozens of situations he can experience, and made spells especially for them. It made him sure, that he will get reputation of competent mercenary, which will bring him more customers.
During his first assignment, he will travel to 2 new cities, he has never been to, and end back in the Aren.
Besides being a bodyguard, he will also have to help them travel. For instance, when they will be going through mountains, Dezen will have to get rid of their obstacles, or temporarily repair the road. Since he was informed about it, and the payment is high, he is not complaining.
It started at the Aren. Over 20 big carriages left the town one by one, every surrounded with semi-transparent, green barrier. It wasn't cast by him, but "by" enchanted items of his production. It is supposed not only to protect them from magic attacks, but also to show that he is worth the money.
Dezen wasn't the only mage bodyguard. There was also another man, named Leon, who specialise in the light magic. He protects the caravan during the night, while Dezen does it during the day. He also has enchanted items to protect the caravan, but he will use it when Dezen will be refuelling his.
The first day of travelling went peacefully. The only time Dezen did something, was when rain started, and he created a barrier on the road, on which the carriages went, to prevent them from being stuck in the mud.
After around 12 hours, Leon changed him, letting him finally relax.
Not long after, they set-up a camp. Dezen send some of the undead to patrol the surroundings, and with the rest, helped to set up the palisades around it.
From the undead he took with him, were:
- wendigo
- few birds of different species
- 3 bears
- wolf with normal, and humanoid shapes
- countless bugs
- human
To not make the rest of the people feel uneasy, he equipped the last one (human undead) with armour, he once bought from Church of Alen, long ago, and told them it is results tests with changing shapes.
For himself, he had another, better, armour, and comfortable cloak with many enchantments. Besides them, he also bought enchanted weapons, most of them specially designed for his undead.
The night went peacefully, too. Leon and normal bodyguards were guarding the camp, and even if they didn't notice something, Dezen's undead would hear, or smell it.
Thanks to undead bugs, normal insects couldn't interrupt them in any way, nor touch their food. They could only die and join the servants of Dezen.
The next day seemed to be as peaceful as the previous one, at first.
After 5 hours of his duty, Dezen could smell something strange in the air. It was disgusting, but he couldn't describe. The only thing he could say about it, was that it made him think about salt, rotten meat and fishes.
It made him wary, so he started controlling one of the normal shaped wolves, and ran to the place the smell was coming from.
The further he went, the stronger the smell was. Luckily, he could turn off wolf's sense of smell, what he did from time to time.
He was running in the same direction and after a minute, which felt like 10 seconds, he started seeing some, unknown to him, gas in the air.
He stopped, and focused on it. It was dark-red-black, very thick, thin and long. He couldn't see its source, but there were dozens of lines of that gas. There were also small, barely visible amounts of it, floating freely in the air.
Dezen didn't spend too much time on it, and resumed running after a few seconds.
He did it for a few more minutes, before he realized that the wolf's was being destroyed by that gas. It was hard to notice, because the fur remained untouched, and regeneration abilities of the undead were counteracting to this. The problem was, that the latter at some point was surpassed, making "Dezen" fall.
He stopped for a few seconds, trying to understand what happened. Then Dezen created a barrier around the undead wolf, and used a spell speeding up his regeneration.
At the same time, he told the caravan members to turn back and quickly described the situation. Then, Dezen informed about it Church of Alen, via one of his undead guarding beautiful worms in that strange cave.
When a squad of appropriate mages has been gathered, he helped them get there, using space magic.
To this time, he also found the source of the gas. It was dark-red earth, resembling flesh a little. Dezen surrounded it with a barrier to stop the gas from spreading, and then started sealing it.
Unluckily, due to necromancy nature, his sealing spell is weak, thus he had to use it dozens of times, to see any effect.
When a squad of members of Church of Alen arrived, he sent with them one of the undead wolves, to guide them.
They quickly got there, sealed the source, and then started gathering gas in one place for safety.
After an hour, the road was safe to use again.
Besides this, Dezen was rewarded by the Church of Alen for informing them about this danger, and helping with stopping it.
This night, when they set up a camp, Dezen didn't go to sleep. Instead, he took some of his undead, and went hunting.
The area where they stopped was known from being inhabited by wendigos. Years ago, they were terrorising humans, but now, they prefer to avoid them, thanks to years of hunting them by mages.
Currently, it stopped, because they are no longer attacking people, and there is no real gain from killing them, since wendigos are one of the special magical creatures, which belong to magic unobtainable for humans. And even if they could get it, no one would do this as it would be too weak for them.
Dezen was riding one of the wolves, full of excitement and expectations. He believed it will be one of the most important events during protecting caravans. Wendigos he got are great fighters, and now he has a chance to get dozens of them.
He found their lair after 42 minutes. The entrance looked like a big hole in the earth, leading to an underground cave.
Dezen ordered his undead to seek for other entrances, and when he was sure there are none, he blocked it with barrier and Fire Fog.
If someone was standing inside that cave, close to the entrance, they would see Dezen and his servants entering, covered in green flames, which aren't hurting them.
Most of the undead started exploring the lair, he only kept with 2 bears for protection.
At first, Dezen was only supporting his undead in fighting, but soon he got bored and started killing them by himself.
While fighting, Dezen was immobilizing wendigos with barrier, paralysing with spells, and shooting with bullets made out of mana.
Overall, it wasn't difficult, since he took the strongest undead, who absorbed manas of different magics, and also used spell temporarily improving power of chosen undead. After less than an hour, the lair was cleaned, and he gained 47 new wendigo. Dezen could go, and look for more of them, but this number was big enough for him. Also, he wants to save mana production for other creatures.