RESURRECTION– I. The Simulacrum

Despite his best efforts, the legend of Korak the Grim and his Congregation of the Crimson Shroud spread throughout the Realm of Shyish. The Red-Hooded Wraith was attempting to keep his ghastly procession's size and exploits from growing too large in order to avoid the attention of Nagash and his Mortarchs, lest he and his minions be subjugated into one of Lady Olynder's ongoing campaigns. Korak had no desire for drawn-out engagements, and he kept his bloody harvest constantly moving from region to region.

 

 

The nomadic nature of the Congregation of the Crimson Shroud might have made little sense to their victims, who experienced them as a passing terror –striking without warning and then gone, leaving more than enough survivors to tell the tale– but to a keen observer, the pattern of attacks resembled that of an archaeological search grid. Korak was methodically scouring the realm, seeking the soul of his former master, the Necromancer Lord Nieman Kimmel.

 

 

Many of the spirits under Korak's command have been tethered to him since his time in the World That Was –The Crimson Reapers, even the Banshee Queen Olivia and her Choir of Death– for the wraith himself had bound them to his will, but he and Kimmel shared no such link. The necromancer had always allowed Korak his autonomy, but now, without those connective bindings, Korak found himself in a potentially never-ending search for one particular soul among millions.

After years of searching without success, Korak turned to a different tactic– If he could replicate the magical artifacts that Nieman Kimmel remembered from his life, and provide a suitable vessel for him to inhabit, perhaps there was a way to make the necromancer's soul come to him.

 

 

With the aid of his guardians of souls, Korak fabricated a simulacrum, a formless body that a soul could enter and configure into a suitable likeness. Once that body was infused with enough dark energy, and surrounded by Kimmel's artifacts, its magical aura would shine like a beacon to attract his soul like a moth to a flame.

 

 

The spirit torment Zeracon the Soul Hunter bound the simulacrum with a shacklegheist chain which could house Nieman Kimmel's soul if it were to arrive before enough magical energy had been accumulated. Korak's plan was set in motion...

 

 

To be continued...