The Decomposing Corpse

William Brevin was a mage of renown at a major university of magic. He was legitimately wealthy, had a family and was doing very well for himself, but he was at that age when people first start fearing that death will one day come to them, and he wanted to do something about it. And then it came to him, literally blown on the wind, a partly burned scroll that had a spell on it, that he thought might be the solution to his problem. He didn’t care that if it had been burnt, it had probably been burned for a good reason and had escaped the flames by chance.

He took it home and cast it upon himself, and after a moment of weakness, he felt fine, and went for a walk in the woods. It was a warm summer day, and suddenly his muscles all froze up at once and he fell to the ground, unable to call for help or to cast a spell to protect himself. He was stuck for several hours, barely able to close his eyes before they stuck shut, and flies and ants descended upon his body in far greater numbers then they normally would have done.

Several hours later he was able to get up , shoo the insects from him and get back home, where a look in the mirror revealed the horrifying truth. His body was visibly decaying, his veins and arteries were marbled, his belly was starting to swell with gasses that he had to constantly burp and fart out of his body, and if he couldn’t get help soon he would lose his sight and quite possibly his mind as his body decomposed further. Rushing outside to try and get help, he collided with an off duty soldier who took one look at him and tried to draw his sword, mistaking him for one of the Undead.

In the struggle, William bit the soldier in the throat, killing him- and the rot and decay left his body. Hiding the body in an alleyway, William raced to the university in the hope of getting help from his colleagues, only to find himself unable to enter it’s hallowed halls because of the anti-Undead wards placed upon the building to keep Undead of all levels, from Zombie to Lich, outside. He hurried home again, and felt little painful pricks as the fly eggs that had been laid in his body earlier in the woods started to hatch. Using levitation magic, he pulled them out before they could do much harm, and felt for his heartbeat, feeling none.

He was now an Undead, and to avoid decomposition within a few days in summer and a few weeks in a colder climate, he realised he would have to kill another human and bite their throat every few days. If caught, he would surely be executed as both a murderer and an Undead on top of that. Undead in his country had no rights, even the intelligent ones. He decided to leave his family and travel to the mighty city of Terrasquestone in search of a cure to the spell he had cast upon himself.

Although he didn’t know it, the part of the scroll that had burned away was the part that warned those who cast it upon themselves to mummify themselves to avoid their body decomposing.

William knows powerful magic, including combat magic, but as an Undead, something as simple as a line of salt laid as a charm against the Undead will keep him out of an area. In hot weather he must slay someone every three days as his body rapidly rots, in winter, he only needs to kill once a week. If he waits too long, his sight will go, his mind will decompose to a zombie level, and soon afterwards his muscles and tendons will snap and his maddened spirit will be trapped within his immobile corpse, unable to pass on to the afterlife.

He hates the situation that he is in and is desperate to lift the spell, hoping that when he does so, if he ever manages to do so, he does not die on the spot.