I, Karol Dragomir, looked over my shoulder, taking what I knew would be my last look at the Endmere University of Arcane Arts. "Unimaginative asses, all of them," I thought as I adjusted the pack on my back and started down the street toward the East Gate of the city. Apparently, while the Masters at the university had no qualms using the corpses obtained "for research purposes" to teach students of the Necromantic Arts how to animate corpses, they balked at the thought of even trying to instill these empty shells with enough consciousness to be useful. This was a challenge I had been thinking about for six years -- since I arrived at the university and saw the mindless ones sweeping hallways in the library corridors.

My instructors claimed that attempting to reawaken the mind of the dead was immoral... against the will of the gods.  "This coming from the same instructors that gleefully teach us to crush the bones of a living being from within... to choke the life out of a victim from across a room... they dare to judge something to be immoral?"  I spat onto the street as I recalled their hypocrisy.

I should have been preparing my elixirs for the first test of the process.  I had been working on these formulae in secret for the past two years.  Countless hours were spent poring over tomes ancient and new in the university library. Still more time was spent in deep discussions with the mutagenic practitioners of alchemy - always careful to keep the details of my plan secret. I could not sleep, at least not restfully.  Even in my dreams, I saw possibilities... things to try... avenues of research to explore.

I remember the determination I felt as my desire coalesced into a concept, and my joy as that concept sharpened into a plan. I was sure I would produce what I sought: an undead servant capable of comprenending more than one or two simple commands... a servant that would actually be useful. I had even envisioned demonstrating my theory with those short-sighted instructors at my side; I took glee in imagining their gasps of amazement as my creation responded as a thinking being would.

Instead, I was walking through the East Gate of Endmere, headed deeper into the Frontier Lands to find some town... some village... quiet enough and remote enough to allow me to finish my experimentation in peace.  I would need to find a village with a graveyard - and a place to set up a workspace  where I would not be disturbed. A place where the superstitious locals would not even know I was there, for I knew the way the common folk viewed a Necromancer - they would not want me reanimating their loved ones.  But what choice was there.  I needed to find a place to complete my work.