As Calvartem raced across the terrain, following the road from a distance, he spotted a carriage going the other way along the distance road. He considered for a moment turning and intercepting it, for it was heading towards his Dungeon, but he decided to leave it. He would soon have whatever town they had originated from under his control, and once they found his Dungeon they would have no option other than to turn back or be slaughtered by the undead which would rise at their presence.

Sure enough it was only after a few more minutes of high-speed riding did a village come into view, placed strategically to service any travellers along these roads. Around it were farms, fields of wheat and corn and herds of sheep, cattle and pigs. Calvartem slowed to a trot as he considered how he would attack this settlement. While it was small and did not appear well defended, the diminutive size also meant that there would be a shortage of corpses. As he considered where he might get his first walkers from, a creative thought struck him. What this village lacked in humans it made up for with livestock, and there was bound to be livestock which had died naturally and not been butchered up and eaten. He trotted up to a pasture full of cattle, which lowed and moved away from him and his steed, and cast out his staff and tendrils of black fire. Those tendrils snaked their way along the ground and into tall grass just outside the pasture. Sure enough, the grass rustled and up rose the skeletons of three cattle, two cows and a bull, with their eyes possessed by Calvartem's signature flame. Nodding, Calvartem set them against the rest of the herd, which panicked as the bodies of the dead came to bite and gouge and kill.

All this commotion quickly caught the attention of the farmers, who quickly turned and ran back to the village to call whatever defences they had against the Necromancer who was slaughtering their livelihood. Calvartem ignored them, for he was confident that he would be capable of handling whatever pathetic resistance they could garner and once he had assembled a herd of undead cattle he would be able to stampede through the village with ease. Of course, the cattle themselves were putting up a fight, desperately trying to protect themselves against the beasts hunting them. Calvartem, on the back of Shadowmane, circled the cattle and herded them, ensuring that none escaped either by scaring them back into the group or killing them with his magic. As more died, things would get easier as he summoned more walkers. The nature of his hordes often meant that he faced exponential growth, starting small then, after a period of hard work, quickly becoming unstoppable and overwhelming.

Back in the village, the local watch had been notified, but they were small and only really equipped to handle criminals and drunkards, not a powerful sorcerer. The watch raced against the clock to find anyone who could help them defend. They had heard news that a fire priest was currently in town, so they desperately tried to find him.