The terrain was getting steeper as the mining town got closer, but that hardly bothered Calvartem. Although he was not fast nor agile, he did not feel pain, hunger or weariness and could walk indefinitely, regardless of how taxing it would be on a mortal body. The walk did take longer than his imps had managed, though, as their ethereal bodies allowed them to float over the terrain and drift along at higher speeds, but Calvartem did not mind spending a day to get to his destination.

It was mid-morning when the Necromancer finally came with-in view of the town. It was built in front of a cliff and the houses had stone walls with thatch roofs. Two large horse-drawn carts were currently being filled with stone and ores. They did not seem to be heavily defended. Before he approached the town Calvartem detoured to the local river, where struck the ground with his staff and tendrils of black fire spread out around him. They found four human corpses with-in reach, three of them from inside the river. He had chosen the river to search because humans, to his inconvenience, typically did not leave their dead lying around. However, if the body can not be retrieved, such as when they drown in a river, it is left there. The three walkers from the river were mostly bone, their flesh eaten off by the fish of the river. The other walker was rather rotten, with water from the river having soaked through the soil and into him. Having his initial forces, Calvartem made his advance.

He guided his walkers so they would enter the town unseen, so they would have some element of surprise. They entered through the back of a house. A woman in the house heard the door open and someone walk in, so she cautiously went to investigate, and screamed when she saw the four rotten visages lunging towards her. The zombies made quick work of her, tearing flesh with their teeth. Two young children, who were in the house and heard their mother scream, also went to investigate, and they were terrified at the gory scene they beheld. They did not have to live with the trauma for long, as the zombies then turned on them too. Calvartem watched on approvingly, and once the three people were dead he raised them up as walkers too.

The seven walkers, as they exited the house, were met by a man who had rushed over to see what was wrong. As soon as he saw the undead walking towards him he turned and ran the other way, shouting that there were zombies in their town. Initially the other people were baffled and thought the man had gone crazy or something, but moments later they saw the walkers out on the street hunting down those who are nearby and reacted similarly, fleeing from the zombies. The walkers shambled around individually, but they were unable to catch up to any of the fleeing townsfolk before resistance arrived, in the form of miners variously armed with pickaxes, spades, bows and rock-bending magic. They were not skilled fighters, but neither were the walkers and they were desperately trying to defend their town, so the walkers were effectively held at bay, and half of them were incapacitated, their bodies rendered useless for fighting by loss of limbs or support.

Calvartem was not worried by this apparent defeat. While the walkers kept the town's defence distracted he had found the town cemetery. At a wave of his staff the hands of the dead clawed their way out of the earth and pulled their rotten bodies out with them. Now he had a decent hoard, numbering in the fifties, which he unleashed onto the line of miners which had successfully held back the first seven walkers. The hoard came at their flank, and the rag-tag team was easily outnumbered and overwhelmed by the zombies which swarmed at them. Those which were not slain scattered, and the zombies dispersed after them, spreading through the town to find further prey.

Four people had managed to climb on top of a cart filled with rocks and were quite successfully fending back the zombies. Two wielded mining tools, one a bow and another magically threw rocks. This would not do. Calvartem cast a bolt of black fire at the mage, striking the man dead. The archer saw this happen and shot an arrow at the Necromancer in vengeance. The arrow hit its mark in Calvartem's abdomen, piercing his robe. It passed with little apparent resistance out the other side and stuck into the ground. Calvartem did not so much as flinch, for the arrow had not so much as hit him than pass through him harmlessly, slipping between his ribs. Despite being unharmed, he would not let such a brazen move go unpunished. Calvartem cast another bolt of black fire, but this time he aimed for the stone heap. The magic buried itself into the stones before exploding, hurling rocks around the street and throwing the remaining three men to the ground, where the hoard of walkers finished them off.

Eventually the town had been cleared of living people. Blood, limbs, guts and corpses littered the streets. Calvartem ordered the walkers which were still standing to return to their graves, then he summoned ten imps. He set the shadowy beings the task of building another spire here, so he would be able to further increase his reach and power. As the imps got to work, making use of the stone which had already been harvested by the prior inhabitants, Calvartem withdrew to the darkness of the mine to ponder strategy. His greatest weakness was that he was slow, so if he is away then his Dungeon is not very well defended until he returns, and by then it would likely be too late. He needed some way to get around faster, so he decided that he would need to make some kind of steed. He also noted that the walkers also had the weakness of being easily outrun. A new creation would be needed that is faster, able to strike down those who flee. As the hours wore on, he continued pondering while the imps continued building.