Terridus had taken weeks to find a shadow where a proper subject dwelled and was very pleased to find the one he. His spell had tipped him off to the subject's location and he had spent an other full week fallowing the subject to and from work. The man was some kind of scientist who worked in a large office building and laboratory in a large city on the shadow. The man seemingly kept to himself and also lived alone. Terridus was pleased to find such a similar shadow of himself to add to his collection. In the week, he memorized the man's habits and schedule and planned the best time to strike.
Terridus waited in the dark at the man's house and hid from sight. When the man returned home for the day, Terridus allowed him to shower and get ready for bed. Once the man was asleep Terridus came out from hiding and cast a spell in the room. All the air in the room left and the man slowly died in his sleep. After the first few experiments, Terridus had landed on this as the best way to kill a subject without damaging important parts of the body. Once done, Terridus snapped out a body bag and put the subject inside it. He then walked the pattern back to Tennebrae.
At the Praetor's pyramid on Tennebrae, Terridus's legion of Necro-techinitians worked on arming and outfitting the army of Tennebrae. Standard units were made up of the dead of Tennebrae, but a special unit was being assembled by the Praetor himself and a select few necro-techinitians. They held their workshop separate from the standard facilities and Terridus himself oversaw the work personally.
When he returned from his recent expedition out in shadow, his special crew was summoned and work continued on Terridus's special unit. The unit was to be his personal guard while here on Tennebrae. Extra details and care went into the crafting of these models. The standard design was simply, Terridus wanted a solider that would fallow orders without question so the concept of undead was the first pick. Although he lost some problem solving that normal soldiers had, the benefits of an undead army far outweighed the cons. As undead, the soldiers would not need to be supplied food, shelter or even pay like some traditional armies. As undead they were immune to illnesses, starvation, fatigue, or even demoralization. They could be deployed to shadows that didn't maintain conditions suitable for life and would stand guard till ordered otherwise.
The only problem became operating in shadows that didn't allow for magic. Undead animation required magic and on shadows where such things didn't work the soldiers became little more than well equipped corpses. The infusion of technology became paramount to their design. The reenforcement of the units with metal made them much more durable and allowed them to function on shadows were magic did not work. Terridus set out to create the perfect force for Tennebrae and himself.
Most of the royal family of Amber scoffed at the idea of his forces, but few understood why he did what he did. Where as other shadows used it's inhabitants to protect it, Tennebrae avoided risking it's citizen's lives in combat this way. The citizens of Tennebrae would not be sacrificed by it's lord in war. Most saw Terridus as cold and detached from the concept of life, seemingly having embraced so much death. But it was his love for the living that he did the things on his shadow that he did. With out air, few things could live. That included micro organisms that would normally cause illness, the people of his shadow would never know such things. With his army of mechanized undead, his people would never see the front line in mass. With advances in technology brought to the shadow, the citizens of Tenebrae enjoyed comfortable lives.
Terridus was only slightly aware of the his conception that the rest of the family had for him though. What they thought of him and his work was not of his concern. Being left to his research and work was all he really cared about, or was it?
