“...The squirrels with the slit throats would bleed out of their necks like waterfalls. It would all gush out fairly quickly. Cleaning up was a mess. The 2nd trial fared better. With the slit throat sewed up, they lasted a whole 10 seconds longer before slumping down motionless. The ones I crushed with a rock would only twitch their legs back to life. Specimens should be healed before they’re resurrected. Will this scale to humanoids?”

“It was something like a game, hearing the rumors about how graverobbers had dug up the cemetery for the 3rd time this year. If they ever caught me, I’d be hanged.

The bodies I recovered are doing well. They’re moving around, but decomposition continues. One of them fell over my soup. They’re aimless. No kind of head activity. Can I make them do chores?

Hasn’t been dead in quite some time. Some bodies were unusable.

Should I dig up mother?”

“Entry 26 (the words are messily scrawled). One of them bit me. Fine tuned my spell to make them smarter. Guess that part of the brain for hunger was revived. Bit off 3 of my left hand fingers.”

"A Minute Lesser Animate Dead Spell Scroll"