Prompt: A look at a YouTube series about ancient myths showing the Bystander understanding of Jacob the Necromancer.

A rather simple, but well-made animated image of a shovel with eyes and a mouth appeared on the computer screen, hovering in front of a cartoon field full of holes it had apparently dug. "Welcome back, fellow deep-divers! And a hearty hello to anyone watching one of these videos for the first time. This is Unburied, where we dig down and find all the most interesting, most forgotten tales and amazing lore this world has to offer. My name is Dug, and I promise that's the last of those puns for at least the next thirty seconds. If I break my word, you can all feel free to ground me!"

The view on the screen moved, as though the viewer was backing away and turning, until Dug hurriedly rushed forward, floating through the air with a quick, "Wait, wait, don't go! I swear, we really have an interesting one today. One I can almost guarantee you haven't heard of before." The shovel waggled back and forth excitedly before spinning around to float back to the assortment of holes. "Now, which one was it… this one? No, that's Bulan the moon god, we went over him a couple videos ago. Check the description for a link. This one? Nah, this is the Yazata, we'll get to them next month when we have our collaboration with Mideastern Mythicals."

Abruptly, Dug flipped end over end, before driving himself straight down into a particular patch of dirt with a green circle drawn around it. He tried saying something, but the sound was muffled with the head of the shovel buried deep in the ground. Realizing the problem, he rose back up. "Ah, this is it! Come on over, get a good look at what we're digging into today. Get right in close."

The view zoomed and tipped over, giving the impression of someone leaning close to the dirt until a couple words could be seen etched in the animated ground. It was a name, Jacob Donn.

"That's right, today's video is all about Jacob Donn!" Dug did another quick spin through the air. "And yeah, I can already hear what you're asking from all the way over there. 'Who?' Well, that's why we're here today, isn't it? It'd hardly be a good Unburied video if it was all about the most famous myths everyone hears about in elementary school! We're here for the obscure stuff, the ones that don't have their own Saturday Morning cartoon specials and comic book adaptations. We want some fresh dirt, and that's exactly what Jacob Donn is. So settle right in, grab a shovel that doesn't talk back like I do, and let's see how much we can uncover before this video's over."

The animation, still rather simple but with obvious effort and passion behind it, showed a view from overhead as the shovel head thrust into the dirt, then lifted away to reveal an actual Creative Commons painting of Stonehenge. The voice of Dug continued, while the painting grew to take up the whole screen. "Our story today begins with the Stonehenge, a place the druids--"

"Stop, stop, stop!" A slightly higher-pitched, panicked voice interrupted, accompanied by a cliche record scratch. The view abruptly cut back to Dug hovering by the hole in the ground, with the painting just barely visible in the shallow hole beside him. Another animated tool with a face on it, this one the sort of brush an archeologist would use to carefully reveal an artifact. Its face came with glasses. "Dug, you can't spread that myth, the druids didn't build Stonehenge at all!"

"Oh, hey, Rush!" Dug did a quick spin that way, a clearly exaggerated gasp escaping him. "I didn't expect you to show up until later in the video. Now what's all this you're going on about?"

Rush the Brush bounced up and down anxiously. "That old story you were about to get into about the druids creating Stonehenge, it's wrong, Dug. You can't tell people that. The best idea experts have of when the place started being built was around three thousand BCE. Druids weren't mentioned until about two hundred BCE! They like the place and feel a deep connection to it, sure, but saying druids built it would be like me saying I created peanut butter M&Ms just cuz I feel a deep spiritual connection to them! It's just plain wrong, and I won't let you be wrong."

"Easy, easy there, Rush," Dug drawled. "I promise, little buddy, I wasn't about to spread that myth. I mean, we do like myths and stories here, but only if we make sure people know it's just a myth. Here, why don't you go ahead and read the rest of that line in my script for all the people out there." A stack of papers appeared in the air between them, turning to face the small brush.

Rush leaned in closer, his glasses focusing on the page in question. "Ah, um, let's see… Our story today begins with Stonehenge, a place the druids held important ceremonies at for as long as they existed. But did you know the druids didn't really build Stonehenge? It was constructed some time around 2500 BCE, thousands of years before they existed!" There was a brief pause before the small brush bowed himself contritely. "Aww gee, Dug, I'm really sorry I doubted you."

"It's okay, little buddy," Dug assured him. "I guess that's just what happens when you… rush to judgment." A handful of animated tomatoes came flying in from offscreen to pelt the shovel until he shook himself back and forth to knock the remnants off. "Listen, why don't you stick around and help me tell this story. It's the Jacob one, with all the dead people and-- oops, spoilers."

Once Rush agreed to that, the view shifted back to the painting once more, as Dug continued his voiceover. "Ahem, where was I? Oh yes, Stonehenge. But now that we're back here, let's zoom north-east just a couple miles." The view moved up and over a bit to some bare ground, before the shovel was driven into it and lifted away the dirt to reveal a new picture, this one of several round huts in a grassy field, with clearly primitive people going about their daily lives.

"Here we are, at a place they call Durrington Walls today," Dug's voiceover announced. "This place was a settlement, a whole town really. It was a Neolithic village-- ah, that is, New Stone Age. That's when they introduced farming, domesticating animals, and building real cities to settle down in. And one of those villages was Durrington Walls. Or whatever they called it."

It was Rush who piped up then, his higher voice coming in as the view changed from the picture of that village, to a crudely animated overhead view showing many more huts spread over the field. "This place would've been one of the biggest settlements in that part of Europe back then, maybe even the largest of all, at least for awhile! The big brains out there think there were as many as a thousand of these houses for up to four thousand people. Ah, that might not seem very big by today's standards, but it's sure a heck of a lot for that long ago!"

"This is where our story really begins," Dug put in. "Right here, in this village full of people whose lives probably revolved around building what would one day become what is likely the single most famous ancient monument in the entire world. Unless you put the pyramids over that. But it's up there, anyway. Now, there isn't much to go on here, obviously. It's not like they left a handy dandy journal for us in a nice time capsule. But we do have a couple scrolls that seem to come from back then. Between those and some local legends that were told and retold over the centuries, here's what very little we know about the origins of the man called Jacob Donn.

"Ah," Rush put in, "for a given definition of 'know,' considering the sort of subject we're dealing with."

"Yes, yes, that goes without saying in all our Unburied videos, Rushy," Dug assured him, before pressing on. "Now, the name Jacob Donn is probably just something that sounds kinda similar to what his original name was. Jacob isn't really a name from those days. Whatever he was actually called back then, Jacob grew up in this village. He probably spent his entire childhood watching the men working on Stonehenge, just as they watched their parents, and their parents-- it was built over a really long time, okay? Our buddy Jacob here would've been expected to do the same work as soon as he was old enough. But he didn't want to settle for that sort of life. He didn't want to sit around some old village and tug giant rocks around in a circle until he was too old to do that anymore. Jacob was ambitious."

The shovel appeared again, with the camera following it back to the Stonehenge painting before it dug down into that, lifting up another chunk of dirt to make a deeper hole. One more thrust revealed another picture. This one was clearly made by the same person who had animated the main parts of the video so far, rather than being an actual painting like the other images. It showed a slender, cloaked figure standing on top of one of the central rock formations of Stonehenge itself, with dramatic lightning against a cloudy night sky behind it. In the open space between the two standing rocks below the cloaked figure was a distinctly glowing purple portal.

"So, to avoid being stuck in that sort of ordinary life forever, a very young Jacob went to the stones themselves, a focal point of great magic, and used rituals that were ancient even by his standards, rituals that were almost forgotten by his people. He used these rituals to plead for the ability to live his own life and control his destiny, to control how he lived and died. At least, that's what he intended to do. But rituals are finicky, especially ones that were ancient even in ancient times. And used in a place of great power like Stonehenge, well… let's just say that he asked for the ability to control his own life and death, but what came out of those giant rocks actually gave him the power to control the lives and, far more importantly, the deaths of everyone around him."

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Well that sounds scary," Rush's voice put in, "but what does that actually mean, Dug? D-did he kill all those people in the village?" The latter bit came with a fearful, somewhat stuttering tone.

"Absolutely not," Dug assured him. "No, we're not talking about mass murder here-- I mean, not in this sentence anyway. Right now, we're talking about something a lot more interesting, and more rare than you'd think for a supernatural myths show. But let's uncover it first, shall we?"

With that, the shovel dove into the ground once more, going through the image of the cloaked figure standing atop the stones with the glowing portal. That time, when it pulled away with the dirt to make the hole bigger, there was an image of the same figure at the back of the picture, standing atop a low hill with their arms raised over their head. Colorful lines of energy ran from their fingers to the skeletons, ghosts, and zombies trudging forward along the rest of the image.

Dug's voice was triumphant, while the background sound of thunder played to match the lightning that flickered across the screen. "We're talking about Necromancy today! That's right, I told you guys I had something special for that someday, and here it is, maybe the least-known, least-talked about Necromancer in the world, Jacob Donn. I promise, you aren't ready for this."

He continued then. "So, Jacob went to the stones, using magic to awaken the power there so he could beseech them for help, looking for the ability to control his own life. But like I said, he just wasn't exactly specific enough about what he was asking for. You know those stories where the genie or whatever interprets a wish in a totally different way than the person intended? It's like that. See, these stones were a direct link to… well, we're not sure exactly, but one theory is that they were a link to an Irish god known as the Dagda. Now, the Dagda is a whole can of worms all on his own, but for now let's just say he's pretty strong. They say he's part of the group that drove the Fomorians out of Ireland so humans could settle there. The Dagda's one tough guy."

Rush appeared over the picture, floating down into the hole there to use his bristles to very carefully brush away a bit more dirt above where Jacob's hooded form was, revealing a giant figure looming over the other man and his army of undead. He had his own cloak, along with a crooked staff that was glowing. To his left was a cauldron, while a beautiful harp sat to his right.

With that revealed, Dug went on. "When Jacob, or whatever his actual name was at that point, beseeched him for the ability to control his own life and death, Dagda either misunderstood or willfully changed the wish. He gave Jacob the power to control the deaths of others. Not to kill them, exactly, but to bring life to the dead. Yup, Dagda gave Jacob the ability to raise the dead, to turn them into his servants, his army. How's that for creative reinterpreting of a wish? You don't usually see those things twisted to give the person more power than they were asking for."

Another quick thrust of the shovel through the image of Jacob, the undead army, and Dagda uncovered yet another new picture, in a hole that was deep enough by then for the dirt walls to be visible on all sides. This image was of the town with the round huts again, this time with the cloaked figure standing in front of a firepit while a line of villagers carrying what were clearly dead bodies up to him. Meanwhile, another line was moving away from him, this one made up of ghosts and zombies. Dug eagerly explained, "When they learned about his powers, the other people begged Jacob to bring their dead back. Of course, he couldn't truly resurrect them. But he could allow the living time with the ghosts of their loved ones. And all the dead bodies could be animated-- ah, that means made to move, not turned into a cartoon, to help with the whole building Stonehenge thing. They could be sent in to do the heavy lifting and other grunt work."

"Hey!" Rush came into view, rapidly bouncing back and forth in front of the image of the villagers and undead. "Doesn't that mean Jacob got an even better version of what he was asking for? He wanted something that could make his own life easier, so he wouldn't have to spend his whole existence just building Stonehenge, and he got something that did that for everyone."

"Darn tootin, little buddy," Dug confirmed. "They say that's how Stonehenge was finally finished after so long, thanks to Jacob here. He brought the dead back to do the heavy lifting. Between that and the way he could help the other villagers talk to their dead loved ones, the guy was pretty popular. Well, for a little while anyway. Until a bandit lord from the north heard about what Jacob could do. We don't know much about the guy, or his people, but apparently he had a pretty big army. An army he sent to bring Jacob back to him, so he could raise an even bigger one. An army of the undead, to sweep over the land."

"But wait a just second, Dug," Rush quickly put in, "if this bandit king guy thought Jacob could make him a better army, doesn't that mean Jacob could make a better army for himself and go beat the bandits? That guy just seems to be admitting Jacob is stronger than him, you know?"

Dug agreed. "Oh, it sure seems that way, doesn't it? And he was stronger. But the bandit king had one advantage Jacob didn't. He didn't care how many people died. See, all he really wanted was a big army, and Jacob could raise the zombies to give that to him. But Jacob still cared about the villagers, his friends and family. The bandit king just kept sending in raids, and Jacob couldn't be everywhere at once all the time. More and more of the people he cared about were being killed every day, just to try to force him to agree to do what the evil bandit king wanted."

Right after he said that, the shovel dove into the hole to dig out the next layer. This time, the image showed Jacob standing in front of several burning buildings with the dead bodies of other villagers all around him. There were swords, axes, and arrows sticking out of them to make it clear just what it was depicting. There was even an assassin figure visible in the corner slicing the throat of one of the still-living villagers. More of those living villagers were pointing at Jacob.

"Oh no," Rush lamented, "did Jacob help the bandit king? And are those villagers mad at him?"

"Good catch," Dug noted, "yeah, the villagers blamed Jacob for not doing what the bandit king wanted. They thought he should've just given the man the army he wanted so he wouldn't kill the people they loved. Instead of being angry with the guy responsible for it, they turned on the one trying to stop it. In the end, the bandit king got what he wanted… sort of. Because the villagers took up arms against Jacob. He refused to fight them, and the bandit king got his army. Sure, it wasn't the untouchable undead horde he was looking for, but still. The former villagers joined his people, and Jacob was left behind, still refusing to do what the bandit king wanted."

"B-but what did he do about it?" Rush tentatively asked while anxiously brushing a bit more dirt aside. "If the bandit king had the rest of the villagers on his side, what could Jacob do about it?"

There was a brief pause before Dug quietly explained, "He raised an army. But not one for the bandits. Jacob created an army of undead for himself, and swept over the bandits. He killed all of them. All except the villagers who betrayed him. He spared those people. But in the end, the bandit king and all the rest of his followers were dead. Every last one of them. All but those villagers who betrayed him. Then Jacob took that army of his and left. He walked away from the place that was his home, walked away from Stonehenge itself, and set off on his own. Well, him and his undead followers, of course. But he never went home again."

There was a slight pause before Dug somberly added, "Most say that's why what was once possibly the largest settlement in the world fell into ruins. Because the villagers who were left felt so guilty about their betrayal they couldn't stand to live there anymore."

Once again, the shovel dug out another layer of dirt, changing the image to one of the cloaked Jacob walking off into the sunset while an army of undead trailed after and around him. Soft, rather mournful music played in the background, and part of the image was even animated to make the swarm of ghosts hovering overhead actually move back and forth and glow a bit.

Gently brushing a little extra dirt off the cloaked figure, Rush made a noise of regret before asking, "What happened then? Where did the poor guy go after he had to leave his home?"

"Well, as far as that first set of scrolls and stories go, we don't know exactly," Dug pointed out. "They were from the villagers who betrayed Jacob, and the last time they saw him, he was walking away. All they knew was that he never came back again. Most of them felt pretty guilty about what they did, but it didn't matter. He was gone, so none of them ever found out what happened to him."

"Awww!" Rush lamented. "That's a terrible ending, Dug. You mean the poor guy just got betrayed, left, and no one ever saw him again? Wait, I thought Necromancers were supposed to be the bad guys anyway, how come you made me feel sorry for this one?"

"Ahem, little buddy, why don't you take a look at the runtime of this video," Dug suggested.

The fourth wall cracked a little then, as Rush leaned over to look down at what would be the timeline of the YouTube video. "Holy crap, Dug, there's like an hour and a half left! But you said he was never seen again."

"Nuh uh," the anthropomorphic shovel reminded him, "I said the Stonehenge villagers never saw him again. We've got lots of stories about Jacob from other places all across the world. Some of them don't actually call him Jacob, but we can put two and two together if we go deep enough. We've got stories about Jacob, or someone who was probably supposed to be him, stretching all the way from just after he left Stonehenge four thousand years ago, up to the most recent sighting in World War Two!"

"Wait, wait! You mean there were still myths about this guy showing up that late?" Rush made a noise of confusion and awe. "How could he still be alive?"

Dug chuckled fondly. "Well, I mean, it's not real, remember? We're all about myths and legends here. Anyway, he's a magic Necromancer, no way he'd just die of old age. Now, you ready to hear about some of the other stuff Jacob did?"

"Ready and waiting, sir!" Rush eagerly announced.

The shovel rose over the hole once more. "Good," Dug replied. "We've got a little break for our sponsor first, but as soon as we get back, it'll be time to really get down into it.

"And see what sort of wild supernatural stories we can dig up, in Unburied!"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.