“I’m going to kill your entire family, Farrow! I will eat your mother alive!” Algeron screamed in a nearly incoherent rage.
Five of his men continued attacking against the door, but whatever force was protecting the door held. Blasts of hellfire, axe swings, and even shoulder slams had marred the wood, but nothing else.
Roger, Rosamund’s former comrade, had taken up a position next to her with his bow drawn. The sudden maneuver had spoiled her plans, as she knew well how perceptive the scout was. She’d quit trying to cut Mansfield’s bonds with the fork, knowing that her movements would draw his attention. Then, he’d figure out that she was no longer tied up, and that would be a disaster.
As Rosamund sat next on the ground wondering if she could take Roger’s dagger before he’d react, a movement at the top of the tower caught her attention. The black armored shape of the skeletal champion that protected Oran appeared, pulled back its arm in a throw, then shot something at Roger.
A blurry object flew at the scout, but the eagle eyed man noticed. Roger leapt to the side, right before impact, and shot an arrow back. Rosamund didn’t need another invitation. She leapt forward, ripping the rope off of her wrists and snatched up the missile, which turned out to be a freezing ass stiff piece of ice in a weird shape. A blade with two pointed ends connected to a square by two different spokes.
Roger heard her running up behind him and turned to fire an arrow at her chest. Rosamund used Dodge to roll under the arrow, springing up on her hands and knees and jamming the ice skate into his upper thigh. The scout screamed in pain while cuffing her across the mouth.
Rosamund leaned with the blow to reduce its damage, then kicked out with her right foot into Roger’s injured leg. With a curse, her old teammate stumbled sideways. She jumped up to her feet with a flip kick, only to see Roger standing there with his bow drawn and a yellow-toothed smile.
Another icy blade crashed into the back of his head, coming out the front of his face.
The entire fight lasted mere seconds, but Rosamund didn’t take chances. She looked up to see if the other cultists noticed the skirmish, but they hadn’t. They were all so focused on the door they didn’t even see the threat above them. And now the only person who could have warned them was dead.
Oran was not done.
Mouth wide open, Rosamund watched as the skeletal champion lifted an enormous block of ice with the frozen corpse of a scantily clad woman, and dropped it directly on top of the besieging men.
Her weird zombie cousin moaned something like, “yoooms yaaawaaay”, right before the impact. The corpse ice utterly crushed the five men, sending blood and gore in a spray outward far enough to coat the remaining four cultists.
Algeron lost his mind over the massacre, bellowing out a primal yell of hate.
Oran popped up, smiling like a toddler that’d stolen a chocolate, and started throwing glass jars at him. The first caught the man to his right, covering his arm and face with a yellow powder that sent him into a sneezing fit. A second jar crashed against Algeron’s horn, spraying his skinned face with a turd-like substance.
“Mooo keeem,” Oran said, smiling, and giving the drenched cult leader a thumbs up. “Goooood foooorr skkkkiiimmm.”
That grating, hissing laugh that followed put Rosamund’s nerves on edge.
The skeletal champion joined in the fun and started tossing down more bottles with far more force and accuracy. One man collapsed instantly, having a jar that didn’t break bash in his head. The other three beat back a hasty retreat, shooting hellfire blasts and poison darts upward at the tower.
A ghostly young girl crawled from a shadow next to the pile of crushed corpses, holding up her hands and enchanting a spell. Algeron, who had been busying himself with cleaning off the smoking poo on his face, looked down in horror to see his drenched horn fall off.
Right when one man spotted the new threat from the ghost, a cloud of darkness blanketed over him and his companions. Not a moment afterward, the skeletal champion threw itself from the tower, holding its sword in an overhand strike.
Rosamund decided it was time to run.
⬲
Well, that was fun.
I strolled into the courtyard, head held high like a conquering hero. Rissah’s Darkness ability had drifted away into the ether, leaving behind a gruesome sight. My skeletal champion stood over the three cultists, who looked like they’d been in a blender. The spell had obscured its sight along with theirs, forcing my minion to just walk in and swing his blade randomly.
Unsurprisingly, the seven-foot-tall skinned leader of the group was still alive somehow. He was missing an arm, and bleeding from every part of his body whilst laying in a pool of blood.
His heavy breathing took a lot of effort out of him, but didn’t detract from the hateful glare he had for me. That ancient Moon Harvest Cream of the 2nd degree had really done a number on his face. One horn had rotted off, and a bald patch of hair on his forehead still smoked and sloughed off dripping skin. Also, his eye melted out, and it was super gross.
Can you even skin a skinned man?
“This isn’t the end for me,” he croaked. “I will be at Lord Alrinath’s side. We will never stop hunting you.”
I gave him a thumbs up, then stabbed him through the good eye with my spear.
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The mother of all mana rushed through me, shooting me all the way to tier four.
You have sufficient mana to advance a tier I → IV
What the hell was that? He wasn’t that strong, was he?
Confused as I was by the outpouring of mana, an instinct guided me down a path that I really didn’t want to think about. He’d given me so much, because he’d been alive. That cultist was the first person I’d killed with my own hands. That sacrificial ritual had drained the cultists from before, stealing all the juice. And my skeleton knight killed the entire team of adventurers for me. Until now, I hadn’t gotten a single drop of mana from killing a living person.
I knew why, too. It was because I had a monster core. The trickle of mana I’d been getting from killing undead was probably the same a classer would get from killing other classers. Rarely did they hunt each other for that very reason. It was almost always more lucrative to chase down a monster and slay it than it was other people.
I didn’t know how I felt about this revelation. On the one hand, getting all that unexpected mana was exciting, but on the other, it meant I’d been getting ripped off all this time! Killing cultists and scumbags didn’t really bother me, but I had no intention of hunting down living people.
This put me in a situation that most monsters wouldn’t have to deal with. My monster hunting would always feel a little unrewarding now.
I sat my ass down on the vampire queen again to go over my codex.
“Did you level up?” Rissah asked.
I nodded. Classers like her didn’t have tiers like I did, but it was essentially the same thing from her perspective.
“What are you going to do about those two?” she said, pointing at Rosamund and that noble.
The two of them were obviously prisoners of the cultists, and I still wanted nothing to happen to the girl. So I just shrugged, and let them take the supplies. They were in an awful hurry, afraid that I’d do something to them.
Then, with a thought, I pointed to Rissah, then pointed at the two.
Rissah tilted her head, trying to take my meaning. I pointed up toward the roof, showing her they would travel to the surface. Then mimed walking with my fingers.
After a second, she picked up on my clue.
“I want to go, but I don’t think I’d be welcome,” she said with a tired voice.
I nodded. It was true, after all.
I gave the mental command for my champion and ghoul hand to strip the bodies, then I closed myself off and into the codex.
Please choose a level 4 spell. Refusal to pick a spell will eliminate the possibility of selecting new spells from the Tome of the Mad Prophet Derzalha at later levels.
* Control Undead - Undead more than two levels below you will obey your commands. Any undead lower than you will not attack you.
* Create Skeleton - once per day you can create a skeletal servant. You can have one servant per level, and they will increase in strength as you gain power.
* Primal Fear - a spell that will fill a living subject with a fight-or-flight response.
This choice was one of the hardest I’ve had to make. All three spells were useful and had a place. Control Undead would make harvesting lower tier monsters easier, and possibly allow me to turn the tables on a necromancer. Meanwhile, Create Skeleton would give me more minions. Next time I got outnumbered, I might not have such an easy time, and more boney bros would help with that. Finally, Primal Fear would likewise even the odds in a fight. And, what’s more, it would be the first ranged spell I could use against humans. Especially useful if I didn’t want to kill them.
Conversely, Control Undead and Primal Fear were only situationally useful. I’d need weak undead roaming around or a living subject to get anything out of them. So, the result was actually pretty easy. I took Create Skeleton.
Please choose a trait for your tier. Zombie Stalker - (III)
* Infectious Blood - your blood carries a deadly pathogen, contact can infect a creature with zombification.
* Crushing Bite - your bite can crush bone, bend metal, and rend flesh. Your teeth are reinforced.
* Sense the Horde - you have an instinctive compass for nearby concentrations of other undead.
* Track Blood - you can smell the exposed blood of the living and track them down by it.
* Hear Heartbeat - a pounding heartbeat is like a whistle to you. Your range increases the more afraid the person is.
* Parasitic Puke - you can contaminate a water source with worms from your stomach. Living beings that die return as undead.
I’d already wanted Hear Heartbeat, and the latest selection added to the pool was disgusting. That was a straightforward choice. On to my tier 4 choice.
Please choose a level 4 spell. Refusal to pick a spell will eliminate the possibility of selecting new spells from the Tome of the Mad Prophet Derzalha at later levels.
* Control Undead - Undead less than two levels below you will obey your commands. Any undead lower than you will not attack you.
* Primal Fear - a spell that will fill a living subject with a fight-or-flight response.
Knowing that mostly undead would be in my future, I took Control Undead. Pleased with my sudden progress, I checked over my codex.
Name: Oran Farrow
Race: Undead
Level: 4
Tier: Zombie Stalker - IV
Level Advantages:
* Rigor Mortis - you can selectively use your stiffening limbs to achieve a death grip or relax it to increase motor function.
* Spring Forward - you can make a quick one second run or jump forward. Usable once a minute.
* Necrotic Fortitude - your body becomes much more difficult to injure.
* Hide - as long as you remain motionless in sufficient darkness, you are invisible.
Tier Traits:
* Halted Decay - significantly reduces your rate of decay.
* Verminbane - you emit an aura that repels non-magical vermin.
* Poisonous Gas - your stomach builds up a toxic gas that you can expel once a day.
* Skulking Lurcher - your feet make no noise when you move.
* Masking Smell - you block the scent of yourself and nearby undead, making it easier to surprise the living.
* Hardy Bones - your skeletal structure is infused with death mana, making it harder to injure.
* Ambush Predator - attacking an enemy that isn’t expecting it will send out a burst of necrotic energy, enhancing your damage.
* Hear Heartbeat - a pounding heartbeat is like a whistle to you. Your range increases the more afraid the person is.
Spells:
* Level 1: Sense Undead - extend your sense to locate undead near you.
* Level 2: Reanimate Hand - reanimate the hand of a corpse to assist you.
* Level 3: Degenerating Touch - you disrupt the mana flows of a creature, weakening its physical strength for a short time.
* Level 3: Famine - you cause food and plants to spoil in an area.
* Level 4: Create Skeleton - once per day you can create a skeletal servant. You can have one servant per level, and they will increase in strength as you gain power.
* Level 4: Control Undead - Undead more than two levels below you will obey your commands. Any undead lower than you will not attack you.
Blessings:
* Necrometry - you can now sense and use skills from the bones of the dead.