The regeneration cream was neat. After I broke the seal, the several thousand year old preservation magic on the fat stone jar dissipated. Exposure to the air turned the substance from an ivory color to a yellow off-white. Although the label had said it was a cream, the consistency was more like a rubbery putty.

Unfortunately, there were no directions on the container, so I had to improvise how to best use it. First, I slathered the product on my arm stump, then the cut on the unattached limb. Next, while Silas held my arm in place, I gently dabbed the alchemical around the circumference of the cut. Once the circle was complete, I noticed a cool spreading sensation as the magical properties took effect. A moment later, the cream simply transformed into a slime-like substance resembling my pallor. Just like that, it became my new skin!

I bent and flexed my newly repaired arm to test the limitations, since I couldn’t feel things like soreness. Thankfully, the limb moved like I’d never had an injury. The cream impressed me so much, I immediately set about putting it on my shoulder wound, and even the hole I still had through my foot from my very first day of waking up in this world.

I still owe you for that, Graham. What you did to Oran was between you two, but that was my foot you stuck.

Whilst I tended my injuries, I questioned Silas about the prison, and did my best to ignore the terrified looks of the others. The horror of watching me eat the abatminable snowvampire hadn’t quite left their mind’s eye. Watching me pull flesh out of a jar and plug up my holes probably hadn’t helped with ingratiating myself into their clique either.

“How often do guards come through?” I asked my new best friend.

“Once a day. Never mor’en that.” Silas said.

“So, what happens when they come?”

“They let us out. We go mine. Turn in our stones fer food. No stones, no food.” Silas explained. The mechanical explanation had a terrible finality, despite his easy inflection.

It also explained why they were all so underfed. Mana stones were purportedly rare, even in mana rich areas like the Ossuary. But I had to give it to House Learmonth, evil though the scheme was, food for stones was one hell of a motivator. The audacity of the evil was going to go a long way in easing my conscience when I started murdering them.

“How much longer until they return?” I asked.

“A bit,” was Silas’s answer.

I was just about to ask him to elaborate, but realized the futility before I opened my mouth. It wasn’t like the prisoners had a timepiece, and I’m positive their horrid existence blended together like a continuous bad dream. The only option I had was to wait and see.

“Alright, how many come?”

“Two of ‘em. One big bastard and an ugly one.”

“Skills? Classes? Levels?”

Silas shook his head and scratched his ragged beard. I took it to mean he didn’t know the information, but I allowed him time to respond. Just in case that was his way of putting together thoughts.

After a minute, I addressed the others behind him. “Anyone else know something? The more you tell me, the better chance we have of getting out of here.”

A man covered in poorly drawn prison tattoos surprised me by speaking up. "Helga's a bruiser and Joshua’s a rogue. Don’t let him get behind ya. He’s real good with that knife of his, and fast."

I nodded at the man in thanks, but he glanced away before my eye could catch his.

“Can I take this?” Silas asked.

I looked over to find him lifting the skin kilt that had been around the vampire’s waist. The garment was disgusting to my sensibilities, but I didn’t hold it against the old timer. Warmth of any kind was probably a hot commodity for these men.

“Go for it,” I said.

Silas was so thin that the savage attire wrapped around him like a toga. Wearing the dark brown blood-spattered outfit around his chest and waist gave him a measure of humanity back. I could see it in his shining eyes and newly straightened posture. Either that, or he just really enjoyed looking the part of an insane shit-covered butcher. Though that possibility didn’t bother me at the moment.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I had other things on my mind.

“I need a moment,” I told my audience, heading away from them toward the other side of the cell. They didn’t trust me and I reciprocated the feeling. I didn’t want to be left in a vulnerable state in their presence. Fear could do silly things to a person’s decision making, and I knew that as much as anyone after my little Donner Party.

The vampire had given me mana, but I wasn’t sure how much. Stuck in a blood crazed cannibal frenzy, I hadn’t exactly been paying attention to what was going on around me. Still, my codex had nudged me to check in on it when I could.

After creating as much distance as I could, I leaned against the opposite wall, gave everyone a look of warning, then entered the codex.

You have sufficient mana to advance a tier III → V

Please choose a level 5 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.

* Bone Armor: Pulls together nearby bones to form a magical set of armor that protects the wearer.

* Cloud of Entropy: A draining mist rolls into an area, rotting all living things it touches.

Note: This is the final selection of spells from the Tome of the Mad Prophet Derzahla. More sacrifices are required to the demon “Shal’Kagor” for further magical power.

A mixed bag of news if I’d ever seen it. Being so close to the level six evolution made me feel stoked, but finding out that my magical progression was at an end was incredibly disappointing. Though it made sense. It wasn’t like I expected to become an archmage from those three sacrifices—if it were that easy, then there would be a lot more demon cultists out there.

Yet, I couldn’t deny that I relied on my magic. Except for the spell Control Undead, all of my magic had become pivotal to my plans. More than that, I really loved being able to just do things with my mind. Magic was just too much fun, and I hated the thought that I was at the end of the road.

The possibility existed that I could kill more cultists in the future, but I didn’t think that was likely. For starters, I knew almost nothing about how to enact a proper sacrifice. And that was saying nothing of the moral ramifications of doing so. I still felt a little dirty about sending those buttmunchers to hell, but with so much happening in my unlife, it wasn’t like I had time to sit and think about it.

For all that, my final spell choice was an easy one; I picked Cloud of Entropy. I’d already wanted the spell, and it was probably going to be incredibly useful.

That done, I moved on to my final trait selection for Zombie Infiltrator.

Please choose a trait for your tier. Zombie Infiltrator - (V)

* Infectious Blood - your blood carries a deadly pathogen, contact can infect a creature with zombification.

* 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.

* Parasitic Puke - you can contaminate a water source with worms from your stomach. Living beings that die return as undead.

* Act Scene - you can perform a task that a nearby living person might do.

* Sense Wards - you have an instinct for wards, their range and if they will deter you.

Only the three focused on enhancing my perception were useful to my mind.

Sense the Horde would always be useful whilst there was a huge mob of undead wandering around. But, after that, I would never have a use for it again. Especially since I had no plans to create my own zombie army. The idea of murdering innocent peasants to increase my power was just too school shooter-y. Anyone that did so was a grade A piece of shit.

On the other hand, Track Blood had a lot of practical application. Being able to hunt down my enemies and save living folks in trouble was nothing to sneeze at. Every time this ability came up, I had to really think about whether I should take it. Blood hounding through miles of forest to hunt down monsters was entirely appealing. There was a vast open world of danger outside of the cities that would allow me to make use of the selection.

Finally, the new ability, Sense Wards, sounded befitting of an undead that needed to get to the juicy living hiding behind walls. Most of the major roads and cities in Allwyn had wards carved into their structures. The kingdom compelled prosecuted classers to maintain the wards, amongst the other punishments.

I had had little leave to think about them though, being that I’d spent all my waking time in this world stuck underground. When I finally made my way to the surface, wards were going to be an enormous problem for me. Valbryde had wards against different monster types everywhere. And the more I sifted through Oran’s memories on the matter, the more I realized that I only really had once choice.

I selected Sense Wards, hoping that the trait might not only help me avoid them, but also lead to a power that would help me bypass them altogether. I’d considered Act Scene might also do something similar, but I wasn’t willing to risk a choice on a gamble. I wanted something I knew would be good.

With my final selection done, I opened my eyes and looked at the sad men cramped in the cell with me.

“Alright everyone,” I started. “I know that all of you are afraid right now, and you have every right to be. But I plan on getting the hell out of here, and that is only going to work if you stop huddling together like cowards and help me figure out how we can get out of this mess.”

Then we talked.