You have sufficient mana to advance a level. Please choose from the following list.

* Crawling Corpse - you can now move with your arms. Provides the trait: Walk on hands - you can freely use both of your hands at all times. Arm and hand strength is increased.

* Screaming Corpse - you can now make more complex noises with your mouth. Provides the trait: Alerting yell - a screeching shout that will call other nearby undead to your location. Usable every five minutes.

* Lurching Corpse - you have more proficiency moving your legs. Provides the trait: Spring Forward - you can make a quick one second run or jump forward. Usable once a minute.

Now that was more like it! Two of those choices were fantastic. Screaming Corpse was a crummy option that I had no desire to take. I didn't find it very impressive after fighting a legless version earlier.

Though it made me wonder how mindless undead received their abilities. Wouldn’t Crawling Corpse have been perfect for him? So, how did that get assigned?

Anyway, I assumed that Crawling Corpse wasn't intended for anyone with a completely working body like me. Full use of my arms and one leg would give me a great deal more mobility than I already had. I worried taking it was a hidden trap for the greedy.

Lurching Corpse offered the same deal, but in reverse. Better use of my legs, and full use of one arm through Rigor Mortis, was a dream come true. It was a choice in line with the spirit of what I was trying to achieve.

The central debate for me was, how much was “more proficiency” using my legs? Regrettably, I had no way of asking the Naram-Sin. Or at least, it wasn't answering any of my questions.

In the end, caution drove my decision. I couldn’t risk even the remote possibility that taking Crawling Corpse would restrict the use of my legs—even when I knew it was an irrational fear. The codex had been good to me thus far, and even if it was a mindless program, I felt guilty trying to abuse it. More than that, though, the idea of being able to dodge an attack at the last minute was simply too good to turn down. I wasn’t a fighter. If push came to shove, I wanted to be able to duck and run.

I selected Lurching Corpse, and my manacore exploded into action. Green mana took laps around my mana pathways, making my skin and bones grow stronger. Then my muscles swelled with the energy, strengthening without growing larger. Finally, the mana altered my eyes and ears next, extending my perception incrementally.

By the time the advancement finished, I had a much better understanding of why the undead adventurers had been so much harder for me to kill. Level ups were no joke!

I took a second to admire my updated status.

Name: Oran Farrow

Race: Undead

Level: 2

Tier: Lurching Corpse - I

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.

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.

That settled, I dove into trying out my new mobility. It wasn’t quite full-blown walking, but it was a full head above the inferior leg dragging extravaganza I’d been engaged in since arriving in this world. Mobility for me was now like a healthy person with a sprained ankle. Shifting weight from foot to foot took a wee bit longer than it should have. With a little use of Rigor Mortis, I could switch between which foot was “sprained”.

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My next task was to make sure I looted the other two corpses properly. The purple-scaled Gorlain had a full set of chainmail armor on its person. I also found a shield and a mace nearby designed for a four armed being. Both had two vertically aligned hand grips on them. Since I didn’t know how to use any of the gear, nevermind that it was too small and weird, I stuffed it into the sarcophagus to reevaluate at a later date. A crappy tooth necklace and woolen clothes joined the stash. Last, I added his meager wealth to my coin purse.

The tall human woman zombie had just its dumpy leather armor and a spear that I assumed it had tossed on the other side of the room when it was alive. There weren’t even any coins. I wrote it off as junk.

I felt a little naughty leaving all the corpses naked, so after I robbed them, I worked to put each of them in an alcove on the wall. It wasn’t a painless experience, but I felt good about it.

In fact, I was feeling better than I ever was! For the moment, I was determined to go neither back the way I’d come, nor along the tunnel I’d already been traveling. With my increased mobility and the ability to spring forward, I knew that if I went back to the low hanging room that had stopped me before, I’d be able to make it through. Instead, I looked at the challenge provided by the rope hanging from the ceiling. Impulse drove me to attempt the climb, more so than a curiosity to see what was above.

Holding both of my stiff arms out, I jumped upward, easily catching the cord in my hands. The motion sent me rocking back and forth, and I moaned in exhilarated glee. With my death-grip hands, and inexhaustible strength, there was no danger of me slipping off. So, I swung around the room like a horny monkey smiling and gurgling for a good hour, with nothing but the crypt air blowing through my hair. Once I discovered I couldn’t get dizzy in undeath, I turned the rope into a tryout for Cirque de Ghouliè.

Climbing also proved to be a fun experience. The act itself was uncomplicated. I kept one hand connected to the rope, then simply reached up to place the other hand on top of it. No need to pull myself up! Moving an inch at a time like this took a bit of mental effort, but not enough to distract from the feeling of freedom. Eventually, I’d climbed high enough to wrap my legs around the rope and I experimented with using them, too. Legs made the trip notably easier, allowing me to slide up and down like a zipper.

Overall, the event had been a most positive one. It wasn’t until I’d made it above the ceiling and entered a drilled tunnel that things got icky. Dirt and dust fell down on my head, and swinging around knocked me into the rocky wall. A few more scratches on my jacket didn’t ruin my good mood, but it annoyed me.

I worried that the lip of the shaft would be the hardest part of the climb to overcome, but that turned out to be a nothing burger. With my legs locked into place, it only took a gradual pull of one hand to slide me up. Then, once I’d reached enough height, I pushed myself the rest of the way.

Only to find myself in more catacombs. I cackled with delight for the second time that day.

I mean, I did die once already. It’s not like I don’t belong down here!

Unlike the cleaner and more orderly network of tombs I’d just left behind, this section of the catacombs was more in line with what I’d seen in videos of the Paris tunnels. Human remains lay about the floor, and the narrow walls curved around uneven ground. At a glance, I felt like I’d just entered an unpleasant maze.

I had just decided to crawl back down the rope, when a sound from behind caught my attention. A woman, humming sweetly.

The casual comfort of the sound in such a dreary location froze me still. Tilting my head, I tried to place the pretty noise from Oran’s memory. Was it a song? Or was the girl making it up as she went?

Gently, so as not to frighten the vocalist, I turned around and took a few cautious steps forward. Following the echoing voice, I picked my way around piles of bones. After traveling a few yards in her direction, I stopped again.

What am I doing? No good can come from encountering the living. Besides, she’s probably an adventurer and those are dangerous.

I’ll admit to a certain weakness for songs. A vice, it turned out, that the previous body’s inhabitant shared with me. Oran was a frequent patron of the music house, and bars that hosted bards. His mother had been a singer of some renown before she passed away. Similarly, I was a sickly child and my mother used to sing to me often. The love in her voice had always tricked me into believing that everything would be okay. A welcome lie if there ever was one.

Closing my eyes, I listened for a few more moments, giving in to the peaceable respite. When the song ended, I had to force myself back to the gaping hole and awaiting loneliness.

Unfortunately, heading back didn’t go as smoothly. I stumbled on a bone and the crack it made sounded like thunder in the tunnel.

Soon after my gaffe, I heard the rapid approach of feet crunching and kicking the dead debris down the hall.

For a split second, I considered throwing myself, jumping on to the rope and sliding down like a fireman on a fire pole. Well, I would have, at least, if I hadn’t also tripped over a bone in my haste to get away.

I wish I had.

“Oran Farrow, is that really you?” a girl’s voice said.

I turned to look over my shoulder and saw standing before me the rotten maggot filled face of my ex-girlfriend.