There was something refreshing about being on his own again. The city was filled with distractions, noises, and concerns. He had to wear many faces, be many things to many different people. Until he had stepped away from it all to make this trip, Tyron hadn’t truly realised how exhausted of it all he was.

Pulling so many strings at once was a difficult feat, and he found himself glad to be able to put them all down, untangle the knots in his mind.

“Are you going to stand around staring at the trees, or are you going to kill some shit?” Dove said, prodding him in the side with a pointed, bone finger.

It was almost peaceful out here.

“That’s it, I’m putting the armour back on,” Tyron brushed the skeleton away before he found the armour he’d constructed. A brief ritual later and he was once again covered in the moulded bone plates, protected from the kin and irritating undead slayers.

“Come on,” Dove urged him. “The sooner you get to fighting, the sooner I can death bolt some kin in the head and see if I can start earning levels again.”

“It’s unlikely tha—” Tyron began, for the umpteenth time.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes,” Dove waved him off, “we all know that it probably won’t work. No need to bring down the mood, you fucking killjoy. A slim chance is better than no chance, right? Let me have this.”

“Fine,” he conceded.

There was no real reason to continually squash Dove’s dreams of regaining his power, but he really didn’t believe it would work. As far as he knew, the power of the Unseen was tied to blood. How, he didn’t know, but the status ritual itself was proof enough. If more evidence was needed, then the blood capsules he’d received from Yor being able to change his status was sufficient.

Although… he paused for a moment. Although the capsules changed the way his status was read, it didn’t actually change his capabilities in any way. None of his Unseen-granted strength or knowledge was removed, nor the aid of his mysteries. Perhaps the status was read from the blood, but existed somewhere else? It was an interesting line of thought.

But not why Tyron was here.

“You can have a few here and there,” he warned the skeleton, “but I need the bulk of the experience for myself.”

“Of course, of course. I’m not some greedy little rat, begging for more scraps than they deserve,” Dove said indignantly. “I’ll behave, you’ll see.”

Tyron grunted, unconvinced, but didn’t waste more time with the former Summoner. He was finally here, with a chance to fight, experiment and gain experience, an opportunity that had taken years for him to create. He refused to waste it.

“Hopefully, the kin have started filtering through again after we cleared them from the other side,” Tyron mused.

“Of course they will,” Dove assured him, “rifts will always draw in kin, especially if there are not many hanging around it. All they want in life is to jump through and kill shit.”

“Why is it that everything not living in this realm wants to take a chunk out of it?” Tyron said.

“Don’t be ridiculous. The realms that have fallen to the rifts attack others without rhyme or reason, but the fact that they exist at all speaks to the existence of worlds beyond this one. I’m sure there’s gajillions of worlds out there, probably in the same boat as us, fighting off the kin and trying to preserve what’s left for their people.”

“Then why haven’t we ever found any? You’d think after thousands of years of fighting the rifts, we would have found a way to contact another world, cooperate with them against a common enemy.”

Dove shrugged his bony shoulders.

“Fucked if I know. Dimensional magick has found ways to contact all sorts of places, such as the Astral Sea, or the Abyss, and a bunch more nobody gives a fuck about, but not other realms such as our own.”

“I have,” Tyron mused.

“You what?”

“I’ve contacted another realm like ours… sort of.”

The skeleton stared at him.

“You’re talking about the Scarlet Court, aren’t you?”

Tyron nodded.

“From what we’ve been told by Yor, it’s a realm that was taken over by the vampires and turned into a… blood and darkness paradise for their kind. Who’s to say that it wasn’t once a world like ours?”

“That’s… actually really interesting,” Dove stroked his bony chin. “Something to think about another time. For now, let’s go kill shit! That’s what we came here for.”

“Right you are.”

There were too many interesting thoughts bubbling away in Tyron’s mind. He’d need time to sort through them, but for now, he directed his minions forward. After six hours of fighting, he would retreat back to a familiar cave for the night.

~~~

Against the frost boars and ice-walkers that Tyron had first battled against four years ago, his minions proved more than up to the task. Watching his massed ranks of skeletons tear the kin apart filled Tyron with satisfaction. This was the potential his Class had held from the beginning. A Necromancer was a powerful weapon against the rifts and he was now the proof. His shield minions formed a solid wall, absorbing the force of the boar charge, stabbing back with icy-calm while his archers fired and longsword skeletons flanked.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

With the overwhelming numbers he brought to the fight, very little damage was suffered by his undead during the fighting. The roaming packs of boars, even when supported by the stronger ice-kin, were simply not enough to match his minions, even with minimal spell support.

As night fell, he arrayed his minions around the cave that had been his resting place once, four years before. Better prepared this time, Tyron laid out his supplies, creating a cosy and secure environment. A padded bedroll lay on the flattest ground, which he covered in leaves. A crackling fire was quickly lit in his enchanted firepit, with added temperature control. In a move that left Dove speechless, he even revealed a foldable table and chair, which he quickly arranged, unfolded his notes and began to scribble away in.

“You aren’t exactly roughing it, are you?” the skeleton said, incredulous.

Tyron continued to make notes.

“I don’t see any reason why I should. I have the ability to purchase, or make, better equipment, so I did.”

“Did Magnin and Beory travel with all this luxury? I always assumed they enjoyed slumming it like the rest of us.”

The young mage hesitated, his memories causing the pain to spike in his chest.

“They travelled pretty light,” he said roughly, then coughed to clear his throat. “Ahem. At their level… there wasn’t much they couldn’t do for themselves. Magnin was so physically durable he could sleep on the point of a spear, and Beory could heat or cool a tent, start the fire, conjure water, whatever was needed.”

“That’s what I thought. Shame to see their child living in such frivolous comfort.”

“They wouldn’t have cared. They’d be more likely to praise me for planning ahead, something they always struggled to do.”

“Well, enough of this pointless sentimental garbage. I killed three kin today, let me have some paper so I can perform the status ritual!”

Tyron rolled his eyes, but handed over a sheet of paper nonetheless. He didn’t bother telling the skeleton he was unlikely to have success without being able to bleed, but he also didn’t tell him about his suspicion about the power of the Unseen. He had too much on his plate to worry about without the skeleton pestering him for more favours.

“Come to Dove, you wordy prick!” the mage cackled, holding the paper in his hand as he danced his odd skeletal dance.

Trying to ignore him, Tyron turned his attention to his own matters. On the page in front of him he had a short list of things he needed to resolve regarding his own build, sooner rather than later.

They were:

* Sub-class

* General Feats and Skills

* Necromancer progression

Despite thinking on it for some time, he was no closer to selecting a sub-class to pursue. As a human, he had access to a third, and he didn’t want to waste it, especially since Anathema had taken a precious slot. Alchemy was a viable path, another source of income that may unlock more ways to strengthen his skeletons, but Tyron had reached a point where he could simply pay an alchemist to perform that service, or at least, provide the materials.

Some sort of general or leadership Class? Would such a thing even work on the undead? And how would he go about receiving it? Unlikely Lukas Almsfield would be able to sign up for a military or militia.

There were many different mage classes that tempted him. Summoner, Elementalist, Dimension mage, Curse mage, all of them seemed viable.

Irritated, he turned his attention to the next line item. He had general feats and skills that he needed to select. Not as powerful as those stemming from Classes, they were still extremely useful and deserved careful thought before selection. Tyron had so little time to devote to such matters recently, but he was determined to make his choices before leaving the mountain.

Third and finally, he needed to map out his progression as a Necromancer as best he could. Synthesising what he knew about the Class, he wanted to try and visualise a path for him to reach his goals. Thinking about what he wanted from the Class had helped him select Lord of the Ossuary when he’d ascended, and Tyron had come to see the clarity that focusing on his purpose gave him as an asset.

Speaking of which, it was about time he performed the status ritual once more.

After raising so many undead and fighting through the rift, he was sure to have earned some levels. Probably not as many as he hoped. Progress slowed to a crawl once reaching silver, it was famous for it. There was a good reason so many slayers, the majority of them, were stuck between level forty and sixty. Either they died, stopped pushing themselves to break through to gold, or retired.

Not something his parents had ever worried about. The two of them had breezed through silver, or so he’d heard. They’d done it long before he was born.

Grasping a sheet of paper, Tyron enacted the ritual, looking forward eagerly as his blood took shape on the page before him.

Numerous messages relating to his Skills, and a good number of improvements to his core abilities appeared, which was of course very welcome.

Bone animus, forging and the Raise Dead ritual had all increased, which was gratifying. His hard work raising his minions had been rewarded by the Unseen.

Anathema, oddly enough, hadn’t moved, though the message he received from the dark patrons was generally positive. Tyron’s eyes glided over the text relating to the Abyss. He wasn’t ready to think about that yet.

Then came the notification about his primary Class. Three levels. Three very welcome levels. It was honestly more than he’d expected. Many slayers grinded hard in difficult rifts for years in order to reach gold. Tyron wasn’t so naive as to think he would be able to breeze through in a matter of weeks or months.

But, three levels was enough to earn him a new ability, the first from his new Class. His eyes quickly scanned down the page, eager to see what his new Class was going to offer him. The first selection for a Class was often a powerful one, key to how it would grow over the twenty levels.

When his eyes landed on the text, he hesitated, surprised.

Lord of the Ossuary has reached level 42, select from the following Spells:

Summon the Ossuary.

Aaaaaand… nothing.

Tyron leaned forward, confused. He picked up the page and turned it over, wondering if the words continued on the other side for some reason. They didn’t.

“Select from what?” he muttered. “There’s only one.”

As far as he knew, he should have been offered a second ability. There was always a second ability. Perhaps this was something different that only started happening at silver and higher. A little disappointed, Tyron leaned forward and placed his mark.

“At least I can’t make the wrong choice,” he said to himself, and ended the ritual.

Immediately, his eyes rolled back in his head as a flood of information was rammed into his brain. In five seconds, it was over, and Tyron lurched forwards, catching himself on his table at the last second.

“Holy… holy shit,” he gasped.

Mind still a jumble, he steadied himself, wondering what the Unseen had just done to him. He took deep breaths, steadying himself until the dizzy feeling went away.

When his head was no longer swimming, he began to prod at his own mind, trying to tease out details of what he had just learned. So soon after the ritual, all he could get were hints, but what he learned was enough to make his eyes widen with shock.

“This… this is…” he stammered.

A pause.

“Holy shit.”