“In Etherion’s realm, where magic binds,

Destinies forged by grand designs.

Youth attains the Age of Choice,

A path to elevate and rejoice.

Primary Class, a gift divine,

Hones talents, skills, as they refine.

Warriors spar, mages cast,

Craftsmen master foundations vast.

Secondary Class, a choice unspent,

Complements ascent with balance lent.

Magics, martial, crafts entwined,

Supporting roles, secrets to find.

The System guides a force so true,

To thrive, prevail, their paths pursue.

Primary, Secondary, forging ways,

Shaping destinies through Etherion’s maze.”

- The System Rhyme, taught in Fenmarch academies

* * ATTENTION!

A little alert lit up in front of my eyes as I lay atop the granite slab. It had all gone to plan, more or less. My men had found my body, covered it in a black shroud, and carried it under the watch of twenty King’s Guard to the catacombs beneath the Royal Mausoleum. I’m downplaying the shrieks of horror and the reactions of my advisors here for the sake of expediency, of course.

Lying with my naked back to the cold slab, I couldn’t see much of anything except the alert. It seemed to appear to me in my mind as though it were right in front of me. Beyond the green flashing exclamation point, there was only darkness.

True, the room itself was probably gloomy, but I’d been seeing pitch-blackness for a while at that point. The spell had apparently turned off my vision. It made sense. If my eyes were open and flitting around, that’d give my consciousness away.

I focused on the ATTENTION! notice and watched as it vanished, replaced by equally urgent text.

* ATTENTION!

* You have failed the Primary Quest: Eradicate the Elves

* The loss of your undead army has made the primary objective of this quest impossible to complete in the specified time.

* You have no Primary Quests active. Please obtain a new Primary Quest.

Wow, talk about the least of my concerns.

There was a lot on my mind, but lamenting my ability to annihilate an entire race of people was not something on the proverbial ‘to do list’. In fact, that message was about the most welcome news I could have gotten at that moment. Mainly, it confirmed the fact that my plan had worked. My undead army had fallen, and my generals were withdrawing from their scheduled march. All was well. I did what I set out to do, even if it was executed a bit roughly. Everything that could go well from this point on was just icing on the cake.

I remained perfectly still for a while, listening, observing with what senses remained. As best I could tell from the occasional shuffling sounds, I wasn’t alone. There were guards around my body, and occasionally more important people—my advisors, for instance—showed up to say desperate-sounding things while standing over me, one after another, and sometimes together.

“Maybe there’s a way to revive him,” the dark elven priestess Krulnoth said. “Maybe if I give my own life—”

“That hardly seems practical,” slithered the other voice, huskier, more sinister. I recognized it as the lamia Esbeth, another one of my generals. “Think: you have ill parents to care for and an arranged marriage to attend to. Our hopes of a united Eragor are lost for this generation. The Council must devise a new way forward now.”

There was a pause. “Esbeth, there is one thing I fear I must mention.”

“Yes?” the lamia replied curiously. “Do you know something?”

“I was with him just before he went to his chambers—as you know. The King was not himself.”

I heard the General Esbeth shift and slither closer to the dark elf, and I inwardly cringed. “What do you know, Krulnoth? Spit it out.”

I heard a breath of hesitation, but she answered at last. “The King acted strangely, like he was ill. He was also unusually suspicious, even for him.”

“In what way? Suspicious of you? Or behaving suspiciously?”

“Both!” Krulnoth exclaimed. “That’s just it! He was entirely out of character, asking strange questions in the name of putting me through some manner of ‘test’ to be sure of my loyalty. I didn't question it before because he has a long history of odd tests and paranoia, but now? He spoke of things changing, and he even asked about succession laws.”

The lamia gasped. “Do you think he knew he was going to be assassinated?”

“If he did, why did he not take precautions?” Krulnoth bemoaned. “I should have done something! I should have been there for my precious King!”

“There’s nothing to be done for it now, Krully. We will perform an investigation to the best of our ability. Peace has come to the Wraithwaste Kingdom—but it wasn’t the peace that the Dark Lord yearned for. The high elves of the Fenmarch Alliance will survive, diminished though their numbers will be. In a hundred years or so, perhaps you and I will live to see the King’s mission done.”

“I pray it so,” the dark elf replied, close to tears by the sound of her voice. “So, he shall be interred in this chamber henceforth?”

“I’m afraid there is nothing else to do. We shall make certain his corpse is preserved on the off-chance that someone conjures a way to bring him back—but don’t get your hopes up. Such resurrections are rare, and the scope of power it would take to bring him back as he was? Nearly unthinkable.”

“Do we know who did it?”

“They’re saying spies integrated themselves into the kitchen or servant staff. The lot of them have been sentenced—just to be certain. A thorough interrogation is already taking place.”

“Of course. We can’t be too careful.”

Hmmm. That all sounded pretty bad for a lot of reasons. I felt a creeping regret starting to poke around in my belly, sending a chill up my spine as I knew full well what that kind of interrogation could entail.

Still, what’s done was done, and I wasn’t about to spring up then and there just to rescue a handful of servants so that my powers could be used to kill hundreds of thousands of innocents and enslave an entire nation. I'd made my choice, and I knew the risks and implications.

I waited for silence—complete silence. Waited for the guards to leave, but they didn’t seem like they were going to in short order. Eventually, reality dawned on me.

I’m probably going to have to kill these guys.

But no—that wouldn’t do either. For a bunch of reasons, honestly, that plan couldn’t work. If I murdered them, it would be pretty obvious that something fishy had happened here. I needed to draw as little suspicion as possible. Things could very well go sideways despite my best efforts, and I may end up getting exposed, but if I did then it wouldn't because I acted too fast and killed needlessly. For now, all I could do was wait for the opportunity to make my escape.

And wait.

Eventually, my feigned death spell started to wear off on its own, and I was just a guy chilling on a stone altar in the family catacombs while a bunch of other dudes took turns watching the entrance. I could feel my breathing return to its usual depths, my chest rising and falling.

After a long while, most of the guards were gone. When I finally sensed it was safe for me to move around, I opened my eyes and sat up. There was no one in my immediate vicinity, but I was certain at least a pair of soldiers were guarding the opening to the mausoleum at this point.

Thankfully, I had a plan.

* Horrific Apparition - A perfect image of the target’s greatest fear will appear in front of them. This typically has the effect of causing them to flee.

* Drain Life - Extending your hand, the life essence of your target will be drained and absorbed until they are unconscious. Continuing to drain beyond this point will typically kill them.

Now, to be entirely transparent, these were the intended effects. They didn’t always work so cleanly due to resistances, magical armor, psychic shields, et cetera, but I was willing to bet that run of the mill guards had none of those things at their disposal. Those were the kinds of boons exploited only by the generals and high-ranking officials, at least within my army.

That didn’t mean there weren’t other precautions taken. Someone would be alerted if the guards left their posts, for one thing. The king’s memories told me that it was also likely that one guard going unconscious would automatically alert Zither, the Court Witch, given how important my body was to the security of the kingdom—and as a point of national pride. Imagine the scandal if my corpse went missing.

So, anyway, I peeled my cold body up off the slab. Now that I had a good look at it, I realized that they’d set me upon the lid of a sarcophagus—which likely meant that someone was supposed to return to place me inside it at some point, probably after some quiet ceremony.

Blue torches of everflame clung to the walls, lighting Demoxtheles’s ancestral chambers in a ghostly azure radiance. As I looked around briefly, I saw that the room bore pictographic inscriptions etched in ancient tongues, lining the walls like hieroglyphics. I studied them, but realized quickly that I couldn’t read their contents—which meant neither could the original owner of the body I was inhabiting.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

I didn’t have time for the grand tour, anyway. Rather than give into my dilly-dallying instincts, I started moving, though I did take a second to admire the sculptures of my body’s forebears. One of them reminded me of my own grandpa, which made me chuckle.

I made a beeline for the stairs and cast the Soft Footed spell, a simple cantrip that muted my steps for a short period of time, and climbed the spiraling staircase until I reached the exit.

So—next problem to deal with? The doors opened from the outside and what guards were left were out there—not in here with me.

“Right,” I muttered to myself. “That… makes an annoying amount of sense.”

Still, I had something to try. My Horrific Apparition spell could be cast on a space in front of me that I couldn’t see, though it would fizzle out if that space was filled by an object. I had originally planned to frighten the guards into abandoning their post and siphoning one of their energies with the Drain Life spell to knock them unconscious and steal their clothes.

Now, however, the goal was to scare them into my waiting arms. “So much for stealth mode,” I muttered to myself as I cracked my knuckles and rolled my shoulders.

All that inner reflection about how I was going to avoid detection had been pointless. That much was obvious to me as soon as I had a fuller understanding of my situation. People were going to check on me, to put me into that sarcophagus if nothing else.

It was likely that these guards would ultimately be replaced by higher level individuals who would be able to put up a bit more of a fight when I tried to break out. These grunts were all that were on hand because the more worthy warriors were on their way to the Umber Gate—but they’ll be called back now. Those soldiers would also have an easier time following me if I wasn’t willing to outright kill them.

Anything these guards said, however, would be questioned. They weren’t people trusted by the commanders—they were just the first available for the job. Likely, the news of my death was going to remain a guarded secret for quite a while, but people would be spreading rumors soon when the public became aware that my undead minions had all fallen. These guards claiming the King had broken himself out and fled would be doubted more than the people that were destined to replace them if I waited around.

I shook my head. “Peace was never an option,” I grunted as I focused the spell about ten feet ahead of me—through the door, past the guards that were on the other side, but facing them. Whatever apparition appeared would see them, probe their minds, and take on a shape most terrifying to them. “Here goes nothing.”

I extended my hand, placing my palm on the mausoleum door. A sickly green glow penetrated its stone surface and seeped through.

Silence followed.

“Hmm. Maybe it doesn’t work through something this thick,” I murmured to myself.

As if in reply, a pair of shrill screams rang out, and I felt the door shudder as someone pushed against it. Letting out a sigh of relief, I took a step backward.

The two men poured through the door. When they saw me, it was almost like they regretted their decision to flee the phantasm.

“My King!” one shouted. “We thought—”

I dismissed the apparition with a wave of my hand, but kept my palm open and extended. A beam of blue, wispy smoke formed, coming from the mouth of the first guard as I sucked his life force out through his breath.

I felt his strength seeping away, filling me with his vim and energy, but it wasn’t much. Compared to the vast receptacle that was my threshold for power, it did very little to impress me, but as the man slumped to his knees, I knew at least that my plan was working.

“King Demoxtheles, what’s going on, my Lord?!” screamed the other one, his eyes now locked onto my face. He’d forgotten all about whatever horror he’d just seen outside moments before, trading that terror for the shock of seeing me in front of him.

He looked at me, his eyes following my body downward.

“Ah,” I muttered. “I’m naked, aren’t I?”

“Uhh—yes, my King.”

“Right.” I punched him in the face. He saw it coming and just seemed to shrug. Brave man, but also smart, I thought. When your King moves to punch you in the kisser, there’s not much you can do about it.

My fist slammed into the side of his head, and then his face collided with the wall. I watched his body slide down along the wall until he was crumpled on the mausoleum stairway, unconscious.

A dark thought occurred to me—these guys were witnesses. If I left, they would tell the tale of their King running away. I did not possess the ability to erase their memories, nor could I reliably get them to swear to obey a command not to tell anyone about what they saw when they would be interrogated about my disappearance.

As I originally considered, I needed to kill these guys—but could I?

Glancing at my hands, I caught sight of a fleck of blood that must have leaked out of the man’s nose when I smashed him into the wall. Blood on my hands—an unwelcome sight. I already had enough. I could let a few people die for the sake of hundreds of thousands, sure—like the kitchen crew, and quite possibly these guards. But I would not take their lives myself.

Even then, I knew it was an empty display of virtue. It made no difference to them, I imagined, if their lives ended at my hands or someone else’s. Still, that was a bridge I could not cross. Everyone needed to draw a line somewhere, and that was mine. I would not intentionally kill people like these men myself—no matter what.

I groaned as the implications of this decision dawned on me. They would tell someone of my escape, that their King had risen from the dead and run. I would be pursued—but they would not find me. I was higher level than anyone in the kingdom, which meant that no seer could scry on me, and no tracker could easily track me down.

But they would try, and that meant there was a sliver of a chance…

That line of thinking was useless now. My decision was made, so I discarded the thought. I took bits and pieces of the guards’ outfits, whatever fit me best from either one. The shirt was a bit tight, and the pants were too short, but it would do.

I tucked my long, black hair into the back of my shirt and activated a simple glamor to make me appear less conspicuous. Hopefully, that would last long enough to get me into the countryside. It wasn’t that it changed my appearance in any major way—it was just that I was less likely to be noticed by people not actively searching for me, and the more unusual details of my look would be quickly glossed over and forgotten. And that would be enough. At least, I hoped so.

The guards’ horses were tied to a post outside the cemetery nearby. I claimed one of them for myself, a dark brown beauty, then mounted it and galloped away. “I think I’ll call you Sal,” I grunted as we took off into the chill of night. The only possessions I had aside from the clothes on my back were whatever was in their saddlebags.

* ATTENTION!

I opened the message with an arched brow, curious as to what new information I was about to be fed.

* This action clashes with your moral alignment. You have earned the imposed temporary title of Horse Thief! -10% to Fortune for 3 days.

“That’s bullcrap,” I muttered angrily, gripping the reins of my horse tightly as we headed toward an outbound path that took us far from castle lands. “Aren’t I some evil Dark Lord?”

* “Confirmed—but your moral compass has recently shifted to Chaotic Altruistic. Taking actions significantly at odds with your alignment can result in consequences.”

“Oh, so we can talk,” I said, keeping my eyes on the path ahead. “Riddle me this—if I’m the king, and these men were my guards, wasn’t this horse mine to begin with?”

There was a long pause after that, and I figured the System, for whatever reason, couldn’t hear or process that follow-up inquiry. Just when I’d almost forgotten about it, another message popped up.

* ATTENTION!

* Temporary title Horse Thief! Has been revoked.

I chuckled to myself and shook my head as I let that epiphany sink in. A fallible RPG-like system which governs the world and can be swayed with a simple argument? Now, that was interesting.

I rode that horse for days, but I gave it time to rest each night. The horse had plenty of grass to keep it fed, and we found a few streams and creeks with which to stay hydrated. However, as time went on, as I grew hungrier and more restless, the horse became more and more fatigued, often neglecting to eat or drink. I started to suspect Sal was ill, perhaps with an affliction that had existed before I even stole him.

About four days into the second week, at around the 300-mile mark by my estimation, my horse laid down and died, much to my surprise. I panicked. I remember the shock setting in, the cruel, ice-cold realization that I’d have to take the rest of this journey on foot—and I didn’t even know where I was really headed.

“Dammit, Sal,” I groaned, staring at the horse’s carcass with a tight frown. “I’m sorry, bud. You didn’t deserve this.”

But then I saw a pale blue outline appear over the horse’s body as I reached out to touch it.

* Do you wish to reanimate this level 10 Guard Horse?

Partly out of desperation, and partly out of morbid curiosity, my soul answered with an unhesitating “yes”. The blue outline became a proper glow, and pale beams trickled out of my fingertips, feeding the carcass with glowing spears of necromantic energy.

I watched with shock as the horse stood up and shook itself off like it had just taken a quick nap. There was a subtle difference to it—the light in its eyes was gone, and when it stood, it stood perfectly still.

“Hmm. That’s kind of depressing,” I sighed as I climbed back atop the horse.

On the plus side, being dead, Sal didn’t need to rest, so we just rode until I couldn’t handle it anymore. That turned out to be substantially longer than before.

A few days later, as I could tell I was nearing a mountain range, I saw several other riding shapes in the distance. I held my hand over my eyes and squinted to make out the figures, but it was impossible. The sun blurred them from me, so I made the decision to ride in closer and see what was going on. When the figures seemed to grow bigger against the horizon more rapidly than I had expected, I realized that they had spotted me and were headed my way at full speed.

There were a few ways this could go. It was fully possible that the chargers were friendly, but equally likely that they were not. I was tempted to be optimistic, but mama hadn’t raised a fool, so I readied a defensive spell as a precaution. I would realize in a quiet moment much later how odd it was that the process had been so automatic.

As my horse galloped forward, the reality of the situation dawned on me one iota at a time. This wasn’t a single mounted unit moving together—it was a woman fleeing on horseback from a bunch of men wielding nets, clubs, and bows. They didn’t fire any arrows at her, but they all held their nets at the ready, which hinted to me that their priority was to capture her alive. Looking at them, I realized they wore the typical attire of border slavers and bandits. Yuck. They certainly weren't part of any official army.

She came to me first—well, came at me. I accidentally caught a whiff of her fragrance as she rode past me, and it was almost impossibly lovely. It reminded me slightly of General Krulnoth, who, being a dark elf, rarely sweated, so all her perfumes remained fresh most of the day.

What was that scent? Damn, it’s nice. Back on Earth, I never frequented the Bed, Bath, & Beyond outlets all that much, so if I started reporting literary scent buzzwords like “lilac” and “chamomile” then I’d be bullshitting you. I didn’t get a good look at her, either, but a flash of pale skin and golden-brown hair zipped by me, almost slapping me in the face as she passed.

I harnessed my focus, opting not to follow her with my eyes as she galloped out beyond my 6 o’clock. I kept my vision fixed on the three riders in pursuit of her instead.

Okay… now what?

The woman was probably riding off to safety, hoping that her assailants were distracted by me, but they seemed set to breeze right past, ignoring my appearance entirely. After all, I was just one dude with a dead horse and poorly fitted armor, and they were three men clad in brown leathers, each with their own weapons.

I extended two hands, praying silently that the woman wasn’t watching and that the riders were too distracted to pay attention to what I was doing. I cast Drain Life, targeting the steeds of the two men who were riding in front. I sapped their energy as fast as I could, forcing the horses to take a dive as their legs gave out mid-run. Their riders fell with them, rolling off of their saddles and onto the ground, thumping violently. One collided against a rock, his thunderous roll ending in a thud and a scream that would have been funny if it weren’t accompanied by such a visceral crunch.

Oof. Didn’t mean to do that.

The third rider’s horse stumbled over the bodies of the other two, ultimately toppling over as well. Righting himself on the ground, one man quickly withdrew a bow and fired a shot at me, but it missed and hit my undead horse in the neck.

Leave Sal alone, I thought crossly.

I quickly picked the arrow out of Sal’s throat, hoping that the elven maiden hadn’t seen that exchange transpire. My undead steed, of course, was none the worse for wear. The perks of being a walking carcass, I suppose.

I charged the two conscious men and trampled them in a single maneuver, not really having a great idea of what else to do. I felt the crunch of bone under hoof and instantly regretted my decision. As I looked back, one of the men was either unconscious or dead, and another had a broken leg. The man who had hit the boulder earlier was out cold and probably wouldn’t be walking anywhere anytime soon.

The air went quiet. I chanced a look back at the elf. She was just a speck in the distance again, but her horse had stopped when it became clear something unexpected had happened. After I dismounted Sal, I tied the three men together with a rope I suspected had been intended for the elven beauty. They were all still alive, but not conscious.

“By the Wings of the System Saints!” exclaimed the woman as she rode up to me. “How did you dispatch them, stranger?”

I looked back at her and gawked for a moment before coming up with a clever response. “Uhh, they tripped?”