Before Momo could speak up, the man had already vanished into a plume of smoke. Now it was just her and the polite, expectant skeleton, staring at her through holed eyes.
Figuring that her social anxiety should not apply to the undead, she finally cleared her throat.
“Um, hello,” she greeted him. He continued staring blankly at her. How helpful.
She tried again, “skeleton man, am I dreaming?”
In place of an answer, a ghostly piece of parchment materialized from nowhere at all, falling conveniently into her hands.
Congratulations! For attempting to communicate with the undead, you have gained a level in the [Necromage Initiate] class.
You gained the class skill [Friend of the Dead]!
[Friend of the Dead]: You can now instruct first-level undead to do your bidding.
Class skill? Momo felt her head swimming; this was all entirely overwhelming. She had to be lucid dreaming—mixing reality with some sort of video game. Not that she had ever been an avid gamer. She had tried pirating Nintendogs halfway through college, but it only took a few nefarious link clicks before she had Available Women (Single) (Sexy) (Near You) blowing up her browser. She had promptly decided the hobby wasn't for her.
She returned her focus to the skeleton. He couldn't speak nor move, but she had the eerie sense that he was judging her.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she frowned.
He turned his head 180 degrees at her command.
She yelped, not expecting him to actually react.
“Nevermind, nevermind, reset!”
His head snapped back in place.
“Ah… okay. Okay,” she rubbed her arms, trying to calm herself down. This was fine. She just had to do what her therapist always told her to do - deep, calm breaths. Count to three. Do not roll up into a ball on the ground and assume fetal position.
“Can you please show me the way out?” she asked, figuring anything would be better than being stuck in this dark cave with her thoughts and a re-animated corpse.
He nodded compliantly and guided her out of the small cavern. It turned out that the cave she awoke in was only one of many corridors in a larger cavern system; the labyrinth was winding and maze-like, every corner teeming with bones of the dead. The pair of them walked for what felt like hours, Momo tripping and falling over herself as she treaded the unlit path. A light the width of a tea candle illuminated inside the chest of the skeleton, so she could see only a small halo of her surroundings as she followed behind him.
Nearly worse than the bones was the stench. It was too dark to see the source of the smell, but it stunk like dead rat. Half-way to retching, Momo pinched the bridge of her nose as she followed the skeleton's footsteps.
Eventually, they reached a small clearing. Momo knew it had to be a larger room than the rest because their footsteps echoed, and she could no longer use the tight, claustrophobic walls to guide her steps. With a tug of her hand, the skeleton guided her to a wall, and she could feel a rope ladder beneath her fingers.
She looked up to see where it ended, but there was no end in sight. It was seemingly an infinite climb.
She nearly laughed out loud. Nope.
“There is no way I’m climbing that,” she informed the skeleton.
The skeleton raised a bony eyebrow.
“Skeleton, I order you to teleport me outside of this cave so I don’t have to climb this ladder.”
Look - if this dream abided by no rules of reality, she might as well try.
The skeleton stared at her, as if to say are you joking?
She frowned and crossed her arms.
Without any more instructions in its queue, the skeleton turned towards the ladder and began to climb it. Its joints creaked as it went, disappearing slowly out of view as it climbed higher and higher.
“Wait!” she yelled, “don’t leave me alone down here!”
Her begging fell on deaf ears, as the skeleton was already too high up to respond. She huffed, realizing she was out of options. Her stomach had begun to grumble—the flimsy cheeseburger from yesterday had definitely not contained the sufficient amount of calories to process everything that was happening to her right now.
The longer she stood there, the more it felt like she wasn’t going to wake up from this anytime soon. Her morning bowl of Captain Munch was worlds away, and she was stuck here in a sad, dystopian cavern, absent of sugary breakfast cereal.
“Fuck it. If I die, I die,” she mumbled to herself, and began to climb.
----------------------------------------
The climb was tiringly long, her entire body aching by the time she reached the top. When she finally reached the last rung of the ladder, she crumpled over the side of the cliff, her body flopping onto hard rock.
Everything hurts, she thought, expanding like a starfish on the cold, hard, ground. I give up.
Just as she began to doze off, she felt a piece of parchment land onto her skull.
Congratulations! For powering through the long climb from the cavernous abyss, you have gained a level in [Necromage Initiate].
You gained the class skill [Bone Infusion]!
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
[Bone Infusion]: You can heal yourself by sacrificing an undead minion.
She looked up, noticing the placid face of her skeletal companion looking back down at her.
“Don’t look at me like that, I haven’t been to the gym in a while,” she grumbled, heaving her body up from the floor. Her joints screamed, and she groaned. A while had been an understatement. She had pretty much become 50% mattress.
She suddenly mourned the bliss of that wonderful hay pile.
“Why not try using that new skill of yours?”
Momo screamed, the surprise of the sudden voice sending her into a terror.
“Oh, my my, I’m sorry,” a completely un-sorry voice said, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s—it’s fine,” Momo murmured, still too flustered to see correctly. She had nearly fallen back down the cliff in shock, her heart beating into her ears.
It seemed that people in this world did not enjoy knocking, or having footsteps, or announcing their presence in general.
When Momo’s vision finally recovered, she was greeted by a tall, daunting woman inspecting her from above. The woman was dressed in a luxurious green and black dress, koi fish and serpents embroidered in the trim. With long black hair, pale skin, and a shining, uneven smile that sported two vampiric canines, Momo found herself immediately drawn to her. She was eerily beautiful, like a forest stream bathed in blood.
“Minion, help her up,” the woman waved her hand at the skeleton, who obediently heaved Momo into a standing position. It did not help the terrible ache pulsing throughout her body. She might have sprained, like, everything.
She really needed to work out more. You know, for situations like these.
“So, how did you like your quarters?” the woman inquired.
Quarters? Momo’s jaw nearly dropped out of her skull. Was she implying that those dank caverns were where she was meant to sleep?
She knew one thing for certain. She was never going back down that ladder.
She quickly remembered herself; it wasn’t as if she’d actually be sleeping here again. This was a dream, or at least a very elaborate kidnapping scheme that involved some weird roleplay. Either way, Momo would be finding a way out.
“From your expression, I’m guessing you weren’t impressed,” the woman frowned, “but we can’t exactly give every initiate the keys to the kingdom. We have limited space in our sanctuary, and it must be distributed equally among our thirty-five members.”
Other people lived here? From what Momo could tell, she was the only living creature in that entire dungeon, save the odd little mage from before. If the caves below were like a necromage initiate dormitory, then she was certainly the only living student.
“Now, come then,” the woman beckoned her with a hand, “you’re already late for your initiation ceremony.”
Ever the people-pleaser, even among necromancers, Momo followed.
She figured this woman was important, and that abiding by what she said would be key to her continued survival. And despite what she occasionally said to her therapist, Momo was suddenly very keen on surviving.
The woman led her and Momo’s new skeletal friend towards a large, arched doorway. She pushed it open with ease, revealing a gigantic adjoining room. Momo was blinded by light as she entered—the darkness of the caverns giving way to a bustling main hall. She was hit with a flurry of sights, sounds and alarming aromas.
The main hall was constructed of centuries old stone, bearing the sketches and scribblings of ancient creatures. Decadent gold fixtures adorned the ceiling and the walls; intricately-woven carpets were threaded with green and gold, and splayed over every staircase and floorboard.
Everything in the room had a subtly natural element: chandeliers made of bones and lined with pure silver; sinew was upholstered to chairs; crushed bugs became mug coasters; plants were sewn into wicker baskets.
In the center of the room was a U-shaped table made of cut stone, and adorned with hundreds of golden bobbles, skulls, worms, and a variety of other oddities. The table was surrounded by chairs, and in those chairs sat men and women, wearing green and yellow cloaks, playing with all sorts of odd instruments.
“Everyone,” the woman called out, and instantly the room’s incessant hum settled into silence. Heads snapped towards her, eyes wide with attention, “our new initiate has made her way to us, through the dark and foul labyrinth below.”
Initiate—that was the word Momo remembered seeing written on the parchment. It was her so-called “class,” whatever that was supposed to mean.
The various cloaked figures rose from their seats, bowing to her in greeting. Momo found it incredibly embarrassing, her face turning red. She had never had so many eyes on her in her entire life.
“Initiate, would you like to introduce yourself?”
Momo began to sweat. She had never been good at public speaking, but these circumstances added an entire new layer of absolutely not. Still, she had to say something. Everyone was looking at her so intently, so expectantly. As if she were giving some sort of presidential address.
Her teeth chattering, she steadied her jaw, and took a deep breath in.
“Momo,” she announced, voice as light as a whisper.
That was it. That was all her brain could conjure.
Her own name.
She should have left herself to rot in the cavern.
“Momo?” the woman repeated, eyebrows slightly furrowed, “is that your… name?”
Momo nodded timidly, willing her head up and down with the last bits of dignity in her body.
“Wonderful,” she clapped her hands together, unphased. She turned again towards the crowd, “let us welcome Momo, the future of our clan. Let her be the darkest of us, the most cruel, the most twisted and conniving. Let her plans be so sinister, that we all become merely fodder for her undead someday!”
The mages all stood and applauded, smiling broadly at Momo.
Momo stood there, speechless. Did they actually think someone as small and meek as her could really be capable of all of those terrible things?
How flattering—and gross.
But still, she couldn’t help the small, dimpled smile growing on her face. She had never been described as being ‘capable’ of anything in her life. Her fourth grade teacher had summarized her as “sleepy and confused” on report cards.
But these people looked upon her as if she were meant for something great. As if she really did hold the secrets to, erm, being twisted and… kniving?
It lit a spark in her, somewhere. A flame as small as a pebble, but a flame nonetheless.
Congratulations! For finally being seen as something other than a “pleasure to have in class,” you have gained the skill [Burgeoning Confidence]!
[Burgeoning Confidence]: CHA + 3
The parchment knocked her in the eye again, but she didn't flinch; she was starting to get used to being attacked by these pieces of ghostly paper, and she held it in her hands until it disappeared.
Burgeoning confidence… she thought, liking the sound of that already. Reading it, she could feel something come over her—as if maybe she could order at the front of the restaurant now, if she were feeling particularly brave.
Maybe this dream wasn’t so bad.
It had people who weren’t yelling at her - a rare win. No one was telling her she couldn’t get an extension on her term paper (yes, she had over fifteen grandparents who were all very sick), or dumpster dive into the dining hall rubbish bin.
It also happened to have a very cool, beautiful woman in-charge of things. Which totally wasn't activating anything inside of her.
She swallowed, looking up at the woman, who was now off inspecting the work of the other cosplayers.
And no one had even tried to kill her yet, despite the entire ‘we have a lot of dead bodies somewhere in here’ vibe that the place reeked of.
Maybe she didn’t want to wake up... quite yet.