After Momo’s empowered speech, the woman-in-charge led her to the central table for some further introductions.

“You’re not very talkative, are you?” the woman aptly observed, sitting across Momo, “that’s alright. We have plenty of silent people around here.”

The woman gestured towards the back of the room, where an assortment of skeletons stood, very much dead and soulless.

Momo gulped. She urgently wanted to have more commonalities with the living than the undead room decor.

“Now then,” the woman clapped her hands together, and Momo noted that they looked a bit more like wolverine claws than hands—with her long, talon-like red nails, “my name is Valerica, High Necromage at this sanctuary of Morgana’s Dawn.”

Valerica gestured to the statue that sat at the center of the room, directly behind the grand table. It was a statue of a woman wearing a cowl and a nightgown. She was sitting in a koi pond, playing sweetly with the fish—except the fish were all bones, and no guts. And the water wasn’t water, but a pool of rancid blood.

“That’s her,” Valerica said, smiling affectionately at the statue, “our wonderful, blessed deity.”

She turned back to Momo, and laid her hand over hers.

“I picked you myself, from the Other-World,” Valerica said, emerald eyes gleaming, “we monitor many possible recruits from the other side. Talented individuals like yourself that are just wasted on earthling pastimes like studying and col-lege.”

Momo went pale. So this wasn’t a dream? She looked frantically around her.

“Now, don’t look so scared, darling,” she grinned, “your skills were squandered there! It was a gift from Morgana that the cheeseburger you ate was undercooked, and poisoned your feeble body so rapidly that you died in your sleep.”

Momo’s shock was replaced by the deepest, most fatal embarrassment she had ever felt.

She died from a cheeseburger.

She couldn’t even say she died doing what she loved, because she didn’t die eating it.

It was for the best that she was no longer on Earth, because she wouldn’t be able to face her parents after dying from something so ridiculous. She was sure that they would haunt her ghostly ass, and not the other way around.

“So, I’m dead?” Momo said, embarrassment momentarily canceling out her overwhelming social anxiety.

“Of course not!” Valerica laughed, and any relief Momo had of enjoying eternal peace and quiet vanished, “we simply snagged your little body and tore it violently across the planes. Now you’re being kept alive by a tiny little gerbil running on a wheel inside of your heart.”

“A—a what? A gerbil?”

“Kidding,” Valerica said, erupting into laughter again, “it’s a rat. The sanctuary isn’t exactly running on gerbil-money. They’re much too expensive.”

Momo decided not to press further. Her heart felt like it was beating, so she was going to pretend that it was doing that of its own volition, totally normally and without rodent-labor.

“Anyways, it’s so nice to hear your voice,” Valerica said, squeezing Momo’s hand, “it’s just so adorable. That’s part of why we picked you, see—”

“Because I’m… adorable?” Momo felt very stupid, asking that.

“Well, yes! Your meek, inadequate, and unassuming presence is quite the asset. I barely noticed you myself when I came upon you, and you were laying on the ground right in-front of me!”

Maybe this was a fate worse than death-by-cheeseburger, Momo frowned.

“You see, us necromancers have a very… how do I put this,” she perched her chin on her hand in thought, “controversial reputation. We do very important work, but most people don’t like to see it that way.”

I wonder why, Momo thought, remembering Valerica’s introduction speech from earlier. She was pretty sure she mentioned sinister, evil, cruel, and deadly at least six separate times each.

“So the people of Alois have taken a liking to killing us,” Valerica shrugged nonchalantly, “as soon as they suspect a necromancer in their midst, they run us out of there like dogs, throwing daggers and casting incantations. It’s all very disrespectful. But you, my dear thing, don’t look murderous in the slightest.”

“I see,” Momo whispered, feeling her stomach turn. She had chosen to be an art major in college, and that was about as controversial as she ever wanted to be to the general public.

“Great, I’m so glad you understand,” Valerica smiled, and Momo felt like that was a grand overstatement, “in that case, I want to get you set up immediately on your first job. We have a very important new client down in Kalendale who is waiting on a crucial shipment. You will deliver it for us seamlessly, I’m sure!”

Deliver a shipment? Her skin crawled. That seemed like it involved talking to people, and moving long distances. Not to mention that at a place like this, she didn't even want to wonder what she'd be delivering: corpses, dead rats?

As if reading her mind, Valerica chimed in, “don’t worry, everything you’ll be delivering is still alive.”

Fantastic. That was much worse.

Valerica led her over to a supply closet, where two wooden doors hid a menagerie of bugs, worms, birds, and a variety of other small things that should never be locked in a closet.

She handed Momo a giant leather bag, and then patted her once on the head.

“Good, you’re all set then.”

Momo looked at her in horror, and whispered, “what exactly am I delivering? And to who? And how? And when?”

Momo’s other greatest fear—outside of speaking, and several other greatest fears—was unclear instructions.

“All of it,” Valerica said, like duh, “the buyer wants a sampling before he subscribes to our monthly Eating Dead Bugs is Good For You supplement.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Momo’s stomach flipped. And she thought her diet was gross.

"But aren't they alive?" she asked, remembering Valerica's earlier quip.

"They won't be when you get there!" she grinned, "and don’t worry, Phil will help you carry all of it,” she assured her.

Looking back, Momo wasn’t so sure why she expected Phil to be a person. Or at the very least, something that breathes.

After tugging a very full bag of foul-smelling items down a winding staircase, she eventually took a moment to breathe. The bottom of the staircase opened to a back-entrance to the sanctuary. Dragging the goods outside the door, she was greeted by—oh, dear, heavenly God—a whole entire black bear.

Well, what used to be a black bear. This black bear looked like it had hibernated for far too long, so long that it lost all of its fur, and skin, and body, and was now just a bunch of loosely tied together bones, and two remaining fuzzy ears.

“So you’re Phil, then?” she mumbled.

The bear responded by rubbing its cheekbones affectionately on her hand.

Momo was both horrified and absolutely endeared.

But if the townspeople were to see her walking into town with a skeletal bear… Valerica had been very explicit that she had to stay under the radar. To appear as sweet and innocent and as un-necromancer-like as possible, which was rather simple by herself, but made deeply difficult by the presence of a very cute, but totally undead bear.

Still, Momo was determined—for whatever stupid reason—to impress Valerica and get the deed done. Maybe Valerica would reward her with a better sleeping arrangement, at the very least. Her own personal hay bed inside of the sanctuary instead of deep underneath it.

She straightened her back, filled with conviction. A nice nap in that hay pile, that was motivation enough.

Momo opened the pouch that Valerica gave her, theorizing that there might be something of use in there. The pouch included a few pieces of parchment—a map of the surrounding area, instructions on how to get to Kalendale, and the name and address of the customer—and a curious necklace.

She took the necklace in her hand and examined it. Unsurprisingly, it was made mostly of bone, with a tiny, skeletal hand holding a red ruby at the center. It was rather pretty, and Momo suddenly had the urge to wear it.

She strung it around her neck, paying no mind to possible consequences.

⟡ You have equipped a [Skeletal Necklace of Transfiguration (LVL 2)]. ⟡

This necklace, constructed of squirrel bone, is blessed by the goddess Morgana. It allows you to cast [Disguise] on low-level undead creatures in order to hide their true identity.

Ah. How useful! Valerica was a clever one.

Momo smiled dopily, thinking about her.

After a second, she snapped out of it, reminding herself that the woman was actually an evil necromancer who kept worms in her closet—not some hot college professor.

Getting back to the task at hand, she pointed at the bear, and thought very hard about what it would look like as a regular bear. She imagined lots of fur, a pretty little pelt. She waved her hand around, and expected magic to flow out of it, like she’d seen in all of those BC Comics movies.

The bear merely squinted at her, looking confused.

“Damn it,” she grumbled, cursing her useless hand, “how do I use this thing?”

She remembered the cosplaying man from earlier—who she supposed was never cosplaying, but just an actual, real life necromancer, wonderful—and how he had caused the skeleton to assemble itself from off of the floor.

“Ah, erm, [disguise]?” she said, as if she were asking the bear a question.

With nothing more than a subtle ‘pop!’ sound, a full pelt of fur dropped from the sky and landed on the bear, covering him like a rug. The fur inched around his body as if sentient, crawling around all his skeletal features.

It was very disturbing.

But she had to admit, the result was rather convincing. If Momo were to look at him, she would think yes, that is a bear. Quite so. A bear that breathes and eats and other normal bear things.

This whole necromancer thing was already rotting her brain. Wonderful.

But holy shit—she just casted something! She just used a… spell, or whatever. She had never felt this powerful in her life. The only similar sensation she had ever experienced was when she drew—the act of pulling shapes and forms out of imagination, it felt like its own supernatural event.

To be fair, the shapes and forms usually looked a lot like Halle Berry. But still. Supernatural.

The now bear-shaped bear mewled at her, stomping its paws. It seemed annoyed at having to carry all of this new fur. Being a lean, mean, skele-bear machine had to be way more aerodynamic.

“Sorry little guy,” Momo apologized, “but I’m going to need more of your help with the rest of it, too,” she emphasized the giant bag of dead things on the ground beside her.

The bear huffed, but complied. He picked up the bag with his teeth, showing off his skeletal incisors.

“Good boy,” Momo smiled softly, rubbing the top of his now-furry head. It reminded her of her childhood cat, Luna. She had been devastated when she had to leave Luna at home when she went off to college; it took her months to recover, demanding that her Mom let her Facetime the cat for hours at a time. They even tried attaching a tiny GoPro to her head, but that quickly turned into a $200 scratching post.

Nevertheless, the feel of warm fur transported Momo to a happier, safer place: in bed with her cat on a cold winter day, laptop in her lap, not a worry in the world except what streaming service to pick.

Congrats! For befriending and successfully disguising an undead creature, you have gained a level in [Necromage Initiate].

+3 INT

Her brain got all tingly. It was as if someone had gone in there and installed a new iOS update. Holding the parchment in her hand, she read the word—INT—had she gained… interest points? Interview points?

She briefly imagined herself taking a career as a journalist, and her skin crawled.

Necromancy was far more tolerable than talking to strangers.

Right, yes, necromancy. Necromaging—or however Valerica put it. Pulling out the map from her satchel, she studied it and peeked over the horizon.

The back-entrance she had exited through was situated in a dark corner of the woods, with several dirt trails leading out in various directions. Looking behind her, there was a large, looming tower—she guessed that was part of the sanctuary she had just emerged from. The rest of the building was obfuscated by trees, but she could make out pieces of its cobblestone exterior.

It wasn’t the prettiest of places, but it was… cozy, she supposed.

The bear, sorry, um, Phil, seemed to have walked over from the nearby stablehouse. While the original building was obviously built for horses, it had been converted to fit creatures of many sizes and shapes, with door-holes cut out in unnatural forms that sent a shiver down Momo’s back.

Maybe an undead bear was not so bad. She could have been sent a companionable undead octopus to carry her wares.

She gritted her teeth. She hated octopuses. Why did they insist on having so many legs?

Remembering her quest, and specifically Valerica’s belief in her, she closed her eyes and inhaled. She could do this. If for no other reason than to avoid returning to the world in which she had at least three upcoming math exams, she would complete this delivery.

She gave Phil another pat on the head, and they ventured off.