We had to waste a majority of the day just asking around for any clues but no one wanted to talk for free or they knew nothing. We finally overheard someone mentioning the Necromancers tower to the east while we were getting lunch.

It took the rest of the day for us to get close enough so we could see it but we decided to rest and wait for the next morning, taking night watches to make sure we don't get ambushed.

Now that the sun is peeking over the horizon, the Tower gloomily dominates the view. It's made out of solid, black stone which would be a rarity if it weren't close to Brightgate. It's not nearly as impressive as I had thought with no legions of Undead or any obvious traps surrounding it.

We cautiously approach the tower but as I stop at a moderate distance, Kara continues.

"Hey, wait!"

She doesn't stop, walking right up to the wooden double doors. She looks down at the doormat and chuckles before repeating what it reads "Death, Delight, Devotion, our Necromancer is starting to look like someone's Grandma."

"What are you doing?" I hiss at her, grabbing her arm, "you said yourself that we shouldn't just rush in!"

She frees her arm and knocks on the door. "[Necromancer] suck at fighting themselves and I can't detect any traps with [Uncanny Eye]. Maybe they know something about the sheriff."

The door swings open before I can reply.

The Necromancer defies all my expectations.

Instead of being an imposing figure with a dreadful aura, we are greeted by an old man with greying hair in a bathrobe.

[Necromancer- lvl 26]

"Ugh," he complains, coffee mug in hand, "you reek of death. What do you want?"

"Reek of Death?" Kara asks, completely caught off guard, "we took a bath yesterday!"

"That's not what I meant."

He stares at us blankly until I speak up "Do you know what happened to the Sheriff?"

He takes a sip of his coffee, slurping loudly, before closing the door. "Nope, fuck off."

Kara and I look at each other, utterly confused. I grab my revolver from beneath my coat and load it. "So he definitely knows."

"Yep," she agrees, getting her daggers out of her sleeves.

The door opens up again. "Are you Bounty Hunters?"

"Yeah," I say, "that's why we asked about the Sheriff."

"You aren't here to kill me?" He asks, squinting at Kara.

"Not unless you give me a reason to, I doubt that we can even get paid here when the Sheriff is dead and we'd need proof of your death which is a whole other mess that I don't want to deal with while taking care of the Bounty in the Swamp," Kara rambles without giving it any thought, "I also think that you might just be misunderstood like I was when-"

"That's enough," he interrupts her, raising his hand, "My name is Siegfried."

She immediately stops.

She looks from me to him, utterly confused. "What just happened?"

He takes another sip of coffee and explains "It's a Perk of mine, [Undead Master], it prevents any undead from lying to me."

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"But she isn't Undead," I reply, not so sure myself.

Kara stays quiet as Siegfried looks very uncomfortable, taking a sip of coffee and looking past us.

"Alright, I think we can help each other," he says, "If you can get me four Onyx and two diamonds, I'll tell you what I know."

"I can infuse Gems myself but it'll take some time, can we talk while I charge them?"

He musters me before opening the door for us, "Do you have any Sub-Skills for it?"

I nod my head and walk inside "Yeah, I can infuse two elements at once."

His gaze snaps to me, suddenly wide awake as he barrages me with questions "At what level did you get it? Is there a penalty? Did it replace another Skill? Did you test out all the combinations yet? Can you infuse something else than gems?"

"Ehhhhh…"

"Sorry," he apologises, visibly toning down and relaxing, "it's been a while since I've heard of a new Sub-skill being discovered. Could you infuse two gems with light, two with dark and two with a combination of them?"

"Do you research the System?" Kara asks, strolling into the living room.

It's surprisingly warm inside, a plush chair sitting next to a fireplace with a book on the seat. A coffee table surrounded by wooden chairs sits next to the staircase leading up and red drapes frame a big window showing the sunrise.

He nods sagely and walks over to the chair, picking up the book. "I've been researching the system since its appearance ten years ago when I was just a regular graveyard keeper," he whistles sharply, causing a skeletal monkey to jump down the staircase.

He hands it the book and continues talking like nothing happened while the monkey climbs up the staircase "It always fascinated me so I’ve started amassing a Library of every known skill or Class."

I remain standing and start Infusing a gem, keeping my Mana just below maximum. "Do you know what the question marks as a Class mean?"

He sits down at the table, Kara quickly following suit. "Yes, Cursed Classes are incredibly rare and powerful but come with heavy drawbacks that you have to figure out yourself."

Kara scowls at him but follows with another question "Like losing Stats in the Sunlight?"

"Yeah," he agrees, tapping a quick rhythm on the table, "I've heard of only a few cases but that should be completely possible, a Coal Miner in the south-east completely loses access to all his skills after working eight hours on the same day but he is by far the best worker in the city."

"Alright," I say, "do you know who issued the bounty on you if there is no sheriff?"

He looks at me concerned. "Jeffrey Blue, our sheriff. "

"But everyone says there was no sheriff these past thirty years, " Kara says.

Siegfried whistles and the skeletal monkey reappears with a ledger, setting it down on the table. He sits down opposite Kara and leaves through the ledger, stopping midway. "Jeffrey Blue, 55 years old, level 22 [Sheriff] with no extraordinary skills apart from his primary class, stopped contact two weeks ago with no discernible cause, presumably dead."

Kara starts petting the skeletal monkey, which is rubbing against her hand, eager for more pets. She scowls down at the ledger, trying to read it upside-down, "But we asked dozens of random people and all of them said they haven't had a sheriff for thirty years. Could it be that your ledger is wrong?"

"Preposterous, " he cries defensively, "I've been keeping track for ten years with multiple Skills and magical arrays dedicated to preserving and safeguarding my archive! Minions of mine scour the plains to widen our understanding of the System and magic in itself! I'd sooner believe that the entire city is under a spell than that my archives are faulty."

I quickly switch the topic away from his outburst. "Then why did you raid the cemetery?"

"Materials. What else?" He snaps, clearly annoyed.

I finish charging the first gem and place it on the table, grabbing a second seedling and starting the Infusion. If his minions go across the entire plains, he could know something about Idanu. I sit down next to Kara, far enough from the table so I can sit up with no obstruction. "Do you know of a wandering Psycho named Idanu?"

He strokes his beard and magically flips through the ledger "Yes. Cursed Class wielder 22-5, assumed curse being that it is on a constant hunt for a phantom of its own mind as its constant inane sputtering and goalless path leave little options. It's been steadily getting closer to Brightgate so it might be attracted to the Brightgate like a regular monster but it has made some seemingly random detours."

"Do you know anything about his Classes or Skills?" I ask, captivated by someone who knows.

His eyes slightly narrow at me. "I am a generous man but I am afraid that I will need something from you in exchange for that information," he explains, moving to an empty page in the ledger, "I need your Class sheet."

"No," I say, freeing my revolver from its holster, "I won't be giving you everything you need to kill me."

He glances at my revolver before putting the pen he grabbed down onto the table. "Every single of my Undead will go on a rampage when I die, " he explains, eerily calm, " and when someone living enters my tower, it'll collapse into a burning pile of rubble. My knowledge dies with me and so will anyones chance at killing Idanu."

[Siegfried, Archivist of the Hunters Plains is requesting to view your Class sheet.]