(Aleksander’s POV)

I heard about this, that there was a passage that was made a long time ago by a rich family that lived in the abandoned mansion on the top of the cliff where there is a fall directly to the dark sea beneath. However, it was only a rumor. I never believed actually to be true!

After all, as anyone with my level of curiosity, who went to the library searching for the old maps of the sewers to check it. However, I couldn’t find anything, and assumed it was only a rumor. Apparently, it’s not. Great, I can use this to move to the city without going through the surface!

I immediately send my rats to the city to gather as much information as I can. Firstly, my house to look at my sister, second, find Brad and find anything that I can use to torture him in the future with. I should get a crow, since they are common around here.

Also, since this passage exists, the secret passage to the mansion on the cliff must exist as well. If I manage to find the secret passage, I will have access to the mansion that is completely abandoned. I could move there later after raising enough undeads.

After all, I will need a lot for the thing that I have in plan. I will also need money. A lot of money. But priorities first, I need information and a better place to be. These catacombs certainly are useful, but I want a proper house to be, and it will probably be the mansion, as it is abandoned and almost nobody ever goes there.

It will be perfect to use as a base. It’s still night, so there’s nobody on the streets right now. I send my rats back to the sewer to find out anything that could be useful for moving around. I also get up from my coffin. After all, I want to stretch my legs a little.

While wandering through the catacombs, I start to think on my next steps. I want to get stronger. Wait, how do I even get stronger? While walking, I ask my grimoire:

How do I get stronger?

Master gets more powerful as he drains life from living beings with Life Drain. When Master turns more powerful, he will be able to use more powerful spells.

Alright, I need to kill stuff then… should I start with humans? The though of killing humans doesn’t bother me at all, not even when I was a human. After all, you can call me something akin to a sociopath. Well, I don’t know how to classify myself, I don’t lack compassion to other humans, but killing something doesn’t bother me.

Of course, I would like avoid killing if possible, but I won’t delay helping my sister over a few human lives. People die every day and new people are born every day as well. The cycle of life continues, either we die or live. The world doesn’t stop spinning, and we go forward in any way we can.

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So, people that are unlucky enough to cross my way, I will have you guys help me to move forward. Alright, shall I make a visit to the sewers?

After a few minutes walking, I arrive at the entrance to the sewers. I really want to find the passage to the mansion. I can make that place my base, and from there work on my revenge. I visited the mansion a few times, but since it’s fucking far, I only did it once. Because of that, the place rarely has any visitors… and the ones that visit after I occupy the place are not expected to return alive.

I look up to one of the manholes, the light of the day seeping from the holes in the lid. Time to spend a lot of time here. But first, I should raise my numbers, since I need to expand my search range and speed.

I kill and raise a few rats on the way back to the catacombs. When I get down there, I raise fifty more skeletons and order them to search the sewers. I also join the search, and finally, three days later, I find the goddamned passage to the mansion!

It’s to the east of the sewers, on the oldest part of the system, behind a wall. I also discovered that I’m quite strong, enough to punch a hole I the solid stone. Good to know that I’m not a frail mage.

The passage is a long, very, very tunnel in the stone, going up in a spiral. This is it! I immediately call ten of my skeletons to come with me. We climb the spiral for a very long time. Eventually, the stone cave turns into spiral stone chairs, the walls turn into a corridor made of stone bricks with torch slots without any torches.

We then arrive at a small stone room, with a trapdoor on the center of the roof with an old leaver on the side. The leaver is quite rusted, covered with spider webs. I approach and try the trapdoor, but the rotten wood reinforced with rusted metal doesn’t budge. It’s extremely heavy, even for me.

Alright, let’s try this leaver. It’s quite hard to turn it, but by holding it with both hands, I manage to pull it. A terrible rusted sound takes place, and something heavy moves above us, sliding on the ground. Something that slid off from the top of the trapdoor. I try the trapdoor again, and this time it opens with a loud creak.

Nice! I go up to the extremely dusty room with no windows. I look around. Several rotten crates are here and there on the room, with a flight of stairs going up. So this is a basement, huh? I look to my right. A stone statue of an angel is sitting quietly.

The marks on the ground and the lack of dust from the previous position shows that the leaver was part of the mechanism to move this statue. Quite a cleaver apparatus indeed, I can see that the arm of the statue can move, most likely opening the passage from this side.

The skeletons come in from the entrance. First, I’ll scout this place a bit, make sure that there’s nobody inside so I can move here. I’ll also find a way to clear this place later. I go up the stairs and explore the place.

Dirty, full of dust and spiderwebs, with the decaying wallpaper. There’s still furniture around, but as expected of stuff that’s more than a century old, it’s rotten and decaying beyond any use. Thankfully, I’m dead, so I don’t have to worry about this stuff.

I order half of the skeletons with me to return to the catacombs and fetch my coffin, while the rest explores the mansion with me. After a long time, I conclude that the mansion is empty from people. With that, I take the master bedroom on the third floor and put my coffin there.

This mansion is amazing! it not only has a lot of rooms of which people can sleep in, there’s also a lot of special rooms, such as entrance hall, of which there’s a place where a statue used to be, ball room, several studies, quite a big library, four basements, a “green room” where I can plant some stuff, a garden outside, and several other rooms.

The master room is also quite awesome, is enormous, with barred windows that show the font garden and the cliff behind the mansion. This mansion is also built in a strange way. First, it’s as tall as a six floored building, but it only has three average-height floors, but each floor has a strange space between.

One example is the green room. It has the height of six actual floors, and cut’s the other floors. However, the corridors of the third and second floor are connected through by walkways, making it a strange sight.

Obviously, there are secret passages inside the mansion itself, but I never heard of any of it. Well, I can search that for later. For now, I need to get stronger. I guess I’ll pillage some of the corpses on the cemetery, and use their flesh to attract crows, so I can kill them and raise them as zombies to spy for me.