After hours of traversing dark twisting tunnels and exploring empty burial chambers, I found a nice stone slab to take a break. Laying back gently on the tabernacle, I pretended the builders of the crypt made it of memory foam and closed my eyes. Not because I was tired, or even bored.

Though I’ll admit that smashing up random interred bodies like a hooligan is pretty tedious. Their skulls had even been getting harder for me to crush the deeper I’d gone into the Ossuary. Sometimes taking three good whacks or more with the new mace. I suspected that the ambient death mana in the air was the cause. Oran knew that an area of concentrated fire mana resulted in hotter temperatures. Similarly, I deduced the undead gained strength from equivalent mana potency. But I digress.

No, I needed the repose because I finally tiered up! The pickings had been slim, and the only reason I pulled it off on the few undead I could find was because I’d already been so close to advancing.

You have sufficient mana to advance a tier II → III

To my complete wonder, as soon as I fired up the Naram-Sin, I discovered that the tome of the mad prophet had retroactively given me my first spells!

Spells:

Level 1: Sense Undead - extend your sense to locate undead near you.

Level 2: Reanimate Hand - reanimate the hand of a corpse.

The Naram-Sin hadn’t urged me to look at my codex, and so I never thought to look at it after my last level up. Thus far, it only demanded my attention when there was a choice to be made.

Looking over my new spells left me filled with excitement. Sense Undead was a downright godsend. No more busting up random cadavers for me! Now, I could safely target undead monsters that would provide me with mana. Even if I’d gotten the opportunity to pick the spell, I couldn’t imagine any other I’d choose over it.

Likewise, Reanimate Hand would be a huge therapeutic time-saver. Only being able to use one arm at a time had left me wanting. The frustration of dealing with my handicaps turned out to be more difficult this time around because I knew that magic would let me overcome them, eventually. It fried my patience. Every missed shirt button or hard-to-tie armor strap was a metaphorical whip to an already galloping horse, stoking me to push harder when I knew I couldn’t.

I couldn’t wait to experiment with my new magic, but first I had something else to take care of.

Please choose a trait for your tier.

Decoagulating nails - your nails inflict wounds that bleed profusely.

Disease Spreader - your bite has a chance of infecting a living creature with zombification.

Skulking Lurcher - your feet make no noise when you move.

That was the easiest choice of my entire unlife. I’d have never gotten into that mess with Pollina in the first place if I’d been able to keep quiet. Also, the sounds of my scraping boots in dusty corridors had gotten on my nerves. If my new life had a soundtrack, I’d call it “Drag Scuff Drag”. I just did my best to tune it out like I did the constant smell of dead people. I locked in my selection.

Absolutely chuffed, I checked out my new status.

Name: Oran Farrow

Race: Undead

Level: 2

Tier: Lurching Corpse - III

Level Advantages:

Rigor Mortis - you can selectively use your stiffening limbs to achieve a death grip or relax it to increase motor function.

Spring Forward - you can make a quick one second run or jump forward. Usable once a minute.

Tier Traits:

Halted Decay - significantly reduces your rate of decay.

Verminbane - you emit an aura that repels non-magical vermin.

Poisonous Gas - your stomach builds up a toxic gas that you can expel once a day.

Skulking Lurcher - your feet make no noise when you move.

Spells:

Level 1: Sense Undead - extend your sense to locate undead near you.

Level 2: Reanimate Hand - reanimate the hand of a corpse to assist you.

If my path continued along the same pattern of three tiers as it had so far, that would mean that the next advancement was a new evolution! I could barely contain my excitement. I kept trying to fantasize about what came after a lurching corpse, but all that kept popping in my head was an image of the Frankenstein monster. Which wasn’t a bad thought; at least big neck bolts walked upright. There is a dignity in having good posture.

Going back to leveling patterns, I was curious how my new spells got assigned by the codex. Since they were retroactive, did that prevent me from picking them myself? From what I guessed, that was how normal monster cores worked with progression. You could almost guarantee that a zombie in the wild had a diseased bite. That was what made them such a menace. For the moment, I’d bucked that trend with my gift of choice. I hypothesized that there was a table of outcomes of some variety for standardizing mindless monster growth.

This latest tier advancement hadn’t provided me with the opportunity to pick a new spell. So, I considered that either at a level up or at Tier II was when I actually gained new magic. Further, I knew I couldn’t count on getting a spell every time, or a choice between spells, ‌because it all depended on my compatibility with the tome. With no access to the tome again, I worried about how my next evolution might affect the process. Would becoming a vampire, for instance, remove a zombie spell from my pool? I hated the notion that the codex punished my choices, but I didn’t dwell on it for long. There was no way of knowing until I could pick again on my own.

Finally finished with playing with myself, I returned to the waking world and set about learning my new magic. Starting with Sense Undead.

I learned quickly that my spells were weird, and mine didn’t work like a classers did. From what Oran was told, a classer had a multitude of spells that they could use by funneling excess mana from a specialized supply. Once that supply ran out, they could no longer cast spells until their core regenerated it. Conversely, my core directly powered my spells and nothing else! There was a partition of mana devoted uniquely to keep each spell active. After casting Sense Undead for the first time, I understood this innately.

The total nuance of that distinction was beyond me at present, however my chief take away was that my magic worked more like an ability. I concentrated, and “boom” there was my effect.

As awesome as that sounded, the monstercore direct pay bothered me. In my last two levels, the codex had used my level ups and tier 2 to reinforce my body and mana channels. I feared that my new spell-like abilities pulled from my personal strength to fund this magic, making me weaker than a normal Tier 3 lurching corpse. At least so far, the spells provided a good enough utility to warrant the sacrifice. I prayed that this would remain the case.

Sense Undead was principally like, well, another sense. A “field” extended outward from my person seeking death mana monster cores. None were near me at present, considering how thoroughly I exterminated any potential spooker with my trusty mace. So, I just kept it metaphysically switched on. In the future, it might get annoying to keep on around masses of undead, like an overpowering smell or loud music, but I didn’t have that issue right now.

On the other hand, Renaimate Hand was a spell I knew I’d never turn off. I snatched a little bony bro off a nearby corpse, then mentally activated it to awaken. The sensation of a connection forming was a little disorienting, but only for a second. I could feel a gentle tether between me and my new body part, and I sent it running around the ground like Thing from the Addams family.

It was glorious!

The dexterity possessed by the little bugger was far greater than my own meager, meaty fingers. It clacked along the stone floor doing sprints, jumps and circles, like an RC car I never knew I wanted. It wasn’t very strong at present, but that didn’t matter to me. The sheer utility of having a helping hand was enough to overcome any negativity about its shortcomings. Besides, I guessed it would improve alongside me.

I spent more than an hour running it through paces, trying to understand the limitations of the spell. My handsome assistant couldn’t climb well, nor could it jump very high. Dragging a knife was possible, but slowed it down considerably.

What it could do, and quite well I might add, was give a constant head and neck massage. It provided just the right amount of pressure with those boney tong fingers, to exactly the location that I needed. Sure, I didn’t feel pain, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t all tensed up all the time. There were plenty of things to worry about.

Now, in a more relaxed mood, I left my rest area to continue my quest of getting more kick ass.

I’d noticed a concerning trend of the catacomb tunnels growing smaller the deeper I traveled, and I didn’t like it one bit. The walls didn’t enclose enough to force me to concentrate using Rigor Mortis, yet, but ‌it was only a matter of time.

Hole-like tunnels replaced the alcoves to either side, and I briefly worried that I’d somehow left the Ossuary altogether. The ever present bas relief of the unknown masked ghoul god was the indicator that I hadn’t. Still, the architecture was a marked change in what I’d experienced so far, setting a more chaotic tone.

Unexpectedly, my new ability to sense undead pinged to let me know that there was a creature above me. I couldn’t see anything in the ceiling hole's darkness, and I wondered if it was on a level above. There was no way for me to tell how far my range extended, but I suspected not that good.

And so it was, as I stood there staring up at the roof like an unconcerned yokel, getting his head massaged, that a nightmare slammed into me from above.