I didn’t find anything interesting, but I found a big funky pit. A swirling mass of green energy sat at the bottom of a cylindrical shaft, pulsing under a massive pile of stirring corpses. The loping movement of what I assumed were scavenging ghouls ran around the perimeter of the body pile. Peering over the edge of the drop, I estimated the fall to be about two or three hundred yards, and the diameter of the shaft to be around fifteen feet. An ugly cream colored moss, known to grow in graveyards, called corpse hair, created a splotchy covering along the walls.

A chilly breeze carried toxic fumes upward, creating a hazy blur in the air. I suspected the gasses were lethal, but had no way of knowing for sure. What I knew for a certainty was that they smelled like a shart covered wart on a dead pig’s hoof. Even pinching my nose could not hold back the audacious stink.

The path through the ghoul warrens had simply just ended to reveal this absurd pit. Myself and my five-fingered dance partner had been merrily skipping along a particularly foul smelling tunnel when we’d unexpectedly encountered the drop off.

Well, I guess that explains what I’ve been smelling since I made it to the ghoul hideout.

Searching through Oran’s memories, I realized that there was a name for these kinds of magical edifices, and that they heralded a severe danger to the living. They were colloquially called a Deathwell.

A Deathwell’s main purpose was to draw in ambient mana from the environment and convert it to death mana. Any corpse near one would eventually rise to become an undead on par with their abilities in life. Meaning that a strong adventurer would create a higher level monster.

Further, the release of localized death mana would then empower the undead. Although I suspected I had yet to receive any such advantage because of the sheer number of corpses loaded on top of the structure. Doubtless, all of that mana went to the mass of writhing bodies below.

The origin of these formations was unknown to me, but I suspected I knew how the bodies had arrived.

Turning my head upward, I saw the wide shaft ascend toward a tiny round circle of light. Which was, as I had supposed, my first look at sunlight on the world of Abatur. I shook my head in disappointment, as I had hoped my theory was incorrect.

A standard practice in Valbryde, the capital city of Allwyn above, was to toss the bodies down the “pit”. What they believed to be a natural formation half a mile outside of the city. And they were pretty liberal about who got to take the plunge too. Criminals, the unclaimed, debtors, plague victims, heretics, foreigners, men who lie with animals, men who cheat on their wives, women who lie too much and do all the above, the homeless, and women that don’t like cats. That was just off the top of my head. The last one was infamously put into motion by the church a few centuries ago after a conniving bishop needed to get rid of an uppity wife. It was an easy sell, because, well, who doesn’t like cats?

Anyway, the “Pit of Denunciation” was a popular spot to toss away the unwanted dead. And if the rumors were to be believed, the troublesome living. Many had tried exploring the depths over the years, but if they ever returned, no one knew about it. Most likely, they all died from gas inhalation. Based on my experience, one of the very first abilities offered to a newly undead corpse was Poisonous Gas. Multiply that by the thousands of corpses down here, and you get a near constant stream of deadly vapors.

My curiosity settled, I’d almost gone back to the tunnel that led me here when I spotted a small ledge directly above. Though I couldn’t precisely see what lay there, the mystery of exploring where all had failed piqued my curiosity. Also, I really didn’t want to go back to the ghoul warren. They were obscene monsters, and they lived in a confusing habitat. Why not live in the nice, spacious catacombs above? Animals!

Free-climbing up the shaft was possible, but I didn’t relish the risk. Good thing I didn’t have to.

I pulled out the rope I’d stolen from Pollina, out of the backpack that I’d also stolen from her, and tied it around the wrist of my assistant, the handyman. The reanimated ghoul claw easily scaled the corpse chute, stopping at the ledge around twenty feet above. A square structure sat at the edge of the ledge, and I sent my hand to run around it twice, before crawling up and around the two circling ropes. Then, the hand gripped onto the basic knot, trying to hold it in place should the worst happen.

Before venturing upward, I pulled downward on the rope several times with my body weight. Thankfully, the entanglement held. With a jury-rigged lasso and my upgraded strength, the clamber offered no challenge.

So I had a little fun.

I tried to moan out an echo in the black crevice, but my dead vocal cords couldn’t put out the volume. Rigor Mortis ensured I held on to my safety line while I jumped and swung around, trying to make enough noise to hear a reverberation. None were forthcoming, probably because of the hideous moss, but I enjoyed myself nonetheless. Clanging my mace against a stony patch finally produced the desired result, and I laughed at the foolish ghouls below that searched for the noise.

When I finally climbed over the lip of the edge, an enormous statue of the masked ghoul god greeted me with its arms held in front of it in a meditating pose. Before the effigy was a podium, which I had used as the anchor for my rope.

Marbled black pews, formed in two groups of four, sat on either side of the cavern. The builders had carved this little area into the shape of a half circle, along with a tunnel that ventured off between the feet of the posing god. All said, I found the sanctuary to be rather interesting. Most designated prayer areas have an effigy facing everyone, so that the faithful could connect with the visible reminder of their idol. They had designed this scene in such a way that worshippers would face the Deathwell, probably to watch some poor sod get flung down, while their god stood behind them in quiet contemplation.

I walked around the podium to observe the front, and came face to face with a macabre book made of the skin of an unknown creature. Grotesque black veins ran throughout the white fleshy binding, forming an unsettling juxtaposition.

I tried not to roll my eyes at the lack of imagination of death cults.

Would it have killed anyone to use something interesting like moon dust or fairy wings?

Casually, I flipped open the lid to uncover blood written glyphs that were senseless to me. Oran did not know the language, either. I glanced over a few pages, then turned them at random. When that didn’t work, I picked up the book to toss it into the pit when my eyes started to burn.

I backed away from the podium, but it didn’t stop the burning.

Fear crept into my heart as I considered the outcome of tampering with forces I didn’t understand. There had been no sign that the book was anything more than cliche. Sense undead didn’t ping, and I saw no runes like the ones on my dagger. A tugging sensation from my codex pulled me away from the thoughts.

The Tome of the Mad Prophet of Derzahla has taught you: Imperial Zu-Rakan.

I didn’t know what to make of that. The Zu-Rakan were a people long dead before settlers arrived to form the kingdom of Allwyn thousands of years ago. To my utter expectation, they’d been a necromantic people forming the backbone of most of the modern day death cults. Four of the Six death cults had originated from their accursed ruins. Or so tutors had taught Oran.

No one was sure what had happened to them, but that never stopped debate club nerds from coming up with wacky theories. From plague and a sheep shortage, to mana induced chemtrails by a god of light. The only thing that was certain was that they had been originally human.

After the earlier scare, I still weighed throwing the book into the darkness below. The only thing that stopped me was when I realized I might be the only person on the planet that could read the dead language. And that absolutely appealed to my ego’s desire to be special.

So, I sat down with my back to the podium and flipped back open my copy of the “Dead Scrolls of Thalzaxor”. Above the bloody glyphs, words written in English danced over the page before replacing them completely. Just seeing my native language nearly brought a tear to my eye, and I dove into the material.

The joy didn’t last long.

As with many religious texts, the language was dry and uncaptivating. I reasoned my way through a biographical retelling of a necromancer that changed himself into a rare type of ghoul via an experimental ritual he’d created.

Moron. Literally, every other type of undead is superior.

Thalzaxor, that was his name—shocker—found a way to not just eat the skin of sentient beings, but also to steal their knowledge by consuming their brains. His hunger for power was so great that he became known as the “Devourer of Knowledge”. Eventually, after a war with the vampire queens, he’d absorbed enough death mana to become a god in his own right, ascending to wherever gods go.

The rest of the book covered the major rites, rules, and rituals for his priesthood. He only took men into his service, after one of the previously mentioned vampire queens had him castrated as a young man. Part of what had driven him to greatness had been his desire for revenge against them. A task which he accomplished, scouring them from the face of the world.

As far as gods went, the guy hadn’t been a total asshole, and was primarily interested in maintaining the sanctity of burial places. No doubt his people had the Ossuary built with that exact purpose in mind. A lot of the observances were about which holidays it was safe for the living to descend to the tombs below and pay their respects to their dead and undead ancestors. One passage even made me feel a little guilty about smashing up all those skeletons.

My only real problem with the priests was that they liked to eat babies that died in childbirth. There was like an entire chapter devoted to the health benefits of that lifestyle. I skipped through that part because I just didn’t want to know.

Overall, the read was mildly interesting, and I was more happy than sad when I turned over the last page. No longer convinced I should just destroy the book, I tossed it away, sending up a cloud of dust. The moment the ugly tome left my hand, I got another pull from my codex.

You have received a greater blessing from Thalzaxor the Devourer of Knowledge: Necrometry - you can now sense and use skills from the bones of the dead.

Huh. That was different.