I had the skeleton knight canvas the area for that archer before I felt comfortable enough to leave the temple. Thankfully, my minion didn’t find the sniper, because I’m sure it would have ended badly. I’d noticed that after a certain distance, there was a bit of a delay in my commands. Almost like latency. Now knowing that, I resolved to keep the head chopper by my side. Probably for the best, anyway.

Once I’d deemed the temple courtyard safe, I got to looting the adventurers. Their deaths were unfortunate, and I wasn’t exactly happy about the harm I’d done to them, but I had no problems taking all their gear.

After having arrows launched at my head, I decided that I really wanted head protection. The easiest way to accomplish that was to rip off the plate mail armor and take it for my own. Unfortunately, the armor did not cater to my size, as the man who’d worn it was half a foot smaller than me. Even the helmet was too small. Just to humor myself, I tried a few pieces on anyway, but I felt ridiculous and threw it back into a pile.

His coin purse was much more promising, and between the three that died, I ended up with a solid amount of wealth. Not a fortune, but not enough to sneeze at either. At least combined with the money I’d already taken from that other group of dead adventurers.

Along with the purse, he had a magical belt that I took. It took me a while to figure it out, but once I formed a mana connection, the rest was easy. Anything metal I placed near the belt and willed to hold, snapped to it and hung tight. Pulling the joined items off seemed impossible until I willed it. When I commanded the skeleton to remove my new warhammer, the guardian held me up in the air and shook me like a chew toy. The weight limit per item was only around ten pounds. However, there didn’t seem to be a limit to the number of items. I placed the coin purse on there and willed all the individual coins to clump together against the belt. Only about half of them made it before I ran out of space for the bag to stretch, but it was neat. Anything that wasn’t metal wouldn’t stick at all. I connected my two remaining mundane knives and one enchanted dagger by sliding a sheath over the belt, then snapping the blade to connect through the leather. It seemed a bit like overkill, but no one could use my own blades against me.

The chainmail the priestess had was also nice, but just like the plate, it didn’t fit me. I really liked her hammer and shield and I kept both, tossing aside my scuffed and beat up light mace.

She also had a holy symbol of her goddess that had fallen off when she lost her head. I placed it back on her body and piled her in the sarcophagus with the other two men. After an awkward silent prayer, I went to finish rifling through the rest of their crap.

The spear dude had the best stuff for me. His leather armor was much better than my own, and after I scrubbed as much blood off of it as I could, I put it on. I had a new set of armored leather chest plate, pants, helmet, and gloves. The gloves had magic protection, probably because using a spear in melee risked hand damage.

There were a few potions on each of their belts. Five in total. I didn’t know what any of them did, so I just tossed them into my backpack.

Stealing a pinky off of each of them was hard for me. The priestess had a middling skill with her hammer and shield, but even that was worlds better than what I could do. Likewise, the armor guy had expert level shield and axe fighting to contribute to my bone pile. The spear guy’s skill with his chosen weapon dwarfed all of theirs, and because of that, I also added his spear to my arsenal.

Since I didn’t want to carry around a mess of severed fingers around my neck, I had my ghoul claw whittle all the flesh away. After, I wiped up as much gore as I could on the undershirt of the leader. Using a drawstring from a now empty purse, I placed each of the four pinky bones I had on a necklace and slipped it on.

Interestingly, Necrometry had a few major drawbacks that I hadn’t expected. I could only channel one skill at a time. For instance, if I tried to use the spear and the shield from two different bones, only whichever I’d activated first would work. Triggering a bone with two different skills had the same result. Finally, the biggest handicap I’d found was that there was a temporary delay of about a minute after I turned off a skill. The blessing wasn’t as good as I originally thought, but I still would not complain. Besides, maybe there was a way to improve it in the future.

And speaking of improvement, with my new all powerful bodyguard, I set off to find monsters to murder. My ambition for evolution burned in my stomach like the outside of a bowl of microwaved ramen noodles.

Directly outside the steps of the temple was a small, empty stone courtyard. Stretching off to the left of the cavern, I saw Rosamund run towards. That being the case, I assumed all the adventurers came from and fled in that direction. Naturally, I had no inclination to follow behind them.

Not that I would have.

Because, across from the courtyard, was the entrance to an enormous maze made of bones.

So that’s why they call this place an ossuary. I’d been wondering…

I couldn’t wait to see what type of awesome skills I’d be able to snatch up from all those corpses.

⬲

Rosamund Farrow stumbled into the light of the camp, nearly tripping over her own tired feet in exhaustion. She saw the exact moment Roger’s eyes widened in recognition as he looked down at her from a nocked arrow.

“Hold!” commanded Mansfield Walsham, his own sword at the ready. Had she the energy, Rosamund would have laughed at the sight of the noble trying to wield a weapon. He wasn’t even holding the rapier right.

“By the gods! Rosa, you’re alive!” exclaimed Roger. But he still didn’t lower the bow. “You are alive, right?”

“Sec,” Rosamund said, huffing in air like a bellow.

“Of course she’s alive. Listen to her breathing,” Mansfield said, walking over to hand her a waterskin.

She greedily accepted, ripping off the top and chugging the precious liquid down her throat and shirt.

Paranoid as ever, Roger cut into her reprieve. “How’d you get away? I saw that death cultist take you.”

Rosamund held up a finger for pause and continued guzzling water. A half minute later, she collapsed onto her backside next to the radiant lamp. Partially to prove that she wasn’t undead, as they couldn’t bear to be near the divine object, and partly because she had just run through the dark for hours on end. Not being the religious sort, she was too stubborn to admit that just being near the divine was just what she needed.

“Take your time, Rosa,” Mansfield said, glaring at Roger.

If she hadn’t already had a huge crush on the man, that would have sealed the deal for her. Mansfield was everything that a nobleman should be. Tall, handsome, conscientious, tall, honorable, courageous, and tall. Even knowing what a scorpion Lovina Strain was, he’d first entered a marriage contract with her for the betterment of his family, then delved into these accursed catacombs to rescue her. Or, more likely, avenge her.

“The cultist was a zombie. Something was really off…” Rosamund said, trying to get her thoughts together. She did not know where to start.

“How’d you get away?” Roger asked again.

“He just let me go,” Rosamund said, cringing at how unbelievable it sounded.

Roger scoffed.

Mansfield believed her. “Why did he do that?” he asked.

“I’m not exactly sure. He… He said he only attacked us because we attacked him.”

No one knew what to say to that. It was unequivocally true, after all.

Roger finally lowered the bow and sat down with a huff.

“Did he say or want anything?” Mansfield asked.

“Yeah, he, uh, wanted me to tell you that Lovina was dead, err, undead now.”

Mansfield’s lips made a tight line. That was the closest he ever got to frowning. “And he claims to have killed her? Reanimated her perhaps?”

“No,” Rosamund shook her head empathetically. “He said Pollina Mavis did it.”

“Of course she did.” Mansfield stated. “But did he have any proof?”

Rosamund and Roger turned to their contractor at that. “What do you mean ’of course’? You already knew?”

“It was the most likely outcome. Lovina did terrible things to the girl. I told her it was a trap from the beginning, but she ignored my request to postpone and plan.”

If Mansfield said it, then it was probably true. As a rare type of mage called a “Diviner”, his guesses were almost always spot on. Divination spells found and sorted extrasensory information into actionable intelligence. They worked great in an administration capacity, but were crap at literally everything else. Nobles viewed them as a mixed blessing because their use was weighed against the constant supplements and babysitting they’d need to progress.

It was only because of his prowess as a mage that they’d found a way into the Ossuary in the first place. In the past month, their group had made their way down here from two separate entrances.

And for nothing.

“Then why the hells are we down here?” Rosamund said, barely containing her anger. Three of her close friends were dead, and he already knew what happened to her.

Mansfield looked down at her, lips tight again, “I’ve already told you. To either retrieve her or avenge her. Pollina and House Mavis cannot get away with murdering a member of a great house. Proof is required for both justice and… concessions.” Mansfield had the decency to look a little ashamed at that admission.

There it was. Economics. The cold calculation of life that dominated the noble’s paradigm. Rosamund had felt blessed to be born low in the Farrow hierarchy, because it meant she could get away from people who acted this way. Yet, here she was, a full-fledged adventurer still wading through political bullshit. She knew she was naïve to have believed herself free, but the past few years really had been nothing but adventure and inns.

At least she wasn’t that attracted to him anymore.

“It doesn’t matter,” Mansfield said with a heavy breath. “We are too weak to continue, and we should leave before that zombie changes his mind.”

“Now what’s this about a zombie?” said a guttural voice from outside the light of the lantern.

All three party members spun with their weapons out.

A red-robed figure stepped into the light, and as the shadow receded to reveal a black-horned man with a flayed face. More figures made themselves known, stepping closer to the light from all directions..

“I should like to find this intelligent zombie. He and I have unfinished business,” said the flayed man, stepping up and holding out his hand to Roger.

Roger knelt and kissed it.