The crazy witch took my shirt off. I found her warm arms uncomfortable, but it was decidedly the snoring in my ear that made me want to kill her. We lay back on her fur covers, her still in full robes sleeping, me shirtless wondering if I could breathe poison in her face and escape before her minions decapitated me. One of her legs draped over my own. She passed a lot of gas in her sleep, probably because noble women held it in all day. I quit counting the poots in the high twenties.

Still, I was glad she kept her clothes on. Presumably her tiny stature made it hard to stay warm in the crypts. My cold undead skin probably didn’t help matters, either. Annoyed as I was with being a huggy pillow, I was thankful that her molestation ended there. Had I any intention of staying with her, I had little doubt ‌she would take things further.

“I don’t want us to move too quickly,” she’d said, having the audacity to pretend to be shy. Like I could refuse whatever nonsense her depraved mind dreamt up.

Did she know I was still aware? The question had vexed me; but because she was an utter lunatic, I couldn’t arrive at an answer. Half the time she spoke to me like I was a person, the other like I was an undead minion bound to her whims. The irony that I was both wasn’t lost on me.

On a positive note, being stuck for hours gave me time to think. I went over what I’d seen her do all day on her workstation. Books piled around a wooden desk, kept alight by a magic candle. She furiously scribbled notes, comparing pictures and designs in her sketchbook to those in the books. I wasn’t exactly sure what the subject of her study was, but those renderings on the papers looked ‌like the arcane carvings in the catacombs below.

Though she didn’t talk to me about her work, she confided that she would have to leave her camp soon. Pollina felt strongly that I should know that she would only leave me for a brief time, and that she would return with “protection”. She’d said that I deserved to have the very best girlfriend, and that she wanted to make me happy.

When I heard that, I impulsively said, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” But thankfully, the sound only came out as a uniquely high-pitched gibbering groan.

“Calm down, horndog! It’ll just be a day, no longer,” she’d said, misinterpreting the situation.

Although she was right about me getting impatient. I couldn’t wait to flee back to the tunnels below.

And so, when she finally woke up the next morning, leaving a pile of drool on my bare shoulder, I zombie grunted a good morning. Pollina had put me in a pleasant enough mood to be sociable, and by that point, I wasn’t even sure if I could blow my cover.

“Oh! That’s so sweet,” she said, kissing me on the forehead. Her breath smelled awful. Maybe even as bad as mine. In our defense, they didn’t have toothbrushes in this world, and I was dead. I don’t think I even produced saliva.

Looking refreshed for once, she filled me in a little about her situation.

“So, I have to go back up to meet with my master and bring some of the other cultists back down. It’s a bit of a travel topside—duh! You already know that.” She slapped her forehead and laughed at her own joke. A second later, she resumed packing some of her clothes and books into a backpack.

“I’m really excited for you to meet him. He’s going to reward me big time for taking out those adventurers. With them gone, no one else knows about this place. Maybe for a gift to me he can figure out how you died. I’m going to find out who did it one way or another! And, oh, they are going to regret that they were ever born when I’m through with them.” Pollina said with an unhinged grin.

Then, like a stray bullet from a drive by shooting, she caught a bit of situational awareness.

“Oh honey! Don’t take it that way! I love you dead or alive. You are still my beautiful Orry no matter what!”

Before departing, she gave me a peck on the cheek and the command to stay in the room. Likewise, she ordered one of her armored skeletal minions to make sure that no harm came to me. The zombie Lovina left with her, but not before hissing at me and giving me the stink eye. Since she only had one eye in her head, it was extra effective.

Why is she mad at me? Aren’t I the corpse with a grudge?

Pollina concurred and made Lovina slap herself several times again to reinforce the cadaver hierarchy.

“Come on, you dumb cow! You stupid, heartless oinker!” were the last words I heard my undesired necromancer girlfriend say before leaving me.

Just to make sure she was really gone, I waited an hour.

Buttoning my clothes and putting on a jacket with one usable hand was tough, but I pulled it off. Next, I shambled over to her supplies, then put my four daggers back on my waist. When she’d taken my first magic item away, I’d been super pissed. I’d been terrified she would take the magic dagger along with my other belongings. Like she’d done when she took the coin pouch and the two rings I’d looted from the people she murdered. Just walked right off with my ill-gotten gains!

Most of her remaining supplies were food and water. There was a small backpack and some rope, but nothing else I really felt would be helpful.

The books and papers that she’d left behind on the workstation went into my new backpack. Along with the magic candle that I didn’t need. Arcane research was likely as boring as it sounded, but I figured with all the time on my hands, I may as well take a gander.

Now, with all the stuff I wanted packed on my person, I turned my attention to my bodyguard. The skeleton’s presence had been a last-minute surprise. Thankfully, it remained out of my way while I did my business by just standing there looking dumb.

I couldn’t decide if I should try to kill it. It was definitely stronger than me, and unlike Lovina, it felt by a lot. Since it had orders to protect me, I considered taking it along and using it for the intended purpose. What kept me from just doing that was that I worried Pollina had a way of tracking one of her creations.

Then there was the possibility that the bonehead would attack after I tried to damage it. I just didn’t know enough about skeletal behavior to make an educated guess. Or necromancy.

In the end, my craving for that peerless nectar called mana forced my hand. I carefully slipped off the rusty conquistador-style helmet, then went around behind it to stick my blade in its skull. Four strikes with the magic blade was what it took to destroy the skull, and the skeleton didn’t move once.

The biggest rush of mana I’d had to date flooded my core.

You have sufficient mana to advance a tier I → II

It sent me straight to two, and most of the way to three. Like before, I didn’t receive a tier power when advancing to an even number. And according to Oran’s knowledge, that was how it worked with classers too. The “god’s loved odds” was a saying that people with manacores liked to say.

With the last major obstacle to my machinations out of the way, I burned all her shit up. I didn’t do it out of spite, despite having a good claim for that. Mostly, I just hoped getting rid of her supplies would buy me time. Pollina would have to figure out what happened, and couldn’t stay without returning to get more food and water. That was how I reasoned it out in my mind, at least. I knew she would come after me.

I’d just made it to the hole when I heard noises coming from the tunnel ahead. They were close, too.

Panicking about getting caught by a surprise Pollina, I shuffled faster toward the rope with every intention of throwing myself thirty feet to the ground. But then I heard the voices.

They were all men. And they were too close to the hole.

Could her party have already been heading this way?

No, I didn’t think that was the case. Pollina had said that she was the only one that knew about the entrance to the catacombs underneath us. Also, from what I knew of her, there was no way she’d just shut up and let two dudes talk.

I squished the backpack into the darkness of an alcove, then placed my magic dagger next to a skeleton on the opposite side. The bottom shelf was empty, so I climbed into it and lay there like a corpse.

“... on fire, it’s not safe to breathe,” I heard one man say.

Crap! Was the fire what had done me in? I barely even noticed the smoke pouring down the tunnel. Who would have thought not being able to breathe would be a detriment in any way?

There was indeed smoke flowing along the ceiling, but it was not as much as I expected it to be. Still, the newcomers weren’t taking any chances.

Four men walked down the narrow tunnel hunched over with rags on their faces. They were a motley group, wearing robes, heavy armor, and everything between.

I entertained the hope that they would walk right past me until one of them stopped and slapped another on the shoulder.

“Hey, isn’t that Oran Farrow?” he said, pointing at me.

His voice didn't sound familiar.

“Oh yeah, look at that,” said the guy he slapped. “Never liked Oran. Glad he’s dead.”

“Really? He was always nice to me,” said a third member of their group.

“Well, he was nice, sure. It was just the way he always moped about like the world wasn’t fair that rubbed me the wrong way. I mean, the guy was born into one of the richest houses in all of Allwyn. What could have been so bad about his life?”

“He didn’t have a manacore. That is a pretty big reason to be upset, just saying.”

“I don’t have a manacore! You really think I’d have joined a demon cult if I did?”

The first member of their group, who hadn’t spoken yet, looked back and yelled, “Quiet! We have work to do.”

Everyone fell silent, which I guessed made him the leader.

“Search him for anything worthwhile,” the man commanded.

The guy who said he’d liked me did the job, thankfully. He wasn’t rough and gave up rather quickly. The cultist didn’t even bother removing my three mundane daggers. His companions left us alone to search Pollina’s burned out sleeping area.

“We must have just missed them. They burned all their research and fled,” said a cultist.

“They’ll be back,” the leader said. “This is the only way they know to the Ossuary of Thalzaxor. We’ll set a trap for them and move on.”