Chương 2: Moonlight on my ivory dome

"What kind of dog was that?" I asked as I shoved my bony feet into the pair of boots that completed my disguise. A heavy cloak with a hood and a thick scarf to cover my face had still left my feet on display when I moved. The steady clicking sound every time I took a step was also far too attention-grabbing for our intended mission.

"Puggy was a Pug. He died last year, and I… missed him. That's kind of why I picked Necromagus when I came of age..." I sighed and conjured a fresh cigar. There was a small pile of nibs in the corner of the Von Heffleslump family shed. Apparently, Bork's mum believed in large meals.

"Give me your socks, please."

"What? Why?" Bork was also cloaked, the top of his pointy hat making his hood ride much higher than it ought to. I waved a leg in the kid's direction, and Puggy attempted to steal my shin bone. Since he had a taste of one of my bones, he had become a pest. The boot wobbled loosely on my foot.

"I've got no flesh, kid. I can hardly move with the boots like this, and I sure as hell can't fight. You shouldn't wear socks and sandals, by the way. So, socks please, I'm doing us both a favour."

"But my toes will get cold?" Once I had acquired hosiery and could move a bit more easily, I picked up the pair of shovels Bork had borrowed from his dad's shed and held them under my cloak in one hand, my gladius clutched in the other. Bork lifted up Puggy and tucked the ivory pooch below his own cloak. The boy's shed lay at the bottom of a long garden, a few hundred metres away from the house. Well, mansion. It had wings on either side of the main building, which rose three storeys tall.

Gargoyles and pillars lined the roof and the frontage, respectively, giving it an odd mish-mash aesthetic, like a goth and a fan of ancient Greece had gotten drunk together while designing it. I'd seen worse. It loomed in the faint moonlight, the curtained windows glowing with light and warmth. And I got to live in a bloody shed. At least my bones didn't feel the cold. As soon as we passed through the wrought iron gates that guarded the estate, Bork hunched in on himself.

The street was lit by flickering gaslamps that alternated with neatly trimmed trees growing up from the grassy verges that lined the cobbled road.

"What's your problem?" I asked quietly. With my disguise and the scarf covering my face, only a narrow gap of bone between the hood and where my nose ought to be was visible. I had pulled the hood as far forward as possible so the passersby couldn't immediately tell that I was undead by the glowing blue flames that passed for my eyeballs.

"We need to go past Nomin's house. If he's out, he'll… be annoying." The drooping shoulders and unhappy voice suggested the kid had a bully. I was disappointed by the villain material I'd found on this world so far. There was no lust for power, no drive to usurp the social order and take control. Aba had shafted me again. He'd sent me to turn a nerd who missed his pupper into a city-dominating necromancer.

"He got his class yet?" I asked as we turned a corner. A pair of guards, their chainmail covered by dull orange tabards, looked over at us as we walked. Aside from one of them resting a hand on the club hanging from his belt, they didn't bother us. The city guard in Nadrak was composed of the usual mix with a majority of them being decent people doing a shitty job to the best of their ability, and the rest psychotic bullies or corrupt cops who were worse than the criminals they pretended to hunt.

Same as the police everywhere, it was a multiversal constant that IMPS had embraced with a passion.

"Yeah."

"So what is he?" I asked after a lengthy pause.

"A Shadow Squire," Bork muttered. That meant he was going down the Dark Knight path if he was an edgy idiot. If he were a lunatic, he'd likely end up as a Deathkinigit, but only after he died and became undead. In the meantime, he'd be a mage killer who used shadow magic. I'd hoped for a worthier antagonist. However, the kid's problem was clear. Poor Bork was a fragile necromancer, a summoner class with only one summon, plus a cute but tiny dog.

This Nomin guy probably did represent a real threat to the kid in the long term. While they were at school, though, the tutors would keep things non-lethal.

"Well, once we get done tonight, you'll have the nucleus of your future horde."

"Thanks. I can't take them to school, though. Can't take you either." I had lived through seven magic academy arcs in my previous lives, and I shuddered at the thought of another one. Still, needs must when the devil vomits in your kettle.

"We can probably work something out to get me in. I'm a bonded summon, and I can talk. Hell, I could probably teach most of the theoretical classes. The zombies will be right out, though. Too smelly and bits keep dropping off."

"Are zombies…safe?"

"If they're your zombies, then yeah. They can be a bit bitey with strangers." If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. We turned another corner, and the houses here were much less impressive than the Von Heffleslump residence. Smaller, but comfortable enough. We were still close to Harket Street, where Bork lived on the edge of the noble quarter.

The houses were all painted in bright colours or pure white, catching the dim moonlight where they were far enough back to avoid the gaslamps' glare. Tidy gardens, mostly gravelled but with a few neatly trimmed lawns, guarded the homes from the sidewalks and the wandering citizenry. It was quiet at this time of night, but a city like Nadrak was never truly peaceful.

The Trade Quarter would still be busy with industry as craftsman worked in shifts through the night, and the factories continued to churn out trinkets and goods. The Umbra district was always bustling with pickpockets and whores working the sailors who, in their cups, stumbled too far from the dockside taverns. On the far side of the Umbra lay the Shroud, and then finally the Moulders.

I glanced around as we left the middle-class houses behind and began threading our way past terraced rows, cramped together to accommodate the peasantry. The city guards who had lurked on every other corner closer to the centre of the city were now a rare sight, and they moved in larger groups, never less than six of them together. Bork was walking close to my side, practically glued to me, and I could hear Puggy trying to reach my tasty bones, struggling against Bork's grip.

Every section of the city had a different vibe. The Umbra felt like walking on a knife-edge. Pickpockets often had a side gig as cutthroats, and life was cheap in the gloomy streets, but there was also a feeling of… release? Not quite the right word. There was pleasure and distraction to be had among the danger that lurked here. These people couldn't afford magical heating or the new gas systems introduced in the last couple of decades. Every home burned wood or coal, filling the streets with choking smog.

The lights above turned the soupy fog into little islands of illumination between grey banks of uncertainty. The rundown buildings had chipped paint and warped shutters, and gardens were no longer to be found.

"Mum would be mad if she knew I was here," Bork muttered.

"Kid, you're going to have a second skeleton if you get any closer to me. I'd rather not be absorbed into you." I pushed him gently away from me.

"Where did you tell her we were going?"

"I said I was going to see Gangle."

"And Gangle is? I know a hell of a lot about the politics, the geography, the history, the bloody cuisine that I can't eat of Nadrak, but your dossier didn't happen to list all your acquaintances. Aba is such an incompetent."

"A friend from school. She's in my mana channelling class." A fight broke out ahead of us, drunks spilling out of a tavern and laying into each other. One uncommonly large man produced a club from a pouch, some kind of magical storage device, and began cracking skulls. We crossed over the road and hurried onwards. The further we went, the more impoverished the residents became.

Clothes were patched or simply ragged, and the bright colours from the richer parts of town were replaced with greys and browns, cheaper dyes that the poor could afford. Groups of urchins glared at us from the mouths of alleys, their eyes tracking us like cats watching a mouse pass through their territory.

"Spare a copper guv?" one asked, sidling up to us.

"I'm sorry, I don't have anything that small on me," Bork replied politely in his rich-boy accent. Way to stand out, kid. Half a dozen of the bigger kids had perked up and began moving towards us.

"We've got nothing for you," I growled.

"Hambo's Hairy Sack, the hells is wrong with your eyes?" the beggar demanded, backpedalling hurriedly.

"Magical curse. If you don't want to end up the same, you'll bugger off."

"You're not right! You shouldn't be out with something like that. You should visit Myrtle, she can cure the clap, she can probably cure whatever that is. Inconsiderate, guv, that's what you are. Putting us all at risk!" The other kids backed away at his words, and when the one who hassled us hurried over to them, the hushed conversation caused them to stop trailing after us.

"Well done, Dusty. I was worried there."

"Keep your voice down, kid. You're too damn posh. Every time you open your mouth, all this lot hears is coins clinking in your purse."

"But I'm broke? All my money went on the reagents for the ritual. I've never come this far into the Umbra before."

"It's dangerous. Stay the hell away from it unless I'm with you."

"Pfft. You haven't got any levels. Half those kids will be level three or four. No way could you stand a chance against them."

"I'm not some shit-tier skeleton mage. One on one, if I get half a chance, I'll take any of them down. The groups could be a problem, but once you rip out one dudes eyes, the rest tend to reconsider having a pop at you." Lapsing into silence, we reached the edge of the Umbra. The Shroud stretched out ahead of us. Squads of guards patrolled this boundary like clockwork, and houses had been knocked down to make way for regular watchtowers.

While the city guard tended to stay the hell out of the Umbra if they wanted to live to collect their pensions, they kept a close eye on the boundary of the Shroud whether they liked it or not. Bork came to a stop and stared at the ruins that lay beyond what passed for civilisation to the poor.

"It's…I never knew it was that bad!"

"It's one of the reasons your kind is hated. Dark magics tend to leave a stain on the world." The shadows moved despite there being no more street lights from here on out. Some of it was illusion, some of it was broken spells drifting in and out of reality, and some of it might even be the absolute dregs of the city. The ones too rough or too broken to even get by in the Umbra.

There weren't many of them, perhaps a few hundred who dwelt in this hellscape, but they were the most dangerous and desperate of all the locals. And I needed to get this kid through to the other side without us being eaten by the cannibals, or harvested for parts by the Mad Physician.

"Come on, kid." I kept my sword dangling loosely from my right hand and began shaping the tips of my fingers into pointed claws with Boneshaping. With a bit of luck, we'd slip through unmolested, but if we did run into anyone, well, I'd have a chance to get some early XP. Or die. Was it worth cancelling the mission at this point? I could walk the kid into a mine spell and let it do its thing. Aba would be pissed, though, and I didn't need another dead verse on my record after Estevan 17.

Bork lowered Puggy to the ground.

"Stay close, boy." I sent a mental command to reinforce Bork's order, and the Bonedog did as he was told. We advanced into the fog, ears pricked for the slightest sound. Once the guards were far enough behind us, I pushed back my hood and threw my cloak back over my right shoulder to free up my sword arm. A cigar appeared in my teeth, and the flare as I dragged on it lit my bony face with a dull red glow.