Chương 4: Skellie skill selection

Level 5 skill selection: Rock-hard bones, 0/10 No performance issues for you! Increases bone density and prevents osteoporosis. Bone Control, 0/10 Your bones always arrive on time. Exposed bone within a small radius of your person can be remotely manipulated. Power Word: Osteoporosis, 0/10 Like the sight of a naked Margaret Thatcher, you can make bones hurt. Bork was still muttering soothing noises at Puggy. The dog was fine, tail wagging happily; the kid was projecting.

I got a sinking feeling that if he was ever going to overturn the social order and take control of the city, I would have to do most of the heavy lifting. Rock-hard Bones was toughness by another name, and seeing as I had several other options available to boost my armour stat, it was a waste of a slot. Nope. The other two options were both interesting. Power Word: Osteoporosis would eventually evolve—if I invested the skill points—into something much more useful.

It was a ranged spell-like ability, not much range at all at the start; however, it would scale well in the long run. Seeing as I had no mana it would be the closest I could get to real magic. But the reality was that, compared to Bone Control, it was a pointless pick. One cut that exposed someone's bones to the air would let me puppet them like I was Jim Henson and they were Kermit's asshole, among other handy possibilities. Well, it would when it levelled up a bit.

It was a good roll for level five, and had a lot of potential both immediately and once I'd had a chance to put some more skill points into it. As soon as I clicked it, I could sense the gladius where I'd dropped it next to me. With a thought, I could make it spin and dance around me, but in deference to Bork's PTSD, I left it where it was for now. The bones from inside the cannibal were steadily flowing up my arm, and I was forming the material into armoured plates across my chest and shoulders.

I checked my stats and was pleased to see that my armour stat had already ticked up a point. Now for the big one. Level ten was my last new proper skill roll until I hit twenty, and I crossed the ivory digits on my free hand and wished for a good selection. Level 10 skill selection: Vampiric touch, 0/10 Your bones are thirsty for blood! Drain the life from an opponent on touch to recover Bone Matter. Boney Familiar, 0/10 Craft autonomous constructs to allow for long-range boning!

Dust to Dust, 0/10 Convert bones into dust. You have become fertiliser, grower of crops! No competition. They were all good, but there was one easy choice. When combined with Bone Control … The possibilities were endless. I mentally selected Dust to Dust and tried to smile harder. It might not seem like a great power on face value, but… at level three it started getting good, and all of its evolution choices were amazing at level ten. Should have held off on spending my skill points.

I'd have skipped the Boneshaping and Bone Throwing levels with hindsight. You'd think I'd have gotten over that bad habit of acting before thinking on those first early levels, but I always fell for it. No biggie. I could get another two levels easily enough and get access to Pile of Dust when I hit level twelve. The gladius shot from the ground into my free hand and settled comfortably into my palm.

The reassuring weight made my regrets and worries fall away, but then I looked over at Bork, and both of them came back with a vengeance. He was staring at me with fresh horror painted across his freckly face. I glanced down and sighed as the last of Jerkbart's bones were finally absorbed. He looked like a badly folded human-skin rug, but I'd gained another point in armour, bringing me up to eighteen.

"It's not as bad as it looks," I opened with, not wildly optimistic that it would be an effective explanation.

"Monster!" Not effective at all.

"That was… ugly. But it was for a good cause! The Moulders is now a safe space for us. More or less. There's nothing there that can threaten me anymore, and this asshat and his mates won't be a problem either." My boot kicked Jerkbart on the leg, causing it to fold over the other one like a bolt of cloth.

"But yeah, I needed his bones." Pulling aside my cloak, I revealed my new chest armour. I'd built plates over my ribs, and the cloak no longer looked like it was dangling from a coat hanger thanks to the pauldrons I'd converted the cannibal into.

"That's… pretty damn cool," he muttered, slightly mollified. Maybe Aba hadn't completely screwed me over after all.

"Nomin's going to run when he sees you!" Then again, maybe Aba had royally fucked me over.

"I'm not here to deal with your bully, kid. I mean, we can probably do that as well," I added hastily as his face fell.

"Your world is going to die." I regretted the words instantly and raised my hands to stem the incipient panic on his face.

"Look, there's a problem. Something to do with your city. If you don't take over, shit will happen. Usually, seemingly inconsequential shit. You ever heard of the butterfly effect? Anyway, if you don't end up running the city, some bad things will happen—don't ask me what or how—and this whole verse will Unravel. Die. It's why they sent me to you." Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

A new cigar appeared between my teeth, and I gave him a second to soak in the deep lore. Heroes were usually all gung-ho about this kind of thing. Villains tended to be more "but what can you do for me now, Mr Guardian Angel?" I waited with bated breath, or would have if I needed to breathe.

"So you're saying you can beat up Nomin for me?" I sighed.

"I can turn his bones into armour if you want, dude. But you're thinking too small. What do you want out of life, kid?"

"For Nomin to get his shit pushed in?"

"Language young man. And aside from that."

"Well… I'd like to make necromancy ok again, I guess? I've read books. We weren't always considered evil. The honoured dead, like the best warriors, used to get raised as protectors for towns and cities. We were admired." I could work with vanity. Finally, I'd found a chink in his teenage armour.

"You want to be appreciated?" I kept my tone gentle.

"YES! Everyone thinks I was stupid for picking Necromagus." He rose to his feet and began to pace back and forth, Puggy running loops around his legs, clacking his bony jaws together, and Bork gave me a good three-minute rant about how tough his life was. The TLDR was: Nomin was a dick, Gangle had friend-zoned him, but he hadn't realised it yet, his parents were controlling, and everyone thought he was weird and/or evil for going necromancer, even dear old mummy.

Standard teenage stuff, once you'd been around the multiverse a bit.

"You want to know how to fix all that, Bork?"

"Yes."

"Trust me, kid. I'm from the gods, and I'm here to help." The nine most terrifying words in any language, but he didn't know that.

"What about…" he nodded at the leaking skin bag at my feet.

"Not a nice guy. He'd have eaten you if he got the chance. Killing him was technically a good deed. Harvesting his bones for my own purposes is a bit more of a moral grey area, I'll admit. Now, how about we go dig up some dead bodies for you to reanimate? Will that make you feel better?" I asked brightly. He nodded uncertainly, but when I crossed my arms, his expression firmed.

"Yeah, we can do that."

"Good." His lack of spine would help in the long run. Besides, I had all the spine either of us needed. I paused and rummaged in Jerkbart's pockets, finding a leather pouch. The gladius had nicked it in the process of emasculating the cannibal, and there was a gleam of silver through the small cut.

"Catch. Call it pocket money." Poking my skull out of the door, I checked both ways. We weren't far from the Moulders now, and there was nothing in the immediate area to interrupt a quick jog to the relative safety of the city's graveyard. We made it unmolested and slowed as the fog thinned a little. Gravestones began appearing out of the gloom, obelisks and monuments towering over the smaller markers.

The divide between the Shroud and the Moulders was indistinct; the misty streets gradually gave way to the cemetery as though the two areas were melting into each other over time.

"I've never been here before. My family has a plot somewhere on the east side."

"We won't be digging up your grandma. This is the southwest edge. Keep your eyes open. We're pretty far from the guard posts, so there are likely to be a fair few low-level undead wandering around. We need to be quiet, Bork. Next time you get a new skill, if you get Convert Undead as an option, take it. You'll be able to recruit the wandering undead, and take my word that you're quickly going to learn to hate digging."

"How do you know that? About the skill I mean." I tapped a finger against my ivory dome with a satisfying clink.

"I'm sent from god."

"There's one god? Outside this…verse?"

"Nah, there's a shit load of them. Most of them are pricks, kid. Even the "good" people who get enough karma to reach that level are psychos. This one looks about right." I held out a hand for a shovel and prepared myself for mindless, mundane work. The head of the spade bit into the turf, and I heaved the sod aside.

"Feel free to help out."

"Fredericolon de Namistassi. Died 874 PE." Bork turned aside from the stone and began to help me dig.

"He's going to be all bones, like me. That's what, a hundred and fifty odd years since he bought the farm." The turf was moved, then the hole grew deeper. My superior strength stat made my efforts more meaningful than the kid's. Despite his queasy expression, he put in the work, though. Reluctantly, I admitted that he was starting to grow on me. Like athlete's foot, a discreet wart or mild gout. Soon, we were a few feet down. I drove the shovel in with my boot and heard a wooden thud.

"Bingo!" We cleared away enough mud to let me break open half the lid of the rotten coffin with the gladius. A blast of foul air emerged with the first crack that sent Bork reeling away to vomit noisily.

"Gonna need to get used to that kind of thing. You picked necromancer, and it kind of comes with the role."

"I breathed in dead guy," he gasped.

"Yup. The fresh ones will be worse; at least there's no maggots or worms on this one. C'mon over and do your thing. Poor Fred can get his own ass out of the ground once you do, and he can wield your shovel for the next one." Bork shuffled over, and I made some space for him. The hole was cramped, so there wasn't much room, but he squeezed past me and held a hand out over the broken coffin. Turning his head away, he covered his nose and mouth with his other sleeve.

He chanted in an ancient language for over a minute. It was clear he wasn't aware that his words roughly translated to "rise and serve me, please don't eat me" over and over again. His mana flowed out, threads of black and purple as he made the weaves. Impressive. The kid had talent as far as magic went. I climbed out while he was doing his thing and summoned a fresh cigar, glaring at our immediate surroundings as I smoked. There were fiends here.

And not the needle kinds like you might find after dark in a graveyard back on Earth. Ghouls, skellies, zombies, vampire bats, and deadrats… the whole undead ecosystem was barely kept in check by the local constabulary, and even then only around the highly trafficked parts of the Moulders. Out here in the old section, the guards stayed away, and it was running wild.

"It worked!" Bork yelled triumphantly, making me wince. Fred rose slowly to his feet as he dragged himself free of his supposedly eternal resting place. Looked solid. Bones were yellowed with age but intact, with no visible holes. I nodded in satisfaction. One minion acquired. I replied in a quieter voice.

"You should have enough mana for three more tonight. Let's find another likely volunteer… Kid, you remember what I said about keeping your damn voice down earlier?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, it applies to vomiting loudly as well." I moved towards the clacking sound as a group of skeletons, drawn by his squawk, decided to come and die. It was always a blessing when XP came to me, it saved me time and time was always precious. I chucked my shovel to Fred, who caught it clumsily, and cracked my knuckles.