“Consider me uninformed,” Tybalt said. “Or just assume that my knowledge of myths and legends is all unreliable word of mouth from people who don’t believe that the God of Death is a significant player in the universe.”

  “Fair point,” the angel said. “I will explain…”

  The angel actually repeated some of the mythology Tybalt had heard. Holy swords were weapons made to destroy things considered as ‘evil,’ often endowed with their power by a ‘good’ aligned god or goddess through one of their agents. In time, Tybalt himself would not even be able to touch such an object without suffering physical pain.

  “We included it in the Tower as a way of subtly reminding you that there are things out there that will be a stone wall in your face if you should happen to attack them straightforwardly, even once your powers are more developed. Remember how strong the lich was… and how quickly he fell to you once you were armed with a holy sword. You will have to be clever.”

  “But also as a way for me to win the final battle without being strong enough to legitimately beat the lich?” Tybalt asked, his voice flat. He had a well-developed sense of inferiority, having spent all these years without a class. He knew what it was to be patronized. If the angel had said up front that the purpose was partly to make the final boss manageable, Tybalt wouldn’t have felt too badly about it. The fact that she did not say it made him feel as if she was dodging the issue—because really, Tybalt was not quite good enough.

  “The lich was unbeatable by a single human without a class without the holy sword,” the angel replied. “If we had not included it, your final challenge would have been a different sort of monster, much weaker. We already had to weaken the lich for him to be an appropriate challenge; you fought with an inferior copy of the original with some of his memories and skills sealed. I can sense where your head is at, but you earned what you have attained here. We would not have wanted some worthless human who needed to be handed everything. Better to wait for someone else to find the Tower.”

  Tybalt nodded and finally smiled.

  “I can live with that answer,” he said. “Thank you.”

  I wonder if, maybe, someday I could get the chance to fight the lich again. After I’ve seen how far I can take these classes. At my full potential, could I beat the lich at his best, without using the holy sword?

  But there was no sense in asking the angel about whether the “original” lich might be available as a future opponent. It was not only presumptuous, it was a waste of precious time.

  There was another matter that had kept pressing at his consciousness. Tybalt finally made himself broach the subject.

  “One last question,” Tybalt said reluctantly. “Is there anything you can tell me about… a shaman who cursed me in Lord Mudo’s name? It was recent. If you were doing anything about it, or if you and your—er, our lord intend to do anything, I think I have a right to know. No, I need to know.”

  “I know what you are referring to, Tybalt,” the angel’s voice replied in a low tone. “That man was devoted to our lord. All his life, he was a faithful servant. His death is one that would ordinarily draw our attention, especially the manner of his death, in which he called upon our lord to avenge him and, indeed, his entire village…”

  Tybalt winced.

  “But if you recall correctly, the shaman’s dying wish was not directed primarily at you specifically,” the angel continued. “It was a wish for the destruction of your squad in general. Whether to take any action on that, and what actions to take, will be up to our agent in the field… as long as he remains loyal to us. Your mission is larger than any single man’s life, and Lord Mudo has expressly decided to leave matters on Abadd to your judgment for the foreseeable future. You are functionally his high priest, and even the storage ring you have now is an insignia that will identify you as such to others who follow him. You know from the limitations of our assistance that the gods do not usually act directly in the world.”

  Tybalt nodded and let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. It was strange to think that by “agent,” the angel meant him. The Tower of Death had given him that role, but that experience was already receding into the realm of dreams, unreal, even while he remained in the same setting where those events had occurred. It was hard to believe that the shaman’s dying curse was being left to him to execute—or not.

  This resolution was a kind of obvious favoritism toward Tybalt, just because he was currently a useful tool for the god’s cause. And, of course, that was exactly what the angel was alluding to, albeit in more delicate terms.

  It was an early demonstration that the divine world was no less unbalanced and corrupt than the human realm. Tybalt knew better than to question it, and of course, he had no cause to complain.

  Why look a gift horse in the mouth? Just take the gift, and be grateful.

  I’ll benefit from favoritism from Lord Mudo… as long as I’m perceived as remaining loyal. If I stop being useful or he thinks I’ve turned on him… then I’ll be as valuable as the dead shaman. Guess I’d better continue being useful.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “I do have one more little feather to place on the scales,” the angel said. “Perhaps a little incentive for you to deal with the shaman’s final wish in the manner we would consider most appropriate…”

  Holy crap! Five levels?! The fact that the quest had no time limit made that particularly impressive. It could take him from level one to level six or from level twenty-five to thirty, the latter of which was a much harder lift than the former without such a quest.

  “Th-thank you again,” Tybalt said, stunned.

  But the air rang with her silence.

  After waiting in vain for her to respond, he took the hint and picked up the first of his two textbooks, the necromancer text, Unholy Forces. He could have guessed which one was about necromancy from the cover even if he couldn’t read the title. It was a starkly bone-white leather or similar substance, with ominous-looking black lettering. He dove into the book and read ravenously, fueled by an enforced sense of urgency.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Although he technically had as much time as he wanted to spend in this place, Tybalt knew his body had its own internal clock and processes that limited him. Almost as soon as he had cracked open the book, he heard his stomach growling.

  He suppressed it for the first hour, in which he was hungrier for knowledge than anything else.

  But he knew he could not ignore the emptiness in his body forever, and he had only very limited rations. His stomach would set the time limit for how long he could remain here.

  When he came out of this place, he needed to understand his power well enough to either conceal it from the squad he had arrived here with, escape from the group, or slay them.

  If he returned to civilization with the squad, he might be imprisoned or executed for having a class so associated with the God of Death, never mind having killed Baldwin. And then there was the matter of this quest… It wasn’t mandatory, but it was tempting.

  With Tybalt’s weakened body, he could not kill off his squad in close quarters fighting as he had Baldwin. Even that victory, he regarded as a matter of luck. There was no way he would be lucky over and over again in repeated fights.

  Any slaughter he perpetrated now would have to be indirect, employing his new powers.

  No pressure…

  “The world is structured in a balance between holy and unholy forces,” the book began. “Holy forces are those aligned with the celestial gods, while unholy forces are those aligned with the chthonic gods, most relevantly Mudo, the God of Death. Holy forces are concerned with the creation and growth of intelligent life, animals, and plants. Unholy forces are concerned with death and with the creation and growth of undeath, fungi, bacteria, viruses, and other, often invisible, organisms…”

  It was a bit dense in places, with a variety of words he did not recognize, but the book provided a lot of context and expanded Tybalt’s knowledge of everything it touched on. It got down to its bread and butter topic fairly quickly: undeath.

  As he read, he developed his understanding of the force of undeath, which was a fascinating phenomenon that opposed life by both subverting and destroying it.

  Undeath was not simply puppeteering around a corpse, as Tybalt had seen and understood it before. It was perverting the course of life into a twisted mockery of itself. Humans who became skeletons and zombies lost the free will that made them human. Vampires became more attractive and alluring than they had been in life, but primarily as a mechanism to prey on humans. They were extremely human—intensely so—right up until they were monstrous. Ghouls were sort of between zombies and vampires: driven by hatred and predatory by nature, but ugly and gruesome, with the instincts of a ferocious beast. Liches became simultaneously more powerful than they had been as humans and more fragile, along with losing most of their emotions. Various disembodied spirits were often more human on a psychological level than other undead, but they lacked the fleshly anchor required to be truly human.

  There were more types of undead than Tybalt had ever heard of, and the variety was fascinating.

  Every creature was a different form of perversion of humanity, or whatever species was used to create it—as, for that matter, was Tybalt. He was already contaminated by his classes. He’d had a vague awareness that those with evil-seeming classes were shunned in his country, but the old book had a kind of explanation for that.

  His power was inherently evil. Or at least ‘evil’ aligned.

  On the bright side, the corrupted mana in his body would give him the power to command any undead, whether it was his own creation or not, unless it was the possession of another necromancer. And the link between himself and the undead would be deep. Commands would not need to be verbalized.

  On the other hand, his mana would naturally carry the taint of undeath now—pestilence, too, of course. Neither was healthy for humans. Before, Tybalt’s body had contained neutral mana that passively strengthened whatever he applied it to. Now it would passively damage anything organic that was not undead or pathogenic unless he guided it toward another intent—including Tybalt’s own body.

  Tybalt would have to engage in daily meditation to control the deleterious effects of his toxic power. Eventually, this control would come naturally and would not require focus. He would become like a glass vial used to contain acid—immune to the corrosive effect of his contents.

  It was a measure of how much Tybalt wanted power that he did not mind the risk of his own body being destroyed. The risk was strangely exciting. He liked having his body, of course. It had always been his best tool and the source of much pleasure.

  But even early sections of the book hinted that in the worst case scenario, if his body were to be catastrophically damaged or simply too old and feeble to be useful, it should be possible for him to make himself into a powerful undead and thereby continue carrying out his work—if he was a skilled enough necromancer already.

  Another interesting facet of the book, though Tybalt did not take the time to engage with it yet: marginalia. Previous readers had left little notes in the margins, and judging from the handwriting, there had been more than just one or two.

  He kept those notes for another day. They were hard to make out clearly, while the official text of the book was written in a clear and consistent script, and he needed quick knowledge.

  In the midst of the second chapter, Tybalt acquired his first level.

  Tybalt set down the textbook and rubbed his hands together.

  So it begins, he thought.

  He could hardly contain his smile. Early levels were always a little easier, but it still felt good to experience forward progress from reading a book. Especially when it came with the acquisition of his first ever skill.

  Finally, he would take his first step toward becoming someone to be feared. Skills, more than stats, were the single factor that made class-wielders so much more dangerous than those who did not have a class.

  Before he went to select one, however, he checked his status. He wanted to know how many points he gained in each category with a level in each of his classes.

  It looked like each level of defiant necromancer would give Tybalt a point of strength, two in agility, two in constitution, three in fortitude, and four in will. Significantly better than being class-less in every category except strength—where being class-less was equal to the necromancer class.

  Of course, I’m going to level up a lot faster than someone class-less would be able to, too…

  With a nod of satisfaction, he opened up his skill options with a thought.

  Only tier one skills were available at level one, but Tybalt was pleased with both of his choices.

  They were called Scrimshaw and Generate Undead.

  It was obvious to Tybalt from the names which skill he needed most. Still, he focused on each and read their respective descriptions.

  Scrimshaw: Manipulate bone like clay to form weapons and other objects. Properties of the created object depend on the quality of the bone used. Consumes mana.

  Generate Undead: Infuse dead things with your aura to create undead. The quality and type of undead created and degree of humanity retained by the undead depends on skill level, mana employed, special qualities of the subject, and random chance. As skill level increases, this can become a more precise, deliberate skill. All undead created obey the creator. Consumes mana.

  Interesting. Not very different from what he had expected.

  Yet his heart beat faster as he reviewed his options. This was real. He wasn’t being pranked, it wasn’t a dream… and there would be no going back now.