Raising the dead is not a grand affair. There are no glowing sigils, no celestial choirs belting out a minor key anthem of doom, and certainly no applause. Instead, it is an ugly, clumsy thing. Like restarting a car that’s been rusting in a swamp, except the swamp is a goblin corpse, and the rust is… also a goblin corpse.

  The first goblin twitched, shivered, and rose, if you could call it that. Its spine bent like a question mark, one eye half-dangling where something with too many legs had been snacking. Greenish skin sloughed off in places, revealing bone that gleamed faintly in the dim light. It swayed on its feet, gurgling faintly, a sound that could have been hunger, confusion, or a posthumous review of my leadership skills.

  Behind it, the others followed. One by one, the goblins shuffled upright, their movements disjointed, their glowing green eyes reflecting a complete lack of awareness. Not one spark of life—just the dull persistence of undeath.

  It was… grotesque.

  And yet, not once did the system prompt me to retrieve their souls, as it had with Grib. No question. No hesitation. Just Create Undead, and here they were, a gallery of decay with no inner light to guide them.

  I glanced at the soul counter in the corner of my awareness: 1/1.

  It still sat there, pristine and unyielding, as though mocking me for daring to ask if I could do what I had done before. Bringing Grib back had felt like breaking a rule I hadn’t realized existed. This? This felt like following instructions.

  I looked at Grib now, standing a few feet away, still clutching his slime as though it were a badge of office. He was shouting something about mud and destiny, his face lit with the kind of enthusiasm that didn’t come prepackaged with undeath.

  Grib was different. He wasn’t just undead—he was alive in a way that defied the word entirely.

  Of all the things I’d done so far, bringing Grib back was the most significant. The most impossible. And somehow, the thing I’d thought about the least.

  Would I ever be able to do it the same way again?

  The thought twisted in the back of my mind. I pushed it away, unwilling to follow it where it led. There were more immediate concerns.

  “Bone King raise best army!” Grib declared, punctuating his point by waving his arms like he was trying to conduct an orchestra of chaos.

  I looked at the swaying, slumping goblins. “Best” was a strong word, but I wasn’t about to argue.

  “It’s a start,” I said, brushing nonexistent dust from my skeletal fingers.

  Krix ran a claw over the edge of his ear, slow and deliberate, like he was weighing whether this situation merited panic or just dignified fleeing. His tail twitched the way one might fidget with a knife—absently, but with intent.

  “Uh… Bone King?” His voice had the careful tone of someone trying not to offend the necromancer who raised a small army of questionable corpses.

  “Yes, Krix?”

  He gestured at the nearest zombie, which was currently trying to reattach a finger to the wrong hand. “No offense, but… undead are weird. Creepy. Make scales itch.” He scratched absently at his arm. “Not saying you’re creepy—Bone King’s fine. Real good for skeleton. But… them.”

  “None taken,” I said. “They are objectively disgusting. You’re allowed to feel weird about it.”

  Krix blinked, caught off guard. “Oh. Okay. Good.” His tail slowed slightly. “It’s just… kobolds don’t like dead things walking. Dead supposed to stay dead, yeah? In ground. Quiet. Not… gurgling.”

  Grib scoffed, planting the butt of his spear on the ground. Or rather, what had been his spear.

  Somewhere in the chaos of celebration and raising the dead, Grib had decided that Big Chief’s mace now belonged to him. He held it with both hands, wobbling slightly under the weight, but swinging it around like a child who had just been given permission to operate heavy machinery. Possibly while drunk.

  The weapon had not been designed for goblin-sized wielders. Or kobold-sized.

  And yet there he was, twirling it with the reckless joy of someone who had never been told no.

  “Kobolds scared of dead things,” Grib declared, doing his best to casually lean on the mace that was nearly as tall as him. He promptly overbalanced, stumbled, then pretended it was intentional. “Weak!”

  Krix’s ears flattened. “Not scared. Smart. Play with cursed dead things, get cursed. That’s how curses work.”

  “Pfft.” Grib grinned, somehow recovering enough to lift the mace again—both hands this time, with a sound that suggested his spine might file a complaint. “Cursed? Grib not cursed! Grib strong now! Stronger than Big Chief!” He puffed his chest proudly, slime wobbling in agreement from his shoulder.

  “How are you even lifting that thing?” Krix muttered, eyes narrowing like the laws of physics had just been personally insulted.

  “Dead muscles better!” Grib swung the mace in a slow, lopsided arc. “See? No problem!”

  He immediately dropped it with a loud clang and let out a strangled “oof.”

  I sighed. “Grib.”

  “Grib fine! Just testing gravity! Still works!”

  The slime jiggled sympathetically.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. Or would have, if I still had one. “Please don’t brain one of the kobolds.”

  “No promises,” he said cheerfully, dragging the mace back upright with the single-mindedness of someone who was either a visionary or a public hazard.

  Krix groaned and muttered something that sounded deeply unkind. But he didn’t leave.

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

  Grib, sensing an opportunity, held out the slime like a peace offering. “Here. Touch. Not scary.”

  Krix recoiled slightly. “Why would I—”

  “Is warm!” Grib insisted, as if that settled everything.

  After a beat of hesitation, Krix reached out and tapped the slime with one claw. His eyes widened. “...It is warm.”

  “Good!” Grib beamed. “Now you not scared of undead anymore!”

  “I’m not scared of undead,” Krix snapped, though the faint tremor in his voice betrayed him. “Still think it’s creepy. But fine. Whatever.”

  Grib grinned, patting the slime proudly. “Bone King’s army best. Even with creepy dead things. You see.”

  Krix snorted, but there was no bite in it this time. “Better hope so,” he muttered.

  I watched them in silence, the faintest hint of amusement tugging at the edges of my thoughts. Grib’s methods were, as usual, ridiculous, but for the first time, Krix didn’t seem ready to claw his eyes out.

  Progress.

  Grib turned to me, eyes shining with an eagerness that would’ve been endearing if it weren’t so terrifying. “Boss have plan?”

  I didn’t answer right away. Instead, my gaze drifted to the edge of my awareness, where the list of spells waited like tools I’d yet to fully explore. Necrotic Surge. The name had always lingered there, tempting in its simplicity, but I hadn’t thought much of it. Now, with everything on the line, curiosity tugged at me.

  I cast it.

  The change was immediate, a faint hum coursing through my bones, sharpening the edges of every movement. My grip on the staff felt steadier, stronger, and a subtle, rhythmic pull on my mana let me know the spell was working. It wasn’t overwhelming—just a quiet enhancement, a steady thread of borrowed power.

  I flexed my hand experimentally. Interesting.

  “Well,” I began, casting a glance at the wobbling zombie horde. One of them had started chewing on its own elbow. It wasn’t the most inspiring sight. “I’ve never been much of an RPG player–”

  “What’s RPG?” Grib interrupted, his head tilting like a particularly curious dog.

  “Never mind,” I said, waving a hand. “The point is, we don’t need to overthink this. Based on how the adventurers reacted last time, they’re not expecting anything big on the first floor. Except for me, apparently. And that’s our advantage.”

  The kobolds, clustered awkwardly near Krix, exchanged glances. Their postures were still hunched, their claws fidgeting nervously, but at least they weren’t running. Yet.

  I turned toward the zombies, who had managed to form something approximating a line. Two were missing parts of their feet, so the line had a noticeable lean, like a painting hung by someone with no sense of symmetry. “We’ll keep it simple. Mud traps. Fake walls. That thing with the bucket and the rope you’re all so fond of. Just enough to lull them into thinking this will be like last time.”

  Krix stepped forward, his voice quiet but sharp. “But what if they expect more? What if they think we’ll try tricks?”

  “Then we disappoint them creatively,” I replied. “If they expect something clever, we give them something stupid. And if they expect something stupid, we give them… well, mud.”

  Grib nodded, looking immensely pleased. “Mud! Mud never fails!”

  I didn’t have the heart to correct him.

  The kobolds still looked skeptical, but their fear had dimmed into something quieter, something resembling resolve. I wasn’t sure if they believed me yet, but at least they were starting to believe in something.

  “And as for you lot,” I said, addressing the zombie goblins, “try not to fall apart before the adventurers get here. I’d like them to at least pretend to be impressed.”

  A low groan rippled through the group, which I chose to interpret as agreement.

  “Alright,” I said, resting the staff against my shoulder. “Let’s get to work.”

  Grib whooped, his slime jiggling in enthusiastic approval. Krix began issuing orders to the kobolds, his voice low but firm, while Grib directed the goblins with the fervor of a goblin who had been undead for far too long.

  In the chaos of goblins, kobolds, and reanimated zombies attempting to organize themselves, something tugged at the edge of my awareness. A spell. One I hadn’t tried yet.

  Tombcarve.

  I remembered seeing it among my list of spells earlier, nestled between Chilling Touch and Bone Wall. At the time, I’d skipped over it, distracted by the immediate need to not get flattened by Big Chief. But now, the name lingered in my thoughts, its potential pulling at me like a loose thread begging to be unraveled.

  If it did what I thought it did...

  “Grib,” I called, cutting through his latest enthusiastic tirade about the merits of mud.

  “Yes, Boss?” he chirped, spinning around, his slime companion jiggling in apparent solidarity.

  “Keep everyone busy for a while. I’m testing something.”

  Grib saluted with his spear—awkwardly, but with enough sincerity to make up for it—and turned back to the goblins. “Boss doing magic! Best magic! Nobody interrupt or I throw slime at you!”

  The kobolds exchanged uneasy glances, then wisely decided that whatever I was about to do was far above their pay grade. They shuffled back a step, not out of fear, but with the cautious resignation of people who had seen too many things explode in ways they weren’t supposed to.

  I ignored them and turned to the wall.

  Tombcarve.

  The magic stirred, stretching through my bones like a yawn that had taken itself too seriously. A low hum filled my skull, vibrating in a way that suggested something very old, very powerful, and possibly very judgmental had just woken up inside me. I let it build, settling into place like a second skeleton, then released it.

  A thin, green arc of energy crackled from the staff.

  At first, nothing happened.

  Then the wall sighed, as if it had been waiting for an excuse to collapse all along.

  Stone groaned. A chunk of rock peeled away in clean, sharp slats, the magic eating through it with the quiet efficiency of a bureaucratic nightmare. The fragments hovered for a moment, then settled neatly at my feet, looking far too well-behaved for something that had just been part of a solid surface.

  I crouched, running a hand over one of the blocks. The spell hadn’t just cut—it had refined, smoothing the stone into something deliberate. Something useful.

  I grinned. “It works.”

  The hum of magic lingered, curling at the edge of my thoughts. Encouraging. I let it guide me as I reached for the next part of the plan. A shape formed in my mind—steep, jagged, curling upward. A ramp.

  The energy crackled again, seeping into the stone, carving out the image with agonizing patience. It was slow work. Painfully so. Each shift in the rock pulled at my mana like an old blanket unraveling, one loose thread at a time. By the time the shape took form, a dull ache had settled behind my thoughts, the subtle reminder that even magic had limits.

  But it was worth it.

  I stepped back, eyeing the result. Not perfect—there were rough edges, places where the spell had hesitated—but it was real. A structure pulled straight from my mind and into the world.

  My fingers tightened on the staff.

  This wasn’t just a spell for carving pathways. It wasn’t just a way to make walls slightly less wall-like. It was a tool. A weapon.

  I turned to my undead horde, a collection of goblin corpses held together by sheer spite. One was chewing on its own foot. Another had managed to put its head on backward.

  It wasn’t much of an army.

  But it would be enough.

  The image of a trap unfolded in my thoughts, crisp and deadly. Something they wouldn’t expect. Something they wouldn’t survive.

  For a moment, I hesitated.

  Then I thought of the warrior. The way his blade had cut through Grib like he was nothing. The sound, the blood—

  If I could still sleep, I’d have nightmares.

  My grip on the staff tightened.

  “Fuck them.”

  I turned toward the dungeon entrance.