Lewd Dungeon - Chapter 61 (Patreon)

Chapter 61 – Boned

(The Necropolis)

After a long and thorough consideration of the facts, Thomas Gravefallow, scion of a family with a long history of academics, historians, and archaeologists, had come to the conclusion that, despite there being some cosmetic benefits, the unnatural state of living in undeath was not his cup of tea. Indeed, if one were to ask him about his feelings on the subject, Thomas would be happy to tell you, over the course of several hours, about all the various ways that a life as one of those creatures born of the grave was a horrible fate that he would wish on no one.

Unfortunately, no one he knew would ask him about such things. This wasn’t because they were all incredibly rude people who were too self-absorbed to hear listen to his treatise on the benefits and demerits of eternal unlife. No, by and large the reason that most of the people he knew did not want to his opinions on the subject was because mindless skeletons and zombies are not the best conversationalists to begin with, and sadly they were far too stupid to do more than seek out the nearest living creature and attempt to kill it through direct violence. In fact, the lack of people one could have a conversation with was one of the ‘cons’ to life as a member of the undead.

And yes, Thomas was undead. In fact, he was the type of undead known as a Skeleton Mage, with the specialization of a Skeletal Necromancer. One might think that this made him a rather prestigious member of the undead horde that had arisen around the Necropolis to the south of Naples. After all, he had magic! Even better, it was Necromancy, that branch of magic that could raise, bolster, and heal the undead, even as it weakened the living! Surely such a thing would make him prized beyond all measure to the undead, at least those with enough intelligence to be considered sapient.

You would be wrong, of course. Oh, sure, the ability to use magic was impressive, but Thomas was still limited by the fact that he was, in the end, a Skeleton. This meant, among other things, that he lacked certain elements needed for conversing with others, like lips, a tongue, and other such things. While not being able to talk with others was unfortunate enough, the real tragedy was that since he could not speak the incantations for the more complicated spells, he was limited to only the most basic magics, essentially allowing him to heal nearby undead or weaken and harm the living with weak bolts of magic. Truly, it was a waste of his staggering intellect.

Worse still, poor Thomas was afflicted by the same terrible condition that had haunted him in his life as a mortal. From an early age, he had been diagnosed with a disease that left his bones extremely brittle. Indeed, it was so bad that he’d been confined to a wheelchair for the majority of his childhood, even as he endured painful physical therapy just to be able to get to the point where he could walk through the halls of his private school without his legs shattering from his meager weight.

Naturally, sports or any other kind of strenuous physical activity had been completely off the table for him. Even something as low-impact as table tennis would risk fracturing or even breaking the bones in his arms. And air hockey? Or pool? The damage if a puck or cue ball should go a bit too fast and hit him was something it still made him shudder to even consider.

Without the ability to engage in physical pursuits, and with a life of study and academia not exactly being conducive to meeting young ladies who might consider some horizontal acrobatics with him, Thomas found himself drifting, looking for some field where he could meet women of loose virtue who were not looking for big manly men. Oh, sure, there was some question whether he would be able to safely engage in the acts he sought to experience, but as a (mentally) healthy teenage male, he had come to the conclusion that, should he perish in the act of losing his virginity, then that would be a life well lived indeed. It was with this conviction and spiritual awareness that Thomas found himself drawn into the occult, chasing after the lovely rear of one of the young ladies who attended his private school.

That young lady had, at the least, been kind to him in light of his circumstances and their ‘shared interest’ in the rituals that had been passed down through the circle they’d joined from class to class. He believed that, with just a little more work on his part, she would be persuaded to go on a date with him, and perhaps share in some of the ‘midnight rituals’ that their seniors had passed on to them before graduation last year. Unfortunately, the System Apocalypse threw all his carefully laid plans into disarray, leaving him uncertain about his future, and whether he would ever live long enough to graduate from his virginity.

At first, everything was fine. After all, the occult was REAL now! That alone made a huge difference in the Circle, and they began spending more time in their ritual space, hoping to find answers that had long been denied to them, and their seniors who had graduated. A couple months after the Apocalypse had made Magic into a Reality, word came that a Dungeon had opened in the Everglades to the south, and that a Demon of Lust resided there.

To his dismay, Thomas found that his beloved crush held a longing that she shared with several of the other ladies of the Circle. Surely, they said, a Demon of Lust must be an experience that would be life changing for a woman, especially when compared to some of the other men in their lives? Alas, Thomas learned that his beloved was no pure but yielding maiden who he could get to share herself with him, but a wanton woman like the others he saw, lusting after the more powerful, physically able members of his sex.

His beloved convinced the others in the Circle that they should make a pilgrimage to the Dungeon. There, they could learn the ways of dark magic and sin from one that knew them best, and be rewarded for their faith with boundless pleasure. And despite his infirmities, Thomas had declared that he would come with them, to serve the demon.

But in his heart, Thomas grew afraid that his beloved would never see him in the same light that he saw her. She would leave him for the demon, and whore herself out for that fiend, when she should be his, and his alone! The night before they began their pilgrimage to the Dungeon, Thomas stole into his parents’ study, and found there the book that had been hidden long ago, that his parents did not know he had found.

The book was one of spells out of ancient Egypt, copied faithfully from tablets that dated from the Old Kingdom. Ever since he had found the book, Thomas had begun a study of the hieroglyphic language of the ancients, so that he might read the ancient spells. When he had joined the Circle, his studies had taken on more importance, for he would be able to show them real magic, and his beloved would surely agree to be his then, wouldn’t she?

Now, on the trip from Naples to the Swamptown that had sprung up around the Dungeon, he began studying the tome with greater fervency, hoping to unlock the secrets of the ancient magic and win his beloved before the demon had a chance to defile her and steal her away from where she belonged. In the dark of the night, he tried many spells, but finally, when they had passed not far from a little island that was only named because a couple hundred people lived there, and the State needed a place to call it for the census, he found one of the spells that he could perform with the materials he had on hand.

According to the reading he had done, this would be an invocation of spirits from beyond the veil of death, summoning them to this world and binding them to his will, creating servants that would forever be at his beck and call. He would use this magic to show the others his worth, and his beloved would kneel at his feet to worship him, as he had always desired. With that thought in mind, he stole away from camp in the middle of the night, and formed the circle and began calling the ancient magics.

But in his arrogance, he had neglected to correctly draw out the symbols of the binding that would keep the spirit contained until he could complete the spell that would enforce his will upon it. The spirit broke his pathetic binding, and mocked him for his hubris. His lifeblood spilled from the wounds the spirit opened in his throat, as he saw what true necromantic rituals were like!

Black lightning split the sky, striking the pool of blood forming around his body. There was a great shaking, and from the ground a step pyramid of the ancient style rose up out of the ground. All around the temple undead monsters began to rise up and attack the living.

Thomas thought he was going to die atop that pyramid, the sacrifice to bring the dead into the world of the living, but that would have been far too merciful for a spirit of death. No, he was bound into the skeletal form he now had, cursed to be a minion barely better the mindless hordes. And he could not even join in the assault upon the island when the monster lure was set off, because his already brittle bones snapped under his own weight if he ventured out in the sunlight.

Even the other intelligent undead scorned him. The ghouls and wraiths and other creatures who possessed enough of a sense of self to be intelligent all looked down on him for being a mere skeleton, and one that could not even fight like a normal skeleton. No, they were just like all those hateful people who scorned him and ignored him because he wasn’t able to do all the things that other people could. Oh, how he dreamed of being able to smite them down and grind them under his heel, taking their essence and using it to strengthen his bones.

Yes, life as a member of the undead was terrible, if you were to ask Thomas Gravefallow about it. It was only marginally better than life as a member of the living, since now his magic allowed him to heal himself when his bones broke. The lack of pain from his bones breaking was also a minor item in the benefits column. Yes, there were a few benefits to being one of the undead, but they really couldn’t complain to the horrible demerits that life as the eternally damned did. In fact, if you were to ask Thomas, he would say that—

“HOLY SMITE!”

The sword that cleaved through Thomas’s head, empowered by a paladin’s holy magic, did not ask Thomas about what he considered life as the undead to be like, nor would it, or its wielder, care about his answer should he be able to speak. No, to them he was simply a member of the undead horde that had wandered too far from the Necropolis this evening. But at least Thomas no longer had to worry about life as a member of the undead, since he was now simply dead.

A gnoll looked over to where the paladin shook her sword to clear the bone dust from it. “Man, that was a weak one. Do you think you even needed to use the smite?”

Lea shrugged. “Better safe than sorry. It looked like one of the Skeleton Mages, so better not to underestimate it. Now, let’s finish clearing out the undead from this section so we can begin sanctifying the area and keep them from escaping the area around the Necropolis. We’ll leave the raiding to other groups when they can get more people. But if we can contain the undead, then they’ll be able to work on the threat until it is manageable.”

“What do you think of the plan to feed some undead to the dungeon?”

“That plan will bite them in the ass, but I won’t risk any of you going in there again, not without a lot more people so we can make a true crusade out of it. For now, we have to keep safe until all three children are born, or we’ll be doomed to be his slaves.”

“Fair enough. Let’s meet up with the others, and see how they’ve been doing.”