“Show me my friends.”

“Ask nicely.”

I swallow what little remains of my pride. “Show me my friends please?”

Nyra draws out the enchanted mirror.

Tess and Vant sleep around what remains of a campfire. Perched precariously in a nearby tree, Plun keeps watch.

“You have loyal friends, Murphy. They visited establishments of – poor repute – to find help to rescue you.”

“Is that where they found you?”

“No, I made sure the three of them had no luck finding aid. I also sent them – fun dreams – about being rescued from terrible fates by yours truly. So you see they practically begged me to join when I passed them on the street and accidentally showed off a touch of street magic.”

“Fat help you were.”

The girl bristles. “There were complications. If anything, it’s your fault we got caught.”

“My fault? I was stuck in a cell!”

“Your friend Pluneth insisted we take a detour into the main chapel to check out your – handiwork. Against my better judgment, I agreed. We were found out immediately – the Goddess statue is blessed by a high level detection spell even I can’t see.”

“Shit! That’s how they caught me that night!”

We share a silent moment of commiseration, two souls defeated by the same block of marble.

“The monk and the snake – you sent them, too?”

“The monk, yes … I Charmed him to scout the grounds out and find you. We were already surrounded by those pesky priests when the idiot finally found you. I thought I might as well try getting you out of there while the attention was on us. As for the snake, I have no idea…”

“My friends, will they be OK?”

“They’re alive, aren’t they? Want me to send them a message?”

“You can do that? Sure!”

“Write them a note on this. Keep it short.”

I jot a few words down.

“Not much of a poet, are you?”

I shrug.

“Well, here goes.”

She whispers something, and the parchment disappears. In the mirror, the letters appear in crimson on the sleeping Tess’s forehead.

Dear Plun,

It’s Murph. Thanks for trying to rescue me.

Don’t look for me. I’ll be fine.

Take care,

Murph

“What? You told me to send them a message, right?”

I can’t help admiring her style.

—

“Still hung up over those pesky priests?”

“They didn’t deserve to die.”

“If it’s any comfort, I woulda killed them anyway.”

“It really isn’t.”

“Worse things have happened to better people.” Nyra pulls back the bandages around her chest to reveal several missing ribs under dry, peeling skin. “See?”

I try not to gag. “Stop!”

“It still itches, you know.” She inserts a finger into the cavity where her heart should have been and starts scratching. “Ahh, that feels better.”

“Cover that up! I feel much better now!”

—

“If you can read minds, send dreams, and mind control people, what do you need me for?”

“Hah! Those parlor tricks only work on low INT enemies and are easily blocked by all sorts of spells and trinkets. Check out my stats.”

She reveals them briefly.

Holy!

“Even with my INT I can barely read your mind. As for the mind control spell, it’s called Charm. Wanna hear its secret?”

I nod eagerly.

Nyra leans in with a conspiratorial whisper.

“Charm was invented by the first Dead King, Charmer. Charmer figured out that among the living, a rare few have no soul. They look like the living, they move like the living, they talk like the living, but they feel nothing.”

“Woah…”

“Charmer called them philosophical zombies, or p-zombies. The living dead, as opposed to the Undead. The Charm spell allows a Mage specializing in Dark Magic to take over the mind of a p-zombie. I scoured your town and only found one – that silent LVL 1 monk.”

“So your skills are smoke and mirrors and you need me to do the real work.”

She ignores my jab, “the Valley of the Dead is under attack -”

“Let me stop you right there. You’ll never convince me to fight a war for the Undead.”

—

To make a long story short, the mind-reading mummy girl convinced me to fight a war for the Undead.

To be honest, Dark Warlock Emperor Murphy was chomping at the bit to accept her quest.

Did I mention she can enter dreams in a … rather pleasing … form?

The flesh is weak.

—

The next three days on the road are almost as monotonous as prison.

Punctuated only by my regular bathroom breaks, Nyra explains the state of affairs.

The current Dead King Mencius is on the losing side of a long defensive war against the Inquisition – a militant faction of the Church. Their Holy magic completely neutralizes Undead powers. They only survived this long by guerrilla warfare and constant retreat.

Nyra travelled to Beltine undercover to investigate an old rumor that FTH can drop negative and reverse Holy spell effects, damaging the living and healing the Undead. Her plan was to find and enlist some low-level clerics, until she learned of my “incident.”

From her bags, she shows me a number of powerful FTH spellbooks, all of them useless for me. Most are buffs that would turn to debuffs given my stats. The rest are aura or AoE heals that affect the caster and would insta-kill me.

I’ll be relying on the basic Heal spell to save the Valley of the Dead. FTH is a percentage modifier on its size and power, so 10 FTH corresponds to a 10% larger orb that heals 10% more damage, while anything below -100FTH starts dealing damage instead of healing. The orb’s speed scales off INT in the same way, and it lasts a fixed 1 minute in duration which can only be increased with consumables.

Nyra decks me out in level-appropriate Mage gear to increase my INT.

My stats are now:

NAME: Murphy

RACE: Human

CLASS: Cleric

LVL: 31

HP: 595/595

STR: 35

INT: 217

FTH: -13643

AGI: 35

EQUIPPED: Salamander Cloak of Knowledge, Salamander Vambraces of Knowledge…

“Mencius will explain the rest.”

—

“We’re about a day away.”

“The only road to the Valley goes through a narrow pass in the Ghoul’s Teeth. The Inquisition set up patrols all along it, but in that crampt space they should be sitting ducks for your Heal.”

As the word “should” leaves her lips, my stomach drops.

The carriage jolts to a stop.

“What the – ”