It was a strange thing. A giant figure hovering over you. It didn’t feel quite right, almost like a god unapologetically staring at you. Alexander thought he could feel judgement in the eyes, but if he saw past the shadow cloak then he would simply see one thing. Apathy.

It smelled of stone dust, the type lying around for years without getting touched. It must be fake. I just saw it form, so how does it feel so real? With no time to question, he turned his attention back to the goblins.

They stood motionless, as if they hadn’t quite woken up yet.Their eyes stared off into nothing, yet they stood straight and clenched their daggers as hard as they could. Slowly, they started moving towards him, their demeanour never changing.

He knew this was a game, an opportunity for training. To be more specific, a part of him knew that, but the rest of his body didn’t operate on rationality, one of the disadvantages of the human brain. It saw the goblins as only one thing, threats. Stress and adrenaline surged through his body, forcing him to treat this as the real deal.

He should have the advantage here. His skeletons were larger and taller which meant that he would get to dictate the pace of the fight. To win all he needed to do was force the goblins into a fair fight, one against one. As long as they didn’t pull some sort of trick out of their sleeves, it was as good as won.

He motioned the skeletons forward to meet the two goblins. In his mind, he labelled the goblins 1 and 2, and his skeleton 1 and 2. The four units approached each other.

And then all hell broke loose.

The tempo of the fight jumped up to high gear. Goblin 1 jumped right into skeleton 1, getting impaled right through the chest, but its momentum carried forward, knocking skeleton 1 off balance. In that space goblin 2 jolted past skeleton 1. Skeleton 2 couldn’t approach as skeleton 1 was in the way.

As the goblin ran right towards Alexander, it dawned on him just how helpless he was. The goblin flicked the dagger in its hand so that the blade pointed downwards. It jumped into the air aiming to press it down Alexander’s eye. He could only scream as the sharp edge got closer.

Just as it was about to plunge into his eye, it stopped. Everything froze. He quickly rolled backwards to get some space away from the blade. A booming scoff broke, and made the dust beneath him shake.

“I expected better.”

“How was I supposed to expect that? No rational creature would act that way.”

“How did you know they were rational?”

Alexander was about to rebut that, when he realised that he couldn’t have known that. He’d based his plan on an assumption which was faulty. One he could reason to be faulty, and that was what led to his demise. Furthermore, he never considered their winning condition. They didn’t have to kill his skeletons to win the fight, they just needed him. Just like chess.

“In chess, do you win by taking all of the opponents pieces? Or do you win through checkmate.”

“Checkmate.”

“But what does that actually mean? How do you reach a state of checkmate?”

“When the opposing king doesn’t have any moves he can make it’s checkmate.”

“Oh, so it’s checkmate when the king is completely surrounded by its own units? No, child. It’s checkmate when there is no move the opponent can make that would prevent a piece from taking the king.”

“Okay? How is that relevant to this though?”

“Imagine if the king can’t move. All of a sudden, any piece that’s pointing at the king…”

“Is threatening checkmate. Unless something gets in the way.”

“Exactly. You not being able to move properly is your biggest weakness. If you let anything get close to you without a plan, you’re done for.”

“Let’s go again.”

The skeletons and goblins and their weapons vanished before reappearing in the same spot. Alexander thought it looked cool. He couldn’t wait until he learned some of his own magic, but first it seemed he had to prove himself.

For a couple of hours they continued practising like this. Alexander tried out a couple of new formations, prioritising his safety as number one. Once he’d done it too much and gotten a scolding from Morticous on how offence is the best defence. He stopped playing it safe then. It wasn’t about being on the offence, it was about being on the offence in the right way.

They practised many different scenarios. What to do if he met ranged opponents, traps, mechanisms, a swarm of them and how to run away. Morticous even made him practise sending his units in suicidally, citing that skeletons were some of the few creature’s that could do that.

“That’s enough.”

“What?”

“Let’s get you geared up, and then you’ll learn your first spell.”

Alexander found himself back in his original body. It was strange that it didn’t feel strange. He wondered how Morticous had copied his body so accurately. It felt wrong to a certain degree. It was his body. Then again, he’d been controlling skeletons, dead bodies stripped of their flesh and desecrated with magic, so he couldn’t make that complaint. Hence, he didn’t.

“Where are we going to find gear?”

“Floor 0 of the tower.”

“But I don’t have any money.”

“I’ll give you a coin if you give me a blowjob. I mean, blow into my eyes. I love that shit,” Icarus said.

“Many times in the tower you’ll find good items that don’t fit you. You will have the option of selling or trading these items on floor 0. You start with ten silvers.”

“Oh, where are they? And what are we going to buy?”

“The system interface stores them, and mana.”

“You can do that?”

“Indirectly.”

“Let’s go then.”

As soon as he said that, they teleported. A black mist was all he saw, and it seemed that for a moment he felt, smelled and saw nothing. Yet he was still there. The world around him materialised. The sound of merchants shouting and of crowd’s shuffling forward struck him at once, followed by the distinct smell of metal.

Morticous stood in front of him. The shroud had disappeared, and Alexander could see a face. It was clear to him that it was an illusion. as his master’s bone hands were covered in flesh now. Morticous was a tall figure, stretching high up, with black hair striking upwards, and black eyes. A large charcoal cloak covered the rest of his body.

Alexander’s eyes didn’t stop on Morticous but focused on their surroundings. They were in a small building which was like a couple of tiny walls with pillars on each corner, holding up a dome. There was a walkway off the small building and into the city around them. Two guards stood on the walkway.

“Trainer, any use of cloaking magic or technology is strictly banned in this sector. Remove it or face punishment.”

Morticous snapped his fingers, and both of the guards fell down onto the ground. Their metal helmets and metal armour clanked as they straightened out on the floor.

“Did you kill them?”

“Knocked them unconscious. Guards were the worst when I was growing up. Trust me, you’ll grow to hate them as well. Bureaucracy pigs.”

They walked out of the small building, which was a teleportation location. There were a bunch of them scattered around the city,as to prevent any accidental merges.

“This place is huge!” Alexander said. “There’s so many people here. Are they all from the tower?”

“No. Floor 0 of the tower is accessible to anybody, and due to the tower’s strict defences, merchants thrive here. There’s a few gates in floor 0 which lead into the tower but they’re always heavily guarded, and not by those pigs. High quality guards.”

“But if the tower protects everyone, why are there guards?”

“The tower dispenses its sick form of justice through the tower admins. Those pricks are overpowered. It becomes a problem, however, when there’s too many here. All of a sudden, they need to employ guards from other organisations, and then there’s corruption.”

“So it’s possible to die here?”

“Killing anybody automatically summons the admins. It means certain death, and anybody associated with you gets barred from the tower. Nobody of any value considers that. That’s enough questions. Let me tell you of- oh for fuck sake.”

“If it isn’t Morticous,” a high pitched and very posh voice said. Alexander turned around to see whoever had spoken and found a tall man with white hair on top, who looked back at him with scorn and disgust in his eyes. “Don’t tell me you picked a cripple.”

Alexander noticed the boy behind him. He was tall, brown haired, well built, and a smirk sat on his face as he looked down on Alexander. Although only with one eye, which was also brown, the other eye was white, and it stared at Morticious, jerking up and down.

“Don’t look back at me cripple,” the kid said. “I’ll fucking kill you.”

Alexander stared at the kid as he tried to press past the tall man with white hair, but he held him back with one hand, still intently staring at Morticious. He knew better than to let his prodigé get so near Morticious.

“I remember when you had to walk around with a stick everywhere. Sorry about breaking your leg by the way. It was just an innocent joke."

“Kid," Morticous said with a wrath in his voice Alexander hadn't heard before.

“Yeah?” Alexander said.

“See that snot nosed brat standing in front of you? His name’s William Ze Froe. Now, I want you to repeat what I say. Don’t miss a single word.”

“Okay?”

“First you say, I swear on my life.”

“I swear on my life.”

“And my soul.”

“And my soul.”

“And then you say, to Ullyssa, the goddess of curses and black magic.”

“To Ullyssa, the goddess of curses and black magic.”

“That I.”

“That I.”

“Will make William Ze Froe.”

“Will make William Ze Froe.

“Into my skeleton.”

“Into my skeleton.”

A window popped up in front of Alexander’s face.

System Alert

You have sworn an oath to the goddess of curses and black magic.

Ullyssa has orchestrated a meeting between you and William Ze Froe on the tenth floor.

Failure to complete this oath on the tenth floor will lead to your body and soul being sent to eternal hell.

“Good job,” the white haired man said, “You have just sworn your kid to eternal damnation.”