Chapter 30: Experimentation & the Show

We went deeper into the dungeon, the air growing colder and the smell of damp stone clinging to us like an unwelcome cloak. Lydia stepped forward with a small grin and raised her staff. “Let there be… light!” An orb of golden radiance burst into existence above us, drifting lazily forward. The glow chased away the shadows in soft ripples, revealing walls that glistened with moisture and floor stones uneven from age. I had to admit. Magic had its charm.

“Neat,” I said, watching the light bob ahead.

She glanced over her shoulder. “How much do you know about dungeons?”

“None.”

While our footsteps echoed off the stone, Lydia launched into an explanation. “They’re believed to form from bleed-through between dimensions, where fragments of other realities press into our own. Those distortions create pockets in the world, unstable but rich in resources. Adventurers explore them to exploit, control, or destroy whatever’s inside. Different kingdoms argue over the ethics, but everyone agrees dungeons are valuable.” Her tone carried a faint scholar’s pride, as though she had rehearsed that lecture more than once.

We stopped when the orb’s light revealed a skeleton standing ahead, perfectly still, its head tilted as if it had just been caught eavesdropping.

“Undead behave erratically,” Lydia said. “Some attack on sight. Others… just stand there, almost docile. It’s not uncommon.”

I studied the unmoving bones, the empty sockets somehow fixed directly on me. An idea itched at the back of my mind. “I wonder…” I stepped closer, thinking of possessing it.

The skeleton’s skull tilted further, following me. Huh. It could see me. Before I could reach out and take control, the thing abruptly turned and bolted into the darkness.

“Well,” Lydia said, eyebrows rising. “That’s new.” She pulled out a small, worn tome from her satchel and flipped it open, the pages already crowded with tight handwriting. Producing a curious pen with a small silver nib, she began scribbling.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Taking notes,” she replied without looking up. “Research on spirits is rare. Research on evil spirits is rarer. Research on one as… unique as you? Almost nonexistent.”

“Unique, huh. That’s a nice way to say test subject.”

“Volunteer,” she corrected, her voice almost cheerful. “I might not look like it, but I take magic seriously. It’s a hobby I’ve embraced over the years. And aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to know what you can do, how far your abilities go? Evil spirits are usually considered dangerously powerful. History says so.”

I snorted. “And yet here I am, the exception. Where else are you going to find an ‘evil spirit’ as polite as me?”

She finally glanced at me with an amused smirk. “Polite is one word for it.”

We pressed on, the orb lighting the way as the dungeon passage twisted and narrowed. The air was thick with silence, broken only by our footsteps and the occasional drip of water. Eventually, we spotted movement ahead. It was the same skeleton, its posture tense but unmoving this time. I didn’t hesitate. I surged forward, reached out, and finally sank into its brittle frame.

The world shifted.

Being a skeleton felt… weird. The best way I could describe it was like being depressed, but in a skeletal way. Not the kind of slump where you stare out a rainy window for hours… No, this was an absence of warmth, emotion, and everything in between. I was aware, functional, but hollow in a way that made me feel like I should be sitting in a dusty corner until the end of time. Also, I couldn’t talk, which was frustrating.

“How do you feel?” Lydia asked, walking alongside me as the orb of light drifted ahead.

I pushed harder, willing some sound out of the bony mouth. “…Kay…”

She tilted her head. “What?”

Trying again with more effort, I forced the jaw to move, and a deep, guttural voice like stones grinding together echoed out. “I am okay.”

“Good to know,” Lydia said with mild amusement, then her eyes flicked forward. “Here’s another one.”

A skeleton blocked our path, this one clutching a dented shield in one hand and a rust-flecked dagger in the other. It roared, if you could call that rattling screech a roar.

“RAAAAGH~!”

And then it charged.

On instinct, I lifted my left arm and let lightning rip from my fingertips. The blast tore through the undead instantly, scattering bones like dry leaves in the wind. I lowered my arm and froze. The limb I had used to channel the electricity was now nothing but ash, crumbling away until only the shoulder joint remained.

Lydia examined the remains with a curious hum. “It looks like your magic ‘costs’ a literal limb.”

She wasn’t wrong. I remembered my fight with Jandar, when the body I possessed had lost function of its entire arm after I let loose a full blast. Apparently, physics and necromancy agreed that you couldn’t shoot lightning for free.

“Does your death involve getting struck by lightning?” she asked, as though checking a box in her mental research log.

“Yeah,” I said, “and a bit more.”

We ventured deeper, the passage narrowing before opening into wider chambers. Lydia kept her tome open, scribbling notes whenever we tested something new. To keep my spellcasting from permanently crippling my current skeleton, I occasionally hopped into a fresh one, leaving the old frame behind like a burnt-out battery. The mechanics of this world’s magic were surprisingly literal. No glowing mana bars, no mystical energy pools, just a direct, physical cost to every spell.

Through experimentation, I learned that lightning drained matter, but wind magic… something else I seemed to have picked up from the violent storm that killed me… had a different price. Wind didn’t tear apart my host, but it did strip away the sense of touch. Not a big deal for a skeleton, and even less for a ghost, but the absence was noticeable in a strange, hollow way.

We confirmed this when we captured a goblin, something Lydia insisted was “for science.” I used wind magic to fling it against the dungeon wall, the gusts roaring from my fingertips. The more force I pushed, the less sensation I felt in my borrowed bones until even the vibrations of movement faded entirely. By the end, I could barely tell I was standing.

“So,” I muttered once Lydia finished her notes, “lightning costs matter, wind costs touch. Makes perfect sense. Totally reasonable magic system.”

She smirked but didn’t argue.

The orb of light floated ahead into another wide chamber, and that was when we saw it, the dungeon’s boss. It was a skeleton, but larger than the others, its ribcage broad and thick, its skull crowned with jagged cracks like battle scars. In its hands rested a massive greataxe, the blade still sharp despite centuries of rust trying to claim it.

And it was looking right at me.

I lunged at the dungeon boss, my will pressing hard against its. The thing was massive, a towering skeleton clutching a great axe in both hands. Its eye sockets burned with an eerie blue light, and every mental shove I made against it met a wall of sheer defiance. Possessing it was like trying to push through a mountain.

In the end, Lydia’s magic did the trick. She raised her staff, white light spiraling around her like a storm in reverse. Chains of holy energy wrapped around the monster, locking its limbs in place. I abandoned my siege on its mind and slipped into another skeleton nearby. It was weaker, brittle bones held together by some stubborn magic. Perfect for what I needed. I channeled lightning through every fiber of its being, filling the vessel until it couldn’t hold me or the charge any longer. The resulting blast tore the body apart in a flash of light and bone dust. When the smoke cleared, the boss was nothing but scorched fragments at Lydia’s feet.

We made it back to Enmar without further trouble. Lydia insisted I register at the Adventurer’s Guild, arguing it would make dungeon work easier. I didn’t see the point at first, but paperwork was her thing, not mine. Over the next week, I split my time between haunting the City Library in Ken’s body and following Stabs into low-level dungeons. Goblins, skeletons, kobolds… I made a hobby out of dismantling them.

The more I practiced and read books, the more I learned. For one, the specifics of destroying a dungeon were considered highly restricted knowledge. Only certain adventurers were allowed to know, and none of them were talking. That was fine; I had my own experiments. Without even possessing someone, I could now summon enough electricity to mimic a taser’s sting. My wind magic was less impressive, but it still had its uses. And while I was sharpening my spectral edge, I was also studying Enmar from its streets, its politics, and its economy trying to piece together a plan for rehabilitating the Twinfist Gang.

Finally, the day came.

The church was packed wall-to-wall with the lowest filth Enmar had to offer: rats, whores, beggars, thugs, and drunks. I stood at the altar, invisible, with Lydia to my right and Stabs to my left. Ken had taken the children to safety earlier. We were waiting for the lieutenants.

The great doors creaked open. Three figures stepped inside: Ginny the Matron, tall and red-haired, wearing a corset that left nothing to the imagination; Hammer, a hulking brute with hands like shovels; and Pietro, a wiry rogue with the kind of face you forgot immediately. Ginny led them down the aisle, her posture radiating defiance.

We had a script, something that I devised with Lydia’s advice.

I slipped into Hammer’s body the moment he was close enough. He fought me, but I’d been practicing. His mind was raw muscle and rage, but no finesse. I pressed down, squeezing until I had full control. Stabs had told me this man’s history of cruelty that didn’t need embellishment.

I turned Hammer’s face toward Ginny and Pietro and let the words spill from his mouth in my voice.
“Murder. Double homicide. Rape. Manslaughter. Theft. Extortion. Beatings for sport. And that’s just the start. You know what you are, Hammer? You’re a walking ledger of sins.”

Their expressions shifted with confusion and disbelief, but I didn’t give them time to speak. Electricity surged from within, crawling over Hammer’s skin in violent arcs. Lydia’s illusions made the lightning blaze brighter, louder, and more terrifying. The smell of burning flesh filled the air.

When I released him, his body hit the floor with a dull thud, smoke rising from the charred ruin. The church was silent except for the faint crackle of fading magic.

Lydia stepped forward, staff in hand, and murmured a short prayer. “May his next life be one of righteousness,” she said softly, “lest karma strike him again, as it has today.”

I stood beside her, invisible still, watching the crowd shift uneasily. This was only the beginning.