Everybody in the clan had a purpose. For Shank-Tooth, it was gathering roots and scavenging for useful dungeon loot. It wasn't glamorous, but the job gave her enough food, and occasionally, with a good haul— private sleeping quarters.

  When the Prowl-Shadow came, and the clan needed more people to join the hunt, she didn't hesitate.

  She had sneaked around all her life. She was fast. And most of all, Fang-Knife led the expedition.

  Most of the tailed-ones argued that their champion, Blood-Pelt, should have also joined, but they needed speed and cunning, not brawn and idiocy.

  Nobody had expected what they would find in the stone-men castle. Shadows and undead. A Lich.

  They had been overpowered. Slaughtered.

  She was chosen to get a message to the Chief: corpse-walkers were coming.

  After delivering her message everything changed. Every brute was called back and Blood-Pelt was sent in advance to the castle with his best warriors.

  Only a handful returned. They told about the Lich's deviousness, and foul spells. Not even the strongest of them was safe.

  The Chief and Whisper-Bones secluded themselves with their secretive talks. For a day and night they planned and schemed. On the second day they announced a war against the corpse-walkers. The second war of the Bar-Gate.

  Every single one who was able to claw an eye out were recruited, and the whole clan was on the move. Deeper to the dungeon. To the enemy.

  They filled the tunnels, barricaded themselves, and forged new weapons and armor from the wall-iron they found. All while the Lich lurked around them, with the Prowl-Shadow.

  Most thought that the beast, and the undead were working together. Not the veteran gatherers. It didn't fit, and they had seen used up undead with clear markings from tooth and claw.

  A three-way war. Ratkin were determined to see it through like their forefathers saw the first war through. This was their new home and they would defend it to the last breath.

  That's what Shank-Tooth believed until her group was ambushed, and everybody else but her were slaughtered.

  The moment Shank-Tooth saw him, she couldn't move. Her leader was there, an undead soldier, under a new master.

  Fang-Knife sliced his clan-kin to pieces, and helped the Lich tie her up, used her as a bait— left to die.

  While she was suffocating to smoke deep underground, seeing small pieces of the mosaic above her she wondered: was any of it true? Is there a sky or is it just a tool of manipulation for elders? Is there a Big Cheese far above the seas and skies?

  ───?───

  Alien memories slammed Seventh's psyche. Feelings, smells, thoughts, and sensations never felt before, pushed into his mind in an instant.

  He squirmed on the ground, screeching with a new mouth, clawed the ground with a stranger's hand, and saw the world in a fresh palette of colors.

  Grey wasn't grey. There were subtle shifts in the stone walls. Veins of darker mineral snaking around. Burning streaks of green, brown, red, blue, and white all around him.

  There was death. Beast. Corpse. Food. Leather. A clan-kin.

  His throat burned and tasted like ash. He hacked up black slime out of his mouth, and downed one of Fang-Knife's potions. The taste was awful moldy earth with a hint of red, but soothed his burned, ash-filled airways.

  Memories setting in their places, Seventh gained control of his faculties, and shakily stood up. He was much shorter now, and couldn't even see above the altar without standing up.

  He felt much lighter than before. Nimble, fast. Hopping on his feet to get the blood pumping, he looked around.

  Ratkin eyes were more suited to the underground living than his puny human eyes. Even the darkest shadows weren't completely obscured by the dark. And the colors!

  Some leftover instinct flickered through the ratkin brain, tugging his thoughts in strange directions.

  He had no idea that Fang-Knife had such handsome striping across his neck and chest. And the muscles bulging, rippling below that luscious, dark fur of his arms...

  Seventh paused at that, and knocked his head a couple of times with his palm. Satisfied that the thought had loosened up, and was buried deep, deep in his psyche.

  Fang had also noticed the weird staring, and tilted his head, twitched his snout two times, and twitched his ears in slight curiosity.

  Seventh blinked slowly at that observation. Fang really had a lot to say. He just hadn't noticed before.

  Was that the new eyes or echoes of the mind of this body? Since all he could think of was the sky, and something called 'Big Cheese' he guessed it was the latter.

  Testing his body further, Seventh moved closer to the strange lights floating around. The closer he came, the clearer it became what he saw. Smells floating in the air.

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  After identifying the brownish-black color as oiled leather, Seventh finally focused his eyes on his interface, and a new icon of a looming dark figure over a smaller white figure.

  Seventh thought. He was quite sure he had identified the ratkin correctly, unless these were some obscure subspecies. Tinkering with his Status Screen

  That had to be filed for another time, the clock was ticking. He didn't need a full integration, but his original body was slowly rotting away. The temple was cool, but not exactly a good place to store bodies.

  Seventh was already closing his menus, and readying himself to leave when he saw his health bar. A large portion— around 30%— was greyed out. That was new, and exactly the reason why new skills should be tested before use. Unexpected side effects.

  Seventh opened his menus and LOG

  There was a warning of lethal damage in the Wraith race box, but nothing about this. Undead Racial weaknesses? Seventh tried to remember, but he purposefully had always skipped looking at his race when checking his status. Something about fire and divine magic? And halved healing effects.

  Sighing, Seventh closed all of the blue boxes. There was a bigger, more important matter to address: he had natural regeneration?

  Sure enough, his mana was slowly filling up without using Meditate. He hadn't even checked that in his own body, but it made sense that it would have natural regeneration too.

  Giggling with glee Seventh danced around in his ratkin body. Fang slowly tilted his head, and gave looks of suspicion and deep doubt.

  "Alright! Fang, you—" Seventh started to speak, but stopped when the words came out in high pitched squeaks and hisses.

  Eyes bulging, he grabbed his throat, and made a small squeak. Taste of ash covered his tongue, and he spat it out. Fang made an amused twitch of snout at that.

  Composing himself together, Seventh tried again. "You know what to do, right? Stay here, don't open the door and attack only if it is the last resort."

  Using subtle baring of his teeth as a cocky smile, Fang confirmed the orders.

  Before heading out Seventh remembered to continue his testing. He didn't know if his spells worked or not.

  "Shadowbolt."

  The spell sounded wrong when chanted by a ratkin, but it worked all the same. A bolt of condensed darkness smacked into the stone wall, but unlike in the rest of the dungeon, it didn't leave a single mark on the engraved grey wall.

  Like normal, his mana bar had dropped by around seven percent, but it started to fill up. In half a minute it was full again. Seventh fired multiple Shadowbolts to the wall. He even channeled one huge bolt with all the mana he had.

  That winded him more than usual, and Seventh had to lay down and close his eyes while mana returned to his body. A tiny headache introduced itself to him.

  “Manaburn,” Seventh mumbled to himself.

  Basic information of why using all of one's mana in one big swoop was a bad idea flooded in Seventh's mind from his Necromancer-class. The pain subdued the more he gained mana, but Seventh hoped he could just ask how all of this worked instead of things surprising him constantly.

  New kind of pain— the price of being living flesh and blood I guess.

  Transformation back to the land of the living didn't feel like a good trade yet. Seeing and feeling marvelous things were great, but spellcasting was more taxing. Maybe he could someday go back to being undead? Some kind of—

  Lich.

  Memories of himself flashed behind his eyes. Shadowbolts ripping through the ranks. Unfeeling army of dead marching forward. Pale, green light pulsing above the rotting spellcaster.

  He sprung up.

  Maybe going back to being undead.

  But wasn't he an undead? Technically, yes. Seventh decided this wasn't one of the times when the technicalities won.

  His mood thoroughly soured, Seventh exited the temple. After quickly checking he had all that was needed for a quick scouting mission, he skittered up the stairs, to the endless corridors and hallways.

  Days, weeks, maybe even a month spent in the dungeon made navigating the corridors second nature to him, but Seventh got constantly distracted by new colors and smells.

  The mosaic decorations in the grand halls were breathtaking in their complex shadings and geometric shapes he hadn't seen before. He really wanted to keep these eyes, but there was a gnawing sense of not belonging.

  An itch all around him, reminding him that he had borrowed someone else's body without permission.

  Just like a good little Necromancer would do.

  His speed was considerably faster, he basically flew through the dungeon. There wasn't any need to check the shadows for ambushes or umbrefels. He was a ratkin now. Nothing to worry about.

  Hours slipped by in care-free skittering until Seventh noticed a new color and smell in the air. Light-black mixed with reddish-brown. Something burning— burning iron?

  Focusing and following the scent, Seventh slowly inched forward before realizing where he was going.

  To the other ratkin. A whole culture he didn't know anything about.

  He was already turning around to formulate a better plan— or even a plan— when he noticed the movement in the far corner. A group of dozen ratkin with large baskets on their backs were striding right at him.

  Seventh froze.

  The group noticed him too, and approached him wearily. Half of the group had drawn their weapons, and their noses were twitching wildly. Smelling for the stench of undead.

  The obvious leader on the front raised his ear when recognizing Seventh— no, the body he was in— and let out a high pitched sigh. Weapons were sheathed, and the others groaned about being scared.

  Seventh stared the leader straight in the face. There was tiredness, surprise and annoyance in the ratkin's face. He was a head taller than Seventh, and clearly older. Probably even older than Fang-Knife, grey spots had started to appear around his snout.

  "If your hands empty, help carry wall-iron home," the leader said in an unexpected gravelly tone. It was the ratkin squeaks with a heavy dose of body language, but Seventh could understand what was being said.

  Seeing Seventh staring at him slack-jawed, the older ratkin dropped his basket full of iron sconces in front of Seventh, and lightly walked past him. He obviously assumed Seventh would automatically obey.

  And he did. There weren't handles or anything else to help carrying the basket, but at least nobody had asked any questions.

  Seventh thought as he was forcefully recruited as a mule.

  For better or worse, Seventh was now part of this group, and walking straight at the hall where he had his big fight against the ratkin.