Chapter 5: The Seat of Silence
The sewer grate clanged shut behind him, sealing away the damp, cursed darkness of the goblin tunnels. Rocky emerged into a narrow alley strewn with rotting trash bags and the rusted skeletons of discarded appliances. The late afternoon sun cut sharp angles through the buildings, but did little to warm the chill the [Curse of Weakness] had left deep in his bones. His stats were diminished, a leaden fatigue tugging at his movements. He leaned against a grimy brick wall, breathing slowly, as Kline stood silent guard, its violet gaze scanning both ends of the alley.
Inefficient, he thought, analyzing the debuff's countdown. Four minutes, thirty-two seconds of compromised capacity. A vulnerability window.
He pulled the [Lesser Healing Potion] from his inventory. The liquid inside glowed a feeble red. It would mend flesh, not purge curses. He drank it anyway. A warm, mundane sensation spread through his chest and side, stitching closed the claw marks from the Badger. His HP ticked up to full.
HP: 100/100
The weakness remained. He would wait it out. He had the time, and the location was defensible—a single choke point at each end of the alley. He slid down the wall to sit on the cracked pavement, back straight, eyes closed. He didn't sleep. He planned.
The [Shadow Fang] rested in his inventory, a kernel of potent umbral energy. The [Earthy Sepulcher Bone] was dust, its purpose served. The [Necromancer's Finger Bone] was gone, transformed. He had the core components, but his \[Seat of the Bone Throne - Rank 0\] remained a dormant title, a concept without a locus.
According to the fused memories, the Throne wasn't just a skill. It was a place. A personal demesne anchored to his will. To manifest it, even at Rank 0, required three things he now possessed: a Catalyst of Death (the Shadow Fang), a Secure Location, and a Ritual of Claiming.
The alley wouldn't do. It was transient, exposed.
His mind replayed a map of this sector from his God of All Professions memory. Half a mile northeast, just beyond the nominal boundary of the extended Safe Zone, was a place the game had labeled "The Brantford Sepulcher." A small, private cemetery attached to a long-abandoned chapel. In Genesis, it had been a Level 10-15 undead grinding zone. Now, in this fused reality, it would likely be empty of monsters—too close to the newborn human settlement for significant corruption to have taken root. But the land would be saturated with the right kind of quiet energy. The resonance of passed-on endings.
It was perfect.
The curse timer in his mind's eye hit zero. The heavy lethargy lifted. He stood, rolling his shoulders, feeling the return of his baseline, pathetic strength. It was enough.
"Kline. Scout. Northeast. Cemetery. Avoid conflict."
The Skeletal Hound turned and trotted to the mouth of the alley, sniffing the air. It glanced back, its eye-lights flaring once in acknowledgment, and then melted into the lengthening shadows of the early evening. Rocky followed at a measured pace, sticking to cover, his senses extended. The sounds of the city were changing—less panic, more purposeful activity. He heard the distant clash of practice combat, the shouts of forming patrols. The first, fragile structures of the new order were being built by those who chose to play within the system's lines.
He walked past them, unseen.
The Brantford Sepulcher was exactly as he remembered from the game files, yet profoundly different. The iron fence was real, spotted with rust. The stone chapel had real holes in its slate roof. The air held the scent of damp earth, old moss, and a profound, peaceful silence. No glowing red dots on his mini-map. No shambling zombies. Just rows of weathered headstones tilting in the soft ground, and the giant, ancient yew tree at the center, its branches casting a canopy over everything.
He found Kline waiting by the chapel's broken oak door. No threats detected.
This was the place.
He pushed the door open. The interior was one large, vaulted room, empty of pews, littered with fallen plaster and bird droitations. The late sun streamed through a stained-glass window depicting a forgotten saint, painting the dusty air in fragments of color. At the far end, where an altar would have been, was a raised stone dais.
He climbed onto the dais. This would be the focal point.
From his inventory, he retrieved the \[Shadow Fang\]. It was cold, almost painfully so, leaching warmth from his hand. He then took out the three \[Silverleaf\] he had harvested. Not for alchemy. For their conductive properties—silver carried magical signatures well. Finally, he drew his own dagger, the rusted but soulbound blade from his first day.
He knelt. With the dagger's point, he began to scratch a design onto the stone dais. It was not a spell-circle from any game grimoire. It was a diagram born of his fused understanding: the geometric precision of a master enchanter merged with the symbolic, grave-marker simplicity of a necromancer's sigil. A central point for the Fang. Three radiating lines for the Silverleaf, representing past, present, and potential. An outer circle, not to contain, but to define a boundary between here and there.
His movements were slow, deliberate. Each scratch seemed to echo in the silent chapel. Kline stood at the door, a silent sentinel.
When the diagram was complete, he placed the \[Shadow Fang\] at the central point. It lay there, a sliver of captured night. At the end of each of the three lines, he placed a Silverleaf. They shimmered, their metallic sheem drinking in the fading colored light.
Now came the Claiming. He had no ritual words from a scroll. He had only his will and the authority of his legacy titles. He placed both hands on the cold stone, on either side of the diagram.
He did not ask permission. He did not petition a higher power. He issued a declaration, his voice a low, resonant vibration in the hollow space.
"This silence is mine. This endings-place is mine. I am the master of all tools, and the sovereign of the final gate. Here, at the confluence of memory and dust, I lay my claim. Let the echoes settle. Let the foundation be still. I raise no spire. I summon no legion. I claim this seat of silence."
He focused. Not on mana—he had none. He focused on the \[Jobless] anomaly that was his core, the void where a class should be. He pushed that void into the diagram. He pushed the chilling certainty of the Sovereign legacy into the stone. He pushed the adaptable, all-encompassing potential of the God of All Professions into the air of the chapel.
The \[Shadow Fang] trembled. The purple light within it bled out, not dissipating, but sinking into the scratches of the diagram, tracing them in eerie violet fire. The \[Silverleaf] crumbled to metallic dust, their essence flowing along the lines to merge with the umbral energy.
The stone dais groaned. A shockwave of silent force expanded from the diagram, blowing dust out in a perfect ring. The colored light from the window seemed to dim, as if the chapel had taken a deep, final breath.
And then, it changed.
The air grew permanently cooler, a few degrees below the outside temperature. The sounds from beyond the chapel—the distant caw of a crow, the rustle of leaves—became muffled, distant, as if heard through thick glass. The space within the chapel walls felt… denser. Separate.
In the center of the dais, where the Shadow Fang had been, the stone flowed like liquid. It rose, reformed, hardened. It was not a grand throne. Not yet. It was a simple, sturdy chair of dark grey stone, seamless, as if carved from a single block. Its back was straight, its arms unadorned. But at the apex of the backrest, a small, stylized emblem had formed: on the left, a faint, geometric pattern suggesting interlocking gears and tools; on the right, a simple, elegant icon of a closed gate. In the center, a single, vertical line of void.
Before the chair, the stone of the dais had flattened into a smooth, dark disc.
Rocky stood. A new notification, profound and silent, etched itself into his awareness.
Title Evolved: [Seat of the Bone Throne - Rank 0] is now [Seat of Silence - Rank 1].
Personal Demesne Established: [The Sepulcher Chapel].
Effects within your Demesne:
**- Undead Creation Cost: -25% Stamina/Mana.
**- Undead Upkeep: Nullified. Your minions suffer no degradation while within.
**- Passive Regeneration: You and your bound minions regenerate 1% of max HP per minute.
**- Ward of Silence: External scrying and long-range detection spells are heavily obscured.
**- Authority: Your commands to undead hold the weight of law here.
He approached the stone chair. He ran a hand over its arm. It was cool, solid, real. It was not a source of power, but a focus. A keystone. He sat.
The moment his body settled into the seat, a profound calm descended. The minor aches from the day vanished. The constant, low-grade hum of his own anomalous energy, which he hadn't even registered until now, quieted to a perfectly tuned stillness. Here, he was not an error in the system. He was the system. He was the admin of this tiny, reclaimed piece of reality.
He looked at Kline. The Skeletal Hound had turned its skull towards him. Within the demesne, Rocky could perceive it not just as a tool, but as a node in a network. He could feel the faint strand of death-energy that bound it to him, anchored now to the stone beneath his throne.
He could do more here.
An experiment. He focused on Kline. He didn't try to change its form. He tried to imprint a principle upon it, using the authority of his Seat. He chose a simple one: Efficiency of Motion. He willed the understanding of the most kinetic, economic path between two points into the bones of the hound.
A faint shimmer passed over Kline's skeleton. The grey bone seemed to polish itself, becoming slightly smoother at the joints. When it next took a step, the motion was fluid, almost predatory, where before it had been merely mechanical.
Minion Enhanced: [Skeletal Hound - Level 3] has gained Trait: [Streamlined]. (Agility +2 within Demesne; movement costs 10% less Stamina).
A slow, satisfied breath escaped him. This was true power. Not the flashy theft of a fireball, but the quiet, absolute authority to redefine a thing according to his will.
His moment of peace was shattered by a sound from outside the chapel's walls—a sound that shouldn't have been so clear through the Ward of Silence. A human scream, cut short. Then the guttural, wet snarls of something decidedly not human. Close. Just beyond the cemetery fence.
A conflict. Moving toward his sanctuary.
Rocky's eyes, calm and cold, opened. He stood from the Seat of Silence. The calm remained within him, a core of ice. The demesne was his, but its borders were untested. An incursion could not be tolerated. Not this early.
He walked to the chapel door, Kline falling into step beside him, its movements now eerily fluid. He peered out into the twilight of the cemetery.
At the far iron gate, a figure was stumbling, falling, scrambling back up. It was the Healer, Lena, her robes torn, one arm clutched to her chest. Her face was a mask of pure terror, glowing uselessly with the green light of a panicked, repeated heal she cast on herself.
Chasing her were three creatures. They were humanoid, but broken. Their skin was a livid, bruised purple, stretched tight over distorted skeletons. Their mouths were too wide, filled with needle teeth. Their hands ended in long, bone claws that scraped the gravel path. [Plaguewalkers - Level 4]. Early scouts of the Demonic Plague, fast, vicious, and infectious.
They were herding her, playing with their prey. They could have killed her already. They were driving her toward the chapel. Toward him.
Lena tripped over a sunken headstone and fell hard on the path just twenty yards from the chapel steps. She looked up, her eyes meeting Rocky's in the doorway. They held no hope, only a final, dawning horror. She had seen his cold competence, his brutal utility. She had seen him walk away. She didn't expect salvation.
She expected to die alone.
The lead Plaguewalker lunged, its claws aimed at her throat.
Rocky didn't move from the doorway. He spoke a single word, his voice carrying the amplified Authority of his demesne, a wave of tangible command that rolled over the hallowed ground.
"Kneel."
The word was not for Lena.
The three \[Plaguewalkers], mid-lunge, crashed to the ground as if the earth had yanked their feet from under them. They didn't stumble; they were forced down, their bodies slamming into the dirt with enough force to crack bone. A debuff, deep gold and violet, appeared above them: [Apostate's Edict]. They writhed, snarling, but could not rise. The very air within the cemetery seemed to press down on them, a gravity of pure disdain.
Lena stared, breath caught in her throat, her healing light sputtering out.
Rocky finally stepped down from the chapel porch. He walked past her as if she were another headstone. He stopped before the three prostrate monsters. They gnashed their teeth at him, hate and confusion in their milky eyes.
He looked at them, then at Kline. "They are corrupted. Flawed. Unclean." His voice was analytical. "But they have strength. And they are within my domain."
He raised a hand, not in a casting gesture, but in a gesture of rejection. He focused on the taint within them—the Demonic Plague energy. Using the Sovereign's authority over states of being, and the demesne's power as an extension of his will, he didn't try to purge it. He seized it.
"I deny your corruption. I claim the vessel."
He clenched his fist.
The purple, bruise-like flesh of the Plaguewalkers began to desiccate, turning grey and hard. The writhing, chaotic plague energy was violently stripped out, leaving behind only the bare, neutral substrate of death. Their snarls turned to silent gasps as their forms collapsed in on themselves, shrinking, reforming.
Where three Plaguewalkers had been, there now knelt three humanoid skeletons, their bones a clean, stark white, free of rot or taint. Violet pinpricks of light kindled in their skulls. They were taller, better structured than Kline. [Skeletal Acolytes - Level 4].
Undead Minions Created: [Skeletal Acolytes] x3.
Bond Established. The Demonic Taint has been refined into [Permanent Binding Energy]. Upkeep nullified within Demesne.
Rocky lowered his hand. He now had a pack. A knight, and three foot soldiers.
He turned his head, finally looking at Lena, who was still frozen on the ground, her eyes wide with something beyond terror—a kind of religious awe at the quiet, absolute horror she had just witnessed.
"You are trespassing," he said, his tone devoid of accusation, merely stating fact.
"I… I was running… they were everywhere…" she stammered, tears cutting tracks through the grime on her face.
"You led a threat to my threshold." He paused, his gaze dissecting her. She was a Healer. A class with utility. But she was also a witness. And she owed a debt. "That creates an obligation."
He pointed to the chapel. "You will stay. For one night. You will not touch the seat. You will not leave the nave. In the morning, you will go. You will tell others that this place is warded. That a necromancer of great power claims it. You will not describe me. You will only speak of the silence, and the bones that enforce it."
It wasn't an offer. It was a sentence. A bargain for her life: her testimony as a rumor-monger in exchange for survival.
She nodded frantically, unable to speak.
"Good." He turned back to his new Acolytes. "Guard the perimeter. Patrol the fence line. Destroy any corruption that approaches."
The three skeletons rose as one, took up positions with their rusted, claw-turned-bone weapons, and began a silent, marching patrol along the cemetery's edge.
Rocky walked back into his chapel, Kline at his heels. He did not look back at the weeping healer. He sat once more upon the Seat of Silence.
Outside, the last light of day faded. Inside, in the permanent cool twilight of his demesne, Rocky, the Jobless, the God-Killer Necromancer, finally had a home. A foundation of stone and silence from which his hunting would truly begin.
The world thought the monsters were the disaster. They would soon learn: the true disaster was the hunter who built his throne in their path.
[End of Chapter 5]