More unexpected changes.

Finally, she disappears in a flash of blue light, leaving only a tiny puddle of blood and a loot bag with her (droppable) items. Right on cue, that damnable fanfare you've always associated with heroes leveling up fills your ears for once. Gods, it feels good to be alive right now.

Unfortunately, as you discover when the light fades and you find your feet again, your stats have barely changed at level 6. You do have a name now, though, the subtype 'Microboss', and a new 'Fame' tab on your Character Sheet, which you check out of curiosity. Was having a player recognize you as... well, just being a person enough to make you into something, or was it because you had the crystal in your possession now?

Fame: 7
Recent activity:
Defeated a hero + 2 (Expanded)
You defeated a level 3 hero! + 3
You didn't have a lair! - 1
Shamed a Hero! + 5 (Expanded)
Respawned Naked! + 3
Creampied! + 3
Reanimated as a Minion! +0 (Rivalry)
You didn't have a lair! - 1

Perhaps that was it: It seems Natalie Greenfield has designated you as her Rival, so that might have conferred you with some kind of special status. Or, perhaps, she was some kind of demi-god after all, and just made you one? Questions for later, or never, you suppose; there's certainly no point in ruminating on them now. Returning to the Fame screen, it seems that there's a whole host of things you can unlock with these fame points, but all save three are just greyed-out '???'s, and the remaining three at the top all cost 10:

Fairie Liegelord 0/10 (Racial ability): 10 Fame
Demonic Liegelord 0/10 (Racial ability): 10 Fame
Undead Liegelord 0/10 (Class ability): 10 Fame

The 'reanimated as a minion' part is interesting, too, so you glance over to the minion in question... and freeze. Something else quite unusual seems to have happened: Where you'd expected to see a generic zombie minion, you instead see... the Human. She's unsteady on her feet, her eyes are empty and soulless, and her skin's gone ashen, but it's unmistakably her, standing bare-ass naked in front of you, pillowy breasts swaying slightly.

Zombie (Natalie Greenfield), Level 3 Undead
Human, Undead, Monster, Minion, Explicit

Interesting. You can see all of her statistics, now, but it seems that most of them are crossed out; as a zombie, she only has her physical attributes, which means she doesn't currently have access to any of her skills (her Crafting skills seem to have been Woodworking and Alchemy), and even her personality Traits are inaccessible. She's also tying up part of your MP, but the Fame thing implied that she might start generating Fame for you until the original Natalie came back and destroyed her undead doppelganger... and you can imagine other perks to having a minion like this, so keeping her around seems like a sound investment. She has a Fame tab of her own, too, but everything in it seems to require a lair, so for now you just collect your new servant, load your gains into her arms, and head back towards your cave (leaving behind the shitty robe; you have no need of it, now).

You consider the Claimant Crystal as you move, turning it over in your hands and holding it up to catch the rare sunbeam that manages to infiltrate its way through the trees. You're not totally sure how it works just yet, but you wonder; should you actually use it on that shitty hole in the ground, or try to find some better location?