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Upon turning eighteen, Tyron Steelarm goes with his friends to the Awakening Stone in their village, to receive their primary Classes from the mysterious force known as the Unseen. His friends receive the classes they wanted, such as Swordsman, or Ranger. However, instead of the Wizard class he was hoping for, Tyron receives the highly illegal Necromancer class, along with an Anathema subclass granted by unknown patrons opposed to the five gods. Tyron is shocked, and is legally obligated to have his illegal classes burned out of his soul, but remembering his parents' advice never to give up his primary class, no matter what it is, and not wanting to cripple his potential, he determines to keep his classes and run away with his first few rudimentary skeletons. His friends intercept him, but with his skeletons' help, he gets clear and flees into the night.
After traveling for several days to hinder pursuit, Tyron reaches the town of Woodsedge, where he hopes to remain undercover and train up his new skills. However, he receives a message from his dark patrons - the Scarlet Court, the Old Gods, and the Abyss - threatening consequences if he doesn't reach out to one of them. Tyron chooses the Abyss, and performs a ritual to "Pierce the Veil" and make contact with an Abyssal; the ritual is a success, but the damage to the Veil draws unwelcome attention, alerting the authorities to his presence. Tyron's parents, two of the most powerful individuals in the nation, are ordered to hunt him down, but they refuse, and are subjected to torture via the magick brands that they wear, in a fruitless effort to make them comply.
Still incognito but under increasing pressure, Tyron signs up with an adventuring party to hunt monsters coming from the nearby rift, in hopes of locating old skeletons that he can use. He's somewhat successful, but there are signs that the rift is escalating toward a "break", where hordes of rift-kin flood out and overrun the whole province. Furthermore, Woodsedge now requires a status check before entry, which would expose his classes. Tyron instead takes his chances in the wild, using the bones he's found to increase his retinue of skeletons and hunt rift-kin to level up, and he is assisted by a party member, Dove, who guessed his identity but is willing to help him due to a grudge against the government. Unfortunately, when the rift breaks, Dove is killed; in desperation, Tyron combines several skills and invents a method of binding Dove's spirit into his skull, allowing Dove to think and see and talk, but nothing else. Dove is displeased with his new situation, but teaches Tyron how to conceal himself until the hordes pass.
Once the rift-kin have left the area, Tyron collects what resources he can from the ruins of Woodsedge, and goes on the move, taking bounties to hunt bandits who have sprung up in the societal disruption of the rift break. He also contacts a second patron, the Scarlet Court, to learn more about them, but to his shock, rather than merely communicating, the court sends one of its members, a vampire woman named Yor, to remain and travel with him, in hopes of persuading him to become a vampire and join them. Tyron declines, but Yor continues to accompany and assist him in case he changes his mind. She also rescues him when he gets over his head in a fight against a large group of established bandits who have taken over a farming community, killing the men and raping the women. Tyron is severely wounded in battle against them, but is healed afterward by his friend Elsbeth, who received the Priestess class but was rejected by the five gods, and now serves the Old Gods.
With the experience from the bandits, Tyron reaches level 20 and advances his primary class from Necromancer to Undead Weaver, focusing on improving his foundational skills and researching improvements to his rituals and spells. His new class also gives him access to ghost minions, allowing him to make two minions (a ghost and a skeleton) from each corpse. With Yor and Dove's reluctant help, Tyron visits the Abyss and sells them one of the bandits' souls, in exchange for the power to know where all the remainder of them are so he can wipe them out. His ever-expanding undead army makes short work of the survivors, letting him continue to advance his levels and his craft.
Knowing that law enforcement is still looking for him, Tyron stays on the move, but some of the junior "slayers", with combat-oriented classes, begin to find him. Tyron erases one's memory of seeing him, and kills another in self defence, then goes into another fugue of invention, where he succeeds in binding the slayer's ghost to the skeleton to produce a revenant, dramatically faster and stronger than a standard skeleton and capable of using the skills it learned in life. With the revenant's help, he kills two marshals who recognize and attempt to arrest (and execute) him.
Tyron's travels bring him to the village of Cragwhistle, which he rescues from a rift-kin siege. The villagers are unhappy and fearful, but between saving their lives, and having the power to kill them himself if he wanted, they cooperate, providing him with supplies and access to their graveyard. Tyron examines the nearby rift, which appears to be new but stable, and defeats a large monster guarding it, but is then ambushed by a substantial group of slayers on his way back. His parents arrive Just in Time to rescue him and kill the slayers, after which they explain to him that they have been unable to remove the Brand and have instead arranged to make it look like Tyron died. They also inform him that the five gods were likely responsible for him receiving the Necromancer class, to punish his parents for becoming too powerful and attempting to remove the Brand. Rather than submit to the gods and kill Tyron, they commit suicide, leaving Tyron with a backpack full of instructions and resources, the law no longer in pursuit, and a burning desire for revenge.
With Yor's help, Tyron takes on a new identity, "Lukas Armsfield", in the city of Kenmore. Over the course of years, he completes an apprenticeship as an Arcanist, and opens a store to sell enchanted items, as well as collaborating with the Scarlet Court to establish a presence in Kenmore. However, he remains committed to bringing down the magisters and the gods backing them, and has been using his enchanting skill to prepare more effective skeletons.
