May have not been a magical curse, but considering he shed his teeth, his nails, his hair, eventually his skin and that was just for the first evolution of his body, might as well have been a curse. Also it's hard to explain dumb science over chasms. He has a good strong brain but sometimes when he's in high stress situations it is filled to the brim with 'Nah, we're not doing this,' and he has to work with basic Murphy thoughts.

But if there's any skill he's always good at doing, it's running his motor mouth. And king of the undead is slightly, marginally less pompous than 'zombie messiah'.

"A lot of people have a lifelong pain in the ass journey set off on one bad day. Most people, maybe. And if either of my friends come don't tell them I said this, but it can be pretty rewarding." If he wanted them to know that they were part of the reward, he'd tell them so.