As we started out, things were very quiet, normal you could say. Granted, we were still within city limits or former city limits I should say. This area was heavily patrolled by adventurers, the self-styled “army of Chicago” and the roads were more heavily patrolled as such. The Prince of Chicago had even the forethought to start building way stations, really little more than towers next to the road, but they were each manned by at least a squad of guards.

So it wasn’t until we had actually left the areas around Chicago that we had to be on our guard. Call it about twenty miles, or the time we switched over to the old I-65. We chose I-65 because we knew from the old maps that it went straight into Indianapolis. We weren’t planning on staying on it of course, just taking it south a ways, as the highway went into Indianapolis from the East side of the city, rather than due north which we wanted.

We wanted the North side as there was the Morse Reservoir as well as White River there. The White River went straight through Indianapolis, and would serve as a good deterrent for several types of Undead, and the Morse Reservoir, along with several other lakes to the North, would hopefully give us good camping spots. We would have chosen the Eagle Creek Reservoir, but a large section of that had been a park before the change, and many parks tended to attract unsavory creatures that we wouldn’t really want to deal with.

As we walked, we got to know each other a little better. The talking we did during the first twenty miles or so at least solidified that we could all get along. Jessie and Erin talked about fashion choices or something like that. John, Alyssa, and I though talked about the benefits of certain types of traps and weapons.

“Well,” John says, “I prefer using swords and shields, though I know how to also use axes or maces. None of them are really difficult to use in my opinion.”

I nod, “Swords are fairly common, and with undead can be a solid choice, if you’re fighting ghouls or other undead who use a basic nervous system still. However, the mace would be better for zombie and skeleton types. Certain zombies have a habit of still being able to move after you’ve cut them up, and skeletons don’t exactly have skin to cut or stab.”

As John nods, Alyssa asks, “How about arrows? I normally use my compound bow, and I get that fighting skeletons would be hard for me, but what could I do?”

“Well,” I say, “Ghouls and the similar undead there would be fairly easy to fight. Most of them are dead, but basically infected with a specific type of necromantic magic that acts like a virus. The natural magic flow of the bodies that are infected is enough to allow the virus for lack of a better word, to spread, through bite or other means. Once it has taken over that completely, it cuts it off from outside sources, which kills the person, but also traps the soul. Truly terrible.”

“Anyway,” I continue, “Other Undead you’d probably have a good chance against are liches. They are spell casters, however every lich has something called a phylactery. That phylactery tends to be extremely weak, and if you can find it and smash it, it’ll instantly kill the Lich. Many of the younger Liches tend to keep their phylacteries on or near them, as hiding it might mean someone stumbling across it and killing them by accident. So if you can spot that on them, you can take out a Lich fairly quickly.”

She nods, and we lapse into silence for a little bit. Then I am surprised once more.

“So, Daniel,” Alyssa says, “Could you teach any of us how to be Necromancers?”

*****

I swear, I think this is exactly what Anubis wanted. We set up camp for the Night, and all four of my new team mates are looking at me interested. Well, I think Erin is looking at me, but she put her hood up, so I can’t exactly tell.

I was non-committal with Alyssa when she asked, as I had never thought about that before. However, becoming a Necromancer is in fact easier than any other path of magic. It just has a lot more options available, and a lot more ways to go wrong as well.

“First, I’ll start by explaining that Necromancy is very different from other forms of magic. Those who use Necromancy, in any form, are taking an obligation upon themselves. For those of us that are essentially Good, or at least following the rules of the world, we help to send the dead back, or to send the souls of the dead on to the next world. For the bad, they absorb those souls, essentially consuming them to allow themselves to become more powerful, but once they reach a certain point, their souls are so black, they become undead themselves.”

“Necromancers have many different professions, as I was explaining to John the other night,” I nod at John, smiling, “And there are many ways for those who become Necromancers to fall into the dark side as it were. But, the simplest way to see if anyone has the talent to become a Necromancer, is to search for Death Energy.”

I hold up a pair of freshly killed rabbits. “In helping with that, Alyssa caught these a short while before we set camp. Now, I want everyone who’s interested to meditate, and sense the dissipating death of these rabbits. The energy will feel cold, and dark. Take your time.”

As I finish, I pull out my knife, and start cleaning the rabbits. They’ll make a good stew.

*****

Twenty minutes later, and I get my surprise.

“I think I feel something,” Alyssa says. I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised, as she is a Ranger. Ranger’s training tends to involve sensing things, a lot more than other classes. I quickly check, switching my eyes over into seeing Death Energy, and sure enough, Alyssa has gathered a small ring of it around her. More surprising, everyone has, to varying degrees. Jessie has the least gathered, as I think she prefers the living, however John is the next person I would suspect of feeling anything.

“All right,” I say, “You can stop. All of you would be able to train as Necromancers. The key to this is the gathering of Death Energy. Where most mages or other spell casters use magic energy, Necromancers use Death Energy a lot more. When you’re sensing for Death Energy like that, it gathers into rings around a person. Basically it’s attracted to you because you’re looking for it.”

“Jessie, you gathered the least of it, so being a Necromancer would be the most difficult to you, at least with learning death magic. However, as I mentioned to John, there is a Necromancer class that would be essentially perfect for you. When a Bard chooses to be a Necromancer, or vice versa, they become a Dirgist. Dirgist is one of the most dangerous Necromancer professions, as Dirgist use Soul Magic more than any others. And Soul Magic is the easiest to become corrupted.”

“What exactly does a Dirgist do?” she asks.

“A Dirgist uses songs that are woven with magic to usher the souls of the dead to the next world. The Dirgist can also use other magics with their songs, however the main songs a dirgist sings are of course, Dirges.”

She smiles, “Well, I was worried you would say I’d have to absolutely give up rock and roll. But honestly, half of the Irish Folk Music I know already sound like Dirges, so I should be fine, right?”

I blink. Hadn’t expected that answer, but she’s not wrong. I laugh, “You can say that. If you want, I can try to teach you some on our way to the city. That of course goes for all of you.”

“John,” I continue, “You gathered the Death Energy the fastest for those without training in sensing things, which means being a Necromancer wouldn’t be that difficult for you. And I think you’d probably be a good Death Knight as well. Bone magic is what I’d be teaching you.”

He nods, apparently pleased.

“Alyssa, you being a Ranger means you’ve had training with sensing things before, which really translates easily to sensing energy. There is a class that you could test for, it’s called Death Stalker. Essentially, you just need to get even better at sensing Death Energy, and souls, and then learning how to kill every type of undead. Not too difficult, and you’d be joining John for some lessons on Bone magic, as well as needing to learn blood magic.”

“Hang on, what about Blood Archer?” John asks.

“Blood Archer is for normal ranged combatants. Those who treat ranged combat more like hunting, such as Rangers, instead go to become Death Stalkers.” As I finish the explanation there, he nods, and Alyssa looks slightly ecstatic. Strange girl.

“Erin,” I say, coming to the last party member, “you are the one person I’d be slightly worried about becoming a Necromancer. Not because you didn’t gather Death Energy or anything, but from what Anubis has told me about the stealth classes becoming Necromancers.”

“When you combine a Stealth Class with a Necromancer, you get something called a Ghostwalker. Ghostwalker’s specialty is being able to use the death energy you’ve gathered to actually step into the realm between life and death, also known as the Ghost Realm. Some might call it the Ethereal, but any way you look at it, it’s where the souls of the dead are at, before they go on to the next world. Not many things can see into the Ghost Realm, and there are even fewer things that live there, but they are all really fucking scary. Thankfully, they’re also rare as shit. But the problem is, I have no idea how you would get training on that, so you’d need to appeal to a god or goddess to figure it out.” I finish this up with an apologetic tone, as I feel I do kind of owe these people. They are the first people to actually take an interest in being good necromancers, and I feel like I should repay them for that alone.

Erin simple nods, then says, “It is okay. I’ll send a prayer to my goddess tonight.”

I nod. I don’t plan on asking who her Goddess is, as I think that would be a bit rude. But if she thinks that will help, go for it. Keeps me from trying to reach Anubis to explain something that isn’t exactly in his normal area.

*****

Once everyone settles down a bit from the training, Alyssa brings up another thing.

“Well, once we had decided our route there, I decided to pick up some other quests for us. All D rank quests, so they should be at least something of a challenge, but we should be able to manage.”

Everyone, including myself, nods. “Well, what did you pick up for us,” I ask, as John stokes the campfire down to coals.

“They had three requests that we could do on our way there or when we’re on our way back. The first was a request from Wheatfield, simple Goblin Subjugation quest. Though the reason it got ranked D is because apparently the goblins are being led by at least one Troll.”

Everyone groans at that, and then I laugh. “Nobody likes Trolls huh?” We all chuckle.

Alyssa continues, “Then there is a report about some kind of water monster at the Lakes of the Four Seasons, which actually we should reach tomorrow. Not a lot of detail, other than some scared fisherman who put up the request and let the guild judge it. But the community was willing to put up the reward of two hundred Iron Coins for the monsters head.”

I nod at that, and can see John looking serious. I motion for him to say what’s on his mind.

“The Lakes of the Four Seasons are a decent sized community that was one of the first to join Chicago. They keep the villages name that, because they were a gated community that banded together after the change. If they are requesting someone to deal with a monster problem, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s already killed at least one person. We’ll have to ask for more information once we get there.”

That bit of information sobers us up, especially since we just found out we’re going to be doing this, and because it’s going to be happening tomorrow.

“The last one,” Alyssa says, clearly finishing up and thinking about our job tomorrow,” I figured we could do on our way back to Chicago. It’s actually a general monster subjugation quest, and it’s taking place in about month in South Bend. The Prince is the requestor behind that one, and he wants a general monster sweep up into Michigan. Basically kill every monster between South Bend and Kalamazoo.”

We all nod our heads again, and I smile. “Well, since you’ve volunteered to be our guild relations person, I think we’ll just let you put up our options in the future with the guild. That way, we all don’t have to try and guess which missions everyone is taking. All in favor?”

As everyone but Alyssa says, “Aye!” she groans and says, “Should have learned. Navy, Never again volunteer yourself. Dammit!”