Necromancer

A Royal Road Fan Fiction

By: Halosty

Chapter 14

Training that night seemed to get Mortimer nowhere. He couldn’t seem to do anything right, at least not for long. He’d perfectly dodge one move, only to have his motion take him right into the next. It hurt a lot, but he didn’t really mind the pain. It did bother him that he couldn’t figure out what he was supposed to do. Unfortunately, he didn’t run into any breakthroughs, so he got bruises instead. Not such a good trade. He went to bed that night feeling utterly defeated- even though he had made progress in Royal Road, there was none outside.

At school, Mortimer was excited to... learn... that Solara had gotten into her top pick for college. He was glad to “hear” it, and glad for her. Unfortunately, her diary didn’t say which school that was. A strange oversight. Err... not that he read her diary, of course.

Mortimer was stumped. He wasn’t sure what to do about this situation. Sure, he could go to a different college, but everyone there would be boring. He really didn’t want to be bored. Therefore, he had to find out... somehow. Mortimer wracked his impressive, but not well used memory for an answer. Of course! They’d taken surveys on that subject a while back. He wasn’t sure what exactly had been done with them, but he vaguely remembered something about the school counselor collecting them.

Mortimer would have to find some way into the counselor’s office when he wasn’t there. During the day, as well, since he had no idea how to pick locks. The office would have to be left open and unattended for long enough. Mortimer thought of a plan that he hoped would do the trick. He just had to go talk to some of the less well behaved students. He checked his wallet. That should be plenty.

At lunch time, Mortimer used his best new stealth techniques to hide outside the counselor’s office. Specifically, to look like he belonged. Since this was a school he went to,

it wasn’t a terribly difficult feat, but he still had to have a reason to hang around in the hallway. He pretended to be having trouble with his locker, but he wasn’t actually trying... and it wasn’t actually his locker. A few frustrating minutes went by, and Mortimer was beginning to think his plan had failed- until a teacher entered the counselor’s room, and very quickly left with him. He would just have to hope the diversion lasted long enough.

He slipped into the room, just a small office with a desk, some chairs, and filing cabinets. Fortunately for Mortimer, the filing cabinets were well organized. He quickly pulled open the R-S drawer, and flipped through the folders of names. Smith... Sneed... Sobeck... Sullivan... Too far? He went through again, but couldn’t find Solara anywhere. Then, he almost hit himself. Last names. He was looking in the wrong drawer. He quickly closed that one, and opened the U-Z drawer. He found the folder for Vail, Solara, but there were too many papers to look through right now- he’s just have to take the whole folder.

He was out of the room and around a corner when he walked past the counselor. He almost panicked, but a student with a folder under his arm wasn’t an entirely unreasonable sight. It did, however, add some complexity to the situation- he would have to return the folder before the counselor looked for it, or he would be under heavy suspicion. If caught, he would face trouble with the school, and his parents... and possibly more. Not that he was doing anything wrong- he was just going to look at the papers, he didn’t intend to keep them, but they probably wouldn’t see it that way.

On his way home, and before he could log back into Royal Road, he went through the papers. He just skimmed most of them- really. He was only looking for that one file. He couldn’t find it, even on his second time through. Perhaps it had gotten lost... or something. Hopefully the file hadn’t been taken out, because then the counselor would be looking for this folder very soon- probably earlier that day, if that was it. Mortimer prayed that wasn’t the case.

After a final look through the papers, he gave up and entered Royal Road. What he had been looking for wasn’t there, but he would find it... eventually. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do anything else about that today.

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Quietus was in a grumpy mood. He’d died, which means he would have to spend quite some time walking if he wanted to stalk the bard observe the adventuring party. He decided against that for now. Instead, he went to the assassin’s guild. To his surprise, Frank was waiting for him.

“Oh, there you are! We were just about to send somebody to see if you were around. We’ve got a job for someone about your skill... if you’re still interested in the business. Of course, there’s not much other reason for you to be here.”

Quietus nodded and reached for the sketch Frank was waving at him. Quietus looked at the sketch, and instantly hated the target, although he could not say why. He stared at it a bit more. Something seemed familiar about this man’s face. He could have sworn he saw it, maybe out of the corner of his eye... but where? Then it hit him. This was that stupid rogue adventuring with the redheaded bard. That’s why he disliked him. Somehow that didn’t make sense though, since this man was the bard’s friend... why would Quietus dislike him? Well, it didn’t matter. He was in a bad enough mood to kill pretty much anyone. Plus, he would be paid.

“This man stole some things from the wrong people. Along with killing him, you’ll also have to search him for a ring with...” Frank pulled out a smaller paper, “This symbol. So... do you accept?”

*Ting*

Assassination

Kill Lupin.

Specifications: Return with the signet ring after killing him.

Estimated Difficulty Level: E

Quietus nodded.

You accepted the quest.

Quietus didn’t really think this mission would be harder than the earlier one- sure, Lupin, which was apparently his name, did know how to fight, but Quietus had gotten a lot better lately. Taking the ring back wouldn’t be a problem either, since he was planning to take anything that wasn’t nailed down... so to speak. Realistically, that meant anything the game would let him loot, which would presumably include the ring.

Quietus just hoped they hadn’t moved far from their hunting spot...

End Chapter 14

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