Necromancer

A Royal Road Fan Fiction

By: Halosty

Chapter 32

One day, Quietus was walking along a road, minding his own business. No really, he didn’t even have a murderer’s mark. Anyway, he was minding his own business when he passed by someone on the road. He didn’t really say anything to them. Then, he heard the sounds of a sword swinging through the air. He quickly turned to dodge and see who it was.

His dodge was mostly ineffective, as he didn’t correctly choose a direction, and was left with half of his health gone. Then he saw a large man with blonde hair. He felt he should recognize him, but nothing clicked in his mind. He drew his dagger and struck back a few times, but he was at a disadvantage. Eventually, he failed to dodge another powerful attack.

You have died!

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The sound of pickaxes rang throughout the mine. It was the sound of hard work. One of the workers grunted. If it didn’t pay so well, nobody would come here for this kind of hard labor.

Then, there was a rumbling sound. A cave in. Fortunately, nobody was caught directly in any of the falling rubble. This had happened before, and they would have to deal with it. The workers set upon the rubble, attempting to clear a path back outside. Once they had almost finished with the pile of rubble, there was a larger quake and a bigger collapse.

This repeated endlessly. For days upon days they labored. Their arms grew tired. The air grew thin. Their stomachs rumbled. The miners had not even tasted a drop of water in some time. Still they labored, but they did not die. They could not die. The last light burnt out. Now, they were trapped in darkness.

The miners were too weak to talk, but somehow screams could be heard in the darkness.

They sat in the mines, in the dark, cold, hungry, thirsty, and afraid. What was in the dark? There could be nothing there, but it screamed.

They could not escape the mines, so they waited.

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Mortimer woke up with a start. He hit his head on the inside of the capsule. Great, it was that thing again. Sometimes it was hard to tell. Afterwards, however, he could tell it was all a dream… or a vision? Well, since it was from a game, it must really be a cutscene. Lately, he’d been noticing that the perspective of each time changed. First had been the foreman, then he’d been seeing it through the senses of different miners. He felt their connections to each other and their sorrow at the deaths of their friends and companions. He still didn’t care about any of them. Maybe they would go away.

Then Mortimer thought about the warrior that had killed him. He seemed familiar somehow. Blonde hair and a big sword… He felt like it should ring a bell, but he just couldn’t think of who it was. Obviously someone higher level than him. The real problem hadn’t been that however. He’d gotten careless, and he was still weak. Somehow, he’d gotten arrogant, and was out of his habit of sneaking moving cautiously everywhere he went. He was obviously not good enough at fighting yet as well. The warrior hadn’t been much faster than him, and that had been owing to his high level. He hadn’t seemed particularly skilled though, so Mortimer knew Master Valarao could have beaten him even with the disadvantage in speed. He supposed he needed to train harder.

Well, since he was not playing Royal Road, he figured he might as well do some more exercises. He had a set of exercises and practice forms prescribed by Master Valarao. Since he couldn’t practice the proper moves for real, they were designed to keep his body in the correct condition to perform the required actions. Mortimer looked at his body in the mirror while he was changing into exercise clothes. He was still as pale as he had been before. He didn’t exactly go outside any more than he had used to. He was, however, noticing a significant increase in muscle definition. He was still very skinny though. He had been hoping that all the exercise he’d been getting would make him a bit bulkier. Then he wondered why he cared at all about how he looked.

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Out in the hallway Angela ran into Mortimer. Not literally this time, since they were both paying attention. She was still rather annoyed that he wouldn’t spar with her anymore, but grudgingly accepted it as the instructions were from Master Valarao. She didn’t want to interfere with his training. She’d heard from Mortimer’s parents that he’d actually chosen to learn from Master Valarao. Well, not him specifically, but his style. It was one of the few times he’d actually chosen to do something significant, and he was actually sticking with it. He was still just as skinny as he’d always been, but he somehow felt different.

“I thought you were playing Royal Road, Mortimer.”

“Yeah, I died though.”

“Seriously how many times have you died?”

“I’m not sure… a few, I guess.”

“I think you’ve died at least ten times since I’ve started playing. That’s like a third of your time spent dead! Isn’t it troublesome to make up the lost experience and skill proficiency? I don’t even know how you stay higher level than me.”

“It’s not that hard. It comes back pretty fast. Besides, if I die just before I would go to sleep, I can still play a few hours the next day.”

“Have you forgotten how to do math? 24 hours from when you died is just before you would go to sleep the next day.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Well, I’d better get to my exercises. I’ll talk to you later.”

It was rather obvious he was escaping from the conversation, but Angela let him go. He’d always been weird about dying in Royal Road. Angela wasn’t even sure he always mentioned when he died, as if he really didn’t care. Then she remembered something.

“Wait. You’re a rogue right? Are you still around the level 70 range?”

Mortimer turned around. “Close enough, anyway. Why?”

“Good, then you can come join my party in a dungeon. We could use a rogue for a dungeon we’re going to be in. We’ll start sometime tomorrow, depending on how long you take to get there.”

“But-”

“Don’t worry, there won’t be many people. Just a small group. You’ll be there right?”

“I don’t-”

“Good. Come to the Goblin Crags. You can look it up.”

“...”

Mortimer turned and walked away, but he had stopped refusing, which meant he gave in. Angela felt it would be good for him to be in a party occasionally. Actually, she wasn’t sure if he’d ever been in a party at all. He didn’t like large groups, but he would be able to handle a few other people. He’d have to learn to be comfortable with people that weren’t family eventually. Hopefully he’d at least talk to the others, but Angela had her doubts.

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A small group of adventurers was waiting at the top of a small mountain. It was only a few hundred feet above the area around it, but it stuck out of the surrounding terrain like a pillar. The party was looking down at the path, waiting for the fifth party member to arrive.

“Where is he? You said he wasn’t far, right.” This was said by a man who looked to be a wizard. This one was certifiably reliable. He was named Nilrem. Not entirely original with his naming, but quite proficient with lightning magic.

Angelo responded, “Right. He should really be here right now. He’s online, but doesn’t seem to be responding to my whispers. Maybe he got into combat?”

Maratis answered that question with another, “With what? There’s nothing on the path up.”

“Well, we can wait. I hate traps.” Ruby shook her head at the thought of going into the dungeon without a full party.

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Quietus brought to mind the map he had looked up. Goblin Crags should be just a bit north of him. In fact, he thought he could see the entrance at the top. It was a fairly straightforward direction. Once Quietus got to the base, he looked around. There wasn’t really a convenient way up. He looked at the mountain. He checked his mental map again just to make sure it was the right place. The entrance was definitely at the top.

The cliffs didn’t look too bad, and there were plenty of outcroppings for him to rest on. Quietus started to climb up. It didn’t look that far.

The climb was fairly easy, with plentiful handholds and footholds. There were some points where the cliffs crumbled, but if he fell to his death at least he’d have a good excuse to get out of joining the party. Not that he intended to fall on purpose. He’d get in big trouble for that, and he wouldn’t be able to hide it. It did appear that his sense of perspective had gotten the better of him in this case. The climb was turning out to be far longer than he’d thought.

Quietus eventually made it to the first platform he’d seen. It turned out to be about a foot wide. Not too bad. He sat on the edge and looked down while his stamina regenerated. Not even a hundred feet up. He might even be able to survive a fall from here. Then again, maybe not. He’d never fallen from this high up. Perhaps he’d test the limits of that later.

Soon, Quietus found a situation where messing around with his avatar may have been beneficial. He was reaching for a handhold that was just a little bit too far away. If he’d just made himself taller, he could have reached it. Of course, then he’d have needed to get used to moving at a different height. A helpful tutorial popped up in his vision. He’d almost forgotten these could happen. Mostly, he ignored them. This one was rather helpful though. It told him that it was possible to reach the other handhold if he let go with other hand. It could be dangerous, but he didn’t want to climb back down any, he was almost to the next platform. He tried it.

He actually need to do a small hop as well to get his hand on the right grip. This let his feet slip out from under him. Then, he was hanging down from just the fingers of his right hand. He was reminded of a similar incident in the assassin’s guild, but it was slightly different here. First, a different hand was holding on, and it didn’t have spikes through it. Second, he didn’t have to hide because there wasn’t a golem coming to kill him. Quietus dangled there for what seemed like an hour, but was probably a few seconds, before he found new footholds and purchase for his other hand. He was glad that he’d invested a few of his precious attribute points in strength, but more glad for what he had gained from the training and using his climbing skill. If he hadn’t had both though, he probably would have lost his grip and fallen to his death.

Quietus was now about three quarters of the way up. His platform was a bit smaller, barely enough for him to stand with one foot sideways. It was good enough for him to regain a bit of stamina though. He looked down, and almost leaned too far. He barely maintained his balance. He would definitely die falling from this fight. Maybe if he had more levels he could survive, although he wasn’t sure whether or not falling damage was based on a percentage of health or a flat number. It didn’t matter in this case though. The climbing skill could only reduce falling damage so much, the rest he had to make up for with… well, not falling as far.

Speaking of his climbing skill, he soon received a new message.

You have reached intermediate level in the Climbing skill!

As usual, each level reduces the stamina cost of climbing, makes climbing slightly easier, and slightly reduces the amount of falling damage you take.

Your hands are stronger. Grip strength is increased.

New functions:

-10% increase in unarmed damage.

This was… slightly useful. It might fit well with the new moves he was learning from Master Valarao. Now all he had to do was get to the top. It wasn’t far.

As he reached the top, he saw something odd. Why was there something skin colored there? Of course it was skin. What else is skin colored. It appeared to be a pair of legs. The rear side of them. They weren’t particularly covered in cloth, although some other features of the rear of this person were slightly more covered. Only a few strips of cloth, really, but they probably supported the front of the outfit. On top of the torso was a head with red hair.

Quietus almost forgot he was climbing. He was close to letting go and jumping backwards in surprise. Instead, he slipped a bit. At least he was staring at a rock wall again, it let his heartbeat calm down. He hadn’t really thought about it, but Ruby had always been in the party with Angelo. He wasn’t really prepared for it. He climbed a bit over to the side before climbing up, fortunately not into anyones backside.

“I’m here.”

Four people turned to face him in shock. What, did they think he wasn’t coming?

End Chapter 32

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