Necromancer

A Royal Road Fan Fiction

By: Halosty

Chapter 40

Mortimer was in his least favorite room in the whole house. He’d only been in the room a few times, but the events that occurred within had firmly solidified its place as his least favorite room.

Mortimer saw James discreetly slip out of the room. Discreetly, but quickly. James was his butler, and also his driver, and in this case, the messenger of a summons from his parents.

Around the room, Mortimer saw things that made the rooms less intimidating. There were bookshelves all around, and nice big windows that provided light. There were also some comfortable chairs to sit in and read. This was the study that his parents used.

He looked at his father, who was just closing a book he was reading. “So, Mortimer, we’ve heard there was an… incident at school.”

Mortimer nodded. He was too nervous to do anything more.

His mother was the next to speak. “Five people in the hospital. At least three of them won’t be able to play sports again. Quite a mess to deal with. Explain yourself.”

Mortimer steeled his resolve. It was hard to speak with confidence to his parents, but he knew he had to. “They were messing with my friends.”

Well, Angela was his cousin, but she could still count as his friend. He wouldn’t really consider Solara a friend most of the time, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t partly beating them up for her sake. Alex was probably a friend, or something. Still, the statement was essentially true.

“And that gives you the right to seriously injure them?” his mother gave a disappointed frown.

“Well, they also had a bad history…”

“Which you didn’t know at the time,” his father interjected.

Mortimer’s mother continued, “There was also one stabbed with a knife. Care to explain that?”

“It was his own knife, and he attacked me with it.”

His parents gave each other a look, then his father continued. “Then, based on your actions, how do you believe you won’t get in trouble for this?”

At first, Mortimer was about to accept his punishment. Then he remembered a previous incident where he’d gotten in trouble. His parents gave him plenty of time to come up with his answer. “The first point is, those troublemakers had a history of problems. They also started the conflict. Besides the innocent witnesses, we have the testimony of one of the deans at the school. As for the knife… I didn’t even grab it. I have no fingerprints on it, and it clearly belongs to the person who attacked me… and...”

Mortimer’s father smiled a little bit. “And?”

Mortimer smiled back. “Well, I was hoping to have the support of some other prominent members of the community?”

Mortimer’s mother kept a somewhat stern look. “That is sufficient for now. However, please do keep out of any more such public trouble. Especially any more incidents of fighting. It wouldn’t do to have our name sullied.”

“Of course. Father, Mother.” Mortimer bowed his head as he left.

When he got back into his room, he thought about the important lesson he’d learned as a child who got in trouble. Always have a good excuse, and preferably be able to legitimately blame someone else for any incidents. Not that his parents had said it that way, but that was what he’d learned. He’d still been lucky to get off without any punishment though. He knew that Angela, at the very least, had probably talked to them about if. If he’d gotten into trouble on his own, he’d have probably been in bigger trouble. In fact, Angela had gotten him out of trouble a few times before, or at least into lesser trouble. It almost made up for her getting him to do stupid things in the first place.

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Quietus put the last stitch into his wrist. He flexed his fingers. It was still a little clumsy. Plus, the attachment process was painful. Sure, he could use some herbs to numb the pain, but they also reduced his motor ability in his other hand. At some point he’d have to get someone to magically heal him or die. He looked at the stitched that went all the way around his wrist with heavy thread. They weren’t pretty, but they would do. Of course, he still had to use his Animation spell.

This was because his hand had gotten chopped off. He looked down at the body of the blond warrior. Quietus had gotten a bit careless, and he’d had to block an attack with the only thing he had available… his left hand. This warrior sure was persistent though. Still, he seemed to be falling behind. There had been little trouble in dealing with him most of the time, and he wasn’t any better this time. Quietus had just been a bit cocky in fighting him.

Quietus looked at his dagger.

Sacrificial Dagger of the Apprentice

Durability: 100/100

Damage: 50-72

Rumors have it that this dagger was given to the apprentice of a powerful necromancer. However, the apprentice died before gaining enough power to be as strong as his master.

This dagger contains some of his lingering magic. It allows the weapon to repair its own durability when soaked in blood. It can also increase in strength when bathed in the blood of strong enemies.

Special: Causes bleeding damage with every hit, based on the damage dealt.

Although it was steadily growing stronger, it didn’t have any abilities besides the bleeding effect. He had a quest to make his dagger stronger, but he was not high enough level to explore the plains of despair just yet.

So, instead, Quietus was studying his Animation spell. The duration was significantly longer than it had been before, and he’d been able to make zombies that had a higher cap on their statistics than before. He could also manually control a zombie, or anything he animated with the spell, such as his own severed hand. Of course, hands didn’t function well on their own.

Quietus had found no better place to studies zombies than at one of their sources. Thus, he was wandering arounds in the remains of an old battlefield. Only relatively weak, mindless zombies were there. They just wandered around and attacked people. Well, people who weren’t Quietus.

In general, they just ignored Quietus because of his intermediate level of The Power to Accept Death. He could even lean in close to study them. Of course, if he touched them or otherwise attacked them, all the nearby zombies would view him as a threat.

Quietus even watched some lower level players fight and sometimes get killed by the zombies. He took mental notes on the weaknesses of the zombies. Many of them were inexpertly created, so they couldn’t move to their full capacity. Basically, it made them slower and weaker than they should have been. Quietus had noticed that Animation had been getting stronger without him even needing to use it.

Then Quietus saw something he’d never seen while he’d been in the hunting grounds. One of the zombies had an arm chopped off. That wasn’t too abnormal, but the player who did it still lost the battle. This left the zombie with one arm. It looked down at its arm on the ground. It tried picking it up and pressing it against the stump. It fell to the ground. Even that wouldn’t have been too bad, but it did it again. And again.

Quietus felt sorry for it, so he came out of hiding to finish the zombie off. It saw him, and instead of trying to put the arm back on again, held it out to him. It didn’t even have an expression, but it seemed like it was instinct.

You have been offered a quest!

Repair Zombies

Many zombies get damaged, and they are unable to fix themselves. They instinctively look for help from those who are connected with death.

Zombies Repaired: 0/20

Rewards: Proficiency in related skills

“I accept,” said Quietus. He didn’t receive the notification message, so he just reached out and took the arm.

You have accepted the Quest: Repair Zombies

Quietus looked at the arm. It was still moving around a little bit. It was a pretty good cut, though, so it wouldn’t be too hard to reattach. It wouldn’t be pretty, though. He sewed it back on to the best of his ability. It looked like the zombie would lose some mobility, but the quest updated that the zombie had been repaired. Quietus wasn’t quite satisfied, but he went off to find more broken zombies. He would have said “injured” but that usually denoted something that was alive. People recover from injuries, but things don’t recover from being broken.

Quietus went around fixing other things. Legs, torsos, more arms. An eyeball that fell out was the most awkward to repair, since it was hard to use the needle properly inside the eye socket. Quietus found several other damaged zombies that he was unsatisfied with the repairs for. One had its arm chopped off in the middle of the forearm, and just sewing it up made it hang there limply, and mostly useless. The fingers still wiggled around, but it was a shoddy job.

He thought about the various kinds of damage he hand seen, and went to town to buy other supplies. He got some double ended needles of various sizes, more like spikes really, a hammer and some nails, and thick strips of leather.

Then he went back to all the zombies whose repairs he had been unsatisfied with. Sometimes the spike were stuck inside the arm as a support. Nails and leather strips were also used, sometimes as improvised slings. Eventually, Quietus got all of them to the point where he was satisfied at their functionality. Most of them seemed to work as good as… “new”. There were even a couple with “improvements” in the forms of spikes sticking out of their bodies that they could stab people with. They didn’t seem to know how to use them though.

Quietus noticed the number of repaired zombies sometimes went down, and it seemed it was because players were killing them. After he removed the intrusions, he went back to repairs, and eventually finished the quest.

You have completed a quest!

Repair Zombies

Anatomy is now Beginner level 9

The Power to Accept Death is now Intermediate level 2

Animation is more effective

You have learned a skill!

Repair undead

Beginner level 1

Allows you to repair undead. At this level, only zombies can be fully repaired, and materials are required.

Quietus was happy to receive a skill. He was even more happy to get a level in The Power to Accept Death, which was inconvenient to level since he had to die. He looked at the experience gained and noticed that it was only equivalent to a few deaths. Still, it was pretty good. He hoped to get more quests like that in the future.

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At school, Mortimer was standing in the hallway waiting for class when someone walked up to him.

“You’re Mortimer Periwinkle, right?”

Mortimer turned to look at him. Big. Very similar build to some football players he had seen recently. Mortimer nodded, and got into a fighting stance. “I am.”

End Chapter 40

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