Necromancer

A Royal Road Fan Fiction

By: Halosty

Chapter 44

Quietus spent a long time repairing the skeleton. It was a rather long and painful process. Besides figuring out which pieces connected where, there was a lot of trial and error in the exact formula for the “glue” he was using. There was also the problem of getting the spacing correct between bones or between fragments. He was pretty sure he’d mixed various pieces up, and put them in the wrong place.

As he was putting the ribcage together, he realized he’d made quite a few mistakes. Most of the ribs wouldn’t line up with each other or connect in the middle. He had to start over from the beginning, which meant he had to develop something to remove the filler/glue from the pieces of bone. The entire ribcage took about a week, in real time. There was quite a bit of fiddling around with pieces, measuring with new tools he’d had to acquire, and waiting for material to dry.

The other parts were mostly simpler, but Quietus had to figure out something to hold the skull’s shape as the glue dried. Otherwise, it sagged.

Finally Quietus had done all he could do. All the bones were no longer in pieces, and they were organized in the right way. The only problem was that there were no muscles or ligaments to connect various bones and joints, so they just lay on the ground. He could have held them with metal rods or pins, but it didn’t seem right. He couldn’t call it usable, but it was, apparently, good enough.

You have completed a quest!

Repair the Destroyer Skeleton

Although the repairs are not perfect, it can be seen that great care was taken to restore the original image. Unfortunately, the magic that had animated the skeleton has faded, and the method of animation has been lost to time. Since it is unconnected, a simple animation spell will fail.

Level up!

Level up!

Level up!

A skill has leveled up!

Repair undead

Beginner level 4

Allows you to repair undead. At this level, physical repairs can be made to most undead, with the proper materials. Magical and non-physical components are still unable to be repaired.

Higher level undead will not be completely repaired.

Quietus frowned. A little more than two weeks spent, and only three levels and some experience in repair undead. It certainly wasn’t a quick speed. Still, he was glad to have repaired the poor skeleton.

He carefully put all the parts back into the sarcophagus, arranged as they were supposed to be. It was large enough that he had to climb in to properly reach. Just as he was about to get out, he noticed some writing.

Rise, my creation, warrior of renown, for an army to great to number knocks at our door.

Rise, my creation, slayer of men, protect those whom you have wronged

Awaken, my friend, to defeat those who I cannot

Awaken, my friend, he who bears my soul

-Aullet

You have received a quest!

The Necromancer Aullet

The Destroyer Skeleton was created at the cost of the life of its creator, known only by the name Aullet. Unfortunately, his methods of creation were not left behind. Find someone who knows of Aullet to learn more about his techniques.

Rewards: Unknown

Restrictions: none

Special: Many people will frown at the mention of any powerful necromancers. Inquiring in the wrong places could result in a loss of reputation or enmity with a church or other faction.

This was what Quietus had been looking for! Information on the creator was key. Although the name wasn’t much to go by, it was a start. He didn’t yet know where to go looking, although he could think of a few places to start.

He spent some time searching the room, inside and outside the coffin, the floor, and even looked at the ceiling. There were no more inscriptions to be found, not that he expected more.

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In anatomy class, Mortimer discovered there was a test.

“Hey, Alex, have I been doing the homework.”

Alex gave Mortimer a weird look. “How should I know? You put papers up at front with everyone else, so I’m going to say probably.”

“Ah, okay, good. I should probably be fine for the test.”

Alex groaned a little bit. “Some people have to study. They’d probably kill you if they heard that… if they weren’t your friend.”

Despite his confidence, Mortimer was slightly worried as the tests were passed out. He didn’t remember doing any anatomy homework. All of his memories of the past two and a half weeks were of bones. The books he’d checked out, putting together bones in Royal Road, writing notes on bones… the list went on. In contrast, he didn’t even remember one homework assignment. He’d probably done them, but he couldn’t imagine what they were on. Maybe he’d just written notes on them… that could explain where some of his notes went.

His past few weeks had been so filled with bones he was even hallucinating them on the test. He didn’t see any questions, just a skeleton filling up the sheet. Then he noticed the instructions at the top. ‘Fill in the names of the bones.’

Simple. He knew more names of bones than he knew names of people. Well, names of people he paid any attention to anyway. He noticed that the teacher had left out quite a few lines pointing to bones, so he drew them in on his own. It took quite a lot of time for him to do the test, and while he wasn’t the last to finish, he was pretty close.

Just as he was about to turn his test in, he noticed there were questions on the back. Simple multiple choice, but he didn’t have much time left. He rushed back to his seat and circled all the answers as quickly as he could. He finished just before the period was over. This time, he really was the last person to finish.

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Outside of class, he saw Alex. “What took you so long? I thought you were confident.”

“Well, I spent a bit too long on the front because I didn’t realize there were more questions on the back.”

“I totally understand. It took me a while to think of all ten of the correct names.”

Mortimer was slightly confused. There were definitely a lot more bones than ten in the human body. Well, it didn’t matter too much.

Finally, Alex spoke up again. “Well, I’ll see you later okay Mortimer?”

“Of course. See you later.”

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“Here we are, sir,” said James as they pulled in front of the house. “I’ve taken the liberty of packing your bag. We should be leaving in half an hour.”

“Right. My bag… for umm…”

“The camping trip. Miss Angela informed me of the specifics.”

“Oh yeah. That.” Mortimer was done with his quest, so he figured he could be away from Royal Road for a bit. Plus, he couldn’t think of an excuse to not go that wouldn’t leave Angela pestering him for a month or two.

Mortimer checked the bag. Clothes for three days, which meant the camping trip shouldn’t be too long. He added a few books in case he got some time to read. He checked what he was carrying, and could only think of one more thing he might want.

“I’m taking the first-aid kit from the trunk, James. People tend to get scraped up a bit on camping trips, and I can think of a few people that I might give bandages to.”

“Of course sir. That’s an excellent idea.” James looked slightly ashamed to have not thought of that himself. Of course, he had been the one to put one in the car.

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Once at the campgrounds, the students were split up into groups of four, generally. At least one older student or teacher, and generally the groups were split into two boys and two girls. Mortimer’s group ended up with an extra, since the number of people wasn’t precisely divisible by four.

Since the students also had input as to their groups, Mortimer was with Angela, Solara, and Alex. The older student in their group was Robert, the one football player Mortimer had met who hadn’t been a total jerk. Well, he hadn’t demonstrated any kind of jerkness at all. To be fair, Mortimer hadn’t met many of the football players, and had only met Robert once.

It was nominally Robert’s job to be the leader and keep the group out of trouble, but Angela seemed to take over that role rather quickly. Since she seemed to know what she was doing, Robert made no objections.

The first evening, all the groups did were set up their tents and eat food roasted in fire pits. Fortunately, Solara and to some extent Robert knew how to cook. Angela was a bit ambiguous on the topic, and Alex had only used a microwave. Mortimer had just never cooked, even with a microwave. He didn’t bother mentioning that.

Sleeping arrangements were simple, everyone got in their sleeping bags wherever they fit in the large tent they had available for their group. Nobody was worried about “something” happening because there were others around- and other tents nearby as well.

It took Mortimer a while to fall asleep since he wasn’t used to sleeping at normal hours anymore. Plus, he’d never slept in a sleeping bag before. It was weird, feeling the ground beneath him, even with a soft layer in between.

End Chapter 44

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