Necromancer

A Royal Road Fan Fiction

By: Halosty

Chapter 61

Quietus started looting the nearby bodies. Finders keepers, and all that. Plus, they were going to kill one of his guildmates.

Maratis watched for a while, before saying, “You know, you made a pretty convincing rogue.”

Quietus turned around. “Well, I’ve got the skills for that too. Didn’t you see that sweet backstab?”

“... With that black spear?”

“Yeah!” Quietus smiled. “I usually don’t hit anything from that far away.” Quietus started humming to himself as he went back to looting. “So, what’s the thing you’ve got that they sent so many people for anyway?” He tossed Maratis an amulet. “That’s probably cleric stuff.”

Maratis looked at the amulet and shrugged. “I don’t have identify. So, you were a rogue, then became a necromancer? That’s… odd.”

Quietus shook his head. “I don’t have identify either, but we’ll have a chance later. I’ve got so many things that need it.” He stood up and brushed some dirt off his pants. “No, I was a warlock first. Like, the whole time. I just did a bunch of roguey stuff.” He cleared his throat. “Ye who have returned to the land of living. This black and corrupt land is a dark place. The eternal dark law will never disappear, engrave this upon yourself. Undead Rise!” Quietus rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he observed his new soldiers. “It’s still weird to say magic incantations.”

“I can buff them, you know. I’m sure there are more enemies around.”

Quietus tilted his head. “Really? Because holy buffs shouldn’t work. Also, umm… they won’t help me now, either. Don’t use Healing Hand on me anymore, because now it’ll just make me worse.”

“Blessing of Baldr, Strength be given, Bull’s Strength!”

Quietus glowed slightly. “Ooh, it still works. That’s great.”

Maratis nodded. “I guess it doesn’t count as holy, since Baldr is more of a neutral god than the others. I don’t have any unholy healing spells though, which is too bad.”

Quietus shrugged. “I’ve got lots of bandages and thread, so I’ll be fine. Plus,” he pointed with his thumb at some of the undead surrounding them, “these guys will be our sacrificial lambs. No need to risk ourselves.”

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Maratis and Quietus made a good team. Quietus made the party, and Maratis buffed it. Maratis couldn’t keep full buffs up on all of them, but increased proficiency would help with that. The undead were strong enough on their own, since the players weren’t bad base material.

Every time they defeated a group of players, Quietus got new minions, but sadly he was losing more than he gained. The enemies had started to form larger groups, even allying with members of other guilds. The item Maratis had must have been quite important, not that Quietus cared. Quietus considered making some of the monsters into the area into undead minions as well, but then he remembered they were already undead. While he couldn’t make them into his own minions, he still had a plan.

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Quietus completely ignored all the “boring” unintelligent undead in the area. Since Quietus had such a high affinity with the undead due to his Necrosympathy stat and status as a necromancer, they ignored him. They also didn’t attack Maratis, presumably because they were in the same party. It also helped that the monsters in the area were relatively lower level, though not weak. Most of the monsters were in the early 200’s, but some were past the 250’s. If there weren’t any monsters that strong, Maratis would likely have been found sooner, and Quietus wouldn’t have arrived in time to help.

Eventually, Quietus found the area he was looking for.

“So, why are we heading towards the higher level death knights?”

“What a silly question. Obviously, we’re going to recruit them.”

“Oh. Of course.” Maratis looked nervous to be moving among so many undead, for good reason.

Then, a death knight that was larger than the others came out. “I challenge you to a duel?”

Quietus pointed to himself. “Me? Oh no, I’d hardly be a challenge. Even with my friend here, we aren’t much of a threat. However, I do know the location of some worthy opponents…”

Although normal people wouldn’t be able to tell, the eyes of the death knight grew eager. After all, who but a necromancer could tell what the eyes of an eyeless monsters said? The death knight grinned, although it looked just like his normal face. “Strong opponents? Tell me of them.”

“Actually, there is an army forming nearby. They are not far off.” Quietus hadn’t just been wandering around looking for strong, intelligent undead. He’d sent some of his minions to a certain location, taunting others to find them.

Although the death knight wished to duel Quietus because of his fame, or more specifically because of his infamy, he could tell that Quietus wasn’t a knight or any kind of warrior. He was more interested in fighting warriors and armies. Thus, it didn’t take too much longer to convince him, as well as the other death knights, to help.

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When the final battle arrived, Quietus and Maratis hardly had to do any work at all. Although there were many players, they weren’t from the same guild and were unused to working together. Their levels also varied widely. The death knights, however, worked together as a team quite well.

Since the enemy players had been expecting to find Quietus, Maratis, and a much smaller amount of undead minions, they were not prepared. Still, they put up enough of a challenge to satisfy the death knights, which wasn’t particularly to their benefit. Quietus didn’t mind if they thought the death knights were his, instead of just naturally occuring monsters. In fact, later news would spread of a necromancer who had a small army of death knights.

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In general, after the battle there were no problems. However, Maratis had to eat (burnt) meat, since neither Quietus nor Maratis could cook in the slightest. Burnt was better than raw. Except, of course, if you were a ghoul, which is how Quietus consumed his meals. He got some strange looks for that, but Maratis was quite accepting of his newly revealed oddities.

Most of the way, Quietus carried Maratis piggyback. Riding a skeleton lizard was more than impractical for anyone who could feel anything. Maratis wanted to walk, but had to admit it was much faster the other way.

Eventually, they ended up in civilization, and paid for teleportation at the temple. Along they way they had killed enough monsters to remove the murderer status, not that Quietus couldn’t have gotten in with a disguise.

Both of them met up with Angelo. “That was… actually really fast. I was expecting you to still be getting there.”

Quietus shrugged. “If I’d been slower at all, I would have been too late. So, it’s good that I found a shortcut.”

Angelo nodded. “It’s good that you did. Here’s your payment.” Angelo held out the bag, presumably containing ten thousand gold.

Quietus waved his hand. “Bleh, don’t need it. Then I’d have to look for things I want to buy, and talk to people or something. Just put it towards identifying this stuff I have.”

Angelo sighed. “You do know we have identifiers in the guild who will do it for free, right?”

“Umm, no. I’ve never been to the guild hall, since we got it. I don’t know most of the people in the guild.”

“Well, Nilrem is one of the identifiers, although he isn’t the best.”

“Oooh, I like him. He’s great with lightning.” Quietus got a strange smile. “Anyway, I mostly did it for Maratis. Also, partly for you not bugging me for six months.” Quietus got a serious look on his face. “Most importantly, I do need help looking for leads on this quest. I need to know anything you can find about someone named Aullet. He was some big, bad, necromancer dude a while ago. Umm, also, people might not like hearing questions about him, for some reason?”

Angelo nodded. “We said we’d help, and we will. Why do you have a quest about a necromancer though? Nevermind, I’d rather not know. I’m sure it’s something ridiculous you got up to.”

“Pfft, me? I’d never do anything ridiculous. Have fun with your artifact thing.” Quietus wandered off, wondering where he’d get souls.

End Chapter 61