Necromancer

A Royal Road Fan Fiction

By: Halosty

Chapter 78

Quietus approached the Fields of Misery carefully. He wasn’t sure when ghosts would start appearing, and he wanted to be ready. He started with one of the towns nearby. Upon entering the town, Quietus was at first not sure if the town was one that had trouble with the ghosts, but the lack of people soon told him what he wanted to know. He started looking through the houses. Besides the lack of people, there weren’t any signs of problems in the town. The houses were in fine repair, it was just that everyone had left the town.

It was only after searching a few houses that he found the first body. It still seemed that most of the people had gotten away though. This body looked like it had been killed by a large weapon, and not the clawlike attacks the previous ghosts had displayed. Quietus spent some time checking the body to make sure his initial assessment was right. After carefully inspecting, he found nothing else that could be the cause of death. Therefore, the ghosts either were much larger than the other ghosts, were killed by something else… or could use weapons. Somehow.

Quietus thought it was likely the third. After all, he was pretty sure the ghosts were still here. He’d seen some glimpses, anyway. They hadn’t particularly been trying to hide, since they didn’t know he was here. Quietus, however, was always hiding, unless he needed to get somewhere quickly. This was probably why he had not been attacked by the ghosts yet. Alternatively, perhaps his necrosympathy stat was high enough that they just didn’t attack him. However, he found that to be less likely, since these were thought to be especially violent, and thus would likely still be hostile.

Therefore, Quietus put it to the test. First, he moved to an open area where ghosts would not have too many places to hide, besides the ground. That was one tactic he had learned fighting them before. Then, quite simply, he stopped trying to not be found. He kept looking around to see if any ghosts would appear. Normally, he could depend on his hearing to tell if an enemy was coming from behind him, but ghosts didn’t make any sound when moving, unless they wished to. This was why he was surprised to hear the sound of hooves. As he turned around, he saw something very unexpected. A squad of ghostly cavalry was charging toward him. Though, they were obviously not concerned with hiding their presence.

Fortunately, they could not all reach him with their lances, and he dodged most of them, getting a brief attack on one of the horse’s legs. However, he only dodged most of the attacks. He was still injured, and the attack had taken about a quarter of his health. That was bad for Quietus, because the cavalry was forming up into a better state to fight a single person. Well, Quietus needed to get back into practice fighting ghosts anyway. Though, this time it would cost him some.

This time, they encircled him and slashed at him from behind. Wherever he would face, another would attack him when he was unprepared. They were very organized. Quietus’ health was whittled down quickly, and he was only able to take two of the squad of ten down with him, using soul bind to allow himself to hit them. Then, not unexpectedly, he died.

You have died!

Cannot log in for 10 hours.

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Quietus had thought of some new tactics for fighting against them while he was dead, but he didn’t plan to put them into action yet. He still wasn’t sure if fighting the ghosts was the right solution. Granted, it would probably work eventually, but it probably wasn’t the best solution to be had, so he would put that off for later. Instead, he decided to scout the other towns.

The situation was very similar, though he found that there were two distinct sets of equipment. Theoretically, the soldiers from the two armies who had fought and died so long before. They were split up into the towns on opposite sides of the Fields of Misery. This made Quietus think that their positions were not random. Instead it seemed like a tactical choice.

However, that meant that there was a reason for them to have become more aggressive, and moved from their former locations. It was not just that they were angry, either. Probably. It was possible that ghosts got bored of waging an eternal battle eventually, and decided to do other things. Quietus assumed that it probably wasn’t something as stupid as getting bored. Therefore, it should have been caused by something changing in the Fields of Misery.

Quietus’ first thought was that he should go to the center to directly see what it was. However, he didn’t want to be done with this play session, and he was certain that something dangerous enough to scare off two ghost armies was something he couldn’t handle alone. He wasn’t even sure if his army of undead would be good enough, if he could get them past the ghosts.

As he carefully moved closer to the normal location of the ghosts, Quietus noticed the patrols of soldiers seemed to be watching the center, which just confirmed his suspicions. Once out of the towns, it was much easier to spot the ghosts, even at a distance, because they still stood among the tall grass. Meanwhile, that grass allowed Quietus to stay hidden, though he was not very mobile. Turning into a ghoul allowed him to crawl faster by increasing his strength. It also gave him claws which helped. Plus, it wasn’t as uncomfortable to crawl, since he couldn’t feel discomfort.

Finally, as he was nearing the time he would have to log off, Quietus headed to the middle to see what he could find. As he approached closer to the area, he saw something different than the fields in the distance. Upon getting nearer, he could see that they were weapons, standing in the ground in a stereotypical battlefield look. Though, Quietus thought they probably should have rusted away already. Unless, they were all magical weapons. He wasn’t close enough to take one and find out.

When he was about a hundred feet away from the nearest weapons, he noticed that the ground changed color, and no grass grew, near the center of the area. Instead of the normal brown of dirt, the ground was darker, almost black. He moved closer to see if he could inspect one of the weapons. The first thing he reached was a sword. He noticed that all of the weapons were buried in the darker soil. Quietus looked around carefully, but didn’t see whatever the problem was. Then, he carefully pulled out the closest sword.

He didn’t have any identification abilities, but he could tell it definitely was magical. Not that he cared about swords, and he didn’t see any daggers, likely because they weren’t often used by soldiers. He hadn’t had long to dwell on that disappointing fact when the ground started moving. Not the ground under his feet, but the darker ground in front of him.

It was very quickly obvious that the darker ground was in fact not ground at all. Instead, the dark colored thing that rose up out of the ground and revealed itself to be… a dragon. It was filled with swords and spears, but they weren’t penetrated particularly far into its body. That didn’t seem like a good sign to Quietus. Neither did the teeth in front of his face, which prevented him from seeing all of the dragon, though he knew its body was over a hundred feet long. Probably much more, based on what he had seen of it when he thought it was a patch of ground.

Quietus stabbed the sword at the dragon in protest, as he prepared to be roasted. At least he knew what could scare off ghosts now. However, instead of breathing fire onto him, the dragon breathed inward. Quietus felt a tugging, and then felt like he was being torn apart, though his body didn’t seem to be particularly injured. Before he could figure out how that could work, he died.

You have died!

Cannot log in for 10 hours.

//End Chapter 78