Necromancer

A Royal Road Fan Fiction

By: Halosty

Chapter 87

Quietus had to admit that having a dragon was pretty cool. Though, having an underleveled dragon wasn’t as cool. However, that wasn’t too much of a problem for long. After all, it was quite good at killing things, especially in large numbers. The only problem was that it seemed to take more experience to level up. Which was fine, since it was strong enough to offset that problem.

Sir Draco was waiting for Quietus’ other minions to draw all the enemies in the nearby area to him. Though they were a bit weak and thus low on experience, their numbers made up for it. More than that, since the danger was low. Once some of the more expendable minions found and taunted enemies, they would gather them into groups that Sir Draco could kill easily. More or less, anyway. They weren’t quite coordinated enough to be consistent about it, unless Quietus wanted to risk more intelligent and less expendable undead.

Quietus also received some experience from this exercise, but it was almost negligible with his higher level. However, he was quite satisfied with Sir Draco’s abilities. He wasn’t perfect, of course. Forests were somewhat of a problem, as well as any area without much space to move. Though he could fly above forests just fine, attacking into them was somewhat of a problem. Fighting on the ground in a forest would probably be the worst thing he could do. Therefore, Quietus still had to train other minions as well.

Most important of the places Sir Draco couldn’t go was obviously dungeons. With no exceptions that Quietus was aware of, no dungeon could fit Sir Draco inside. Plus, even though he was very tough, he couldn’t take care of everything himself. At least, Quietus didn’t want to try that. Based on his experiences fighting Sir Draco, he was good at fighting groups, but weak against powerful (and smallish) individuals. Such as if he was climbed on. Quietus had a good solution to this, though.

At first, he had wanted to station some undead on him, to fight off anyone trying to climb on. However, for this to work, they had to be able to stay on, which meant that others would be able to stay on too. Any handholds could be used by both friend or foe. Plus, they would weigh Sir Draco down. However, ghosts could fly, and were hard to defeat if they were not currently engaged in combat. They could even fly inside of Sir Draco if they needed to. There was only one slight problem with using ghosts.

Sir Draco ate them. Though he didn’t seem to be able to use his deadly soul-sucking breath, he could still consume ghosts. Of course, Quietus scolded him for this, and he didn’t do it again, but he still stared at them hungrily. Quietus supposed he would have to provide ghosts for him to eat occasionally, to prevent him from eating any good ones.

On the subject of ghosts, they were very good in dungeons. Since they could come out of any surface and sneak attack enemies, they were very useful. There were some things, such as magical barriers, that would stop them, but most dungeons didn’t have them. At the very least, such barriers only covered a limited area. As for stealth, they were naturally quite good, but with a little bit of training they became even harder to notice. Their weakness would be that they weren’t quite as strong or as fast as other undead, and if the enemy had a good way to combat them, they could be easily destroyed. If they did not, however, then ghosts were almost undefeatable.

Though it wasn’t greatly important, repairing ghosts was also harder, for obvious reasons. Nothing but magic could be used, and it was rather hard to tell how well it was working. It wasn’t needed as often though, and it was doable, so Quietus didn’t have any real complaints.

Quietus very much enjoyed being able to turn into a ghost as well. However, in addition to the normal strengths and weaknesses of ghosts, he had one more shortcoming. He had to spend mana to become intangible. It was just an additional cost he had to manage. It certainly wasn’t unreasonable, however. It was a powerful ability, and he wasn’t really a ghost. Plus, he could still use magic while he wasn’t solid, though his mana didn’t regenerate while intangible. After all, for just the cost of being intangible, it wouldn’t have really been enough of a drawback to not try to do it all the time, or for the entirety of a combat.

However, if he needed to save his life, he could theoretically turn intangible and run away. He could still guide his minions that way, but Quietus did like to participate personally in combat, so he didn’t do this very often.

Quietus also had another way to keep enemies off of Sir Draco, if he was able to actively participate. His Soul Link spell would allow him to cast some otherwise personal spells and allow them to affect Sir Draco. Among these were Dark Cloak, which would continuously damage everything around (and on) him, as well as Pain Mirror to mirror some or all of the damage dealt onto those attacking.

Quietus could also use his Enervating Field, which drained mana upon killing enemies, and have it centered around Sir Draco. Since he was quite good at killing large numbers of enemies, Quietus could keep his mana up quite well, if there were enough enemies dying. Soul Link was still quite expensive, and he sadly couldn’t recover mana even though potions or Enervating Field while insubstantial as a ghost. Not that it would have been very interesting to just sit there improving Sir Draco’s abilities.

--------------------------

Quietus would still occasionally join parties with Angelo and others, but he still kept his status as a necromancer secret from everyone but Maratis and Ruby. As a necromancer, he had killed enough players in what might be considered dishonorable ways that he didn’t think he could stay in the guild if he was found out, and he was somewhat enjoying it. Even though his cousin was the guildmaster and he was partly responsible for the founding, he knew Angelo couldn’t accept him staying in the guild if he went against their founding principles, and he wouldn’t disagree. Therefore, he just avoided anyone finding out.

After Ruby had helped him on his quest, every once in a while they would go on a quest or otherwise adventure together. Ruby found it quite convenient that Quietus alone could fill out any needed amount of numbers. Their abilities also synergized very well, since Ruby was good at increasing the abilities of larger numbers of allies. Maratis also sometimes came along for additional support, and with the three of them together, very few things of their level could stop them.

Being in a party with Angelo, Nilrem, and sometimes others was still somewhat better for many things, but for a total of three actual players, they performed excellently. Of course, if Quietus was willing to risk some of his better minions, he could bring much more force to bear. He certainly didn’t mind using good minions as sacrifices if it were to a purpose, but for casual questing it wasn’t worth losing any of the better minions.

//End Chapter 87