Necromancer

A Royal Road Fan Fiction

By: Halosty

Chapter 89

When Ruby logged back in the next day, Quietus thought about how inconvenient it was to have a full 24 hour death timer. He was glad he didn’t have that problem. He was one of the few, or perhaps the only one, who didn’t, though. He had no way to know how many people had The Power to Accept Death, but he imagined it was not many.

He would have explored further before she got on, but there was the musical puzzle to solve. That meant he just had to wait. Not that he waited all that long, since he knew when she would be able to re-enter the game. He had better things to do… like homework. It was getting harder to keep up with it as he got to higher level courses. Of course, other would probably have been mad at him for how little time he still spent on it.

After Ruby logged in, she began to work on solving the puzzle. Quietus wasn’t sure at the exact requirements, but it seemed to involve rearranging several verses until they were in the “right” order. Theoretically, they flowed better when arranged in a certain pattern, though Quietus thought it was quite good in any arrangement, especially as performed by Ruby. Though, he may have been slightly biased.

At the conclusion of several attempts, the door opened. “Good,” Ruby said. “Now I can finally get… and there’s another barrier. Great.”

Quietus agreed with the sentiment. There didn’t seem to be a need for so many barriers to protect something. Well, redundant features were useful, he supposed. This barrier looked similar to the first one, but Quietus wasn’t going to count on it being the same. Thus, a rock and minion were the first to test it.

The barrier was obviously different, since the rock was destroyed. The minion was as well. He was disposable, though, and valued just slightly higher than a rock. “Well,” Quietus started, “it does seem to be different. I guess the next thing to try is…”

Quietus made sure he was in his normal form, then stuck his hand through the barrier. Now, he was quite certain that the first barrier would have either disintegrated his hand, or maybe his entire being for doing that. This one, however, did nothing. Even his glove was fine, which was good. He would have been upset if he couldn’t bring his equipment. He tried not to think about the possible advantages if it were otherwise though. Quietus stepped all the way through, and was fine.

It almost seemed too easy, until he realized that Ruby already had to die to get this far. That wasn’t normally a requirement for quests anyway, so it was really just that the hard parts were already past, and not that this barrier was necessarily easy to bypass, since you had to have been not alive, and then alive again.

“Well, it seems this barrier keeps out non-living things, just like the first barrier kept out living things. So, this certainly requires some method similar to what we did. Though, I don’t know what bard could be expected to be able to pass through here.” He waved Ruby through the barrier. On the other side… was not another barrier. Instead, there was a harp. The white material that it was made out of briefly puzzled him, but then he realized what it was. Bone.

Ruby passed through the barrier and smiled. “Bards who are friends with necromancers, I presume. I got the predecessor to this quest when I was helping the guild find information on Aullet, for you. I didn’t particularly have any need for an instrument that was related to undead at the time, but the quest chain was interesting. Of course, now it’s actually more likely to be useful.” Ruby reached out to take the harp.

“Wait wait wait!” Quietus stopped her. “I haven’t checked for traps yet!” It probably wasn’t trapped, since this dungeon seemed more straightforward than that, but he always had to check. Upon looking carefully, he did find that it indeed rested on a pressure plate. When lifted… it seemed it would probably turn off the barriers. Well, that would make it more convenient to leave. “Mmm… it’s probably okay.” Quietus explained what he found.

“It should be fine then. Well, if it kills us for some reason at least I’ll die with it in my hands!” She grinned, then finally picked it up. *Click*

Nothing visible happened around them, but upon turning back, the barriers were indeed disabled. Well, that was convenient. Ruby concentrated for a few moments, reading her menus. “Well, it seems the quest is complete… and the experience made up for the level I lost, so that’s good. This harp…” She strummed a few notes. Quietus felt something, a bit more than usual from her music. “It should be more effective on undead… and maybe anything with such affinities. Thanks for the help with the quest.”

“Of course, I’m glad to help.” Quietus didn’t have much else to say, at least not that he could clearly express in words. He certainly was glad to help though. He liked spending time with her.

On the way out, Ruby played a calm song, and the undead monsters of the dungeon didn’t even bother to attack her at all. Normally, the more mindless types of undead would be resistant against mind affecting things such as music, but it seemed the harp was quite effective. Of course, if they had already been agitated, they likely would have still attacked.

//End Chapter 89

Author Notes:

Bad? (It’s probably bad) news guys. The series will be ending soon. Though, in this case “soon” will probably be 10 or more chapters, depending on how long it takes. Why is the series ending? Simply, because it will be done. It will reach a (hopefully) satisfying conclusion, but this isn’t the type of series that just goes on forever. I’ve had in mind how it was going to end for a while, and will be continuing with that plan. Hopefully, people will like it. If not… well, not everyone will be happy with everything.