Chapter 60: William (Not a necromancer) Oh

William oh commands an army of the dead! He will sweep across the city of Akul, righting wrongs and saving lives with his merciful unholy horde.

Women and children will weep with an ecstatic mixture of awe, love, and terror as they are delivered from the jaws of death by the skeletal hands of his thousands of minions!

He will destroy Akul! And in the process of destroying it…save it’s people.

Then he’ll kinda get bored with the whole necromancer bit and only take it out on special occasions, like spring cleaning.

• Jason Salazar

He’s definitely making that up to trick us, right?

-unknown.

“Welcome to Rings and things!” a cheery voice called as Will and Loth entered.

Will froze mid-step as he spotted the ‘person’ behind the desk, an enormous insectoid creature that looked something like a mantis, if a mantis had stubby fingers growing off their wrist where their arm folded into a serrated killing machine.

Nobody else in the shop was running or screaming, so Will relaxed and went with the flow.

“Good afternoon,” Will said, approaching the counter. “I’m participating in a tournament in a few days and I’d like to find some new options for my Build?”

“What is your Build, Sir, if you don’t mind my asking?” The necklace around the creature’s neck glowed and emanated with a sweet young womans’ voice while the creature stared at him unblinkingly.

“Summoner? Light warrior, heavy warrior, Scout, Tank, Nuker, Necromancer, Buffer, Healer, Logistics, Crafter, Crowd Control?”

“…Flexible, actually.” Will cocked his head. “Did you say necromancer? I thought those were illegal.”

“Not illegal in and of itself, just difficult to pull the archetype off and prohibited by the government.”

“Prohibited by the government is illegality.” Loth said.

The mantis-creature didn’t move an inch, showing no reaction to Loth’s statement. In fact it hadn’t stirred this entire conversation.

It’s voice was another thing.

“Oh my, a kobold! How cute! I could just eat you up! Ah, it’s so nice to meet a fellow world-traveller outside our ancestral homes in these parts. As for illegality, the Xeju believe that if the Tower allows it, it is legal. There is no higher authority.”

“Huh.” Will grunted. “So do you have any necromancer Relics?”

“Oh, my, no, that would be Illegal. Wink.”

“I’m assuming you can’t wink,” Will said.

“That would be a fair assumption. I do not have any necromancer Relics, but I do have a few post–life summoner Relics that might satisfy your needs. Wink.”

“I’m not a necromancer, but I’d still like to look at them,” Will said. “…Wink.”

He actually wasn’t, but despite the illegality there was no young man that didn’t enjoy the concept of raising the dead to serve them. Being cool, and badass, girls thinking you were fixable, wearing all black leather and being stick thin…

It actually reminded him of that mask wearing outlaw that nearly captured him on the 2^nd Floor. learning more about the kinds of relics the man wore might give him insight into how to analyze and disassemble his Build, should he ever come across him again.

Will knocked on the wooden countertop, but he knew he’d already jinxed himself.

“Right away!” the Xeju moved with alarming swiftness, going from completely motionless to flickering into the back, flickering back through the back door, climbing sideways along the doorframe to control her momentum until she stopped in front of Will, setting a collection of items on the countertop in front of him.

Will picked up the bone ring and inspected it.

Ring of the Undead Horde

+5 focus

Increases potency of Necromancer Archetype Abilities by 15%

Reduces Focus cost to maintain Undead minions by 2 each, cannot lower the Focus cost below 1.

Will frowned. So necromancers needed high Focus, to allow them to keep lots of undead running simultaneously. They also had less available Charge based on the number of undead you could visually confirm, which the ring of the Undead Horde helped with.

Will didn’t know how much the ring helped, but if he had to guess, it was likely that the Focus drain for maintaining undead was related to their power, so this ring could allow someone to cut down the maintenance cost on 3 Focus undead to 1, allowing the wearer to triple their number of worthless staggering meat-shield zombies, but, say, a Death Knight might take 40 Focus to keep in play, and a reduction of 2 apiece wasn’t actually that much of a game-changer.

Interesting glimpses into how the Class might work.

Will checked the next item, a gnarled wand with a velvet handle that seemed to blur the line between driftwood and bone.

Wand of the Undead Retainer

+6 focus

+3 Acuity

+15% potency of necromancer archetype Abilities.

1 charge: Heal Undead. Repairs undead tissue. Some reassembly required. Does not revive dead undead.

5 Charge: User may summon one permanent low-power Undead Retainer, to a maximum of 1.

The Undead Retainer is an intangible spirit with a limited ability to interact with the physical world, performing simple tasks for the wielder. They are sustained by the wand, not reliant on the wielder’s Focus. If the wand is unequipped, the Undead Retainer is dismissed.

The Undead Retainer can be the target of Abilities requiring a living sacrifice and subject to lifedrain, as though it were alive.

“Oh, this one is a good choice, young necromancer.” The Xeju said as will inspected the weapon.

“Not a necromancer,” Will said, but she continued as if he hadn’t spoken.

“Many necromancer Archetypes gain life-drain and sacrifice mechanics with their Abilities. Having a disposable undead retainer on-hand to sacrifice in an emergency is quite the powerful benefit, and makes Party members much less nervous about winding up on the chopping block, so to speak. Having it available to clean house, cook, and set up camp, and the ability to heal one’s minions is also a blessing.”

Hmmm.

A single low-power undead was basically nothing. Most of its utility was derived from the ability to target it with other Necromancer abilities that might require a living sacrifice, or the Ability to have it stand there and let you cut it’s head off to heal a critical wound.

Plus the wand could allow you to patch up your other undead, something a necromancer might not want to waste a whole Ability on.

The wand wasn’t the primary strength of a necromancer, merely filling gaps in their Build.

Stolen story; please report.

This did make Will stop and think, though.

A single low-power undead was basically nothing, but if he fed the wand to his Phantom Hand, and it doubled the power of the ability…

Would Low-powered become Medium-powered, and could the hard limit of one undead become Two? While Will was wearing his Cloak of the Fade, he was raising the power of Phantom Hand by 25%, which pushed it’s multiplier just over 100%, effectively doubling all effects the slotted item had.

If one medium-powered undead was significantly stronger than a Low-powered one, and if he could raise two instead of one, the power was effectively quadrupled. The potential damage output of the Undead retainer was no longer an afterthought to the utility of having a convenient sacrifice. Instead, combat power could become the primary draw of the Ability.

Interesting.

Will put it back down, but couldn’t help lingering on it for a moment.

Will flinched as the Xeju flickered away, soundlessly darting into the back before returning with a polished steel ring, which it placed beside the wand.

“You seem interested in the wand,” She said. “And I remembered possessing a synergistic item.”

Will picked up the ring and inspected it.

Ring of the Eidolon

+4 focus

+3 Acuity

Abilities that create eidolons are 35% more potent.

Eidolons are more freely able to interact with the physical world, improving their ability to perform tasks and deal physical damage, while retaining their intangible damage resistances. Scales with Acuity.

“What’s an eidolon?” Will asked the obvious question.

“Any non-physical, spirit-type summon. Ghosts, elementals, avatars…that sort of thing.”

“So the undead Retainer would qualify?” Will asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Soft-set.

“Hmm..” Will mused for a moment before moving on to the next one, picking up the wavy blade with a skull carved into the pommel and fingerbones forming the wristguard.

I wonder if Necromancers just prefer a certain style? Will thought. Why not a hatchet, or a cleaver, or heavens forbid, a regular, plain dagger that doesn’t announce your Class to anyone with eyes?

But then I suppose…how would girls know you desperately needed a hug?

Done with his internal complaints, Will inspected the dagger.

Dagger of eternal Servitude

+4 Strength

+3 Kinesthetics

On kill: Consumes corpse to create a permanent bone maksu to serve the wielder. Capable of simple tasks, but prefer combat. Bone Maksu are sustained by the dagger. Maximum 3 bone Maksu.

Will sat and thought about that one for a moment.

There was the upside of not needing to pay Charge to create the undead.