Heather the Necromancer

A faint hum filled like the airy sound of a distant organ holding a single note filled her ears. Around her was a void of blackness broken only by a brilliant blue light from above. She wasn't sure where she was or even who she was as she drifted in the nothingness. Occasionally a voice would call out or speak with a deep echo. She struggled to hear the voices as they came and went but could only catch small snippets.

“Don't look back,” a man's voice said.

“It is impossible,” a woman echoed from another side.

“Heather!” a third voice called echoing loudly for a moment.

The use of a name jarred her memory and made her twitch. Her arms and legs felt heavy as if trying to swim in glue. Every moment was a struggle to gain even an inch and was exhausting to maintain.

“She will fail,” the woman’s voice echoed again, fading into a rumbling thunder as if moving away from her.

“The sacrifice has been made,” came another. “There is no choice.”

“This is cruel. He will come for her.”

“There is no choice!”

“Heather!”

The shout was much louder this time, and it made her jump, tearing her arms and limbs free. She became vaguely aware that the light had changed to something softer as the voices faded away to be replaced by ones more familiar.

“Is she dead?” Quinny asked.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Breanne scolded. “She pushed beyond her limits and passed out.”

“Why hasn’t she woken up yet?”

“She will wake when she is rested,” Breanne replied.

“She will be happy to know we found loot,” Quinny added.

“That was a pointless stop.”

“She wanted to look,” Quinny argued. “It only took ten minutes to dig it out.”

“For a bent shield, a sword, and a dagger,” Breanne quipped. “Nothing you don’t have piles of in Frank’s tunnels.”

“There were twelve silver coins.”

Breanne scoffed. “We should have come straight home and put her to bed.”

“She slept the whole trip anyway,” Quinny replied.

Breanne shook her head and leaned back as Heather opened her eyes.

“How was your nap?” Breanne asked with a smile.

“Nap? She’s been out for nearly a full day,” Quinny interjected.

“What time is it?” Heather asked as she lifted an arm to her head. She was in bed in her room with the annoying blue light in her eyes from the window. She struggled with the stiffness in her limbs as Breanne and Quinny hovered nearby.

“It is nearly noon,” Breanne said. “You were unconscious for almost a full day.”

“I was unconscious?” Heather asked as she flopped an arm over her eyes.

“Deeply,” Breanne replied. “I have never seen anyone overspend their power before. I certainly can’t do it.”

“It was amazing,” Quinny added. “You started to glow with a blue light.”

“I was glowing?” Heather asked as the image of her strange dream came back.

“Like a lamp,” Breanne said. “Frank was very concerned you had somehow damaged yourself. How do you feel?”

“I'm awake, but everything feels weak like I worked out.”

“Stay in bed and rest,” Breanne insisted. “The weakness should pass in a few hours.”

“Why would I be glowing?” Heather asked.

Breanne shook her head again. “None of us has any idea. I have never seen or heard of it before. As far as we know, it is impossible to spend beyond your power pool, but you somehow did it.”

“You even floated into the air a little,” Quinny added. “You looked like a magical girl from an anime.”

“Great,” Heather sighed. “Now, I have to worry about what might happen when I use my power. Can't anything in this world be consistent?”

“If this world is anything, it is consistent,” Breanne said. “What you did broke the rules somehow.”

“But that’s impossible,” Heather insisted.

“Not impossible,” Breanne countered. “There are lots of people who found a way to exploit a system or a method of magic to get other results. The visitors made the magic systems so it could be modified and explored to create new effects.”

“I wasn’t doing anything but a basic spell,” Heather sighed. “That’s hardly modifying the system.”

“Indeed,” Breanne agreed. “Never the less, you changed something. Maybe this is related to your being chosen.”

“I thought being a chosen meant I could have three classes?”

“It means that and more,” Breanne said. “None of us knows for sure what the true purpose or limits of a chosen are. They don't go through the creation process like the rest of us. Their limits are never clearly defined, and all we know about them comes from trial and error. You may have tapped into something new that hasn't been discovered yet.”

“What good is a power like that if it’s going to leave me unconscious for hours?”

“It saved your life and the life of your friends. Oh, and welcome to level ten.”

Heather dropped her arm and looked to Breanne in alarm.

“Level ten?”

“Did you forget why you were overusing your power? You wiped out a nillac hoard the size of an ant colony. All of us went up three of four levels for the effort. Frank said you were level six, so we are guessing you're level ten now. Your panel must have beeped a dozen times as you lay on the ground.”

She shifted with startled confusion and looked to the tattoo on her arm. The light from the window blinded her, and she struggled to sit up.

“Stay in bed,” Breanne pressed.

“I want to sit up and get out of that annoying light,” she replied. “I need curtains.”

“You could always move the window. I am sure you have the points for it now,” Breanne replied and helped her sit on the edge of the bed.

Heather rubbed her tattoo and brought up the orange display. She tapped the air at the character page and went wide-eyed to see her level.

“Woah!” Quinny said in alarm. “She went to eleven!”

“The system must have awarded her bonus experience,” Breanne said. “Maybe for coming up with such a clever plan?”

“Look at all the points I have!” Heather said excitedly as she entered her building screens. “I could double the size of the tower and have enough points to decorate half the rooms.”

“Hardly,” Breanne said in a flat tone. “The larger you make the rooms, the more they cost to decorate and upgrade. You're seeing the point costs for the sizes as they are now. Once you enlarge everything, they will become much more expensive.”

Heather nodded and tapped to her spell list. She was shocked to see a dozen new spells and something new things called rituals. It also said she had a new perk. She was now immune to disease and took half damage from necrotic attacks.

“I will have to spend some time reading all of this,” she said as she tapped the display away. “But right now, I want to look at the book.”

“What for?” Beanne asked.

“I want to see if I can match those symbols to the ones on the floor of the tower.”

“Do you remember the symbols?”

“Only some of them,” Heather said. “I was hoping that would be enough to gain some insight.”

“We should make a second trip out with the page you made,” Breanne said. “Maybe in a day or two when you're fully recovered.”

Heather nodded as a low growl filled the room, and they all looked down to her stomach.

“Shhh,” Heather said softly. “I will find something to eat soon.”

“I have never heard anyone with a stomach that spoke so loudly,” Breanne laughed.

“I only eat when I'm hungry,” Heather said. “I never stuck to a rigid schedule.”

“Well, you should feed that thing before it rampages and eats the skeletons outside.”

“Oh!” Heather exclaimed as her memory was jogged. “What happened to the skeletons?”

“They are right outside the door. Since you were asleep, they followed you home. It was all we could do to keep them out of your bedroom. They want to stay where they can see you.”

Heather nodded and rubbed at her eyes with a heavy arm. “I will order them to stand guard around the tower, and maybe hide some in the upper rooms. Where is the bone knight?”

Breanne took a moment to stare at her before responding. “Downstairs, guarding the door. It reacted very strangely to your condition. Frank went to pick you up and carry you home, but it refused to let him. The two of them nearly fought over who was going to carry you.”

“They did?” Heather asked in alarm.

Breanne nodded and continued. “It picked you up when we moved back and then followed us home. Once we were across the stream, it brought you inside and laid you in bed, then went and stood by the door like always.”

“Why is he behaving like he's my bodyguard?” Heather asked.

“Because he is,” Breanne said. “The normal skeletons are like simple robots. They follow basic instructions to the letter. The bone knight is something else altogether. It reacts to you and can make complicated decisions on what it thinks is best to keep you safe.”

“He was going to cut Frank in half with your scythe,” Quinny said. “The two of them looked like boys fighting over a girl.”

Heather raised a brow in alarm and looked to Breanne for guidance, but the woman only shrugged.

“I will have to talk to him,” Heather said, unsure of what she would say to a summoned skeleton pet.

“You should rest for a few more hours,” Breanne suggested.

“Yeah, and then you should come see my forest,” Quinny added. “I expanded down the road and put in a ton of new stuff. I have creeper zombies now and an abandoned cabin, and a small cave with tunnels spiders in it.”

Heather nodded but couldn’t think past the thought of her bone knight being so protective. Surely there was a setting she could change to tone that down a bit. Her stomach growled in protest to remind her that it wanted attention first.

“Will you be quiet,” Heather snapped. “I have rations in the very next room!”

It growled loudly as if snubbing the thought of rations like an angry child.

“What else do you want?” Heather asked. “I am out of pizza. The only fresh food I could get are apples, and you have to be sick of those.”

“Are you arguing with your stomach?” Breanne asked with concern.

“He’s very fussy sometimes,” Heather replied.

“I see,” the elven woman replied.

Heather shrugged and slid off the edge of the bed, getting to wobbly feet.

“You should stay there,” Breanne insisted.

“If I do, he will keep me awake with his persistent growling,” Heather replied. “I just need to eat something so it will shut up.”

Heather wobbled to the door and was greeted by a tightly packed group of skeletons right outside.

“Go stand in the yard!” she ordered to get them out of her way. They filled off like obedient robots clearing her a path to the tables.

With another eager growl from her stomach, she made her way to the food and sighed to discover she was out of apples.

“Of course,” she said as her stomach growled in protest. “Oh, be quiet. We have plenty of dry foods.” A growl like a lion about to pounce filled the room, and she began to tap a foot irritably.

“I would have to go all the way to the road to get apples,” she snapped back. “Assuming the goblins brought some.”

“This is very strange,” Breanne said.

“Heather is fun,” Quinny added. “She has moody men all around her.”

“That’s how all women’s lives are,” Breanne replied.

“I never had any trouble,” Quinny quipped.

Breanne looked at her with a sideways glance. “You didn't date much, did you?”

“Hey!” Quinny said indignantly. “I had friends. I didn’t need boyfriends yet.”

Breanne only answered with a “Hmmm.”

Heather continued to argue with her noisy stomach as she held up items of food only to have them rejected by her quarrelsome innards.

“Fine!” she snapped. “I will go see if there are any apples.” A final soft gurgle confirmed agreement, and she turned about. “I suppose I could use a walk to work the stiffness out,” she said.

“You really shouldn't push yourself too hard,” Breanne insisted, but Heather's stomach answered for her. “I stand corrected; is that thing dangerous?”

“Only when he's not fed,” Heather replied with a smile.

“It’s like you have a badger living inside you,” Quinny added.

“Funny how this trait carried over,” Heather remarked as she poked her stomach.

“Don’t poke that thing, you’re liable to lose a finger,” Breanne quipped.

Heather shrugged and headed for the steps, taking them carefully as she made her way down. At the door, her bone knight stood silently as always, and she paused to stare at him.

“Frank is a friend,” she said. “You are not to threaten him.”

The knight didn’t move, not even to nod its head. She scowled at it a moment longer before snapping a finger before its face.

“Follow me,” she commanded, and it fell in behind her.

In the yard, the skeletons stood in a big pack right outside the door, blocking her path out.

“I suppose I told them to stand in the yard,” she sighed. “You would think they would be smart enough to spread out.”

“They are very literal,” Breanne said. “Just tell them to move aside.”

Heather nodded and gave them the command, pausing for a moment as they shuffled to one side.

She led the way into the yard with Quinny and Breanne walking beside her to find Frank standing by the south fence.

“What are you doing?” Heather called.

He turned and looked at her with his solid yellow eyes and then glared at the bone knight behind her.

“I heard he was less than friendly,” Heather said as she read Frank’s expression. “I already spoke to him about it.”

“Your pet is very possessive,” Frank replied. “And despite what he thinks, he is no match for me.”

Heather sighed and turned to the bone knight and pointed at Frank.

“Friend!” she commanded firmly. “If you start fighting over me like a high school boy, I will turn you into a scarecrow.”

The knight didn't respond, and she glared at it with a firm gaze before turning back to Frank.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked as he approached.

“I feel fine, I am just a little stiff,” she said as she rocked on her legs.

“You floated off the ground and glowed with blue light,” he said. “Then, you collapsed, and we couldn't wake you.”

“They told me,” Heather said with a shake of her head. “I have no idea what happened.”

“It was pretty cool looking, to be honest, but I was worried about you. I have never heard of anybody doing that before.”

“Nobody has done it before,” Breanne added. “At least not where anyone saw it.”

“She almost went super Saiyan,” Quinny laughed.

Heather blinked and looked at Quinny, confused as Frank laughed.

“I have no idea what that means,” Heather said.

“Neither do I,” Breanne added.

“You two are boring!” Quinny sighed. “Don’t you ever watch anime?”

“No,” Breanne said. “I don’t watch cartoons.”

“Cartoons?” Quinny said with a shocked tone. “It’s anime, not a cartoon.”

“It’s the same thing,” Breanne said.

“No, it isn't!” Quinny huffed. “They are completely different.”

“They do have very different styles,” Heather said. “I have seen some of them, but I was always too busy to watch them regularly. I read a lot more of the manga; that's why I got the magical girl reference.”

“They look identical,” Breanne countered.

“Pfft, somebodies old,” Quinny said under her breath.

Heather tried not to laugh and looked back to Frank. “We're going to see if the goblins left me any apples.”

“I thought you were sick of apples,” he asked.

“I am, but my angry badger demands fresh food.”

He tilted his head to the side, unsure of what she meant as Quinny laughed.

“She is talking about her stomach,” Breanne said. “I swear it answers her when she talks to it.”

Frank scratched at the top of his head as he pondered the comment and then looked to the forest.

“There should be something by now. You haven’t looked in three days.”

“Then let’s go get them before that thing eats one of us,” Breanne urged.

Quinny took the lead as they entered her forest. She eagerly pointed out the new changes and went over the details of some of the new monsters.

“My wolves can spawn a rare wolf now that has a cool black smoke effect. It drops a random magic item if you kill it.”

“It drops a magic item?” Heather asked.

“Yeah,” Quinny replied. “But it's a rare spawn, and the item is random.”

“Where does it keep the item?” Heather asked.

Quinny looked confused by the question and tapped at her chin.

“I dunno, it just sort of appears when it dies.”

“Your wolves drop loot, but nothing we have killed has had anything,” Heather argued.

“The sedu hunter had loot,” Quinny corrected. “We went back and dug it up while you were out.”

“Oh, what did it have?” Heather asked excitedly.

“A bent shield, a rusty sword, and a small dagger,” Breanne said.

“And twelve silver coins,” Quinny reminded.

Heather scrunched up her nose and scowled. “We get more than that from adventurers. Frank has plenty of that junk in his tunnels.”

“I said the same thing,” Breanne replied with a smile.

“Loot is loot,” Quinny said with a toss of her head. “I have a rare bat spawn now too. It’s all white and heals as it drains your blood.”

“That sounds frightening,” Heather replied.

“I named him Vampy,” Quinny added.

“You named him?”

“Yeah, you can name rare spawns. The wolf is called Shadowfang.”

“Oh, like a pet name,” Heather said.

“No, I mean in your interface. You can name rare spawns. That way, when you're looking at your interface, you can see them specifically.”

“Really?”

Quinny nodded. “I want to get a rare zombie next.”

“You shouldn’t have spent so much on your burial mound,” Breanne said.

“I wanted a deeper lair,” Quinny argued.

“You added to your mound?” Heather asked.

Quinny nodded. “Now, when you come off the main hall, you can go left and right into similar rooms. The right room has a tunnel at the end of the hall that goes to an intersection. If you go left, you find a door to a small room with a chest. There's a trap on the door and the chest. If you go right, you find my actual burial mound, but now there are six zombies to protect it.”

Heather nodded and turned to Frank as they rounded a bend in the trail.

“Did you add anything?”

“Just a little so far. I am thinking about spreading over the river. I have enough to build a bridge across the stream and claim about twenty feet on the other side.”

“Will it spawn gravestones?”

He nodded as hey walked. “If I don't mark the land for something specific, it will just spawn graveyard. The big cost is the bridge, the walkway, and the deep tunnels I have to add to get under the stream.”

“What do you need a deep tunnel for?”

“I want to add mausoleum on that side with an entrance to my tunnels. The tunnel will have to go much deeper to pass under the stream, and the deeper I go, the more they cost.”

Heather nodded as she understood, but then an idea occurred to her.

“Why not make it completely separate?”

“Make what separate?” he asked.

“The tunnels,” she said. “Make the ones on that side its own network. So anybody exploring it won't find your actual tunnels.”

“That's an excellent idea,” Breanne said.

“So it acts as a separate dungeon,” he replied with a nod. “I guess I could do that. It would be cheaper to build that way. Then I could use the points I saved to expand the graveyard even more.”

“Do you need me to move some forest away?” Quinny asked.

He shook his head as they shuffled along.

“I want to do all the expanding over the stream and build an obelisk.”

“What does that do?” Heather asked.

“It's an achievement,” Frank replied. “There are a bunch of them you can place when you spend enough points on your build. Every time you place one, you get a special spawn for the graveyard. The obelisk will add a zombie that is stronger and more intelligent than the others. It will prowl the graveyard looking for players to hunt.”

“I wonder if my tower gets achievements,” Heather said as they rounded a bend in the trail and came to the main road. The others stopped in their tracks, staring in confusion as Heather stepped forward.

“When did that get there?”