Without ceremony, the mayor said, “We need to call a town meeting. Go door to door if you have to, but make sure everyone important is going to go. Post on the outer forums. Then gather the town guards. Make sure they’re up to date and wearing the town colors. Make sure they will look the part. Then contact the red legion, get them to send some people.”
The mayor kept listing off duties for the clerk. Woozle was stretched out on the ground, and she bent down to scratch his ear. She checked her menus to see if there was any information on where her spider had gone off to as he was absent from her shoulder again. After clicking on her status menu, a Pets window appeared.
Rover: Status- Gathering healing moss.
Although the spider was at max health, his stamina would dip a bit and rapidly return to full.
Deciding to ignore the mayor as he spoke to the birds, she looked at her stamina. The normal grayed out part on her stamina bar showing she had crafted health potions accompanied by a black bar on the display. A countdown timer hovered above the black area, reading six days, twenty-three hours, fifty-seven minutes. Something clicked in her mind: giving or selling a potion without receiving the vial back resulted in a long recharge time.
The mayor sat at the large desk writing furiously on a piece of paper, then handing the note to the birds. With the mayor distracted, Jennifer had time to level up.
On this level, there were no new powers, only six enhancements to change her powers in some way. Most of Her options were Use Less Stamina/Mana/Energy, Recharge Faster, Do More Damage, Take More Damage, Heal More, and Last Longer. She allocated three of her enhancements to her force field so that it recharged faster and lasted longer by taking more damage. Jennifer’s potions also took less stamina. Her last choice was her undead, focusing she found more options to enhance this ability. She could now summon two skeletons rather than one and have each one with more health.
With that out of the way, she looked at the available town quests. The only one left was to clean the stables. With a sigh, she turned to the mayor, who looked very busy.
She thought about her quest to get into the university and what she needed from him to do that before walking over to the mayor. “I will take the clean the stable’s quest, but I want a letter of reference as well as the standard reward.” She emphasized the word standard.
With a wave of his hand, he said, “Yes, yes,” and she got a quest update.
Clean the stables: moderate reward- 100 oranges, 10 city reputation, letter of recommendation from the mayor. 24 hours left for the quest.
She went over the quest a few times, it looked simple. When her eyes went focused back on the mayor he was, with a raised eyebrow, pointing in an easterly direction. Jennifer blinked and realized he had anticipated her request for directions. With a bow of her head, she said, “Thank you,” before going in that direction.
She quickly made her way over to the battalions. Thankfully, the building stood out and had a sign saying Stable over the doors.
The animal holding building was three floors tall. The first floor was split down the middle with areas for horses, moose, giant cats, or standard size mounts on one side. The other side had booths for much larger mounts. Much, much larger. The booths were larger than some of the houses in town. A logo hung above the massive stalls that looked like the head of a three horned, beaked creature with a large shield-like appendage on its head.
The second floor was divided in half. One side had a landing area, and the other had bird cages. The landing area had a long runway for landing and take-off; it seemed that most flying mounts needed some running room to take off and land. The bird cages were all much bigger than Jennifer.
The third floor was the smallest because it only covered the area over the enormous bird cages. This floor was where all of the mayor’s blue birds were coming and going from. Even office cubicles for the bluebirds to work at. The workstations for the wings beasts where all the same, to spite her not seeing two birds that looked the same.
The messenger bird section was the only part of the stables that looked like it had been cleaned in the last week, or even the last year. The other floors were a total mess. The grime and debris was probably fossilized.
After returning to the ground floor, Jennifer stared in wide-eyed horror at how much muck there was on the floor. Woozle stood on his front legs while his hind legs were in a seated position. “Well, Kid, I am happy to say I have no cleaning skills, so this one is on you.” Woozle got up, walked in a circle, and lay down to sleep. He did not even try to hide the fact that he was happy he was not going to be helping.
Thinking of ways that she could clean the stables fast, she asked, “Maybe there’s a river I could divert to wash out the ground floor? I think some strong hero did that before.”
“Nope, that would damage the structure of the building, and probably bring down a few of the other houses.” Woozle replied.
Jennifer reviewed her options, selecting one she tried casting Mend on the building. If it did anything, she did not notice. As she looked over her powers, the fact hit her, one power she had yet to use. Summon Undead. She did not like the idea, but there was no way she could do everything herself.
She did not mind using her dark attack power or force fields because neither seemed evil. Summoning the undead to do her bidding felt wrong. The idea of bringing back someone from the dead for cheap manual labor just to clean the stables felt a bit extra evil. The dead should stay dead. They had earned their rest, but she was out of options.
Taking in a deep breath, which she held for a long moment before nudging Summon Undead with her mind.
Nothing happened.
After letting out a long breath, she nudged the button again.
Nothing happened.
She started cognitively button mashing. Zip, zero, nada. Jennifer let out a huff of frustration.
“Woozle, why is my Summon Undead not working?” frustrated with still not fully understanding the system.
Tilting his head, he looked at her. “Do you have any skeletons in your closet?” The lynx-shark sounded far too amused at his own question.
“So, not only do I have to use my unholy powers to literally raise the dead. But I also have to first make it dead?” Her voice rose in exasperation.
“Well, you could just find one that’s already dead,” lowering his head and voice.
Sitting on the ground, she took a thinking position, chin on a fist, while she thought about the options. “People do eat all the time, and not everyone is vegan. So, there must be a hunter’s guild somewhere out there that would bring something in for the fancy feast. Where would the hunter bring the animal? Do you think there is a butcher in town?”
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“This is a good aligned town, I don’t think they would keep someone like that here.”
“No, I mean a shop that sells meat, poultry, pork and the like. Sometimes they take a whole beast and cut it down for parts.”
Woozle shook his head. “The farmers do that here, then they send the meat to the town. A butcher here is kinda not a good person to other people.”
She shut her eyes tight. She knew of only one other place where she might find an animal skeleton she could get to quickly. “Do you think they have a pet cemetery in town?” She really hoped they did not.
“Hold up, I don’t think we want to go down that path,” Woozle said, letting the nervousness in his voice be heard.
“Alternatives?” Jennifer asked pointedly.
“Museum of Natural History?” The four words came out slowly, as if he was unsure of the answer.
A short rushed walk later, they stood in front of a large building marked Natural History.
No ticket sellers, but the front door of the museum was unlocked. Jennifer tried knocking on the door first. When no one answered, she let herself in.
As her eyes adjusted to the inside of the museum, she saw a floor to tall ceiling mural, depicting what looked like a four-tusked, crystal, wooly mammoth with gem cut crystal eyes. After inspecting the mural from behind a cloth rope, she could tell that each hair on the mammoth was a crystal-like hair that gave off an iridescent look. She had to take a moment to collect herself after finding her mouth was dry from hanging open amazement while looking at the mural.
Adding voice to her thoughts, “Isn’t this beautiful, Woozle?” When he did not answer her, she discovered that he was not beside her. Curious as to why, she went back out the front door to find the lynx-shark curled up in a sleepy spot. “Are you coming? This is no time for a nap.”
He lifted his head and turned it to Jennifer. “No pets allowed. They have a ward up, so I can’t enter.”
She replied with an, “Oh,” and stepped back inside the museum. She felt just as amazed the second time by the wooly mammoth, but she could not delay any longer. She was on a time sensitive mission. Since she did not have a map, she only had two options, left or right. A gift store, with a Closed sign on the door, stood off to her right. She assumed the largest and most attractive creatures were by the store because those creatures would sell the most stuff. She chose to take the path on the right.
In the first room she entered, there were a lot of displays but nothing in them. The room had places to show off a lot of stuff but no stuff to show off. Disappointed, she walked into the next exhibit hall on the path.
A sign above the entrance way to the next exhibit read Fantastic Types of Parallels and Where to Find Them. This hall was completely empty as well with plenty of unused rooms here too. She could feel her hopes dying. If she was not able to summon any undead, she would need to do an impossible amount of work all by herself.
The next hall was labeled Once Caught a Fish This Big. She gazed up at a massive blue-colored Manta Ray. “Okay, that is a big fish,” she admitted aloud. A lot of sea life in this room, both stuffed as well as an enormous aquarium filled with fishes of all colors and shapes. At least one fisherman out there made a lot of donations to the museum.
She could not see how anything in this room would be able to help.
Several exhibits had video monitors in front of them, so she walked over to a screen. Jennifer pressed the Press Here for Audio button above the screen.
The screen showed a buff man fighting a tentacle-faced, green sea monster. “This is Sam the Fish Hunter, fighting one of the terrors of the deep. Sam fought these terrors regularly, hunting down many of the exhibits you will find here today.” The narrated video went on to describe some more of Sam’s fishing adventures, the person that caught most of the fish in the exhibit. Jennifer left the screen to look for something useful.
She found three stuffed turtles. Each turtle had an oversized under bite showing large, menacing fangs. All three turtles were standing on their back legs, reminding her of a snapping turtle. Their fangs seemed to indicate more of a meat eater. The first, which was the smallest, came up to Jennifer’s knee. The second came up to her chin, and the third stood taller than Jennifer. The third was the strangest because of the two large cannons coming out of its back. She decided to move on but kept the turtles in mind as a possible option.
She breezed through many other exhibits. Another display had a turtle, but this one was a model and labeled World Turtle. It had thirteen shell large segments encircled by twenty-eight smaller segments, but each segment had painted lakes, rivers, and risen terrain. The three center large segments had gigantic mountains.
She smiled at the thought of how people used to believe that the world stood upon the back of four elephants who stood upon the back of a turtle. The sudden but fleeting memory of living on a turtle island had her frowning.
A small red flag on a shell segment that was closest to the turtle’s back left leg distracted her from the memory. In tiny print on the flag, she read You Are Here. “No way. I’m on the back of a world turtle?” Jennifer glanced around but there was no one around to answer her question.
Not knowing what to make of this, she walked over to a large fish tank. In front of the tank blue-green lobster shells about the size of her arms. The claws on the lobsters were easily half the size of the whole lobster. More of these lobsters were alive and fighting in the tank. Not only were the lobsters using their claws to snap at each other but they were also shooting icicles. Each lobster moved elegantly in the water. If not for the two fighting, they would have resembled dancers.
The lobsters appeared as if they were trying to flip each other over. The tactic made sense since the armored section of the lobster looked more than strong enough to take what the other was dishing out. So, the underbelly must have been the weak spot. The lobsters were so intent on their fight that they caused ripples and underwater waves that smashed into one another. Jennifer looked away from the fight to examine the tank. It was easily the size of four backyard swimming pools.
She looked at her menus, bringing up her powers. This time, when she slammed the summon skeleton power, a few options came up. Blue ice lobsters were listed under the choice selection.
The blue and green lobsters that had been in front of the tank were now walking around on the ground. When Jennifer had summoned the undead lobster skeletons, more than half of her mana bar disappeared and a small prompt appeared on her menu.
Two Blue Ice Lobster Skeletons have been added to your inventory.
The blue creatures each got their own spot in her inventory. She made a silent promise to return the lobsters when she was done with them and practically ran out of the museum, heading back to the stables. The countdown timer said she had twenty-two hours and thirty minutes left to finish cleaning the stables. Woozle ran beside Jennifer the whole while.
Once she got back to the stables, she had formed a plan. At each end of the stables were large areas of gathering water that had faucets. She turned them as open as she could, attempting to flood the area as much as possible. While the water was running, she summoned her two lobsters.
As undead skeletons, they did not move much, but they were definitely animated. Jennifer pointed to the entryways at both ends of the stable. “I want you to create ice barriers at each end. Woozle, I want you to throw down dirt on the ice. If the ice melts, I don’t want the water escaping out of the doorways.” To his credit, Woozle showed no hesitation. The two skeletons took to their orders as well.
Once the barriers were up and the water from the taps overflowed from the basins, she spread the water around as much as possible with her mop. She cast Mend on the mop every once in a while, just in case. About a thumb’s length of water flooded the ground, which had taken more time than Jennifer would have liked, but the water was not draining. She was thrilled her necromancer starting gear had waterproof boots. She knew her plan was working. Turning to the skeletons, if the water starts to drain, she would have the lobsters to ice up the drain. “I want each of you to find the biggest piles of muck and use your water claws and ice attacks to soften the packed sludge until it gets soupy enough to move. Get it all as soft as mud so we can move on to the next part.” They started on the dinosaur side since it was the dinosaur people coming, and this was a more important side.
The lobsters were using water and ice attacks to move the liquid around. She kept a smile on her face as the lobster’s water wave hit the large piles of slime. To Jennifer’s amazement, the filth had a health bar, and after the first water attack, it quickly diminished. When the muck pile’s red health bar was down to zero, the gunk turned to mud and oozed toward the drain. Jennifer instructed, the skeletons used their ice to freeze the drain making sure this whole space would remain wet. She wanted the piles of yuck to be as liquid as possible before she let the flooded space drain. Jennifer was not a hero of legend so strong she could those buildings into a river to divert running water into the stable, however, she was able to at least make a pond here. She noticed the skeletons were not at full health. Unsure why they were losing hit points, she cast her Force Field on them to help protect them.