Necromancer

A Royal Road Fan Fiction

By: Halosty

Chapter 84

Though the dragon was dead, Quietus suddenly realized that the ghosts would go back to being crazy as soon as Ruby stopped her song. He quickly sent her a message, and fortunately she hadn’t stopped immediately upon the dragon’s death. Quietus quickly looked around the area, trying to find the cause. The ghosts had been mad before the dragon’s arrival, so there had to be something causing it. He immediately ordered his minions to search for anything strange. Then he realized, he didn’t have any minions around. They had all died to the dragon. Well, those he’d brought with him. The valuable ones were still off on their own.

He looked around the area. The dragon seemed to have landed, coincidentally, in the same area he first saw it. The ground was not grassy under where the dragon had been, but barren and dead. He felt that area was the best to search. However, he could not find anything in the whole area. Quietus hoped he wouldn’t have to search underground. That would take more time than Ruby could probably handle. Though she had potions, it was still mentally stressing to be active for a long time.

Of course, there was also under the dragon. It was possible that, whatever he was looking for, it was under there. It was somewhat covering the middle of the area, so Quietus decided to look there first. Now, if only he could move the dragon… As he thought about this, he heard a quiet scratching noise. It sounded like claws against scales, but also a sound of dirt moving. Like burrowing… but much slower than he was used to. Quietus moved around the dragon, until he found a spot closest to the sound. As he got near, he saw a little pile of dirt fly out from under the dragon.

More and more dirt move out, then a tiny hand stretched out. The hand dug into the ground, and pulled. It barely moved at all, since this tiny creature was apparently stuck under the dragon. However, it kept repeating its action. Quietus was getting impatient, so he grabbed the arm, and yanked. He almost expected to get just the arm, but he pulled out the entire creature. What he saw was a goblin zombie. No wonder it had been so tiny. Quietus vaguely remembered making some of these, though he certainly couldn’t recall this particular one. As he pulled it out, its other hand held up a small orb. It looked at him… Quietus thought it was expectantly. Though, zombies didn’t really show any kind of emotion.

Quietus took the orb from its grasp. Immediately, he realized this black orb was the cause of the problems. He wouldn’t say he knew how it worked, but he did think he could drain the mana from it. That should deactivate it… probably. Quietus tried that. However, soon he was full on mana, and could use no more. He quickly started casting dark fog, and others of his most expensive spells. Then he would drain more mana from the object. Soon, it was empty.

The ghostly commanders rode up to Quietus. He could already tell they were… less substantial, even though they had been ghosts to begin with. They seemed to speak, but made no sound. Then, they nodded in acknowledgement to him, and faded away.

That… actually somewhat surprised Quietus. This black orb seemed to have been the cause of both the ghosts and their madness. Well, that made it easier for him. He called Ruby over, and they set about looting the dragon. Sadly, many of the weapons in its hide were broken, even more so since it had rolled around on the ground, snapping some of the weaker ones.

Quietus was mostly casually searching anyway, since there wouldn’t be any daggers. Then, he noticed the zombie was following him. Zombies didn’t have any feelings. That was what Quietus knew, but this one obviously wanted something from him. Maybe it was injured? He check its entire body. Surprisingly, it wasn’t. No, Quietus was more than surprised. It had been crushed under the dragon, hadn’t it? He went and looked where it had been.

Once there, Quietus found a small depression under the dragon. It wasn’t like the dragon had squashed the little goblin zombie into the ground. Instead, the depression appeared to have already been there, and the goblin had just happened to fit into it, instead of being crushed to death. There was also a little bit of room for the orb. This zombie… had to be the luckiest thing ever.

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Quietus thought about checking its luck stat, but then decided not to. Sure, it could affect luck, but real luck didn’t come from a number. It came from, well, itself. Quietus looked at the little goblin, and patted it on the head. “Good job.” Its expression didn’t change in the slightest, but Quietus felt like it got exactly what he wanted. Then, Quietus decided to give the first name to a minion that wasn’t a destroyer. This one… would be called “Lucky”. If his name was false, well, he’d end up dead or something. Quietus was pretty sure that would happen. However, he found it kind of cute. He hoped Lucky would live a bit longer.

Ruby found a few weapons that were worth something, but mostly the ones embedded in the dragon were useless. However, Quietus knew that dragons should have treasure hoards. Whether this kind did or not… he wasn’t sure, but he would look. There wasn’t a cave or anything nearby, though. However, that didn’t mean it couldn’t be hidden… underground.

Quietus called in the rest of his minions, the ones he didn’t want to sacrifice. Then, he had them burrow around searching. He wasn’t sure if they would find anything, but he needed to try. Half unexpectedly, they did. Quietus’ minions unearthed a cache of… well, various things. Quietus let Ruby take most of it. Partly as thanks, but mostly because he didn’t want it. However, he did manage to find a few items that he thought he could use. He couldn’t be sure though, since they weren’t identified. However, there were some leather pieces that could replace some of what Quietus was wearing, if they were any good. The rings and amulets, of which there were a few, would be identified before being split between Quietus and Ruby.

Lucky… managed to find a single, tiny boot. It was filled with holes. However, it mostly fit his left foot, and Quietus didn’t bother stopping him from putting it on. He wasn’t really sure how Lucky was acting somewhat on his own, but he was one of Quietus’ minions. He had checked. There wasn’t another boot to go with it, so Quietus was pretty sure even if it were magical, it wouldn’t have any effect. Lucky seemed to like it though.

Quietus went over to Ruby, to properly thank her. “Thanks for the help, I definitely couldn’t have done it without you.”

Ruby looked tired, but she smiled. Her smile made him feel very happy for some reason. “No problem, I was glad to help. Next time you need to tame an army or two of ghosts, you know who to call. Well, or any interesting quest, for that matter.”

“Of course.” Quietus didn’t really know what else to say. He just stood around awkwardly after that. He hadn’t been “party leader” before, so he wasn’t really sure what to do now. Should he just say “See you later?” Well, that didn’t seem quite right.

“So, what are you going to do with the dragon corpse?” Ruby asked.

“Huh?” Quietus thought about that for a moment. The question surprised him. However, after thinking about it for a tiny moment, he realized. He had a dragon corpse. Sure, it was somewhat… bedraggled, but it was a dragon corpse. Quietus knew he couldn’t actually get a full powered dragon, however, unless he was already stronger than it by himself. Still, he could possibly make it close, or maybe even eventually get it back to being that strong. It would have to be a Destroyer, of course. There would be absolutely no reason to not put all his effort into making it better.

What kind of undead would it be though? A zombie? That would be terrible. Skeletons were likewise out. Mummy… would just be weird. Ghoul might be interesting, since they fought with teeth and claws… Giant, poisoned dragon teeth might be good. Should he wait until he could make it a ghost? Naw, being a ghost would make most of its advantages, such as hard scales and brute strength, useless. It was already basically a walking tank.

Could he… make it a death knight? They were a type that were armored. Its claws were basically swords, too. He had to try. If he failed… well, he was pretty sure it would do nothing, and he could just make it into a ghoul, which would be awesome too. Yeah, this would be good.

Ruby watched Quietus as he stared at the dragon, almost drooling. It was pretty easy to tell what he was thinking. It was also pretty easy to tell he hadn’t even thought about making the dragon into a minion before she suggested it. He was careless and funny like that.

//End Chapter 84