“Certainly.” the man behind the bar knelt down to collect a bottle from a lower shelf.

“huh?”

The man next to me was wearing what appeared to be a guardsman's attire albeit without the armor, the colours and decoration implied that this was someone of some moderate import in the chain of command.

His face on the other hand was bizarrely plain in a way I couldn’t read, his skull seemed to suggest nothing at all and yet within that nothingness was a suggestion of vast unknown possibility.

This could very well be someone completely harmless or lethally dangerous. In such predicaments my master had taught me to assume the worst case scenario.

Better to retreat and have run from a rabbit than to ‘forth and find a fiend.

“You aren’t here to arrest me are you?” I asked.

“Not at all, you see I’m actually here to look for a necromant and I was hoping you might be able to help me find one.”

This guy is either trying to toy with me or he’s a huge idiot. Frustrating as it is that I can’t tell, I want nothing to do with him either way.

“Yeah, you just missed him, rode off on his skeletal horse.” I gestured to the door.

“A shame, I had a particularly high paying job for someone of his talents.” He spoke in a manner that confirmed he probably was just messing with me.

“Ohoho well you’re in luck, just before he left he taught me everything he knew.” I grinned.

“I see, that is fortunate. You’re…” He looked me up and down appraisingly.

“Let me guess, not what you expected?” I suggested.

He nodded.

“Anticipating someone more pale and ghastly? Wearing a cuirass of rib bones? A walking throne constructed of skeletons?”

“No, actually I was expecting someone who wasn’t so beautiful.”

“I-” i started “w-wait what?”

He stared at me for a moment before speaking

“haha don’t worry I’m only joking.” he laughed.

“joking about what?! you can’t just-”

“-My name is Maceon, I’ve been sent from the capital on the queen's orders, we have a job of the utmost importance that needs the urgent assistance of your ‘unique’ abilities. Needless to say that the pay for your success will be exceptionally good.”

He procured some fancy looking document from his vest, it meant nothing to me but I gained it was meant to be proof of office. Probably something that’s supposed to be important judging by the fancy looking stamps and writing.

“I’m listening.” A job from a queen? Sounds too good to be true.

“I’ll cut right to the chase, someone or something in the capital is killing civilians in the dead of night and we don’t have the first lead on what it even is or even how it's doing it.”

“what?”

“The Massaker as we’ve called it has been slaughtering innocent people like livestock, every day we wake up to freshly obliterated corpses. You can see why someone like you would be useful in this situation?”

Oh…

“Yeah, sorry I can’t actually bring people back to life, that’s a myth, I could make them into leichmen but they’re not useful for much besides warfare and if you have living armies they’re supposed to be really bad for morale-”

“-What are you talking about? You can speak to the dead, can you not?” he asked.

“woah what? oh no, absolutely not!”

“Your advertisement insisted you were capable of this.”

So that's how he found me…

“Of course I’m capable, I just wont.”

“But you could interrogate the spirits of the victims and uncover the identity of this killer.”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

“Are you insane?! Asking a spectre who serial murdered it is about as suicidal as measuring how tall a mountain is by jumping off the top.”

“why?”

“isn’t it obvious? How do you think it feels finding out that you’re dead?”

“this is serious-“

“-No I'm serious.” I turned on my seat to face him directly. “Actually, think about it for a minute, imagine learning right now that you’ve died. You can’t ever do any of the things you love doing anymore, can never see your loved ones ever again, will never do the things you always wanted to do but never got the chance to, never have the chance to fix your broken relationships or lingering mistakes. Tell me honestly, how would that make you feel?”

“not too great.”

“Exactly, now imagine that not only are all those opportunities lost to you, they were stolen. Not sacrificed to a higher cause, not the cost of an honest mistake, they were taken by some crazed maniac who did it for no other reason than because they felt like it. imagine how that would make you feel?”

“probably pretty upset.”

“to say the very least, and do you know what happens to a spirit when it becomes that upset?”

“No?”

“it transforms into a wraith, and it goes berserk.”

“Whatever the Massaker really is, it's far worse than any kind of haint.”

“I’d say that’s actually pretty debatable.”

“Regardless you know what a wraith is and presumably how to deal with it do you not?”

“Sure, same way I know you can deal with a Klydosaur by cutting off its head.”

“Well we don’t have the first clue how to deal with this thing. We’re keeping the true numbers hidden from the public to prevent panic but over seventy have already died to this thing.”

“Over seventy?!”

“Yes, that’s just the bodies we’ve found.”

“That's insane! Either way this is way above my water level.”

“You know any other Necromanti?”

“uhh…” There is my master ofcourse but he’d throw me off his mountain if I got him involved in ‘civilian politics’.

Not to mention he’s pretty far away from here.

“no. just me.”

“Then you’ll have to do.”

“Look I understand your situation, I get it, lots of people are dying and that sucks but I can’t risk my own life like that, either to wraiths or some mystery mass murderer.”

“not even to save the hundreds of other lives still at risk?”

“no, sorry, I’m a necromant not a… lebemant”

“That is… unfortunate.” Maceon seemed to concede. “but as this is a decree by the queen and we are within her regency, you don’t have the option to refuse.”

“Excuse me?!”

“I’m instructed to return you to the capital with or without your permission.”

“You’re going to try and abduct me?”

“Of course not!” he dismissed. “I’m not going to fight a magier! I’m going to tell them I tried to arrest you and you pulled some magik bullshrike out of your ass and jumped out the window.”

“oh, well, i guess that's not so bad.”

“though once I report that there's going to be a bounty on your head. But it should take a day or two to process, which ought to be enough time to leave the country.”

“WHAT?! How is that fair! I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Neither did any of that monsters' victims, that's just how it is, I'm afraid.” he said sympathetically.

“Why should I be forced to risk my life provoking wraiths and hunting down some mass killer for a bunch of unwashed peasants I don't even know?!”

“you’re a Magier, born with powers over nature, in this nation it is your obligation to use those powers for the betterment of the society, that’s how the high Imperiat established it and that’s how we’ve kept it.”

“Crux to the Imperiat! I’ll use my Magik how I damn well please!”

“Then you can choose to come with me or to run away, but you can’t stay here.”

“but that’s bullshrike!”

“I assure you the reward for this job is more than enough to-“

“-I don’t care about money! Not more than my life anyway.”

“isn’t there anything else you want?”

“nothing you can give me.”

“The queen still holds great influence over these lands, anything you desire she is willing to grant you to the best of her ability.”

“What kind of influence are we talking about here?”

“Name your request.”

“Are we really talking about anything here?”

“within reason, yes.” His eyes narrowed, presumably expecting me to suggest something horrendous.

…

“I want to be a hero.”

His eyebrow raised.

“That's exactly what I’m offering you, you’d be saving countless lives catching this killer.”

“Let me rephrase; I want to be known as a hero.”

“Even still, that goes without saying, you’d be celebrated all over.”

“Really? You wouldn’t dispose of me the instant my usefulness was exhausted? To wash your hands of the foul necromant and her dark magik?”

“I assure you, if you save the queen's people she would have nothing but love and gratitude for you, I swear that upon everything under the sun.”

“hmmm…” could this be what I’ve been looking for?

“Fine, but on one condition.”

“yes?”

“I want to be remembered as a hero, even if I fail, even if I die.”

He pondered for a moment.

“Well, I doubt they’d write any songs about that but I’m sure we could get a plaque installed somewhere. ‘Svisha the skull, the necromant who tried’.”

“Tch… guess that’s as good as it's going to get. Fine, I accept.”

“Glad to hear it, rest here for tonight and we can set out to the capital first thing in the morning.”