Mark's portal shimmered into reality and the Living Armor walked straight into it.
Now he needed to find a way up onto the battlements. His undead quickly spotted a few spots of loose stone, where there was the barest of footholds. Worth a try.
Mark had a skeleton warrior stand underneath to catch him if he fell. Then he attempted to scale the wall. Though he stumbled many times, and there were spots where he could never make the jump, he eventually found a pretty high up spot where he could rest. He pried open his portal and watched the living armor stumble out into the air.
It landed with a sickening crunch. Though its legs were completely twisted, it still attempted to reach his skeleton warrior, dragging itself forwards. But it could never get close to his fastest minion.
Mark landed with a thump and waited for the skeleton warrior to lure the armor close again. Then he stepped in front of its path and resummoned his portal. As expected, the living armor stumbled inside and disappeared.
He regained his spot on the wall and watched the armor pieces come apart entirely. It almost exploded, metal bouncing off the wall and clattering on the floor.
Congratulations! You have reached Level 19!
There were no other living armors in the room, surprisingly. The rest were just decoration.
Having it dead gave Mark access to three different rooms in the corridor. One was guarded by two armor sets with fake halberds. Another was at the end of the hall, likely to continue deeper into the castle. The third was a little hidden, a crawlspace hidden behind a suit of armor, only discovered when he had his minions go in and upend everything.
He chose to first go inside the room with the twin guardians. There was another living armor inside, a duplicate of the last one. But Mark had left his heavy tower shield skeleton outside the room, making sure the door did not close on him like last time. He exited the ruined castle again and slew the living armor in the exact same way.
This room contained another enchanted weapon, but it was just an average Uncommon piece of equipment. It didn't have anything special to it unlike the Helm and Sword of Ruined Light. He left it inside his pocket plane as a backup, along with the weird orb he had acquired from Aria. The thing was still dormant.
Next, Mark knocked over the armor blocking the crawlspace and sent a weak skeleton to scout inside. Nothing happened to it, so he sent a Level 15 skeleton afterwards, then crawled in himself.
The room was tiny, but there was a desk on the wall. And on top of it was something quite special: gems.
[Magical Gems] - Magical artifacts containing an unknown power. May be useful somewhere else.
This set of items made him think of something else he had: the coin given to him by Theodore. Its item description was the exact same thing.
[Magical Coin] - A magical artifact containing an unknown power. May be useful somewhere else.
The rest of the room was empty. Other than a few faded art pieces on the walls, the room was barren of anything else. He crawled back out after placing the gems into his pocket plane next to the coin.
In the next hallway, Mark discovered a room with rotten furniture. Whoever lived here was also humanoid. But other than that, it was also empty. Not even a living armor stood guard here, nor in the next room across this one.
Mark had two choices from this point. There were stairs going upwards, or he could continue exploring this floor. The existence of one empty room probably meant many more, so he had to pick the choice leading to the most benefits. After all, time was still important, with that Mage-Thief woman running around.
He chose the stairs. Down here, he'd probably find more living armors to give him levels, but he had a feeling they wouldn't be enough to truly matter. Getting those gems was enough.
Mark climbed up to the upper floor, but as soon as his foot landed onto the top step, the door behind him began to close. He had to rush down and open his pocket plane just as they slammed shut. Fortunately, he had made it in time - his portal could not be summoned through walls.
He gazed out at a nearby gap in the stone. There was only darkness and silence. Since the doors shut themselves anyway, he didn't need anyone to guard the place anymore, so he ordered his tower shield skeleton into the portal. Then he resummoned it inside.
The amount of space on this floor was much smaller than the bottom floor. But the difficulty ramped up. Accompanying the expected living armor piece was a high level skeleton - Level 15. It carried a greataxe and moved with a ferocity he had come to expect from his orc.
But his skeleton warrior's swiftness was enough to dodge each blow. Meanwhile, his other skeleton led the Living Armor in circles. Mark joined forces with his goblin mage to take down the first warrior without too much trouble. Their spells smashed through the monster's rusty armor with ease, and even its shattering blows failed to crush anything but the floor.
Then he reanimated the fallen skeleton warrior and watched it bring its greataxe to bear against the living armor. The weight of such a weapon crumpled metal with each strike, allowing Mark to finally kill the armor without having to cheat.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
Though the warrior hadn't kept its skill, Mark finally had another minion by his side that was strong enough to fight in these upper floors. He replaced the goblin apprentice. Its attacks had become too weak as he fought more powerful enemies.
Most of the other doors were blocked by rubble here, so the path was quite linear. Mark encountered another group of powerful enemies in the next room. A Level 16 skeleton, guarded by a similarly-leveled suit of armor.
The skeleton warrior in this room was a duel-wielding humanoid taller than any other skeleton, yet shorter than the giant skeletons he once saw. Its twin blades cut the cloak off his skeleton warrior and tore a gash open in its armor. Seeing its speed in action, Mark ordered his greataxe warrior to rush into melee, and fired off his own Magic Missiles to get the monster to stop.
It tore its attention away from his skeleton warrior to dodge a greataxe blow. But with two powerful attacks coming its way, it couldn't defend for too long. Mark held off the living armor while his two minions ripped the undead apart.
The Sword of Ruined Light tore through the monster's spine and cut open its body, allowing Mark's magic to finish it off. It was too damaged to resurrect, but Mark had accepted such a loss. As a squishy mage, he feared speed and stealth the most. The Living Armor, meanwhile, was one of the easiest threats he had ever faced.
Still, losing powerful bodies was something he'd like to prevent. Since he had the time, Mark decided to take a break. He would rather attempt to heal his undead monsters - which might need more Wisdom to learn.
But first, he tried to reach a limit on how many minions he could control. It was four. Even though he was casting Raise Dead on a weak group of goblins, only four could be controlled at the same time. Any more and his magic would dissipate on contact.
Wisdom thus became his best option. He'd only need more Intelligence if he wanted to reanimate more powerful corpses. For now, forty was enough, until that limit was raised. Somehow. He'd find a way.
Mark Winters - Level 19
Class: Mage (Common)
Stats
Strength: 8
Dexterity: 5
Endurance: 11
Vitality: 12
Intelligence: 39 -> 40
Wisdom: 9 -> 17
Mark had a massive number of corpses inside his pocket plane. They were there for one purpose: fuel for his experiments. After using Raise Dead long enough, he began getting an idea of how to improve his necromancy abilities. Now he could finally start with a batch of feral goblin bodies.
While the Pacified Goblin watched him with a blank expression, he cast Raise Dead, but instead of letting the spell finish, turned it loose to run through a damaged corpse in front of him. The mana stayed inside the body and churned in cycles. Mark kept it up for a few seconds, eyes trained on the effects.
Then the body blew up. A shower of rot and gore splattered Mark's clothes, and he gagged. But the reaction proved he was onto something. Pushing away the disgust, Mark tried it again, and again on the other bodies he had.
Bones were surprisingly more durable to experiment with than fleshy goblin corpses. They lasted for longer under the duress of necromancy, taking twice as long to burst. Splinters of bone were stuck in his skin, but Mark ignored the pain. They pushed themselves out after a while, anyway, so he could easily continue.
It took a few dozen bodies for him to finally make progress. Once he saw bones creak and shift under the guidance of his magical energy, he began to practice upon reanimated undead. This time, there was an additional force pushing back on his spell, making it a lot more difficult.
When they exploded, he had to cast Raise Dead again, and Mark's head began to ache from the excessive use of magic. But he refused to falter now. The rhythm of magic was there, running and humming, and he only needed one more push to...
Skill Gained: Repair Skeleton (Common) - A necromancy spell developed through repetitive interaction. Forcibly closes wounds on a body by consuming its own material. Only works on corpses.
When the system acknowledged his deed, Mark immediately turned and used the last of his mana to repair the shattered body of the large skeleton by his feet. Bones shifted and melded together, making the monster shorter, but at least it could stand up again. After meditating inside his pocket plane for his mana to regenerate, he cast Raise Dead.
Unfortunately, the monster had to let go of one of its swords to remain viable. Mark shared a piece of magic-infused meat with his Pacified Goblin and waited for a full recovery of his mana - about one and a half hours if he used all his advantages inside the pocket plane.
Then he went into the next room and was met with quite the surprise. Inside were two living armors, and a skeleton warrior with a large heater shield. All were slow and bulky - but only the skeleton was Level 18.
It was still a gift he appreciated. The two Living Armors were easily distracted, allowing his minions to pick apart the skeleton warrior without causing it too much harm. Mark continued to prioritize the safety of his skeletons, noticing that each successive cast of Repair Skeleton would consume more and more of its body. It was a major disadvantage to the spell he hoped he'd fix.
After dealing the finishing blow, his great axe warrior rushed towards a Living Armor and knocked it down. Mark enclosed the other suit of armor in a portal and studied the metal bending and breaking. He wondered how he could get one of these armors as a minion.
Raise Dead was unable to find a hold on the Living Armors after they died. There was probably more advanced magic available on how to control one of these things, but he didn't know where to start. In the meantime, he picked up their armor pieces and placed them inside his pocket plane. Perhaps they would come in handy later on - even though Identify recognized them as normal metal.
There was just one more open room remaining. Mark poked his head inside and looked around, but it was the darkest he'd seen.
So Mark took a deep breath, preparing himself for what he might face. It shouldn't be too difficult, he reassured himself, considering the easy enemies he just fought. He strode in alongside his three skeletons and an orc. Then he stopped at what he saw sitting on top of a cracked, white throne.
A skeleton bearing a crown grinned back at him. Baleful flames colored deeper than any other undead Mark had ever seen flickered to life in its eyes. A macabre energy flowed around the being, then wrapped itself around its hands. A familiar energy which he used at every moment - necromancy. This monster knew magic better than he did.
Skeleton Mage - Level 20