The quest board outside the Cragfall Adventurer's Guild was surrounded by a dense throng of people, each one trying to do the same thing that Millie was. It was the day following class assignments, so of course there were dozens of people looking for some way to gain XP immediately. Plus the established adventurers checking to see what quests had refreshed for the day.
Hopefully, this mass of level 1s wouldn't actually try to go into a dungeon yet. Outside of the Cragfall city walls were plenty of respawning monsters for them all to group up and fight, learning what their skills did before going into even a tutorial dungeon.
Every year, there were at least a couple of newly classed adventurers who, as her dad always said, "got too big for their britches." They always thought they could handle a dungeon before completing even their first quest. Not even a Kill Ten quest, the most basic combat quest that you could find from the guild.
When word got around that a delver or three was missing, Guildmaster Arren would check the logs and see that they, invariably, were overwhelmed by mobs inside the dungeon, barely having used any of their abilities at all.
The dungeon cleaning crews were efficient and good at what they did, so there was rarely anything left to bury. Simple memorials were commonplace, and Millie expected this season's to be held no later than the beginning of the following week.
This was the first time that she had the potential of having one of her own, but she wasn't planning on being memorialized just yet.
The back of the crowd around the quest board was far enough away that the System didn't pick up that Millie was trying to interact with it. After waiting so long hte day before, Millie was pretty impatient to get things moving along. She pulled her cloak closer around her and entered the throng, bumping shoulders to get through, but trying not to jostle too many people.
There was the typical murmuring from people in a crowd, waiting their turns, and it didn't seem like people were mad she was wriggling through to get into range of the board. At least not initially.
"Get that thing away from me!"
"Ah! Don't let it touch me!"
At first, they didn't even register with Millie, but as the people around her moved aside, she realized their comments were about her. And her new friend on her shoulder.
She tried to ignore them. Millie had been warned for a long time that this would happen. She was going to have to get used to this kind of reaction, so it wasn't even worth engaging at the moment. Just get a quest and get out and get to work.
"Is that a dead bird?" said another person. "What is wrong with her?"
"[Necromancers] are disgusting, that's what. I can't believe we have to deal with that."
Pretty much everyone was looking at her now, a couple dozen people at least. Expressions ranged from disgust to shock to anger, looking at her as though she was a monster, not just another girl who got a new class. Just like a lot of them.
"Is she going to try to kill us?"
"Is she actually wearing a skeleton?"
Intellectually, she knew that people hated [Necromancers] and were frightened of them. As far as she knew, she was the only one of her class in Cragfall. People there weren't used to them, sure, so maybe on some level, she thought she would be different.
Because they didn't know evil [Necromancers], people would accept her because she was a good one.
Especially people she knew personally from around town and school. Millie wasn't exactly popular, though. She knew people, but didn't have a lot of close friends. Okay, any close friends. Her vocal desire for the class didn't make her the belle of the ball, but people had never treated her badly or bullied her. They just kept their distance.
Now that she thought a bit more into it, maybe they were afraid of her, even when she didn't have any powers. Either way, she thought she was prepared for a little extra distancing and a few more comments.
But the way people were right now, they acted as though they were terrified of her and that she was some kind of different person than she had been yesterday.
"Don't let her near," a voice to her right said as she made it into range of the quest board. "I heard they can drain your life by just touching you once." Okay, so that was true, but she couldn't. Not yet.
But she could…steal everyone around her's life force without touching them.
Yeah, okay, she got it why they were scared.
That just meant she'd just have to show them not to be. She'd just show them what a good [Death Mage] could be and how she could help them and make their delving and adventuring better.
"I'm just here to get a quest, folks. I'll be gone soon. Don't worry, I'm not planning on stealing your souls or anything."
"See?!" shouted one voice. "She can steal our souls!" The crowd got even more restless and the murmuring got even louder.
Millie was fairly certain that she would have been attacked right then and there if the System didn't have pretty severe punishments for attacking and killing other people. Especially in town. She'd have to watch her back, though, when he was outside the city walls. But then again, she'd always known that would be the case if she got what she wanted.
Trying to ignore them as they got more and more agitated, Millie interacted with the quest board and brought up the interface to grab her first quest. It was simple enough, a short list of quests, numbered 1 through 5, each with a number of stars indicating the difficulty, also 1 to 5. There were two tabs she could navigate between: [Overworld] and [Dungeon].
She was definitely not going into a dungeon right now, so she stayed on the [Overworld] tab and found exactly what she was looking for, a Kill Ten Rats tutorial quest with a 1-star difficulty and reward of 250 XP.
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[TUTORIAL QUEST: KILL TEN RATS]
Learn the ropes of your new class by killing ten [Giant Rats] outside the walls of Cragfall. The perfect exercise for any new adventurer just getting the hang of things and learning the ropes. Fair warning, though, tutorial or not, their teeth long and their claws are sharp.
Turn in this quest at any Adventurer's Guild quest board to claim your reward.
[DIFFICULTY]
— *
[REWARD]
— XP: 250
[ACCEPT]
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With the quest accepted, she raised her hand and ducked her head. "I'm going, okay? Right now. I get it," she said, trying to sidestep to the left and avoid as many people as she could as she got away. "Don't worry, though, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm a good person, a good [Death Mage]. I'm not evil or anything like that."
"We've heard that one before," shouted a man's voice behind her.
"Yeah!" cried tons of voices behind her. "We have!"
Millie knew that was patently untrue. She didn't know of a single [Death Mage] in Cragfall for the last century. [Necromancers], sure, but not her class specifically. She knew it wasn't worth correcting. They didn't know—nor care about—the difference.
What she said instead was, "I'll prove it to you. You'll see!"
###
Cragfall was an interesting city, for sure. Built at the base of a cliff, one side of the city was always protected by the huge rock wall it pressed against. Another part of the city was built directly into the mountain, dug and carved out over centuries.
The a tall, semi-circular wall surrounded the rest of the city to protect it from the System-spawned creatures and monsters wandering the rocky plains and pine forest, generally called the Pines, nearby.
Millie was nervous as she left the safety of the city walls to begin her tutorial quest. All along the roadside, she saw new adventurers slashing and being slashed, plucking arrows at different kinds of animals, and occasionally seeing an eruption of fire or ice definitely missing its target and continuing in an upward trajectory until it fizzled out.
Oofs and ughs and ahhs and owwwwws were almost rhythmic and she watched the newbie adventurers work on gaining XP and farming for whatever quests they'd accepted.
After a few minutes of not seeing a single quest target, even already engaged by someone else, Millie decided to wander off the path and toward the Pines to the west, though she expected to find a nest well before she hit the treeline.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
She was right and before long, saw a large bundle of sticks and other…things…stacked together with 3 [Giant Rats] sitting outside. They surrounded the nest, poking their heads in and out, chittering, and just scrabbling about within a 6 to 10 foot radius around it.
Watching them for a moment, Millie realized she had no idea about how much health these things had. She expected them to have more than her crow, but less than a goblin—another common enemy for low-level adventurers.
Thinking back to how she'd handled the crow, Millie stood what she considered pretty close to her max range and loosed a gravebolt at the first rat who separated itself from the other two. She didn't know if they attacked in groups, but she was going to try to single-pull if she could.
The black-white bolt of death energy sped toward its target, and Millie felt her HP dip. No sooner had the magic struck the rat, it was aware of her and charging her.
Sick from the loss of her own HP, Millie said to the skeletal bird on her shoulder, "Go! Help kill it!"
Without hesitation, the skeleton flew forward toward its target. Millie prepared another bolt to fling its way.
As her pet neared its target, it became a flurry of talons and beak. The giant rat stopped in its tracks for just a moment—the [Peck] effect taking hold—and a debuff icon appeared above the rat, a tiny 1 in the corner indicating the number of stacks.
Even though the [Skelemated Crow] had low stats, its attacks were rapid and when combined with its ability to fly, the tiny undead creature harried the rat.
The rat didn't simply stand there and let itself die, though. It swiped its claws at the bird, even standing on its hind legs to get nearer to it as the skeleton fluttered around it.
It didn't matter, though. As Millie's second gravebolt struck its target, the [Death Mage] debuff from the crow ticked its HP to 0.
The moment that the rodent's body stopped moving and fell to the ground, a series of notifications hung in the air.
######
[QUEST UPDATE: GIANT RAT 1/10]
[XP: 25]
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Millie reveled in her victory. It wasn't much, but she actually felt like the [Necromancer] she'd always wanted to be. She used a skeleton to help her kill a monster!
It looked like the other two rats outside the nest hadn't noticed her yet, so she knelt beside the corpse of the one she'd just killed and started casting [Skelemation]. The skin sloughed off and the bones assembled themselves. It looked at her expectantly.
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[OVERVIEW: GIANT SKELEMATED RAT]
CREATURE TYPE: Undead, Rodent
LEVEL: 1
—HP: 60
—MP: 0
—STR: 5
—DEX: 5
—CON: 6
—INT: 4
—WIS: 2
SKILLS:
— Gnaw, Slash
DEATH MAGE ENHANCEMENT: +10 HP
#######
On inspection, Millie saw that the two skills it had were pretty much identical to the ones her crow had. [Slash] was a DEX-based melee attack, while [Gnaw] used STR. Neither had a [Death Mage] bonus.
Without much hesitation, Millie sent both of her minions toward the other two rats near the nest. She followed them but stayed back a good bit. She fired off two more gravebolts, and as the second one landed, she felt her knees go weak. She fell to the ground and realized that her HP was shockingly low as she knelt there.
######
[XP: 25]
[QUEST UPDATE: GIANT RAT 2/10]
######
The rat she'd targeted with the gravebolts must have died. She watched her skeletons go on to the next target, understanding the assignment. Millie pushed herself off the ground and knew what she had to do.
She got into range of the only standing [Giant Rat] and cast [Death's Favor]. As the cold black-white fire spread outward, greying the world in a circle, she could do nothing to help her flying minion from getting caught in the large rodent's mouth. It chomped down, gnawing at the reanimated creature, shattering the hollow bones, and causing more notifications to appear for Millie.
######
MINION KILLED: [SKELEMATED CROW]
[ACHIEVEMENT EARNED: FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND]
It's always sad to lose an adventuring companion. But at least you can create another one whenever you want.
[XP: 100]
######
Her undead rat, though, didn't miss a beat. It was gnawing and slashing at the live one the whole time. Millie felt the life force drain from the living rat, pouring slowly into her and restoring the HP loss from her barrage of gravebolts. As her weakness subsided, she looked over at the [Giant Rat Nest] and saw yet another rat poking its head out. About half of the mound was caught within the life-draining AoE, and the rat was withering before her eyes.
######
[XP: 25]
[QUEST UPDATE: GIANT RAT 3/10]
######
"Get the nest," she told her minion, and it skittered to follow her orders. Millie herself went over to the nest and, rather than spend her own HP on [Gravebolt]—she had no idea how the spell affected structures like this—she started to kick at the sticks and other debris the giant rats called home.
Millie's kicks did very little damage, as she expected. Her STR was low, and she didn't have a melee class or even a melee skill. But combined with the skeleton, bits and pieces of it came off. It didn't take long for two more rodents to scurry out of the structure.
Between a few well-timed kicks and stomps, a couple of [Gravebolts], her reanimated companion, and [Death's Favor] keeping them both regenerating as it drained the living rats, Millie eventually succeeded at destroying the nest and getting 5 of the 10 rats she needed to complete her quest.
######
[ACHIEVEMENT EARNED: BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE]
You destroyed your very first monster lair and all of its residents. Don't get cocky, though. They only get sturdier from here.
[REWARD]
XP Gained: 100
######
Millie smiled at the notifications and decided she should probably use [Skelemation] on at least one more of the [Giant Rats]. It's stats were identical to the other.
After setting herself up with a second bodyguard, she pulled up her quick status pane to see that she was almost completely out of magic power, or MP.
######
[QUICK STATUS]
Millie Coreia
Death Mage
Level 1/10
XP: 655/1000
HP: 140
MP: 11
######
Millie wasn't sure how to check her MP regeneration rate, but after casting [Skelemation] twice during that whole battle, she had only regenerated 11 points. So whatever it was, it was low.
Thankfully, [Death's Favor] didn't require MP. It did have a cooldown, though, but as long as she was willing to sacrifice a minion now and then, there was a way to circumvent that if she had to.
Unsurprisingly, there was no loot from the rats or their nest. It wasn't like the rodents had any need for money or potions, and they didn't wear armor or use weapons. And she didn't exactly feel like she should be skinning or harvesting parts from the level 1 monsters from a tutorial quest.
Another [Giant Rat Nest] that looked exactly like the first one was only a few minutes' walk from where she was. It took her further off the roads, but there didn't seem to be any other kinds of nests or spawns near enough to the nest that would aggro on her.
So, with her [Giant Skelemated Rat] companions, she used pretty much the same strategy as before to demolish it. By the end of the fight, even though she'd completed the requirements of the quest and had it ready to turn in. Unfortunately, she still didn't have enough MP to reanimate a third companion from the dead rats around her.
Finishing the tutorial quest hadn't taken too much time, and Millie thought she might be able to snag another easy one from the board after she turned this one in.
Just then, a roar came from within the treeline a little over a hundred yards away. It was quite loud, especially given how far away she was. There were crashing noises, too, as though whatever had roared was crashing through underbrush and tree trunks.
"No!" came a voice that was very much different from whatever was roaring. "Get up! Run!"
Another roar. More crashing.
"I'm running!" yelled a second person. "We have to find help!"
Whoever these people were, they broke out of the forest, running and stumbling side by side, directly toward Millie. She had no idea if they knew she was there or not, but she looked around and she was the only person other than them in view—and likely earshot.
Not far behind them, an oversized owlbear covered in mottled grey and brown feathers was charging out of the trees behind them. It was easily half again, if not double the size of typical [Lesser Owlbears] found in the forest. Its huge beak open and drooling as it ran toward the adventurers.
As all of this rushed directly at Millie, a notification popped up:
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[PUBLIC QUEST: OUT-OF-TOWN OWLBEAR]
An owlbear from another region has managed to find its way into the forest outside of Cragfall. It's larger than the area's native owlbears and much more aggressive. This particular creature appears to be staking out the forest as its own territory. That's bad for everyone. It is your job to make sure this out-of-towner gets the welcome wagon it deserves.
[DIFFICULTY] - ****
[Reward]
—Varies based on participation
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