Millie's HP plunged right alongside the knife. As it went deeper, so did her HP bar. The pain from it was a surprise, though. Millie knew intellectually that getting stabbed would hurt, but it hurt way more than that.

Thankfully, Millie had already dumped a decent number of her points into CON, so she had some HP to spare.

The kobold snickered as it pulled the serrated blade from her side and prepped for a second strike. It stopped snickering as the skeletal rat accompanying Millie jumped from the ground and latched directly onto the kobold's snout. The reptilian screamed as the skeleton bit the scaly skin with increasing pressure and started scratching at its head and neck.

Good to know that her minions would defend her if she was attacked by a monster, though. She hadn't actually told it to go for the kobold, but it was pretty great that it did.

As quickly as it had started, the battle ended. A sword cleaved into the kobold's shoulder, and Millie barely had the wherewithal to step back and give the killer some room.

******

[XP Gained: 15]

[QUEST UPDATE: Kobolds killed: 1]

******

"First time here?" asked a boy on the cusp of manhood. He pulled the sword out of the tiny dragonkin and slung the blood off before sheathing it.

Millie nodded. "Yeah. I didn't expect to be attacked immediately on zoning on. Thanks for the warning," she said. "Even if it didn't help any." Millie looked down at the wound. Blood still poured out of it, and a quick check showed her HP was down by a quarter. It was ticking slowly downward, she noticed a debuff listed in her status pane.

******

[BLEED]

[DEBUFF TYPE: Physical]

You are bleeding from a deep wound. You will lose 1 HP every 5 seconds until the wound is healed.

******

"You better get that taken care of," he said, pointing. "Or you might have a memorial to get to next week."

Millie grunted. "I'll be okay, I think. I'll heal it soon." She swapped her staff to the other hand and pressed her left palm into the wound, applying pressure. It hurt so much more than when she cast [Gravebolt]. Well, that wasn't necessarily true. It hurt in a different way, but this was a pointless pain, one that would only make her weaker.

He narrowed his eyes at her, very obviously curious about her nonchalance at delaying healing on a pretty deep stab wound. Then he noticed the skeletal rat that was still chomping down on the dead kobold's nose, and his eyes widened with understanding.

"You're the new [Necromancer]." He swallowed. She could see his throat bob. He was afraid. He'd just cut down a kobold without a second thought, but he was scared of Millie?

She smiled. "Yeah, I guess you could call me a newcromancer." She snorted, having made herself laugh. That one was solid. "I'm Millie."

"Right." He started to turn away from her. "Be sure to take care of that," he said and pointed at her bleeding stab wound.

"Thanks for the help," Millie reiterated. "What's your name?"

He was already walking away, but doing it weirdly, kind of sidestepping and looking back at her. "Tom," he said a little too loud and moved further into the room toward a group of two other guys with swords.

"Oof," Millie whispered to herself as she knelt down beside the rat. Moving hurt. She was bleeding something good. But she wasn't about to drink that healing potion yet. She just needed to kill a couple things with [Death's Favor]. No big deal.

Knowing that it wouldn't matter when she did it or what happened, Millie activated ZuZu's staff and Julie the undead owlbear unfolded in an instant. "Bring a few back to me, would you?"

Julie and the rat bounded to the nearest pack of three kobolds, who had just respawned and unclaimed by anyone fighting in the room. They were definitely too stupid to be afraid of the elite charging at them and drawing them back. Millie stayed where she was, casting [Death's Favor] and feeling refreshed by the magic expanding outward in the spell's area of effect.

Even though Julie could have destroyed the kobolds without a thought, she did what Millie asked and brought them back to her. As soon as the dumb creatures touched the ground affected by Millie's spell, the wound in her side began to knit itself together. Only a few seconds had to pass before the bleeding stopped and the debuff vanished. The kobolds' attention wasn't even on her yet. Since her elite skeleton had taken almost three-quarters of their HP down in her single swipe, they were focusing all their aggro on it.

Only as the last few percent of health drained out of them all did their eyes shift in her direction. She grinned at them and waved, standing up with full HP thanks to them.

The sounds of combat that had filled the chamber when she entered were almost gone. Millie looked around and saw half a dozen adventurers staring in her direction. Well, in Julie's direction.

"What the hell is that, and why is it green?" asked one delver across the chamber. They stood just inside one of the tunnel entrances that led further in. Millie hadn't even noticed, but her pets weren't outlined in green for her. They were purple. If the others saw green, though, that was good. Less likely she would get attacked and less likely that the owlbear would have to make a mess of any of these people.

"She's friendly," Millie said, almost shouting. "Don't worry."

"Undead ain't friendly," said someone else.

"This one is," Millie replied. "I'm Millie, and this is Julie. Everything's fine."

Another trio of kobolds spawned near where the last one had. "Go ahead, show them," Millie directed. Julie did her normal thing of rumbling a low growl and padding over to them. She swiped one of her front paws across all three, and then did the same with her other one. All three died, and Millie got XP notifications.

"See?" Millie said, looking toward the others. "On our side! She's cool."

"Just stay away from us," Tom said. "We don't want any trouble."

"Yeah, well, neither do I," said Millie. She shook her head and turned back to the kobolds and her quest. She knelt down again, staying inside her AoE's designated space. The four kobolds had pretty crappy loot. The three that Julie grabbed only had clubs that were barely more than thick sticks, but Millie took the knife from the one that had stabbed her and put it in a bag she'd grabbed from home earlier.

The only clothes were ratty tunics or, even worse, stained loincloths. No reason to take those. None. The pouches that each of the four wore tied by strings around their necks were filled with trash. Not even a copper coin, just bits and bobbles these things probably thought were precious.

Loot from the other three that the owlbear had killed was equally disappointing, but she did get a similar knife that was even more rusted from one.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"You guys really are good for nothing, are you?"

Then Millie realized they were definitely good for something. To her. She knew the other people were watching her from the shouts and gagging sounds that came when she finished casting [Skelemation] on one of the corpses.

As the [Skelemated Kobold Scout] looked around the room, Millie felt fulfilled. This was exactly what she'd wanted to do her whole life.

******

[STATUS: SKELEMATED KOBOLD SCOUT]

CREATURE TYPE: Undead, Dragonkin

LEVEL: 2

—HP: 90

—MP: 50

—STR: 4

—DEX: 11

—CON: 9

—INT: 5

—WIS: 3

[SKILLS]

—Stab

******

Well, the thing had a skill called [Stab], so Millie figured it was worth giving it back the knife she'd looted from it.

The skeleton took it, holding it by its side in its right hand.

******

[STAB]

Melee Attack

Deals physical damage based on DEX. Has a chance to cause the target to bleed.

DEATH MAGE ENHANCEMENT: Small chance on hit to restore a small amount of HP to the death mage.

******

That was a hellaciously good enhancement. Millie needed to make sure to keep some of these kobolds around for a while. A thought she never expected to have.

"That's disgusting!" shouted someone from across the room.

Millie shrugged and tried to ignore them. She turned back toward the entrance portal and where she'd been stabbed earlier. If she could get another scout skelemated, then she'd be pretty much set for a while.

She was actually set for a long while with just Julie, but having multiple skeletons that could heal her in case things went sideways again would be even better.

The corpses near the front had already disappeared, along with her casting of [Death's Favor]. She hadn't even seen the cleaning crew take them. Or maybe the System just despawned corpses for low-level delves like this one. She'd have to ask her mom about that one.

"Alright, my friends, time to move on." Millie led her entourage toward a tunnel that wasn't near any of the other groups in the busy chamber. She was talking to her minions, but made sure to say it loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

###

The tunnels that led deeper into the dungeon were far more cramped than the entrance chamber. Millie supposed that was why so many people had just hung around there since there was plenty of room to fight without really worrying about getting boxed in.

She wasn't there just to grind, though. She was on a quest, and she wanted to actually finish her first dungeon. Not just kill the easy stuff at the front.

"No offense," she said to the scout skeleton. It didn't respond, but kept walking at Millie's flank. She had mounted up, while the ceilings were tall enough to allow it.

The next room that the tunnel led to was similar to the first, with various types of kobolds running around and slashing at each other and at a few other adventurers.

A layer of detritus was strewn all over the floor, as well as piled up against the wall in places. Kobolds would run from one pile to another, moving the items around, and occasionally discarding something by tossing it over their shoulder.

Just wanting to get XP and her quest finished, Millie just let her minions get to work.

Julie crashed through kobolds left and right, throwing their bodies every which way with her mighty slashes. None of them could stand up to her. She was a level 10 elite and these were kobolds in a dungeon that was used in a tutorial quest.

She killed everything in one hit. Her other two skeletons barely ever landed a hit. When they did, the damage was minimal in comparison to the owlbear. Millie didn't even bother casting other spells. She just rode along and let XP flow in.

First opportunity she had, Millie hopped down after Julie had decimated a kobold scout that had rushed the group. Death magic flowed out of Millie's hands into the corpse as she cast [Skelemation].

A new friend popped up from the skin of an enemy, and Millie made sure to hand it the dagger it was meant to use in life.

Its stats were the same as the other skeletal kobold, but in addition to [Stab] having an enhancement, this minion also had the enhancement himself.

******

DEATH MAGE ENHANCEMENT: Does not count toward the maximum number of minions you can control at once.

******

"Since when was there a limit on how many of you guys I can have?" Millie asked the skeleton crew around her. Not a single undead minion gave their thoughts on the matter. Maybe that would be an enhancement she'd get with someone. That would be cool!

As Millie thought about how great it would be to have a minion that could carry on a conversation, she and her merry band mowed through the monsters in the chamber. The other adventurers skedaddled to a different part of the warren to avoid Millie and her slaughter party. Whatever was going on with those undead, the other delvers wanted no part of it.

Soon the newbie death mage chose a tunnel she hadn't seen others go into, moving steadily into the next part of the warren herself. They cleaned house there, too. It was almost too easy. The worst part about it was that the stink got even worse as Millie and her minions traveled deeper into the dungeon. The only real changes further in were that the rooms were successively smaller, and there were larger piles of garbage the kobolds were sorting through.

Outside of getting stabbed that time early on, Millie was having zero problems basically soloing this place.

Again, the level 10 elite was a big part of that. Each time they went into a new room, the same thing would happen: they would clear the room in a circle, wait a bit before the kobolds respawned, and then repeated that a few times before moving into the next chamber by choosing a tunnel at random.

Unfortunately, there was only one tunnel out of the current room, and it was different from all the others in a couple of ways.

Firstly, it was more of a hallway than a tunnel, and it was the first part of the dungeon that looked different from anything else. The others were seemingly natural caverns with brown rock walls. This time, the exit was made out of badly cut and poorly shaped grey stone blocks that were decorated with roughly painted symbols and pictograms.

Second, the hallway narrowed so significantly that Julie couldn't fit inside. Much less be ridden.

"Well, so much for that, she said as she leveled the staff at Julie. "I'll bring you back out as soon as I can." As the item activated, the owlbear was engulfed in black-white fire, folded into its own skull as it shrank into a fraction of its normal size, and attached itself magically to the head of the staff. "That is so cool." Unfortunately, it would be a couple of hours before Millie could bring the minion back out.

With the others, though, Millie felt confident about making it through whatever awaited them beyond that hallway.

Taking a moment to check her current XP level, Millie was surprised to see that she had already gained 1,000 XP putting her over the halfway point to level 4.

The roughly constructed hallway descended at a pretty steep grade downward, and because of how poorly the pavers were placed, Millie felt as though they were climbing a long, shallow staircase more than descending a ramp. For all she knew, it was supposed to be a staircase and the kobolds just couldn't get it right.

At the bottom of the hallway was a rusty iron door affixed into the rock wall. Two larger, burlier kobolds stood on either side with their hands resting on the hilts of the swords they wore at their sides. Their ruddy scales seemed a little shinier than the dull—or maybe just dirty—ones from all the others Millie had slaughtered on her way down here.

The most striking difference, though, was how these kobolds almost projected a sense of majesty because of the wings folded up behind them.

Millie made it almost halfway down the hall before the guards noticed her. Simultaneously and without a word between them, the duo adopted defensive stances, drew their swords, and pointed them directly at Millie.

So, like any good [Necromancer], Millie immediately sent her skeletons charging in.