As cool as riding on an undead wolf mount might seem in theory there were some practical issues that took a lot away from the experience. One thing was the smell. Being too close to a zombie wasn’t a pleasant experience smell wise, and being around an army of zombies was even worse. The other major issue was speed. Wolves might be fast, but zombie wolves were around the same speed as the other zombies which wasn’t very fast at all.
There were long periods of time between fights where he would feeling bored out of his mind. To occupy his time he started started reading Nanic’s journal. It was a fascinating series of adventures where Namic was always the hero. If it was to be believed then he was rather extraordinary. Still, Skylar took it all with a grain of salt. After all this journal was only his version of things. Who know what the other people involved would say if given the chance.
Every once in a while monsters would attack, but this close to the city they were still weaker monster so he was able to overwhelm them with his greater number.
His strategy was simple yet effective. He and Justice Bunny rode on the wolf surrounded by a protective shield of zombie flesh. Then when monsters attacked he had the zombies surround them surround them in a process that looked a lot like an amoeba encasing it’s prey all the while he stayed back and shooting arrows. Then after the battle was finished he resurrected the dead or re-resurrected the dead until his army was back up at full strength then moved on. The strategy was especially useful because he didn’t have enough leadership to control all the zombies at once so by keeping them all in a group he was able to herd the zombies he couldn’t control with the ones he could.
Slowly his army become more powerful. As the quality of the corpse improved he abandon the corpses of weaker monster such as rabbits and foxes and instead used his limited resources for new stronger monster like Kobolds and goblins. Things were going well but it wasn’t all smooth sailing. Every Once in a while when he would face a powerful group then he was forced to use one of his precious self destruct potions, but as the quality of his corpses improved, and has his magic become more powerful it happened less and less often. He considered it a necessary investment.
After about a month game time he found himself fighting a group of twenty lizard men. Lizard men were strong opponents, but at this point the average level of his army was around 30 and it was about 295 zombies strong. Plus he even managed to separate the lizardmen and grind them down individually.
“They don’t stand a chance” He thought with a grin while he continued to shoot arrows.
*Ting*
New Skill: You have learned Archery
That was a bit of a surprise sense that skill was was commonly exclusive to the archer class, but it did kind of make sense considering how much he had been using his bow.
Eventually the battle ended with the expected results and he started to resurrect the corpses.
*Ting*
New Skill: You have learned Undead Creation.
“Excellent” he thought while stroking Justice Bunny.
He had been waiting for that skill for a while now. It was one of the most vital skills for necromancers because it allowed for the creation of more powerful undead. It didn't do anything to increase their levels, but it made them stronger in other ways. At it’s currently level it increased the attack and defense of all the undead he made by 1 percent.
"Status Window"
*Ting*
Status WindowNameSkylarTypeHumanLevel35Fame15TitleNoneClassNecromancer of JusticeHealth205Mana1691Health Regen/sec0.06Mana Regen/sec1.97Strength10Agility10Vitality10Intelligence180Wisdom10Justice1Leadership71Luck2
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
* Can not change to another class.
* Enables you to equip certain items specialized for the class.
* Able to learn all types of black magic and necromancy.
* Can't use magic while wearing armor made from metal.
* Increases Fame by the performance of extraordinary acts of justice.
* 20% additional damage is dealt when attacking with swords and/or black magic.
* Extremely vulnerable to holy magic cannot receive healing or buffs from divine sources.
Over the last month he’d fought his way through the beginner areas surrounding the city. During that time the strength of his army improved immensely, but his own level hadn’t improved as much as he had hoped. A number of factors were slowing him down. One was of course the speed of his army. You can’t kill monsters until you reach them. Another factor was the sun. Low level undead suffered horrible penalties from daylight so he could only hunt night, and sometimes when it was night in the game he had to be at school or work. Also, the beginner's around the city was over hunted. It was just too small an area for all the beginning players using it. Slowly the area was expanding, but not fast enough in his opinion. Plus, he didn’t even get a hundred percent of the experience from monster his zombies killed. Still his progress seemed too slow to him.
It was hard to say weather necromancer was a fast growth or a slow growth profession. It seems like under the right circumstances it would be a very fast growth, but these didn’t seem to be the right circumstances.
Still he wasn’t unhappy with the progress he was making. Twenty two level might not seem like much for the amount of time and effort he was putting in, but by putting all his skill points into intelligence he had greatly improved the strength of his army. Now he felt ready to to try his luck outside the beginners area. If he could survive there maybe he could get the fast growth he was hoping for.
People weren’t that generous with information about Royal Road, and often time the information available on the internet was fake. This was probably because it was a very competitive game. Still, after spending a lot of time on the web check various sources against each other he felt that he had a fairly good knowledge of the beginners area surrounding Gorata.
Now he was heading out into a land he knew almost nothing about. He felt a mixture of both nervousness and excitement, but in the end excitement won out. This was exactly the type of adventure had dreamed of having.
At first he didn’t encountered anything, but then he suddenly found himself confronted by a black wolf. Black wolves were level 170 monsters meaning that it was significantly higher level his group, but his group significantly outclassed it in numbers. This would be a good test of how well he could survive in this new area.
The wolf attacked as soon as it saw his army. Rushed in it scattering undead left and right. You could really see the difference in levels, but soon it’s speed slowed and and stopped.
Even if there was a huge level difference numbers still count for something. Like a bullet striking water it soon lost all it momentum, and then it was completely surrounded.
It savagely attacked the undead around it killing them one after another, but there were so many that it couldn’t kill them fast enough. Meanwhile the undead attacked it from all sides. Each of their individual attacks didn’t cause much damage, but there were so many of them that the damage really started to add up.
While they fought Skylar was busy healing and re-animating the dead. Eventually he didn’t have enough mana for that so he started shooting arrows.
He kept wearing it down and soon it had only ten percent of it’s HP left. His army was devastated by this point, but if things kept going the way they were he would win eventually even if it was a lot closer then he would have liked.
Smiling in exhilaration and shot another arrow. Flying true the arrow hit the wolf in the eye scoring a critical hit making him smile even more broadly.
Howled in rage the wolf focused it’s remaining eye on the foolish human who had injured it sending a chill down his spine.
He started to back his mount away, but he was pressed in by all the surrounding zombies. He commanded them to part but they couldn’t move out of the way very fast.
Unfortunately the black wolf could move very fast, and it had the strength to push the surrounding undead out of the way.
It quickly gained on him.
He put away his bow. There was no way he could win against such a high level monster. There wasn’t any time for a self destruct potion and he didn’t have any spells and ability that could save him. He was going to die and there was only one left to do.
"I love you" he said reaching out his arms toward the ferocious beast. The last thing he saw was an impressive pair of jaws closing in on him.