Walking into the prisoner room I watch as Gorm follows behind, his eyes lighting up in happiness and excitement as he rushes towards the fresh corpses. As he begins to draw runes around the freshest corpse he pauses before glancing back at me, his eyes suspicious.
"So....your not weirded out by the whole dead men walking deal? Noticed your inspect skill below but didn't bother mentioning it because freedom and all. What's the deal because most people either want to crucify me or enslave me for my magic and I need to know which one before we keep going." The ghoul says before he turns back to the corpse and finishes drawing a circle of runes around its body in its congealed blood.
"Well the deal is we came to the swamps to recruit people. I don't know much about necromancers but I have a trophy at our home that can only be activated by one so I was hoping to see your skills in action and if we work well together maybe see if your looking for a home." I say slowly as Gorm's shoulders relax before a green light fills the circle in front of him and the caulk corpse unsteadily rises with a gurgle, its body fumbling around as the ghoul moves to the next corpse and begins repeating the process.
"Let's just end this monsters life first and we can see where to go from there. Won't say I'm not interested in a safe place to hang my staff but.....you said your part of a group....most groups aren't very welcoming to my kind." Gorm says as several caulk bodies lumber behind him, their eyes grey and lifeless as the large creatures let out sickly gurgles and moans.
(Caulk Zombie Level 32, 19, 14, 23)
The unliving corpses of caulk warriors, their bodies continue to shamble forward obeying their masters orders. These beings have no thoughts or emotions, feel no pain, and cannot be affected by poison's, curses, or bleed debuffs. Zombified creatures carry a 10% chance to afflict their victims with the undeath debuff.
"Never met a necromancer before, why does it say the skeleton lost levels but these zombies keep theirs? Just out of curiosity." I ask after inspecting each shambling corpse as Gorm turns back with a confused frown before nodding towards the skeletal nixie guarding the doorway.
" Since we're working together...Skeletons lose levels due to the fact that there are no muscles, flesh, organs. Without those the muscle memory built up during their living years is lost and they become literal bare bones pawns. I like skeletons though due to the fact that if you decide to specialize in them you can combine and create different bones from various species to make extremly deadly skeletal creatures under your command. On the other hand though zombies are useful because even at level one they retain the physical habits of their previous lives. A warrior will still occasionally dodge and parry blows and can more easily use weapons while mages and other casters will rarely take on aspects of their magical knowledge. But these only happen far later in the training, I'm still barely an initiate of the class and can only make the three basic forms of undead, Skeletons, Zombies, and Spectre's. I also only have one combat ability at present, Drain Life. What about you?" Gorm asks after a lengthy explanation before leaning against the wall waiting as his undead mill about aimlessly.
"Well since we're both kind of frowned upon for our classes I don't see the harm. I'm a soul reader, apparently some kind of unique class and I have the power to read my vanquished enemies past and take their abilities to bolster my own lack of. Apparently the absorb ability I have has the same type of opinions as your class. So far I have a couple melee attacks, some basic survival skills, and a psychic bolt that causes mental damage. My plan was to get close and do hand to hand with this guy and if he tried casting I was going to jolt him to disrupt it." I explain as Gorm's eyes widen a fraction in surprise before returning to normal and shaking his head.
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"Won't work, the meazel is a summoner so yes is a caster but also has skills in melee like most meazel. They survive usually alone as trappers and hunters, use their magic to distract before closing the distance quickly and ending their enemies as efficiently as possible. If they have an overwhelming advantage they enjoy torture and causing suffering as well. I say we let my dead close in and distract him while I attach my drain life spell. While we focus on distraction you get in close and start hammering him, if we can split his attention in so many directions we have a better shot of interrupting his spells while keeping him on the defensive. We exhaust him then collect his head, simple." Gorm says as I nod with a smile and we begin to move out, the ghoul taking the lead as we make it to the stairs, his lips moving quietly before the skeletal nixie rushes up the stairs and a shattering sound fills the air before bone fragments follow.
Watching the top of the stairs I smile as another bone elemental rushes down them, its skeletal features glancing in all directions for another enemy as I lash out with my blade, the edge sliding through the elementals ankle smoothly causing it to topple forward and land in between the zombies, their rotted and desiccated shells scrambling forward and slamming into the elemental before it eventually stops struggling. As the undead back away from the scattered bones, Gorm looks at them and smiles before casting another spell as the pile separates into two shabby skeletons, one missing several ribs and an arm while the other walks on a leg thats normal sized while another that's half the length. Glancing towards Gorm I can see an embarressed smile on his face as he shrugs towards the two strange skeletons as they stumble their way up the stairs followed by the zombies and finally us.
"I can technically make a skeletal minion out of any set of bones or pieces I find but if they're to damaged or just there's not enough of them they have a chance of either failing to create a minion or creating disfigured ones. Once I grow stronger I'll have more control but for now I'm stuck with using numbers over quality." Gorm explains with a nod as we finally reach the top of the stairs and look around, an open room with a single doorway wrapped with vines and veins of stone being the only other entrance or exit in the room.
"So here we are. Lets send in the zombies first to act as a meat wall then the skellies. We can follow after, You stay in the back while I engage. Sound good?" I ask as Gorm nods seriosly, his elongated jaw in a menacing snarl as we step forward and watch as the vines and veins of earth melt away and the door opens to show an impressive room filled with greenery and plant life that reminds me of a green house or botanical garden. In the center of the room sits a man, his body rail thin and skeletal looking as his skin styretches tightly across his frame. His head rises slowly and I take a step back as his sharp eyes land on me, an intense feeling of hate and disgust creeping up my back as I take in the creatures face. Muttonshops and a beard wrap around his face and cover a pointed chin, his head filled with stiff brown hair that stands as if to resemble two horns on each side of the beings skull while a bnald spot sits in the center of his skull filled with glowing tattoo's. Long pointed ears reach from each side of his head, each with matching notches in them as well as ragged tears. A mouth full of sharpened teeth is set in a perpetual snarl, frown lines lacing the creatures face as two holes are where its nose should be. The creature wears sparse clothing but what is on him is lightweight and decorated by bleached bones and shining gemstones.
"Took you fools long enough. Felt my fodder dying for several hours and now you decide to interrupt my peace. You'll both die here now and I'll present your corpses to the master, let him burn your souls for eternity." The meazel says in a scratchy, hoarse voice as if talking is something he rarely does. I inspect the creature quickly before he rises to his feet on lanky legs and grins venomously before the world goes mad.