I turned to face him with my sword in hand.

"Look, you weren't supposed to be here. You weren't supposed to see us. Why are you here?" I said pointing my sword at him.

"What do you mean I'm not supposed to be here? You are the one who shouldn't be here." He said in return pointing his staff at me.

We stood there for a moment staring each other down. I sent a mental note to Aeolith to watch for spells and cast the shield if he did and to circle to the right so we can get his attention distracted. She began to move to his right and spread out. His attention went back and forth between the two of us and he began to get a bit nervous. He shot a dark bolt of some kind over at Aeolith who threw up a shield. I dashed over and slashed at him with my sword. He hopped back barely dodging my attack, but what he was unprepared for was my continuing to step forward and driving my fist into his gut. The air left his body and he doubled over in pain.

He just lay there on the ground and wasn't getting up. I had expected him to roll out of it and get mad and try to kill us. Instead, he appeared to be...crying? Well, this was embarrassing.

"Are you crying?"

"NO!"

His voice cracked through the tears. He must have been younger than I first thought.

Aeolith came over to be beside me and cocked her head to the side, looking slightly confused.

"Why is he crying?" She projected to me mentally.

"Clearly he wasn't as tough as we thought."

"Obviously, but this is pathetic right?"

"Yup. This is pathetic. I'm not sure I can kill him now that he isn't some big bad evil necromancer wizard. He's just some kid."

I sighed deeply, sagging slightly with the level of pathetic the kid was giving off.

"Come on, get up. This is really a sad display. But leave the staff on the ground. One wrong move and I'll turn you into a kabob."

He looked up at me slightly confused.

"What's a kabob?"

I stood over him and pointed the sword down toward his face.

"Ah, I think I get your inference."

"Stand up, walk over to the tree. I have to figure out what we are going to do now. You were supposed to be some kind of powerful necromancer that we would have to kill, not just a kid who can't take a punch."

"I'm not a kid!" He started to yell at me, but one point of my sword near his face silenced his protest.

He stood up and put his hands up in the universal sign of surrender. I took his hands and took the rope from my bag of holding and tied his hands behind his back, then tied his arms to his sides by wrapping the rope around his body and arms. I had him sit down at the base of the tree and began talking to Aeolith.

"What do we do now?"

"It's simple Callan, we kill him."

"But he's just a kid!"

"He's a danger. He knows we exist. Al'Doran said that if anyone knew we were here they would tell others and eventually the Shadow Beasts would find out and then find us. We aren't ready for that."

"But, I've never killed another human before. I'm not sure I can. What if we could make him an ally? Having a necromancer around could be useful."

"I have never killed a Human either, but I can do it still. It is not that hard. My teeth and claws will make short work of him." She flexed her claws and snarled showing off her teeth at this.

"But you are not a human. Could you kill another dragon simply because it saw you? A young dragon at that?"

She paused at this. Clearly, she hadn't thought of it that way.

"I see. So what do we do now? It would be so much simpler to just kill him and be done. And we would get XP for killing him."

"I agree. But that would be wrong. I can't just kill a kid because he happened to see us. He was wandering out here in the wilds where monsters live for crying out loud. Let me talk to him first. If there is no other option then we will kill him."

Aeolith nodded, and I looked back over at the necromancer and stared down at him with a dour expression on my face.

"Who are you?"

"M-my name is, Tristan."

"What are you doing out here? This land is infested with monsters and supposed to be uninhabited by humans."

"Well, it is, really. I'm the only one out here. I'm somewhat of an outcast, being a necromancer you see."

I stared at him in confusion.

"You really don't know? Necromancy is frowned upon in most cities. The whole requiring dead corpses to train with and all. It's not illegal, but people don't treat you like they do everyone else when they hear you deal with dead things."

"That would make it tough to be a necromancer. So you have to have corpses to reanimate? You can't just summon skeletons and zombies?"

"No, that's not how Necromancy works. We can't just pull creatures out of thin air. We reanimate the dead. So I guess this is the part where you kill me?"

"That's the part I'm having some trouble with, honestly. I should kill you, just knowing I exist puts me in danger. Me and my dragon. Plus, I don't even know you. You should be just a random person that I should kill so we can stay safe. But I'm having trouble with the idea of just killing a kid simply because you know about me. It's not right."

He looked up at me hope and confusion playing across his face at the same time.

"Can you reanimate other bodes that aren't human?"

"Sure. I can do elves, dwarves..."

"No no, I mean like non-sentient races. Like monsters, or maybe goblins."

"Oh....well, yes I can, but they aren't as strong."

I thought for a moment.

"You're different from most people.

"What?"

"Most people I've run across would have just killed me without a thought about it. You could have done so several times already. Even that one sword swing you tried didn't have much force in it. I've seen people fight and you weren't really trying to kill me. Why? Why would you feel different."

"I guess it's just the way I was raised. Where I come from killing people is wrong. You don't do it. Even when some people deserve it, there is a process you have to go through first. But this place is different."

"Different how?"

"Laws don't work the same here. More often than not it seems like kill or be killed. And if I have to be I'll commit to that logic to protect myself and my dragon."

He looked up at me again with a bit more wonder in his eyes.

"I have a proposition for you. I won't kill you if you will join me."

"What's the catch?" He said looking at me suspiciously.

"You need to work on what you reanimate. For now, no sentient races. We will likely get a chance for you to do that later when we find actually evil people but for now, let's just do goblins and monsters. In return, I'll take you with me and we can form a party. I think you'll find teaming up with me and my dragon to be a really enticing offer."

He thought for a moment, but not very long.

"You'd really be willing to join up with me? Someone who practices necromancy?"

"As long as you aren't evil. So far you haven't struck me as someone who is truly evil. No villain threats, no evil monologues, no plans to take over the world."

"I have to ask, is that really a dragon?"

"It is."

"And does that make you...a Dragonrider?"

"It does. But you cannot tell anyone. Also if you join me you will have to come with me when we leave this place. Which is at nightfall today. I can't tell you where we are going, and I can't say we are going to come back to this same place. You will have to leave behind anyone you knew and held dear for now. But I will help you become stronger. We will work together as a group to be better."

"I accept."

"That was fast. I honestly expected you to take longer to decide."

"Nothing you have said is difficult for me. I have no family left. They were all killed when I was a small child. And everyone has heard the tales of Dragonriders and their retinues. To be able to fight alongside a Dragonrider has always been a dream of mine. All children have dreamed of fighting with a legendary Dragonrider. I have to admit I didn't expect to meet you, and I definitely didn't expect your dragon to be this small,"

Aeolith growled at him.

"A thousand apologies dragon. I meant no offense. I can see you must be young, and I know you will grow. That is why I choose eagerly to join you. It will be a pleasure to join you both and watch your rise in power."

Aeolith stopped growling and stood back making a face that showed she approved of the change and the praise she was getting.

"So what level are you right now, Tristan?"

"I'm a level five necromancer."

I walked over and pulled Tristan to his feet. Untying his bonds I let him loose to gather his equipment and put my rope back in my bag of holding.

"Does this outfit help with your attributes or abilities?"

"Not really, but it helped me out here to look more like a scarier necromancer. That and my skeletons. Most creatures left me alone when I had the skeletons with me. Though you ended that awfully quick."

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"I won't apologize for that. At the time we were not allies and I had no idea what direction our little chat was going to go. Hell, you sent some kind of bolt at my dragon."

"Oh yeah, sorry about that. That was Vorpal Ball. It's a useful spell to help deal damage while my minions attack enemies. I'm sure you know that spellcasters aren't very good at taking a hit, so it helps to have minions who can take the hits for you."

"DPS is always in the back in a party with tanks in the front."

"...Ummm...what?"

"Sorry, it's something I guess you could say I use to talk about strategy with fewer words. DPS means damage per second or those who focus on dealing more damage, like spellcasters, healers, and archers. Tanks are people meant to absorb the damage while the rest are dealing bigger damage or healing others. It's why a party is so important to fighting effectively. I'm hoping you can join me so we can be better as well."

"I will! I do want to join you, uh...I didn't get your name actually."

"Callan. Callan Ryder. And this is Aeolith."

"Aeolith. What a beautiful name for such a beautiful creature."

Aeolith preened at this compliment.

"And you are Tristan..."

"Sandoval. Not that my last name means much anymore."

"Well we have some time yet before we need to be back, let's keep going and find some monsters to kill. Tristan, go ahead and raise as many of those goblins as you can. They can help us in our fights."

"Good idea. I can raise four of them since they are smaller creatures."

He waved his staff over the bodies and chanted a spell. The bodies glowed for a moment, then began to move. It was definitely creepy to watch the corpses sort of knit themselves back together to be able to walk and then rise with lifeless eyes.

"So, since necromancy is frowned upon, how does one learn to become a necromancer in the first place?"

"Oh, that. Well, normally one would have to seek out a master to teach you, which is incredibly hard as most necromancers would rather kill you and use your corpse than teach you. So that leaves Liches or a rather unfortunate alternative. My story is the alternative."

He hung his head and looked sad.

"When I was younger my mother died from an illness. I don't know what it was still. So my father took me from my home and went out on the road. He decided to become an adventurer after hearing they could make more money. I was with him for years while he trained and went out to kill monsters. I would stay at an inn many times when it was going to be too dangerous, but sometimes he would take me with him when we were low on funds."

He paused seeming to remember those times and how painful they were for him.

"I saw a lot of killing for someone that young, but I learned a lot of things from him, so I'm grateful for that. At the same time, he just wasn't good enough to make it in the adventurer world. There were so many who were better. He never gave up, but it was only a matter of time. One day when we had taken a job to kill some goblins, my dad took me with him to help. I had been learning to fight, I had a weapon, and I could act as a distraction as well as watch my father's back so he wouldn't get surrounded. As can be the case though with adventurer quests, the number of goblins was off. It said there should have only been a small band of them raiding the villages on the outskirts of the main city. But it was a large raiding party. We never stood a chance. I was hiding off the side of the road when my father was ambushed by over twenty goblins all at once. All I could do was hide and hope they didn't find me."

"That is horrible. I'm so sorry Tristan."

"It's OK. Obviously, they didn't find me, but I ran to my father's corpse after waiting an hour after the goblins left. I cried over his body. Then I became angry. Something inside me broke and I cried out inside for the power to avenge my father. Something heard me. My class was changed at that moment to necromancer and I was given a spell to reanimate the dead. I didn't even know I was doing it. My father began to move. I was terrified. He stood up and waited. All I could do was sit there in shock and stare at it. A war of emotions was waging in me at that moment. Sadness at the loss of my father, joy at seeing him move again, horror a knowing what he was now, and anger at the goblins for what they did to him."

"Was he one of the skeletons you had there?!" I said almost incredulously.

"No. I couldn't bring myself to do that. I let the spell go and buried him in the forest."

"One more reason I can tell you aren't evil. So where did you get those corpses?"

"Bandits."

"There are bandits out here?"

"Occasionally. They flee here when they need to get away from trouble with the law. Most people won't come out here because of the level of monster infestation. So bandits will come to hide here until they can move goods they stole or until people stop looking for them."

"But not you, you came here and created some kind of presence for yourself?"

"Kind of. I came here because I was looking for the goblins. I followed their path here and found where their village was. But there were definitely too many of them for me to take without dying in the process. So I used it as a training ground. But my minions aren't very strong yet. And there are so many monsters that I spend most of my time hiding or finding new minions to protect me."

"It's lucky we found you then. We can help with the leveling. If you stick with us we will gain power. We have already killed over forty creatures just since getting here this morning. Although, I can't say we are going to avenge your father. I'm not out here to look at getting into a fight with a horde of goblins."

"Really?! That's pretty amazing. Though I should expect nothing less from a Dragonrider. And I know, I've let it go. It's just what goblins do, and it was part of the job of signing up to be an adventurer. But I'm ready to help a real-life Dragonrider!"

"About that. Remember, to anyone but me and Aeolith, there are no Dragonriders, you didn't see a dragon, and you can't mention us to people. It's too dangerous for us. There are still Shadow Beasts out there and they would kill us if they could find us. Our best defense right now is secrecy."

"You can count on me. I will not betray your trust."

"Perfect. Now we need to discuss some team strategies now that you are joining the group."

We talked about the different ways we could fight as a team. First I drilled into Tristan's head that the most important member of our party was always Aeolith. She must be protected at any cost. He understood and promised to do that. Next, I assigned the roles to the team. I would be the tank and get in close with my armor and fighting style, Tristan would be the rear support behind me and send in the undead to support me from the sides to make sure I don't get flanked. Aeolith would provide air support while flying when possible and the trees if she couldn't fly. She would rain down terror where she could.

"Brutus, is there some kind of party system here where we can be grouped together and share XP?"

Brutus flew around and flew closer to me from the trees. Tristan jumped at seeing him.

"Is that a dog?!"

"This is Brutus, my fairy guide. Brutus is my oldest friend in this world, Brutus this is Tristan."

"Hey, Tristan. Nice to meet you."

"You have a fairy as well! How cool!"

"To answer your question Callan, yes there is a party system. You can invite people to join a party with you and XP will be shared amongst you. Though unlike your relationship with Aeolith where you both get the same XP no matter who kills the creatures, in a party system the XP is divided more fairly by the number of actual kills."

"Thank you, Brutus. So then, let's get this party started!"

Everyone stared at me.

"No one appreciates my humor."

I invited Tristan to the party with a little coaching from Brutus on how. I thought about sending an invite to Tristan and pushed the action toward him. He received a notification in his vision letting him know I was inviting him to join my party. After he accepted I got a little icon in my vision underneath my HP bar showing Tristan with a person icon and his name next to it. The icon was green now.

"Brutus, Tristan's icon is green. Are there other colors?"

"Yes, green means they are in good health and not in any trouble. Yellow means they have fallen below half health, and red means they are at less than 10% health. There are also a few other colors like purple for poisoned, and blue for frozen."

"That makes perfect sense. Just like the games back home. Why does it show as a party of two and not three, Brutus?"

"Technically Aeolith doesn't take up a party space because she is your familiar."

That also made sense. So now we needed to decide which direction to go. I asked Tristan if he had the tracking skill. He did not. I showed him what I did to track where creatures were and soon he had gotten the skill as well. We found some tracks that once again, seemed to be wolves. This was going to be a good chance to test our skills fighting together. I also showed him how to walk with more care and in a slight crouch and he learned the Stealth skill as well. We followed the tracks as a motley crew of two humans, four undead goblins, a fairy, and a dragon until we came to a clearing. We hid behind some bushes and peered out. This was not what we were planning for. There were eight wolves in the clearing this time.

We came up with a really quick plan that started with Aeolith and I sending out our slash attacks, followed up immediately with our breath attacks. That should deal with a good number of wolves. The undead goblins would play interference for us in the meantime holding off any wolves that got by, while Aeolith took to the trees, and helped out where it was needed the most and I took on another wolf. Tristan would be in the back throwing Vorpal Balls at the healthiest-looking wolves after the first attacks to weaken them for the undead, myself, and Aeolith to mop up. With that plan in mind, we got into position.

Aeolith and I burst from the underbrush and released our slashes at the same time. What we did not expect was that when we used the attack in sync that it would combine and create a single attack that was more than twice the size and power. We watched as the attack streaked across the clearing hitting all but one of the wolves at the same time and throwing them back. I changed the tactic slightly and aimed my breath attack at the only wolf to not get caught in the other attack and told Aeolith to take to the trees without using her breath attack so that she could find a better target. She jumped as the power came up from my chest, through my throat, and out my mouth. A stream of darkness sprang from my mouth and shot toward the wolf catching it in the face as it was charging toward me. I had been choosing to use the darkness power out of fear of what something like lightning or fire would do while in a forest.

The wolf went down after being hit in the face full force with the dark breath attack. By this time I was flanked by undead goblins and was ready to go after the other wolves. We sprung into action just as Tristan began to throw a Vorpal Ball at the first of the wolves coming toward us. After that, we met with the wolves. The undead goblins fought like mad with no apparent feelings of pain or fear now that they were no longer part of the living, and I took after the wolves with my sword. With the goblins at my sides, I was able to hack and slash my way through the lead wolves, black fire blazing through the sword and into the flesh of the wolves. Everywhere the sword touched flesh, darkness formed and began to spread. Slashing down the side of one wolf, then another as I continued making my way forward trusting the others would have my back I just kept going. I heard a breath attack hit one wolf I had slashed while a Vorpal Ball hit another. The goblins were mostly holding the wolves' attention as they were too small to take on a full-grown wolf.

I turned and ran to the first goblin and stabbed the wolf through the side, then spun away pulling the sword free to attack the next one. I was able to get to the second wolf before it overwhelmed the goblin, but the last two goblins I could see were not going to make it. That was ok, they had done their jobs. I stabbed the second wolf through the head and it died before ripping the sword free and turning the face the last of the wolves. Only to find the last two wolves dead on the ground, Aeolith on top of one of them. That went better than I had expected. If it hadn't been for the combined attack at the beginning that would have gone a lot differently. I made a mental note for combining attacks.

"That was amazing!" Tristan hooted from the back coming up to meet me in the middle.

"Sorry about two of your goblins."

"Nah, don't worry about them. They are expendable. That combined attack at the beginning was awesome!"

"It sure was. I wasn't expecting it, so that was a nice bonus."

"And I just leveled up! WOO HOO!"

"Congrats Tristan. Stick with us and that will definitely not be the last time that happens."

We waited for just a bit more for our mana to regenerate and then took off in search of the next creature, Tristan with two new undead pet wolves in tow, and decided to circle around in a direction that would take us more toward the beach. We spent the next three hours killing anything we could find and managed to take out about another thirty monsters before it really got dark. Once again I was able to level up to level twelve, Aeolith hit level nine, and Tristan hit level eight.

We gathered ourselves and all headed back to the beach. We had to walk a good ways down the beach to get to the spot where Al'Doran left us, and as we got closer we could see Al'Doran's figure in the distance coming closer as he flew back to get us. As his figure got closer I explained the situation to Tristan while I built the fire using some dried wood and my shocking bolt spell.

"Just to warn you, we are being picked up by a full-grown dragon. Probably the last of his kind. Don't be afraid, he is a friend of ours. Though we do have to explain you to him."

"You have to explain me? That isn't exactly comforting."

"I'm sure it will be fine. Here he comes."

Al'Doran flapped his wings right out in front of him as he had done last time to slow his forward movement and prepare to land. As he landed the ground shook slightly. He turned to look at me and snarled.

"Who is this with you young rider? A snack?"

I could practically feel Tristan go stiff as he said this.

"No, this is Tristan. He is coming with me to help as a party member."

"What did I tell you about letting people know about us?"

"I know, but he is an orphan and was in the middle of this monster-infested place with nowhere to go, and has necromantic powers he can use to help us."

"You brought back a lich!"

"No! Not a lich, a man. He was level five when we found him, he is not a lich. He just has the necromancer class. He is not a threat. He helped us. He fought alongside us. He spilled blood with us."

Al'Doran paused at this. He turned to look directly at Tristan. He glared for a long moment.

"Do you swear to keep this secret from the rest of the world until the time is right under penalty of death?"

"I do," Tristan managed to barely squeak out.

"Good, because if you do not, there is no force on this planet that will be able to spare you my wrath."

He turned back to me.

"Very well, he may join. It was fitting in the days long past for a Dragonrider to have a retinue. This could be the start of yours."

"Thank you Al'Doran. I believe he will be a powerful asset one day."

"I can envision that. But the undead stay here. They are not welcome to ride."

Tristan jumped slightly at this.

"Oh of course your excellence...your highness...your dragon sire...I'll leave them here."

He waved his hand and they fell to the ground lifeless. We all then climbed onto Al'Doran and he took off back towards the island.