80. Redhead Monday
Your level up amounted to little, in the end. No new feats; you don't have a class, after all; and a frankly small improvement in your stats. No, what surprises you is the sickly green aura that surrounds your limbs as the flames die down. The light seems to sink into your scales, sinking around and through you, making you look somehow ghostly. Rotted. You'd expect it to hurt, but instead it brings only a pleasant coolness.
You look around for the source, and see her immediately. It's not, after all, hard to figure out who could be casting a buff spell with a name like “Putrefy” on you.
Amanda has one hand outstretched towards you, a look of concentration on her scrunched face. The green light has sunk into her too, turning her already pale flesh a sickly green that highlights her bones. The edges of her clothing flap and flutter in a non existent wind.
“I take it you got a level up then?”
The light fades, leaving a flushed looking Necromancer nodding hard enough to send her hair flying.
“It's... amazing! I got a new Necromancer feat, and TWO new spells!”
She's gushing with happiness and all you can do is smile as she starts talking, her mouth nearly moving in a blur.
“So I got a load of perk choices for hitting level five and I had no idea which one to get because there's one that lets you summon more monsters but I didn't have any summoning spells which I thought was weird so I managed to pause that and look at the rest of my sheet and I got two new spells! And there was only like five of them available, but they're all so interesting! When I was a cleric there was loads to choose from but they were all so boring, like, heal this person this much, stop a poison for this long, find the value for an artistic object or buff someone else in an artistic endeavour but these ones were FUN!”
She takes a deep breath, then continues at the same rate.
“I mean they were a bit evil but only a little. Poisonous gas clouds, making loot bags and bodies explode, a ritual to curse a place, where would I even aim that? It's crazy but I nearly picked that one anyway, well that one and the poison, because I thought I could like, curse the entrance way and fill it with poison, but then I figured you send the kobolds and goblins out there like two times a day and repeatedly cursing them didn't seem like a good idea and they're pretty indiscriminate spells so I got the other two, the ones I haven't said yet,”
Everyone was drifting away now. You've never seen Amanda this excited about anything. You push your tail into the small of her back, mindful of the spikes, and guide her away from the entrance hall and towards the tavern. You think she could do with a drink.
“But first I went back to the feats and got one I really like, cus it still lets me be a bit like a cleric – It's called Strange Aeons, but I don't know why? But, anyway, it lets me cast spells that affect the undead on living people in a helpful way – that's what Putrefy, the spell I used on you, does. It helps undead and hurts the living, but I got it to think you were dead isn't that COOL!”
She doesn't seem to be actually asking a question, so you just nod and guide her into a stool at the tall table.
“But THEN I thought, well 'Aren't I a Necromancer? Being a Cleric didn't work out to well for me,” She freezes for a half second, glancing at you, “Well, not... you know what I mean. Being me worked out great but being a cleric didn't really come into it. So yeah I got this!”
She gestures at the table with one hand, and another pulse of light shines from her amulet. A ring of purple light passes through the air, and left behind on the table is the animated skeleton of a Rat. A big rat, probably a low level Dire Rat. It's about a eighteen inches long, around three quarters of Amanda's outstretched arm. She sequels in happiness, practically glowing as it moves its skull as if sniffing the air which you are... around seventy five percent sure it's not. It sits up on its hind legs as she speaks, turning its skull toward her.
“Oh gods isn't it cute? I can have three of them!”
She casts the spell again, although this time it doesn't summon a rat. Instead the bones look like a small wolf or dog with a boxy head. And then again, this time summoning a rope of bones that you aren't sure what to make of until it sits up into a skeletal snake of some kind.
“That's pretty awesome Amanda. Are they all level 4?”
She shakes her head. “They are for now, but they'll stay one level behind me till I hit level 11. They cap at 10 but,” she leans in like she's going to impart some secret, “Once that happens, for every 3 levels I gain I can summon another one. And I can summon another for every ten Occult I have. How cool would it be to be level 50 and being able to summon like, twenty of these guys? It'll mean I'll be able to actually help down here until upstairs is ready to move in to, buffing people and adding extra small fighters to tie people down. Later, I'll be able to get high level skeletons to work with upstairs, but still be able to pop out a bunch of these if needed.”
Your heart pangs gently in your chest and you speak out.
“Amanda. You're already useful down here, you don't need to make choices like this based on what you think will help most. Choose what you want to. You can't really go back.”
She shakes her head, a soft smile playing around her lips, but fire in her eyes. “Red, don't be obtuse. I really wasn't a good fit for this floor once I lost my cleric skills, and once I became a necromancer I was so far behind in levels that my contribution to combat was effectively just distracting the foe so you could roast them. Helping out is what I want. I'm done being helpless.”
You hesitate for a moment, and then nod.
“In that case... I'm proud of you.”
She smiles again; a small, private thing. She half turns towards the skeletal creatures and with a wave of her hand they fall apart, the bones vanishing into translucent gas before they hit the table. Then she leans over, resting her head on your shoulder.
“Thanks Red.”
A huge thank you to my patreons NA, Spockk Kirkk, Un Casualsniper, Tyrant615, Jakelandiar, Curious Krissy, Torish 12, CBK and Ted.
If you're interested, here's the document with everyone's character sheets as of chapter 80: https://www.patreon.com/posts/56628860
This chapter was going to be smut but WOW did Amanda steal the keyboard on this one. I've not had caffeine in a while.