Cull
Jay announced his presence as he entered the next clearing, leisurely walking into it with his hands behind his back. He cleared his throat to get the rat’s attention.
Ahem
Jay didn’t need to do sneak attacks anymore, and he was enjoying this sense of superiority.
The 3 rats present looked up and hissed a warning not to come any closer.
Jay, with a proud smile plastered on his face, held up one hand and snapped his fingers.
Without hesitation, the Don’s both dashed out from the reeds behind Jay, their glowing eyes creating green lines as they sped past Jay. Snapping the reeds as they sprinted at the nearest rat, they stabbed their claws into its jugular and bit into it.
Before Jay could even lower his hand, the first rat was deceased.
[15 Exp]
The other two rats each tried to fight the Don’s, but they culled them almost as quickly as the first rat.
[15 Exp]
[15 Exp]
“Oh man, this is too easy,” Jay bragged. At first, he was having a hard time when he had to fight alone and was respecting adventurers more so, but now it was like a walk in the park.
“Heh... They will probably want to kill me out of pure jealousy, disregarding the fact that I’m a necromancer,” he shrugged. “Time to loot.”
[Fur Scraps]x6
[Soap Rat Teeth] x9
Jay continued like this for the next few hours - leisurely strolling to a clearing, taunting with a whistle or a cough, then having his minions slaughtering anything moving—unknowingly making a large dent in the local soap rat population.
His knapsack was getting heavy with fur scraps and rat teeth, and before long, he decided not to carry anymore. Getting bored, he was not even bothering to taunt the rats anymore.
His strategy had changed too - he would simply send his minions ahead. By the time he entered the clearing, there would be 2 or 3 soap rat corpses waiting for him to loot them.
Ah, I’m getting lazy. Maybe I should try to get another weapon-proficiency or something. Pulling out his cooking knife, he wondered what he should do.
Hmm, I could start throwing it to get knife-throwing proficiency?
As the soap rats were being decimated by the Don’s, he threw his degraded cooking knife at them - to little effect.
He either missed at worst, or hit them with the handle-end of the knife at best, doing no damage. Sometimes he missed completely and had to fish his knife out of a murky pond.
Getting frustrated, he was slowly giving up. It wasn’t worth the effort.
Ah shit, what’s wrong with my throwing? Jay pondered, looking at his incredibly dull cooking knife.
Perhaps it’s the knife… it’s probably not balanced for throwing, I guess? Oh well, I guess it is just a cooking knife. I’ll find an actual dagger or throwing knife once I get back to town. Maybe that merchant sells them, he thought.
“Oh yeah, I should probably get another cooking knife too, heh,” he chuckled.
Well, I guess I could also start punching, maybe get a fist fighting skill or a hand-to-hand combat proficiency. Looking at his fist, he thought this wasn’t a bad idea - but ultimately decided against it.
Nah, I’m a necromancer. A caster. I shouldn’t be engaged in melee combat. If only I had a spell or something... hmm, maybe I can secretly learn something from other adventurers.
With a cheeky half-smile, he re-equipped his knife and stopped throwing it, deciding it would not leave his hand again. At least, not on purpose.
The slaughter had been going on for a few hours now, and Jay was noticing his knapsack getting heavier and heavier, while the Don’s were each missing a few health.
The stink of the marsh was just as pungent as when he entered; he was not growing accustomed to it at all. Close to leveling up to 4, he marched on, eager to leave this putrid marsh behind.
As he went from clearing to clearing, he noticed a small dirt mound poking above the reeds, deeper into the marsh.
Probably a den with the dungeon boss in it, he thought; deciding to avoid it as he went along. I’ll hit level 4 before I investigate it, then get out of this dump.
Looting the fur scraps from his latest victims and leaving the clearing, he noticed one of the Don’s had a crack trailing from its jaw to the back of its skull.
“Ooh, looks painful.” He winced a little. “You’re lucky to not feel pain.”
Giving Don a quizzical look as he moved closer.
Strangely, its cracked skull isn’t being reinforced with solidified green gas… perhaps that only happens where they’re first being constructed? He thought, gripping Don’s skull and tracing his finger across the crack.
Hmm… it looks pretty bad. I wonder if I can repair you somehow, he wondered, as he held out his hand over the fracture.
“Arise.”
The green gas left his hand, creating a cloud of glowing mana before dissipating again, and a notification appeared as he realized it failed to heal the skeleton.
[Must be cast on a small corpse or nothing will happen]
Hmm, I’m not trying to raise something, so I guess that won’t work since it’s already risen.
Holding out his hand, he tried again - this time, thinking about how he channeled the ambient mana into his body.
He imagined a well again as he waved his hand - this time at the bottom of the well being Don’s skull. He felt a sort of current forming between his hand and Don’s skull.
Instead of chanting ‘arise’, he said ‘mend’.
The green luminous gas left his hand once again - though this time it was moving and taking shape, forming a miniature cyclone of sorts - appearing as if it was being sucked down a drain.
It surprised Jay as it twirled and danced, but maintained his concentration, guiding the green-glowing cyclone over the skull fracture. As he moved it, it formed a solid dark-green seal between the cracks.
The process took a heavy toll on Jay’s mana pool, and he was feeling a little weak. His mana had passively regenerated to 32 in the last few hours, but now it was down to 20/39 and still dropping.
He pressed on through the light-headedness and concentrated, gritting his teeth a little as he guided the glowing cyclone over the rest of the crack.
It was a sight to behold. It looked more like a dark curse, or a necromancer binding a helpless undead to his will.
With the crack filled, he snapped his hand away, panting while placing a hand on Don for support; It rewarded him with another notification for his effort.
[Skill Acquired]
Grinning, he checked his new skill.
< [Shell Restoration Level 1 - Acquired] >
[1 hit point restored per 2 mana per second]
[Level this skill up for a better hp-mp ratio.]
<[Description]>
[Caster can channel mana to repair living constructs, golems, living statues, gargoyles, and magic weapons.]
Awesome, but living statues? Interesting... he thought.
Excited and creeped out all at once, Jay checked the now-repaired Don’s stats.
< [Feeble Creature Level 1] >
[Type - Undead]
[HP - 13/15]
<[Skills]>
[Natural Bite]
- 1-2 pierce damage
[Natural Claws]
- bleed - 2 flat damage over 3 seconds (Can stack 2 times)
[Undeath]
- immune to cold, poison, hunger, stress, fear, pain.
<[Description]>
[An abomination, its existence spits in the face of life and death. Execute with extreme prejudice.]
“Hmm, not completely healed. You must have a few other cracks… also shouldn’t you be level 2 now since I leveled up the skill?”
It confused Jay so he checked the skill again.
< [Raise Feeble Creature - Level 2] >
Cast on the corpse of a small creature, raising it to fight for you.
[Damage 1-2]
[Life - 15]
[2 Feeble creatures total]
[Mana Cost - 5]
[Must be cast on a small corpse or nothing will happen]
Hmm, I guess I leveled up the raising skill, but that doesn’t actually level up the quality of the monsters I raise..? Damn, fair enough. I wonder how I can increase their individual levels… Jay pondered for a moment before realizing he hadn’t completely healed Don.
“Restore…” He whispered, and held out his hand again.
The ability was slightly different this time - perhaps because he discovered the skill.
The gas still left his hand, but this time it was a much larger amount, slowly forming a larger cyclone around Don’s whole body - Don was in the storm’s eye, looking at Jay cautiously, perhaps wondering why they weren’t doing anything; Don didn’t even seem to notice it was being repaired.
A moment later, Jay cast [Shell Restoration] on the other Don too.
Since he had the skill now, he didn’t need to concentrate at all. The only cost was to his mana pool.
Eight Mana points later, the mist dissipated; both Don’s now fully repaired.
It satisfied Jay seeing his undead complete again. “Good, I won’t need an endless supply of bones now. I can just keep fixing these skeletons.” He patted one of the Don’s.
“Let’s go, only need about eight more rats to hit level four,” He said to the Don’s as he spotted the next clearing.
The trio kept trudging through the mud and over decaying wood, pushing away reeds and sometimes landing a foot in the swamp water; Jay’s shoes squelching as he culled the soap rats - It was getting harder to find the rats due to how many they killed, but before long, enough died for him to hit level 4.
[Level up]
[5 Free Attribute Points]
Jay sighed thankfully, glad to level up, “Finally. Status.”
Normally, one would be excited to level up, but he had been in this stinking marsh for hours, not even fighting most of the time. He was bored, no longer appreciating the effort that went into killing each rat.
< [Necromancer - Level 4] >
[HP] 59/59
[MP] 13/41
[Strength] 15
[Dexterity] 25
[Vitality] 20
[Energy] 17/30
[Exp] 5/800
<[Skills]>
[Raise Feeble Creature level 2] - 2/2 Raised
[Shell Restoration Level 1]
[Stress Response] (Passive)
[Running level 1] (Passive)
[Dagger Proficiency level 1]
[Chimera Research 2%]
Eating some bondtussle root to get some more mana regeneration going, he thought about where to put his attribute points.
Hmm, I haven’t been fighting much myself. Some more health would be good in case I get hit but I think for now, I’ll put them all into energy, raising it to 35.
After adding the points, likewise, his max MP rose to 51 - a higher energy stat meant a larger mana pool after all.
Satisfied with his choices, he left the clearing, making his way to the large mound of black marsh dirt and decaying wood that he had been avoiding till now.
“Time to kill the king,” he said, squinting at the mound of filth in the distance.