The Accidental Necromancer
20% Better

Abby Thorson

Species: Demonic Futanari / Human

Class: Necromancer / Seductress

Level: 2

Strength: 10

Dexterity: 8

Intelligence:8

Wisdom: 7

Charisma 11

Health: 22/22

Mana: 71/121

Endurance: 29/30

Experience for Next Level: 1997

Innate Demonic Ability: Dimension Step

Innate Seductress Abilities: Back Stab (Seductress version), Special Attraction, Sexual Satisfaction

Spells: Life Drain, Detect Magic, Animate Lesser Undead, Find Dead, Mend Corpse, Charm Person, Imbue Fetish

Find Dead: When cast, the necromancer becomes aware of the direction of  any specific body within thirty kilometers, or if no body is specified, the closest dead body capable of being animated.

Useful. Not. Maybe there was an edge case.

Mend Corpse: Energy flows from the caster to patch together a dead body that has been mangled, cut, or bisected. Requires that that the necromancer touch the body, or touch it with their wand.

A little better, I suppose. It meant that I could keep the zombies going, and maybe make them look a little better, and possibly animate more different bodies. I kind of hoped, though, that fewer people would be dying, making it a non-issue.

Imbue Fetish: You may create in a person a new attraction or fixation, which will steadily increase over the course of a month. Depending on the target’s inclinations, the fetish may become an obsession. May fade after the month is over, or become permanent, depending on the subject. Requires that the Seductress touch the user.

Great, another evil ability to mind control people.

Sexual Satisfaction: Sex with the seductress is 10% better per level of the seductress.

Well, that was all good. What did it mean for sex to be 20% better? How the hell could you quantify that? “I don’t know why you were so excited by Find Dead and Mend Corpse,” I said.

“Hmm?” asked Xyla.

“Talking to Enash, I’m sorry, bad habit.”

It’s a great habit. Acting deranged always strikes fear into your enemies. And friends. Mostly enemies. And Find Dead is great for helping you raise a zombie army. In any case, your existing spells have more range, and that’s useful. Look at these.

Life Drain: Allows the caster to draw life slowly from a living being within thirty meters, healing injuries if any, and otherwise restoring health in proportion to life drained. If health is full, restores mana. If mana is full, restores endurance. Ranged use requires a wand.

Animate Lesser Undead: Allows the caster to turn any dead creature within thirty meters into a zombie. Ranged use requires a wand. Consumes mana.

Yeah. Ranged animate dead. All over the battlefield, the dead rise up, while you just keep pointing your wand. Every time an enemy falls, he gets right back up and fights on our side, the side of evil!

Our side wouldn’t be the side of evil if I had anything to say about it, but I could see how having range on that spell made it a lot better. I checked the other spells, but they didn’t change. The gain in my mana pool was significant, though.

I walked around the forest with Xyla, putting the zombies to work. That accomplished, I told her I was going to go back home for bit. I wanted to help Xyla, but in the long run, I thought I could do more good by accomplishing a few things on Earth.

She pouted. “I’ll miss you.”

I smiled. “I’ll miss you, too. Please don’t overdo, Xyla. You need time to heal.”

“You could watch me and make sure,” she said.

I knew emotional blackmail when I saw it, and shook my head. “No, I trust you,” I told her. I kissed her lightly and went back to the tomb.

My mom used to do that to me. “I trust you.” She’d say those words when she was worried I’d misbehave, knowing that I wouldn’t want to disappoint her. It worked on me, and maybe it would work on Xyla. It was manipulative, but I wanted her to be safe.

Before I climbed the ladder, I took out one of the gold bracers I’d taken off of Varek. It didn’t look like much to me, but it was heavy, and it was golden. The stones had a translucence to them that was kind of attractive, even uncut, but they’d been put in the bracer without any great regard for spacing – the sort of thing that would occur if someone eyeballed it, without measuring. They were pretty big, though, some of them as wide around as a dime.

I popped the gems out with a small screwdriver. Then I rigged up a lever to use as a scale, and put the bracer on one side, and about the same volume of nails on the other.

The bracer was heavier; brass would have been significantly lighter. Unless the bracer was made of some metal not known on Earth, it was probably mostly pure gold. Even a 50-50 mix of silver would have been lighter than iron.

I drove to a jeweler. It was a good time of day for it, mid-afternoon when most people were at work, and there was a balding guy sitting in the store, his pants held up by old-fashioned suspenders.

“Hey,” I said, surprised by my normal, masculine voice. That’s right, I was just a guy in jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt, with no spells or anything. It seemed weird, almost like I was naked. “Do you have time to look at a few uncut stones for me?”

He looked at me, and shrugged. “Sure. Uncut?” He looked unenthused, but he pulled out his loupe and fixed it in place. “Where’d you find them?”

I didn’t answer. I pulled one green, one blue, and one red stone from my pocket, and put them on the counter.

He didn’t look impressed, but he took a look. And then a closer look. He stared at the red stone for a few minutes, and then did the same for the green one and the blue. “I thought you were just going to show me a few rocks you picked up on a hike, or something,” he said at last.

I shrugged. “What are they?”

“This one is a ruby,” he said, pointing to the red one. “And these two are sapphires. They are all of extremely high quality, which I presume you knew.”

I had assumed the red stones were garnets, and that they were all semi-precious at best, but I had wanted to know. “I thought sapphires were blue?”

“Technically, a sapphire is any gem made of the mineral corundum that isn’t red enough to be a ruby. Rubies are essentially red sapphires. We used to call the green ones Oriental Emeralds, nowadays we call them green sapphires. And the word sapphire comes from a Latin word used to describe Lapis Lazuli, a different stone entirely. Don’t blame me, I didn’t make the rules. Where did you get them?”

I shrugged. “They’re family heirlooms. I have more.”

“You have more,” he repeated.

I nodded. “I’m looking to sell them, if you’re interested.”

“I’m interested,” he said. “But I don’t want to be a ‘receiver of stolen goods.’ On the other hand, these stones would be worth more cut than as they are, and I can’t believe they’d stay raw like this for long.” He tilted his head. “So I guess you smuggled them, somehow, rather than stole them.”

I should have thought that through, but I’d not expected the gems to be anything special. The very last thing I needed was for the police to raid my house. Not that they could prove anything about the stones, but they’d find the gate. I held up my hands. “I’m clean,” I said. “If you’re not interested, I’ll go elsewhere. If you are, there’s more where those came from.” I picked up the stones, and his eyes followed them. Or tried to. He was surprised when I opened my hand and it was empty. My timing was probably bad, but I couldn’t resist.

“I couldn’t pay full price,” he said. “There’s too much risk.”

“How much?”

He took a deep breath. “Let’s call it an even grand a carat.”

“And how many carats are they?”

He held out his hand. I slipped the gemstones out of my sleeve and gave them to him. He looked them over with his loupe again before he put them each on a scale. “Technically,” he said. “The green one is probably worth more. But it evens out. Thirty-five thousand, two hundred dollars for all three. I don’t suppose you’d take a check?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I have nothing to hide, and I’m going to go straight to the bank to cash it.”

He stared at me for a long time. “Who do I make it out to?”

“Abel Thorson,” I told him.

He pulled out a checkbook from the cash register and started to write. “This is the strangest thing that has happened to me in a long time. I can’t tell if you’re making a fool of me, or I’m ripping you off. But I can’t wait to work with them.” I noticed as he wrote out the check that his name was Malcolm Gardner.

I smiled. “Maybe we’re just both getting a good deal, Malcolm,” I said.

He shrugged. “Maybe, Abel. If that’s your real name. Well, if you get more, come back. But not too soon. It’ll take me a while to get these cut, set, and sold. I can’t make a purchase like this every day.”

I nodded. “How soon do you want me to come back?”

“A few weeks, maybe?” he said. “A month?”

I grinned. “That works.” It’d be more than enough to keep me out of the poor house, and selling even those three gems covered my expenses buying swords, bows, security equipment, and what not.

My bank was two blocks away, and I deposited the check. I decided not to sell the heavy bracelet, because I didn’t need the money now, and it looked like it was some kind of archaeological artifact. It was more important to avoid arousing suspicion than to have a little more cash on hand. But I did buy a scale and more liquor on the way home, as well as a few short boards of lumber. I got a variety. I also bought a bunch of chocolate bars and a bag of unsalted mixed nuts.

Kathy watched me unload from her porch. I wonder what she thought. Well, I could always say I was stocking a bar.

When I weighed the bracelet, it was two pounds. The price of gold was over twenty-five hundred an ounce – so that meant it was worth another eighty thousand dollars, give or take. That kind of money could do more than stop me from starving. It could also buy a hell of a lot of whiskey and lumber, both of which the trolls needed. I wasn’t sure how I could help Xyla directly with it, but keeping the trolls happy would help her indirectly.

It was late in the evening, so I fixed myself some fettuccine Alfredo. I wanted to go to Amaranth, and check on Xyla, but I also had plenty of things to do at home to make my place more livable. It was weird thinking about how to make a home for me, rather than for someone else who would buy it in a year or less, but every time I looked around at the place I felt a little cranky. I still needed to replace the refrigerator. There were floors that needed refinishing. The kitchen tile needed redoing, and so did the countertops and the cabinets. And I had a medicine cabinet to replace.

This time, maybe I’d do it all in colors I liked.

Someone was knocking at the door, so I got up and answered it.

“Hi Kathy,” I said.

“Hi Abel.” She was wearing some very short shorts, and a polo type top she’d unbuttoned to show a little cleavage. The smile she gave me was either alluring or predatory, I wasn’t sure which. “I noticed you brought some liquor home and I wondered if it would be too forward to invite myself over for a drink.”