The Accidental Necromancer
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It was a very long night.

I had neglected some things, like making sure I had water for concrete. We tied Talos up, and then I taught Gren how to work a faucet. She knew where the sink was from her brief trip up earlier. She ran up and down with buckets while I used the arc welder, and then kept watch until I had the cages largely in place. Once I did, she took a nap.

They didn’t have proper doors. What they had was a section that wasn’t drilled into the floor, and which I padlocked to the rest of the cage. Essentially, I’d have to remove the door to go in and out, but I could always use Dimension Step if I had to. The “door” was just in case I wanted to let them out, really. I put in crossbars to limit the play the locks gave the door, so that normally it only budged up an inch, but if I moved the locks, it could be lifted just high enough to slide one of the dutch ovens I’d bought to use as chamber pots through.

After there were bars all around them, and while the concrete was setting, I used the arc welder to run bars over the top as well, because the crossbars that let me keep the door from shifting also provided opportunities for climbing.

It was five in the morning when I was finally done. Gren had started napping when I reached the last stage, and she was gently snoring. I wished I could do the same, but I wasn’t done yet with all that I had to do.

I cast Find Dead on the missing zombie. Hopefully he wasn’t thirty kilometers away yet. Fortunately, zombies are slow, and clumsy, and “away” didn’t seem to mean in a straight line in one direction.

I woke Xyla up, and told her what I needed. She summoned Nutty, who helped me find the best paths, and soon after dawn I’d tracked down my missing zombie and sent him back home. The rain had stopped, but it was still misting.

And I got a whopping one experience point for using a spell for the first time. Whee!

You know, you get experience points for killing things, not for being nice, or putting them in cages. Or for seducing people. Or for seducing them and then killing them. Hmm, I wonder what class would get points for putting people in cages.

I hoped that I never got a third class. No, that wasn’t right. I hoped that if I did, I’d manage to pick before Enash picked for me. Anyway, I thought I understood why I had two. One was Enash’s, and one was mine. There was no reason to think I’d get three.

Slaver. Cage Master. Barkeeper.

I was too tired to deal with him jabbering at me, but I also didn’t have a choice. I headed back home.

Their bags and armor were still sitting outside. They’d never been quite important enough to worry about with everything else going on. I could stuff some of the pieces in my bag of holding, but some were too big. I carried them in. Wearing that stuff would be a work out all in itself.

Gren was still snoring. Talos was playing with the locks of his cage, and stepped back guiltily when I walked in. Valeria, meanwhile, sat cross-legged, her eyes half-closed, and I got the feeling she was meditating. As I expected, they’d both been able to wiggle out of the rope eventually.

The backpacks they had were well made, and the outside was oiled against the wet. I opened them up and started going through them, finding dry clothes, blankets, and adventuring gear, including some rope I could have used earlier. Okay, that made sense. They also each had a little book, the first thing like it I’d seen in Amaranth, and the front cover had a seven pointed star on it. I opened one up, and tried to read it, but the script was completely foreign to me. Based on the fact that the margins on the right were ragged, and the length of the sections separated by white space I guessed that it was an alphabet, with somewhere over 20 unique characters, rather than pictograms or a syllabary. They were handwritten in ink, and that each had been written by a different hand.

Stop! It burns!

Valeria opened her eyes. “You can handle the book.”

“Sure, why not?”

“Nothing. I wasn’t sure if an evil necromancer could see the holy symbol without being blasted.”

“Nice of you to warn me.”

“I promised not to try to escape,” she said. “Nothing else.”

“Good point. And also, not evil.”

“Sweet,” Gren said, waking up. “No, Nice. Nice necromancer.”

“The sleeping beauty awakes,” I said.

“I’ve been awake. I just didn’t want them to know it.”

I was doubtful, but maybe. “You’re right, by the way. Evil necromancers hate this sort of thing.”

“How would you know?”

“I know a little about necromancy,” I said, not wanting to explain Enash quite yet. “Would you like your book?”

“Yes, please.”

I brought the blanket to her at the same time as I gave her the book, and then looked to Talos. “How about you?”

Talos frowned. “Yeah.”

I wandered over, noticing him staring at my chest again. Oh, yeah, the rain had made my shirt wet, and working with an arc welder much of the night had made me sweat. My shirt was transparent. I would look, too, so I couldn’t really blame him, although I thought I’d be more subtle about it. I handed the book and his blanket to him, and then walked over to the boxes that served as my dressers. One more thing to improve.

“These are the wrong ones,” Valeria said. “You gave me his, and him mine.”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“This one is harder to read,” Talos said.

“I took more effort with mine,” Valeria retorted. “The holy words deserve some embellishment.”

I shrugged, and took the book Talos handed me back. “Did you write them yourself?”

“Copied them,” Talos said. “Yes, by hand.”

“Ah. And you can read them?”

“Of course. Well, unless you put too many curlicues and hearts in it.”

I shuttled between their cages to get them their proper books, and they each thanked me.

Turning my back to Talos, I stripped off my shirt. Then I put on a fresh bra, and a tank top.

Gren moved in front of me. “I’ll hold it so they can’t see while you change your pants.”

“Hold it?”

“You know, your big secret. So it doesn’t dangle.”

“You’re so helpful.”

Of course she didn’t just hold, she stroked. Talos got a good view of my ass while we did it, but I could live with that. Thanks to Gren, I didn’t dangle. Instead, once my panties and skirt were on, I tented. Maybe, if you didn’t know what to look for, you wouldn’t know what you were looking at, but I wasn’t banking on that.

Gren smirked at me. I kept my back to the audience and made some greatly needed coffee. I needed a nap, too, but I was getting a caffeine headache bad enough I’d probably actually sleep better with coffee in me. I didn’t know how much longer I could keep my big secret anyway. Maybe I could put a cloth up every time I went upstairs? Or wear a bathrobe, so I didn’t have to be naked. That sounded like a good solution, or at least better than prancing about naked in front of horny Talos and prudish Valeria.

I debated which of them to tackle first. Ordinarily, I’d say Talos was the easier target, because he was so fascinated with my breasts. I’d just have to vamp him. But I didn’t want to go any further with him than I already had, and honestly, I was having a little trouble looking him in the eye. Not because I was checking him out, but just because it felt awkward. I felt guilty that I’d gotten him to break his oath under the influence of Charm Person, but at the same time I thought it was a silly oath. Sex was good.

Talos could wait, but I had Valeria’s parole for only a short time, and I thought I trusted her to keep it. I should take advantage of it while it lasted.

“You still want to know my secrets?” I asked her, once I was caffeinated and my cock wasn’t hard.

“Of course,” she said.

“Even if it might persuade you that I’m right?”

“Even if.” I noticed she didn’t say that was impossible, this time. Progress?

“I’ll show you around some, in exchange for a promise not to escape, and not to attack me, or anyone else. Or damage anything that belongs to me.”

“I promise not to escape, or attack you or any other living being, or damage any object that belongs to you.”

“Object?” I said. “Ah. Are zombies objects?”

She had a look like she’d been caught. “No comment.”

“Promise not to attack the zombies, either.”

She hesitated.

“Do it, Valeria,” Talos said from across the room.

“We’re talking the evil undead, here!” Valeria retorted.

“Actually, zombies don’t have feelings or motivations,” I said. “They can’t be good or evil, they are just dead bodies that are still moving.”

“Their very existence is an abomination.”

“You only have to promise to leave them alone today,” I said. “They’ll leave you alone, too.”

She gritted her teeth. “I promise to go today without attacking a zombie,” she said, with effort. I don’t think her teeth every parted as she said it.

“Great.” I put the bag of holding inside my backpack, so I could play with it out of sight when I needed to, and pulled out the key to the padlocks. I carefully unlocked them, then put the key in my pocket.

There was no reason to show her that I had weapons. If she was willing to break her promise and attack me, I wanted to find out while she still didn’t know what I could do.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Gren asked me.

“Not at all.” I seemed to be feeling that way a lot. But the only way through was forward.

She walked out of her cell, and followed me outside. She twitched when she saw the zombies.

“Abby?” she asked.

“Val?”

She didn’t object to me shortening her name. “This is hard. Would you tie my hands, please? Because I really want to bash their heads against a wall.”

I tied her hands behind her back.

“Thank you, Abby.”

“You know, I could make it a bit more secure if they were attached to some rope around your chest. Up to you, though.”

“That might help,” she said. “You know, with my urge to hurt the vile undead.”

“Uh-huh.” I tied a chest harness around her, with strands above and below her breasts. It made the dress tighter up there. Then I tied the wrist rope to the back of the chest harness.

“Thank you Abby.” She paused. “Actually, that feels kind of nice.”

“I had a friend call it a rope hug.”

“Hmm.”

I directed the zombies to pick up lumber, and she watched as they headed north toward the troll village.

“Where are they going?”

“I’ll show you. Let’s pass them, they are slow.”

“Maybe you should hold me by the rope,” she suggested. “I might be tempted to head butt them, or kick them.”

Uh-huh. I grabbed the spot where the chest rope was knotted in the back and marched her past the zombies. She was bigger than me; about the same height, but broader in the hips and chest, so it felt ridiculous. But we got past the zombies and kept walking. I let go of the rope, and we continued on.

I waited for her to tell me I should untie her, since we were no longer near the vile undead, but she kept me waiting.

When I crashed, I was going to crash hard. But I couldn’t afford to fall asleep now. I glanced at my character sheet.

Endurance 1/30

Okay, that was bad. I was running on fumes, coffee fumes.

Sorry, Xyla.

I touched a tree. A dark glow surrounded my hand, as I cast Life Drain. I just took a little, and then I moved on to another tree.

“Foul magic!” Valeria said.

“It’s necromancy,” I told her. “That much is true. It lets me take a little life from the tree, and use it to help me. I’m taking the smallest amount I can, so as to not damage the trees.”

“Could you do the same to me?”

“I could,” I said. “But I’m not. Because I’m not evil, remember?”

She frowned. “That looks pretty bad to me.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “The special effects are all spooky. But you know, I would have gotten a good night’s sleep if it weren’t for you and your buddy, and then I wouldn’t have to use spells just to show you around while you were still under your promise not to escape.”

Endurance 11/30

“So it’s my fault?” she asked.

“Yep. But I know you meant well. I’m going to untie you before you trip and face plant.”

“But what if I get tempted to attack you?”

“Then you will have to struggle with temptation on your own.”

I untied her wrists, but left the chest harness. I’d take it off if she asked, but I was curious to see if she’d ask. It wasn’t serving any function, after all.

She didn’t ask. We kept walking.

“So, what is Talos to you, exactly?”

“We’re partners.”

“Related to each other?”

“No.”

“Partners as in married?”

“If I’d meant husband, I’d have said husband. And what about Gren, and Xyla. Are they your slaves?”

“No. Partners is a good word.”

“Under the influence of some evil spell?”

“You keep tossing around that word evil. But no, they aren’t under the influence of any spell.” I couldn’t do anything about my passive abilities. “They understand what I’m trying to accomplish, they help me, and I help them.”

“And what are you trying to accomplish?”

“Protect this world, and mine,” I said. And then I added, honestly, “And make a good life for myself and my friends at the same time.”