The Accidental Necromancer
Remember Me Fondly

Kathy hated being useless, but she knew the others were right. She was no good in a fight. Stupid Amaranth, not letting her bring her pistol through the gate.

Well, Nancy Drew never needed a gun, and she shouldn’t either. There had to be something she could do, she just had to use her brains, and think outside the box. She wasn’t some helpless female to be tied to the railway tracks and rescued by a red-clad Canadian Mountie. She was a smart, curious, capable woman.

There were a bunch of potions sitting on the table, all magical. They did stuff, it just wasn’t clear what. Kathy considered tasting them, one by one, to see if she could figure out what they did. Just a taste. If a potion turned one into a giant, a little taste should make one taller. It was an idea, but Kathy didn’t think it was a good idea, just one to be considered and let go.

She could possibly bring across the parts of a gun, one at a time. That was a better idea, but it was beyond what she currently knew how to do, so she marked it as an item for research for later.

The silver crown sat on the coffee table. It was a remarkably simple thing, barely more than a thick circlet of metal, with a little bit of a peak at one point, where two red gems were inset, side by side. It didn’t look like much, the sort of thing a minor princess twenty-three steps removed from the throne would wear, but Abby had said it was very magical.

Abby didn’t say she couldn’t put it on.

If something bad happened, well, better that it happen to her than to some useful member of the group, she rationalized.

In any case, it seemed silly to explore a brand new world and not be willing to take any chances. If Nancy never took chances, she wouldn’t end up in half the predicaments she got in, but then again, she’d never bring the bad guys to justice, either.

She picked up the crown, feeling the cold metal in her hands. She looked at it thoughtfully, put it down.

Very magical, she reminded herself. Could do all sorts of things. Maybe it wasn’t worth the risk.

#

We camped overnight. It was tempting to go all the way back to the crypt where I had a stove and the rest, but it would take us hours to get there and hours to get back to where we were, so Xyla found a clearing where we could safely have a fire. We ate a combination of venison from a wounded deer that Xyla pointed out to Gren, berries that Xyla plucked from trees, and trail mix, with chocolate bars for dessert.

I would pack better camp food next time, and spices for the meat, but it was all perfectly edible, and there was something nice about sitting around a fire with my loved ones. Even without graham crackers and marshmallows to go with the chocolate.

The orcs learned their lesson. They quit traveling through the forest, so we had to change tactics.

Gren walked out of the safe cover of the trees, and shot an orc from a couple of hundred meters. It wasn’t fatal, so they ignored her. Then she did it again, and this time, one fell.

They couldn’t hope to hit her from that range themselves, so they chased her all the way into the woods, where Xyla waited with her vines and Lesseth with her acid. Then a hoard of Zombies cut off their retreat. You may not think of zombies as being stealthy, and they’re not, but if they are set up in advance they can stay perfectly still and they don’t do so much as breathe, so they aren’t bad in ambush. Also, they all move at once when commanded – no danger of one jumping the gun.

It wasn’t a fight, it was a slaughter, so I’m not going to go on about it. Once they were in the woods, it all went down much as before.

Experience for next level: 220

The problem was, the orcs didn’t fall for it again, and we weren’t going to fight them in the plains, so I sent Talos to the troll village to warn Gavabar.

“It’s possible they are staying so far away from the forest that they’ll veer away from the troll village, as well,” I suggested.

Valeria didn’t think that was very likely. “Maybe. They’ll surely pass close enough to it that their scouts will see it. And then it will be a tempting target.”

“Better for my father to be prepared than otherwise,” Gren said. “I’m going to try to see if I can get an estimate on their numbers.”

“Maybe I should do that? Because I can teleport?” I didn’t want the mother of our child to be in danger, if there was a better way.

Gren frowned. “How far you can you teleport?”

“About twenty meters. From there to there, basically.” I pointed. “That tree to that tree.”

“Okay. I’ll be behind you, farther than that so you can get closer without being noticed, but so that if someone chases you, I can distract them with my bow.”

I could see that was as good a compromise as I was going to get, so we set out. Lesseth hopped into my bag.

They were gathered in one big group now, having learned their lesson about getting picked off a few at a time, and they weren’t running after solitary figures a long way away; or at least, they didn’t chase after me. There were a lot of them.

It was hard to get an accurate count of the sea of green bodies. I counted a few groups of ten, until I got to a hundred, and then tried to figure out what fraction of the total that represented, and came up with four hundred or so, but there were probably a bunch that were hidden from view on the far side. Say six hundred. The stench of a large, sweating mass was palpable even more than a football field away.

Way too many for Gavabar’s troops, even with the aid of my zombies.

The orcs had some supplies with them, which were being dragged by slow lumbering beasts that looked a bit like hairy oxen. If they left them behind, they could probably move faster. At the rate they were moving now, they’d get to the troll village in a day or so. I remembered from my military history that large foraging groups like that needed to spread out to stay fed, so I supposed bunching them up was a victory of sorts in itself, but one that would take more time to pay off than we had.

Maybe I could infiltrate them somehow, like I had when the troll village had been more enemy than friend, but I doubted it. It seemed much higher risk. There had to be a better answer than a giant pitched battle on the plains.

But wishing it didn’t make it so. I did see my way to a better answer than just lining up with the trolls and bracing for a fight, though. From the forest, we could hope to hit the orcs from behind at the moment they were distracted. Gren and I, at least, could run well, and Lesseth would be with me. The zombies couldn’t do hit and run, but they could make the orcs take us seriously enough that they’d have to commit some troops to defending their rear. They were disposable.

Valeria was not, and she wasn’t that much more mobile in her armor than the zombies. I was willing to sacrifice them, but not her. And Xyla would have to stay in the forest; outside of it she wasn’t any more powerful than Kathy.

I wanted to try an experiment, so I headed back to Gren, and then together we walked back to the forest and the clearing where we had camped.

Valeria and Xyla greeted us with relieved hugs.

“You’re safe!” Xyla exclaimed, as if surprised.

“Of course I’m safe. I can teleport, and run like hell. As it turned out, I didn’t need to.”

“It’s very dangerous out there,” Xyla said seriously. “Wide open spaces are scary.”

“Um, yeah,” I said. “Val, do you mind if I pick you up?”

“I don’t mind, Abby,” Valeria said. “But I’m a lot heavier than you. I’ll take off my armor first.”

“No,” I said. “Armor on.”

She gave me a look. “You’re thinking like Abel, Abby. I’m sure he could pick me up. But you?”

“I’m stronger than I look,” I said.

“Fine,” Valeria said. “Try. But don’t hurt yourself. We’ll need everyone healthy. Although I guess I can always heal you after. Like I could have the deer last – um, nevermind that. Go ahead.”

“Wait,” said Xyla. “You could have healed that cute little doe, instead of us butchering her so that – you know I only let you do that because she was going to die anyway, with a broken leg like that. I –”

“Xyla,” I interposed, “we needed to stay at full strength. And that means we needed to eat. Humans are omnivores, and while we can be vegetarians, it takes somewhat specialized crops for us to get enough protein that way.”

Xyla pouted, crossed her arms, made sure I’d seen the pout, and then turned her back to the rest of us.

“Ready?” I asked Val, ignoring Xyla.

“Ready,” she said.

I put one hand behind her knee, the other behind her back, and tipped her over into my arms. I was indeed stronger than I looked. Strength was actually my best stat. But Valeria wasn’t light, and the plate mail was heavy too. Still, I could hold her for a little while.

“And what is the point of this?” Valeria asked, moving her lips closer to mine. “I think it would have been better with my armor off.”

Dimension Step.

“Whaaaaa?” Valeria said, as we reappeared on the other side of the clearing.

“Just checking to see if I could do that while carrying you,” I said. “I can. Which means if we need to hit and run, I can get you a good lead before setting you down. I won’t pretend I can run fast, carrying you, but at least I can give you twenty meters head start.”

Valeria nodded. “And if we’re doing that, I won’t be wearing my armor. I’ll run faster without it.”

I didn’t like the idea of her fighting at close quarters without armor, and if she wasn’t doing any melee fighting, she wasn’t much more than a healer who had to touch to heal. Which was only useful if we were going to let them catch up to us. The bulk of our army she couldn’t heal at all, as they were already dead.

If I could level up, maybe I’d be able to come up with a better plan.

#

Kathy watched the security cameras with one eye, while she did some work on her laptop. With the wifi, she could work from her porch on Earth, and still see what was going on down there.

Someone was approaching.

Talos!

She put down her laptop, put up an AFK message, and hurried to Abel’s house. She almost ran down the steps to the basement, through the portal, and down the next flight of stairs. Talos stood there, waiting for her.

She didn’t run into his arms, because he was wearing plate mail, and that would hurt.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“We ambushed a few. Abby fights dirty,” Talos said. “But I admit it works.”

“So we’re winning?”

Talos shook his head. “I wouldn’t say that. It’s a pretty big horde. We don’t know how big, exactly, but from what one of the orcs said, I’d guess five hundred or so. The trolls don’t stand a chance, unless Abby can pull some kind of miracle. We killed a few dozen, that’s it.”

“Oh.”

“I need to go back and help the trolls fight.”

“But you said they don’t stand a chance.”

“That doesn’t change what I have to do,” Talos said. “Figure out what you can to protect the gate. That’s the most important thing. One last kiss, before I go?”

“One last – Talos, don’t die on me! Don’t you dare die on me.”

“I can’t run,” Talos said. “I have to fight. There will be other men for you, I’m sure.”

“Don’t talk that way.”

Talos shrugged, and turned away. “Goodbye, Kathy. Remember me fondly.”

Men! Kathy ran around in front of him. “I need you to help me protect the gate,” Kathy said.

“I won’t rationalize cowardice,” Talos said. “And who knows. Abby has a way of making things work out.” He smiled slightly. “Maybe I’ll be back.”

Kathy kissed him. “You better be. Or I’ll –” she left the sentence unfinished.

They kissed again, for longer, this time. Kathy had no intention of ever stopping, but at some point she had to breathe, and Talos smiled slightly at her and started walking away.

She watched him go, and then ran back inside to get the crown from the table. “Talos!” she yelled.

But he was out of earshot.

“Well,” she said to herself. “Here goes nothing.”