Heather the Necromancer

They walked briskly across the grasslands as they watched for danger. Frank led the way with Heather at his side and her skeletons directly behind. The skeletons carried the group's gear, and one of them now wore the sunbonnet.

Quinny and Grettah brought up the rear as the party made its way vaguely northeast.

For nearly four hours, they tried to guess what made dwarven pizza 'dwarven.' Frank thought maybe the dough would be made with beer.

Quinny hopped it meant the pizza was piled high with toppings. She tried to compare it to layers of the earth since the dwarves loved to mine.

Heather was sure it would be a combination of things. Perhaps a dense dough, with a unique blend of seasonings in the sauce. She already knew they liked to go heavy on the cheese, so maybe that's what made it dwarven?

Grettah pointed out that it could be something as simple as the shape of the dough or how they cut it.

“New York pizza is just a thin crust cut into a big floppy piece,” she said. “Chicago likes a thick crust and a lot of Chicago places like to square cut. Detroit style is usually a thick rectangular crust also cut into squares.”

“You know a lot about pizza,” Frank said.

Grettah sighed. “I had to travel a lot for my job. I was constantly flying into one city or another. It's part of why I came here. I was so tired of always being on the run.”

“And now you're walking for two days to some other city,” Quinny laughed.

Grettah sighed and looked to the distant horizon. “This is different. I am doing this because I want to, not because I have bills to pay. It changes your entire perspective on life when you don’t have a gun to your head forcing you to make your decisions.”

Heather thought back to her life and realized that she had plenty of bills and expenses. She made enough money to pay them, but that was because she worked hard. Her entire life was planned around paying bills. If she kept running on the wheel and worked hard, she would have a little free time and money to do things like this, get a pizza. She hadn't considered how free this life made her. She could be almost anything she could dream of and do anything she wanted. Nobody was going to take her tower away because she missed a payment.

“That was very insightful,” Heather said. “I hadn’t thought about how much choice I have in my life now.”

“It's why I came in here,” Quinny said. “No jobs, lots of bills, and few paths to anything but long hours and harassment.”

“I came in because it seemed like a dream come true,” Frank said. “I could be a living breathing video game character in the ultimate fantasy MMO.”

“So Frank is a pure gamer,” Quinny said. “Grettah and I were looking for a new life.”

“You two are gamers, though?” Heather asked.

Quinny shrugged. “I played a little, but I did most of my research on the internet.”

“I played mostly mobile games,” Grettah said. “I did all my looking on my phone. I spent months trying to make my decision.” She paused to scratch her left ear and looked at Heather with a curious stare. “Why did you come in?”

Heather chewed a lip a moment, but Frank answered for her.

“She didn't. She was chosen.”

“You were?” Grettah said in shock. “You must be so happy!”

Heather looked over her shoulder and tossed her head. “I never wanted to be chosen.”

“You didn't?” Grettah said with a glance to Quinny, who nodded it was true. “That is such a shame.”

“Why is that a shame?” Heather asked.

Grettah shook her head as she answered. “There are people in the real world trying to figure out how to become chosen. Some who want in are waiting to see if they get chosen first. Tons of people are arguing about what the visitors are looking for. Scams are going around where people are selling the secret to becoming chosen.” She scratched her ear again and looked at Heather with her dark eyes. “Then, here you are, a chosen, and you didn't want it?”

“I didn’t want it, nor did I care about any of this. I went to bed one night and woke up here,” Heather said.

“You don’t want to be here at all?” Grettah asked.

Heather didn’t reply right away as she collected her thoughts.

“I didn't at first, but now I am starting to enjoy being here. Thanks to Frank, I started to feel like I could do this. He made being here more tolerable and gave me a chance to get my feet under me. Then we met Quinny and some others, and I realized I could have friends. Now you since you brought up the freedom of this place. I hadn't considered I could be and do nearly anything without much worry.”

“Is that why you're human?” Grettah nodded. “You wanted the three full classes?”

Heather shrugged. “I picked most of my stuff under duress,” she admitted. “To be honest, I kept thinking this was a dream I was going to wake up from and wasn't taking it seriously.”

“You didn’t want to be human?” Grettah asked.

“I like humans,” Heather said. “But I think I might have liked something else. There are so many races. I'm not sure I have looked at half of them yet.”

“She took forever to pick,” Frank agreed.

“I know what I would have picked if I were chosen,” Grettah said.

“What would you pick?” Heather asked.

“I am playing a spear maiden with an herbalist mundane class. If I were a chosen, I would have taken the spear maiden and truth seer.”

“What is a truth seer?” Heather asked.

“It’s like a fortune teller,” she replied. “They have all sorts of powers to see other places and things. They can give people minor blessings or curses and lay magical detection wards.”

“Does it come with a crystal ball?” Quinny asked.

“As a matter of fact, it does,” Grettah said. “I would have been Madame Grettah. Finder of secrets and teller of fortunes.”

Heather laughed at the way Grettah said it like she was at a carnival promoting herself. She pictured Grettah wrapped in layers of shawls and ears full of rings, hunched over a crystal ball.

“Why didn’t you pick the truth seer now?” Heather asked.

Grettah twitched her ears and looked around. “It doesn't have much combat potential. It needs a group to play with to be useful.”

“You can play with us,” Heather said.

“And where is she going to live?” Frank asked. “She needs a bed to mark as a home. Or one of the spawn anchors they create in cities.”

“Can’t you build a home?” Heather asked.

Grettah nodded. I can create a small shack and farm for herbs. It's not much more than a cabin. What I need is a player city where I can buy a shop and sell potions.”

“You can make potions?” Heather said in wild wonder.

“I can make some types. Alchemists have the biggest selection and make the best ones. Chemists and apothecaries can make a good selection, and some kinds of witches can brew potions,” she said.

Heather found that fascinating as she thought about how many movies had magic potions in them. She thought about the shack Grettah could build and looked back.contemporary romance

“So you could play with us then. You could build your shack by our stuff.”

Grettah shook her head. “I can only build the shack near a town center or hall. It has to be land set aside for agriculture.”

“But we’re able to build wherever we wanted,” Heather protested.

“We are monster races,” Frank said. “And you picked recluse. Your class is free to build its tower anywhere. She has a single house that has to be built where other players who can found towns have marked land as available. Lots of classes have that restriction.”

“Oh,” Heather said with a nod. “We need that village then.”

“We get a visitor or two every couple of days now,” Quinny said.

“I agree with Heather,” Frank said. “The experience is too slow. If we had a village, it would create a place for people to stop and play.”

“It would also be nice to have shops closer than two days away,” Heather said. “I don't mind walking this far once in a while, but I don't want to make this trip often.”

They walked on and began to talk about how they would approach the town when they got closer. They told Grettah about the plan to disguise Quinny and how they hoped people would accept Frank.

“It seems silly to worry about hiding her and not trying to hide him at all,” Grettah said.

“I will hide in the countryside while they go into town to get the food,” he said.

Grettah nodded and poked around in a bag. She produced a small leather-bound book and began to flip through pages.

“hmmm,” she said as she ran a finger down a page. “I wonder if potions work on the undead?”

Heather looked back at her with a curious glance. “Why do you ask?”

“I have a recipe for a potion of deception. It gives the drinker an illusionary appearance for about an hour. It isn't a real change like a shape change potion. It just makes an illusion over the drinker that won't hold up if tested.

“You can make him look normal?” Heather asked with hope in her voice.

“I already look normal,” Frank replied. “I like being a ghoul.”

Heather shook her head. “You know what I mean. If she can disguise you for an hour, we can all walk right in with no trouble.”

Frank scratched at the top of his head as he walked along. “What do you need to make it?”

“Mistletoe, a drop of quicksilver, a hair from the race you want to look like, and flower petals of three different colors. They have to be red, yellow, blue, green, or purple. Then I have to grind them down into an oil and boil it for an hour with a sprig of mistletoe in the water. When the essence of the mistletoe blends with the oils, I add a drop of quicksilver as the activator.”

“That sounds very specific,” Frank said.

Grettah nodded and ran a finger down the page studying the process.

Heather looked back as a question burned in her mind. She felt embarrassed to ask it, but she desperately wanted to know.

“If you don’t mind my asking something strange, but where did you get that book?”

“This is my herbalism book,” Grettah replied.

Heather nodded. “I know, but…” She paused, embarrassed of what she had to say. “I have looted your body twice and never seen it.”

Grettah's ears twitched as her eyes went wide in shock. Heather felt terrible for having looted her now and turned around, unable to see her expression.

“It's a class item,” Frank said. “Like your scythe and the death knights sword. When she dies, it poofs and respawns with her.”

“Oh,” Heather said with a nod. “That explains it.”

“You have looted my dead body twice?” Grettah asked.

“You were dead in the forest,” Heather said. “I don't have much food out here, so I took the dried food you had on you.”

“I took your spears,” Quinny said.

Grettah nodded. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. It isn’t like I don’t get it all back when I respawn.”

“So, can you make this potion for Frank?” Quinny asked, steering them back to the topic at hand.

Grettah nodded. “I have mistletoe on me. We can easily find the flower petals, all I need is the quicksilver.”

“Where does that come from?” Heather asked.

Grettah shrugged. “The book doesn’t say. It just tells me what I need and how to use it.”

“Well, that was a good idea that went nowhere,” Frank said.

Heather swatted him gently to avoid hurting her hand this time. “You can’t give up just like that. I bet we can figure out where to find it and make you a potion.”

“It's easy to make once you have the ingredients,” Grettah said. “The class spawns with a basic kit to make them with, so I have all the tools I need.”

Heather realized she never saw the kit either. She began to wonder how many things didn’t stay when a player died.

“Nobody will be able to see what I am?” Frank asked.

Grettah made a low, “Well,” and Frank looked back at her.

“Well, what?” he asked.

Grettah sighed. “Some races and classes can see through illusions. The truth seer, for example, would see right through it. Also, it's only an illusion. You will still occupy the full amount of space you do now. So people might bump into you accidentally. If anybody were to get suspicious and strike you, the effect would fade.”

“So, what does it make him look like then?” Heather asked.

“He will look like whatever race we use the hair from.”

“We will have to use Heather’s hair,” Quinny said. “So he will look human for a little while.”

Heather ran a hand over her hair in a nervous gesture. It made sense they would use her hair, but what would he look like? Human could mean anything, and she struggled to picture him. As she struggled to hold the image, Quinny suddenly spoke up.

“I have an idea!” she said with a happy chirp.

“What?” Heather asked, now fully interested.

“We buy it in town,” Quinny said. “They might have a shop that sells quicksilver. We have Frank wait outside while we go in and buy it. Then we bring it back, make him the potion and go have pizza.”

Heather smiled as she listened and turned to Frank. “That could work! You could walk in with us and sit down at the table. Nobody would know, and we could all have pizza.”

“Dwarven pizza,” Quinny corrected.

“What if there is somebody who can see through illusions?” Frank asked.

Heather understood his reservations, but this was too good an idea to waste. She spoke calmly to sound confident and reassuring.

“We were going to walk in with you completely exposed,” she started. “This is just narrowing down the risk of somebody having a bad reaction. If we were willing to take a huge risk originally, taking a much smaller risk instead should be easy.”

She smiled as he nodded and led on. It was all going so well that she started to feel excited. With any luck, the shortcut would save them some time, and by tomorrow night, they would be eating pizza.

They crested a hill and looked down as her smile faded.

“Please tell me that’s an illusion,” Heather said.

“No, that’s a rock troll,” Frank said.

done.co