Jay decided to leave his skeletons to hunt more soul stones. He had all his minions stand before him, double-checked that all his skeletons were back to full health before leaving the dungeon, but as he turned to his bone helminth, he paused.
“Hmm, I recall you have a second form... Sentinel form was it? Let’s give it a try.”
The necrotic worm parasite snapped its jaws a few times before it coiled its body into a threatening spring shape and diving at Jay.
Jay didn’t expect it to pounce at him, it was suddenly like a spear that someone threw and it was heading right towards his neck.
“Oh~” he took a step back, trying to supress his urge to block it.
The creature coiled around his neck and the familiar necrotic gas formed around its body as it began to glow green.
The necrotic mana of its body mostly left each of its bones, separating from them as it formed an ethereal-snake which wrapped around Jay’s neck and suddenly disappeared - though Jay could still feel its presence.
“Huh... but what about the bones”
As for its physical bone body, each of the bones were then separated and dispersed on different parts of Jay’s clothes, forming a rough sort of armour across the fabric.
Jay pursed his lips as he looked at the flimsy bones.
“It seems kind of pathetic,” he thought.
He looked like he had covered his clothes in random bits of fish bone, like some kind of crazy homeless man that lived under a bridge.
It was obvious to Jay now that he needed some armour, as it made the bones look a bit pathetic clinging onto his tunic, however with armour they would act as reinforcement.
Suddenly, as if responding to his thoughts, the bones all floated once more and gathered around the front of his chest. The bones morphed, squeezed, melded and coalesced, forming a large round dark-blue amulet with a white chain.
“That’s more like it... hmm, did it read my thoughts?” he smiled, then realised he may have offended his unique minion.
“Oh... sorry. I’m sure it will be good if I got more armour… or if you got more bones. We’ll get you big and strong in no time.” Jay encouraged his new creature. He wasn't sure if it was responding to his thoughts or if this was more like a command from his will.
Little did Jay realise, he was beginning to talk to these inanimate constructs as if they were his friends.
The dark cobalt-blue amulet had the image of a green crossbow bolt on it, and he felt like it was much better looking.
“Nice” he smiled.
“Now… how are you supposed to attack in this form?”
Suddenly, the ethereal head of the snake reappeared just above his shoulder. Slowly its jaw winded back open to almost a 180-degree angle, and then snapped shut.
“Oh?”
A crossbow bolt made purely from necrotic energy shot out towards a nearby wall of the pyramid at high speed.
“Wow..” Jay raised a brow before grinning, shocked with the speed of the projectile. It even left after-images, though that may be due to the necrotic magic which formed the bolt.
Seeing the speed, Jay felt like he could kill anything that would try to run from him now. With a shoulder-mounted weapon he felt like some sort of predator.
Jay watched with anticipation as the bolt was about to hit the other side of the room, but at it hit the wall, it didn’t affect it at all - It simply passed through it.
“What? Where’s the damage?” he re-read the helminth skill, confirming that it would do 5 damage - but he found that it specified ‘necrotic’ damage, and quickly he realised that necrotic magic energy probably won’t do much against stone - not to mention that this was a helvetian pyramid; a cursed land where even the stone statues were immune to magic.
“I suppose we should test you outside…” Jay said to his ghostly helminth “Still, I’m glad I can have you with me secretly… but definitely don’t go firing any bolts unless I tell you to.”
The ethereal skull snapped its jaw, lowered its head and disappeared.
Jay felt its energy-form snuggle itself back into a ring around his neck. It was weightless, but he could still sense it.
He tried to touch it but his hand simply went through it and he physically felt nothing.
“Huh, must be my necromancer senses I guess.” he shrugged, knowing the helminth was there even though he couldn't touch it.
“I suppose it’s good that no one can touch you.”
With nothing left for him in the dungeon, Jay decided to leave.
Jay could have remained here longer and accomplished a few various tasks, but decided he should attend Viladore’s lesson.
“I’ll fix the shield later tonight.” he thought.
Jay knew he wouldn’t need the shield in the meantime, and besides, he should be saving at least some of his mana for Viladore’s lesson.
Jay willed to leave the dungeon, and the familiar obelisk rose with a door in it.
As Jay left, more adventurers were waiting outside, but Jay ignored them as usual.
“If people knew I was level 10, they would probably be coming to me for lessons…” Jay stopped a proud smirk from forming on his face as he walked through the adventurers.
Of course, Jay still had the disguise stone activated making him appear as if he were level 9. Nevertheless, being level 9 at this stage still made him a sort of infamous idol among the low level adventurers of Losla. The sense of superiority that was created around him even made it hard for some adventurers to approach him, they simply watched in admiration.
“Hmm... I wonder if the disguise stone works in parties.” Jay just realised he may be able to party up with other adventurers now, and a fire began to rise in his heart - however, it was quickly stifled.
“Well, I think the skeletons would probably give it away… besides, at this point they will just slow me down and leech my exp.”
Jay had no reason to party up other than companionship, and he was a loner anyway so he really saw no advantage to running a dungeon with low level people. He received his first exp notification since leaving the dungeon, but he decided to ignore it until he came back later.
Now the only reason to party up would be for a harder dungeon that required more people, he would still need his skeletons; without them, he would be useless in a party, making this option self-defeating.
The average adventurer level was around level 6 at this point. More were showing up to the mist keep dungeon to test themselves after having levelled up at the various level two dungeons around Losla. A few were even going in solo now similar to Jay, but they would return quite quickly.
Most groups had been broken down into pairs of two or three now. Initially, there were large groups of 5 to 7, but many realised that the exp was not that good, and neither were they getting much combat experience, and Jay had unknowingly taught the adventurers of Losla a lesson - sometimes less is more.
A few adventurers were even selling charged crystals which they kept from the Carter’s Demise dungeon, though not many people were buying them as the statue soldiers of mist keep were magic-immune.
Jay proceeded up the mountain, past the quarry.
“I wonder what Viladore will teach me today.”
