[Your skeleton has died]
"Ah, seems like Dark had found another friend." Jay thought.
He was being carried on his throne again, through the forested mountains.
Asra was being carried by several smaller goblin-like skeletons.
Jay summoned Dark again, and finally, Jay was reunited with all of his skeletons. He had since given Red back the squire armor they found in the savage lands dungeon. Unfortunately, Lamp had lost its human skin suit, and the other skeletons had lost all of their armor. However, Jay was content with having one set of armor that Red wore, and Lamp still had its large fur patch area on its back, which seemed to be growing a cape or cloak of some sort.
Four of his higher level skeletons carried the throne, and he had three spare walking around the party.
Heavy was too small and wore thick spectral armor, so along with Dark and Handy, it patrolled around the party in a loose formation.
Unfortunately for Heavy and Dark, they had missed out on exp while in the dungeon; Heavy was still level two, Dark level three.
"Now, my rewards for those painful few days." Jay said, opening the notifications.
< [You have gained a passive skill] >
<[Deciever's Scent]>
[Blood carries the stench of lies]
"Hmm… a person's blood will smell bad if they're lying to me, I'm guessing?"
Jay pricked his own finger and smelled nothing.
"Uh… I need to tell a lie… I can trust humans?"
Suddenly, Jay's face twisted in disgust as the blood on his finger smelled like a rotting corpse.
"Okay, I can't trust them." He admitted, and the scent immediately went away.
"I wonder how long the blood will smell for… What a useless skill." Jay thought. He could already see weaknesses in it.
"Someone could be lying about anything which would make their blood smell. Then there's the matter of having someone bleed. I could force them with the skeletons, but it won't always be that simple. I can't just summon them in human settlements."
"Practicality aside, this could also mean there's something so corrupting about lying that it even affects our blood, making it turn rancid…" he wondered, scratching his chin, "or perhaps it's just the ability." He shrugged. "I wonder if Asra can smell a liar's blood."
Jay then opened the item notification.
< [You have gained a new item] >
< [Needle of Hunger] >
[Take away hunger or give it to whatever this needle pricks]
[Can cause rebound effects when used multiple times]
A new item appeared in Jay's inventory, a long needle which was black on one end and white on the other.
"Well, this doesn't seem very useful either."
Jay pricked himself with the black end and suddenly felt hungry. Not starving, but more like he needed a snack.
Yet a rotting smell soon came over him.
"Huh… I guess this counts as a lie, too?" he thought, knowing his hunger was a lie.
He pricked himself with the white end of the needle and his hunger went away, along with the rotting smell.
"It may be good if I'm ever starving, as it would mask my hunger, but I would still need food. I suppose at least it would help me focus if that ever happened."
Jay had tried to look on the positive side of things, but he couldn't help but feel disappointed by the rewards.
"At least I got two levels out of it."
Jay had ten attribute points, which he added all into his new mana attribute, which gave him bonus mana regeneration. He got more health simply by leveling up, but he felt it was quite low.
"I should invest more time into the skull-shield projector research." He thought.
Jay knew he was much stronger with his skeletons, but he knew that eventually he would be a weak target, and as the necromancer, he would be the priority target for assassins. If he fell, they would all fall.
"Hmm, but if I died, would my skeletons die too, or am I just assuming that?" he wondered.
(Listen, all of you. If I am ever to fall and die, I want all of you to flee. Survive. Become stronger, improve your skills, and get revenge on whoever killed me. If they die, then rule over their offspring if they have any.)
The skeletons all seemed confused by the order; how could their master die? Still, they accept the order with a nod.
"That's a decent enough form of insurance for now. As long as one survives, they will have an eternity to train and become unstoppable and enact my revenge. Now, my skill points…"
Jay had two skill points.
He reasoned that if he raised his undead mastery two levels, he could bring their max levels up to seven, adding fourteen levels in total.
However, two more points into his raise, lesser undead skill would give him two skeletons capable of reaching level five, adding ten levels in total.
Yet, it was not that simple with the existence of the skeleton sub-constructs. If Jay gained two more skeletons, and they both became commanders like Blue, then a total of twenty levels would be added.
"Do I want a swarm or specialization…" he thought.
"Well, Red and Blue are max level, and their exp will be shared with others. Plus, I want more skeletons. But if Blue levels up, I get an extra sub-skeleton and its sub-skeletons will reach level three. I'm already level fifteen now, and the skeletons aren't even half my level. I don't want them becoming useless trash."
Jay went with the middle path, adding one point into [Raise Lesser Undead)] and one point into [Undead Mastery]. This way, their levels would keep rising while he gained more minions.
"Now, let's see how far I've come as an aspiring necromancer." He talked to his skeletons.
< [Necromancer - Level 15] > (Pure)
[Race - Human]
HP: 270/270
MP: 148/148
Strength: 20
Dexterity: 25
Vitality: 35
Mana: 15/15
-Energy: 50/50- (Locked)
Exp: 14,867/81,920
[<[Skills]>]
<~ [Necromancy Skills] ~>
[Raise Lesser Undead (2)]
[Summon Bone Helminth]
[Shell Restoration (1)]
[Unstable Teeth (2)]
[Host (1)]
[Mind (1)]
[Mass Summoning]
[Undead Mastery (5)] (Passive)
[Necrotic Sense (1)] (Passive)
[Scrimshaw (3)] (Passive)
[Soul Sense (1)] (Passive)
[Shift] ~ [Living Blueprints] ~ [Transplant] ~ [Amputation]
[Uncaring Rip]~[Pitiful Mortal]
<~ [Other Skills] ~>
[Mana Regeneration (15)]
[Mark]
[Mana Sense (1)]
[Mental Coating (1)]
[Deceiver's Scent]
[Mana Membrane (1)] (Passive)
[Iskean] (Equipment)
[Dagger Proficiency (1)] (Passive)
[Poison Resist (11%)] (Passive - equipment)
[Running (2)] (Passive)
[Stealth (1)] (Passive)
[Stress Response] (Passive)
[Sword Proficiency (1)] (Passive)
[Class Utility] (Passive)
[<~ [Research] ~>]
[Chimera Research (31%)]
[Immortality Research (5%)]
[Skull-shield Projector Research (32%)]
[Dread-mourn Turret Research (22%)]
"Excellent." He smiled. "now, time to summon the new guy. I wonder what I should have it specialize into. Another commander would be nice, but I would like to have some sort of ranged attacker, other than the helminth."
"Hmm… I still need to copy the helminth's spectral bolt spell before even attempting to teach it to a skeleton. As for necrotic magic, it's only effective against things with bones."
Jay considered things on his throne for a moment, and the skeletons had carried them downhill, out of the thick forest and mountains covered in twisting valleys.
"Perhaps an archer or crossbow user, like Anya." He thought.
"It sucks that I don't have either weapon. A crossbow seems too technical to craft, as they have a trigger mechanism I don't understand, so an archer it is." He nodded.
"But that brings the problem of arrows. I don't want to be constantly crafting them for a skeleton archer who might not even hit its target… I suppose Blue could do it, and could teach the archer once it levels up and gains access to mana."
"Hopefully, when it hits level five, it will get some archer sub-constructs, too."
