Reluctant Necromancer

We did our duty. We cleared the dungeon again, god that was getting old fast. We ran the clinic. That actually left me with a warm fuzzy feeling and I’d never admit it to Montgomery, but might have been worth the waiting. We saw a lot of the refugees at the clinic surprisingly enough. Most injuries were minor. Mostly sprains, scrapes, bruises, and one broken toe. But the looks on people’s faces when they walked out of Oliver’s little space were profound.

That night I lay awake for hours after Ashley went to bed. I was worried about the time we’d lost to preparing. Though I understood the need in theory at least. I just wished there was something I could do to make sure the people we were after to save were alright.

The next morning we all got up, a little grimmer than normal. We ate quietly before we all grabbed our already packed bags and headed down to the police station to see what Montgomery had managed to round up for us.

I walked into the station behind Mara and John. My hand was held firmly by Ashley who kept shooting me thoughtful glances. Inside was the same as always. Not really anyone around the office. Today even the angry receptionist was missing. But so were any other groups.

Montgomery was lounging at one of the little desks in the middle of the floor. He stood up slowly as we clustered around the front of the room. He looked exhausted, like he hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in over a week.

He came to a stop in front of us, thumbs tucked into his belt loops. “I found a group to go with you,” he said. He looked more than a little uncertain and worried though. Like we might not agree with his choice. “They’re on their way and should be here in the next ten or fifteen minutes. Why don’t you all go back to the meeting room where we normally plan things. I’ll bring them in when they get here.”

I stared at him very carefully. There was something he wasn’t telling us. Something we probably wouldn’t like based on how shifty he seemed. Before I could figure anything out though, Mara agreed and led us back past the bullpen. I followed along without raising a fuss. I sat down in one of the chairs near the edge of the room and Ashley settled into one next to me.

“I have a feeling we’re not going to be happy with whatever group he wrangled up,” Oliver broke the quiet.

“Yeah, he seemed kind of…off,” I added. The others nodded in agreement.

“Nothing we can do but wait and see,” Ashley shrugged. “Maybe it won’t be that bad.” There wasn’t anything else to really say about it. We’d find out soon enough either way.

We settled into a comfortable silence as we waited. Ashley leaned her head on my shoulder and I leaned my head on her head. She held out her palm and I placed my hand in hers where she pulled it into her lap and rubbed her thumb over my knuckles. It was incredibly soothing and I finally began to relax a little.

A few minutes later I could make out raised voices coming from the front room. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but it didn’t seem heated or anything, just loud. Maybe excited? A few moments later three people stepped into the room followed by Montgomery.

There was an older man. Well, older than us. He was clearly at least in his forties with a small black Van Dyke, large dark framed glasses, and black hair down to his shoulders in loose waves. He was in a bowling shirt and shorts with birkenstocks on his feet. He looked very relaxed and happy to see everyone.

Next to him was a young man that was nearly a head taller than the rest of their group. He was close to John’s height probably. He had a more blue collar muscular build than Oliver’s obviously gym sculpted body, but was clearly muscular and fit. He had scruffy dark hairs growing in patches across his youthful face trying to come together to form a beard that just wouldn’t happen. His hair was sheared short on the sides with a small poof of curls on top. He seemed to be close to our age, putting him in his early to mid-twenties I’d guess. He was in a plain t-shirt, jeans, and boots.

On the other side of Van Dyke guy was a short, light skinned Black girl. Woman. I wasn’t sure. She seemed younger than the others and if I had to guess I’d put her at like seventeen…ish. Her dark hair was pulled back in a tight braid that looked like she’d have a headache in an hour. She had a light tank top that barely covered her navel and left a strip of tan skin exposed, shorts that looked to barely cover to the bottom of her butt, and converse high tops. The most interesting thing about her though was the small, but thick book strapped to her thigh in something resembling a leather holster.

Van Dyke stepped forward to shake all of our hands as he introduced himself, “I’m Josh.” He pointed behind him, “This is my nephew Jeremy.” The young man stepped forward to shake our hands as well. “And this is my niece Jenny,” the girl just waved at us all.

Jenny’s eyes darted to each of us as we introduced ourselves, but they kept coming back to Mara. A small blush started to creep up her neck. Interesting. How did Mara have so much game without even trying?! She just stood there!

“What kind of convergences do you all have?” Mara asked politely.

“Well, I picked up a smoke, bone, and mercury essence and ended up with an Alchemist convergence,” Josh started. Huh, another bone user. I wondered where he’d gotten his from.

“Oh my goodness, can you make use of all the fucking monster cores we’ve been picking up by chance?” John asked excitedly.

Josh seemed a little shocked for a moment as John interrupted him, but then an excited gleam came into his eyes and he bounced lightly on his toes. “Yes. Yes, I can. How many do you happen to have?”

“A fuck ton,” I answered smiling at his excitement. I was glad John had thought to ask, because I was tired of all the damn things.

“I’ve been missing them as a component to empower most of my potions. Without them I’m more of a chemist than an alchemist. And I burn through the ones that we collect in the dungeons so fast.” He never spoke quickly, but his speech sped up as he got more excited.

“We should collect them all from the house before we set out,” Mara suggested. “How long will it take you to use them for your potions?”

“Oh, I have a stash of more than a few potions that all I’m missing is the core. Empowering them doesn’t take too long at all. What do you want for them?” Josh asked.

Mara looked around at all of us and we nodded back to her, trusting her to do right by the group and help power up this other group at the same time. Money was quickly becoming something unimportant in this new reality as more and more businesses had to close as they ran out of stock.

“How about just a share of some of your potions,” Mara offered. “What kind of potions can you make anyways?”

“Done!” Josh bounced on his feet with a wide grin on his face. “I can make basic healing, mana regeneration, speed buff, strength buff, explosives, a few poisons, and their antidotes. I’m still learning.”

“Well, we don’t need the healing ones with Oliver here,” Mara started. “But the others might be helpful.”

The other group turned to look at Oliver who waved shyly. “I have health, water, and light which converged into Balmy Waters convergence. I have a healing skill.”

We went around the rest of the group and gave out our essences, convergences, and skills. The other group kind of gave me some side eye and subtly shifted away from me when it was my turn. I wanted to grumble and bitch, but I got it. Death magic and necromancy was always depicted as evil and bad. Go figure the evil necromancer was the one pushing the hardest for this expedition. Whatever.

Josh’s essences gave him the ability to turn into smoke for a brief moment. His bone essence also gave him a bone spear, but his mercury essence altered it so that he could transform it into any kind of polearm as well. And of course he could now brew potions.

Jenny had a magic, knowledge, and oblivion essence. I really really wanted to ask her where they found the oblivion one, but I restrained myself. For now. Her convergence was Void Mage. She had the power to cast spells and had a grimoire of them. That was the book in her holster. She could create small black holes. She described her convergence as “allowing the void to stare back.” It apparently gave her access to knowledge and spells from more eldritch domains. Whatever that meant. When she heard Mara’s Stellar convergence with her mana essence her eyes lit up brightly. Magic users…I shook my head.

John and Jeremy bonded quickly over their shared essences. Jeremy had metal as well, plus swift. He was going for a frontline barbarian type as he described it with his metal skin and increased speed and perception. John’s eyes lit up and I could see him wanting to say something, but he kept it buried for now. Jeremy was the only one without a third essence, but he was apparently still a dependable frontline fighter for their group.

I hadn’t even noticed Montgomery slipping away until he reappeared in the doorway. “I hope this works. They weren’t the only group to volunteer, but they’re the most likely to be useful.”

“I think this will work, and I’m pretty sure we can all fit in the van,” Mara answered.

“Uh, could I talk to you guys for a second?” John turned to the rest of us. Josh, Jeremy, and Jenny shrugged and followed Montgomery out of the meeting room and back toward the front.

“What’s up babe?” Oliver asked quietly.

John started cracking his knuckles. In the few weeks that we’d really gotten to know each other again and the close spaces we’d been forced to share I’d learned that this was his nervous tic. Whatever he was about to say he was worried about our reaction.

“Well, I was just thinking.” We all nodded to get him to keep going. “Well, Jeremy wants to be a barbarian right? But, what’s the barbarian’s biggest tool?” He looked around at all of us, waiting for us to catch up to his thought process.

Mara gasped, “You want to give him our rage essence!”

John nodded his head. “Yeah, it makes sense. Right?”

“Sweetie, you know this isn’t like D&D,” Oliver said soothingly. “I’m not sure if the rage essence would work that way, or just turn him into the Hulk smashing everything around him because he’s always pissed off.”

“Grace, you found it–” Mara started.

“No,” I interrupted. “We pooled all of our stuff. It’s all of ours. I say we vote.”

The others nodded and we quickly cast our votes. I thought the idea was dangerous and not very well thought out as it was based on a game mechanic that didn’t necessarily translate to this new world at all. I voted no with Oliver. Mara and Ashley voted yes. And John got to be the deciding vote, and obviously voted yes.

We called the others back into the room and made our offer to Jeremy. He accepted immediately with a huge grin on his face. Jenny rolled her eyes at his antics and Josh just seemed bemused.

So, without much more fanfare we all hopped in the van and headed back to our place before setting out. Montgomery seemed oddly relieved. With our new passengers there was a little rearranging. John sat up front with Oliver. Ashley and I sat in the very back row still. Josh and Jeremy sat in the middle row. And Jenny tried to play it cool while she maneuvered to sit next to Mara in the front row.

Suddenly John whipped around to face us, “Oh my god. You guys are the teenage cousins and the stoner uncle group aren’t you?” Suddenly Montgomery’s tenseness made a lot more sense. I wondered just what we’d gotten ourselves into. It was going to be a long ride.