Reluctant Necromancer

Josh laughed. “Is that how he described us? I mean ouch.”

“Asshole,” Mara and Jenny said together before turning to look each other over.

“I mean, I had a joint on me when they dragged us off to the cells when we got here. Ugh,” Josh complained. “And technically Jeremy is the only teenager. Jenny’s twenty-one.”

Mara’s brow lifted a little while she took in the pretty woman smiling at her. Oh, man. I hoped Jenny was ready to have her heart broken. Or get added to Mara’s ever growing polycule. It was hard to get a read on her. We’d only just met too. Whatever, not my business.

“Uncle Josh, you are kind of an old stoner,” Jeremy teased.

“Yeah, but he doesn’t know that,” Josh chuckled.

I heard Jenny quietly ask how old Mara was and buried my face in Ashley’s shoulder to keep from giggling. Ashley turned her head to take in my slightly shaking shoulders as I laughed as quietly as possible. She raised her eyebrow.

“Haven’t you ever noticed how Mara always pulls people wherever we go?” I whispered to her.

Ashley’s head fell back and I could see her replaying past experiences with Mara. “Huh,” she sounded surprised. “I never even noticed, but yeah. She really does,” now she sounded impressed.

“She’s like a hot person magnet,” I giggled. Ashley smiled back at me.

A few minutes later we pulled up in front of the house and everyone hopped out. John rushed inside, I assumed for the rage essence. The rest of us trooped in. Oliver and Mara directed our new guests to take a seat in the livingroom and then the rest of us headed off to our stash of monster cores.

It took several recycled grocery bags to bring everything back. Josh was eagerly sitting on the edge of his seat. On the coffee table he’d pulled out a bunch of containers with various colored liquids sitting in them. They just looked like colored water with maybe a few bits and bobs floating around in them. Nothing like the potions I’d been kind of expecting.

He must have noticed our lackluster expressions. “Don’t worry. They look much more impressive when they’ve had the monster cores’ essences added to them,” he reassured us. “If we can take like fifteen, maybe thirty minutes, I can have all of these potions ready for use.”

I groaned, “We’ve already waited this long. What’s a few more minutes.”

He either missed or refused to acknowledge the bitter edge to my voice. We dropped our bags of monster cores on the coffee table next to his stuff and then moved back. There were only a few seats in the room. There was the sectional couch we all normally piled onto and an arm chair off to the side.

Mara settled in near Jenny with a smirk. Oliver sat on the far end, away from everyone else. Ashley sat in the arm chair and pulled me into her lap. I snuggled in as close as I could get. We all settled down and waited to watch Josh get to work.

Just then John came barreling into the room, hand held high with an essence clinched in his fist. He hopped over the back of the couch to land next to Jeremy with a wide grin on his face. He was so excited it was adorable really. I just hoped his excitement was warranted.

Jeremy took the essence and we all paused what we were doing to watch. He calmly sat up straight and closed his eyes. Both hands clenched around the essence. A smile played about his lips.

Suddenly a bright red light shone out from between his fingers. It slowly faded away as Jeremy began breathing deeper. Like each breath was pulling more of the essence into his body for him to absorb.

A few minutes later his eyes popped open. There was a momentary flash of the red light from his eyes and then they were the same brown as before. He smiled widely at all of us, “I got it!” He hopped up and threw his hands in the air, “Steel Berserker! Yeah!” He turned and high fived John excitedly.

“Great, now sit your ass down already,” Jenny laughed at him.

Score one for TTRPG mechanics apparently. Not something I’d want to base reality around, but maybe if this held true other things did as well. Like resurrections.

It took a couple of minutes to get Jeremy and John calmed down. They were busy congratulating each other and comparing each other’s build. Apparently tanks were the same the world over if these two were anything to judge by. When they finally calmed down our attention was dragged back to the almost-potions lined up in front of Josh. He’d been as distracted by the protracted celebration as any of us. He had a genuine, happy smile on his face when he looked at Jeremy.

“Alright, time for me to shine,” Josh rubbed his hands together. Jenny rolled her eyes while leaning subtly toward Mara. He rummaged through our bags of cores and pulled one out, seemingly at random. He held it up to the light as if he could see through it or some quality of the light would betray a quality of the core. I don’t know, but I applauded his showmanship.

With his other hand he reached out and snagged the closest potion to him. It was a pale yellow-ish green color with little floating bits swirling through the mix. He gave it a quick swirl before uncorking it and taking a whiff of the contents. He made a pleased face so I assumed it was still viable or whatever he’d been checking.

He went to drop the core into the potion-to-be but the core got snagged on the lip of the container. Instead of being upset, this just seemed to make him giddier. “These are some quality fucking cores!” he crowed.

He pulled his bag closer to himself, “If they’re all this kind of size this may take longer than I originally proposed.” He looked over and locked eyes with me.

I groaned but waved him on. It was too late to stop now.

From his bag he pulled out a stone mortar and pestle. The mortar was large enough to sit comfortably in his large palm with his fingers just wrapping around the sides.

He dropped the core into the mortar and began tapping and crushing it under the pestle. He didn’t crush it down all the way, but he did manage to break it down into several smaller chunks. He tipped the mortar over and dumped the crushed core into the potion.

At first nothing seemed to happen. But then I noticed a slight brightening of the potion’s color. Josh wrapped his hands around the potion’s container. A small glow grew from between his fingers and a small whistling noise emitted from the top of the container along with tiny amounts of steam.

Gods, if it was hot enough to steam it had to be too hot for him to just be holding like that! I worried, but he seemed fine and no one else seemed that alarmed by anything. In fact his face was stretched into a manic grin that looked like it’d been carved deeply into his flesh.

Finally there was a soft pop, similar to a wine bottle losing its cork for the first time. The glow around Josh’s hands died away and he gently placed the bottle back on the coffee table. It was no longer a simple solution with odd bits floating about. Now it glowed softly yellow with hints of green filtering through. There were no floaty bits anywhere to be found, and no sign of the monster core that had just been dropped inside. The liquid inside the container seemed more viscous as well, clinging more heavily to the sides.

“There we go, one strength boosting potion,” Josh beamed proudly. We all leaned forward to get a better look. I took in everyone’s faces, and we were all blown away by the simple show of magic. I mean, Mara threw anime levels of whoop-ass balls of plasma. Oliver could mend broken bones and heal lacerations. But the potion making was just so different and unique. It was also something that called out from a lot of the fantasy stories we all knew.

I don’t know what it was, but we were all excited to see the results. “Do another!” Mara called out excitedly. We all sat back and laughed.