Reluctant Necromancer

We charged through the woods back to the van. The other group chased us to the tree line and then stopped. The fireball guy threw a couple fireballs into the trees, setting a large chunk of the area on fire.

We stumbled back to the van a few minutes later, coughing from the smoke billowing in our direction. I jumped in and scooted into the back while Ashley followed behind me. The others dove into the van a moment later. Oliver fired up the engine and we took off.

“Goddammit, Grace,” Mara turned around to look me in the eye. “We needed to observe them and get more information. Like how many of them there are. Who are the leaders.” She sighed. “I know why you rushed in there. I really do, but you just made our job ten times harder than it had to be.” She didn’t sound mad, just disappointed. Which was ultimately much worse.

I hung my head. She was right. I didn’t feel bad for killing those men. But I did feel bad for not thinking further ahead than my own anger. I let my frustration guide me and make decisions for me. And yeah. Now we’d have a much harder time getting accurate information about what was going on in Leesward.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

Mara sighed from in front of me. “I know sweetie. There’s not much we can do now except move and adapt. We’ll come in from a different direction and try and get what info we can. Then we’ll make a decision, as a group,” she looked around at all of us, “about what we’re going to do.”

There were nods all around. People were frustrated. Rightfully. But we still had a job to do. And we would make sure we did it to the best of our ability.

We drove several miles down the road until we came across a little dirt road crossing it. Just two dirt ruts with a strip of short grass between. Oliver turned and followed it into the trees. We had to slow down to a crawl as the van was bounced and bumped its way through the rough terrain. Soon we were driving past small farm houses, then another road. This one was gravel and we turned down it.

It was surprisingly a smoother ride than the dirt ruts we’d come off of. Though I could hear rocks pinging off the bottom of the van as we picked up speed again. Then we were pulling up through the trees to an artificial clearing that ran down in a line into the distance with a small locked, fenced in area in front of us. Inside there was what I guessed was a small transformer station, presumably for the town. The power lines followed the cleared path through the forest in both directions. Oliver parked the van in front of it and killed the engine.

We all looked around at each other as the engine ticked and cooled down. “Ok, so this is the idea,” Mara began. “We’re going to use the power lines from here to guide us through to the village.” Everyone nodded along. “We’ll stick to the forest near the edge so we can see the way, but won’t get caught in the open right away. According to the map, we’re only this far from the village,” she held up her finger and thumb and put about an inch of space between them. She looked back at me and smiled. I rolled my eyes.

We all piled out of the van. I took a minute to summon fresh skellies and arm them. I got the same looks of disgust from Josh, Jeremy, Jenny as before. And more than one look of anger. Whatever. When we were ready to go I sent my minions forward to ‘scout’ for us. Not that they’d ever been particularly good at doing more than triggering the traps.

We formed up and headed out through the trees. I walked beside Ashley near the front of our little column. The two metal heads, John and Jeremy, the only ones in front of us. Oliver walked beside Josh, and Mara was having her ear bent by Jenny at the end of our little formation.

I didn’t have much to say, still more than a little embarrassed about my earlier actions. Not that I regretted them for what happened, but for making things harder on everyone else. My hand bumped into Ashley’s as we walked and she grabbed it and threaded her fingers through mine. I looked up at her and smiled shyly. Her matching grin was much larger. She squeezed my fingers before turning back to the front.

The weight on my shoulders lifted a little knowing that she still had my back. I knew I could count on her and Mara to always have my back. They’d still be the first ones to tell me when they thought I’d fucked up, but they’d still support me. I don’t know what I did to deserve people like that in my life.

Most of my life I had been a loner. A misanthrope. I hadn’t wanted much of anything to do with other people if I could avoid it. Losing my father at such a young age had really shaken my faith in a lot of things. Seeing my mom pull away from me in her grief while I wrestled with my own had hurt. Planting the seeds of not needing anyone else in my life.

Then Mara had come along in college and upended my entire life. Suddenly I didn’t have an acquaintance or a ‘work friend.’ She managed to worm her way past all the barriers I could throw up and attached herself to me. Suddenly I had a best friend. It was a lot nicer than I thought it would ever be.

She dragged me along to D&D night. Group study sessions. We went out shopping instead of me ordering things from online. She took me to bars and clubs. Though I still wasn’t fond of either. She showed me that people didn’t automatically let you down. She turned my life around. I really owed her a lot looking back.

Maybe most importantly she’d introduced me to Ashley. And she’d seen what I was too stubborn to admit; that I had a crush on the woman. And she’d kept up light pressure until I worked through my issues enough to get out of my own way. Now I had a whole new person to support and love me. And I owed my friend.

Hell, I’d even started coming around about John and Oliver. They were honestly so in love I was both sickened and envious of them at the same time. I hoped that someday I might have something similar…hopefully with Ashley.

And I owed that to Mara too. She really had changed my entire life…mostly for the better.

Suddenly we stopped. I looked ahead and we were at the edge of the tree line. I’d been so lost in thought I hadn’t noticed most of the walk there. Through the branches and bushes I could just make out the village in front of us. We spread out across the front so everyone was able to take a look.

We were atop a small hill that overlooked the village below. There couldn’t have been more than thirty houses and a small post office. It looked so idyllic.

Then I noticed the movement between houses. There were about two dozen, mostly men, piling up food and other necessities on trailers. All of them were armed. They moved with purpose, but weren’t in any kind of hurry. There was a lot of laughter and light roughhousing between groups as they ran into each other at the trailers. They really didn’t have a care in the world did they?

It took everything I had not to summon more skellies and send them forth. To not grab Ashley’s gun and start picking them off one by one. God I hated them.