Dungeons Are Bad Business

The warehouse bell chimed, and Winslow sighed, setting down his small brush and the femur he was using it on. It was the third time this week that he’d drawn the short straw for warehouse attendant duty, and he was tired of having his work interrupted to go down and listen to the yattering [Caravan Guards] while inspecting each bone delivery.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” he grumbled as the bell rang again three times in quick succession. “Hold your horses.”

He hurried out across the workshop floor, heading for the staircase that would take him down to the gate controls, nodding to his coworkers as he passed them by.

Except for Yorick. Winslow couldn’t stand Yorick. He was convinced that Yorick was somehow cheating in the straw draws each morning, because despite the fact that there were only seven of them in the workshop at any time – six [Journeyman Necromancers] and Mort, the [Senior Necromancer] responsible for managing them – it’d been two hundred and seventeen days since Yorick had been forced to handle warehouse duty. Those were the kind of odds that begged investigation, but Mort refused to do so.

“Come back with proof,” the [Senior Necromancer] had told him when he’d brought it up. Winslow wasn’t sure what sort of proof he’d ever be able to produce, but he was determined to find some, no matter how long it took.

His mood as sour as a lemon, Winslow made his way down to the warehouse and opened the heavy doors as the bells rang a half-dozen times more. Carriages rolled in, and a [Caravan Guard] hopped down.

“Took you long enough,” he said, walking over toward Winslow with a clipboard in his hand. “I just need a signature on this form here, and then my guys will go ahead and start unloading.”

Winslow nodded, taking the proffered form and giving it a quick read.

It was a load of feral thornboar bones harvested from the vast tracts of farmland near Delsorry. Typically known for hunting in packs between thirty and fifty, the creatures were a menace for rural [Farmers] and [Ranchers]. Adventurer guilds around the continent had perpetual hunting contracts for the beasts, and their bones were among the most commonly sold to [Necromancers] for their work.

All the information looked like it was in order, but the workshop had a strict policy requiring visual inspection before accepting any bone deliveries, so Winslow pulled the tarp off the nearest carriage and started an examination.

He picked through the bones, testing their weight and hardness to make sure that they were genuine. When he was satisfied that they were all what they were supposed to be, he signed the form and handed it back to the [Caravan Guard] so that they could start unloading.

Then he had to wait for the [Warehouse Workers] to come pack the bones into their storage containers, and that took nearly two hours. He hated having to supervise such things, but making sure that the bones were sealed in so-called “quiet” containers that would shield them from any stray skills coming from the workshop was another part of his job. It was a big part of why he hated warehouse duty.

As it turned out though, today was one of the rare days when a [Necromancer]’s skills were actually necessary. Two of the boxes had damaged seals, and he repaired them, then bolstered their protection with a quick use of [Stir Not], which further dampened the efficacy of necromancy skills.

He’d once thought such precautions unnecessary, but the energy of unlife built up a residue. Given time to amalgamate unchecked, it could produce some truly nightmarish horrors, as the complete destruction of Rugin’s – a competitor’s workshop – to a Twisted Bonehemoth a few years prior could attest. Even now, Winslow’s skin crawled at the memory of the beast, which had been forty feet tall and covered in half-functional arms and hands. He’d been haunted by the sight of its blazing purple eyes and madness-inducing laughter for months afterwards. Even now, he still woke up sometimes with his heart racing, afraid that he was going to be put in the cage of blood and bones that’d hung from the bonehemoth’s chest.

Taking a deep breath, he finished his work and directed the [Warehouse Workers] to store the bones in the first bay of the warehouse. Thornboar bones were easy to slot into any project, so they were sure to be put to use sooner than later.

With that matter settled, Winslow returned to his workbench. Before resuming his work, though, he took a few minutes and rubbed a fresh coat of holy herbs over his hands. The green, white, and golden paste dried almost instantly, and Winslow’s skin tingled slightly as he picked his brush back up.

A big part of a [Necromancer]’s daily work, at least in all the workshops he’d been with, was cleaning bones so that they’d be easier to assemble and work with later. Bits of remaining tissue – commonly referred to just as meat, regardless of what they actually were – hindered the bindings that connected bones to their new cores, which made the construct likely to break during use. It was important, albeit tedious work.

For the purposes of his current task, Winslow only needed to work through three increasingly fine brushes. He was halfway done with his second one, and he dutifully went around the length of the femur, making small circles to remove as much meat as he could.

Blowing off the debris he’d loosened, like a [Carpenter] might with sawdust, Winslow examined the femur carefully before deciding that he could go ahead and grab the last brush in his sequence.

He repeated the brushing process that he had with the other two brushes, and when the femur was done it was time for Winslow to start the assembly and animation process.

Like always, bright music played throughout the workshop. Mordecai Karth – the [Master Necromancer] who owned the shop – had something of a complex regarding the dark, dour, and frequently evil stereotypes commonly associated with his class. As such, he wore nothing but vibrant floral shirts and insisted that the workshop be “bustling with life at all times”. The music made it hard to work sometimes, as several [Necromancer] skills required a Solemn or Somber Mindset. Thankfully, Mordecai had also gone ahead and developed [Memento Mori], a short-duration buff skill that allowed a [Necromancer] to attain such statuses at will.

Winslow went ahead and used [Memento Mori] by drawing a small placard out from beneath his desk and reading it. It was a woodblock print depicting a skull, and underneath its grin, the words “You will die!” were written in a bold, blocky type.

Winslow stared at it for a few moments, until the world darkened the way like it was supposed to – indicating that the status effect had taken hold properly – and then turned to his tools.

The list of pieces he needed to get done for the day was next to them. Five distinct skeletons models, ranging in difficulty from beginner to advanced. It would have been more efficient to simply focus on one each day, but necromancy wasn’t like other manufacturing processes. Lacking the…spark of inspiration normally found in those who followed the path of unlife, rote repetition tended to gum up the bones, so to speak, weakening the bindings and lowering the quality of the final result. The only way to avert that risk was for a [Necromancer] to bounce around between projects, relearning the subtle nuances of each model with each creation.

Additionally, it was best practice to go through the workload at random as well, so Winslow grabbed his dice and rolled it. Three. That meant he’d be starting with… a bone seeker.

Bone seekers were advanced skeletons, lithe creations that specialized in ranged combat. They could use most bows, but were particularly effective with bonemerangs. Mid-level dungeons liked to use them quite a bit, but their niche was somewhat limited.

Winslow tried to think about how long it’d been since he’d last made a bone seeker. It’d been a while; he specialized in melee and mounted models.

Maybe two months or so? Back near the start of winter, he thought. That was more than enough time to forget the arrangement of the core patterns, so Winslow grabbed his reference manual and flipped through the pages until he came across the section for the bone seeker.

“Doesn’t look too bad,” he said to himself as he jotted down some notes on a sheet of paper and unlocked his bucket of core pieces. He sifted through the mess, digging around until he found the collection of pieces he was looking for, then got to assembling them.

Skeletal core construction was a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle. The pieces, which had all been harvested from various creatures around the continent, wanted to snap together, and when they were done they formed a small, hollow sphere.

Grabbing his box of reagents, Winslow turned to the core recipe sheet. Six graveberries, one strand of eerie bindweed, fourteen petals of widow’s borage, two slitherkin scales, and one truetiger fang.

Counting each element three times to ensure that he had the amount right, he added everything to his large pestle and started grinding them into a thick purplish paste. It was hard work, and Winslow was breathing hard by the time he was finished, but his job was still not done. Using a small scraper, the [Necromancer] jammed every last bit of paste that he could into the empty core, satisfied only when it started to glow of its own volition. When that happened, he closed the sphere with its final piece, and brought his hands together.

“[From Life, Unlife],” he said, and a mote of light the same color as the core came out of his chest. It merged with his creation, providing the energy the skeleton would need to function once its body was assembled, though the process was slow and would take a few minutes to be finished.

In the meantime, he’d start assembling the bone seeker’s body. Picking up the small bones that would form the skeleton’s torso, he fastened them together until they formed a cube of sorts that he could attach the rest to. By the time he was done, the core was approaching its maximum strength, so he went ahead and socketed it into place as well, then reached for the bits that would become the shoulders and arms.

However, before he could attach them, though, someone knocked on the outside of his station and got Winslow’s attention. He turned to see Yorick – that cheating jerk! – and Lorelai, another one of his co-workers looking in at him.

“Boss wants us up in his office,” Yorick said. “Go ahead and use a [Pausing Seal] on that seeker. I think it’s going to be a while.”

Nodding, Winslow turned around to do as suggested. He drew a circle around the skeleton-to-be’s body with holy herbs, then brought his hands together and activated the skill. For the next twenty four hours, his creation would remain in stasis, and he could resume his work at any time without quality degradations.

Standing up, Winslow followed his coworkers toward the stairs that led to the boss’ office. “Wait, it’s not Mort that’s asking after us? What does Mordecai want to talk to us about?”

“No idea,” Lorelai said. “He just came down and told me and Yorick to get everyone else and head up to see him.

After collecting the rest of the working [Necromancers], they all made their way up to the boss’ office. Like his outfits, Mordecai kept the place bright, with plenty of little inspirational signs all over the walls. One depicting a bee carrying a scythe said ‘Beelieve in yourself!’, while another one that showed two kitrekins standing next to a grave marker said ‘Live well, laugh often, and love much’.

They were…in a word, strange, but it wasn’t Winslow’s place to judge his boss.

The [Master Necromancer] himself leaned back in a big chair, his sandaled feet up on his desk and a cup of steaming coffee in his hands.

“Good to see you,” Mordecai said as he straightened up and walked over to give each of them a handshake. “I’m sorry to disrupt your day, but there’s a matter that we must attend to! One of you is going to be going on a road trip! Isn’t that exciting? Think about it! The open road, relatively free from bandit activity, adventure, and of course, the chance for experiences you’ll cherish for a lifetime! Who doesn’t think that sounds great?”

“Where are we supposed to be going?” Lorelai asked.

Mordecai reached into his pocket and drew out a letter. He examined it, his eyes traveling up and down the paper, then said, “Looks like…Oar’s Crest. One of our customers, a…Vee Vales… is reporting an evolutionary event in some of the skeletons he ordered from us. He’s asking us to come investigate and advise. Since our records indicate that his skeletons came from one of you seven, it’ll also be one of you that goes and takes care of whatever the problem is. I think that’s plenty fair, eh?”

“Oar’s Crest?” Yorick asked incredulously. “I didn’t even know that craphole had a dungeon!”

“It’s relatively new,” Mordecai said. “We’ve only got a few orders from MIster Vales, and they’ve all been for basic skeletons, but his registration with the union indicates that his dungeon is ghost themed so there’s a good chance we’ll get more if it grows and develops. As such, I’m making the executive decision to build a good relationship with him now, especially since he seems to be rather assertive. Whoever gets selected will receive overtime pay, as well as a traveling stipend of ten silver fleurs per day. Any volunteers?”

Winslow didn’t say anything. He wasn’t terribly interested in going to Oar’s Crest – or travel at all, for that matter – and didn’t need the extra money the way Lorelai or some of the others might.

But alas, none of his coworkers spoke up to take the job, and Winslow recognized the glint in his boss’ eye that followed the prolonged silence.

“If nobody volunteers, then we’ll have to select a happy victim!” the [Master Necromancer] said, holding out a balled fist. Seven small straws poked out, and Winslow groaned at the sight of Yorick’s triumphant glare.

The [Journeyman Necromancers] took their turns pulling straws, and Winslow found himself staring at the tiny embodiment of his crappy luck a few moments later.

“Excellent,” Mordecai said. “Go ahead and finish your bone seeker, then pack your bags. You can go ahead and leave tomorrow morning.”

A notification appeared before Winslow’s eyes.

[You have been given a quest: Investigate the Skeletons in Oar’s Crest! Would you like to accept?]

Sighing, Winslow reached up and hit yes. The notification vanished.

Winslow's Character Sheet:

Winslow Halburg:

Primary Class: Journeyman Necromancer (Mordecai Karth), Level 32

Secondary Class: Scholar (Atkintall’s University, Morality and Philosophy Department), Level 26

Tertiary Class: Janitor (Atkintall’s University Custodial Department), Level 20

Additional Class: Bereaved Grandson (William Halburg), Level 18

Might: 19

Wit: 46

Faith: 40

Diligence: 36

Ambition: 21

Melancholy Perspective: 30

Patience: 35

Attention To Detail: 17

Pride: 9

Dubious Morality: 22

Steady Hands: 24