Cindy Traynor became the Necromancer by slipping into her skin like an actor steps into a role or someone that puts on a uniform.

  Just in time too as a very powerful anti-undead magic mist destroyed or turned her minions against each other in the little section she had claimed as a lair.

  There was, she felt, a risk in assuming a boss-like position from the opposite perspective.

  Some sort of karmic retribution.

  Of course, as an optimist, she decided to view things from the perspective of a homeowner protecting her home from a home invasion.

  She remembered her drunk old dad always prepping for the day the ‘golden horde’ would sweep into their suburban town from the urban heart of the nearby city so that he could finally have an excuse to shoot them.

  Sadly, or not, depending on one’s perspective, the gremlins got him that first night.

  All the guns in the world hadn’t saved him from tiny gremlins getting under his chins to open up a red smile.

  “Master! It burns!”

  Spoken almost like a frightened child in pitch and tone, if not for the warbling reverberation that could be felt in one’s chest.

  The boss monster wailed from the multitude of mouths all over its hulking, fleshy body as it cowered at the foot of her throne.

  Well, less a throne and more a throne on an enormous dais.

  Tall enough that she looked down upon the giant monster.

  She waved a hand injecting death mana into it to heal and replace.

  “There. Now, stand up straight! My mightiest minion mustn’t be seen cowering like a kicked dog.”

  “Yes, Master! We shall devour the living!”

  There were smarter undead monsters.

  From her experience they didn’t make good conversationalists.

  She had been on the other side of a zone dive and they tended to talk trash and speak of their desire to feast on flesh and souls. The standard stuff.

  This had been her first time on the other side and they still tended to speak of their desire to feast on flesh and souls.

  There was also a lack of initiative, at least in the realm of casual conversation.

  That is to say, she had to do all the prompting if she wanted a semblance of a conversation.

  Well, any conversation was better than no conversation after the first three weeks of talking to herself.

  She traced her enemy’s progress through her links to her minions.

  She had withdrawn her direct connections to all, but her lieutenants and most powerful ones.

  The mental magic battle with some kind of death priest had been closer than her pride would like to admit.

  The other death mage-type had felt a lot younger and weaker, but she didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks.

  One never knew when the plucky underdog could strike a decisively distracting blow at the worst time.

  “Places everyone… stop whining. I’ll dismiss this mist when the time is right.” It filled her nose with an unpleasant scent, but it was easy to keep from attacking her mana.

  She sat up straighter on her throne of bone, hands clutching the human skulls at the end of the armrests. She tilted her head back, chin up, to better stare imperiously down at her enemies over the point of her nose.

  Her link to her most important minion remained secure as she checked it for the tenth time in the last quarter hour.

  The weeping, fleshy surfaces of the large cavern continued to crumble into nothing, then reform like wriggling leeches gorging themselves as the mist destroyed and she passively fed death mana from the rest of the spawn zone untouched by the anti-undead magic.

  How much longer did she have to stay to fulfill the contract?

  The demigod had worded the fighting part vaguely.

  At first, she had thought it was to entrap her in the kind of endless war the American leaders loved.

  Then, she looked at it from a different perspective.

  The one in which the demigod didn’t really care about America winning or a lot of what he was involved in on this planet.

  He had dropped hints about there only being one true goal he was on the path toward.

  She decided to play it by ear.

  If she could defeat these people then great!

  She’d stick around for a while to keep pumping out undead for the battle above ground.

  Definitely not until the next dawn.

  She’d want the cover of night to sneak out far enough before opening a portal.

  Thundering steps from within the sphincter-like opening of the main tunnel heralded her enemy.

  It was time for the Necromancer to take the stage.

  “Foolish—”

  A heavily armored woman barreled through behind a wall-sized shield with spikes and blades on its surface.

  She resembled a small car with a plow attached to the front.

  Running about as fast as one too.

  Ah… fuck!

  They were the smart kind of fighters.

  Not going to give her time for a monologue.

  One would be surprised at how often that worked to buy time to set things up.

  She dispelled the mist.

  “Rise, minions! Drag them to hell!” she said, although she had already given the silent order with a thought.

  A truck-sized flesh worm erupted out of the flesh-covered floor. Its vortex of teeth whirled like a blender as it swallowed the charging behemoth of a woman.

  Slick flesh and raw, exposed muscle bulged.

  Blue light flashed as the worm’s middle exploded in a room-filling spray.

  The woman charged out behind her shield extended to thrice its size with a magic shield.

  She favored her enemies with a faint smile, but an old woman priest stole her thunder with a word.

  “Cleanse.”

  Yellow light emanated from her upraised mace, cleaning the accumulated blood and gore splattered on them all in an instant.

  So much for blood explosion.

  Oh well, that wasn’t one of her main spells anyways.

  She sent a mental command.

  Aside from the young man about to piss his armored bottoms, the old woman was probably her biggest threat.

  Not Level 50, but definitely over 40.

  She started with a distraction in the form of ghouls shooting out of the cavities she had prepared in the floor, walls and even the ceiling.

  They weren’t strong at this level, but they were fast, vicious and ignored pain.

  Unfortunately, turn undead was a thing.

  The priest kept her mace raised.

  Yellow light flashed, downing ghouls by the dozen.

  She suppressed a flinch.

  She had felt some of that even though she wasn’t directly linked to the ghouls.

  A tall, muscular man stepped in front of the priest.

  He wore a jaguar skin over his more advanced looking armor for some reason.

  Decoration, she decided, since she hadn’t picked up anything special from the skin aside from an enchantment that prevented her from animating it.

  Her enemy certainly geared up with a purpose, which made her a little nervous.

  The man banged the side of his weird club-sword against his shield and bellowed.

  Standard tank taunt.

  She dismissed him.

  Let him spend his time drawing aggro from her near endless minion fodder.

  She was more concerned about the werekitties zipping around, clawing her ghouls to shreds as they made their way toward her.

  They had fully sealed helmets, which had her dismiss the idea of attacking them with one of her gas-based spells.

  Likewise, she suspected the helmets would at least provide them some protection from her boss minion’s voice-based attacks.

  She kept the hulking monstrosity back from joining the fray despite its hungry rage.

  It’d do as much damage to the rest of her minions as the enemy if she let it loose.

  A high-pitched cry caught her attention.

  An inarticulate bellow from a dark-armored figure running near the base of the long, curving wall to her left.

  Fast.

  What was with these people and being able to run as fast as a car?

  That wasn’t that common.

  What was common was the decal or painting on what appeared to be a tall, lithe woman based on the shape of her figure the armor failed to hide.

  Well, perhaps not the specific image.

  For she had seen many different icons on adventurers and roving gangs.

  Skulls on their helmets. Fiery wings on their armor. Iron crosses on their shields.

  This person had decided to place an olive with speed lines on her chest armor for some, undoubtedly, stupid reason.

  Field of Grasping Hunger.

  Rotting hands emerged from the fleshy floor, seeking to pull, bind or trip.

  The screamer pumped her legs, breaking fingers and tearing through wrists while barely slowing.

  The Necromancer lightly tapped a finger in the left eye hole of the skull under her right hand.

  Bone spikes erupted out of the base of her dais a split-second before the screaming young woman reached it.

  The olive runner sent jagged ivory shards scattering everywhere as she bounced of the second layer of defense.

  Her battle cry cut off suddenly.

  “My minion, you may play with her!” She projected her voice crisp and clear so that even those at the back of her theater could hear.

  The boss minion’s hungry glee was like a pulsing spotlight in her web of linking magic.

  It lumbered for the young woman, crushing bones beneath its elephantine feet.

  Surprisingly, the young woman surged to her feet and met the boss, catching its descending fist with both hands.

  Even more surprisingly, the young woman began to drive it back like her high school boyfriend once did to one of those tackling sleds.

  “Hmm…” she mused. “Fast and strong. But, you needed a run up. Something to do with momentum? Tell me your class, girl and I shall deign to allow you to depart with your life. I do need a messenger to bring tales of my unchallenged grandeur to the lowly supplicants.”

  The young woman ignored her.

  Fair.

  She was busy.

  Still, the Necromancer was a being of pride, who couldn’t not allow such disrespect to pass without a small lesson.

  A finger touched a different skull eye hole.

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  The dais rumbled.

  Bone slid open to reveal a rising spine.

  Vertebrae too long to belong to a single human.

  Upon which sat a grinning skull, which cackled soundlessly as it sent forth an ethereal copy of itself at the young woman.

  Magic flashed around her armor.

  The Necromancer sighed theatrically and fired a dozen more glowing green spectral skulls.

  The last caused the young woman to stumble as if a hand had squeezed her heart.

  “You can take care of her now, can’t you? Unless you’re a useless thing to be replaced.”

  The boss minion wailed from a multitude of mouths, popping the ghouls that had the misfortune to be within its radius like flesh balloons.

  It grabbed the young woman around her chest with one hand and began slamming her into the floor, sending crimson pus splattering in a wide radius.

  The throne rumbled.

  That wasn’t her.

  She caught the thread instantly and tugged.

  Sneaky…

  “… little mouse, nibbling on a tiger’s tail.” She locked her imperious gaze upon the young man emanating death magic. “Interesting,” she murmured, yet projected so that he could hear her despite the distance. “A spellbook. A wizard. I encountered your kind some years ago. Tangentially. I did regret missing the opportunity for a direct test of your class’ style of spellcasting.”

  The spellbook in the young wizard’s hands glowed green, but not like her spellcasting. His was less vibrant. It was washed out, diluted.

  “Where is your staff? Or are you too low level to have one? I see no wand, so perhaps you are several steps from being a real wizard?” She raised an immaculately-styled eyebrow as the bones of her seat began to rise into needle-like points.

  She disrupted his spell with a simple gesture.

  “Alas, you are weak. It may be a fool’s errand and a waste of my considerable power, but I do believe I shall enslave your soul and body, so that I may glean the secrets of your magic.”

  She actually didn’t know if she could do that.

  At least taking his soul and learning his magic secrets.

  That she couldn’t do.

  She had tried, but only on real assholes.

  Failed experiments one and all.

  She could turn his body into a zombie or his skeleton into a, well, a skeleton.

  Or use his meat and bones for all sorts of spells.

  None of which involved eating.

  Too many people had lumped her in with those flesheater-types when they were still in their heyday.

  The young wizard tried again conjuring a rain of bone darts that crumbled harmlessly against her green shield.

  “Was the mist your best spell? Can’t you do it again?”

  “Silence your evil!” the old woman priest barked.

  A prayer sent a wave of unpleasantness through even her defenses.

  It was time to kick things up a few levels.

  She combo-casted a series of spells in quick succession.

  All the death mana surrounding her made it possible without undue strain.

  Nary a trickle of blood flowed from her nostrils or ears.

  It was quite nice!

  First, she turned the ghouls into bombs.

  Flesh and blood sprayed her enemies, even the third werekitty trying to be sneaky by clinging high up on the ceiling.

  Then, she fired her grinning skulls in an unending torrent, forcing the old priest to blast them away with a wide-angled spotlight from her shield before they chomped down on their spiritual hearts, so to speak.

  Sadly, it seemed that the old priest couldn’t do two spells or prayers at once for she didn’t cleanse the blood and gore before—

  “… explosion!” The Necromancer clapped primly.

  She had long passed the days when she had to speak her spells out loud.

  It was just that certain occasions or moments required a bit of flair.

  Fireworks and grenades!

  Every spot of blood or meaty chunk stuck to her enemies blew up wonderfully!

  “There, peons! Taste my undead!”

  That may have been a bit too much.

  Oh, well.

  She was improvising and she was out of consistent practice by a few decades.

  Sneaking into a weekend theater group near her current apartment once or twice a month clearly didn’t cut it.

  Wrath?

  Taste my undead… wrath? No. That implies that I’m undead, which isn’t the persona I’m— unless… well, technically, sure, but it’s important to stick to the spirit of it. The role can’t be wishy-washy. At least, not this one, she thought.

  One of the werejaguars, the female, roared soundlessly and bounded forward despite the flames on her armor.

  She broke through the ghoul skeletons with brutish strength.

  Slitted yellow eyes focused on the dark queen upon her throne with the promise of a hunt’s ending.

  Speed and strength.

  The Necromancer had killed many a warrior or fighter with plenty to spare.

  They might’ve been able to cleave one of her zombies in half with a single stroke of an axe or sword. Or perhaps it was her skeletons they bashed into pieces with a hammer or club.

  But the musclebound didn’t tend to have an answer for a more insubstantial foe.

  Wailing ghosts emerged from where she had hidden them.

  The werejaguar had the vitality to resist a handful, but dozens?

  Ha!

  She doubted that. Doubted it very much—

  The woman in a half-beast form lashed out, hands swiping faster than the eye could follow.

  Ghosts were cut, vanishing as if killed like flesh and blood monsters.

  Claws glinted in the dim light of magic like metal, steel— no— silver.

  Of course.

  The Necromancer sighed theatrically.

  Skills.

  She had been on both sides of asspulls in the past.

  Regardless, she had her magic shield to hide behind.

  “Yes, kitten, go on and wear those claws out.”

  There was simply so much death mana in the environment that all the damage done was instantly repaired.

  She knew from experience that there was nothing more demoralizing than being treated as a non-threat, so she ignored the woman in favor of pretending to watch the battle between her minions and her enemies with an air of faint interest.

  The black smoke from the explosions had been turned into acid under the desiccated hands of a lich.

  Just the one floated over the battle.

  Liches needed distance between each other lest they begin battling for dominance over the lesser undead under their control.

  The jaguar furs on the two warriors melted, but the armor seemed to be impervious even without the telltale flashes from magic shielding.

  The old priest failed to bring the lich down with a prayer, so she turned the wide light from her shield into a circle that completely engulfed it.

  Its magic failed and it crashed to the floor.

  Skeletons rallied around it, but the taller warrior shouted and sucked them toward him with unerring gravity.

  The male werejaguar pounced into the opening, savaging the lich with shining claws until nothing remained but dried out limbs and chunks slowly fading into ash.

  A greater skeleton, towering over the werejaguar, slashed in with a battered greatsword.

  It clanged against the side of a helmet.

  The weight of the blow staggered the halfbeast to one knee.

  Doubtful that it truly hurt.

  She had seen were-types takes such blows a time or two and they had all proved rather robust and resistant to mundane damage.

  “Off with his head!”

  She couldn’t help but giggle internally.

  The greater skeleton raised its greatsword and brought it down.

  A woman warrior with the tattered remains of a jaguar skin around her shoulders suddenly appeared as if teleported to take the blow on her shield.

  Skill-backed, she stood like a tiny oak against a light breeze.

  The Necromancer liked to imagine a snarling face behind the dark faceplate. A pale copy of the snarling visage of the jaguar-shaped helmet.

  The desperate struggle of the underdog.

  The warrior deflected the greatsword to one side, allowing it to sink into the fleshy floor a hand’s span from her armored boot. She pivoted and unleashed a horizontal strike to the skeleton’s spine, just above its hip bones.

  The strange club-sword reminded her of a field hockey stick— or was that cricket?

  It was wood and had small, dark, jagged rectangles set into both edges.

  She supposed it was a good idea.

  A weapon that could both cut and bludgeon.

  She fixed its image into her memories.

  Research would be done to see if such a weapon was better than the usual ones she armed her minions with.

  Her greater skeleton collapsed as the warrior woman’s weapon shattered the spine.

  “That had to be Skill,” she muttered.

  Her greater skeletons had been tested against the strongest non-Skill using men and they handled those hits with ease.

  Well, that’s why she had more than one.

  An entire armed squad of greater skeletons swept in and forced the werejaguar and warrior woman to go on the defensive.

  On the other side of the cavern, her boss minion was in the process of grinding the olive woman into a fleshy wall, all the while wailing with that fleshbag popping voice from its multitude of mouths.

  The young death wizard really wanted to help as he ignored the ghoul skeletons trying to reach him past the protection of priest and the tall warrior in favor of creating a hovering cloud of bone darts over his head to fire at the boss minion.

  It was a decent idea.

  The wailing voices didn’t work on things without meat, so the darts cut right through.

  Except, the boss minion was all thick muscle and blubbery fat wrapped around a lack of vulnerable internal organs.

  No.

  Piercing it with small darts would do nothing.

  Even if they could penetrate deeply enough to reach the dark, pulsing thing in its deepest part they lacked the power to destroy it.

  That was the quickest way.

  The only way other than hacking it into pieces or disintegrating it or burning most of it.

  In fact, she had modified it by adding a very thick cage of bone around its not-heart.

  “Could she be your lover?” She spoke to the young wizard with a lascivious grin. “Pledge to me and I shall allow her to flee. She refused my largesse, but I will allow you to accept the fell bargain on her behalf. Simply turn on your teammates.”

  He didn’t answer.

  Much too professional, this bunch.

  Half the enjoyment was in the interplay.

  “Very well. Crush her like a chick in its egg, my mighty minion!”

  Truthfully, she didn’t think it could do that.

  That dark armor seemed to be holding up really well under the battering it had already taken.

  She hoped that there was a lot of blunt force trauma happening, but one never knew how much damaged the superhumanly strong and durable types could take.

  A second giant flesh worm slammed into her magic shield, leaving a wet smear as it slid all the way down to the base of her dais.

  She had more than one?

  The behemoth of a woman stood with her wall-sized shield in one hand and her other raised in a universal salute.

  “Most rude of you.”

  It seemed that the woman had hurled the giant worm with quite some force from that distance.

  Then, she took off running, charging like an angry bull behind the spiked and bladed surface of her shield.

  “Minion! Dodge her—”

  Like a truck slamming into a meat wall.

  The sound shook the massive cavern.

  Wailing voices suddenly silenced.

  “Master!”

  Maybe she had been babying it too much?

  She felt nothing for it as the behemoth of a woman bludgeoned it with a shield.

  The dark surface grew slimy and wet with gore as the boss minion took its turn as the nail.

  The olive woman pulled herself out of the fleshy wall with a squelch and fell to her knees. She pulled a cube from one of the compartments at her waist. It was gray, matte and dark like her armor. She opened one glove and placed the cube in her bare hand.

  “Interesting,” the Necromancer murmured as she watched the cube crumble like a piece of burned newspaper.

  The olive woman stood on steady legs and proceeded to pull a pair of grenade launchers from behind her back.

  Bag of holding.

  Though, she didn’t recall seeing one.

  Perhaps, those slim, compact compartments have the same enchantment as the traditional bag of holding.

  She sent a mental note to her minions to preserve those if possible.

  The armor too, but that would be more difficult since damaging them was unavoidable if she wanted to kill them through physical means.

  Spectral undead was the way, but she was certain they wouldn’t be able to do much with the old priest alive to cast her holy prayer crap.

  The death wizard was less of a concern since it appeared that outside of the powerful anti-undead mist spell, he had specced his kit around bone spells.

  A shame that he was the squeamish sort.

  Bone spells were perfectly legitimate, but he was only handicapping himself by not at least getting a few minion types to help him.

  Grenades exploded against her magic shield, jarring her from her pondering.

  Perhaps it was time to take it up another level.

  The climax.

  It meant different things to different people.

  Her enemies likely held a different conception than her.

  She called forth her ghoul witches.

  Much weaker individually than a lich, but with the numbers to force her enemies to split their focus.

  She sent a silent command through her links before withdrawing.

  They obeyed like puppets and cast invisibility on her other minions.

  The olive woman pulled a rather large explosive out, but before she could hurl it something big knocked her to the floor.

  Orange fire bloomed, revealing a many armed giant zombie twice the woman’s size.

  Ah!

  She was proud of that type.

  Her original creation, at least on Earth. She expected that many on other worlds would’ve come up with the same idea.

  It cut and bashed the olive woman with swords, maces, hammers and one stout stick with a spike and iron cap on the end.

  While the battlefield erupted into more chaos, she surreptitiously looked at her watch.

  “It’s probably been long enough,” she muttered. “This has been pretty chill, but last thing I want is a desperate last second power up from heretofore unknown reserves… twice is two times to many. They say third time is the charm, but you’re also out after three strikes. Alright!”

  She decided to draw this show to a close.

  Thus, she allowed her opponents to clear the field until only the boss minion remained.

  Though battered, they were all still on their feet.

  “Stand strong my loyal minion! Take my power!”

  She fed it from the mana powering her magic shield.

  It flickered and dimmed.

  For good measure she allowed her bone throne and dais to crumble a bit around the edges.

  She gave her boss minion one last command and waited.

  Her enemy didn’t disappoint.

  They were coordinated and well-armed.

  The best she’d ever seen firsthand.

  But, she was counting on that.

  A tiny blazing star bloomed on the cavern ceiling high above.

  It struck her magic shield, shattering it before she had even registered it.

  A dagger plunged into her chest.

  It was covered in enchantments meant to penetrate magical protections and one that unraveled death magic.

  The last member of the enemy team glared at her from behind the eyes of a cat-like monster hood with living eyes.

  She coughed blood in that shadowy face and missed wide to the left.

  “I knew you were there,” she gasped. “Waiting to strike from the shadows. But, it was I that was waiting for you!”

  Spear bones erupted from her throne!

  Flashing for the cloaked assassin!

  They struck— wide?

  She fired more.

  Every spear missed either to the right or left by at least an arm’s length.

  She shrugged.

  “Alas! You have slain me. But, I shall leave you with a gift. From the heart of hell, I stab at thee!”

  The Necromancer’s body rattled and slumped as the rest of her undead minions poured out from their fleshy hiding places.