Everlast Online

"Kill!" Liz gave out the order and the army moved.

Skeletons vs players.

The players and skeletons fought with reckless abandon, neither side fearing the consequences of death.

"What the hell happened to the lizard boss!?" Liz identifies the leaders of this raid party, as one questions another; she decides to call out.

"I already killed the boss, dumbass!" Liz taunts and the players look at her, "You shoulda been faster, it's all mine now!"

As she laughs the faces of the players flash with realisation, this isn't the raid boss, this was another player who had stolen the boss kill!

"You bitch!" The tank leader calls out, "We've been planning this shit for a week!"

"Ha! With your level!" Liz laughs seeing only a handful have even reached 30, "That monster would've eaten you alive!"

"Don't think you can beat us! Once we kill these monsters, we'll kill you too!" The scout leader yells out, not having clicked in his head that the skeletons were controlled by Liz, she thought he must be even more stupid than the others.

"Whatever. Priority target! Those ones!" Liz yells, pointing at the centre of the party where the leaders are, the monsters begin fighting harder to reach the leaders, cutting down player after player in order to get to the leaders. 

"Shit! Retreat!" After many of their players have already been killed, the beastman with a sword on his side tries to have his men retreat, but would Liz allow that, when she's so close to level 50? Of course not!

"Surround them! Don't let them get away!" Liz yells out, keeping a close watch for anyone with a movement-type skill like the assassin leader who attacked her on the way to Barview, she wouldn't allow the chance at a quick level slip through her fingers.

Unfortunately, her skeletons were spread too thin. Even with 90 warriors and 35 hounds she couldn't reach level 50.

"Dammit!" Liz curses, kicking a clump of dirt on the ground as she watches the players escape. She knew she was ahead of every player in the game, but still she lacked the ability to grasp everything she desires, "Fine, onto the next nest then."

Liz took her time walking, choosing the nearest level 48 nest. It should be enough to push her and her warriors to the next level, but in order to do so she ordered that only the warriors attacked. With that scale and bone clashed for perhaps the thousandth time in that jungle.

It progressed as normal, and as the nest mother revealed herself Liz felt it would be the final piece needed to push the 2 parts of herself to the next level.

The fight neared its end, but as the skeleton moved to slash an arrow shot from the treeline. It flew and killed the nest mother, finishing it off. Liz was infuriated as she saw the rustling of leaves as the kill stealer dashed away.

"After them." The hounds rushed towards the person with Liz on their back.

The warriors and golem stayed behind in order to gather and protect the loot, while her and her hounds pursued the thief.

At some point the hounds became able to produce sound, mimicking the hunting dogs they were likely named for.

It really adds to the aesthetic. Liz thought as she rode along the back of one of her hounds.

The thief was certainly fast, but could not outrun her summons, speed being their strongest aspect. Soon Liz arrived to find the person who had stolen her kill surrounded by her undead.

They had a bow strapped to their back and 2 knives in their hand.

[Nina (38) (PC)]

A player? Liz thought looking over the back of the player, A strong one too.

This was the highest level player, beside herself that she had seen.

"Didn't know any other players had reached that high yet." Liz said, the player's head swivelled to see Liz standing on the back of the hound she rode. Liz thought she could recognise shock in their eyes.

"You're a player?" The player asked, distinctly feminine, definitely confused, "Why are you not being attacked?"

"Why would my summons attack me?" Liz taunted, the shock became much more real in her eyes, "I hope you don't expect to get away."

"Piercing and slashing attacks are weak against skeletons and you can't run faster than them."

The girl sighed and threw up her hands, clearly seeing that she was trapped.

"Fine, I'm outmatched." She said, "What do you want then? You gonna set me back to level one or something?"

Liz paused. What was she going to do? She didn't really care all that much about losing the boss; it was more the frustration of not getting level 50. She wasn't the type to hold a grudge, what would she even do?

"Haah... I don't really care if you stole my kill. Defeating a nest mother is easy. I was just about to level up." Liz sighed.

Nina was confused by what Liz meant, she had been hunting in the jungle for a while and knew how powerful the nest mothers were. She couldn't hope to pierce their scales with her [Thief] class; but this girl says she could kill them easily.

"Whatever. I haven't met a player at your level before." Liz said, "Wanna be friends?"

Nina was again surprised. This player, with the strength to command this many monsters, wasn't going to abuse that power; maybe she wasn't from Earth or something. I mean, she wasn't able to inspect the strange girl so maybe she was some kind of hidden monster or something; it was only when she saw a friend request appear that she knew the girl was a real player. Though this surprise was only secondary to what she saw:

The illusive Smokey was right in front of her. In reality it made sense, if she could command so many undead, not only these wolf things but also those human ones, then she could easily become the strongest player.

Nina didn't even hesitate to accept, but before she could ask anything Smokey spoke again.

"Okay, see ya around." Her mount then turnt to leave, "I'll message you later; don't steal my kills again!"

The last part was pretty stern, and Nina could do nothing but watch; she wanted to party with her but what could she really offer to someone with so many summons at her disposal.

"Where to next?" Liz mumbled to herself, feeling good after using the friend system for the first time. Liz would have asked to party but she felt slightly embarrassed so chose not to.

The next fight was just as easy, and with the fall of the nest mother, so too did Liz's level increase; and more so was the [Summon: Skeleton Warrior] reaching level 10 and becoming eligible for evolution.

Liz first looked over the new skill and her eyes shone with glee at what it allowed her to do:

[Raise Horde (1) (A): Raise the fallen as <Zombie(s)> and command them to fight for you (0/100) (more↓)]

Every 50 levels a person's class grants an especially powerful skill, such that it is almost always A-rank, and the [Necromancer] class was no different. In fact this skill is the primary reason most fear the power of a necromancer, to fight in a war with an inexhaustible army does nothing but help them. Not only can they bolster their forces, but it lowers the morale of the enemy as they fight what was once their comrades.

Liz opened the tab that allowed her more information, a new part of the process for her, and looked over whatever extra information was available:

[Raise Horde (1) (A)]

• [All raised undead will become <Zombie (F-)>]
• [<Zombie> Rank and rate of decay scale with INT and skill level]
• [Undead created through <Raise Hord> will not accept damage transfer effect of <Voodooist>]

Looking over the information she could see some positive and negative aspects of the skill: First, from the look of it, it seemed the type of monster the skill created could improve as the skill levelled; Second, these undead seemed to have a time limit and were not applicable for the [Voodooist] skill.

Disappointing, but not unexpected. Liz understood the reason for this, It would be way too powerful otherwise.

Still Liz was happy to have this skill, its use would make her unstoppable in large scale conflicts; though she knew that level beats numbers within Galdrash.

The next matter she attended was the evolution of her skill.

 

Before Liz was forced to pick, there was some extra information on each of the types of summons. Liz was mostly surprised by the amount of summons, and especially glad that how she acted with her subordinates was the deciding factor in what they become later.

This was the real advantage Liz had, the [Scavenger] and [Swordsman] summons were only available to someone who could allow their summons to use skills through them, like Liz could do with [Voodooist].

The fighter was the generic option; it upgraded the general ability and now they could be spawned with different weapons, like spears, axes or different types of swords.

Next was the soldier, this was the one Liz most liked. Despite not being the highest rank available it did offer something the others did not: Intelligence. The skeleton soldiers were much smarter and easily followed orders, they were armed with swords and buckler shields; but more than that they supposedly also spawned with armour. Liz was honestly surprised these summons were only E-rank, and not higher like the swordsmen or scavenger.

The guardians were the least useful for her current army. These were units that focused on their defences, using short swords and large tower shields. With the golem the guardians would not be necessary.

The next 2 were quite interesting, the swordsman was focused entirely on swordsmanship and had skills of their own. The scavengers were similar but more closely resembled assassins, with skills in dagger arts and looting. The swordsmen were a great choice, a massive power increase, but LIz wasn't sure she wished to make her main force so specialised.

At the moment Liz was struggling to decide between soldiers and swordsmen; each had their merits but Liz soon made her choice. All 90 of the skeleton warriors she had active disappeared and Liz quickly replaced them with her new... Soldiers.

The summoning took more energy than it usually did, but what came was clearly much better: What was in front of her were similarly sized skeletons wielding a sword and shield, along their chest was leather looking armour draped over their chest and a rusty helmet over their heads. They looked much more dangerous and Liz was certain they were stronger too.

"I'm unstoppable!" Liz yelled out while laughing madly. She had faced nothing that could even remotely challenge her and this began clouding her rational thinking, her arrogance would surely catch up with her, but not just yet as her skeleton soldier cut a lizardman in half as it tried to launch a surprise attack.

Liz chose to collect all of her materials and made her way back to Barview. Once again she made a lot of money:

The Scale set she received resulted in 50 thousand gold from some desperate rich kid.

The regular materials came out to 5 thousand since she did not grind as much this time.

But there was one items worth selling: [Dragoon Blood]

Even for the one vial that she had acquired it was 80 thousand more gold, it gave Liz ideas about hunting dragons, but she wasn't arrogant enough to do that just yet.

"I can finally move us out of the slums!" Liz cheers, garnering looks from those around her. Players looked on mockingly after hearing what she said and NPCs were just confused. She was right though, with the amount of money she had saved up, she could buy a big house in City-Z, she didn't really want to leave since higher cities would only be full of snobs and assholes who look down on her for being 'new money'.

I can't believe that just a few weeks ago we were close to entering a nuclear town. Liz was beaming with joy as she transferred 300 thousand from her account that she needed, even still having more than 100 thousand gold left over, And now we have the money to live in the upper city.

"I should go claim my reward from the Marquess." Liz mumbled, she had seen first hand the potential an A-ranked necromancer skill had and she was excited to get even more.

She began walking all the way towards the estate and was allowed in with relative ease. The guards had already met her and so she was sent straight to the Marquess, though they seemed confused as to why she was here already; it had only been 2 weeks, was she giving up?

Liz was led to the same room she was kept in before and waited for the Marquess to arrive once again. When he did, with his usual entourage, LIz stood to greet him.

"Thank you for meeting me Marquess Barview." She said with a humble bow, "I have met the requirements of the challenge you set me."

"Do not lie! It is not possible to reach the fiftieth level in only two weeks!" Rowan yelled, fuming with anger.

"Be quiet Rowan." The Marquess scolded before turning back to Liz, "Though I am surprised at how quickly you reached this level."

Liz smiled behind her mask.

"Yes, I had to kill a lot of Lizards to reach this point." The Marquess didn't understand the metaphor, missing that there wasn't one, but still he was happy to have gained another ally in the coming fight.

"I suppose since you have met my requirements I have no choice but to allow you to help." The Marquess said with a smile, "But first, the scroll."

As he spoke a maid came forward with a scroll on a tray.

"I thank you kindly milord." Liz said, taking the item from the tray and putting it in her inventory, "But I suppose there is more to this than what you have been letting on."

"Yes, it is of the most dire sort. We must act with caution as the entirety of Vradora rests upon our shoulders."

Liz leaned forward, this was getting exciting.

"The Archduke of Kilgard is plotting a coup!"

A wicked grin grew over Liz's face as she read over the message.

"It would be my honour to assist you in this trial."