Ringing in the New Year
Happy New Year!
Yeah, yeah, so I'm late. But hey, I've got a good excuse: I just NOW sobered up. Yeah, it was THAT bad. I don't really know what happened, but when I started drinking New Years Eve, I was a 15th-level Saracen Scout; when I woke up this morning, I was a 3-foot tall blue guy with gills whose best friend appears to be an extra from Night of the Living Dead.
Yes, I'm a Necromancer.
I didn't really WANT to be a Necromancer. It's just that when I went to the Temp Employment Agency, they said, "What skills do you have?" I told them I was pretty good at dying. At first they thought I meant changing the colors of things, and I explained, no, I meant as in "Falling Off A Rather High Cliff." Somehow some wires got crossed, and someone assumed this meant I was good at working with dead things.
Let me just set the record straight here: I am NOT.
I HATE zombies, just like any other green-blooded... er... RED-blooded Albionian. By God, I hold emergency tomb- and graveyard-raid training sessions frequently, just to make sure that me and my friends are regularly prepared to fight off any undead menace! And I've seen ALL of the Dead movies (yes, even DAWN, the best, imho).
So, needless to say, this causes a bit of awkwardness anytime I bring out a zombie to do my bidding.
You summon a Zombie Servant!
Zombie Servant looks at you.
You say, "Uh, yeah, I think we met at that cemetery..."
Zombie Servant says, "Unnnnnnnnnhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
You say, "No no no, that wasn't me, that was some OTHER guy stabbing you! I told him to stop, but he, like, pushed me and stuff! I was like, 'Hey, maybe these zombie guys have feelings' and he was all like 'stfu n00b!' and, well, what could I do?"
Zombie Servant says, "Unnnnnnnnnnnnnhhhhhhh..."
You say, "Whadya mean you won't work for me? You HAVE to! I'm your summoner! You gotta do what I say!"
Zombie Servant says, "Unnnnnnhhhhhhhh."
You say, "Union? What union?"
Zombie Servant says, "Unnnnnnnnnnnnnnhhhhhhh."
You say, "Fine, fine, I'll talk to your union rep. Who is it?"
Death says, "Hi there!"
Sigh. This is just great. Now it seems that I've died so many times, they've assigned me my own corpses as pets! Obviously I suck. I got killed, right? So WHY would I want my OWN DEAD BODY as my servant? Life is just unfair, I tell you.
Zombie Servant says, "Unnnnnnnnnnnnnnnhhhh."
Fine, fine, I mean DEATH is just unfair. Hrmph.
And to make matters WORSE, I can't get Yates to powerlevel me. He's got a 50th level wizard. Think that guy has anything better to do? Yeah, right. What, find some pretty matching cloak to highlight his eyes? C'mon, he's 50th level! He's got nothing BETTER to do than spend HOURS buffing me! Is that too much to ask? Apparently it is, because he has yet to do it. I tried asking nicely, but he keeps making up some nonsense about having to defend our relics or some such. Honestly, I've been to Excalibur. You know how many guards they have there? MANY. Like, several + a whole bunch. And those guys are all uber - you can tell by the fact that they walk through doors. So why on earth would they need HIS help to defend that place? Anyway, he refuses to help me when I ask nicely. So I had to get a little nasty.
Yates says, "Dude, your zombie is standing by me while I'm trying to eat!"
You say, "So?"
Yates says, "Hel-lo? Zombie? Eating? I'm trying to dine here, and he's dropping bits off of himself!"
You say, "Well, hey, it's not like you're eating cream of mushroom soup or anything..."
Yates says, "..."
You giggle.
Yates says, "I hate you."
Finally I manage to connive my way into some of my fellow guild-members hunting groups. You know what they were hunting? Oh, sure, they were undead...
Undead Apple Pickers.
I kid you not. Man, you thought YOU were facing a bad afterlife? Just imagine what THESE guys must've done. Here they are, dying, expecting to go on to either a sulfurous pit of hellfire or maybe floating on a cloud strumming a harp...instead, Death plops a basket in their laps and points towards the apple fields. And THEN, because the afterlife still doesn't suck quite enough, you got some wise-alec adeventurers charging up to you every five seconds pounding the crap out of you. You were probably promised Nirvana as soon as you fill your apple basket. You get JUST ABOUT FULL, and WHAMMO! Some goofball with a bucket on his head plows over you, while some little twerp sings a song and beats on your head with his ukalalee. (Yeah, that's right minstrels, I said it: UKALALEE. Call yourselves rock stars, do your little dances, but you and I both know you're strumming on the ol' ukalalee.) Do you wonder why these things con aggressive to you? Heck, I'd be downright LIVID if I was one of those guys. Never mind filling my basket with apples; I'd see what sort of paradise awaited me when I brought back a basket of Paladin testicles!
And then, as if those guys weren't bad enough, we went after some Clerks. No, not Dante and Randal. These were Danoin Clerks. Yeah - there were soldiers, fishermen - and clerks. Poor bastiches. I mean, here are these guys, slaving away all day for some scrooge, and now they're going home for the 2 hours they're allowed off. They're walking along, thinking about what forms the office is out of, or which ink they'll need more of next order, or how many dinglehooppers they were short on this order, or maybe they're thinking about how rude that customer was when he insisted all his bags be PLASTIC, when suddenly BLAMMO! Buckethead and Ukalalee Avenger are on top of them, beating the snot out of them. Clerks! These aren't like 'raiders' or 'fighters' or even 'foul-tempered surly wankers' - these are CLERKS!
Good gravy, remind me not to go shopping with anyone from Mythic. I can see it now, they stroll up on the deli counter, notice the poor bastich behind the counter, and WHAMMO! Begin pounding hell outta the poor guy with stale loaves of french bread or something. I mean, how bad were they treated that they have to turn these guys into enemies? What, did the checkout clerk put the eggs in the bottom of their shopping bag or something?
Honestly, people. Where are the "Danoin Meter Maids"? Or the "Danoin Tax Collectors"? Or even the "Danoin Garbagemen That Bang Cans And Yell At 4AM"? I'd beat the CRAP outta them! With no complaints!
