《The Little Necromancer's Gate》


 I guess I died

    Currently, I am in a nearly empty room. The only thing in the room is a short white table with a small porcelain teacup on it. The room seems to have no exit. Now there is no door so¡­ how did I get here again? The last thing I remember was¡­ I don¡¯t seem to remember what the last thing that happened was. For that matter, I don¡¯t seem to remember anything. I¡¯m kind of panicking right now. I don¡¯t remember anything and pretty soon I am gonna suffocate in this room. I suppose I need to calm down before I start to hyperventilate. I¡¯ll drink the tea that should help.


    As I pick up the cup of tea, drawings began to form on the white table. A box was formed on the table with a black outline and text that reads Sorry you have died. In the corner of the box in smaller writing is said Next with an arrow pointing to the right. This is rather bizarre. It is telling me I am dead. This is a bit worse than losing my memory. I think I should see if I can get out of here. Despite how fascinating this table is I need to get out before I suffocate. After taking one last long sip, I set the cup of tea back on the table. The writing on the table all disappears and goes back to being an ordinary white table. I stand up and begin to trace the edges of the wall for a seam. It shouldn¡¯t be possible for me to get in here without there being some kind of hidden door.


    After about five minutes of looking around the room, I have come to a conclusion. There is nothing here except the table and cup of tea. I can¡¯t reach the ceiling but that seems to be the only other way in here. I suppose I should go back to humoring the table. I sit back down in front of the table and pick up the cup of tea. The same writing on the table appears again. I set the cup back down. The writing goes away again. I pick it back up and the writing returns. Well, I suppose I have had enough fun with the teacup. Let¡¯s figure out how this works. Is it like a tablet?


    I try swiping on the table as if to turn the page but nothing changed. I try tapping the word Next and the writing on the table begins to disappear. A new box appeared in place of the old one. It read Please enter your name. Well, I don¡¯t remember my name. And I am not sure I would want to tell this table my name either. This whole situation is quite vexing. Being stuck in this miserable white room with no way out.


    I suppose I will just make up a name. I¡¯ll write Nyx like the goddess of the night the opposite of this white room. I tap the words and a blank line replaces them and the keys of a keyboard where drawn below the box. I type the three letters as they appear on the line. The Next button reappeared in the corner. I tap it putting my name down as Nyx. Take that table.


    Above the box appeared a large solid bar. The box wrote The bar above represents your karma from your past life. Boring! NEXT! Come on there is no evidence I am dead. If I was dead I couldn¡¯t enjoy this delicious tea. The writing in the box changed to Please pick your ideal world. Below instead of a keyboard where five different images all drawn in the same black engravings on the table. The images consist of a dinosaur, a pyramid, an island, a futuristic skyline, and a floating castle. Although they lack a description I can kind of assume what each of them means. I¡¯m not too sure if the island option is an ocean world or a deserted island but either way¡­ I¡¯m not too interested in it. The floating castle caught my interest on the other hand. That definitely goes against some laws of physics. I¡¯ll play along with the table and pick it as my ideal world. Next!The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    The karma bar then reappeared at the top of the table and the text changed to Please pick your traits. Below it was a chart with different sections. Traits huh. Now that I look at it¡­ my body has no features. I don¡¯t have any clothes on, no reproductive part, no hair, no flaws¡­ This couldn¡¯t be someone''s body. Maybe I am dead. I should start taking this a little more seriously on the off chance I really am dead. The first box I selected was the one titled age. I don¡¯t want to grow up again although I don¡¯t remember growing up. I also want to have a long life ahead of me. I suppose I will make myself old enough to still function on my own. I set my age to 12 for now so I can have a long life ahead of me. Next, I go to gender. I don¡¯t really have any way of knowing what I was in my past life but going with the theme of my name I will set it as female. Next up is skills.


    Upon selecting this one a large list of skills appeared on the side of the table with a bar on the side. Experimenting with it, it seemed like I could scroll forever. Next to each skill was a plus sign and some of them were accompanied by many plus signs. For now, I selected the skill necromancy. I am already dead so this seems quite fitting. After selecting this it disappeared from the list and appeared in the table. After appearing the karma bar above it began to shrink. I suppose the plus signs must mean how much karma the option costs. Necromancy had two plus signs next to it and seemed to remove a fair bit from my karma bar. Some of the options had more plus signs than I cared to count next to them. There was no way I could afford those with how much necromancy used I suppose I must have not been that great of a person. It must be at least a fifth smaller than it used to be.


    Taking my time and thinking carefully this time I chose my next skill. The skill I chose was space magic. It had six plus signs next to it so it was quite expensive. I can only imagine something called space magic would be able to help me leave this room. After selecting this skill I only had about one-fifth of my original karma bar and I still have yet to touch the other sections of the table. Since they might also use karma it would be wise to hold off on getting more skills for now.


    The next section I selected was status. The skill list disappeared and in its place appeared a new bar similar to the karma bar and choices underneath it. The words written underneath the bar where body, mind, and charm. These are some pretty vague stats¡­ I am not too sure what each of them does. Hoping mind might be able to help with the skills I chose I pressed it. A bar appeared next to it and began to fill up as the one above the words drained. Putting my finger back on it the same thing happened. This time I held my finger down as it slowly began to fill up. The bar filled up rather quickly and I only managed to take my finger off after it was almost all empty. Not seeing an undo button or anything that could help me I decided that I simply will have to put a lot of my points into mind. I chose to put the rest of my points into charm as I didn¡¯t take any skill like berserker or sword prowess I just can¡¯t see a use for the body stat. After using all my points I selected the last section. This one was labeled location. After selecting it a list of different locations where listed. One that caught my eye was the Hero¡¯s Tomb. If I was there I could resurrect the hero using necromancy and make them my minion. I tap it and nothing happens. My eyes then bulge when I notice the five plus signs accompanied with that option. I suppose the hero must have something incredible buried with him like his weapon. It almost costs as much as space magic.


    Since I can¡¯t pick that one I chose another one that seemed appealing. The option I selected instead was a graveyard. This one had two plus signs next to it and also would be helpful with my necromancy skill. After selecting it the last of my karma bar emptied. Satisfied with my choices I selected Next. The table went back to just a box in the middle that read At any time think ¡®Status¡¯ to know your level, body¡¯s condition, and skill levels. Ah, so I can level things up. I tap Next again. The room suddenly flashes a blinding white and everything around me seemed to disappear. It was so bright I could not even see the teacup in my hands.

 The Graveyard

    After a few seconds have passed I open my eyes to see if the blinding light has faded. Upon opening my eyes I found that I was now surrounded by old looking tombstones ready to fall apart. I had a plain black dress on and was standing in long grass with tree roots shooting through the ground. Around the edges of the graveyard, there seemed to be a wooden fence that was once painted white that was now lying in the grass and had faded. Around the fence where many large trees with a dark-colored bark and dark green leaves that moved with the gentle wind. The sky was completely covered by dark grey clouds that blocked out any light the sun could have shined if it was daytime. I suppose for now I should get to making use of my necromancy. Walking over to one of the larger tombs I say.


    ¡°Rise my minion.¡±


    Wh-what. I have such a cute voice. I guess I did ask to be made 12. I wonder what my appearance looks like. My hair seems to be pitch black but not shiny in the slightest as if it absorbed all the light around it. I seem to be maybe 150cm tall at best but I don¡¯t have anything to compare myself to check. Anyway enough about me, where is my minion? I suppose I have to do more than just talk. I try envisioning the dead skeleton rising from the ground. Focusing on this image alone I hear the sound of the grass being trampled. Opening my eyes there was a large skeleton in front of me and a hole in front of the gravestone. It worked! I wonder if my necromancy skill leveled up from that.


    Thinking status the information appears in my head. It was all level one and my body¡¯s condition was listed as healthy. The only new bit of information was that I had a minion count of 1/1. I suppose I can only have one minion for now then. Doesn¡¯t that mean the rest of this graveyard is kind of useless?


    Looking up at my new minion I realize I must be short. It is as expected of someone my age I suppose. I should have made myself older. Whatever it can''t be helped now.


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    So I have a minion now but... Next to him, I don''t look that threatening it totally ruins the evil necromancer thing. I don''t look cool at all I just look short! I need to hide him somehow.


    Space magic!


    Maybe that can hide him? To be honest... Before now I didn''t know what space magic did but maybe now that I learned the skill I understand it? I mean I know that space magic generally has to do with dimensions and time. It seems low-level magic for it would be opening a mini dimension that I could store things in.


    This is supposed to be used as a closet I feel like but what better place to hide a few dead bodies. Let''s do it.


    I use my space magic and open up the closed door. Now there is just a door in the middle of an abandoned graveyard. Quite the scene. I open up the door and shove my minion into the darkness behind the door.


    "Umph!"


    I-I can''t move him.


    "Hurry up and get in the closet!"


    I should just stick to telling my minions to move. That was embarrassing. I end the space magic and the door disappears. I was expecting to feel pretty drained after using magic. Maybe it is because I put all my points into mind. So the mind stat did have something to do with magic. I invested my points well.


    Now that I have my 1/1 minion I suppose there is no real reason to be in the graveyard. For some reason, I understand that leveling up my necromancy will let me have more minions so I had better go level it up. I can level it up by fighting with my necromancy skills. In other words, I have to fight something.


    This information that came with the skills are quite helpful. I''m not sure what I''d do without them. So let''s go fight some stuff! And food... I want food. Maybe the graveyard wasn''t the best place to start.


    Well if I want to fight something in find have to leave the graveyard. Goodbye, my future minions, I''ll be back later for you. Now into the forest.


    <hr>


    Ahh. This forest is kinda scary. I want to go back to my graveyard. Where are the slimes outside the starting village to grind? I haven''t found a monster or anything. It''s been like two hours. I''m starving.


    <hr>


    So I''m not sure what time it is with how dark these clouds are I can''t see the sun or the moon. But it feels like it is time to sleep. I open up my door and go inside not wanting to sleep out in the open.


    It''s unbelievably dark in here. It''s surprisingly comfortable it feels like I''m floating. I think I could fall asleep in here without issues. Good night my minion.