"He's killing him!"
"Get him off, quickly!"
"He can't breathe, help him!"
When Joker opened his eyes, he found himself lying on the ground, surrounded by strangers who were looking down on him, some were grabbing his arm and tried to get his hand off something he grabbed. Taking a closer look, he realised the "something" he grabbed was Sergej, whose face slowly turned blue because Joker was still choking him. He quickly let go of his friend, who fell back and gasped for air, coughing uncontrollably.
"Serg? I'm sorry! What happened?", he said, while slowly standing up. Some of the people that were surrounding him now stood between RedBear and him, with concerned looks on their faces. The others were now backing away from him.
"Freak..", he heard someone whisper, but when he turned around to see who said it, nobody was talking. He could see some of his skeletons and his golem standing a bit further away, with people keeping some distance to the undead creatures.
"Red? Are you ok?", Joker asked, watching his friend who was still coughing, even though not as much as a few moments ago.
"Yeah.. I'm ok, don't sweat it!", he answered, while he also stood up.
"What was wrong with you?", Red asked.
"Nothing, just had a nightmare.", Joker said and looked around. Their fight with the goblins was over, but he was afraid there might be other enemies around, attracted by the noise of their fight.
"How long was I passed out?"
"A few minutes. I didn't know what was going on but this girl here checked your pulse and said you're ok.", Red explained and pointed at a girl that stood near Joker. He immediately recognized her.
"You're that redhead that almost shot me with an arrow!", he said. Joker would have guessed that the girl was around the age of twenty-three, she had a rather tiny build, being around 1.60m, with a rather flat chest and wide hips. Her body was thin, but looked well trained and suited her, just like her short red hair, her green eyes and the few freckles she had on her nose and cheeks. She wore big glasses that gave her a somewhat nerdy appearance, but all in all Joker had to admit that she was very pretty. The girl was dressed in black sneakers, a white sleeveless shirt and a pair of short jeans, that looked like she cut off the legs at the middle of her thighs.
"Pff, I hit my target. You're welcome by the way!", she said, in a somewhat arrogant manner, that reminded him of someone.
"What's your name?", he asked her, being sure he had met her in the past.
"Christina, or Chris, I don't care.", she answered.
"What's your username?", he asked again.
"It's TripleRuby.. Yours?", she replied, blushing because some of the people started to laugh.
"If these people knew who she was, they wouldn't be laughing.", he thought. Her reply just confirmed Joker's suspicion. Back in the early beginnings, everyone in the safezone Joker had lived in knew about the archer TripleRuby, who was often called Ruby for short. Joker had met her once or twice, back then he was a nobody and she had proved herself immediately from the beginning, by defending people around her and the safezone with her strong talent in archery. Her behaviour back then had also been immensely arrogant, but Joker knew she had been one of the good guys, before she suddenly vanished inside of the safezone overnight. After many years, nobody had found out how or why she and lots of other people had disappeared from the safezone, which had led to internal strife and later on to the safezones' collapse, as more and more people left because they started distrusting each other. The groups that left the safezone all went different ways. Some joined guilds or adventurer teams, some went to other safezones, while others tried to form little groups which relied on themselves.
"I'm Joker. By the way, don't you want to loot the goblins?", he said.
"What do you mean loot?", an older man next to him asked.
"Their items. Most of their weapons are garbage, but some should be better than the basic equipment you get from the system. Also their protective gear, chainmail and leather armors for example, is good to use. Some items are definitely damaged, but it's better than having nothing and if you find someone who has a blacksmith class, you can get the items repaired."
"There's blacksmith classes?", RedBear asked him.
"Sure there are! Not every class is combat related.", Joker replied. What he told them was the truth, not every class was a combat class, even though the crafting classes, like for example blacksmiths, were able to use weapons, but there was actually no need for them to do so. After some time, people would realise that blacksmiths are very useful, so they actually made them stay away from battles as much as possible. Repairing items was something every blacksmith could do, but the higher an item's quality was, the higher the blacksmith's skill needed to be to repair the item. It was obviously a crucial thing to do. Crafting equipment was an entirely different thing. A talented blacksmith could forge high quality items, depending on the blacksmiths' skill and the quality of the raw materials he used. Custom forged items could boost one's personal strength to an entirely different level, Joker knew that an item, forged especially for a person, that item would be much more useful than any other item of the same quality and grade.
"Is there something I could use?", RedBear asked him.
"You can try, I'd advise everyone here to do the same. Check the items and share, you're now in the same boat. You can take everything, except for the hobgoblin warrior's and the hobgoblin shaman's stuff. I'm taking that.", Joker told them and nobody rejected. They all had more questions, which he would answer after they picked up the loot. That gave him some time to check his stats and his new skills.
"Character info!"
[Joker]
Class: The Immortal Emperor (5 stars)
Class description: Relying only on yourself you will stand at the pinnacle of all necromancers. Your enemies will tremble in the face of your armies, while you lead thousands into battle.
Level: 10
(Available attribute points: 60)
Strength: 12
Dexterity: 10
Agility: 13
Vitality: 10
Intelligence: 40
Mana: 200/200
Extra attr. - Perception: 5
Joker thought aabout the distribution and what to do with the sixty points he amassed. In the past, he would have put most of the points into strength, agility and vitality, as those were the attributes a warrior would mainly depend on. After evaluating his new class, he was going for a more balanced distribution. His intelligence stat was directly influencing the amount of mana he had, which he now relied on a lot more than in the past. He would need to put more points into intelligence, but he chosse to do so in the past. Now it was more important to push his individual strength, so he ignored intelligence this time and decided to go for the other stats.
After distributing his points, he was quite pleased with his character info.
[Joker]
Class: The Immortal Emperor (5 stars)
Class description: Relying only on yourself you will stand at the pinnacle of all necromancers. Your enemies will tremble in the face of your armies, while you lead thousands into battle.
Level: 10
(Available attribute points: 0)
Strength: 30
Dexterity: 15
Agility: 40
Vitality: 20
Intelligence: 40
Mana: 200/200 (Intelligence x5)
Extra Attr. - Perception: 5
The next thing he did was check his summons. After the fight, most of his skeletons were destroyed, leaving him with exactly seven skeletons, which all were level 10 now and his golem, who reached level 4. He was now able to evolve all of his skeletons and furthermore, the skeletons he could raise were now not basic skeletons, but class specific ones. He could now choose to either summon a skeleton warrior, archer or mage.
"Scars, come over here!", he commanded and the skeleton obeyed.
[Skeleton LVL 10 - skeleton can be evolved!]
[Skeleton can be named!]
"Register name Scars!"
[Skeleton's name "Scars" - registered!]
[Named summons (1/5)]
[First summon named. "Scars" will be strengthened!]
["Scars" LVL 10 - can be evolved!]
As Scars was the first skeleton he had raised and also the only one who had features which distinguished him from the others, he was the first one whose name Joker registered. Scars was also the first of his summons he named, so the system gave him a bonus and strengthened him. Joker was now able to feel some pressure from Scars, not as much as from the hobgoblin bosses, but still enough to make him realize that Scars now, would have been able to give the hobgoblin warrior a tough fight, without even being evolved.
"Evolve!", Joker went on, and a window popped up in front of him, showing him the different evolution paths he could pick for Scars.
["Scars" - possible Evolutions]
Warrior
Archer
Mage
"Let's go for option number one!", Joker said. Scars had proven to be quite useful in close combat, so he made the decision to go that way.
[Skeleton "Scars" evolved - New class "Skeleton Warrior"!]
[First evolved skeleton - "Scars" promoted to "Skeleton Warrior (Captain)" - according to class!]
Joker was surprised, he wouldn't have thought that Scars would get another gain, except from being evolved, but being the first evolved skeleton gave him a promotion. Joker wasn't sure if the first skeleton archer or mage would also get an additional bonus, but he would see in a few moments. Scars, who previously wore old goblin equipment, now dropped it. As soon as he did, dark mist formed a sword and shield, but also heavy armor on his body, all of these looking damaged, but of a higher quality than the gear he used before. The skeleton now gave of an interely different vibe. Joker was sure that in a one-on-one, Scars would have maybe even been able to beat the hobgoblin warrior. That thought gave him an idea.
"Scars, if that greatsword and chainmail is better than your stuff then use it!", he commanded and surprisingly, the skeleton picked the items up, making his own disappear.
"Ok, nice!"
Joker had no use for the greatsword now. Even if it was better than his, it would not really make a difference, Joker was also sure to be able to find a better sword soon, so he gave it to Scars. Having a powerhouse among his summons would prove to be more useful anyway, because he would not have to constantly revive Scars, conserving mana that way.
"Ok, time to get a mage. You, come here!", he said, looking at another one of his skeletons. It was the small one, the one that probably belonged to a female. Now that he was able to give some names to his summons, he decided to pick one for her too.
"Ehm.. I don't knwo, let's just go for Hela. Register name Hela!", he said, thinking of a name that was somehow related to death but also female, that was the only thing popping up in his mind.
[Skeleton's name "Hela" - registered!]
[Named summons (2/5)]
["Hela" LVL 10 - can be evolved!]
"No strengthening for you, huh? Too bad!", Joker thought. If he had known, he would have named and evolved her first. The reason for that was simple. Scars was a warrior and engaged in physical combat, just like Joker himself did. As Joker was quite confident in his own skills, there would have been a greater benefit of a strengthened skeleton mage, but it was now too late. Either way, Hela, who was smaller than Scars, had proven to be less efficient in physical combat, so the choice of turning her into a mage would a good one, so he went for it and evloved her into a skeleton mage.
[Skeleton "Hela" evolved - new class "skeleton mage"!]
After the evolution, Hela also dropped the equipment she was using, black mist forming around her and turning into a black robe.
"Get the hobgoblin's robe if it's better than yours!", he commanded. He would have liked her to also use the hobgoblin's staff, unfortunately he broke it during their fight and he was not sure if it could be repaired soon. Nonetheless he still took the two pieces.
"Ok, who do I evolve next?", he thought, watching the remaining skeletons. One of them stood out a bit more than the rest. It was the one wielding a spear, who was the tallest out of all his skeletons. He had seen that one during the fight and it showed great skill, almost as much as Scars, so he decided to call that one up. Seeing like it was wielding a spear, he immediately came up with a name for it.
"Register name Gungnir!"
[Skeleton's name ""Gungnir" - registered!]
[Named summons (3/5)]
[Gungnir LVL 10 - can be evolved!]
Gungnir was the norse god Odin's spear, so he chose that one, because it did have a nice sound to it. He was also keeping that one as a warrior.
[Skeleton "Gungnir" evolved - new class "skeleton warrior"!]
Gungnir was also surrounded by black mist, which formed into armor, that looked as damaged as Scars' armor, but with a huge difference. While the armor that formed around Scars was heavy armor, the armor that formed around Gungnir consisted of light armor. Joker did not know why, maybe every skeleton's individual preferences were the reason, if they even had something like preferences. They were not able to talk, so Joker did not know anything about them. He knew that some undead were able to speak, they even had their own personalities, he thought they would just need to reach a higher level or quality, so there was no need to rush it.
"Great, now an archer! You're next!", he picked another skeleton, which did not have any outstanding features. It was around 1.75m tall and by the bonestructure belonged to a man. Joker had seen it use two daggers during the fight with the goblin group, during which it used two daggers. The skeleton did not boost a lot of strength, but it was quick and agile, so Joker picked it for the archer class. For this one he also immediately had a name.
[Skeleton's name "Apollo" - registered!]
[Named summons (4/5)]
[Apollo LVL 10 - can be evolved!]
He named the skeleton Apollo, after the greek god, who was usually depicted with a bow in his hands.
[Skeleton "Apollo" evolved - new class "skeleton archer"!]
Apollo immediately dropped his two daggers, now replaced by a bow made out of bones, the string looking like it was made out of a tendon. It had a quiver hanging on it's back, filled with brittle looking bone arrows and wore damaged looking leather armor.
Joker felt a bit bad about the naming, as he named three of his skeletons after gods and one because of the cracks in his skull, but he chose to stick with the names. After evolving four skeletons, he had three left, so he made two more archers and another mage, now all of his remaining skeletons being evolved. He could have chosen to raise more, but decided to not do it right now. Just like before, a smaller group could get around quicker and was harder to detect than a huge group, also he had gotten another skill, he wanted to try out.
"Character info: Raise Undead!"
[Raise undead]
Beginner rank level 1
Raises a corpse while keeping it's body intact. Summoning cost depends on the corpses quality.
Mana cost: 50
"Fifty Mana!?", Joker was surprised. Raise undead was a skill that kept the corpse the way the creature was, unlike raising skeletons. The major difference between the two skills was that skeletons could only be raised from humanoid corpses, with a few exceptions, but raising undead was usable on all corpses. It was basically creating a zombie version of a dead creature.
Joker had seen many different undead in the past, so his fingers were actually itching to try this skill out. He could fill his ranks wih some of the hobgoblins, but like before, he did not. Goblins were at the bottom of the food chain, their evolved relatives being a lot better, but also not usable for his plans. Undead were a bit weaker compared to their living counterparts of the same level and having more warriors, archers or mages would, in Joker's opinion, not prove to be an advantage at this point. He wanted to get variety, individual creatures, powerhouses like his blood golem and a lot of the creatures in the area came to his mind, most of them being too strong for him to hunt yet. His blood golem was not very durable, it had a high attack power but it was slow and it's a defense was not very good, even if you considered it being only a lump of meat and bones and blood. What Joker wanted right now, was something quick, with a high attack if possible, that could act as a support on the entire battlefield. Something that could quickly move around and act where it was needed. Another thing he needed was a tank, something durable and hard to knock down, that could stand it's ground without going down to fast. For those, there were actually some possibilities, but all of them were out of reach yet. The thing that would round his team up, on the other hand, was actually possible to hunt. Right now it should be relatively low level, but Joker knew that if it leveled up, it could become a beast, spotting huge destructive power, while also being not too slow and having a relatively high defense. That was his next target, and as it happened, it was on his way to another one of his friends.
"Why are you smiling?", RedBear, who came back after taking some loot asked him. Red had, just like Joker had advised him, put on a hobgoblin's leather armor, which had not taken any damage. It had probably belonged to one of the hobgoblins that Joker had decapitated, so the armor had not taken any damage.
"Oh it's nothing, I've just planned our next steps. We'll prepare for now, but soon, we're going to hunt us a centipede!", he said, while lighting a cigarette.
"Huh?"