Jerry leaned against the railing and took a deep, deep breath. The ground rolled below, seemingly slow but actually fast, and the wind buffeted his face, sending strands of black hair flying backward. He hadn’t had a haircut in a long time, not since Derek helped groom him for Pilpen’s council, over half a year ago.
How is Derek, I wonder? Jerry thought, leaning lower against the wooden railing until his jaw rested on it. Maybe he and Holly have already settled down in ...
2025-01-09 18:36:01 +0000 UTC
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Sup necromancers. I did a small overhaul of my Patreon page to match the new story, including new tier names. Check them out -- I'm open to ideas and suggestions, especially about the name of the 10$ tier. It needs to be super cool.
The only thing which remained the same was the link, which is still patreon.com/roadtomastery. The people who access my page through the browser will lose access if I change it, ...
2025-01-08 18:36:01 +0000 UTC
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Jericho grinned at Axehand. “You think you’re something, don’t you?” he said. “A pitiful, stupid undead who can’t even talk…”
Unlike Jericho, Axehand didn’t taunt—what lumberjack speaks with trees?
A strong breeze blew through the manor’s holes, and the steel flask jingled on Axehand’s waist. He uncorked it to drink a large gulp, eyes locked on Jericho—and then, as moonlit wine dripped down his fractured ribcage, he tossed the flask onto the airship.
<...
2025-01-07 18:36:01 +0000 UTC
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Jerry’s and Maccain’s souls clashed midair.
Like two armies fighting, or two bodies of water trying to drown each other, they split into strands and streams, coiling and twisting and ensnaring each other. It was the first time Jerry engaged in soul battle—but the knowledge came easy, and his soul obeyed his will as it split and dashed, executing the formations he invented on the fly.
It felt glorious.
But Maccain was there, too, and the moment their souls collided, Jer...
2025-01-06 18:36:00 +0000 UTC
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“Hurry, hurry!” Laura hissed in Boney’s ears—or where they would be if he had any. “Get the airship started! We cannot fight a Herald!”
Boney didn’t need to be told twice. He had already charged into the airship’s bowels in search of barrels—as Laura had said before—and found them. Unfortunately, there were dozens of them, with several different icons painted on them. Which were the right ones, and how was he supposed to use them?
He glanced at Laura, who stare...
2025-01-05 18:36:00 +0000 UTC
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We're about to climb the Rising Stars of royalroad, so if you enjoy this story, consider dropping a review to help me out!
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Maccain and his two undead stood in the rubble, confidently facing the Funny Bone. Screams rang from all around as window shutters opened and closed. Fast approaching boots stomped on stone and wood.
Jerry forwent his control of the mice and unstrapped himself from Axehand’s back, stepping on the deck with his own two feet. The plan had alread...
2025-01-04 18:36:01 +0000 UTC
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Hey necromancers. I didn't have the chance to say it before, but I want to wish you all a very happy new year. Love, joy, courage, fulfilment... All the things which comprise a happy life, I wish them for you. And lots of reading!
Have a wonderful 2025,
Valerios :)
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Boney crossed the manor, following after Master’s mice—or, to be exact, he was following Boboar, who was following Billies One and Two, who were following Master’s mice. After Boney came Axehand, with...
2025-01-03 18:36:01 +0000 UTC
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With a creak that felt ear-scratching—but was really rather quiet—the iron door swung open, revealing the manor’s outer courtyard.
Trees and bushes lined the gravel paths, shining under the silver moonlight. The silence was deafening, with only the muffled sounds of the town disturbing the manor’s serenity. That, and the bunch of undead who carried stuff through the courtyard as if moving houses. Marcus watched them from behind and could barely suppress his growing sense of disb...
2025-01-03 09:19:05 +0000 UTC
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The Wall of the Damned stretches for a thousand miles, coast to coast, completely cutting off the Dead Lands from the Three Kingdoms. It measures an average width of six feet and an average height of nine, with the most critical sections being appropriately strengthened.
It is undoubtedly the world’s greatest monument; a massive, herculean task which was completed in a single year by the combined and complete efforts of the Three Kingdoms. If anyone ever doubts the limits...
2025-01-03 09:17:05 +0000 UTC
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The manor of Count Decaron was placed on the city’s edge, as far away from the Wall as possible. Tall walls surrounded it, painted red, pristinely maintained, and with spikes at the top, while the nearby houses all spoke of riches and authority. Despite its relatively low population count, Edge Town had no lack for nobles.
As soon as the Funny Bone departed from the town square, a procession had already formed behind them. Deep-seated hatred aside, the people were curious about the un...
2025-01-03 09:16:29 +0000 UTC
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“What do you think about this, Boney?” Jerry pointed to a length of rope. “Can’t we use it?”
“We already have rope, Master.”
“We have rope, yes…but what about a second rope?”
Under his hood, Boney’s jaw clacked.
With the sun high in the sky and today’s performance planned for the late afternoon, Jerry’s team was left with plenty of free time. They decided to spend it efficiently, acquiring all sorts of supplies for their upcoming expedition in...
2025-01-03 09:16:00 +0000 UTC
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Little is known about the Great Enigma. What happened six hundred years ago? Where are the Primordials, are they alive or dead, and why are those world-shaking events missing from every historical record?
Many connect this enigma to Dorman, the mysterious explorer who lived during the same period. For reasons unknown, Dorman traveled the entire world and left cryptic inscriptions in various ancient sites, said to point toward his treasure. Nothing else is known about this p...
2024-12-28 11:01:31 +0000 UTC
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Julius and Meredith, my dear friends,
I write to seek your guidance, for I have reached the end of my wits.
The Wizard Order has escalated its operations within my borders and no longer bothers hiding. Their Sworn fanatics openly wear their feather tattoos. Their members openly preach wizard supremacy in my border towns, luring many of my Kingdom’s wizards into their fold. What is more, my spies witnessed one of their Archmages, Makoa Pele, within my very c...
2024-12-28 10:57:37 +0000 UTC
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“Watch the Funny Bone, the circus of undead! Don’t be afraid, they’re friendly!”
“An undead circus is rarer than flying whales! Don’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!”
Ten children dressed in rags darted through the streets of Edge, preparing the ground for Jerry’s circus. People turned to look, and as they heard the funny music approach, their eyes widened, and they dropped everything they were doing to ogle.
When the undead showed up, most people s...
2024-12-28 10:57:08 +0000 UTC
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The Wall of the Damned—or Damn Wall, as it was commonly called—had been constructed with the terrain in mind. It mostly followed the plains of Escarbot’s northern border until their very center, where there lay a ravine which funneled large quantities of undead into a small part of the Wall.
Escarbot’s largest military force was right there, fighting undead hordes day in and day out.
However, these troops needed a place to stay, and the Wall’s battlements could not hold ...
2024-12-28 10:56:38 +0000 UTC
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Necromancy is inaccurately named.
The practitioners of this school of magic often deal in corpses, ghosts, and icons of death, but that is not where our domain lies. A more accurate descriptor would be psychomancy, where ‘psycho’ is an elaborate word for soul.
Necromancers, or psychomancers, deal with the various flavors of soul magic, commonly including reconnecting souls to bodies, an application favored by a soul’s slow rate of deterioration. This is...
2024-12-28 10:56:07 +0000 UTC
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In the Kingdom of Escarbot, not many villages had inns, but this one begged to differ.
The Fat Boar inn was a stub of a building, short and square. It barely had room for three tables inside, but when the weather was nice, they would often place another two outside, on the cobbled courtyard where children liked to play.
Tonight was such an occasion—though, due to the late hour, there were no children rushing and yelling like tiny primitives. Only two groups enjoyed beers under t...
2024-12-28 10:55:06 +0000 UTC
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“Come, everyone, come! Watch the Funny Bone, the one and only undead circus of the Three Kingdoms!”
Jerry stood on a crate and called out to the crowd, inviting them all to the performance. This random village they’d chanced upon was a medium-sized one, housing at least a hundred people, which meant decent potential profit.
Jerry liked profit. Over the last month, he’d come to understand the power of bribes and realized that profit could convert to larger bribes, so more f...
2024-12-28 10:54:35 +0000 UTC
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Manna, Desistos, Gaia, Pyros, and Hydra.
The five Primordials ruled over our world for millennia, each a nature spirit representing the apex of a branch of magic. They were immortal, invincible tyrants with no consideration for human life. To them, we were little more than toys. To us, they were gods.
Until six hundred years ago, when they disappeared.
Nobody knows what happened. Anything involving the disappearance or death of the Primordials ...
2024-12-28 10:20:48 +0000 UTC
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“Jerry!” Soon after the villages disappeared, a shout came from the hill’s base as a rugged figure burst out of the tree line. It was Derek, panting as if he’d run all the way here, and still wearing the same bloodied clothes as before. He’d come from a different direction than the villagers; they had taken the long, clear way around, while he cut straight through the woods. They hadn’t run into each other.
“Derek,” Jerry replied softly, walking to meet him mid-way. The ...
2024-12-28 10:16:18 +0000 UTC
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Jerry’s tower had been vandalized.
The fence, arduously built over the winter, had been torn down in places. The wooden statue had been broken into two, lying on the hard ground, and Jerry’s shoemaking bench had been flipped. At least Shorty’s grave was undisturbed in the backyard, and the tower's insides were seemingly safe as the door remained closed.
Above said door, a grim message had been written in a dark red color.
‘YOU ARE NOT WELCOME. LEAVE, MONSTER.’
<...
2024-12-28 10:15:43 +0000 UTC
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“Ohhhhh…” With a drawn-out groan, Jerry’s eyelids fluttered open. He was cold for a moment, incredibly cold, before the feeling receded and his body started working again.
“Master!” a joyous cry came from the side, followed by a chorus of happy, unintelligible sounds.
Jerry smiled. “Hello, everyone,” he said, turning his head toward the noise. “I gave you a scare, didn’t I?”
“Master!” Boney cried out again before falling on Jerry to hug him.
...
2024-12-28 10:14:58 +0000 UTC
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“I WILL FUCKING DESTROY YOU!” Jericho roared, his voice shaking the leaves with its supernatural intensity. He stood on top of the fallen tree—his brother’s corpse—while looking down on everyone.
Below him, everyone shared the same thought. He really is invincible…
There was no way anyone could survive that unless they were immortal. Which, in turn, meant they stood no hope at all. Everyone was frozen, even the bandits, as they knew that their leader’s rage ...
2024-12-28 10:14:20 +0000 UTC
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The collapse of a gigantic tree was a slow but tense sight.
The behemoth was almost a hundred feet tall, towering over everything else in the forest. Its dark bark moaned and screamed as it titled, the tree’s own weight ripping its roots apart, and then it fell.
The entire forest shook. The tree’s crown, long entangled with the wide foliage, made a series of cracking sounds as it was forcefully dislodged. The nearby trees protested, their topmost branches and leaves crumbling,...
2024-12-28 10:13:42 +0000 UTC
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The moment Axehand threw off his cloak, grunted, and buried his axe-hand in the tree all the way to the forearm, many different things happened at once.
The surrounding guards froze; two of them screamed and ran away, while the others reached for their weapons, roared, and attacked. Boney also took off his cloak and grabbed the sword hanging from his waist. Taking up position behind Axehand, he pointed it at the incoming guards—he used to be a bandit, too, and was somewhat familiar wi...
2024-12-28 10:13:15 +0000 UTC
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Though the plan seemed far-fetched, it was their only option. By the time the sun set, all the details had been ironed out.
Axehand and Boney made up the ground team. The former was the core of the operation, while the latter would be in charge of tricking the guards into letting them in. If push came to shove, Boney was also quite durable—more than a fleshy living man, anyway—so he’d stand a good chance of escaping.
Jerry, Derek, Headless, and Boboar would hide in the thick...
2024-12-28 10:12:40 +0000 UTC
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The bandit hideout was not what it sounded like.
When someone hears about a hideout, they imagine a shack hidden in the shadows, a rundown basement, or, at best, an abandoned, dusty, barely standing mansion.
What these bandits had was an entire array of treehouses nestled on dark-bark trees. Wooden platforms were constructed around the barks, using thick branches as support, and on these platforms, the bandits had built their wooden cabins. Flimsy ladders climbed each tree, giving...
2024-12-28 09:25:39 +0000 UTC
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I was there during the Red Week.
We set hundreds of miles of forest on fire to keep the Curse away from our land. We shot the animals and refugees with crossbows from afar, not daring to approach in fear of contracting the Curse ourselves, forcing them to either fall to our bolts or get burned to death. Most chose the former.
There was no Wall then, but we were many, and we were armed, and they were nothing but helpless civilians. We dyed the earth red with t...
2024-12-28 09:25:05 +0000 UTC
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An odd procession greeted the woods. Ahead walked Derek, his powerful yet dexterous form leading the way for everyone else. At the very back was Axehand, pulling a cart filled with some of Jerry’s latest experiments. They would be reanimated later—even though Jerry’s capacity for undead had seen a drastic increase lately, some of these backups had trouble walking for long.
In the middle of the procession was a jumbled mix of bones and flesh and strange names and missing heads.
...
2024-12-28 09:24:31 +0000 UTC
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The sun crested the horizon, showering the world with life.
A lone, dark figure stood in front of a necromancer’s tower, bow in hand. The tower was already bustling with activity, with the undead arrayed in front of it cutting a stark contrast against the man’s still figure. He opened his mouth.
“Jerry!” he shouted, washing his voice over the tower. On the top floor, another man was dozing off on a very soft chair, and his eyes snapped open.
Derek?
“...
2024-12-28 09:24:01 +0000 UTC
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