Necromancer's Resolve

Foster looked around himself tiredly as he was brought over to a classic medieval carriage like one would expect. It had a simple wooden base frame and white cloth attached to it above to protect against wind and rain. The carriage was open in the front and back, and the front had a small wooden bench attached to it where the driver would be sitting.

It seemed like the carriage just got here to deliver some provisions to the soldiers that were now stationed here to make sure nothing too dangerous could escape from the forest and to keep the situation generally under control. On the way back, the carriage was supposed to take some other things back with it, for example, different plants or parts from monsters so that they could be tested for anomalies back in the town.

The inside of the carriage was slightly cramped because of that, but Foster didn't really mind all that much. He was used to that from his tiny apartment anyway. For now, he just wanted to sit down here and sleep as much as possible. Foster could barely hold his eyes open anymore after sitting down, so without even needing to put on his headphones to relax, he dozed off nearly immediately.

Foster couldn't really remember the last time he had an actual dream about anything at all. He usually just collapsed in his bed when he got too tired and found himself being awake again the next moment. But this time around, he did actually have a dream. And luckily, it wasn't that weird black and white world from when he was unconscious before again. This time around, he found himself inside of his old house. It didn't look like his house when he remembered back on it after waking up, it was completely out of scale, and the rooms were jumbled around. In one room, Foster had to squat down to walk through, and in another, he wasn't even able to see the ceiling.

And while his g house had dark wood that clothed the walls, this one just had regular white wallpaper. It didn't look like the house he could remember so vividly at all, but he just knew that it was the house where his grandfather raised him somehow. It was that weird dream-knowledge that both did and didn't make sense.

When Foster was inside of his house, he stepped through an infinitely long hallway and reached the end of it within a couple of steps. There was a large door that he had to push open with all his might. Inside the room, that changed from being as large as a football field to being as large as his apartment every once in awhile stood two people. One of them was a man in his thirties that Foster didn't recognize, with messy black hair that was tied into a small ponytail behind his head. He had a slight beard that looked like he simply didn't shave in a week or two, and other than that was just wearing relatively casual, or messy, clothes.

This man had a large gaping hole in the center of his chest that made it possible to look through to the wall behind him, but he didn't really seem to care all that much.

The other person was his grandfather, with deathly pale skin and in the suit that he was wearing during his own funeral. He was sitting on his red velvet armchair and had his legs crossed over each other while holding a lit cigar in between his fingers.

Once Foster entered the room, his grandfather and the man he didn't know both looked at him. His grandfather just smiled a bit and placed the cigar into the holder of its ashtray before he stood up and approached Foster, just squatting down a little when he reached him.

"Is everything okay? Did you have another nightmare?" The old man asked. At that point, Foster noticed that he wasn't his 20 years-old self, but instead himself when he was maybe four or five years old. Instinctively, he nodded his head before Foster's grandfather took his hand and looked at the other man who was just standing there with an emotionless expression.

"Excuse me for a moment, I'm going to be right back." And then, Foster and his grandfather made his way back out through the door that Foster just entered through, although instead of entering the hallway, they reached his heavily downsized childhood room immediately.

Foster hurried over to his bed and looked at his grandfather as he came over and helped him lay down in there, quickly just tucking him in, "Everything is going to be alright. Grandpa's right here." He said reassuredly. With a calmed mind, Foster closed his eyes again before waking up inside of the carriage.

"Mornin'." Jakob said immediately, and Foster slightly raised his hand to rub the sleep out of his eyes. When he slowly sat up straight, he noticed that his back was really just hurting like a bitch, and there wasn't enough space to properly stretch inside of here. Foster chose to just try stretching a bit while sitting down to get his back to stop aching and then looked back at Jakob and Ernard.

"Morning..." He replied with a slightly disappointed tone. Sure, he had a really weird dream just now, but he had kind of hoped that this whole thing was a dream as well, and he would just wake up at the train station after falling asleep there.

"Ehh..." Aaron groaned quietly, "Quiet down already.." He mumbled, still half-asleep, although Clark and Jenna were both up as well. Considering Jenna's annoyed expression and the way she was holding her staff above Aaron's head, it seemed like he would be awake quite soon as well.

As Aaron was rubbing the back of his head, he looked around and Clark with an annoyed expression, "How long 'til we're in town again?" He asked, and Clark just looked out of the front of the carriage and made a quick guess, "Maybe twenty minutes, or half an hour? I can see the town already."

With a deep groan, Aaron nodded his head and started to stretch a bit as well. But instead of doing it like Foster, he didn't seem to care about the other people in the carriage at all and simply stretched without paying them any mind.

But it seemed like they didn't really appreciate that. Jenna leaned back a bit and just kicked Aaron into the back of his leg, while Clark pushed him back a bit to force him to sit down again, "I swear I'm going to kick your ass if you don't stop being one yourself!" Jenna yelled out angrily, "It's bad enough as is that I had to sleep next to you!"

From then on, this conversation descended into a straight-up fight. Since it was getting pretty loud there, Foster quietly sighed and pulled his headphones onto his head while setting them to be closed-off. He closed his eyes and just started to think for a while.

Hopefully, it would be easy to find a way back home... Probably not so much, though, since Foster had no idea where to even start. Did that mean that he had to find a job and somewhere to live in this town? These guys seemed pretty influential, maybe they could hook him up with a workplace or something. Or who knows, maybe Foster could even start working as an adventurer like these three... Having two legendary adventurers with him should be a fair amount of help in getting through the basics.

With a light scoff, Foster just shook his head to himself. There was no way that he would be able to make that work out. It was a cool fantasy, considering that even the job's name described that you would go on adventures. He would just have to see.

But after a bit more thought, Foster realized something far, far more important... He had no access to music. Both his phone and headphones were completely dead. It didn't seem like they managed to discover electricity yet, and definitely not power outlets.

Foster slowly opened his eyes and looked around at the others, who seemingly had been trying to get his attention as well, before Foster pulled his headphones off, "Hm? Sorry, I couldn't hear you." He explained embarrassedly, and Clark slightly sighed and nodded his head.

"We figured. Really, just what is that thing that makes it impossible for you to hear us? They don't seem to be just earmuffs. Are they some sort of magic item?" Clark asked curiously, and Foster slowly widened his eyes. That was it! Magic! Maybe he could find some way to charge these things using magic!

"Something like that... I know that when I entered the forest, these still worked, and you could play music through them with something else I have. They don't work anymore, though... Is there a way to get these to work again with magic?" Foster asked excitedly, and everyone just looked at him confusedly, even Jakob and Ernard, before the two-headed skeleton duo remembered what he was talking about.

"Ah! It was that thing from before, right? That made you fight so good all of a sudden!" Ernard exclaimed, which confused the others even more.

"These things give out a song that increases your combat ability?" Clark asked, and Aaron looked at Foster and the headphones with a slight glare.

"How's that supposed to be possible? There's no way a magic item could copy a bard's ability." Aaron pointed out, but Foster just immediately shook his head, "Ah, no, that's just a psychological thing... It helps me concentrate, I guess. But the theory behind how this works isn't actually that hard to understand." Foster explained while he took off his headphones and twisted and turned them around to show them to the others.

"Inside of this part here is a small magnet that moves parts in here that then make the air vibrate to create sound." Foster explained to them with a smile on his face. It might have been a bit reckless to try and act like he didn't come from another world, and then freely show them this kind of technology, but since it seemed like they assumed it was some sort of magic item, Foster figured it was fine.

"It makes the air vibrate? So it's like... Air magic?" Jenna asked curiously, but Clark leaned forward and cupped his chin with a slight frown, "But then what does it need a magnet for? Wouldn't a simple magic stone be enough?"

"Hmm, true... But it seems to be really complex anyway, and it's so... compact." Jenna added.

With a curious expression, she looked at the young man that was holding these two weird things. If what Foster was saying was true, then these would be just amazing items, "Just wondering, but... What's your full name?" She asked with squinted eyes, and both Clark and Aaron looked at her surprised.

"What do you mean? He told us his name already. There's no way he's-"

"Foster Locke." The young man said, and everyone looked at him, confusedly, "What?" Aaron asked immediately.

"Don't tell me... you're a noble..?"