The necromancer stared at my outstretched hand like I'd just offered her a live grenade. Her gaze ping-ponged between my face and the silent, empty town behind us—a perfect tableau of undead suburban bliss that would make any horror movie director weep with envy.
Finally, with a slow, hesitant nod that seemed to cost her more effort than raising an entire graveyard, she whispered, "Okay."
"Excellent choice," I grinned, internally celebrating what was clearly an SSR pull. I mean, come on—a gothic lolita necromancer? The kind of rare character you'd blow your entire gacha budget on and then immediately start farming cosmetics for? The universe had just handed me premium imouto material.
"First rule of the party: introductions. I'm Ellolia."
"Ninurta," she replied, her voice so soft it was practically a mouse apologizing for existing.
As we walked away from her mausoleum home base, leaving her ghost town of definitely-not-creepy residents behind, I probed for her backstory. What she told me was so uncannily similar to my own that it felt less like a coincidence and more like the universe was running out of original character templates.
Ninurta had spent most of her life as a complete shut-in, but not in a cozy apartment with fiber internet and DoorDash. She grew up alone, deep inside a sprawling, forgotten dungeon—basically the medieval equivalent of a basement dweller, but with more skeletons and fewer energy drinks.
About ten years ago, driven by a loneliness that had become a physical debuff, she'd finally ventured out to discover what this whole "socializing" thing was about. Spoiler alert: it went about as well as you'd expect.
"How did you even learn magic down there?" I asked, genuinely curious. "Did you have a Netflix tutorial series or something?"
She tilted her head slightly, looking genuinely confused. "Net... flix? Is that some kind of fishing technique?"
I blinked. Right. Medieval fantasy world. No streaming services. "Never mind, just... how did you learn?"
"I found a place," she said, her eyes going distant in that way that screamed 'traumatic backstory incoming.' "It felt... hidden. A secret library. Inside, there was a book. A grimoire."
It had taught her everything she knew. My gamer instincts immediately perked up.
"Easter egg location? Found a magical book? Go on, tell me about this legendary loot drop."
"Easter... egg?" Ninurta's brow furrowed. "But it wasn't spring, and there were no eggs. Just the book."
"No, I mean—" I caught myself. "Never mind. Tell me about the book."
"It belonged to a High Elf," she continued, still looking slightly puzzled by my strange words. "Someone named Sunokyp, The Plague Writer."
My brain hit the emergency brakes so hard I'm surprised there weren't skid marks on my thoughts. Sunokyp. One of the Faery Kings. The ultimate edgelord patron of plague and poison, basically the goth kid who never grew out of their phase and became a literal god of death.
Ninurta wasn't just some random necromancer I'd stumbled across. She was the chosen herald of a literal deity of death, just as I was the herald of the Faery Queen of Starlight. We were running on the same operating system, just with different cosmetic skins—I was the sparkly magical girl variant, she was the doom-and-gloom limited edition.
Her story continued, and it was like watching my own character arc play out in grimdark mode. After years of fumbling through social interactions with all the grace of a drunk giraffe, she'd found a small village—the future Oakhaven—where people were finally starting to treat her like an actual person instead of a walking plague warning.
"Wait," she interrupted herself, looking at me with that same confused expression. "What's a giraffe?"
"Oh, uh... it's a really tall animal with a long neck. Lives in... never mind, not important. Continue."
She nodded hesitantly and went on. But one day, she returned from a supply run to find the village razed, its people slaughtered by bandits, the entire place burnt to the ground like someone had rage-quit a city builder game.
"I was alone again," she whispered, and the raw pain in her voice made something in my chest ache. "I couldn't stand the silence."
In her grief, she'd turned to Sunokyp's grimoire. With its power, she reanimated everyone, weaving their corpses with illusion magic to restore their forms, creating a perfect, hollow echo of the home she had briefly known. It was like the world's most depressing dollhouse, but with actual corpses.
I stared at her—this small, sad girl who looked like she might blow away in a strong wind, or alternatively, like she belonged on the cover of a gothic romance novel. The parallels hit me like a series of critical strikes to the feels.
A shut-in, taught by a magical source found in a secret location, whose first real community was violently destroyed. We were literally the same character build, just one was light-spec and the other was shadow-spec. She was the tragic backstory version of me, complete with dead village and everything.
Suddenly, I felt an unfamiliar emotion bubble up: responsibility. This wasn't just a new party member or even a premium gacha pull. This was a lost kid who had been through the same grinder I had, except where I had three years of Akselondt's intense training and a lifetime of cynical internet experience to fall back on, Ninurta had nothing but a spooky book and a heart full of grief.
I had just accidentally adopted a younger sister. A goth loli younger sister who could raise the dead. My anime protagonist status was reaching critical levels.
"Ninurta," I said, stopping and turning to her. My voice shed its practiced, regal Ellolia persona, dropping into something softer, more genuine. "Your path has been a lonely one. So has mine. The powers we answer to may be rivals, but our stories are mirror images."
She looked at me, her weary eyes searching my face like she was trying to figure out if this was another cruel joke the universe was playing on her. "Mirror images? But... we don't look alike at all."
I smiled despite myself. "It's a figure of speech. I mean our experiences are very similar."
"Oh." She nodded slowly, as if filing away this new phrase for future reference.
"In High Elf culture," I explained, drawing on Akselondt's lessons, "when two souls share such a profound connection, they can forge a bond stronger than blood. A pact."
I taught her the simple ritual: a shared oath under the light of the moon that was just beginning to rise. We stood facing each other as I recited the old words, a pledge of mutual protection and shared strength. It felt surprisingly natural, like the universe had been waiting for this moment.
"From this day forward, our burdens are shared. Your enemies are my enemies. Your path is my path."
"Our paths are one," she finished, her voice gaining a sliver of confidence for the first time since I'd met her.
And just like that, it was done. A bond, real and tangible, settled between us like the universe had just confirmed our party formation. My solo run had officially become a duo campaign, and I'd somehow managed to recruit the limited edition tragic backstory variant.
"Alright," I said, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. The gesture felt surprisingly natural, like I'd been doing it for years. "Now that we're family, how about we go find some people who actually deserve to be turned into puppets?"
A predatory grin spread across my face. It was time to show my new little sister how to properly channel all that angst into something productive. After all, what's the point of having premium imouto material in your party if you don't help her reach her full potential?
Plus, I was definitely going to need to start farming materials for some better cosmetics for her. That tattered maid dress was tragic even by necromancer standards.
"Farming materials?" Ninurta asked, clearly having caught that last part. "Are we going to become agriculturalists?"
"No, no, it's just a way of saying we need to get you better equipment," I explained, trying not to laugh. "Better clothes, weapons, that sort of thing."
"Ah," she said, though she still looked a bit uncertain. "And... imouto material?"
I felt my face heat up. "That's... that's not important. Let's just focus on the finding-people-who-deserve-to-be-puppets part."