Chapter 79 - A Lot Of Stones

It took longer than I’d thought to collect all the crystals outside the mall. Dead zombies were strewn over a space the size of several football fields, so I suppose I shouldn’t have been shocked. But it was already mid-afternoon before we were done. Once we’d gathered them all, we withdrew to the grassy area inside one of the on-ramps to the highway. Neither of us could relax while we were anywhere near the mall.

Once we were a good distance away, though, it was easier to let our guard down a little. I posted my undead as guards around us, stationing them a bit away, while Kara and I grabbed some food under a stand of trees.

As we ate, I laid down a spare shirt from my bag, then poured out the stones I’d gathered from a small satchel, using the shirt to keep them all in one place.

It was a healthy sized pile, only made larger still when Kara dumped her collection there as well.

“We really did kill a lot of the things, huh?” I said, staring at the loot.

“Yup. Kicked ass. Lot more ass to kick before we’re done, but we sure got a lot of stones today,” Kara said. She glanced at the sky. It was still fully bright, sun not yet setting, but I knew what Kara was thinking. “We going back in there today?”

I shook my head, grimacing. “I don’t know. What do you think? Whatever that thing in there was, it’s probably more active at night. If we’re around when the sun sets, it could be really bad news.”

“I don’t know if that matters, though,” Kara replied. “Like, if the boss monster is hiding deep in the mall, somewhere super dark, then it’s effectively always night there, right? And if it’s undead, it might not be sleeping during the day. It could just be planning its next move or something.”

I nodded, accepting the point. “Some undead sleep during the day, though. Well, vampires are supposed to, right?”

“I hope we’re not up against vampires too.”

“Well, whatever’s in there, my feeling is that if we just rush in there we’re going to be in trouble,” I said. “I’m sure there’s spaces inside that Sue can’t get to. That’s where the boss will likely be, so we’ll lose our biggest advantage. On top of that, I’m pretty sure he still has a lot more zombies than we saw. Even if that was half of his force, there’s likely still over four hundred undead inside.

“On their turf, in the dark, probably without Sue for the critical final battle, and with us already worn out from the fighting earlier? To me, that sounds like a good way to get killed. I was thinking about it, and it feels to me like maybe we can whittle them down some.”

“How so?” Kara asked.

“Split our loot and go back to the fort to rest for the night. Come back down here at first light and bait them out again. If we have to, we go into the mall proper, using Sue to escape if we need to, and bait a good chunk of their forces.”

“Kill a bunch more, loot them, repeat daily until we’ve worn them down,” Kara said, nodding her understanding. “I get it. I like it. Won’t they just grow stronger every night, though?”

“Yeah, that’s true. We’ll just have to wear them down faster than they can recover.” I wasn’t super fond of that. Every zombie was coming from some hapless person killed by another zombie. That horde only grew by slaughtering more people, and there were few enough of us left. “I’m not thrilled about leaving the horde or its leader active and killing people. I just don’t see another way that isn’t a suicide mission.”

We tabled the discussion, turning back to the crystals we’d found. All told, there were one hundred and eighteen stones. Forty-six were clear, the other seventy-two were all black. It was the biggest collection of stones either of us had ever seen. Much bigger than the crystals the Guard base had in their shop. Even larger than the pile I’d picked up from soloing the cemetery.

Even more interesting, a few of them were tier two! We had three clear tier two stones and seven black tier twos. It was a nice addition. I had a feeling most of them were from the skeleton mages. I’d nailed a lot of them with my Drains.

I sorted the stones into piles, then identified each one, letting Kara know too, of course.

Loot Pile

Clear Stones

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Strength x7

Agility Tier Two x1

Agility x7

Stamina x10

Will Tier Two x1

Will x8

Intellect x6

Charisma Tier Two x1

Charisma x5

Black Stones

Animate Dead x9

Animate Dead Tier Two x2

Augment Undead x6

Augment Undead Tier Two x1

Contagion x2

Control Undead x10

Death Blossom x1

Curse x2

Darkness x5

Darkness Tier Two x1

Drain Life x9

Drain Life Tier Two x1

Harm x3

Health to Mana x1

Heal Undead x5

NightVision x6

NightVision Tier Two x1

Phantom Step x1

Protection from Undead x1

Ray of Death x1

Shadow Walk x2

Shadow Walk Tier Two x1

Venom x1

It was an enormous pile.

Most fun of all, there were a few new black spells mixed in. Death Blossom was a fun one. It was an area of effect damage spell which made a bunch of black flowers grow, then spit out some sort of dark energy that damaged anything nearby. Phantom Step was practically made for Kara, and we handed her that one right away. It allowed a very short-range teleport. Each new tier would boost the range.

Ray of Death was more my speed. It was sort of like Harm—direct damage, line of sight, fires a black ray at the target that did damage. The main difference seemed to be that Ray of Death did a lot more damage than Harm.

Last was Venom, which allowed the caster to coat any weapon that cut or pierced foes with poison. With Kara’s archery being her main weapon, this also seemed like an obvious one for her.

In the end, Kara got all the Darkness and NightVision, the Phantom Step, Shadow Walk, and Venom. She asked for the Protection from Undead, too, so she got that one as well. We have her Death Blossom and the Harm crystals as well, just because an extra damage spell or two might save her at some point.

I ended up with the bulk of the black stones, though. We evened that out by giving Kara more than half of the clear ones. Since she was going down a more physical path than I was, stuff like Strength and Stamina would matter more for her anyway. And the ones she didn’t want to use, she could trade to the Guard.

At the end, my tally for the day was Animate Dead x9, Animate Dead Tier Two x2, Augment Undead x6, Augment Undead Tier Two x1, Contagion x2, Control Undead x10, Curse x2, Drain Life x9, Drain Life Tier Two x1, Health to Mana x1, Heal Undead x5, Will x3, and Stamina x4.

Kara was ecstatic. The new stones bumped her Agility and NightVision to tier four, which let her slot a new stone. It became instantly obvious which one she socketed, because she started dashing around the little green space, blinking from one place to another. She’d set off at a jog, then vanish for a moment and appear five feet further along.

“Phantom Step?” I asked, grinning at how much fun she was having.

Maybe I needed to rethink getting some of those Flying stones. Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! A plane! No, it’s Super Necromancer!

Okay, maybe not, but it would be fun!

While she played with her new spell, I went over the process of merging mine together to socket them into place. But as I did so, I realized this was going to be a big one. Even before I merged all the stones together, I knew I was in for a jolt. The power building in my palms was incredible, and it resonated with the forces already at work inside me, building to an almost physical vibration.

The first one to kick over was Animate Dead, blasting me with a shock I felt all the way down my spine as it went to tier six. With that same electric feeling, my Will kicked over to tier six, too. Then Stamina slammed in at tier five. It was nuts, the difference I felt. The raw power humming through me was incredible.

Augment Undead went to tier four. Heal Undead hit tier four, too. Drain Life went all the way to tier five, opening a new socket on the outer ring!

The power coursed through me, and my confidence soared.

I wouldn’t need to worry about falling for Colonel Turner’s Charisma anytime soon, that’s for sure. And the number of troops I could Animate had just doubled, from sixteen tiers to thirty-two! That was a massive leap forward. I was close to finishing tier six Control Undead, as well. Being able to control thirty-two points of undead would be insane. Even keeping my existing undead, I’d still have twenty points left over. That was enough to grab a sizable chunk of the enemy army, turn their own weapons on them.

When all was said and done, I had a dramatic improvement in my socketed stones:

Magical Stones

Point 1: Black Stone (Tier 5) - Control Undead

Point 1, Outer Ring: Black Stone (Tier 4) - Augment Undead

Point 2: Black Stone (Tier 6) - Animate Dead

Point 2, Outer Ring: Black Stone (Tier 4) - Heal Undead

Point 3: Black Stone (Tier 5) - Drain Life

Point 3, Outer Ring:

Point 4: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Will

Point 4, Outer Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 5) - Agility

Point 4, Third Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 5) - Stamina

Point 4, Fourth Ring:

Point 5:

Spare Stones

Black: Animate Dead x6, Augment Undead x5, Contagion x2, Control Undead (Tier 3), Control Undead x10, Curse (Tier 2), Curse x2, Drain Life x5, Harm (Tier 2), Harm, Health to Mana x2, Heal Undead x2

Clear: Strength (Tier 3) Intellect (Tier 3), Charisma (Tier 4), Charisma (Tier 3)

Brown: Alchemy (x2)

Control Stone (x1)

At the end of it all, I rested, exploring the strength of my new abilities. It felt incredible.

“Kara, I want to go back to the mall after all,” I said.

She stopped her teleport practice. “Yeah? If you’re sure, I’m with you.”

“Not to attack. I just ranked Animate Dead, and I want to use the bodies of those skeleton mages to raise a few of my own. I’ve wanted some of those guys for a while, and seeing them in action today, I definitely want them now!”

Kara laughed. “Sure, we can do that. Let’s head over right away, before the sun starts going down. We’ll get you some more friends, and then head back to the fort to camp.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

I got up and dusted myself off, already working on the next big decisions I had to face. Those rank-ups opened two additional slots, on top of the one open one I’d already had. There were three empty crystal sockets in my little layout, now. My next job was to figure out how I wanted to fill them.