The first thing Dix noticed was the smell. It wasn’t traditionally pleasant, but somehow, despite its sickening sweetness, all it brought up for Dix were happy thoughts. Perhaps that was more a mark of his excitement over the way his second life was going, rather than what it actually smelled like. The area wasn’t a sewer, but it had a similar odor. Dix paid a little more attention to the makeup of the walls around him, and revised his opinion. It wasn’t a modern sewer. Of course the only real idea Dix had of what a sewer should look like was from watching some old movies about turtles turned super heroes. This looked nothing like that.

The walls and ceiling were made of large bricks, each a few feet long and a couple tall. Judging by the angled rise of the ceiling they were set in such a way to keep from falling in, or dropping on unsuspecting adventurers. Light came from glowing cubes set partially into the walls at regular intervals. It certainly wasn’t enough light to comfortably read by in the space between them, but it was sufficient for the purposes of travel and combat, so he wouldn’t need his light stones on his harness for now. The one intersection he could see had more light cubes than the hallways, and set lower to send shadows leaping forward from anyone approaching. It was hard to tell if the purpose behind the increased light was to keep people marginally safer from wandering monsters, or just to piss off rogues that wanted to sneak up on everything. Either way, the purpose was fulfilled.

Glad that no one had told him what he would be fighting in here, Dix took a moment to shrug off his pack and tuck the work slips in without reading them. He didn’t want people to ruin this first experience for him. The tests didn’t count. Whether they had said it or not, it hadn’t seemed as though any of the things he fought there were actually real other than the troll and the Flame Tortoise. The rest of his opponents had been so easy to kill, they may as well have been made of paper. He knew denying himself available information on what he would be fighting made the entire venture more dangerous, but he needed to know that he could go into situations like this and succeed. No information on enemy types, tactics, numbers, weaknesses, or attacks. He would have to figure it all out for himself. If he couldn’t do it here in the training dungeon, then he would never be able to.

Pack back on his shoulders, Dix contemplated his approach to this environment. His largest weapons were his mostly straight spear at about eight feet long, and his hammer pick that was only about two. The hallways were only about six feet wide and double that in height, meaning if he wanted to turn his spear to face the other direction it would have to go vertically. He would also have to step to either side to get a full horizontal swing of his hammer. As always, his knives wouldn’t have any problems, it was why he had them. The amount of light would limit stealth approaches, but slower movement would still keep him safer. Corners would present most of his issues, allowing for monsters to approach from multiple directions, as well as waiting in ambush. His mind turned over the different ways he could handle each of the issues he had seen so far, eventually coming to a conclusion.

Lead with the spear in the hallways, prepared to drop it if something approached from behind. If something did approach from behind, it would be met with a thrown knife to slow and distract it long enough for him to get his hammer and drop his pack, before he decided which type of knife he should draw next. At intersections, he would preemptively drop his pack and spear, drawing his knives, this time a fighting knife and a throwing knife. Corners would be different, instead opting to swiftly set his back against the opposing wall with his spear ready. He had debated just going with his knives the whole time, but a spear was still a better idea for most encounters. Keeping an enemy at a distance cut down on the number of injuries. Plans for encounters made, he headed down the hallway.

At the first intersection, he did exactly as planned, pulling the quick release on his bag and quickly drawing his knives. Setting his back to the wall, he checked one crossing road, then darted across to the opposite wall to check the next. Seeing nothing obvious in either direction, he stepped out into the intersection to look further down the halls. When there continued to be nothing but silence, he sheathed one knife, and kicked his spear up into his hands before sheathing the other. Hooking his pack towards him with the butt of his spear, he quickly raised it to a height he could grab it without bending over, then set it back onto its connectors on his back. Shrugging he headed to the right first. People who play a passel of video games are always told to go left first as most people have the tendency to move to the right. But this wasn’t a video game. More importantly, Dix happened to be facing that direction when he was ready to move, and there was no need to overthink things.

It took a few more intersections and corners for Dix to find anything to fight, but he’d only been walking for five minutes. Fifteen if you count being safe on corners. It would have been ten, but he wasn’t used to his pack yet and sometimes had difficulties getting it back on the connectors at first try. He had turned down the hall he was in because the light coming from its end had been strange. He’d seen enough intersections and corners to be relatively positive that this was a different pattern. As he got closer he could see the hallway ended in a room occupied by something short and alive.

Closer inspection showed it to be a giant rat, and it wasn’t alone. He’d fought these in the testing, but these seemed a little larger. Not much, but still noticeable. The rat he had spotted first was slowly pacing out a circle in the middle of the room, with one more in each of the visible corners of the rectangular room facing the center. Dix figured there were either three or five, and either number was a bit more than he wanted to attack for the moment. In preparation of having a number of skills that would presumably make combat easier, he first wanted to test them out. Testing would work best with only a single opponent at a time, but he didn’t want to waste the first enemies he had found. Shrugging, he headed back down the hallway a little, and dropped his pack against the wall.

Back near the room entrance, he leaned his spear against the wall, and drew two of the throwing knives he had picked up. Originally the first thing he had wanted to test was fighting something without any of his skills, but if he had really been adamant about sticking to his experimental order he would have tried actual training instead of combat. First he activated Empower. He had two reasons for this. One, he really did think he was going to need the boost. Two, he wanted to see if the rats reacted to that burst of mana in any way. It wouldn’t mean that later enemies wouldn’t react, simply that these didn’t. He wasn’t completely used to the changes it brought to how he moved, but it was still better than the alternative. After this, he had no plans to disable the skill ever again. Its maintenance cost was miniscule, and he really did have to get used to the change it brought.

Well, these skills aren’t going to test themselves. With that thought Dix activated Enhanced Throw. It was strange to feel how his thoughts worked to activate the skill, and how it affected his body. The first part was almost like a couple multiple choice questions on a test, followed by a short written answer to the next. He chose Power and Precise, both arms, target the eyes. Oddly, he didn’t need to specify which eye on each rat, or even that he was targeting two separate rats. The skill just knew. When the skill flowed into his body, it was already moving. The skill didn’t actually do anything to the knives, instead working to help his body do things better. It streamlined his motions, regulating the flow of muscles needed to complete the action to make the throw smoothly, while still wringing each and every last drop of strength he could put into it. Perhaps more importantly, it allowed him to remove his attention from the rats he was aiming for and instead glance to the corners nearest the door, searching for more rats. Finding two more rats that, like the central rat, hadn’t yet reacted to his presence was surprisingly reassuring. He had a plan for dealing with five rats, so it would have been slightly disappointing to only fight three.

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The instant the knives left his fingers, his body was moving. This time it was Devouring Stride helping him out. This skill was less intrusive, but he could still feel its subtle adjustments and suggestions. Likely the only reason he even noticed was due to his heightened senses due to combat. In this case it was helping him move to quickly grab his spear, and settle into a lower stance to help combat the rats that were sure to be coming after him. Despite his readiness, he had either overestimated the rats, or underestimated his movement skill. The rats had noticed the death of their kin, but not the person who caused it. Both rats had a blade sunk through their eye sockets and into their brains, causing death quickly enough that neither made a noise other than a slight squelching from the blades entering, and a small thud from the bodies falling. The central rat had stopped its pacing, and was instead quickly twisting its head back and forth, searching with eyes, ears, and nose for whatever had caused this calamity.

Deciding he didn’t want to wait forever for the rest of this fight, Dix quickly dipped his spear to tap it against the floor. The central rat whirled, releasing a screeching cry that was answered by two others. Raising his spear only a little off the floor, he prepared to whip it upwards, planning to catch a rat during its typical airborne leap to attack. Things didn’t work out at all the way he expected.

As the central rat charged the intruder in the tunnel, it gathered itself to leap, causing it to slow briefly. That slow down was just enough for the two rats coming from either side to collide with it as they tried to turn down the tunnel. Whether instinct or passive skill knowledge was the reason, Dix didn’t know, but he immediately lunged forward, thrusting his spear through the open mouth of the off-balance central rat, and into its brain.

Trying to stand back up and pull his spear free, he almost stumbled when the rat came with it. Realizing the spear was stuck in the skull, and the side rats were getting back up, he quickly jerked the spear shaft to the side and slammed the palm of his other hand into its side. This drove the spear, and attached rat, to the right side with just enough force to knock down one of the rats. Releasing the spear, Dix tried to step back and draw another weapon, but didn’t quite make it. The left rat managed to make its leap.

Under normal circumstances, Dix still would have made his draw. Quick Swap had been integrated into Devouring Stride, and smoothed all his motions to change weapons. What it didn’t do was recommend wearing clothing designed for combat instead of vanity. The duster that Dix had found and been so fond of was covering the hilt of his left hand fighting blade. When he tried to pull the knife free of its sheath, it caught on the jacket and jerked from his hand. With Empower going, and his movement skill smoothing out his otherwise twitchy movements, he still would have been fast enough to draw his right hand blade, but he had to actually take the moment to flick the duster back behind the hilt first. All of this left him mostly defenseless when the rat impacted him, teeth first, on his left arm.

Dix was too busy trying to get a knife into his hand while gritting his teeth against the pain of a giant rat trying to bite through his forearm to spend any time cursing about his vanity getting him killed. He finally drew his blade about the same time the rat drew blood. He caught a glimpse of the fifth rat getting to its feet behind the thrashing one clamped to his arm. Dix drove the knife through the rat's eye and into its brain, killing it, but not releasing his arm. Knowing he didn’t have the time, he released his knife and drove his elbow to the side. When it connected to the last rat that was leaping in to attack as well, he didn’t slow. Instead he smashed the rat into the wall with all of his force.

Rat number five wasn’t dead, just stunned. Planting his boot on it to keep it down, Dix yanked the knife out of the skull of the rat still attached to his left arm. It was definitely dead, but had clamped down even harder with its death throes. Now its teeth were meeting between the bones of his left forearm, and its jaws were locked closed. Flipping the knife in his hand, he adjusted his grip before punching the butt of the hilt into the side of the rat’s jaw as hard as he could. A dull crunch announced the breaking of a part of its jaw. The pain of the teeth jerking to the side while still buried in his arm brought a strangled cry from behind his gritted teeth. Once more he flipped the knife, this time to use the blade to pry open what was left of the rat’s jaws. Another muted crack heralded the rest of the jaw breaking, allowing him to finally pull the damned thing from his arm.

As blood flowed freely down his arm, Dix realized he now had the perfect opportunity to test out a skill he really needed to understand. Touch of Death. Leaning against the wall with his right shoulder, he slid down until he was sitting next to the still stunned rat. Before it had a chance to recover, he wrapped his right arm around it’s head, locking it in place. Not knowing how freely he would be able to move the limb using the skill, he groaned through moving his tattered left arm up high enough to place his hand on the rat’s head. Then he activated the skill.

Once more, it was nothing like he had expected. At this point he was as used to things being beyond his expectations as he was going to get. Touch of Death was actually quite soothing, both for him and the rat. He knew the rat enjoyed it, as it calmed immediately. For Dix, warmth poured from the rat everywhere he was making contact with it. The skill didn’t require him to use a hand, just to be touching something alive. He could have sucked all the life from the rat attached to his arm had he been aware of how the skill functioned at the time. That warmth flowed through his body, heading for his left arm. Much faster than he expected, the wound began to close, the blood flow slowing. Sadly, the wound didn’t finish closing completely before the rat died. It was no longer a pair of deep puncture wounds most of the way through his arm, instead just a couple of gashes remained on each side of his left forearm showing through the rents in his armor and coat.

Before he could really get to work on getting patched up, he would need to remove his harness, some of his armor, and his duster. The duster would never go back on. The damn thing may have looked fantastic, fulfilling some of his old childhood fantasies of walking around with a dark leather duster, a shitload of weapons, and an attitude that just screamed ‘I’m a badass’, but it was also the main reason he got injured. It wasn’t like he was alone in that old fantasy; every boy that’s ever seen a western movie, The Matrix, Blade, or basically any action movie made in the last thirty years had the same one. There was a lesson that those movies always left out. Looking cool can get you killed. And Dix was more worried about staying alive than vanity.

Despite the need to get his wound wrapped up quickly, Dix didn’t immediately start removing his gear. Instead he once more grabbed hold of the fifth rat. This time he wasn’t looking to do damage. This time he needed a protector, and these rats had been voluntold. For the moment, this room of five rats actually perfectly fit his skill level. Raise Dead could currently support only five Risen. Smiling at his good fortune, Dix immediately activated his skill, remembering that the sooner he raised them, the more powerful they would be.

Instinctual knowledge and skill descriptions were incapable of truly explaining what all goes on when you raise something from the dead. Some things just need to be experienced to be understood. True necromancy is one of those. If it wasn’t horrific, why would people be so up in arms about bringing dead monsters back to keep the still living people safe? Even being the source of the power didn’t protect Dix from the horrors of what he was engaging in.