The sun was half way down to the horizon when Terry saw movement off in the distance. He couldn’t make it out but it looked like people and they seemed to be running. “Izzy come here and take a look at this.”

She made her way to the front and he pointed to where he had seen movement. “Looks like people, maybe being chased by something?”

“That was my thought as well.”

“We should go check it out.”

He took a moment to think about it, he didn’t really want a bigger group and he definitely didn’t want any more people like Sam, but he couldn’t just let them die if he could do something about it. “Let’s pick up our pace a bit and see if we can get there in time to help out.”

She nodded and got the group going at a light jog. He didn’t see anything chasing the people but they were still a way off. He wished he had taken the time to get new armor as his current stuff was riddled with holes and looking worse for wear. Nothing he could do about that now, he just focused on keeping the group on track to reach the running people.

After about fifteen minutes of jogging he could make out more of what was happening. There seemed to be three people running but he couldn’t see what was chasing them. It looked like they were swerving as they ran instead of in a straight line. He wasn’t sure what was up but kept pushing on.

After about another fifteen minutes they were much closer, only about two hundred yards away. The trio of people hadn’t seemed to notice him and his group yet as they seemed to be looking behind them quite a bit. When they got within about a hundred yards of the trio something burst out of the ground behind them, made like a slinky, bent over and plunged back into the ground. It surprised him enough where he slowed down just a bit before shaking his head and picking up his pace and shouting at the trio. “Over here.”

He could make out the people and saw that a black woman was trailing behind a couple of kids, a boy and a girl. She kept turning around quickly and firing something off at the ground every few seconds but it didn’t seem to penetrate the dirt. When he had yelled at them the woman looked around to see where it had come from and she started to wave her arms to get the group to back away. “Turn back” she kept repeating as she ran.

When the worm like thing burst from the ground again it was much closer to the trio than before but this time the woman turned and fired what looked like a sun laser beam into the creature, making a small hole in its hide, before it plunged back into the earth.

There wasn’t much for the groups to hide behind or on in the area so as the two groups met, they ran alongside each other. “Hey, how’s it going?” He asked the woman.

“What do ya mean how’s it going, it’s going poorly. Can’t ya see the giant worm chasing us?” the woman answered with a slight Jamaican accent.

“Right, about that” He turned to Izzy “Keep them going and I’ll meet you when I’m done.” He broke off to the right and circled around to the back of the group. Drawing his sword and having his skeletons flank him he stopped in the path of the worm. He heard the woman say something but it was lost in the wind.

He could now see the ground breaking as the worm charged his position and he got ready to dodge. Seconds later the worm burst from the ground at the spot where he had been standing, just to be impaled by five swords. He quickly rolled to his feet and cast leech life on the thing. It looked like a giant worm that had a round mouth that was full of sharp looking teeth. It squirmed as each skeleton took a turn stabbing it so that there were always at least four swords in it.

Running around to the front of the creature he targeted its head and cast his first spell, firebolt. A bolt of fire flew from his hand and sailed towards the worm’s mouth, impacting it but only doing minimal damage. He wasn’t about to sit here and send bolt after bolt at this giant thing, so he ran forward raising his sword, jumped and brought it down on top of the worm’s head.

The sword cut into the hide but that was it. Pulling out the sword he jumped back and was about ready to charge forward again when the worm shook free of the skeleton’s blades, reared back and dove forward towards him. The last thing he saw was the worm’s mouth coming at him before being swallowed by the worm.

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He opened his eyes and found himself inside the blackness once again. Aw man, I died, didn’t I? He sighed but then remembered his resurrection ability. Activating it, it took ten seconds to complete and then he was back in his body. He opened his eyes or at least tried to but they burned like he had just rubbed them after cutting up jalapeños.

He flexed his hand and even though it was a bit sluggish it responded, and he still held his sword. He gripped it in both hands and without thinking he plunged it upwards, through the worm’s hide and into the earth. The blade was ripped from his grip as it caught in the ground and sliced through the worm as it kept moving, opening it up like a hotdog bun.

Feeling himself slow and then eventually come to a halt. As soon as he felt himself stop, he pushed his hands up and pushed against the earth. He felt the ground crumble as his hands broke free from the ground and he struggled to pull himself up. After what seemed like an hour, he finally pulled his face up out of the ground. The rest of his body came out easily after that and he then flopped onto his back and let out a sigh of relief which ended in a coughing fit.

He heard footsteps coming as he laid on the ground just outside of the split open worm.

“Oh my god! What the hell happened?” He recognized the voice as Izzy’s.

He tried to chuckle and answer but he coughed up a chunk of lung, which made him choke. He felt hands on him as they rolled him onto his side and he spat out a glob of blood and lung. He couldn’t see himself but what the others saw really shook them.

Izzy was the only one who seemed to be unaffected by his appearance as she was the only one helping him. Luckily, he could still see his windows so he brought up his inventory and pulled out a health potion. Izzy grabbed it from his fumbling fingers, popped the top and poured it down his throat.

What little he was able to swallow made its way to his stomach and started to repair the damage. It was enough to fully heal him; it just took a bit longer is all. When he could finally see, he saw Izzy and the black woman standing over him, giving him a look.

“Ya one crazy bastard, you know dat.” The woman said.

“No shit, what were you thinking?” Izzy chimed in. She looked the most worried. “I will say that Sam probably won’t be speaking to you anytime soon.” She chuckled as she helped Terry to his feet.

He hacked, snorted and spit out a glob of blood as the potion finished its job. “Well it didn’t go exactly as I had planned” he shot back at the two women.

Looking around he saw the giant worm a few feet to his left, it stunk like someone left milk out for a month then decided to add it to gasoline. If he hadn’t been inside the thing it probably would’ve bothered him a bit more than it did. He also saw five piles of bones about fifty yards back. They must have been destroyed when I died. I wonder if I can resummon them from the piles? He thought to himself.

Walking over to the worm he looted it and then shoved it in his inventory, it could come in handy. “I’m going to go check on my skeletons” he said as he walked away.

“He’s a cheerful one isn’t he…” He heard the woman say to Izzy.

Shaking his head he continued walking. He got to the pile of bones and targeted the first one and cast summon skeleton. The bones lifted into the air and started to put themselves back together. Once it was finished the skeleton dropped the five inches to the ground and looked good as new. He checked its stats and found that it was the same level as it had been but with a bit lower stats. Oh well, better than nothing I guess He thought as he went to the rest and resummoned them.

He looked around for the swords but only found three of them, which he equipped to the skeletons with the highest stats. He would have to summon some more when he got a chance. He then looked down and realized that he had lost his bone armor, he would have to get that again as well. After he finished up, he walked back to Izzy and the other woman.

The two women had moved off to the side of where the worm had been, so he angled towards them.

“And that’s when the thing started chasing us.” The woman finished saying as he got to them.

“Tamara here was just telling me how they came to be chased by the worm. They had a larger group but some split off and a few were eaten by other worms apparently.”

“It’s a good thing we happened to be in the area then.” He said as he got out some food and started to eat.

“Ugh, you’re seriously eating after you were just food yourself?” Izzy asked as she made gagging sounds.

“Healing that much really takes it out of you.” He said, taking another bite and sticking his hand out “I’m Terry by the way.”

“Like she said, I’m Tamara.” Tamara said and shook his hand.

“Now, how about we get moving before something more dangerous shows up.”

The three headed to where the rest of the group was standing around. As they got to them Terry could see the two kids sitting on the ground nibbling on some food. As the three got to the group the two kids looked up and seeing him, jumped up and ran up to him.

“Thank you, mister” the girl said as she hugged him. She looked to be about twelve or thirteen with shoulder length auburn hair and brown eyes and stood about five foot three and looked to be on the chubbier side.

“Yes, we can’t thank you enough.” The boy said. He thought he must have been about fifteen or sixteen with short brown hair, brown eyes standing about five foot six and looked wiry.

“You’re welcome” Terry said as he patted the girl on the back. “Now how about we get out of here.”