Chapter 22 – Another Brick In The Wall

After the third buildup of undead every member of Sam’s squad is exhausted. Soldier Don only looks winded, but even that is telling for a full soldier. The only person who hasn’t even gotten a sweat is Trainer Quincy.

“You guys take a break, Don and I will hold the wall for now. Take your time to recover your mana and stamina. Archers, make sure to get some more arrows from the supplies. There should be enough of those in the storerooms at the bottom of the wall.”

“Now wait a second! I’m just as tired as they are!”

“Don, you are a soldier, not a recruit. Act like one!”

Having said that, Trainer Quincy jumps off the wall into the hordes of the undead. Using several skills one after the other, he manages to clear the buildup of undead once again, and starts to thin the horde. This lets the few undead that manage to evade him be a target for Don, who should have no trouble with them.

Unfortunately, Don isn’t the soldier that he should be. The moment that Trainer Quincy leaves the wall, the man bolts. Apparently he has more stamina than he let on, as he runs away from the wall at a decent pace. Soon he is just a speck in the distance in the direction of the reserve century’s camp.

Meanwhile the center of the wall is undefended. Luckily Erik notices what has happened while he sat down to rest.

“Guys, that soldier just left. Maybe someone needs to tell the trainer?”

“No way, he jumped down into the horde. We can’t do that!”

“Then what should we do? If we do nothing the undead will breach the wall.”

“Then we need to take care of it ourselves!”

The others look at Sam in disbelieve.

“What, none of us have the energy to keep going. How do you propose we defend the wall?”

“We need to split up. I’m just as tired as the rest of you, but I know that if I push myself I can go a bit longer. I need two or three of you to help me hold out, while the rest recovers. Then when we can’t go one the rest can take over while we rest.”

“I guess that’s the best we can do, but I know that I can’t go on that long. I’m not sure how much help it will be to fight for ten minutes, that won’t help the others that much.”

Then Jasper and the other archers return.

“Was that Don who we saw leaving in a hurry?”

“Yeah, the guy left the moment he wasn’t watched. We’re going to hold the wall with part of the squad while the rest rests up. How’s your stamina?”

“I’m good to go for another half hour or so. My arms are tired, but now that we have new arrows, us archers can keep going for a little while.”

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“Great, then let’s go!”

Thus Sam, Jasper, Erik and Zach run back to the top of the wall to hold their position. On top of the wall they are just in time to push back the first of the undead. Luckily it isn’t that difficult to do without the constant buildup of undead. Without that unliving ramp the things have a difficult time to scale the wall.

“I have to say, all this fighting is great for my level. I’ve even reset my class while we were getting the new arrows. How about you guys, did you gain as much as I did?”

“Wait what, I totally forgot to even check!”

“Sam you idiot! If you’re level ten, you lose all the experience. Step back and reset your class as quick as you can! We’ll manage for a few moment.”

Immediately Sam stepped back and accessed her status. Having done so a few times already, she manages to reset her class in moments and got back into the fight.

Those few moments did cost them though. Having one of the two fighters out of action for even a moment gave the undead trying to scale the walls the time to get to the top. Erik was hard pressed by two undead, and a third one was already climbing over the wall. Both archers had their hands full trying to keep more undead from climbing.

Luckily Sam was in time to kill the third undead before it could regain its balance. When she turned to help Erik, she was attacked by one of the two undead. This one had abandoned its attack on the big man, and opted to attack the smaller female.

Sam found out the painful way that being tackled by an undead creature was no fun. The thing didn’t manage to bite her, but she had to drop her weapon to keep the claws from gutting her. Meanwhile it kept trying to get its right claw around her shield and its mount started to chew on the top of the shield.

When it was finally killed by Erik, who had managed to kill the other undead when he wasn’t pressed by two at once, half her shield had been destroyed. Sam had no choice but to drop the shield and rely on her sword and a dagger to defend herself from the next undead that would soon get to the top of the wall.

“Thanks for the safe Erik!”

“No problem. Thank you for getting its attention so I could take out the other one. Did you manage to reset your class?”

“Yeah, I should’ve done it sooner, but I didn’t even think about the fact that I wouldn’t get the experience.”

“Yeah, a lot of young people have that problem. Even when you’re warned about it, it tends to slip your mind a few times. That’s not a big problem most of the time, as it’s a learning experience. This time though it would be a shame to have you mis out on all this experience. You still have some catching up to do after all.”

“Yeah, don’t remind me. It’s hard sometimes to keep up with you guys. I have no clue how the mages manage to do so without the focus on physical stats.”

“Didn’t you know? I’m sure that our trainer explained it sometime during the exercises to gain the recruit class.”

“You mean when I was in the dungeon trying to level up?”

“Ah right, in that case I can summarize it. The mages do have to spend some point in the physical stats. As you’ve said, they need to keep up with the rest of us. They are expected to gain a minimum amount of physical stats before they are allowed to advance their mage paths. The rest of the time they have to rely on some enchanted gear that only the mages are get with their gear. Those give some bonusses that help them to keep up during the marching and stuff.”

“Wow, why didn’t they give those to every recruit? That would make things a lot easier for all of us.”

“Well, those’re kinda expensive. They also cost mana to keep active. But most importantly, then the mages wouldn’t keep up with the rest of us. And the things are meant to help us work as a team.”

While Erik was still explaining the next undead managed to get to the top of the wall. Quickly the duo killed the creature, as well as the three that came after it.

“Where was I, right the enchanted gear. It’s only useful during the training of the recruits, because eventually the mages get enough stats to use their magic to do the same thing. No mage will be able to match a fighter, but mana can make some tasks easier. In a fight it wouldn’t work because they would have to think about too many things at once. Easier tasks such as marching are so repetitive that they can use their mana to help out.”

With the explanation finished, they focused back on the undead. It had only been ten or so minutes, but the four of them were already having more and more trouble keeping the undead away from the wall. Erik’s estimate of half an hour had been a bit too optimistic.