The sound of fighting echoed throughout the forest.
Afternoon sunlight flickered from a polished blade as it swung, finding purchase. A lone figure grunted as he pulled his sword from the wound, kicking the body away. Shadows of further opponents loomed closer. Outnumbered, but that was clearly their only advantage against this warrior.
Lance cursed under his breath as he wiped the sweat from his brow. He brought his weapon up into a ready position as the next zombie stumbled closer. There were at least five other pairs of yellow eyes glaring at him as each came closer, eager to eat his brains.
With an arc of blue light, his sword slashed through the closest, cleaving through their rib cage and sending them toppling over. He turned on his heel and held his breath in surprise. They had moved a lot quicker all of a sudden, and had closed almost the whole distance between the treeline and where he stood in this small clearing.
He needed to reposition.
Keeping the approaching group in clear view, he turned and paced backwards. Three steps and his metal boots caught on something. A root? No.
As Lance looked down, it was too late—he was falling. It made seeing the crawling zombie clutching around his ankle a terrifying sight, at least until the back of his head struck an actual tree root sticking out of the ground, vibrating through his skull as his helmet took the brunt of the impact.
Stars flashed in his eyes, dazed as he tried to raise up his weapon. Shadows loomed over him, the uncaring eyes of the undead staring down at him hungrily. Lance struggled against his combative body, but couldn’t right himself. This was it.
He was prepared for the inevitable death, but... it didn’t come. The zombies had paused in place. Just as his brow furrowed and his shaky vision started to focus, another shadowed face popped into view—much closer—almost in biting distance.
“Looks like you took a little tumble,” she said.
Lance grimaced at the glowing red eyes glaring down at him. The messy blonde hair on the unknown speaker caught the sunlight, illuminating around the edges - almost like a halo. As more of the details of the woman came into view, she was nothing like an angel.
Pale green skin and her smile was full of sharp teeth. The white shirt she wore had bloodstains down the front. If it wasn’t for her talking…
“You’re a zombie?” he asked, more out of confusion than any desire for clarification.
“Sure am.” She held an arm down to help him up. “You can call me Sally. It’s my name, so that makes the most sense.”
“Oh…” Lance pulled a face, but accepted her help after a moment of hesitation. “I’ve not really met many Unique Monsters before.”
The scrawny woman raised an eyebrow and looked over at the immobile zombies as if they’d understand her frustration. “Ah, you must be new new. The last wave doesn’t even know me… how the mighty fall.” She shook her head before giving him a renewed grin. “You’ll get the lore when you travel to the Wastelands, but I’m actually a Player… just a little weirder.”
“Really? Did you, uh… stop the zombies for me?” His hand tightened on his sword. “I’m Lance.”
“Lance.” She nodded. “You’re out here leveling your sword skills?”
“Yeah, you?”
“Same. Leveling skills. The new System is a bit of a grind, but I guess you didn’t really know the old one.” Sally gave him a shrug and crossed her arms. “How are you doing so far?”
Lance stared at her blankly, still unable to process that this zombie was talking with him. The fact that she was a Player was still a little unbelievable, but it wasn’t exactly the most important thing about the situation. She had even stopped the zombies from eating him, which was nice.
“Ah. It’s all a little confusing, actually.” He shot her an apologetic smile. “That’s why I’m just out here grinding the skills higher. Simple things.”
Sally gestured over to a fallen log. “Let me be your quick tutorial guide, then. You don’t need the details right now, but the group I’m with is always looking for competent and powerful people.”
The pair walked past the zombies, who turned in place to continue watching them.
“You… control them? All zombies?”
Sally shot him a sly grin. “I wouldn’t say I’m the queen of the dead or anything, but I have the [Control Undead] skill.”
“There are a lot of skills,” Lance complained. “I have no idea what I should do or aim for, nevermind what is even available.”
“Hmm.” Sally sat down and wrinkled up her nose. “The easiest way to think about it is… do what you find most fun and effective. If you like swords, then using it will give you skills that increase your competency with them, and leveling up the System will offer you Classes that give you boosts to that. Don’t see the passive skills as goals, but useful bonuses. The real meat is the active abilities.”
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“Oh. For that I have [Quick Slash 3] and [Arcane Pulse 1]. I found that second one in a treasure chest, but it’s not really my style… I don’t have enough Knowledge to make magic spells that useful.”
She gave him a nod. Squishing down the stats to three attack based and three defense based had taken some getting used to. Less work for her simple brain, however. “You’ll be able to replace them later on. Are you Power based?”
“Yeah. Maybe if I had more Guile points, I wouldn’t have tripped over a corpse.” Lance pulled a face at the crawler who was still laying there gazing at him.
“There’s no fixing being clumsy, I’m afraid. Stick with Power, Health, and Stamina. Pick at least one melee and ranged weapon. You’ll probably get more active abilities than you’ll ever need once you start getting Classes, but realistically you’ll only be able to level a handful to 10.”
The man sighed as he took his helmet off, revealing his shaggy red hair. He placed it beside him on the log and laid his sword down against their seating. “Next you’ll be telling me it would be a good idea to do Quests and join a Party, rather than get lost on my own hoping this all makes sense if I just see the number on [Sword Mastery] go up by one.”
“Making sense is overrated.” The zombie drummed her fingers on the red pleated skirt she was wearing. “And yeah, do that shit. For me at least, I can’t handle going solo. I always do things with a Party.”
Lance looked around the clearing, his eyes piercing through the gaps in the trees in the most subtle way that he could manage. “You’re… alone now, right?”
“The skill I’m training is best done alone, but once I’m done, I am off to run a twenty person Raid with them.”
“You must be pretty high level. What skill is it you’re training?”
Sally grinned. “If you want to see, I can show you.” She hopped off of the log and looked over at the idle zombies, gesturing for him to stand and watch.
Lance furrowed his brow as he joined her. It must be some manner of necromancy skill, he assumed. Given that she was looking at the zombies, perhaps it was a supportive ability or something to do with minions.
His last thought was how quick the zombie actually was, as she whipped around with a dagger in her hand. It was in and through his neck in a second, and before he even had the chance to gasp out, his skull exploded as Sally ate his brains with an instant and visceral crunch.
She wiped off her mouth as the corpse dropped to the floor. “Still only [Eat brains 7]. This will take a while,” she murmured to herself. Sally hummed something tuneless as her eyes scrolled through her STAR System inventory before withdrawing a scroll into her hand.
With little more than a quick nod to the other zombies, a blue light flashed over her and she vanished away.
To appear a couple of miles away by a tall stone monolith. She dusted herself down, trying to get some of the newbie blood out of her shirt, but it had long soaked through. With a sigh, she glanced between the time on the holographic star on her wrist, and the glowing runes inscribed into the monolith.
A hum of energy washed around the area before a figure bloomed into being with a shimmer of golden light.
“Hey, Lance,” Sally said, beaming at the disorientated man.
“That was the first time I…” his brow then furrowed at her. “You killed me.”
She nodded eagerly. The System erased any trauma from the event, including remembering any pain and suffering he would have briefly endured from his demise. “Check your notifications.”
While the man clearly held some disdain for her, his eyes went up to his intangible screens.
“I have a new Milestone reward. For… having my brain eaten by Sally Danger.” Lance pulled a face. “It gave me a passive skill that can’t be leveled called [Dangerous Encounter]. A small amount of defense and damage bonus against monsters higher level than me.”
“There’s another milestone for if I eat you one hundred times, but you have to really piss me off for that to happen.” She crossed her arms. Currently, only one person had that milestone achievement, but a few others were close.
The man still looked rather bewildered. “Are you like a villain? Are you going to kill me again?”
She shrugged. “It’s nuanced. To both questions. You were a bit of a goober and left your helmet and sword behind. I’m not supposed to furnish beginners with stuff, but if you go to the goblin village and tell the blacksmith I sent you, he’ll sort you out with whatever you want. Maybe instead of a sword… a lance?” Sally winked.
He rolled his eyes. “I haven’t even been there before. I’m not sure how I can travel when I don’t have…”
“Oops.” Sally threw a scroll on the floor. “I’m such a villain, littering like that. Perhaps if you’re a respectable inhabitant of Sanctuary, you’ll pick it up and dispose of it.” She winked again, this time more overtly.
Lance stepped over, grabbing the teleportation scroll up off the ground. “I’m… not sure if I should be thanking you, or running in fear.”
Sally’s grin softened into a warm smile. “That’s just how I like it. Keep on grinding, Lance. I’m needed elsewhere.”
He nodded as she then flickered and vanished away in a pulse of blue light. Scroll in his hand, he sighed and shook his head. Dangerous Encounter indeed, he thought, before activating the magic and also disappearing.
The zombie stepped out of the quick portal into a wide meeting room, a circular table already filled with a dozen or so figures. At the opposite end was a man made of blue light, covered in white wireframe.
He nodded at her as she took a seat. “Alright, I’m glad we’re all here now. It’s not often we have to call in so many members of the Outsiders in.”
Sally pulled a face. Chuck didn’t even have to say it for her to know that the intended Raid was going to be postponed. While she was glad to see all the faces currently present, it was odd that Theo wasn’t currently present. The vampire Player—and more importantly, her husband—was usually second in line after her when things were going wrong.
Before she could shoot some nods and glares at the other gathered individuals, a holographic image bloomed into life from the center of the table, taking all of their attentions. A familiar area of space, something they called the Sea, where all the created System worlds existed. The focal point was one singular world, which the camera slowly zoomed in on.
“I won’t beat around the bush,” Chuck began, his voice oddly hollow and distant. “We have found a world that is about to be attacked by the same Sea-faring monsters than will be arriving here in two months. I want to send out a team in the recently completed ship to protect the world and get information on our enemy.”
Sally licked her lips. That sounded like good eating.