There was quite a strong temptation to head back to Flester immediately, see her friends and get to all the errands she’d added to her ever growing list. But she had a few things she still wanted to do before she left.

Throughout her month in Gafoda and up Moaning Point, she’d noticed the demarcation of the next higher level zone. Which made her chuckle every time she saw it. As much as everybody — herself included, liked to pretend that Gafoda had no organization, that just never seemed to be the case. There were plenty of volunteers helping keep people safe, gates and lines drawn to keep people from overreaching too much.

Maybe one day she’d explore a dungeon without all of the precautions built into it, something truly new that she could discover all on her own. Maybe that’s what was missing from her combat here on Moaning Point, too. That sense of discovery.

Killing zombies on the mountain never felt like anything more than killing another zombie. There was no greater goal to it. Sure, she wanted to climb the mountain at some point. But even that felt so simple and planned out. Like she was walking down a red carpet of experience.

It wasn’t the danger she wanted, it was a sense of exploration and discovery that was missing. Moaning Point felt so deterministic. Like every step she took was already decided by somebody else. Stay here until you reach level twenty, then move on to this point until you reach level thirty, and so on.

Maybe as she continued climbing higher and higher, that sense of discovery would come back to her. She’d get to figure things out on her own, think about her plans more and decide what was best for her. But at least at the lower levels, that was missing. She liked the safety, but the mountain was too structured for her to enjoy it as a dungeon.

Although, from her research, Moaning Point was supposed to be a Lodestone dungeon — an organized, tiered dungeon that she could tailor her experience of to her own needs. Maybe she was naïve for thinking it would be something it wasn’t.

Her first goal here on Moaning Point before she went back to Flester was to head up the mountain some more. She wanted to see what other variants of zombies there were and overcome the trials they represented.

Talking to Emma and Joe about her time here and not even being able to share what her limit was on the mountain seemed silly, after making such a big deal of leaving. She still had food and supplies to last a while longer, and still hadn’t gotten even close to something resembling too much danger for her.

Sure, there were times when she got a little overwhelmed while rescuing somebody. Times when she felt fear and despair beginning to set in. But not for herself. Even while she rescued somebody, the fear was only ever that they wouldn’t make it. That she wouldn’t be able to save them.

The zombies were just too slow to catch her. Too weak to overcome her Restoration. They just weren’t all that dangerous to her if she kept her wits about her a little. And while she liked not having to put herself in danger, it did also mean that she was probably fine to go a little higher and test the waters a bit.

Another thing that she wanted to do was look into how much it cost to lease, purchase, rent or whatever it was people were doing to set up their own shop here. With her healing, she thought she might be able to make a decent bit of change running a clinic here.

Maybe she’d need more powerful healing before she could do much? But even if she couldn’t make a lot of money, it would be a fantastic way to train her healing, which could save her, or somebody else’s life someday. She probably wouldn’t be able to get one set up this time, but if she knew what it would take she could make some more money back in Flester and come back ready to get started. If it was within reach, at least.

And the last thing that she wanted to do before she headed back was try to get some of the black bones that always got absorbed back into the dungeon. She had overheard some people talk about harvesting them while she was up the path a ways once and wanted to at least give it a try before she was done.

It never crossed her mind to try until then, but the bones were unusually hard and sturdy, and if she could get them then they might make good enchanting mediums or sell for some money to blacksmiths, or bonesmiths? She had no idea what somebody who worked with bones would be called. The bones were black at least, so maybe they would be a blacksmith after all.

She giggled to herself.

Zoe had no idea where to even start checking how much it cost to run a shop, so decided her first step would be to make her first, and possibly last for a while, ascent of the mountain. She would keep climbing until she felt the risk wasn’t worth it anymore. On the way, she’d try to grab some of the black bones the dungeon always claimed back, too.

She stopped off at the first free zombie she found, and summoned her Frozen Arsenal with a shield and a long curved sword. The zombie approached her and swung its arms down towards her.

Zoe pushed her shield forward and let the zombies hands slip off the surface towards the ground. She stepped forward and slashed her sword across the zombies chest.

As it fell to a clump, Zoe reached out into the rotting flesh and grabbed onto one of the exposed black ribs. It was surprisingly heavy as the dungeon pulled the bone towards the mountain. Zoe dropped her weapons and gripped the bone with both of her hands as she tried to force it away from the dungeon’s control, but was only barely able to stop its movement. The moment she let go, the dungeon would rip it away and absorb it, she knew.

She reached around with her Mana Manipulation to try and find something she could interact with. A thread of mana she could rip apart, a switch she could flick to get rid of the dungeon’s control. But there was nothing that she could see.

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Maybe the people she overheard knew a secret she didn’t. Or maybe they just had the raw power to overcome the dungeon’s control. But Zoe had to let go of the bone and watch as it tore into the dirt, never to be seen again until another zombie was raised with it.

One day, she told herself, she’d overcome the dungeon and claim a souvenir. Another thing on the list of errands to do when she got back to Flester. Research how to overcome dungeon magic.

Zoe stood up and grabbed her shield and sword then made her way back up the mountain to the demarcation of the higher level zone. It wasn’t much, just some stones laid across the path with a large white sign to the side warning people of the increasing levels.

She slowed down as she passed it and kept her eyes out for any zombies. The first ones she should be seeing were ones capable of using tools. Often just sticks or stones, but they’d sometimes be raised with swords and shields. Even armour on very rare occasions, from what she’d heard.

The real danger with these zombies though weren’t the weapons or the armour. It was the intelligence and speed. Take away their tools and they’d still be much more dangerous than the mindless creatures below.

It was about five minutes before Zoe noticed anything different. The mana being sucked into the mountain seemed denser than before. It clumped in much brighter groups, and she felt the subtle pressure of mana surrounding her. Nothing she couldn’t handle, and if anything it would probably help her with her mana regeneration. But it was noticeable, and she decided to be more careful.

The path still continued up at a comfortable incline, and Zoe laughed at herself for buying so many climbing supplies. They hadn’t been useful at all yet other than using a piton for cooking once.

Another big difference was the lack of people around her. In the lower level zone, there was almost always somebody around. Even if it was just the distant noises of spells and fighting, there was usually something. But up here, other than the odd person who rushed past her on their way up to wherever they were going, it was near silent.

In a way, it was peaceful. She liked the quiet, and if it weren’t in the middle of a dangerous dungeon, she could find herself sitting by a tree and having a nice nap or spending days fiddling with her enchantments. But knowing the dangers that surrounded her, the silence felt a little eerie.

She shivered as she felt goosebumps cover her body, and then continued on up the mountain. The fear was irrational, she reminded herself. The monsters she’d fight would be shambling zombies, not stealthy predators. Even if they were a little smarter, they wouldn’t be ambushing her on purpose. There just weren’t any zombies around, and the wildlife avoided coming this far up the mountain, she told herself as she continued.

It wasn’t much longer before she found her first higher level zombie. Dark green twenty four, to her identify — meaning it had as many classes as Zoe did. She no longer had such a massive advantage over them.

Whenever she thought about the higher level zombies, she’d imagined the same decaying corpses gripping sticks in their hands. Maybe a rock or sword too. But what she found was nothing like that.

The zombie stood taller and straighter. Even without her Vampyric Empathy on, it walked with a confidence and power that the lower level ones just couldn’t replicate. The rotting, dripping flesh she’d gotten so used to was held together much better. There were no bones poking out, no holes showcasing the familiar black rib-cage below.

Rather than a zombie, it could have passed as a normal human with a particularly bad case of jaundice, she thought. As she approached, the zombie turned its head to face her and screamed.

It swung the large stick it was holding out to the side and rushed in towards her. Zoe fired off one of her explosive projectiles, and the zombie jumped to the side. The cone of frost pierced into a distant tree and a cloud of frost exploded around it.

Zoe raised her shield as the zombie swung its stick towards her, and braced herself for the impact. But despite being so much higher levelled than the zombies she’d faced before, the stick barely felt like anything when it hit her shield.

On the flip side, the zombie was already drawing its stick back to swing again. Zoe created another frost projectile, and waited for it to swing. As soon as it did, she stepped back and fired off the projectile. It slammed into the zombies shoulder and exploded in a cloud of frost.

The zombie’s left arm fell limp, and it raised its stick again. Zoe’s eyes widened in surprise. Her explosive projectiles had always taken out the zombies in a single hit. Often even more than one zombie if they were clumped together. She expected them to take more of a beating, but including the one that missed this was already two projectiles into this zombie.

It stepped towards her as it swung its stick down at her again. Zoe stepped into it as she raised her shield, and dragged her sword across the zombie’s other shoulder. The stick smashed into her shield and slid off towards the ground.

Zoe stepped back and summoned another frost projectile as the zombie recovered. As soon as it stepped forward, she jumped back and fired it off at the zombie’s chest. It slammed into the zombie and exploded, and then the zombie finally fell to the ground in a clump.

Its flesh melted off and the black bones were absorbed into the ground. Zoe took a few deep breaths to calm herself down and then looked around to see if any more were attracted by the fight.

She couldn’t see any, and took a moment to reflect on it. In hindsight, it felt a lot more intense than it probably was. The zombie never actually hit her, and while three projectiles for a single zombie was a lot more than before, it was probably only two if she actually hit with both of them. Maybe three if she couldn’t get in a hit with her weapon as well.

The stick made the zombie a lot quicker and posed a lot of danger if it managed to sneak in a hit, but it was also a lot easier to deflect compared to the blunt impact of a zombies’ fists. If they started having something sharper than a stick, or a hammer, she’d be concerned. But a stick was fine.

A horde of them was something she didn’t want to deal with, at any cost. As much as it pained her, she would have to make a very difficult decision if she found somebody in this area who needed help from a horde. She was confident she could outrun them still, but having a zombie leap out at you from behind a tree to scratch you with its claws was one thing.

Having it leap out at you from behind a tree to swing a sword or hammer at you was another thing. Running through the forest like that wouldn’t be safe. She’d need to take things much slower and think her decisions through.

But as long as she did, she would be fine, she thought. She could handle herself here, and decided that she would spend some time getting accustomed to the increased difficulty. She’d explore a bit, learn the ins and outs of these higher level zombies and once she was comfortable she would continue on a bit further.