I woke up feeling refreshed. That lasted five minutes until I realized I was still filthy and grimy. I needed a shower. It suddenly occurred to me perhaps I could use my new elemental mastery skill. Could I make water and cause a mist to form and take a shower that way?

I reached out with my power looking for water. There was some moisture in the air but there wasn’t enough to form a shower. A slow trickle of water formed in the air and fell to the ground. This would take forever.

Right, I needed a water source. The nearest water source was back in town. I sighed. It looked like I needed to head back to accomplish any of my goals.

I began the long trudge back to town. I was apprehensive at what I would find. Maybe bugging out so quickly was a mistake. Should I have stayed behind? But if I stayed behind I wouldn’t have found the goblin portal and I wouldn’t have all these levels. Well, I would find out when I got back.

As I traveled back through the woods, the woods were oddly quiet. Everything was muted. It began to bother me. The tension was rising, I felt something was watching us but we couldn’t find it. I sent Thor out as a scout to check the surroundings. I focused on melding with the shadows and skulking around in stealth. I am not sure if it helped but it made me feel better.

When I got back to town it was strangely quiet. I went looking through the wreckage of my house. It was pretty much as I had left it. I noticed the ants were gone. I checked the side of the house and there was a huge hole in the ground. It looked like I didn’t get all the giant ants. I imagine this would be a problem for later.

I checked on my neighbor’s house. It wasn’t in as much disrepair as my house. I wondered what made the difference. I still thought the tribulation lightning was targeting electronics and I had a lot of stuff in my house. My living room was absolutely wrecked. All my tv’s and video games were just obliterated.

I moved down the street. I stopped checking the houses. It occurred to me I wasn’t seeing very many bodies. Were there more survivors or did something more sinister happen.

I heard a loud noise coming from the other side of town. I decided to check it out. I wasn’t doing anything else at the moment. Maybe the sound was other people.

As I got closer, I realized the sound was coming from the school area. The grain elevators were on that side of town as well.

As I got closer, I saw a crowd surrounding the chain link fence that enclosed the school. The school seemed to have faired a bit better than the rest of the house. I didn’t ever think budget cuts would ever come in handy, but here we were.

There was something off about that group. They were standing still and just staring into the field pass the fence. And as I looked closer I realized all of them looked like they had been in a fight. I had a feeling they might be zombies.

One of the turned and looked around and spotted Loki. Right. I forgot she couldn’t stealth. But that was certainly a zombie. The eyes were glazed over and were a dull white color. Their eyes' didn’t have an pupil or iris anymore.

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“Alright, you guys.” I called out to Thor and Loki. “Thor. Keep your distance. You don’t have any ranged attacks. Stay in stealth and watch our backs. Fighting zombies will probably call more towards us. Loki. Ranged attacks. Aim the icicles for the head.”

I had a sudden thought. My druidic healing said it said it could heal moderate wounds and ailments. Was being a zombie an ailment?

“Hold on, Loki.” I called out quickly. She could already sense I wanted her to wait. The icicle she was charging up stop growing. “I want to try something real quick.”

I ran a little closer to get in range of the zombie. I cast druidic healing on the nearest zombie. The zombie glowed green with the healing energy. There didn’t appear to be a change in the zombie. In fact, it seemed to be moving quicker and actually groaned. I hit it one more time just to make sure. The zombie didn’t un-zombie itself. Again it began movie quicker.

“That’s enough.” I backed up, keeping an eye out for footing. “Go for the head Loki.”

Loki began to fire icicles at their heads. She targeted the one nearest us. The icicle hit it square in the head with a pfft sound. The icicle then expanded to cover the head of the zombie. The zombie flopped to the ground and fell still.

[5 xp]

Well, at least it was dead. There was a five second wind up on Loki’s icicle attack. The zombies weren’t moving fast, but they were still moving fast enough that Loki couldn’t get them all before they reached us.

“Good girl.” I congratulated her. “Let’s keep backing up. We don’t want to get overwhelmed. I’ll see if I can slow them down.

I thought about the magic I had. Healing wasn’t going to work. I finally remembered to put up the ice shield I could borrow from Loki. I needed to be more mindful of all the tools I had. Would my new dagger work? I put that under maybe but I didn’t want to get too close. Earth, wind, fire, and water. I remembered my experiments with water this morning and knew it wouldn’t work.

I decided to just go down the list. I tried lightning. It kind of worked. Chunks of flesh were blown from the zombie but it didn’t die. The force of the strike knocked the zombie down but it didn’t paralyze it like it did to the goblins.

I moved on to earth. I reached down to the ground with my magic and pulled. I was still new to this so I didn’t do anything fancy. The road way bulged up and created a speed about six inches. I strained again and the earth mounded up some more. That did it. The zombies continued moving forward with their slow shuffle. The first one reached it and fell over the obstacle. It began the slow process of standing back up. Looked like the zombies were as dumb as I hoped.

I ran back down the street towards Loki. Every ten yards I raised another berm to trip the zombies. While I was doing this Loki continued to rain icicles down on the zombies. She was a regular sniper with those things.

After the third berm I was pretty winded and my mana was almost depleted. “I’m out Loki. You got it?” I asked her.

Loki yipped at me and gave me a look. I felt her reassurance through our bond. I nodded in agreement and leaned on my staff to catch my breath. I was hoping there was a battle mediation skill I could get. That would make fighting easier.

There were a few zombies that required more than one icicle. Loki managed to clear all the zombies before they got to my third speed bump. Loki looked a little winded but she was absolutely feeling smug with herself.

“Good job girl.” I told her when the last one hit the ground. I broke off a piece of the goblin jerky we had picked up. Thor jumped out of stealth and whined for his share. I laughed and shared a piece with him too. “Good job boy.” I congratulated. “Nothing got pass you.” I ruffled him behind the ears. Loki then nuzzled my other hand looking for attention. I ended up giving them both scritchies. They deserved it.

Now it was time to see what those zombies were so interested in. Was there something or someone in the fence or school that was still alive.

“Alright guys.” I told my floofs. “We’re going in to check the place. Thor you take point. Stealth up. Loki stay by me and keep your ice barrier going. We will take it nice and slow and not too many surprises today.