Tom’s first thought was that whatever it was, it was truly horrifying.
The thing towered over them even from a distance, easily 3 or 4 meters tall; its pale, greyish-green skin was mottled with dark purple patches of skin that were peeling off to reveal festering black skin. Black veins bulged beneath the surface of the patchwork skin, like spiders crawling through its body, spreading their legs in the place of blood.
It had three massive sets of arms, each as thick as Tom’s head, grotesquely muscled. The fingers were elongated and tipped with broken, yellowed nails. They constantly twitched as if the thing could barely control them, waiting for something to grab, to rip, to tear apart.
Its body was clothed in rags that used to be clothes, but little remained of them apart from patches of fabric covered in dirt, blood, guts and worse.
The stench they had been dealing with before suddenly became much, much worse as the thing stepped into the cave. A mix of rot, bile, and something like the rotten egg smell the sulphur in their torch gave off swam around the group, almost thick enough to be a liquid instead of a smell. It was as if the thing was carrying the scent of the grave with it as it walked. A faint greenish mist clung to its skin, adding to the aura of putrefaction that surrounded it.
The face was the worst. It had black eyes with a white, bloodshot pupil that seemed to never stop moving. They both rolled in their sockets in all directions, uncontrolled. Its face was a slab of vaguely human features that hung slack from its skull frame. The mouth lolled open, and a fat, purple tongue hung out as saliva oozed out and over it, then cascaded down onto the floor.
Tom’s second thought was that it was a zombie, like those he had seen in movies, with their stereotypically over-the-top makeup and special effects.
After using Evaluate, however, he first confirmed that yes, it was, in fact, a zombie, but also that it was so much worse than that.
Reclaimer Zombie
Race: Undead
Level: 5
Not only was it a zombie, but it was also a special kind of zombie, and it was also at level 5. Tom and the others were still at level 1. As he was checking the reclaimer’s – limited – details from Evaluate, he saw that other figures had finally fully emerged from the dirt mounds.
Zombie
Race: Undead
Using Evaluate on them, he could see that they were all between levels 1 and 4, which was better news, but there were still 14 of them plus the big one.
“Not good,” he said aloud.
Using Evaluate on the shimmering light behind them did little to ease his panic.
Force Barrier
A magical barrier immune to physical force. Blocks the application of force in both directions. It is powered by the dungeon itself and cannot run out of power.
The barrier had completely blocked the path out of the cave behind them. Judging by the description, it wouldn’t be easy to break either. They were well and truly trapped.
”We’re trapped; the glowing thing is a barrier; it’ll stop us from getting out,” he announced.
“No shit”, Adam responded. “Got any genius plans yet?”
Tom surveyed their situation. Apart from being surrounded, outlevelled, outnumbered, and up against a mythical entity that was literally double their size, it was still pretty bad. There were a few bright points he noticed as he watched, and Tom focused on those to see if he could work out how they could survive this.
The big guy moves really slowly—actually, they all do. Maybe I can use that. We need to start whittling them down, or we’ll be surrounded by them, and then they’ll crush us with numbers, or the big guy will just crush us, literally. The good thing is right now we have some space. Each zombie has about 10 meters between it and the next one. We could go both ways and take two on with a group or stay together and take one at a time.
He looked the zombies, the closest was about 15 meters to their right. It didn’t look very fast or powerful, but something about it gave him pause.
Safety in numbers, I guess it is.
“I have an idea,” he announced just as Dave reached the group. “We’ll move to the right as a group and clear out the zombies around the outside.”
“Wait, these things are actual zombies? For real?” asked Dave, slightly out of breath from his recent sprint. Tom gave him an angry look that he mostly ignored.
“We need to clear out the regular zombies before we get surrounded or the big guy corners us,” He explained, detailing the levels of the zombies approaching them. “If we go right and if we can take out the zombies as each of them gets to us, then we can safely focus on the last one without having to worry about the small fries.”
Mark slammed his axe against the side of his shield, his eyes still wide, but he no longer appeared to be as panicked. “Let’s go”, he barked and moved towards the first zombie, a lvl 1. It had the same mottled grey-green skin as the bigger reclaimer zombie, but it lacked the 3 sets of arms and its towering height. It did, however, have the same smell.
The group charged after Mark, Adam and Dave close on his heels. Dave still had the torch, and he awkwardly tried to hold the torch while holding the spear with both hands and ended up not being able to hold either well enough to use. Tom angled off to the side, aiming to come around the right side of Mark and attack from the side.
Mark chose to rush in, crossing the distance with powerful steps until he was in range, his axe screaming through the air to bury itself into the neck of the zombie, only for his axe to come to an abrupt stop halfway through the neck.
Tom almost tripped on his own feet as he witnessed this. That swing would have taken the head off the skeletons they had been facing beforehand easily.
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Mark stood holding the axe after his failed beheading, his eyes wide. The zombie, apart from a slight jerk when the axe had hit, hadn’t moved. It began reaching for Mark, both its arms stretching out from its sides towards Mark's chest. Tom was close enough now to see that the fingers on each hand had nails sharpened into claws that looked deadly sharp.
Mark finally reacted in time to let go of the axe and take a step back as the zombie reached for him. He wasn’t enough to avoid its nails, however, that tore through his shirt and into his skin, digging canyons into his flesh as they were dragged across his chest. The zombie attack was stopped short when Adam came charging through on Mark’s left and impaled the zombie in the chest, driving the sword deep into the zombie's chest, stopping several inches deep. The remaining force from his charge drove the zombie back several steps as he kept driving forward with his legs, leaning into the blow.
Tom came in next, swinging his sword down vertically. He tried to keep it straight, aiming to cut off the left arm of the zombie. Instead, it came in a shallow angle, biting into the arm and carving a path diagonally, stopping as it hit the bone. Before Mark’s failed attack, Tom had expected his sword to cut straight through the arm, leaving the zombie with only one arm and two ways to attack people if you included their teeth like in a traditional zombie attack. While he wasn’t an expert at sword or combat in general, years of watching documentaries and studying history had told him that people could easily be beheaded or have their limbs cut off by a decent sword hit.
Tom came in next, swinging his sword down vertically. He tried to keep it straight, aiming to cut off the left arm of the zombie. Instead, it came at a shallow angle, biting into the arm, carving a path diagonally through the arm, stopping as it hit the bone. Before Mark’s failed attack, Tom had expected his sword to cut straight through the arm, leaving the zombie with only one arm and two ways to attack people if you included their teeth like in a traditional zombie attack.
Instead, it felt like he was chopping wood. The initial force of his swing had been expended, chopping through the first half of the arm before the bone blocked it. The sword rang painfully in Tom’s hand as if he had just struck steel with a hammer.
Adam kept driving with his legs, and the zombie was pushed back again, almost taking Tom’s sword with it. He managed to yank it out before he lost his grip and moved to strike the arm again; raising his arms up, he aimed for the same spot. His second swing was better than the first, but he had missed the gash he was aiming for, hitting the elbow of the arm, cutting through the flesh and stopping at the bone as before, causing the zombie’s arm to bend slightly, bringing its claws dangerously close to his face. This time, as he pulled his sword, it didn’t come out as easily. The bones and flesh of the elbow had closed around the sword when its elbow bent, locking it in place.
Adam’s momentum had stopped, and he could no longer push the zombie back any further. Giving it a solid kick in the chest, he wrenched his sword out, leaving a gaping hole in its front. As the zombie was forced back by the kick, Tom’s sword was ripped out of his hands, still stuck in its arm.
What the hell is this thing made of? Tom thought to himself as Dave rushed in to have his turn.
His spear was held in his right hand, while his left was still holding the torch. He held the spear low, nestling it in the crook of his left arm. It was an awkward way to hold it. So much so that he had to run with his body facing diagonally toward the zombie instead of the face-on.
Running right up to the zombie, Dave drove the spear into its guts. Not even bothering to thrust the spear, he just used the momentum from his run to force the spear into the zombie. The spear pierced through the zombie and emerged from its back in a splatter of gore. But little actual damage appeared to have been done, however. The zombie barely moved, and Dave was forced to let go of the spear and duck underneath its arms as it reached for him, leaving his spear, as well as Tom’s sword and Mark's axe still embedded in the zombie.
“Fuck” Dave screamed, lashing out with his torch and hitting the zombie in its shoulder, leaving a blob of burning tar behind.
The zombie, which had remained completely silent throughout the entire ordeal, resumed its march forward, utterly unconcerned with the 3 weapons sticking out of its body and limbs.
Regrouping with Mark, Tom checked on the bigger man’s condition. The zombie’s claws had dug deep into his skin, leaving his shirt in tatters and his chest bleeding heavily, forming a dark pooling stain on his shirt. He was clutching his chest, trying to stem the bleeding, but otherwise looked fine.
Taking stock of the wider situation, Tom looked around to see that the zombies were still approaching them, some being forced to detour around the pedestal as he had hoped. The closest zombie, other than the one they were fighting, was about 10 meters away still, Adam’s wild charge having pushed it away and buying them more time to deal with it before having to face the others.
Good, that’s bought us some time, but we need to kill these things quicker, or we’ll be screwed in a few minutes when the rest get closer.
Adam began attacking again, using his longer reach with the two-handed sword to avoid the zombie's grasp, slicing its arms and chest. His attacks did little more than scratch the surface. He did, however, manage to dislodge Tom’s sword from his arm. His blade struck the arm as it reached for him, causing it to flex straight and for the sword to fall to the floor, where it was quickly swiped up by Dave.
Dave launched into a whirlwind of swipes, stabs and slashes, crisscrossing the zombie with cuts that did little more than what Adam had been able to do with his. Dave celebrated the whole time, clearly ecstatic with gaining a ‘proper’ weapon over his lacklustre spear. But as Tom watched, his concern with the situation deepened.
As Tom watched, the wounds from the swords and even Adam’s charge, which left a deep stab wound, were beginning to heal, slowly closing up and repairing themselves. Already, most of the zombie was wound free apart from the deep cut left in its arm and Mark’s axe still stuck in its neck, as well as the burn mark from the torch that Dave had hit it with.
It can heal itself? Well, that’s bullshit. How the hell do we kill this thing?
Just as he had that thought, an idea came to him.
“Adam, stay in front of it and get its attention; Dave, you need to get behind it and cut its head off! Aim for Mark’s axe and cut it from the other side. Use your full force!” Tom shouted to them.
“Shut. Up. Don’t. Tell. Me. What. To. Do,” Dave yelled back between swings. Regardless, he ducked behind the Zombie, lifted the sword up behind him and swung it like a baseball bat at the zombie’s neck, cutting into its flesh and stopping, with a clang, as it hit the blade of Mark’s axe.
The head of the zombie flopped to the floor, followed by the rest of the body, as well as the axe and spear that had been stuck inside of it. The notification box started blinking in Tom’s vision.
Notifications
Kill notice – Lvl 1 Zombie
You have killed a Lvl 1 Zombie.
You have been granted 50 Experience Points
Finally, it was dead. But there were still 13 others plus the Reclaimer to go. The zombie gave them a massive boost to experience, but it wasn’t enough to level Tom. Mark and Dave, maybe, especially if the final blow bonus was similar to the Skeletons they had fought. Dave had probably just earned over 200 experience, which should have been enough to level him.
But there was one more thing he could do to fix that. He looked around, seeing the closest zombie was still another few meters away and they still had a decent gap between them and the next set of zombies. The entire fight had only lasted a minute or so, but it had felt much longer. If they were going to survive, they would need to kill them faster than they had this one. He hoped this would help with that. He opened the dungeon information window.
Trial Dungeon of Lemures Level 1
Time Remaining – 19 Hours, 57 Minutes
Enemies Remaining – 39
Dungeon Requirements:
– Reach the end of the dungeon alive 0/1
– Kill Enemies 11/11 (Stage 2)
Sure enough, the zombie kill had finished the 2nd stage of the kill enemies task. He checked the rewards quickly, hoping that it would give him something that would help. He wasn’t disappointed.
Trial Dungeon of Lemures Level 1
– Kill Enemies 11/11 (Stage 2)
Reward – 1 Skill Point
Reward – 200 Experience
That should be enough experience to level me! This should help. Checking his notifications revealed the good news he was hoping for.
Level Up – Lvl 2
You have gained a level.
You are now Level 2.
You have gained +1 to all attributes.
You have gained 1 Skill Point.
Opening his status window confirmed that all his attributes had increased, which was a good start, but they would need more than that. Thankfully, he now had 2 skill points to use.
He smiled as he checked his list of skills.
Oh yes, that one will do nicely.