Tom looked in the direction Mark was pointing, he couldn’t see as far as Mark could with his enhanced eyesight, but he could still hear the clattering and shuffling of the approaching enemies. He moved next to Mark, who was busy readjusting the straps holding the shield to his arm. Tom looked around at Adam and Dave.
Dave was still trying to find his feet, shaking his head as he tried to force his wobbly legs to support his body.
Adam was a bit better, he’d managed to find his feet at least, but he was still clutching his side. He had started to make his way slowly over to where Mark and Tom stood using his sword as a crutch, his mouth set in a grim line.
Turning back to the inky black of the tunnel, Tom could just start to make out some the figures who were emerging from the gloom. The first figure he could make out was another skeleton clutching a sword. There was at least one other shadowy figure behind it, still making its way forward.
Tom dashed over to the pile of bones left behind when the skeleton he had killed collapsed and grabbed the torch from where it had fallen. He ran back to Mark just as the light from the torch unveiled the first skeleton shambling forward.
Using Evaluate showed that it was another level 1 skeleton, just like the others. As the skeleton fully emerged from the shadows it stopped and followed the same attack pattern the other three had performed, raising its sword towards its target and then charging.
As the skeleton began its charge Tom turned to Mark, who had lifted his shield back in front of his chest to counter the charge.
“Hey, can you do what you did to the last skeleton again? Block its charge and shove it away from you?” he asked.
Mark shrugged as watched the rapidly approaching skeleton. “Probably,” he rumbled, seemingly unperturbed by the sight in front of him. “Why?” Tom slipped behind him, checking on where Adam was, who was still using his sword to hobble slowly towards them.
“If you can, I might be able to get a hit in before it recovers,” Tom said, with as much conviction as he could. Mark nodded, then braced himself, holding the shield with hands, his right hand awkwardly holding both the axe and the shields handle.
Just before the skeleton hit, Mark angled the shield face so that it was tilted backwards and to the left. Keeping just the right side of his face out from behind the shield, he tracked the sword until it contacted the shield. Thankfully, the skeletons didn’t seem to change their attack patterns so far, and it continued to charge forward all the rest had before it. The sword did as it had done before, instead of digging in it deflected as its momentum carried it forward. As the sword scraped across the surface of the wood, Mark pushed up and out with both arms, causing the shield to hit the skeletons sword arm and make it bounce off into the air, as the skeleton kept moving forward, bumping into Mark’s shoulder which he had lowered into a position to barge into the skeleton’s ribs.
The skeleton reeled away off balance from the impact with Mark’s shoulder. Its body twisting back and to the side as it tried to control the momentum and bring its sword back down. Mark let go of the shield with his right hand and now only clutching the axe haft, drew it back to strike at the neck of the skeleton as his left arm was flung wide from being used to push back the sword. The skeleton acted quickly and already its sword was starting to move back towards Mark with speed, aiming for his now open chest.
Seeing his chance, Tom stepped forward, ducking under the shield, his sword held low to his right. Careful to not cut Mark’s leg, he brought the sword upward and around in an awkward swing, twisting his entire torso. His right arm was too close to his body to achieve much more force than just a wrist flick, but he managed to hit the skeleton’s blade as it came level with his head.
The impact travelled up Tom’s arm, the vibrations threatening to shake his arms from his body. Tom gritted his teeth, squeezing every muscle and bone in his body. Willing them to hold against the strain. Begging them to last just a few seconds longer. He was slightly taller than the skeleton and as wrestling swords moved lower and lower, he was able to lean forward and push down toward the floor, using his body weight to assist him.
Suddenly, the pressure stopped and the tension in Tom’s straining body was released. He nearly fell on his face as his arms tried to bury themselves in the rock floor and he overbalanced, rolling over his shoulder.
Getting up into a crouch, he saw the head of the skeleton rolling past him. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that Mark had managed to cut the skeleton’s head off with his axe since Tom had been able to block it for just long enough for him to get his axe into position to swing.
“That worked out well,” Tom said as he got to his feet and turned to Mark, who nodded in response, then raised his axe and pointed over Tom’s shoulder.
Another skeleton had emerged from the gloom and was beginning its pre battle charge routine of raising its sword. Tom couldn’t see beyond it, but the sounds of shuffling indicated that there was at least one more waiting in the darkness, making its way towards the light.
“Again?” Mark asked him.
“I’m ready if you are,” he replied.
The technique worked well for the individual skeletons, Mark’s weight and strength allowed him to soak up the force of the initial charge, while Tom could dodge around him and either block the sword or get a hit in to keep the skeleton off balance, or even try to stab the torch into its eyes like the first one he had killed.
10 minutes and 6 destroyed skeletons’ later, Tom lay exhausted on the ground, his chipped and battered sword beside him.
The strategy that he and Mark used had worked well, and as the skeleton’s had streamed in 1 by 1 from the darkness to charge the duo and they had been able to cut them down with minimal issue. A few of the skeletons had given them trouble, when Mark’s initial shove hadn’t been enough or the skeleton had been able to recover quick enough, but Mark’s quick reactions had allowed Tom to just barely get away from the cutting edge of the skeleton’s sword. He had narrowly escaped one such quickly recovering skeleton when he’d had another bout of time slowing, allowing him to step back just in time. The same feeling as before filling him.
Tom had even managed to kill one himself, after Mark had given it a well-timed shield bash as an experiment that had knocked it to the floor. Tom had been able to dive onto its sword arm to pin it down, while he stabbed it through the neck with his sword to decapitate it.
Adam had recovered enough to assist in the last two fights as well, his ribs must have been causing him some pain still, but he grit his teeth and dived right in without either Mark or Tom asking him to help, taking tom’s place to keep the skeleton’s sword locked up, while Tom and Mark went for the kill. Tom was glad he did, his lack of stamina was beginning to catch up with him. He knew it would be a liability in longer fights. Another problem to solve in the future.
Meanwhile Dave had been somewhere else behind them, making the odd noise here and there as he vocalised how much he hated the current situation. Usually with the word ‘fuck’. The skeleton had hit Dave in the chest as they had collided, based on the sound alone Tom guessed that he probably had a cracked rib at least, but as he had rolled over by the force, his head had also hit the rocky floor. Based on what Dave had been complaining about, Tom thought he might also have a concussion.
Thinking about the skeletons’, Tom thought it odd that every single skeleton had the same blade. It was even odder still that some swords would fragment into ashes and disappear after the skeleton holding it died, while some remained afterwards, even using Evaluate on the swords or the skeletons hadn’t shown any differences and didn’t produce any new information about them either.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
After the fight the four of them had decided to take a small break. Partly because Tom was pretty tapped out and because Dave was still woozy and needed to lie down, which he also complained about endlessly.
Tom grabbed his sword and lifted it in front of him as he used Evaluate.
Iron Short Sword
An Iron Short Sword
Quality: Basic
Bonuses: None
Condition: 53%
The blade now had several small chips along the edge from where it had hit the opposing blade edge of the skeletons. It could still cut but he decided that he would need to keep an eye out for a replacement. At the rate it was going he would need to swap it out soon.
He finally opened the blinking notification box, and a torrent of updates spewed out.
Notifications
Kill notice – Lvl 1 Skeleton Warrior
You have killed a Lvl 1 Skeleton Warrior.
You have been granted 20 Experience Points
Kill notice – Lvl 1 Skeleton Warrior
You have killed a Lvl 1 Skeleton Warrior.
You have been granted 20 Experience Points
…
Kill notice – Lvl 1 Skeleton Warrior
You have killed a Lvl 1 Skeleton Warrior.
You have been granted 13 Experience Points
Calling up his status window showed that he had made quite a dent in the experience needed for the next level and was now just over halfway there. He’d also made some more progress with Evaluate, busily scanning each skeleton and sword that had come within eyesight of him.
Status
Name: Thomas Moore
Race: Human (G)
Class: None
Subclass: None
Level: 1 (239/400)
Attributes
Strength: 4
Agility: 6
Endurance: 5
Vitality: 5
Intelligence: 9
Wisdom: 8
Skills
Evaluate 1 (45/200)
Intuition 1 (5/25)
Titles
Selected of Lemures
Affiliation
None
Intuition had increased as well but he was still a bit unclear as to why it had. He hadn’t had any sudden revelations or anything of the sort. He did remember experiencing something during the recent fights when the slow motion happened, but he wasn’t sure what that meant or if it was the thing causing Intuition to increase in experience. He checked the description again.
Skill: Intuition 1 (5/25)
Attribute – Wisdom
Rarity - Common
Gut feelings can be sharper than logic, listen to your inner voice. Enhances your ability to understand or know something without needing to think or reason. Each level increases the knowledge or conviction gained from a situation.
Nothing in the description directly mentioned slow motion or slowing time, but Tom was drawn to three ideas from it: that gut feelings could be sharper than logic, that listening to your inner voice mattered, and that some knowledge could appear without conscious thought.
Tom hadn’t studied psychology, but from the wording, he guessed these ideas might point to instincts—the body’s reflexive wisdom, that used countless subtle cues to alert the senses even if the mind didn’t fully register or process them.
Instincts, he realised, were like a finely tuned warning system, picking up on things he didn’t always notice consciously: the way someone's voice dropped in pitch, a faint rustling sound that was out of place, or a sudden tension in the air. Even if his mind didn’t have time to process these signals logically, his body knew something was wrong.
Thinking back, he remembered those gut reactions—a fluttering feeling in his stomach before something went wrong, goosebumps in moments of tension like walking down an unfamiliar street, or the deep sinking feeling right before a test or an interview where something would almost certainly go wrong. His body had always picked up on more than he was aware of, warning him even before he could put it into words.
Now, he realised that the wording, that gut feelings could be sharper than any logical thought, might refer to when his body picked up these cues and by focusing on them, could create small pockets of time when his body and brain hyper-focused on them. By focusing so much it would process them in sharper detail. Focusing intensely on the most critical inputs while filtering out distractions, which is probably what led to time being appearing to be slower as his brain processed things. This wouldn’t be real time slowing, of course, but rather his body and mind working together to create a more focused, precise awareness that mimicked it instead.
As he thought this, the familiar feeling returned, and he watched as the counter increased for Intuition. This time he paid attention to the feeling, it was like a flash of clarity, like his brain had just emerged from a fog and he could see clearly now.
Intuition 1 (5/25) > Intuition 1 (7/25)
Tom figured that he had come to 2 conclusions when thinking about how the skill worked, how instincts worked and how the skill was able to use them to slow down time when he was fighting. Which would explain why he had been given 2 experience points.
But not only that, he saw that the skill description itself had changed.
Skill: Intuition 1 (7/25)
Attribute – Wisdom
Rarity - Common > Uncommon
Gut feelings can be sharper than logic, listen to your inner voice. Enhances your ability to understand or know something without needing to think or reason. Enables you to sense immediate threats or intent instinctually. Each level increases the knowledge or conviction gained from a situation and the level of perceived intent.
The new skill description seemed to agree with Tom about what he had discovered. But of a more important note was the fact that he could upgrade the skill itself!
He’d have to test and see if it was just the skill unlocking features that were already there or if it was his understanding of the mechanics behind the skill that allowed the change, but either way he was excited.
Weirdly enough, it reminded him of high school science, thinking about how and why things worked, testing them to see if he was correct and then going back to the drawing board if he was wrong. He thought back to all the skills he could take on that list and imagined all the potential upgrades and changes he could make.
Especially when he finally unlocked magic. He smiled at the thought.
Calming down after his discovery, he called up the dungeon information menu next, checking on the task progress before he got too carried away.
Trial Dungeon of Lemures Level 1
Time Remaining – 20 Hours, 42 Minutes
Enemies Remaining – 40
Dungeon Requirements:
– Reach the end of the dungeon alive 0/1
– Kill Enemies 10/11 (Stage 2)
They had nearly finished Stage 2 of the Kill Enemies task, having killed a fifth of the total enemies in the dungeon.
I wonder what the reward will be. Another skill point? Or something else? Hopefully food actually.
He hadn’t realised just how hungry he was. They had been down here for hours already and, for Tom at least, it had been getting close to dinner when he had ended up here in the first place. The hunger was beginning to gnaw at him now. The initial feelings of fear and panic had given way to other emotions as they had progressed through the dungeon, and with them had come the rest of his bodies needs. Hunger, thirst, rest.
Just more things to worry about.
Getting to his feet, he walked over to where the others were gathered.
Adam seemed to have recovered from the hit to his ribs, while Dave was still a bit wobbly on his feet. Mark, in what was quick becoming his default state at this point, was bored and had started playing with his axe while they had waited for each other to finish.
Getting their attention and after ensuring that everyone was ready, receiving a cursory ‘fuck off’ from Dave in the process, Tom suggested that they keep moving.
10 down, 40 to go.
The group set off down the tunnel again.
Tom hoped, weirdly enough, that somewhere down here was a sandwich he wouldn’t need to fight to the death over.
But more importantly, it was time to try out his newly upgraded skill.