He threw 5 skill points into Turn Undead to hopefully up his chances of success.

Before he had the chance to cast the new skill, however, the hound body-checked him with so much force, Eli was thrown into the wall, breaking one of the many bookcases on impact. He groaned, falling to the ground. The Aegis had not absorbed the impact fully, as if everything in his body either creaked or throbbed, like every bone in his body nearly broke and every organ almost ruptured.

Eli felt himself getting healed and his insides knitted themselves back together in an instant. It gave him enough time to cast Aegis again as the skeletal hound charged him. This time, its massive jaw hung open, like it was planning to devour him. Eli's eyes widened, and he rolled forward to avoid its teeth, which resulted in him being trampled instead. Aegis blocked the first stomp, but no such protection was applied to his arm as it was crushed between a massive foot, made out of bone, and the floor.

A crunch sounded, and to Eli's horror, his arm was so thoroughly smashed, it looked flat. One breath later, the pain caught up with him. He wailed, the underground chamber spinning around him, but Eli managed to cast Aegis on himself again, rolling away from another strike. Another heal restored his arm. Getting up on hands and feet, trying to crawl away from the hound, resulted in a powerful horse-like kick into his midsection. Something burst inside him and his breath just would not come. Air would not go down into his lungs. Eli couldn't even scream.

From somewhere hidden out of the way, Samantha healed him again and again, keeping him alive while Eli struggled. Finally, having created some distance between himself and the monster, Eli cast Turn Undead for the first time. A scythe formed out of light and chopped into the skeleton. The spell failed to proc and kill the hound, but it whittled away about a tenth of its HP.

Eli gritted his teeth, casting against while standing hunched over, hugging his own belly. While healed, the memory of his body crushed and broken remained.

The scythe returned, taking another chunk of HP.

"You're supposed to die right away," Eli hissed, casting Turn Undead again and again as the creature turned and glared at him with its red little eyes.

The hound charged, and Eli couldn't find it in himself to move. Instead, he spammed Turn Undead for all he was worth.

Finally, just as the skeletal hound was about to trample him again, the scythe of light cutting into the bones of the hound produced a sound, like a blade cutting through grass. The skeletal hound immediately lost its form and all the individual pieces of bone tumbled forward and down, due to the monster's momentum. It all showered over Eli, who ended up under a huge pile of bones..

Ding! You have reached level 23.

Ding! You have reached level 24.

Eli sat there, straining under the weight. Perhaps adding a few points of strength wouldn't be such a bad thing.

"Are you alive under there?"

"I think so," Eli groaned, trying to move. "I'm stuck. Can you dig me out?"

She slowly but surely kicked pieces of bone to the side until she grabbed his hands, pulling him out. "That was close."

"It was," Eli agreed, stretching his limbs. "Do you think it was a boss?"

She shook her head. "I wish. It looked like any other monster to me. Didn't have that thing around its health bar."

"Thing?" Eli frowned.

"Ephraim's health bar had a sort of frame around it.

"Huh. Didn't notice that."

Standing, Eli opened the corpse to loot. "There's some interesting gear in here. An armor of leather combined with parts of chain-mail obviously meant for a crusader, judging by the name Medium Armor of The Dying Light, as well as a sharp-looking blade and a shield that gave the wearer a bonus to Aegis."

He got an inkling, but didn't say anything as he looted. The next item was a robe granting extra spell damage based on a combination of Willpower and Intelligence. It was clearly cut to fit a woman, and she equipped it immediately, her form flashing for a brief moment during the switch. It was of a finer material than Eli's, but not by much. It was a little whiter too, rather than the grayish tone of his own, and Samantha's new robe was embroidered with swirling patterns around the bottom. Taken in at the waist, it looked more like a dress than a robe.

She raised an eyebrow. "Twenty-five percent more spell damage total? Not bad."

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They split the gold coins and some health potions from the corpse. Eli grabbed the last item. It was a simple ring giving him +10% HP. He slipped it onto a finger. "Not a bad haul."

"Well, we did almost die," she pointed out.

"Good thing it wasn't for nothing."

"It was pretty crazy," she said, smiling. It was the first smile he'd seen from her, at least the first one he could recollect. It suited her.

"Should we head back?" he asked.

She tilted her head. "What? No. We have to continue." She pointed to the demolished doorway. "You said there were people to save."

"Just checking," Eli said, following her as they headed over to the hallway where they encountered the Skeletal Hound. It was lined with doors on both sides. Each door they checked revealed an empty cell with either piles of bones or decomposing corpses.

Eli wondered how long they'd been there and why. When he attempted to loot a few just to check, he found them all empty. He looked down at his new ring, wondering if perhaps it had been worn by one of these poor, lost people. They pressed forward, opening up at least twenty doors each down the corridor, looking for the supposed prisoners and not finding anyone alive.

He closed the last door on the left. "Do you think we're too late?"

"No," she shook her head. "These have been dead a long time. If we're supposed to rescue anyone, they should at least be fresh corpses by now, after you spend all day playing with goblins."

"I averted a war!" Eli protested.

"Still."

The sprawling place didn't end here, and when they opened the next door, they were greeted by a horde of skeletal archers and warriors. These mobs were level twelve, so a lot easier to handle than the hound. Eli's Aegis could take quite a few hits before having to be recast, and Samantha's new robe affected her spells quite a bit, allowing her to damage the mobs at a good rate. Eli's Sigil of Light covered almost half the floor, cutting off the threats coming from that part of the room.

The stone floor here was covered in moss in patches, and the tombs in the floor were open, with skeletons continuously rising out of them until Samantha did enough damage to the structures to break them, like in a video game with spawning enemies. With the skeletons dead, and the room cleared, Samantha had gained another three levels, and Eli one.

Ding! You have reached level 25.

He added another talent point to Experienced, thinking that next time he'd take a moment to look through the list of talents and see what else he wanted to spend points on.

Turn Undead, it turned out, worked a lot better on enemies below his level. He took out most mobs on the first try, with very few requiring more than three casts. Since it was a single-target skill, it wasn't as efficient as Sigil of Light on large crowds, but these mobs took too long to kill the old-fashioned way. Also, it was nice to do something other than just cast heals on these monsters.

Once they had cleared the next room, Eli went over to one of the bookshelves and grabbed a book at random, opening it. The lower portion of each page was blackened with something that looked eerily similar to the inky black goop Ephraim turned into, and the language was not one he understood anyway, so he put it back.

After another corridor, thankfully without a hound, and a smaller room filled with skeletal mages—which were a pain to kill, since his Aegis didn't absorb all magic damage yet, he looked around the corpses, seeing what sort of items they dropped. Eli's robe was scorched in places and a frost bolt left a lingering pain on his right arm that didn't quite subside after healing it.

Looting the skeleton mages, they mostly found caster gear, which wasn't that much of a surprise. Unfortunately, they couldn't use any of it due to class restrictions. "This stuff is for different mage specializations," he mused, "or particular mage subclasses," he added thoughtfully. All of them offered bonuses to intelligence and spell damage, along with some other interesting effects like each kill granting a buff to damage done for a brief duration. Such an effect would be amazing against the waves of enemies they were facing.

It didn’t matter much that couldn't use the stuff themselves. There were plenty of mages back at Infinite Innovation Solutions, even with HR having left. Cruella might find some of the stuff useful.

Samantha held up another ring. "Hey, maybe you can use this."

Ring of the Blessed: +10 Wisdom, +10 Constitution. increased duration of buffs granted by the caster.

He accepted it. "I don't have many buffs yet, but yeah, this looks great. Thank you."

"Don't mention it," she said, straightening. "Ready to go?"

"Let's do it. Do you have any mana potions?"

She shook her head, and he handed over a few of the ones Zack had gifted him.

Samantha downed one instantly, and her eyes widened. "This tastes like coffee!"

"Zack made them."

"Compliments to the chef," she said, shaking the bottle above her face to get the last few drops out. She licked her lips and eyed a second one before putting it back into her inventory. "Or compliments to the barista, I suppose."

The mention of coffee made something inside Eli twinge. Did people here drink coffee? It was the first thing he’d ask once they found civilization. He almost wanted to drink one of the mana potions just to get a taste, but it would be a waste. He didn’t need it, as his meditation replenished mana quickly enough on its own, outside of combat.

In the next room, which was at least the size of a football field, they killed more skeletal mages, warriors, and a tougher zombie version called Shamblers. Samantha grinned. "I'm gaining so much experience here. Those ugly, new zombies dropped silver."

"They’re pretty easy," Eli noted.

"Yeah," she replied, "and they’re worth way more experience than the skeletons." She held up a shiny new wand, her face lighting up. "It’s rare, +10% Intelligence bonus and +10% faster casting speed. Not bad."

"That’s a good one," Eli replied admiringly.

She smirked, holding her old wand in her left hand, the new in her right. "Do you think it would work?"

"You’re going to dual wield wands?"

"Yeah, why not? I’m not getting the bonus now, but there’s that talent, right?"

"Which one?” Eli asked.

“Dual Wielder. It allows you to get the bonuses from two weapons.”

They quickly found the talent in question, and Eli frowned. "It says two weapons, though. Are wands weapons?"

"I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Should I risk it?”

Eli gave her a look. "Don't risk it."

"I'm gonna risk it."

A brief flash of light passed over her. Eli saw her face wide with excitement, along with her smile.

She laughed. "It works!"

Samantha raised both to the low ceiling, bellowing, "I am the master of wands!"