A bunch more skeletons followed, varying in size and level. Eli’s heal bombing and Sigil of Light spells lost some of their efficiency as the mobs' health pools grew larger. Samantha wasn’t doing much damage at all, despite having leveled up a few more times. Thankfully, Turn Undead proved to be a valuable tool in Eli’s growing toolbox.

"Dammit," Samantha said after a particularly long fight, where she mostly just used her beam to tickle the monsters, buying time for Eli’s Turn Undead procs to kick in. “Well, I didn’t think I’d need to pick Turn Undead, but I guess I was wrong.”

"You have the Turn Undead spell?" Eli asked, casually looting some decent melee weapons and a bow Dana might be able to use.

“Yeah. Didn’t want it since it’s only for undead, but I guess I’ll need it.”

A brief shimmer ran across her, and she nodded to herself before turning back to him. “What skill nodes have you picked for Turn Undead?”

He stared at her blankly. “Didn't have time before when we fought the Hound. Then, I kind of forgot about it.”

Opening the Skill list to take a look, Eli immediately found a fantastic node. “There’s one here that gives an increased success rate. Looks great.”

“But it’s only 5%” Samantha argued.

“Per level,” Eli countered. “At max node level. It’s 25% increased rate. That has to be a lot.”

He maxed the node out, then found a second interesting node, which added a brief stun to each cast that failed to proc the outright execution of the mobs. “I’m going with the stun one, too."

“I don’t have enough points for that,” Samantha muttered. “But I picked the stupid increased chance node for this stupid skill.”

A grayish skeleton wearing plate armor shambled out of one of the open catacombs in the floor, and she turned around and cast Turn Undead on it, jumping a little in joy when she succeeded on the first cast. “Okay, maybe this isn’t so bad after all. Let’s just hope we’re going to be fighting a lot of undead in this world.”

She skipped, rather than walked, over to the fresh kill and bent over to claim her loot. Suddenly, Samantha screamed in pain.

Eli watched in horror as wounds opened up in her back, cutting through the cloth of her dress and then into her muscles and flesh. He healed her immediately, barely saving her life before another stab struck her shoulder. Eli healed her again, cursing as she cried out for him, collapsing to the floor. Eli cast Sigil of Light on the ground, and two previously invisible skeletons in black robes carrying wicked looking bone daggers appeared when the Sigil damaged them.

He cast Turn Undead on one and immediately killed it, gaining a level.

Ding! You have reached level 26.

The other, however, disappeared in a puff of shadows, leaving no trace behind and no sign of where it had gone. Eli charged forward to Samantha, both to check on her and to enter the Sigil of Light’s area of effect. That stealth rogue skeleton was still in this room. The only safe place was inside his spell.

Are you okay?” he asked, kneeling down to make sure she was still conscious.

Her pale back shone through the rips in her clothing, but only thin, white scars remained where the wounds had been inflicted before he healed her. She was panting, and when she turned to him, tears were running down her cheeks. “What the fuck happened, Eli?"

"Stealth skeletons,” he whispered, helping Samantha to her feet. "I killed one of them, but the second one had some sort of shadow teleport thing. It’s still around here somewhere.”

Eli’s Sigil of Light timed out, and he cast another one.

“How did you kill it if you couldn’t see it?”

He pointed to the tree-like symbol in his Sigil. “It showed up when the spell damaged them.”

“Damn it, I should've picked Sigil of Light too,” Samantha grumbled. “There are too many good skills.”

“What are you doing?” Eli asked as she raised her palms in front of her.

“Watch this,” she said, firing her beam of light. She spun, and the other end of the beam traversed across the wall as she slowly circled, making sure to touch every inch of the room. Yet, the skeleton did not appear. She stomped her foot and deactivated her channeled beam. “Damn it! Stupid skeletons.”

“So what now? Do we need to find some sort of see-invisibility spell or something?"

Eli shook his head, re-casting Sigil of Light again. “Do you think it ran back down the corridor?”

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“I don’t know. Just keep heal handy, all right?” Samantha said. “You have your stupid Aegis—”

“Hold on,” she interrupted herself, holding up a finger. “Now, hold on a minute. I think I have something here.”

A light flashed over her eyes, a sign Eli had come to associate with others checking their Character Sheet. She soon let out an evil little laugh, then cast that light mist spell of hers. Twinkling lights hovered in the air for a moment, then, as one, they shot through the room to a part of the ceiling, slamming into the hidden rogue that had somehow stuck itself to the stone ceiling. Its empty, skeletal face still somehow managed to express surprise as it fell down to land on the floor with a thud.

Eli and Samantha both cast Turn Undead on it, immediately killing the bastard.

“Homing stars,” Samantha said. “Some skill nodes are better than others.”

“Can’t argue with those results,” Eli agreed.

Samantha dropping some of her reserved front was a welcome change in the young woman who'd always seemed shy before being transferred to this new world. Her mad glee at having bested the Skeletal Rogue did not make him think of timidness. Definitely not.

She stomped over to the corpse and looted it. “There’s a bone knife here,” she said. "It adds stealth, and those dark cloaks these bastards wore can be looted too.”

Eli checked the one he'd killed and found a rare shadow dagger, which did indeed decrease the risk of being discovered when in Stealth, but the cloak was the more interesting piece of equipment. “This must be what they used to stick to the ceiling."

Cloak of Shadows. Cloak. Rare Item: Standard wear for one who is a friend of shadows.

+10% Increased chance of successfully entering Stealth

Grants skill: Shadow Cling: Touch a surface and activate the skill to remove gravitational pull on the user.

Class requirement: Rogue

“I am getting some major FOMO here,” Samantha said, holding up the identical loot from the other skeleton rogue. “Stealth is overpowered as hell. Maybe I should multi-class.”

“A Scholar/Rogue?” Eli asked, his face betraying what he thought of that idea.

“Yeah, you’re right,” she sighed. “The synergies would be terrible. Probably multi-classing with Mage or something would make more sense.”

“You’ve decided to multi-class, then?”

“No, I haven’t decided on anything yet,” Samantha said, walking back over to him. “Just keeping my options open. We haven’t even seen what most other classes provide, you know, skill-wise? I think there are plenty more mage sub-classes than the stupid elemental ones most of HR chose. Also, what are Peddlers about? And Tinkers?"

“Yeah, there’s a lot to be discovered,” Eli agreed. “Just have to be careful about the classes we pick. I kind of doubt there’s a potion of reset or something like that, like you find in some games.”

“I agree,” Samantha said. “I’m pretty sure that whatever we pick, that’s what we’re stuck with.”

“Ready to continue?” Eli asked. "Or do you want to take a moment?"

"Let's go," she said, grabbing one of the holes through the fabric of her dress. "I'll need to find one of the Tailors after this."

After clearing another room and Samantha gaining yet another level, they found another spiral staircase heading down. They exchanged a look before heading down. The mobs would surely get tougher as they descended deeper into the belly of the church.

The new level was eerily silent and looked even more overgrown than the last, with bits of the wall ruined, and soil and dirt peeking through, along with the occasional bone. The chamber smelled of earth mixed with an almost rotting scent, like the one you get after raking together leaves and then letting them sit in that pile for far too long.

At first, they didn’t see a single enemy. Then, as they continued deeper into the chamber, their light orbs illuminated an ornamented chair in gold and red, with plush cushions like a throne.

“Is that... a throne?” Samantha whispered, pointing.

“Probably,” Eli replied, eyeing it warily, “considering what's sitting in it.”

A regal-looking skeleton sat in the chair. It looked like a human skeleton, only far taller and wider. An imposing figure, to be sure. It wore a cloak in the same deep red as the chair, with golden swirly patterns and sunbursts. On its head was a crown that glittered in the light from their orbs. One of its hands rested on the armrest of the throne, while the other held a long metal staff studded with emeralds and rubies.

Hannes the Magnanimous. Level 36. Undead. Skeleton Ruler.

“I’m getting a bad feeling about this,” Samantha whispered. “Why isn’t it moving? Why is it alone?”

“I don’t know,” Eli answered. “Do you want to try speaking with it?”

“No, I really don’t.”

“Maybe we can go around it?” Eli suggested.

Just then, the skeleton ruler lifted its heavy staff and slammed the butt into the floor with a loud, heavy clunk. It rose to its feet slowly, as if its bones were weighed down by age, and spread its arms. The jaw of the skeleton moved as it stepped forward, towered over them, teeth chattering as it gestured this way and that.

“I’m not sure what to think of this,” Eli said, observing the strange skeleton. He cleared his throat. “Hello?”

The skeleton ruler stopped, then leaned forward toward him.

“Do you think it's trying to speak?” Samantha asked.

“Yeah, except the doesn’t have a tongue or a throat or anything,” Eli replied. “It’s almost making me feel sorry for it.”

“Make it stop,” Samantha muttered.

As if on cue, the skeleton reached out with a long hand and backhanded Eli across the face. The Aegis absorbed most of the damage, but it was still enough to push him to the side, nearly causing him to lose his footing. Eli grimaced, stepping away from a swing of the staff.

“It’s slow and clumsy,” he noted, dodging as it waved its fist in the air, like an old man yelling at children playing in his yard.

Eli healed himself as the skeleton’s hand swung past his head. The creature was massive but slow, almost goofy in its impotent assault. Then the Skeleton Ruler grabbed its staff in both hands and held it out in front of him. Small flames flickered into existence in an arc around the back of its head—eight in total, glowing ominously.

“Okay, the fight is starting for real!” Eli shouted, placing a Sigil of Light to encompass both himself and Samantha, as well as Hannes the Magnanimous. Together, they both cast Turn Undead. The skeleton’s fires moved through the air, coming for them. All around them, skeletal mages and warriors in plate mail had begun to rise from graves or emerge from the bare walls—hundreds of them stepping into the chamber.

Fortunately, one of their Turn Undead spells worked on the first try, killing the boss instantly. The skeleton fell into a pile, along with all the other skeletons that had been in the middle of being summoned by the ruler.

Ding! You have reached level 27.

Ding! You have reached level 28.

Samantha scratched her arm and looked around the now empty chamber. “Well, that was anticlimactic."