“No spells, huh?” Braden asked, opening his menus.

“Nope,” Mason said. “Pull out to the courtyard, Ironclad formation.” Kyle fell in line, opening his menu and pulling out a large tower shield. By prior agreement, Mason was shotcaller for combats in this dungeon.

“Ironclad? What’s that?” asked Braden.

“It’s why you should be coming to our training drills,” said Mason. “Pull out a shield. Guard our back.”

They pulled out to the courtyard. Kyle held his shield out, protecting Mason’s left side. Dvorak, conveniently left handed as it turns out, had a shield on his right arm protecting Mason’s left flank. The skeletons came out the door, jaws clacking, swinging their weapons threateningly. The zombies, luckily, turned out to be the slow kind; they had some breathing room before the zombies joined the fight.

Mason, with a few quick taps, pulled out a giant metal sledgehammer. Kyle probably couldn’t lift it; and even Mason probably wouldn’t have been able to either without his ranks in strength. The skeletons surrounded the group, but it was so tightly clustered that they had all sides warded with either weapons or shields.

“Hammer, huh?” asked Braden. “For breaking bones?”

Mason swung his hammer down on the head of a skeleton, whose parry was totally ineffective at stopping the giant weapon. It clattered into a pile of loose bones, skull shattered.

“Yep,” Mason grunted.

Mason pointed. Kyle took a step back and Dvorak took a step forward to re-orient the formation. As skeletal scimitars bounced off their thick shields, Mason smashed another skeleton in the shoulder, knocking it down. Its joints contorted and bent in unnatural angles, but they held together. It started slowly pulling itself up.

Kyle noticed the skull was intact, two pinpricks of light visible deep in its sockets. “Mason, I think-”

Mason stomped on the skull, and the bones scattered. “Yep," he said. "Got it.”

Kyle smiled. Mason knew what he was doing.

“Zombies?” Braden said. “They’re getting pretty close.”

Mason nodded. “Braden; run into the tower. Check it for hostiles. Shout back if it’s clear.”

Braden darted out towards the tower, giving a couple nearby zombies a wide berth. Kyle and Dvorak fell in to try and cover as much of Mason’s rear as they could. Kyle tried to strike at a skeleton with his axe, but it blocked the blow with the scimitar. Forgoing that approach, he instead thrust his axe through the skeleton’s ribs, hooked its curved head around the skeleton’s spine, then pulled it forward while bashing it with his shield. With a snap, the vertebrae came apart, and Kyle stomped on the skull.

“Seems clear!” Braden shouted. “We kited all the skeletons out.”

“Pull back to the tower,” Mason said. “Use the door as a choke point, like we should have done to start with.”

Kyle turned and stepped backwards with the others, bringing the formation towards the door. Without any way of breaking the shield barrier, the skeletons moved out of the way and let them pass.

The zombies were less amicable. As the group passed, A zombie reached out and grabbed Kyle’s shield. Kyle hacked at it, but it seemed impervious to pain and had no sense of self-preservation; it would not let go. To avoid disrupting the formation, Kyle had to let the shield drop and pull out a replacement.

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They reached the door and stood in it. Mason and Kyle stood at the entrance, shoulder to shoulder; Dvorak wouldn’t fit, and filled in behind them. Kyle hadn’t gotten a good look at the room. He didn’t like not knowing what was behind them, but trusted Dvorak and Braden to keep their rear safe.

The skeletons held back, letting the zombies past. Mason, still with his hammer out, swung sideways at the head of a slowly shambling zombie, grunting with effort. The blow connected, knocking the zombie’s head clean off.

The headless zombie then grabbed the hammer.

Mason pulled the hammer, which sent the zombie toward him. He kicked at the zombies shins, but the zombie didn’t react. Hand over hand, the headless zombie started pulling itself up the hammer, even closer to Mason. With a filtered curse, Mason planted the head of the hammer into the zombie’s chest and shoved, knocking the zombie away but losing the hammer in the process.

He pulled out a tower shield and his axe. “We need lighter weapons. Anything slow enough, they’ll catch.”

The dozen or so zombies were starting to reach the door all at once. They pressed together, arms outstretched, heads lolling. Kyle swung at one, and it grabbed at the weapon, but was too slow to catch it. Another grabbed his shield and started pulling it away. Kyle hacked at one if its arms, but another was pressing in reaching past his shield, ignoring Mason’s axe chops.

“Shields together!” Mason said. They pulled back, and barred the door by putting their shields next to each other. Kyle planted his feet and resisted the tugs from the other side.

“This was a bad idea,” Mason admitted. “The skeletons were meant to be fought at a chokepoint. The zombies were meant to be fought in the open, where we could kite them. We’ve reversed it by activating both at once. In a corner, we’ll be overwhelmed.”

Kyle knew in real life, he’d be scared spitless and his pulse would be racing. A month ago, he’d still be afraid, if only because he felt like he should. But now, he saw the lack of adrenaline as a blessing that helped him keep his head. “So now what? Let them in and try to kite them around in circles?”

“The tower’s not that big,” Braden said.

“Braden, take Kyle’s shield,” Mason said. Braden nodded, ran forward, braced his legs, and took the shield, grunting as he resisted the zombie’s pulls.

“Kyle, break a window and hop out. They’re all clumped on the other side. Use fire mist to burn them all.”

Kyle nodded. Scanning the room, he quickly found a window. It shattered with a well placed swing form his axe. He looked skeptically at the remnants of glass left in the panes, sticking like daggers from the wood. It looked dangerous to climb through. Then, with a flash of clarity, he realized the window had a latch, and he undid it and swung it outwards.

He hopped out, as quietly as he could. He lacked stealth, which would have made his movement unnaturally quiet, but he didn’t seem to need it; the undead were oblivious to his presence. The zombies tugged at the shields and at each other, struggling to get past Mason’s barrier, and the skeletons clacked their teeth and beat their scimitars against their shields.

Walking as quietly as he could, Kyle crept around behind them, trusting his prior practice to know exactly where to stand to include the zombies, but not Mason, in the area of effect. He opened his skill menu and lightly tapped the button.

Flames gushed from him, filling the spell’s circular area and leaving cinders in their wake. The skeletons turned, jaws slack in shock, before fleeing the circle of flame. The zombies, however, did not.

“Huh,” Kyle said, intrigued. He quickly Examined one. The zombies kept clawing at the barrier, paying the cloud of embers no heed, their HP bars rapidly decreasing. Eventually, HP exhausted, the zombies sank to the ground, now nothing more than smoldering corpses.

Kyle felt something solid impact his shoulder.

He turned just in time to see a fist sized rock fly towards his face.

He flinched, too slow to dodge. A burst of white light flashed in front of his eyes, and the rock bounced off of something right before hitting his face. He noted that the skeletons had sheathed their scimitars and were now throwing rocks at him.

Thank God for Avina and her shield.

“Come on! Really?” Kyle said indignantly. “A rock throwing AI? You’re skeletons! You’re supposed to be dumb!” He tried to dodge a third rock and didn’t quite get out of the way in time, and a flash of light deflected it from his shoulder. Hands over his head, Kyle jogged into the tower again. Dvorak and Mason parted shields to let him through.

“No more zombies?” asked Dvorak.

Kyle shook his head. “I got them all. Unless there are more hiding underground.

“You know, Mason,” said Braden sourly. “I know the flame mist spell too.”

Mason looked over at Braden. “Yeah? So?”

“I could have done that.”

“I guess,” said Mason. “So what does it matter?”

“I have more mana than Kyle.”

“Guess so,” said Mason shrugging. “I don’t think it’ll end up mattering, though, so whatever.”

Braden didn’t answer for a moment. “Yeah, whatever. So we go upstairs now?” Braden said, pointing at a nearby staircase.