Chapter 4 – Perverted Skeletons and Undead Bell-Ringers

Kazama and Nabiki looked around at the bleak room they stood in and noticed a strange odor in the air. Kazama was the first to complain about it.

“God, what’s that smell? It smells like old grannies in here……”

“Naw, it’s not that bad,” Replied Shohei, “And the scent is the smell of death, not old grannies.”

He sent something to both Kazama and Nabiki, notifying he was pairing up with them. They both accepted and their adventure party of two expanded to three now. Before they advanced to the next room, Nabiki spoke up to them.

“_-I think we should form that guild before we start this dungeon. That way we have full control of it once we defeat it.”

“Good idea,” Replied Kazama, “Do you know how to start it?”

“Yeah! All you gotta do is address the game system and it will do the rest!”

“Alright then. System, listen up! I want to form a guild!”

* To form a guild, please provide a guild name and location for a starting home base.

“Name? Hmmm……I think we shall be called Hunters Dream. As for location….”

Shohei spoke up to the game system for her.

“We will be the cathedral I run for now. It has all the space we need, plus it’s free for me to run as well.”

* The last thing needed to form the guild is the list of subleaders under Player – Kazama. After words you can add anything yourself by bringing up your players menu.

“Shohei and Nabiki will be my subleaders. Now, please send invites for all the members in the cathedral.

* Invites sent to 30+ players. 20 joined so far.

Kazama opened up her players menu and saw a new tab labeled “Hunters Dream”.  She opened it and was shown a map of the city filled with three different colors, with a handful of a few others. The three primary colors shaded in were red, purple and black. A guide indicated that they were colored blue.  Compared to the other main colors, Hunters Dream was very small and would take a lot of work before they could prove themselves as the best like Nabiki said. Shohei and Nabiki looked at the map and were interested by it.

“Wow, there’s a lot of guilds already, and not to mention three giant ones already. How did they get big that fast?” Asked Kazama to no one in particular.  

“They most likely absorbed other guilds into their own collective. That’s about the main way of becoming the best, you just challenge other leaders in a safe battle like the one you had with Shohei. Once the player loses, you control their guild.”

“What happens if you lose? Do you get demoted in rank or something like that?”

Nabiki put her hand under her chin and thought about it for a moment.

“Not really. Usually you can still head up smaller divisions within the guilds and battle other guilds for the glory of your group. I think you can even challenge for control of the guild as well. To be honest, a multitude of options can happen with a guild.”

Shohei had walked to the door on the other side and had turned to them, gesturing for them to follow.

“We can worry about that later. For now, let’s just explore this dungeon.”

Kazama and Nabiki gracefully avoided the skeletal bodies on the floor and followed him. As they went, Kazama looked at some of the bodies and noticed a similarity about them, but then just shook it off. They entered the new room and behold the sight of even more skeletons on the ground as well as chained up to the wall. Something glittering in the room caught Nabikis eye and she picked up her pace towards it. Whatever it was, she had to dig deep through a heap of skeletons until she finally lifted it over her head. She held it out to them and they could see it was a wondrous ring with a deep blue sapphire sitting deeply in it.

“Oooo, it’s a ring! And it’s got a big stone on it! I will have to add it to my inventory and research it later!”

Shohei smiled and gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder.

“Remember, whatever we find will be split up between us and the guild latter. Oh, and speaking about guilds, we all share an inventory when we get paired up. So if you two get hurt and need a healing potion, feel free to steal from it. I rarely need the stuff.”

The finding of the ring seemed too easy for Kazama and bugged her to no ends. Normally in an adventure game, you would receive the reward after you defeated some enemies. Otherwise it was usually a trap or something worse.

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“Guys, shouldn’t we be a little worried and cautious? It seems a little weird for a ring to be found that easy with relatively no pain at our behest…”

And no sooner had she uttered those words that a group of enemies began to form from something surround the floor around them. Just as she was about to walk up to Nabiki, a group of skeletons burst from the floor and grabbed Nabiki and pushed Shohei away. The skeletons clamped onto Nabiki’s arms and held her tight no matter how hard she struggled to be free of them. Shohei slid into a wall as he was pushed away and Kazama was the first to react properly.

“I knew it! It was a trap!”

She yelled at Shohei for help as more Skeletons began to form around her. She swung her katana and Shohei managed to do the same with his sword. The skeletons immediately broke apart but just as quickly as they did, they began to reform. No matter how many times they swung and attacked them, the skeletons would always manage to get back up and attack.

“They reform to fast!” Yelled Shohei to Kazama, “What do we do?”

Kazama gritted her teeth as she blocked one of them, and swiftly dislodged another from her sword. The skeletons weren’t a problem level-wise, but when it came to the fact about them reforming, that was what made the outlook look bleak for them. She looked at the ones reforming and saw their informative bars hover over them.

* Skeleton Lvl 3 – 35 HP

She then noticed the ones that reformed had full hit points once again, whereas the ones she just disposed of just had less than ten hit point left.

“I got it!” She exclaimed, “We need to add a little more pressure on the damage we let out. We keep letting them have a little bit of HP left and reform. Once they get back up, they automatically have full health again!”

Nabiki shouted as the skeletons holding her began to get a little too frisky for their own good and gravitated to her breasts a little. One of them had fully grabbed a handful and squeezed hard, making her blush hard and then finally snap.

“Why you perverted little…..HEY YOU GUYS! GET ME OUTTA THIS!”

Kazama looked and saw the skeletons looked at her and back, not seemingly knowing what they were doing. Kazama ran blade first and put every effort into killing the perverted skeletons. In one grand motion, she swung her blade down hard on them and instantly vanquished them from the world. Nabiki feel a bit and landed her head in Kazama’s chess, causing them both to blush hard. Kazama couldn’t move and Nabiki looked up at her a little lustfully.

“Thank you!” She exclaimed to Kazama, as she began to hug her tightly. She brought one of her hands up to Kazama’s shoulder and squeezed it tightly and then moved herself away. She looked back for an instant at Kazama and then joined in with Shohei with killing the skeletons. All Kazama could do was stand and think too many things at once inside her head.

“W-what just happened there!? Maybe she just tripped and fell into my…chest! Yeah! But that look she gave me….”

As Kazama was going over multiple scenarios in her head, she looked up to notice some of the remaining skeletons begin to rush her. She snapped out of her confusion and cut them all down. After a few minutes, the three had concluded the battle and began the trek into the next room.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

After a few hours and the same battle scenario against the skeletons, the three had arrived into a new room with a stairway leading downwards. Kazama sighed loudly and was clearly bored now.

“Feh, this is starting to get repetitive! Every room involves something dead and barely any rewards!”

“That may be true, but,” Shohei replied to her, “It looks like we have yet more to face. Maybe you will be appeased by a stronger opponent?”

“Meh, maybe.” She said as they went down the stairs. When they had arrived at the bottom, they were in the first large room they had seen in the entire dungeon so far. Colum’s lined the room in a circle, with multiple candles lit, eliminating the darkness. A faint bell ringing could be heard in the room and the three looked around the room for it. Nabiki was the first to ask about it.

“What do you suppose that sound is coming from?” All Shohei could offer was a shrug and Kazama squinted her eyes as she saw something move from the shadows. As if to answer her question, a not very lively looking woman with a bell crept out from the shadows, silently ringing the bell. Within moment more bells could be heard and soon they had been surrounded by the bell ringers. They cackled at the three as they tightly circled them.

“I knew I smelled old grannies in this place!” Exclaimed Kazama, a little proud about being right.

“To be truthful, I was right as well. We both smelt death and grannies. And thus we got dead grannies. Who would’ve known…”

“Well then, it’s time to put them to rest then!”

Kaazama launched herself at a few and struck them down faster than Shohei and Nabiki could respond. Nabiki crotched down and aimed at them and Shohei stabbed one. As they were put down one by one, more joined the fray until they too were killed by the group. It seemed the more they rang their bells, the more of them that would show up and quickly die to them. Finally, all of them had been put down but one. Shohei yelled in victory as they got together and regrouped. Nabiki was the only one to question the battle this time.

“This seemed to easy. All they did was summon more of their monster class and attacked us.”

Kazama turned around to face her as the bit of pixels from the grannies they killed began to swirl around in the air.

“It felt legit to me. Maybe the game was being kind to us or….”

She stopped herself short as she saw the reactions on Nabikis face. She turned around and saw what she was reacting to. Instead of disappearing fully, the pixels began to form together, creating a large mass. Shohei spoke up now in a serious tone.

“It seems like the real battle has begun.”

The dead bell ringers had conformed into a large body that towered over the three players. A large version clothed in an old clergy outfit had formed and held a gigantic bell in one hand. The giant undead woman began to cackle at the players below her as they saw her name and HP.

* Sister Midnight – 150 HP

“S-sister Midnight?!” Gulped Kazama at the ungodly sized woman that towered above her, “This is a boss fight?!”

They all fell back as the woman set her feet on the ground and sneered at them. She lifted the large bell in her hand and began to ring it loudly. All Nabiki and Shohei could manage were a few frightened looks.

“Oh boy, here we go.”

Was all Shohei could manage as smaller versions of the Sister began to form around them.

End Chapter 4