Before I can even begin to understand what is happening, the skeleton starts to rush towards me at an unnervingly quick pace. Seeing this, I broke out of my momentary stupor and began bracing myself to fight. While I would have liked to just run away from the nightmare spawn, the only exit from the room was the same door it just bashed in. Looking around me for anything I could use as a weapon, I darted over to the dismembered statue arm to lift, only to realize that even if it has the proportions of a normal arm, stone is still very heavy and I can’t budge it. Hearing a rattle behind me, I dive away just in time to avoid an overhead swing from the skeleton’s club.

Surprisingly, after scrambling back to my feet, I turn to see the skeleton rushing towards me unarmed. I mean that literally. As the skeleton charges towards me, I can see the club it was using on the floor, its two arms still gripping it. The dangerous situation quickly turns comical as I dodge to the side as it lunges at me, only for the skeleton to dive headfirst into the wall behind me. I quickly go over to the club, and after swiftly confirming the arms have stopped moving, arm myself with it, only to realize that the skeleton was still lying on the floor, the mist wafting off its body slowly dissipating.

“Well that was anti-climacOWWW!”

Due to me letting my guard down way too quickly, I failed to notice that there was actually a second skeleton still at the doorway. A skeleton who was in the midst of picking up another stone from the ground to throw at me again. Luckily for me, the first one had hit my back; with how hard it threw the first one, I would've taken some serious damage if it struck my head.

I start to head towards the stone throwing skeleton, when a third interloper enters the room from behind it. This one however, could prove to be much more dangerous. In one hand, it held a rusty broken sword, with a small rotted wooden shield on the other arm. The most worrying thing about this skeleton was how it held a defensive position in front of the stone thrower and refused to enter the building as it stayed on the edge between the doorway and the sunlit outside. On closer inspection, I could see that neither of these skeletons had the mist that accompanied the first, and with how the stone thrower was taking its time to aim, both were behaving more tactically as well.

As I was thinking, the stone thrower catapulted another projectile towards me that I barely dodged, only because I was paying attention to it at the time, with the warrior looking skeleton maintaining its defense. I can’t just stand here dodging stones all day, but I don’t know if I can take them down. I haven’t even been in any real fights before. Sure my club could do some damage, but I'm already struggling to just hold the thing in both my arms right now.

Unable to find a real solution, I start heading towards them, only to notice a slight stream of mist coming off of the warrior skeleton’s forward foot. I glance down and notice that a couple of its toes are currently past the threshold of the building, and that's when an idea comes to me and I pull up the [Light Of Justice] skill description again whilst keeping the skeletons in my periphery.

[Light Of Justice]:

Allows the user to imbue themselves with (Holy) (Light) to strike down those who would bring about injustice under the name of the goddess Iusti. This is a Skill under the (Holy) and (Light) Categories.

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Gotcha! Trusting in my intuition, I drop the dead weight of a club and charge at the skeletons whilst covering my head with my arms. Seeing as the building is, in hindsight, obviously a church to some goddess, maybe the one in my skills description, it isn’t unreasonable to assume that even if it was abandoned for quite some time, there is still something capital “H” Holy about the place. And lucky for me, I’ve got a Holy skill of my own at my disposal. Possibly unprepared for my unarmed charge, the warrior skeleton only now begins to prepare to slash at me with its broken blade, which gives me enough time to grab its sword arm by the wrist and activate my skill, [Light Of Justice].

My gamble paid off immediately, the boney wrist I was gripping immediately snapping like a twig as soon as the skill took effect around my hand in the form of a bright, golden glow emitting off of it. What I wasn’t expecting, however, was the sharp, burning pain that accompanied the skill’s activation. The pain was distracting enough that I didn’t see the shield slamming into my gut until it was way too late. I doubled over as the air fled my lungs, [Light Of Justice] turning itself off due to my lack of concentration. A stone barely misses my chin and strikes my left shoulder, which is quickly followed by the warrior skeleton kicking me backwards.

After collapsing back a few feet into the church, the warrior returns to its defensive position as my prone form is pelted by a couple more stones, causing my back to ache more and more. Whilst trying to catch my breath, I soon discovered I needed to get up and move, and quickly, as I saw that the stone throwing skeleton picked up the broken sword that the warrior dropped and was preparing to throw it at me. The bruises I’ve already sustained are bad enough, but impalement via rusty blade would prove to be my doom in a matter of no time.

Maybe I can throw back some rocks and at least distract it?

With a plan in mind and moments to spare, I instinctively grab the nearest stone and chuck it at the stone throwing skeleton, hitting it on its ribs and causing it to stumble slightly, just long enough for me to get back to my feet. Another unexpected thing accompanied this event though, as the stone was not thrown by either of my arms, but my tail. The new appendage had totally slipped my mind, but it seems it might have saved me.

Deciding that my initial plan was working until the unseen variable of my self damaging skill, the hand still stinging like it had briefly touched a hot stovetop on all sides, I put the warrior between me and the projectile skeleton whilst dashing towards it again. This time though, I tried out something new by swinging a punch at its face, causing the warrior skeleton to lift its shield, but pulling the punch inwards before impact and using that momentum to spin around, bracing myself for the pain while activating [Light Of Justice] on my tail that was currently sweeping low towards its unprotected legs. Even though I was bracing for it, the burning sensation still hurt like a motherfucker, maybe even more so than when I used it on my hand, but it got the job done. The skeleton warrior had collapsed onto the ground, its shins shattered instantly by the tail sweep, and before the last skeleton could do anything with its blade, I ran towards it and decked its skull clean off by imbuing [Light Of Justice] on my uninjured fist.

The battle complete, I scan my surroundings for any more opponents, only to realize I was now outside and could survey the landscape around me. A splattering of trees surrounds the church I had just exited, with a dense forest lying further out behind me. I see that the church is located on a small hill, with a dirt path leading down in front of me towards what looks like the ruins of an old village. It is on that path that I spot more skeletons roaming around, and before any of them can notice me, I rush back into the church, picking up the broken blade along the way, and shut the wooden door and sit down with my back against it.

“Well shit, that sucked.”

And right on queue, as soon as I open my mouth another message appears, but this time I am more than glad for what it says.

[You Are Now In Relative Safety, Rewards From Combat Shall Now Be Distributed]