Liam scooped up the fallen skeleton’s bone axe at the sounds of something approaching, [Appraising] it as he did so. It came so naturally that he didn’t even realise he’d done it until the notification appeared in front of him.
[Lesser Skeletal Armament - Bone Axe
Tier I Hafted Weapon
A Bone Axe made from the [Lesser Skeletal Armament] Trait. It was won in battle from a [Lesser Skeleton] and has yet to taste blood or bone.
Damage: +4-6 slashing
Additional Properties: None
Tier I: Can repair and upgrade itself through absorbing inanimate bone it is in contact with]
He skimmed it before his attention was wrested away by 3 silhouettes turning a corner of the twisting passageways of the crevice. With the skeleton dead the blue light it produced had disappeared so he couldn’t make out what they were, but it seemed they could as they were heading straight for him. Squinting, he flexed his new mental muscle and [Appraised] them.
[Lesser Zombie, Level 2]
[70/70]
[Lesser Zombie, Level 4]
[80/80]
[Lesser Zombie, Level 3]
[70/70]
The appearance of zombies didn’t surprise him considering the skeleton he had just battled, but he found himself wondering what that meant in this new world. If skeletons could make weapons, or armaments, out of bones then what could zombies do? At that thought, another notification popped up in his vision.
[Lesser Zombies
Undead Lore I: Reanimated corpses that have not yet rotten away. The magic allowing them to move suffuses their entire body equally, dissipating when damage and being restored when feasting on the living. These undead continuously hunt, going from one living target to the next, as a side effect of the energies involved in their reanimation that the Lesser variant can not yet overcome.
Experience: Unaffected by darkness
Threat: Unknown]
The information he gained, whilst not immediately useful to him, boded well for his adaptation to this new reality. If he could acquire more of these Lore Skills then he would have a much easier time of things, especially since the information was so detailed.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
He dismissed the text and readied himself for the coming fight. His Lore Skill had all but told him there was no getting out of it since these things would hunt him by their very nature and whilst he was confident in outpacing them, he didn’t know what else was down here and them catching up to him whilst he was dealing with something else might very well be a death sentence.
He noticed, as they drew closer, that the appraisals remained in the air above the creatures’ heads unless he willed them away and that he could bring them back with another flex of his will. He kept them out of a desire to see if their appraised HP would drop in real time as well as to tell them apart in the dark. He got the chance to test this soon after as the Level 2 [Lesser Zombie] came into range.
Liam swung his axe in a savage downwards blow. His precision, hampered by a lack of both natural light and experience with the weapon, left much to be desired but was still a league above what he expected to be able to do on his first time swinging an axe. He had meant to split the undead’s skull right down the middle but instead he had embedded his weapon in the side of its head.
[50/70]
It’s HP dropped and it lunged towards him, lashing out with rotting nails as its head was held back by the axe embedded in it that Liam was still holding. They scratched along his unprotected arms, bringing with them a stinging pain and a notification that Liam quickly brought up and read as he attempted to dislodge his axe from his foe’s skull.
[Status Effect Inflicted: Corpse Rot
Lowers Endurance in the effected area by 0.5 per instance of Corpse Rot inflicted. Lasts until treated.]
He managed to free his weapon and quickly backed away from the three zombies in horror. Down here, with no way to get any sort of medical assistance, getting too many stacks of Corpse Rot would be a definite death sentence. Or undeath sentence if the movies were right about dying with their disease in your body turning you into one of them. Either way he added a new priority right under surviving this fight, and that was getting hit as few times as possible by these things.
Trying a new tactic, Liam darted into range of the Level 2 and thrust his axe into its face. It connected with a thwack and he saw the thing’s head recoil from the impact and yet it’s HP remained static at [50/70]. He stepped away before they could scratch him again and considered his options. He could fight a war of attrition, retreating as he used hit and run tactics to wear them down, but that drew the risk of running into something else down the passageway. The other options to make a stand. He brought up his own HP and saw that it was at [75/110], not much less than it had been before he was hit. He outclassed them in terms of damage output but he was still weary of being afflicted by their Corpse Rot. Sighing, he realised he’d have to fight them here as the risk of encountering another group was too high to be retreating with every attack. He’d just have to grit his teeth and endure the Corpse Rot, and hope to find a cure for it after.
He stepped in and cut for the thing’s neck, the blow landing solidly as he had grown used to the weight and the axe. The blade cut right through the rotting flesh and then continued on through the, presumably weakened, bone. It’s head went flying as it was lopped off and yet the corpse kept moving.
[Lesser Zombie, Level 2]
[45/70]
[Appraisal] still registered the creature as a threat and Liam abandoned his plan in favour of retreating as he figured out what was going on. Loosing their head would be fatal for any living thing, but these zombies clearly played by different rules. He opened their information again and noted the pat Corpse Rot had been added to the Experience section, but what truly drew his eyes was the part that said [The magic allowing them to move suffuses their entire body equally, dissipating when damage and being restored when feasting on the living].
His mind spun and he came up with a theory, one that could very quickly and easily put to the test. He stepped forwards once again and sunk his axe deep into the Level 2’s chest, smiling as he watched a HP drop once again.
[22/70]
His celebration didn’t last long, however, as he felt its nails rake along his skin once more, worsening the wounds that it had already made. He swept the legs from under it in anger, and used the gravity of its fall to wrench his axe free, standing over it and bringing his weapon down on it again. He aimed for the arm this time, and as he severed it at the shoulder the thing’s HP dropped dangerously low. He made to finish it off but had to stop to dodge out the way of the other two zombies clawing for him in the darkness. The low natural light levels had barely let him see the attacks coming and some new instinct in him had let him react.
He swung at the outstretched arms and left a deep cut in one of them as he danced to the side to put one of the approaching zombies between him and the other. Now only having to worry about one pair of arms, he re engaged.
It wasn’t that hard to finish up the fight from there. As long as he kept his positioning right he would only ever have to deal with one zombie at once, something which grew easier and easier as the fight dragged on. His axe flashed and he felled the last [Lesser Zombie], its HP dropping to [0/80]. He stopped to catch his breath when a notification came in and winced in pain as the adrenaline began to wore off. He had only been hit once more, in the same place as the others, which left his arms itching like crazy as the Corpse Rot did its thing. He was sure it wasn’t healthy to leave it, but considering there was nothing he could do about it he just pushed the pain to the back of his mind and opened the new message.
[Level Up!
You have reached Level 2.
You have 10 Free Attributes to assign.]