Murr and I fell. To prevent myself from breaking any bones, I used Cover Body. Between that and landing on the soft pile of bodies, I was relatively unharmed. At least until my leg had plunged into something squishy that smelled worse than shit.

I choked. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

Murr landed on his hands and feet beside me. Then he made a horrible gagging sound before proceeding to throw up.

I couldn’t hold it in after seeing that and pulled off my helmet before copying him.

He took out two handkerchiefs, handed one to me and wiped his mouth with the other. His eyes looked clearer. The damage he took from the fall must have used up the extra life magic within his body.

Or he threw up the extra potion.

His pale forehead was covered in sweat. “They say the party that gets gross together, stays together.”

I spat and cleaned off my mouth. “Because of the blackmail material?”

Toward the bottom of the hill, lizard-dog and crab bodies started to pop their heads out and struggle free. But they were taking their time.

“We’re pretty fucked aren’t we?” He said.

“Maybe, but we’re not going down without a fight.”

I put my helmet back on as I stood up. Then I stepped onto the shell of a large dead crab. Swiftly, I unequipped everything and re-equipped all of my armor clean.

He glanced at my shiny armor. “I’ve never been so jealous of you as I am now.”

“You don’t have to get kicked in the balls to level.”

He briefly paused. “Fair.”

From above, Kron yelled, “Are you two alive?!”

“We’re alive!” Murr yelled. “But there are zombies down here!”

There was a long pause.

“Slow ones!” I added.

“Sam, Murr. We don’t have another rope!”

I knew that since it was coiled all around us. Since it was nearby, I threw it into my inventory. But it wasn’t like either of us could throw it back up. Kron and Val were too high up. Then again, even if they had another rope, that swarm was still there, ready to pinch anything they tried to send.

We were pretty fucked.

I looked at the rogue, who grimaced back. We both understood that we were in a hole who-knew-where in this cave formation, with unknown enemies on top of zombies. This might be it for us. Not to mention, if a catfolk became a zombie before their nine lives revived them, they were dead for good.

Murr yelled, “Don’t worry about us. We can handle things here. Hurry and call for help. Get to the guild, find a rope, and come back. The guild has to inspect this mine for necrotic magic!”

The newer corpses we’d dropped here weren’t becoming zombies just yet. Several of the zombies had finished pulling themselves out of the pile and started slowly crawling up the hill. A few times the claws of zombies that were stuck, clutched at the ones making their way up and prevented them from climbing.

Maybe it was a matter of time? I didn’t exactly know how necrotic dungeons worked.

As far as I knew, they were very rare, so there wasn’t much material circulated about them.

Most of my knowledge about undead came from watching movies in my past life, but I didn’t think that information was accurate. I mean, I expected zombies to moan and groan as they lurched forward, but these guys were eerily quiet as they awkwardly climbed the corpse hill. And they stank horribly. Also, they were way slower than I thought they’d be. So, there were obvious differences. But using my past life’s knowledge was worth a shot.

The horde steadily grew in size and crawled toward us from all sides.

“At least we have the high ground,” Murr said.

“Yeah, that doesn’t always work out. I knew a guy who had his arms and legs chopped right off after saying that.”

“Really?”

“Ah, it happened in a play.” Movie, technically. And it had been a literal lifetime ago so I might be remembering something wrong.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He scoffed. “That doesn’t count.”

From above, I heard Val say, “Kron is gonna get you that rope. I’ll bring the guild!”

“Stay alive!” Kron’s words echoed from above.

In total, eight lizard-dogs and two crab undead crawled awkwardly toward us. One slipped on something and fell down the hill. They might not look threatening right now, but I knew that they never tired or ran out of energy while I would eventually have to rest.

Murr took out his slingshot and shot a black ball at the nearest lizard-dog. It shot right into its skull and stuck there. The zombie kept coming.

He frowned. Then shot a series of balls at the zombies in the back, pink, green, yellow, dark gray. Nothing slowed them down.

“We have a problem,” he said.

Yeah, his ranged weapons couldn’t do enough physical damage. And his dagger couldn’t easily chop off their heads. If they bit him, he might get infected with necrotic magic and that would be the end of him if he died. His shot was probably more effective than an arrow or bolt would be, but something that could bludgeon these guys would work better.

“Well, we are down here to focus on skills. Maybe you just need to develop a better one?”

He nodded. “I’ll think of something.”

A long femur sticking out of a nearby dead lizard-dog caught my eye. After I temporarily put Blood away, I pulled it out, along with a smell that almost had me repeating the throw up incident. Hoping it would work, I threw it, and the gauntlet I used to touch it into my inventory. Once I pulled it back out, it was clean. I tossed it to the rogue.

He caught it. “What? Want me to bone them to death?”

I grinned. “Only if you need to.”

He rolled his eyes, and the bone vanished into his inventory. “No thank you, I won’t risk getting infected.”

I equipped my gauntlet and sword just before a lizard-dog zombie finally crawled close enough for me to attack it.

Since I would run out of aura before I could use Thousand Will Do to chop each of their heads off, I decided to go for a classic, aura-saving technique. First, destroy the undead’s brain. Using Strengthen Muscles, I slashed into the zombie’s skull. It cracked open. Apparently, that didn’t stop it, so I bashed it in a few more times while avoiding its awkward claw attacks and jerking bites.

It was still un-alive and there were more coming. I couldn’t keep spending time on this one zombie.

Since destroying its brain was too difficult, and I wasn’t confident I could chop its head off without Thousand Will Do, that left breaking its bones. Specifically, its arms and legs.

But I didn’t exactly have a specific ability like that. So, I’d just have to bash it in the old-fashioned way.

I empowered my muscles and coated my blade in a thick layer of aura to blunt them before swinging down at the closest lizard-dog’s femur. It caved in with a crunch way too easily and dropped to one knee. But it still came toward me, dragging its broken leg awkwardly. A second monster wasn’t far behind it.

I was tempted to replace my swords with my pickaxe shafts but decided that being able to stab something might be useful.

That was when Murr’s shot flew past me and landed on the nearby monster. I heard a crack, and the leg went limp. The monster continued crawling forward on its arms and one good leg while dragging the other behind it.

He raised his arm. “Yes! I just created a new ability called Bludgeoning Shot!”

He pulled back on his sling and waited as if he had to charge the shot before it went flying. Once it hit the Zombie’s leg, it broke. It was an effective attack. I just hoped it didn’t take too much aura.

Now that we had a way to stop them, we slogged through the fight. The zombies slowly attacked us with claws and teeth while we broke their bones until they couldn’t move.

But fighting for so long used a lot of aura, and there were too many monsters since they just kept pulling themselves out of the pile.

Just as I was about to pull out a stamina potion a zombie crab reached us. Unlike the lizard-dogs that had bones, the crabs had an exoskeleton that was difficult to crack. When Murr’s new Bludgeoning Shot attack struck one, It merely cracked the leg without breaking it. The surface area was too large.

This left it up to me to break all its legs. After doing that with one crab, I realized that it just took way too long. When a second crab showed up, I shoved my swords into the head of the crustacean and levered its back shell up to expose its brains. I gaged at the stench.

Murr darted in with his knife and carved out its brain like he was already used to it. That worked in getting it to stop moving and was faster than bashing all its limbs in.

Murr frowned down at the re-dead crab. “We have a problem.”

“What?” I asked, before downing a stamina potion.

“I didn’t get experience for killing this zombie.”

I bashed in the leg of the next lizard-dog coming toward us. It fell onto its side and slid down the hill.

“Are you supposed to get XP for them?”

“I assumed so.”

With a swing and a crunch, its other leg broke. I was getting good at this. But the zombies were relentless.

Murr shot the arms of another lizard-dog making it unable to attack.

“Unless everyone hates zombies because they don’t give experience?”

His jaw hardened, and he broke the leg of another monster. It fell and tumbled down the hill, taking a few of its brothers with it.

“Nice one!”

We continued like that for a few more minutes until we reached the point where we had to take a stamina potion.

“You think Kron and Val will be back before we get overrun?”

“Well, we haven’t even taken much damage yet. Maybe we’re lucky and these are the kinds of zombies that don’t turn you into one if you get bit then die.”

“Yeah. I’m not taking that chance.”

I imagined not getting to spend his full nine lives after turning into a zombie would piss Murr’s ghost off.

The bodies under us bulged up. I fell on my ass as more lizard-dogs and crabs crawled out from the pile.

Murr shot the legs of the closest ones, preventing them from overrunning us. Some claws caught on my armor and pulled me down into the hole that was made.

“Murr!” With what movement I could use, I sliced the claws off me. The rogue pulled me to my feet.

“I think it’s time we leave the high ground.”

I grabbed a nearby crab shell top. It was the perfect size for my crazy plan. “Want to go zombie sledding?”

“Sounds dumb.” The hill seemed to burb up more zombies behind us. “But let’s do it!”

I put the crab sled on the smoothest-looking part, in the direction of the only exit to this room. Then I waited for the rogue to sit on it, before I pushed us down the hill. As we took off, I knelt behind Murr and held on to the edges. Maybe it was the gross juices I tried to ignore, giving us some lubricant, but we flew down the bumpy hill.

Below us, a crab burst out of the pile. We hit it and caught air. I grabbed onto Murr and we landed on rough stone before skidding to a stop.

The catfolk jumped and threw his arm into the air. “We’re alive!”

The eerily quiet zombies all turned toward us.

“And loud enough to draw attention to ourselves.”