Chapter 34) Clever Tactics. Or, Good for the Gander.

A few minutes later, I found myself at one end of the plaza judging the weight of a chuck of broken masonry, a few dozen feet behind me Matt and Drew waited to jump whichever Elite I hit with the jagged hunk of stone to lure it out to an ambush.

The two of them only need nineteen Life points, Drew, and twenty one, Matt, to gain their next levels.

At three points a shot, they should both end up getting that level and be well on their way to their next one.

And it wasn’t even noon yet, the afternoon was wide open without having to deal with any two story tall skeletons…

Wait, why did they have two story tall people around to make the skeletons out of? I hadn't seen any building made for people that big around anywhere.

I guessed that after I got Drew and Matt out of here I would still be left wondering about things like that in this city since I planned on walling up the exit gate to keep another ‘Skippy’ from taking this gateway out of distrust. I would leave the top open about fifteen feet up in case they convinced me they really wanted to come this way, or climbed up on their own, but…

Drew's attempt at whispering carried pretty well from his hiding spot, "Tex? Anytime now."

Oh, Right. I lifted one leg for a counterweight as I stretched my pitching arm back and fastballed the chuck of rock at one of the Elite’s heads.

Nailed him right in the hip too. First try.

It was enough.

Its head snapped around and despite not having a face I could tell by the way it set its feet that it was unhappy with me.

Then it opened its jaw up and howled.

Wait, what…

The heads of the other Elites around it turned to it and some of the hidden ones drifted out of their hiding spots to see what the commotion was. From looking a the one screaming, they turned their collective heads to look at where it was pointing with its axe-spear-pick thing.

Which was right at me. The idiot standing there wondering why the guy I hip shot got to make sounds.

It seemed darn unfair, almost as unfair as the dozen or so Elite skeletons grouping up with the ones with the combination weapon up front and marching at me with the injured one formed up behind them.

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Up on the wall, a skeleton with a bow stepped out and reached back to draw an arrow, turned to look at its hip where its quiver was, and then slumped its shoulders down in disappointment. Sorry, fella. It wasn't like an arrow was going to do much to me right now anyways.

Lifting my hands to shoulder height with my palms out, I slowly backed away while trying to see if they could hear me somehow. “Hey, sorry about that guys. I was just trying to get your attention. See, I’m one of you.”

I pulled open the winter coats I was still wearing for padding and to feel less like I was streaking around, but they seemed unimpressed.

Turning around I saw the guys looking around the corner at me, with Matt giving me a nod and a thumbs up before he pulled Drew back out of sight.

Somewhere behind me down the wall separating the lower and upper parts of the city, a clanging metallic alarm, like one of those triangles my Granny used to ring when a meal was ready at the cottage began ringing out.

“Oh good, they're calling for reinforcements.”

As I ran past when the two Fighters were hiding I heard Matt whisper, loudly, “Keep going and we’re going to hit them from behind.”

I'm glad he had a plan, I guess he was hoping to thin them out so we could get by whatever was left tomorrow. That and maybe see what else showed up.

As I came to a stop and turned to face my adoring fans, Matt plowed into the damaged ones from the side shield first and sent them flying as Drew followed up with a kick to the hips of the first one he came up to which didn't quite go down as Matt clipped him with his big shield in passing.

For a minute or two, we were doing pretty good. Matt kept the one with the long spear things off of Drew while I distracted them from behind and Drew used up his abilities to take down the damaged ones both on the ground and trying to creep up behind Matt.

But they had the numbers and soon the two of them were fighting back to back.

Then the Calvary arrived, literally. And it was theirs, not ours.

Eight dead men, ones that still had meat on their bones like Lurkers, but with gleaming gaunt skin, like they had been oiled to preserve them over the decades. All of them on skeletal horses complete with saddles and bridles.

At their front, riding on a black horse with flames on its hooves and a set of glowing red eyes, was a man in black metal armor from head to toe, in his hands was a sword that was on fire, the flames getting fans by how fast he was coming at us.

That’s about all I saw before the sun seemed to be blocked above me and I heard a woman's voice from behind my back say, “You’re not one of ours.” Then a small hand clamped onto the back of my skull, and I heard bone begin to crack…

Then I was back above my dungeon again.

"Shoot, I'm guessing those two didn't last that much longer than me. I hope they got the points they needed."

Here I was again, without a countdown, and no sign of my boss, "So I guess I got some time on my hands… Metaforkically.”

Because I don’t have hands, but I’m still willing to take a stab at getting something done.

I wasn’t going to be able to bring much in the way of gear to the boys since I hadn’t had a new Trainee yet. I guess I could bring a staff and fight a few goblins to gather up a couple of clubs for weapons, but all there was left for protection was the stiff leather jacket and the lighter shield.

That was assuming we couldn’t recover their armor. Drew had stashed his stuff from his first day out corpse near where we had fought it, so we could go back for that without losing too much time. That was if we were trying for the upper city again.

In the meantime, I had a few ideas I wanted to try since I would be held back until the next dawn if I went through the portal now.

Peering at the top of the red stone Strata, I stared at it and tried to build a block of stone I could then melt down into a gargoyle or something. Anything relay that would make it easier to find my way back if I went wandering up here.

And… Nothing. Not until I tried about an inch down below the top of the hallway, then it worked like normal.

I tried it a few other ways, but I just could not create anything up on top of the Strata. Or pull anything up from the Panel either. I still got the Panel to show up in front of me, but I couldn’t get it to make anything. No skill unlocking squares, monsters, nothing. And if I had any items left on the Panel that I hadn’t put out yet, I doubt that would work either.

All my efforts did was bring the sniffer around again.

And this time I wasn’t a set of bones.