Chapter 25) Running Battle. Or, Two Corpses in the Fountain.

“Ahhhhh! Fresh meat! Come and get a piece of fresh hot goblin! Wacka Wacka!”

We had been doing what Drew called a speed run through the street, with me running ahead in what Matt called "Taking Point" only instead of scouting for trouble, which is what "Taking Point" usually involved, I was doing else.

Trolling for Undead, or in other words, serving as bait.

The skeletons out wandering the streets or hanging out in the various buildings all looked over or came out to see what all the fuss was about and started following along behind me, making them easy targets for Matt and Drew as they jogged along about a block behind me.

Matt or I threw out an occasional [ Mage Bolt ] to slow down any of them that looked like they were moving faster than the others, and then he and Drew trotted up and took down the stragglers from behind.

Dropping one of the boneheads gave less experience than at first because they had leveled up then were only getting five, but [ Mage Bolt ] was only giving levels in Fighter, not Mage. But they were still getting levels.

Drew got to third first. “I got something called [ Double Strike ] Yes!”

Which is how he found out what [ Battle Cry ] did as he suddenly began leaving Matt behind and shattered two more skeletons in a row, the second one with two swings of his club with the second one so fast it seemed to blue.

Which was what [ Double Strike ] seemed to do.

Of course, now he was only getting one point for each smash. "I call Bull poop!"

Using the special attack right after [ Battle Cry ] also winded him so badly that he nearly did a nose dive into the ground as his forward jog turned into a series of stumbles.

“You Okay Drew?”

He nodded from where he was leaning up against a plinth with a set of three horse legs up on top of it, the rest of the statue scattered on the ground around it.

The panting man held up one hand as he reassured me that, “I’m fine, it just took something out of me for a second.”

Matt stood nearby to protect the taller man as he caught his breath.

Me, I was up on top of a dry fountain. Up high enough so the skeletons surrounding me couldn't reach me.

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It had been pretty easy to scramble up here. I guess being able to unlock [ Climbing ] for my Trainees somehow meant I had it unlocked for me since I had never been all that nimble at climbing even as a kid.

Shoot, not even then.

Matt made it to third level as well by the time the two of them cleared the skeleton from around and got [ Lesser Tactics ] which was interesting since it implied that there was Advanced Tactics, or as Drew claimed, Improved and Greater.

I just nodded when he started talking about that and said "Alright." But Matt seemed to know what he was talking about.

Matt had gotten something else along the way. “After I finished off the tenth one, I got a reward called [ Undead Slayer ] that gives me a Slight bonus when fighting Unread.” He slowly shook his head. “It would be nice if they would quantify ‘Slight’ a bit better.”

Drew confirmed he had gotten the same thing after he had killed his tenth Undead on the first day he was hear, they had also both gotten something else.

[ Lesser Blunt Mastery ] Which gave them the same ‘Slight’ bonus when fighting with blunt weapons.

Well. “I hope you guys don’t mind, but since I can’t get any ‘Life’ points, I’m going to try to get some of these rewards.”

Matt looked blank at first, then grinned. “Go for it. This system deserved to be gamed.”

Drew seemed a bit more reluctant, muttering something about "Wasting X pees on an Enpeecy" but Matt elbowed him and glared.

Must be some new slang.

I might have felt guilty about taking down skeletons that could have given those two more ’Life’ points to get more powerful, but we had plenty of skeletons to go around.

I hadn’t gotten my ten with my club before we found Drew’s body from his first day here in the city.

Walking around with a blank look on his cold, pale face.

Drew looked pretty upset as we stared at his own corpse staggering around in the street where he had first died.

"They don't fade away after you get killed, or dissolve or something? What if it had wandered off with all my stuff still on it? That’s broken.”

Alright, so less existential angst and more of a material concern. That seemed to be in character for him.

I looked up at him, “You mind if I take him out, I’m still a little sore over that ‘Skip’ business.”

Skipparoonie looked shocked and began to sputter as Matt laughed. “Look, Tex, I’m sorry about that. I had figured out that I had either died, or my old life was gone forever and I was trying to deal with that. Treating you like it was a game was not the best choice for a coping mechanism, but it was what I could come up with then and there.”

Well, that does make sense. But it was still rude.”I accept the apology. But can I still go whale on it?”

He threw up his hands, with a genuinely worried look. “Hold up, this is where the Lurkers got me, both the first day and the second one. So I’m guessing they might still be here.

Which is how I ended up running around and kicking Drew’s remains behind the knee to send it toppling over while screaming about fresh meat.

And the Lurkers came out.

Drew had learned what they were called when he came out of the portal both times after he got killed by them and was informed that he had been killed by ‘Tier 2 Lurkers.’

Which is not the name I would have come up for them, they looked kind of like dried up zombies.

Unlike the skeletons, they still had all of their… fleshy parts? But everything was all dried up and withered, to the point that bits and pieces were breaking off with every motion they made as they lurched out from doorways, out of alleys, and even standing up from where a few of them had been lying down inside of a dried up fountain.

Covered with leaves.

Oh. these guys seemed to not only wait in ambush, but to plan it out, and come up with ideas on how to do it in a way that made them harder to spot.

Like how they had me surrounded so that I had nowhere to go and slowing down to fight my way free would delay me enough for the others to close in on me from all sides.

Shoot, I couldn’t even get to the fountain in the middle of the plaza to climb up the headless naked lady holding what was left of a trident.

Wait, did they really make that so that the water would shoot out of her… upper lady parts?

“Tex, wake up!”

Oh right. “Thanks Matt, [ Mage Guard ]”

Time to find out how much that there thing helped.