by J. T. Wright
Maintaining the string didn’t cost much Mana. While he waited, Trent turned the Hound’s hide into a suit of armor for himself. He took off his torn jacket and put on the new suit. He tugged his mask back into place. He didn’t need its abilities with all the flames lighting the room. But he had no desire to experience the feel of Undead dog tongue on his face ever again!
He ate and rested and resisted the urge to create more strings. More just meant higher maintenance costs, and he wasn’t sure his plan was going to work.
Finally, the three original occupants of the room reappeared, three club-wielding Skeletons, two at the table, and one near the door. He’d seen it before, but he still found it unnerving, the way the creatures were just suddenly there. There were no shimmering lights, no flash of magic, or no poof of smoke. There was nothing to announce their presence. Just sudden, unnatural existence!
He tossed three copper coins and quickly stepped back out of the room, carefully avoiding his own makeshift trap. The coins, guided by his Throw Skill, hit their targets, and three eyeless heads turned in his direction. Weapons raised, they rushed at him.
The first Skeleton through the door shuffled towards him, its jaw clicking. The Skeleton moved quickly, but its feet never came far off the ground. It was through the doorway in an instant, club swinging, never pausing in its assault, and then it encountered the flame string.
Trent had drawn Sorrow and Strife. He started his own attack, and then leaped backwards as the Skeleton collapsed. Its legs had been severed at the knees; its skull bounced off the floor as it fell helplessly to the ground.
Trent blinked at the success of his trap. He blinked again as the creature started pulling itself along the ground towards him, its bones making a dull grinding sound against the stone floor. He blinked a third time when its efforts were impeded by the falling body of one of its compatriots.
His string faded from existence as the third Skeleton made contact with it, but the flame still did its job. Three crippled Undead lay tangled together before him. Their arms and clubs reached for him mindlessly, harmlessly. His experiment had been a success!
He easily finished off two of the Skeletons with his axes. He banished the third by wrapping his fist with another string and hammering at the final creature’s head. Two hits with his flame wrapped fist were all it took. He didn’t know if that was better or worse than his axes. He had the feeling that these Skeletons were the weakest creatures that the Trial had to offer; it was hard to judge just how much damage he was doing.
Still, the fight had its perks. His Create Trap Skill leveled once. Once more and a few hundred more Experience Points and he could level his Class! Which might not be the best thing. Hadn’t it been implied that the higher their Level, the more challenging the Trial would get? Since being separated from the others, he and Tersa had only encountered low Level, easily dealt with foes. Would that change if he leveled?
He shook his head. Leveling was necessary! Trent could feel it. The Trial was providing them with the things they needed to survive, but if they didn’t get stronger, it wouldn’t hesitate to wipe them out. He instinctively felt that failing a survival-type Instant Trial only had one result. It was only an instinct, but he never doubted it.
He created another string to reset the trap at the door and moved back into the room. It was time to wake Tersa and get some rest himself, just a little sleep, and then they had to push on. Explore this prison, get stronger, find the Corporal and Lady Kirsten, survive. It wasn’t much of a plan, not even a solid list of goals, really. It would have to do.
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The creature stood on two legs and had once been a human. Probably. It wore torn bloodstained clothing and rusted armor, but these coverings didn't do much to hide its rotting flesh. Maybe in life, if Trial beasts ever had anything that could be called a life, the creature had been a prison guard. Oddly fast, it was a drooling, mindless, snarling beast, strangely skilled with the longsword it held in one hand.
Tersa had taken to calling these horrid smelling beasts, Zombie Guards, though Trent had no idea how accurate that name was. He didn’t know what a zombie was, and Tersa hadn’t been able to explain it. In her opinion, zombies were just something you knew about, not something you learned. Just like ghosts, ghouls, and other varieties of Undead. You heard stories about them, but you didn’t study them. Common knowledge, she’d called it.
Trent didn’t have any “common knowledge” to rely upon, and there was no time to sit and have Tersa tell him all the stories that children were told growing up. Scary stories she’d called them. They were a common way for recruits to pass the time during the evening before bed. Trent was starting to hate the word “common." As far as he could tell, it was Tersa’s way of saying, “nobody really knows.”
Trent didn’t want to hear the stories anyway. Having met what they assumed was a zombie, he couldn’t understand why you would tell stories about them, especially to young people about to go to sleep. From what he understood from Tersa, those stories were bloody and ended badly for everyone involved.
What Trent did know was that after you threw a coin at a Zombie Guard, you needed to run. You needed to run fast, with Dash activated, and all your attention on getting away! Zombie Guards were swift, they traveled in pairs, and they were smarter than a rotting bag of meat should be!
The coin left his hand before he could rethink his action. It bounced off the Zombie Guard’s shoulder and fell to the ground. The Zombie’s head snapped in his direction. It was uncanny how fast it located him.
He had tested the range of their life detection skills thoroughly over the last few hours. If he was far enough away, they would never notice him no matter what he did. The second that coin hit them, though, they knew exactly where he was. The moment one noticed him, it would snarl or groan, and any Zombie in the area would be limping after him with dragging but nimble steps.
Hoarse cries sounded behind him as he pounded down the hallway back the way he had come. The last few hours had seen gains for the young Summons. His Intelligence Attribute had risen to 10, bringing a much-needed increase to his Mana pool with it. He also increased the Levels of Dodge and Dash and added another Point to Agility. Best of all, Create Traps was at Level 3, and he was only a hundred Experience Points away from leveling Survivalist.
He was really starting to appreciate the Create Traps Skill. It had provided some security while they rested, eliminated many low-leveled creatures before the beasts could get close to the pair, and consistently rewarded him with Intelligence Points. Now his only problem with the Skill was that traps for the Undead often require bait, a role that always seemed to fall on his shoulders.
Up ahead, two bright lines of flame string could be seen creating at X at an intersection. He’d made them dim at first, but that had ended when he almost ran into his own trap during a panicked sprint away from a Zombie wielding a longsword. That had been right after Tersa shared with him that Zombies ate brains! His feet had never felt as fleet as they had running away that time. He did not want to be eaten!
He started making the flame strings bright after that. Zombies, like all Undead, didn’t see with their eyes, but he did. The strings were only hidden from his and Tersa’s sight when he made them dimmer.
He was getting closer to the ambush they’d set up. So close, but he was sure the Zombies were gaining on him. He could hear their feet pounding and their armor rattling as they closed in on him. Soon, rotting fingers with their unnatural strength would grab his shoulder. A rusty longsword would pierce his back, blackened teeth would tear his throat, and the Zombies would crack his skull to get access to their favorite meal.
He gave a terrified cry as he pushed Dash for all it was worth and flung himself forward. Sliding along the ground, his momentum carried him under the fiery trap. He rolled and came to his feet. Spinning toward the charging Zombie Guards, his hands reached for his axes. Sorrow was missing, lost during his slide, but reliable Strife was still there.
The first Zombie reached the trap and barreled through it. No neat slicing of monster took place this time. The strings cut and burned and then came loose, their ends wrapping around the Undead Prison Guard. Oddly, Zombies did feel pain. Perhaps not in the same way that the living did, but the flame digging into its rotting body caused the Zombie to pause and screech. With mouth open, and tainted breath exuding from it, the Zombie expressed its fury by expelling an eerie sound. Trent kept his own mouth shut, but he still swore he could taste the foulness of the creature’s breath.
A mace wrapped in a flame string knocked into the outstretched arm of the Zombie. More sizzling and burning, and the longsword fell from Undead fingers as white unseeing eyes flashed towards the attacker. Tersa had been hiding out of sight around the corner. She grinned fiercely as she struck again, hitting the pained creature solidly in its face.
She found it oddly satisfying to hit the Zombies, particularly to hit them in the face. Trent found that oddly disquieting since he'd had to fight several Undead Hounds by himself while she shrank back. She could joyously crush human skulls but called him a monster for being able to fight “puppies.” It was beyond his comprehension.
Trent stepped forward, chopping with Strife. The axe bit deeply into the creature’s neck. They had to finish this; a second Zombie was approaching rapidly. Trent’s empty hand came up, and he cast Spark without thinking. A thought propelled the small flame into the white eyes of the badly wounded beast. A second blow from Tersa’s mace sent the Zombie spinning to the stone floor where it lay unmoving.
Trent’s hand axe was almost torn from his hand as the Zombie fell. It was still stuck in the creature’s neck. Fortunately, Strife's edge was still sharp enough to cut. If it had become bound in muscle and bone, Trent would have been in trouble as another Zombie was within striking distance. He skipped backward, Dodge and Dash, lending him the speed and Agility to avoid a thrusting longsword.
He stepped around the creature as Tersa drew its attention with her mace and Taunt. She recently learned this Skill thanks to a dropped Skill Stone. It wasn’t the magic she yearned for, but she’d discovered the Skill had a distinct Charm of its own.
Technically, all Tersa had to do was shout wordlessly to activate the Skill. Any sound could attract the attention of beasts if it had some semblance of intelligence. Tersa, however, delighted in shouting insults and curses to attract her targets. Trent thought her insults left something to be desired. For instance, this Zombie was treated to the gem, “Hey, smelly ass jerkface!” But the results were what mattered.
Upon being called jerkface, the Zombie turned to focus on Tersa. Her flame-enhanced mace hammered at it while Strife struck the creature from behind. Again, Trent cast Spark and slapped it down on the Zombie’s head. He wished he’d propelled the Charm with Fire Manipulation. The Zombie’s hair caught fire immediately, but he still felt greasy, dirty, hair beneath his hand, and he shuddered a little.
Next time he would remember. That was the trick, to always do better the next time. After learning to set flame traps, he forgot that Spark could be effective on its own. Other than the first Undead Hound they had encountered, he’d only used fire in string form. Normally, Sorrow was held in his other hand. He was improvising, now that his second axe lay on the floor at his feet, where it dropped during his slide.
The freezing effect that any Purification Spell had on the Undead stopped the Zombie’s resistance, and a few enthusiastic mace blows crushed its skull and sent it to join its partner. Trent stepped aside as the body fell. Tersa grinned at him.
“Setting its head on fire was new,” the Recruit chuckled. “You should do that more often. I think it made its skull crunchier.”
Trent tried not to think about what that meant as he Harvested the Zombies. The first time he had done this had been quite distasteful. He’d cut apart the very human body thoroughly, looking for useful crafting materials and the Beast Core, but he’d discovered nothing. It was only after the body refused to fade away that he noticed the pouch on the Zombie’s belt. It contained a Core and a lock of hair. The moment he tore the pouch away, the body disappeared, leaving the usual loot. It had not been a proud moment for him. He would remember to check humanlike beasts for bags before he cut them open from now on.
“We should find a place to rest,” Trent said.
The Zombie Guards had dropped a sharpening stone! It was unimpressive loot, but his belt knife was getting dull. His axes could probably use some work as well, though they were still getting the job done.
“Why rest?” Tersa wiped brain matter from her mace with a piece of cloth she kept for just such a purpose. The cloth was filthy from use, but she “cleaned” her mace with it after every fight anyway.
“I've still got lots of energy! I could bring the smack to at least ten more of these monsters before I need a break!” Tersa carefully inspected her mace and gave it another rub.
She said that sometimes, “bring the smack.” Trent almost thought that “the smack” was a name she had given to her mace, but he wasn’t sure. It was a cheap, common quality weapon, after all. It didn’t deserve a name, not even one as curious as The Smack.
“My Mana Pool is low,” Trent said, not looking while she smeared goo around on her mace. “If we don’t rest soon, I won’t be able to set any traps or wrap your weapon in fire, and I certainly won’t be able to create a light for you either.” He added the last bit when it looked like she was about to argue that she could “bring the smack" without the fancy fire or traps.
“We should definitely rest then.” Tersa shivered some as she thought about being in these endless tunnels in the dark. “Think we should go back to the last place or forward?”
Trent hesitated. Zombies didn’t respawn as fast as Skeletons and Hounds. It would probably be safer going forward. These last two had been standing in front of a door. If there was nothing too horrible behind that door, they should be fine. He said so, and the two started down the long hallway.
“Hey, Trent?” Tersa asked as they walked. “Why do you call it Mana Pool?”
That one had Trent stumped. “Because that’s what it’s called.”
“Yeah, that’s what it’s called, but no one calls it that,” Tersa said. She hurried to explain as Trent turned to face her. She couldn’t see his expression behind his mask, but she could feel his confusion.
“People just say MP for Mana Pool and HP and SP for Health and Stamina. Shorter, you know?” She paused. “Oh! And XP for Experience. You sound weird when you say it all proper.”
She did a quick impersonation of him saying Mana Pool and Health Pool. He was pretty sure he never sounded that pompous. He reached over and gave her a light shove into the wall. Well, maybe not as light a shove as he intended. She’d continued to imitate him saying, Stamina Pool and Experience, and was starting to repeat the whole thing.
She recovered and started to shove him back, but he dodged her hand and pointed ahead. “That’s the door they were guarding. You want to check it out this time?”
“Nope,” she said shortly, readying her mace. “You check, and I’ll smash. Aren’t you going to set a trap?”
“My MP hasn’t recovered enough yet.” he walked to the door and checked it for traps. He didn’t find any, but the Skill was still at Level 1, so he wasn’t sure how far to trust it. “If there’s too many to handle in there, try to keep them in the doorway so they can’t surround us.”
Running wasn’t really an option. They discovered that when they had run into three Guards and a Hound earlier. Those Undead had chased them back the way they had come. Right into another group of five Skeletons. The subsequent fight had been dicey, and they could only credit luck that they survived. Recovering from that battle had used up the last of their Health potions.
Tersa’s hands tightened on her mace, and she nodded for him to go ahead. He took a deep breath and slowly pushed the door open just a crack. He peered inside. He frowned. Tersa swallowed nervously.
Chapter 27
The room was empty. All Trent could see through the crack was a long thin table and a rickety chair to one side of the door. He pushed the door open a little farther and stuck his head in. He jerked it back out then hurriedly closed the door.
“Trouble? Is it bad?” Tersa’s knuckles turned white as she gripped her weapon. That damned mask and cowl. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking under there.
“I don’t know,” Trent said slowly. Instead of explaining, he pushed the door open and walked into the room. Tersa rolled her eyes and bit back a curse before following him.
The table and chair may have been the only furniture, but it wasn’t all that the room contained. The chair was set so that anyone sitting in it could observe the far wall. The far wall had three more rooms with doors made of iron bars. Jail cells. The cells on either side were empty, their doors hung open. The center cell…
A man sat cross-legged in the center cell. His eyes were shut; he didn’t seem to notice the two enter at first. He just sat, hands on his knees, breathing deeply. As the light of the flame perched on Tersa’s shoulder reached his face, his forehead wrinkled.
“The Undead have no need of light.” The man spoke in a deep, almost musical voice. Trent found himself drawn to it, but he didn’t answer back. He didn’t think he was supposed to since the statement had been directed inwards like the man was used to speaking to himself.
Trent studied the seated figure. Standing, Trent was sure the man would be taller than he was, quite a bit taller, with broad shoulders and well-muscled arms. He wore simple clothes, well-made but of common cloth and cut. However, the deep-blue colored cloak draped around his shoulders looked expensive and well-made, to Trent’s inexperienced eye. It looked like something Master Taylor might create.
The man’s face was still and composed. It was also slightly alien. The cheekbones were too high, the jaw just a little too sharp, Trent couldn’t place what exactly was off about the man’s features, but they were different from every other face he’d ever seen.
