by Dakota Krout
The howls were getting much closer, and from his vantage point, Jaxon was able to see flashes of fur through the trees. Thank goodness it was still daytime! Jess tried climbing the hill without going onto all fours, but she quickly found that keeping her balance was near impossible, even with her high dexterity. Since Jaxon wasn’t looking at her, she gave in and started bear-crawling up the incline. She slipped several times, the current reduction to her stats making her far less capable than she felt she truly was.
Jess looked down, a mistake as she realized two things: one, she was already much higher than she had thought she was. Two, the primates had left the woods and were congregating at the base of the hill. They stopped there, watching and waiting. Each time she slipped, they began to howl and hop up and down. By slipping, scree would be disturbed, and loose stone would tumble down to where the animals waited. The rocks started coming back up as the monkeys began chucking them as accurately as they could. One clipped her as it bounced off another rock, opening a gash on her forehead that began bleeding profusely into her eyes. She wiped away the blood, almost slipping again as her moist hand lost traction.
“We are almost to the top, Jess!” Jaxon called back to her. She looked up, expecting to see the temple looming over her, instead finding that they hadn’t even moved a quarter of the way up the rocky face of the hill. “You know, in comparison to the last few days of travel. We are infinitely closer!”
“Why did I try traps? Why didn’t I just sneak up on him and stab his kidneys until they were exposed to the open air? He couldn’t have even done anything about it!” Jess muttered under her breath, gasping from exertion. She started needing to pause and let her stamina refill, and each time she did so, there was a chance she would simply fall asleep.
“Jess! Jess!” Jaxon’s words shattered her thoughts, and she realized that she was laying down on the hill. She had started slipping downward as well and needed to scrabble to arrest her momentum. That was only a part of why Jaxon had started yelling, though. “Behind you!”
Jess looked back and saw that there were nearly a hundred primates gathered at the base of the hill, and they had just started climbing. Luckily, the ascent was very steep and rocky. Where there wasn’t a handhold, the rock was quite smooth. The primates were moving faster than she was but not by much. If she were to get moving, they shouldn’t be able to catch her. Jess got going, looking up to see Jaxon over halfway to the top. “How did you get so far up there?”
His reply came floating down to her, making Jess grind her teeth, “Continuous effort!”
Her stamina recovered slightly, Jess started climbing upward. Jaxon watched her for a moment, then nodded. She was focused now. Even though the pain was no longer keeping her awake, her willpower and survival instinct should be working together to keep her moving. He looked up, not at the temple but at the position of the sun. “Maybe an hour before sunset? I could make it, I could make it easily, but…”
Jaxon looked down where the simians were climbing and starting to throw rocks again. Actually, from the way the projectiles splattered and stuck, not everything being thrown was a rock. With one last glance at the edge of the hill, he made his decision and waited. He wasn’t going to go down—just in case she fell or was overtaken—but when she got here, he would do what he could to help her the rest of the way. The wait was torturous for him, and nearly half the time remaining for daylight had slipped away by the time she was level with him.
“Why didn’t you keep going?” Her words came between gasping breaths. Jess’s arms were shaking, and their pursuers were closing in behind them.
“Gotta make sure we both make it there. We may not be a party, but that doesn’t mean I am fine with watching you get torn apart and eaten by monkeys with feces-coated claws.” Jaxon smiled winningly at her, but her head drooped and she lightly tapped her forehead on the rock below.
“Sometimes I just don’t know about you, Jaxon,” Jess whispered with deep exasperation. He reached over to her; she was looking forward to some human contact, but all he did was pluck a stone out of the air that had been aimed at her head.
“Nasty creatures.” Jaxon slid down a few feet, taking the lead beasts by surprise with a couple solid kicks. They started tumbling down the slope, taking a few others with them as they careened down to the base of the hill. “Make sure not to slip or let them grab you. I’m not too excited about attempting to climb this again.”
The monkeys, understanding the danger posed by falling, were now spreading out and attempting to get ahead of the humans. Jaxon and Jess began scrambling up the slope, intent on staying ahead and alive. Twice, one of the primates got ahead of them, but working together, the small group was able to fend off the attacks and keep themselves from falling. Sunset came and went, the darkness settling in on them making the climb even more treacherous.
They were almost to the top, but the climb had become almost vertical. They needed to rest before attempting to continue, and so spent a few minutes sending the monkeys tumbling down the slopes. When they had a good five feet of space, they began scaling the rock. Jaxon was certain they were going to fall, but then his hand slapped down on horizontal stone! He pulled himself over the ledge, taking a deep breath before reaching back and grabbing Jess’s hand. With a grunt of exertion, he pulled her to relative safety.
Chapter Fourteen
“We made it.” Jess flopped directly to the ground as she came over the ledge. She wanted to move, but she was far too exhausted to make the effort. “The… the monkeys?”
Jaxon crawled to the edge and looked over. “They are still there, but they seem disappointed. It seems they aren’t coming any closer, but they are gathering together on the slope and staring up at us. I’m surprised that they weren’t able to overwhelm us with their speed on the incline… perhaps their long claws made climbing the stone a difficult activity.”
He paused, then shouted over the edge, “I’m sorry you are going hungry down there!”
Jess stared up at the stars and shook her head. “Do you even think through what you are saying? They would be eating us if they weren’t going hungry. Just… are we safe right now? Did they stop following us because we are getting close to something more dangerous, or can I sleep?”
“This close to the edge?” Jaxon shook his head. “Two issues there. You might fall off the ledge, or something might attack us. We should… you’re asleep. Drat. Alright, well, let’s hope for the best then.”
Jaxon flopped onto the ground next to Jess and closed his eyes, his ‘exhausted’ debuff ensuring that he was asleep in moments. The bare stone wasn’t going to be the best bed, but neither of them was in a position to complain. The primates below them seemed to sense that the humans had fallen asleep and began screeching in frustration. The noise didn’t bother the unconscious people in the slightest, but both of them shifted uneasily in their sleep as a powerful, foreign gaze swept over their prone figures.
Hours passed in moments, at least to Jaxon’s perceptions. His fingers began twitching, unsurprisingly the first sign of wakefulness in the Monk. After a few moments, his eyes popped open and he heaved himself upright. Since he didn’t use his hands, instead simply pulling his muscles tight and arriving on his feet, Jess cursed and stumbled away from him. “Jaxon! That was some horror movie crap right there!”
Jaxon looked over at her, blinked owlishly and looked around the plateau they were standing on. “Full daylight? Dehydration is starting to kick in heavily. Laying in the noontime sun didn’t help this at all. Hunger is becoming extreme. I wouldn’t be surprised if I started losing stats due to this. Sleep deprivation is cleared, but I have no ‘rested’ bonus. No attacks over the time sleeping, so we must be in a safe zone or the predator of this area wasn’t around.”
He suddenly began contorting, his bones cracking and his body shifting. A few moments later, Jaxon glanced at Jess once more and smiled brightly. “Good morning, Jess. I was just looking myself over and taking stock of the si
tuation. Didn’t mean to ignore you! By chance did you see that we are next to the temple?”
“It… yeah it was hard to miss that.” Jess gestured at the wall of white stone they had slept next to. “Any plans on what we should do next?”
Jaxon looked up at the sheer, white wall, scratched his chin, and let his head drift back and forth. “I suppose we should look for an entrance. Would you like to travel around together or go our separate ways?”
“Would you even find the door if I left you alone to look for it?”
“I’m certain I would be fine.” Jaxon nodded gravely. “I do have a raw score of twenty-one points in perception. My only real issue comes from things that are hiding or hidden. It isn’t like I can’t see things as obvious as a door or small gate.”
“Whatever.” Jess grumpily stomped around the exterior of the building with Jaxon skipping along behind her. They went a quarter of the way around the medium-sized temple before they found something different on the pure white stone. “Is that an outline?”
“I think so!” Jaxon started closing in on the wall. “If my prior experience with games is any indication, that means we need to smash the wall right here!”
“Wait, no…!” Jess called futilely as Jaxon swung a fist at the stone. Just before he touched it, the wall opened up into a hallway.
“Oh, look! I found the door.” Jaxon took a step into the temple, and the wall closed behind him. Jess let out a strangled cry and ran forward. In less than a second, she was at the wall, and it opened up to admit her. Unsurprisingly, Jaxon was nowhere to be found. Jess sighed and stepped through the wall.
“I suppose this would be a good way to see what I’m capable of on my own.” She marched inward as the wall sealed behind her.
As Jess walked forward into the temple, Jaxon was just finishing his fall down a steep ramp that had opened beneath him upon his entry to the building. It leveled out into a slick slide near the bottom, and Jaxon skid halfway across the room he was in before finally coming to a stop. He hopped to his feet and brushed himself off before looking around. Jaxon’s gaze stopped on the only source of light in the room, a shining, golden eye. After a full second of staring at each other, the eye winked out, and the room began to brighten until it was nearing predawn lumination. A screen appeared in front of Jaxon’s face, refusing to vanish until Jaxon had read through the entire thing.
Welcome Challenger! You have entered the Temple of Tempering! By reaching this location, you have passed the first test. From this point forward, the longer you survive, the greater your rewards will be. When you die, you will be placed in front of the temple and barred from reentering the solo halls. Do your best, for you will not have another chance. The countdown to your death begins… now!
The screen vanished, and Jaxon blinked at the gloomy area around him, his night vision impacted but his heart soaring. He was surrounded on all sides by animate skeletons, and he had never been happier. “Bones! Human bones! Look at the way they articulate! They are moving as though bound by flesh, but the movements are visible!”
Sharp fingertips reached for his face, but he easily brushed them away with an aggressive wave of his own hand. “I have so many theories to test! First, I need to ensure these will be affected in the same manner as a living person, and I also need to make sure I’m not overrun. I am sorry to those of you this will impact, but I need to destroy at least half of this group. I assure you that your sacrifice will not be in vain!”
The skeletons didn’t respond beyond a slight pause at his words. Their rictus grins were the first Jaxon had seen that shone with the same clarity and excitement as his own, so he was not going to waste the opportunity to improve his craft. They were already on him, so it was a simple matter to begin inserting his fingers into bone sockets and using his knuckles to apply sudden pressure and torsion to joints. With every blow he dealt, Jaxon studied his opponents. In return, they began to take a toll of flesh and blood. They weren’t overly strong, but the magic animating them seemed to make them inordinately sturdy. If they had been able to put weight behind their attacks, the thousand gashes and cuts he was receiving would have instead reduced him to a pulp.
“This is ineffectual.” Jaxon activated Adjust one last time, and his targeted skeleton’s head spun in place on its spine before simply coming to rest in its original location. Then it attempted to punch him in the face with spiked knuckles. Jaxon dodged the blow easily even as another dozen weak fists pounded across his body. “It seems dismantling is my only option at this point. Off with his head!”
A swift uppercut sent the empty skull flying away. The remainder of the skeleton collapsed to the ground, as whatever magic had been holding it together failed. Smashing the skull or removing it was the only way to reliably stop the skeletons from coming after him, and he preferred to remove the skulls just in case he could reanimate a full skeleton for later experimentation. Having determined the best course of action, Jaxon pushed back and rolled over the top of the massed undead. Now with the majority of his targets in front of him, the Monk was easily able to begin separating their heads from bodies.
A pile of intact skulls grew on the outskirts of combat, while the collapsing bodies began to make footing tricky. Jaxon turned and punched, dodged multiple fists, and had soon cleared half of the enemies. He hopped backward a few feet and looked at the current situation. He had a respectable pile of undamaged skulls but hadn’t been able to stop himself from destroying nearly a third of them. He paused too long, and his notifications decided it was time to pop out at him.
Exp: 36 (1 * Skeleton x36).
“You are all level one?” Jaxon paused and paid attention as an undamaged skeleton strode toward him and took a swing. It hit him in the face, opening a shallow cut on his cheek.
-1 HP
“You are level one. Well… that makes this easier.” Jaxon stepped into the group and began punching. No fancy tricks, no attempts at skill usage, just a simple full-strength blow to the skull. The bone crumbled, and he sighed. “Of course it is that easy.”
Three more were smashed in as many seconds, since the hard part of destroying them was getting to them quickly. Now knowing what he was facing, Jaxon looked around the remaining half of the skeletons and matched their grins with his own. “As for the rest of you… let’s play.”
Chapter Fifteen
Kneeling down, Jaxon sifted through the bones of a hundred defeated skeletons and tried to separate them into full figures. Pulling over an intact skull, he connected it to a spine and stepped back. The skeleton smoothly stood and began coming after him.
“Good, that worked exactly as I had hoped it would.” He studied the murderous framework of a body and tried to memorize every movement it made. It was one thing to watch a body move and assume how the bones moved, but this allowed him to see it at a much more accurate level than even computer modeling had allowed for. He was close to a breakthrough; he just knew it.
Jaxon ignored the attacks coming his way; his health regeneration would be more than up to the task of healing him when he was through here. He poked at the skeleton, prodded, twisted, turned, and adjusted it. In his excitement, it wasn’t too long before the entire thing suddenly broke into several pieces per bone. This was startling, and no matter how Jaxon thought about it, he had no choice but to concede that this wasn’t normal. “Is it… could it be that these things have a structural integrity, and when they take enough damage they simply fall apart?”
There was no other easy explanation for this phenomenon, but of course it needed to be tested. Six skeletons later, he was fairly certain of his hypothesis. Next, he tried to focus on his other theories. The question was: how to gain insight into something that he was already an Expert of? Insight? In. Sight. Jaxon stepped into the next attack coming at him, keeping the fist at eye level as it came close. There was a *crunch* as the skeleton struck him, and he was sure that he had taken a critical hit… but he saw something that he never had before. Jaxon saw the w
ay the bones curled, moved, and the effect absorbing and releasing kinetic energy had when landing a blow.
Skill increased: Human anatomy (Expert IV).
And there it was, a way to study anatomy that he had never attempted before. Who in their right mind would allow someone to punch them in the face and forcibly hold their eyes open to see the movements? Right then, Jaxon understood that he was going to be in for a lot of pain in the near future. Was this a reliable way to close in on the Master ranks? If so, it would be worth every agonizing moment, and no one would be able to convince him otherwise.
Still, he had just been punched in the face. Jaxon backhanded the skeleton so hard that he shattered the entire front of its face. He winced before shrugging and leaning over to combine a skull with a skeleton once again. He paused, and Jaxon glanced at his health bar; noting that he was down to two hundred and twelve of his available four hundred points. He had not taken the time yet to sit down and recover, and so he did so now. Breathing deeply, he attempted to achieve a meditation skill. So far, he had achieved no success with this particular skill set. Perhaps today would be the day? A half hour passed as he relaxed on the floor surrounded by bones. As his health bar topped off, he opened his eyes in disappointment. No luck with the meditation skill today!
Instead of ruminating on his failure, Jaxon did the practical thing and got back to work. Within moments, another skeleton was swinging its bony fist at his face. Jaxon allowed the impact, slightly changing the angle and bone that hit his face first. In this manner, he was able to see nearly every position of a closed right fist as it drilled into his soft flesh. The issue with this method of training was the intense pain and slow-building rage. Jaxon was able to control himself enough to pop the skull off of the spine but then took his impotent fury out on the bones that clattered to the ground. No matter, there were skeletons aplenty and not nearly enough skulls to survive the catharsis that he needed.
