My occasional hits – approximately one per five or six deaths – were made with my bare hands, and they never did more than one point of damage. I hated this bony creature with every fiber of my being. It was seemingly scoffing at me as it killed me with a blow to the groin. My teeth just clenched!
At first my only consolation was the fact that the skeleton's health was not infinite, but then I got a boost to my enthusiasm. After a successful attack, lying dead, I read the logs and felt a strange satisfaction.
I had discovered my first skill!
Unarmed Combat skill discovered!
Damage dealt without a weapon increased by 10%
Attack accuracy increased by 10%.
Current level: 1.
Improve this skill by fighting enemies of your level or higher for additional bonuses and new special attacks.
You have learned a new special attack: Hammerfist!
Cost to use: 2 mana points.
Deals 150% of normal damage.
You have received experience points for discovering a new skill: 10.
Experience points at present level (1): 36/400.
I got my first twenty-six experience points in my first weeks in the sandbox, before I finally lost all interest. And now, ten at once!
I could see a light at the end of the tunnel. I hadn't looked further ahead or thought about what to do next yet. Leave the instance or try to go further down it the same way? That way, I might complete Whiteacre's quest at least. In the second option, I might simply go mad, but I decided to think it over later. But now... I activated Hammerfist and my hand turned blurry in the air. It felt like my hand was wrapped in a steel glove. That was about how loud the crack was when it went through the skeleton's ribcage! Fragments of bone flew around the room!
You have critically damaged Raised Skeleton Warrior: 5!
Raised Skeleton Warrior is dead.
Experience points received: 10.
By the end of my second hour in the crypt, the torment was over. The bone warrior fell to dust. With a vengeful kick at what remained of the skeleton, I could feel my anger gradually receding.
I was so tired I was in no rush to see the fallen loot, I just sat down next to it and took a ten-minute breather with my back up against the wall. Eve was no longer in Dis, but I still wrote in the group chat that I was stuck in the instance and couldn't get out.
While I caught my breath, my health went back up to full. That made me even happier than the loot. And actually, it was worth checking what fell. I stood up, happy, and picked up the gear and one copper dropped by the skeleton.
Etched leather spaulders
Common
Leather armor.
Armor: 5.
Durability: 60/60.
Requires level: 1.
Sell price: 1 silver coin, 15 copper coins.
Would you look at that! Earning that much money with low-level social quests like picking weeds would take a whole month! Now I see why the Dementors devote all their time to clearing ins’s.
I thought for a minute about whether I should put on the spaulders, but decided "no." Enough fighting, dying and pain for today. Sure, maybe I'd fail the quest and be unable to clear the temple crypt after school, but the game wasn't going anywhere. If I failed tomorrow's modern history test in Greg's class, though, it would be a blow to my final grades. As my uncle Nick, my mom's brother, always said, “a fella needs to be able to keep his priorities straight.”
I headed for the exit from the instance. But a pall at the door gently pushed me back.
You cannot leave the Crypt of the Temple of Nergal the Radiant until you finish the quest or defeat the boss of the location.
Alright, makes sense. That was so a group wouldn't run outside to heal or stock up on food and gear. But I had no desire to keep dealing with this. I wanted to get back to my cozy room as quickly as possible, study for the test, then finally watch the materials on the Mars expedition...
I glanced at the word “Exit” in the game interface. A warning window jumped in:
All your progress will be lost!
Confirm?
And those sage words gave me pause.
So what, did I just spend two hours dying here for no reason? I closed the interface window and thought. I had gotten the Unarmed Combat skill and the Hammerfist attack, which gave me reason to hope it would get easier.
I opened my attributes window, reread the information about my new special and saw another line in my character's profile that wasn't there before: Restless Soul. I focused in on it and a very bad word burst out of me. So that was why I wasn't respawning at the cemetery!
Restless Soul
You have been cursed! You must have insulted someone or left them out in the cold when they needed you most. This curse was heard by the universe, acquired force and took form. From here on out, after dying, your restless soul and cursed body cannot enter a cemetery. You will always respawn in the same place you accepted death and with one health point.
"Damn that Patrick! May your throat always burn! May you drink and never get drunk! May ale and wine forever taste like piss to you!"
I kept shouting, hoping that my curses would also be heard, but I already knew this game was over for me. No matter how many levels I got after ten, a group of gankers would beat all the experience points money and gear out of me in no time.
"Patrick! You alcoholic bastard!" Tearing my throat and coughing, I kicked the wall, taking damage. And I could only hope that drunk was at least hiccupping.
Chapter Eight. Skeletons and Zombies
IT TOOK ME more than an hour to clear the wine cellar. In the corridor where I encountered the first skeleton, I discovered a door in the wall. It was locked, and no matter how I went at it, I just couldn't get it open. I started thinking it was simply a decoration like those smoking torches on the walls that couldn't be removed – just part of the way the world looked.
I was supposed to ignore it, but I was haunted by the idea that there might be something interesting behind it. Furthermore, I thought I could hear a rustling.
The next patrol down the corridor was not a warrior, but a Raised Skeleton Keymaster and killing him was much easier. It took just a quarter hour of respawning, and gave eleven experience and a keyring.
Locked door, dropped keys... You didn't have to be a genius to figure out what it wanted you to do.
I went back and started trying keys one by one until one of them worked. But as soon as I opened the door, I heard a high-pitched shriek that nearly burst my eardrums. First a few rats rushed at me, shedding bits of decaying flesh and shrieking the whole time. A bit later, waiting to respawn, I saw their exact number. There were five of them at various stages of decay. And that whole endless string of lives between deaths was accompanied by their constant squeal.
While their pack was full, it was hard to get even one hit in without dying. Plus I couldn't always hit the same zombie rat every time. I just wanted to damage at least one of them. Thankfully, using Hammerfist, I could take more than one sad point, giving two to four every time. They also had less health than the skeleton warrior. Still the battle was tough going.
The last remaining rat stopped attacking at ten percent life, trying to hide among the wine barrels. Then I had some time to restore my health, pick up the club and calmly land the final blow.
The wailing of the huge zombie rat came to an abrupt end when my club smashed its head into a wall. Silence descended. I could hear my heart beating, a vein pulsating in my temple, my breath wheezing. But other than that, total calm and grave-like silence reigned.
The time had come to pick up loot. I dug through their bodies in disgust but, other than Zombie Rat Innards, I didn't find a thing. No pelts which, to tell the truth, they never especially had, and no claws which they did have and just so happened to be frighteningly powerful. No coins or other items fell either.
The only uses for the innards were given in a few scant lines: "Alchemy ingredient. Cook
ing ingredient. Value: 2 copper coins." Cooking ingredient? I made a mental note to figure out which dishes contained this and never to try them. But as for the value... Well, fifty rats added up to one silver. That could be a pretty good business.
I finished that and looked at the time. It was getting near midnight, but I had already decided not to sleep tonight. My room was locked and my parents would think I was already asleep. Tomorrow morning I would take a shower, run through the materials for the test, get some breakfast and fly to school.
And for now, I would keep clearing this instance. At the back of my mind I knew that Patrick the drunkard's curse was the only way for me to finish the Chief Councilman's quest. I didn’t know how long it would last, but the very ability to spend one night farming up a mountain of experience and money was worth something. And that was not considering that I was also leveling Unarmed Combat, which was growing much quicker because I was fighting enemies five times my level.
Right after I killed my fourth rat, the skill and special both levelled up. My damage and accuracy in Unarmed Combat were now increased by fifteen percent, while Hammer beefed up my normal damage another twenty percent. While fighting the rats, I got the hang of kicking when I realized I wasn't hitting with my fists, but I hadn't gotten an attack for that yet. Either I hadn't used my legs enough (kicking barefoot, you take more damage than the enemy) or new attacks were linked to skill progress.
Clearing the rats from that wine cellar gave me a strange satisfaction. A thought flickered by, seemingly from genetic memory, that I needed to make sure my rear was clear.
I did a bit more common-sense thought and even put on the leather spaulders to raise my defense before my first death in the next battle. And I had no doubt I would die a few times.
But suddenly, when I reached the end of the narrow corridor I heard a voice. "Boo-uh..." And a few seconds later: "Yghgh-uh..."
I heard some more rustling of feet on the floor, accompanied by disconnected sounds as if someone was about to barf but couldn't. The next room was three times bigger than the last. The torches only provided good illumination in a small radius so, in order to see who was there, I had to come up as close as possible. And when I did, the name of the nearest mob flickered up.
Brainless zombie, level 6
The group of risen corpses was ambling in a circle in the middle of the room like convicts in a prison yard. They were bad at coordinating their movements unlike the skeletons I'd come across and constantly ran into one another, hobbled, wobbled and clearly because of that constantly bickered in zombie language. There was an arrow protruding from the head of one mob, and it was constantly catching on a rag hanging off the zombie in front of him.
I watched them, already thinking where best to die and whether I could retreat and kite them closer to the ins exit. I was nourishing a hope that, if I brought them out of this room, after I died they would leave and I could restore my health in peace. At the same time, the first flickers of a new plan were born. It was more cumbersome but, if it worked, I would die less.
Then I took a critical look at myself. I was totally naked apart from the boxer shorts I couldn’t remove. My first shirt had lost all durability points and was decaying into dust, then three to four deaths later my pants also met their end. It all happened back at the first skeleton, and that made the stretched-out spaulders look extremely funny on my body. To hell with it. It was better this way. Otherwise I might lose them too. I put them in my inventory and my gaze hit on the rat innards. What if...
I equipped one unit of zombie rat guts and, holding my breath so I wouldn't get nauseous, threw them into the crowd of walking dead. Sure zombies normally don't eat zombies, but what if?
The first zombo to be alerted was the one with the arrow in his head. Hearing the flesh slap onto the floor, he stopped, turned his head and his eyes latched onto the bait. The one behind him ran into his comrade, also stopped and asked:
"Oowuh-uh?"
"Hoo-wuh," the arrowhead replied and took a step toward the chitterlings.
His buddy hissed and kept walking, but arrowhead took a few cautious steps toward the guts. I took a step toward him and he saw me. Forgetting the guts, he gave an elated gasp and sped up! Sure he was still hobbling and wobbling, but his step had a lot more pep.
I started walking back into the hallway, hoping I could kite him away from his compatriots, but it was all in vain. Arrowhead made a few especially loud exhalations of "Boo-wuh!" and a moment later all the corpses were walking in my direction.
"Fresh brains! Fresh meat!" I was sure that was exactly what these monsters had in mind.
The zombo with the arrow was out in front in this race but, no matter how he moved his decayed legs, I was faster.
I reached the wine cellar and slammed the not totally flimsy oak door and locked it tight.
"Eeugh-woo!" came a walking corpse from the other side, somehow particularly disappointed.
While they held a meeting, exchanging ideas for how to break the door down, I suddenly got the impression I could discern nearly intelligent speech. That is, without lips or a tongue, which had long since rotted away. Not many sounds could be produced, but I could make out a certain logic in their moaning.
Thinking that over, I rolled the wine-filled barrels along the ground one after the next and barricaded the door. I managed to brace it with a few rows of heavy barrels and I was greatly hoping that would be enough to pull off my plan.
"Boom! Boom! Hrrss!" the zombies were still knocking and scratching at the door.
I unlocked it with the key and took a step back. The narrow gap was immediately filled with several hands and feet. And we’re off!
Full force I swung down along the gap and hit the hands of two of the living dead, taking two or three health points each. They were getting in one another’s way, trying to climb inside. As for the one with the arrow in his skull, he was stuck, which blocked the way for everyone else once and for all.
I looked at the club and considered whether I should start hitting with my bare hands to level the skill, but common sense took the day. They could grab me and pull me toward them, and with my stats I would not be able to escape. No, I’d stick with the club.
You have critically damaged Brainless Zombie: 5!
Health points: 43/50.
The zombies lost it, and in the groans of headwound seemed to now contain notes of offense:
"Boo-wuh?"
"Hoo-wuh!" I squeezed out with my next blow.
The process was ongoing...
With its last health points, arrowhead tried to get out of the gap, but his own comrades were blocking him.
You have damaged Brainless Zombie: 3.
Brainless Zombie is dead.
The body of the now doubly dead creature collapsed with a smashed skull. In his place another came to test out my club. He was already dented up – he got hurt when I was swinging at random. The zombie extended a hand and nearly got me with his petrified nails, which oozed with a thick black substance. I needed to be more careful. The last thing I needed was to take a debuff from some kind of corpse poison.
With that thought, I landed an especially good blow. A powerful smack to his nose pushed the flesh inside his skull.
Bashing Weapon skill discovered!
Damage dealt with a bashing weapon increased by 10%
Attack accuracy increased by 10%.
Current level: 1.
Improve this skill by fighting enemies of your level or higher for additional bonuses and new special attacks.
You have learned a new special attack: Battering Ram!
Cost to use: 2 mana points.
Deals 150% of normal damage.
You have received experience points for discovering a new skill: 10.
Experience points at present level (1): 126/400.
I grinned, got a better hold on the club then activated Battering Ram. That made things a bit less bleak. I was still missing frequently and doing little damage, but
it was better. Mana practically didn't regenerate in battle, and I had to intermix my attack with normal blows. But knowing that every successful attack gave a couple points to skill progress put me on a real hot streak...
The whole pack of six zombies took me no more than half an hour. Feeling safe once they were gone, I leaned over to pick up the loot. Just then something grabbed me by the hair and tenderly said:
"Oh-wah-ya? Ah-ah-ah!"
I tried to escape, but it was holding me tight. I turned my eyes and saw a zombo I’d missed before. He bared his teeth in glee and repeated:
"Oh-wah-ya! Oh-wah-ya!"
Class-A Threat (Disgardium Book #1) LitRPG Series Page 7