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  [colpse]Chapter One Hundred and y-Four - The Dead on Their Feet

  My arms burned, but I raised my spade anyway and chopped the zombie, then, when that failed to make it turn into so much dust, I raised the tool again and brought it down once more. The shiver that ran through the haft on tact made my hands tremble, and when the zombie finally fell to the side and started to disappear, I couldn’t find the energy to lift my spade again.

  A hand on my shoulder pulled me back, and I followed without resisting.

  “Take a breather,” Bastion said.

  I looked up, blew a wilting, sweat-drenched ear out of my line of sight, then nodded. “Okay,” I said.

  I didn’t want to stop. I couldn’t. I had to help my friends.

  My legs were achey, and my arms were beyond sore. It reminded me a bit of some days after gym css, but a whole lot worse.

  My mana was basically depleted already, and my stamina was in the single digits. The zombies... didn’t seem to care much.

  I stumbled back just a bit more and looked around, trying to take everything i one of the monsters snuck around my friends and came at me.

  Buster’s wall had fallen some time ago, so we had backed up, and the huge bun had erected a sed that formed with a bit of a curve to it. We were behind that one now. It didn’t do much to stop the leaping zombies, but it was good against all the rest.

  I saw one of those leaping zombies scurrying across a roof, and almost called out when a bolt smacked it in the chest a it tumbling down to the street below and onto the swarm of simir monsters.

  “Hold!” Momma called. “Nearly done!”

  That was good news.

  I imagihat if the monsters didn’t fade away, there would be a pile of them so tall that it would be reag way above the walls Buster had made.

  My friends looked haggard. Awen was reloading her crossbow, one bolt at a time now. She’d run out of her prepared strips of bolts a while ago, and had resorted to reusing the few bolts that she could pick off the ground and that weren’t busted. I’d seen her switch to using her hammer, and even flinging shards of gss around, but those seemed to tire her out a lot.

  Amaryllis was doing a little better. At some point we’d stopped g about noise, and she started to let loose with barrages of stormy magic. I don’t think she o cackle so much while raining down thunder and lightning onto the hordes of enemies before us, but it did keep her in a good mood.

  Her puppetry was... still a little rough. She couldn’t use the zombies she turned into puppets and attack with her magic at the same time. So she resorted to holding one or two zombies in pce while casting from behind them, then moved in to attack with her puppets. It seemed to be w out, but I suspected she’d been running on mana fumes for a while.

  The zombies were easy to dispatch. I saw Bastioly flick the heads of a couple of them with almost zy strokes of his sword. The problem wasn’t that, it was the number of them.

  “Front cleared!” Momma shouted.

  I saw an e blur move by me, and suddenly the wall had a new hole as Carrot blew through it and started to plow through the zombies oher side with wild abandon and the occasional happy whoop.

  Peter appeared in the middle of the zombies without so much as a whisper. I never even saw him move. Then a knife flew around him, sshing through the air at odd angles while trailed by a whippiallic cord. Where the cord passed, zombies were torn apart.

  I pced the head of my spade down, and leaned onto it, panting. It retty much over, as far as I could tell. The number of monsters ing out of the fog was decreasing, and with the buns there, we didn’t have to fight as hard.

  “You seem to have done well enough,” Momma said as she moved over. “Buster, keep an eye on the front, would you?”

  “Mmm,” Buster agreed. He turned around and stomped behiowards the front where the three buns had been fighting before.

  “I think I need a nap,” I said.

  Momma chuckled. “This floor is a bit of a challenge. But it’s a good lesson to learn. No matter how strong you are individually, you are always fighting with a limited pool of resources. Eventually, you be whittled down.”

  “That doesn’t seem to apply to Carrot aer and you,” I said.

  “That’s another lesson,” she said as she pulled my ears up, and started to rub them. I closed my eyes and rexed.

  “Oh?” I asked.

  “No matter how many oppos are sent against some people, they persevere and push through.”

  I stood a little taller. “That sounds a bit trary to what you were saying earlier,” I said.

  “Hmm, maybe. But in a battle, you sometimes o assume trary things. That you defeat your oppo, and that your oppo is strohan you.”

  “That doesn’t seem like a fun way to think,” I said.

  Momma rubbed my head between my ears. “You might just be a little too peaceful.”

  “I don’t think there’s such a thing,” I said.

  “A you fought today, still. I think you hold your own trary thoughts.”

  I pouted at her, but Momma was wise and older and the pout bounced right off with no effect.

  “Look at your stats and gains. I’m sure you’ve gotten a few little rewards from this floor.”

  I nodded. “Is the floor as hard?”

  She hummed. “No, not as I recall. This one is uniquely hard. The challenges are not easier, but they are different. Let me go see with the others, we should be moving on soon.”

  I watched her go, then picked myself up a bit and dragged myself over to my friends. Awen had found a low wall to sit on, and was leaning against the arch of a doorway. Amaryllis was ying spread-eagle on the dying grass o her, panting and staring into the grey sky with tangled coils of wire around her.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “I levelled,” Amaryllis said.

  “Oh?” I asked. “Good work.” I tried for enthusiasm, but only mao nd somewhere around moderate happiness.

  I slumped against the base of the wall, one of Awen’s legs rog o me, and my own legs atop Amaryllis’. She didn’t even pin, that’s how burnt out she was.

  Mister Menu had a bunch of things to tell me, and who was I to stop him when he was so excited? “Alright,” I said.

  Ding! gratutions, you have dug the graves of twenty-seven (27) ‘Zombies of Newbining’s Ruin, level 10! And Four (4) ‘Zombie Leapers of Newbining,’ level 11! Due to bating as a team your reward is reduced!

  That was it? It had felt like a lot more than that at the time.

  I hadn’t levelled up, but it felt as if I retty close. At this rate, we’d all be a lot stronger on leaving the dungeon. Just how strohe buns if they came here to practice often?

  Mister Menu had more news for me.

  gratutions! Through repeated as your Mad Millinery skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!Rank D is a free rank!

  “Yes!” I cheered. Not very hard, but it was the thought that ted. It must have e from taking a few small blows while wearing my turtle hat. Mad Millinery wasn’t levelling very quickly, and I had the impression I was going about it wrong with that skill.

  New Skill Acquired: TurtlingRank: E

  That erfectly predictable, but it was o see.

  I expected Mister Menu to have more for me, but that was it. A g my skill sheet showed a few things nearling level-up, but none of them were at the ra. “That’s disappointing,” I said.

  Health: 135/140Mana: 12/150Stamina: 14/130

  I needed an hour or two to rest if I wanted everything to be topped up. More if I wao myself off at the same time, and judging by how sweaty I was, I definitely hat.

  “Alright, e on up zy butts,” Carrot said as she bounced over. “ing on your tails all day. We’re not even halfway through this dungeon.”

  I made some weird grumbly noise of protest, but Carrot was right, so I rolled over and got to my feet before helping Amaryllis up to hers. She started pig up her equipment from the ground, though it wasn’t a very eic pig-up.

  “I think we need a bit of time tain some mana and stamina,” I said.

  “Well, it’ll take a minute or two to get to the gate, and then another couple to slot all the keys in.” Carrot raised a hand which held a bunch of rusty keys. “The zombies drop these.”

  “Oh,” I said. Was that this floor’s puzzle? So, there was ing around all the mohen. That was harsh.

  Awen slumped off the wall with a feeble, almost sad, “awa.” She leaned onto my side for fort and because standing up seemed beyo the moment. “I o pick up my bolts,” she said.

  We gathered up a few things. Bastion, who wasn’t nearly as tired as us, made sure we had all drunk a bit of water, the off.

  Momma seemed to get that we were oired side, because she had Peter get rid of any monsters in our path long before we got to see them.

  And so, finally, we reached the wall. There was a door in it with a long, long bar across it held in pce by dozens of padlocks. Carrot got to be the oo unlock those and flick them away when she was dohe keys always broke after opening a single lock.

  “We will clear out a little spot oher side,” Momma said. “And we’ll have ourselves a little something to eat. It should help fortify the lot of you littler ones.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Bastion said, because he olite and not as tired as the rest of us.

  “Done!” Carrot called when she undid the st of the locks. Buster moved up and yahe bar aside, freeing the doorway into the floor aing us past.

  I was expeg more city, more homes and buildings in poor repair, but instead I was greeted by a forest.

  Arees rose up above, most of them growing atop bumpy hills covered in bushes and brambles. I could just barely make out the far wall across the woods, but only just.

  The fog from before was back, and far thicker, slithering across the ground aween the hillocks like a writhing, ghostly snake.

  “Wights here,” Carrot said.

  “What’s a wight?” I asked.

  Peter was the oo answer. For all that he was a quiet sort of bun, he seemed to like telling us about the monsters we’d be fag. “Wights are undead, as you may have guessed. They look like men, though they are thin and ragged, with glowing eyes. They have magic, casting shadows that be felt and their touch will chill your soul. They don’t tend to fight together though.”

  “So, like zombies but different,” I said.

  “An oversimplification, but essentially correct,” he agreed.

  “Let’s settle down here for a little piic,” Momma said. “Buster, you have the bs?”

  Buster nodded. I wasn’t sure what to do at first as Momma and Buster started pg things on the ground. She had a lot of food in her pack. In fact, it was mostly food. “Ah, I have some things too,” I said as I jumped.

  It wouldn’t be kind of me to just sit bad let her do all the work.

  And so after a long and difficult battle, we settled down for sandwiches and tea before the fight.

  RavensDagger

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