They followed Sir Urthor outside. He had been smart and had brought his raincoat, the hood up and covering his face. The rain was just hitting it and sliding off. Stupid nodes. They had dried a little while inside, and now they were soaked again. Pepe hated this floor. The knight had offered his raincoat, all gentleman-like, to Lady Michelle, as he had started to call her. She had refused, saying she was fine; he hadn’t pushed.

  Pepe was running behind the rest of the group; they had picked up the pace as the way to the shadowy building they had seen was close by. It was surrounded by large gray walls on either side with a large double gate, one side slightly ajar. How inviting, he thought. The rain hadn’t let up; it had increased. Wind had also picked up. He hated the nodes right now. The next dungeon better be at a beach resort with the sun out.

  They had walked in, and on the left, there was a small covered area and a hitch for horses. At least they had thought about the poor animal. Thanks, nodes. Could have left us some raincoats and umbrellas. He hated being wet.

  In the distance, what could only be described as a large mansion stood. Pepe couldn’t even identify parts of it. Maybe Erin or Bobby could, but there was no time to ask. The road continued toward the mansion, but it was still far away—he estimated at least twenty minutes’ worth of walking, so like a mile away. He noticed ahead and to the right of the road some objects sticking out from the grass. What were they? He didn’t recognize their shape.

  “What are those?” He pointed at the objects sticking out.

  “Sir Pepe, those would be headstones. It is a cemetery,” Sir Urthor replied.

  Oh great, dead people. He sort of knew what was coming. He hoped he was wrong.

  “Oh,” was all he said, shaking his head.

  “Sir Pepe, is something amiss?” Sir Urthor asked. He shook his head at the knight.

  They walked on and hit that invisible line. From the wet grass, they saw arms emerge—freaking zombies. It had to be zombies. He saw one arm reach up, then another, saw the thing pull itself out of the ground. The skin was gray and dry, as if it had been dead and buried for a while. The skin on the face was shrunken; there were no eyes, as they had decomposed long ago. Bones could be seen. What clothes it had been buried in were now rags upon the desiccated body.

  Other zombies were coming out of the ground around them. He took out his daggers. What they could do against zombies, he wasn’t sure. His friends took out their weapons, ready to face the threat. The knight removed his shield from his back and drew his sword. A light shone forth from both shield and sword. Ooh, holy magic, Pepe thought.

  “Friends, behind me! These fiends shall die by my holy sword!” Sir Urthor declared. Yup, just like he thought—a bit cheesy, but hey, who was he to complain? “Priest, your spells shall be a bane to these abominations,” he said, nodding to Bobby.

  Nice. Bobby’s spells are good against undead—which kind of made sense, since his role was to cure the living. Curing the dead, or something like that, would have the opposite effect, Pepe assumed. They would need to see if there was a way for him to cast a spell on their weapons.

  They were faced with three zombies. They moved slowly as they shuffled and approached the group. The rest of the zombies were too far away to trigger the aggro skill—Pepe wasn’t sure if that was what it was called, but it was nice that they wouldn’t be overrun by the zombies.

  The knight attracted the zombies by casting his own version of Taunt, and they started to move faster toward him—not at a run, but at a shuffling power walk, Pepe guessed. Power-walking zombies—that was kind of funny. What’s next?

  The zombies were kind of easy; within minutes, they were down. The knight’s holy shield and sword kept them at bay and focused on him, and the rest just concentrated on taking them out.

  That was why they were easy—trash mobs. He knew that but thought they might be a bit harder to defeat. But they did have a holy knight NPC, so that helped. Minor zombies, he thought. That meant there might be regular zombies or even major versions of them.

  They moved on to another group. This time it was four of them, and just like the first group, they dispatched them. His daggers hadn’t been doing much damage to them, which made him a little disappointed. So he was weak against undead with his current setup. He would need to see if there was a way to improve his weapons to do more damage to these undead types.

  There had been zombies on both sides, and the knight wanted to take care of all of them. They moved on to the next group; they would clear out the right side and move on to the left side once this was done. The next group consisted of three of them, but one of them stood out. Pepe saw that it had what looked like a club—a large wooden stick shaped like a bat. It also wore a rusty metal helmet and some armor, so it might have been a soldier when it was alive.

  This one moved faster. It was just as dead-looking as the other two that flanked it, but it held the weapon in one hand. When Sir Urthor taunted it, it moved toward the knight—not quite running, but not shuffling either. His two friends power-shuffled behind him. It raised the club and smashed it down on the knight. He heard a loud clang as it hit.

  Manuel taunted one of the shuffling ones over to him. They would take care of that one first while Urthor took care of the meaner one. He got behind and to the left of the zombie. He had noticed that this was where he always ended up; it worked, so he kept at it.

  Yes, again his daggers did less damage, but every little bit counted. He heard Bobby cast [Heal] and the notification that it was a Critical Hit—nice for Bobby; his spells could sure do damage to these undead. It also afflicted the undead with an increased incoming damage debuff. Pepe saw the creature go down and not get up. The notification came that it was dead. Did undead die? Or what would you call it?

  Manuel did the same with the other minor zombie, pulling it off Sir Urthor. Bobby cast Heal, but this time, no Critical Hit. It took another Heal and further damage before it was out, like its friend. They moved on to the one with the mace. It had continued its swings of the mace, a clang heard every time it hit. He had heard it in the background, but he concentrated on their fight. It seemed the NPC could handle itself. It helped a lot, at least in being able to damage the zombies, as the holy sword the knight carried with him did a good amount of damage to the zombies.

  It took much more to defeat the zombie soldier, but with them all damaging it, it was soon down. That was it for the side they were working on. They moved on to the other side of the road. The first set of zombies were just the shufflers—at least that’s what Pepe began to call them.

  The first group consisted of four shufflers. They dispatched them in a matter of minutes; it was steady experience. While he still hated that his daggers did less damage, he continued outputting damage but relying on Bobby and Sir Urthor for most of the damage. In the end, what counted was that the zombies were taken out.

  The follow-up group consisted of two soldiers. One carried a club, the other a sword. Sir Urthor taunted the sword wielder, and Manuel went for the club wielder. His cousin pulled him in with his [Taunt]. Bobby cast [Heal], and Pepe and the rest went to town with the damage they could output. Since this one was a bit stronger, it took much longer to take it out; it felt like an eternity.

  As soon as they saw the notification, they quickly moved on to Zombie Soldier number two. They moved over, allowing Mr. Knight to keep aggro and damaging him while they did their part. It took much less time to take this one down with the extra help.

  So far, he had gained 365 XP on the run—not even halfway to the next level. How disappointing. He had come in with hardly any experience, only just leveling up from Shroomy on the previous floor. They had a few more packs to go on this side. While he didn’t like the zombies, as he felt useless against them, they gave better experience than the shrooms. He was looking forward to finishing the dungeon and then getting back to Master Corta, his instructor, to see what else he could teach him at this level. He also wanted to ask about facing undead creatures.

  The next pack was only three shufflers, as he had begun to call them. They took them out fast and moved on to the next pack: a shuffler and a soldier. Or was it a soldier? It carried a large sword—he believed they called it a greatsword. It carried the sword on its shoulder. It, like the soldiers, was also fast. When it was taunted, it ran at Mr. Knight. The sword came forward and bashed against the shield, making a loud clang. It felt a lot harder than the others; it sounded like it had more force, too.

  There was no time to admire the fight with the large sword-wielding zombie. He and the others concentrated on the shuffler. It was weak, like all the others. It went down in less than a minute. They turned to work on the one engaging Sir Urthor.

  They surrounded the monster. Pepe was finding it difficult to get in and actually damage it. As he went in, he felt a sudden coldness radiating from the zombie. Striking with his daggers, the cold radiated up his arm—a very unpleasant feeling. It was probably a good thing they still had gloves on, or the cold he felt might have made it impossible to continue.

  It took three heals from Bobby and a lot of damage from the rest before it finally stopped moving and fell to the ground, dead. They looked around, and no more zombies were present. They had cleared the field on both sides. Good. He hated zombies, and this last one was the worst of them.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  No wonder that one had been so tough. He didn’t want to fight any more of those, that was for sure. It had continued to rain the whole time they had been fighting the zombies. Lightning and thunder crashed, and a small structure was illuminated further up ahead. Well, we know where we need to go next.

  “Friends, we must see if these monstrosities are present in the mausoleum,” Sir Urthor said. He pointed at the structure that had been illuminated. So that is what it was called, Pepe guessed. Calling it the little building for dead people might have been a little long. Before anyone could say anything, Sir Urthor was off toward the mausoleum. They followed close behind.

  Once again, they reached the magic line. The lightning and thunder crashed again, a hard, cold wind blew, and the gates of the mausoleum slammed open. Then a cold voice was heard; it sent shivers down Pepe’s spine. “Who dares disturb my slumber? You have slain my brethren and shall face my wrath.” He didn’t like the sound of that, but he was eager to be finished with these damn zombies, so let’s kill this boss.

  “Fiend, it is thee who shall face thy executioner! Prepare to be defeated!” Sir Urthor declared. Ah, Sir Knight, I will file a complaint. Come on, nodes, let’s work on the lines; that one was terrible. He would need to give them some pointers when he saw them next.

  And there it was. They had reached the boss. What did this boss have in store for them? What kind of mechanics would they need to worry about?

  The timer began to tick down. When it hit zero, a very large hand came through the entrance of the mausoleum, grabbing onto the side. The thing would have no issue palming a basketball; as a matter of fact, the basketball would look tiny in the enormous hand. The dry skin hanging on the hand, and various digits that were just bone, were a little on the disgusting side. The other hand came through on the opposite side. It was almost as if it was using the sides of the opening to pull its enormous body through.

  The head came next, equally large. The skull had patches of hair here and there, with flaps of flaky skin. Pepe felt his stomach churn a little from revulsion; it was not a pretty sight. The thing turned its head up to look at what it saw as its lunch, or whatever it was going to do with them. Probably turn them into zombies. While being a zombie Pepe might be cool, a dead Pepe was not, so he wanted to avoid dying.

  The eye sockets—black pits of darkness—looked right, then left. The only reason he could tell was because it had turned its head to look at them. It kept going. With the arms and head already out, it needed to turn for the shoulders to come through. The torso came through. It righted itself as the largest part had come through. It dragged the rest of the body out, placing the hands on the ground and pulling until the monstrosity was outside the mausoleum. But it wasn’t done. It reached back into the entrance it had just come through, pulling a massive sword through.

  It wore rags for clothes. They were likely very nice clothes back when it was buried: a fading purple coat, the trousers now more of a yellow. It stood as it came fully out. What could be seen under the rags it wore was bone and more desiccated skin. Pepe looked up at the thing. It was taller than Rotgert—easily ten feet tall, maybe more, it was hard to judge the scale of the monstrosity.

  “Time to die, little mortals,” the creature said. The eyes started to glow like two blue flames as it looked down on them, the mouth full of yellow teeth moving as it spoke.

  “Thou shalt be the one to face thy doom, fiend!” Sir Urthor declared. Sir Urthor, we need to get you some new lines. “[Holy Shield] [Holy Sword] [Taunt].” The sword went up, then down in an overhead smash at the knight, coming down on the glowing shield. He buckled, going down on one knee. It raised the sword once again, and before the knight could right himself, it came down once more. The force of the blow kept the knight on one knee. It raised it once again and, with incredible force, brought it down.

  Pepe could feel the air pressure from the blows where he was standing. He had jumped out of the way when that first blow had come down. He ran around the thing and began to try and damage it, but his slashes and swings weren’t very effective. Had he mentioned how much he hated zombies? With the thing being as tall as it was, he only reached just above its knees. His strikes only touched the back of the legs at calf level.

  He would need to wait for Bobby and his spells. They had allowed his daggers to have a greater effect on the undead before, so they should help once more. He saw the debuff land and finally saw that his damage increased—slightly, but it increased. This was going to be a very long fight. He was not enjoying himself at all.

  Pepe had been looking at his GUI as he mindlessly slashed and stabbed with his daggers. Josh’s spells were doing more damage than he was. Michelle and Erin were both in the same boat as him. As for his cousin, his output was awful, but he wasn’t meant to do damage; he was meant to take damage, so it was expected.

  They needed to come up with something else. How in the heck were they going to beat this thing and not take hours to do so? While they could just continue and eventually beat it, it was just disheartening that it would take so long. So, what could they do? Could he do something more? Wait, can I use the skills the uniform gave them somehow? The only thing he could do was try. What was the worst that could happen? It did nothing?

  The annoying undead Baron had just started his attack. The sword went up once more, but the expected downward strike didn’t come. Instead, it went low and behind him. Then the sword was swinging in an arc—an arc that put both Pepe and Erin in the way. As the sword came around, he was forced to trigger the jump mechanic to avoid being smashed by the sword. Up into the air he went, the sword blade missing him. He wasn’t sure if Erin was alright, but he saw no notification telling him otherwise. He heard the blade strike the gravestones as it passed. The gravestones weren’t strong enough to withstand the force of the massive blade, and chunks flew all over the place. He felt small pieces hitting him like shrapnel.

  He landed back on solid ground and saw the blade make contact with the knight’s shield. The knight, rising from the ground, was sent flying, his back slamming against one of the walls of the mausoleum. Sir Urthor’s figure slid down the wall, cracks forming where he had struck it. He saw a piece of debris come down and land on top of the knight. Pepe was truly scared at this point. That swipe of the blade would have split him in half. If it did what it did to the knight, what chance did he have?

  There was no chance to react, no chance to panic. This thing was strong—stronger than anything they had faced. The monster turned to where Sir Urthor had landed and started to move. Pepe saw his cousin move, his stance change. No, Manuel, don’t do it. “[Taunt]!” The Baron turned. Pepe was even more terrified now. There was no way Manuel could handle this. He was going to be crushed under that massive sword.

  The monster stopped, already within striking distance of its greatsword. Pepe couldn’t move as the blade rose to its highest point. He felt like a child playing at something he wasn’t—a thief from a game. How stupid he felt. How could he be so excited all the time to do this? Now his family was in danger. His cousin wouldn’t just be hurt; he would likely lose his life. He hadn’t really thought about that. He couldn’t move, just stand there as he saw those two blue flames look down at the young man it was about to crush.

  “No, fiend, it will not pass!” A great light shone. Pepe turned to see the knight standing amid a ruined wall, saw blood on the helm, and noticed the normally immaculate armor was dented. The NPC was hurt, and it didn’t matter if it was part of this world or this dungeon alone; it was hurt. Pepe didn’t care if the lines it had been given were cheesy; he was glad to see it up once again, that it hadn’t died.

  Pepe saw the monster turn as well. The normally blue flames were now turning red. It was all happening in flashes. He saw Sir Urthor raise his shield, crossing his sword in front of it. The Baron started to move toward him. The knight said some words that Pepe couldn’t make heads or tails of. He finished saying the words, and an explosion of light encompassed everyone. Pepe closed his eyes and tried to shield them from the light. He opened them and saw black spots. Slowly, he regained his eyesight. The light was now something more manageable. He kept blinking, trying to see better.

  “Now, my friends, this will be our only opportunity. You must keep him off me!” He heard the words from Sir Urthor but was unsure of their meaning. Opportunity for what? He looked at the Baron. The monstrosity had shrunk. Before the light had enveloped them all, it had been just over ten feet tall; now it had shrunk significantly. It still towered over all of them, and the sword was still very large, but now more manageable.

  Once again, his cousin got its attention. “Come on, Baron, let’s do this! [Taunt]!” He looked at his GUI, and what he saw made him smile.

  It was vulnerable to them. Finally, he could do something. Instead of sitting there frozen and scared, he moved. He had a job to do, and he would do it. With the focus on Manuel, Pepe had reset to his normal position. He swung his dagger and saw the notification of the hit. Finally, it was decent damage. He looked at Michelle, and she was smiling. He saw her continue to strike with her daggers.

  The notification that came made him so happy. They were damaging the boss.

  “This cannot be! You mere mortals cannot destroy me. You are my playthings, your souls mine to consume, your bodies mine to animate!” the Baron exclaimed. The Baron attempted to disengage from Manuel and turned to go after the knight. Without the knight’s magic, it could destroy them.

  “I don’t think so, ven a qui parka [Taunt]!” Manuel didn’t just stand there waiting for the undead to come to him; he moved after the Baron, striking it on its back. “[Shield Bash] [Thrust].” The monster had moved only steps away from Manuel; now it had no choice but to face him again.

  They wouldn’t let it get away that easily. Pepe continued to damage it, his friends doing the same. They would end the Baron; they had agreed to help Sir Urthor and end this thing’s evil deeds. Was Pepe getting too into this dungeon? Yes, yes, he was. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt like he needed to end this monster.

  From the corner of his eye, Pepe saw Sir Urthor start to move in their direction, the holy light he provided getting closer and closer. The Baron seemed to be trying to move away from the light; it weakened him. But neither Pepe, his cousin, nor his friends allowed him any respite. The monster started to move slower. The overhead strikes from its greatsword now had less impact. It was close; he could feel it. Then the greatsword dropped, and the monster went down on one knee, as the knight had been when it had started its onslaught.

  “How can this be? I am invincible! You are supposed to be my playthings. All the others before you failed, so why you?” Oh man, it was starting to monologue. Why did villains do that? Oh, nodes, where did you come up with this stuff? While he loved the cheesiness of it, he would have to talk to them about it.

  “No, fiend, it was never going to be. Your days were counted when we came along.” There you go, Sir Urthor, bring the cheese, Pepe thought. Sir Urthor delivered the final blow, his sword coming down and thrusting where the thing’s heart would have been. “Goodbye, fiend.” Pepe saw the red flames that had served as eyes go out, the bones crumbling to the ground. The notification showed them that it was over.

  Sir Urthor removed his sword and put it away. He was moving slowly, and the blood still on his helm was plain for all to see. “Thank thee, friends. Without thy help, I would have surely perished.” Pepe wasn’t sure of that. They had been bit players in the knight’s play. But even though he had been terrified, they had won.

  The fight had been intense, but it was time to end this Floor. He was wet, and he had been scared and worried about his friends. He wanted to move on to the part that now mattered: the loot.