Chapter 91 - Training Session

  As we got closer, I realized that this was not actually going to be anywhere near as much fun as I’d expected. Nope, not this time. Because the first thing I spotted as we approached the cemetery wasn’t rows of skeletons waiting for me to blast them with Fireballs, but rather…a bunch of ants, taking apart a house?

  “What the hell am I looking at?” Kara asked, aghast.

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  We’d come up the road toward the cemetery, arriving from the south. There was a huge open field right next to the graveyard itself; I figured maybe it had been cleared for more graves in the future or something. Now, it was occupied. A massive tower of sand, dirt, and chunks of wood was piled taller than Sue in the middle of the field. Streams of massive black ants flowed from the mound.

  Some of them headed toward a house a little on our right, where they were systematically dismantling the place, breaking it apart and hauling chunks of wood and other materials back to the nest. Other lines of ants stretched across the street to houses there. A couple of the homes had already been completely destroyed, leaving behind only holes in the ground where there’d once been a structure.

  There were a lot of them. None of them were very large—Hope was bigger than most of them, so they were each about the size of a small dog. But those lines of ants… There had to be hundreds of them visible above ground. I didn’t even want to think about what was waiting below in the tunnels they must have dug.

  “Where’s the giant spiders when you need them?” I quipped, smirking.

  “Bite your tongue! That one we saw in the woods was bad enough,” Kara replied, shuddering.

  I had Sue give the house they were dismantling a wide berth, and we slipped up a side road toward the cemetery itself. Even there, nothing could ever be easy. The place had once had a fence around it, but there were big gaps now, holes that had either never been repaired, or never built at all.

  We still saw a good number of undead out there in the graveyard itself, but they were all over the place. A lot of them had clearly wandered off. So not only did we have to worry about the ants and whatever potential threat they represented—the undead I’d hoped would all be tucked inside an iron fence were not. Nor would we be able to keep them from chasing us if things went bad; I wouldn’t be able to use the fence to take breaks like I had before.

  The good news was, we had Sue. With the dinosaur’s speed, we could easily outrun the undead.

  We slipped past the ants. For whatever reason, they ignored us, and I was pretty willing to take on one foe at a time, just then, so I left them be as well. I dispatched one skeleton that took an interest in us, killing it with a Drain Life spell. We were at the southern end of the cemetery, and it was time to get to work, if we were going to do this today at all.

  The ants, plus the way the undead were spread out all over the place worried me some. This whole thing now carried a lot more risk than I’d planned for when we set off to find this place. I had no idea if the ants would go to sleep with dusk, and the undead certainly wouldn’t. Once the sun went down, it was going to be much harder for us to see enemies, and that could end badly.

  For safety’s sake, we ought to withdraw. Retreat a safe distance and camp out, wait for dawn and hit it then. Thing was, I didn’t want to. My gut said playing it safe wasn’t going to serve me well here. While I was searching for a safe place to camp, other people were out there busting up monsters for crystals.

  “I’m going to get down on the ground when we start fighting,” I said. “I want to be close enough to cast Control and Animate, if I get a chance.”

  “You’re not worried about the ants at all?” Kara asked. She certainly looked nervous about them.

  But I wasn’t feeling too bothered. “No, I think we’ll be okay. They’re faster than the undead, but not faster than Sue, I think. Worst case we just mount up and withdraw.”

  She still looked pale, her face tight, so I came up with an idea. “Listen—you’re probably right that they’re worth keeping an eye on. Once we’re in the thick of fighting the undead on those graves, I won’t be able to pay as much attention to what the ants are up to. If they come at us then, they could be a real problem. Can you stay aboard Sue, then use that height advantage to keep an eye on them? Or will that disrupt your archery too much?”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “No, I can do that,” Kara replied. She seemed relieved. I’d made the right call. Some people were bothered by bugs, and I couldn’t say I blamed her. Little ants were one thing, but hundreds of ants the size of corgis was creepy even by my standards.

  I untied myself and slid down from Sue’s back, stretching tight muscles. Then I drew my sword and shield. While I was planning to use more magic than anything else having those in my hand might just keep me in one piece out there.

  My plan was to use this run as a training session in more than one way. Yeah, Kara and I were going to get crystals even if Sue did all the killing. But I didn’t want to rely on that. I’d already seen what could happen if we got overrun and all my undead were gone. What if Sue went down the same way my other undead had?

  At the end of the day, the only person I could truly rely on to always be there…was me. Kara was an awesome ally and I loved having her with me. Before her, Alfred had turned out to be a decent friend, too. Hope and Sue were powerful allies, and Hope was already more pet than she was a ‘minion.’ But at the end of the day, someday I was probably going to find myself without allies and friends around me. I needed to be ready to take care of myself.

  I already had tier five in two physical skills—Agility and Stamina. The Agility made me fast and dextrous. It wasn’t like I was the Flash or something. I didn’t have what you’d call true super-speed, but I was much faster than any human who’d ever lived and died without these magical crystals. I could outrun any sprinter in the pre-Event world, and thanks to the Stamina I could outlast any marathon runner, too.

  The Stamina also made me heal faster and resist damage more easily, too. I could take a lot more hits without bleeding out than I once could. Even without my Drains, I’d heal rapidly. Again, not quite super-healing, but it was fast.

  Which left me thinking about that empty slot I had at the end of the chain of attribute crystals. There was Will, then Agility, then Stamina, and then…a blank spot. It was time to fill it, and my other ones, besides.

  One of those slots had to be a clear stone. I didn’t want Charisma. Intellect would help all my spells, and eventually I wanted to build that stat up too. But for now there was only one obvious choice. I pulled the tier three Strength crystal from my pouch and held it in my hand, concentrating and willing it to link with the other crystals in that chain. It was absorbed into my palm quickly, and the next thing I knew, it was embedded.

  That left two slots, and one had to be a black stone. The other could be anything at all. Again, I already knew in my gut which one that black stone had to be. I did want another attack spell; either Curse or Harm would do. But neither of those was my top priority at this point. I was looking for broken, overpowered spell combos, and I was pretty sure I’d found one.

  I slotted the tier two Health to Mana in my black slot. It socketed quickly, flooding my mind with memories about how to cast and use the spell. In short, at this tier, it would take about twenty percent of my health and convert it to mana. From what I could tell, the amount of mana I’d get ought to be just about the same as the casting cost of Drain Life.

  If I was right, that would let me chain cast Drain Life…forever. I’d never run out of mana. I could cast Drain, then Health to Mana, then Drain, then…repeat until entire enemy force was destroyed. Assuming I had time for the Drain Life to reset that many times, anyway. The twenty-second timer remained my hard limit, there.

  That left one final slot, but this one was a main ring spot, which meant it could be any color. I could insert a black crystal there, or the Flying stone I’d gotten, or the Alchemy crystal, or whatever else I wanted. For the time being, I filled the slot with the tier two Flying spell I’d gotten from the avians when we rescued Jess. That would allow me to escape any truly nasty situations that cropped up.

  With that decision, I was done, and examined the results.

  Magical Stones

  Point 1: Black Stone (Tier 5) - Control Undead

  Point 1, Outer Ring: Black Stone (Tier 4) - Augment Undead

  Point 2: Black Stone (Tier 6) - Animate Dead

  Point 2, Outer Ring: Black Stone (Tier 4) - Heal Undead

  Point 3: Black Stone (Tier 5) - Drain Life

  Point 3, Outer Ring: (Tier 2) - Health to Mana

  Point 4: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Will

  Point 4, Outer Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 5) - Agility

  Point 4, Third Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 5) - Stamina

  Point 4, Fourth Ring: (Tier 3) - Strength

  Point 5: Yellow Stone (Tier 2) - Flight

  Spare Stones

  Black: Animate Dead x6, Augment Undead x5, Contagion x2, Control Undead (Tier 3), Control Undead x10, Curse (Tier 2), Curse x2, Drain Life x5, Harm (Tier 2), Harm, Heal Undead x2

  Clear: Intellect (Tier 3), Charisma (Tier 4), Charisma (Tier 3)

  Brown: Alchemy (x2)

  Control Stone (x1)

  I felt worlds stronger than I had a few moments ago. The impact of that Strength stone was immediately obvious. I jumped, and my high jump was insane! Then I activated Flying while in mid-air from the jump, and I found myself rocketing skyward at the pace of a good run.

  “Holy shiiiiiiiiit!” I shouted as I went soaring upward.

  The mana drain was intense, so even with my enhanced Will this wasn’t something I could keep up all day, but it was a lot of fun. With an effort of will I stopped in mid-air and then went zipping back toward the ground.

  Landing wasn’t as easy as takeoff; I hit the ground pretty rough, stumbling and jamming my knee. But my Stamina was already at work to reduce the damage, and the soreness faded swiftly.

  “That was amazing, Selena!” Kara called out. “So cool! Okay, I totally want Flying, too. But… You did just sorta attract the attention of like every undead for a hundred meters or so. They’re headed this way.”

  “From what direction?” I called up to her, glad she was staying atop Sue. It sounded like this was about to get intense.

  “All of them!” Kara shouted, nocking an arrow to her bow.

  I drew my sword, readied my shield, and prepared myself for battle.