Reluctant Necromancer

It didn’t wait for us to come to it. With another angry roar it leapt off the top of the broken step pyramid. It jumped from step to step until it hit the ground. Then it ran at us. It moved similarly to an ape. Its lower arms were used to help propel it forward. Its proportions were closer to that of a great ape as well. Shorter legs and longer arms kept its head and chest upright as it charged at us.

As it ran, the topknot of bright orange hair flowed behind it like a flag. It highlighted the dark green of its skin. Large fangs poked from beneath its upper lip down below its chin. When it opened its mouth to roar, the bottom jaw unhinged an insane degree, allowing for the fangs to be more than decorative if it took a bite out of someone. Like a sabertooth tiger.

It was deceptively fast. Its movements were slow, but each stride covered a lot of ground. Unlike the last two iterations of new monsters, this one wasn’t larger than the orcs or even trolls. Well, not taller anyway. It was pretty broad and had four fucking arms.

As it came closer the monster began ripping out large stones and chunks of melted earth and hurling them in our direction with its upper arms. I dove out of the way and ordered my minions to meet the monster before it could reach us. With a roar, John followed right behind them.

Before it could get too close Mara fired off one of her energy beams. The monster didn’t flinch, dodge, or move out of the way. It crossed its upper arms in an X shape and kept running. Her beam hit it center mass. Except it didn’t hit it. A corona of black energy appeared around the crossed arms and the beam of energy hit it and was stopped dead. Fuck.

It let out another angry roar and leapt forward thirty feet. It crashed right into my two trolls and began tearing them limb from limb. John hit the monster a few moments later and began slashing and hacking at it. One of my trolls was left too broken to continue and the spirit energy seeped out of body. The other was missing and arm but still fighting to hold back the monstrosity in front of us. It was so fast and so strong, we didn’t stand a chance.

John scored a lucky hit and severed one of the monster’s lower arms at the elbow. For the first time the monster let out a scream of pain instead of rage. It reared back and kicked John in the chest and he flew back a dozen feet before tumbling ass over kettle.

He slid to a stop twenty feet in front of us and jumped back to his feet. This time it was his turn to roar in anger. Then he rushed forward again. The monster took him much more seriously this time and tried to keep him at a distance. It threw clods of crystallized soil at him and leapt away.

When it landed back on the ground there was a loud, echoing boom and its body jerked to the side. It stumbled a moment before turning its attention to Ashley. That would not do at all.

I slammed my spear into the ground and gathered spirit energy. They may not last long against this thing, but they’d buy us time to figure something out.

A whip crack broke the moment of silence and a large gash across the monster’s chest bled freely. Oliver began whipping his arms around again for another attack. The monster’s attention once again turned to a new target.

My skeleton rose out of the ground at the same time that John leapt forward to hack and slash at the monster. I armed it with a new spear and sent it forward. I slammed another spear into the earth and gathered more energy again.

The troll ran into the side of the monster and picked it up and it charged forward. Then it crashed down onto the ground, tackling the other monster under it. John leapt at the chance and went for the head. The monster yanked my troll forward at the last instant and John’s strike took off the top half of the troll’s head. It went limp and collapsed, allowing the monster to scramble out from underneath it.

Another boom of thunder rang out and this time the monster’s head snapped to the side from Ashley’s shot. It stumbled to the side but was already lifting itself back up when John reached it again.

The monster crossed its upper arms in front of it to block John, but he just hacked through them both in two swings, screaming like a berserker. For a fleeting moment there was fear in the monster’s eyes. It opened its mouth and tried to lean forward to chomp down on John.

John adapted quickly and manipulated his arm from heavy slashing into a sharp penetrating lance. He quickly shoved it into the back of the monster’s throat and out the back of its neck.

Everything froze for an instant. Then the light left the eyes of the monster and suddenly John was sagging under the weight of its dead body. He pulled his arm out and let the monster collapse onto the ground.

We were all breathing heavily. I hadn’t even hardly moved except to dodge a few large rocks. But I was breathing like I’d run a marathon. I bent over at the waist and tried to catch my breath.

My skeletons stood a dozen feet from the dead monster. They’d never even contributed to the fight. Figures. At least my undead trolls had been helpful.

[Your party has killed: Ogre [Boss] x 1]

“Fuuuuuuuck,” I groaned. “I don’t want to do this one again either.”

“Too bad,” Mara told me. “I’m not sure the other teams could handle this dungeon. It was way more dangerous than the carnival one. Do dungeons get ratings?” she turned to ask John as he slumped into Oliver’s embrace.

“Yeah, but they have to be cleared first to determine their level.” He shrugged his shoulders, “But yeah, this one felt a lot harder than the other one. That one was a level one dungeon too. So most teams should be able to beat it as long as they aren’t reckless.”

I just whimpered in place until Ashley came and wrapped her arms around me. I leaned into her embrace. Despite all the blood, gore, ash and everything else, she smelled nice. Something vaguely like vanilla.

Ashley made to go toward the ogre, but I stopped her with my hand on her wrist. “You did the last ones. I’ll get this one.”

She smiled briefly at me and then stepped back. I nodded and went to go extract whatever was inside the ogre. I had John flip it over onto its back and then quickly made my cut. I had to reach deep into the chest cavity before I found the hard, sharp edges of something that wasn’t organic. With a hard twist and a pull my hand slipped free and out of the ogre.

Huh…a monster core. Larger than any of the others we’d received before now, but not an essence. We’d been running into them so frequently that I almost forgot they weren’t supposed to be that common. Apparently the dungeon felt like we’d gotten enough. I showed it to the others before Oliver rinsed me and it off. I put it away in my pack.

Together we made our way toward the broken temple. It seemed to be the most logical exit point in the area. The doorway to the bottom step of the pyramid had cracked and burned off its hinges. We stepped easily into the darkened interior.

As soon as I stepped through the hallway lit up with a sourceless ambient light. It was short and led to a familiar small room with empty shelves on the walls. Our names carved into the wall above each shelf. On the back wall stood an open door with the black obelisk stone inside it. We stepped into the room.

[Congratulations! Your party is the first to clear the dungeon, rewards calculating…]

[Rewards calculated based on dungeon contribution.]

[Rewards boosted for being the first to clear this dungeon.]

[User Grace rewards: One (1) system treasure, Two (2) system tokens.]

On my shelf suddenly there was a large golden fruit. It looked a lot like a pear but taller and thinner. There were also two large discs. They were about the width of my palm and as thick as two quarters stacked together. I carefully took them down and put them in my bag. I’d have to try and figure out how to use them later.

“Oh! I got an essence,” Oliver called out. We all turned to look. Sure enough he held one of the cubed system essences. “It’s the last one I need. [Light] essence…”

John leaned over and pulled him into a hug. The rest of us reached over and patted him on the back or shoulder and offered our own congratulations.

“Is everyone ready?” Mara asked. We nodded our assent. She turned and walked through the exit. We all followed after her one after another.