Mature Content Warning: A little language

Author's Note: Here we go happy people. Let the training begin! :)

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Chapter 10.2: The Girl Next Door

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Blackthorne awoke to an empty bed. He looked around but did not see Sonja. “Maybe she went to the bathroom?”

After the strain of keeping his human form began to cause him to feel weak, he had made an excuse but promised to meet up with his childhood friend soon. He had not been able to return to sleep for about two hours due to the time that he had spent with Shara and studying his book. Till then he would have to avoid people until he had training his metamorphosis skill. It was even possible that he might have to quit his job at Archer’s. If that was the case, he would try not to weep...for joy.

“It would have been eight hours.” he said lightly. That meant that it was early morning, but from what he could tell it was not quite dawn.

Blackthorne made an effort to change his form and found that he could. After he became his human self, the reborn dragon stood up and nodded. “So, the cool down period is separate for each world. Good.

He decided to look for Sonja directly as he wanted to see if breakfast was ready as well. As it turned out, it was not. Though, it would be ready in about two hours.

Where might she be? “Oh, yeah... Maybe.”

Blackthorne moved toward the town entrance and found her in the training area. She hacked at straw dummies with great strength. “I bet that dummy will think twice about being stuffed around you.”

Sonja glanced over at him then grinned. “Back early, I see.”

“I only left temporarily. I needed to check a few things. I should be good for at least another day and night.” he replied.

“Ah, good.” she said, a soft smile on her lips.

“Want to go train with me?” asked Blackthorne

“Sure! Where to?”

“I thought that we would try the zombies one more time. They are slow and there probably won’t be enough of them to swarm us. Afterward we can hunt in the grassland.” he said.

“Sounds good.” said Sonja.

The lady and the dragon left town and headed toward the burial ground. Blackthorne’s transformation wore out long before they arrived, but it was not a problem. It took nearly two hours to reach the place and that meant that he had completed his cool down period. Once again he became a man.

“I need to practice my metamorphosis skill, so I’ll be human as much as possible.” he told her.

Sonja nodded then prepared for battle. The first rays of dawn rose up, but they did not begin their assault. Instead, Blackthorne wanted to check a few things. He opened up his spell list. He was supposed to be able to be able cast his jolt spell at one-fourth the cost due to his new nature. What he discovered was that he had two more spells!

He checked the new spells then grinned. He was also excited to see that Jolt now only required a single point of vitality. Technically, it should have required less, but one point was probably a minimum standard or something.

“Let’s give this a try...” said Blackthorne. Words came to him as he focused on his spell of choice. Though they were not English he somehow understood them. The words were guttural and yet, had a certain lyric quality to them. They were formed from sounds that no human throat could make. He chose to activate the spell using English for that reason.

~You who have lost your way. Become my dark beacon that I may know the path that must not be taken. ~

“Shadow Wisp!” cried Blackthorne.

A swirling mass of energy began to fade into sight. He had conjured forth the soul of one long dead to serve his will. Of course, the only thing it could serve as was a light source. It was a conjuration spell that summoned a spirit of the damned to act as a nightlight and mobile torch.

The shadow wisp wailed pitifully for a moment then floated around while giving off a bright light. Its effectiveness was not high during the day, but it did not matter. The spell worked.

“That’s creepy and useful.” said Sonja.

Blackthorne grinned at her. “Well, true.”

His other new spell was one that he would need to try out on one of the walking dead. He could hardly wait.

Blackthorne signaled Sonja to follow and they headed into the burial ground. As soon as the handful of wandering zombies realized that meat was back on the menu, they shambled toward their would-be breakfast. Before the first one could come within striking distance, Blackthorne loudly called out:

~ Death’s Embrace need not falter. Abominations of the wasteland return to thy eternal reward. ~

“Dark Judgment!” cried Blackthorne in a loud and commanding voice.

The zombie took another staggered step forward then froze in place. Waves of fire raced outward from beneath it and formed into a perfect circle. Dark energy swirled and formed into shadowy chains that had hooks on the ends. The hooks pierced the zombie and it screamed a terrible scream. Something dark and diseased looking, something vaguely human in form, was ripped out of the desiccated body then dragged into the earth.

A wave of dark energy raced outward and made contact with two of the other zombies. They immediately screeched in absolute terror then flailed their arms and turned away. They began to flee at all possible speed, which for them was not much.

“Sweet...” said Blackthorne.

“What just happened?” asked Sonja, a shudder in her voice.

“Oh that? I just sent a damned soul screaming into the abyss that it had been called from so that it could no longer torment the living.” replied Blackthorne with a smile.

Sonja winced then shook her head. “You say that so cheerfully!”

“Well, the world is a better place and that guy finally got the chance to go home. It’s win-win, as far as I can tell.” he said with another smile. Dark judgment was his version of a turn undead spell. Instead of overpowering the undead with a spell of light and divine power he could terrify it, tear it asunder, terrify it and tear it asunder, or return its soul to the abyss.

Of course, if it was returned to the abyss it would be terrified and torn asunder as well during transport. The result depended on a lot of things, but mostly levels and the strength of spirit.

“What else can you do?” asked Sonja.

Blackthorne grinned at her. “Let’s see...”

The zombies continued to flee in terror, though they still shambled slower than a turtle might walk. The other two zombies had been outside of the effective radius of the dark judgment version of turn undead, so the continued to plod forward.

Blackthorne thought carefully about his abilities. He doubted that his dragon fear would work on the undead but he ran forward, took a deep breath then shouted at the monsters. A ripple traveled through the air and struck the oncoming zombies. They faltered briefly then stood in place. However, they began to move forward once more. His ability to instill terror had been largely muted by their stats and their undead state. Still, it had done something.

“What else can I do?” He tried to recall all of his new active abilities. He was sure that he had some sort of dragon breath weapon. There was also something about increasing his strength by a great degree. He decided to focus on the latter, as he was not sure if he could even use his breath weapon when in human form and all of these abilities required vitality.

Blackthorne searched his mind. He sought the knowledge of how his dragon force would allow him to instinctively increase his strength. It was a racial ability that did not come with much extra information. Still, he had the memory of how it was supposed to work.

The zombies shambled toward him, a little slower than before. He sought out the means for how it worked. The memories were vague and he was uncertain. It also seemed to be a little complicated and related to his emotional state.

The zombies were almost upon him before he finally gave up. He would have to work on it later. Instead, he decided to see what his natural strength would allow for now that he had at least three times his former strength.

Blackthorne ran forward and leapt into the air. He kicked out with both feet and impacted the closest zombie perfectly.

Decaying bones snapped and the monster flew back with great force. Blackthorne easily flipped back onto his feet. That had been fun!

The next zombie had come within striking distance, so Blackthorne leaned to the side casually to avoid one of its weak strikes then slipped around behind it. He gripped it by its chain armor then almost casually heaved the dried out thing over his head.

Blackthorne laughed as he tossed the weakly flailing evil thing away. He knew then that his strength was more than three times what he had before. The information had claimed that it was a minimum of three times stronger. He suspected that it was at least five times more, as he had been able to toss that poor dead bastard like he was nothing. It landed atop its compatriot and they both groaned out in misery.

He waited patiently while the zombies pitifully worked their way back onto their feet. However, the moment that they did get back onto their feet he began to chant the dark judgment spell once more. He wanted to see what happened when there were two of them in the same field of effect.

The fire raced outward and the dark chains swirled in the air. They then latched onto both zombies! It was an area of effect spell; it just had a small area.

Neither zombie was dragged into the abyss, but they both screamed in agony as great rending and tearing sounds emanated from their bodies. The wounds were not visible, but their diseased souls were being torn asunder. After the spell ended, he walked over and mercifully ended their misery with swift kicks to the head.

He admired his handiwork for a moment then nodded. “So, it can be used for more than one undead, but the damage and effectiveness are spread out.”

He looked up and then saw something that made him laugh. The other zombies were still fleeing very slowly. “Hey Sonja...”

“Yes?” she asked with a grin.

He pointed at the fleeing zombies. “Care to dirty your sword?”

She laughed happily then raced forward. Today was a fun day.