Blackthorne lightly rubbed his face then offered a warm smile to a pile of lightly smoking ashes. His basic dark fire mastery skill was not much of an attack spell on its own. However, it provided a certain utility that his jolt! spell lacked. He could use it to start small fires, and as such, he could cook in the wilds without the need to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to start a fire with flint or whatever people used in the dream world.

"Right then," he said before he spared a glance over at a small pile of treasure that he'd acquired by constantly rushing in to quickly attack zombies using a combination of knocking them down and then spamming imperious jolt! and a cast of burn!.

His treasure consisted of several new swords, an axe, a few bits and pieces of tattered and rusted armor, and various zombie parts. Individually, none of them were worth much, but together they heralded the beginning of a new chapter in his life. He could hunt multiple zombies on the outer areas of the graveyard with hit and run tactics. If things continued along these lines, he could easily pay off the remaining debt owed to Scraggles. Jackie would need equipment of her own. However, she should prove to be the one thing he sorely needed. A competent companion.

No one came to this desolate stench infused wasteland unless it was to drop off a criminal corpse. Though, the latter had not happened once while he worked in the area.

Time was spent enchanting the weapons that he'd acquired. His burn! spell was the go to enchantment of the day, as he already had enough of items enchanted with Jolt! for the hunting tactic that he intended to try next. The fire damage was minimal when the spell was cast, but against the undead the fire spell seemed to do far greater damage than its electric cousin. In some ways it seemed that whoever designed the world decided that zombies should be nigh-unkillable through physical means, but highly flammable when fire magic was used.

Once he'd finished enchanting his weapons, Blackthorne ate a small meal and waited while his life force regenerated. He fiddled with blades of grass, making a few rings and bracelets to pass the time. Zero effort was made in the creation of those items, however. He did not wish to increase the skill rank of that skill until he could move it up to at least a secondary skill slot. Increasing its rank now would just cost him more points in the future.

Fully rested, he placed his weapons into his bag then nodded. The bag had not swollen a great deal, and it easily held everything. Not for the first time did he appreciate its ability to hold far more than it should.

Blackthorne made sure the fire he'd crafted earlier was put out properly as he did not want to set the grassland ablaze, then took out an electric sword and his new fire axe. It was time to get to work.

He trotted lazily toward a few moving figures in the distance. He no longer ran at the sight of multiple zombies. He welcomed them. Their proximity merely made things easier.

A joyful battle cry echoed through the air, "Loot and souls!" as Blackthorne ran toward the closest zombie in wild abandon. Its three friends staggered toward him, while the targeted zombie slowly turned in place in an attempt to face its oncoming meal.

The poor creature barely made it half way around before a sword slash took it in the arm. The zombie lurched and spasmed briefly as dark lightning surged along its rotting frame. It never had time to recover as the blade of Blackthorne's axe slammed heavily into the back of its head. Red and black flames shot up from the point of impact and quickly raced along the monster's skull.

An unholy shrieked escaped its lips as the beast was knocked to the ground with a decisive sweep of the legs. Blackthorne hopped away from it and moved on to his next opponent.

While the zombie flailing on the ground continued to burn, its unholy life burning away with each passing second, the would-be dark knight parried a hard strike from the rusted blade of his next undead foe. The creature's blade missed the mark and it was left open for a counter-thrust that took it in the chest.

Dark lightning did its work once more. Unable to control its movements for a few brief seconds, the zombie could do nothing when Blackthorne rammed into it shoulder first then whipped his axe around. He brought it across in a brutal arcing strike that tore a thin line across the beast's rotting throat.

The physical damage, as always, was paltry. The dark flames that erupted from the creature's injured throat were a different story, however. It screeched and clutched at its neck in a parody of a living creature that had suffered a mortal wound. The flames spread to its hands and it fell forward onto the ground. Writhing in its magical agony, the undead abomination could do nothing but scream as the flames burned ever brighter.

Blackthorne leapt sideways to avoid an opportunistic strike by a rusted axe then slashed the wrist of the attacking zombie. It dropped its weapon as the lightning raced along its arm. It too was knocked to the ground before receiving a heavy axe blow to the chest.

He tossed his sword and axe to the ground then raised his hands up. The fourth zombie staggered into range. Blackthorne offered a grim smile as he slipped sideways to avoid its flailing arms. A swift kick to the side of its knee did little damage, but knocked it off-balance enough for Blackthorne to clasp his hands together and deliver a double-fisted axe handle to the creature's back. It stumbled forward a half-step then nearly dropped to the ground. While this would have been a bad sign in a previous fight, as it managed to maintain enough balance to barely remain upright, it was exactly what Blackthorne wanted.

The creature's head was fully exposed and it was off-balance in that moment to the extent that it would only be able to manage the weakest of counter-attacks given its slow nature. Blackthorne threw an open palm strike that struck the back of its head with enough force for it to nearly topple forward. He activated Imperious Jolt! without hesitation.

He let the spell-circuit run free for roughly two seconds while the monster jerked and spasmed. It gave him just enough time to pull out another flame enchanted sword and finish the creature off with a sharp stab to the side of its head, the flames merrily racing outward from the wound to consume the screaming beast.

Blackthorne retreated from the battle and surveyed the area. A few more zombies had opted to come in his direction, but they were scattered around the graveyard and would take at least a minute or two to arrive due to their slowly shambling nature.

The screeching zombies eventually stopped flailing about on the ground and went still. The fire burned some of the items that the zombie carried, mostly their leather or cloth gear, but that did not matter in the slightest. As things stood, the shops would not buy the stuff anyway. It still had uses for synergy training, however.

It was almost too easy to fight zombies for him now that he had usable equipment that he could literally toss aside mid-fight in favor of other items that did the same thing. Trash items overlooked by others were truly his greatest treasures.

He gathered up the various zombie parts that dropped as loot items then looked to what he'd earned as actual equipment. "Another rusty sword, and a chipped axe... Not bad."

Blackthorne created a pile of items off to the side then began to strip the corpses. He'd managed to finish removing most of the tattered armor from the second zombie by the time a new challenger staggered over.

"You wait your turn," said Blackthorne with a snort. He kicked it in the chest then lunged forward into a hard shoulder tackle that sent it flying. "Daddy's busy."

He went back to stripping the corpse that he'd been working on, and managed to wriggle his loot free by the time the zombie stood up once more. Blackthorne glanced down at his new treasure, a torn suit of rusted chainmail then back at the zombie.

"Fine," he said, before he tossed it onto the pile. "If you're that bored, I'll play with you."

Using his superior, technically average, agility Blackthorne ducked underneath a hard swipe of the monster's rotting hands, and swept its legs out from underneath it. The zombie dropped to the ground, and received an imperious jolt! for its troubles. A quick stab from his sword left it writhing in agony as the flames sought to consume it.

He hopped and skipped until he was a short distance away then waved merrily to the staggering corpses that made their way toward him. "Hey, now. You guys wanna play, too?"

The closest one moaned loudly, as though it thought it would be nice to make a new friend. Blackthorne grinned at it then pulled out his other electric sword. Such went his day as he worked his way through the outer area of the grave yard. The inner section near the tomb entrance could be seen from where he stood, but there were a large number of shambling corpses there. Magic or not, he could not afford to try and fight there at the moment. It was not a task he relished taking on alone.