The Death Claws ran for the entrance and stood their ground waiting for the skeletal fighters to emerge from the recesses.

“Walls!!!” Mayah shouted.

“Ceiling!!!” Margaret called out.

Mayah looked and saw large skeletal hands made from humerus bones descending from the ceiling by a long chain of bones.

“Mags focus on the ceiling. Grax tree grenades in the rooms.”

She fished out the tree grenades she’d tied to stilettos and began throwing them into the rooms with the skeletons. Loud booms echoed around the chamber bits of wood and bone blasted out of the chambers coating the floor.

Ding!!!

You have defeated:

Skeletal fighter x62

Level: 12

XP: 2046 (33 x62)

10,744XP till next level

Then all the damage notifications streamed past in a blur. So fast that Mayah couldn’t have hoped to read them. Some fighters were blown free from the room missing an arm or leg or two and were walking, hopping on one leg, or dragging themselves towards the trio.

Margaret was hitting each hole in the ceiling with an Over (F) grenade, which was causing the skeletal arms to crisp and crack off. It left the upper part of the arm clacking against the edges of the hole. The vuurm were spitting fire at the skeletons to very little effect. She pulled out more crystals and sent the silver imps to work. They were much more successful with their brute strength against the skeletons.

Mayah looked down and saw the rötten and they climbed up her back and sat in her hood. She pulled away from Riker not needing a poisoning right now. She looked and saw Vergie smashing through skeleton after skeleton and stomping on the partials that were trying to inflict damage.

The silver imps were bouncing a lot of the fighters into a bunch as they climbed out of the recesses and tried to get past them. She tossed a few more tree grenades that direction when the skeletons began to get free from the scrum. Wood and bone shards went everywhere, even into the imps. Margaret called up six more dolls to replace the ones that had been pin cushioned and broken.

Mayah saw that Vergie was getting overrun.

“Vergie! INCOMING!!!” She waited until the vergax was a safe distance away and tossed three more grenades out near the walls. When she looked up, splinters of wood and bone were clattering to the floor while smaller particles slowly drifted out of the air. Vergie went back to that side of the room, picking off stragglers, decapitating and dismembering the skeletons as they tried to climb into the room.

It’s like watching a kitty trying to catch a fly trapped in a screen door! Kawaii!!!

She turned her attention back to the battle as the flow ebbed. She armed happiness and one of the earthen hammers.

“Margaret cover me.”

“You got it.”

Mayah waded into the skeletons ducking their slow unarmed grabs and taking out legs and stomping on skulls. She became a small whirlwind as she called forth another hammer and activated whack-a-vole and crushing blow while using her mana to replenish her stamina whenever it got below fifty percent.

She booted a skeleton in the chest then smashed its head between her two hammers. Called another hammer forth and threw it at the face of another fighter decapitating it. Smash, bash, fling, became her rhythm until she felt something grab her.

Bones wrapped around her pinning one arm to her body and lifting her from the floor. The giant skeletal hand tightened its hold as it lifted, making Mayah yell out in pain. With her free hand, she used the earthen hammer to beat at the bones above her head. The hammer crumbled into dirt getting into her eyes and mouth.

She spit out the dirt and reached above her head touching the bones there and cast Acid (D). the acid sizzled and burned but the arm was still in one piece. She added a casting of Over (F) to the same place still nothing happened. She quickly cast Surge (S) on herself and all that did was make her and the hand bounce around in the air.

She felt dizzy as the hand squeezed again. Happiness slid from her hand as she reacted to the pain. She remembered what she had done with the logs and began pumping mana into a small section of the bone. She only put 500MP into the bone and cast grenade. She activated the grenade with a one-second timer. She heard a loud crack and then was plummeting to the floor twenty feet below.

She landed with a smack. The bones pressing into her side doing extra damage. She fought through the pain and pushed the bones off of her only to receive a blow to the head by a skeleton fighter. Everything went black for a moment and all she could see were stars. Then her lips kissed the floor at high speed, waking her fully back into consciousness. She turned to see three skeletons winding up for attacks.

Mayah reached for her bag trying to get a Surge (S) grenade, but everything was moving in slow-mo and her body wasn’t responding. She saw the blows coming and couldn’t do anything about it. The blows struck her in the shoulder back and thigh.

As they drew back, she remembered and activated her Aegis (S) ribbon. A black shield formed on her forearm. One skeleton still connected and hit her in her lower back and knocked her back to the ground. She used that slight pause to arm another Aegis (S) ribbon on her opposite arm.

Now armed with two shields she struggled to her knees as the skeletons battered the shields. Buffeted between them she managed to activate another Shield (F) ribbon. The Aegis (S) on her right was about to break and she hopped to her feet and booted a skeleton in the kneecap hyper-extending the knee and it fell back. She turned to rush the other two skeletons and pushed them back into more skeletons who were trying to get past Margaret’s dolls.

I’m on the wrong side of the battle lines.

Using the space she had just created. She equipped two earthen hammers and smacked at the skulls between her and the imps. She made it to the line, kicked a skeleton in the back of the knees, Stepped up using the skeleton’s rib cage, and dove over the line, landing with a roll.

“Thank god!” Margaret yelled. “Grax and Vergie were about to come get you.”

Mayah looked to see Vergie Grax and two dolls barely keeping the incoming horde back. She was about to run help them and paused.

“Mags! Have you seen my hammer?”

Just as Mayah said it, one of Margaret’s dolls fell to the ground. A skeleton was lifting the head of Mayah’s hammer from where it landed and was walking forward. It stalked forward holding Happiness.

“Not today Skeletor!!!!” Mayah yelled and ran forward. The skeleton was winding up and Mayah leapt forward, tucking her knees. She forcefully extended her legs, planted both feet into its chest as hard as she could. The kicked pushed her and the skeleton back behind the line that the dolls were holding with a cracking sound. The hammer fell from its grasp as its head rolled off and its ribs caved in. Mayah twisted in midair, grabbing the hammer’s handle and landing from her kick.

She knelt, whirling the hammer around close to the ground, dropping any skeletons near her. As they fell, they received more blows. Skulls tore from shoulders, shoulders tore from spines, and spines tore from spines.

She stood up and backpedaled filling in the gap in the line. She looked to see the room behind the façade emptying and began to back up. She looked over her shoulder and yelled to Grax, “Is that room almost empty?”

“It’s getting there.”

“When they’re all free, we let them bunch up, do a quick retreat, and toss grenades.”

Mayah noticed Vergie take down three skeletons with a swipe. They broke against her paw, each other, and then the floor.

“Good girl Vergie!” Mayah praised.

Vergie roared with pride and spun to attack more skeletons.

Mayah fought her way back to the line and shouldered through the opening. Margaret’s dolls were getting wedged in the gap.

“Vergie, Grax!!!” Mayah yelled. “Let’s go!”

Mayah turned to Margaret. “Give them a big push back Mags, Grax and Vergie need room. And start moving back. Ready up a few tree grenades.”

“These are my last few silver imps,” Margaret whined.

“Well, have you tried using any of the skeletons?”

Margaret colored and looked away.”

“And you haven’t tried life drain either, I’m assuming.”

Margaret couldn’t meet Mayah’s eyes.

“Mags, you’re the closest thing we have to a healer. We really need you to do this. Cast it right now.”

A skeleton jumped past the line as Vergie and Grax made it past. Mayah ran forward to smack it down then she yelled at Margaret, “Right now, Mags!”

“Okay fine!” Margaret put her bow away, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. A chant like a thousand whispers passed over her lips and she raised her hands. Her eyes popped open and green flames blazed in them. The flames shot to her hands as the whispers built and she flung the eldritch balls of light at the skeletons.

The skeletons she targeted slowed and began to move haltingly. Mayah watched as her Hp ticked up by the tiniest sliver. And then the green glow stopped.

“Good job Mags!”

And then the dolls all fell like the dead bodies they were.

“Oh, shaz!!! Run! Grenades!!!”

Grax and Mayah tossed tree grenades while running. The effects were two-fold. At first, the tree expanded into existence sending the skeletons flying against the walls. Then they exploded firing shrapnel down the tunnel in both directions.

The team ducked as multiple explosions went off behind them. They didn’t stop running either as the shrapnel pelted their backs. Fifteen seconds after the last explosion, Mayah pulled them up short, and they turned around. They walked back past the debris and every time Mayah saw a skull she bashed it to pieces.

“So, Mags,” Mayah finally said. “Ran out of mana?”

Margaret just looked at her shoes

“What's your mana at?”

“34.”

“That’s okay, where’s your intelligence at?”

“5.”

Grax overhearing this yelled incredulously, “5? No wonder you can’t sustain any more dolls!”

“Cat has a point. Your mana regen is what?” Mayah asked.

Margaret winced and said, “2.65 per second.”

“So you take about six minutes to recoup your mana? How much mana does calling a doll take?”

“It takes at least 100MP chunk and whatever my mana regen percentage is to the 100mp block.”

“It drops 100MP off of your bar and then lowers you regen from 2.65 to 2.4?

“Yes.”

“Her toon is all messed up,” Grax said as he came back to them.

“I agree,” Mayah told Grax and turned back to Margaret. “Do your dolls feel sluggish when you’re controlling them?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?”

“Can you make the dolls do fine motor skill work?”

“No…?”

“Have you tried?”

“No.”

Grax facepalmed and walked away shaking his head.

“I think I know how to fix your problem. But you should really let me and Grax look at your character sheet. And it’s gonna be harder to fix because the levels will come slower and slower now. You understand?”

“Kinda?” the perplexed noob said.

“You just leveled up, right?”

“Yes.” Margaret stood a little taller.

“So I’m gonna come up with a plan for you to follow on your build. You okay with that?”

Margaret nodded an affirmative.

“Without looking at your sheet and taking info from past conversations, you’ve dumped a lot into constitution, endurance, agility, and perception. But that’s because you’ve been focusing on being anything but a necromancer. But you’re a weird hybrid of the nec and ranger. Your CON and END don’t need to be that high because you’re not a melee fighter. Up close and personal, you use your dolls to fight for you. So instead of beefing up your intelligence to help your mana regen making your skills stronger, you’ve just let them rot away.

“You need your mana up for all of your skills. Resurrection doll, shadow lightning, and life drain.” Mayah ticked off on her fingers. “Most of your archery abilities are stamina based correct?”

“Yes.”

“So you need to do a build that will increase your mana and stamina along with their regens. And while you don’t have to sacrifice everything else, you need bare minimums. Now, every attribute point up to level 30 at least, gets dumped into intelligence. Okay?”

Margaret kicked a hunk of wood.

“Okay Mags, assign those points.”

“All clear in the room.” Grax yelled.

“Mags, I’m sorry I let you get all out of whack by not sharing my wisdom with you. I thought you were doing okay.”

“The noobness strikes again,” Grax said.

Margaret glared at Grax.

“Hey Mags, it wasn’t an insult,” Grax informed her. “It was just a fact. You’re a noob on your first toon and you messed up a bit. Not bad. But a little.”

“Your homework for tonight is to look up necromancer builds. We can’t have you running around under-prepared for what we’re gonna get ourselves into.” Mayah put a hand on her shoulder and looked in Margaret’s eyes. It’s not bad because we caught it early. But to let you know my intelligence is at 43 and with my bonuses it shows up at 54 and my regen for mana is 20.07 per sec. I regen my whole pool in just over a whole minute. Those seconds count in battle and since you lose whole blocks of mana when you use your dolls, you need to up both.

“My general plan for is to dump my 2 stat points in mana, 1 attribute point into constitution and endurance and then 2 points in intelligence. That way I get more health points, mana, and mana and stamina regen. Once we get you balanced out, you’ll be fine.”

“Mags, you gonna try to raise a skeleton?” Grax asked trying to bring a light into the darkness.

Margaret looked at the bones littered around the room.

“You got this, Mags!” Mayah encouraged.

Margaret focused on a pile of bones and her eyes glowed eldritch. Bones from the pile arose into the air and Margaret had a look of intense concentration as the skeleton assembled before their eyes. Margaret was breathing a little heavily.

“You okay, Mags?”

“Yes, dear. That was harder than I expected it to be. I actually had to construct the skeleton and unlocked 2 new auxiliary skill trees.”

Mayah clapped happily. “What are they called?”

“Skeletal reconstruction. Lets me assemble a skeleton that’s in pieces. And Skeletal assessment. Lets me pick the best bones that I find.”

“So Mags this is gonna sound crazy but I want you to try something.”

“Right now, Fluff?” Grax whined.

“Hey, if she can do this we’ll be better off in this dungeon of bones.”

“So what am I supposed to be doing while you play bone collector?”

“You can gather up the bones and we can put them into storage, duh! Stop being so impatient.”

“You do know I do the fighty slicey bitey stuff right?” Grax asked.

“How could I forget?”

“As long as you know. The more I do that, the less time my mouth has to move.”

“Say no more fam.” Mayah held up a hand to stop him. “I totally understand. But we gotta water our little flower so she blossoms.”

“I know,” Grax groaned as if he were in pain. “But fighty slicey sneaky bitey.”

“By the end of this dungeon, we should be squared away. So just hold your tiny horses.”

“Tiny horse,” Margaret snorted.

An image of Grax riding on a tiny horse grew inside of Mayah’s mind and she started to chuckle. Then she made the giddy-up motion but low to the ground.

“Okay, that is a little funny,” Grax said, catching on and letting a smile grow on his face. “But can you hurry up?”

“Working on it but you keep interrupting. Sheesh…” Mayah turned back to Margaret.

“Okay, Mags where were we? Okay, I want you to add bones to your skeleton. It doesn’t matter if they’re anatomically correct or not. The crazier the better.”

“I can try.” Margaret focused on the only skeleton standing in the room and then turned back to the pile and bones began floating up into the air and rotating around each other. Small slivers of bone fell to the ground as some bones changed shape and then joined other bones.

The finished product stood there as Margaret caught her breath. It had two arms on each side. As Mayah walked closer, she noticed that the humeri joined at the head of the bones near the ball joint that held in the shoulder joint. They splayed at an angle of about thirty degrees. With the upper arms fused, it would operate as one arm but at the elbow that all changed.

Margaret was moving the skeleton around and the forearms moved independently as did the hands. It was a creepy bone shiva.

“Good job Mags. I’m impressed,” Grax applauded.

“Yeah, Mags. Good job.” Mayah commended.

“That was definitely harder to do. I had to channel mana while I created the skeleton and every alteration took a chunk of mana. But I’m starting to understand why dolls are so easy to raise compared to skeletons.” Margaret examined her new creation with wonder.

“And what’s that difference?” Mayah asked

“Dolls come fully assembled and there’s no work to do. They’re extremely cast and go.” She placed her hand on the four-armed skeleton and examined the join on the humerus. “Skeletons are more like tinker toys or legos. You can put them together in infinite combinations.”

“And you don’t throw up either.” Grax nodded his approval.

“There are no guts. So that’s to be expected.” Margaret informed him.

“I’m gonna miss the dark necromancer routine. How do they stack up against the dolls, Mags?” Mayah asked.

Not as strong or durable. But I bet I can fix some of it in the future. Because I unlocked the necromantic engineer skill tree. Lets me change all types of things like bones and tissues to create anything I want.”

“You are going to FLESH out some designs tonight.” Mayah finger gunned her teammates as they groaned.

“Yes dear, as long as you stop with the puns.”

“I agree with Mags. No more puns.”

“Hey, you got cattitude, Mags has mercy and benevolence and I have puns. besides my puns are amazing and I’m sure they’ve groan on you!”

“Stop,” Grax whined.

“It’s such punishment,” Margaret added.

At least I don’t write them down. Because then they’d be tearable.”

There was silence as Grax and Margaret looked at her.

“I’m walking away. That was too much,” Grax sighed.

“I’m with the cat on this one.”

“Lames,” Mayah barked. “Can’t even take a pun?”

“It's not that we can’t take them, it’s that we won’t, dear.”

“Puns are like the spam of the joke world. You can do so much better genius. Like tiny horses, for instance. That was funny.”

Mayah suddenly bent over and rubbed the middle of her legs and groaned then she coughed into her hand.

“What’s the matter?” Margaret asked, suddenly in Grandma mode.

“My po-knees. And I might be getting a little horse too?” she coughed into her hand again.

“Will you pick up the bones so we can go? Me fighty slashy bitey slicey, remember?”

“Fine… you guys are no fun.”

They gathered the bones into a pile as Mags called forth a few skeletal fighters to go with the last of the imps.

So Mags when the imps go down, I need you to call them back as skeletons. Okay?”

“I can try.”

“Awesome. Last thing, cat. Any loot behind the walls?”

“None that I found. You gonna double-check?”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Grax ran over to a recess and ushered her through the hole. Mayah stood up and saw a room and just a room. She started at the corner closest to the door and inspected the stone for any seams or irregularities. She walked along the wall with her hand tracing the stone occasionally looking at the backside of the recesses.

“Hey, can somebody pull the key again?”

Grax trotted over and gave it a yank.

“Nothing princess.”

“Cool.”

She climbed out of the far end and crossed the room to repeat the process finding nothing. She went to the center of the room and snipped the wire holding the key to the floor.

“Okay gang, door number one it is.” She marched across the room and armed happiness. Margaret pulled out her bow and nocked an arrow and Grax already had his katanas drawn. Mayah and Grax stood on each side of the door and Mayah’s hand was on the latch. Margaret was fifteen feet in front of the door and ready to fire.

Mayah removed her hand and made the sign for three, then two, then put her hand back on the door and pulled it open.

Margaret lowered her bow slightly and Grax peeked down the long empty corridor. Mayah quickly followed suit.

“Traps?” Grax whispered.

“Or puzzles,” Mayah replied.

“I’m on point. Keep an eye out for traps. Mags, step where you see me or fluff step.”

“Roger DC2.”

They all snickered a bit at the lingo as Grax entered the hallway and looked all around. Slowly he made his way forward, pausing occasionally testing a stone or a crack in the wall. The magnitude of the quiet in the hall grew exponentially as they made their way forward. The tunnel dipped and rose and weave around preventing a clean line of sight. Mayah rolled her shoulders to get rid of the tense feeling that was creeping up her neck.

They saw the end of the tunnel ahead of them at the end of a short rise. Grax scampered along as fast as he could while searching for traps. Mayah and Margaret followed his haste, and they cleared the exit to find themselves on a small landing. In front of them was a large circular room roughly 1,000 feet across. The floor was littered with bones. They were so deep they completely hid the floor. There was no visible exit.

Mayah looked over the edge, down into the bones.

“You can’t see the floor,” she told the others.

“How deep do you think it is?” Mags asked.

“I would guess about three feet—at least.”

“Hidden exit?” Grax asked

“More than likely.”

“Boss room?”

“Possible but I don’t think so.”

“Should we toss grenades or walk across?” Grax inquired.

“We walk first. Grenades grow on trees but we don’t have any down here.” Mayah grimaced in thought. “But if we find some stones or boulders, I can turn them into grenades.”

“We’ll keep an eye out. Won’t we Grax?”

“Sure thing, Mags.”

Mayah sat down on the edge of the landing and scooted forward until her tippy toes were on the bones. Then she dropped the rest of her weight, landing on the bones with a crunch. She stared around like a thief on a squeaky floorboard. Nothing moved and she let out a breath she’d been holding.

She motioned to the others to climb down. Grax motioned for a hand and Mayah swung him down with little effort. Margaret climbed down with a crunch and they moved out towards the center of the room.

A quiet susurration came from the depths. The paladins instantly triggered their shield (F) runes. Their glow made their shadows dance on the walls. The noise grew in intensity. It started off slowly and bones flew up in a small tornado. They whirled around and formed a skeleton with tiny clacks as bones socketed. Margaret sent her skeleton to take care of it.

The two skeletons fought as the Death Claws looked around warily.

When’s the other shoe gonna drop?

An arm tore off of the skeleton and landed on the bone floor. Mayah watched as it rattled around like a bony fish out of water. Then it dug into the bones and disappeared. She nudged Grax.

“Yeah I saw it,” he let her know.

The tension was rising when an arm pushed out of the bones, scattering others with its force. It pulled itself out attached to a whole skeleton.

“Magician's apprentice!” Mayah yelled.

Margaret looked at her in confusion and then understanding crossed her face as she saw the other skeleton. “So every piece makes more enemies?”

“Shaz!!!” Grax grunted. “There’s got to be an end to them though, right?”

“We need to destroy the bones!”

Grax swung an earth hammer at the newly formed skeleton and the head flew off like a line drive. The body and the head lay still for three seconds then they rattled and moved. The body searching blindly for its head found another head and put it on. As soon as it did, Grax knocked it off again.

The first decapitated head was forming a brand new body. And Mayah spied the second head doing something similar. Mayah tossed a Light (W) grenade up in the air. And the skeletons shuddered as the confetti fell.

“There’s some shadow-based magic going on. Light ‘em up, but leave room for Vergie!”

“Vergie roared. And trampled the Skeletons that were popping up on Margaret’s side of the room. More skeletons popped up and moved to surround the trio.

Over the course of the next two minutes, ten skeletons became twenty. Twenty became 30. The more they put down, the more arose.

“On me!” Mayah yelled. She led the team around the edge of the room kiting all the bones onto one side of the room, as their numbers grew. They couldn’t keep them back. Skeletal hands swung and connected whittling away at their health. They grabbed at the paladin’s clothes trying to pull them into their swelling ranks.

Grax used the earthen hammers to beat them back and tossed Spike (W) grenades to slow down the front ranks. There was no space, as Margaret swung her sword and couldn’t miss the bony horrors no matter how inexpertly she swung. Her undead were somewhere in the press and Mayah could only see them on her map, but there were no distinguishing marks to help her see them. Mayah was swinging crushing blows and refilling her stamina with mana constantly.

She dropped a tree grenade almost every minute trying to stave them off. But even though they fell twice their number rose in their place. She stopped that strategy after five grenades. Five minutes later, Mayah moved towards the center of the room dragging Margaret and Grax along and dropped five Spike (W) grenades. The skeletons angled towards them and walked right over it. When it exploded skeletons froze in place.

Grax tossed a tree grenade into their midst. When it exploded, skeletons flew in every direction. The shrapnel tore at Mayah’s hands and face, dropping her to the ground and shaving away at her HP.

Mayah picked herself up and saw the divot left in the explosion's wake. She watched as the skeletons put themselves back together. And small tornadoes formed all around them.

A multitude of bones quaked and shimmied as they fought to follow the magic that called them. Hundreds of skeletal fighters arose around them. The bones under their feet being to roll and flip towards the rising maelstrom of boniness. Mayah had to keep her feet moving so that the bones wouldn’t pull her off balance.

“Look!” Margaret yelled over the loud clicking. Her hand pointed at the doorway that was rising as the bones under their feet sunk them deeper into the floor. The ledge with the door was fifteen feet overhead already.

Shaz! we’re in it now!

“Light up all of your shield ribbons! Grenades, all sides! Don’t stop until your HP gets low.”

They tossed grenade after grenade around the perimeter of the room and within five seconds the booms were buffeting them back and forth. Bone turned to bullet and dust, choking the paladins.

Something sharp impacted Mayah’s backside dropping her health precipitously.

You have taken damage

-234HP Bone Shrapnel

712/1926HP

With a whine, she reached back and found a bone sticking out of her left butt cheek. It had gone right through her cloak.

“Ow!” she whimpered. Her right hand went into her bag to pull out a bandage and then she did the Indiana Jones swap as quickly as she could. She studied the broken mandible in her hand.

“I knew these grenades would come back to bite me in the butt, but come on???” she yelled to the ceiling.

She turned her attention back to the scene of destruction around her. Broken jagged bones and chunks of wood lay strewn everywhere. Grax was standing up missing tufts of fur. Margaret was on one knee observing the carnage. Vergie was curled around the rotten growling.

Dust was falling creating a nimbus around their glowing Shield (F) auras. The skeletons began to rise again. There were only about twenty of them this time, but they struck fear into the paladin's hearts. One had two torsos fused together with two heads atop the misshapen and blackened bone. Where its arms should be, it had two torsos with skulls and arms connected to them. It sat on top of four legs bent at the knee and it scuttled over to them low to the ground flexing its torso arms. with the four regular arms reaching out to ensnare them.

Another was a skeletal centaur. Legs came out of the shoulders and where the head should be another torso turned upwards at ninety degrees. One was four torsos fused at the legless pelvises. Like an arachnid, it scampered across the debris with uncanny agility, eight jaws clacking.

“Welcome to creeper town,” Grax yelled as he charged the Skele-spider.

More monstrosities rose and Margaret took aim with Spike (W) arrows. Mayah tossed out acid grenades coating the undead, which had little effect. As the green goo disappeared, they could see tiny fractures on their bones making Mayah more hopeful.

Mayah tossed out a bunch of Acid (D) grenades then bowled a regular nonexplosive tree grenade at the horde. The tree blossomed into reality and rolled forward at the speed of her throw. It bounced along crushing and trapping the mobs.

She spun repeating the action. Acid (D) and trees rained on the mobs as they grew into more and more grotesque configurations. Things with ten arms, twelve legs, and 6 torsos. Mayah and the team wove throughout the tree maze kiting and strafing the mobs.

Grax ran back to Mayah and Margaret after felling his latest victim. He hopped over the tree and fell back taking a moment to catch his breath.

“This would be more fun if we were getting more XP.” He said breathily.

“Well, they’re getting tougher so more XP.” Margaret shot an arrow and said.

“Yeah but level 15 still only gets us 47XP. We are way over-leveled.” Grax complained.

“There are eight keys to unlock the door don’t jinx us before we get them,” Mayah added, handing Margaret more tree grenades. “Mags put out some more barriers. This is giving us a bit more control. Running around this room sucks.”

“At least you have shoes,” Grax moaned.

“Don’t hold us accountable for your fashion choices.” Margaret yelled over the sounds of bones clacking.

“I was hoping for a little empathy.”

“I save my empathy for those with common sense,” Mayah shot.

“Harsh, princess. So harsh.”

“But you’re learning your lesson.”

Mayah ducked as one the osseous horrors reached over the tree and tried to grab them. Grax smashed the hand with an earthen hammer knocking a few fingers loose. Mayah turned to face the horror and smacked it with a downward crushing blow making its feet leave the ground.

They turned to run when a tree appeared out of nowhere, its branches almost gouging their eyes out.

“Sorry!” Mags yelled. “It slipped.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Grax complained.

Mayah vaulted over the trunk and landed with a crunch. They were in a triangle of trees about twenty feet to a side. Vergie was batting at any bones that reached over the trees. When a skeleton rose in their midst. Without even blinking, Mayah grabbed the barely formed spine and chucked it outside of their perimeter.

“Everyone take a side. Two grenades for coverage.”

“for coverage?”

“Spread ‘em out evenly, Mags,” Grax yelled.

“On three… two…” Mayah tossed her grenades and ducked waited for the booms.

Dust and debris rained down along with skeletal parts, which began to quake and attract more bones. A quaking femur was right in front of Mayah. She tossed it out of their defensive triangle.

“Everybody okay?”

Margaret coughed and Grax gave a thumbs up. They smiled at each other until the clicking of bones wiped the smiles off of their faces. She looked up at the door and then craned her neck.

“The door!” mayah yelled, pointing upwards.

“That’s gotta be sixty feet up.”

Mayah looked at the wall and could see the bones sliding against the wall.

That’s where the noise was coming from. Looks like it’s speeding up too.

“Everybody keep an eye open for a way off of this bone elevator.”

Mayah began golf swinging to remove shards of bone that were recreating themselves. Most flew out of the triangle the ones she shattered, however, didn’t rise again.

They battled on this way for another ten minutes when the center of the room began to fall faster than the perimeter. The floor became funnel-shaped, and the bones began to slide into the void below. A tree got sucked into the hole and disappeared.

Shaz what now?

“I don’t like this, Fluff.”

Me either, Mags.”

Grax jumped onto a skeleton that was creeping behind them. “If you ladies are done chatting, I could use a little help.”

“I’m glad to hear you admit it but, just a little help? I would say you need a lot of help.”

“I agree with you, dear.”

“Hurr dee hurr hurr. Will you smash things please?”

Mayah tossed an earthen hammer at Grax forcing him to dodge. The hammer smashed into a skeleton that was stalking him from behind.

“Does that help?”

Grax just shook a finger at her and grimaced.

Mayah noticed the room starting to spin. When she double-checked the room wasn’t spinning the bones were. Like water doing down the bowl the bones were flying into the darkness of a black hole in the center of the room. The walls were closing in as the bones fell forcing everything into the center of the room.

“We need to get to the edge. NOW!!!”

The paladins fought their way to the wall trying to find some purchase, but the walls were slick as glass. Every time Mayah struck the glass the crack would rise out of reach within seconds. The susurration that they had heard when stepping into the bones was now a clattering roar of bones that followed the physics of fluid dynamics.

They fought the osseous horrors as the room shrunk. They tried to knock them close to the hole as they seemed unaware of its existence.

Undead minions don’t have self-preservation skills. Got it.

The room was only about three-hundred feet wide at this point. The team was controlling their small bit of wall though melee. The bone funnel was snatching up most of the bones that would have arisen. They were grateful for the reprieve but it was a reprieve with its own set of problems.

“This is gonna suck, isn’t it?” Grax asked Mayah.

“fairly certain.”

They were waiting for the inevitable as the walls closed in and the mobs disappeared into the whirlpool of boniness. Grax knocked a monstrosity back, it fell over backwards and fell into the hole.

“Get ready!” Mayah yelled, hoping to prepare her teammates for the impending pain.

Margaret yelled, “DOOR!!!”

Across the room, a door was being exhumed by the falling bones. It was a big door Mayah gauged that they had about thirty seconds to reach it before the bottom became visible and the bottom would be out of reach.

Grax was already running. “Stay along the wall,” he yelled and continued his mad dash, Margaret and then Mayah behind him.

Vergie came along and threw Mayah onto her back and did the same for Margaret. Grax saw her coming and leapt to board the vergax express. A ledge rose up out of the falling bones and Vergie leapt through the air. She made it onto the ledge but slid, tossing an unbalanced Grax free.

He spun through the air reaching out to his teammates Mayah touched his fingertips and flinched as his claws tore into her flesh. Instincts force her to shy from the pain by just a smidge, but that smidge was all it took to send the cat sprawling through space.

Time sped back up as he hit the wall and then the edge of the ledge. Mayah prayed he could hold on. But the bones he landed on skidded out from under him and he went over the edge.

“GRAX!!!” Mayah yelled jumping down to look for him. She peered out over the edge and found him sliding down a set of bone covered steps. He bounced and flew around the edge of the wall and out over the hole she saw him falling in slow motion. With nothing to stop him.

One of the trees they had thrown out hit something solid as it slid down into nothingness and then toppled over the breech. Grax grabbed hold of the leaves as it swung across the opening. Mayah craned her neck to see if he’d survived when the tree slid into the vast unknown below them.

Somehow, sprawled out on a step was a heavily breathing cat clutching his heart. He let his body slump as he caught sight of her.

“Man, thought I was a goner,” he said, adding a breathy sigh.

“You okay?” Mayah yelled.

“Yeah, just gonna lay here and see how many lives I have left.”

Margaret rushed over and saw Grax laying on the steps.

“Hey Mags,” Grax waved.

“Laying down on the job again?”

“Most definitely. If we’re not under attack, I’m just gonna lay here and regen for a bit.”

“That sounds like a good idea. How long do you need?” Mayah asked.

“About an hour.”

“Okay, if nothing attacks we break here for an hour. Anybody wanna try to eat some bones for survivalist?”

Margaret's face went frowny and Grax said. “I’m gonna pass.”

“understandable.” Mayah turned to Vergie and said, “You rescued us. That means treats.” Vergie perked up.

The clatter of bones from below lightened into a patter and finally stopped. Mayah looked over the edge into the hole. There was a foot wide shelf around the darkness. Covered in bones, it led to the staircase and the staircase rose up to the ledge. So they were only in a small amount of danger of falling through.

“There aren’t any mobs yet. So, pony up some treats for our savior.” Mayah scratched under Vergie’s frill. “You’re such a good girl! Yes, you are!”

She dropped down to peek at the rötten. “C'mon out outta there and stretch your legs.”

The rötten climbed free as Vergie cleared a space and lay down.

“Okay snacks for everyone.”

…..

Mo and his party were eating the tasty delicious foods of the marketplace as they waited for Gummish and Treegan to finish their current patrol.

“Booms how come you keep buying multiple portions of everything you like to eat?” Ziggs asked.

“You haven’t noticed it because you probably haven’t taken the beatings that I have, but good food helps me to regen a lot quicker.” Mo placed the meat sticks he purchased into his bag. “Better the food faster the regen, and also I hate the trail meals.”

“Yeah, they do suck.” Mephi agreed.

“Hey, I’ve been studying our new maps and noticed that there’s a bunch of trainers.”

“Really,” Mo asked with much interest. He opened his menu and pulled up the beautiful map and selected trainers in the search parameters. Dots across the map popped up. He began to search through them and each one was a different kind of trainer.

He typed combat trainer into the search and all but twenty-two dots disappeared. He began to look through those and found a trainer that seemed like he would be a good fit for him.

“I found a good trainer I want to check out.” He looked up to see Mephi nose deep in his own screens.

“I’m still looking. There are so many trainers.”

“I narrowed it down by searching for combat trainers.”

“duh.” Mephi slapped his forehead and began typing again. “ooh, just what I’m looking for.”

“What are you looking for, anyway?” Ziggs asked the skunkman.

“Until I finish that quest in N’tha’a I can’t say.”

“oooohhhh… secrets, Mephi? Tell us more?” Mo teased.

Mephi just shook his head.

Mo turned to Ziggs and asked, “And what about you boxy lady? What kind of trainer are you looking for?”

“Right now mechanics and engineers. Later on, it’ll be combat trainers. But I have a lot of work to do yet.”

“How come you haven’t gotten any more mecha-ish, anyway?” Mephi asked.

“Need more levels. I have to trade XP for build points. So until I get more XP you won’t see much growth.”

“Speaking of XP,” Mephi said, “Now that Danley is doing the legwork for us on the business stuff, what are we gonna do tomorrow? We got trainers and the oathsmen are busy looking for Nessler. Maybe we can find some easy quests?”

“Let’s ask the knockers—sorry, oathsmen, what might be available to get us some XP,” Ziggs added.

“That’s the plan then. We have to be back here at seven-ish for Taur, anyway. Want to just explore the marketplace and get an idea of what’s available for purchase?” Mo scratched his chin. “I would also love to see what type of potions they have available. And what books they have. Never underestimate a good book.”

“I have a few gold I could part with. And we could use some more gear.” Mephi suggested

“And I need some parts manufactured.”

“Well, it sounds like we’ll spend the rest of the day shopping. And tomorrow we’ll go get XP or do some training,” Mo concluded.

“Ziggs you want to message Gummish and we’ll start looking around?”

“On it, oh armless leader.”

Mephi bounced a fist on Ziggs’ body. “You kill me, trashbot.”

A disgruntle Mo just said, “C’mon before you get all weepy over me.”

Mephi and Ziggs just laughed as he strode off.