This time Dix didn’t recall any of his Risen. He left the three that hadn’t yet found another group of enemies to their search. The only rats he had with him were Ratso, and the single, smaller Risen that had found this particular group of rats. Once more he made a preliminary plan to test certain things out, fully expecting nothing to work as he wanted it to. It wasn’t that he was worried about the ensuing chaos, just mildly irked that he would have to abandon yet another group of test subjects without using them to the fullest extent. Still, he did have a plan that would definitely allow him to test at least a few things before everything could descend into chaos.

As he needed an open slot amongst his Risen to be able to Raise another, the first part of his plan was to send the smaller rat in first. It wouldn’t be completely alone, but it was more a suicidal attempt at drawing all of the enemies into a smaller area so as to make them more easy to control. The Risen charged straight at the central rat, leaping just a little to the side of the rat as it attacked. The Risen countered with its own biting attack mid air, before crashing to the ground and continuing to run to the back wall. All of the rats were visible now, with the two from the far corners turning back towards the Risen along the back wall, and the two from the closer corners just now appearing to Dix as he stood in the hallway. The injured central rat that had leapt at the Risen crashed to the ground and slid forward, passing the two rats from the corners nearest the entrance.

With four rats focused on the poor Risen against the back wall, and well on their way to attacking it, Dix decided it was time. First, he fired off the two Icicles he had prepared at the closer rats, letting Ratso head out for them at the same time. After his spells fired off, Dix ran out towards the central rat that was just getting to its feet. Before it could get fully upright, he spear tackled it to the ground, Touch of Death radiating outward from his whole body. The Icicles impacted the two nearer rats at about the same time, damaging and slowing them enough that Ratso could catch one. The two farthest rats crashed into the Risen at the back wall, and that conflict descended into a bloody furball.

Feeling the connection to the smaller Risen disappear as it was torn apart, Dix immediately cast Raise Dead on the rat he’d drained of health. His blistered hand, and bitten arm had both healed fully through the use of Touch of Death. Not waiting for the new Risen to form, he flicked a knife at one of the two rats that Ratso had been fighting. Ratso was fine, but a little help would keep one of them off of him long enough for him to finish the other. When the first knife caused the rat to stumble, the second, which had Power and Quick added to it, broke its rear limb and pinned it to its side, putting it mostly out of the fight.

Dix would have thrown both blades at the same time, but his other hand had been busy aiming the Wind Blade that he sent towards the rats that had killed his Risen. He could only assume that whiskers were great for detecting air flow, as both rats jumped over the spell they definitely couldn’t see. Not that it saved them, as two more knives seemed to instantly appear in their eyes courtesy of Quick and Precise. The knives didn’t punch all the way through the orbit, but the debilitating pain kept them out of fighting shape long enough for Dix to finish them off with a couple of hammer blows.

By the time he turned back to the other two, Ratso and his new similarly sized friend had finished off the last two. Dix immediately named him Fatso. It wasn’t that the rat was any fatter than the others, just that it rhymed with Ratso, making them a good pair. It seemed that his experiment was a partial success, Touch of Death or the variation in time since death was most likely the reason for the increased size of Ratso and Fatso. It was also apparent that the two of them were perfectly capable of fighting without his direct supervision. He’d only told Ratso to take care of the two rats from the corners closest to the door, but gave him no other instruction. He hadn’t even given Fatso that much, but the Risen still killed off one of the rats with no prompting.

After grabbing his knives, Dix settled down against the wall to take a bit of a break. He’d used a fair bit of stamina since he came into the dungeon, and while it came back quickly, he still wanted to keep it topped up, along with his mana. Slipping into meditation was easier than normal, as he had a couple of Risen nearby to guard him. A short time into his rest his thoughts were interrupted by one of the smaller Risen finding something.

The rat had found another group of people fighting, but they weren’t fighting rats. Using the senses of his Risen, Dix determined that the rat had wandered into a different section of the dungeon. Not another floor, just an area that was different. It was more cave-like than where he currently was, but seemed to have the same general layout. High ceilings, fairly wide halls, enough light that extra wasn’t needed, and dead ends with monster groups. Idly watching a group of people fight a group of slimes, Dix tried to figure out what he should do. There were plenty more rats to kill, but they were already rather boring to fight. Even a group of five was easy at this point, particularly with his Risen. On the other hand, replacing his current Risen with some that didn’t suck would be a nice way to increase his power before he headed to fight slimes.

Decision made, he recalled the Risen near the slimes and sent it back towards the rats. Realizing that he had gone about this whole thing in a rather freeform manner, he quickly checked the work slips he’d been given at the entrance. They were actually well organized, leaving the first floor slips on the top, rats second. The first one was actually the slimes, apparently their cores were worthy of sale. As for the rats, it was more of a cleaning duty, so their tails were to be collected as proof of death. With a sigh, he returned back the way he came, collecting the tails of the four rats he’d just killed, then further back to collect the five from the second set. None of the bodies were still available from the first set of rats he had killed as he had turned them all into Risen. The one Risen that had died had dissolved into some form of sludge, so no tail to collect. While it was a sad state of affairs that he couldn’t use anything from his Risen, having them was still better than not.

By the time he had finished with that task, one of his lesser Risen had found another pack of rats, so he repeated the last fight, getting himself another stronger Risen in exchange for losing the lesser one who found the rats. For no reason whatsoever, he decided to name this one Doug. With Ratso, Fatso, and Doug surrounding him, he quickly gathered four more tails.

As he was about to move on, his Risen once more spotted something interesting. This time it was a familiar Dwarf walking down the halls of the dungeon. Despite there being no physical evidence of anyone accompanying him, Dix still knew there was someone along with him. There was no other reason for him to be walking to one side of the dungeon hallways, it simply wasn’t a safe way to travel, even for someone of his level. Perhaps especially for someone of his level, as the only way to get there would have been to travel through a number of such dungeons. Safety habits more than anything else dictated that you walk the center of the hall if you are alone, although traps could change that.

Smirking to himself, he pulled the Risen back and sent it hunting rat packs in a different direction, while he went to the nearest intersection along the dwarf’s path to wait for him and his friend hiding in stealth. Ratso, Fatso, and Doug waited behind him, guarding his back. When Thunk was close enough, Dix stepped out to lean on the wall, looking right at where someone of normal height would be to comfortably walk alongside a friend, saying, “Well, I guess the request to get me a trainer went well. You must be Error.”

Thunk’s jaw dropped, but laughter blossomed from the empty space next to him that suddenly shimmered and melted away to reveal a man just a few inches taller than Dix had anticipated. The man smiled, looking like a manic zombie elf, and stepped forward to shake Dix’s hand. “That I am. And you are definitely intelligent enough to have made something like Empower. How’d you know where I was? Body language from Thunk?” At Dix’s nod, he laughed again, then rubbed his hands together a bit like an evil villain. “Excellent. I was going to suggest we head back to Thunk’s office to chat, but as long as we are already in here, how about you show me a little of how you fight. Have you killed anything yet?”

Dix waved them to follow as he headed to one of his Risen, waiting near another pack of rats. As he spoke he called Ratso, Fatso, and Doug to surround them at a bit of a distance. “These three here are some of my Risen, the other two are scouting. I’ve killed twenty rats so far, four groups of five. Only injury I took was from a stupid mistake I have since rectified.” He briefly covered the details of his injury and subsequent response and healing when Error asked. Both the elf and dwarf nodded without commentary, as they had done similar things on early outings of their careers. Continuing, Dix stated, “The only thing I have worked with is my Risen. As they are a result of one of my skills I figured that they didn’t count, but I can down a pack without them if you want to see just me fighting.”

Error pondered for a moment before agreeing. “It’s not that I don’t think you can do it, nor do I want to put you in much danger, but I really do need to see what sort of fighter you are if I am going to train you. I’m also quite interested in how well your skills perform. Have you seen any others fighting down here?”

“Hmph, if you can call it that. I haven't yet decided why they fight like morons. Maybe you can help me out there. Is it their age, training, or culture?”

Error opened his mouth to respond, but Thunk beat him to it. “What do you mean? Some of the best trained adventurer apprentices come here for seasoning.”

The look Dix leveled on Thunk showed exactly how disgusted he was with that statement. Seeing the smirk on Error’s face, Dix realized the two men had differing opinions on this subject. Error asked, “What exactly did you see?”

After Dix explained, in great detail, why everything the youths were doing was wrong, Error was thrilled, and Thunk, while originally quite irritated by the derogatory commentary, was actually starting to think positively about the new arrival. By the time he finished they had arrived at the next pack of rats. The larger Risen stayed behind to guard the entry to the hallway, and Dix sent the smaller one out to scout out some more. Looking at Error he asked, “How do you want me to do this? With or without spells? ”

“Well, if you think you can track down another couple of packs to fight, then do the first one just with skills, and the next add in spells. One more after that and you can even use the Risen. That should get me a fairly good idea of what you can do, if that will work out for you?”

Once more Dix’s feral smile spread across his face. His answer was almost a growl, “Perfect.” With no more conversation he turned to attack.

------------------

Error watched the Folk ready his weapons. For a moment he was confused, thinking that the man would be fighting with his backpack on, but it suddenly dropped to the ground. Left behind was a harness filled with low level weaponry. None of it was very impressive, but they were all serviceable for this level of opponent. The man’s chest was practically festooned with knives, and there were a couple more on his legs. A hammer pick was hung at his hip, and he had a spear leant up against the wall. Error was impressed with the number of weapons the man was carrying, but looked askance at Thunk. Normally the temple only let new arrivals take one or two weapons, and some armor.

Thunk noticed his look, and correctly interpreted it grumbling, “I left to find you. He grabbed it all on his own.”

Smirking at the minor irritation of his friend, Error turned back to watch as Dix drew a couple of knives. There was no surge of mana as the blades flashed across the room, and buried themselves into the eye sockets of two rats to the back of the room. The knives hadn’t flown anywhere near the speed that he could have thrown them, but were about what he could have done back when he first got his class. The man snatched his spear off the wall without looking, and sank into a throwing stance fluidly, evidence of his Devouring Stride smoothing out his motions and actions. Once more a weapon was launched at a speed far exceeding that of a weapon normally thrown by a Classless.

While the knives were impressive, the spear was shocking. Dix wasn’t aware that the power behind his throws was so far beyond what it should be, he only knew that the increased weight of the spear, along with the extra power gained by using his whole body to throw it, caused the spear to blow impressive holes in rats, resulting in instant death. Error, on the other hand, was well aware that tearing a hole through an enemy of equal level normally required extremely powerful skills and equipment, as well as luck. Seeing the carnage that Dix had unleashed with a simple spear excited him to no end, but the fight wasn’t over yet.

Without slowing from the throw of the spear, Dix had continued his forward motion. His left hand had already drawn another knife, while his right was still coming back to grab his hammer. Seeing the way his hands seemed to seek out weapons, Error realized that he had Quick Swap already fed into Devouring Stride. It was one of the skills he thought actually led to the skill being created in the first place, so he wasn’t that surprised. What was surprising though, was how smoothly Dix reacted to the skill. Normally people required quite some time to get used to skills and how they could guide the body. Dix moved like he had always had skills.

The knife was flipped to the right, his hand drawing and throwing another to the left as it pulled back across his chest. The hammer came up, then swung down, splattering the head of the rat that tumbled to a stop at the feet of the man swinging it. Another rat crashed to the ground directly in front of him, just in time for him to drop to a knee, sinking a fighting blade into its skull.

Five rats eliminated in seconds by a single man of lower level than them. It wasn’t a feat that couldn’t be done by others, but those others would have to be well equipped and have specific skills to make such a feat possible. Dix did it with only a partial skillset, no skill levels, shit weapons, and no elemental bonus. And the man wanted to add magic to the devastation he already wrought. Error had never been more pleased to have a new apprentice.

Watching as Dix went about the business of retrieving his weapons and carving off tails, Error spoke to Thunk without even looking at him. “Old friend, I think you may have found your way home after all.”

Silence followed for a moment, then Thunk muttered, “Holy shit.” A few more seconds passed before he spoke again. “Could you ever do anything like that?”

Error shook his head. “There may have been specific moments and enemies I could do that to, but it would require planning and resources far beyond what he just used.” Silence reigned again as the two watched Dix continue his work. His meticulous nature showed as he cleaned and checked each weapon before returning it to its place. Error spoke into the silence again, “I can’t wait to see how much more deadly he can become with some proper training. And that was just him. He’s still got those Risen, as well as whatever spells he knows. If he can add all that together…” His voice trailed off.

A few seconds later, Thunk repeated, “Holy shit.”