The initial moment before a battle was becoming a common theme in my life. A tense feeling would run up my spine, kick my nerves into overdrive and I would feel my pulse with every breath. My opponents however were different, there was an unnerving stillness to them, an all encompassing unnaturalness that hammered home how alien they were

The undead wight captain walked across the muddy clearing, the ground freezing in his wake. The hooves of his mount struck the ice that formed around them, breaking the silence of the night with the methodical drumming.

“Woe to those who stand in my way,” Sir Harrsal sneered. “A puny keeper and his pet, a waste of my time.”

“You are thinking backwards, if anything he would be my pet,” Yara shot back.

“I’m no one's pet!” I exclaimed.

The wight captain drew his sword, its shiny edge catching the moonlight. His equipment looked old, rusted and forgotten, but not his sword. The sword looked almost brand new, and its edges looked well maintained. As he clutched the blade tighter in his rotting hands I saw ice appear, running down the length of the blade.

“Pet or not, you shall die, keeper. Frozen and alone,” the wight chanted. “Feel the ice wind gales, feel the edge of inevitability.”

The frost manifested around his sword, an aura of cold that sapped out what little heat remained within the chill winter air. The sword’s edges glowed an icy blue and I felt the familiar feel of magic radiate off of it.

“I’m going to hazard a guess, that's a damage buff,” I said.

“Josh, let me face him. My armour can take the hits. You just stay alive,” Yara said firmly, leaving little room for debate.

It was better than any plan I had.

The wight pointed his blade towards me and the fast moving zombies reacted first. They swarmed towards us on all fours, gnashing their chipped teeth and tearing up the ground with hooked nails. I readied myself and just as the first one went to bite me I attacked.

In a smooth motion I stepped back and brought my sword down like an axe blade, hitting the back of its head. A wet crunch sounded in the air and the zombie dropped to the frozen earth like a stiff board.

“Ha, now I’m level three,” I said.

“You get it after a fight,” Yara shouted as she swung her halberd wide, decapitating two zombies at once. “Levelling during combat is dishonourable.”

“Like giving me a chance here,” I grumbled.

The slower skeletons entered the fray, reaching towards us with frost covered bones. Yara and I were pushed back to back as we beat back the first horde, cracking skulls and shattering bones. I had to twist, dip and dodge to avoid getting hit while Yara was able to wade into their attacks as their boney fists shattered on impacting her armour.

“Enough!” the wight shouted. His undead minions back peddled and he rode the elk around us in a wide circle. “You can deal with the lowest of grunts, but how about this!”

The elk bared its teeth and hacked, its lungs wheezing like a broken accordion. A wad of white goop shot out of its mouth and grabbed my arm, sticking to it like glue. Long strands went back to the elk and it lurched its head to the side. I saw the strands get flinged to the side and before I knew it I was airborne. I sailed over the heads of the undead gnomes and crashed into the icy clearing.

I hacked at the strands with my sword, desperately cutting them away as the elk walked backwards, dragging me away from Yara. The thick woven strands were resistant to my efforts and I tried sawing at them, but got little progress.

“Like a fly caught in the spider's web,” the wight chuckled. “Resist all you wish, you will only die exhausted.”

So they were spider webs then. If there was one thing I learned from video games, it was spider webs and fire went hand in hand. I put my sword under my armpit and flexed my hand to create a glob of fire. I slapped at the strands with it, burning them away and watched the fire shoot up the length of them. As it hit the elk’s mouth the whole creature’s head went up in smoke, and its legs buckled beneath it throwing the wight to the ground.

“Frost Gale!” the wight shouted.

A frozen gale of wind blasted out of his palm, putting out the blazing elk’s corpse and refreezing the ice around it. The slippery sheen of the ice was yet another hazard to contend with, and I watched the wight take a step, noting the metal studs on the soles of his boots.

“A Judicator black guard, a wise choice keeper. It’s a shame she won’t be able to save you,” the wight said with grinning teeth. “I personally would rather not fight her, but that's what underlings are for, no?”

I chanced a look over to Yara and saw her hack apart another zombie. The undead had little chance against her as one wide cleave could take out three or four at a time. Yet the wight must have known that too because the undead only attacked her in small groups and from different angles. The gnomes would rush at her ankles while the zombies would leap from above. This meant Yara had to play on the defensive side of things, and only killed her foes when the chance presented itself.

“Smite!”

A flash of blinding light shook the battle grounds and my opponent and I watched the burnt remains of a gnome fly over our heads. Yara was getting upset and was letting loose a few spells and abilities changing up the fight to be on her side.

Even as a battle of attrition I could tell Yara would win, but that wasn’t the point of the cannon fodder. I turned back to my foe and held onto my sword, praying I could last long enough for Yara to save my ass.

“Frost wind blade!” the wight shouted as he charged.

The icy effect was magnified a dozen fold as his sword blade extended and was made of flowing black ice. The wild sweep of his sword came at me from above, intending to remove my head from my neck. I lifted my sword and shouted the first thing that came to my mind.

“Fire blade!”

Elemental Strike activated.

One mana point has been expended.

My knees started to wobble and my vision darkened as the symptoms of rapid magic use reared their head. Yet my gamble paid off, my own sword was lit up by flames and crashed into his ice blade cancelling the effects of both.

“Cheater, that's my move you copied!” the wight scoffed.

“What?” I shouted back with effort, using both hands to push back his blade and separate us. “I learned that on my own.”

“Liar,” the wight said. “You keepers are all the same, you take and take only to call it your own.”

“At least I don’t have an ugly undead face,” I spat.

That wasn’t the brightest idea on my part. The wight snarled in fury and swung his sword at me in wide arcs, trying to chop me apart. I had to back step, and half run away because I didn’t trust myself to actually block that, or parry it.

“Get back here!” the wight screamed.

“Nope!” I said, holding a hand out behind me and tapping my cloak’s gem. “Gust!”

The gale of wind staggered the wight and gave me precious seconds to gain some ground between the two of us. As I made it back into the tree line I heard the wight shout and I dove behind a thick ancient pine tree.

Something split the trunk and sailed over my head, ramming into another tree. A long, jagged spear of ice, as tall as I was, sunk itself into the trunk and began to shake.

“Uh oh,” I said, throwing up my arms.

I dived out of my cover and onto the frozen ground as the spear exploded in an ear shattering shockwave, sending sharp shrapnel of ice in all directions.

Dodge check : successful!

+1 XP gained.

Miraculously I managed to avoid the many ice shards raining down around me. Some of the foes locked in combat with Yara broke away, and charged me instead.

I felt my ears ring as I rose to my shaking feet and readied myself, moving to the side of a flimsy grapple from a zombie and stabbed my sword into its eye. Rancid goop flowed out of the wound and I gagged, having to back up to vomit to the side.

My smelly foe luckily died on the spot giving me one less hassle in my life. I rolled my shoulders and tried to fight off the dazed sensation as I poked towards the next zombie with my sword. It was less of an attempt to harm them and more of a distancing tactic, giving me breathing space as I moved towards a tree for some cover.

I felt a sharp pain in my leg and looked down to see an undead gnome next to my knee, clutching a rusted dagger that was buried into my leg. Its sunken hollow eyes glared at me with undying fury, and I paid him back, with a blast of fire to his face.

“That was the wrong plan,” I hissed. A new wave of pain hit my head as dizziness and nausea set in.

A simple run of the mill skeleton clocked me in the jaw, hitting me with a right hook that would have made a boxing coach proud. I was sent stumbling back and tripped over a fallen trunk. I crashed into the snow drift and swore, as the tree tops above me spun around in a dance with the stars.

I had over extended my spells, I had a dull throbbing pain in my leg and I was starting to freeze as the chill winter settled into my bones. I had endured worse days, but this was probably in my top five.

I heard the sound of Yara yelling my name, and rattling off a series of spells. One had to have been a ranged healing spell because the dagger slid out of my leg and the wound healed. Which was one problem fixed.

I heard the creak of the log and looked to my side to see a zombie crawl towards me. Its legs had been chopped off by a sharp blade, probably Yara’s doing. It lurched towards me, baring its teeth out and I punched it in the face.

The zombie was momentarily dazed, and shook its head. It looked at me and tried again, only to receive the same treatment. It was shoved back and dug its fingers into the snow, once more trying to end me.

I started to cackle madly at the strange little game I found myself in. The zombie was too weak to over power my weak punch, and I couldn’t muster up enough force to leave any permanent damage. My sword was out of reach, I would knock myself out if I casted another spell, so I was left with the ol’ tried and true. The one two punch.

I let out a quick flurry of jabs and caused the head of the zombie to bob around widely, but inflicted little damage. The zombie then tried to do a push up to fling itself towards me and I reached over to push its arm. The zombie ate snow and started to thrash on the ground as I crawled on my back away from it, taunting it as I went.

A new, fresher zombie jumped over the fallen log and crushed the skull of my fun foe. I already missed our little game as the much more serious threat approached. This one was snarling, had ice covered fingers and had a glare of hatred. I wondered if it was under a buff from the wight at the moment.

The zombie opened its jaws as it intended to rush me down. It dug its heels in, and took off into a ferocious sprint. As its feet kicked up dirt and snow, it came at me leaving no time to reposition.

A clay brick impacted its forehead, snapping it back and making the zombie do a backflip. It slammed into the ground, kicking up snow and pine needles. The still corpse twitched once more before succumbing to the head injury and died a second time.

I looked to the source of the flying brick and saw the tree line break. Sten walked out calmly, taking a brick out of his pouch and lifting Drone 2 who was slung under his arm. He shoved the brick into the minion’s mouth, rubbed his head and the minion made a shotgun cocking sound.

Skeletons came over the log and Sten aimed the minion from the hip, tugging its tail. The minion opened his mouth wide and shot out the brick in rocky fragments. The fast moving shrapnel made short work of the bone men, blasting them apart and leaving an opening for me to escape.

“Running off to have some fun lad?” Sten laughed delightfully hoisting up the minion. “I love these little guys.”

“Merp!” the minion blurted.

Sten loaded another brick as a gnome was struggling to climb over the log and blasted it. The gnome didn’t even stand a chance, tuning into a red mist as he was obliterated by building material.

“Josh on the ground again. I’m going to have to get you harness so I can help you up easier,” Bent said behind me.

The view of the world changed as I was hoisted into the air and set back onto my feet. I nearly toppled over but felt support hold me up from either side. Rolada and Lin were dressed in heavy furs and held me up as Bent Plate stomped towards the fight. Burn was close behind tossing jars filled with glowing amber liquid to light up the area for us.

The wight was at the far end of the battle, stepping out of the tree line and into the clearing to evade a brutal sweeping strike from Yara. The wight locked eyes with me across the woods, his cold blue eyes gazing into my very soul as if to say we weren’t finished.

The undead swarmed at Yara, forcing her to let the wight slip away as she struggled to maintain control of the fight. I watched Sten blast apart the backline of skeletons and Bent Plate charge through the horde, his arms out to either side to slug anything too slow to get out of the way.

“It’s okay Josh we have you. Bent will bring Yara back here and we can decide what to do with her,” Lin said. She huffed and crossed her arms. “She kidnaps you and drags you into a horde of skeletons, can’t even do that right.”

“Do with her? Lin, Yara saved me,” I said.

Rolada’s eyebrows raised and she gasped. “He’s telling the truth. Lin I'll hold him, go stop the others before they do something rash.”

Rolada wrapped her tail around my leg and huddled close to me. She helped me lean against a tree and we watched the rest of the fight play out. Without Yara actively having to cut her way towards me she instead razed through the undead lines like a wrecking ball. Bent and Sten offered support against the stragglers while Lin dashed around to finish off foes.

Burn however was a bit more odd, collecting samples of the remnants of the ice magic the wight had used. I didn’t give it much thought, letting my tired form snuggle up with Rolada while the others battled.

I felt a tug on my pants and nearly jumped out of my skin. I looked down to see Guard 1 holding up a clay pot with steam coming out of the top. I uncovered the top and saw a hot liquid inside.

“It’s hot berry tea. Lin said she wasn’t going to march around the frozen woods without something to warm her up. I think you are in more dire need of it though,” Rolada giggled. “Just don’t tell Lin or she will get mad.”

I thanked my minion and sipped at the drink, feeling the frozen sensation of my limbs start to fade. I barely managed to get more than a mouthful when I saw the battle had been wrapped up and everyone was making their way back.

“That’s about ten for me, and six for Yara,” Lin said, stretching and cracking her back. “Not bad for a demon.”

“I’ll have you know I killed scores of those things before you came crawling around, kitty,” Yara shot back.

“I only saw six go down. The rest you left half…alive? Half dead?” Lin mumbled. She tapped my sword onto her other hand and continued. “Basically those didn’t count.”

“Joshua Hale, I formally request you handle your…friend,” Yara demanded. She took off her helmet to show off her fangs. “Before I need to handle it myself.”

Lin stuck out her tongue and robbed me of the tea. I looked around to see only two of the minions with them and started to immediately worry. If I commanded the minions and could only give them tasks in the range of the crystal, did it mean it could control them too?

“Drone one is back at base running around and making a mess of things. When the newest drones try to build something, or take apart something he keeps undoing it. We knew something was up and when we couldn’t find you we started looking around. Found your tracks and it led us here,” Rolada said.

Lin whistled and distanced herself from the group trying to blend into the background. I cleared my throat to call her attention and gave her a questioning look. She smiled and tossed me back my blade, and shyly scratched the back of her head.

“When you didn’t come to bed I slunk down to Yara’s room to see who was on top. When I couldn’t find you two I woke up Rolada, and then she found the minions acting weird. So you can thank me later for bringing everyone to save your ass,” Lin said.

Yara put a hand on her hip and slammed the end of her halberd into the snow. She leered at Lin and growled. “Yet you were just daring to accuse me of kidnapping my charge, the man I’m supposed to protect.”

“Well that’s what the evidence looked like at first,” Lin said.

Yara took out the white stick again, slamming half of it into her mouth and chewing on it ferociously. It looked like she was about to tackle Lin to the ground for a scuffle, but as she chewed more her expression calmed down, and she seemed dazed. I couldn’t be sure of course, I was suffering from being at the edge of mana blight and still felt dull pain all over my body.

Rolada shivered and clutched onto me tighter. “Can we go home now?”

Current Experience 1045/900

Would you like to level up?

…

It had been a swift march home and everyone was comparing their experience gains. As it turned out undead hordes were shit for progressing. I had earned most of mine on account of low level, getting points for evading brutal attacks from the wight and using elemental strike with my weapon, opening new text to the talent.

I didn’t pay it much mind at the moment, it could wait for a few days when I tried to practice that technique more. I was more worried about my dungeon, the minions and the state of our home. As we crossed the threshold into the area of our dungeon everyone looked at me to see what would happen.

Yara had filled them in on the details and we all relaxed when we saw nothing happened to me. I was now level three and that meant the crystal couldn’t wretch control of me again, I hoped. I found a bunch of strange requests in the queue, with new ones being added, or changed on the fly. However right at the top was one marked as critical and override the rest, one from Drone 1 himself, stating it was break time.

“Cheeky little bugger,” I laughed. “I think someone might get vacation time.”

I managed to walk normally on my own and led the way back into the dungeon. The first floor was the same in layout, but had furniture and objects out of storage everywhere. Minions chilled in the mess hall, holding onto drinks and chatting with each other. A very drunk looking Drone 1 stumbled up to us, holding up a drink and smiling.

“Thanks for holding down the fort, did the crystal do anything?” I asked.

Drone 1 led us downstairs, down a far hall I had never ordered. There were half built traps and side rooms, but it didn’t grab my attention. What made us slow to a stand still was a blue reinforced metal door at the end of the hall. I squinted my eyes and saw the magic lines leading out from it, meaning the crystal was inside.

I jogged up to the door and opened it up, ignoring the calls of protest behind me. I walked inside the tiny little room and saw the pedestal had been moved down here, with the crystal sitting on top of it.

“See you made a nice defended spot, also dug up more to expand the dungeon. I hope that calms down your need to have another outburst,” I said.

The crystal didn’t speak to me this time, the primordial force instead slumbering deeply. I glared hard at it, seeing it hadn’t taken more treasure to try to level up further yet. I felt like I was back in control of it. I wasn’t going to let that ever happen again and swore to myself to keep a good level above it in the future.

“Josh?” Rolada’s shy voice came from the door.

“Just reminding it who’s the real boss here,” I said, tapping the crystal.

Still nothing.

I went ahead and checked to see if it still had its skill points, and thankfully it didn’t have the chance to buy something I didn’t want. I went ahead and chose the minion independence, a fitting upgrade to my little buddies.

“Merp!” Guard 1 shouted, jumping for joy.

“He’s…level one?” Lin asked.

Dungeon Guard 1, small size, Level 1 Commoner

Strength 8

Constitution 6

Dexterity 4

Intelligence 4

Willpower 4

Charisma 4

Skills

Minion gains class skills based on keeper crystal level.

Guard class has +1 melee and +1 dodge

Talents

Toughness I

Unallocated Skill Points : 3

Guard 1 and Drone 1 ran upstairs, and the sound of excitement filled the air as the minions chattered. As my friends were left bewildered at this development I turned to my own unspent points.

“Josh,” Rolada said firmly, putting her foot down. “Shower first then, bed.”

I put up my hands in defeat and submitted to the fluffy fox’s order. My new found powers could wait for tomorrow. I was liking the sound of snuggling up to something soft and warm instead.