Our killing speed increased significantly with the addition of my Morning Star warrior and we both reached level 7 within the hour.

Name: Mike Reynolds (27) Class: None Level: 7 EXP: 3%

HP: 280/280 MP: 12/45

STR: 3

AGI: 2

DEX: 1

VIT: 10

WIS: 1

Available: 9

Skills: [A] Summon Skeleton LV. 3, [P]Sixth Sense [P] Bravery [P] Mutated

I had been stockpiling my stats, waiting for a clear build path to show itself. A part of me expected the low level skills to be simply that: low level. As you progressed you would get stronger skills, and I hoped to hold out until then before allocating more stat points.

Fortunately or unfortunately, my thinking had been too naïve. There were multiple paths to scale Summon Skeletons with, and it was worthy of early investment. There was also no indication of how classes were acquired.

Was every class available to everyone? Were certain classes locked behind attribute requirements, skill requirements, passives? I could miss my chance at gaining a sick class if I gimped myself early.

In the end, I put 5 of the 9 available stat points I had into Wisdom so I had a bit more MP and MP regeneration to work with, my testing was putting me at a dangerously low level. The result was that my mana pool went up to 70. Each point of WIS had given me5 MP, the same MP increase as a level. It was also good to note that allocating a point gave an immediate 5 MP on allocation. If I ever was in a situation where I had no MP and had free points to spare, putting them in WIS would give me MP immediately.

“Just three more levels to ten,” I said to Jessica while wiping my brow. We had been hard leveling for the majority of the day. The sun was coming down over the horizon and night would be rolling around soon.

I was of the mind to try the rations for dinner, but decided against it. It was smarter to eat the perishable foods now and try a ration later. We made camp in a half-destroyed home and called it a night. The next day would mark exactly one week since this all began.

A voice woke me the following morning, and it wasn’t Jessica. It was another message transmitted directly into my brain, presumably transmitted to everyone: Class change has now become available! Acquire a class change stone and you will be able to obtain a class. The stone can be acquired through defeating particularly difficult monsters. The harder they are, the more likely the drop. Do your utmost!

The phrasing made it feel like an actual person had spoken to us, and it wasn’t just a system message. Someone or something was actively watching over this ‘event’. I felt sick to my stomach at the thought that someone or some beings were enjoying this amount of suffering.

“Did you just hear that?” asked Jessica and I nodded. “Doesn’t ‘particularly difficult monster’ sound exactly like that giant ogre thing we saw yesterday?” Jessica asked me. There had been a meat-hook wielding foe that was twice the size of normal ones walking around a particular section of the outskirts of the city. Just looking at him would tell you he was special.

“It could be, yeah.” I responded, “He looked kind of dangerous though. I doubt my skeletons can take more than a single swing of his meat hook.”

“Quagmire and a particularly good location would help. I think it’s possible to take him if we’re smart about it,” Jessica said. I didn’t disagree with her, but such a pull came with substantial risk. New classes sounded amazing though, and gaining one would boost our leveling speed and power no doubt.

There was another issue too: “If it only drops a single stone, who gets it?” I asked.

Jessica didn’t even take a moment to think about it, “You, obviously. You’re definitely more battle capable than me at the moment. I can ride off your coattails afterwards. I’ll just get the next one.”

“Thanks. Let’s try for another level each before we fight him. Use Quagmire whenever you can, maybe it will level up also and we’ll be a bit stronger for the fight.” She nodded in response and we had a quick meal before heading out.

If luck and a bit of hard work would have it. Getting level 10 today was definitely possible. Our current system of dispatching enemies removed a lot of risk, and adding Quagmire made it almost non-existent for zombie and goblin pulls.

We moved to our hunting ground from the day before and began pulling every banshee and brute we could find. The EXP to level had gone up considerably. A banshee and brute before would give somewhere around 20% of level six to seven, and now they were giving just around 6%.

This didn’t seem like an issue before, but as we got better at killing enemies, we realized they weren’t infinite. In fact, after killing ten of them at a quick pace they became scarce in the streets we were working.

There was a respawn time we hadn’t encountered before, and it was giving us some trouble. “We’ll have to move around,” Jessica said.

Our current position was amazing because we could get to a high vantage point by my giving Jessica a lift to the top of a bus shelter, and she could see enemies from there. Once Jessica pulled them and dropped to ground level, we funneled them through several cars – some burnt to a crisp – to pick them off one at a time.

The ruins of vehicles had provided a miniature fortress for us, and with my skeleton warriors, our enemies just couldn’t get to us at all. But when I was around 70% EXP there was nothing left for us to kill and we were forced to start moving northward.

The thought hadn’t crossed my mind before, but as we moved I realized we were surrounded on all sides. The path of retreat we cleared yesterday had refilled with new enemies, and to leave the city we would need to fight our way out.

We scouted out a new location that had a plaza in front of a library. From the steps of the library entrance Jessica could pull with her bow and there were a few abandoned cars that would break up the attacking groups. Although not as perfect as our last spot, it wasn’t a bad set up and we set about our grind once more.

Congratulations, you have reached level 8!

It had taken us just two hours to level, which to me was amazing pace. Jessica and I were killing enemies nearly as fast as we could pull them safely. The large brute, too, had also made an appearance at the end of a long street.

When we took a break and went to the top of the library to take a look around; from there we could see the giant ogre from time to time north of us. Even more interesting was that he now had a pale, yellow glow around him. My speculation was that he was holding something valuable, probably the stone mentioned in the announcement, one that gave new class options.

Not far away was a six story office and that gave us another way of grinding, we could pull to the stairwells where the monsters were confined as they came at us through the doorways. In this way we cleared our way to the very top. My jaw nearly dropped at the reality of the situation. It was possible to see the city center, and located there was a peculiar phenomenon.

It seemed to me there was a beam of light, or an aura, in the very center, and from there monsters were appearing. They were dispersing in a way that suggested rings of difficulty existed based on the distance from the center. Having fought our way in past the outside ring, that of goblins and zombies, Jessica and I were on the second, banshees and ogres, and there were probably three more rings before you came adjacent to the aura.

The area we were fighting in had packs of banshees and brutes, and beyond them was a new monster type that roamed alone. It was a demi-human type of enemy, with the head of a snake but the torso and limbs of a human. It held a long weapon in its hand, maybe a spear? A trident? I couldn’t exactly be sure.

This pattern continued as I looked further towards the center: next there were packs of that snake monster and new formidable, enemies roaming about. Even worse was that these enemies were pushing away from the center slowly, which meant overtime even the outermost ring of the city would be over-run by mobs that were probably far too tough for us to tackle. Just like if anyone hadn’t yet got started on leveling, they wouldn’t have a chance against packs of goblins or zombies, we too could fall behind so far that we’d have no other option than to run and hide.

“Can you see any more of those elite ogres?” I asked. It was important to me that after we obtained my stone, we made effort to locate one for Jessica. Both of us moved away from the wall facing the distracting center of the spawns and started to scan the ring that we were within, Jessica moving to the opposite side to me.

“There’s a few more I see that could be special fights,” she said. “Over there, doesn’t that banshee look a bit too big?” I came beside her, traced her finger, and could see the enemy she was pointing at, maybe a quarter mile west of us.

That was encouraging. It suggested the elite mobs were numerous, and there would be no shortage of them. “You know… if these skill changing stones aren’t soul-bound, one-time drops…” I said, “we can collect them. They will be valuable.”

“Trade them? For food? Water? What do we even trade them for?” Jessica asked, turning her vivid eyes to mine.

“We could trade them for assistance. Not everyone will be like those brothers and building a guild – a raiding party – might be the way to go. Those stones could get a lot of loyalty, maybe.” I suddenly felt like I could be a raid leader, but wouldn’t it be possible? Couldn’t I find people, promise them a leveling stone, and assist them in getting started—they might be appreciative enough to follow me—a real life guild.

“You might be getting ahead of yourself,” Jessica said as if reading my thoughts; she did give me a smile though.

“Maybe, but first let’s get a stone and find out if it’s possible to trade it.” I smiled back. “Let’s head towards fatso and see what we can do with the terrain there.”

She nodded and we set off north, towards the center, on its trail. We took out mobs on the way and were halfway to Level 9 when we reached its location. Even better, Summon Skeleton had leveled up once more.

Summon Skeleton LV. 4

Cast time: Instant

MP Cost: 10

Distance: 4 Meters

Summons three skeleton warriors and a skeleton general to fight for you. Skeletons can now be summoned without a corpse. If the skill is cast without a corpse, only one skeleton is summoned. The skeleton summoned is chosen at random.

The upgrade to the skill had solved a serious issue I hadn’t even considered. If there were no corpses, I essentially had no minions. How could I kill the first enemy once these corpses were no longer abundantly available? Especially if we were facing into nothing but tough ones. At least now I could summon a single warrior to get the corpses flowing.

Best of all, Jessica had also leveled Quagmire to level 3. She read out the new stats: cast time 1 second, duration 20 seconds and MP cost 7.

The cast time had gone down significantly and the duration was up by 25 percent, all at the cost of 2 extra MP per cast. I wasn’t sure if the effectiveness of the reduced speed had gone up also, but I hoped it would.

We also managed to find two more Rations, a Bandage, and a Greater Elixir of Dexterity. The Dexterity elixir increased the stat by 7 for one hour. That went to Jessica, obviously. It more than doubled her current Dexterity stat if she drank it and she decided to save it for an emergency.

There was also an item drop: our first non-weapon item.

Banshee’s Wail: Accessory

HP + 20, Fear Resistance +5

This was a ring that had the face of a banshee engraved atop it. Her mouth was open as if screaming. I insisted Jessica take it over me, as I didn’t feel in danger at all with my current HP, which was at 300 and felt like a lot in comparison to my 50 at Level 1. I could take six times the damage of a person who hadn’t enhanced themselves at all through levels.

I wasn’t sure if Fear Resistance meant you didn’t get scared, or there was a skill called Fear that would make you become terrified and or run. Only time could tell.

Our battles had not, unfortunately, resulted in a new passive ability in my ability list. Nor had any of the existing ones changed or gained any levels either. I didn’t know if passives could level yet, but it would make sense if they could.

After clearing the area fully and scouting for a pull location, we found one that was promising. It was an alleyway between two businesses that was about the right size for the big guy to enter but too narrow for him to make full sweeps of his meat hook. The plan was simple: pull him into the alleyway and lock him in with skeletons on both sides.

I cast Summon Skeleton on a nearby corpse and observed my new minion: the skeleton general. He was over a head taller than my warriors and instead of wielding two-handed weapons, wielded a sword and shield.

His body was more covered in pieces of armor and even his bleached skull was hidden beneath metal headgear. It looked to me as if he was meant to be the tank for the weaker skeletons, which was perfect given the circumstances.

Rather than risk Jessica getting the aggro, I decided it was best for my new skeleton general to pull the elite ogre, and so I positioned myself on top of a bin, I where I could fully see the action happening. When the elite pathed back towards us and was clearly a single pull, I sent my new summoned skeleton out. He approached the target slowly, banging his sword into his shield over and over.

Fortunately, the sound wasn’t loud enough to pull monsters from far away, but it did immediately attract the attention of the ogre boss. As soon as I saw it charging towards us, I hurried the general back into the alleyway: all the while he turned and taunted the huge monster even more.

Our enemy didn’t seem to have any intelligence at all, and rushed into the tight alleyway without fear. Once its burly body had fit between the high walls, I sent two warriors behind and a single warrior in front to join the general, just incase.

Jessica casted Quagmire as soon as the ogre was in a proper position and began unloading arrows into its thick and leathery skin. Metal hooks rained down over and over into my skeleton general, who was so busy trying to block with his shield and deflect them with his sword, he couldn’t even take the time to retaliate.

Clang after clang rang out with every strike, and my heart was in my throat. The shield arm of our tank never fell, but the bones of my general were brittle and were no doubt taking an incredible beating right now.

Jessica’s decision to select the skill Quagmire was absolutely the right one, as even with it, the brute was hammering blow after blow at incredible speeds. My warriors continuously hacked and slashed at the back legs while Jessica put arrow after arrow towards its face.

Blood started to seep from the numerous wounds on its face and legs. My skeletons were chopping like loggers taking down a great tree. A particularly powerful blow rained down on my general and sent him to his knees.

There was another, and then another, and I heard the bones of his frame crack. He was being smashed into the concrete. A sickening feeling washed over me as things were going bad. This enemy had such a ridiculous amount of health, and no amount of damage seemed to slow it down or phase it at all.

Another blow came, and the arm with which my general held his shield broke off and the shield crashed to the floor. The next blow completely destroyed his upper frame, and he disappeared just like that. As soon as I saw him fall I issued the command to the warriors to stop attacking and concentrate on slowing it down as much as possible.

“We’re losing this…” Jessica called out.

“We need to get back immediately.” There was no way my regular skeletons could stop its approach, and the ogre was now looking at me with incredible fury. Two of my warriors grappled the back legs and one was in the front trying to block its path.

A single hook came down on the front warrior and smashed it into pieces. The pile of bones clattered in front of its feet. They couldn’t even survive one attack. My only solace now was the brute’s legs had been absolutely mutilated, and with my skeletons holding it down, it was finding it hard move forward.

My worry didn’t disappear despite the brute being locked down. It suddenly managed to grab one of my warriors and smash it into the concrete wall, followed by the other. All of my skeletons were gone, and there wasn’t a corpse to spawn new ones from.

I cast my summons anyway, and by sheer luck my skeleton general came out. He was ordered to stand firm and keep the ogre boss from us while Jessica and I fell back. A sour enemy closed the gap, however, a terrible feeling washed over me, worse than any I’d felt before.

The meat hook in the brute’s hand launched out like a rocket in my direction. A chain rattled behind it that continued to extend from his hand. I could see the blur of metal approaching, but it was so fast that I couldn’t even react.

With a rush of air, the weapon went just past my body, and then I felt the most indescribable pain ever. My eyes looked at an arm that now had a hook pierced through it, and then my world started to spin. The brute had pulled me with the hook and I was rocketing through the air.

My back collided with the concrete wall and I flopped to the floor. Every bit of air in my lungs was expunged in an instant. I panicked as I realized I couldn’t breathe, my lungs weren’t working at all.

The taste of iron filled my mouth an instant later and I felt another powerful tug on my arm. The brute was preparing to slam me into the concrete once again, and this time it wouldn’t be just a short slam. I was going to be sent like slingshot into a complete pulp.

My skeleton general managed to reach the enemy as soon as the chain went taut. His sword stabbed upward and into the armpit of the brute and sliced down, severing muscle and tendon. The chain suddenly went limp and the brute’s arm dropped to his side lifelessly.

Jessica hadn’t panicked either, and was still shooting arrow after arrow into the face of the creature. One eye had already been completely punctured and ruined, and blood was dripping all over its face.

Every time the monster breathed out of its nose blood bubbles would pop and then move down its horrendous lips. It was on death’s door, but so was I. Gasping and forcing air to enter my lungs was painful, but I needed to breathe.

Fortunately, my general clearly wasn’t just a tank as it assaulted with great swordsmanship. With the attacking arm of the brute mostly disabled, it was free to use the sword as it pleased. I watched as the blade entered into the monster’s ribs and sliced clean across. There was an explosion of blood and guts that caked the general’s white frame deep red.

The giant brute fell backwards and collapsed with a quake. It had finally died.

Congratulations, you have reached level 9!

Pain was radiating from my arm and traveling throughout my back and neck. It was so unbearable that I could hardly think. Jessica raced over to me and was already pulling out a Bandage and trying to wrap me.

“Wait, wait please.” I managed to get out. Wrapping me with the hook in my arm might heal the wound around it. I was terrified, not that I was going to die, but that I was about to be in the most excruciating pain I’d ever experienced in my life.

I pulled out the Minor Healing Potion from my inventory and removed the cork with my one hand before gulping it down. A cooling feeling raced through my entire body that alleviated some of the pain.

“I need something to put in my mouth,” I said. “My shirt; help me with my shirt,” I pleaded. Jessica grabbed the bottom hem of my shirt and started to roll it upward until it was near my mouth in wad. I bit down on it and used my good hand to grasp the hook.

The pain scared me so bad I almost wasn’t brave enough to remove the hook. I praised the bravery passive more than anything else right now. My hand started to shake and then I ripped the metal out with as much force as I could muster.

The wad of fabric couldn’t hide the sound of my muffled scream. Blood and a bit of flesh exploded outward as the hook came free. Blackness swam over my vision.

“Hang on! Hang on.” Jessica’s fingers were on my arm and then came a huge relief from the pain. The darkness started to fade slowly as I looked at the wound. The damage was so bad that one Bandage wasn’t enough. I didn’t even need to ask, as Jessica grabbed a second and wrapped me up again.

Only after the second Bandage did the gaping hole close and the bleeding stop. The aching remained there though, and moving my arm made it feel even worse. I looked at Jessica whom comforted me, “The Bandages are meant to be used, and it’s why we have them. We use as many as we need.”

I nodded while falling back onto my back. For a moment there the pain was so bad I would have actually preferred to just pass out. It was my desire to see the benefits of having leveled that kept me going. I opened my stats and took a look.

Name: Mike Reynolds (27) Class: None Level: 9 EXP: 20%

HP: 65/310 MP: 29/80

STR: 3

AGI: 2

DEX: 1

VIT: 10

WIS: 6

Available: 10

Skills: [A]Summon Skeleton LV. 4, [P]Sixth Sense [P] Bravery LV. 2 [P] Mutated [P] Pain Resistance

So passive abilities could level! Bravery had reached level two and I had a new passive ability called Pain Resistance. It seemed clear that using the passives would make them level up, which meant I could increase my resistance to pain by taking more of it. I looked at Jessica curiously, “Do you have any passive skills?”

She paused for a moment, “I have something called Extreme Concentration.” It made sense to me now why she hadn’t ceased releasing arrows when I was hurt. I was thankful though, because if she had panicked I might be dead instead. There were times to remain calm, and that was one of them.

Only after it was clear I wasn’t going to die did we take a look at the area where the ogre had died. There was a triangular blue object floating there that illuminated the air around it. Just looking at it would tell you it was special.

We both approached, and Jessica beckoned me to reach out and grab the blue pyramid. I took it in my hand.

Class Changing Stone: A miraculous stone that allows one to pick a class. A User can only use this item once.

The decision had been made beforehand that I would use the stone, but I was still curious. I kept it in my hand and then passed it to Jessica. There was nothing stopping me from doing so, and it seemed she could accept it from me even though I had looted it.

“It seems my plan to trade these might be plausible,” I observed.

“I guess, but take it back.” Jessica passed me the stone. I couldn’t hesitate any longer and triggered it. A menu appeared before me a moment later with class choices. I started to read through them one at a time.

As I looked through the classes I realized almost all of them were generic: with choices like mage, knight, and cleric and variations of these. They didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary; it was only when I got to the bottom of the list that something caught my eye.

There was a class listed there called Necromancer and it was out of alphabetical order. It was like the menu had added it on, perhaps because of the skill I’d been using. I made a note to myself to see if an archery related class was offered to Jessica when she used one of these stones. A part of me refused to believe there were simply these generic choices and then a very specific class of Necromancer, that seemed fine-tailored to the player themselves.

I had learned the skill Summon Skeleton, and had brought it up to level 4. That must surely have resulted in this choice appearing? If so, that meant picking a particular skill and building a specific way could allow you to manipulate the system to obtain certain class options: hypothetically, of course.

Once inside the menu I realized that I couldn’t get out of it. There was no way to go back without picking my class. It was impossible to know what you had before you used it, and no way to back out and alter your build to get a new class.

As soon as I confirmed there was no backing out and my options would not change, the decision became easy. In the end, Necromancer was the right choice for me. I selected it and the menu disappeared. There was no drastic change to my appearance, but a few status messages had appeared.

Congratulations, you have become a Necromancer!

Proficiency in summoning undead has increased. You can now spawn one additional skeleton per seven base levels and one additional reanimated corpse per fifteen base levels.

You have learned the skill Reanimate Dead LV. 1

You have learned the skill Decay LV. 1

You have learned the skill Skeletal Mastery

Full of excitement, I immediately checked what each skill did.

Reanimate Dead: Allows the user to reanimate the corpse of a recently defeated enemy. User can only have one reanimated corpse. User cannot reanimate an enemy killed by another User. Cannot reanimate Elite and boss type enemies.

Cast Time: 2 seconds

MP Cost: 25 MP

Distance: 1 Meters

Decay: Afflict your opponent with undead magic causing them to rapidly decay.

Cast Time: 1.5 Seconds

MP Cost: 10 MP

Distance: 2 Meters

Skeletal Mastery: Minions deal 15% increased damage and have 10% increased maximum HP per level.

Both new active skills sounded incredibly sick. The passive skill also boasted extreme scaling potential. I was excited to open my stats and see what had changed.

Name: Mike Reynolds (27) Class: Necromancer Level: 9 EXP: 20%

HP: 65/310 MP: 29/160

STR: 3

AGI: 2

DEX: 1

VIT: 10

WIS: 6

Available: 10

Skills: [A]Summon Skeleton LV. 4 |[A] Decay LV. 1| [A] Reanimate Dead LV. 1 | [P]Sixth Sense | [P] Bravery LV. 2 | [P] Mutated | [P] Pain Resistance | [P] Skeletal Mastery

It seemed my HP hadn’t changed at all, but my base MP had doubled. Now that I had a clear path ahead of me, I decided it was time to use my available points. There was no going back from Necromancer at the moment.

In the end, I put two points into STR, six points into WIS, and the remaining two points into VIT. While I wouldn’t be using STR in melee combat, it was still useful for carrying things and physical endurance. My stats were therefore now STR 5, AGI 2, DEX 1, VIT 12, WIS 12.

At 95 out of 340, my current HP total was still pitifully low, but the thrill of wanting to try out my new abilities trumped that. I had enough MP to cast everything I needed to cast as well. It was time to head for the Banshee elite and Jessica’s stone.