There were plenty of corpses along the way to the area where I hoped to pull the banshee elite, and I used Summon Skeleton on the first we encountered. Being Level 9 granted me +1 to my skeleton count. Four warriors and one general appeared. It was a beautiful sight to behold.

“Can we stop on the way and kill a brute?” I asked Jessica like a giddy child. I didn’t want to waste time, but I couldn’t wait to try out my new abilities.

“Fine, just one; you can use your new reanimate spell on it,” she caved in to my eager tone and we veered off course just a bit. Jessica pulled a brutish ogre with an arrow and I instructed my skeletons to trap it. Once they had it surrounded and unable to reach me, I cast Decay and watched the magic happen.

The flesh of the creature started to visibly wither and rot. Patches of leathery skin fell off and then after about five seconds there were no more changes. The ogre was still alive, which meant that my new spell had an upper limit in terms of damage that was less than an ogre’s hit point, but it had to be doing something at least.

Once my test was done my miniature army of undead was instructed to dispatch the brute. I was on top of the corpse as soon as it fell. Reanimate Dead was cast and its body shook in place before crawling back up to a standing position. I felt that with my recent advances, my overall power had easily doubled.

The skin of the ogre was darker now and more decayed, and just by looking at it you could tell it was an undead monster. It joined my skeletons and moved with them in a pack. I truly felt like a Necromancer now.

I didn’t have any other reason to delay and the two of us moved with one goal in mind: dispatch the elite Banshee and obtain our second Class Changing Stone. We didn’t have an exact location for the boss mob, only a general idea of the area it roamed.

Jessica spotted it several blocks west of us, and I knew that as long as we were careful as we travelled, we wouldn’t miss it. There were mobs in the way but Jessica no longer needed to be careful about pulling ogres. I simply sent my horde of undead to hack each monster to pieces. It only took them a few seconds to overpower an ogre and cut it down.

Banshees warranted a bit more respect, and we still dragged them out of line of sight of any possible adds. Once isolated, they died just as fast. After the first banshee we killed I swapped my undead ogre for a reanimated banshee. I figured that I had enough melee minions already, and several times I’d seen them blocking each other anyway. With the raised banshee I wouldn’t be missing out on damage.

There was also an added benefit to resurrecting the banshee, and something I hadn’t been sure would even happen. The reanimated banshee actually used its original skills. Its ability was a frost bolt attack, and it froze the target and applied a deep chilling effect.

When that frost-based effect was paired with Jessica’s Quagmire, the opponent literally couldn’t move. It became frozen in place for many seconds, even without the assistance of my skeletons holding it down.

Somehow, the feeling of power we currently displayed gave me a euphoria I almost couldn’t explain. I felt like I was on top of the world—what was left of it at least. I started to look forward to those dangerous boss fights.

We located the banshee elite after moving three blocks over, and by then had accumulated nearly 80% EXP towards level 10. Jessica was merely 10% behind me as the difference in early levels clearly didn’t amount to much.

Killing the elite banshee would put us both at Level 10, and also give Jessica access to her class. I was already getting excited for her to progress, maybe even more so than she was. Regardless, I didn’t let that excitement get the best of me.

We meticulously scouted the area that the boss was pathing through and discussed a possible plan of attack. We were going to pull her back and block line of sight from possible adds, but weren’t sure on the best spot for this yet. We didn’t want something too claustrophobic either, where her spells might be hard to avoid, and yet not too open so we could restrict her movements.

Planning the pull wasn’t easy: not without knowing the banshee’s capabilities. It was clear to me it would cast a frost attack, but just like the elite ogre, probably had additional skills as well, not to mention the increase in HP and damage.

In the end, we decided on an intersection filled with totaled vehicles. We would pull her around a building and then position ourselves in the middle of the street behind the cover of wrecked cars. That way I could stay close enough to the fight to remain completely concealed behind cover and have my summoned undead creatures fight.

Jessica also felt the position was relatively safe and reckoned she could even shoot arrows through the burnt car frames. The building directly behind us had been cleared out from mobs and was our designated path of retreat. “Are we ready to go?” I asked.

We had spent a reasonable amount of time figuring out our plan, and by now I had recovered back up to half HP. It wasn’t exactly the smartest decision to go ahead without me being maxed, but I felt my HP was high enough to avoid being one-shotted. So I gave the green light for Jessica to go ahead and pull the elite.

The boss was too far away for me to send skeletons, and my lack of full HP made me wary about leaving the enclosure we’d found.

“Pulling.” Jessica said as she nocked an arrow. She was sounding like a seasoned veteran.

The arrow flew along a beautiful arc and landed directly in the banshee’s neck. A ghastly wail escaped the elite’s mouth that caused my skin to crawl. There was something so supernatural about the sound. I felt that it wasn’t a sound that should exist in this world.

Jessica didn’t need to be told to hide, as she had immediately crouched behind our barricade and removed herself from the banshee’s vision. It rushed through the air towards us at extreme speed and passed by the building we planned to fight it at.

My skeletons were positioned there already, and the general intercepted her cleanly. My reanimated banshee was in the middle of the street and had already started casting Frost Bolts. As soon as the general had the aggro of the elite, Jessica cast Quagmire and then began nocking arrows as fast as her STR would allow.

The first thing I noticed was the increased speed at which the elite was able to cast Frost Bolt. I couldn’t exactly time it accurately, but by feel it seemed to be somewhere around two or three times faster than the standard version of the banshee.

Fortunately, the banshee elite chain-cast Frost Bolt as her main attack, and solely focused on my summoned undead. Bolt after bolt continuously pelted the skeleton general, who could only hold his shield in place and block as best as possible. Even if I wanted him to retaliate, he couldn’t. His shield hand had been completely frozen, and that frost had also encased his upper body in ice.

The slowing effect from my own banshee’s bolts and Quagmire was clearly reduced on elites, and only managed to slow her action speed. Much better news was that the extra damage I had gained from skeletal mastery and my two additional summoned undead added up to a lot of damage.

We were absolutely demolishing the banshee with almost no issues. As she got lower in HP, her body began to glow a darker color and she finally began to cast a different skill. Jessica and I both ducked behind our vehicle barricade in anticipation of it landing.

Fear overwhelms you. You are terrified in place and cannot move.

That was the status message I received, and it seemed LOS had no bearing on her ability. My thoughts hadn’t stopped, but my body literally could not move. Unfortunately for the banshee, and very fortunately for me, it seemed that my minions were immune to Fear. Although Jessica and I couldn’t move my minions continued to demolish her.

Jessica got out of the Fear several seconds before me, probably thanks to the effect of her Banshee’s Wail ring, which gave Fear resistance. Still, the elite’s freeze attack was over five seconds long, and judging by how fast it was able to cast Frost Bolts, that was enough time for it to hit you with four or five casts.

As I stood back up, it was just in time to witness my skeleton general explode into shards of ice. He had tanked his final Frost Bolt: a job well done. The banshee elite started to spin and cast Frost bolts on every Skeleton Warrior around it.

After ten seconds had passed, she killed three more, but that was the last of her attacks. She let out a final mournful wail and exploded into a ghastly mist that floated away with the wind.

Congratulations, you have reached level 10!

I immediately summoned my skeletons again and we approached the corpse together.

What we wanted most was there: a Class Changing Stone floated above where the Banshee had been. Floating next to the stone was a black piece of clothing, our second item drop that wasn’t a weapon.

Jessica didn’t hesitate to pick up the stone, while I grabbed the item.

Demonic Garb: A cloak imbued with dark powers. It provides decent protection from physical attacks.

WIS +3, HP + 30

I couldn’t resist putting on the cloak immediately and then turned to Jessica, “I kinda look like Van Hellsing, don’t you think?” I did a small little twirl.

“A little bit, maybe,” she laughed. “Should I use the Class Stone now?”

I thought about this for a moment, and reckoned that in a perfect world she shouldn’t. If possible, we should find out what skills and stat combinations gave her what class choices. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible.

No amount of delaying would allow us to find and target a specific class choice for her and in the meantime her added power would allow us to snowball in our levelling. Then too, I desperately wanted to find and recruit people under our wing. Influence would give us safety and security.

“I think it’s best you use it now,” I said, “read out the special classes at the bottom.”

I could see her eyes go blank for a moment as she used the stone. About thirty seconds later she read out two options: “Trapper and Control Mage.”

“Control Mage probably focuses on CC, which means it won’t be dealing damage. When I think of the word ‘trapper’ I think of people catching raccoons and foxes in traps.”

“I do kind of like the bow,” she said.

“Well, a trapper might also be something like a hunter? Hunters use bow and arrows often too,” I said. “I really want you to make the call though, because as far as we know there’s no going back.”

I could see that my words weighed on her heavily. On balance I reckoned she should pick trapper; her stats had already favored in the direction of an attacking class. She was pumping STR and DEX currently and was wielding a bow, which is probably why the trapper class even appeared. But I didn’t want to make this life-changing decision for her.

Quagmire was definitely a spell caster’s ability, and was the most likely reason she had even received the option for Control Mage. It seemed more and more likely that both your skill and stat distribution affected your class choice.

“I want to keep using the bow,” Jessica finally said. “I’ll gamble with trapper.”

“I think that’s the right call.”

A moment later I could see that she had come out of the menu.

“Skills?” I asked her.

“Well, I think I use traps,” she said. “I have Ankle Snare, which allows me to snare an enemy in place for twenty seconds and something called Anomalous Trap. It says that I can turn any spell I know into a trap.”

“So you can make Quagmire into a trap?”

“At least I think so.” She read the description word for word to me: “Allows the user to place a trap that inherits a selected skill. The trap will use the selected skill when triggered with twenty percent increased effectiveness.”

The only skill she currently had right now was Quagmire, so that meant she could use Quagmire traps. Presumably it would auto trigger when dragging a monster over it, and would even have an increased effect.

“What about your passive skill?”

“Expert Tracker: Your senses are heightened. Allows you to detect entities within a certain distance from you.”

“That is actually super useful” I said. “Can we test it?” I asked. I wanted to see how well her tracking skill performed. Jessica nodded and we walked to an area we hadn’t explored. There was a full building in front of us, and there was no way she could see the enemies on the other side.

“There are… goblins inside the building, close to us; a banshee just past the building; and two ogres beyond her. I can’t feel anything beyond them.” I felt very encouraged by this report. The distances seemed significant enough that we should be able to sense enemies well before they could see us.

“Also… there’s something on the third floor of this building…” she added, “I don’t know what it is, but I think it’s people? It doesn’t feel like an enemy.”

“Are you sure? Can you track other people? How do I feel?”

“I don’t know. The description says ‘entities’ not enemies. Also, it’s hard to tell because I can see you and you’ve been near me for so long. There’s no particular feeling I could describe it with besides natural.”

“We should approach them,” I said “if it’s people who have been hiding for a week they may be on death’s door.”

Jessica agreed with a nod and we forced our way into the building. It became clear moments later why they were trapped.

Goblins were roaming the hallways with their maniacal cackling. My fear of them had disappeared completely, and Jessica only needed to nock a single arrow and put it in a goblin’s throat for it to hit the floor.

Jessica led me up to the third floor and down the hall to a room labeled three-zero-seven. Our journey here had been completely uneventful besides the goblins. Still, for someone who wasn’t even Level 1 they were a considerable threat.

“Shouldn’t you hide your skeletons before we approach them?” Jessica asked.

“No. I want them to see. Only when they see can they understand our strength. My undead will act as a deterrent if they are hostile, like those brothers, and incentive for them to join us if they are friendly.” I wanted whoever we met to be slightly afraid us. That would eliminate any thoughts of betrayal or backstabbing. If we had shown the same strength to the brothers back at that time, they may have decided against following us.

I tasked my skeleton general to come forward and cut down the door. He approached and was about to strike out when Jessica interrupted, “Can’t we just knock? We don’t need to destroy everything.”

Destroying the door sounded more fun and would definitely provide a shocking entrance, but I let out a sigh of agreement, “Fine, knock and see if you can get them to come out.”

Jessica pounded on the door, and possibly didn’t know her own physical strength now. I had to give her credit though, it was impossible for them to not have heard the banging and the door still stood. I heard shuffling inside but it seemed they didn’t want to come out.

“Come out, we are friendly,” Jessica said, “I know you’re in there, it’s okay.” The fact the voice talking to them was female might have appeased their fears a little bit. As the shuffling grew louder I realized someone was approaching the door.

A voice came from the other side, “Who are you? Why are you here?” It was also a female voice.

“We’re here to help. We can help you get out of here,” Jessica replied and glanced at me. I nodded. Surely the idea of escape would appeal to whoever was beyond the door like a fresh glass of water when you were dying of thirst?

Hushed whispers came from the other side for several moments, “How can we be sure you don’t have bad intentions? How can we trust you?”

Jessica seemed almost annoyed, but didn’t lose her temper, “Because if we wanted to we could bust down the door and skip the chit chat,” she retorted.

We both heard more heated discussions and even raised voices, “How can we be sure they aren’t monsters that can talk?” someone said in an angry voice. I didn’t disagree with the idea, it was always wise to be cautious.

“Listen, ask us something. Ask us anything about life before this catastrophe happened and we can tell you. Like, I don’t know, my favorite band was Radiohead,” I finally spoke up. “We aren’t here to hurt you. This is a chance for you.”

There was complete silence on the other side, Jessica shook her head and whispered, “Radiohead?”

But then the lock of the door clicked. It opened a tad bit as a woman’s face came into view and looked at us. The chain lock on the door was still there just in case.

Feeling awkward, I waved at her and Jessica did the same. It seemed seeing us was enough to be convincing, as the door shut again and the chain was undone and the door fully opened to allow us entry.

Following my earlier idea about displaying our strength, I ordered my summoned skeletons to fully enter the room. Beyond, the eyes of the two people there went wide as saucers and I could see the look of despair on the man’s face as he turned to the women. “I told you they were monsters.” He couldn’t hold his own tongue.

The women’s face went white as a sheet of paper and she fell backwards onto the couch. “We aren’t monsters,” I said plainly. “I’d like to explain this to you once, so listen carefully, even if it sounds unbelievable.” I looked at the both of them and received a nod of understanding. “You two have probably seen the little green men running around, which is why you’re locked up in here. Long story short, the world has an RPG system and you can level up. Did you hear the message about class changing?”

“We heard it,” said the man.

“Good, then that saves me a bit of explanation.” I pointed to my group of skeletons, “These are my minions, summoned by a skill. Skills can be obtained by killing monsters. Levels and items are obtained in the same way. Are you starting to get the picture?” I asked.

There was still some disbelief on their faces, but the large skeleton general – who reached nearly to their ceiling – as well as the floating banshee couldn’t be questioned.

“Are you two brother and sister? What is your relationship?” Jessica asked.

“We’re boyfriend and girlfriend,” the man spoke up first.

“Names?” I asked.

“I’m Lucas, she is Rebekah.” It seemed she was still almost too stunned to respond. The man however was taking the situation quite well.

“I’m Jessica and this is Mike. We are… comrades.”

“What do you want from us? Why would you go out of your way to save us?”

I actually enjoyed his frankness and lack of naivety. “Well, with the world going to shit now, there is power in numbers.” I said. “It isn’t just monsters as you can imagine, but also other people.” I paused. “We have already been attacked by two men and almost killed by them; so right now I’m interested in finding people to join us to make our group stronger.”

Lucas looked to be in his mid-twenties and, promisingly, he had a short, military haircut. He held a strong stare and never faltered while I spoke to him, there was no interruption on his end either. He was waiting for me to finish.

So I continued, “Basically, I want your loyalty—both of you. We can shelter you; feed you; help you gain skills; levels; and gain your new class. In return for that, you will be our allies.”

“When you say allies, you don’t mean slaves, do you?” Lucas asked bluntly.

It was a good question, “Are you familiar with a guild system? One person leads the guild and makes the executive decisions?”

“I’m familiar.”

“Good, then it would be like that. Major decisions will be made by me and Jessica, while you are free to make minor decisions on your own. You will be free to go off and do as you please as long as it doesn’t interfere with our goals. When you’re needed for something bigger, though, I’d expect you to come and assist us the best of your ability. That sort of alliance.”

“So like a king and his subjects?” His tone rebuked me.

“No, because a king has guards and prisons to enforce his rule. I’m proposing voluntary co-operation and that you repay our help with loyalty. It’s just that I’m reserving the right to make the final call on strategic goals.”

Lucas looked at his girlfriend who was still looking from me to the skeletons and back. “What exactly are your goals?”

At this Jessica raised one eyebrow as if to say: Yeah, what are your goals?

I should have talked over my guild idea earlier with her. “For now… I don’t have a major goal besides surviving by levelling up. The world is still in the process of changing, but I’m sure major boss fights and raid encounters will come along.” I spoke more confidently than I felt. In truth, I couldn’t be sure anything was coming besides stronger enemies.

“This is a good deal for you,” I added, “If we were to leave you here now, you would die as soon as your food and water supplies run out. You are already too far behind to make a start on the game ladder without help.”

Jessica got his attention. “I’m no gamer. But that’s the world we have now and it’s level up or die. I think if you could see the situation from a better vantage point it would help your decision. There are monsters everywhere and more coming by the day.”

Lucas and Rebekah shared a glance. I understood they wanted time to decide what they should do. For some people, hiding and risking death would be their preferred choice. Living a life of battle and danger was absolutely not going to be for everybody.

“Come with us and see what the city is like now. We can guarantee your safety, and you will be able to see the situation for yourself,” I said. Lucas nodded and looked at his girlfriend, it seems she was finally coming to a decision too as she nodded her head as well.

“Good,” Jessica offered them her hand, which they shook. “Let’s leave immediately.”