Stinger was restless, granted, she had been like this for a while now. This put her apart from the rest of her unit, all of them marching silently by her side, the only sound following them the crunching of grass, leaves or branches, making only the necessary movements for {The Dead March}.

Meanwhile she is bobbing up and down, rolling her shoulders or just lengthening her strides. She can’t help it, just thinking about what might be further into the lizard territory makes her feel… Makes her feel like when that nerveling attacked her, that tingly sensation deep inside her bones.

Ecstatic

Said the soundless voice of her creator.

Yeah, like that.

Stinger closes and opens her fists, she scrapes her fingers on her palms, wondering what enemies lie in front of her, just ahead.

The enemy dungeon must have seen it, the legion of undead coming for it. Enemies have already been spotted, moving to intercept. Apparently more monkeys than lizards.

That’s good, more enemy variety should help her with her problem. That problem being the fact that if she wants to, she can advance her level right now. Yet, she can also tell that there is something missing, she knows that she can do better, become greater. Yet, she cannot quite grasp what she must do.

Well it’s actually quite obvious what she must do, get better at hitting things.

She hears the warnings of enemy engagement, she is able to see the force coming for her.

A group of about 30 or so monkeys, snakes and a few smaller lizards. She ignored those, her own group will take care of them, even through the numerical disadvantage. Her hollow sockets are laser focused on the monsters in the middle.

A large, three times her size at least, gorilla. Well a [Mutated Boarilla] actually. Most of its body could pass as a normal gorilla, though its body is riddled with patches of different colored furs, obvious even to Stinger’s monochromatic vision.

The boarilla’s arms are scaled, not furred, like a snake, still they end not in fanged heads but in very normal looking gorilla hands. The scales also have weird patches of color all over them.

Its most striking feature was its head, a set of large eyes on a very wide head and an even bigger mouth, with four long and dense tusks growing up, two coming from the lower jaw and two from the upper one. Its leathery snout moving and twitching every so often.

The monster opens its mouth wide and growls, showing Stinger that aside from four tusks, the rest of the beings teeth are very similar to her own, just bigger. It charges towards her.

Stinger bursts forwards, noting how all other animals distance themselves from the boarilla. She stares at the rapidly approaching enemy and starts to wonder. The beast has a powerful and very ungraceful running form, it looks like a single misplaced tree root could make the monster hall down, not that said root would survive the encounter.

She wonders how it might attack her, will it simply keep charging? Will it try to use its tusks? Will it—oh, there it is, a simple, no, a crude swipe. So crude that the beast clearly unbalances itself and falls down, Stinger jumps over it, not even Gorger would make such a—

The boarilla trashes violently on the ground, it spins around and its left arm comes up right on top of Stinger, defenseless in the air. She didn’t see that coming, still she moves. She brings her legs closer to her body, making it as small and compact as she can. Her left palm moves to meet the attack, along with her right shoulder and elbow.

The attack connects. With all her skills active it barely damages her. Still she is flung away by the force of the attack. Her body spins towards the ground, she doesn’t have something as silly as dizziness, that doesn’t mean she can quite make sense of the blur of images that she sees as she spins towards the ground.

She doesn't fight it, why would she? She goes along the rapid spinning, she sees a blob of something, she can tell it’s the enemy since it’s, well, alive. Her leg shoots out and hits it, she’s pretty sure she hit its neck, since she saw a head sized blur disconnect from the body.

Her kick was not just a cheap shot, it was also a {Dodge Kick} reorienting her and changing the direction of her momentum just a tiny bit. She used her usual combo on the ground, hitting it with her palms and then falling into a roll and then another {Dodge Kick} with both of her legs. Using nothing but her kicks and momentum she sprung from the ground into the air.

She landed and turned around looking at the boarilla wildly trashing on the ground, growling louder and louder. There were enemies all around her, but they were not attacking her, clearly scared of doing so. Instead they started to make noises screechers and barks.

She let it continue for a second, then opened her mouth, she couldn’t quite make the guttural sounds her enemies were making so instead she simply closed her mouth, quite forcefully. A simple clack rang out drowned by the animal sounds. She did it again, on the third time the rest of her group did it too.

She felt the clacks echoing around, and connecting to her skill, their skill {The Dead March}, there were less than 30 skeletons here and yet the clattering of teeth got louder and more numerous.

The bleak necrotic aura around them turned darker, heavier, their animal sounds, the sounds of the living got quieter as if suppressed, the sounds of bone hitting bone got louder creating echoes.

The living all around them changed, nothing dramatic, but one second they looked normal, and the next they looked just a bit older. Nothing but a trick of the light really, but for a second they looked closer to death.

Then Stinger spun on her heel.

Her kick landed on the nearest chimpanzee, its jaw shattered, she spun again and hit it in the head creating a depression on its skull.

She spun a third time and kicked its feet off the ground, she grabbed its legs and spun a fifth and sixth time like a dancer. Unlike most dancers she threw her ‘partner’ towards the giant boarilla. The monster charged in her direction, completely ignoring the monkey that hit its body.

Stinger turned back and ran. She just got a report of enemy reinforcements, just more animal fodder, so she ran towards them, her group could keep up.

The animals around her tried to stop her, she simply sidestepped, parried or just slapped her way through. None of them are able to stop her, or even slow her down, each attack simply helping her rush away.

Yes, this is the feeling. This feeling of speed and… something more. She grabs onto it, this is what she must understand to truly advance.

She sees something flying in the corner of her vision, something too big to be a skull. She turns her head and takes a good look at it, all the while dodging attacks and occasionally stomping snakes.

A flying monkey, a flaming flying monkey. She would be excited by this new enemy, except she sees how the flame eats away at the life of the monkey. It's also not flying, rather it's being flung away, in flames, and screaming quite desperately.

At least Merlin seems to be having fun too.