It had been many hours since Terry left the gas station and it was starting to get dark out but still nothing had come for him. He had passed through a small town a couple of hours back but again there was nothing there. Like the whole town just up and vanished, it reminded him of the tale of Ronanoke, the island where the people just vanished with the single word Croatoan written in the tree. It was eerie when he walked through, he didn’t even feel anything watching him either.

He figured he was still miles from anything but he had at least come across a sign that pointed out there was a rest stop three miles ahead that he would be able to rest for the night in. Earlier when the sun was out and baking him, he had thought about taking the armor off but a message said anything he took off would disappear and would have to be resummoned so he just kept it on. Though with it being all white it actually wasn’t as bad as it was before he had it.

After about an hour of walking he finally got to the rest stop exit and started up the road to it, the skeleton just following behind him. When he got to the top and saw the building, it was just like the town and the store. Nothing. Nothing moved, not even the leaves in the wind.

He stopped when he was just coming into the parking lot of the rest stop. He pulled his sword out, the skeleton doing the same. Gripping it in both hands he started slowly walking towards the building, keeping his head on a swivel. There was a park area behind the building with some trees interspersed and some picnic tables as well.

Nothing came out at him when he got to the building. It was a brown brick building with an entry way with some vending machines that had a men’s and women’s bathroom on each side and two doors to the entry way. He eased open one of the outer doors and walked in trying to be as quite as he could. Nothing, kind of a relief here. He had the skeleton stay in the entry way as he went and checked out the men’s bathroom first. Opening each stall, he found nothing, but he did bust open the TP dispenser and take the TP. Next was the women’s bathroom, again nothing except empty stalls and TP to loot.

Once he had cleared the building, he had the skeleton post on one door while he sat down against the other. It had been a long day and he was tired. He went through his special inventory and looked to see what all he had. He had fifteen human bodies, and the contents of the gas station. I wonder if I could have taken the gas too, he thought as he took out some water and food and dug in.

Once he ate his fill, he opened the special inventory up again and saw the many stacks of human blood. Taking one drop out, it landed on his hand and he took a closer look at it. I could use the blood in sacrifices and rituals but how? I wonder what else I can use it for. With that he brought his hand with the blood on it closer to his face and quickly licked it.

As soon as the blood touched his tongue, he knew everything about the person whose blood it was. What they mostly ate, what their blood type was, whether they were male or female, how old they were, and much more information. Another thing that happened was that he felt just a bit less tired. Though the blood tasted of copper and metal, he didn’t quite mind it.

Whoa, that was weird, he thought as he put the rest of the blood back in the inventory. Things to answer another day. With that he leaned his helmeted head against the door and closed his eyes. It had been a long day.

“Help! Help!”

Terry’s eyes flashed open and he looked around, it was still night out. He looked at his skeleton and it had its sword drawn and looking out the door. he stood up and looked out the window to see what had caught its attention. What he saw was someone, or a couple someone’s, running up the road towards the rest area.

“Help! Someone help us.”

Do I risk it? Who knows what’s chasing them but it would be nice to have company, skelly is fine but not much of a talker. “Come on Skelly” he said and gestured for the skeleton to follow him as he opened his door and moved out into the night.

“Over here” he shouted and waved his arms as he came out of the door. The people running were carrying a torch so he could easily pick them out but still couldn’t see what was chasing them.

The people veered towards him and as they got closer he saw what was chasing them in the back of the torch light. It looked like a ball of fluff with legs. As they got nearer to him, he could start to see even more behind the first one. It didn’t take the people long to get to him and the little balls were hot on their heels.

“Get inside” he shouted and gestured to the doors. The people didn’t even thank him. No sooner had they passed and were in the doors than the balls were on top of him biting and scratching at his armor.

He looked down and could barely feel anything even though he knew their teeth and claws were at work. He took his sword and started swinging it to chop them up but that only made them multiply. Damn, there goes it being easy. “Skelly stomp on them” he yelled at the skeleton and he did the same. Using his armored boots to smash the little guys to a pulp.

It took him and his skeleton twenty minutes to stomp the horde of fluff and end their raging stampede. When the last one fell, he bent down and placed his hand on the body of one of the balls but nothing happened. “Loot” he said and still nothing. Huh, maybe they just didn’t have anything to drop. “Inventory” he tried one more time and sure enough something popped into his inventory. A piece of lint. Well that’s a drag, he thought as he went and looted the rest of the bodies.

After he was done looting the bodies he went back to the building and went inside. Just to be met by someone throwing themselves into him. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.” He heard as they squeezed and hugged him. “I don’t know if we could have run much longer.”

“Uh, you’re welcome.” he gently pushed the person off him. They seemed small and womanly and had a soft voice so he tried to be careful with his hands. “Where did you guys come from? I was walking the road pretty much all day and didn’t come across a single person.”

“We were coming from Victorville off of highway 25. It joins the highway about ten miles back so you probably wouldn’t have seen us. How long have you been here?”

Terry slid down against the door and had Skelly stand against the other one. “It was just getting dark when we got here so however long ago that was.”

“Ah, that would be why. We didn’t get onto the highway until just before dark. We thought we could make good time at night but then about five miles back those things started to chase us. We had a dozen people in the group at that time but now there’s eight of us.”

“Well you should be fairly safe in here for now. We’ll guard the doors so try and get some sleep.” He said as he leaned his head back against the door and closed his eyes. He could hear the people moving about and murmuring before sleep took him again.

“AAAHHHHH!!!!”

The scream woke him up like a lightning bolt hit him. “What? What’s wrong?” He jumped up and started searching through the window for an incoming threat.

“Wha…What is that?”

He turned and saw a woman pointing at Skelly. “That’s just my skeleton.” He lowered his guard as he shook his head. Well it is the first time they’re seeing any of this so no wonder she freaked out. I wonder how bad it’ll be when more people see them. “He won’t hurt you.”

“But…but it’s a” the woman stammered.

“Yes, it’s a skeleton. Yes, I summoned it.” he rolled his eyes and got out some food and water from his inventory and ate while looking out the window. All the bodies of the fluff balls were gone. He wasn’t sure if they just disappeared or if something came and ate them.

“Would…would you happen to have any more food and water?” the voice from last night asked.

He turned around and saw a slender woman with neck length brown hair and hazel eyes who came up to his nose. “Uh, yeah I think so.” He said as he brought just enough water and food for the group.

“Thank you, you saved us again.”

“Yeah, thanks a ton.” A woman said as she guzzled down the water and chomped on the food. “I would’ve kicked their asses but I haven’t picked my class yet and they tore the others to shreds.”

He looked at the woman who spoke like she was a grizzled old drill sergeant. She was a shorter woman, about five foot two, with a buzz cut blonde hair, blue eyes and who seemed to have a stocky build to her. “Ah, it was no problem. Just if you run into them again, they seem to multiply when cut so use blunt weapons or your feet.”

“Ha, thanks for the tip. Name’s Izzy by the way.”

“Nice to meet you Izzy, I’m Terry and that’s Skelly” He said pointing to the skeleton.

“Nice pet, how’s it do in combat?”

“Well it seemed to work just fine last night. So, I’d say pretty good but it is only a level one.”

“I’d take a level one skeleton over nothing any day of the week.”

“Same here” he laughed.

The group sat in the building for some time while everyone woke up, stretched and ate the food Terry provided. He looked around the group of five men and three women. His eyes lingered on Izzy, she seemed like she would be good in battle, once she picked a class. His eyes roved until they came to the woman who screamed. She’s going to be a problem I bet he thought as he looked her over.

As He was looking at the group a flashing icon caught his attention. Concentrating on it brought up a message:

Congratulations, you have reached level 2!

Congratulations, you have reached level 3!

Congratulations, you have reached level 4!

Wow, three levels just from killing those fluff things, not bad. Terry thought and he opened his stats menu:

Name: Terry James Roth Level: 4

Race: Human of Earth Class: Battle Necromancer

Health: 160 Stamina: 160 Mana: 210

Buffs/Debuffs: bone armor Unassigned Stat Points: 24

Constitution: 16 Strength: 16 Agility: 13

Intelligence: 21 Wisdom: 19

Hmm, well I have 24 stat points and 9 ability points. Where should I put them? I think I’ll put five in constitution, strength, intelligence and wisdom. Then put four into agility, that should keep them mostly even.

Which made his stats look like:

Name: Terry James Roth Level: 4

Race: Human of Earth Class: Battle Necromancer

Health: 210 Stamina: 210 Mana: 260

Buffs/Debuffs: bone armor Unassigned Stat Points: 0

Constitution: 21 Strength: 21 Agility: 17

Intelligence: 26 Wisdom: 24

After putting the points in his stats, he closed the window and opened up his abilities. He looked at his abilities and put three points into leech life and two points into the rest. It didn’t look like any of the other abilities would unlock until at least level twenty-five. He’d have plenty of ability points saved up by then. He focused on his new ability.

Abilities:

Summon Skeleton Soldier 1/3: 3/5 Summon bone weapon 1/3: 3/5

Summon bone armor 1/3: 3/5 Leech life 1/3: 3/5

Leech Life

Level 1/3: Points 3/5

Cast Time: instant

Cooldown: Varies

Level 1: The Necromancer leeches 18% of his total health off of a target in 3 second and slows it 30% for 24 seconds.

Each ability point adds 6% and 1 second to leech effect and 10% and 2 seconds to slow effect. Separate Cooldown: 60s Mana Cost: 30

Now that he had his abilities a bit more leveled it should help him survive longer. He was curious to try the leech life and see how that worked. He didn’t want to summon any new bone stuff, at least not in front of these people.

“Well, I think I’m going to start heading out before it gets too terribly hot out.” He said and started to walk towards the door.

“Wait! You can’t leave us.” The screaming woman said almost hysterically.

“Why not?”

“Cause it’s not nice of you.”

“Lady, I saved you from monsters last night, I gave you food and water this morning, what more do you want from me?” he said by the time he had reached the door and had it open, getting ready to walk out. “I guess if you’re going the same way I am then you can tag along but don’t expect me to wander off for every little quest you want to run. I’m not a taxi service.”

With a huff the woman stomped towards him “fine I won’t. And my name is Sam, buster.” And with that she pushed past him and out into the world.

Oh boy, was I right he thought as the rest of the group got up and meandered out the door.

He turned East and started down the opposite road he had come up the day before with the group following behind him. It was a sight to see eight people following a guy in bone white armor walking down the road.