Terry led the two groups back onto the highway and headed East, with Tamara and Izzy flanking him. They chatted as they walked and he found out that they had come from a city about fifty miles North West of where they had met. They had started with around fifty people wanting to get to family and loved ones.

The group didn’t know what they were doing and didn’t bother to protect themselves so the first night they lost twenty people and the rest had to run for their lives. The second night they had some of the remaining men take watch but even that didn’t deter the monsters from coming in and snatching some of the sleeping group. They lost another ten that night.

When they had gotten to a city, that was about ten miles Northwest of where they met, the group started arguing about where to go. Tamara had wanted to go South East and get onto the highway while some of the others wanted to just head East to the next town. That’s when the worms had attacked.

The first one had exploded from the ground and snatched up a man that had been standing right in the middle. After that everyone scattered and ran off on their own. The two kids, whose parents had died the first night, followed Tamara. Terry learned their names were Susan and Bradley and they were siblings.

As Tamara was recounting the story, he looked back at the kids and he could only imagine how they were feeling. He was almost thirty and he would be crushed if his parents were dead. He hoped they weren’t, they were resilient and stubborn so they may have a chance at surviving.

The group traveled until the sun started to dip below the horizon and darkness started to creep in. There was nothing around that they could shelter in but there were some giant rocks they could at least camp on. As the group settled onto the rocks, He had his skeletons circle the rock and set up positions so they could cover the area.

Getting out some food he was about to go give some to the new trio when he saw Izzy hand some of hers over to them. Still going over to the little group he bent down and looked Susan in the eye “You’re going to be safe, don’t worry.” He could already see her face starting to show signs of terror at having to spend the night in the open.

Just before the last of the light left for the night, he had the kids, Izzy and Tamara sit down in the middle of the group, so that they would feel safer. He positioned himself at the side that he thought anything might attack from and sat down, resting his head on his chest he closed his eyes.

Terry awoke in the middle of the night to some noises coming from the group. He got up and quietly went over to check it out. He could just make out the kids with Izzy and Tamara and he saw that Susan was whimpering and crying. It broke his heart having to know that she would have that trauma for the rest of her life.

He turned away from the crying girl and went out into the night. He opened his messages to find a new one flashing:

Congratulations, you have reached level 13!

You have 8 unassigned stat points and 3 unassigned ability points.

Terry threw three points into constitution and strength and two into agility while putting one ability point into summon skeleton soldier, summon bone weapon and summon bone armor finishing them all off for level two. Closing out of the message he then dropped four bodies onto the ground and started casting summon bone armor. This time though it only took one body to get his armor. Curious he pulled up his ability menu again and checked his abilities.

Summon Skeleton Soldier

Level 2/3: Points 5/5

Cast Time: instant

Cooldown 10s

Level 1: The Necromancer pulls the skeleton out of a targeted body and may control up to five skeleton Soldiers at a time. +10 stat points in each stat

The summoned skeleton is the same level of the necromancer but with the unassigned stat points from the class distributed as 6 to Strength and 5 Constitution Mana Cost: 30

Level 2: All level one plus the summoned skeleton has armor with a rating equal to the necromancer’s at the time of being summoned. +10 stat points in each stat

The summoned skeleton is the same level of the necromancer but with the unassigned stat points from the class distributed as 6 to Strength and 5 Constitution Extra stats stack with level 1 Shares cooldown with Level 1 Mana Cost: 50

Summon Bone Weapon

Level 2/3: Points 5/5

Cast Time: instant

Cooldown: 10s

Level 1: The Necromancer uses a corpse to summon a weapon of their choosing. Some weapons may need the whole skeleton while others only part of it. +50% of Necromancer's strength to damage

Mana Cost: 50

Level 2: All level one plus the weapon can now be imbued with a spell to deal that spell damage in addition to normal damage. Has an 15% chance to cause pierce damage.

Spell damage is equal to the spell that was used to form the weapon Shares cooldown with level 1 Mana Cost: 70

Summon Bone Armor

Level 2/3: Points 5/5

Cast Time: instant

Cooldown: 10s

Level 1: The Necromancer uses a corpse to summon armor. Either chest, boots and gloves, or helmet and pants will be summoned from the corpse depending on what the necromancer needs. +25% of the necromancer’s constitution stat to the armor rating.

Each piece has its own armor rating. Mana Cost: 20

Level 2: All level one except the necromancer only needs one corpse to summon a full set of armor. +50% of the necromancer’s constitution stat to the armor rating

Each piece has its own armor rating. Replaces Level 1 Mana Cost: 60

Leech Life

Level 3/3: Points 2/5

Cast Time: instant

Cooldown: Varies

Level 1: The Necromancer leeches 30% of his total health off of a target in 5 second and slows it 50% for 28 seconds.

Separate Cooldown: 60s Mana Cost: 30

Level 2: Leech life may now be cast in a 5-yard circle. Each target within the circle will have 5% of their health drained over 5 second and will be slowed by 30% for 20 seconds.

Separate Cooldown: 20s Mana Cost: 60

After looking at his abilities, they seemed really powerful now, even for just a level thirteen. It didn’t take very long for him to be kitted out in the armor once more and it was even better stuff than he had before. He then cast summon bone weapon on the next body, making another long sword for himself.

After he was done casting his abilities, he collected the piles of flesh and extra bodies then headed back to the group. As he made his way into the circle of his skeletons he was met by Izzy and Tamara looking ready for a fight.

“Oh, it’s just you” Izzy sighed and let her arms drop.

“What the hell were ya doing out dar?” Tamara asked quietly.

“Had to get my armor back” He smiled at them. “Which reminds me, here” he said and took out his old sword and handed it to Izzy to replace the older one she already had.

“Thanks.”

“I know it’s not ideal but it’s better than nothing, at least until we can get you a better weapon.”

“Anyting for me?”

“Sorry I just had the one sword. But what’s your class anyways?”

“I’m a lightbender.”

“And that is…”

“I can bend light. Right now, I have two abilities, conceal and laser. Neither are very powerful but they can come in handy.”

“That does sound handy, and that makes it sound like a dagger would be better for you anyways. And I don’t have any of those.”

“Would you guys shut up.” He knew that had to be Sam.

“You guys go back to sleep I’ll be here for the rest of the night.”

The two women nodded and went back to the kids. He turned his attention back to the darkness outside the circle of skeletons. He would protect this group, he promised himself.

In the morning, as the group started waking up, Terry was still standing watch. Izzy and Tamara were giving the kids something to eat before going over to him.

“Did you stay up all night?” Izzy asked.

“Yea, it wasn’t that bad. Had time to think and plan on what to do next.” He said and turned toward the women; he didn’t even have dark circles under his eyes nor bloodshot eyes. He looked like he had just woken up with a good eight hours of sleep.

“Whoa, aren’t you perky.”

He smiled at them and took out some food of his own and started munching on it. They all sat around eating and waking up and running to a nearby clump of bushes to do their morning business. He had one of his skeletons keep an eye nearby, just in case.

“So, I’ve been looking at the map and we still have a way to go before we can turn North. And it looks like there’s one more gas station between here and the next largest city. We can stop there and see what supplies there are. I’m thinking that as we get closer to the city, he pointed it out on the map, that we’ll have less time to rest and scavenge for supplies. There’s usually more monsters closer to cities.”

“There weren’t that many monsters from the city we came from.” Tamara chimed in.

“It could’ve just been that it was the first few days and they hadn’t gotten a good chance to spawn yet. And I’d rather go in thinking there are monsters than trudging through making noise and getting jumped. We’ll also have to keep an eye out for other humans.”

“Humans, why?”

“Because it’s the apocalypse. People go crazy during the apocalypse. So, I think from now on we should try and get everyone leveled up, at least a little bit.”

The two women nodded at that.

“Either of you know what the kids took for classes?”

“I think Bradley is a rogue or something stealthy and Susan has something to do with nature.” Tamara answered.

“Alright, I’ll talk with them while we walk and find out.”

They broke up after that to take care of business and finish eating. He saw Susan glancing at him every once in a while, as he was eating and wondered what she saw when she looked at him all decked out in his bone armor. It wasn’t long before he was calling them all to get up and get moving for the day.

He started out leading the group for the first couple miles and then called Izzy forward to lead them while he went back and chatted with the kids. They were in the middle of the group and were walking beside Tamara.

“Hey kids, how are you holding up?”

“We’re doing fine.” Bradley said as he shrugged his shoulders and Susan nodded along.

“I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now but I promise that I will do my best to protect you and this group. I do have a few tricks up my sleeve.” He said and winked at them, which made them smile a little. “Now how about you tell me what you got for classes and we’ll see about helping you level them up.”

“Well, I got thief,” Bradley’s face turned red and he looked embarrassed. “But I swear I don’t steal things.” He quickly added. “I’m just good with sleight of hand stuff. I’ve been practicing when I do my magic tricks.”

“Oh, ya know magic tricks?” Tamara asked surprised.

“Yeah, just a few but I’m not that great at them. I just liked to have something to do and apparently that got me the thief class.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Terry chuckled. “We’ll have to see about getting you a dagger as well. That should work well with your class.” He said as he slapped the boy on the back. “Now how about you Susan?”

The girl tried to hid behind her brother at the question but she answered, “I’m…I’m a ranger.”

“It’s alright Susan, I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know, it’s just.”

“It’s just what?”

“Your armor, it looks like bones.”

He stifled a laugh as he answered her, “Well, they are bones.” He could see her eyes grow wide at that.

“Are they animal bones?”

“No, they aren’t.”

Susan eased out from behind her brother a bit at his answer, “I just… I just love animals and if they would have been animal bones, that was just making me sad.”

“It’s alright Susan, I totally understand, I prefer animals over humans as well.”

She smiled at that and came out from behind her brother all the way and smiled. “I’m a ranger.” She said again and then explained excitedly, “The description said I would be able to talk to animals!”

“Really? That is exciting. You might even be able to get an animal companion too.”

Her face lit up with that info and she squealed a high pitch noise. He was afraid that it might draw some unwanted attention but when he looked around, they were still surrounded by nothing but fields.

“You really think so?”

“That’s usually what rangers do, they talk to animals and have a companion that fights by their side.”

He could almost see hearts forming in her eyes as he guessed she dreamed about what creature she might get. He continued to chat with them while Izzy led the group and before he knew it the sun was already on its way down to the horizon.

It had already been almost a week since this whole thing started and they had only run into a handful of groups of monsters. He was starting to wonder what was up with that. He would be way behind if they didn’t find any monsters to fight, especially with so many people needing to level up.

The group continued to walk while they looked for a spot to rest for the night but all they found was a bunch of bushes by the road. As the sun started to dip below the horizon and create a brilliant orange glow, He had the group stop and they could at least use the bushes for a little bit of cover.

The group sat behind the bushes and pulled out food and drinks and Susan came to sit beside him. “Don’t you get hot in that?” she asked.

He looked down at his armor and had to think about it. “Not really, it’s actually fairly cool inside it. Probably cause it’s all white and it’s supposed to reflect the sun.”

“Can I touch it?”

He chuckled at her question but held out his armored hand to her. She gently put her hand on it and rubbed the gauntlet. “It’s so smooth and warm.” She rubbed the bone for a bit and then looked up at him, “I want a bow.”

He looked at her in surprise but then realized it was a normal request given her class. “We’ll have to keep an eye out for one then, huh.”

She smiled and nodded vigorously. He would have tried summoning all the different weapons using his summon bone weapon ability but that would have used up pretty much all the rest of his bodies. He really didn’t want to do that if he didn’t have to. I really need to set up that shop crystal, I bet they would have bodies I could buy, he thought but then opened his inventory and looked at his credits, he only had ten. Or maybe not.

He had his skeletons circle the bushes like before and the group all laid down as best they could with the kids in the middle with Izzy and Tamara. He stood guard with the skeletons and watched the group fall asleep.

When sunlight hit Izzy in the face, she scrunched up her nose and tried to shut it out, just for another few minutes. But it wouldn’t have it, so she opened her eyes and looked up at the sky. When she looked around, she saw Terry’s skeletons standing around and he was up on the road staring off into the distance.

She eased herself out from under the kids and made her way to Terry. “You stay up all night again?”

He nodded.

“Man, you must be exhausted then.”

“Not really.” He turned and looked at her. Again, he looked like he just rolled out of bed with a solid eight hours of sleep and was well rested.

“You have got to teach me the trick to do that.” She laughed.

“Well, I think it’s a class specific thing.”

She nodded at that but then thought a moment. “Hey, you never told us what your class was.”

He looked at her and she could see that he was trying to decide something. “If you haven’t guessed already, I’m a necromancer.”

She had a quizzical look on her face.

“I raise things from the dead. Death magic, kind of.”

He could see the surprised look on her face but then she looked back at the skeletons. “So, those things were…”

Sighing he nodded.

“Wait, so you killed people to make them?” She started to get this look of horror on her face.

“What? No! The bodies I’ve been using I found the first day. I came across a small gas station like the one we stayed at and behind it there was a pile of bodies. They were ripped apart and some were even chewed on but nothing was around. I puked my guts out when I first saw it.”

She could see the regret on his face and her features softened. She put a hand on his shoulder. “That must’ve been tough.”

“It was the first time I’d really seen dead people. But after my initial shock I realized what my class really was and that those bodies would come in handy. So, I swallowed the bile rising in my throat and picked them up, using a few to summon a skeleton, weapon and my armor.”

As he described the situation to her, she looked down at the sword she was carrying. “Does that mean this was a person?”

His head was dipped but he nodded.

She took her hand away and had a look of disgust on her face but then after a few moments she looked back at it. “I guess if you really think about it, they’re being useful one last time. As much as I hate to admit it.”

“Trust me, I know what you mean but this is a really useful class and it was kind of a gift.”

“A gift?”

“Uhh, yeah, long story.”

He could see she wanted to press it but she just nodded her head. “We should get the rest of them up and start to get moving for the day. I think we should be able to make it to that next station by tonight.”

“Thanks, and yeah I think we should as well. As much as I don’t want to jinx us, it would be kind of nice to run into some monsters so we can start leveling up.”

She nodded at that, “no kidding, I’m still only a level three.”

As they turned and started walking back to the group, he started thinking about what they could do to help them level. But the only thing he could come up with was to go hunting.

They got the group up and doing their business like usual. Twenty minutes later they were on the move again. It was slow going and Sam would pipe up every once in a while, and complain about something, the heat, the wind, the sun, her feet, she was hungry, etc. he usually just tried to tune her out.

The group made fairly good time over the day and about an hour before sunset they finally came into view of the next gas station. It was white with a red roof and a big price sign with the prices and a buy one get one free for pop message. There were two vehicles parked by the pumps and everything looked still, but Terry knew that could be misleading.

As the group got closer to the building, he was keeping an eye out to the sides of the building and around the perimeter. When they reached the station, Izzy, Tamara and he searched the vehicles while the rest stayed a good distance back. Not finding anything of use in either of the vehicles, they moved to the building.

Terry looked inside through the glass but the building was dark and he didn’t see any movement. Pushing on the door it popped open. He stepped through with Izzy behind him and had Tamara stay outside just in case. They checked the building and didn’t find anything. There was a garage connected to it and he moved off to check it out.

As he pushed open the door, the smell hit him like a hammer to the chest. He bent over and lost his lunch right there on the floor, but he released the door and it closed.

“What was that? You okay?” Izzy asked as she rushed to his aid. The smell was quite reduced so when she got closer, but she still gagged and covered her mouth. “Ugh, what is that?”

He just pointed to the door as he was still bent over and hacking out bile. She stepped closer and was about to open the door when his hand caught hers and he shook his head. Wiping the spittle and bile from his lips he explained what happened.

He had her go back out while he tried the door again, this time knowing what was on the other side when he opened it. The smell hit him again but he braced himself for it and he quickly went in and shut the door behind him. It was dark in the garage and took his eyes a moment to adjust. When they did, he could make out something large on the other side of the garage.

He knew the smell and was expecting it but it still caught him off guard, especially with as big of pile as he was seeing. His hand searched the wall for a light switch but even when he found it they didn’t work. Not wanting to wait around for whatever did this he quickly opened the basic store and found a torch for three credits and bought it.

Taking the torch out of his inventory, it lit itself automatically and lit up the garage, almost making him puke again. The pile that he thought was big before was massive. It looked almost like the wall from 300 that the Spartans built except it was all bodies. There had to be at least a hundred bodies.

Swallowing and trying to breathe through his mouth he walked over to the pile and started putting the bodies in his special inventory along with any blood that he could get. It took him ten minutes to get to the bottom of the pile where the first bodies to be piled were. Their skin was already sloughing off and when he tried to drag one over its leg fell off. He left the rest where they were.

Leaving a half dozen bodies on the floor, He cast his summon bone weapon on the first and pictured a dagger. The body did the same thing as when he summoned a sword but this time the handle was sticking out from the body’s chest. He went to target the next body but had a thought and targeted the first one again. Casting bone weapon a second time picturing a dagger again, it worked and he was able to summon another dagger, each had their own scabbard as well. Going to the next body he cast bone weapon again, though picturing a bow this time. The next one he pictured a bow but a smaller one with a lighter pull. After that was a couple casts for some arrows, which came with their own quiver.

When he was all done summoning the weapons, he looked at the piles of flesh and got a notification:

Item scanned.

New item found: pile of flesh (rancid)

This pile of flesh can be fermented into an alcoholic beverage for the necromancer or used for a potion base. Caution, anyone that isn’t a necromancer who drinks the beverage will suffer sever debuffs.

He looked at the flesh and wondered what a beverage made from it would taste like and shivered. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out but he put the piles in his special inventory just as he heard something growl and then he was flying through the air and through the garage door.