New Story -- Chapter 18

Last chapter for this story this week -- I'll be back to The Fusionist Book 5 tomorrow!

Chapter 18

As the Undead rapidly moved out of the fog, their intensely glowing red eyes staring at him with the hunger of those who crave the taste of warm flesh, Thaden was finally able to see what he was moving in to try and eat him.

Zombie Mauler – Medial

Level 24

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Zombie Mauler – Medial

Level 27

Skeleton Warrior – Medial

Level 21

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Skeleton Warrior – Medial

Level 25

Ghoulish Swarmer – Medial

Level 23

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Ghoulish Swarmer – Medial

Level 26

The Zombie Maulers were the Undead he’d seen first, which were the typical walking corpses he’d seen on TV, movies, and video games – though they were much more disgusting in real life. They were also not Human (or previously Human) as they were at least 2 feet taller than the average person on Earth, reaching tall Basketball player levels, and they had elongated heads that were more stretched oval-shaped than round. Their oversized hands also looked capable of ripping someone apart, or mauling them with the sharp, bony ridges that they seemed to have along their knuckles. Other than those differences, they were at least generally humanoid, as they had two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head – as strange as they were.

Interspersed between them were the Skeleton Warriors, which were literal skeletons of the same species as the Zombies, but these ones were armed with rusty iron longswords and dented round shields. There was a glowing dark energy that seemed to flow over their bones, but especially their joints, as if it was some sort of magical glue holding all their bones together.

But the most numerous of the Undead he saw were a mixture of the previous two. Hunched over so that they could use their lengthy arms to propel themselves over the ground with great speed, the Ghoulish Swarmers looked like what the Zombie Maulers became after most of their flesh had rotted away and fell off, before drying out like some sort of mummy. Their bodies were skeletal with chunks of desiccated flesh sticking to it here and there, with their teeth being the scariest part of them, as each sharpened tooth seemed to be at least six inches in length, like a bunch of razor-sharp spikes ready to chomp off their victims’ body parts.

There were probably twice as many of the Swarmers as the Zombies and Skeletons combined, though it was hard to tell with so many of them streaming out of the fog to attack him. He was only able to quickly get to his feet and evaluate what was attacking him before the first of the Swarmers – which were the quickest to reach him – leaped at Thaden with the intent to tackle him and rip him apart.

As they were in the air, he also learned that they were the ones making the creepy clicking noises as they gnashed their teeth together.

There was nowhere for him to go, so Thaden simply stood there and let the first wave of Undead hit him – or more precisely, impact his Minor Repulsion Field. As he watched them being repulsed, he realized that the Field did absolutely nothing to block the stench of the Undead as they got close to him, and he had to fight to keep his breakfast inside his stomach.

Unfortunately, the Ghoulish Swarmers were only pushed backwards – with a not-insignificant – amount of repulsive force, but they were apparently lightweight enough that they weren’t really injured by the abrupt redirection. They quickly landed a few feet away and leaped at him again, seemingly uncaring that it had been denied a meal of warm flesh and repeated its previous attack – to identical results.

That was when the Zombies and Skeletons arrived simultaneously, or at least the half-dozen that could actually reach him at one time. The Maulers struck out powerfully with their bony-ridged knuckles, their blows hammering away at his Minor Repulsion Field and being repulsed every single time. As he stood there, unmoving as he saw a fist slam into the Field only inches from his face, he saw that the abrupt repulsion of the attack did something to the Zombie’s hand and arm, but it was barely more than if it had slammed its fist into a steel wall. He thought that after a while of constantly attacking, the Undead monster might break its arm, but it certainly wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

As he did his best to keep from breathing in the absolutely disgusting stench of the Undead, he also saw the Skeleton Warriors slice their swords toward him, and finally this seemed to make a difference – for Thaden’s benefit, at least. The rusty iron swords not only bounced off, they were sent back on a trajectory that was difficult to calculate – but most of the time it ended up hitting another Undead to the left or right of the Warriors. Sadly, even being hit by the ricocheting impact of a longsword didn’t do that much to the other Undead, as the wounds left in their wake were inconsequential.

More than that, he saw that the shallowest of those wounds disappeared after a few seconds, as if the Undead had some sort of unholy regeneration.

He stood there for about 30 seconds, letting the Undead surrounding him slice, beat, and maul his Field, while he watched for any indication that they were going to be using a magical attack. While he did that, he switched out Weak Resurrection and added Weak Absorption Field back in, along with Weak Mass Healing – both of which he’d taken out in order to slot Resurrection in. Thankfully, his unpreparedness wasn’t a detriment, as all the attacks appeared to be physical in nature, meaning that he was safe…

…though “safe” wasn’t exactly the right word for the horde of Undead surrounding him, so thick in number that he couldn’t see past them enough to give an accurate count. From the moans and shuffling he heard around him, he suspected that he was encircled by at least 100 of them, possibly more.

No wonder the Adventurers didn’t survive; if they were surrounded like this, then unless they were a much higher Level than these Undead are, there’s no way they’d live through that.

After watching the single-mindedness in the attacks against him, he began to calm down a little as he realized he wasn’t, at least, in immediate danger. He closed his eyes for a moment to center himself, before psyching himself up for what he needed to do. Just like when he had fought his way out of hundreds of Vogmites, he had to do the same thing here if he ever wanted to survive long enough to find other people to party with.

Opening his eyes and squaring his shoulders, Thaden threw himself against the Zombie Mauler closest to him, and while appeared as though he was going to shoulder-check the Undead monster, the Zombie was fast enough to react and try and punch him with its fist. The Assistant Healer’s momentum combined with the force of the fist flying at his face was enough to have the Undead stumble backwards… for all of a foot before the veritable wall of flesh-hungry monsters blocked it from going any further back.

Thaden took advantage of the wall of Undead to keep moving toward the same Zombie again, hoping to wear it down as it was stuck in place – similarly to how he had squished the Vogmites against the ground or a wall back in the other dungeon. Unfortunately, he couldn’t really get the momentum going to make the rotting monster get flung backwards with more than the force of a small shove, and the wall of Undead was squishy enough that it was simply pushed slightly backwards instead of being trapped in place.

He quickly found that it did absolutely nothing worthwhile, so he switched targets to one of the Ghoulish Swarmers. His few steps of momentum barely made a difference as the Undead monster leaped at him and met him in mid-step, as it was simply pushed back against the horde behind it. In fact, it was probably worse than the initial charge, as the disgusting and frightening creatures around him were packed so closely together that any type of “attack” on Thaden’s part seemed futile.

Just to make sure, he tried the same thing against the Skeleton Warriors, and while his small momentum was enough to push them back in addition to sending their sword rebounding away, he had the same problem that there was nothing close by to have them impact against. They were also strong enough that the force of the repulsion – either against their swords or their skeletal bodies – did no real damage.

Unlike the Vogmites, his previous method of dealing damage was perfectly useless. Granted, he wasn’t being hurt because of his Minor Repulsion Field, but he was also trapped in the middle of an Undead horde with no help in sight.

After his attempts to hurt one them, he stood still for nearly 20 minutes, trying to see if something on the Undead would eventually wear down or break as they futilely tried to reach him, but he finally concluded that nothing was happening. Any other living being might be tired or exhausted after fighting for so long, but these monsters were mindless and seemingly impervious to exhaustion, and he had no doubt that they would continue trying to reach him for days on end without stopping. Meanwhile, Thaden would need to sleep at some point, and he already knew that he couldn’t maintain his spells while he slept, so the moment he drifted off into unconsciousness he would die. Given the way the Undead seemed to hunger for his flesh, he would be eaten – and he wasn’t sure they would spare his head like the Vogmites did. He had a feeling he wouldn’t be coming back from that.

Panic began to set in, but he pushed it down and tried to stay calm. That lasted for all of five minutes before it rose back up and infected his mind, fueled by the moans and clicks and general sounds of the attacking Undead, and he suddenly couldn’t stop himself from doing everything he could to flee.

Orienting himself away from where his Quest was pulling him, he started forward, striding toward one of the Ghoulish Swarmers and it jumped up at him before being pushed backwards a foot. He kept moving, however, and as it quickly tried to bite him, it was pushed back into the wall of Undead behind it, moving a few inches. He continued moving forward, step by step, progressing an inch or two every few seconds as his Field pushed the mass of monsters slowly backwards.

Unfortunately, even though he was making progress, he knew that it wasn’t enough. Desperation was setting in as he pushed a little too forcefully a minute later and his forearm accidentally brushed up against the teeth of the Swarmer before it could attack him back, thereby activating the Field, and he screamed out in pain as the sharp mouth knives cut him deep to the bone, ripping off a fist-sized chunk of his skin and flesh in the process.

The pain was so bad that he collapsed fell to his knees as he stared at the horrendous damage done to his arm, and as the blood gushed out from the wound, he could sense the Undead around him going into some sort of frenzy as their attacks upon him seemed to double in speed. He completely ignored it as he felt the Weak Regeneration he always kept active heal him a little bit, but a frantic look at his Character Report showed him that he was losing Health faster than his Regeneration could replace it – because he was bleeding out.

He had to mentally stop himself from canceling his Field so that he could cast his Minor Healing spell – because the pain was so horrid that it was all he could think about. Thankfully, he felt a small bump in his healing that didn’t come from his Weak Regeneration, which was when he remembered that he had acquired the Natural Regeneration Competency from one of the Achievements he’d earned, which helped to ease the pain a slight amount.

But even that small advantage to his healing wasn’t enough. Thaden’s Health continued to plummet, passing into the single digits as he tried to figure out what to do.

Of course, it wasn’t until he was down to 6, then 7 when his Regeneration spell ticked again, that he remembered his new spell, Weak Mass Healing. He blamed his forgetfulness on the pain and then the blood loss he was experiencing, and he chastised himself for his stupidity. He quickly chose to instant-cast spell, and as soon as Weak Mass Healing was activated, a bright light erupted from him and expanded like a spherical wave up 40 feet away, as if he had just exploded with healing energy.

Not only did 20 Health suddenly return to him, putting him near his maximum of 30, but the horrific wound on his arm suddenly sealed itself with a layer of new skin, stopping the bleeding, and then it quickly filled up with the flesh that had been ripped away from it, like a ballon filling up with air. In no more than a couple of seconds, it had almost entirely been healed; there was still some weakness in his arm that he figured would go away once he was fully healed, and there were still signs that it hadn’t fully replaced all the flesh quite yet under the surface, but it was worlds better than it was before.

However, he didn’t really notice much of that at first because he was immediately distracted by the pained groans of the Undead around him. The flash of healing light had spread out from his location and passed over the Zombies, Skeletons, and Swarmers nearby; he thought that it was just supposed to heal himself and his allies, but apparently it did more than that to the monsters around him.

The Undead were the antithesis of life, so did that mean his life-healing spells would damage them?

He knew that in some RPGs, Priests and Cleric-type Classes were able to harm the Undead using particular spells and prayers, but he always thought it was due to some sort of religious connection and relying on their God for that type of power. It might be that it worked that way in games, but in the world of Tarth, all it took was the same healing energy that had saved his life countless times since he arrived.

Regardless of why it worked, he needed to test if it indeed harmed the Undead. Instant-casting his Weak Regeneration spell on the Skeleton Warrior next to him, he watched as the greenish aura surrounded it. At first, nothing seemed to happen, but after the first 5 seconds passed, the healing effect ticked and he witnessed an almost imperceptible dimming of the dark energy holding its bones together. There was no reaction of pain from the monster, but he wasn’t sure if that was because it didn’t feel the pain or because the damage done was so miniscule compared to its total Health pool that it was insignificant, but he thought that it was proof enough that it worked.

It was confirmed a few seconds later when his Weak Mass Healing came off cooldown and he used it again. Now that he was paying attention to what the burst of healing light did, he could really see the reactions of the Undead as it passed through them, and they both flinched at the touch of the healing energy and were affected in different ways. For instance, as he’d seen a little of it in the Skeleton Warrior with the Weak Regeneration spell on it, the dark energy holding the Skeletal monsters together dimmed much more significantly after the wave of light passed.

The Ghoulish Swarmers were also affected, but it came with the sight of their desiccated flesh sloughing off in small clumps, where none of it had shifted before. The Zombie Maulers had something similar occur to them, as even more of their rotting flesh fell from their bodies – at least more than usual. Now, those signs weren’t necessarily an indication of damage, but when they were accompanied by higher-pitched moans of pain and a screech from the Swarmers, he was going to consider it suitable confirmation.

Overall, though, the spell he cast didn’t cause a significant amount of damage to the Undead, as even the 20 Health that the Weak Mass Healing did as damage was probably only a fraction of their total Health. He didn’t know for sure how high their Health actually was, but he could only assume that it was at least a few hundred, if not near 1,000, given the fact that Thaden was quite weak at only 30 Health.  Any other healer would likely not consider the damage that any type of healing spell did worth casting on the undead, as there were likely stronger “Mage”-type spells that were a lot more destructive. For instance, at Level 17, even if he had placed all his free stat points in Mentality, that would give him a pool of 290 Mana; at 60 Mana per cast of Weak Mass Healing, they would only be able to cast the spell four times, or perhaps 5 depending on how fast their Mana regenerated.

But for Thaden, who didn’t have to worry about his Mana because it was somehow broken and his spells never depleted his pool, there was absolutely no problem casting Weak Mass Healing over and over and over again. Sure, it might take a while, but he was also in no real danger; it was his own desperation that led to him getting seriously injured. In other words, if he didn’t move, he wouldn’t get hurt.

Wiping the still-wet blood off his arm onto his pants, as his wound was now completely healed without any sign of weakness to it, he grinned a bit evilly at the glowing red eyes of the Undead who hadn’t stopped trying to carve their way through his impervious Field.

“You want to eat me, huh? Well then, get a taste of this!”

As far as clever lines went, it was both cheesy and cringe-worthy, but Thaden didn’t care as he held his hands out and started targeting every single Undead he could see, casting Weak Regeneration on them until all he could see was an array of glowing green auras that promised continuous damage to them all. At the same time, he recast his Weak Mass Healing whenever it came off cooldown, inflicting even more healing damage to the horrific monsters surrounding him. Again, none of it was a lot of damage all at once, but after a few minutes he saw that it was finally starting to have an impact on the Undead closest to him as they literally started to fall apart.  Even losing a limb or two wasn’t enough to stop them from trying to carve their way through his defenses, but he could tell that their end was nigh.

“Oh, does that not taste to your liking? How about you have some more, huh? Hey! No pushing in the back, you’ll get your meal soon enough,” he said to them with a chuckle, as the first of the Skeleton Warriors collapsed into a pile of bones. “Wait your turn, will ya? I’m not going anywhere.”