Sally yawned and resisted the urge to empty her stomach. Turned out the lizardmen hadn't been worthy of much attention - the stakes just weren't there. Her right arm ached, both from stabbing so much, but also the amount of damage that she had taken was not negligible. She was briefly amused that [Living Dead] could also heal herself. In wanting to find a supporting Unique for their party, it turns out she had become one herself.
The cooldown was a few minutes long, so it wasn’t something that could be relied on in a pinch - but it was a guaranteed top up every so often that extended the lives of her undead party members as well as the horde of summons she could command now.
Fighting the boss had been somewhat underwhelming. Sure, they had put up a much better fight than the rest of the lizardmen here, but between her gaining stats from eating their brains and the last of her summoning skill, it had only been a matter of time before she worn them down and feasted on them too. Whether they had even been worth eating was another question, as they didn't seem to settle in her stomach well. Perhaps some poison still lingered from the rat brains.
“Any good loot?” Humphrey affixed his greatsword to his back and strode over to her, past the milling undead amongst the corpses of the lizardmen. Some zombies were eating at the fallen foes, whereas some were content just to idly stand about and stare off into the distance.
“I hate looting,” Sally whined. Even after getting rid of most of the hundreds of weapons she had been labored with thanks to Archie, her Inventory was still way too cluttered. Oh, that was a good point.
[Sally: hey Theo]
[Sally: give me any and all daggers you can find]
[Sally: no time to explain]
She closed the STAR and rubbed her chin. The vampire hadn’t responded to her for a while, and as much as she knew he was capable, she hope that nothing bad had happened to him. Although it seemed rather impossible that he could die to anything in the Forest area with his broken stats.
“Humphrey, I’d know if Theo died, right?” Her face contorted into a grimace.
“He’s not in the Party currently. But you would see in the Guild notifications.” The Death Knight stopped beside the boss's body and put his plated hands on his hips.
“Oh.” Sally scrunched up her nose and prodded at the STAR. “I turned those off a while back.”
Her brow continued to furrow as she scrolled through the updates that she had missed out on. Eventually, she closed the System messages and put her hands clasped behind her back with a weak smile to the Death Knight. “Well, the good news is that Theo hasn’t died yet.”
Humphrey narrowed his eyes sockets. “And the bad news?”
“One of the other parties is completely wiped out.” She exhaled through her nose and looked out to the empty planes beyond the reach of the village. While she didn't exactly hold any love for the Player groups apart from Chuck’s one, it was still somewhat sobering that another group of people that she had known was now dead. And she didn’t even get to eat their brains.
The Death Knight nodded, and followed her gaze. “It’s not surprising given how harsh this area is - more so than intended.” He scratched the side of his head in thought. “I wonder how all the new Players are doing now.”
If Theo would actually answer his messages, then maybe she would find out. Not that she needed him to be constantly updating her of his progress, but it would be nice to know something occasionally. While part of her did envy that he got to go back to the Forest and see all the old friends and become more powerful with more System errors, she knew she had to press on and get things fixed here.
“I’m surprised we didn’t level up actually,” she pouted, brushing away the thoughts of the vampire to focus on the current situation. There had been a sizeable amount of Monsters they had killed and if they were pretty close after having completing the dungeon then she thought that when pushed over the edge.
Humphrey pointed back to further into the town near the office where they had teleported in. “There are still one or two that Lucius and Edward are fighting.”
“Are they okay?” While she was content to not carry them on the adventures, seems a little coldhearted to leave them stranded and struggling against an enemy. Especially when it was holding up their experience gain.
The Death Knight shrugged, and they both relented to going and seeing what was going on. Sally used [Endless Rest] to put the zombies away, ready for later. She had already used all of her summoning abilities for the day, so other than the-oh! She should be looting all these lizardmen for their skulls. Even if she didn’t run out soon, it always paid to have more than she needed. First, the demons.
By the office they passed Archie, who was curled up asleep in the sunshine. Although the ginger cat was technically one of her bodyguards, he didn’t seem to show the same amount of consideration for the two newer members of the party. She rolled her eyes, but it didn’t feel like it would be fair to wake the cat up.
In an alleyway beside the next building, two lizard men had cornered the two demons. Lucius was at the back, pushed against the wall as he tried to give inspirational words to the tax collector who stood in front of him bleeding, as the two opponents jeered on.
The Monster at the back turned his head as the bulking figure of Death Knight blocked out the light. Sally plunged her dagger up into his ribs stabbing again with the [Dagger of Luck] that she had withdrawn into her offhand. [Eat brains]. As the second lizard man now turned to face the more capable foe, Edward blazed forward, cutting a gash across the Monster's chest, quickly following up with a jab to the underside of the jaw of the monster. [Eat brains].
“Thanks,” Edward growled, before turning round and glaring at the cowering Lucius. “Could you be any less useful?”
“No?” The Demon had a constant emoji bubble beside him of sweat drops, one of the most common ones he seemed to portray in adventuring with Sally and the gang. “I’m sorry, Edward.”
“You need to cool it, Edward,” Sally interjected. “Everything is fine. Everybody’s fine now.”
The tax collector sighed and rubbed his temples. “Right, I apologize. That’s kind of on me. I don’t mean to be so sharp - I’m just frustrated at my lower level, in part, thanks to you guys.” He gave Sally a smirk and shrugged his shoulders.
“Look here now, we’ve leveled up, haven’t we?” The zombie raised her hand in the air to show off the golden light emanating from her star.
Edward paused, finally realizing that he too had received the experience from their attack on the village. He didn’t look ecstatic - but at least contented, and it mellowed his fury at the other demon.
“Let’s go back into the office and into the shade. Get this sorted out,” Sally ordered, crossing her arms. Infighting was one of the few things she couldn’t tolerate when it came to the Party, not that she expected them to obey her every whim, but they at least had to get along and trust each other for the whole thing to work out.
They both relented to agreeing to her suggestion, and they all left the only way to circle background to the office building, now very open plan after Humphrey had knocked most of the front wall down. Sally picked Archie up on the way, the cat continuing to sleep, and flopped loosely in her grasp.
She went and sat on the raised ledge of the area with the filing cabinets on and put the cat on her lap. With a sigh, she watched the rest of the party filter into the room and find their own places to awkwardly sit or stand, the two demons avoiding eye contact with each other. Perhaps part of this was her fault for being too harsh on Lucius and too trusting of Edward. Her dagger still had the green showing of his enchantment on it, and she wondered what his intention was with that.
“Edward, do you know anything about how the weather here was broken, or how we might go about fixing the constant sunshine?” She wiped the sweat and blood off her forehead with her forearm, which was equally blooded and grimy from the battle.
“Some.” The Demon worked his jaw and narrowed his eyes at the ceiling as if trying to will the thoughts or memories back into his skull. “Not really enough to know what to do, especially in our current situation.”
There was a shame. Although part of her knew everything was joined in some manner to the Dragon, she had hoped that some things could be fixed without having to resort to having to fell that one figure to end it all. Still, it was generally how these things seemed to work. Should everything go well at the pyramids, they might find something else to assist them on the journey.
Relenting to the guaranteed disappointment, she pressed her golden star to select which of the passives the system was going to offer her for being Level Thirteen.
Sally yawned and resisted the urge to empty her stomach. Turned out the lizardmen hadn't been worthy of much attention - the stakes just weren't there. Her right arm ached, both from stabbing so much, but also the amount of damage that she had taken was not negligible. She was briefly amused that [Living Dead] could also heal herself. In wanting to find a supporting Unique for their party, it turns out she had become one herself.
The cooldown was a few minutes long, so it wasn’t something that could be relied on in a pinch - but it was a guaranteed top up every so often that extended the lives of her undead party members as well as the horde of summons she could command now.
Fighting the boss had been somewhat underwhelming. Sure, they had put up a much better fight than the rest of the lizardmen here, but between her gaining stats from eating their brains and the last of her summoning skill, it had only been a matter of time before she worn them down and feasted on them too. Whether they had even been worth eating was another question, as they didn't seem to settle in her stomach well. Perhaps some poison still lingered from the rat brains.
“Any good loot?” Humphrey affixed his greatsword to his back and strode over to her, past the milling undead amongst the corpses of the lizardmen. Some zombies were eating at the fallen foes, whereas some were content just to idly stand about and stare off into the distance.
“I hate looting,” Sally whined. Even after getting rid of most of the hundreds of weapons she had been labored with thanks to Archie, her Inventory was still way too cluttered. Oh, that was a good point.
[Sally: hey Theo]
[Sally: give me any and all daggers you can find]
[Sally: no time to explain]
She closed the STAR and rubbed her chin. The vampire hadn’t responded to her for a while, and as much as she knew he was capable, she hope that nothing bad had happened to him. Although it seemed rather impossible that he could die to anything in the Forest area with his broken stats.
“Humphrey, I’d know if Theo died, right?” Her face contorted into a grimace.
“He’s not in the Party currently. But you would see in the Guild notifications.” The Death Knight stopped beside the boss's body and put his plated hands on his hips.
“Oh.” Sally scrunched up her nose and prodded at the STAR. “I turned those off a while back.”
Her brow continued to furrow as she scrolled through the updates that she had missed out on. Eventually, she closed the System messages and put her hands clasped behind her back with a weak smile to the Death Knight. “Well, the good news is that Theo hasn’t died yet.”
Humphrey narrowed his eyes sockets. “And the bad news?”
“One of the other parties is completely wiped out.” She exhaled through her nose and looked out to the empty planes beyond the reach of the village. While she didn't exactly hold any love for the Player groups apart from Chuck’s one, it was still somewhat sobering that another group of people that she had known was now dead. And she didn’t even get to eat their brains.
The Death Knight nodded, and followed her gaze. “It’s not surprising given how harsh this area is - more so than intended.” He scratched the side of his head in thought. “I wonder how all the new Players are doing now.”
If Theo would actually answer his messages, then maybe she would find out. Not that she needed him to be constantly updating her of his progress, but it would be nice to know something occasionally. While part of her did envy that he got to go back to the Forest and see all the old friends and become more powerful with more System errors, she knew she had to press on and get things fixed here.
“I’m surprised we didn’t level up actually,” she pouted, brushing away the thoughts of the vampire to focus on the current situation. There had been a sizeable amount of Monsters they had killed and if they were pretty close after having completing the dungeon then she thought that when pushed over the edge.
Humphrey pointed back to further into the town near the office where they had teleported in. “There are still one or two that Lucius and Edward are fighting.”
“Are they okay?” While she was content to not carry them on the adventures, seems a little coldhearted to leave them stranded and struggling against an enemy. Especially when it was holding up their experience gain.
The Death Knight shrugged, and they both relented to going and seeing what was going on. Sally used [Endless Rest] to put the zombies away, ready for later. She had already used all of her summoning abilities for the day, so other than the-oh! She should be looting all these lizardmen for their skulls. Even if she didn’t run out soon, it always paid to have more than she needed. First, the demons.
By the office they passed Archie, who was curled up asleep in the sunshine. Although the ginger cat was technically one of her bodyguards, he didn’t seem to show the same amount of consideration for the two newer members of the party. She rolled her eyes, but it didn’t feel like it would be fair to wake the cat up.
In an alleyway beside the next building, two lizard men had cornered the two demons. Lucius was at the back, pushed against the wall as he tried to give inspirational words to the tax collector who stood in front of him bleeding, as the two opponents jeered on.
The Monster at the back turned his head as the bulking figure of Death Knight blocked out the light. Sally plunged her dagger up into his ribs stabbing again with the [Dagger of Luck] that she had withdrawn into her offhand. [Eat brains]. As the second lizard man now turned to face the more capable foe, Edward blazed forward, cutting a gash across the Monster's chest, quickly following up with a jab to the underside of the jaw of the monster. [Eat brains].
“Thanks,” Edward growled, before turning round and glaring at the cowering Lucius. “Could you be any less useful?”
“No?” The Demon had a constant emoji bubble beside him of sweat drops, one of the most common ones he seemed to portray in adventuring with Sally and the gang. “I’m sorry, Edward.”
“You need to cool it, Edward,” Sally interjected. “Everything is fine. Everybody’s fine now.”
The tax collector sighed and rubbed his temples. “Right, I apologize. That’s kind of on me. I don’t mean to be so sharp - I’m just frustrated at my lower level, in part, thanks to you guys.” He gave Sally a smirk and shrugged his shoulders.
“Look here now, we’ve leveled up, haven’t we?” The zombie raised her hand in the air to show off the golden light emanating from her star.
Edward paused, finally realizing that he too had received the experience from their attack on the village. He didn’t look ecstatic - but at least contented, and it mellowed his fury at the other demon.
“Let’s go back into the office and into the shade. Get this sorted out,” Sally ordered, crossing her arms. Infighting was one of the few things she couldn’t tolerate when it came to the Party, not that she expected them to obey her every whim, but they at least had to get along and trust each other for the whole thing to work out.
They both relented to agreeing to her suggestion, and they all left the only way to circle background to the office building, now very open plan after Humphrey had knocked most of the front wall down. Sally picked Archie up on the way, the cat continuing to sleep, and flopped loosely in her grasp.
She went and sat on the raised ledge of the area with the filing cabinets on and put the cat on her lap. With a sigh, she watched the rest of the party filter into the room and find their own places to awkwardly sit or stand, the two demons avoiding eye contact with each other. Perhaps part of this was her fault for being too harsh on Lucius and too trusting of Edward. Her dagger still had the green showing of his enchantment on it, and she wondered what his intention was with that.
“Edward, do you know anything about how the weather here was broken, or how we might go about fixing the constant sunshine?” She wiped the sweat and blood off her forehead with her forearm, which was equally blooded and grimy from the battle.
“Some.” The Demon worked his jaw and narrowed his eyes at the ceiling as if trying to will the thoughts or memories back into his skull. “Not really enough to know what to do, especially in our current situation.”
There was a shame. Although part of her knew everything was joined in some manner to the Dragon, she had hoped that some things could be fixed without having to resort to having to fell that one figure to end it all. Still, it was generally how these things seemed to work. Should everything go well at the pyramids, they might find something else to assist them on the journey.
Relenting to the guaranteed disappointment, she pressed her golden star to select which of the passives the system was going to offer her for being Level Thirteen.
