The dungeon bowl opened like a bowl below me. Two exits sat at opposite sides, so that there was an exit a third of the way along the wall at any point. This room was mostly the same. Two of the goat like creatures stared up at me, and the mass of flora on the ground grew slightly higher.

I directed my undead to attack one of them, charging to the other myself.

//RESTRAIN IT. AIM FOR LIMBS AND PIN IT, BUT DO NOT KILL IT

I designated the goat monsters GOAT01. The GOAT01 had charged towards me before I even made it to the bottom of the wall. My prybar cut through the air, oscillating, before slamming into the goat’s side. I ducked, my entire body collapsing in a single motion as I deliberately disengaged the joints of my knees to fall, pulling them forward to reset them, and spinning with the full force of my torso.

When the blunt edge of the prybar finished carving through the side of the goat, my body continued spinning an additional 180 degrees. It bleated as organs spilled out of its side, and its legs gave out from the pain. It struggled to rise to its feet again.

My body spun the 180 degrees back, cutting into again, my prybar stabbing forward as I turned, carving through the creature’s chest. I let my fingers lock into place over my gun-arm, grabbing the creature by one of its horns.

It still refused to die, even as the beating motion of its heart was visible in its chest, painting its fur red with blood, falling down its chest. It struggled to its feet. What, exactly, caused the stats to give out? Was it additional damage to varying parts? Or could stabbing the same part over and over work to kill a monster?

I stabbed my prybar into its chest, and it bleated, struggling forward towards me, before falling still. I freed the prybar from its chest, dragging the corpse with me as I walked towards the dungeon exit, throwing the body onto the stone. Blood pooled.

///XP: 150/350

I appeared to gain more XP for this kill. But I couldn’t know if the monsters in this room possessed a higher level.

Turning, I walked to the other goat that had been in the dungeon room with us. The undead did a fantastic job of debilitating it — nubs of bloody flesh showed where limbs used to be. Likely useless as an undead, if not for the bones. I walked to it.

It bleated in fear as I approached, struggling to break free of the Templar undead’s grasp.

I reached out, grabbing a clump of its fur.

///ENERGY DRAIN

I held the GOAT01, ignoring its bleating until my energy reached 100%.

//RELEASE IT

I instructed the undead, and they let go. There was so much to test today. One of the undead lacked a head. I had failed to note it as significant; but the undead appeared to respond to verbal commands. What did they respond to, if it was incapable of hearing? They didn’t respond to mental commands.

/PIN IT

No response to aimed radio communication, either. Which meant that they didn’t react purely to intent. Eliminating those options, it was likely they required both sound and intent.

#PIN IT

I modulated the sound, moving the audio out of pitch of anything a biological human, even heavily modified, could handle. The goat writhed at this, but lacking any limbs, failed to do more than wiggle.

The undead reacted, pinning the goat back down. Interesting. It was probable that the sound had to both carry the intent and contact the commanded undead. This likely meant that a necromancer could not control their undead in a vacuum.

I cataloged that information for later.

#RELEASE IT

I continued to instruct the undead out of pitch. The probability of something close to human intercepting was near 0%. But near 0% and 0% are not the same. We continued through the dungeon, dragging the still bleating goat's body along with us, though we left the limbs behind.

Crossing over the next barrier to the bowls, we stared down at something new. With each successive room, the mat of grass and grass-like fauna on the ground grew taller. The grass was under two feet tall, rising to human ankles. A monster stared back at us. It was the size of a bus. Half sheep and half monstrosity, its neck extended forward, feet long and snaking, and it tore at the vegetation. Tufts of curled hair covered its body, silver gray and ending in points. I walked towards it, letting the Undead heave the goat corpse over the wall and follow me. I designated it SHEEP01. The SHEEP01 rose to all four horrible limbs. They looked almost human, tan-pink with knees ending in bird-like feet. The creature’s neck retracted into its tough fur, and it ran towards me, accelerating across the bowl.

It let out a sound like a ‘baaa’, turning at the last moment as it approached me and flinging itself. Its neck and legs receded until it was just a pill shaped ball of fur. I leaped out of the way. The creature slammed towards my previous location, hit the ground, bounced, and shot up against the wall, slamming into it before falling back.

It rose to its feet, wobbling and struggling to clear its apparent dizziness. It shook its head.

My Nova-3 carved through the side of its head, and it switched from ‘baaa’ing to an almost human sort of scream, its head retracting back into its fur, still smoking from where it retracted.

The creature charged me again, blind this time, and I fired a second shot. Its whole body was on fire, now, but it didn’t seem to phase it at all. The creature still raced towards me.

I dodged out of the way again; the creature continuing to scream even as it slammed into the next wall, bouncing onto the ground. Its feet popped out, scrambling to find a surface to cling to, panicking and flailing.