James couldn't bring himself to stop Annie from running into the room. As soon as she did, the evolved monster sprang into action. It scrambled off the workbench it was lazing on and jumped into the shadows towards the back of the room. The workshops had few windows, so electric lighting was a necessary abundance in most of the classes in the design block.

With the power potentially out, and the lights off, half the room was filled with darkness.

"Shit! James!" Annie swore as the grey monster appeared to sink into the shadows.

"Uhhhh, yeah?" James was very surprised to hear this from Annie. The quiet and composed, albeit vaguely threatening girl was yelling at him.

"The storeroom! Grab some batteries. Get these lights and machines on."

"Got it!" James jumped to attention.

The storeroom was directly next door to the metal workshop and looked to still be locked, so James knew there was nothing in it, but... it was locked.

Dana noticed this and also made the connection, so instead of standing there like the idiot James sometimes was, she grabbed the cub out of his hand and swung it as hard as she could at the door, just above the handle.

[ALL OUT]

A small window appeared in the centre of her vision as she swung the club, making an impressive dent in it. The wooden door was locked mainly to deter than prohibit apparently. She swung again, but the window didn't appear this time. The club still went through the door, opening up a vaguely triangular hole, slightly larger than a fist.

Satisfied, and somewhat out of breath, Dana reached through the hole and unlocked the door from the inside. The door swung open, and she turned quickly to James.

"Grab what you need."

Thoroughly impressed, and more than a little speechless, James did as she said and picked up 4 of the car batteries immediately inside the room. He also noticed some long metal poles the door. These were likely used for scaffolding when the building was being painted or something. He grabbed one with his spare hand and threw it gently to Dana, who was standing just outside the doorway.

She caught it, winced, and immediately dropped the pole.

"Aaahhhh! Shit James, that's heavier than it looks"

She bent down after discarding the crappy makeshift club, slightly bent out of shape, and picked up the pole again. It was more of a staff and was probably heavy enough to cause some real damage if swung hard enough.

James took another for himself at the sacrifice of one of his batteries, and they both ran back to the workshop.

Annie was fighting the good fight, but it was obvious she was losing. The Komodo kept jumping in and out of shadows, seeming as if it were teleporting, which made tracking it a feat in itself. It could move surprisingly quickly on its 4 stubby legs and could jump much further. While it was about 2 meters long, and roughly half a meter off the ground, it bore a striking resemblance to the screaming lizard, if not much larger, with scales of a dark grey instead of red. The scale-up meant that the claws on its feet were a modest threat, but its teeth could cause real damage.

Annie had obviously damaged one of its shoulders, as it walked with a limp on one of its front legs, and it had a screwdriver sticking out of its eye. The wound wasn't deep, but it was enough to half blind it.

Annie, on the other hand, was in much worse shape. She held another screwdriver in one of her hands, with one of the clubs in the other. The second club she had taken into the room was missing. Broken, James suspected. And she was wounded. Annie had suffered several deep scratches across her arms and had been bitten in her right bicep. That must have been when she had the opportunity to stab it in the eye. The wound was bleeding from a dozen nagged puncture marks though, and bleeding fast.

Dropping the batteries, and in a mad rush, James sprinted towards the lizard, that was looking away from him, it's focus on Annie. James aimed at its middle, just behind its injured shoulder and swung as hard as he could. With his momentum increased by the sprint and an all-out swing, several windows appeared while he was moving.

[ALL OUT]

Skill learnt: Running strike ©

Faith action: +5 faith damage

Skill learnt: Faith (D)

Vowing to check them out later, James felt his pole connect solidly with the lizard's ribs. A loud cracking noise filled the room, and James saw the lizard’s chest cave in slightly, as he crushed, rather than cracked some ribs.

The lizard flew to the wall, another window appearing above it, with only half of it fading away.

-31 hp

Status effect applied: Internal Bleeding (1:19)

Status effect applied: Dazed (0:18)

-1hp

-1hp

A continuous stream of damage windows hovered over the status effect, showing the lizard was slowly dying. The 2 minutes of internal bleeding seemed wildly unfair to James, but he considered that maybe that was just how long the lizards took to heal their internals. The dazed effect gave them some leeway though, so while James ran back to his batteries, Dana ran to Annie, handing her the pole, and picking up the one James dropped in his rush.

While the lizard was dazed, the girls swung at its head again and again. Not dealing any damage over 15 per swing, but waning down its health all the same.

James tore the protective caps off of the battery and opened the panel of the fuse box. This fuse box had a comb of wire reels that had two diodes per circuit. Pulling the wires for the room lights free, James clipped them to the battery, and the lights instantly began flickering on. With the shadows gone, the lizard had nowhere to go and was in a pretty bad way.

When it had only 2 seconds left of dazed, Annie retreated and pulled back Dana with her. This proved unnecessary though, as the lizard’s injuries meant it was still sluggish.

The creature’s entire head was a bloody mess, and swings at the screwdriver in its eye had torn it open, so blood and jelly dropped from the side of its face. It took a few steps towards the field and collapsed, it's damaged leg giving out, and it's breathing shuddering and laborious.

"James.", she said and took a deep breath.

"Plug in the big saw."

James realized she meant the table saw, and though he knew what she was referring to, he had no idea what she wanted to do with it.

While he was putting a battery into that particular circuit, Annie was briefing Dana.

"Don't let it move around too much. If it tries, swing at its legs."

Dana was white in the face, and still out of breath, but managed to nod. Then turned to the dying lizard in front of her, and stood ready. James had meanwhile plugged in and switched on the table saw.

"What do you need this for?" He asked loudly over the noise of the saw. As it got faster and louder, he had to shout to be heard over the noise.

"Something sharp!" Giving a deliberately vague answer, Annie walked to the table saw, dragging behind her pole. Then she placed the pole on the table, and cut it in half.

James was shocked, first at the number of sparks that were sent up, then at what she had done. Not only would the saw blade be blunted, but the pile was now two smaller poles.

But they were sharp.

She had cut them at an angle that caused two very sharp, albeit lopsided stakes to be made. These would fairly easily be able to pierce the skin, or even bone if enough force was applied. The poles were hollow, but James preferred not to think about the damage caused by that little feature. With the two stakes that were giving off some heat from being cut, Annie walked back over to the still body of the lizard.

She looked concerned for a moment before it took another breath, breathing a sigh of relief, she pushed it onto its back with her foot, a feat that took more effort than she looked able to exert. But she took both of her stakes and stuck both in the suspected area of the monster's heart.

One must have landed because two more big damage windows appeared in the stream of 1's.

-34hp

Critical hit: -67hp

The lizard hissed as it died, and James realised that was the first noise it had made, but could not figure out why.

Evolved monster killed. 8

Assist: damage dealt: 92

Assist: exp earned: 130

A window appeared, informing James of their victory, and felt some pride. The three of them, who had only just started playing this game, had killed a level 13 without a severe injury between them.

That being said, Annie was still bleeding.

"Annie, how's your hp doing?" James asked as he ran to one of the draws against a far wall.

"16, and the bleeding effect takes off another 1 every 50 or so seconds. It lasts for 10 more minutes though."

"Shit. Come here" James beckoned over the exhausted Annie to where he had opened a draw of scrap fabrics used for polishing. Grabbing the newest, cleanest fabric he could find, he tore it into a small bundle of thin strips, a few big ones, and balled up the rest.

He had an idea.

"Here, put this in your mouth and bite down on it."

Annie looked confused, but her exhausted body did as asked, and she stuffed as much of the cloth as she could in her mouth, grimacing all the way through.

James grabbed a bottle of clear liquid from an overhead cupboard and opened it. The smell of alcohol wafted over to Annie, and her eyes began watering. James held out her bitten arm with one of his hands, the open bottle in the other.

"Dana, grab her other arm. Sorry about this." James looked sadly at Annie, and she let out a confused squeal, barely audible through the makeshift gag.

James poured half the bottle over her arm, washing away the still-wet blood and cleaning the wounds. Annie was slow on the uptake, but her mind sharpened when he began to pour the alcohol over her arm. Agony lanced through her muscles, causing her arms to spasm wildly. Dana barely managed to hold on to Annie's surprising strength but managed due to her slightly higher strength.

While James held on to the now heavily bleeding arm, he began to wrap the small cloth strips over the entire length, each layer rapidly soaking with blood. When he had used up all his smaller strips, he moved up to the larger strips, and wrapped them over the red stains, tying them as tight as he could bear to, without doing more damage. The bleeding stopped spreading, and Annie's attempted swings grew weaker. As James was tying the last bandage, her legs gave out, and she passed out.

The blood was no longer visible on the thick layer of bandage over her arm, and James momentarily panicked that it was because her heart had stopped beating. But she was still breathing, and James lowered her gently to the ground.

Skill learnt: Nursing ©

James inwardly scoffed at the skill he had learnt. This seemed quite useless, but he instantly took back the thought once he read the description of what Nursing actually did.

Nursing (skill):

When caring for an injured person with non-magical items, status effects are 10% easier to remove.

Cost: (Passive)

Progress: (max)

Though it was strange that it did not level or cost anything, it made sense as it was likely based on knowledge rather than experience. Quickly being reminded of his last learned skills, James opened his status and looked through the additions.

Running strike (skill):

Momentum built up by running is converted to kinetic energy in the user's melee weapon at an efficiency of 10%

Cost: 3 stamina

Progress: (0%)

Faith (skill):

Belief is a powerful weapon if used correctly. Having faith in your actions and methods can boost them. The stronger the Faith, the greater the boost.

Cost: passive

Progress: (max)

Receiving another skill at max Level, or at least one that didn't Level, James had to appreciate his feature.

But pulling himself back to the ever important present, he looked down al Annie, still breathing steadily, and after a quick check of his stamina used analyze.

Annabelle Decker:

Level: -

Status effects: mental exhaustion (136:06)

"Well, there goes the guard." James muttered in an already foul mood.

He figured he might as well get on with the designs that Dom gave him while Annie slept off her near-death experience, so he pulled out the piece of paper Dom had handed him. Scanning the scrawled designs quickly, he reached the end of the page and scrunched it up before throwing it to the ground and swiftly walking away.