Rolly had a hold of Ozzy's arm and was pulling him in the direction of the Sphynx's lair. Squirmie was fluttering around Suzette trying to herd her in the same direction. Neither was having much luck.

"New Dungeon, Ozzy! Let's just take a little peek."

Suzette rolled her eyes at the bug and refused to move, "Your impatient little pet is probably the most resilient of all of us. He'll survive a couple of more hours until we complete some preparations and pack up a few supplies."

Rolly quit pulling on Ozzy, "Prep work? As in snacks? She's right, Squirmie! We need snacks. We should pack a big basket of food. We need to keep up our energy in a dungeon. Let's get started on that."

The Shepherd and his butterfly went off to the village to begin packing a full picnic basket for the trip to the ancient zoo. Suzette took Ozzy's arm in hers, "How about you escort me home? We could use a couple hours of sleep and then we can fill up your bag with potions, bandages and anything else we can think of."

Ozzy was in favor of that idea. "A nap sounds good. The last day's work wasn't hard, but I've never used up that much mana before and I had to recharge over and over with potions. It wears you out in an odd way."

Suzette patted his arm, "We'll make a proper wizard out of you yet. How is the smoke magic going with Joe?"

Ozzy took a deep breath and exhaled a large amount of smoke. With intense concentration it formed into a vaguely humanoid form that waved slowly and then dissipated, "Slowly improving. Joe said the better I get with the basics of smoke and heat, the easier the real lessons will be. He said I was almost ready to go visit Old Smoke, whoever that is."

"When does that happen? Do you go alone?”

"I'm assuming I have to make the trip pretty soon. He said it was best to do it before moving up to Tier 3, and all of us are almost there. Maybe after a successful raid on a new dungeon? If we manage to kill a couple of bosses and score some points, we should all be ready.

Joe said having Smoke Magic would give me a better chance at a good upgrade to Butcher."

Suzette held up her hand and made a ball of light dance across her fingertips. "That's why I keep practicing my little cantrips and wild magic spells. I want to keep pushing into magic and get better spells." She gestured and two insubstantial hounds stalked from the shadows near them, "I love this spell. They don't do a lot of damage, but they get in the way of things trying to kill me. Didn't you say that Joe had some sort of smoke-dog he could summon?"

Ozzy produced something that might have been a dog made out of smoke. Suzette's shadow hounds pounced on it and it dispersed. Ozzy laughed, "That's all I can do right now. Joe's spell produces something more like an 'insane-smokey-murder-wolf'. It's mostly teeth and claws and a vague outline of a big animal. He has me working on it, but so far, I can just make the outline of it. Good for kids’ birthday parties. Maybe I should learn to do bunnies and ponies too?"

"Hopefully you get something that's more 'cooking' and less 'slaughter the orphanage'. " Suzette was a little worried about the influence of the huge dungeon in the city - filled with the latter type of butcher. "If it looks like you may be gone a few days, I might take some time off from being Mayor to train my skills. I've been given some strong hints that some sessions in Hermes’s Realm would help me out a lot. Now that Layla and I are Butchering Buddies, I'm sure I can work it out with her."

"You never have said much about what you're learning up there. Secret Hermetical tricks or something?" Ozzy had brought the subject up before, but Suzette was always hard to pin down on things. She'd spent four decades playing roles as a spy or assassin in other VR games. Not answering questions or giving away information was a habit with her. Ozzy was good at gathering information, and she was good at not giving it away. They'd played this game forever. She had to remind herself that this time was different. They were working together. Still, her actual class was off limits. Secret classes stayed secret. Even Hermes thought she was a Barmaid.

She pushed down the bit of guilt and focused on what she could talk about.

She thought for half a minute, "Some is, some isn't. You technically became a lay brother when I became your teacher. Plus, you've met Hermes more than a couple of times and he still likes you for some reason, even after you got him beat up in the fight with Leroy."

Ozzy objected to that, "Hey, I didn't beat him up, he was just collateral damage. I got hurt worse; it was just instantaneous."

Suzette laughed, "I pointed out the paradox to him: You nearly killing us all while trying to save us from Leroy, who only got in trouble because he saved your life by accident when he stole your place using Ben's contraption. He appreciated it more after his black eyes faded.”

“But as to what I'm learning, a lot of it is tied to the original skills I got access to when I unlocked Hermetics. I'm getting better at poisoning and making it not look like poison, some specialized alchemy, the different types of Hermetic Seal spells, and I've been learning more about rune lore. Astronomy I've barely touched. That has to be done in the normal world, and it's really difficult without a telescope or something like Stonehenge to work with."

"Talking with Hermes and other people in his realm can be like talking to the Sphynx. Lots of riddles and paradoxes. It's like always being in a philosophy class. I do have one tutor who is fairly straight forward. He gives you a goal along with a penalty for failing. You have no idea how fast you can work with the Sword of Damocles hanging over your head. He's fair about it though. He's usually right next to me when it falls."

Ozzy nodded, "That does seem fair. If you don't learn something, it's as much his fault as yours."

The two exited the Beastwoods and continued up the road to the gates. It was a hauntingly beautiful time of night, with dawn still a ways off, but a little light coming over the horizon. The sputtering oil lamps along the road illuminated a narrow strip of land with deep shadows on either side. Some of those shadows were moving, slowly following the two workers who were walking arm in arm up the roadway. It was the Shadow Hounds that saved them. The spell-created beasts began barking and lunged at the ghouls that surged up the embankment to attack.

Suzette took two steps back from Ozzy, leaped to his shoulder, then leaped again. At the top of her jump, she cast Levitate, leaving herself hanging in mid-air above him. The Butcher tossed his bag to the side. It broke two of the paving stones as it hit the ground and he winced. He'd forgotten how heavy the bag was. The shadow hounds were already gone, clawed out of existence by the onrushing undead.

Ozzy dropped his Ancient Billhook to the ground and drew his cleavers. He was going to be swarmed by these things and needed to be able to fight them at knife range. The two ginzu cleavers began to give off a bit of smoke and heat. Ozzy slashed out at the first ghoul that made it to him. It had been a long time since he had used cleavers as a weapon, but he used them for hours a day on dead meat. And that's what these things were; still moving but dead meat.

You have struck a Carrion Ghoul with a cleaver, twice.

Cleaver base damage = 60

Bonus for STR of 25 = 125

Bonus for Hack Undead = 130 (Skill: Butcher rank 10 + Skill: Hack Undead rank 3)

Bonus for perk: Might = 10

Total Damage = 620

You have killed a Carrion Ghoul! Total Kills = 1. Kill 10 Carrion Ghouls to gain a reward from Mama Laveau

You have gained 60 experience in the skill: Hack Undead.

The first hit chopped half-way through the ghoul's ribcage and the second hit made a ragged gash that took off an arm. Some part of his brain said he could have made a cleaner cut if he had hit at the elbow joint.

Jagged fingernails tore at his skin and clothing. His pants and shirt were shredded, but his armored apron resisted their claws. Ben had produced it for him using a double-layer of Sedge Bull hide with thin plates of dark steel riveted between them. The result would have been quite heavy for a normal person. Ozzy was anything but normal at this point. A hundred pounds of armored apron wasn't even noticeable. With 50 mitigations from the apron, 60 from Mitigation 3, and another 30 from Monstrous, Ozzy could shrug off hits of 140 points or less. The ghouls had poisonous bites and claw attacks for 200 points. The poison wasn’t affecting him at all. He could ignore the scratches for quite some time, but eventually they could wear him down. Luckily, he wasn't alone.

A shimmering field of bright runes surrounded both Ozzy and Suzette. Being stacked vertically had some advantages. The ghouls hissed as the spell appeared, but weren't driven back. It did illuminate the area and give Ozzy a good idea of how many were charging them, and it was a lot! Ghouls were coming from the ruined houses and collapsed buildings, alerted to the fight. As Ozzy hacked away at the ghouls surrounding him, Suzette began picking them off with Solar Arrows from her staff. The radiance-based spell tore into the ghouls, causing their undead muscles and sinews to come undone. Each spell destroyed the ghoul it hit, and the runes of the circle pulsed as the spells were released.

Congratulations! You have raised your skill: Hack Undead to rank 4 and increased your base damage.

You have taken damage: Health = 3035/3635

Suzette yelled out from above him, "When I say jump, move back ten feet, and after the spell hits, move back into the circle!"

Ozzy moved as she yell 'jump' and was just missed by the Coldfire spell that hit the bunched ghouls. All of them were singed and on fire. Ozzy fought back to the center of the runic circle and noticed that he was killing a ghoul with every hit now.

Congratulations! You have raised your skill: Hack Undead to rank 5 and increased your base damage.

You have killed 10 Carrion Ghouls! See Mama Laveau for your reward of a small favor.

Next: Kill 25 Carrion Ghouls.

You have taken damage: Health = 2335/3635

The stream of ghouls coming from the ruins had stopped, but Ozzy had over three dozen fighting to get to him. "I don't think I can take all of these, and I'm not going to be able to jump away. You'll just have to hit me next time you cast that AOE."

Suzette had a better idea, "I don't think these will hurt you." She pulled a necklace of red balls from her pack, and began tearing them off and tossing them at Ozzy. Each one broke and produced a small fireball, crisping the ghouls and doing nothing to Ozzy. Each ball was bigger than the last. Suzette used the first three and half of the ghouls dropped, the fresher ones at the edge pushing into the fray.

The 3rd fireball had licked at her toes, meaning the next ones were going to hurt. Suzette downed a potion she had made in Aliester's lab. The fire shield potion should, in theory, reflect fire away from her. She downed it, and then threw the biggest of the three remaining red balls. The result was effective. Ghouls dropped by the dozen, she was only slightly singed, and was blasted much higher into the air. Immediately she threw the last two balls, hoping she was now out of range.

Fireball does 50 points of damage to many ghouls, you have killed 2 Carrion Ghouls.

Fireball does 100 points of damage to many ghouls, you have killed 3 Carrion Ghouls.

Fireball does 150 points of damage to many ghouls, you have killed 7 Carrion Ghouls.

You have taken 150 points of fire damage.

Fireball does 300 points of damage to many ghouls, you have killed 22 Carrion Ghouls.

Fireball does 250 points of damage to a few ghouls, you have killed 6 Carrion Ghouls.

Fireball does 200 points of damage to many ghouls, you have killed 2 Carrion Ghouls.

You have killed 25 Carrion Ghouls. See Mama Laveau for a reward of a small favor.

Ozzy hacked down the last two ghouls who were stumbling around, mostly destroyed. The road was littered with burning body parts. Suzette ended her levitation spell and dropped down into Ozzy's arms, "How was that for teamwork?"

"Truthfully? It was great! But holy hell, you did a ton of damage with your spells. That was awesome! Where did all the fireballs come from?" The Butcher cleaned the two of them up with Cleanse, gave Suzette a hug and put her down.

"Dungeon loot from a long time ago. I always think I should save stuff like that and then never use it. I've started packing some of them around. Did it seem like these monsters didn't have a lot of health? They dropped fast!"

Ozzie bent and examined one, "Not a lot of muscle. Skin and bones, showing a lot of rib. I don't know what ghouls are supposed to look like, but these are pretty thin. Like a horde of starving rats."

Something struck Suzette hard and sent her tumbling to the side of the road where she lay still and unmoving, a large bleeding gash across her back.

"Or like worthless beasts sent to test you. Impressive that two heroes of your meagre levels could best them all, but then again, you cheated by using explosive spells from magical items. Items I note you no longer have."

Poor Suzette, not all shadows are your friends. You should remember that in your next life.

Bone Gnawer has struck with surprise and scored a critical hit. You have been clawed for 960 points of damage.

You are bleeding.

You are poisoned.

You are stunned.

You have suffered crushed ribs: -50% to movement, +20% to additional damage from Bone Gnawer.

Ozzy whirled and saw a massive ghoul standing between him and Suzette's body. It was two feet taller than him, and weighed at least a half-ton. Foot-long, razor-sharp nails adorned each hand and its maw was full of sharp teeth like a shark.

"And now what will the hero do? Run? You could always claim you were going for help. Or will you test yourself against me? Let me warn you that a dead girlfriend isn't the worst. If you run, I'll turn her into something like me. My last bride is falling to pieces and I need a new one."

The monster might assume Suzette was dead, but Ozzy knew from both his herd sense and his group screen that she was still alive. Barely, and she was bleeding out. It wouldn't have mattered in either case. He was too angry to consider any option except attacking. Bone Gnawer had expected to taunt the human for some time. His aura should have terrified the mortal hero and rooted him to the spot; or have him running screaming in abject fear. But this human had his own aura. Bone Gnawer was immune to the fear and intimidation, but his own aura wasn’t affecting the half-dead hero.

And what he hadn't expected at all, was for the human to suddenly burst into flame, smoke pouring off of his body and fire erupting from his mouth and nose. With a bestial roar the Butcher leaped high at his foe, bringing down his two cleavers down onto a surprised Bone Gnawer.

Berserk Butcher has hacked you for 365 points of damage to the shoulder, you may not use your right arm for 1 round.

Berserk Butcher has precisely cut into your elbow joint, severing tendons and muscle. You have lost your left forearm and taken 730 points of damage.

Bone Gnawer howled in pain. The heat and fire of the attacks seared his undead flesh, blocking his regeneration. The Butcher hit the surprised monster again before it could attack, the cleavers cutting deep into the ghoul’s flesh, one of them removing a rotten kidney. It struck back, its claw leaving four long cuts in the Butcher's shoulder and knocking the human to the ground. Ozzy came to his knees and hacked with both cleavers at the creature's knee. Bone Gnawer was astounded to see his right leg separated from his body. It tried to propel itself onto the Butcher, but was only partially successful, slashing Ozzy again with its claw as the Butcher rolled away.

Ozzy came to his feet and stalked forward, striking at Bone Gnawers remaining foot, severing it at the ankle. Ozzy's entire body was burning now. As the ghoul tried to crawl away, he hacked at its back. A massive claw caught his arm on the second strike and pulled him towards the monster.

Bone Gnawer finally had the Butcher where it wanted him. There was no escape now. His mouth closed on the Butchers arm, half tearing it off. Burning blood erupted into the monster's face, blinding it. A cleaver impacted its skull, cutting deep and sticking. With no weapon left, the Butcher began pounding the ghoul with a fist, as the ghoul bit him again and again. Jagged teeth tore flesh while blood burned out the ghouls’ eyes and a steel fist broke ribs and punched further and further into the monster’s body.

The double 'twang' of cross-bow bolts was lost in the twin roars of enraged creatures. Baron and Baroness reloaded and shot again.

Suzette staggered to her feet, nearly dead. She glowed brightly as she launched two Solar Arrows into the ghoul and readied to do it again.

The Butcher quit moving. Bone Gnawer came to his knees, and then stood. His regrown legs were spindly and thin, having scavenged flesh from elsewhere in its body. It looked around for its claw, intending to stick it back onto its arm. Two more cross-bow bolts stuck into its back. Bone Gnawer sneered. "Please, you just embarrass yourself, little Baron. Run and hide, now that you know you don't rule this city."

It turned towards Suzette, who again launched two more glowing arrows into it. They hurt, badly. Laced with radiance and anger, the sorceress could have killed him if she wasn't about to collapse from blood loss. Bone Gnawer advanced towards her on unsteady legs as she went to her knees.

Billy and Layla drew cleavers and started to charge, stopping as fire exploded between them and the creature.

Ozzy stood up. His body was dissolving into heavy black smoke that formed heavy black chains that shot out and wrapped around the Lord of Ghouls, immobilizing it. His cleavers fell from his hands, but a larger one made of smoke and fire appeared. The Butcher brought it down on his chained foe’s head, splitting him from the top of his head to his breastbone

The Ghoul’s body fell to the road, broken and burnt. Layla ran to Suzette and began pouring healing potions onto her, trying to get her to drink. What was left of Ozzy pointed at Suzette.

Take care of her while I'm gone.

And then what was left of him became smoke that blew away on the wind, higher and higher until it passed over the ACME building and went out of sight.