The following morning in the Dragonkin camp was extremely tense. The group had gathered to make a final decision on where they would seek to settle. It seemed the choice wasn’t as clearly decided as Vaeldren had made it out to be. Of the 126 Dragonkin within the camp, approximately 50 wanted to find their own home. The remainder believed they should seek refugee status with a different race, though, there was no real consensus on which race this would be with. There were 3 major choices. To the North, there were the Humans and Dark Elves and to the East there were the Halflings.

Ray sat on the outside edge of the camp. He did not participate in the conversation which was quickly devolving into a shouting match. Instead, he used the time to attempt to level up his identify skill by scanning anything and everything he could find. Even the Dragonkin. Many of them noticed his scanning but said nothing about it. Instead, he could tell that some of them were doing the same in return.

“Master, have you decided what you will do?” Miu asked

“Honestly, not yet but looking at these people, they don’t even have a clue themselves. For now, I’ll stick with them”

[Congratulations. Identify has reached level 18]

[Congratulations. Identify has reached level 19]

[Congratulations. Identify has reached level 20]

The morning sun quickly became noon. He noticed Layla staring at him, so he motioned for her to come talk. She moved and sat down next to him.

“You’ve been staring at me awhile now, what’s on your mind Layla?” Ray asked.

Layla looked forlorn. She didn’t know how to broach the subject. In the end, she just dove right in. “Are ye holdin up ok? I mean, ye just watched a friend die and yer stuck in a completely different world. Most people woulda broken down by now ye ken?”

Ray hardened his heart. He knew these kinds of topics would have to come up eventually but he wasn’t sure if he was ready to let his feelings out yet. “Honestly… I don’t know. I don’t feel like anything has hit me yet. I don’t know why but I think I’m broken. I feel… sad for Teddy’s death but… I don’t feel anything worse. I feel like there’s just no time for grief in my heart. Is that weird?”

Layla was taken aback by this. She’d never met someone with so much lack of emotion. Dragonkin were used to wearing their hearts on their sleeves. Hell, even Teddy constantly poured his emotions to the people that he met, even though most people tried to kill him on sight.

“I don’t know. Ye probably should find a way to process them feelings but I ain’t gonna tell ye what yer doin is bad or anything like that.”

“I do know what you mean but honestly, I’m just not feeling it yet. I’m sure it’ll hit me properly at some point. In the meantime, all I can do is move forward.”

“Speaking of moving forward, I think their coming to a decision soon” Layla said.

“Really, they look like they’re still just shouting at each other” Ray said in surprise.

“I mean, on the outside it looks like that, but the refugee camp is clearly winning. It seems we be going to Finrial” Layla said. She waved Ray off and returned to her post within the group.

Layla’s prediction turned out to be right. It wasn’t long before Vaeldren was shaking his head and looked on in defeat. He had pushed for the group to head West into the deep mountain. He had to acknowledge however that the unexplored roads were extremely treacherous, and it was more likely they would all die then find another haven. This lost him the argument.

Once the decision had been made, it didn’t take long for the group to break camp. They were on the road, heading back in to Finrial village in short time. The rats from the dungeon had essentially completely vanished.

Ray noticed that as they were walking closer to the village, Miu was tensing up. Her fur was standing on ends. “Miu, what’s wrong. Are you ok?”

“I don’t know master; the air just smells like blood”

“Is it the rats again?”

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t know. Something just doesn’t feel right”.

Ray walked up to Layla and Vaeldren and spoke in a hushed tone. “Guys, I think we should be careful. Miu senses something. She doesn’t know what. Says it smells like fresh blood up ahead.”

“Nonsense boy, we’re so close to town. The protections should still be active, and we’re not close enough for the System to have taken control” Vaeldren responded.

Ray was surprised at how carefree the Dragonkin were being, given they are refugees fleeing from the system. He turned and looked Vaeldren in the eyes. “Even if you think that. I’m going to play it safe and sit back. Something doesn’t feel right. Miu and I will be ready when we prove right”.

Miu and Ray fell to the back of the pack. They silently moved off the main path and into the forest. Once they were far enough away from the group, Miu moved ahead to scout as much as possible. Ray on the other hand moved through the trees as silently as possible.

While in the trees, Ray used the opportunity to allocate his skill points.

Character Sheet

Name:

Ray Atton

More Info +

Race:

Human-Error (F)

Level:

13 (F)

Stats

Strength

50

Dexterity

40

Agility

42

Body

53

Vitality

41

Intelligence

30

Mind

25

Luck

25

Unallocated Points

0

Titles

Outcast (Unique 1/1), Panther Cat Tamer (Unique 1/1), Great Beast Slayer (Rare)

Coins

Arkus System

13,862

He chose to allocate points to strength and body rather then agility and dexterity. He knew he couldn’t rely on poison for all of his fights and would at some point need to take up a sword. Since he had no class yet, instead of focusing on being a rogue type like Teddy had suggested, he decided to keep most of his skills well rounded for now.

The Dragonkin moved towards the village. They started to get rowdy as they were getting closer, talking about the mead they would be drinking in the tavern soon. Ray could hear Layla shouting about how she could down an entire spit roast herself.

“Master.. Master!, can you still hear me?” Miu said in a panic

“I got you loud and clear, what’s up?” Ray said.

“Get back to the group now. They’re surrounded. It’s undead! We need to help!” Miu said, padding back to the group.

Ray charged back through the trees towards the group. He saw Layla and Vaeldren laughing merrily. In a panic he shouted “WEAPONS OUT, IT’S AN AMBUSH, UNDEAD AHEAD!”

Layla was the first to act. Her staff was out immediately, and she cast a fire shield around herself. She then ran to the front of the group. To her horror, Ray had been right. Out of the ground, zombies and skeletons were digging themselves free.

Vaeldren wasn’t far behind. He used some kind of transformation magic. His claws and teeth became more pronounced and his speed shot through the roof for an old man. He was on top of the first set of zombies before they were even out of the ground.

“Non-Combatants! Fall Back, to the centre! Anyone who can fight! Make sure all angles are checked! This is a fight for our lives!” Vaeldren shouted as he cleaved a zombies head off with his bare claws.

Ray saw that zombies were also appearing behind the group. He immediately used identify to get a handle on the situation. He immediately noticed that he had more information on each opponent.

Identified – Zombie Minion x5

Level:

15

Health:

205/205

Mana:

0/0

Description

A small group of zombies. Raised by a necromancer. Front-line undead.

Identified – Skeleton x10

Level:

10

Health:

125/125

Mana:

25/25

Description

Skeletons. Raised by a necromancer

Identified – Skeleton Archer x2

Level:

25

Health:

225/225

Mana:

105/105

Description

Skeletons with a bow. Raised by a necromancer. Be careful, their arrows hurt.

Ray noticed a large number of non-combatant classed Dragonkin slumped in a group in the centre. There were only about 20 Dragonkin with proper fighting experience, unfortunately, Ray also knew that aside from Layla and Vaeldren, the others were no higher then Level 15. They were about an even match to the Zombies.

Ray and Miu were probably not going to be of huge help either. They were both lower level then even the base skeletons but that wasn’t going to stop them from fighting.

“Miu, we’ll focus on the skeletons. We’ll have to rely on ganging up on the Zombies and Skeletons after we’ve cleared the weaklings” Ray said to Miu

They rushed in, straight at the Skeletons, most of which were fully out of the ground by now. Ray immediately threw a set of daggers toward the zombies and drew the sword he received from Teddy’s sack. As he charged in, Miu jumped on his shoulder and used him as a spring board. She jumped straight at an unsuspecting skeleton and immediately sheared it’s head off with her claws.

Ray swung his sword a the next closest he cleaved it in half from the midriff. To his horror, once the second half hit the ground, it immediately started crawling towards him.

“Master! Aim for the head, undead can’t be killed without fully removing the head from the body. Even then, they don’t die, you have to burn the remains later”

Ray cursed for being such a moron. Even in zombie movies on earth this was a common thing, though not always followed. He sheared the head off the skeleton, and it stopped moving. He immediately charged at a second one but by now, the skeletons and zombies had formed ranks.

The skeleton archers surrounding the Dragonkin fired volleys from all sides. At least 10 of the non-combatants were hit and immediately killed.

“We need to get to the archers! Layla, get a fire wall cast on one side. It’ll slow them down!” Ray screamed. He dodged a swipe from a zombie and cut its arm off mid swing. “These things are pretty easy to kill, aside from the archers they don’t have weapons”.

“True master but this probably isn’t the only thing hiding. These are probably just the vanguard. We need to kill them quick. The Dragonkin are dying every time the skeleton archers fire”

Miu jumped on a zombie and mauled its head. She wasn’t able to decapitate it but she did damage it greatly. One of the Dragonkin warriors finished it off. Ray was strong enough to cleave even the zombies in two. He didn’t focus on the heads but rather focused on as many cuts as he could in short succession. He had quickly learnt that he shouldn’t stay still in a fight and bounced from one undead to the next. Before he knew it, all the skeletons and 3 of the undead in front of him were no longer moving.

Layla had cast a fire wall on one side and was shooting fireballs through it towards the skeleton archers. The zombies were constantly getting in the way but each time a fireball hit, a zombie or skeleton was melted.

On the north side, Vaeldren had already finished all the undead in his vicinity. Unfortunately, the east wasn’t faring so well. The majority of the undead had been stationed there and they were overwhelming the Dragonkin with sheer numbers. They had already lost 3 of their warriors. Vaeldren moved to back them up while Ray and Miu continued harassing the remaining undead at the back of the group. As they finished the last of the undead on their side, Ray took a few small scratches, nothing to be worried about.

They rushed into the final undead remaining and quickly dispatched them. Layla had taken an arrow to the gut but was pushing through the pain. She was their source of fire and was meticulously lighting the corpses on fire.

Ray was about to sit down and take a breather when the ground started to shudder. From the northern side, a loud roar sounded. He heard Vaeldren scream “ABOMINATION! ALL WARRIORS TO ME. ALL OTHERS RUN SOUTH, BACK THE WAY WE CAME!”