Ghosts of the Battlefield

From the glazed over eyes on the faces of the other three, Tom assumed that they had received the same pop up that he had.

You have been selected by the majestic, mysterious and magnificent Lemures, Lord of the Malignant dead and keeper of the Corrupted Souls, to partake in his trial dungeon.

Inside this dungeon, you will face the trials of The System and be tested by its tribulations, as many have before you, in accordance with the will of The System.

If you succeed, power and glory await you. If you fail, only death will welcome you with open arms.

Progress is the key to your survival.

*Trial Dungeon of Lemures Level 1*

Time Remaining – 23 Hours, 58 Minutes

Enemies Remaining – 50

Dungeon Requirements:

– Reach the end of the dungeon alive 0/1

– Kill Enemies 0/1 (Stage 1)

"Well, that kind of explains things, I guess" sighed Adam. "Who is this Lemures though? Think he was the guy from before?" he said as he looked at the others.

'Probably, he never shut the fuck up long enough to ask." Stated Dave in clipped tones.

Tom looked over at Dave. He was swaying slightly as he stood with his fists clenched and eyes glazed over as he read the screen. He had a wiry frame, thin but with some muscles in his arms, and shoulder length black hair. Probably a runner, Tom thought as Dave's eyes refocused on Tom's, revealing that they were heavily bloodshot.

Or maybe that guy was telling the truth after all, If he really is this Lemures, Tom thought to himself. Dave's skin was pasty white with an almost yellow tint to it. He was not particularly healthy looking to Tom.

"He did seem to love talking," Tom agreed quickly, diverting his eyes back to the screen. "So, this dungeon, I'm assuming that we have to get through it", Tom stated heavily. "At least it would seem so, with the whole death warning and whatnot."

The 4th member, Mark, who had yet to say anything, grunted in reply.

"We only have a day to do it too" replied Adam. "What do you think happens if we don't do it before the timer runs out?"

Mark looked at Adam. "Progress is the key", He quoted grimly in his deep voice. "We win, or we die."

A moment of silence passed as the group absorbed that statement.

"That kind of matches what the… person said before. He said the system was designed to help conquer other people and planets, gather armies, that kind of thing. So I guess the system likes to have people fight and prove themselves through conflict." Tom's announcement caused some grimaces to appear on their faces. Dave's trembling had gotten worse at that statement as well. It looked like he was vibrating with how much he was shaking.

"Plus, it literally says if we don't win, then only death will welcome us with open arms. I'm going to take a wild leap here and assume that means we die." Adam said. "Um, by the way, not sure if anyone else has noticed. But… ah… the black portal… thingy… is gone."

3 sets of eyes swung to the wall where, just minutes before, they had come shooting out like they had just gone down a water slide. The wall was just like the others. A pristine blank grey slate. The portal was gone.

"Fuck” shouted Dave. "Fuckity, Fucking, Fuck." He shouted as he stomped back and forth in a small circle while chewing on a fingernail.

The rest looked on with varying degrees of concern as Dave showed off his impressive swear repertoire.

"Calm down", Adam started, "Let's just …"

"NO, FUCK OFF WITH THAT SHIT." Dave roared, spittle flying from his lips as his eyes darted around the room and the three others. "I SHOULDN'T BE HERE, I DON'T DESERVE WHATEVER THE FUCK THIS IS." Dave's hands started to jerk as he swung around to face the others. "ONE OF YOU DID THIS. WHO IS IT. I SWEAR TO GOD I'LL KIL…" Dave had started to advance towards the others with his left arm pointed shakily in their direction.

Tom jerked backwards, flinching, as the other man came closer.

Thankfully, any potential violence was quickly and effectively stopped by Mark. He rushed forward, slapped Dave's arm aside and picked him up by the throat. Holding the struggling man above his head with a single outstretched arm.

"Stop talking", He drawled menacingly.

Dave struggled briefly in his clutches, his arms and legs making windmills as he tried to free himself from his human shackles. His yellowed teeth were clenched together as he tried and failed to fight against the larger man.

Tom and Adam stood watching, neither willing to get involved. Mark was strong. He stood there with Dave in one meaty fist, easily holding him aloft. Mark was already a head taller than both Adam and Tom and obviously worked out. His arms and shoulders were swollen, and his loose singlet barely covered his chest. The man was a mountain of muscle.

A choking noise started to emerge from Dave as Mark squeezed.

"OK, OK" he managed, as he grabbed onto Mark's arm with his left and tapped it with his right.

Mark dropped him on the spot, and Dave fell to the ground and collapsed like someone had just cut the strings to a puppet, limbs splayed out around his body as he greedily sucked in the air.

"Yeah, can you, like, not do that again," deadpanned Adam as he looked at Dave. "I don't know about you two, but I kinda feel like If we start flipping out like that," He hooked a thumb towards the heaving body on the floor "we are going to end up real dead, real soon."

Tom nodded; he wasn't enthusiastic about being here in the first place but having someone flip out could make this already bad situation worse.

"Okay, let's see what's going on here" Adam said as his attention return to the screen. Tom followed suit.

Looking at the dungeon information again, he was reminded of how similar it was to some of the games he would play at his friends' house on weekends when he had been able to convince his parents to let him.

"We have to get through the dungeon to survive if we take the text as gospel," Adam mumbled loudly enough for the others to hear. "We have to get to the end alive, duh, and kill at least 1 enemy, of which there are 50 and what kind, it doesn't say. Great"

"It says stage 1 next to the kill enemies… requirement? Quest? What do you think that means?" Tom asked.

"Hmmm, maybe it'll change to something else after we do it?" Adam said. "I wonder…." He said before he raised his hand and poked at the air in front of him. "hmmph, It doesn't really give any more information. It just says that it's not required. But the other thing does, says we don't have to kill all the enemies to get out."

"Really?" Tom asked, surprised, before reminding himself that even if it looked similar, this wasn't a game… well, at least he was pretty sure. Tom raised his hand and poked the words Reach the end of the dungeon alive 0/1.

Another smaller screen popped up in front of the main screen.

– Reach the end of the dungeon alive 0/1

This is a required task. The task will be completed when the trial taker reaches the exit room at the end of the dungeon.

Tom checked the other one requirement, which he guessed were called tasks.

– Kill Enemies 0/1 (Stage 1)

This is not a required task. Kill one enemy from the dungeon.

Well, that was easy enough, Tom thought to himself. As he thought that, something else occurred to him.

I wonder if the other screen has more info as well. Tom paused as he wondered where it was. He tried flicking the screen and sliding his finger up and down, but the screen with the dungeon information refused to do anything.

How do I close this? He started to think, and as soon as he thought the word 'close', the menu disappeared.

"Huh," he exclaimed.

"What?" said Adam as he looked over at Tom.

"I just thought the word close, and the menu closed." He answered.

Adam looked back at his screen, and a second later, he jerked backwards.

"Holy shit, that's cool, this shit is like a video game." he grinned.

"I thought that too; I wonder if we can open the other screen from before, the ones with our names and stuff." Tom grinned back.

He started trying words in his head. Open! Nope. Menu! Nope. Attributes? Nothing. Information. Not that, either. Status.

The blue screen finally popped up.

Status

Name: Thomas Moore

Race: Human (G)

Class: None

Subclass: None

Level: 0

Attributes

Strength: Estimating

Agility: Estimating

Endurance: Estimating

Vitality: Estimating

Intelligence: Estimating

Wisdom: Estimating

Skills

None

Titles

Selected of Lemures

Affiliation

None

"It worked!" He shouted excitedly. "I said 'status' in my head and it open up for me."

He started poking around the menu hurriedly, but there really wasn't much else that could be found. Neither his name, race or levels revealed anything, nor did any of his attributes. His class, when selected, only provided a short message.

Class: None

Your level is too low to choose your level. You cannot choose your class until level 10.

The only thing that did reveal any information was the Title, which it turned out all four of them had. Although the information it gave wasn't what Tom would call detailed.

Selected of Lemures

You have been chosen by the god Lemures to undergo his trials as a prospective champion. Should you succeed, Lemures will grant you great rewards.

They still didn't know who Lemures was, despite what the figure they assumed had been Lemures had to said to them before sending them here, or what being his champion meant. This 'System' was curiously light on the details and heavy on the mystery and intrigue.

Despite spending 30 minutes poking around in the screens and saying random words in their heads to find any other information or hints, they were no further along than they were before. They had found that all their status' were the same. Their attributes were all estimating, and they had no skills or anything except the title. The only other thing they found out was that saying the name of the thing they wanted more details on in their heads or just thinking about it would enable the smaller extra detail screen to appear.

"Ok, so we have no classes, whatever they are, no information on what is in the dungeon, no weapons, no food, no water, a drug addict going through withdrawal, no way to get back home, no idea where the hell we are right now and a single wooden door to who knows where, oh and a little over 23 hours to finish dungeon where we assume everything is going to try and kill us." Adam summarised as he sat cross legged in a circle with the other 3, Dave having calmed down enough to join them, although he continued to sneak glances at Mark.

"So we're fucked is what you're saying," said Dave, his voice wavering as his hands shook.

"Maybe, we've checked basically everything we can besides opening the door itself", said Adam

"The only thing we haven't checked yet is this", he said, placing the small brown sack in the middle of the circle. "Ol ghostie said we would need it, so I'm guessing it must have something important in it" he explained.

"So stop stalling, and let's get on with it", Dave said as he leaned forward to grab the sack. He pulled the cord, tied up the top of the sack, and upended the bag in the middle of the circle.

CLANG

A metallic racket assaulted their ears as a series of objects, far larger than the sack itself, fell out of the sack and onto the ground. A series of small bottles fell out of the sack, along with a small assortment of items that made their eyes open wide.

Mark stood and walked over to one of the objects and picked it up as a wicked grin spread across his lips. It was an axe. The axe looked fairly plain, it wasn't a war axe or one designed for combat, instead it looked like something that Tom's dad might have used to cut wood on one of the rare family camping trips. It had a wooden haft about a meter long and a simple heavy metal head with a blade about the size of Tom's hand.

Marks' actions spurred the others into action. Adam picked up a solid looking long sword. The blade was about a meter and a half long with two deep grooves carved into the length of the blade down either side of the middle and on both the back and front and a simple straight crossguard at the head of the hand and half handle.

Tom picked up a shorter but similar-looking sword and a simple wooden shield that was about 50cm in diameter. It had a handle on one side and a leather strap in the middle that he used to strap the shield to his left arm. It was heavy, and he had trouble lifting it, let alone moving and fighting. He tried to mirror some of the fighting moves he remembered from movies he had seen and some moves from a particularly memorable history lesson about wars in Ancient Greece, where his teacher had brought in his medieval role-playing gear. It felt awkward and slow; the shield made him feel off balance, and he quickly tired from just a few minutes of practice swinging. But he wanted to keep the shield; he would rather have something solid in between him and anything that was trying to kill him.

A sarcastic voice cut through Tom's focus.

"I'm happy that you all are having fun swinging your toys around, but why do I have to get stuck with the pointy stick?"