Ghosts of the Battlefield

The purple glow of the skeletons eyes intensified as it ran towards the group, the irises flaring slightly with each step. Tom felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead. Even though he was standing behind Mark and not directly in the path of the charging bundle of bones, he could feel a pull towards it from somewhere inside his very being. It was almost as if its eyes could see into him, into his thoughts. The rest of the skeleton might have been long dead, but those eyes, they showed a predators hunger. Tom froze at the sight of the charging skeleton, an otherworldy feeling paralyzing his legs.

Mark however, bared his teeth in a wolfish snarl before charging towards the skeleton. Tom watched as he ran forward, awe struck at how the man showed no fear or any sign that he was in anyway as affected as Tom was.

The skeleton moved faster than Tom would have expected, not that he knew how fast he should have expected a skeleton to move, the only skeletons he was personally familiar with were the museum type and moved as quickly as the person wheeling them around in their cases moved.

Mark quickly closed the distance to his target, which showed no emotions or any sign that it was concerned about the pending combat. Just before Mark reached the skeleton, he dived forward, turning his headlong rush into a controlled tumble just under the outsretched sword of the skeleton. Landing on his shoulder and rotating to his feet, he exited the tumble in a crouch underneath the sword and just to the left side of the skeletons body. With the haft of the axe in front of his chest, One hand near the midpoint and another near the axe head, he stuck out the axe into the path of the skeleton, which had continued running forward, and had yet to take any action to Mark’s movements.

The impact wasn’t very heavy, Mark had just emerged from his roll and didn’t have much momentum behind him anymore and wasn’t able to swing the axe with much force because of the position in which he held it. A dull crack echoed from the impact as the axe made contact with one of the bones of the ribcage. The skeleton wobbled slightly to the side after the impact but continued to run forwards at the same pace, as if it had only stumbled slightly on the uneven floor of the cave. Mark however, had been knocked to the ground as the axe haft had been knocked backwards from the contact hitting him in the chest and pushing him to the side, combined with his momentum from his roll it had sent him sprawling to the floor. He kept a grip on the axe and quickly regained his feet, moving once again to strike the skeleon, but it had continued to run toward the rest of the group, leaving Mark several meters behind and now in a chase to catch up.

Seeing that Mark’s charge had failed, Adam looked over his shoulder at Dave and Tom as he cast the torch aside.

“Well, let’s see that shield of your in action then,” he said as he took several steps back to put himself even with Tom and used both hands to hold his longsword. This put Dave as the closest to the charging skeleton, less than 20 meters at this point with Mark another 10 meters behind that, running hard to catch up.

Tom hesitated, the feeling from before having receeded somewhat, but his limbs still felt like lead. He tried to moved but no matter how much he tried he was frozen in place. The sight of the skeleton’s eyes triggering something fearful inside of him. Dave seeing this, bounded back behind Tom and gave him a shove forwards with his shoulder.

“Useless bastard,” he screamed, the manic look from his outburst in the room before having returned, but was now tinged with fear Tom could see from his wide eyes.

Tom stumbled forwards from the shove, a weird whimpering grunt passed his lips as the saw the Skeleton less than 10 meters from him. The clattering footsteps of the skeleton echoed through the chamber, each step faster than the last it seemed to him. It wasn’t stopping, and now it was looking and charging right at him, its burning violet gaze locked on his own. Tom swallowed hard and lifted the shield as best he could, trying to brace his legs to prepare for the impact but they wouldn’t respond. His arms and legs shook uncontrollably, even as his mind screamed for him to raise the shield. Every second brought the slapping footsteps closer, the sight of the purple eyes growing larger.

8 meters.

7 meters.

6 meters.

With barely 5 meters between them, Tom finally managed to force his arms to raise his shield high enough to cover his body. his arms shook with the effort, but he forced himself to hold it steady. Tom finally snapped out his panic enough to drop the sword in his right hand, he reached over and grabbed the handle of the shield with both hands and braced himself by leaning forwards. Every fibre of his being was screaming at him to drop the shield and run, but by then skeleton had reached him. Tom could only duck his head behind the shield and hope.

Without stopping or adjusting its sword, the skeleton drove its tip into the wooden shield.

Tom felt the impact through the shield as the sword slammed into it. The sword hadn’t pierced the shield but instead, all of the force had been transferred throuhh the shield and into Tom, as he flew backwards from the impact, landing several meters away.

He landed on his back in a slight depression on the floor that caused him to slide for a few meters, his head cracking into the side of the depression as he came to rest.

The shock of the landing had knocked the wind from his lungs and he struggled to breathe, his head pounded from the impact. He tried to get up, but his head swam and his body fel too heavy to move. The light from the torch caused shadows to dance on the ceiling as he lay there groaning.

As his head settled, a sharp crack and rining noise sounded in his head. He forced himself to sit up, using his right hand to push against the floor, he still couldn’t move his left arm.

Another sharp crack came as Tom looked up. Adam stood to the side of the skeleton, which had turned to face him, and they both swung their swords at each other. Adam’s blade flew upwards from the impact, as Adam deperately tried to maintain a hold on it.

Despite the diminutive look of the skeleton, it was incredilby powerful, as Tom had just discovered. Its thin bones, lacked visible muscles and skin, but Tom could see that it was easily overpowering Adam who had now exchanged a couble of blows with the skeleton in the time that Tom had taken to shake off the initial shock of the impact.

Tom looked down at the shield covering his left arm. The shield itself looked fine apart from the massive gouge that now decorated the top half of the shield, which looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. The wood was dented severly and pieces of it had shattered, jutting out from the impact site. His arm was numb, and he tried to move it but it only managed to move a few inches before the strength gave out.

Rolling to his side, he slowly got to his feet. His legs still shook but he managed to stand, just as Mark finally caught up to where Adam and the skeleton dueled each other.

With a roar like an angry bear, Mark stepped into the fray, swinging his axe with both hands from the end of the haft, cracking it into the side of the skeleton. A snap rang out, and the skeleton was forced back a few steps from the impact.

Tom couldn’t see any damage to the skeleton, but before it could set its feet, Adam stepped in with his longsword driving it down in a double-handed vertical slice towards the skeletons head. The skeleton was able to block the blow, narrowly managing to raise it’s sword in time to find the edge of Adam’s blade.

The rebound allowed Adam to raise the sword over his head again, but instead of wailing on the skeleton’s sword, which was still raised in defence, he instead used swung it over his shoulder and down under the skeletons sword arm and into its ribcage. Another snap rang out, but this time Tom could see a crack had appeared in the rib that Adam had made contact with.

The skeleton took a step to its left in recoil, but managed to lower its sword arm to again block another strike from Adam.

Adam and Mark both advanced towards the skeleton but Tom could see they were too close together. Adam’s sword twisted towards Mark as he prepared to make another attack and Mark was forced to duck underneath the sword.

“WATCH IT!” Mark snarled, trying to catch his breath after his initial charge and catch-up.

Adam didn’t reply, his short but fierce bout with the swords leaving him breathing heavily, but he waved lazily in the direction of Mark and the skeleton, as he rested the tip of the long sword on the floor. He was clearly ok with leaving it to Mark to take on, while he took a break.

Before Mark could take advantage of Adam’s offer to have another go at the skeleton, a wild scream piereced the air of the cave as Dave came flying past both of them, spear brandished in front of him. He sprinted towards the skeleton, who stood silently, watching the interactions of the group.

Dave ran forwards before stopping just in front of his target, placing a foot solidly on the ground and thrusting forwards with the spear with a desperate shout. The spear flew forward and pierced the ribcage of the skeleton, fitting between two of the ribs, and stabbing into the empty space it protected.

A wide grin spread across Dave’s mouth.

Then the skeleton raised its sword again.

The triumphant grin on Dave’s face dissapeared as his eyes opened wide in horror. The spear had gone right through the skeleton, it had even pierced the otherside so that now the spearhead was outside the body of the skeleton and the haft was inside it, but that hadn’t killed it.

Dave quickly tried to move out of the way, but the momentum from his reckless charge caused him to overbalance and he took another step closer to the skeleton. His hands had a deathgrip on the spear haft and as it slid through the ribs of the skeleton, so too did Dave move closer.

Tom looked on in despair as the sword began its descent towards Daves head.

Dave’s knees gave out and he crumpled to the ground, letting go of the spear with one hand and leaving it hanging halfway through the skeleton as he collapsed. As he fell, his weight pulled on the spear and the skeleton was pulled towards its left, towards where Dave fell. The skeleton swung down its right arm before a thunk sounded out, and the sword stopped moving in mid air as it collided with the spear haft jutting out of its body.

Dave looked up in surprise, as his hand that had been pulling on the spear let go. The skeleton staggered slightly and stood more upright as the weight that had pulled off balance suddenly released. The sword was still embedded in the spear, where it had made contact as it had swung at Dave. It moved to try and pull it out of the wood, but Tom could see that Mark had gotten in range again.

The axe this time was accompanied by an angry roar as it sliced into the bones of the skeleton’s neck. It connected and the bone cracked and broke apart. The skeleton’s head flew upwards as it disconnected from its body, flying a short distance away before landing on the floor, rolling a few times before coming to rest before Tom.

He looked into its eyes once more as the purple irses eventually faded and disappeared. The rest of the body collapsed, whatever energies that had been keeping it alive and together had ended with the removal of its head. The bones fell into a heap on the ground with a clatter and its sword clanged to the floor before it disintegrated into dust and blew away on a breeze that no one could feel.

Tom slowly sank to his knees, only now realising how fast his heart was beating, and how ragged his breathing was.

He looked up at the others. Dave was still on his back, lying next to the pile of bones where he had fallen. his eyes were still wide open and was breathing hard.

Adam was crouched on the balls of his feet, his sword across his knees as he smiled, looking at Dave and Mark.

Mark however, looked pissed. An angry expression was painted on his face as he stared at the remains of the skeleton, his teeth bared now in a grimace instead of a smile.

The group was silent as they recovered, until Dave spoke up.

“That… was not … how I expected… that to go.” He said as he tried to recover his breath.

“Yeah,” Tom agreed with him. “Note to future self, Skeletons are hollow.”

“But how cool was that though?” Dave replied sitting up. His eyes were still wide open, but instead of fear it looked like they alive with excitement. “I mean, I nearly died, but that was awesome. I feel … great, I feel alive. Wow.”

Tom looked surprised at that announcement, but one look at both Mark and Adam revealed that they were nodding along with what Dave was saying. Marks expression had turned from one of anger and now had a slight smile as he looked at his axe.

Who are these people Tom wondered to himself. The fact he nearly died only made him more anxious for what was to come, not excited. He wanted a fresh start, he wanted to be a new person, but as he sat there on his knees on the rocky floor, he wondered for the first time if he would be able to survive to start that new life.

“Oh, hey, I got a blinking thingy in the corner of my eye, anyone else?” Dave asked.

Tom looked around and he noticed that there was a small blue exclamation mark surrounded by a box in the bottom left corner of his vision. Looking at it opened another smaller menu.

Notifications

Kill notice – Lvl 1 Skeleton Warrior

You have killed a Lvl 1 Skeleton Warrior.

You have been granted 10 Experience Points

Level Up – Lvl 1

You have gained a level.

You are now Level 1.

Your attributed have been calculated.

You have gained 1 Skill Point.

Ok, Tom thought to himself, time to see what else this system has install for us.