Chapter 113 - That’s Why I Worry!

  We set about gathering the stones from the dead zombies. There were a lot of dead zombies, so it took us a little while, but Farnsworth and Kara were adamant it was worth the time cost, and even Alfred chimed in to agree with them. I didn’t have a lot of options after that.

  While we gathered stones, Henry went about casting healing magic on everyone who’d been injured. The avians came away mostly unscathed. They’d remained airborne for most of the fighting, out of reach of the zombies. They’d taken a few hits from skeleton mages casting Harm, but Rawk had his people clustered back in the Target. I assumed he could take care of their wounds, if any.

  The ratkin were another matter. I’d lost about half my juggernauts, and the ratkin had filled the gaps in our line with some of their own warriors. Ten ratkin were dead, and another dozen or so had serious wounds. Those were the patients Henry focused on getting back into the fight. I hoped he’d be able to.

  With so many zombie and skeleton bodies lying about, I had no shortage of spare parts for Animate Dead. Once we had the crystals gathered I’d have to use the spell, get my army back up to full strength again.

  Finally, we had everything gathered up. People passed me the crystals they’d collected, one after another. It was an enormous pile of stones. There had to be almost two hundred of them there.

  “Is that everything?” Farnsworth asked. “Even one extra stone might be the difference between winning and losing, if it would have ranked Selena up.”

  But it seemed like that was all of them. I split the pile into two, with fifty-nine clear crystals in one stack and one hundred and thirty one in the black pile. It was another insane haul. Mana thrummed through my fingers as I brushed them over the stones, identifying them and splitting them into smaller piles by type.

  The clear stones first. With fifty-nine, I figured there’d be about ten of each, and I wasn’t far off. There were eleven Strength, nine Agility, twelve Stamina, nine Intellect, ten Will and eight Charisma.

  Coupled with the stones I already had, that bumped my Strength, Intellect, and Charisma up to tier six. I was just three stones short of boosting my Will to tier seven, which I felt sure would net me some serious advantages in spellcasting. I mentioned it to Farnsworth.

  “I don’t have any with me. It’s not a stone I’ve socketed. But we can keep a lookout for more in the fights ahead,” he told me.

  I nodded and went back to work sorting the black stones. This was complicated, and we were short on time, so I literally skipped any of the stones that weren’t core to my or Kara’s powers. Once the fighting was over, we could sort through the rest of them.

  There were twenty-two Control Undead stones, which coupled with the ones I’d already found brought me to tier seven. I gasped as I socketed the new crystals and felt the surge of power rock through me. There were twelve Augment Undead, just enough to boost me to tier six with one to spare. I found eight Contagion, which was awesome, since that skill was only tier three. It was easy to boost quickly.

  Animate dead wasn’t even close to ranking, though. It was already tier seven, and although we’d gathered twenty-nine of the stones, adding in the one I already had made thirty. I needed sixty-four crystals to reach tier eight. That wasn’t happening yet. Likewise Drain Life, which had sixteen stones for a total of twenty, when I needed thirty-two.

  We did find enough Shadow Walk stones to rank that up to tier five for Kara, though. Five stones coupled with the three she had was just sufficient. That let her add another black spell, so I handed her all of the Harm crystals we’d gathered so far today—nine in all—and she ranked that up to tier four immediately. Now Kara had a ranged weapon that wasn’t reliant on arrows.

  That still left a stack of assort black crystals, but I slid those back into a pouch for the time being. We could figure all of that out later. For the time being, it was already about five in the afternoon and growing later by the moment. In another hour, the sun would start sinking below the horizon. An hour after that, it would be full dark. Already, long shadows crept along the floor as the sunlight coming through the mall windows waned.

  I surveyed my crystals, feeling stronger and more prepared, but it hadn’t changed anything super critical. I was stronger, could Control more undead, and had a few other bonuses. Would that be enough to make a difference in the fight we had coming up? I could only hope.

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  Magical Stones

  Point 1: Black Stone (Tier 7) - Control Undead

  Point 1, Second Ring: Black Stone (Tier 6) - Augment Undead

  Point 1, Third Ring: Black Stone (Tier 4) - Contagion

  +

  Point 2: Black Stone (Tier 7) - Animate Dead

  Point 2, Second Ring: Black Stone (Tier 5) - Heal Undead

  Point 2, Third Ring: Black Stone (Tier 2) - NightVision

  +

  Point 3: Black Stone (Tier 6) - Drain Life

  Point 3, Second Ring: (Tier 3) - Health to Mana

  +

  Point 4: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Will

  Point 4, Second Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Agility

  Point 4, Third Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 7) - Stamina

  Point 4, Fourth Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Strength

  Point 4, Fifth Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Intellect

  Point 4, Sixth Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 5) - Will

  Point 4, Seventh Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Charisma

  +

  Point 5: Yellow Stone (Tier 2) - Flight

  Spare Stones

  Black: Animate Dead x1, Augment Undead , Contagion x5, Control Undead x10, Curse (Tier 3), Curse x2, Drain Life x20, Harm (Tier 2), Harm x15, Heal Undead x2

  Clear: Strength, Agility x10, Stamina x12, Will x13

  Green: Entangle (Tier 2), Entangle x3, Stoneskin (Tier 2), Stoneskin x4, Charm Animal x2, Healing Infusion (Tier 2)

  Gray: Natural Armor (Tier 2)

  Brown: Alchemy x2

  Control Stone (Tier 2) x1

  Black Stones, unsorted x30

  Still, we needed to be at maximum strength. For Controlled undead, I had Sue, Hope, and ten zombies I’d grabbed during the battle which hadn’t been cut to ribbons. My Animated army was hurting, but I put it back together as best I could. I still had five fire skeletons and five juggernauts remaining. I added three more fire skeletons, using the bones of the skeleton mages we’d slain. Then I looked at the zombies with my Animate Dead spell active, trying to see what I could use them for.

  I had twenty-five points left, and my options were different. Maybe it was the place; maybe it was the wraith we’d killed affecting the dead-undead in some way. I didn’t know. But suddenly I had options for tier five undead showing up, and I was super interested in that!

  The tier five option for zombie was called an Abomination. I wasn’t sure why; it wasn’t like a got a mental picture of what I could make. I just sensed that I could, and automatically knew how to proceed. Crossing my fingers, I had my undead gather a pile of the zombie bodies and then worked my magic on them.

  It was hella creepy, watching zombie bodies wiggle and twist as they moved closer to each other and then started to merge. Rotting flesh melded together, forming a larger and larger mound. I was sweating with concentration as I focused my Will on the spell, pouring everything I had into making this work.

  By the time I was done, I was spent, but the spell was cast. I had a ten foot tall monstrosity standing in front of me. It looked like someone had created an oversized sumo-wrestler zombie. The thing was huge! It was strong, too—I could feel the power radiating off it.

  “That’s scary as shit,” Kara said from beside me.

  I nodded. “Yup.”

  “Glad it’s on our side.”

  “Me too.”

  I went back to work on the others as quickly as I could. When I was done, we had five tier five Abominations which made up our entire front rank. It was also about five-thirty, and the sun was setting in earnest.

  “Those things look like they’re going to tear through tier one zombies,” Farnsworth said. “We still going in? It’s getting late, and I know you said whatever it is will be stronger at night.”

  I glanced around at my troops. The humans who’d trusted me to lead them through this. The ratkin who’d come to me for help. Even the avians, who’d lent me their swords. What was the best way forward now? If we kept going, we’d be headed into darkness. The windows and skylights would let in enough light for the living to see for maybe another hour, but after that half of my force would be blind.

  We could withdraw, but if we did the enemy was almost certain to follow. Wherever we went, we’d just be drawing the entire rest of their force. If we fled back to the Guard, we’d put them in terrible danger. That was even assuming Turner would open the gate. After the way we’d left, there was no telling how welcome we’d be returning there.

  “I think we need to press ahead. If we can finish this fast, we should,” I told him.

  He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. We’ll get it done.”

  He turned to the troops and hollered at them to form up. The humans did so quickly, and a moment later so did my undead after a quick mental command from me. The ratkin took another minute to get organized; they hadn’t any military training, so this sort of thing was about as unnatural to them as it was to me, but they got on board quick enough.

  I ordered my Abominations into the vanguard and set them plodding down the massive hallway ahead of us. The rest of my undead followed, and then the living right behind them.

  It didn’t take us long to run into more trouble. The hall continued to a left turn, where it opened up into a long passage that spanned the distance of the rest of the mall. That’s where they were waiting—another horde of zombies, this time with two wraiths floating above.

  “Sue, FIRE!” I shouted. My dinosaur launched a Fireball directly into the middle of the horde, and my Abominations rushed in as well, smacking aside the front ranks of the enemy as they plowed through like bulldozers.

  The ratkin released a hail of arrows into the massed enemy force while the avians darted forward to engage the wraiths. That was brave of them, and I hoped it worked out well, because they were badly out-ranked.

  “I need to get in there too,” I told Kara, hating every word of what I was saying. The feel of the wraith’s blade slipping through my guts was still far too fresh in my mind.

  “No dying,” Kara told me. “Be careful, okay?”

  “You know me,” I said, flashing her a smile I didn’t feel as I took to the air.

  “That’s why I worry!” Kara shouted back.

  I laughed, and this time it was real, as I soared down the hall to engage the enemy.