Fennel strapped on his armor with the help of Gloria. She already geared up and was ready to go, wearing the traditional sky blue leather armor of medics. Fen tried to not focus on how soft her hands were. He needed to focus; the raid alarm bell rang out twenty minutes ago. His squad would be a part of the second wave of reinforcements. It was go time.

He stood up once the last piece was tied snuggly on his person. Fen walked to the main area of the squad hall and stepped on his foot stool; all twenty members of the squad were present. A mixture of solemn and nervous faces greeted him. Even Rook stood at the ready, all the previous levity gone, replaced with a sober expression.

Fen breathed in a deep breath, swallowing the butterflies at the top of his throat in his stomach. He grabbed his sword and shield from the rack and stopped in front of the group. He breathed in deep once more, this time to command his squad.

“We are to reinforce the western forces. Herman Kline’s main fighting arm. Our sole focus is to defend the wounded and get any that can back up to fighting strength. We will not be there to play hero or to take on the boss. Our goal is to lessen the casualties, not to kill the boss.” Fen glared at some of his soldiers that had a tendency to focus on the glory of the battle rather than making sure allies got home.

One soldier in particular glared back at him. Animosity in his eyes. The largest in the squad, Zaner, a Minotauran splicer. The 6 foot 8 human towered over the entire squadron, his black horns only adding to his imposing figure. But Fen never lowered his eyes and stared down the giant human. The 5 foot 3 dog-eared dwarf stood his ground.

Zaner turned his head, clicking his tongue. He pulled his battle axe off his shoulder and inspected it. Fen nodded and continued his address.

“Our ride should be here to pick us up at any moment. Now is the time for any last prayers you might have for the First Ones.”

Another of the soldiers, a smaller half-elf girl with a weasel like face, spoke.

“What tier is this raid?”

Fennel shook his head slowly. He had hoped no one was going to ask. But they deserve to know. “Tier 6 for now, but the speculations are that when the boss shows up, it will likely change to 7.”

A silent gasp ran through the crew. Tier 7 is high by Laurel standards. The first to come up in years. The faces amongst his squad shifted, growing grim and desperate. He couldn’t fault them. His squad fought in mostly tier 4 and 5 raids. A 7 was a whole new beast of its own that required a completely unified front from the Laurelhaven forces. All lower classed squads were put on support duty. Fennel clasped his fists and raised his voice once more.

“The monsters are charging the gates of the residential district. It's our job to make sure we have as many fighting fit soldiers defending those gates. Are you going to let your sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, your family die because you hesitated? Are we cowards, shying away from a fight?” Every eye turned towards the dwarf.

“If not, then I suggest you focus up and FIGHT!” A clamoring of weapons and people alike resounded in the squad hall. Fennel lifted his sword before walking to the front door and stepping outside. Gloria followed after him.

Fennel stood outside, hands trembling. He knew there was no way those twenty people would all survive this battle. It was the hard truth he learned doing this job. No matter how good of a leader he tried to be or how great his powers helped those around him, he always lost one or two. And it always hurt. But it was still his duty to get them as prepped for the raid as he could.

Gloria laid her hand on his shoulder. He turned and saw her face. Pure and unwavering determination. Fennel nodded.

Sounds of stomping came their way. Fennel and Gloria looked down the road. 10 large wagons pulled by horse-legged men and women stopped in front of the squad halls found on this street. The rest of Fennel’s squadron was already coming out, spurred by the sounds of the wagons.

Three of the wagons stopped in front of Fennel. Some of Fennel’s nerves calmed down when a familiar black and white haired dwarf’s head came into view, riding in the front out of one of the wagons.

“Git yer asses in these wagons now. Quit sittin’ around jerking yourselves. We got shit to do.” Herman said in his usual coarse tone.

Fennel’s uncle was a crass guy, but probably the most dependable person he knew.

He climbed up into the seat next to Herman. The wagons sped off toward the gates. Fennel spoke with his uncle in a hushed voice, making sure no one could hear them.

“How bad is it?”

Herman turned to the people in the wagon, making sure none of the others could hear him and, with a blank expression, said, “It’s bad.”

 

—

 

I leapt from branch to branch in Apis form, following the trail of blood and flesh through the forest. No less than a hundred thoughts blowing through my mind. Where are they heading? Is something dragging the bodies? Did they get up on their own? Shit, I hope not.

“Tutor, is undeath a thing in Kniyas?” I said, voicing my thoughts.

“Undeath?”

“You know zombies? Ghouls? Ghosts? Those kinds of things.”

“Can’t say. But I did warn you?”

“Warn me how? You, in no way ever told me that a massive pile of bodies would get up and run away.”

“I told you to bury them.”

“You said you felt bad for the monsters. Not that they would wake up and go pick up some milk a few weeks down the road.”

“Meh, close enough.”

I stopped on a branch and just shook my head. I had been following the trail for a few hours now. And the one question puzzling me the most was, How the hell did this thing move so fast? Seriously, I must have been following the trail for miles now. Its path never deviating. Due east I believe. Or at least I think it's east. That’s the direction the sun was coming up in the mornings. But who knows with this backwards and, apparently, zombie filled fantasy world.

The vines on my sword were getting a little loose from all the jumping, so I took the time to retie the knots. I looked back in the direction of my camp. I left without thinking much, leaving most of my belongings. All I currently had with me was the mithral sword, the pouch I carried the magical gardenia petals in, and a spare gremlin dagger. I heard something climbing up the side of the tree. Looks like lunch was coming to me. A squirrel found itself in my stomach not long after.

During my break, I took some time to look at my character sheet. I viewed it the night before, but I was pretty tired and none of it really sank in.

 

CHARACTER SHEET

Name: Liam Foster

Level: 4

Race: Human

Monster Gene: Mimic

Stats:

Health Points: 160

Stamina: 310

Mana: 160

 

Strength: 24

Dexterity: 24

Agility: 24

Constitution: 24

Intelligence: 24

Wisdom: 24

Charisma: 25

 

Abilities:

Active:

Mimicry (Object) (lvl 7): Copy the likeness of one object. You gain the stats of the object while active. May be canceled at any time. (Recorded Entries)

Mimicry (Creature) (lvl 8): Mimic one creature of your choice. This may include stats, abilities, spells and other aspects. May be canceled at any time. (Recorded Entries)

 

Passive:

Learned Behavior: You may gain a portion of the stats and/ or abilities from a mimicked monster. Benefits given depend on the creature mimed and only given if you become adequately proficient in that form. With higher proficiency, benefits may increase.

Dark Sight - See in the dark. Up to 10m.

Preflex - Predict incoming attacks.

 

Spells:

None

 

Same stat increases as last time. Looks like the mimicry abilities leveled up again, and creature is higher level than object now. Tutor was doing a great job at keeping me updated on those. I rolled my eyes. I thought about saying something, but it would likely not bear any fruit. Plus, I stopped worrying about their levels. The levels didn’t seem to do anything. My hypothesis is that they will do something at level 10. But that’s for a different time.

My eyes looked back down at the trail of assorted monster guts. Where is this corpse blob going? The boars from yesterday were heading in the exact same direction, but not nearly as fast. I rose from the branch and stretched. My tail flicked once. I bounded to the next branch following the trail once more.

 

Another two hours had passed, it was past noon now. I was still following the blood trail. Which seemed odd. I feel like there shouldn’t be this much blood. I get that it was a good 15 or more corpses, but a lot of them had already been bled dry. I wondered if more bodies were added to it or something. Or maybe it killed on its way to its unknown destination.

I hopped down and touched some of the blood in the grass. It was slightly warm. It looked like it had been killing. Next question is then, how much did it kill? I shrugged and jumped back into the trees, continuing onward.

 

After another hour, something changed in the air. I couldn’t quite describe it, but it had my tail and face-fur tingling. Not long after the weird sensation, I heard some noises in the direction I was heading. Like screaming and roaring, but still far off. Was something fighting my corpse monstrosity? Or someone?

I doubled timed it, heading straight for the sounds now. I hope it just ran into a monster. Yeah, maybe it ran into a bigger stronger monster. And that monster killed it, again. I lied to myself. The closer I got to the roaring, the more I realized what it was. It was fighting, people fighting. The loud shouts were from people. And unless there are some fucked up parrot monsters that copy people’s voices, those people were fighting my creation.

The sounds of battle grew in volume with every leap. The battle must be huge. I saw a clearing coming up ahead. I climbed up the tallest tree I could find at the edge of the clearing.

My eyes shot open. I could barely believe what I was seeing. A large-scale war was playing out in front of me. Monsters on one side, humans, or at least human-like beings, on the other. The clearing was massive, at least a mile wide, filled with the roar of battle. Monster and man alike.

Different legions of monsters marched onward. Each in groupings of its own kind. I saw hordes of poisonous boars, blue-green goats, even a full squad of the geckos. And a whole host of creatures I never ran into while living in the forest.

Behind the human side was a giant tree, one that must rival the tallest skyscrapers back on earth. The scene felt so surreal that I was stunned and just watched on. Wave after wave of monsters moved forward toward the human army. Different parts of the battlefield glowed from what I guess were different abilities being shot off.

A pit grew in my stomach as I looked over to the right side of the battlefield. There it was, a massive blob of flesh. You couldn’t tell what creatures made up its body anymore. It was just a 30 foot pink mass of lovecraftian horror. Many other smaller blobs surrounded it, swallowing up people and monsters indeterminately. I stared in abject terror.

A flash of orange flames struck the left side of the mountain of undead tissue, snapping me back to reality. I looked down at the flames once more. One man was in the center of them. Scorching the smaller blobs while occasionally taking bigger shots at the giant one.

“Len.”

I dropped out of the tree and sped off. Toward the war.