Akhier

Not only a new month but a new year as well. Going to thank everyone on my Patreon because work decided I didn't need to be scheduled all that much and you all got me enough to pay rent. Anyway if you want to check out my Patreon you can read ahead even if you don't want to sub as there are two free chapters there. Beyond that a dollar gets you five more chapters beyond that and five dollars or more goes all the way to chapter 249.

“You know? I don’t think their attempts at cutting back the forest was all that peaceful.” Jason ponders aloud.

Courtney rolls her eyes and blocks a blow, “Really, you don’t say?”

All around them a group of undead have risen from the soil to attack them. Courtney is able to identify them and points out one in particular, “That a wight and we need it dead Now. It’s the only sapient one I can see so is likely in charge of this mess. The rest are just skeletons and zombies.” Then her hands glow with darkness and she backhands a zombie rising behind her. The zombie falls back as the dark glow spreads like fire over it, burning away the flesh and bone. The last zombie moves in on her but the rest of the group has their problems to deal with and she seems to be able to handle herself.

Rosha was fighting a minotaur and warhorse skeleton duo and not having a good time with it. While her weapon is a decent enough blunt weapon in the staff form both opponents have dense bones. The minotaur was just naturally tough while the warhorse showed signs of extended training to improve its bones. Only heavy overhand swings even leave a mark on them, but she can hold them off.

Jason is having a much better time at it with three humanoid skeletons being his opponents. Already proficient at breaking bones, having them out in the open made his fight that much easier. Even if it didn’t kill the undead, broken legs and arms made it much harder to fight. More importantly, it made it very hard for them to protect the wight.

Now freed up Jason leaves the skeleton clean up to Courtney and he moves on the wight. A little obvious in hindsight that it was the leader as it was the only undead wearing armor. Backing this up, the wight suddenly lets out a horrible shriek when the skeleton horse fell, “My steed! I could drain the life from you all and it wouldn’t be worth my loss!”

Jason raises an eyebrow, “well you attacked first so deal with it.” And he swings in with an elbow to the shoulder.

The wight hisses and drops its weapon. Claws free, it grabs at Jason’s arm. It only holds on for a moment but that one moment hurt and Jason recoils from a searing pain.

-7

“I should have expected that!” Jason howlers as the wights life drain ability ravages his arm. Oddly, instead of showing the classic signs of wasting away, the arm seems to almost unravel. 

This could have been bad for him, but the wight wasn’t having a better time of it. “What are you made of boy! It pains us! What rot is this?” And the wight’s hands can be seen to bubble as the outer flesh sloughs off.

Jason recovers quicker and raises his foot high. As he stomps down a brilliantly green flower bud forms. The tip of the bud pierces the wight’s shoulder and blooms outward while spinning. This doesn’t do as much damage as desired. That is until the bloom wilts. The wight’s well preserved flesh suddenly isn’t looking so preserved anymore.

It draws back and lets out a half hiss before its throat is ruined. Jason not letting this go follows up with a blast punch and blows off the wights now rotten arm. Off to the side Rosha is still fighting the minotaur skeleton but Courtney has been freed up. She runs over to the fallen arm, her darkness burning up the arm so the undead can’t reclaim it.

The wight unable to talk normally lets out a ghostly wail, “I will make you mortals suffer!”

Jason scoffs at this as his upper body dips and he spins around slamming another flower into the wights other side. “I am highly offended by that comment. I am not just a mortal anymore!”

The flower scythes into the wights spine and the undead falls over as it loses control of its lower body. One more flower to the head and the wight dies. The only monster left is the undead minotaur, but without a guiding intelligence they easily kill the skeleton.

The group lets out a collective sigh of relief. This fight wasn’t a tough one, but it had been a little while since the last surprise combat. Still, life goes on and they get down to looting the corpses. The skeletons were a wash. Some low level bone materials, too old to be worth anything as fresh material but not old enough to be good for anything.

Jason took care of the zombies and he did a little better. While not in armor the two had been in clothes and with the two of them burned away by Courtney nothing stopped him from rifling through the pockets. He didn’t do that much better though, one had a handful of copper coins and the other had that and a few silvers hidden in the boot. Split up Jason got a silver and 53 copper.

Courtney is over taking care of the wight. Basic stuff like making sure it was really dead by burning it all down with her holy darkness. And looting. Can’t forget the looting as this was the boss of the group. They threw its armor in a bag. The metals in it corrupted by undeath. Not a bad thing, but not useful for anyone in the party so they just plan to sell it at the next town. Same with the sword it had dropped early in the fight.

What was most valuable at the moment was an unassuming bag at its waist. Three times as big on the inside, it was a classic example of a bag of holding. Nothing much was on the inside, but that didn’t matter. The bag itself was worth even more than the backpacks the group had. While the backpacks technically had more space, but the portability and hidability of a sack made them only second to storage rings. It wasn’t exactly needed, but the group wasn’t going to turn it down.

Akhier

Thank you for reading! Next two chapters free on my Patreon ( https://www.patreon.com/dragonheartednovels ), five chapters beyond that for only a dollar, and many more for five dollars (two chapters release a week at this tier).