[CYA] Chapter 79: Mini-War

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<Alex, Real - All Dead? Is It Permanent?, Burnt Out Art Gallery>

Grant and Natasha ended up taking out the entirety of the mini-wave of undead while Alex and John stayed in the back, each recovering in their own way.

Still, the message sent by those undead was rather clear. This was not a place to sit and recover. They could do minor things like repair equipment, but if they intended to just sit and rest? The System didn’t seem to approve of that.

John and Alex shared a look, before the marksman pulled out two vials, a red one for Alex and a blue one for himself. “Bottoms up, I suppose.”

Alex caught his and drained it.

Notice:
You are under the effect of a Regeneration Potion (Health)

Your health recovery rate is increased by 60 times for the next five minutes.

It was exactly as expected. He hated ‘wasting’ the resource, but they needed it right now. He’d now heal in a minute what would usually take an hour.

For another of the Initiates, that would be a nice boost, but hardly massive. For him? He already had a massively greater regeneration rate than they did, and it had been boosted sixty times.

After a bit less than two minutes, the final wound vanished from Alex’s sheet—greatly aided by the work that Natasha, Grant, and John had done to realign his bones—and he let out a sigh of relief. He still wasn’t healed according to his HP, but he was no longer ‘wounded’ or cursed. “Well… that was awful. Still, I’ll be to full health in less than a minute.”

He took a moment to glance at one notification in particular, grinning before dismissing it.

Attribute Level-Up:
Basic Resistance - Curse
Level 2 → Level 3

Natasha shook her head, pulling him to his feet with an offered hand. “You’re broken, Alex.”

“Nope, healed now.” His grin widening as he looked back at her, quite happy with the resistance increase. 

She rolled her eyes.

“Fine, fine. I suppose you could see it that way.”

She simply arched an eyebrow.

Alex cleared his throat. “Anywho… Let’s clear the building. Shall we?”

She nodded, holding up the spear, dark, metallic green showing where his Life had repaired it. If he didn’t miss his guess, there was a very subtle inner light, shining from within.

It was time to see what other horrors awaited them, above.

They hadn’t encountered any Death Squires, and while they might have all distributed to other, surrounding buildings, Alex wasn’t going to count on it. There was also the fact that he doubted that he’d seen all that this building held when outside, looking in. The flaming skeleton alone proved that true.

So far, what they’d fought had not lined up with what glimpses he’d seen through the windows from outside. Specifically, he’d expected more flesh golems. Though, he couldn’t say he was sad to have missed them so far.

Though… I wonder if I could improve my resistance to magic? Is that how it would work?

He somehow doubted it, but it would still be worth a try.

Their true goal was, of course, to figure out what had happened to the other Initiates, and he wouldn’t lose sight of that, no matter what gains he could reap along the way.

“I’ll go first.” He then glanced around the group. “I think Grant should bring up the rear?”

The others considered for a moment then nodded in agreement. It was a good enough configuration.

Alex took the stairs slowly, testing each one both for its ability to hold him and for traps… to the best of his limited ability.

Still, if nothing had been triggered when dozens of undead thundered down them, he should be safe. Assuming the System cares about things like that within the Apology Tutorial.

This was a more standard stairwell, with three landings and switch backs before they came to the top. From the outside, Alex had guessed the building at six stories. So, with the ground floor and the ‘double’ floor of the gallery, they still had three more floors to go through, each roughly the size of a city block. And no unified stairwell…

It would be a nightmare to get out if they had to, meaning that this city didn’t have fire codes, the gallery had ignored them, or the System decided that this configuration fit its fancy better for… some reason.

They’d likely never know.

Regardless, they went up to the first landing, coming upon where the slither-bane had broken out without incident.

It was odd, looking out through the shattered wall, but they didn’t dally.

Up and up they went, the System—or Alex supposed what or whoever was in charge of this—seemed content with their ascent, so no other undead assaulted them for the moment.

When they reached the top, they gathered on the last landing, waiting quietly as Alex pulled open the door slightly to look through the crack.

As he did so, he found his view blocked by something that was leaning against the doorframe, inexplicably still in that position despite so many undead coming past.

Regardless, as Alex was crouched to hopefully better go unnoticed, he found himself looking out, straight into the dead eyes of an old man.

Alex jerked back, suppressing a startled exclamation.

Still, his jerk threw the door wide, showing the body to his companions.

Its odd placement became more clear as they all saw a series of black spears, pinning the man in place against the door jam.

“Dead man’s eye, that was unexpected.”

Grant caught the door before it could swing shut, suppressing a smile at Alex’s words. His gaze fell on the dead man again, and the little humor that had leaked through quickly faded.

An instant later, a notification confirmed what they’d found.

Initiates’ Fate Discovered:
4/6

Alex sighed, shaking his head before rubbing his eyebrows with his fingers, fighting back a building stress-headache. “I’m going to be glad when this quest is over…”

“Agreed.” Natasha’s short reply summed it up nicely for all of them.

That, of course, was when they heard the undead moving through hallways and rooms up ahead. “Seems we have company.”

Their fight through that floor was uneventful, despite Alex feeling quite conflicted about any sort of fight being considered so. The fact that this had been a mini-war waged through the halls of a charred set of offices and meeting rooms made the sentiment all the more surreal.

Regardless, there was no point at which he or any of his companions were truly in danger, and they continued to improve their teamwork throughout the walking-melee.

When they finally finished clearing the level—having checked out every room and closet to ensure they weren’t leaving enemies behind or Initiate unfound—they took a breather, pulling out food and drink, while John called Pilar.

Their portions of the food back at the base would be put in Inventory for their return.

At that thought, Alex almost smacked himself in the forehead. Of course, that’s how they have all the food ready at the same time. They can make it in convenient batches and simply store it until the next meal time.

That really would make logistics easier…

Not that it really mattered to him in this situation.

He was quite excited to finish this mission and return, however. He was finally tantalizingly close to another level-up for both his race and class. Despite his near constant place on the front line for their group, killing far more than anyone else, he was still at only half their level, and that didn’t factor in the fact they had two classes now.

He didn’t begrudge that. He’d chosen rarer classes and worked hard to get a rarer race, but it still rankled a bit. He liked making numbers go up, and the fact that they only went up rarely was a bit frustrating, even if they did go up more each time as a result.

Yup, that’s what’s wrong with this situation. I’m not able to gamify it enough. He snorted at his own line of thinking, as true as it might be.

The others glanced his way but didn’t comment, as they were clearly going through their own thoughts.

I’ll just have to improve my skills. That should scratch the itch. He hesitated. Well, and with the number of undead increasing, maybe I can go hunting on my own and rake in some experience on my own.

That could work. Assuming some other scenario centered disaster doesn’t require me to venture forth again.

They had barely finished eating and catching their breath when a loud thump-ing began to build within the stairwell they were stopped near. After all, they hadn’t wanted undead to pour out into the floor at large, forcing them to clear it room by room once more.

As the noise built, the group stood and readied themselves.

It came to a culmination before falling silent. Whatever had made it seemingly momentarily paused behind the heavy, steel clad, wooden door at the base of the stairwell to the next floor.

The Initiates shifted, feeling torn between waiting and rushing forward. Finally, they started to exchange glances.

In that instant, the door practically exploded outward.

The steel on their side sheared wide, allowing a spray of splinters to shower them, even as the door itself tore from its hinges, tumbling to the side because of the momentary resistance those same hinges had provided.

That was likely only that which prevented the door itself becoming a lethal projectile for their group.

Behind the now empty doorframe was a truly odd undead.

It was squat, though still standing at least five feet tall. It had a mop of hair on its head that seemed to continue down its back in an odd sort of full-body mohawk. It was clearly undead, given its waxy, pale skin and sunken eyes.

It was naked without really having any private bits to expose, and it wielded a massive wooden hammer.

Alex used Analyze in the moment of startled stillness.

Undead Hammer-Crest
Level ??

Alex found that he did not find that particularly useful.

John sent a pair of shots, one at each eye, but the thing closed its eyes, and jerked its head down, taking the hits on its brow ridge instead.

These were the empowered shots that John had been using to obliterate the heads of lesser undead entirely.

Alex did not like the speed and fortitude that demonstrated either.

Still, that was all the time they had. The hammer-crest launched forward, eyes fixed on John in the back of their group.

Natasha’s quick reactions got up an angled force-shield that knocked it off its chosen trajectory, and Grant slammed his own hammer into its head as it passed, but while it caused a bit of dimpling of the thing’s head, it didn’t seem to really injure it, let alone kill it.

The hammer-crest swung at the force shield after it bounced off of it, shattering the construct in one hit, causing Natasha to flinch back at the feedback.

Then, Alex was there, slamming the blade of his dadao into its side like a woodsman felling a tree, and the hit had about as much effect as a single axe strike against an ancient oak—effectively nothing but a small cut resulted from his full-powered strike.

The hammer-crest pulled one hand from the handle of his weapon and backhanded Alex in the side, sending him flying, despite the protection offered by his coat.

Actually, the coat was likely why he’d been sent flying instead of having his chest caved in.

Even so, it hurt. The coat hadn’t been designed to greatly reduce bludgeoning damage so it made sense that most of the force had gotten through.

Even as he slammed into a wall—blessing all that was holy that the wall was drywall, and so gave some cushion to his impact—he saw Natasha beginning a harrying campaign against the beast.

She darted in, lancing her spear into its flesh again and again before dodging backward, out of the way of the massive wooden mallet as it whistled through the air.

John used his newer skill yet again, greatly empowering his shots and causing explosions of power against the creature’s flesh, but there almost seemed to be a barrier of power woven through its very skin.

To Alex’s Mana Sense, the power moved in a very similar manner to his Life’s Active Defense, though it seemed to be in constant motion, as well as to be cycling through the undead’s hammer rather than just being confined to its body.

He didn’t have any more time to consider, and so Alex picked himself up despite his bruises and rushed back in from behind, using a Multi-Strike fueled double strike with his dadao to continue his attempts to bring down this tree.

When the hammer whistled his way, he stepped in close, activating Life’s Active Defense to block the arm rather than the hammer, hoping that doing so would mitigate the damage done.

It did, but he still took a staggering two hundred point hit to both his health and stamina. Regardless of the heavy hit, it stopped the beast’s hammer dead in place, allowing both Natasha and Grant—who were both expecting Alex’s actions—to be able to land powerful, skill and spell empowered strikes, each targeting a knee of the undead.

Grant’s massive sledge blew through the undead flesh and bone, his Leave No Trace, preventing that strike from sending undead shrapnel into his companions.

Natasha’s spear lanced through the other knee joint, cutting all the way through before a force shield appeared along the blade and extending outward in the same plane, keeping the flesh from having any hope of reattaching.

John put a pair of shots into the elbow of the primary hand holding the hammer, but they just exploded onto the surface, leading the man to exclaim about water-logged books.

Alex used his close proximity to body-check the hammer-crest, causing it to fall backward, leaving its lower legs behind. The combined attack finally brought a screeching grunt from the thing, but it didn’t stay down.

Instead, with agility that should have been impossible for those not living, it rolled backward, coming back up to balance on its two, uneven stumps.

Grant slumped slightly. “You have got to be kidding me.”

Natasha grimaced, but settled further into her ready stance.

Alex reached out and ashed the lower legs just to be safe, grunting at just how much health it took to do so. Yeah, I won’t be killing this thing with Life Transfusion. It’s going to cost enough just to ash the body…

John holstered his pistols and pulled a shotgun out of… somewhere… likely his Inventory, but before anyone could comment or ask any of the myriad questions that brought up, the hammer-crest charged.

It seemed that this fight was far from over.

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