Wha's the best fightin' advice I ever got? I dunno… 'fast hands or faster legs', probably.

– Quote attributed to Master Sergeant Gnarly Grunt of the Salazan Depth-Walkers

A rambling patchwork of bone leered at us from a across a forest of stone. It appeared to walk drunkenly at first glance, but as it drew closer, I realised that it was in fact moving smoothly, each foot placed precisely with purpose. What gave it the appearance of clumsiness was its mismatched structure.

What I had taken for a human skeleton was in reality a mad conglomeration of different bones stitched together into a vaguely humanoid form. It shouldn't have been able to stand in one place, let alone move, so mismatched was its structure. A cloven hoof was at the bottom of one leg, with a human foot on the other, both legs made up of multiple different bones of various sizes, leading to its shambling gait.

Its head was far too small for its body, but I wasn't familiar enough with skulls to recognise from which animal it was drawn. It had two arms and two legs, roughly of similar length, although one arm hung to below its knee – luckily not the one with the axe – and it began to pick up speed as it came towards us.

Any gaps in its frame were filled with an unearthly blue glow, reminding me of ice below a lake; deep and unfathomably cold. Its eyes blazed with the same light, and I saw faint lines of colour running up its limbs and across its torso.

"Stay light on your feet, Lamb, and try to keep its attention. I will wait for an opening."

I nodded at his words and set my feet, bracing for what was looking increasingly like a charge from the skeleton. It was picking up speed rapidly, and its strange wobble had turned into a loping run that covered the ground between us far quicker than it had any right to.

Nathlan started to drift out the side behind me, and I saw the creature of bone begin to veer off-course towards him. I clanged the haft of my spear onto the heavy bronze of my shield to divert its attention, but it didn't rise to my bait and seemed fixated on Nathlan. With only a few more heartbeats to act, I took a breath and activated Indomitable Prey, aiming to make it at least flounder, giving Nathlan enough time to reposition behind me.

I needn't have worried, for the moment my Skill activated, the creature whipped around at me and stilled. Its head cocked from side to side a few times, considering me like a bird. Just as Nathlan was easing around to its side for a flanking manoeuvre, it lunged towards me.

I took its overhand blow onto my raised shield, careful to step back and to the side, letting the axe slide off at an angle so I didn't have to absorb the full force of the blow. Even so, I felt it reverberate up my arm and shoulder. I set my feet and pushed back, forcing the skeleton to stumble in an ungainly way.

It turned as it did so and lurched towards Nathlan, its longer arm enough to reach him. Luckily, the swordsman was ready and deflected the grasping bones with an easy parry, although the power in the blow was enough to push him off balance. He didn't manage to sever the arm despite the visible age of the bones. I assumed that whatever magic was animating this abomination was also protecting its structural integrity, and so I didn't try anything particularly tactical with my own retaliation.

I'd began to wind up as soon as the creature turned away from me, and as it was rebuffed by Nathlan, I used the opportunity to attack. I twisted from the hips and shoulders, rotating my entire body behind the blow, and when my shield smashed into the skeleton it was with all of my enhanced strength. Its ribcage shattered, and it fell to the ground in a heap, the icy blue light within its skull flickering briefly before vanishing altogether.

You have killed an Unknown (Level 27). Experience gained.

I heaved in a breath before looking up at Nathlan, who gestured weakly at me before speaking. "Can you turn that Skill off please?"

Gone was the commanding tone from earlier. In fact, he looked slightly ill – shivering and pale. As soon as I deactivated the aura Skill, he seemed to inflate again, colour returning to his cheeks and his breathing evening out almost instantly. He nodded gratefully at me, putting his hands on his knees and spitting to the side.

"I have not heard of anything like that outside the territory of the Bone Tower, and even then, it is nothing so direct as this."

I was at a loss. To be honest, it was not much more far-fetched to me than some of the other things I'd seen so far; titanic eagles, endless valleys, Skills and levels to name but a few. But I could see how having your previous idea of the world dramatically changed in a short amount of time could impact someone – I was a living testament to that. We both stayed in place, breathing through the shock of the fight and processing our position in newly hostile territory.

"Lamb?"

"Yeah?" I replied.

"I do not hear the wind any longer."

Now that he had pointed it out, I felt its absence keenly. I'd been able to hear him easily, and the sudden cessation of the noise was now almost as eerie as the noise itself. Before I could ask any follow up questions, a keening howl split the air. It was no longer an all-encompassing echo as the wind had been previously, but instead more focused, as if originating from a single tortured mouth.

A heartbeat later another howl reverberated around the stone forest, and then another. Soon enough, a discordant chorus of wails reverberated through the forest around us.

"Hey Nathlan?" I asked while scanning the pillars nearest to us.

"Yes, Lamb?"

"I know you said this place isn't supposedly sacred to anyone, but did any of those superstitions include anything like 'the howling souls of the damned'? Anything even remotely similar?"

Nathlan looked back at the ground for a moment before swearing for the second time in my presence.

"Fuck."

We began retracing our steps, rushing back around great stone spires and straining our ears for any hint of the skeletons we'd heard moments before.

A frantic yell from Nathlan gave me enough warning to duck beneath the rusted spear flying towards me from behind a tower to my left. It whistled past my head, and I grunted in surprise at the close call.

It may have come out sounding more like a squeal, but I was adamant that it had been intended as a gruff and manly grunt of surprise – nothing else. Luckily for my pride, we both had other things to concern ourselves with, and I raised my shield to deflect an errant arrow winging its way toward Nathlan's back. I briefly considered the injustice of a world where a bowstring could somehow be fresh enough to take the strain of a full draw without snapping, despite being presumably left in the dust for years.

I stumbled at the power of the arrow's impact impact, and managed to turn the fall into a stagger, bouncing my shoulder off the pillar we were passing and righting myself to continue on without losing much speed.

My outrage at the bowman vanished when I glanced back and saw that it was in fact a skeleton wielding an atlatl rather than a bow, and no string was required. It still seemed a little unfair that a goddamn skeleton could wield a weapon like that but if I started to question a small detail like that then the whole world would unravel, and so I decided to stop drawing arbitrary lines and instead focus on getting the hell away from the horde of angry skeletons at my back.

We reached the base of our camp, and Nathlan was halfway up the rope by the time I reached the rock wall. I threw my spear up over his head and onto the stone outcropping – a stupid action that I only realised the risk of once I had already taken it – and slung the shield onto my back, before leaping up onto the bare rock itself and climbing like the hordes of all the hells were at my back… which they were, quite literally.

I reached the top at the same time as Nathlan, and we hauled ourselves onto the surface, yanked up the rope behind us and slumped to the ground, careful to keep all limbs out of from view from below.

We looked at each other for a moment, and I didn't find the panic and fear I expected in his eyes. Nathlan looked almost gleeful, face flushed and a grin stretching his features, his eyes wide and bright. I almost laughed at the sight of it, and then actually did laugh when he punched me on the shoulder.

"Why are you so calm about this!?" He demanded, although I could still see the light in his eyes.

"I look calm to you? I'm freaking out about the goddamn skeletons, same as you! We nearly died!" I retorted in a whisper.

"You are not even sweating! And why are you whispering?" he said.

"I don't want to draw attention to us…" I started, before faltering, and continued at a more normal speaking voice. "Yeah, okay, you're right. Anyway, why are you looking so excited? If it wasn't for my shield, you'd be a fucking spear-holster right now!"

"My personal wards would have deflected any projectiles sent my way, do not concern yourself with my defence over much. I am sturdy from range, it is the melee that I have to be careful in. Just do not use that aura Skill again near me – it interferes with my concentration."

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He slipped around to lay on his front and strained his neck to peek over the lip of the pillar, rapidly drawing back as he did so with an arrow pinging off the rock near where he'd been.

"Okay, there are only six of them. The one with the atlatl might be a problem if we cannot close the distance, but the spear wielder seems to be missing his weapon. Can you throw that spear accurately yet?"

I blinked at that. Only Six? One of them was enough to stagger Nathlan with a simple swing, and clearly had strength surpassing both of us.

"Why not just wait them out? Collect some data? You're the scholar, after all. Let's do some studying before we go all fighty on them!" I made sure to keep my arms from gesturing too wildly, not keen to get an arrow through the wrist just to make a point.

"Firstly Lamb, if you use the word 'fighty' again, I will push you off this ledge myself." He gave me a steady, significant look to make sure I understood his commitment to that statement, and I just snorted and waved him off. "… and secondly, because we do not actually have much time. Two have already started to climb up the pillar, and I suspect the others will not be far behind."

"Fuck!" I swore, casting around for my weapon before seeing them on the other side of the ledge, sprawled against my bedroll. What a throw!

"Right, you got any spare weapons? I think blunt force seems to be the way to go based on the one we fought, agreed?"

"Yes. My parry was not meant to dismember, but I would have expected to at least crack or scar the bone. Instead, I felt no bite at all. Whatever magic is animating these skeletons, it is clearly reinforcing their structure too."

I nodded. "Okay, blunt force trauma it is. You got anything useful in that storage device of yours?"

Nathlan shook his head though. "Never try and pick up a new weapon in a fight, Lamb. You are as likely to hurt yourself as the enemy. Additionally, you are meant to be training with the spear – Jorge will be outraged if he comes back and you are using a mace or something."

He looked over at my shocked expression and chuckled. "Come on. I understand that this is scary, but you have faced death before. We received system notifications for the kill earlier, and that means it is still under the purview of the system. The 'unknown' tag is worrying, but we know we can kill them. I have been training for a year and a half now and I finally have the chance to get myself a new class. I will not be wasting it."

He slapped me on the shoulder, and I once again marvelled at the change in him. The meek, gangly scholar had become a brash, eager young warrior. It seemed so natural on him now.

By way of reply, I simply rolled my eyes before grabbing my shield, slipping my arm through the straps pushing up into a crouch. Gripping the haft of my spear, I nodded at the infuriatingly unpredictable scholar, who had just risked another look down.

"The two climbers are nearly up here, the other four are waiting down below. I say we wait for the climbers. When they ascend, we kill them. Then we see if you can take the atlatl wielder out of the fight before we descend and kill the others."

At my nod, he risked a final glance over the lip. "Ready yourself. On your left – no more than ten breaths."

I nodded and steadied myself, focusing on the point he had indicated. I was expecting a skeleton to leap over the edge and appear before me, but instead I saw only a hand grasping at the lip. I almost froze in surprise, but a blast of Heart of the Hills managed to stabilise my spinning thoughts, and I quickly dropped my spear to the ground, leaned forward and grabbed the wrist.

With a heave, I yanked the entire skeleton over to me. While its strength was unnatural, its weight was still constrained by the laws of whatever physics governed this world, and bone was surprisingly light. It soared through the air in an arc above my head before slamming down onto the ground behind me, its bony wrist still wrapped in my fleshy hand.

Having stood from the crouch with the action, I continued in a smooth motion and spun to slam the rim of my shield into the skeleton's chest. Its ribcage cracked and the shield rim severed its spine. The long knife it had gripped between its teeth bounced to the ground, and the light left its eyes an instant later.

You have killed an Unknown (Level 22). Experience gained.

I looked over to Nathlan and saw him kicking his skeleton off the edge of the pillar, before diving to the ground to avoid another arrow. We grinned at each other, and I had to admit that the rush was indescribable. I could feel myself not too far from another level, and I was already getting tingles from the anticipation of enhancing my attributes again.

"How are we gonna get down without turning into pincushions?" I asked, and he looked at me in mild surprise.

"You know what a pincushion is?"

"What sort of fucking question is that!? Of course I do, how dumb do you think I am?"

He just shrugged at me with a 'can you blame me' look on his face, but to be honest, I could very much blame him. He seemed to understand the trajectory of my thoughts and waved it off.

"Alright. Sorry, that was uncalled for. As for getting down; I will chuck the rope over the back while you distract them at the front with your shield, and then you can descend yourself once I've slipped to the ground – it only takes a few heartbeats to shuffle down anyway."

I had some misgivings on that point, but supposed I had no better plan currently. I nodded, grabbed my spear again and leaned to look over the edge. My shield was held ready as I viewed the four remaining skeletons. The one wielding the atlatl rapidly locked onto me, glacial blue orbs in its skull leering my way, and a long arrow was sailing up towards me within moments. I made sure my footing was good as I braced to deflect the projectile, and even as it glanced off my shield, I saw the skeleton reaching for another one. I reversed the grip on my spear with a flick of my wrist and hefted it ready to throw.

As soon as the second arrow hit my shield, I leaned back and sighted, launching the spear towards the creature below. The moment it left my hand, I knew it was a good throw, and I watched in amazement as it slipped through the air at a frankly worrying pace. If a spear came at me that fast, I doubted I'd have time to react to it. It struck the skeleton through the chest, digging into the dirt beneath it, and I was delighted to see the skeleton struggle to move, pinned to the ground by its ribcage as it was.

I turned and ran to the other side of the pillar, leaning over again to check Nathlan was down and free. Seeing him drop the last few feet and wave up at me, I grabbed the rope, gave it a tug to confirm it held, and abseiled off the pillar in a backwards run. Nathlan shouted something unintelligible followed by the clash of steel on steel when I was no more than a few meters off the ground and I turned to see what was going on. I caught a flash of Nathlan engaged in melee with a sword-wielding skeleton, with another circling around to flank him.

Without taking more than a moment to consider, I pressed myself into the rock, bunching my legs, and then leapt backwards. My enhanced strength rocketed me off the pillar and I twisted in the air as I descended towards the melee. I let loose a bellow, partly to let Nathlan know I was incoming, and partly because it just felt appropriate given the circumstances.

I caught the flanking skeleton in a glancing blow as I ploughed into it shield first, and it was flung bodily away. Nathlan yelled in victory a moment later and I saw a skull roll past me along the packed dirt.

I stalked towards the skeleton I'd flung aside, and it wheeled to face me as it picked itself up. I slipped an axe swinging for my head and snapped out a jab at its head in retaliation. My knuckles protested as they bounced off solid bone and I winced, pulling my hand back. It had only been seconds but I was already missing my spear.

I pranced back away from another sweeping attack, and kept steadily reversing from the barrage of strikes before I caught an opening and lunged in. Pushing with my shield, I threw the axe arm out wide and stepped in, gripping the skeleton's ribcage in one fist before twisting my hips and sweeping its legs out from under it as I hoisted it up and then down into the ground. the lack of flesh and muscle offered an amazing grip.

Before I could fall upon it with my shield, I was forced back by another swing of the axe at my ankles. They may be light, but these skeletons had incredible strength – I couldn't risk taking a blow on anything but my shield, especially considering my lack of armour. As I was trying to figure out how to finish this, Nathlan's sword hilt descended, cracking into the skull and fracturing it down the centre. Another swift blow followed suit, and its skull was split in twain, at which point it ceased its desperate swinging, and the axe fell from its skeletal grip.

I nodded in thanks, panting less with exertion and more with the sheer intensity of the battle. There was something about fighting enemies with actual weapons that was thrilling in a way I hadn't expected. I could see the same heady mix of joy and fear burning in my companion's wide eyes, and we simply nodded at each other before running off towards the other side of the pillar.

I overtook Nathlan and held out a hand behind me as I approached the side, urging him to slow down and stay behind the cover my shield could provide. I peeked around the edge, saw the atlatl-wielder still struggling with my spear while the only other skeleton hefted its great sword in preparation to cut through the spear pinning its companion to the ground.

I couldn't have that and so charged forwards with a yell. It did little to distract the two creatures though, and so as I came barrelling towards them, I had a full view of a giant sword descending to crush my only functional spear.

With Nathlan behind me, we crashed into the pair of animated bone puppets like bison fording a river. That is to say we flung our enemies before us but were dramatically slowed down in the process.

I staggered past, and Nathlan descended on one with the hilt of his sword again. I turned to the other and sprawled across it, preventing it from gaining its feet. I managed to twist away from the large arrow it attempted to plunge into my shoulder, and locked a hand underneath its shoulder, pressing my weight against its chest and arms to prevent any similar moves.

As I stared into the face of the skeleton, I abruptly realised just how bad an idea that was. The skeleton that had previously been slinging the large projectiles generously called arrows at us didn't have a humanoid skull at all. Instead, it seemed to be some sort of bird skull sitting atop its bent spine – likely the same species as the vultures we had seen earlier. What was particularly relevant, however, was the curved but still very sharp beak.

The coloration had completely gone, as well as the outer layers of keratin that gave it the glossy dark gleam of its still-living cousins. What remained was a yellow-white point, jutting straight at my eye and driving towards me with speed.

Panic filled me. Rather than dive backwards, I turtled up and tucked my chin, driving my head into its shoulder. As such, the point that should have taken my eye out instead only carved a line of fire along the back of my head. Bizarrely, the most painful part of it was feeling some of my hair be ripped out at the roots by the jabbing beak, and I growled in distress.

The pain gave me strength and I rolled, heaving the skeleton with me as I did and releasing it at the top of my arc so that it flew through the air nearly a dozen feet before skidding along the dusty ground. I leapt to my feet and wrenched the spear from where it was on the ground nearby, half-hacked through about three quarters up its length. I straightened, gripped it in both hands like a bat and advanced on the skeleton as it charged back towards me.

A half skip later and I swung with my entire body, smacking the abomination with the broken spear, the force of the blow finally severing the weapon in a jagged break along the fault line created by the other – now actually dead – skeleton.

A final, firm stomp to the neck ended the fight, and I heaved in a breath before looking over to Nathlan. He was kneeling on the ground over the crumpled skeleton he'd destroyed moments earlier, and I took a quick scan of the environment to ensure we weren't about to be ambushed again. I sighed as the familiar ringing reverberated around my mind before Nathlan's ragged laughter reached me.

I looked over to see his shoulders shaking as he half turned to me. I could only see the profile of his face, and in the midday-sun it was hard to make out his shadowed features as he asked, "Did you really try to punch a skeleton in the face?"

Despite the difficult lighting, I could still make out the curl of his lips.

I sighed again in defeat. "Yes… Yes, I did."

I saw his silhouette shake as he toppled over onto his back, laughing at the sky in a cathartic release. I smirked along with him. It was a pretty stupid move in hindsight – but that was kind of my thing at this point.

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