The dust was thick and the smell of bat dung was heavy in the air. Franco could taste it in his mouth as he took deep breaths. Maph was suddenly there next to him pulling the quick release buckle of his longsword back scabbard so that his sword fell off his back and into a waiting hand. He quickly swung it forward and drew the long blade in one fluid motion, both hands gripped on the hilt and ready. All within seconds of the rattling cacophony starting.

  “Move back till we have the corner of the building on our left. The gap is too big for the two of us to hold off what’s coming but it will help.” Franco said as he put one last light orb above them on said corner of the building before he started to take small steps backward. Keeping step with Maph.

  He put the wand back into its holder and drew his wand of magic bolt again. Saber in his right hand, wand in his left. He still had a wand of shock bolt on his belt and his [Instant Recharge (Lesser): Wand] They could do this he thought as fear started to turn his stomach.

  “Hold nothing back” he shouted as the first shapes emerged from the dust. Pale sickly green flames shining clearly from their undead eyes as the reanimated ivory white bones of Kimber and Humans advanced towards them.

  “Love, take charge,” Maph said loudly and firmly. His plain Barbute helmet now shining in the light of their spells.

  Then they were everywhere. Franco batted away the swing from a skeleton Kimber dressed in half rotted armor but armed with a club of stone. He turned his saber in a flash while the undead Kimber brought up its third hand to block but Franco was faster and cutting through the old chainmail coif beheaded the skeleton and instantly had to step to the right to avoid a swing of a bone club from his left. He shot that skeleton in the chest, the [Magic Bolt] from his wand blew apart the upper chest of the skeleton severing its spine and sending its remains clattering.

  He had to take a half step back to bring his saber down on top of another skeleton, this one human, whose height and helmet saved it but his blow sent it stumbling backwards. He shot a skeleton on his left, this time only blowing off its arm holding a weapon before he was swinging at a new skeleton in front of him. They were in trouble, he thought as fear and anger boiled in his stomach.

  ***

  She was panicking, she knew she was. Her fear had paralyzed her and Maph had just called her to task. By the Four she was a seasoned adventurer not some sun baked rookie.

  Franco and Maph were flurries of action and so Frazier finally grabbed a hold of her fear. She shot a skeleton with her auto crossbow trying to get around Maph. Her shot blowing out ribs and one of its three arms but not the club wielding one. So she quickly put two more bolts into it.

  “Now, lead fool or we all die” she mumbled to herself.

  “Oaken cover Franco and as soon as they start to slow hit them with [Invigorate]” she yelled as she put down another skeleton with two bolts. She looked over the fight and saw that Maph was holding his ground, his longsword a blur of movement but he was stepping in a square pattern and using the corner of the building to his left as an anchor. Not letting anything move past his left and saving her she knew, as he took hits from their clubs but he didn’t step back.

  “Sarah cover the space between them and watch our backs.”

  [Light Arrows] and [Magic Bolts] flew from Oaken, wands in both of his right hands while his short sword was in his left. He was moving back and forth as Franco moved around covering as much of the gap between Maph and rubble as he could.

  Frazier quickly switched out the empty bolt magazine for a full one and dropped the spent one into an empty side bag on her adventurer belt. Her true secret ace. With her left hand she reached into a special pocket on her adventurer belt. While Bags of Holding were things of myth and legends there were some cheats, like her belt having a Secondary Pocket enhancement.

  The only enhancement it had and it still made it a silver rank item. The Secondary Pocket connected two pockets that were in close proximity. Feet apart at most and in this case it connected to the pocket that made up almost the entirety of the back of her chest armor. Her chest armor was designed to make her look much thicker than she really was. Only out of it did people wonder why the dark skinned, thin girl from the west looked so different in armor. Frazier Elizabeth Holston, Scion of Zeldonia and leader of this team for a reason knew Franco was right. There was no holding back against this tide. Like the mythical Bags of Holding her Secondary Pocket allowed her to pull the item she wanted out without the need to look.

  With her crossbow in her right hand she loosed into the crowd around Maph her love. Now with her [Aim] ability on she began lobbing the arsenal she always carried with her.

  “Death or glory!” She shouted.

  ***

  Franco was sweating badly and he was sure it had only been a minute or two. He took a glancing sword hit to his chest armor as he stepped into the skeleton swinging at him to body check it back to give himself space as Oaken took advantage of the opening and let loose four spells that blew apart skeletons to his left. Franco stepped into the open space to bring his saber across the skull of another Kimber skeleton. Crushing the side of the skull enough that it lost what magic was animating it. Suddenly his sword was stuck and dragged down by the dead weight he stumbled forward. Allowing multiple hits on him, mostly blows from clubs but he felt his right arm take a nasty cut on his forearm cutting through his Gambeson. He straightened cursing at the pain as he unleashed the last four shots of his wand into the crowd of skeletons now on the verge of swarming him down.

  He yanked his saber free from the skull that it had caught on and swung his saber wildly trying to make room for him as he tried to step back but they were on top of him. Their press hampering their swings as much as it did his. He used [Instant Recharge (Lesser): Wands] for the first time today and with his wand of magic bolt humming with power again he let fly six shots clearing the skeletons on him. Oaken must have kept his back clear because Franco was able to take a lunge backwards, almost slipping as he stepped on some bones. He was shaking until he got hit by Oaken’s [Invigorate] spell. With energy surging through him again he noticed that the battlefield was much brighter than it had been moments ago. New small light orbs were thrown out and showed much more of the plaza. His heart raced even faster suddenly as the new lights showed that a wave of armed and partially armored skeletons were still pressing forwards but the real surprise were the three Bone Giants walking among them.

  Almost three times as tall as their fellow skeletons they had full sets of armor that looked mostly intact as well as weapons that gleamed in the new light. Two of them were giant Kimber, each hand holding a weapon and the last was a giant human with a red spear in hand, sized for a normal man it looked like a short spear on the Giant.

  “Fuck” he shouted as he was about to be engaged again when explosions started to blossom among the undead horde.

  “Back up, back up,” Oaken shouted.

  Franco stumbled back again, almost falling before he shot the two closest skeletons to him before he finally remembered to activate his ring of sure footed. He instantly felt his footing improve as he continued to walk backwards. Someone was throwing an arsenal of explosions and potions into the horde splitting the smaller front rank from the rest. He stole a quick glance to see that it was Frazier who was throwing out the arsenal. Trip Bomb followed by a Fire Bomb, then a Shock Bomb, then another Trip Bomb. She was working her way back and forth, closer to further away. She was throwing a lifetime worthy of money at the horde and it was working.

  The Trip Bombs would explode when they hit the ground or if she hit a skeleton. A tangle of magically reinforced vines would explode out in a sphere at least 10’ in diameter and then pulled together, all within a few seconds. The skeletons became a tangle of bodies either tripping each other or stuck together. Perfect for the Fire Bomb that followed, its explosion doing more damage than the flames but the Shock Bomb followed it breaking apart most of the rest.

  Suddenly Sarah’s back was in front of him, her two daggers moving as she cut down the undead in front of him.

  “Take a break, I have these.” Sarah said as she went all out on the line of Skeletons still in front of them.

  Franco was going to help but he decided to trust her and took a step back. Frazier’s action bought them a minute or two and a chance. He needed to be ready. He took a few more steps back to stand next to Oaken who was still loosing spells to help Sarah. As the Kimber moved back and forth to get line of sight. He was sweating and swearing like his father. Before Franco let himself feel all the pain he was sure he was actually in with how many hits and cuts he had taken he took one of his Healing potions and drank half of it. That was the best way to deal with all the bruising and any broken bones. It hit his roiling stomach fast and at first adding to his distress until the magic took effect.

  He used the rest of the little vial on his still badly bleeding right forearm. Which stopped bleeding in two seconds. He then took out a stamina potion and drank that down with water as a chaser. He hoped he could keep it all down as he held back a gag.

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  While he was doing this, Sarah and Maph finished downing the skeletons in front of them. Both stumbled back to where he and Oaken were standing with Frazier walking backwards taking shots at any skeleton that had made it through her wall of explosions. The chasm was thirty feet behind them and the path they had taken here was just ten feet and a turn away. As soon as Sarah was near him Franco saw that her left hand was crushed and that she had taken a deep cut on her side. He grabbed her and pushed her to sit. Grabbing a potion off her belt he pulled the topper off with his teeth and poured some of it into her bleeding side wound. She winced in pain as it healed.

  “Shitfat.”

  “Stop moving, we don't have time.” Franco looked back to see that most of the horde had been destroyed by Frazier’s actions but a few dozen skeletons were still left and the three Bone Giants. Who were now quickly moving towards them passing the remains of their undead brethren.

  “You got anything left?” Franco quickly asked Frazier as he moved to Sarah’s mangled left hand.

  They had to help the healing by getting the bones close to the right area. The body and the potion would do the rest. He started to move the broken bones in her hand and Sarah screamed.

  Frazier looked at Sarah’s hand for a second before she answered. “I have one Radiant bomb left and some basic enchanted bolts.”

  Sarah’s hand was as good as he was going to get it in this rushed job. He poured the second half of the potion on her hand and then quickly pulled her second Healing potion and poured just a sip down her throat before replacing it on her belt. She let out a scream of pain as her smashed hand shifted back into place. The scream echoed off the far distant ceiling and then stopped as she passed out.

  He stood “Good, you take on one and I’ll take on another. Oaken got anything left” he switched out his wands so that his fully charged wand of shock bolt was ready. They had seconds before the skeletons reached them. Oaken was kneeling next to Maph who had blood around him but whose breathing was deep. Oaken’s three hands flew over the injured elf. Pouring drops of healing potion where blood was coming out while pulling out a broken knife that was still lodged in his hip.

  “I drank my Mana potion but I’m already down to 2/3ds again. It's been what, three minutes?” He trilled in worry.

  “Well that’s as good as we can do. Get one of them up soon or join in. We can only buy you a little more time.” Franco said as he started to walk towards the approaching skeletons.

  “Frazier , clear me a path to the first Bone Giant” he said, picking up speed. He couldn't slow down or his fear would stop him. They were so dead.

  “Death or Glory,” Frazier said moving quickly to his left as she started to shoot the skeletons bringing the closest one to him down and then the next.

  Only four more between him and the first Kimber Bone Giant. Whose two massive arms had large clubs. One of stone and one of bone while its third arm carried a glimmering sword, its handle a bright blue and its long single edge blade still shined with its magic. He shoulder charged the first skeleton that reached him, sending the lightweight monster sprawling backwards onto the ground and tripping the skeleton behind it. Frazier ’s bolts finished both off on the ground while Franco lunged and put the first eight inches of his saber into a skeleton’s glowing green eye socket and cutting downward flung it to the ground.

  Then his path was clear as the fourth skeleton had ignored him and went for the others but Franco had no time to worry about that as the first Bone Giant reached the corner of the building and swung both clubs at him moving faster than any of the skeletons before. It caught him off guard and his dodge at the last second to get around the swing turned into a desperate dive with the clubs passing over his body as he hit the ground and rolled away trying to get back on his feet. Like a viper the sword in the third hand of the Bone Giant struck out hitting the plaza tiles and ringing off them as it hit where Franco’s body had just been a moment ago. Scrambling to his feet with sword and wand in hand, Franco let loose a volley of [Shock Bolts]. That walked up the armored Giants body before his last shot hit it in its deathly smile. The spells sent rippling bolts of lightning through the Bone Giant causing it to take a halting step as it slowed and jerked. Franco didn’t stop moving and went for the basics of fighting large monsters.

  He went for the closest limb, the solo left one holding the bone club. He hit it on its elbow as he passed by it, once then twice. The intact but rusted chainmail broke on the second blow and Franco saw he chipped some of the bone but still it held. The Giant now free to move spun faster than Franco thought it should but not fast enough to avoid another [Shock Bolt] to its side causing its quick movement to halter enough for him to move out of range of its sword. He had to whittle down this monster.

  ***

  Frazier was running all out towards the center of the building that faced this huge plaza. Luckily one of her little light orb artifacts had been blown this way and its light was still good. She turned to fire at the Bone Giant that was now jogging after her.

  “Shit, Shit” she said as she kept moving. She knew this was the smart and proper adventurer thing to do but she hated leaving her team and running away from Franco’s fight near the corner of the building. She was getting tired and she might have more running to do.

  “Good enough” she said as she pulled a basic Frost bolt enchanted magazine from her Secondary Pocket and swapped it out with the standard bolts she had in her crossbow.

  Pulling out her one Radiant Light Bomb, perfect for undead. She spun to face the jogging Bone Giant, the second Kimber who had what looked like daggers in all three of its hands and who was closer to her than she liked. She shot her Frost bolts into it as fast as her autoloader could go. The bolts struck the giant in its chest. Staggering it as ice sprouted in its bones and around its armor. Halting its steady movement forward and dragging it downward. Two had lodged themselves near its hips and caused it to stumble.

  The next two she walked down its body but it suddenly flexed its bones somehow breaking up the ice that bound it and Frazier’s eyes went wide as the last two frost bolts loosed. One missed but the second caught a knee in mid step sending the already stuttering, lurching Bone Giant to the ground. Frazier realized she had stopped when it hit the ground and started moving wide around it. Back towards the others where Franco fought one Bone Giant alone and Sarah and Oaken fought the other. She activated the Radiant Light Bomb in her left hand and tossed it at the prone Giant now trying to right itself.

  As she switched out the now empty magazine with a Fire bolt one she saw the Giant twist on the ground and its third arm snap up in a flash, catching the Radiant Light Bomb out of the air and rock back to throw it back towards her.

  She stumbled stopping as she was blinded by light before she heard the explosion and felt chunks of bone and metal hit her and cut into her skin all over her body. She stood trying to blink clear her vision not sure what direction she was facing. Her hearing gone and pain on her face as if she had been burned.

  It took her a few confused seconds before she realized she needed to drink a Healing potion. She was blind and deaf in the middle of a fight. She felt for her belt, still blind but she knew where everything was and she forced herself to take deep breaths as panic and fear raced through her. That paralyzing fear was growing again in her and she had to out race it. She felt the correct little glass flask and downed it quickly in a sigh of relief before throwing away the bottle. Pain shot through her head, stinging her eyes and ears before it was gone in seconds.

  She saw the Bone Giant trying to stand. Both its right arms were gone as was a chunk of its right rib cage. Frazier raised her right hand to shoot it and realized her auto crossbow was gone. The Giant was on its knees now and she looked at the ground around her trying to find the crossbow and knew she was running out of time. She heard a loud crash back towards her team as if they had brought down one of the Giants and Frazier knew there was no time left.

  She drew her short sword and charged. The Bone Giant was at a bad angle and it hadn’t got to its feet yet but as it sensed her it spun on its knees to face her or tried to but it had to use its one arm to stop itself from falling over. She took advantage of its stumble and swung for its helmeted and coif protected neck to decapitate it. She put both hands and all her strength into the blow and her arms went numb and her sword rocked backwards towards her with her hit as the Bone Giant’s head went back a few inches before it brought its one hand around punching into her.

  She felt a rib break as she went flying. Her sword strike had bounced off! She screamed in rage as she went spinning and tumbling towards the center of the plaza where she hit hard, hurting her ankle and skidding to a stop. She was hurt, probably badly but she got up fast. She was furious. That paralyzing fear gone and now replaced by rage. She was going to break every bone in this monster's body.

  She had looked like the amateur people accused her of. That she was only her gear and nothing more. A pretender to the name Adventurer and not the five years she had been doing this. Five years and only three levels no matter how many fights she had been in. No matter how many monsters she had killed. She picked up a thick looking bone next to her and ran at the Bone Giant who could not stand it seemed but was dragging itself towards her.

  It stopped one hand up as if to box her but she got just in its range and dived past the swing she knew was coming, rolling on her back and then back to her feet. Her left foot was screaming in pain but that was only the background to the pain to her chest.

  None of that mattered to her as she brought down the thick bone on top of the Bone Giants head and she heard the helmet sing from the hit, she hit it again and through her anger realized suddenly she was too close to the towering thing again, that even dragging its lower body, head down it was taller than her. She managed to step back enough that the giant’s fist just barely caught her this time and sent her spinning back towards the building.

  She got up slower this time. Red hot anger or blood clouding her eyes but she was hurt and this damn bone wouldn’t do it. She stumbled as she looked around her for anything that would work, a stone or a piece of metal, anything that would hurt this thing and then something glimmered on the ground only a few feet away from her. She slowly walked towards the glimmer, watching the Bone Giant dragging itself towards her the entire time. It seemed to have noticed what she had seen and tried to speed up. She reached down and picked up what had looked like a dagger in the Bone Giants hand but was in fact a short sword. This one with a red wood lacquered handle that had two fine fingernail size rubies inlaid on both sides of the handle with a band of silver on the bottom of the fitted grip. Its blade was at least 14” inches long and not as wide as the wood handle. Its point and a few inches back from it was the only part of the blade that was doubled edged and the blade shone true.

  After thousands of years it shone in her hands. It radiated sharpness and unbreakability. Something else also but Frazier couldn’t tell and didn’t care because she saw the Bone Giant stop when she pointed the blade at it and it seemed afraid of the blade.

  Frazier smiled, mouth full of blood and lunged at the Giant who spun its one hand to try and swat her away but she knew that was coming so she threw the blade with all her anger, with [Aim] and [Quick Hands] and years of experience and the blade cut through the skull of the Giant bone Kimber and punched out the back of it. Its sickly unnatural magic snuffed out in a second. Its body collapsed but its arm was still in motion and fast enough to send Frazier skidding on the ground a few feet away with its dying hit. She was still smiling as she skidded away, blood filling her mouth.