Ada shut her eyes so tightly that she saw little stars; she was trying to get some rest, which was hard to do when standing straight up, but she still had to build strength. The wolf hadn't moved in about an hour. She wondered if they should make a run for it, but as soon as she stuck a toe out from the crevice she and Amelia found refuge in, the beast would stiffen almost as if it were listening. A challenging feat to accomplish, given that it had no ears left, but Ada just chalked it up to the monster having some power granted when it became undead. Fortunately, it made no motion when she cast healing, so she could cycle through two full mana pools and restore herself and Amelia to full HP.

  It was still hard to look at the disfigured elf, once so beautiful that Ada had cursed under her breath when Dane made her a slave. She knew that Dane didn't let his more base instincts drive; he still hadn't made a move on Ada despite the stolen glances when he didn't think she was paying attention. But she still felt threatened by the new woman. Despite the disdain and condescension, she saw how the elf looked at Dane; she could not hide the lust beneath her scowl. It was fortunate that Dane was as dense as a brick.

  She didn't want to die here. So she cast disorient on the undead creature. She stepped out again, and the beast thrashed violently this time, clawing at everything except where Ada and Amelia were. The spell wore off sooner than Ada wanted, and the thrashing beast honed in on the crevice, taking a chunk of stone just above Ada's head. Her fast, shallow breaths held back tears. Ada was terrified, but at least she knew they would have exactly thirty Mississippi seconds to flee after casting the spell.

  "Amelia, do you think you can run?" she asked, unsure if Amelia had rested long enough.

  "Don't worry about me. How about you, cripple? " she jabbed, remembering how she had to carry the other woman. The look this Earthbound kept giving her made her feel like the woman didn't understand her place.

  "If I give you 30 seconds, can you make a break for it and bring Dane back here?" Ada said, ignoring the noble woman's attempt at getting a rise out of her

  "Obviously, I can." She snorted out. Laughing at the foolish healer.

  "We should just fight it. I'm sure I can take it." Amelia's unshakeable confidence behind her words made Ada want to, no, compelled her to believe.

  Ada was still hesitant but felt the undead energy coming off the vile wolf, which was wrong and felt unholy. She didn't want to risk it, but it may be the only option they had. She didn't know if the 30 seconds her spell would buy would be enough. She picked up a smooth pebble from the floor, not a coin exactly, scraping it on the ground, making one face completely white, scratched up by the floor, the other side was red. She flipped it, and she called heads in her mind. The pebble landed white side up, tails. Ada couldn't accept her luck and flipped it several more times. Each time, fate intervened and landed on tails. Fuck, she would have to fight the zombie wolf.

  She inhaled deeply, held it for a second, and then exhaled. She began to cast lifeward. A faint magical glow shimmered on top of the party, blanketing them in a warm feeling of security. She then hit the Undeath wolf with disorient.

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  Meanwhile, Amelia knocked an arrow in her elven bow. This bow was passed down in her family for generations, and the ornate designs on the wood spiraled along the wood. It had once been enchanted, but the magic had long since faded. They had a painting of the bow when it was first crafted, showing blinding white light beaming off the Elorian wood. Amelia didn't need magic for the bow. The way she wielded it made even the most seasoned archer look like a rank amateur. It was like the wind spoke to her, and she listened. She put the arrow in the perfect place, slicing through the wind with barely a sound. She didn't know much about the undead, but she did know that the heart still played almost the same function with zombies as with the living.

  The wolf thrashed around violently, making it hard to line up a shot. Time started to feel still again. Amelia had told no one, but she received a special skill when she took the hunter class instead of her family's tried-and-true Spell Sword class.

  When she knocked an arrow, her perception of time began to slow the longer she held it. Time would move normally, but her brain would start to speed up, faster and faster, until everything felt like it was standing still. She was nearly at the point where she would begin receiving headaches. Still, she pushed through. The wolf was turned around, and a shot to the hind quarter helped slow down her usual prey on the 30th, but the wolf in front of her would barely feel it when it was alive, let alone now that the beast had dulled nerves from the reanimation.

  The headache turned to nose bleeds, but still she held. Finally, when her brain was about to turn into mush, the wolf curved its body so that she could make the clear shot for the heart. She released the string, letting it slip naturally. Archers tended to mess up their shots in the last moment because they would jerk when the string sprang forward. Amelia never knew the exact moment it would go, a more impressive feat considering that her brain ran so fast that it felt like minutes rather than seconds in the final moments of her draw.

  The arrow sailed through the air and flew true. It felt exhilarating, but she watched the HP budge only by 10 percent. She only had five arrows that could be used; the landslide crushed the 20 others.

  The beast began to drag its shambling claws across the ground, the noise making a high-pitched squeal reminiscent of nails on a chalkboard. The frequency increased so that the girls couldn't hear it anymore. They couldn't hear it anymore, but the blood from their ears told them it hadn't just gone silent. Ada tried to stop the pounding sound waves from beating on her eardrums to no avail; the sound bypassed her hands.

  Amelia drew back another arrow and fired quicker, unable to stand the effects of the pulsing noise when her brain slowed it down. The arrow struck the same place, but the beast didn't flinch this time. She started a cycle of knock, pull, shoot. Letting loose all of her arrows. The monster looked like a pincushion around its chest, a clear grouping, but the wolf began to walk in its unnatural style, popping and snapping, fighting the rigor mortis that beckoned the beast to stay still and accept its fate.

  Amelia was frightened stiff and unable to move. In a second, the wolf slashed her three times, one coming from each paw, and the last came from the monster spinning around like a top and kicking like a horse with its hind legs, tearing through Ada's protection. She sailed across the cavern, and when she landed, she felt the wind leave her body, crushing in on itself as she folded into the wall. Her one good eye was cloudy, and she felt moonblinked. She looked at the monster; she didn't want to die. Feeling Ada's healing energy.

  This woman is hopeless, doesn't she see the shape I'm in that zombie is going to kill me, and these little spells aren't going to stop that. Amelia thought to herself.

  She couldn't help the gentle smile that began to creep up on her face. These Earthbound fuck everything up. She was spent. But before she let herself sleep, she felt pressure on her back. It felt like everything was getting heavy. She had no energy to fight and let herself slump to the floor, her body squeezing out blood under the weight pressing on her, almost like she was on a larger planet.