A Bone To Pick (Undead EXP Farm)

After receiving her passport, Leona decided to travel. She had heard rumors of an alchemist residing next to a cemetery who needed help with an experiment. She decided to go there. She needed to put some Jewels in her pocket and she needed to learn how to fight against the undead. Chances were good that at least one of her future opponents would be a necromancer, so it would be prudent to learn how to fight the undead as soon as possible.

A full moon had just climbed into the sky when Leona arrived at the Silent Cemetery. It was nighttime, but the blonde was unafraid. The night was her ally. Already she felt an improvement in her senses, her strength, and her speed. Her defense was also boosted.

Leona walked over to a well-lit wooden cabin and knocked on the door. Out came a gray-haired man dressed in an impeccable black dress suit and matching dress shoes. He was a little too well-dressed for the area, but to each his own.

"Oh, how delightful! You must be here to help me with my experiment!" He exclaimed, examining her with blue eyes that were eerily bright.

"Yes. Yes I am. What do you need?" Leona asked him.

"It is simple, my dear. All I need are six soul sparks from the undead who frequent the cemetery." He explained.

"It sounds simple enough." Leona replied.

"It is, my dear. Bring them to me and you will be well compensated for your services." He instructed her.

"But be warned, my dear. The undead will not be defeated easily. They also do not tolerate trespassers." He informed her.

"Thanks for the warning, Mister." Leona thanked the man.

"Mortimer. You may call me Mortimer." The alchemist replied.

"OK, Mortimer. Mortimer it is." Leona said in turn.

"Good luck my dear! I'll be waiting for you!" Mortimer said cheerfully before shutting the door. Leona briefly wondered what she had gotten herself into. She was about to enter a cemetery to fight the undead to get soul sparks on behalf of a man named Mortimer.

There was nothing creepy about that. Not at all. Leona wondered if he was somehow connected to the cemetery as she approached the gate.

Leona stood in front of the cemetery gate. She had given her word to Mortimer. She was going to keep it. There was no turning back.

Dressed in her white t-shirt with tan camouflage shorts and tan boots, Leona shuddered from the cold. Maybe she should put on a long-sleeved shirt. On second thought, she did not want to give the undead another item to grab onto. Leona would be warm soon enough when she engaged in combat.

[Word Count: 450]

Leona entered the cemetery gate and shut it behind her. She did not want any of the undead getting out while she was preoccupied. Speaking of the undead... were were they? She thought that they would be shambling around, forever on the lookout for intruders. Then something else caught her attention... the eerie silence.

"It's quiet. Too quiet." Leona muttered to herself. No cawing of crows. No creaking fences. No howling wolves in the distance. Not even the sound of wind could be heard.

The cemetery was bathed in moonlight. It boasted row upon row of graves, all in alignment. She noticed an open grave with a shovel lodged blade-first into a mound of newly turned earth. Something told her to stay away from the grave. She decided to take a look anyway.

A quick glance showed that nothing was inside and nothing was engraved on the tombstone. Both the open grave and the new tombstone were genuinely unsettling, like someone knew she would be coming here and left them for her to see. Was it Mortimer's morbid version of a joke? Or was it only a reminder of her inevitable fate, the fate of all life? She did not have much time to ponder its origin or its meaning.

The hair on the back of her neck stood straight up. Leona slowly turned around. What she saw caused her to scream. She found herself facing fifteen skeletons with iron swords!

One lunged towards her in a stabbing motion, but Leona ducked and weaved around its attack. It went sprawling into the open grave, where it burst into bones upon striking the tombstone with its head. Leona punched another one in the head with her bare hand, causing its head to fly off and it to collapse into a heap of bones. Twelve more to go.

She tricked two of them who thought they had trapped her between them into striking each other by ducking and letting their blades do the rest. Ten more. She punched the head off of one and removed another one's head with a roundhouse kick. Eight more. Their numbers were decreasing and the gap between members of the mob growing... that was the break the blonde needed.

Leona demolished the remainder with a whirlwind of well-placed punches and kicks complemented by dodging when needed. She thought it was over. She was wrong. The skeletons soon reassembled themselves for a second go. Grabbing another dropped sword, Leona went to work.

She ducked one stab that cut the shoulder of her shirt but missed her flesh. She retaliated with a swing that decapitated the offender and reduced it to a pile of bones. Fourteen left. She decapitated a second skeletal warrior, then a third, then the fourth. She had just decapitated the fifth when her borrowed sword broke.

Leona punched a sixth in the face, causing its head to fly into another advancing skeleton. She  grabbed its sword and used it on the seventh enemy up until the thirteenth when it too broke. No matter. There were only two skeletons left.

Leona threw a Wind Ball spell into its bony chest and shattered the fourteenth one. The fifteenth grabbed her arm, but she simply pulled its bony arm off by kicking it away from her and proceeded to bludgeon it with its own arm until the bone broke. She then finished the one-armed skeleton with a decapitating kick to the head.

Examining the piles of bones, Leona found that two had violet crystals contained within the ribcages. Those must have been the soul sparks Mortimer was after. She scooped them up and placed them in the right side pocket of her camouflage shorts.

Only four more soul sparks to go. Leona took a moment to breathe and look out for the next wave of undead. She resisted the urge to make any skeleton-related one-liners. If she got caught by surprise again, she could easily end up filling the empty grave. Hers would be one of the skeletons some young mage on the make fought for Mortimer's magic experiment.

Leona dismissed the morbid thought. She would not quit, not while she still drew breath. The night was her ally.

[Word Count: 700]

Leona was catching her breath when the next group of skeletons popped up. This quintet of skeletons clutched swords and wore armor. They looked like they would be slightly tougher to dispatch than the first group.

"Well, it certainly took you long enough. I thought you guys weren't gonna show." Leona said to them while stretching. They only looked at her with empty eye sockets. She knew she was wasting her breath.

"Break time's over." Leona said to herself as the quintet advanced on her. She prepared and threw an Air Disc at the leader, who briefly paused to flinch, then kept marching forward. Leona would have to strike them twice before they fell. Then she would have to land another hit to keep them down.

Leona struck the first one with a side kick to the chest, then dodged the sword swings of its friends. The first one immediately reassembled itself. She then decapitated the second skeleton with an uppercut and punched a third, but the third one's armor reduced the damage. The skeleton simply kept walking forward.

She punched one in the chest and made it topple over. It broke apart. This time it stayed down. Four more left.

Two skeletons came from the side and seized her arms and pulled her towards them. Leona watched as a third held a gleaming blade aloft in two hands. Leona struggled to break free, but the skeletons were holding her with unusual strength. She tried to escape one last time just as the blade came down... this time she flung one into the would-be executioner, knocking them down.

A remaining skeleton turned to face her. It lunged forward and grappled her, gripping her hands in its own. The pair twisted and turned in a macabre dance as the other three closed in on them. Both combatants were jockeying for leverage. Leona seized it when she forecefully kicked her dance partner in the chest, removing both its arms and sending it sprawling backwards.

Leona threw the arms towards the three skeletons, who advanced on her in a determined lockstep. She charged the first and decapitated it with a roundhouse kick. The second made a slash at her stomach. Leona screamed as she dodged. Her shirt was cut, but that was the least of her problems.

The third made a thrust at her stomach and Leona dodged, but just barely. Her right side was grazed by the blade. She felt the flow of warm blood start. She hoped that she would not get tetanus from the rusty old blade. Hopefully Mortimer knew a good healing spell and was willing to use it on her.

"That was my FAVORITE SHIRT!" Leona growled indignantly. They were going to pay for it with their soul sparks. Leona lunged to the attack and tackled the offending skeleton to the ground, pinning its sword to the ground with her left knee. She grabbed its skull and wrenched hard. She removed it and the knight broke apart into an inert pile of bones. Three more.

Leona threw the skull at another one, then followed up with a punch to the chest that broke it apart. Two more. Next she grabbed a discarded sword and removed the arm of one skeleton, then kicked its head off. This one fell down and immediately reassembled. She then blocked a swing by the second skeleton with her own sword.

The skeleton brought down its sword in another swing. This time Leona's weapon broke apart. The frustrated blonde threw it aside and punched the skeleton in the head, knocking it off. That one fell down and stayed there. One more.

The survivor lunged at her with a stab. Leona dodged and kicked aside the blade. Not to be deterred, the skeleton lunged at her and grabbed her shirt by the collar. With some effort Leona ducked down and slipped out of the garment, feeling the cold air hit her torso. She then charged her foot and performed a Lion's Tail Sweep, knocking it down with a magically charged sweep kick.

Leona stomped down hard on the skeleton's skull, repeating the stomp until it broke into shards like a clay pot that had been dropped. All the skeleton knights were dead. Again. Leona's side was bleeding and her shirt was bloody and torn. It was a good thing she wore a bra.

She bent down and claimed another soul spark from one of the quintet, sticking it into her right side pocket. Now she was halfway to the goal of six. She then picked up her tattered white shirt and pressed it to her side. She looked down with mild frustration as the waistband of her favorite shorts showed spots of crimson... blood was virtually impossible to wash out.

Leona set down her backpack and fished out a bandage and some antibiotic ointment. Maybe she would have time to at least slap a bandage on her wound before the next group showed up. If she were lucky she would even have time to put on another shirt. It was too cold to run around shirtless.

[Word Count: 850]

Leona applied the antibiotic ointment, then the bandage. No sign of the next group yet. The ointment guaranteed that she would not get tetanus, but it did nothing to stop the throbbing pain from the wound. Leona put the ointment tube away and scrambled for a shirt. All she could find that she could hurriedly put on was a white tank top.

Leona had her arms above her head and had just started putting it on when she spotted them. Ten skeletons with black bones. Nine of them had armor; five of them had swords and four of them had bows. The blonde hurriedly yanked the garment down and put her backpack on.

"I hope you guys enjoyed the show!" Leona snarked at them. There was a really bad pun she wanted to make, but now was not the time for jokes. Those skeletons meant business. They even had the same armor that the last quintet did. Her work would be cut out for her.

Leona threw a Wind Ball at one of them, but it did nothing. The skeleton paused to look at her as if saying "Really?" before advancing towards her. Leona picked up a sword from the last wave of defeated knights and charged. She struck a skeleton in the head... it had no effect except to break the sword into useless shards.

The offended skeleton took a swing at Leona with a sword and sent her sprawling to the dirt with a blow to the side of the head using the sword's pommel. She could not lay there. Ignoring the pain, she quickly scrambled up and put some distance between them. The attacks that had helped her before were useless against the black skeletons. It was time to bring out something stronger.

Leona raised her hand and focused hard. Soon a special sword appeared in her hand. It was the Sword of the Crescent Moon. The shimmering sword with a crescent blade should do the trick. All five sword-wielding skeletons advanced towards her, but this time she was ready.

Leona struck the first one. It instantly crumbled. She began carving her way through the other four. A swing here, a shattered bone pile there... she had damaged three of the black ones. She charged towards the last pair of skeletons when suddenly her ankle was grabbed.

Leona fell forward and tasted dirt. She barely hung onto her sword. She took a glance back. A skeletal hand was gripping her left ankle! Soon another one grabbed her left wrist!

With no time to lose, Leona cut herself free and cut the legs off of a skeleton that got too close. Where did those hands come from? She spotted an unarmored skeleton hanging back from the group. It had its hands raised and its bleached lips moving in some sort of incantation. It was a skeletal mage!

Leona cut her way through part of the group, damaging three more skeletons and dodging arrows. One of them stayed down for good. She raced towards the mage, hopping over the hands that it had summoned to trip her. The mage had raised its hands and was muttering something when Leona decapitated it. She waited for it to reassemble.

She was preparing to finish it when she was grabbed from behind. Leona saw the black arms close around her torso in a vice grip. She spun and struggled, trying in vain to shake it off. It was not budging. The mage was using another spell, but she could not stop it.

Four mobs of five skeletons apiece burst out of the ground. Leona's eyes widened. She was already badly outnumbered. Even if the normal skeletons were not so tough, she could be swamped by sheer numbers. What was she going to do?

Suddenly the wind began to blow. Leona felt stronger. With nothing left to lose, she ducked down, then sprung up and suddenly threw her head back, headbutting the skeleton in the chin. Leona fell to her knees. She was free again!

The blonde scrambled up and cleaved her captor in two, then quickly disposed of the skeleton mage before it could call for more reinforcements. The archers made their presence felt when a hail of arrows rained down on her position, arrows she barely avoided with a swift jump backwards.

The force opposing her was now two sword-wielding black skeletons, four black skeleton archers, and twenty normal sword-wielding ones. Leona was getting worn down. She had to end this quickly.

[Word Count: 750]

[Sword of the Crescent Moon: Two posts remaining before cooldown]

Leona barely had time to catch her breath before the white sword-wielding skeletons were upon her. She easily cleaved through four of them in as many sword strokes. She raced through the horde while swinging. Another three skeletons fell down.

She really needed to get rid of those archers. Ducking and weaving while using the tombstones for cover, Leona closed in on one of them, one who had set up in the southwestern corner of the cemetery. She swung at it, taking off its arm. A second swing knocked it apart, but it hopped back up shortly after.

Another swift swing brought an end to its unholy life. She ducked to avoid another arrow. While she was kneeling she noticed something going on. Half of the skeletons advanced on her while the other half broke off and hastily formed into three-man squads to protect the archers. Could they... could they think?

Leona was concerned by this development. She crossed swords with the last two black-boned knights and disposed of one of them before she had to scramble to cover. The white skeletons moved in. Leona sprang towards them, cutting through two in a single stroke. Those two stayed down.

Spying the archer in the opposite southeastern corner, Leona raced towards it, dodging arrows all the while. The three-man squad loomed in front of her, but she had an idea. Leona kept running straight for it, then at the last second veered off and leaped onto a tombstone, then used it as a point to jump over the archer's protection. Leona barely cleared the team and hit the ground running. She quickly knocked down the archer with a swing of the sword.

As she waited for it to recover, Leona dealt with its security detail. As they fell apart, Leona turned around and faced the revived archer. Another swing brought it down for good. She then finished the team assigned to the corner.

Two more archers, one black knight, and fifteen white skeletons left. No time to rest. Leona plowed through three members of the white wall and rushed through a hail of arrows towards the northwestern corner. She repeated the jump attack and cleaned the archer's clock. She repeated the routine of defeating its protectors, then the archer.

The northwestern corner was clear, but Leona was tiring. She watched as the remaining skeletons shuffled to the corner to protect the last archer. Their grins were taunting her. They knew she would have to fight them all to reach the goal.

Leona rushed into action. She batted aside the sword wall, permanently defeating three more of them and crossing blades with the last black knight. As if knowing the urgency of its mission, the black knight skillfully parried blow after blow and drove her back. Leona saw the others closing in behind her. Leona turned and struck one, then ducked under the black knight's stab and watched it knock down its friend.

The black knight surged forward. It opened with a horizontal swipe. The blonde jumped to the side and leaned sideways before an iron arrowhead grazed her left shoulder. Leona screamed and clenched her teeth. That archer would pay.

Avoiding the knight, Leona sprinted up to the archer and cleaved it in two. She engaged in a furious exchange with three white skeletons, then turned to deal with the archer. Another strike put a stop to it.

Leona quickly defeated the remaining white skeletons. Now it was down to her and the black knight. Its gaze met hers. Green eyes met empty black voids. It appeared to be sizing her up.

It then raced at her with its sword clutched above its head. That was a fatal mistake. Leona made a horizontal swing and cut it in half. It was over. Leona had won.

Leona searched the skeletal remains for soul sparks. She found three in the white skeletons. Her goal was met, but she looked for any more that might be lying around. She found one in the remains of the skeletal mage. The other was in the last black knight she defeated.

Now she had eight soul sparks. It was time to quit while she was ahead. Hanging around to fight for more soul sparks could get her killed.

Leona felt a chill in the air. She decided to leave before even more skeletons showed up. Leona hastened for the cemetery gate. After taking one last look around, the blonde dispelled the Sword of the Crescent Moon and left.

[Word Count: 750]
[Sword of the Crescent Moon has been voluntarily dispelled. It can no longer be used in this topic.]

Leona left the cemetery behind and trudged to Mortimer's cabin. Her arms and legs hurt from the constant movement. So did the shoulder that the skeleton archer's arrow grazed. She made her way up to the cabin and knocked.

"Oh! You made it back, my dear!" Mortimer exclaimed joyfully.

"Yes. Like you said, it was tough going." Leona said to him.

"Do you have the requested six soul sparks, my dear?" Mortimer asked politely. Leona smiled.

"Yes, Mortimer. Yes I do." Leona replied in the affirmative. She dug into her side pocket and brought out all eight soul sparks. She carefully placed the violet gems into his hands.

"Marvelous! Simply marvelous, my dear!" Mortimer exclaimed as he took them and carefully placed them onto a wooden table. He soon reappeared. He was sporting a wide smile.

"Now, my dear. You have fulfilled your end of the bargain. Now I will fulfill my end. Tell me... what do you want as a reward?" Mortimer asked.

"I'd like the Jewels offered for the job, please. I'm saving up for something special, like a weapon or armor." Leona said to him. Mortimer took a look at her. He did not look pleased.

"Of course, my dear. Let me patch you up first." He said. He muttered an incantation and waved his hands. Soon Leona's wounds were completely healed over. Surprisingly her tank top and shorts were free of blood stains. How did that happen?

"Thanks Mortimer." Leona said appreciatively.

"No problem, my dear. Now I must begin my research. I wish you well on your travels!" Mortimer said to her before waving goodbye and shutting his cabin door. Leona's dance with the dead was over. She had completed her first "real" job. Now she was going to move on and seek another job.

[Word Count: 300]

[Overall Word Count: 3800/2500]