When we got home everyone split up to explore their rewards from the dungeon. I was the only one who had gotten an essence. I couldn’t figure out why since I felt like I didn’t contribute that much to the dungeon’s overall completion. But everyone was happy with their little treasures from what I could see.

  I was torn between wanting to read my system book on necromancy and spending time with Ashley. Both things called to me in different ways. In the end it wasn’t that hard to choose though. Ashley took my hand and walked us back to our room.

  As soon as the door was closed behind us, she pushed me up against it with her own body pressing into mine. Her warm skin burned through the layers of clothes that separated us. Her knee slotted between my thighs and I let out a little whimper as she leaned down the few inches that separated our lips. She hesitated for barely an instant before connecting our lips.

  The kiss started out hesitant and slow, like she was fighting to hold herself back. But it quickly ramped up in intensity after I nipped at her bottom lip. She groaned into my mouth and then deepened the kiss. Her mouth hungrily devoured me, leaving nothing behind but a quivering fool.

  My hand slid up her neck and into the soft hairs at the back of her neck. My thumb rested on the pulse point just under her jaw. It was her turn to let out a whimper as I pulled gently on her hair, tilting her head to change the angle of our kiss. Her hand landed on my hip, fingers digging in. I feared she’d leave little bruises from where the tips of her fingers squeezed my side. Her thumb ran circles on the skin under my shirt and a shiver ran up my spine.

  Her lips trailed away from mine and across my jaw. Down my neck. She nipped and sucked at my pulse point. I couldn’t help it as my hips ground down onto her thigh. I groaned loudly as the pressure between my legs grew. The friction not nearly enough for me.

  After a few minutes, she pushed herself away from me. I stared at her with glassy eyes. She took a shaky step away from me. “W-we should slow down.”

  “But, why?” I whined.

  That got a loud laugh out of her. “I like you and don’t want to mess this up.”

  “How could sex make things worse?”

  She stared at me like I was a little slow. And maybe I was, because the idea of not being pressed up against the wall again and being made to scream her name over and over until I was hoarse left me devastated.

  She reached down and picked up the bag she’d dropped as she entered the room. With a lot more cool than I could ever pull off after making out with a beautiful woman she strutted over to the bed and sat down, placing her bag in her lap. She smiled warmly at me.

  It took me several more moments to get my breathing under control. With a grumble I bent and picked up my own discarded backpack. I frowned at her and stomped over to the bed. I crawled onto my side and scooted up to the headboard.

  I pulled out my book on necromancy and set it on my lap to read. Before I opened it up I turned to Ashley, “You know all the others probably already think we’re doing it.”

  “First of all…doing it?” she questioned with a brow arched. I just shrugged. “Secondly, who cares what they think is going on?”

  “Well, I don’t want to mislead or lie to our friends.”

  “That is a terrible excuse,” she laughed. “Read your book.” With her foot she reached out and nudged my leg.

  “Fiiiiiiiine,” I sighed. She continued to laugh quietly at me. I opened my book and almost instantly became absorbed in its contents.

  There were apparently different types of undead and they had different capabilities. Skellies were the most basic units. Having nothing inside those empty skulls meant that they couldn’t hold much intellect and operated on the level of a semi-trained dog. Point and say attack and they’re good. Tell them to flank someone and they might just stare at you. Then there was every level of decomposed corpse up from that. The more organic material they had left, the more intellect they could work with. So, most “rotting zombie” types might be up to the intellect of a small child. Some problem solving skills and multistep operations possible, but don’t expect it to happen fast or well. Then there were the recently deceased. A single recently deceased corpse could have the intellect of an average person, whether the corpse was a person or an animal made no difference.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  The way the whole intellect thing worked was by empowering the spirit energy in the area around me and the corpse. There was only so much spirit energy I was able to manipulate at a time. That amount would increase the stronger I grew, but for now I couldn’t raise more than probably a handful of undead before they were too dumb to be useful. However if all I wanted was warm bodies to stand around and take up space…I could probably raise like two handfuls.

  Taking the spirit essence as one of my three essences was going to pay dividends when it came to my strength as a necromancer though. By increasing my spirit’s strength and concentration I would increase my ability to manipulate spiritual energy more quickly than if I’d chosen another essence. It was in fact one of the recommended essences for any necromancer.

  The final type of undead that I could raise were “animated undead.” These were, usually people who had made such an impact in life that part of them was permanently imprinted on their body. They would have actual personalities and drives. If I could find one to ally myself with they’d make a great boon, always maintaining their intellect and sense of self no matter how many other undead I raised. However, they were also known to backstab and manipulate. Personalities that large were not known to be ok with taking a more passive role in things. They had big main character energy apparently.

  As tempting as that amount of support was, I made a mental note to not try and bind something like that to myself. I already had Mara if I wanted someone crazy who thought of themselves as the main character of everything.

  After reading through my book I decided to get up and take a shower. Ashley was still busy going through her books and other treasures. And I could still use some cold water dumped on me as I flicked my eyes over all her curves and muscles. Tonight was going to be rough.

  ***

  That evening John cooked something in the kitchen and the rest of us sat around the couch relaxing. A mindless reality show played in the background. Mara was the first to tease us about how quickly we had fled to our room when we got home. And about the large hickey that Ashley had left on my neck. Ashley beamed proudly and I stuck my tongue out at Mara, one hand gingerly touching the sore spot on my neck.

  We were being mocked after months of them teasing, well me at least, about each other. I would not stand for it. I drew breath for a truly cutting retort.

  Suddenly there was a knock at the door. We all looked around at each other before Mara hopped up and shuffled on socked feet to the door.

  She peeked through the peephole and let out the most exasperated sigh. With very little fanfare and a whole lot of reluctance she opened the door and waved the other person inside. When she stepped back from closing the door, there stood Lieutenant Montgomery.

  “Hey folks. Just wanted to come check in on everyone and make sure you made it out of the dungeon ok,” he shifted from foot to foot.

  “Yeah, aside from Grace’s clown phobia coming into play it wasn’t that bad,” Mara assured.

  “Clowns?” He shuddered. “I feel you, ma’am,” he nodded his head in my direction.

  For the very first time I felt a small sense of camaraderie with the man that had locked us all up just a few days ago. Who knew it would be clowns that drew us together.

  Mara, with a few comments from the rest of us to add in info or provide better insight, wove the tale of our trek through the dungeon. She was a natural story teller. Listening to her tell it we were a lot braver and smarter than I had felt we were in the moment. But she didn’t lie, or even stretch the truth all that much. She just had a knack for spinning our actions into the best light.

  When she finally came to the end of our time in the dungeon Montgomery spoke up. “Frankly, it sounds like your team had the easiest time. I’m not sure if it’s because of how your dungeon was configured or how strong your team is, but the other group to come through today barely made it out alive.”

  “You mean the other two groups, right?” I interrupted.

  “No. We haven’t heard from the final group and fear the worst,” his feet shuffled uncomfortably. I fell back into the couch. Ashley grabbed my hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

  “We’re giving them another twelve hours,” Montgomery continued. “Then we’re going to ask another group to go through to try and clear it.” He looked around at all of us, “We’re going to ask you to clear it.”

  “What about all the other groups?” I demanded.

  “Your group is the only one with more than one person who has absorbed all three essences. Most groups everyone has absorbed one essence, maybe two for a few,” he answered.

  “You need to push the other groups to get stronger,” John called from the kitchen.

  “Yeah, things aren’t going to get any easier,” Mara added.

  “I’ll do what I can. But for now, your group is the strongest and has the most experience.”

  I looked around at all of us. If this group of dysfunctional nerds qualified as the best and brightest Whitcomb had to offer…what would happen if any of the threats became greater? Could we hold out against everything the System could throw at us? Everything other people would throw at us?

  We weren’t the only ones out here after all. There were other towns, and other communities, and not all of them would be taking the same community forward thinking that Montgomery was. Not everyone who took up the mantel of power was going to be as softhearted as Oliver was. There was a real possibility out there that the most dangerous thing we’d be facing in the coming days wouldn’t be coming from the System at all. It would be coming from other survivors.