Chapter 2: Preparations

Mary’s POV:

Alex stood in a clearing of the Rocky Outpost. He swung his sword with a fluid motion from near where its sheath was on his back all the way down to his opposing hip. The tip of the sword followed an exact path as if drawing in the air, despite the swing being done many times over itself. Each time taking a dominant step into the swing. After about 20 times, he’d switch to the other hand and begin again. After 20 or so times with that hand, he’d start over again from his main hand. Nearby under the shade of a tree, Devin and I sat drinking from a metal water bottle. Devin had closed his eyes and laid his head in my lap. I dared not move and disrupt his sleep. As a group we had slain about 3 rock golems each before the sun reached its peak over the outpost. We were showing signs of exhaustion. However, despite our effort running around the outpost, the money made was not enough for rent. All we could do was wait for new rock golems to form and hope the newly formed golems had enough monetary value for us to survive the day. 

Alex began his request without stopping his swinging. “The monsters in this area form at random and we are basically left to wait for them after clearing the area. If we went to a more developed area, while we’d be fighting stronger monsters, the monsters follow a routine set of actions. We could form a strategy to maintain safety while increasing our pay.”

There was a brief silence before he continued.

“The crypt has a large amount of undead and is very dangerous once inside. However, we could slay the stray skeletons that roam the area without ever actually entering the crypt. Most of the skeletons have simple trinkets or jewelry that can be refined for their metals, but sometimes there's magical items which can be worth more. We’d probably make double what we make here. And 5 times that if we got even a lower tier magic item.”

“Skeletons?” I replied.

“I forgot you’ve only been here a month.” Alex halted his swinging and began rotating between pushups and situps, without resting between. His muscles, while not very large, appeared very lean and impressive without his baggy shirt. “Twice a year, there's an event I’ve deemed ‘Halloweek’… I don’t actually know if it's on the date of halloween but the event seems to work with the theme of the holiday. During that week, our lovely little town is bombarded with waves of undead, including skeletons, ghouls, and some sort of knight. All trick or treating for death.”

“Wait, what's the difference between a ghoul and a skeleton? I thought a ghoul was basically another word for undead?” I think I remembered a video game with ghouls that guarded a cemetery and the main character, a dwarf paladin, had to go around throwing jars of holy water at them. 

“Well, they look different for one. A ghoul has flesh that is clearly old and not alive. But the flesh itself doesn’t actually rot. It's more like the injuries and imperfections just don’t heal. The key difference though, is that the ghouls can use various forms of magic. At the stage you’re at, if you see an undead that isn’t very clearly just walking bones, run away. You won’t survive seeing either the ghouls or knights.”

“I’m not sure I want to fight the skeletons either,” I quipped.

“The knights are a bit of a mystery. During the event, they stand at the edge of the town and oversee the skeletons and ghouls running in. I don’t know if anyones ever actually killed one or knows what they look like under their armor. They do ride skeleton horses which is pretty cool.”

I’m not sure if I’d call something three times my size, made entirely of bones, and just dying to stomp my face in as something “cool”. I’m also pretty sure it has never occurred to Alex that something exists solely to stomp his face in. 

“The event itself is pretty simple. The undead at the crypt spend time gathering other undead and creating an army to attack the town. The more we kill in the area, the longer it’ll be before they attack. Unfortunately killing them outside the crypt doesn’t delay that much, and venturing in the crypt is deemed too dangerous for the council to authorize. Personally I think that our Leaders are just too focused on the labyrinth to focus on anything above ground.”

“I don’t know about that. The town seems to be growing pretty well. While there are people sleeping on the streets, as far as I know there is always housing available if you can afford rent. The counseling also helped us a lot at finding things like training in using swords, and how to trade items we find.” My response ended with one last sigh, “If only they could teach us magic too.”

“They may offer training, but its not like people make enough money to have free time to take the training courses. And anyone can use magic, it's just that not everyone knows how. The people that know how to use it choose to use it for their own gain rather than teach others. The mid levels of the tower may be unsurvivable without magic. Because of this, mages are generally hired by adventurers if they can’t use magic themself.”

So if I knew how to use magic, then I wouldn’t need to do these routines? I wonder how much I could make. Would Devin not need to work these dangerous jobs? I began rubbing my chin but the movement seemed to have begun waking Devin up so I returned to my original position. Sleep wasn’t something to take for granted in this world. If he was able to sleep peacefully, I sure wasn’t going to disrupt it. I began running my fingers through his hair in an attempt to soothe him back to sleep. I began thinking back to the event while talking in a lower volume.

“If the town is attacked, what happens to the citizens? Most of the people I’ve seen aren’t exactly in fighting shape.” Aside from the drunks who passed out in the streets or on benches, this world also had elderly and children. Saying that one third of the population was capable of fighting was a very generous estimate. Even less were actually used to combat. 

“The council forces the citizens into the first few floors of the tower. There's no threats or danger on those floors. Honestly, I think we’d live there if it wasn’t for the lack of sunlight. Although, despite the council’s advice or guidance, non fighters still die during the event… Between the non fighters and the people actually trying to clear the wave, we usually have about a hundred deaths.”

“Is that only a hundred, or is that number too high?” After asking, I reminded myself that I probably didn’t want to know. 

“It's less than the number of suicides every year. Considering there's about two thousand or so new citizens being transported in, I’d say the number is a little high.” Alex finished his last set of pushups and walked to a tree with a low hanging branch before beginning hoisting himself up and down.

It was conversations like these that reminded me how lucky I was to have survived even a month. Honestly, I’m not sure I would’ve survived without Devin. And Devin definitely wouldn’t have survived without me. He’d never leave the safety of his bed if I didn’t physically drag him out each morning. I’d gained more muscles from dealing with his dumbass than the actual expeditions to the Rocky Outpost everyday. 

I could see Devin slowly opening his eyes with a smile growing on his face.
“Time to get back to work you lazy bum.” I said matter of factly while flashing an obnoxious smile.

“I’d rather enjoy the view.” he said in a coarse sleepy voice.