He was a dead man running, and he knew it. The town was so close, but even if he made it there, what were the chances that anyone would be able to help him? His muscles burned with the exertion of running flat out for… however long it had been. Silas had considered himself athletic before tonight, but now he needed to face the truth of the matter. Maybe he had cut a few corners and maybe there had been room for improvement.

  The night had started out so well too. He had snuck out to meet up with Kerri Anne, the prettiest girl in the whole village, and they had been well on their way to maybe actually making out. He and Ken had both been competing for her attention for a long time now, but he had finally gotten a leg up and convinced her to go on a mid-night date. If her old man had known their plans, Silas would have been in for a beating, so they had headed out into the woods nearby. And just as things had been about to get good…

  A howl came from right behind him, and Silas let out a manly squeak as he poured on every last bit of his remaining energy. His pursuers were so fast that he could almost feel their breath on his heels. His eyes darted from dark building to dark building on the main street of the village, but there was no one in sight. His pounding heart slammed against his ribcage erratically and his lungs burned. No choice then, he would have to try his luck at the inn. It was the closest, and sometimes there were even adventurers there.

  Silas veered that way, and with only a couple of feet to go, hot agony sliced through his calf, sending him tumbling right into the path of someone stepping out of the inn’s double hinged doors.

  —--------------------

  “Oh shiiiiittttt!!” Xander cursed as he jumped to the side trying to avoid the incoming human missile. While his combat instincts had gotten better, his agility stat hadn’t. He was reminded of this when his head slammed into the top of the doorway and then his shoulder collided with the door frame and sent him spinning directly out into the night.

  He looked up from where he fell just in time to watch a spear descend and stab into his guts right below his borrowed leather armour. Bright pain washed through him, but if there was one thing that he had learned from his recent battles, it was how to take a hit. He yelped, but his hand still gripped the hilt of his sword as a sneering muzzle bent over him, the hyena-like features full of malice. The gnoll pushed on the shaft of its spear, shoving it slowly deeper into Xander's body with a cruel wheezing cackle.

  Xander gritted his teeth behind the fox mask, and his free hand came up to grab the haft of the spear. Instead of trying to push it out though, he grunted with effort and pain as he pulled on the shaft and helped the gnoll slam it through his body, the tip exploding out of his back. He wasn’t very strong, but his body was light and didn’t resist the shaft in the absence of his bone armor, allowing him to pull himself up into striking range.

  Before the gnoll had time to do much more than frown in confusion, Xander’s arm whipped around and brought the blade chopping into its neck, guided by his passive ability. Unfortunately, he wasn’t nearly strong enough to take the hyena-man’s head off, and the steel got lodged in his opponent’s spine. Hot red blood still sprayed over him from its wound as the gnoll staggered backwards with a gurgle, taking his sword with it.

  Xander fell back to the ground as his opponent let go of the spear transfixing him, and the barbed tip bit into his back as the ground pushed it up with his impact. He groaned, but immediately worked to get back to his feet. “Fuuccckkkk…” he complained, “Again with the impaling?! Bad dog!!” A quick check of his character disk as he rose showed him just over 50% HP, which was a little concerning, but without the boosts from the Grove he should have expected it. Sighing, he reached inside for his magic at the same time as his hands reached for the weapon in his stomach.

  —-----------------------

  Silas watched with shock and horror from behind tear streaked eyes as the woman got to her feet, and ripped the spear out of her stomach. He would have done anything to survive, but watching her get stuck by the monster just like Kerri Anne had nearly broken him. Silas had known she would be dead soon, and he would be next, but he had thought her death might buy him some more time at the very least. The river was right there, and he had started dragging himself towards the railing.

  But then the monster had staggered back and fallen, blood bubbling on its maw, hands pawing at the steel glinting in its throat. Almost worse was the manner in which magical light spilled out of the impossible woman’s wounds. The eerie green glow lit up the strange mask in otherworldly relief and fear gripped his belly as he instinctively felt that she was more of a monster than the gnoll had ever been. She was no human, and Silas froze, hoping that she wouldn’t notice him.

  —-------------------------

  Healing himself had taken quite a chunk out of his mana pool, and Xander knew just how he would fill it back up. He had traded weapons with the gnoll, but his ability let him use either with the same level of skill so that suited him just fine. Stepping over to the asshole, he put a foot on its chest and stabbed the spear down through its eye and into its brain, killing the hyena-man instantly.

  

  You have killed a Gnoll Hunter (Level 11). You earn reduced experience for killing an enemy below your level.

  Xander sighed as no further system disks appeared to give him a level or other rewards, but the gnoll had been under his level and had died easily enough. Reaching a hand towards the corpse, he said “Come then, Gaellus, take back what was yours.” Pale motes of light rose out of it and evaporated into the surrounding air and his own core as flesh, muscle, and internal organs melted away just like in the past.

  The grisly sight was no more pleasant this time as the bones were revealed and vegetation erupted from between the cobblestones of the bridge. Xander had more experience this time though, and guided some of the new growth back to inhabit the very bones they sprung from. It was an efficient use of both the mana pouring into him and the available materials, and if there were any more gnolls in the area he didn’t want to be caught unprepared again.

  Unfortunately, he had forgotten one important little detail.

  “NECROMANCER!!!” cried a terrified voice from behind him, and Xander whirled to see a boy who looked only a few years younger than himself backing away towards the inn. Horror was written all over the kid’s features, his mangled leg still bleeding as he dragged himself towards doors which hadn’t even stopped swinging yet. He vaguely recalled having leapt over something as he exited the tavern, but having a spear attempt to mix your insides was rather distracting.

  “Awwww shit… no wait… it’s not what it looks like…” Xander said, holding out a bloody hand pleadingly. Which was naturally when the bartender peaked out at the bloody tableau. The goblins' already large eyes got even rounder as he took in the sight of a skeleton dragging itself to its feet. In a moment of clarity, he realized exactly how this must look to the two. A bloody stranger with spear in hand standing in the street with a skeleton literally rising from the remains of a humanoid while motes of magic flitted about.

  “Notice: Your Intimidating Aura (Passive) has instilled fear in multiple creatures. Your infamy grows. Experience has been awarded.”

  With a defeated groan, Xander let his arm drop back to his side. The goblin, to his credit, had started trying to help drag the kid back inside the inn while screaming for help. Xander just stood there and watched, unsure what exactly to do.

   came a mental voice in tones so cartoonishly like a henchman that it had to have been on purpose.

  “Oh, don’t you even fucking start with me…” Xander snapped. He debated about dismissing the minion, but the damage had already been done. If angry villagers with pitchforks came for him, he would at least have something to hold them back while he booked it. He absently rubbed the hole in his shirt where he had ripped out the very spear in his hands. The pain was already gone but his accursed memory of it was still vivid, and was bringing back the other memories of being impaled through his throat and chest.

  Another howl pierced the night air, breaking Xander from his reverie and suggesting to him that the danger hadn’t passed. He was still alone and outside of his dungeon, meaning he was both weaker and could be killed for good. This shitty encounter had likely burned his bridges with the village, but that wasn’t their fault. The terrible pun brought a wry smile to his face as he started jogging away from the sounds of the howls.

  Moving only as swiftly as his minion’s top pace, he still got to the other end of the bridge quickly, where Ella’s shop caught his eye. Her unique face swam through his mind, just as a second howl rang out behind him. The gnoll’s excited cries of bloodlust summoned images of Ella crying out in pain as a gnoll drove its spear into her guts. Xander’s pace slowed, and he squeezed his eyes closed before pausing in the middle of the road.

   The terrified faces of the boy and the bartender contradicted that last thought. Indecision plagued him for a few moments, but then he remembered the system notification that had accompanied those scared looks, and his thoughts shifted.

  He didn’t owe these villagers anything, and it was undeniably stupid to stay and risk exposing his identity and life any further than he already had. There could be only a few more gnolls, which he might be able to handle, or there could be a whole horde of them. Maybe there were villagers with fighting experience or an adventurer staying at the inn who could handle everything easily.

  But at the end of the day, Xander had advantages that the villagers did not. That the humans did not. He could take a spear to the chest and rise again. Rise stronger in fact, thanks to his class and his magic. He had the new minion, his Intimidating Aura, and healing magic. Every gnoll slain could provide mana to heal him and provide another minion. So what if he could get killed away from his dungeon; the villagers could get killed even easier. Ella could get killed.

  He knew that last part would hurt him the most, and was probably what was motivating him to begin with. She would probably hate him when she learned who he really was, but that didn’t change how he felt about her right here and right now. Xander turned towards the oncoming howls. “Reggie is going to be freaking pissssed when he learns about this,” he said with a small smile. “But oh well.”

  There was no reason for him to be stupid about the upcoming fight, and he quickly identified several improvements he could make with the time available. Jogging back towards the end of the bridge near the inn, he lifted one hand to his mask and focused on the tan magic swirling in his core. “Might as well lean into the part of a Necromancer,” he muttered, using Sculpt Bone to reshape his mask from a fox to a leering skull. There was a chance that the gnolls would find a Necromancer just as disturbing as everyone else did, which would provide yet another advantage.

  When that was done, he reached into his bag and withdrew the small agility boosting potion and downed that too. He would have used the Parkour Skill Disk as well, but hadn’t thought to ask how to use it in the first place.

  

  Notice, you have consumed a Minor Agility Boost potion. Your Agility has been raised from 4 to 8 for 1 hour and 34 minutes.

  There were some interesting things relating to the numbers of the boost which Xander wanted to think about later, but for the time being he could already feel his body responding with more speed and springiness than ever. It only took about a minute or so to reach the end of the bridge near the inn running at full tilt, which was definitely an improvement. His minion lagged behind him thanks to the new speed, but that was fine.

  Pulling more magic from his core, this time a dark and earthy brown, Xander scattered Toxic Spore Colonies around until he had used around half of his mana. It was an easy decision to avoid using any of the psychedelic versions of the colonies because he wasn’t really going to have the time to wait for them to be effective. Not to mention that his custom modification to the psychedelic version was only effective inside the Grove, or at least he presumed that to be the case.

  Movement in the night caught his eye as several figures came bounding through the trees. He suspected that most people would have had a difficult time spotting them in the darkness, but they stood out well enough to his dryadic vision that he could easily count their number. Panic nearly gripped him as he picked out five of them heading this way. Five against two was not good odds, especially when they hadn’t been weakened by slogging through his dungeon full of traps, and he wasn’t empowered by the Grove.

  Unfortunately, running was off the table by this point, even if he could have lived with the consequences. Gnolls could move fast, faster even than Xander with his improved agility. Well, if he was stuck here anyway, it was time to get down to business. He didn’t have a spear or staff to slam into the ground for added gravitas, but he did have weeks of practice at playing the bad guy.

  “Come then, you damned dirty dogs…” Xander goaded with as much of a chill tone as he could muster, his minion ambling up next to him wielding the short spear it had retrieved. “Test your lives against the dread necromancer if you dare, you will make wonderful additions to my horde…” he said, adding a cackle to round out the theatrics.