Rexus ~ Chapter 14!

“We made it.” Jess flopped directly to the ground as she came over the ledge. She wanted to move, but she was far too exhausted to make the effort. “The… the monkeys?”

Jaxon crawled to the edge and looked over. “They are still there, but they seem disappointed. It seems they aren’t coming any closer, but they are gathering together on the slope and staring up at us. I’m sorry you are going hungry down there!”

Jess stared up at the stars and shook her head, “Do you even think through what you are saying? They would be eating us if they weren’t going hungry. Just… are we safe right now? did they stop following us because we are getting close to something more dangerous, or can I sleep?”

“This close to the edge?” Jaxon shook his head. “Two issues there. You might fall off the ledge, or something might attack us. We should… you’re asleep. drat. Alright, well, let’s hope for the best, then.”

Jaxon flopped onto the ground next to Jess and closed his eyes, his ‘exhausted’ debuff ensuring that he was asleep in moments. The bare stone wasn’t going to be the best bed, but neither of them were in a position to complain. The primates below them seemed to sense that the humans had fallen asleep and began screeching in frustration. The noise didn’t bother the unconscious people in the slightest, but both of them shifted uneasily in their sleep as a powerful foreign gaze swept over their prone figures.

Hours passed in moments, at least to Jaxon’s perceptions. His fingers began twitching, unsurprisingly the first sign of wakefulness in the Monk. After a few moments his eyes popped open and he heaved himself upright. Since he didn’t use his hands, instead simply pulling his muscles tight and arriving on his feet, Jess cursed and stumbled away from him. “Jaxon! That was some horror movie crap right there!”

Jaxon looked over at her, blinked owlishly, and looked around the plateau they were standing on. “Full daylight? Dehydration is starting to kick in heavily, laying in the noontime sun didn’t help this at all. Hunger is becoming extreme, I wouldn’t be surprised if I started losing stats due to this. Sleep deprivation is cleared, but I have no ‘rested’ bonus. No attacks over the time sleeping, we must be in a safe zone or the predator of this area wasn’t around.”

He suddenly began contorting, his bones cracking and his body shifting. A few moments later, Jaxon glanced at Jess once more and smiled brightly. “Good morning, Jess. I was just looking myself over and taking stock of the situation. Didn’t mean to ignore you! By chance did you see that we are next to the temple?”

“It… yeah it was hard to miss that.” Jess gestured at the wall of white stone they had slept next to. “Any plans on what we should do next?”

Jaxon looked up at the sheer white wall, scratched his chin, and let his head drift back and forth. “I suppose we should look for an entrance. would you like to travel around together, or go our separate ways?”

“Would you even find the door if I left you alone to look for it?”

“I’m certain I would be fine.” Jaxon nodded gravely. “I do have a raw score of twenty-one points in perception, my only real issue comes from things that are hiding or hidden. It isn’t like I can’t see things as obvious as a door or small gate.”

“Whatever.” Jess grumpily stomped around the exterior of the building with Jaxon skipping along behind her. They went a quarter of the way around the medium-sized temple before they found something different on the pure white stone. “Is that an outline?”

“I think so!” Jaxon started closing in on the wall. “If my prior experience with games is any indication, that means we need to smash the wall right here!”

“Wait, no…!” Jess called futilely as Jaxon swung a fist at the stone. Just before he touched it, the wall opened up into a hallway.

“Oh, look! I found the door.” Jaxon took a step into the temple, and the wall closed behind him. Jess let out a strangled cry and ran forward. In less than a second, she was at the wall and it opened up to admit her. Unsurprisingly, Jaxon was nowhere to be found. Jess sighed and stepped through the wall.

“I suppose this was designed to be a trial for individuals.” She marched inward as the wall sealed behind her.

As Jess walked forward into the temple, Jaxon was just finishing his fall down a steep ramp that had opened beneath him upon his entry to the building. It leveled out into a slick slide near the bottom, and Jaxon skid halfway across the room he was in before finally coming to a stop. He hopped to his feet and brushed himself off before looking around. Jaxon’s gaze stopped on the only source of light in the room, a shining golden eye. After a full second of staring at each other, the eye winked out and the room began to brighten until it was nearing predawn lumination. A screen appeared in front of Jaxon’s face, refusing to vanish until Jaxon had read through the entire thing.

Welcome Challenger! You have entered the Temple of Tempering! By reaching this location, you have passed the first test. from this point forward, the longer you survive, the greater your rewards will be. When you die, you will be placed in front of the temple and barred from reentering the solo halls. Do your best, for you will not have another chance. The countdown to your death begins… now!

The screen vanished and Jaxon blinked at the gloomy area around him, his night vision impacted but his heart soaring. He was surrounded on all sides by animate skeletons, and he had never been happier. “Bones! Human bones! Look at the way they articulate! They are moving as though bounded by flesh, but the movements are visible!”

Sharp fingertips reached for his face, but he easily brushed them away with an aggressive wave of his own hand. “I have so many theories to test! First! I need to ensure these will be affected in the same manner as a living person, and I also need to make sure I’m not overrun. I am sorry to those of you this will impact, but I need to destroy at least half of this group. I assure you that your sacrifice will not be in vain!”

The skeletons didn’t respond beyond a slight pause at his words. Their rictus grins were the first Jaxon had seen that shone with the same clarity and excitement as his own, so he was not going to waste the opportunity to improve his craft. They were already on him, so it was a simple matter to begin inserting his fingers into bone sockets and using his knuckles to apply sudden pressure and torsion to joints. With every blow he dealt, Jaxon studied his opponents. In return, they began to take a toll of flesh and blood. They weren’t overly strong, but the magic animating them seemed to make them inordinately sturdy. If they had been able to put weight behind their attacks, the thousand gashes and cuts he was receiving would have instead reduced him to a pulp.

“This is ineffectual.” Jaxon activated Adjust one last time, and his targeted skeleton’s head spun in place on its spine before simply coming to rest in its original location. Then it attempted to punch him in the face with spiked knuckles. Jaxon dodged the blow easily even as another dozen weak fists pounded across his body. “It seems dismantling is my only option at this point. Off with his head!”

A swift uppercut sent an empty skull flying away. The remainder of the skeleton collapsed to the ground, as whatever magic had been holding it together failed. Smashing the skull or removing it was the only way to reliably stop the skeletons from coming after him, and he preferred to remove the skulls just in case he could reanimate a full skeleton for later experimentation. Having determined the best course of action, Jaxon pushed back and rolled over the top the massed undead. Now with the majority of his targets in front of him, the Monk was easily able to begin separating their heads and bodies.

A pile of intact skulls grew on the outskirts of combat, while the collapsing bodies began to make footing tricky. Jaxon turned and punched, dodged multiple fists, and had soon cleared half of the enemies. He hopped backward a few feet and looked at the current situation. He had a respectable pile of undamaged skulls, but hadn’t been able to stop himself destroying nearly a third of them. He paused too long, and his notifications decided it was time to pop out at him.

Exp: 36 (1 * Skeleton x36).

“You are all level one?” Jaxon paused and paid attention as an undamaged skeleton strode toward him and took a swing. it hit him in the face, opening a shallow cut on his cheek.

-1 HP

“You are level one. Well… that makes this easier.” Jaxon stepped into the group and began punching. No fancy tricks, no attempts at skill usage, just a simply full-strength blow to the skull. The bone crumbled and he sighed. “Of course it is that easy.”

Three more were smashed in as many seconds, since the hard part of destroying them was getting to them quickly. Now knowing what he was facing, Jaxon looked around the remaining half of the skeletons and matched their grins with his own. “As for the rest of you… let’s play."