*More or less,* she told him, *but somehow cuter.*
Garath hissed fiercely in his cat form and swiped at the air with his precious little claws. *Hey. I'm about six pounds of raw dont-fuck-with-this-ness. Anyway, I'm about to summon some help but the skill descriptions mentioned one of them may turn on me. So...*
*I got your back, kitty.*
*Thanks a lot,* he thought to her. Somehow, his projected thought oozed sarcasm and she laughed openly at him.
"...but you're so cute!" she said aloud.
He ignored her and began to focus his will into the casting - as soon as he did, a neon-green circle appeared on the ground in front of him and began to thrum rhythmically, almost like a pulse, as the green light intensified. When the three-second cast was complete, a sickly-green and vaguely canine head began to emerge from the center of the summoning circle, followed by the rest of its hulking form in short order. The Fel Hound's long grey tongue hung lazily out of its mouth between long, pointed black fangs. Its muscular body emitted a neon glow and its sharp, black claws clacked on the rooftop as it eagerly approached its tiny summoner. Having just cast his first Skill with the Tainted Soul cost, Garath was expecting something to happen, but it didn’t. At least nothing immediately apparent. He strained to perceive any change with all of his senses, but came up empty. The demon-beast looked down at Garath and wagged its stubby tail just as the black orbs around the planet reached their climax.
In a single instant, the seven orbs on the roof - and those spread every few feet across the globe - spawned their monsters with the same deafening boom that had signalled the start of the first wave. And with that, the second wave of The Culling was underway.
What spawned from the orbs this time looked similar to the skeletons of the first wave, with a few minor differences. Each of the newly spawned undead minions had rotting gobbets of flesh still attached to their bones and they wore chainmail armor. Instead of a randomly assigned weapon, these new enemies wore a uniform scimitar and buckler. Patches of long hair hung ragged from their heads and a demonic green glowed in their empty eye sockets. Still in his House Cat form, Garath triggered Inspect on the closest enemy atop the roof.
Fetid Ghoul
Undead
Health: 25/25
Level: 4
Station: Infantry
Mana: 0/0
Description: Fetid Ghouls typically act as infantry units in service of a Lich Lord. The Ghouls were summoned to Earth without leadership and will attack anything and everything - except for other Ghouls, of course.
Average Respawn Time: 10 minutes
Level Range: 4-6
Before Garath even finished reading the short description his Fel Hound leapt into action, attacking the Ghoul closest to its master. It jumped into the chest of the undead soldier, knocking it to its back, and then started ripping furiously with its long fangs at the boney arm raised in defense.
‘Good boy!’ thought Garath to himself. ‘Boy, right?’ he wondered, but didn't check.
As soon as he targeted a Ghoul rushing toward his Fel Hound with its scimitar held high, Garath began to crave the experience points this creature could give him. He craved it then even more than he had ever craved anything in his life. He felt powerful and yearned with every fiber of his being to show these monsters just how powerful he was.
In House Cat form, the build up of Mana into a spell felt awkward - when Garath funneled his Mana into Death Bolt, it formed a ball of black energy that hovered just in front of his nose instead of between his outstretched hands. Though Death Bolt's energy was black, and directly in front of his field of vision, he found that he could see through it just fine - the effect, like seeing the world from behind a pair of aviators. He wondered briefly if that was because his night vision was so vastly improved in feline form or if the system worked that way so that he would be able to aim effectively. The pulsing energy tickled his whiskers as he targeted the Ghoul approaching his Fel Hound from behind. Garath released the spell and it sailed unerringly into his target, knocking it backwards and off the roof.
Athios dispatched three of the Ghouls with what was quickly becoming her signature move, the sky drop. Each of her targets dropped to the cement below and shattered into a miasma of neon colors.
Another of the rotting corpses atop the old school building lunged at the little white cat with its scimitar but the Necrologist’s enhanced reflexes and greatly reduced size allowed him to dodge it easily. The wicked sword hit nothing but air then sliced harmlessly into the roof.
As Garath's Fel Hound tore the arm from the Ghoul beneath it, the fluffy Necrologist sent another Death Bolt into the one armed bastard - parting it from its last few HP. When the arm dangling from the Fel Hound's mouth flashed and evaporated. Garath could swear he saw the canine brute pouting as his prize vanished without ceremony.
Athios ducked a broad sweep from a notched, steel weapon and sent a disk from her right hand to land below the feet of her attacker. Before getting pulled into the shimmering portal, the undead soldier wound up and hurled its weapon at her. The razor-sharp scimitar cleared the few feet between them and pierced her chest, tearing through her skin easily then puncturing the lung inside.
She spat blood and dropped to her knees with the sword still embedded in her chest. The throbbing agony near her heart served as an all-too-real reminder that she wasn't playing a game. She tried to reach for the scimitar's handle but the pain was too much, every movement of her muscles grinding bone and flesh against steel. Her head swimming and breathing ragged, Athios fell
