“We need to learn how to fight together, not just around each other,” Julian said.

  “Yeah, we need to fight like the Ossari,” Harvey agreed.

  “They weren’t any better than us?” Hannah contested.

  “Only because the arc charges threw them off. Once the lightning ran out, they paired off and picked their best target. The archer and the wolves took you, the warriors bundled me up, and the wizard went for Harvey,” Julian explained.

  “The same is true in reverse. We each took our best fight,” Hannah replied.

  “Exactly. We let ourselves get split into single targets instead of fighting together. We need to make sure that choosing to attack one of us means dealing with all of us at once,” Harvey said.

  “Ok, and how are we supposed to do that when we have to worry about accidentally blowing each other up or swinging a sword too far?” she asked.

  “Well, we know our own abilities, and as long as we’re careful, we can make it work,” Harvey explained. “It’s like cheerleading, you guys had routines that told you exactly when and where you needed to be if you didn’t want a high kick to the face, right?”

  Harvey chuckled as her eyes lit up. It was like the cogs in her brain finally slipped into gear as apprehension turned to elation.

  “Are you saying I get to make you losers dance?” she grinned.

  “No. The Undead aren’t just going to stand there and let us do our thing,” Julian laughed.

  “Now that I think about it, it’s more like designing plays for a football team than a cheer routine,” Harvey said.

  “Whatever you have to say to protect your masculinity!” she beamed. “I’m gonna whip you two into the best cheerleaders this side of the portal.”

  They sat in the yard behind the smithy, letting the mountain boosted by the crystal mines below refill and repair their weaves while scheming up tactics. Hannah’s Essence Hawk searched the surroundings for more raiding parties, making sure they wouldn’t be caught unaware while away from the walls. The skill hadn’t been very useful lately since it only detected recently expended essence, and beasts using their innate abilities usually didn’t trigger the magical sensors. But now that they were searching for Ossari, the hawk should be able to scout for them.

  Julian had been the cornerstone of Veils End since the beginning, but his role would need to change now that Hannah and Harvey were competent fighters in their own right. Before, if something was weak enough that someone else could confidently kill it, he’d leave the beast to them and either move to another target or stand by in case things got dicey. Any stronger foes were tackled by him alone, with the other Veilstriders relegated to the occasional skill or shot from behind. Strategies like that were fine for dumb beasts fighting purely on instinct, but against rational foes like the Ossari, they couldn’t afford to reduce Julian to an all-or-nothing participant.

  Instead of taking fights alone and forcing Hannah to wait for openings, he would focus on creating them for her. Using shield slam to send skeletons reeling or heavy sword swings covered in his Firebreak Mantle to soften them up enough for her or Harvey to strike a killing blow. Vanguard’s Entrance would help make sure Julian was always in the right place at the right time to protect the others instead of trying to secure quick kills.

  “That’s probably for the best anyway,” Harvey said. “Those bones are hard as steel!”

  He’d felt it under his hammer while struggling to cave in Sarah’s skull. Harvey had no idea how strong a normal human’s skull was, but considering people were bashing people’s brains in before the System made everyone into superheroes, it probably wasn’t anywhere close to the Ossari.

  “I can’t crack them, so how are we supposed to kill the things if Julian’s not going to do it?” Hannah asked.

  “Not with your normal arrows, but Critical Mass sure did a number on that archer you were fighting,” Harvey said. “Who knows, maybe if you can max out your momentum with Steady Draw, you’ll have enough juice to break through. Besides, Julian isn’t going to stop swinging. Just shift his focus more to defense.”

  Figuring out Hannah and Julian’s roles was easy. She was a cannon strapped to the back of a mobile fortress, and Julian was a flaming juggernaut. Next to them, Harvey felt a little unsure of what to do. It was one of the drawbacks of a well-rounded skillset like his. He could hit hard with Aftershock, Flamestrike, Innovator’s Arsenal, and the occasional Fireball, but that completely ignored his impressive armor and the retributive damage of Fangburner. In the end, they decided he’d take a more neutral role, switching between laying on the damage or blocking attacks depending on the state of the fight.

  After a few hours, they had their first draft of their playbook ready to go.

  “We’re not calling it the P.A.R.T.Y. plan!” Julian groaned.

  “What? It took me an hour to come up with that one!” she complained.

  “An hour you could’ve spent actually helping us!” Julian shouted.

  “I am helping! How else are we supposed to remember the plan without the acronym?” she asked.

  “What does it even mean?” Harvey chuckled.

  “Party! Pile in, Amplify Damage, Ruin Formations, Together, and Yell something heroic!” Hannah beamed.

  “That tells me nothing about the plan,” Harvey chuckled.

  “Exactly, we don’t want the Ossari to know what we’re gonna do. They’ll just hear that it’s PARTY time!” she laughed.

  Just then, her hawk appeared overhead. Its wide wings were pulled close as it dove back into her tattoo with a squawk, and Hannah looked out with an empty stare as she processed the information it brought back.

  “There’s another group of skeletons not far from here,” she said. “Based on their movements, I don’t think they’ll find us any time soon.”

  “Doesn’t matter. We want to kill as many as possible so the main army assumes there’s still a sizable force living in Veils End,” Julian asserted. “Are you two strong enough to fight?”

  Harvey’s mind was a lot clearer after a few hours of drinking in the mine’s essence, and his weave had mostly recovered. Fighting now would be like getting back in the gym after a hard workout the day before. He’d be able to fight at full strength for a little while, but the risk of injuring himself again was higher than he’d like.

  “Yeah, I’m good,” he responded.

  “Lead the way, Buttercup,” Julian said.

  They trekked through the forest, doing their best to stay silent as the hawk once again flew overhead. Hannah had instructed it to circle above the Ossari if it found them again, but there was always a risk the raiders had diverted from their original path. Having spent weeks in the forest, Julian and Hannah were quite proficient at moving quietly. Harvey, on the other hand, had spent most of his time either holed up in the smithy or fighting deep underground, and he was struggling to keep the grating squeaks of his armor to a minimum.

  Lucky for them, a ghostly lantern gave up the Ossari long before they could’ve heard anything. Harvey could hear murmurs being carried by the wind, but couldn’t make out anything the skeletons were saying.

  “Treehouse,” Julian whispered, and they all climbed into the branches high above. Buttercup waited on the ground beneath Hannah, ready to catch her at a moment's notice. The buck looked out of place in the half-dead forest, but that only made him a better lure for the wandering party.

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  Once they were set, Hannah sent a message through her telepathic link instructing Buttercup to make a ruckus. The Grove Sentinel began snorting and stamping through the clearing, even waving his antlers through a few low-hanging branches. The distant light of the lanterns grew larger until they could finally make out the words of the Ossari.

  “What an interesting creature,” a hoarse voice called out. “The first taste of true life for our Graveweavers.”

  “Much better than the mockery of Undeath the System placed in this forest,” another gruff voice added. “It knows our path is not one of mixing life and death. We transcend both, yet it uses these rotten things as heralds of our arrival.”

  The trio watched as a Graveweaver scuttled up to the deer. Buttercup bellowed in warning, but the bone spider merely tilted its head as if it were analyzing a curious specimen.

  “I’m not letting that thing touch Buttercup,” Hannah warned.

  “I know, just wait as long as we can,” Julian replied.

  The graveweaver took tentative steps towards Buttercup, inching closer before leaping towards the deer. The buck responded with one of Hannah’s class skills, drawing essence using their link to charge his Surging Stampede. There was a loud rattle as antlers intertwined with bones, masking the sound of Hannah leaping out of the tree.

  “Party time!” she yelled, drawing back her bow and loosing an arrow that shattered the lantern held by the closest skeleton.

  Julian dropped from the tree as well, infusing his fall with his Vanguard’s Entrance skill to boost his momentum before crashing into the Graveweaver. Unlike the bones of the Ossari before them, the constructs' limbs snapped under his weight. A ring of emberheart fire expanded around him, leaving Hannah, Buttercup, and the forest completely untouched while burning away the black robes covering the two closest skeletons. Underneath, Harvey saw two sheathed longswords matching the one that had nearly decapitated him just hours ago.

  Just follow the plan.

  The steel orb felt heavy in his hand, and he threw it between the swordsmen with a heavy thunk. Before they could react, he triggered the arc charge with Modular Array and watched lightning shoot into their plate armor like a Tesla coil. Jumping down, he saw 5 more skeletons that had been hidden by the leaves. Pulling two more arc charges from his slipsack, he bathed the battlefield in devastating lightning.

  “Go!” Julian yelled, taking a wide swing at the first stunned Ossari swordsman. His swing cut a fissure in the bony neck before tossing the warrior aside.

  “Mine!” Harvey shouted, lunging towards the fallen swordsman with Aftershock.

  “Me!” Hannah yelled, loosing an arrow aimed at the cracked bone.

  Harvey got their first, a satisfying crunch ringing out as the fissure opened wider and the amount of essence leaking from the wound skyrocketed. At the same time, an arrow ricocheted off the back of his right leg. It didn’t puncture the steel, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel it.

  “Ow!” Harvey swore.

  “I called it first!” she shouted, already knocking another arrow.

  Harvey moved to put the fallen skeleton between them and resumed hammering the neck while Hannah shot his armored torso. The arrows wouldn’t do any real harm, but as long as the skeleton was alive, she could use it to build up her stacks of momentum.

  “Dead!” Harvey yelled when a final crash using the warpick side of the hammer completely severed the spine, causing a flood of essence to escape the wound as a kill notification appeared in his mind. Hannah stayed her hand just in time, holding the now glowing arrow steady to make sure she didn’t lose all of her momentum firing into a corpse.

  Harvey turned to face the radiating heat covering Julian’s oversized frame. Firebreak Mantle felt warm and comforting to him, but he could see the skeleton lying on the ground below him wasn’t getting the same treatment. Flames covered the blade, joining with the smaller burst of lightning accompanied by every impact of the sword. Julian swung ruthlessly, like a lumberjack trying to cut through a troublesome root. In seconds, both swordsman were dead, leaving the rest to finally shed their cloaks and retrieve their weapons now that the arc charges had run out of essence.

  Two pulled out large battle axes, two more pulled out bows, and the last remained unarmed. She wore the same icy robes that Sarah had used, making Harvey assume she was another ice mage.

  “Boom!” Hannah yelled, and both Julian and Harvey braced behind their shields. A crystalline arrow cut through the darkness, tearing the missionary’s robes asunder before a chaotic explosion erupted inside her ribcage. It wasn’t enough to kill her outright, considering only 5 stacks of momentum powered the blast, but her screams of agony proved it wasn’t nothing.

  Seeing an opening, Harvey followed up with Innovator’s Arsenal, conjuring a massive hammer in the sky that came crashing toward the screaming skeleton. The branches overhead impeded his swing, stealing some momentum before the hammer forced her to the ground. He could feel the arrays on the weapon weren’t full, so he lifted it and took a wide swing to try to bowl the other skeletons over.

  The bone archers released their first arrows at Julian, and Harvey was stunned to see one of the arrows leave a shallow gash in the steel. The Ossari who shot it turned into mist just as Aftershock was about to connect with its shoulder, dashing away before returning to its corporeal form. The hammer’s head missed its mark, but the long handle caught an axe-wielder by surprise when it knocked him towards Julian.

  Despite the conjured hammer only mirroring the swings of the real thing, Harvey still felt the resistance as he let the momentum push the skeleton towards Julian’s waiting sword. Making the most of the surprise, Julian reared back his arm and sent a Shield Bash into the skull. Bone rattled as intense vibrations knocked the head back, exposing the neck to a devastating swing laced with fire and lightning.

  He heard Hannah and Buttercup race to reposition themselves behind him, using Julian’s enlarged form as mobile cover to hide from the archer constantly phasing in and out of his physical form. Arrows whizzed through the air towards the buck, but whenever Buttercup wasn’t already one step ahead, a force bolt was ready to shoot from his antlers to intercept.

  This is working, Harvey thought. Julian was taking a beating trying to fight off the injured axeman and his friend, but the occasional burst of lightning from releasing the energy absorbed by the shield was keeping them at bay. Apparently, the arc charge had left a shadow on their minds. Nobody had targeted Harvey yet, but he could see a snowball appearing in the ice mage's hand. He desperately swung his hammer back toward her, but the orb was already shooting towards his head.

  Instinctively, he channeled essence into Fangburner and covered everything from his shoulders up in a stone barrier right before he got a face full of snow. Dark, heavy ice covered his head almost instantly, restricting his vision and nearly toppling him over from all the extra weight. Sheer cold tried burrowing into his skin, only to find stone in the way. Unwilling to be deterred, the essence ravaged the stone, creating countless gashes that all spewed forgefire. The ice melted almost as fast as it appeared, and his hammer knocked the woman away. It was enough to fully charge his hammer, so he took an overhead swing aimed to crush the Ossari just like he’d crushed Sarah.

  This witch was faster, conjuring a dome of ice to intercept the strike. Even with his massive pool of Willpower empowering the spectral weapon and his skill letting him overcharge the inscription, her ice managed to arrest its momentum, leaving the cascade of lightning unable to reach the body within. He could tell she hadn’t nullified the lightning completely, but what should have been a devastating blow had been reduced to a glancing one.

  Turning his head, Harvey saw Julian struggling to endure the attacks of 4 Ossari. The ghost archer had realized Hannah was just too elusive and chose to take down the largest target first. Dents and gashes were appearing all over his armor, but Harvey saw no hesitation in his movements. Fire and lightning flashed over and over, illuminating the forest gloom as the man became a meat grinder. Clangs of steel ricocheting off armor filled the air, but the Ossari were managing to hold Julian back.

  Aftershock disappeared into Harvey’s slipsack as fireballs ignited in both hands. He threw them at the weaker archer, hoping to distract him enough to take some of the pressure off of Julian. Their whole plan revolved around Julian creating openings for Hannah, and he couldn’t do that while struggling to fend off 4 warriors at once.

  Seeing Harvey change targets, Hannah and Buttercup veered towards the ice witch, who was struggling to her feet after the dome crumbled around her. By now, Hannah's arrows were full of energy, and all the pent-up momentum allowed her to infuse enough essence to poke holes in their sturdy bones. When Buttercup easily dodged or deflected her snowballs, the mage switched tactics. Frozen armor covered her from head to toe as a 4 foot iceblade appeared in her hands. A ferocious battle cry filled the air as she charged toward Buttercup, only to be replaced by a deafening explosion.

  “Boom!” Hannah shouted, releasing a purple crystal arrow that Harvey recognized as the version containing 15 stacks of momentum.

  Shards of ice and bone shot out like shrapnel from a grenade, and a kill notification told Harvey the woman was dead despite the cloud of dust blocking sight of her body. With one less enemy to worry about, she returned to her post behind them, using the extra height from atop Buttercup’s back to shoot over Harvey’s head and rebuild her momentum.

  The explosion was enough to distract an axe man momentarily, and Julian sent a brutal kick to knock him to the ground. All alone, Julian’s sword was too much for the second axe wielder to handle, and he found his exposed bone covered in gashes that were leaking essence at an alarming rate. The Ossari was fighting against the clock and getting weaker every second, and Harvey had no intentions of giving him a chance to heal up.

  “Mine!” Harvey yelled, pulling out Aftershock as he sprinted towards the injured man. The skeleton desperately tried to intercept the hammer, but Harvey’s swing was too strong. The weapon flew from his hands, leaving the Ossari defenseless as the warpick descended on its skull. Harvey barely managed to crack the bone, but the lightning burst that followed fried the marrow inside until it leaked out like syrupy teal blood. Raising the hammer again, he used Flamestrike to fill the hammer with forgefire that destroyed the marrow altogether.

  You have slain Level 38 - Ossari. Essence Gained. 4987 Merit Earned.

  “Dead!” Harvey shouted.

  “Is killing us a game to you?” The archer with the ghostly movement skill hissed.

  “No, it’s a party!” Hannah shouted.