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and mana while Cryl was changing his bandages.
    "That's it, the bandages're finished," he said with regret. "I only raised the skill to 3 points. I have to heal 4 hits at a time."
    "You shouldn't have started. It will cost you too much at the first levels," I watched a small group who had arrived running in their underpants and were now busy touching their graves and picking up their gear that appeared in place of tombstones.
    I rose. "You ready?"
    I waited for his affirmative and flew up the hill. This time I chose a single gnoll worker lugging a basketful of earth. DoT, two Life Absorptions, a quick hand-to-hand and finally, the welcome experience message. This time it was much easier: the worker had less life than the messenger so he packed up in no time.
    Cryl bent over him, surprised.   "Listen, he's got this Soul Stone here but it won't let me touch it. WTF?"
    "Oh. Jeez, it has to be mine," I hurried to the body and picked up a nondescript little blue rock.
     
    The Soul Stone. Contains the soul of a level 4 gnoll. To raise him, use the Summoning the Undead spell.
     
    I moved the spell to the quick access panel, clenched the stone and cast the spell. With thunder and lightning the stone crumbled to dust. The earth parted right in front of the crouched Cryl's nose, letting out a Gnoll Zombie. The kid yelped and rolled out of its way. "You could've told me!"
    "I'm telling you now," I guffawed. "Meet Rover, my pet. He'll be our tank."
    I spent some quality time in the raised creature's custom settings. I renamed the zombie Rover and entered a few commands: as you'd guess, mainly   Attack! Heel! Off!   and others in the same vein. I ended up with a level 3 pet—not too bad considering that the stone fell out of a level 4 monster.
    "Now it'll be easier. Sit!" I told Rover and ran to pull another gnoll.
    The zombie was nothing to complain about. He made a decent tank pulling the aggro to himself and not letting the mobs kick our poorly armored asses. His hits were mediocre, 5 to 7 points, but he could take the heat and absorb damage. The farming process—that is to say, monotonously grinding mobs—started to fall into a pattern.
    The next three mobs we ripped apart no problem. We even got another messenger, this time level five. After his death, a blue shimmering mist enveloped our bodies and the two of us gasped in unison.
    "Ding!" I said.
    "Up!" Cryl yelled.
     
    Congratulations! You've reached Level 2!
    Racial bonus: +1 to Intellect
    Class bonus: +1 to Intellect, +1 to Spirit
    5 Characteristic points available!
     
    I opened the char's menu. After a second thought, I added 3 points to Intellect, 1 to Spirit and 1 to Constitution. Would do for the time being.
    Intellect had already reached 16 which gave me 160 points mana—not bad at all for level 2.
    "You finished with yours?" I asked a vacant-looking Cryl.
    "Five more sec. You can start pulling."
    "Okay," I nodded and began climbing the hill feeling I'd been living there for ages.
    Whereby I immediately stumbled into two gnoll gatherers.
    "é*@&!" the toothy bastards yelled, lunging at me.
    " é*@ç$!!" I yelled back, tumbling down the hill. "I'm bringing a train! Two gnolls! Rover, attack!"
    I set him loose on the farthest monster. Now I had to deal with just one. "This one's ours," I shouted to Cryl.
    He nodded and stepped in the mob's way. After some quality clashing of steel and humming of spells, the gnoll collapsed.
     
    You've received Experience!
     
    While I'd fought, I kept casting Life Absorption as the quickest way to deal damage. So now my life bar was still at 100% while Cryl's hit indicator hovered in the orange zone.
    The next moment, my zombie groaned and crumbled to dust. His gnoll, albeit rather bruised, turned round and went for us.
    "Wait, step aside. Let me first," I told Cryl and lunged forward burying my dagger in the gnoll's eye.
     
    You've dealt 14 points critical damage to Gnoll Gatherer!
     
    Immediately I stopped his clawed paw with my