33 Chapter 32: Discovering New Abilities

Joshua and Laura didn't make it back to camp until late at night. It took a few hours for the fire to completely die out and even longer for the rain to cool off the building enough for them to enter. By the time they made their way down to the base of the granary all that was left inside of it was the burnt ashes of the creature as it crumbled into pieces before their eyes. Its former glowing eyes were now hollowed out and the only thing that wasn't crumbling away were its giant teeth that were now burnt black as they fell out of its mouth. The scene was fairly off putting, but they were still glad at the fact that they could kill these things if it came down to it.

After making it back to camp they were able to see the conditions of the place and outside of a few claw marks along the fence everything seemed to have held up well after the assault. There were still a few zombie corpses here and there, but they were quickly disintegrating like the last time. When they reached the entrance gate the two people on watch smiled and waved towards them before one ran down to open the gate. By the time they had made it back to the mansion Nathan was like a bullet as he ran out asking them about everything that happened.

That night Joshua and the others were all praised and given a chance to get a good rest. It was definitely well appreciated as not soon after they had all made it back to their rooms all that could be heard was loud snoring the rest of the night. By morning Joshua had awoken refreshed, but still had to massage his shoulders a bit and stretch out his back after the beating he had taken. When he made his way down stairs he was met with an unexpected surprise.

Unlike usual Laura came down for breakfast without wearing her mask. She still continued to wear baggy clothes, but just about everyone in the room besides Joshua were surprised at her looks. Joshua could imagine what was going through their minds and smiled at himself. It might have actually been funny to see how Jacob would have reacted, but he had the distinct feeling that if that had happened someone would have ended up with a fireball in his face.

Soon most of the people had moved out to handle their work for the day leaving Joshua and his group alone at the table eating breakfast. It didn't take very long for Madalyn to start messing with Laura about her new appearance. "So, someone's decided to finally show themselves off a bit. What brought this on?" Madalyn said as she teasingly looked between Laura and Joshua trying to imply something.

Laura glared at her for a moment before responding. "Nothing happened." She coldly replied.

Joshua smiled before deciding to tease her a little bit as well. "Oh come on now, I thought we had a little personal bonding moment and all. I felt like we were on the road to becoming best buds."

Laura turned her glare towards him before Nathan jumped in with a heart broken look. "But I thought we were best buds. Is it because I'm not hot like her? You can tell me you know. I can handle the truth." Natalie giggled at their antics, but decided to just watch the fun.

"I'm sorry my friend, but this cold ice queen of beauty has won my heart. Maybe in another lifetime you can regain the title." Joshua replied before bursting out laughing no longer able to keep up the act. The others at the table followed suit, all except Laura who seemed to be a bit embarrassed but hid it behind an angry pout.

"Why can't you guys be serious?" Laura said as she angrily took a bite out of her toast.

"Oh lighten up princess. We're just having a little fun. After yesterday I think we all deserve it." Madalyn said before calming down and becoming a bit more serious. "I'm glad you've decided to open up a bit more though. Hiding yourself away won't get you anywhere in the long run."

The group was a bit surprised at the amount of sincerity in Madalyn's words. Seeing how the two had normally acted it was an unusual scene. Laura nodded at the older woman's advice and took it to heart going forward. After that little moment everyone started to settle in and looked towards Joshua for the plan for the day. "Well after yesterday all three of you should have learned some new abilities with the level you all gained. At least that's what Laura told me while we were waiting out the fire. Any idea what skills you've gained?" Joshua asked.

"Not a clue. I can feel that I have some new ability, but unless I use it I won't know what it is. Unlike before when we had that voice that pointed out our first abilities we seem to be on our own this time." Madalyn said getting a nod in response from the other two girls.

"Well if that's the case then that will be our goal for today. We'll test and figure out what new abilities you've gained. We don't really need to go around searching for zombies for this." Joshua said as he started to think about how to go about testing their new skills. "I think it would be best if we went back towards town and test out your new abilities on the creatures on the fringe of the haze this time. We haven't been there in a while to check out the area sense we've been so busy clearing out the zombies lately."

The others agreed with his idea and all started to finish their breakfast. They made idle banter occasionally messing with Laura and bringing her into the conversation instead of letting her be her usual aloof self. When they finished they got their equipment and made their way out to exit the camp. Joshua made sure to let the Carsen brothers know that they were heading out and gave the guards on duty a wave as they opened the gates for them. As they started the long walk towards town Joshua was met with the usual scene of Natalie trying to make idle conversation with Madalyn and Laura. Unlike before Laura did actually reply back occasionally, but was still clearly more use to having less interactions with others. On the other hand Madalyn seemed to easily lead the conversation to certain topics whenever she pleased.

Nathan on the other hand was busy discussing all the ways they could possibly improve on their team work in the future. As Joshua explained everything that happened in the fight the previous night, Nathan would point out better ways they could have used the mental link to be more in touch with each other's tactics during the fighting. Joshua was happy for the bit of advice, because he didn't want to be caught off guard by a surprise assault of one of his team members while fighting like before when Laura charged in with her spear. If he hadn't reacted quickly then the monster attention would have gone straight to her and that could have ruined everything at the time.

While walking Joshua took notice of Madalyn doing something strange with her daggers. At first he thought she might have been checking if there was any damage to them, but after a while it seemed like she was trying out something new with them. After a few minutes her metallic daggers started taking on a deep green hue. At first it was just the place she was touching, but over time the green shading started to spread all along the dagger to its very edge. "Um, Madalyn what's that?" Joshua said as he pointed to her dagger snapping her out of focus.

"Oh I was just trying out something that I noticed back at the granary. When you had me seep gas inside through the cracks, sense it took much longer to fill up something of that size I was able to notice something interesting. Whenever I apply poison onto a solid service for a long period of time it starts to become tainted." Madalyn explained as she twirled around the dagger. She walked off the road for a moment before stabbing the nearest tree with her dagger and within moments you could see a sickly green pigment spread throughout the spot. When she removed the dagger, the wood in the immediate area began to rot and fall off. "Well that is interesting. Might prove useful in the future."

"That's so awesome!" Nathan shouted as he walked over to look at the tree in wonderment. He avoided touching the spot as he inspected it to see how far the rot would spread. It didn't take to long for it to stop, but the area of effect was about the size of a two foot in diameter circle. "It's like you enchanted your weapon with poison."

"Excuse me?" Madalyn asked in confusion.

"What the nerd means to say…" Joshua started to say as he received an angered look from Nathan. "…is that you've made your weapon able to inflict poison on contact without having to cover it in poison each time. It should be quite effective going forward."

"I don't see the difference between that and when I heat up my spear." Laura said as she pointed towards the new spear she had gotten from the hunting equipment room this morning.

"There's a huge difference. When you heat up your spear it's a temporary effect that disappears when you stop feeding it with your magic. On the other hand…" Nathan said as he pointed towards the dagger that Madalyn had now placed back at her waist. "Even when she's let go of her dagger it's still affected by the poison. It's permanent."

The others nodded at Nathan's explanation while Joshua turned back towards Madalyn. "That wasn't your new ability right? Sense you said you figured it out before we even killed the thing I guess not. Well, have you had any other epiphanies lately?"

"No, but I think I'm going to like this permanent effect thing, now I can prepare ahead of time instead of having to tire myself out during the middle of fights." Madalyn replied as she pulled out her other dagger and repeated the process. The others nodded and then continued on their way back towards town. When they arrived the first thing they noticed was the lack of zombies in the area and the fact that the haze seemed to have spread even further than last time by quite a bit.

"Well we'll go back towards the old plan, I'll lead a group of the creatures to the edge of the haze then you guys can test out your new abilities." Joshua said as he looked towards his group before rushing ahead. The others waited for him just a bit outside of the haze. After having killed so many zombies and one giant sub boss they weren't nearly as worried about a stray zombie or two trying to surprise them. Still they kept a bit of distance so they would have plenty of time to react if that did happen.

It didn't take Joshua too long to come back with a group of around a dozen haze monsters following behind him. When he left the haze all of the creatures just glared in his direction as they stood there waiting for him to come back. "Alright here's the first group. We're not here to grind to day so don't worry too much about saving up your energy and just test out how strong your new abilities are. Laura you're up first."

Laura nodded before stepping ahead of the others and preparing herself. She pulled on the feeling she was getting from her new skill before raising out both her hands in front of her. After a few moments of concentration a spark of fire started to form in front of her, but instead of the usual large fire ball it was in the shape of a long spear similar to the one she wielded. It wasn't pronged at the end, but was one long sharp point. The others looked on in amazement at the new ability before Laura pushed forward and sent the spear flying towards the creatures. It moved at a speed far faster than her fireballs and instead of exploding on impact on the first creature it pierced through it and another one standing behind it before hitting the ground and exploding the moment its penetration was stopped.

"Well that was much stronger than the fireball." Laura said with a faint hint of a smile. "It took a lot more out of me though, maybe twice as much as a fireball."

"That's good to know. It seems to be much more suited for penetration than splash damage like your other spell." Joshua said as he looked at the small pothole sized crated it created from the impact. "It would be useful when fighting something with tough skin and healing abilities like the monster from last night. Would have been much easier to kill it if we had hit it in the head with one of those."

"Wait a minute Laura can you do that again?" Nathan asked causing everyone to look at him strangely.

"Sure, but why?" Laura responded.

"I think there is a way you can make it even more effective. Sense this ability seems to rely on penetration force then you could probably improve it greatly just by causing it to spin before firing it. Kind of like a bullet or a drill." Nathan explained causing everyone to nod at the explanation and anticipate how much the difference would make.

Laura calmed herself once again before taking the same stance as before and forming another fire spear in front of her. This time instead of immediately sending it hurtling towards the remaining creatures that had avoided her first attack she instead started to make it spin in place. It took a while, but soon she had it spinning so fast that it was creating gusts of wind and waves of immense heat in the surroundings. The effort clearly drained her far more than her first attempt as she was breathing heavily before she sent it soaring towards haze. The speed of the spear was far faster than before as it made it in front of the zombies in an instant.

When it hit the first monster it completely shredded it as it passed through to the next one. This continued through five more of the things before it flew past the rest and off into the distance before exploding out of sight. There were only a few of the creatures left alive as Laura fell onto on knee to catch her breath. Natalie went over to help her up while Joshua went on ahead and killed the last three creatures and headed into the haze to see the damage of the explosion. At this point one experience point didn't really matter so he didn't leave the three creatures for the girls to kill and finished them off his self before going further in. When he saw the results of the explosion he was surprised to see a crater about four times the size of the previous one.

As he left the haze to tell the rest of the group the results he took notice of how bad off Laura was as she was still breathing hard and sweating like crazy. It was clear that this move would be a finisher for now considering she could probably only do it once, before over exerting herself. He and Nathan would have to plan for this. "Are you alright?" Joshua asked as he approached.

"I'll be fine, just need a breather." Laura said before taking another deep intake of air before continuing. "How was the result?"

"It was at least four times the size of the previous one. The crater I mean. It was also far deeper so it must not have exploded until it drilled its way into the ground for a while. It'll definitely be are trump card if we can ever get one of those creatures to stay still long enough." Joshua replied as he could also tell that Nathan was also thinking of the best way to use Laura's ability in the upcoming conflicts.

"Alright big guy, go round up some more of those things so I can test my skill out next." Madalyn said as she smiled towards Joshua. With an annoyed snort at her constant use of calling him out on his size Joshua rushed off to gather another small group of creatures before returning to the scene of Madalyn standing at the ready while the other three watched on. Joshua moved out of the way letting Madalyn have a clear shot at the creatures for whatever she planned to do. At first Madalyn created a large green cloud in front of her, but it quickly turned a more bright shade before condensing itself into a liquid and spraying towards the creatures. When the green contents landed on the nearest creature it started wailing in pain as steam started emitting from its body where ever the stuff touched. Even when the green goop landed on the ground you could hear a hissing sound as the ground seemed to melt slowly.

"Was that acid?" Joshua asked in surprise.

"Seems like it, it's a lot more direct than my usual poison, this could definitely make me more versatile in the ways I can do damage. I'll have to research it a bit more before I know how useful it will be though." Madalyn said as she watched the poor creature slowly melt before its screaming stopped. She turned towards the other few creatures that Joshua had lured over before sending another blast of acid towards them. Soon all of the creatures were nothing more than melted masses of flesh.

"I wonder why all of your abilities seem to be so focused on killing in the most gruesome ways." Nathan said as he shivered at how her attack had left its victims.

"Who knows maybe it's just my style." Madalyn replied with a vague smile.

"Well that's two down. How about you Natalie?" Joshua said turning to the last woman of the group who seemed to have a puzzled look on her face.

"I think I've figured mine out already." She said before suddenly everyone in the group could see an image burst into their minds. At first it was just a still image, but soon it turned into more of a full on memory. It was the memory of the first time Nathan had talked to them about the whole situation being like a game. "Not only can I send my voice through the mind link, I think I can also send memories. Well, as long as I concentrate while doing it."

"That could be very useful if we need to send information relatively fast. It would give us a chance to show each other what's going on instead of having to explain it. It doesn't put too much stress on you does it?" Joshua asked.

"No it feels the same as before I just have to concentrate a bit more to send the memory through." Natalie explained. Joshua and Nathan started to go over ideas of different ways to use the new abilities while Madalyn and Laura rested after expending so much energy. After the short test they headed back towards camp with an extra pep in their steps after gaining so much strength to rely on.