Hard Fought

James never expected what happened right after he engaged his latest prey. The skeleton pointed its staff and he only had enough time to raise his shield before he was blasted away down the hall. He rolled and bounced almost to the end of that long corridor, before coming to a stop near the far wall. The skeleton on the other hand, never moved after launching James away which was an oddity.

James pulled himself to his feet before thinking carefully about what had just happened. The spell that had launched him was obviously not one that was meant to do lethal amounts of harm. He imagined that it would be called something to the effect of push. He had seen something similar to that in his skills tab as well, but hadn't thought much of it. It was obvious that this skeleton had plenty of practice with that particular spell for it to be at that level.

Readying himself, James tried the same thing again by simply rushing the skeleton. This time however, as the skeleton raised its staff, James preformed a slide that allowed him to narrowly avoid the wave of mana that came his way. Still on the attack, James saw something amazing. Skeleton skillfully side stepped his lunge with his sword and brought the staff directly down on his face. That was the last thing that he saw before finding himself at the end of the hall again. His body had broken apart when it made contact, but this made little difference to him since he was also a skeleton. The only issue was that his bones had severely cracked all over his body. Another attack like that one and he would be dead for sure.

James wasn't willing to give up as surely, this one skeleton would provide him with great benefits, he could feel it...in his bones. He once again rushed the skeleton, reading its movements as he approached. They continued their song and dance of James dodging magic blast and the skeleton dodging slashes for what felt like an eternity.

Their exchange finally ended when James seemed to move faster and more smoothly all of the sudden. The skeleton mage collapsed to the ground with only a quarter of its skull remaining as the rest landed somewhere behind James.