Adv Log Session 48: The Catacomb Fight
General Summary
Starsday, Colding 20, 879 AFE
The figure turned its head toward Taid. In the light of the glowing sword, Taid could see that its face was a mess. It only had one eye, no nose, and half its mouth was missing. Taid could see most of the teeth on one side of its ruined face.
It stood up from its crouching position. Taid could see that it didn’t have the reddish, wet, crawling skin of a Shardzombie. It had the dry, sunken skin of what he could only call a “regular” zombie, unenhanced by any Shards. It was dressed in an old, tattered coat, with a separate hood. One hand had a glove on, the other was bare, its bones nearly visible through the torn skin and muscle.
It seemed to smile.
“Are you lost?” Taid asked. He was sure he knew the answer, though.
It moved towards him.
Taid was in front, his halberd in his right hand, its use relegated to that of a top-heavy spear. In his other hand was his short sword, the tip glowing from being the subject of a spell of Continual Light, at a very bright level. It was so bright it was hard to look at without one’s eyes watering. But it shed a bright, white light over everything in the area.
Almë stood hunched over behind him, his staff also too long to easily move around in the cramped confines of the tunnel. To move his staff around he had to be deliberate with his motions, although he had an easier time doing that than Taid ever would.
Behind Almë was Elitheris, also needing to hunch over a bit, because like Almë, she kept hitting her head every time she took a step without thinking about the ceiling height first. She held her bow at an awkward, tilted angle, and she knew that there was no way to engage the proper muscles to get a good strong shot off.
Ruby was next, with Mister Wigglesjust in front of her and Norolind by her side. She, like Almë, was needing to be careful with her staff, and more than once she’d banged it against the marble tiles that lined the catacombs.
Eykit was rearguard. He couldn’t really see what was happening up ahead, past the three people who blocked his view, but he heard Taid ask someone a question, and there wasn’t really much of an answer. He pulled out his knives.
Both of the dogs were growling, having smelt something that they didn’t think was normal.
Taid shouted, “I’ll skewer it, and hold it in place! Ruby! Flame it!” He aimed Maggie’s point at the zombie’s chest, waiting for an opportunity to lunge and strike it. That, at least, the halberd could do, even if its more standard attack moves were inaccessible.
Eykit gripped his daggers, and stepped closer to the sarcophagus next to him. With Taid holding it at the end of his halberd, and Ruby turning it into roasted, spitted meat, there wasn’t much else for him to do. Unless it was fire retardant. In which case, they might be in for some trouble.
Almë patted Taid’s armored shoulder, and took a few steps back to get out of his way and to allow Elitheris to move up to get a better shot.
Taid stepped forward, angling towards the wall as he thrust Maggie’s spearpoint at the zombie’s chest. Moving closer to the wall would allow Ruby to get past him in order to fry the ugly dead thing. His thrust wasn’t a quick movement; he was more interested in pinning it, rather than disemboweling it. Plus, he was testing its reflexes and speed. If it dodged back, or sidestepped, or something similar, it would give him an idea about what this thing might be capable of.
The spike moved towards the zombie, and it grabbed the spike with its left hand, stepping back as it pushed forward. Its other arm was now visible, and Taid saw that it held a sword, previously hidden behind its body and tattered coat.
Elitheris stepped forward to the corner, saw the zombie as it grabbed at Maggie’s point, and in what seemed like no time at all pulled an arrow out of her quiver, nocked it on the string, drew it back as far at the cramped tunnel would allow, and let it fly. The arrow, a heavy warbow arrow with a finger-thick shaft and heavy steel point, slammed into the zombie’s sword arm, punching completely through the forearm. Its sword clattered somewhere behind it, sliding noisily along the polished marble tile of the floor.
Mister Wiggles felt the tension ramp up, and saw Elitheris spring into action. He barked, and leapt forward, to see what had gotten his companion all worked up. He saw the zombie engaged with Taid, and growled threateningly.
Norolind, keyed off by the smaller dog, growled as well, his fur bristling and his muscles tensed, ready to spring forward. Ruby, noticing this, didn’t want Nori to go leaping into whatever unknown danger was around the corner.
“Stay!” she commanded, grabbing his collar with her free hand. His ears flicked in her direction, but he relaxed his muscles. He didn’t stop growling though. His bass rumble sounded very loud in the confined, hard sided space. Her dog settled for the moment, she move forward to try to get a view of what was happening and who…or what…everyone was fighting. She had heard Eykit pull out his knives, readying himself for potential combat. When she got past Almë to the corner, she could see that there was a figure at the end of Taid’s polearm. She was just in time to see Elitheris’ arrow disarm it.
It’s right arm hanging loosely at its side, and sprouting a nearly a half meter of wood on either side of its arm, the zombie hunched over the head of the halberd, and dropped to its knees, taking the halberd with it, pinning the weapon against its own body. It laughed, loudly.
Eykit scurried past Nori, moving closer to the action. He still wasn’t sure what was happening, but Taid was busy doing something, and Elitheris has shot an arrow at a target. And Mister Wiggles was barking. So something was going on, and he needed to know what it was.
Almë set his staff leaning against the wall. The catacombs were too small an area for him to wield it effectively anyway. He pulled out his knife, glancing behind the group past Eykit and Nori. Nothing was back there. He laid his hand on Nori’s head, trying to keep him calm.
Taid pulled back on the halberd, heaving with all his strength. The zombie was dragged back towards the group a full meter. Taid wanted it closer to Ruby, to aid in her spell casting. And it was working.
All of a sudden, Eykit heard the sound of stone tiles slamming into the floor and cracking, followed by the sound of bodies thudding to the grounds and the tinkling of coins and other small items. He spun, and saw two more zombies, both Dwarves, roll out of a pair of upper niches, landing in a crouch. They stood up, amid the pieces of broken stone. The pair of sarcophagi they had come out of were both missing their front faces. Eykit could see a couple of old bones remaining in the niches.
“Oh shit!” He yelled. “We’ve got company!” He couldn’t help eyeing the grave goods that the two new zombies had shoved out of broken sarcophagi on their way out. But unfortunately the treasure would have to wait. And there were no Civil Patrol down here to see him take it….The gold and silver and goblets and jewelry would have to wait.
Elitheris glanced back, hearing the crashing of stone just as Eykit had. She saw the two Dwarf zombies roll out of the two adjacent niches as well. They were trapped, the two new zombies blocked their only exit. She spun around to get her bow in line with her new targets. “Get down!” she ordered, as she prepared to launch an arrow downrange.
Mister Wiggles, seeing Taid attacking a foe, tensed to charge at it, ears back and tail low, his mouth open in a toothy snarl. “Wiggles! Come!” Elitheris commanded, and the dog obediently spun about, looking at the Elven woman for more instructions. He was such a good boy.
Norolind, not having been commanded, stayed put, Almë gently stroking his head. His doggy brain was wondering if the two new people that fell out of the wall were something he needed to think about, but Ruby hadn’t said anything, so they must not be bad.
Ruby planned on engulfing the zombie in fire. However, before she could do that, she had to make that she didn’t burn up Taid’s halberd as well. So, she started casting the spell of Fire Resistance, which would give Taid and his equipment protection from what she was about to do to the zombie.
The zombie, still in a crouch, pulled on the halberd in an attempt to yank it out of Taid’s hands. Taid, of course, wasn’t about to let go of his precious Maggie, and so he dragged forward a couple of steps. The zombie laughed, a harsh, coughing sound.
Eykit heard Elitheris’ warning, and unhesitatingly dove to the marbled floor next to Norolind. He’d seen her put an arrow through both ears before, and that kind of effective wound wasn’t one he wanted to experience.
Almë said, “Norolind, this way,” as he nudged the big dog to turn around and face the new threats. He held his knife in the guard position, point raised and facing outward.
Taid, pulled forward by the zombie, said, “Fuck you,” as he heaved on the halberd, dragging the zombie back towards his companions. He felt…something…as energy flowed over him. He didn’t know what it was, but it didn’t hurt, and didn’t seem alarming.
The two armored Dwarven zombies strode forward, wielding swords and shields. One stabbed at Eykit’s legs, barely getting through the enchanted gambeson armor that he had taken off of Jakkora in the cannibal Goblin caves after putting a knife in his brain through his eye. Eykit barely felt the blade enter his calf muscle, and he silently thanked Jakkora’s ghost for the good armor.
The second Dwarven zombie attacked Norolind, slashing at the dog’s leg. The blade opened up a gash down the front of Norolind’s thigh, from hip to knee. The dog yelped, then growled in fury, its leg unable to support weight. Blood dripped onto the marble floor, scattered dots appearing as the dog moved.
Ruby heard her dog yelp, knowing that her beloved Nori was getting wounded, but she grit her teeth, determined not to let it distract her.
Elitheris let her arrow fly at the zombie that had just dug a gash into Norolind’s leg, while commanding Mister Wiggles to “sic ‘em!” The arrow flew at the zombie at point blank range, but the zombie was nevertheless able to get its shield in between him and the incoming arrow. The arrow punched through the shield, its point sticking out a full three centimeters on the inside of the shield.
Mister Wiggles jumped into action, going after the zombie that had attacked Eykit. He bounded at his foe, who, dropped into a crouch behind his shield, bracing for the attacking dog. Mister Wiggles slammed into the shield, bouncing off, a bit dazed.
Norolind, his leg unusable and tin pain, attacked the zombie in front of him. He jaws came close to closing upon the zombie’s leg, but the undead Dwarf shifted his legs back to avoid him.
Ruby, her spell to protect Taid from fire successfully cast, turned to see what was happening to her dog. Norolind was standing, his haunches shaking, and she saw why. His left leg was bleeding profusely from a long gash down his leg. There were two Dwarven zombies, armed with swords and carrying shields. Both swords had blood on the tips. She saw Almë next to Norolind, ready to fight. An arrow from Elitheris’ bow slammed into the zombie’s shield, thrumming with the force of the hit, and Mister Wiggles was charging at the other zombie. Eykit was on the ground, but beginning to get up. She watched as the second zombie dropped to a crouch behind his shield, protected against the smaller dog.
Her momentary glance told her that the two zombies back there were being engaged by almost her entire crew of companions. There wasn’t much she could do, and she trusted them to do their best to look out for Nori. She concentrated on casting the spell of Flame Jet. There were few problems that couldn’t be solved by a gout of fire to the face, and this wasn’t one of them.
The zombie curled around Taid’s halberd tried to pull the polearm out of Taid’s grasp. And, like before, Taid was not going to let go. And again, Taid was pulled a couple of steps forward, away from Ruby. “Damn it,” Taid muttered.
Eykit scrambled forward, trying to open up some distance between himself and the zombie that had been attacking him. He scurried between Elitheris and Almë.
Elitheris and Almë saw a pair of Dwarven skeletons come around the corner from the far end of the hallway. They were coming at a run. They were armored, and armed like the other two zombies with swords and shields.
Almë, his Elven agility on full display, leapt over Norolind, putting himself in a position to attack the zombie that had laid open Norolind’s leg. His dagger slashed downward, and the zombie blocked the blow with his shield.
Taid couldn’t see what was happening down the hallway; but he got the sense that something was amiss. On the plus side, though, he saw a gout of flame sprout from Ruby’s upraised hand, splashing against the ceiling tiles before she lowered the aim.
The zombie on his halberd was locking him up, and while he would have liked to push this zombie around on the end of his halberd as if it were a mop, he didn’t have time for it. He ran forward, his hands sliding along Maggie’s shaft, and as he got to the zombie he kicked at it. His booted foot lashed out, but the zombie shifted and leaned back, causing Taid’s foot to glance harmlessly off of the zombie’s chain shirt.
Eykit and Mister Wiggles had effectively changed positions, and the Dwarven zombie that had stabbed at Eykit’s legs was now fighting a dog. It didn’t seem to care, one opponent was much like another, and its orders didn’t specify a specific target. It attacked the dog, but its sword clanged on the marble floor as the dog leaped out of the way.
The second Dwarven zombie now faced a hunched over Elf, armed with a knife. It lunged, but the agile Elf deflected the incoming sword strike with his knife, pushing the point off line.
Elitheris quickly drew out an arrow from her quiver, nocked it, pulled it back as far as she could in the confined space, and let it fly at the zombie’s sword hand. It traveled the three meters to its target in almost no time at all, and the zombie that had attacked Mister Wiggles managed to interpose his shield just in time. The arrow thwacked against the wood and stuck, quivering.
The zombie’s shield rose up to block the arrow, revealing a pair of ankles that looked like very good targets to Mister Wiggles, who jumped forward and clamped his jaws around the right one. Even if he wasn’t able to chew through the boot, he’d still act as an anchor, slowing the zombie down.
Norolind moved forward, clamping his jaws on the left leg of the zombie that was attacking Mister Wiggles. That one had a dog on each leg, and it wasn’t going anywhere. Norolind’s teeth ripped through the gambeson of the leg armor.
Her spell of Flame Jet now active and turning her hand into a flamethrower, Ruby lowered her point of aim to encompass the crouching zombie that held Taid’s halberd. She was Taid scramble forward and kick at the zombie just as she engulfed it in flame. Taid didn’t feel the flames that curled around him, but the zombie did. The fire crisped its leg, the gambeson blackening in the flames. The leg gave out, unable to support its weight, and it went from a crouch to a kneeling position.
Eykit kipped up to his feet, standing next to Elitheris and behind Norolind. He impressed himself with his athleticism.
The two Dwarf skeletons marched forward, closing the distance.
Almë started concentrating on the Spell of the Spasm. Trying to strike past the shield the zombie had was going to be too difficult, but maybe, just maybe, he could get him to drop it.
Taid pulled out his dagger and head butted the zombie, their helmets clanging together, the sound echoing down the halls.
The zombie with dogs on his legs tried to do something about that, but the two dogs pulling at him in different directions made him miss, and his swordtip glanced off of the ceiling tile, striking a spark.
Its partner slashed at Almë, who again deftly parried the stroke with his dagger, deflecting the blade into the wall and causing the air to ring with the sound of metal on stone. Despite the distraction, Almë didn’t falter with his spell casting.
Elitheris readied another arrow, drew back, stepped forward and let the arrow fly at the zombie that had just attacked Almë. Her aim was true; the arrow struck its mark, embedding itself in the zombie’s shield arm. It wasn’t enough to make the zombie drop the shield, however.
The two dogs, clamped on either leg of their target, used their powerful neck and jaw muscles to dig their teeth deeper into the undead flesh of their target. The combined effect of their efforts caused the zombie to fall to the floor onto its back. Its right foot was looser and floppier than it should be, and its left leg had a gaping tear in the muscles. Even without the dogs pinning it to the ground, it would have a hard time rising on its damaged legs.
Ruby continued to play the gout of flame over the zombie acting as a weight on the end of the halberd. Its clothing was starting to catch on fire. Its flesh blackened and crisped, and the smell of burnt meat filled the air.
The zombie, its leg on fire, let go of the halberd. Its hand shot out and grabbed the upper edge of Taid’s breastplate, its fingers interlaced in Taid’s beard. It was an unexpected form of attack, and Taid was too slow to pull back. He could smell the dirty fingers beneath his chin, getting their filth all over his beard. He could feel the zombie pulling him forward, almost as if the zombie wanted to give him a kiss. He was pissed off and disgusted in equal measure.
Almë’s spell activated, the subliminal energy that he saw as a quick magenta flash shooting forward towards the standing zombie’s shield hand. He could see the shield quiver a bit, but the zombie didn’t drop it like he’d hoped.
All of a sudden everyone felt a sense of foreboding, flooding through their veins like ice water. The hairs on the back of the neck stood up, and breaths caught. The dogs whined; they felt it too. Something bad was coming. Something really, really bad.
The corridor behind Eykit lit up with Ruby’s flame jet; he could hear the flames and Ruby’s mutterings of “Die, bastard” and “Fry, asshole!” The sense of imminent doom wasn’t filling him with confidence, and he took a moment to assess the situation, noting the enemies engaged with them, plus the two more in the middle distance coming closer. He had a couple of seconds before they were on them.
Almë was disappointed about the spell he cast having little to no effect. He grit his teeth, and struck with his dagger. The zombie interposed his shield, and Almë’s knife left a mark in the wood.
Taid had his knife out, and saw the stream of flames spraying onto the zombie. He plunged his knife into the zombie’s back, punching through the chainmail and the gambeson underneath. Taid felt the blade snap through some links of metal, slice through the layered linen, and into the softer flesh beneath.
The prone zombie thrust his sword at Mister Wiggles, hitting the poor pup in the face. The borderbull yelped and leaped back, away from the thing that had hurt him. It was a major wound, and blood covered the dog’s face and dripped off his jaws.
The other zombie aimed a slash at Almë’s leg, opening up a gash. Almë’s gambeson legging darkened with blood. It stung, but it didn’t seem to be a deep cut. Almë would have to check later to see, when he got the chance.
Elitheris saw the shield move to block Almë’s dagger attack, but she could see the arm she wanted to hit. The arrow hit the arm, a finger’s breadth away from the other arrow. It didn’t look like it penetrated very far.
Mister Wiggles backed away, whining piteously, and hid behind Elitheris’ legs. He left a trail of blood as he moved. The sword thrust had pierced his tongue and gone into the roof of his mouth, emerging just in front of his left eye.
Norolind clamped down on the leg of his foe, and while the zombie pulled his leg back, the big mastiff didn’t let go. The dog’s teeth effectively slid down the leg as the zombie pulled, opening up a huge gash in the leg.
Ruby raised up her point of aim on her flame jet, and the gout of flame rose up the zombie’s chest and shoulder and ended up bathing his head in fire. Hair crisped immediately, its scent sharp in the air and competing with the smell of roasted meat. It made a noise, a moaning, desperate gurgling sound as it’s face charred and blackened, the muscles contracting in the heat.
Under normal conditions, Taid’s face would have been burned as well, since the zombie was face to face with the Dwarf. But the Spell of Fire Resistance that Ruby had cast on him first made the nearby flames feel like a warm spring day.
The crisping zombie, its head on fire, snapped its head forward, trying to bite Taid’s face, but Taid was ready for it, pulling his neck back as far as the zombie’s hand on his breastplate would let him. The blackened teeth clamped together with an audible crack, and the thing moaned in disappointment.
Eykit moved past the cowering and wounded Mister Wiggles, careful not to slip on the dog’s blood trail, and struck at the prone zombie pinned by Norolind. The rondel dagger plunged through the chainmail and gambeson and into the undead thing’s gut. Ichor flowed out, thick and smelly.
Almë started casting the spell of Spasm again. He was determined to make that stupid zombie drop its shield.
The two armored Dwarven skeletons moved up, ready to engage.
Taid stabbed at the zombies’ groin, trying to get under the chainmail. He didn’t quite make it, and the point caught on the hem, deflecting the blow.
The prone zombie stabbed at Norolind, but the angle was awkward, and he missed as the huge mastiff shifted to one side. The other Dwarven zombie attacked Almë, but Almë parried the blow with his dagger. He kept concentrating on the spell he was casting.
Elitheris’s eyes flicked around from one side of the narrow hall to the other as she tried to figure out her best course of action. She had no shot on the prone zombie, and the zombie on Almë had that damned shield. There were two skeletons about to attack, although arrows did little to them. All of those thoughts shot through her brain in a fraction of a second, and she made her decision, aiming for the zombie’s weapon hand. The arrow thunked into the zombie’s shield, joining the other arrow that still protruded from it. The zombie hadn’t had a chance to break them off yet, and if she could put enough arrows into it, it would be slowed down and off balance by the weight.
Norolind, pinning the zombie down, advanced up the undead thing’s crippled legs, lunging at the zombie’s weapon arm. The zombie tucked his arm beneath the shield, and the dog’s teeth scraped across the wood.
Ruby kept playing the stream of fire over her target. It was still moving, shifting as best it could while still holding onto the halberd. The stream spilled onto its chest, heating up the chainmail and igniting the gambeson underneath. The smell of burned meat increased in strength.
That smell infiltrated into Taid’s nose, as the zombie tried, once again, to bite at his face. It was just about the only thing the zombie could do; it couldn’t really move about with its crippled leg, and its good arm was clenched onto the rim of Taid’s breastplate. Taid could feel the undead creature’s knuckles at his throat as the zombie pulled on him, its mouth opened wide in its ruined, blackened face. Taid jerked his head back as far as he could, given that he was being held in place. The zombie’s teeth clacked so close to Taid’s nose that he felt them scrape the tip.
The spell of Spasm went off, and again Almë “saw” the magenta flash arc from his hand to the shield hand of the zombie who faced him. Its arm twitched, and the shield fell, its leather rim thudding onto the ground before toppling over onto the prone zombie and Norolind. Its primary defense was gone.
Eykit, his target mostly obscured and covered by a large black mastiff, stabbed at the prone zombie. And despite its position, pinned underneath an immense dog, it managed to block the goblin’s stabbing daggers.
Its shield gone, Almë stabbed at the zombie’s face. The zombie’s sword flicked up, the blades sliding along each other as it pushed the incoming blade away and off line.
Taid was getting tired of the zombie in front of him. It should have stopped moving by now, and while that was mostly the case, the important parts of it were still animate. Fine, he thought, this bastard wants me closer? I’ll oblige! He spun around the seated zombie, shifting the haft of the halberd up around the undead thing’s neck, and grabbed the end spike with his other hand, dropping his knife. He had the zombie in a neck lock, the hook up against the zombie’s neck.
The prone zombie struck out at Eykit, but Eykit was too fast for it, and shifted out of the way, the sword point flicking past him. The other zombie, glanced down at its fallen shield, opted to ignore it and just attack the Elf that was in front of him, but Almë, like Eykit, was fast enough to dodge out of the way of the attack.
Elitheris grinned; her target had dropped its shield. Now she could go for his weapon hand, and she loosed an arrow. The zombie never even saw it coming; its attention had been on Almë, not a tertiary target behind several others. The arrow slammed into the hand, piercing through the wrist and causing the creature to drop its weapon. The sword clanged onto the marble tiles at its feet.
Mister Wiggles, still whining from the pain of his major face wound, swayed on his feet, the blood pooling around his shaking legs. He was in bad shape.
Norolind tried to bite the prone zombie’s arm again. The zombie’s shield had blocked him last time. This time, however, Norolind managed to get his jaws clamped onto the zombie’s forearm. Now, in addition to both its legs being crippled, and a 90kg dog sprawled upon it, its sword arm was trapped in the dog’s mouth, and the dog had no intention of just letting that arm move wherever it wanted. The zombie was going to have a hard time attacking with its sword.
Ruby played her flames down the crouching zombie’s body, trying to burn its good leg. It didn’t have chainmail protecting it, and she figured she be able to burn through its gambeson leggings more easily. Unfortunately, Taid shifted position as he grappled with the creature, and his body got in the way, the flames splashing off of him harmlessly.
The zombie, Taid’s halberd haft pulled up against its neck, turned its head and tried to bite at Taid again, but Taid was behind it, and he easily was able to keep out of the way. Its hand, having let go of the breastplate when Taid spun around it, flailed at the halberd, trying to pit its strength against Taid’s. Taid had the advantage of a stronger body, and a lot of advantageous leverage. The zombie really didn’t stand much of a chance. Taid was going to hold it until Ruby had roasted it like a rotisserie chicken.
Eykit stabbed at the prone zombie like an enraged sewing machine. His foe managed to block the first one, although the force of Eykit’s stab punched ten centimeters of his blade through the wood. The second two attacks came in quick succession. One struck at the zombie’s sword arm, hampered as it was by Norolind, but the dog’s worrying attack threw the Goblin’s aim off enough that the point of his rondel didn’t penetrate the mail. His final stab plunged into the zombie’s leg, going through the gambeson like it wasn’t even there.
Almë gritted his teeth, and stabbed at the standing zombie’s face. The zombie had no shield, and Elitheris had caused him to drop his sword. The knife punched into the zombie’s rotting face, snapping its head back and slashing out, creating a gash that extended from its lips to almost the ear.
Taid, his muscles bunching under his armor, twisted the haft of the halberd, rotating the hook so it lined up with the zombie’s neck, then with a grunt of effort, drove the hook onto the undead thing’s neck. The hook tore through the muscles and cartilage of the neck, ripping out enough to create a hole big enough to put a fist in.
The zombie fell limp in Taid’s arms, its corporeal body no longer in any shape to house its animating spirit. It was dead…again.
The prone zombie, its sword arm effectively pinned by Norolind’s jaws, nevertheless still tried to attack Eykit with its shield, slamming the edge into the Goblin’s leg. Eykit cried out in pain, but the layered gambeson legging prevented any actual injury.
The other zombie no longer had a sword or a shield, stepped forward towards Almë, it’s good hand reaching to grab Almë’s weapon arm. But Almë was too quick for the zombie, and managed, if only barely, to keep his arm free.
Elitheris nocked two arrows on the string, and started drawing them back, aiming at the closer of the two skeletons.
The prone zombie stopped moving, its body too damaged to continue, and Norolind let its arm drop out of his mouth. He got to his feet, shaking his head, slobber and ichor spraying out in all directions. That was two down, one zombie and two skeletons to go. That sense of creeping foreboding was still there, in the background, making everyone feel on edge.
Ruby saw the zombie she’d been burning go limp, sagging in Taid’s arms. She let the flames emerging from her fist subside and go out. She turned; her attention had been on her target, so she had no idea what was happening behind her and around the corner.
She saw Elitheris, ready to shoot a pair of arrows; Almë was in a clinch with a zombie; another zombie was on the floor, not moving, Norolind standing astride it, Eykit crouched, knives out next to him; and two armored skeletons about to attack. Almë’s staff leaned up against the wall in front of her. She grabbed it.
Eykit saw the skeleton step up to take the fallen zombie’s place. He charged, planning to slam into the skeleton to knock it over, but the undead, animated skeleton sidestepped, and the Goblin hurtled past. As he did, the skeleton struck at him with its sword, but Eykit saw the blow coming and shifted his path of motion enough that the sword tip scraped off of his mail shirt.
Almë was grappling with the zombie who’d tried to grab his arm. That zombie was still trying to get control of Almë’s weapon arm, but Almë struck out with the knife, stabbing at the zombie’s face again. The knife blade hit the zombie’s face just under the top edge, hit the skull, and slid to the side, opening up a twelve centimeter cut above one of its eyes. Its head rocked back from the blow, and ichor dripped into its eyes and down its cheek.
Taid picked up his knife, returning it to its sheath, and stood up. The dead zombie’s body slid off of his lap, tumbling onto the marble tiled floor in a heap of splayed limbs. The wound to its neck looked like it had almost decapitated the undead creature.
The zombie grappling with Almë head butted him in the face, but Almë turned his head, taking the blow on his helmet’s cheek guard. It hurt a bit, but didn’t injure him at all.
Elitheris’ two nocked arrows were ready, and while she had been going to shoot them at one of the skeletons, she shifted her aim to the zombie that was grappling with Almë, specifically, its leg. She was hoping that taking out its leg would either kill it, or at least make it less able to fight her friend.
Both arrows slammed into its leg, simultaneously, the two thick arrow shafts waving about like flags as it fought with its opponent.*
Norolind, still favoring his wounded leg, bit into the zombie’s leg, just under where the two arrows stuck out of it. His strong jaws closed, biting through the zombie’s achilles tendon, and the leg was unable to support the zombie’s weight. The zombie held onto Almë, pulling him downward, and they both crashed to the floor.
Ruby took a step forward as Almë and the zombie fell to the floor. She could see the two skeletons just past Norolind. She started casting the spell of Fire Ball, and little flames started licking at her fingertips.
A ball of swirling flames formed in Ruby’s hand.
Eykit, didn’t bother stopping his headlong rush, he just redirected it into the other skeleton. That skeleton interposed its shield between it and Eykit, and the quick little Goblin slammed into the shield, sending the skeleton crashing against the wall.
It struck back at the Goblin’s head, but Eykit easily parried the strike, sending the blade swooshing past his shoulder.
Almë had been pulled to the floor with the zombie, who was trying to both attack Almë and get untangled from him at the same time. He stabbed at the zombie’s face again, but the chaotic melee made the strike difficult to pull off.
One of the skeletons strode forward, a quick downward cut of its sword slicing through Almë’s gambeson legging and opening up a gash two hands long. Blood flooded into the layered linen of the gambeson, and had Almë been standing, he would have fallen, his weight being too much for that leg.
But the pain Almë felt, and the feeling of cool air blowing over his opened thigh, and his frustration at the still moving zombie, all combined to cause him to lose his mind. His vision blurred and whitened, a berserker rage filling him to the point of overflowing. He screamed, a throat-rending howl of rage and pain.
Taid, his halberd too long to turn around in the narrow confines of the hallway, backed up towards the intersection, which did have enough space to maneuver his halberd. He could see the other two zombies down, and Almë down as well.
The zombie grappling with Almë lunged at his face, trying to bite it off, but Almë, squirming about as he was, caused the zombie to miss.**
Elitheris glanced down at Mister Wiggles. The dog, shaking and laying in a pool of his own blood, was pawing at his face, trying feebly to put his face back together. He did not look good. She started casting the Spell of Major Healing. She’d seen Almë go into his mindless berserk state, and hoped Eykit was far enough away not to get hurt.
The zombie Norolind had been chewing on had stopped moving. The big dog looked around, trying to puzzle out who he should be attacking next. The gears turned in his brain, slowly. The tall Elf was acting oddly, like a crippled rat doing whatever it could to survive, lashing out blindly at anything around it.
Ruby could see Almë, frantically beating on the zombie he was grappling with. It reminded her of some of the drug addicts she’d seen in Adayn’s seedier sections of the city. Some of them seemed to go crazy sometimes too. His wild knife slashes were uncontrolled and wild, so she called to Nori, “Back off, come here!”
Norolind heard the command, and turned and came back to Ruby.
Elitheris’ spell completed, and the mystic magenta sparkles that only mages could see flowed down her arms and into her severely wounded dog. “That should make you feel better, boy,” she said soothingly. The edges of the cut, sparkling with magenta motes, magically knitted closed, leaving a much smaller wound by the time the magical color faded away. Mister Wiggles’ tail wagged.
Eykit, up against the shield of one of the skeletons, saw movement out of the corner of his eye, down at the far end of the hallway. It was too far to see clearly, and he didn’t have time for it at the moment anyway. He kicked his leg out, trying to sweep the skeleton’s legs out from under it. But his leg just stopped when it hit the skeleton’s boot. Eykit could feel the impact up his shin.
The skeleton wasn’t impressed. It clacked its teeth, and stabbed at the Goblin’s offending leg. Eykit parried the blow, pushing the sword just enough to miss his leg. The sword’s tip clanged off the marble tile, cracking a chip out of it.
Almë was on autopilot, if autopilot went full throttle with no regard as to direction. He bit at the zombie’s face while hammering at its leg with his dagger. “You want to eat me? I will eat you back!” He chewed into the zombie’s cheek, ripping off a piece of its rotted flesh. The knife sunk into the zombie’s thigh, ripping through the gambeson legging it wore.
The second Dwarven skeleton aimed a cut at the spasmodic Elf, but missed, hitting the zombie instead. The sword blow glanced off of the chainmail the zombie wore with a rasping clang.
Eykit shuddered. The sense of foreboding ramped up. His heart hammered in his chest, and he suddenly had trouble breathing. He turned his head this way and that to maybe get a glimpse of what was causing it. He saw it, coming up the hallway. And it saw him. It looked straight at him, and Eykit could feel its malevolence, its desire to consume him. It was still too far to make out clearly, but he could tell it wasn’t a skeleton. And it didn’t move right. It shambled, and its skin was loose and baggy, wobbling about as it shuffled forward. There were glints of something in its eyes.
And the worst part was that Eykit knew just what would happen when it got close. It would touch him, and when it did, he would become like that thing. They would grab his head, and chew on his face in an obscene parody of a kiss, and he would become a thing like they were. Whatever it was. Manticore poison liquifying his flesh would be a quicker, cleaner, and more preferable way to die. He shivered, his hands shook, and he moaned involuntarily. Being killed by one of those things was a slow, horrible process, taking days or weeks, a glacial progression of losing one’s self in an ocean of pain as it asserts control and make one’s mind simply an imprisoned passenger.
Eykit didn’t know how he knew this. It didn’t matter; he just did. It was Truth, a painful, horrible Truth, but Truth nonetheless.
Taid, from his position at the intersection of the two hallways, could see the crowded scrum of battle in front of him. He could see Ruby, Elitheris, Almë, and Norolind fairly clearly, but the rest of the combatants were less easily discernible. He could see Almë’s leg, soaked in blood, and Almë’s frantic movements, which Taid recognized as his berserker state.
The skinny Elf has done lost it, the Dwarf champion thought. He’s going to permanently cripple that leg if he’s not careful. He clenched his teeth, and started casting the Spell of Major Healing. When he had replaced Maggie’s shaft with the balanced ebony wood, he’d also had it invested with the Mage Staff enchantment. That enchantment extended the reach of a mage casting a spell, which was important because the farther away the target of the spell was, the harder the spell was to cast. So getting close to the target was an advantage.
The mostly crippled zombie grappling with Almë lunged forward, trying to bite the Elf’s face. Almë lunged forward, with no regard for his own safety, and the zombie’s teeth clamped about the nasal of the legionary helmet Almë wore. Almë could see the teeth worrying the metal right in front of his eyes.
Taid, Elitheris, and Ruby were also feeling a sense of increased foreboding. Something was drawing near, something horrible and dangerous. Parts of their brains registered something vague coming towards them from the darkness, but they were more focused on what was happening right in front of them.
Elitheris could see Almë and the zombie wrestling on the ground, biting at each other, Almë flailing at the still-moving but nearly crippled undead creature. She put an arrow into the zombie’s leg. The zombie had been too busy grappling with the spastic Elf to even see it coming.
The people weren’t the only ones that felt the fear radiating out from the creature that was stalking up the hallway towards them. The dogs felt it too. Mister Wiggles gave a sorry-sounding whine, as he took off running around the corner, yipping, leaving a trail of piss behind him. Norolind stood frozen in place, shaking, emanating a soft whining noise that belied his usual gruff nature.***
Ruby held her hand up, the ball of flame curling about her fingertips, ready to throw it. She had two skeletal targets to choose from; she threw it at the one on her right. It was closer; the other one was fighting Eykit, and she didn’t want to risk frying the Goblin.
The ball of fire streaked across the distance between Ruby and the skeleton, and it raised its shield. The flames burst across the wooden shield, leaving little flames licking across its surface.
Taid finished casting the healing spell, but the magic just didn’t come. He could sense the motes of mana sparkling around his fingertips, but they didn’t coalesce into anything useful.
Eykit ducked low, and slammed into the skeleton again, trying to knock it over. He led with his knives, hoping that the skeleton would block the knife by raising its shield high enough for him to get under it. He got his wish; he aimed high with the knife, and the skeleton interposed its shield, and the knife thunked dully into the wood. He ran forward in a low crouch, slamming into the skeleton’s legs. He thought he heard a faint cracking noise, and the skeleton had to take a couple of steps to keep its balance, but it didn’t fall over.
The skeleton, with Eykit’s arms around its legs, slammed the edge of its shield on the back of the Goblin’s neck, but the thick layered gambeson collar absorbed most of the blow. Eykit felt it, and he almost lost his balance, but while it hurt, it didn’t stop him.
Almë put both hands on his dagger, plunging it into the zombie’s leg. Its arms, which had been trying to bat aside Almë’s knife hand, fell to its sides, and lay motionless. It was finally dead again. Almë spat out a gobbet of dry, chewy flesh, wondering what the hell he’d eaten. It tasted vaguely meat like, but with a moldy, fungal note as well. He screamed in pain as the long gash on his leg made itself known to him again. He wasn’t sure if he could even stand up.
The first Dwarf skeleton stabbed Almë in the chest. Its sword pierced through the gambeson, and plunged into his flesh. §
The shambling thing advanced; it was close enough now that its features could be seen. Eykit and Almë could both see it as it approached.
It had been Human, before being turned into whatever it was now. Its skin was baggy, and drooped down, almost as if it was melting off of its body, or as if it was the skin of something much larger than frame it was draped upon now. It had Shards shoved into its eyes. It looked at Eykit, then at Almë.
Eykit saw its head swivel to look at him. And he felt it. A wave of extreme fear that felt like ice water down his spine, but only for a moment. His mind checked out, and Eykit fell limp to the floor, fainted dead away.
Almë felt its presence as well, like a feather pillow over his face, stifling his breathing. But he grit his teeth, thinking, I have night terrors on a regular basis, where I get to see my wife torn to pieces by unholy demons. This thing doesn’t scare me.
Taid, disappointed in his failure to cast the healing spell, tried again. He started casting the Spell of Major Healing again.
Elitheris saw Eykit drop to the ground, likely dodging some incoming blow. But her focus was on the two skeletons, which she named, in her head, Derek and Carl. They weren’t Dwarven names, but she didn’t think they would care too much, despite being animated Dwarven skeletons. She drew an bodkin pointed arrow from her quiver, nocked it, and pulled it back, releasing when she got to full draw.
The arrow flashed across the narrow space between them, and “Carl”, the skeleton on the right from her point of view, tried to block it. It failed, and the arrow hit its sword arm, piercing the mail and gambeson, but sliding between the forearm bones. The arrow stuck out of both sides of its arm, although the skeleton didn’t seem to notice.
Mister Wiggles scurried into the alcove at the far end of the cul de sac, worming his way into the far corner behind the sarcophagus. He shook in fear, making himself as small as he could.
Norolind waited; he’d been called, and now he waited for instructions, moving slowly towards Ruby, favoring his rear leg. Ruby grabbed his collar, and pulled him past her, directing him to get behind her. This confused him, as he was used to having her behind him, but he complied. She started casting the Spell of Explosive Fireball.
She’d need to throw it past the two skeletons, hoping that they didn’t manage to block it and make it explode prematurely; the explosion would likely hurt Eykit and Almë if they did. But she really wanted to reach out and touch the scary thing that was coming closer. She could feel it approaching, and every step it took made the feeling increase in strength. At some point, she wouldn’t be able to keep it together, and she might bolt, or freeze, or any number of reactions that people had to extreme fear.
She had some experience with that. Her training with the spells of Fear and Panic gave her a bit of insight on the psychology of frightened people. It was a useful tool, sometimes. And, whatever that thing was, certainly had a way with manipulating it.
Taid’s healing spell activated, and the cut on Almë’s leg closed up, the edges of the wound growing back together. Ruby’s hand burst into flame, the fire licking and curling around her fingertips, forming into a swirling yellow ball of fire.
The skeleton Elitheris called “Derek” stepped over Eykit’s still, unconscious body and stabbed at Almë’s chest. Almë, his leg feeling much better, rolled to the side, and the sword point slid past, cutting a slash in his gambeson, but fortunately missing his flesh.
Almë started to get up. Being prone wasn’t very advantageous when being stabbed at by the undead.
The skeleton nicknamed “Carl” swung his sword at Almë as well, but Almë was able to parry it with his dagger, a combination of bending his body out of the way as well as deflecting the sword’s edge downward.
The shambling creature got closer, and with it came an intensifying feeling of despair and fear. Its gaze swept across Elitheris, Taid, and Ruby.
When it looked at Elitheris, she felt an end to her future. What had been a long Elven lifespan now felt as if it would last only as long as the thing took to reach her. After that, there was nothing, except for the terror of having her body changed into whatever that thing was, as it chewed into her mind. Her mind couldn’t really cope with that thought, and she fell to the marble tiles, unconscious. Like Eykit, she fainted.
As Taid locked eyes with it, the sense of impending doom filled him. He too, felt that the thing, if it touched him, would take him over and use him like a puppet, all while he was still in there, unable to do anything about it. A giggle escaped his lips, followed by raucous maniacal laughter at his fate. He couldn’t stop, the nihilistic sense that nothing could be done except to laugh at the danger filled his mind like white noise. His booming laughter echoed off the hard marble walls, ceiling, and floor.
Its glance passed to Ruby, and although she felt a spike of fear, she held it together. Out of the corner of her eye, Ruby saw Elitheris drop her bow and the arrow she held, then slump to the ground in a heap. At the same time, or nearly so, Taid spontaneously started laughing in an unnerving way. She realized that they hadn’t been able to remain as steadfast as she’d have hoped.
Taid started casting the spell of Icy Touch, moving forward a bit to get in range. This spell would create a shell of ice around the target, freezing them in place until they could break out of the ice.
Ruby, cocking her arm back to throw her sparking, unstable looking ball of fire, stepped to the opposite side of the hallway to get a better angle on the shambling thing. She had to throw the ball of fire between the two skeletons in front to get it to explode near the fear-emanating thing. It was a good thing both undead were Dwarven skeletons, and hunkered behind their shields, expecting her to throw it at them.
The fireball, trailing sparks and popping and crackling, sailed over and between the two skeletons, impacting against the wall by the shambling thing’s head and exploded in a gout of flame. The concussive force rocked the shambling thing, and it stumbled to the side, little flames licking all over the rags it wore, its skin on that side of its face a mass of red weeping sores and charred bits of skin. The flames didn’t last long, and smoldered out quickly.
Eykit also had short-lived flamelets burning on his body for a little while, and the smell of burnt goblin hair filled the corridor.
“Derek” the skeleton slashed at Almë’s leg as the tall Elf was standing up, hoping to cut out his support before he could do so. But Almë interposed his dagger, the edges sliding along one another as the Elf guided the sword down, where it clanged on the marble tiled floor.
Almë stood, lunging forward with his knife at the skeleton that attacked him. The skeleton sidestepped, just enough to have the thrust miss.
The second skeleton, “Carl”, attacked the mage that had just thrown a fireball, but the quick little Hobbit dodged out of the way, and the sword clattered into the end of the sarcophagus Ruby had been next to.
The shambling thing glanced down at the unconscious form of the Goblin at its feet. Then it looked up, at the victims that were still moving. It stepped over Eykit, and moved towards the tall, hunched over Elf.
Taid moved forward, still concentrating on his spell of Icy Touch, powering it up a bit more. Mist flowed down off of his hands, as did the shaft of his halberd. Anything he touched with it would be encased in a layer of ice over a centimeter thick. He could feel the coolness radiating off of it.
Ruby could see the undead things coming closer, and that wasn’t something she really wanted. But she had a spell that could fix that: the spell of Glue. She started casting it, feeling a sense of tackiness when her fingers touched.
Taid spell goes off. Ruby’s spell goes off.
Ruby extended her staff out towards “Derek” and the shambling thing, and magenta motes of light that only mages could see sparked from the end of it, cascading onto the floor, sparkling there for a moment before fading away. The two undead almost stumbled as they found that the ground kept them from lifting their feet.
Taid’s maniacal laughter hadn’t stopped; it seemed to be a constant background roar.
Derek lurched forward, pulling his booted foot up out of the stickiness that held him. He took a step forward, closing on Almë.
Ruby was holding Almë’s staff in her left hand. He glanced back and saw it, snatching out of her hands and getting into the best guard position he could, given the tight quarters.
The closer of the two skeletons, Carl, slashed at Ruby’s arm. The sword’s edge slid across her forearm, but the tough Elven silversilk armor stood up to the blade. The force of the blow did knock her arm aside, though, and her staff, still extended to increase the range of the spell she had just cast, banged against the marble tiles of the wall.
The shambling creature struggled against the magically adhesive floor, stumbling forward a step before getting stuck again. Its head turned towards Ruby, the Shards in its eyes easily visible now that Taid’s shortsword, still glowing brightly, was close enough to illuminate the once-Human creature.
Ruby could feel it: the deep sense of foreboding, the sharp terror because she knew it wanted her eyes. She got the sense that it collected them somehow, although she couldn’t see where it kept them. But she remained focused, her anti-interrogation training given to her by her guild doing double duty. The creature could go fuck itself. She wasn’t fazed by its stare of doom.
Cold mist falling from his hands and Maggie’s shaft, Taid stepped around Maggie, touching the skeleton known as “Carl” with the wooden haft of his weapon. As soon as it touched Carl, the skeleton was enclosed in a chill mist, which solidified into a shell of ice, freezing the undead thing in place, unable to move.
Ruby started casting her old standby, the spell of Flame Jet. Sparks started appearing, flickering between her fingertips as she softly spoke the words of power and moved her hands in the ritual motions.
From Ruby’s closed fist a jet of flame gouted out, arcing past the frozen, ice covered Carl and shooting towards both the other skeleton and the shambling thing with the loose, baggy skin and Shards in its eyes.
The other skeleton aimed a thrust at Almë’s face, but he had his staff now, and even with the confined area, he was still pretty good with it. Even though the staff end bounced off of the ceiling tiles, he swept the incoming attack away easily. He could see Eykit on the floor, likely glued to it like the two undead. He’d also seen no arrows flicking past him, so he figured that something had happened to Elitheris as well.
Almë followed up the parry by aiming a thrust at the skeleton’s face. There wasn’t enough room in the hallway to swing the staff around; he was stuck using it like a blunt spear.
It didn’t really matter, though, because the skeletal Dwarf blocked the attack with its shield.
Taid’s laughing still rang through the hallways. There was an edge of hysteria in it. His mind must have been protected by his sense of the absurd, because when the shambling creature looked into his eyes again, he was able to push aside the fear and ignore the image of the creature holding him close and chewing off his face as the Shards grew into his eyes. Or, perhaps, Aheru-Mazda saved him. It didn’t matter, the creature didn’t cripple him with terror.
He struck out with the hook of his halberd, catching the top of the shield of the skeleton attacking Almë, pulling it down and out of line, opening the skeleton up to an attack by an ally.
Ruby’s flames hit “Derek” right after Taid had pulled its shield out of line. The flames played over it, then moved over to the shambling thing. The first one got some blackened bone and carbon-scored mail, and the shambling thing’s loose robes caught fire, as did its loose, drooping skin.
The skeleton attacked Almë again, trying to cut at his arm, but Almë was very, very good with his staff, and with a simple twisting motion deflected the sword strike. Then he thrusted the end of the staff into the skeleton’s face, twice, although the first one was deflected by the skeleton’s sword. The second one connected; the skeleton was fast, but not fast enough to parry the second strike. The decorative steel end cap of the staff slammed into the skeleton’s face with a crack!, and the skeleton rocked back, its jaw falling off and bouncing off of the marble tile.
The skeleton encased in ice shuddered a little, but that’s all it did. It was still effectively an ice sculpture.
The shambling monstrosity pulled its foot up off of the sticky floor, and stepped behind the ice-encased skeleton. It was still stuck in the area encompassed by the spell of Glue, and was still having trouble moving. It struggled to move its legs. But now it and the jawless skeleton were side by side, completely blocking the hallway.
This was an opportunity as far as Taid was concerned. He psyched himself up, willing himself to use every ounce of strength he had, and pushed on the frozen, armored skeleton. It toppled back, onto the shambling thing, whose feet were glued to the floor tiles. It had no where to go, and no way to brace itself as the entire weight of the skeleton, its armor and weapons, and the ice encasing it fell onto it.
The shambling creature, with its ice-encrusted companion in its arms, fell onto its back. It was glued to the floor like a fly on flypaper, from its head to its ass, its knees up on either side of the iced-over skeleton, which lay on top of it. The icy skeleton lay at a tilted angle on top of the shambling thing, parts of it also glued to the floor. Its gaze attack now pointed upwards, its head stuck to the floor. It seemed to have limited eye movement, or what could be considered eye movement, given that its eyes were now Shards.
And Taid kept laughing.
Ruby grinned, and took advantage of the fact that the enemies had fallen over and were stuck in place. She played the flames over the unstuck but damaged skeleton. It caught fire, and fell over, smoldering but unmoving. Before it even hit the ground, Ruby had moved the flame jet over to the shambling thing, half covered by the ice-covered skeleton. She burned it, too, its skin burning even more than it had already.
Almë gave his old opponent a quick glance: it lay, burning and unmoving, and likely stuck in the glue. He grinned, and made two quick attacks, swinging downward as best he could in the uncomfortably short hallway. Both strikes slammed into the thing’s face, breaking its nose and tearing its loose skin. Almë was certain he heard a wet cracking noise in there as well.
Taid, still laughing, did the same kind of attack, but with his longer halberd. Maggie was in a place too small for proper attacks, but he could still slam the axe blade downward fairly well. A pair of quick chops, and the shambling thing’s chest was opened up in a large, ragged gash. Through the rip in the clothing, Taid could see the ends of some broken ribs amongst the gore.
The thing still moved, though. It still struggled to get up, a large hole in the chest and a broken face notwithstanding. It was still dangerous.
Ruby focused her flame jet on the damaged shambling thing. It was wiggling and struggling to move, but there was no getting away from the flames, which played over its leg before moving up to its chest, where the big hole was. Both its leg and torso were ablaze, the smoke filling the area with its horrific blend of stench and roasted meat. In a moment, it stopped moving.
Almë was glad the thing had stopped moving. The combination of all of their attacks left a burning, mangled corpse that looked much uglier than it already had been. All that was left was the skeleton encased in ice. Almë waited, letting Ruby melt off the ice before he struck.
Taid didn’t bother waiting. Before Ruby could move the jet of flames over to her new target, the champion of Aheru-Mazda slammed Maggie’s axe head into the skeleton’s chest. A big chunk of ice broke off as the axe blade shattered some of the ribs. Taid’s second blow was even stronger, again hitting the chest and breaking even more of the ribs, plus the sternum as well.
Ruby played the fire onto its chest as well, bypassing what remained of the icy covering. She held it there; it wasn’t moving. The flames caught it on fire, and ice started to fall away in chunks as it melted. A moment later, and the bones, held together my a magical, animating force, fell into a loose pile of remains. It too was dead.
Except for the roar of flames, their heavy breathing, and Taid’s laughter, which now finally ceased, the fight was over. They looked around, but nothing seemed to be moving.
Almë knew that he had to get the Shards, not only because the flesh of the Shard zombies continued moving around, even when “dead”, but also because he wanted them. He hopped into the area of Glue, kneeling down next to the thing’s damaged head. He pulled out his knife and went to work carving them out of its eye sockets.
He was still at it, pulling the Shards out, when Elitheris roused. She sat up, panicked for a moment, trying to orient herself. She didn’t see any moving enemies, just Taid and Ruby standing watching Almë doing something to a dead body. Norolind glanced over at her, stepped forward, and licked her face. Elitheris figured that things must be under control, and stood up, gathering her bow and arrow as she did.
Farther down the corridor, she could see Eykit, on the floor where he had fallen.
“So,” Almë said, as he tried to pry up the thing’s body off of the still-sticky floor, “do you guys think that this thing is related to Kallia because of the Shards, or do you think it’s just random?”
“Could be random,” Ruby said. She wasn’t sure she believed it, though. Not from what her companions had been saying about these necromancers.
“I think these were sent by her,” Taid said. “It was some kind of set up. A trap.”
“But why?” Almë asked. “That’s my biggest question. Why would there be a trap down here that we run into? That sounds very random to me.”
“Well,” Taid said, “remember we got clues from people about coming down here. I think all this stuff might have been a setup for us, because we were investigating. You know, we’re investigating the catacombs and they are like, ‘Oh yeah, there were these marks on the wall’ and stuff like that. So maybe all these people are bought out and corrupted by Kallia, then maybe this was all set up to get us to come down here, investigate it, and get hit by this trap.” He shook his head. “I don’t know! This is all speculation, but it also all fits. It could all be random, but it feels like we were lured here to be killed, or whatever.”
Taid’s reasoning made sense to Almë. He shrugged. “I mean, until the Shards in the eyes thing, I thought this was just random. But with the Shards in the picture, it sounds like it’s not. It’s not just some local haunting or whatever. It’s like this thing,” he stabbed his knife into it again, “is handmade or some such. There is something inelegant about it, somehow.” He saw a glint, near the sternum of the thing. He dug at it. It was another Shard. There had been two large ones in the eyes, each about a finger long, and one of more normal size under its sternum.
Eykit stirred, opened his eyes. He could hear conversation, but there didn’t seem to be any noises of battle, so that was good. He looked around. Almë was kneeling by the loose-skinned creature, its face gouged apart. A smoldering armored Dwarven skeleton lay across it, filling the air with a smoky stench. Beyond them, Ruby and Taid stood, and Elitheris beyond them.
Taid saw Eykit wake up. As the Goblin rose to his feet, he shouted, “Don’t move any closer! There is glue!”
Eykit jerked to a stop; he’d been planning on joining his companions, but now he understood why Almë’s gambeson leggings looked odd. They were glued down too. It was why he just knelt there, instead of standing up. He seemed done with whatever he’d been doing to the body.
Eykit shrugged, and glancing behind him, knelt down too. He’d seen some sparklies mixed in with the bones, and it was as good a time as any to gather them up. Hey, this place used to be pristine, he thought. I’m just cleaning up.
A few minutes later, and the stickiness of the floor dissipated, and Almë rolled the shambling creature, now burned and broken, over onto its front. Sure enough, a control Shard had been implanted in its neck. He had four more Shards now.
It was odd. It was what they could call an “advanced” Shardzombie. It wasn’t just a zombie with a control Shard, it had other, more specialized Shards embedded in its flesh as well. But it seemed different. All of the other Shardzombies had rearranged the flesh to a degree, the flesh forming into ropy strings that shifted around. This one didn’t seem to do that. Its flesh was…normal. If loose, baggy skin was normal. And it wasn’t as fast as the other Shardzombies. This one seemed to shuffle along, much more slowly than the other ones typically did. This one seemed…more focused somehow.
Elitheris said, “Well, yeah. It reflects the differences in the approaches and interests of the different people who have been dabbling in this stuff, right? Because that was something we learned early in all the letters between all the necromancers. You could tell that ‘oh, you guys are taking that approach. That’s really interesting. I have been focusing more on this,’ and so they all have different interests.”
“And Kallia has seemed like she’s the most advanced of the group,” Taid added, nodding. “Based on her studies and what she’s done with her experiments….So, yeah. I definitely think this is one of hers, and I don’t think we stumbled across it by accident.”
Almë thought about the undead in the fight. The first zombie had been Human. The first two zombies had both been Dwarves, as had the two skeletons. The shambling thing had also been Human. Odd. There was something about that, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it. And the only thing with Shards had been the shambling creature. The rest of the undead had been, for lack of a better term, “off the shelf” zombies.
The fight was over, for now. They had survived.
Elitheris went to find Mister Wiggles. She could hear him whimpering down the hallway, and she could smell dog piss. It was likely that the thing that had made her mind nope out had done something to the dog as well.
The figure turned its head toward Taid. In the light of the glowing sword, Taid could see that its face was a mess. It only had one eye, no nose, and half its mouth was missing. Taid could see most of the teeth on one side of its ruined face.
It stood up from its crouching position. Taid could see that it didn’t have the reddish, wet, crawling skin of a Shardzombie. It had the dry, sunken skin of what he could only call a “regular” zombie, unenhanced by any Shards. It was dressed in an old, tattered coat, with a separate hood. One hand had a glove on, the other was bare, its bones nearly visible through the torn skin and muscle.
It seemed to smile.
It moved towards him.
Taid was in front, his halberd in his right hand, its use relegated to that of a top-heavy spear. In his other hand was his short sword, the tip glowing from being the subject of a spell of Continual Light, at a very bright level. It was so bright it was hard to look at without one’s eyes watering. But it shed a bright, white light over everything in the area.
Almë stood hunched over behind him, his staff also too long to easily move around in the cramped confines of the tunnel. To move his staff around he had to be deliberate with his motions, although he had an easier time doing that than Taid ever would.
Behind Almë was Elitheris, also needing to hunch over a bit, because like Almë, she kept hitting her head every time she took a step without thinking about the ceiling height first. She held her bow at an awkward, tilted angle, and she knew that there was no way to engage the proper muscles to get a good strong shot off.
Ruby was next, with Mister Wigglesjust in front of her and Norolind by her side. She, like Almë, was needing to be careful with her staff, and more than once she’d banged it against the marble tiles that lined the catacombs.
Eykit was rearguard. He couldn’t really see what was happening up ahead, past the three people who blocked his view, but he heard Taid ask someone a question, and there wasn’t really much of an answer. He pulled out his knives.
Both of the dogs were growling, having smelt something that they didn’t think was normal.
Taid shouted, “I’ll skewer it, and hold it in place! Ruby! Flame it!” He aimed Maggie’s point at the zombie’s chest, waiting for an opportunity to lunge and strike it. That, at least, the halberd could do, even if its more standard attack moves were inaccessible.
Eykit gripped his daggers, and stepped closer to the sarcophagus next to him. With Taid holding it at the end of his halberd, and Ruby turning it into roasted, spitted meat, there wasn’t much else for him to do. Unless it was fire retardant. In which case, they might be in for some trouble.
Almë patted Taid’s armored shoulder, and took a few steps back to get out of his way and to allow Elitheris to move up to get a better shot.
Taid stepped forward, angling towards the wall as he thrust Maggie’s spearpoint at the zombie’s chest. Moving closer to the wall would allow Ruby to get past him in order to fry the ugly dead thing. His thrust wasn’t a quick movement; he was more interested in pinning it, rather than disemboweling it. Plus, he was testing its reflexes and speed. If it dodged back, or sidestepped, or something similar, it would give him an idea about what this thing might be capable of.
The spike moved towards the zombie, and it grabbed the spike with its left hand, stepping back as it pushed forward. Its other arm was now visible, and Taid saw that it held a sword, previously hidden behind its body and tattered coat.
Elitheris stepped forward to the corner, saw the zombie as it grabbed at Maggie’s point, and in what seemed like no time at all pulled an arrow out of her quiver, nocked it on the string, drew it back as far at the cramped tunnel would allow, and let it fly. The arrow, a heavy warbow arrow with a finger-thick shaft and heavy steel point, slammed into the zombie’s sword arm, punching completely through the forearm. Its sword clattered somewhere behind it, sliding noisily along the polished marble tile of the floor.
Mister Wiggles felt the tension ramp up, and saw Elitheris spring into action. He barked, and leapt forward, to see what had gotten his companion all worked up. He saw the zombie engaged with Taid, and growled threateningly.
Norolind, keyed off by the smaller dog, growled as well, his fur bristling and his muscles tensed, ready to spring forward. Ruby, noticing this, didn’t want Nori to go leaping into whatever unknown danger was around the corner.
“Stay!” she commanded, grabbing his collar with her free hand. His ears flicked in her direction, but he relaxed his muscles. He didn’t stop growling though. His bass rumble sounded very loud in the confined, hard sided space. Her dog settled for the moment, she move forward to try to get a view of what was happening and who…or what…everyone was fighting. She had heard Eykit pull out his knives, readying himself for potential combat. When she got past Almë to the corner, she could see that there was a figure at the end of Taid’s polearm. She was just in time to see Elitheris’ arrow disarm it.
It’s right arm hanging loosely at its side, and sprouting a nearly a half meter of wood on either side of its arm, the zombie hunched over the head of the halberd, and dropped to its knees, taking the halberd with it, pinning the weapon against its own body. It laughed, loudly.
Eykit scurried past Nori, moving closer to the action. He still wasn’t sure what was happening, but Taid was busy doing something, and Elitheris has shot an arrow at a target. And Mister Wiggles was barking. So something was going on, and he needed to know what it was.
Almë set his staff leaning against the wall. The catacombs were too small an area for him to wield it effectively anyway. He pulled out his knife, glancing behind the group past Eykit and Nori. Nothing was back there. He laid his hand on Nori’s head, trying to keep him calm.
Taid pulled back on the halberd, heaving with all his strength. The zombie was dragged back towards the group a full meter. Taid wanted it closer to Ruby, to aid in her spell casting. And it was working.
All of a sudden, Eykit heard the sound of stone tiles slamming into the floor and cracking, followed by the sound of bodies thudding to the grounds and the tinkling of coins and other small items. He spun, and saw two more zombies, both Dwarves, roll out of a pair of upper niches, landing in a crouch. They stood up, amid the pieces of broken stone. The pair of sarcophagi they had come out of were both missing their front faces. Eykit could see a couple of old bones remaining in the niches.
“Oh shit!” He yelled. “We’ve got company!” He couldn’t help eyeing the grave goods that the two new zombies had shoved out of broken sarcophagi on their way out. But unfortunately the treasure would have to wait. And there were no Civil Patrol down here to see him take it….The gold and silver and goblets and jewelry would have to wait.
Elitheris glanced back, hearing the crashing of stone just as Eykit had. She saw the two Dwarf zombies roll out of the two adjacent niches as well. They were trapped, the two new zombies blocked their only exit. She spun around to get her bow in line with her new targets. “Get down!” she ordered, as she prepared to launch an arrow downrange.
Mister Wiggles, seeing Taid attacking a foe, tensed to charge at it, ears back and tail low, his mouth open in a toothy snarl. “Wiggles! Come!” Elitheris commanded, and the dog obediently spun about, looking at the Elven woman for more instructions. He was such a good boy.
Norolind, not having been commanded, stayed put, Almë gently stroking his head. His doggy brain was wondering if the two new people that fell out of the wall were something he needed to think about, but Ruby hadn’t said anything, so they must not be bad.
Ruby planned on engulfing the zombie in fire. However, before she could do that, she had to make that she didn’t burn up Taid’s halberd as well. So, she started casting the spell of Fire Resistance, which would give Taid and his equipment protection from what she was about to do to the zombie.
The zombie, still in a crouch, pulled on the halberd in an attempt to yank it out of Taid’s hands. Taid, of course, wasn’t about to let go of his precious Maggie, and so he dragged forward a couple of steps. The zombie laughed, a harsh, coughing sound.
Eykit heard Elitheris’ warning, and unhesitatingly dove to the marbled floor next to Norolind. He’d seen her put an arrow through both ears before, and that kind of effective wound wasn’t one he wanted to experience.
Almë said, “Norolind, this way,” as he nudged the big dog to turn around and face the new threats. He held his knife in the guard position, point raised and facing outward.
Taid, pulled forward by the zombie, said, “Fuck you,” as he heaved on the halberd, dragging the zombie back towards his companions. He felt…something…as energy flowed over him. He didn’t know what it was, but it didn’t hurt, and didn’t seem alarming.
The two armored Dwarven zombies strode forward, wielding swords and shields. One stabbed at Eykit’s legs, barely getting through the enchanted gambeson armor that he had taken off of Jakkora in the cannibal Goblin caves after putting a knife in his brain through his eye. Eykit barely felt the blade enter his calf muscle, and he silently thanked Jakkora’s ghost for the good armor.
The second Dwarven zombie attacked Norolind, slashing at the dog’s leg. The blade opened up a gash down the front of Norolind’s thigh, from hip to knee. The dog yelped, then growled in fury, its leg unable to support weight. Blood dripped onto the marble floor, scattered dots appearing as the dog moved.
Ruby heard her dog yelp, knowing that her beloved Nori was getting wounded, but she grit her teeth, determined not to let it distract her.
Elitheris let her arrow fly at the zombie that had just dug a gash into Norolind’s leg, while commanding Mister Wiggles to “sic ‘em!” The arrow flew at the zombie at point blank range, but the zombie was nevertheless able to get its shield in between him and the incoming arrow. The arrow punched through the shield, its point sticking out a full three centimeters on the inside of the shield.
Mister Wiggles jumped into action, going after the zombie that had attacked Eykit. He bounded at his foe, who, dropped into a crouch behind his shield, bracing for the attacking dog. Mister Wiggles slammed into the shield, bouncing off, a bit dazed.
Norolind, his leg unusable and tin pain, attacked the zombie in front of him. He jaws came close to closing upon the zombie’s leg, but the undead Dwarf shifted his legs back to avoid him.
Ruby, her spell to protect Taid from fire successfully cast, turned to see what was happening to her dog. Norolind was standing, his haunches shaking, and she saw why. His left leg was bleeding profusely from a long gash down his leg. There were two Dwarven zombies, armed with swords and carrying shields. Both swords had blood on the tips. She saw Almë next to Norolind, ready to fight. An arrow from Elitheris’ bow slammed into the zombie’s shield, thrumming with the force of the hit, and Mister Wiggles was charging at the other zombie. Eykit was on the ground, but beginning to get up. She watched as the second zombie dropped to a crouch behind his shield, protected against the smaller dog.
Her momentary glance told her that the two zombies back there were being engaged by almost her entire crew of companions. There wasn’t much she could do, and she trusted them to do their best to look out for Nori. She concentrated on casting the spell of Flame Jet. There were few problems that couldn’t be solved by a gout of fire to the face, and this wasn’t one of them.
The zombie curled around Taid’s halberd tried to pull the polearm out of Taid’s grasp. And, like before, Taid was not going to let go. And again, Taid was pulled a couple of steps forward, away from Ruby. “Damn it,” Taid muttered.
Eykit scrambled forward, trying to open up some distance between himself and the zombie that had been attacking him. He scurried between Elitheris and Almë.
Elitheris and Almë saw a pair of Dwarven skeletons come around the corner from the far end of the hallway. They were coming at a run. They were armored, and armed like the other two zombies with swords and shields.
Almë, his Elven agility on full display, leapt over Norolind, putting himself in a position to attack the zombie that had laid open Norolind’s leg. His dagger slashed downward, and the zombie blocked the blow with his shield.
Taid couldn’t see what was happening down the hallway; but he got the sense that something was amiss. On the plus side, though, he saw a gout of flame sprout from Ruby’s upraised hand, splashing against the ceiling tiles before she lowered the aim.
The zombie on his halberd was locking him up, and while he would have liked to push this zombie around on the end of his halberd as if it were a mop, he didn’t have time for it. He ran forward, his hands sliding along Maggie’s shaft, and as he got to the zombie he kicked at it. His booted foot lashed out, but the zombie shifted and leaned back, causing Taid’s foot to glance harmlessly off of the zombie’s chain shirt.
Eykit and Mister Wiggles had effectively changed positions, and the Dwarven zombie that had stabbed at Eykit’s legs was now fighting a dog. It didn’t seem to care, one opponent was much like another, and its orders didn’t specify a specific target. It attacked the dog, but its sword clanged on the marble floor as the dog leaped out of the way.
The second Dwarven zombie now faced a hunched over Elf, armed with a knife. It lunged, but the agile Elf deflected the incoming sword strike with his knife, pushing the point off line.
Elitheris quickly drew out an arrow from her quiver, nocked it, pulled it back as far as she could in the confined space, and let it fly at the zombie’s sword hand. It traveled the three meters to its target in almost no time at all, and the zombie that had attacked Mister Wiggles managed to interpose his shield just in time. The arrow thwacked against the wood and stuck, quivering.
The zombie’s shield rose up to block the arrow, revealing a pair of ankles that looked like very good targets to Mister Wiggles, who jumped forward and clamped his jaws around the right one. Even if he wasn’t able to chew through the boot, he’d still act as an anchor, slowing the zombie down.
Norolind moved forward, clamping his jaws on the left leg of the zombie that was attacking Mister Wiggles. That one had a dog on each leg, and it wasn’t going anywhere. Norolind’s teeth ripped through the gambeson of the leg armor.
Her spell of Flame Jet now active and turning her hand into a flamethrower, Ruby lowered her point of aim to encompass the crouching zombie that held Taid’s halberd. She was Taid scramble forward and kick at the zombie just as she engulfed it in flame. Taid didn’t feel the flames that curled around him, but the zombie did. The fire crisped its leg, the gambeson blackening in the flames. The leg gave out, unable to support its weight, and it went from a crouch to a kneeling position.
Eykit kipped up to his feet, standing next to Elitheris and behind Norolind. He impressed himself with his athleticism.
The two Dwarf skeletons marched forward, closing the distance.
Almë started concentrating on the Spell of the Spasm. Trying to strike past the shield the zombie had was going to be too difficult, but maybe, just maybe, he could get him to drop it.
Taid pulled out his dagger and head butted the zombie, their helmets clanging together, the sound echoing down the halls.
The zombie with dogs on his legs tried to do something about that, but the two dogs pulling at him in different directions made him miss, and his swordtip glanced off of the ceiling tile, striking a spark.
Its partner slashed at Almë, who again deftly parried the stroke with his dagger, deflecting the blade into the wall and causing the air to ring with the sound of metal on stone. Despite the distraction, Almë didn’t falter with his spell casting.
Elitheris readied another arrow, drew back, stepped forward and let the arrow fly at the zombie that had just attacked Almë. Her aim was true; the arrow struck its mark, embedding itself in the zombie’s shield arm. It wasn’t enough to make the zombie drop the shield, however.
The two dogs, clamped on either leg of their target, used their powerful neck and jaw muscles to dig their teeth deeper into the undead flesh of their target. The combined effect of their efforts caused the zombie to fall to the floor onto its back. Its right foot was looser and floppier than it should be, and its left leg had a gaping tear in the muscles. Even without the dogs pinning it to the ground, it would have a hard time rising on its damaged legs.
Ruby continued to play the gout of flame over the zombie acting as a weight on the end of the halberd. Its clothing was starting to catch on fire. Its flesh blackened and crisped, and the smell of burnt meat filled the air.
The zombie, its leg on fire, let go of the halberd. Its hand shot out and grabbed the upper edge of Taid’s breastplate, its fingers interlaced in Taid’s beard. It was an unexpected form of attack, and Taid was too slow to pull back. He could smell the dirty fingers beneath his chin, getting their filth all over his beard. He could feel the zombie pulling him forward, almost as if the zombie wanted to give him a kiss. He was pissed off and disgusted in equal measure.
Almë’s spell activated, the subliminal energy that he saw as a quick magenta flash shooting forward towards the standing zombie’s shield hand. He could see the shield quiver a bit, but the zombie didn’t drop it like he’d hoped.
All of a sudden everyone felt a sense of foreboding, flooding through their veins like ice water. The hairs on the back of the neck stood up, and breaths caught. The dogs whined; they felt it too. Something bad was coming. Something really, really bad.
The corridor behind Eykit lit up with Ruby’s flame jet; he could hear the flames and Ruby’s mutterings of “Die, bastard” and “Fry, asshole!” The sense of imminent doom wasn’t filling him with confidence, and he took a moment to assess the situation, noting the enemies engaged with them, plus the two more in the middle distance coming closer. He had a couple of seconds before they were on them.
Almë was disappointed about the spell he cast having little to no effect. He grit his teeth, and struck with his dagger. The zombie interposed his shield, and Almë’s knife left a mark in the wood.
Taid had his knife out, and saw the stream of flames spraying onto the zombie. He plunged his knife into the zombie’s back, punching through the chainmail and the gambeson underneath. Taid felt the blade snap through some links of metal, slice through the layered linen, and into the softer flesh beneath.
The prone zombie thrust his sword at Mister Wiggles, hitting the poor pup in the face. The borderbull yelped and leaped back, away from the thing that had hurt him. It was a major wound, and blood covered the dog’s face and dripped off his jaws.
The other zombie aimed a slash at Almë’s leg, opening up a gash. Almë’s gambeson legging darkened with blood. It stung, but it didn’t seem to be a deep cut. Almë would have to check later to see, when he got the chance.
Elitheris saw the shield move to block Almë’s dagger attack, but she could see the arm she wanted to hit. The arrow hit the arm, a finger’s breadth away from the other arrow. It didn’t look like it penetrated very far.
Mister Wiggles backed away, whining piteously, and hid behind Elitheris’ legs. He left a trail of blood as he moved. The sword thrust had pierced his tongue and gone into the roof of his mouth, emerging just in front of his left eye.
Norolind clamped down on the leg of his foe, and while the zombie pulled his leg back, the big mastiff didn’t let go. The dog’s teeth effectively slid down the leg as the zombie pulled, opening up a huge gash in the leg.
Ruby raised up her point of aim on her flame jet, and the gout of flame rose up the zombie’s chest and shoulder and ended up bathing his head in fire. Hair crisped immediately, its scent sharp in the air and competing with the smell of roasted meat. It made a noise, a moaning, desperate gurgling sound as it’s face charred and blackened, the muscles contracting in the heat.
Under normal conditions, Taid’s face would have been burned as well, since the zombie was face to face with the Dwarf. But the Spell of Fire Resistance that Ruby had cast on him first made the nearby flames feel like a warm spring day.
The crisping zombie, its head on fire, snapped its head forward, trying to bite Taid’s face, but Taid was ready for it, pulling his neck back as far as the zombie’s hand on his breastplate would let him. The blackened teeth clamped together with an audible crack, and the thing moaned in disappointment.
Eykit moved past the cowering and wounded Mister Wiggles, careful not to slip on the dog’s blood trail, and struck at the prone zombie pinned by Norolind. The rondel dagger plunged through the chainmail and gambeson and into the undead thing’s gut. Ichor flowed out, thick and smelly.
Almë started casting the spell of Spasm again. He was determined to make that stupid zombie drop its shield.
The two armored Dwarven skeletons moved up, ready to engage.
Taid stabbed at the zombies’ groin, trying to get under the chainmail. He didn’t quite make it, and the point caught on the hem, deflecting the blow.
The prone zombie stabbed at Norolind, but the angle was awkward, and he missed as the huge mastiff shifted to one side. The other Dwarven zombie attacked Almë, but Almë parried the blow with his dagger. He kept concentrating on the spell he was casting.
Elitheris’s eyes flicked around from one side of the narrow hall to the other as she tried to figure out her best course of action. She had no shot on the prone zombie, and the zombie on Almë had that damned shield. There were two skeletons about to attack, although arrows did little to them. All of those thoughts shot through her brain in a fraction of a second, and she made her decision, aiming for the zombie’s weapon hand. The arrow thunked into the zombie’s shield, joining the other arrow that still protruded from it. The zombie hadn’t had a chance to break them off yet, and if she could put enough arrows into it, it would be slowed down and off balance by the weight.
Norolind, pinning the zombie down, advanced up the undead thing’s crippled legs, lunging at the zombie’s weapon arm. The zombie tucked his arm beneath the shield, and the dog’s teeth scraped across the wood.
Ruby kept playing the stream of fire over her target. It was still moving, shifting as best it could while still holding onto the halberd. The stream spilled onto its chest, heating up the chainmail and igniting the gambeson underneath. The smell of burned meat increased in strength.
That smell infiltrated into Taid’s nose, as the zombie tried, once again, to bite at his face. It was just about the only thing the zombie could do; it couldn’t really move about with its crippled leg, and its good arm was clenched onto the rim of Taid’s breastplate. Taid could feel the undead creature’s knuckles at his throat as the zombie pulled on him, its mouth opened wide in its ruined, blackened face. Taid jerked his head back as far as he could, given that he was being held in place. The zombie’s teeth clacked so close to Taid’s nose that he felt them scrape the tip.
The spell of Spasm went off, and again Almë “saw” the magenta flash arc from his hand to the shield hand of the zombie who faced him. Its arm twitched, and the shield fell, its leather rim thudding onto the ground before toppling over onto the prone zombie and Norolind. Its primary defense was gone.
Eykit, his target mostly obscured and covered by a large black mastiff, stabbed at the prone zombie. And despite its position, pinned underneath an immense dog, it managed to block the goblin’s stabbing daggers.
Its shield gone, Almë stabbed at the zombie’s face. The zombie’s sword flicked up, the blades sliding along each other as it pushed the incoming blade away and off line.
Taid was getting tired of the zombie in front of him. It should have stopped moving by now, and while that was mostly the case, the important parts of it were still animate. Fine, he thought, this bastard wants me closer? I’ll oblige! He spun around the seated zombie, shifting the haft of the halberd up around the undead thing’s neck, and grabbed the end spike with his other hand, dropping his knife. He had the zombie in a neck lock, the hook up against the zombie’s neck.
The prone zombie struck out at Eykit, but Eykit was too fast for it, and shifted out of the way, the sword point flicking past him. The other zombie, glanced down at its fallen shield, opted to ignore it and just attack the Elf that was in front of him, but Almë, like Eykit, was fast enough to dodge out of the way of the attack.
Elitheris grinned; her target had dropped its shield. Now she could go for his weapon hand, and she loosed an arrow. The zombie never even saw it coming; its attention had been on Almë, not a tertiary target behind several others. The arrow slammed into the hand, piercing through the wrist and causing the creature to drop its weapon. The sword clanged onto the marble tiles at its feet.
Mister Wiggles, still whining from the pain of his major face wound, swayed on his feet, the blood pooling around his shaking legs. He was in bad shape.
Norolind tried to bite the prone zombie’s arm again. The zombie’s shield had blocked him last time. This time, however, Norolind managed to get his jaws clamped onto the zombie’s forearm. Now, in addition to both its legs being crippled, and a 90kg dog sprawled upon it, its sword arm was trapped in the dog’s mouth, and the dog had no intention of just letting that arm move wherever it wanted. The zombie was going to have a hard time attacking with its sword.
Ruby played her flames down the crouching zombie’s body, trying to burn its good leg. It didn’t have chainmail protecting it, and she figured she be able to burn through its gambeson leggings more easily. Unfortunately, Taid shifted position as he grappled with the creature, and his body got in the way, the flames splashing off of him harmlessly.
The zombie, Taid’s halberd haft pulled up against its neck, turned its head and tried to bite at Taid again, but Taid was behind it, and he easily was able to keep out of the way. Its hand, having let go of the breastplate when Taid spun around it, flailed at the halberd, trying to pit its strength against Taid’s. Taid had the advantage of a stronger body, and a lot of advantageous leverage. The zombie really didn’t stand much of a chance. Taid was going to hold it until Ruby had roasted it like a rotisserie chicken.
Eykit stabbed at the prone zombie like an enraged sewing machine. His foe managed to block the first one, although the force of Eykit’s stab punched ten centimeters of his blade through the wood. The second two attacks came in quick succession. One struck at the zombie’s sword arm, hampered as it was by Norolind, but the dog’s worrying attack threw the Goblin’s aim off enough that the point of his rondel didn’t penetrate the mail. His final stab plunged into the zombie’s leg, going through the gambeson like it wasn’t even there.
Almë gritted his teeth, and stabbed at the standing zombie’s face. The zombie had no shield, and Elitheris had caused him to drop his sword. The knife punched into the zombie’s rotting face, snapping its head back and slashing out, creating a gash that extended from its lips to almost the ear.
Taid, his muscles bunching under his armor, twisted the haft of the halberd, rotating the hook so it lined up with the zombie’s neck, then with a grunt of effort, drove the hook onto the undead thing’s neck. The hook tore through the muscles and cartilage of the neck, ripping out enough to create a hole big enough to put a fist in.
The zombie fell limp in Taid’s arms, its corporeal body no longer in any shape to house its animating spirit. It was dead…again.
The prone zombie, its sword arm effectively pinned by Norolind’s jaws, nevertheless still tried to attack Eykit with its shield, slamming the edge into the Goblin’s leg. Eykit cried out in pain, but the layered gambeson legging prevented any actual injury.
The other zombie no longer had a sword or a shield, stepped forward towards Almë, it’s good hand reaching to grab Almë’s weapon arm. But Almë was too quick for the zombie, and managed, if only barely, to keep his arm free.
Elitheris nocked two arrows on the string, and started drawing them back, aiming at the closer of the two skeletons.
The prone zombie stopped moving, its body too damaged to continue, and Norolind let its arm drop out of his mouth. He got to his feet, shaking his head, slobber and ichor spraying out in all directions. That was two down, one zombie and two skeletons to go. That sense of creeping foreboding was still there, in the background, making everyone feel on edge.
Ruby saw the zombie she’d been burning go limp, sagging in Taid’s arms. She let the flames emerging from her fist subside and go out. She turned; her attention had been on her target, so she had no idea what was happening behind her and around the corner.
She saw Elitheris, ready to shoot a pair of arrows; Almë was in a clinch with a zombie; another zombie was on the floor, not moving, Norolind standing astride it, Eykit crouched, knives out next to him; and two armored skeletons about to attack. Almë’s staff leaned up against the wall in front of her. She grabbed it.
Eykit saw the skeleton step up to take the fallen zombie’s place. He charged, planning to slam into the skeleton to knock it over, but the undead, animated skeleton sidestepped, and the Goblin hurtled past. As he did, the skeleton struck at him with its sword, but Eykit saw the blow coming and shifted his path of motion enough that the sword tip scraped off of his mail shirt.
Almë was grappling with the zombie who’d tried to grab his arm. That zombie was still trying to get control of Almë’s weapon arm, but Almë struck out with the knife, stabbing at the zombie’s face again. The knife blade hit the zombie’s face just under the top edge, hit the skull, and slid to the side, opening up a twelve centimeter cut above one of its eyes. Its head rocked back from the blow, and ichor dripped into its eyes and down its cheek.
Taid picked up his knife, returning it to its sheath, and stood up. The dead zombie’s body slid off of his lap, tumbling onto the marble tiled floor in a heap of splayed limbs. The wound to its neck looked like it had almost decapitated the undead creature.
The zombie grappling with Almë head butted him in the face, but Almë turned his head, taking the blow on his helmet’s cheek guard. It hurt a bit, but didn’t injure him at all.
Elitheris’ two nocked arrows were ready, and while she had been going to shoot them at one of the skeletons, she shifted her aim to the zombie that was grappling with Almë, specifically, its leg. She was hoping that taking out its leg would either kill it, or at least make it less able to fight her friend.
Both arrows slammed into its leg, simultaneously, the two thick arrow shafts waving about like flags as it fought with its opponent.*
Norolind, still favoring his wounded leg, bit into the zombie’s leg, just under where the two arrows stuck out of it. His strong jaws closed, biting through the zombie’s achilles tendon, and the leg was unable to support the zombie’s weight. The zombie held onto Almë, pulling him downward, and they both crashed to the floor.
Ruby took a step forward as Almë and the zombie fell to the floor. She could see the two skeletons just past Norolind. She started casting the spell of Fire Ball, and little flames started licking at her fingertips.
A ball of swirling flames formed in Ruby’s hand.
Eykit, didn’t bother stopping his headlong rush, he just redirected it into the other skeleton. That skeleton interposed its shield between it and Eykit, and the quick little Goblin slammed into the shield, sending the skeleton crashing against the wall.
It struck back at the Goblin’s head, but Eykit easily parried the strike, sending the blade swooshing past his shoulder.
Almë had been pulled to the floor with the zombie, who was trying to both attack Almë and get untangled from him at the same time. He stabbed at the zombie’s face again, but the chaotic melee made the strike difficult to pull off.
One of the skeletons strode forward, a quick downward cut of its sword slicing through Almë’s gambeson legging and opening up a gash two hands long. Blood flooded into the layered linen of the gambeson, and had Almë been standing, he would have fallen, his weight being too much for that leg.
But the pain Almë felt, and the feeling of cool air blowing over his opened thigh, and his frustration at the still moving zombie, all combined to cause him to lose his mind. His vision blurred and whitened, a berserker rage filling him to the point of overflowing. He screamed, a throat-rending howl of rage and pain.
Taid, his halberd too long to turn around in the narrow confines of the hallway, backed up towards the intersection, which did have enough space to maneuver his halberd. He could see the other two zombies down, and Almë down as well.
The zombie grappling with Almë lunged at his face, trying to bite it off, but Almë, squirming about as he was, caused the zombie to miss.**
Elitheris glanced down at Mister Wiggles. The dog, shaking and laying in a pool of his own blood, was pawing at his face, trying feebly to put his face back together. He did not look good. She started casting the Spell of Major Healing. She’d seen Almë go into his mindless berserk state, and hoped Eykit was far enough away not to get hurt.
The zombie Norolind had been chewing on had stopped moving. The big dog looked around, trying to puzzle out who he should be attacking next. The gears turned in his brain, slowly. The tall Elf was acting oddly, like a crippled rat doing whatever it could to survive, lashing out blindly at anything around it.
Ruby could see Almë, frantically beating on the zombie he was grappling with. It reminded her of some of the drug addicts she’d seen in Adayn’s seedier sections of the city. Some of them seemed to go crazy sometimes too. His wild knife slashes were uncontrolled and wild, so she called to Nori, “Back off, come here!”
Norolind heard the command, and turned and came back to Ruby.
Elitheris’ spell completed, and the mystic magenta sparkles that only mages could see flowed down her arms and into her severely wounded dog. “That should make you feel better, boy,” she said soothingly. The edges of the cut, sparkling with magenta motes, magically knitted closed, leaving a much smaller wound by the time the magical color faded away. Mister Wiggles’ tail wagged.
Eykit, up against the shield of one of the skeletons, saw movement out of the corner of his eye, down at the far end of the hallway. It was too far to see clearly, and he didn’t have time for it at the moment anyway. He kicked his leg out, trying to sweep the skeleton’s legs out from under it. But his leg just stopped when it hit the skeleton’s boot. Eykit could feel the impact up his shin.
The skeleton wasn’t impressed. It clacked its teeth, and stabbed at the Goblin’s offending leg. Eykit parried the blow, pushing the sword just enough to miss his leg. The sword’s tip clanged off the marble tile, cracking a chip out of it.
Almë was on autopilot, if autopilot went full throttle with no regard as to direction. He bit at the zombie’s face while hammering at its leg with his dagger. “You want to eat me? I will eat you back!” He chewed into the zombie’s cheek, ripping off a piece of its rotted flesh. The knife sunk into the zombie’s thigh, ripping through the gambeson legging it wore.
The second Dwarven skeleton aimed a cut at the spasmodic Elf, but missed, hitting the zombie instead. The sword blow glanced off of the chainmail the zombie wore with a rasping clang.
Eykit shuddered. The sense of foreboding ramped up. His heart hammered in his chest, and he suddenly had trouble breathing. He turned his head this way and that to maybe get a glimpse of what was causing it. He saw it, coming up the hallway. And it saw him. It looked straight at him, and Eykit could feel its malevolence, its desire to consume him. It was still too far to make out clearly, but he could tell it wasn’t a skeleton. And it didn’t move right. It shambled, and its skin was loose and baggy, wobbling about as it shuffled forward. There were glints of something in its eyes.
And the worst part was that Eykit knew just what would happen when it got close. It would touch him, and when it did, he would become like that thing. They would grab his head, and chew on his face in an obscene parody of a kiss, and he would become a thing like they were. Whatever it was. Manticore poison liquifying his flesh would be a quicker, cleaner, and more preferable way to die. He shivered, his hands shook, and he moaned involuntarily. Being killed by one of those things was a slow, horrible process, taking days or weeks, a glacial progression of losing one’s self in an ocean of pain as it asserts control and make one’s mind simply an imprisoned passenger.
Eykit didn’t know how he knew this. It didn’t matter; he just did. It was Truth, a painful, horrible Truth, but Truth nonetheless.
Taid, from his position at the intersection of the two hallways, could see the crowded scrum of battle in front of him. He could see Ruby, Elitheris, Almë, and Norolind fairly clearly, but the rest of the combatants were less easily discernible. He could see Almë’s leg, soaked in blood, and Almë’s frantic movements, which Taid recognized as his berserker state.
The skinny Elf has done lost it, the Dwarf champion thought. He’s going to permanently cripple that leg if he’s not careful. He clenched his teeth, and started casting the Spell of Major Healing. When he had replaced Maggie’s shaft with the balanced ebony wood, he’d also had it invested with the Mage Staff enchantment. That enchantment extended the reach of a mage casting a spell, which was important because the farther away the target of the spell was, the harder the spell was to cast. So getting close to the target was an advantage.
The mostly crippled zombie grappling with Almë lunged forward, trying to bite the Elf’s face. Almë lunged forward, with no regard for his own safety, and the zombie’s teeth clamped about the nasal of the legionary helmet Almë wore. Almë could see the teeth worrying the metal right in front of his eyes.
Taid, Elitheris, and Ruby were also feeling a sense of increased foreboding. Something was drawing near, something horrible and dangerous. Parts of their brains registered something vague coming towards them from the darkness, but they were more focused on what was happening right in front of them.
Elitheris could see Almë and the zombie wrestling on the ground, biting at each other, Almë flailing at the still-moving but nearly crippled undead creature. She put an arrow into the zombie’s leg. The zombie had been too busy grappling with the spastic Elf to even see it coming.
The people weren’t the only ones that felt the fear radiating out from the creature that was stalking up the hallway towards them. The dogs felt it too. Mister Wiggles gave a sorry-sounding whine, as he took off running around the corner, yipping, leaving a trail of piss behind him. Norolind stood frozen in place, shaking, emanating a soft whining noise that belied his usual gruff nature.***
Ruby held her hand up, the ball of flame curling about her fingertips, ready to throw it. She had two skeletal targets to choose from; she threw it at the one on her right. It was closer; the other one was fighting Eykit, and she didn’t want to risk frying the Goblin.
The ball of fire streaked across the distance between Ruby and the skeleton, and it raised its shield. The flames burst across the wooden shield, leaving little flames licking across its surface.
Taid finished casting the healing spell, but the magic just didn’t come. He could sense the motes of mana sparkling around his fingertips, but they didn’t coalesce into anything useful.
Eykit ducked low, and slammed into the skeleton again, trying to knock it over. He led with his knives, hoping that the skeleton would block the knife by raising its shield high enough for him to get under it. He got his wish; he aimed high with the knife, and the skeleton interposed its shield, and the knife thunked dully into the wood. He ran forward in a low crouch, slamming into the skeleton’s legs. He thought he heard a faint cracking noise, and the skeleton had to take a couple of steps to keep its balance, but it didn’t fall over.
The skeleton, with Eykit’s arms around its legs, slammed the edge of its shield on the back of the Goblin’s neck, but the thick layered gambeson collar absorbed most of the blow. Eykit felt it, and he almost lost his balance, but while it hurt, it didn’t stop him.
Almë put both hands on his dagger, plunging it into the zombie’s leg. Its arms, which had been trying to bat aside Almë’s knife hand, fell to its sides, and lay motionless. It was finally dead again. Almë spat out a gobbet of dry, chewy flesh, wondering what the hell he’d eaten. It tasted vaguely meat like, but with a moldy, fungal note as well. He screamed in pain as the long gash on his leg made itself known to him again. He wasn’t sure if he could even stand up.
The first Dwarf skeleton stabbed Almë in the chest. Its sword pierced through the gambeson, and plunged into his flesh. §
The shambling thing advanced; it was close enough now that its features could be seen. Eykit and Almë could both see it as it approached.
It had been Human, before being turned into whatever it was now. Its skin was baggy, and drooped down, almost as if it was melting off of its body, or as if it was the skin of something much larger than frame it was draped upon now. It had Shards shoved into its eyes. It looked at Eykit, then at Almë.
Eykit saw its head swivel to look at him. And he felt it. A wave of extreme fear that felt like ice water down his spine, but only for a moment. His mind checked out, and Eykit fell limp to the floor, fainted dead away.
Almë felt its presence as well, like a feather pillow over his face, stifling his breathing. But he grit his teeth, thinking, I have night terrors on a regular basis, where I get to see my wife torn to pieces by unholy demons. This thing doesn’t scare me.
Taid, disappointed in his failure to cast the healing spell, tried again. He started casting the Spell of Major Healing again.
Elitheris saw Eykit drop to the ground, likely dodging some incoming blow. But her focus was on the two skeletons, which she named, in her head, Derek and Carl. They weren’t Dwarven names, but she didn’t think they would care too much, despite being animated Dwarven skeletons. She drew an bodkin pointed arrow from her quiver, nocked it, and pulled it back, releasing when she got to full draw.
The arrow flashed across the narrow space between them, and “Carl”, the skeleton on the right from her point of view, tried to block it. It failed, and the arrow hit its sword arm, piercing the mail and gambeson, but sliding between the forearm bones. The arrow stuck out of both sides of its arm, although the skeleton didn’t seem to notice.
Mister Wiggles scurried into the alcove at the far end of the cul de sac, worming his way into the far corner behind the sarcophagus. He shook in fear, making himself as small as he could.
Norolind waited; he’d been called, and now he waited for instructions, moving slowly towards Ruby, favoring his rear leg. Ruby grabbed his collar, and pulled him past her, directing him to get behind her. This confused him, as he was used to having her behind him, but he complied. She started casting the Spell of Explosive Fireball.
She’d need to throw it past the two skeletons, hoping that they didn’t manage to block it and make it explode prematurely; the explosion would likely hurt Eykit and Almë if they did. But she really wanted to reach out and touch the scary thing that was coming closer. She could feel it approaching, and every step it took made the feeling increase in strength. At some point, she wouldn’t be able to keep it together, and she might bolt, or freeze, or any number of reactions that people had to extreme fear.
She had some experience with that. Her training with the spells of Fear and Panic gave her a bit of insight on the psychology of frightened people. It was a useful tool, sometimes. And, whatever that thing was, certainly had a way with manipulating it.
Taid’s healing spell activated, and the cut on Almë’s leg closed up, the edges of the wound growing back together. Ruby’s hand burst into flame, the fire licking and curling around her fingertips, forming into a swirling yellow ball of fire.
The skeleton Elitheris called “Derek” stepped over Eykit’s still, unconscious body and stabbed at Almë’s chest. Almë, his leg feeling much better, rolled to the side, and the sword point slid past, cutting a slash in his gambeson, but fortunately missing his flesh.
Almë started to get up. Being prone wasn’t very advantageous when being stabbed at by the undead.
The skeleton nicknamed “Carl” swung his sword at Almë as well, but Almë was able to parry it with his dagger, a combination of bending his body out of the way as well as deflecting the sword’s edge downward.
The shambling creature got closer, and with it came an intensifying feeling of despair and fear. Its gaze swept across Elitheris, Taid, and Ruby.
When it looked at Elitheris, she felt an end to her future. What had been a long Elven lifespan now felt as if it would last only as long as the thing took to reach her. After that, there was nothing, except for the terror of having her body changed into whatever that thing was, as it chewed into her mind. Her mind couldn’t really cope with that thought, and she fell to the marble tiles, unconscious. Like Eykit, she fainted.
As Taid locked eyes with it, the sense of impending doom filled him. He too, felt that the thing, if it touched him, would take him over and use him like a puppet, all while he was still in there, unable to do anything about it. A giggle escaped his lips, followed by raucous maniacal laughter at his fate. He couldn’t stop, the nihilistic sense that nothing could be done except to laugh at the danger filled his mind like white noise. His booming laughter echoed off the hard marble walls, ceiling, and floor.
Its glance passed to Ruby, and although she felt a spike of fear, she held it together. Out of the corner of her eye, Ruby saw Elitheris drop her bow and the arrow she held, then slump to the ground in a heap. At the same time, or nearly so, Taid spontaneously started laughing in an unnerving way. She realized that they hadn’t been able to remain as steadfast as she’d have hoped.
Taid started casting the spell of Icy Touch, moving forward a bit to get in range. This spell would create a shell of ice around the target, freezing them in place until they could break out of the ice.
Ruby, cocking her arm back to throw her sparking, unstable looking ball of fire, stepped to the opposite side of the hallway to get a better angle on the shambling thing. She had to throw the ball of fire between the two skeletons in front to get it to explode near the fear-emanating thing. It was a good thing both undead were Dwarven skeletons, and hunkered behind their shields, expecting her to throw it at them.
The fireball, trailing sparks and popping and crackling, sailed over and between the two skeletons, impacting against the wall by the shambling thing’s head and exploded in a gout of flame. The concussive force rocked the shambling thing, and it stumbled to the side, little flames licking all over the rags it wore, its skin on that side of its face a mass of red weeping sores and charred bits of skin. The flames didn’t last long, and smoldered out quickly.
Eykit also had short-lived flamelets burning on his body for a little while, and the smell of burnt goblin hair filled the corridor.
“Derek” the skeleton slashed at Almë’s leg as the tall Elf was standing up, hoping to cut out his support before he could do so. But Almë interposed his dagger, the edges sliding along one another as the Elf guided the sword down, where it clanged on the marble tiled floor.
Almë stood, lunging forward with his knife at the skeleton that attacked him. The skeleton sidestepped, just enough to have the thrust miss.
The second skeleton, “Carl”, attacked the mage that had just thrown a fireball, but the quick little Hobbit dodged out of the way, and the sword clattered into the end of the sarcophagus Ruby had been next to.
The shambling thing glanced down at the unconscious form of the Goblin at its feet. Then it looked up, at the victims that were still moving. It stepped over Eykit, and moved towards the tall, hunched over Elf.
Taid moved forward, still concentrating on his spell of Icy Touch, powering it up a bit more. Mist flowed down off of his hands, as did the shaft of his halberd. Anything he touched with it would be encased in a layer of ice over a centimeter thick. He could feel the coolness radiating off of it.
Ruby could see the undead things coming closer, and that wasn’t something she really wanted. But she had a spell that could fix that: the spell of Glue. She started casting it, feeling a sense of tackiness when her fingers touched.
Taid spell goes off. Ruby’s spell goes off.
Ruby extended her staff out towards “Derek” and the shambling thing, and magenta motes of light that only mages could see sparked from the end of it, cascading onto the floor, sparkling there for a moment before fading away. The two undead almost stumbled as they found that the ground kept them from lifting their feet.
Taid’s maniacal laughter hadn’t stopped; it seemed to be a constant background roar.
Derek lurched forward, pulling his booted foot up out of the stickiness that held him. He took a step forward, closing on Almë.
Ruby was holding Almë’s staff in her left hand. He glanced back and saw it, snatching out of her hands and getting into the best guard position he could, given the tight quarters.
The closer of the two skeletons, Carl, slashed at Ruby’s arm. The sword’s edge slid across her forearm, but the tough Elven silversilk armor stood up to the blade. The force of the blow did knock her arm aside, though, and her staff, still extended to increase the range of the spell she had just cast, banged against the marble tiles of the wall.
The shambling creature struggled against the magically adhesive floor, stumbling forward a step before getting stuck again. Its head turned towards Ruby, the Shards in its eyes easily visible now that Taid’s shortsword, still glowing brightly, was close enough to illuminate the once-Human creature.
Ruby could feel it: the deep sense of foreboding, the sharp terror because she knew it wanted her eyes. She got the sense that it collected them somehow, although she couldn’t see where it kept them. But she remained focused, her anti-interrogation training given to her by her guild doing double duty. The creature could go fuck itself. She wasn’t fazed by its stare of doom.
Cold mist falling from his hands and Maggie’s shaft, Taid stepped around Maggie, touching the skeleton known as “Carl” with the wooden haft of his weapon. As soon as it touched Carl, the skeleton was enclosed in a chill mist, which solidified into a shell of ice, freezing the undead thing in place, unable to move.
Ruby started casting her old standby, the spell of Flame Jet. Sparks started appearing, flickering between her fingertips as she softly spoke the words of power and moved her hands in the ritual motions.
From Ruby’s closed fist a jet of flame gouted out, arcing past the frozen, ice covered Carl and shooting towards both the other skeleton and the shambling thing with the loose, baggy skin and Shards in its eyes.
The other skeleton aimed a thrust at Almë’s face, but he had his staff now, and even with the confined area, he was still pretty good with it. Even though the staff end bounced off of the ceiling tiles, he swept the incoming attack away easily. He could see Eykit on the floor, likely glued to it like the two undead. He’d also seen no arrows flicking past him, so he figured that something had happened to Elitheris as well.
Almë followed up the parry by aiming a thrust at the skeleton’s face. There wasn’t enough room in the hallway to swing the staff around; he was stuck using it like a blunt spear.
It didn’t really matter, though, because the skeletal Dwarf blocked the attack with its shield.
Taid’s laughing still rang through the hallways. There was an edge of hysteria in it. His mind must have been protected by his sense of the absurd, because when the shambling creature looked into his eyes again, he was able to push aside the fear and ignore the image of the creature holding him close and chewing off his face as the Shards grew into his eyes. Or, perhaps, Aheru-Mazda saved him. It didn’t matter, the creature didn’t cripple him with terror.
He struck out with the hook of his halberd, catching the top of the shield of the skeleton attacking Almë, pulling it down and out of line, opening the skeleton up to an attack by an ally.
Ruby’s flames hit “Derek” right after Taid had pulled its shield out of line. The flames played over it, then moved over to the shambling thing. The first one got some blackened bone and carbon-scored mail, and the shambling thing’s loose robes caught fire, as did its loose, drooping skin.
The skeleton attacked Almë again, trying to cut at his arm, but Almë was very, very good with his staff, and with a simple twisting motion deflected the sword strike. Then he thrusted the end of the staff into the skeleton’s face, twice, although the first one was deflected by the skeleton’s sword. The second one connected; the skeleton was fast, but not fast enough to parry the second strike. The decorative steel end cap of the staff slammed into the skeleton’s face with a crack!, and the skeleton rocked back, its jaw falling off and bouncing off of the marble tile.
The skeleton encased in ice shuddered a little, but that’s all it did. It was still effectively an ice sculpture.
The shambling monstrosity pulled its foot up off of the sticky floor, and stepped behind the ice-encased skeleton. It was still stuck in the area encompassed by the spell of Glue, and was still having trouble moving. It struggled to move its legs. But now it and the jawless skeleton were side by side, completely blocking the hallway.
This was an opportunity as far as Taid was concerned. He psyched himself up, willing himself to use every ounce of strength he had, and pushed on the frozen, armored skeleton. It toppled back, onto the shambling thing, whose feet were glued to the floor tiles. It had no where to go, and no way to brace itself as the entire weight of the skeleton, its armor and weapons, and the ice encasing it fell onto it.
The shambling creature, with its ice-encrusted companion in its arms, fell onto its back. It was glued to the floor like a fly on flypaper, from its head to its ass, its knees up on either side of the iced-over skeleton, which lay on top of it. The icy skeleton lay at a tilted angle on top of the shambling thing, parts of it also glued to the floor. Its gaze attack now pointed upwards, its head stuck to the floor. It seemed to have limited eye movement, or what could be considered eye movement, given that its eyes were now Shards.
And Taid kept laughing.
Ruby grinned, and took advantage of the fact that the enemies had fallen over and were stuck in place. She played the flames over the unstuck but damaged skeleton. It caught fire, and fell over, smoldering but unmoving. Before it even hit the ground, Ruby had moved the flame jet over to the shambling thing, half covered by the ice-covered skeleton. She burned it, too, its skin burning even more than it had already.
Almë gave his old opponent a quick glance: it lay, burning and unmoving, and likely stuck in the glue. He grinned, and made two quick attacks, swinging downward as best he could in the uncomfortably short hallway. Both strikes slammed into the thing’s face, breaking its nose and tearing its loose skin. Almë was certain he heard a wet cracking noise in there as well.
Taid, still laughing, did the same kind of attack, but with his longer halberd. Maggie was in a place too small for proper attacks, but he could still slam the axe blade downward fairly well. A pair of quick chops, and the shambling thing’s chest was opened up in a large, ragged gash. Through the rip in the clothing, Taid could see the ends of some broken ribs amongst the gore.
The thing still moved, though. It still struggled to get up, a large hole in the chest and a broken face notwithstanding. It was still dangerous.
Ruby focused her flame jet on the damaged shambling thing. It was wiggling and struggling to move, but there was no getting away from the flames, which played over its leg before moving up to its chest, where the big hole was. Both its leg and torso were ablaze, the smoke filling the area with its horrific blend of stench and roasted meat. In a moment, it stopped moving.
Almë was glad the thing had stopped moving. The combination of all of their attacks left a burning, mangled corpse that looked much uglier than it already had been. All that was left was the skeleton encased in ice. Almë waited, letting Ruby melt off the ice before he struck.
Taid didn’t bother waiting. Before Ruby could move the jet of flames over to her new target, the champion of Aheru-Mazda slammed Maggie’s axe head into the skeleton’s chest. A big chunk of ice broke off as the axe blade shattered some of the ribs. Taid’s second blow was even stronger, again hitting the chest and breaking even more of the ribs, plus the sternum as well.
Ruby played the fire onto its chest as well, bypassing what remained of the icy covering. She held it there; it wasn’t moving. The flames caught it on fire, and ice started to fall away in chunks as it melted. A moment later, and the bones, held together my a magical, animating force, fell into a loose pile of remains. It too was dead.
Except for the roar of flames, their heavy breathing, and Taid’s laughter, which now finally ceased, the fight was over. They looked around, but nothing seemed to be moving.
Almë knew that he had to get the Shards, not only because the flesh of the Shard zombies continued moving around, even when “dead”, but also because he wanted them. He hopped into the area of Glue, kneeling down next to the thing’s damaged head. He pulled out his knife and went to work carving them out of its eye sockets.
He was still at it, pulling the Shards out, when Elitheris roused. She sat up, panicked for a moment, trying to orient herself. She didn’t see any moving enemies, just Taid and Ruby standing watching Almë doing something to a dead body. Norolind glanced over at her, stepped forward, and licked her face. Elitheris figured that things must be under control, and stood up, gathering her bow and arrow as she did.
Farther down the corridor, she could see Eykit, on the floor where he had fallen.
“So,” Almë said, as he tried to pry up the thing’s body off of the still-sticky floor, “do you guys think that this thing is related to Kallia because of the Shards, or do you think it’s just random?”
“Could be random,” Ruby said. She wasn’t sure she believed it, though. Not from what her companions had been saying about these necromancers.
“I think these were sent by her,” Taid said. “It was some kind of set up. A trap.”
“But why?” Almë asked. “That’s my biggest question. Why would there be a trap down here that we run into? That sounds very random to me.”
“Well,” Taid said, “remember we got clues from people about coming down here. I think all this stuff might have been a setup for us, because we were investigating. You know, we’re investigating the catacombs and they are like, ‘Oh yeah, there were these marks on the wall’ and stuff like that. So maybe all these people are bought out and corrupted by Kallia, then maybe this was all set up to get us to come down here, investigate it, and get hit by this trap.” He shook his head. “I don’t know! This is all speculation, but it also all fits. It could all be random, but it feels like we were lured here to be killed, or whatever.”
Taid’s reasoning made sense to Almë. He shrugged. “I mean, until the Shards in the eyes thing, I thought this was just random. But with the Shards in the picture, it sounds like it’s not. It’s not just some local haunting or whatever. It’s like this thing,” he stabbed his knife into it again, “is handmade or some such. There is something inelegant about it, somehow.” He saw a glint, near the sternum of the thing. He dug at it. It was another Shard. There had been two large ones in the eyes, each about a finger long, and one of more normal size under its sternum.
Eykit stirred, opened his eyes. He could hear conversation, but there didn’t seem to be any noises of battle, so that was good. He looked around. Almë was kneeling by the loose-skinned creature, its face gouged apart. A smoldering armored Dwarven skeleton lay across it, filling the air with a smoky stench. Beyond them, Ruby and Taid stood, and Elitheris beyond them.
Taid saw Eykit wake up. As the Goblin rose to his feet, he shouted, “Don’t move any closer! There is glue!”
Eykit jerked to a stop; he’d been planning on joining his companions, but now he understood why Almë’s gambeson leggings looked odd. They were glued down too. It was why he just knelt there, instead of standing up. He seemed done with whatever he’d been doing to the body.
Eykit shrugged, and glancing behind him, knelt down too. He’d seen some sparklies mixed in with the bones, and it was as good a time as any to gather them up. Hey, this place used to be pristine, he thought. I’m just cleaning up.
A few minutes later, and the stickiness of the floor dissipated, and Almë rolled the shambling creature, now burned and broken, over onto its front. Sure enough, a control Shard had been implanted in its neck. He had four more Shards now.
It was odd. It was what they could call an “advanced” Shardzombie. It wasn’t just a zombie with a control Shard, it had other, more specialized Shards embedded in its flesh as well. But it seemed different. All of the other Shardzombies had rearranged the flesh to a degree, the flesh forming into ropy strings that shifted around. This one didn’t seem to do that. Its flesh was…normal. If loose, baggy skin was normal. And it wasn’t as fast as the other Shardzombies. This one seemed to shuffle along, much more slowly than the other ones typically did. This one seemed…more focused somehow.
Elitheris said, “Well, yeah. It reflects the differences in the approaches and interests of the different people who have been dabbling in this stuff, right? Because that was something we learned early in all the letters between all the necromancers. You could tell that ‘oh, you guys are taking that approach. That’s really interesting. I have been focusing more on this,’ and so they all have different interests.”
“And Kallia has seemed like she’s the most advanced of the group,” Taid added, nodding. “Based on her studies and what she’s done with her experiments….So, yeah. I definitely think this is one of hers, and I don’t think we stumbled across it by accident.”
Almë thought about the undead in the fight. The first zombie had been Human. The first two zombies had both been Dwarves, as had the two skeletons. The shambling thing had also been Human. Odd. There was something about that, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it. And the only thing with Shards had been the shambling creature. The rest of the undead had been, for lack of a better term, “off the shelf” zombies.
The fight was over, for now. They had survived.
Elitheris went to find Mister Wiggles. She could hear him whimpering down the hallway, and she could smell dog piss. It was likely that the thing that had made her mind nope out had done something to the dog as well.
Rewards Granted
3 cp
4 Shards (off of Jeff, the EyeShard Zombie)
4 Shards (off of Jeff, the EyeShard Zombie)
Report Date
28 Sep 2024
Primary Location
Secondary Location
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