The Bad Guys Chronicles Box Set

by Eric Ugland

  I scrambled to my feet and lunged for the opening, but the iron door dropped shut with a clang, leaving me on the wrong side. I turned around to see where I’d been tossed.

  There was glowing green in the air itself, dead trees sprouting up out of dark soil. Death was everywhere. As were tombstones, mausoleums, and grave markers. I was in the Shade. And I wasn’t alone.

  Chapter 109

  Howls and groans echoed around me. The noises sent shivers down my spine. It was like my brain was hardwired to respond with fear.

  I took a few deep breaths, and looked around. Like, really looked around.

  Graveyard, as far as I could see. It was basically flat, save a few dead trees and some mausoleums. I could also see a small tower with a burning flame in the distance. I had no idea what it was, but since it was the only thing that looked anything like civilization, I figured it was probably a good place to head.

  There was, of course, the wall. It was right behind me, and it towered over me, at least 50 feet up, made out of a strange purple sort of stone. Magic seemed to come off the stone in a steady trickle, and that made me guess there was a strong enchantment on it. Probably to keep all the nasty undead stuff on the inside. Which didn’t do me any good. I had no idea what the Iron Silents had done to get me inside, and I had no idea who might be on the top of the wall watching. What I did know is that I wasn’t super keen on dying.

  Or was I? Maybe dying might be a smart tactical retreat from here.

  But then the Iron Silents would know about my Earthly origins, and I really didn’t want to give them that info. Not unless I absolutely had to.

  It was certainly a tough spot. I could see movement in front of me — something below the surface was trying to push through.

  Time to do something. I decided the quickest way out of the place had to be over the wall. So I tried to climb it.

  It didn’t matter what I did — I couldn’t get a grip on the stone. Nothing worked. Jumping up, I’d just slide right down. It was a little like the surface was much smoother than it appeared, and someone had sprayed the entire thing with an industrial-strength application of PAM. I bet a fried egg would still stick on it.

  Scaling the wall was out, so I turned around to try and gauge how far away the flaming tower was. But thinking it through, it probably wasn’t the best idea to go for the tower.

  It wasn’t so much the distance, but rather what was between me and the tower. At present, it was a lot of shambling corpses, a few ambulatory skeletons, and at least one creature that seemed to have been several skeletons combined into a new, much worse transformer skeleton creature. The singular silver lining was that nothing was sprinting. This was a world with slow-moving zombies. Small miracles do happen.

  A hand burst from the ground in a shower of dirt and slapped around my ankle. It had a crushing grip, like someone using their full strength without realizing it. I pulled, but the hand had me. I started to worry I had fallen prey to the first rule of slow zombies: always pay attention.

  I pulled out my dagger, and swiped at the greying flesh.

  It cut through the flesh like it wasn’t there, but the hand’s bone was a different matter. The dagger bit into that and got caught. This was not my night.

  I did have a few aces tucked up my sleeve. I could call up an Outsider Guardian. Sure, I might call down some elder god who’d eat the entire world to keep me safe, thereby directly causing the end of all things. But at least I wouldn’t die getting caught by a slow-ass zombie. Or, I could try one of my other offensive spells. Well. Singular. My other offensive spell.

  I knelt down and grabbed the forearm, swallowing the revulsion from touching rotting flesh. I got some mana together, and I cast drain.

  The creature started screeching from under the dirt. It was pretty muffled, and easy to ignore because of this remarkably unpleasant feeling inside myself. Burning pain and a searing excruciation bursting all over my insides.

  Then, blissfully, it was over.

  The zombie’s hand had withered to basically nothing. A hand version of a shrunken head.

  GG! You’ve killed a zombie (Lvl 6 Undead)

  You’ve earned 0 xp (cost of drain spell)! What a mighty hero you are.

  Whizz-bang! You’ve absorbed the following from a zombie: +3 HP. + 38 Baking.

  Baking. And three hit points. Well, at least I wasn’t losing anything, right?

  The spell worked okay. Not great, just okay. A bit hard on the mana, it took a third of my stores to drain the bastard, and a bit hard on alertness. It basically took me out of action for a hot minute. If I did the spell in the middle of a group, I’d be killed. Or eaten. Likely both.

  Another hand came out of the ground near me, and I just booted the thing like I was kicking a field goal. The arm bones snapped, and the hand went flying. It would seem my potential enemies were largely pushovers. But they had numbers. I counted another eight hands pushing up through the dirt all around me.

  Which meant it was time to move. I didn’t move quickly — that wasn’t a good move. Not against this many enemies who moved so slowly towards a wall. Instead, I paced myself. I was still in the city, this was just another neighborhood, and it probably had similar dimensions. So I just had to walk my ass out.

  Like a good cult leader, I soon had quite the following. Sure, they were mostly braindead and drooling, but I figured they like me for who I was on the inside, not just the sounds I made. Sadly, there were no calls of braaaaaaaaaains. That really would have made my night.

  It took about ten or twenty minutes before things changed. There was a guttural roar of sorts, and then a grey-skinned humanoid with a long tendril of a tongue and horrible claws coming off its hands came screaming towards me. There were vague remnants of clothing on the thing, which made me think it could very well have been human at one point. There was little left of its humanity, though. Just hunger and madness.

  I pulled my dagger out and dropped into a ready stance. With the speed the thing had, there was no real chance I’d outrun the beast. I did take a chance and fired off a quick identification spell.

  Ghoul

  Lvl 9 Undead

  I guess, then, it was time to have a ghoul old time.

  The ghoul was on me, but thanks to the hours I spent dodging attacks in the pit, I had no trouble faking the guy out. Just a little shimmy-shake, and the ghoul lunged to the right. I stabbed him in the back as he passed by. The dagger must have struck something inside, because the momentum of the ghoul ripped the blade right out of my hand. Other than that, it seemed to have no effect.

  The creature slid around on the loose soil, but as soon as the ghoul got his footing back, he was after me again.

  Then I was saved by an unlikely source. A zombie finally managed to get himself up and out of the grave, and was promptly bowled over by the ghoul.

  It was classic slapstick, the two undead tangled up in a ghoulish mess. I took the moment to jump up and stomp on the ghoul’s ankles, and heard a satisfying crunch of bone.

  The ghoul reared up with a roar, and then promptly bit down on the zombie. And started to devour the rotting flesh.

  “That’s really gross bub,” I said. But the ghoul seemed totally happy with his feast, so I just plucked my dagger out of the ghoul’s back. It came free with a sickening pop, and then I walked away, mere yards ahead of the encroaching zombie crowd.

  Chapter 110

  Ten or so minutes later, I’d regained a sizable lead over the horde. However, the horde was growing. As I crossed the graves, more and more bodies rose and shambled after me. As long as I could keep going, then I’d have a decent chance at survival. And yet, I’d seen once how foolish that line of thinking could be.

  When I looked around, I saw other, larger, creatures in the distance, barely shadows in the green-tinged fog that seemed to be getting thicker and thicker.

  This was definitely one of the creepiest, if not the creepiest place I’d ever been. Which isn’t saying that much — I was
never much for horror films or haunted houses.

  I kept my eyes open for a new weapon. My current rogue skills and weapons weren’t exactly the most useful against the undead. Zombies didn’t get surprised, and they didn’t seem overly concerned with stabbing damage either. If I remembered my meta-gaming, undead and blunt weapons were the key combination. But it’s not like there was an overabundance of weapons or general stores in the hood.

  I had no idea what happened to the zombies or the ghouls or the whatever when there weren’t living people in the graveyard, but they didn’t just lay down. There were empty graves all over the place. I suppose I could have hopped into one in the hopes I’d find a ceremonial sword or two, but that’d be death. Getting back out of a six-foot-deep hole with plenty of loose earth in and around it was a no-go. I’d be zed-snack in no time.

  There was a bunch of movement in front of me as a smaller pack of fast moving things — they looked like ghouls to me — dashed from one mausoleum over to a particular gravestone.

  Not wanting to deal with all of them at once, I headed towards the mausoleum.

  It looked like a small stone house, about ten feet high at the edge, and another four or so feet to the tippy top of the slightly sloped roof. I peeked through the iron bars that made up the door and saw enough room for three coffins on each side, plus an altar at the back with quite a few glow stones around a bas relief carving of a haunted-looking man.

  Whatever the ghouls had run from was around back. So I went around back, leaning out from the wall to take a look.

  I saw a fresh corpse wearing burnished golden armor and looking very much like it had just dropped a mace and a shield. This might be my lucky day.

  The corpse coughed lightly.

  “Shit,” I said in surprise.

  Slowly, the head turned my way, and then the figure raised the visor on its helm. There was a human beneath the visor, a man with a big bushy blonde mustache and blood coming out of his mouth.

  “Didn’t expect to see anyone like you here,” the man said. He had kind eyes, but his eyebrows were out of control. “You fancy becoming a meal?”

  “Hey buddy, at least I’m upright.”

  “Got me there, you do.”

  “Do you think you’ll have long to live?” I asked.

  “Likely not,” the figure said, a hint of a smile on his face. “Really depends on how long the ghouls are distracted.”

  He coughed, and more blood came out of his mouth.

  I took a few steps closer to the man and eyed the mace on the ground. The figure’s hand reached for the haft, but there was no strength left. So I took the mace. Not like it was going to be useful for the guy anymore.

  “Thanks,” I said. “And, I mean, sorry.”

  “Good luck,” he said, and closed his eyes.

  I peeked around the edge of the mausoleum, and I noticed that the horde following me had been distracted by whatever the ghouls had been interested in. Nothing was paying attention to me — I could make a break for it.

  But I heard a cough behind me, and while I really wanted to just bolt in the direction I hoped might be an exit, I hesitated. I knew I should just look out for myself and screw everyone else, but I couldn’t leave someone to die. I just didn’t have it in me. And maybe if the guy was, I don’t know, more upset about things, or something, I’d have left him. But he was just so accepting of his fate that I wanted to alter it.

  So I turned back to the armored figure, and I knelt at his side.

  The man turned his head and opened one eye in a squint.

  “Back again?”

  “I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing here,” I said, “and I have basically no idea what these creatures are capable of, so, uh, I don’t think the best move is me fighting all of them off.”

  “Likely not.”

  “So what should I do?”

  “First plan was the best plan.”

  “Taking your weapon and leaving?”

  He nodded.

  “Yeah, that didn’t work. This weird feeling welled up inside, and—”

  “You were sent for me.”

  “No. Can’t say that’s the case.”

  “She spoke to you?”

  “Let’s hold off on an investigation of where my sense of conscience might have come from, okay?”

  I stood up and peeked around the corner.

  Whatever was keeping the ghouls interested was definitely wearing off. Now the ghouls were falling on the zombies in a feeding frenzy of sorts that was rather grotesque to watch. I almost felt sorry for the zombies. Almost.

  Back to the armored man, who was smiling.

  “I’m taking the smile as a sign you’ve got a plan,” I said.

  “Enjoying that you’re trying,” he replied.

  “Yeah well, pretty sure only one of us gets to lay around. Got any more of whatever you threw to get the ghouls to run away?”

  He used his chin to gesture out towards a small pouch laying forgotten on the dirt about twenty feet away from us. The drag marks from that spot led directly to the wounded warrior. I knew time was tight, but I could make it. I crawled across the graveyard and snatched the pouch. It held a single red vial and a small black stone.

  I looked back at the man, making sure I had my best what-the-hell face on.

  He mouthed the word ‘stone.’ At least, I think he did because his big-ass mustache covered most of his mouth.

  The stone? I thought. It was smooth and fit nicely in my palm. Seemed like it would be something good for, say, throwing or skipping. But for the life of me, or the un-life of me, I had no idea how it might attract or interest the undead.

  Still, magic had weird ways of working. I stood up and I threw the stone as hard as I could. It flew pretty straight, pachinko-ing off a number of grave markers until it settled to the dirt about thirty yards distant.

  I crawled back over to the man and showed him the vial.

  “Healing potion?” I asked.

  “A lesser lesser one.”

  “Two lessers?”

  “Very weak.”

  “Better than a poke in the eye. Take it.”

  “You should—”

  “Let’s ease back on the martyr train, okay?” I snatched the vial back from him, flipped the cork out with my thumb, and jammed it through the face whiskers and into his mouth.

  He swallowed it, and almost magically, well, it technically was magic, his face regained a little color. Not a whole lot — he still looked like hot shit — but at least he no longer seemed on the threshold of death.

  “The bloodstone?” he asked.

  “I threw it that way.”

  “Did you put blood in it?”

  “The stone? No. I just threw, oh. You need — yeah, that makes sense.”

  “Blood. Makes the stone work.”

  “Got that now. Looks like we need to get up.”

  “I might be able to move some, but I fear my ribs are still quite broken.”

  He pulled his tabard to the side, and I could see that the armor over his chest and abdomen was dented in major ways.

  “Ghouls hit hard?” I asked.

  He laughed a little, then groaned and grabbed his sides.

  I grabbed his hand, feeling a little weird because he had on a metal gauntlet and my hand was just, well, flesh, but I pulled him to his feet. He was definitely unsteady.

  “Up top?” he asked.

  “Gives us a bit of room from the roving hordes.”

  “Let us hope they’ve not learned the fine art of climbing.”

  “How about praying to that god of yours?”

  “Sure, once we’re up.”

  I interlaced my fingers and put my back against the wall. He put his foot onto my hands, and I gave as much as I could to the armored man, lifting for all I was worth. It was just enough to get his fingers up and onto the edge of the building. But dude was strong, because was already pulling himself up, despite making some real utterances of pain. But the real is
sue, and probably one major reason why rogues usually forwent plate armor, was that metal on stone isn’t particularly quiet. So a lot of scraping and banging and clanking happened.

  Which the ghouls heard. Suddenly, they all got rather quiet.

  “Well shit,” I said.

  I shoved his feet, and he disappeared over the edge.

  The rumble of undead feet smacking the ground vibrated through my body. I grabbed the mace and shield and threw them up to the roof, hoping my new friend was fast enough to catch them.

  Then it was my turn. I ran at the building, jumped, kicked off the wall, and grabbed out. I’d fallen short. I wasn’t going to make it. And I could see the first of the ghouls sliding around the corner, slavering at the chance to get some tasty living flesh.

  Chapter 111

  Two hands reached out and snagged my wrists, then wrenched me up.

  I tumbled onto the roof, landing on some of the pointy bits of the man’s armor. I heard cries from down below. I rolled off the man, got to my feet, and grabbed the mace. I peeked over, trying to see if the ghouls were climbing.

  Not yet.

  Plenty of them were jumping up and clawing at the stone. None of them seemed to have grasped the basic concept of grasping. At least not at inorganic non-food objects. I shook my head, feeling like we might be actually get a little luck.

  We had very little room on the roof. Which was somewhat to be expected, considering, you know, it was a roof. Of a mausoleum. A small flat area, maybe two feet wide, ran all the way around. Then there was a very gentle upslope to a point, and finally, along the ridge-line of the roof, some decorative spikes. But that took up a decent chunk of the space. There was a spire at the far end, sticking up about ten more feet, with a religious symbol of some kind on the top.

  My armored comrade was laying back on the roof, breathing hard.