by Eric Ugland
“You want some help getting that armor off?” I asked.
“I suppose… breathing… might be… nice…”
I shook my head, but knelt at his side and started undoing buckles.
The undead below were loud and made a tremendously diverse amount of noise. Roars, groans, screams, yells, shouts, chatters. And then there was the rhythmic thump of flesh on stone. All together, it was a cacophony of horrible, nightmare-inducing noises, loud enough I had trouble thinking.
Once I got the armor loose, the man did the rest on his own, stacking up his golden armor carefully by his side before leaning back and taking in great big lungfuls of air. His torso was pretty messed up. There were lots of indentations that looked recent, with some incredible colors coming on line. Massive contusions filled with blood. Plus there were more than a few ribs poking out more than they should have.
Still, the man was seriously muscled. Muscle on muscle. And given the road-map of scars over his body, I had the feeling he’d been fighting a while. He looked a little older than I’d expected, though, and some wrinkles at the corners of his eyes gave me the idea that he probably smiled a lot. He did seem to be a jovial fellow, despite the rather grim circumstances. He had blonde hair and blue eyes, and just an incredible amount of scars.
I took another glance over the edge, though that was not a great idea. As soon as I did, the ghouls on the edge went nuts, trying to grab me. The herd of zombies had taken up position on the opposite side of the mausoleum, but, so far, they were much easier to deal with. They didn’t jump at all. Rather, when I went to look at them, they just reached for me, seemingly oblivious to the gaping distance between us.
“Shall we trade names, or would you rather remain a mystery man?”
“Clyde Hatchett.”
“Well, Master Hatchett, I am Sir Leofing Walrond,” he struggled for a second, but he couldn’t manage to get to his feet. “I would give you the bow a meeting such as this requires, but alas—”
“No bow needed. I’ve always felt the undead bring any situation a certain informality.”
He chuckled, then grimaced.
“No humor, please,” he said through clenched teeth. But even with that, he had a hint of a smile. “Any particular reason you chose to spend a night here?
That was a tough question. Well, it was a question that had any number of answers. I had no idea what this man was connected to, or who he might be connected to, and I wasn’t really sure the power levels in the city. I didn’t want to just throw the Iron Silents name around.
“A terrible prank,” I said.
“A prank? You’re in the Shade as a prank. Risking your life?”
“At the time, I didn’t know how dangerous it was.”
“You are my kind of fool,” the guy said, shaking his head.
“New to the city. I had no idea what this place might be like.”
“The Shade is famous the world over for the undead inside.”
“Sheltered upbringing, I suppose.”
“It would seem so.”
There was an increase in screaming and wailing, and I looked over to see another group of ghouls headed our way.
“Seems like there’s more trouble on the way,” I said.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Ghouls,” I said.
“Bah, ghouls are hardly an issue.”
“They seemed to take you down.”
“This? This was the result of a ghast.”
“Not familiar with any of those.”
“Consider yourself lucky.”
“Should I be on the lookout for them?”
“They’ll find us fine.”
“I’m a little concerned with your attitude.”
“No sense getting worked up when death is inevitable.”
“See, that’s what I’m talking about. You’re so happy and yet so fatalistic. It weirds me out.”
One of the ghouls was getting some real air. His horrific grey head was popping up at a regular interval.
I grabbed the mace, teed up, and swung for the far hole.
The big round ball of metal on the end of the stick connected with the bridge of the ghoul’s nose, and there was a glorious yet grotesque spray of grey matter, rotten flesh, and flecks of yellow bones. I felt like Tiger Woods. Or Ash Williams. Tiger Williams? Ash Woods? Ash Woods. Good ring to it.
“Fantastic,” the man behind me said.
“Thank you.”
“Have you trained with the mace?”
“Not a whit.”
“You are a natural.”
“No, I think it’s just an adjacent skill. Golf.”
Cool Beans, you’ve learned the skill Not Quite Golf. Now you can swing things and pretend you’re playing golf without actually playing it. Bonus for also having the skill, Lying to Yourself.
This game-world certainly seemed to up the snark, and it made me wonder if there was something else going on.
“Haven’t heard of that weapon. The golf.”
“Really a useless one. You’re here for a calling?”
“It is a pilgrimage of sorts. For my order.”
“Yeah, I noticed the gold armor. God of Justice.”
“Pshaw,” he said. “Those fools chose their armor after ours.”
“Both gold though.”
“Ours is burnished gold. We wear our armor to fight, not look good. At least I do.”
“Well there’s a hint of passive aggressiveness. Should we have a heart-to-heart in the middle of this delightful graveyard?”
He chuckled, then grimaced.
Bear in mind, we were basically shouting at each other to be heard over the undead din below.
“I, too, am new to this city,” he said, well, shouted. “I came to test myself in the Shade Gauntlet. To spend a month within the Shade, fighting against the very darkest of the undead, and helping to prevent an undead horde from pouring forth into the city itself.”
“A month? Like, thirty days?”
“More like a night lasting thirty days.”
“Where do you sleep?”
“See yon tower, with the burning flame atop? We sleep there. We rest, heal, eat, sleep all within the safe walls of that blessed tower.”
“Except you got taken down by a ghast.”
For the first time, I saw the smile leave his face. “I was cast out.”
“I can tell why — you’re such a jerk.”
He shook his head. “If that were the case, I would welcome this shame. But I was pushed out because I was the only paladin who was willing to sally forth every chance I got to fight back this undead menace. The others only wanted to feast. Drink. Fornicate. It became a tower of hedonism. And though I spoke out against their actions, that this was not the duty we were ascribed, they jeered. Told me this was how it has always been. A respite from the world, from their regular duties. That this time in the temple was sacred as a celebration. So I let them have their play-land, but I fought. And when I last returned to the tower, with but two bloodstones and a single lesser lesser health potion remaining, I found the gates locked. My shouts to the tower went unanswered. At least by the other members of my order. I attracted the attention of plenty of others, however, and so I had no choice but to retreat. And it was not the first ghast that took me down. It was the third.”
“Holy balls, what level are you?”
“54.”
“I think you’re the highest level I’ve come across.”
“You need to get out more.”
“You’re not wrong. And three ghasts took you down?”
“A combination of ghasts, ghouls, corpse-gobblers, zombies, grunters, and the like. It was a long day before I returned, and it has been a long night since then. I had done my best, and I was willing to lay down and accept whatever it was the goddess had brought to me. Then you showed up.”
“Yeah, let’s not make me a savior here.”
“Are you not my savior?”
“Not yet.”
&
nbsp; “Ah, but even if I die here, at least I was not torn apart by the ghouls. I am more likely to die of my wounds peacefully here.”
“Enough with the peaceful. How about you stoke some rage at the assholes who left you to die?”
“They will get their due.”
“Not if you just lay down and die.”
“Admit the goddess sent you. Tell me that, and I will get up and follow you for life.”
“I don’t know, maybe she did. I don’t even know who your goddess is!”
“Help me to my knees.”
“What are we doing here?”
“We are doing nothing. You are helping me up, and I am praying to my goddess.”
“You need to do that on your knees?” I asked.
“It helps,” he replied, reaching his hand out for mine.
I pulled him up to his knees, and he started praying. Which looked a lot like him bowing at the waist and resting his head on the stone of the mausoleum while muttering something under his breath.
With a shake of my head, I turned around in time to see a ghoul catch itself on the ledge.
“They figured it out,” I said. “We’re going to have company!”
“Bit busy myself,” the paladin said.
I lashed out with my foot, punting the ghoul right in the head and knocking him off the building. Which just gave the next one a step up.
Ghoul Two grabbed the edge, just like the first had done, but he swiped out with his talon-like fingers, forcing me back. I replied with an overhead swing of the mace, hitting his hand into a flesh-bone jelly against the rock. Hell, I hit hard enough that a chunk of the rock broke off, and Ghoul Two fell.
And much like the first, two just gave the other twenty a basically literal leg up.
This time, two jumped at the same time.
Chapter 112
On the one side, I had 20 ghouls jumping and climbing onto the mausoleum, having somehow figured out the key to getting on the roof, which had eluded them for the whole time the stupid praying paladin and I had been up there. And on the other, I had the aforementioned stupid paladin. Still busy praying.
Not the best situation.
Not the worst either, I suppose. Considering there could be bigger and badder creatures attacking us. Twenty ghouls jumping wasn’t the hardest fight. It was mostly just timing. They jump and I swing. I wished for a slightly longer mace, but I had to make do with the thing I had.
Mace
Item Type: Common
Item Class: One-handed Melee, Two-handed Melee
Material: Steel, Oak.
Damage: 30-40 (Bludgeoning)
Durability: 20/20
Weight: 6.4 lbs
Requirements: Str 9
Description: A spiked metal ball on the end of a wooden handle.
On the fourth death, I realized I was getting some nice xp.
GG! You’ve killed a Ghoul (lvl 12 Undead).
You’ve earned 500 xp! What a mighty hero you are.
And then on the tenth, I got a skill:
Cool Beans, you’ve learned the skill Mace. Now you can swing dull objects and likely not hurt yourself. Soon, maybe you can hurt others. +5% damage. +5% skill.
And another:
Cool Beans, you’ve learned the skill Skull Crushing. Aim for the head, and crush it like a melon. +5% damage. +5% particulate spray.
Not a bad morning, all things considered.
But even though I’d killed a fair number of the undead, the crowd wasn’t thinning out. And I was slowly but surely building the bastards a ramp.
“Getting crowded here,” I said.
Nothing from Leofing. I was starting to see why the others may have tossed him out.
A ghoul got farther than the others and lunged at me. I twisted out of his way, swinging the mace down on the creature’s back with a dull thunk as he passed by. Then I grabbed the stumbling half-paralyzed ghoul by the neck on my second spin, and assisted him down the far side, right over the still-kneeling paladin.
Back to the problem wall, and there was a smiling ghoul there. Like he was waiting for me to turn around because he wanted to scare me or surprise me.
“Idiot,” I said, and swung the mace in a beautiful underhand, smashing the bottom jaw hard enough it cut the long green tongue off. The creature lost its balance, and fell back amongst its kind.
Then it was swing to the left, hit to the right, trying to keep the two encroaching ghouls off-balance enough that they’d fall. I had a mild advantage in space — the ghouls were all at the edge, and constantly stepping on each other, both literally and figuratively. So a jab or a push in the right direction might take two of them down at once. Which was always a nice feeling.
With the group below still growing, and somehow getting sneakier and smarter, I had a feeling we were really up against the end of it. Well, at least I was. Sir Knight the Useless was still doing his thing with his goddess.
Four more ghouls were up, five total. With no other option, I grabbed the shield and used it as a ram. I shoved three back hard, then flipped the shield over and smacked another across the face with it.
The last one grabbed me, and I did a good ol’ foot-stomp and shove. It was definitely not pretty fighting — it was almost embarrassing. I’m sure if there was anyone watching I might have felt a modicum of shame, but I didn't think the other ghouls really cared. But having shifted tactics from killing the undead (weird concept) to shoving them meant that I wasn’t building the ramp up higher any longer, but I also wasn’t thinning the herd.
So the ghouls decided to help me out.
They stopped jumping, and instead, bizarrely fought amongst each other in a frenzy of violence. No eating, just fighting and killing. Or whatever the appropriate term is for ending the un-life of the undead.
I watched, mouth agape, at the really confusing sight.
“Hey Leofing,” I called out, “weird shit is going down!”
“I am in the midst of a mystical and arcane process,” he shouted back. “Please give me a moment or two of respite!”
I gave him a look over my shoulder, mustering my best you-have-got-to-be-shitting-me look. But he didn’t even see it. He was back to praying.
Then, as if things weren’t strange enough, the ghouls somehow found a new gear. The remaining ghouls, injured though they were, started stacking bodies up, just straight building a ramp with their dead. Undead. Re-dead. Corpses. And it wasn’t long before the ramp was big enough that they could just walk right up onto the roof of the mausoleum.
“Might want to think about moving,” I said.
“If you interrupt me again, I will be forced to start over again,” Leofing said.
“I’m starting to really dislike this goddess of yours.”
No response.
I held the shield in one hand, mace in the other, and readied myself to receive the ghouls. I had no other option: it was time for man-on-ghoul fighting. I wasn’t about to give up one of my respawns for these assholes. The last advantage I had is they were injured after their fight, and I was still fresh as a daisy.
The first stepped onto the roof, and I swung low as the creature blocked high, smashing it in the kneecap. One of the things I’d realized about the ghouls, they may have had slightly different physiology than normal humans, but their bodies still relied on physics to work. No knee, no forward movement. Plus, even though I was a crap fighter, so were they. They relied on speed, surprise, and numbers to win. So in a stand-up fight, it was mine to lose.
Sort of. They still had numbers.
The first few went down easy, but the only reason I wasn’t overwhelmed was because their corpse staircase (corpsecase?) had limited stability, so the ghouls weren’t able to run up the thing.
I wished for a sword, because at least then I could lean into Peregrine’s involuntarily donated skill. Then, in the midst of braining a ghoul that looked like the guy who set my frog on fire in Biology lab, I wondered why these were such different skills. Fund
amentally, swinging a mace and swinging a sword were similar. One-handed weapons with reach. Sure, one was stabby-stabby and one was clubby-clubby, but still. They were analogous.
It felt like a light went off in my brain, and I got a funky notification.
Hey-ho, let’s go! You’ve discovered an ability: ONE OF THESE THINGS IS ENOUGH LIKE THE OTHER. You’ve found that, in a pinch, weapons have an awful lot of similarities. You may utilize weapons that are similar to each other with significantly decreased penalties to use.
Aha!
And just like that, I went from going on the backfoot to pushing the ghouls back. Parrying arm strikes and breaking elbows, smashing foreheads with thrusts and jabs. I was still pretty shit with the shield — it was mostly just me holding it against my side and occasionally bashing out with it — but at least it gave me a little extra protection. Teeth and claws scraped against it on the regular.
Swing and smash, thrust and push, and the ghouls were either dead or not moving.
I was covered in sweat, cycling my stamina regen spell on instinct, down to half my remaining mana. But even though I was breathing hard, the important thing was that I was still breathing.
Which is why it was so disturbing when I saw a lithe figure in all black walking towards the mausoleum, giving me a slow clap.
“I so love it when my meals put on a show for me,” the figure said. Its voice was grating, and very wrong. Like it was composed of two voices acting in concert, one high and one low.
I wanted to say something to it, make a retort, but my brain had basically shut down. I blinked and my mouth moved, but that was about it.
The figure idly walked up the ramp of ghouls, ascending with remarkable style and skill. New ghouls to the party were actually supporting either side of the corpse pile, which made it a bit easier, I’m sure, but there was definitely something else going on.
As the figure came closer to me, I felt the air temperature plummet, and I saw under the hood of the thing. Its skin was beyond white, so devoid of color that it almost hurt to look. Except the eyes. The eyes were an extremely pale green-yellow, like glow-in-the-dark plastic, with stripes of jet black throughout. Its chin and ears were pointy, its nose pert.