by Darkbringer
For what felt like an eternity, I wrestled with the taint to push it back and away from the earthen energy that I’d always called my own. Time slowed to a crawl, and it took all my concentration to keep myself from changing, or my energy from being ripped out and stolen by the corruption. By the time I’d finally gotten myself back under control and had pushed the taint away, the threat was over with. I’d managed to blast one of our opponents; Crystal and Dino had destroyed the rest.
“Are you OK, My Lord?” Crystal asked as she hurriedly rushed to my side, worry obvious on her face.
“I am.” Slowly, I shook my head from side to side to try and clear up the spots still stinging my vision. “I will be,” I corrected. “The corruption here wanted to make me its own, or barring that, it wanted to steal my magic from me. It was a hair’s breadth from almost turning me into some sort of corrupted shadow of a man, and even closer than that to burning me out and stealing my magic for its own.”
“I didn’t have any trouble with my magic,” Dino stated.
Looking around, I could see that several of the corpses were smoldering and burnt, and that could only be because of Dino’s effort. “Good job,” I praised him sincerely. If it wasn’t for him and Crystal, I would’ve been a helpless treat for the dead while I was fighting off the taint.
Crystal raised an eyebrow and stared at first me and then Dino, but said nothing. It was obvious she was curious why he could work his magic without issues here and I couldn’t. “The taint is in the earth,” I told her, to answer her unspoken question. “Whatever you guys do,” I warned Dino and Jess, “avoid using magic to pull or alter the earth around here. The corruption has settled into the ground, and it won’t hesitate to strike back if you mess with it.”
“Is it safe to use my healing magic?” Jess asked fearfully.
“As far as I can tell, it should be,” I told her, not completely certain of anything myself at this point. “Use a trickle and cure this dull headache I’ve got now, but be prepared for any sort of backlash or sense of taint which might try and follow your magic back to you.”
“I didn’t feel any taint,” Dino replied again, as Jess slowly walked up and gently trickled a small flow of life energy to cure my headache. Almost instantly, it was gone and I was feeling back to my old self once again.
“I didn’t notice anything either,” Jess confirmed. “It seems like it’s OK to work healing magics.”
“For now at least,” I corrected her. “You should be careful and be prepared for that to change at any time as we continue on. That taint snuck up and kicked my ass since I wasn’t prepared for it; don’t let it do the same to the two of you!”
“We won’t,” they both promised.
Nodding to myself in satisfaction, I drew in a small handful of fire magic and blasted one of the smoldering corpses into smithereens. Much to my relief, there wasn’t any backflow of taint or corruption this time. “It looks like feeling the ground is OK, as long as I don’t try to do anything with it,” I told the others, “and it seems like it's fine – for now – to work fire and life magics. As for any of the other magics,” I shrugged, “I really don’t know. All I can say is be careful.”
Everyone nodded wearily while glancing around for any other sign of trouble; or for the other team. We’d just started our trek into what could truly be called the graveyard, and we were already encountering more trouble and danger that I would’ve imagined. My hopes of finding the other group whole and well were fading more and more by the moment.
Thinning the Herd
Taking a moment to recover my strength, I slowly stretched out a trickle of energy back into the surrounding earth, careful for any sort of corruptive response to my gentle probing. Much to my relief, simply feeling the ground didn’t cause the darkness to react violently and attack me again. Slowly, moment by moment, I carefully increased the flow of energy outwards to seek for anything that might give me a better clue about the missing team, expanding my search along the ground in an ever-widening series of circles.
I could feel multiple swarms of the lumbering dead scattered all across the forest, within the confines of the iron circle which enclosed the graveyard. Many of the movement patterns were those of the shambling zombies and skeletons which we’d just faced, but there were some which moved along in a series of movements that I found almost impossible to predict. One moment I could feel the creatures on the ground, then they were gone, only to reappear on the ground elsewhere a dozen meters away a moment later.
Were they doing some sort of teleporting? Instant travel from one spot to another? I really couldn’t tell how they were moving; I could just feel them on the ground, then lose them, then feel them back on the ground once again. This new, unknown enemy was worrisome to me, so I made a point to try and track them as closely as possible so we could avoid them, if at all possible.
Expanding my search even further, I finally felt what I’d consider the first traces of the others, at what I can only describe as barrow mounds scattered in the forest. Some of the mounds were still sealed; I could feel the earth enclosing them completely. A few others, however, had been cracked open; I could feel where a hole had been dug or bored into them, by what I could only assume was the actions of the other group.
Some of the opened mounds were simply small, enclosed chambers where the dead lay at rest, but a few connected to a series of winding tunnels that wove and twisted together in a tapestry of confusion. Some mounds were connected together by these underground tunnels, whereas others weren’t and were connected to a completely different set of passageways. From what I could tell with my gentle probing of the earth from this far away, there was at least a dozen of non-connected labyrinths in the graveyard, and trying to follow and unwind them all from here to pinpoint an exact location of the other group was simply impossible.
“I think I’ve found us a lead on the others,” I finally told my group. “This place is swarming with the dead like we just fought, and with other creatures too which worry me considerably. At first guess, I’d say there must be hundreds of the dead moving out here, and dozens of somethings, which seem even more dangerous.”
“Tha... that’s a lot of dead,” Jess stammered nervously. “Shouldn’t we go back and report all this to the school and let them round up the knights, or the guards, or something, to deal with it?”
“No.” I shook my head from side to side. “We’re here now. If the other team is still alive, they’re stuck trying to survive in the middle of all this mess alone. I know if I was them, and there was a rescue party this close to me, I’d want them to push on and at least try and save me before they gave up and turned around.”
“Then what’s the plan, My Lord?” Crystal asked, cutting to the heart of the matter.
“For now, we’re going to take advantage of the daylight to thin the herds of roaming dead down somewhat. I can feel the ground, so I can feel the dead as they move across the ground. We’re going to be working our way in deeper towards the center of this mess, towards a set of crypts and barrow mounds. We’ll be walking in a zig-zag meandering manner, so we won’t be going directly there. Instead, I’m going to hunt the wandering groups of dead like we just killed, while avoiding the more dangerous creatures which I still can’t identify.”
Crystal simply nodded in agreement. “I really don’t think just moving forward and leaving all these stragglers behind us to wander and catch up to us at any time is a good idea. Thinning them when we can is a good idea, My Lord.”
“And, if they do find a way out, there’ll be a lot less of them to harm the local hunters and farmers,” Dino observed while Jess stayed quiet on the whole subject.
“Then it’s decided,” I told them, “for now, we hunt the dead for as long as we have daylight.”
With everyone nodding in grim determination, I pulled my energy back in closer and started to feel for the nearest group of wandering mobs. A little to the east of our current position was a group of eight, and a b
it to the northwest was a group of eleven. When I mentioned zig-zagging, I didn’t say anything about backtracking, but if we were going to get both these groups, that’s what we’d have to do almost, as they were almost in polar opposite directions from each other.
“To the small group first,” I decided, and starting walking off to the east. I figured we could practice getting rid of the smaller groups first, work out what works best for us, and then deal with the larger groups later.
Everyone trailed off behind me, keeping a nervous watch all around. Crystal followed up front, close by my side, while Dino brought up the rear and Jess stayed nestled in the middle between us all. I suppose it wasn’t a terrible formation, considering the group we had with us, but now I found myself wishing we’d brought more warriors along. I really didn’t like being in the vanguard of our group, and would’ve preferred having a couple more heavily armored people standing as shields in front of myself. But, wishes weren’t reality, as the saying goes, so I wearily led us onwards.
We passed more of the twisted, gnarled trees, and finally had to hop a small stream of brackish water, before catching up to the first group of meandering dead. Before we could even see them, I could tell they somehow sensed us as they slowly stopped and then turned in our direction. The dead doesn’t have eyes, nor ears, and yet they were somehow able to sense our presence even before we could see them ourselves.
In the movies and TV shows I used to watch back on Earth, before I got sentenced and killed, the dead were always depicted as being stupid and distracted easily by sound or light. If you wanted to escape the dead from a TV show, all you had to do is set off a car alarm in one spot while running somewhere else while the dead all gathered around and stared stupidly at the vehicle. Unfortunately, I was learning, reality doesn’t work so nicely.
The dead don’t have ears, and they don’t have eyes. Some of them are nothing more than walking piles of bones -- undead skeletons. When one takes a moment to think about it, it’s obvious that they can’t use sight or sound to find their prey, so hiding in the dark or setting off a car alarm wouldn’t do shit to distract them. The best I can figure, they must simply seek the energy of life; the same essence which all living things have, that Jess uses her magics to manipulate to help heal others.
As a healer, and one attuned to life, Jess seems to have a natural affinity to sense death. Apparently, the dead have that same reverse affinity to simply sense life, and their sense is much greater in the forest than our limited visibility allowed us to see.
“They’re coming,” I warned the others, as I sensed the dead slowly approaching across the ground. They may have a sense for nearby life in their area, but I had a sense for anything moving across the ground within a kilometer’s distance. I might not see them, as they may not see me, but I could still sense and track them just as easily as they tracked us.
“The first one is going to be coming from behind those trees,” I pointed for Crystal and the others. “The next will be a few moments behind, and should come from over there,” I pointed a little way further off to the right. “And then the rest will be wandering in slowly, scattered among them.”
“I’ve got the one of the left,” Crystal proclaimed, as she advanced with her sword raised and ready.
“And I’ll blast the one on the right,” Dino boasted proudly.
Jess didn’t say anything, but we all knew she wasn’t going to be that useful in the actual fighting. Her job was to heal and tend to the injured if we got any; not use her energy or put herself up front where she might get hurt herself.
Since Crystal and Dino had claimed the first two, I simply stayed quiet and saved both my breath and my energy. If they needed me for support, I’d help whichever I could, but I didn’t think they were going to need me for much more than tracking and hunting the dead for now. After all, the two of them had managed to take down the last group, which was larger than this one, without any assistance from me while I was dealing with resisting the backlash from the tainted earth.
The first battle was completely anti-climactic. A skeleton wandered out of the forest, where I’d predicted, and then simply crumbled into a scattered heap of bones before anyone had done anything. Crystal glanced back towards me and half-shrugged. “The walking bones seem to do that, My Lord, whenever they get close to me at all. Do you think it may be my perfume?”
“If it is, I want to borrow some of it,” Jess joked, as the second skeleton shambled out of the forest to simply be blasted apart by a ball of fire from Dino.
The rest of the dead slowly emerged one or two at a time from where I’d expected them to, and easily crumbled to our group. Crystal made the hunt a complete joke as all she had to do was get within a dozen steps of the skeletons and they’d shatter. The zombies were a little more resilient to her presence, but even they slowed and seemed as if they wanted to turn away from her rather than approach her directly.
It seems the sword I’d created didn’t just repel the dark corruption all around; it also repelled the dead themselves. If it wasn’t such a strain to create, I’d love to make us all something to wear or fight with, but that simply wasn’t possible. It took a small piece of my life and a chunk of my very soul to empower the blade which Crystal carried, and I could still feel that dull ache where I’d torn my own spirit to complete the process. Making something else was simply not something I was willing to do again, for the moment.
I don’t know how long it’ll take for my soul to recover, but I’m not going to sacrifice another part of it until I’m certain I’ve fully recovered from the first; though I do have to admit, I was grateful to have Crystal and the protection her blade now offered, with us.
Hidey-Hole
For the next several hours, we meandered back and forth around the forest, picking off groups of the dead. As we traveled and hunted, I learned to tell the difference between the way the skeletons and zombies moved across the land. Skeletons had a lighter impact upon the earth and moved quicker than the shambling, slower zombies – but they posed absolutely zero threat to us while Crystal held the blade I’d made.
Heartblade was the name that Crystal decided to attach to the weapon since she could feel my heartbeat while holding the hilt. I thought it was somewhat wimpy for a weapon; it certainly wasn’t any Snowflake Razor or Azure Skyrose; but it was what she wanted to call it, so that was its name now. Personally, I would’ve preferred something intimidating such as Crystal Deathbreaker, but I suppose Heartblade will do since it’s what Crystal likes, and she’s the one who’s carrying it and using it.
With Heartblade in Crystal’s possession, we could casually walk huddled together through massive swarms of the skeletons, and leave nothing but shattered bones behind in our wake. Once we’d grown confident in the blade’s area – it shattered every skeleton that got within a dozen steps of Crystal – we actively decided to hunt and clear as many skeletons as possible while moving ever so slowly forward towards the barrow mounds and underground tunnels.
As the sun slowly moved across the sky, no one felt the urge to stop and eat for lunch. The smell of dead flesh and decaying organs from the zombies was a massive turn off for everyone’s appetite; and the overall tension of moving towards the skeletons and zombies, while avoiding the other dead I sensed from time to time, didn’t help any either.
In games, such hunts were often viewed as a simple walk in the park where characters grind levels and experience easy from massive kills of their opponents. Unfortunately, since I wasn’t reborn in a game, there was a constant sense of fear and dread attached even with the easiest of fights, and the stress levels were quite intense for all of us. Never knowing if one skeleton was strong enough to resist the blade; never knowing if the dead carried a disease or contagion, never knowing if something had an immunity or ability which we weren’t prepared for – it was quite a stressful day, even if it sounds like we simply skipped along laughing and singing while the dead collapsed at the mere sight of us.
; I’m certain if a bard were to tell our tale, they’d make it sound amazing – we’d be the Legendary Deathbane Band, or something equally silly and presumptuous, and it’d sound like we were simply overpowering heroes casually wiping out a menace to the world. Bards never seem to include the worry, the fear, or the smell of rotting putridity which settles in the nose and never fades. Bastards only tell the parts that people want to hear and are willing to pay them to tell, or buy them a drink to share – I don’t know if I’m honestly jealous, or disgusted by them!
By the time the sun started to settle down lower in the sky, we must’ve destroyed dozens of zombies and hundreds of skeletons, and still it seemed to me as if we’d barely made a dent in the total number that I felt moving throughout the enclosed circular area that encased the graveyard. Finally, I judged that we needed to get to the Barrows so we’d still have some time to explore and find a suitable place to hold up for the night, before the sun set, and it got too dark to see what we were doing.
Heading to the barrow mounds, it was almost impossible to tell when we were upon them. The ground here sloped up and down in small natural hills, and the mounds were interspersed between the natural hills, covered with grass, vines, and shrubs, and were almost impossible to tell apart. I have no clue how the other team managed to know where to dig, to open up the mounds that they had broken into, but I was beginning to worry that they might have taken someone with earth magic along with them.
If there was a girl with twice the skill in earth magic, that Dino had learned in fire magic from the school, they were screwed. My skill and mastery with the ground was leaps and bounds above anything that Dino could even pretend to imagine (and I’m not just saying that to brag on myself), and he was going to be considered ‘ready to graduate’ at the end of this school year. I was truly worried that the team might’ve brought someone along with them and they’d fallen prey to the corruption when they’d worked their magic on the earth around us.