by Jason Cheek
Their presence in the tunnels was interesting, to say the least. Where the hell had they come from? They weren’t created to defend the castle from the invaders. Otherwise, they would’ve been stationed around the walls. Were they created before or after the attack?
My musings were interrupted as Ulia urgently tried to pull me back under the lip of the floor. Even though I couldn’t see them, I could hear the mass of shuffling feet fading further and further away. Looking up above me, I could tell that the rockslide went through the floors above. Again, how far was hidden due to the limitations of my Darkvision, but I figured this whole rock slide had to be part of the central Keep that had collapsed during the attack.
The two questions in my mind were how many feral zombies were we dealing with and did this rock slide go all the way up to the surface? Crouching down next to Ulia, I quizzed her again on the floors above as the shuffling crowd of undead made their circuit back down the hall. I especially wanted to understand exactly where the stairwells were on each floor.
Ulia assured me that, except for the bottommost level where we’d entered, all the other floors had stairwells on either end of the corridors. She had no idea where the feral zombies had come from but, from the look of horror on her face, it was obviously something expressly prohibited for necromancers. I made a note to question her about this later on when we had more time as we both crouched further down under the lip of the floor as the shuffling undead made their way back down the hallway in our direction. I was just peeking over the edge to see what exactly we were up against when Ulia yanked me back down angrily.
“Are you trying to get us killed?”
“What the hell?” I snapped back under my breath. “I’m freaking Stealthed.”
“Yea, well Stealth doesn’t work well against the undead.” I looked at Ulia in surprise as she used her whole body to keep me pressed under the lip of the floor. Her breath was hot against the back of my neck as she softly whispered.
“It’s all dependent on their level in comparison to your own. The higher their level, the farther they can burn through your Stealth. The lower their level, the less likely they will be able to smell or see you unless they’re directly on top of you.”
“Any idea what type of levels we’re facing?” I whispered back.
“A bunch of level 30 somethings mixed in with a small horde of lower levels.”
“Where did they all come from?”
“Only the Master of BrokenFang Hold could have done this,” Ulia answered back uncomfortably as she ducked her head away to wipe her teary eyes against the back of my shoulder. Seeing my questioning look, Ulia’s distraught voice choked in my ear.
“Those feral zombies are the remnants of our people who didn’t make it out after the walls fell. Seeing the people I knew and loved turned into feral zombies is almost …”
Ulia’s emotionally charged words brought me up short as her voice faded away in wordless distress. Her words gave me a perspective I was missing before now. At the same time, it also confirmed my suspicions. These zombies had been created after BrokenFang had fallen by the Half-elf that I needed to find. As the shuffling sounds began to fade away once again, I carefully peeked over the edge. This time, I had a little bit more time to focus on the undead before they disappeared out of the range of my vision.
Surprisingly enough, not all of the undead were zombies. There were a number of skeleton constructs that had been reconstructed after their deaths. Their gnawed, misaligned bones were clearly visible with my Darkvision. My stomach flipped as I realized how those poor souls must have died … dismembered and eaten alive. The game really made you want to hate goblins. Pushing away the nauseating thoughts of how those people died, I focused on Ulia and our mission as I repeated my question.
“I understand that Ulia, but where did these zombies come from then?” I asked beseechingly. “If I don’t recover the key to BrokenFang Hold our people will be lost.”
“I don’t rightly know.” Ulia momentarily hesitated as she considered my question more fully. “There were no zombies in the tunnels when we made our escape. The last I saw of Master Daeralds was just after the wall had collapsed. He’d been fighting to hold the breech when the invaders began pouring through, and we were forced to retreat.” Her face paled as she thought back to the battle. With a shake of her head, she met my eyes.
“Goblins and Orcs don’t have that ability. Raising the dead is something only our Clan has the ability to do. Master Daeralds would have needed to be in the tunnels with a pile of bodies to do all of this, but there’s nothing like that down here …”
“It’s good,” I said, gripping Ulia’s shoulder as her voice died away again. The horror from the memories clear on her face. I didn’t bother telling her about the Orc Death Knight we’d faced in the Delonshire Mine as I tried to change the subject to something less distressing. “It doesn’t change our quest to save the children.” Eying the darkness above, I nodded towards the rockslide.
“This looks like the only path up. You want to take the lead?” As soon as the words left my lips, I heard the rocks shift below as a furry head pushed at my forearm. Looking down in surprise, I ruffled the fur on Neysa’s head. “Not you girl. I think you’ll have to stay here.” Giving me a disgruntled look, Neysa sprang past with a flick of her tail. Before I could reach out and catch her, she was headed up the rockslide without looking back as we looked at each other in surprise.
“You really need to train her better,” Ulia stated drily, before following after the Silver Direwolf. Shaking my head in annoyance, I followed as Keela scurried up behind me.
The blocks were thick enough that we could crouch in-between floors and wait for the various groups of undead to pass above and below as we moved in-between the levels. The first three floors up were nearly pitch black and rough-hewn from the solid stone and looked more like an entrance to a dungeon than a passageway. It wasn’t until the first servant level that the corridors began to look more like what I’d expected from a medieval Keep. The stone walls were smoother here, and instead of guttering torches, there were magical lights that lit up the hallways instead. Well, that and of course more zombies.
It wasn’t until we reach the first floor, or last depending on how you looked at it, that our way was completely blocked. The rockslide ended at a jumble of massive blocks. If I had to guess, the rockslide we’d used to climb up had been created by a few of the larger blocks punching through the stones that made up the tunnels below during the initial collapse of the Keep. While following the rockslide had been helpful in bypassing the zombie-filled corridors below, we were now forced to deal with the situation head-on since the entire floor was filled with shambling zombies. Thankfully, something further down the hall had gotten them riled up. Otherwise we’d have been screwed as soon as we’d peeked into the corridor.
Ducking back down below the rim, the three of us started to argue how best to proceed, because there was no way we could take on the number of undead between us and the stairwell at the end of the hall. Ulia wanted to head back down and see if we could clear away some of the cave in and find another way up, while Keela thought we should head back out of the tunnels and try heading over one of the walls to get access to the Keep. While the quest to save the children still had a good four hours left to go, I didn’t see either one of those ideas panning out. Moving any of the support holding up the massive rockslide between all of these floors would only lead to another cave in. Only this time it would probably block the entire bottom level, if it didn’t kill one of us during the collapse.
I held my head as the girls argued under their breaths back and forth about the problem. I didn’t see Keela’s plan as being any better. We’d be lucky to make it out of the underground tunnels and to the base of the wall in three hours, and that wasn’t even taking into consideration having to dodge any patrols along the way.
The last idea being banding about was that we could try fighting from atop the rockslide. T
he hole to the floor below might be large enough to block the zombies’ access to us so we could fight them in piecemeal, but there had to be at least four to five hundred zombies spread out between all of the floors. Once we started fighting, there was no telling how the battle would pan out. Besides, feral zombies were freaking fast. I could maybe take on a handful, but once my Mana ran out, it would be game over.
Neysa’s cold, wet nose snuffled in my face as she jumped up to put her front paws on my shoulders. I petted her silver mane with a smile as her tongue lolled out happily. Cocking her head to the side, she looked into my eyes as if to say she had a plan of her own. I silently laughed at myself as soon as the thought crossed my mind. The little wolf was smart, but it wasn’t like she could do anything to help against a hallway full of zombies. Hugging Neysa to my chest, I ruffled her fur speaking low.
“I know you want to help, girl but I think we’re screwed. There’s no way we can take on that many zombies at once.” As if in response, Neysa gave a sharp bark and jumped back before I could grab her to shut her up. I heard the sudden shift of heavy feet from the zombies above as Neysa sprang onto the floor above. Throwing her head back, she gave a long echoing howl as we flattened ourselves against the stone edge of the jagged hole.
Immediately, the corridor exploded in chaos. Shrieking cries, growling yowls, and the sounds of claws ripping into stone as the entire hallway vibrated and shook from multiple impacts. It was the worst commotion I’d ever heard in my life. Ulia and Keela looked at me in shock as the ruckus gradually began to grow further and further away, until a new shrieking roar sounded from the floor below us.
It took me a second to realize what Neysa had done for us. At first, I could barely breathe as I thought about my beast companion being ripped to shreds by those undead creatures. It was somewhat odd when I thought about it. I had my in-game pet for less than three days, and already I’d become so attached to the little wolf that I didn’t want to see her die horribly.
It was pretty stupid in one way. Neysa was considered an attack pet, so it wasn’t like she wouldn’t be getting hurt in the game. Maybe it came from the fact that she was at such a low level and still looked more like a puppy than an actual Dire Wolf. Chastising myself for being such a fool over a digital pet, I peeked into the now empty corridor and quickly waved for Ulia and Keela to follow as I sprinted down the hallway.
Ulia caught up to me before I’d reached the stairwell going down and dragged me to a stop against the wall. Slashing with her hand flat like an arrow, she pointed towards a corridor on the right that I’d missed as she unsheathed her blade.
It took a moment for me to get my wits back together as I did my best to focus on the situation at hand. Catching Ulia’s eye, I nodded that I was good to go and crept up to the edge of the intersection. Looking behind me, I made sure Keela was ready as I held up three fingers. Getting a nod from both woman, I began counting down with my fingers … three … two … one. My hand lit-up with a blue glow as I sprang around the corner with my shield held at the ready.
I slid to an abrupt stop as my eyes took in the scene before me. The corridor was short. About twenty feet long and ended at four wide stairs that went up to a large iron-bound door. A small room with its door torn off the hinges gaped open on my left. Everywhere I looked there were torn apart bodies. Blood covered everything. It was smeared on the walls and pooled on the floor. Only parts of the corpses were left. Most nearly unrecognizable except for a few patches of green or pale white skin that was still visible. But, what brought me up short was the five feral zombies on their hands and knees busy feeding on the remains. Not one of them looked up from their grisly feast. Catching both women’s eyes, I sprang into action.
My Flurry spelled slammed into the back of the closest zombie with a crit as Ulia sprang onto the undead monster’s back sword first. A shimmering bolt of dark energy flew past my shoulder as I Shield Bashed the zombie’s head in and stomped its elbow shattering bone. Ulia’s sword pierced the mob’s back as she slammed her blade completely through its body as Keela’s arcane bolts arched around us to slam into the Zombie’s straining body. Magic flared around my fist as Flurry bolt after Flurry bolt began slamming into the back of the zombie’s head as I rushed to finish off the feral dead as quickly as possible.
Keeping my eye on the other four zombies, I hoped against hope that we didn’t aggro the entire group with our attack. Not like we had much in the way of choices. I breathed a sigh of relief as the zombie expired a second later without any reaction from the other zombies in the hallway. Thankfully, the feral creatures weren’t set to agro as a group. Moving quickly, we switched our focus to the next nearest zombie and continued our ferocious attack as I silently thanked my lucky stars.
It was pure chance we didn’t aggro all five. I’d played enough dungeon crawl style games to know that I’d risked triggering all five zombies at once. There was no doubt in my mind we’d have possibly wiped or, at the minimum, lost someone if that had happened.
Still, in the first split-second, I had to make a decision. I’d figured there was a good chance for the plan to work. It’s not like there were really any other options left open to us with the clock ticking down. Besides, meeting up with Ulia and Keela were all parts in the same chain of secret quests, so I figured this had a good chance of working out. Grinning at my loose reasoning, I focused on the task at hand.
We finished off the last zombie with the sickening sounds of our blades slicing into its thick, rubbery flesh. The creature had fought to rise to its feet at the very end, but its overpowering strength was next to useless on its hands and knees as we hurriedly sought to sever its limbs. The thing had finally collapsed in a heap like a puppet that with its strings cut when Ulia’s blade had finally critted and sliced through its neck in an explosion of congealed blood and gore. With a wet plop, the head had rolled to a stop at Keela’s feet with its jaws still snapping at the empty air as the young mage threw her hands up in disgust and glared at her friend angrily. Stepping in-between, I shushed Keela before she could express her ire at the impromptu blood bath she’d just received. Giving an exasperated look, I jerked my chin at the closed door at the end of the hallway and took off without saying a word.
I didn’t blame Keela for being annoyed. Being sprayed by rotten, congealed blood was never a fun experience, but that was just how it was with zombies. Fighting the undead was completely different than fighting the living, especially after they were more than a few days old. While the stench of their rotting flesh was bad, it had nothing on the putrid blood that would burst out with every piercing strike. Not even mentioning their overpowering strength or the fact that they didn’t feel pain.
Fighting zombies took a force of will to not puke from the taste of fetid blood that always seemed to find its way into your mouth as you fought. More than once during the fight, I’d literally puked in the back of my throat. At the time, I’d hurriedly spat out the vile taste the best I could during the fight. Unfortunately, even rinsing your mouth out after the fight didn’t help much either. That flavor just wore on and on.
I silently thanked Ulia for taking the zombie out as quickly as she did as I mentally swore at the director of Dawn of the Dead. Wouldn’t you know it, the freaking ass munch director had to have given the game developers the idea for fast zombies. Seriously WTF! There was something innately wrong with fast zombies … something that scared me down deep on a primitive level that I couldn’t even begin to explain when I faced them.
Grumbling under my breath, I sheathed my blade in disgust. ‘Fast zombies … I freaking hated fast zombies. Why couldn’t they have been something more like the zombies on The Walking Dead? Zombies like that didn’t break the zombie rulebook of inappropriate behavior.’ I rhetorically thought as I crouched in front of the closed door. Giving it a quick look over, I glanced up at Ulia whispering under my breath. “The lock’s shattered. How the hell were they keeping these things out?”
“Drawbar.” Ul
ia quietly answered back as she pointed at the gaping edge of the door frame where the lock had been busted through. Looking through the crack that was nearly large enough for my entire hand to fit through, I saw what she meant. The door was being blocked by a heavy wooden beam like something out of the middle ages.
“Why didn’t the zombies just lift the bar?” I whispered back somewhat confused. Immediately I realized that was the wrong question to ask as both women looked at me like I was some sort of idiot.
“Because they’re zombies.” They both hissed back at me under their breaths with that ‘duh’ tone in their voices as I hurriedly held my hand up before they could get going.
“Get ready; we’re going in,” I said, kneeling down. Reaching carefully through the gaping hole, I gripped the bar from below and began counting down from three. Hitting zero, I jimmied the bar with my fist and threw my shoulder into the door. Twisting around as the door slammed open, I sprang into the center of the room releasing my Frost Nova in an explosion of ice.
Five Goblins were instantly caught within the freezing blast. Their shocked faces momentarily frozen in horror as they were caught with their pants down. Three of them literally. One of them was squatting in a corner dropping a load while the other two were in the process of humping one another. The remaining two Goblins were caught eating around an open fire fully kitted out in their gear.
Without hesitation, I focused my first Flurry blasts on the closer of the two by the fire while Ulia and Keela targeted the second armed Goblin. Five quick blasts ended the Goblin’s life as Ulia’s blade sank to the hilt on its partner, while Keela’s glowing arcane stars flared from her open hands. In the blink of an eye, they shot across the room to smash into the Goblin Ulia battled as I quickly turned my focus on the frozen, defecating Goblin on the other side of the room.
There were only seconds left before my Frost Nova released the remaining three Goblins, so I had to hurry. We couldn’t afford to have any of the mobs escaping to warn the rest of the castle. Focusing on my target, I got off three blasts before the ice cracked open to release the last two mobs. Ignoring their armor and weapons, the green bastards sprang to the feet rushing for the stairwell at the end of the room as I refocused my attack to tag both mobs. As soon as the second blast left my fingers, I was racing across the room in pursuit. The Flurry spells cut the fleeing Goblins’ movement speed by half, giving me the edge I needed to reach the exit first.