by Pirateaba
“So. It’s pretty dark.”
Rags glanced sideways at Erin. No one else said a word. Every nerve was taut with tension, every eye scanned the dark corridors and empty rooms for danger, signs of movement.
“I mean, I don’t have a problem with dark places. But this is really dark. And spooky. But the architecture’s nice. It reminds me of one of those old cathedrals, you know?”
Pisces glanced at Erin’s back quizzically.
“Cathedrals? You mean…buildings of worship? There are a few scattered around, but I’ve never…does this place remind you of one?”
“It’s not the exact same, but this reminds me of the ones in Rome and places like that. What’s the one called with the painting on the ceiling?”
Ryoka sighed loudly. She stared at Erin and gestured pointedly at Klbkch and Toren as the two ranged ahead of the other four.
“Shouldn’t we be quiet so we don’t walk into an ambush?”
“Do we really need to? I’ve got [Dangersense]. It’s this skill that allows you to, um, sense when danger’s coming.”
Ryoka tried to keep from curling her lip.
“I know that one. Ceria says it doesn’t work for some types of danger. Traps, for example.”
“Well, are we going to be silent the entire time? I bet that’d be scarier than talking.”
“Rest assured that I remain petrified no matter how we choose to spend the journey. But Erin does have a point Miss, ah, Griffin. I can sense undead as they draw near to me.”
“Really? So where are they?”
Pisces looked hunted.
“Around. Somewhere. These ruins are saturated in death. So many undead lurking here for hundreds, possibly thousands of years…I would know if they were right behind us, though.”
“Wonderful.”
The four walked on in silence. Erin wondered whether she should keep talking, but the momentum was lost.
After five minutes Ryoka muttered a few words.
“It’s the Sistine Chapel, and it’s in the Vatican, not Rome.”
“I thought it was in Rome.”
“The Vatican is a separate state. It’s within Rome, but technically it’s a state by itself.”
“Oh. That’s cool. I didn’t know that. The Pope rules there, right?”
“Pretty much.”
Why were they talking about the Pope in the middle of an abandoned ruin? Then again, Ryoka didn’t know Erin that well. Maybe she was really religious.
Again, Pisces glanced suspiciously at Erin and Ryoka’s back. Rags was busy picking at her ear.
“What’s a Pope?”
Ryoka immediately tensed, but Erin immediately replied.
“He’s like a super [Priest]. If they existed. Which apparently, they don’t.”
Pisces eyed Erin, but he seemed to accept her convoluted explanation.
“So he’s a hypothetical [Priest]. I see.”
“Yup. We could really use him right now, too. A [Priest] could totally take care of all the undead we meet. Turn undead, holy water, all that good stuff.”
“I can do much of the same.”
“Really? Why do you need us, then?”
Pisces sniffed at Erin. He reminded Ryoka of exactly the sort of person she hated. Or at least, one of the types of people on her hate list, which, it had to be said, was quite large. He was a prissy, self-important know-it-all if she was any judge. Exactly the sort of person who talked big and never delivered…
And who was right now risking his life to save Ceria and the others. Ryoka paused and had to rethink her thoughts.
“I can deal with most forms of the undead quite easily. It’s ah, the Crypt Lords that pose a considerable threat to me.”
Erin frowned.
“What are Crypt Lords? You mean those huge fat things with bones for teeth?”
“Yes. They are above my level, so to speak. I cannot so easily destroy them as they resist my magic.”
“Crypt Lords? Is that a stronger type of the undead? Like a Lich?”
“A Lich? You mean an undead wizard thing?”
Erin stared at Ryoka, and then at Pisces.
“Please tell me one of those isn’t around. Aren’t they immortal?”
Pisces looked amused.
“Hardly. A Lich is simply the undead version of a spellcaster. They’re quite dangerous in numbers or even alone, but they’re hardly immortal. And I never saw one in the attack on Liscor, so I believe we are quite safe.”
That was another thing. Pisces had been there during the attack on Liscor, and so had Erin for that matter. Ryoka had missed the entire thing.
She had a hard time imagining these Crypt Lords, even though Erin was quite vocal with her descriptions. Moreover, she wondered how bad the attack had really been. She had a hard time imagining Pisces surviving a real attack, and Erin told her she’d defended her inn from the undead. Ryoka didn’t think Erin was lying, but—
If she’d survived it, how bad could it really have been? A few hundred undead? And apparently some monster made out of skin. Ryoka just didn’t see the horror in it if Erin had gotten out unscathed.
And if she’d survived, maybe the Horns of Hammerad had as well.
Erin was still talking about the Crypt Lords. She held up a glowing green jar, one of the ones she’d taken from the inn. There were two of them in her bag of potions.
“I’ve got just the thing for them, right here.”
It didn’t look like the other potions Ryoka had seen in the markets in human cities. She wondered what it did.
“May I see that?”
Pisces backed away from the jar as Erin held it out to Ryoka. The mage’s reaction made Ryoka accept the glowing container warily. It wasn’t particularly warm or cold to the touch, and the liquid sloshed around like most Newtonian fluids. That was the extent of Ryoka’s insight on the jar.
“What is it?”
“It’s acid.”
Ryoka nearly dropped the jar. Her skin prickled and she immediately felt a cold sweat breaking up across her body.
“What kind?”
Erin looked blank.
“Um, Acid Fly acid? I don’t know.”
Acid flies? Ryoka remembered the menu in Erin’s inn. Acid flies. She’d thought Erin was joking. But—
She sloshed the liquid gingerly in the jar and inspected it. It was glowing green, exactly like the fake slime you’d expect to see in a kid’s science kit.
“A hydrochloric acid of some kind? Will it eat through the glass?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t know what kind of acid it is. Um, it doesn’t really touch metal or stone that much. It only dissolves flesh and skin. But it does that really fast.”
Ryoka stared at the jar. She had doubt about its efficacy, but had an opportunity to see the acid in action soon enough. Ksmvr paused as he rounded a corner, and then he and Toren were running back towards the others.
“Undead. Ghouls, up ahead.”
Ryoka’s heart began to pound, but the others reacted differently than how she expected. Pisces nodded, Rags drew her sword, and Erin lifted the glowing jar with a determined look.
“Right, you get behind us.”
Ksmvr hesitated, but Toren glanced at the glass jar and immediately moved behind Erin. The skeleton’s sword was drawn and Ryoka was mesmerized by his blue eyes. She tried to concentrate. They were coming.
“I can handle five. How many were there?”
“Eight. Two were wounded.”
“I’ve got one.”
Erin lifted her acid jar as Ksmvr took a position flanking her. Pisces pushed back the sleeves on his robes and narrowed his eyes. Now Ryoka could heard growling and the dull thumping of flesh on stone. She was ready for this. She had learned to fight as a child. She could do this. She could—
The first Ghoul bounded around the corner on all fours, so quickly Ryoka was transfixed. By the time she had recovered, it had already been joined by six more bodies, Drakes and Gnolls, all dashin
g across the ground.
The undead weren’t supposed to run. But these things were sprinting. Ryoka was shaking. Eight? Eight was too many. She’d have to fight two at once. She glanced at Pisces. He was raising his hand and Erin was lifting the jar of acid. Too slow. They’d never.
“Decease.”
Pisces crooked his finger, and Ryoka heard a crack. One of the Ghouls in the front tumbled down, and she saw its spine twisting around under his rotted flesh. He stopped moving, tripping up the others.
The mage moved his finger and pointed at a second Ghoul. And the third. They fell down each time, spines breaking with horrible grinding sounds.
Another Ghoul leapt forwards. Ryoka nearly jumped at it, but Erin threw her jar. The glass stuck the Ghoul mid-jump and he crashed into the ground. Smoke began steaming up from his flesh as the once-Drake rolled around, clawing at his body.
Now the Ghouls were a few feet away. Pisces raised his other hand and pointed. Two Ghouls collapsed, and the last two howled as they ran at Erin.
This was it. Ryoka’s legs tried to move, but she was too slow, for once. Next to her, Toren leapt towards the first Ghouls and Ksmvr caught the second with both swords and daggers.
It was a blur. Ryoka saw Toren stabbing at the Ghoul and then grappling on the ground with it. Ksmvr was slicing apart his foe as Erin held a frying pan at the ready, shouting something. The Runner stared as Toren and the Ghoul rolled around on the floor. She couldn’t help them.
Suddenly Rags darted in front of Ryoka. The Goblin darted forwards and stabbed. The Ghoul stiffened, and Ryoka saw that Rags had stabbed the dead human in the back of the head. Toren rolled away from the now completely dead Ghoul and grabbed his sword before he got to his feet.
The skirmish was over. They had won.
And Ryoka—
She hadn’t done a thing.
—-
Erin noticed Ryoka staring at one of the Ghouls after the excitement had ended. The Runner girl was pale, but she was looking at the Ghoul hit with the acid. Erin was slightly regretting throwing that jar, now. She only had one left. Toren had been collecting acid from the traps, but pickings had been slim and she’d used up her entire supply fighting Skinner.
“Don’t worry. That one’s dead. And the others won’t be getting up any time soon.”
They had better not. The ones Pisces had killed by snapping their spines weren’t moving, and the other two were in pieces thanks to Rags, Ksmvr, and Toren. As for the one Erin had hit—
It was a puddle. A glowing, green puddle with half-dissolved parts slowly melting away. It was actually quite a hazard, given that the others would have to walk around the spreading stain.
But Ryoka seemed only half-interested in the dead Ghoul. She was staring at the dissolving body and frowning.
“What is it?”
Ryoka glanced at Erin and pointed at the acid.
“That makes no sense. Acid doesn’t dissolve things that quickly. If it were that strong, it would have eaten through the glass jar in seconds.”
“Weird, huh? But it makes for a good weapon, don’t you think? I’ve been selling it to the Goblins and making good money, too!”
Ryoka stared at Erin.
“You’ve been selling that to Goblins?”
“Um—”
“But how does it not destroy those jars? Why does this acid only target flesh?”
“Magic?”
Ryoka’s face told Erin quite clearly what she thought of that idea.
“Magic should still make sense. This doesn’t.”
“It’s how they eat.”
Ryoka turned. Pisces was mopping at his forehead. He was sweating. From the effort of casting those spells? He nodded at the nearly dissolved Ghoul and the now-sludgy pool of green.
“The ah, Acid Flies use their acid to render dead flesh into a syrup-like substance as you see before you. They then collect as much of it as possible for nourishment, for themselves and the females.”
“The females?”
“Yes. All of the acid-bearing flies are male. They supply the females with nourishment and scavenge for dead bodies. It was quite ingenious of Miss Solstice to harvest their liquid, although you can see the dangers clearly enough.”
Ryoka stared at the pool of acid. It was easier to stare at the unidentifiable green goop instead of the dead bodies of the Ghouls. She felt queasy, but tried to force it down. They’d won. The Ghouls had been easily dispatched. Almost too easily. But then, Ryoka hadn’t done much. She hadn’t done anything, really.
But next time she’d fight. Once things were serious, she’d play her part.
She was sure of that.
—-
The group travelled on for twenty more minutes before they were attacked. Pisces was just explaining how his patented spine-snapping spell was a product of a more advanced spell of [Necromancers] that he’d repurposed when he looked up and shouted a warning.
Fifteen undead, a mix of zombies and skeletons, surged out of an open doorway and ran towards the others. Again, Ryoka nearly froze as she saw their rotting frames and the burning lights in the eyes of the skeletons.
Pisces cut down several undead, but this time there were too many. Erin delved into her pack and threw something—a rock. Ryoka expected it to miss or not do any damage, but the stone cracked into the head of one of the skeletons, shattering part of the bone and sending the skeleton spinning to the floor.
And then they were on top of the group, clawing, biting, trying to kill Ryoka.
The girl saw Ksmvr lashing out lightning-fast with his swords and Toren charging into the center of the group before a zombie lurched at her. She raised her fists as the mostly-rotted woman approached, rotted teeth gaping as she grabbed at Ryoka’s arm.
Kick it. All of Ryoka’s instincts told her to kick, and she did. Clumsily.
It was no devastating roundhouse kick that hit the rotted woman in the stomach, but a pushing kick, meant to keep the woman away. But even that failed, because when Ryoka’s bare foot struck the woman in the stomach, it tore and caught in the rotted flesh of the woman’s intestines.
The feeling was horrible. Slimy, squishy, and lukewarm. It threw Ryoka off balance, and the undead woman seized her.
Punch her. Knock her away. Throw her to the floor. Ryoka had a thousand options, and she took not one of them. She stared into one ruined eye and felt the putrid breath of the zombie woman on her skin. And she couldn’t fight back.
She froze up. She couldn’t help it. It was a dead body, a dead human come back to life. This was reality. It wasn’t a monster, and this wasn’t a game. This was real.
And it was trying to eat her.
The zombie opened her jaws impossibly wide and bit at Ryoka’s face. Ryoka shouted with horror and hurled her back. A bit of dead flesh fell off the woman’s face and landed on Ryoka’s cheek, near her open mouth. Ryoka flung it away, but then the zombie was over her, reaching for her. The zombie was going to kill her—
A frying pan crashed into the zombie’s face, breaking what remained of the nose with a crunch and sending it sprawling to the floor. Erin bashed the zombie to the ground and hammered it on the head as it lay prone on the floor. When she lifted the frying pan it was slightly deformed and bits of hair and skin were sticking to the side.
“Ew, ew, ew!”
The girl didn’t take long to complain, though. She whirled and bashed another skeleton down. From her position on the floor, Ryoka saw the skeleton fall and then the lights go out as Erin kicked the skull right off the rest of the body, sending it crashing down the long corridor.
The last zombie fell down, Rag’s sword in his gut and one of Ksmvr’s daggers still cutting through his throat. Erin looked around and sighed in relief. The other undead were gone.
Which left her with adrenaline still pouring through her veins and her frying pan. Erin stared at it. She’d killed three zombies and one skeleton with it. That was good, but now parts of each dead corpse were sticking to t
he side of the pan.
“Oh god. That’s gross.”
Erin turned green as she shook bits off of her frying pan. She took several deep breaths, trying to get the stench of rot and death out of her nose. She tried not to vomit and looked at Ryoka. The other girl was still staring at the zombie Erin had killed. Her face was white.
“Hey, are you okay? That zombie didn’t bite you or anything, did it?”
Erin held out a hand to Ryoka. The other girl stared at it, and then at her. Ryoka’s eyes travelled to Erin’s pan, and the nameless substance dripping from the side.
“Oh, right. I’ve gotta clean that off. Um. Good thing I’m not using it for cooking, huh?”
The bare foot girl stared at the frying pan, and then at Erin. She ignored the offered hand and stood up slowly. She looked around at the dead bodies, the sliced corpses, and inhaled the scent of death. She looked at Erin. Her face was deathly pale.
“Ryoka? Are you okay?”
That was when Ryoka threw up.
—-
“You know, it’s not like just anyone can go into the ruins and fight undead monsters. You’ve gotta be pretty brave to do that, let alone barefoot.”
“Right.”
“And you were trying to fight with your bare hands. That’s like—double brave, right?”
“Right.”
“And we all think you’re brave, isn’t that right?”
Erin glanced around. Ksmvr and Pisces both nodded obediently.
“Indisputably.”
“That is correct.”
“Besides, you ran through the High Passes by yourself. And you survived giant wolves and evil goats and gargoyles. You’re not a coward. You know that.”
Ryoka sat on the ground, shaking. She knew she should say something. But she couldn’t. Her throat was still too tight.
Erin was trying to comfort her. And her words were actually helping. But they didn’t take away what had happened.
“I froze up. I couldn’t fight back.”
“Hey, it happens to all of us.”
“Did it ever happen to you?”
Erin had to think about that.
“No. But it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Anyone would freeze up if a horrible zombie tried to eat their face.”