Stann adjusted his armor. “You take care of the rat?”
Colin grinned. “Yup.” After Garreth’s warning about Isaac, Colin had started to pay more attention to who was at the library when he was. After a week he’d discovered one of the students was paying too much attention to him. “I accidentally left a copy of a map on the table yesterday. It was a location north of where we were last time. Anyone that sees that will think that is our next location.”
“How do you know that?” Talia asked.
“Because if you hadn’t met Mage Nowak, that is where I would’ve sent you.”
Jack smiled. “Nice.”
Colin slapped them all on the shoulder. “Good luck.”
They stepped into the circle and Talia cast her spell.
They walked out of the circle and into the ancient city of Pailron.
“Where to?” Stann asked as he scanned the town.
Jack glanced at the map and notes that Colin had given him. Mage Nowak had been correct, there was a fair amount of information about the city of Pailron. There hadn’t been any firsthand accounts. As far as Colin could tell, they were the first questers from Darkthorn to search the city, but there were ancient documents of trade and travel that indicated Pailron had once been an open city occupied by all races before being destroyed during the Great War. They knew Mage Nowak and others had been there, and probably taken the most valuable artifacts, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be plenty of loot for them to find. “Look for temples, or signs of holy sites.” An open city meant multiple different temples to the various gods and religions of the different races. Each temple or holy location was a potential cache of treasures.
They walked slowly into the city. It was desolate and barren. The streets had been cobblestone, and they were still in good shape. A few weeds had found the will to live in the otherwise dead land and had pushed their way to the surface, but other than those stubborn and nearly indestructible plants the place was colorless. Grey cobblestone and equally grey stone buildings. Patches of dirt where grass might’ve once been, along with dozens of dead trees that might’ve once been fruit bearing.
It was eerily quiet walking through the ruins. At the outer edges of the Ancient Lands there had been some regrowth, forests and plants working their way back into the once magically contaminated lands, but here there was no sign of life.
Stann spotted a few skeletons on the ground. As he got closer the skeletons started to rise.
Skellies, Jack thought as Stann bashed them.
Jack looked around, and seeing nothing else moving stepped closer to Stann who was removing the skellies’ armor and weapons.
“Looks like regular old ancient armor and weapons,” Stann said. “But still worth taking.”
Jack nodded. “We’ll just have to be on our toes if there’s skellies everywhere.”
They kept going further into the ancient city. A skellie came out from behind a building, and then another from the other side.
The one on the left lifted an ancient crossbow and Lana shot him with her new energy bow that she’d gotten in Chajon from the dwarven merchant Nasgrin. The shot of energy blasted the skellie and its bones scattered all over the ground.
“Ooh, this bow is great for skellies,” Lana said.
Another skellie showed itself on the right side. Talia waited until both of the skellies were almost to her before hitting them with fire.
Jack glanced over at her. She shrugged. “I don’t want to have to walk all over the place to collect weapons. Let them come to us, unless they have crossbows.”
She had a point.
“Sounds smart to me,” Lana said as she picked up the crossbow and put it into her satchel.
They went another block; a few more skellies appeared, but only one or two at a time, and they were easy pickings for Lana and Talia. Then Stann pointed to one of the buildings. “That one.”
It was larger than most of the buildings around it, and at one time it had two towers, but one had been destroyed and the other looked like it could topple at any time.
Jack frowned. “I don’t like the look of that tower. It looks like you could sneeze and bring it down.”
Stann shrugged. “So we stay on the opposite side.”
“OK. We’ll take a look,” Jack said.
Stann led them up a small set of stairs that came to a pair of double doors. One of the doors was broken and the other had a large hole in it. He grabbed the broken door and threw it out of the way. He then went inside.
Jack followed. The main roof was still mostly intact aside from a few small holes that were letting light into the room. Stann had been correct, it looked like it was some sort of church or holy building, perhaps a monastery? Jack couldn’t be sure, but it was no modest little building, whatever it had been. The building was far too big for that. There were also tapestries that had survived. Jack could see that at one time they’d been rich in color, now they were sun-faded in spots and covered in dust. They carefully went through the building, except for the section underneath the questionable tower. They found a few items, including a couple necklaces and robes on skeletons. Thankfully, these ones weren’t moving. The pendants on the necklaces were covered in what looked like lime. Jack guessed that rust and dust had been reacting over the years. When they got home, he’d clean them up and see what they were. He could feel the magic in them.
“Nothing here,” Stann finally said.
“Let’s keep moving,” Jack said.
“I still think something good is under that tower,” Stann grumbled.
“We have an entire city to search and you want to focus on the first dangerous spot you find?” Talia said.
There was something in Talia’s voice that made it clear she wasn’t hearing any more discussion about the tower.
Stann seemed to pick up on the tone as well. He didn’t say anything, he just headed back outside.
They went further down the street and stopped when they spotted a couple moving bodies on the next street. Looking further down the street, they saw small groups of the bodies moving around.
“Ghouls,” Stann said.
Ghouls were like skellies, only stronger, faster and tougher to kill. The upside was ghouls tended to wear pieces of ancient armor. Like everything else in the Ancient Lands, the greater the risk, the greater the reward.
Jack was trying to figure out how to navigate the street when an idea popped into his head. “Talia, you’re a genius.”
“I know. I’m just concerned that it took you to right now to realize that,” Talia said.
“Any particular reason you think she’s a genius?” Lana asked.
“Earlier, when she waited for the skellies to come to her.”
Stann grinned. “That’s not genius, that’s lazy.”
Talia tilted her head and looked at Stann.
“I mean totally genius,” Stann said.
“Stann, how do you feel about going for a run?” Jack asked.
“Depends,” Stann said warily.
Jack looked up the street with all the ghouls. “I’m thinking that with your stone-body magic and my healing-over-time spell, you could probably run up and down that street without taking any real damage.”
Stann shrugged. “Why would I run away from ghouls? I would just smash them.”
Talia walked over and smiled at Stann. “But honey, for me you’d do it, wouldn’t you? It would be so brave and selfless of you.”
Stann stood up straighter. “You want me to run up the street and then come back?”
“Yes,” Jack said. “But don’t go so fast that any of the ghouls stop chasing you. We want all of them over here all at once.”
“Wait, you want me to go slow enough to create a horde of ghouls?”
Talia fluttered her eyelashes. “Brave and selfless…”
Stann sighed. “Hit me with your magic, oh great and wise leader.” He cast his stone-body spell and his body started to look more like rock than skin.
Jack cast a healing-over-time spell on him. As long as Stann kept moving, any little damage the ghouls could do would be healed. If the horde caught him, that would be a different story.
Stann jogged up the ghoul street. A few of the ghouls just looked at him, but others started walking towards him. He zigzagged his way up the street, passing several smaller groups as he went. It seemed that the more ghouls he passed the more agitated they became.
As Stann worked his way through the undead, Jack turned to the girls. “When Stann brings them back here, we hit them with everything we have.”
“Don’t worry, I have a few fire-damage-over-time spells that are great for groups of enemies. It will be perfect for this.”
Jack had his own spells that were also damage over time, the one that did the most damage was solar flare, but he still didn’t have enough mana to use that spell. However, his solar burst spell at full strength would do a significant amount of damage, and his sword, Morgun Rog, shot out ice that had a small damage-over-time aspect to it, but he wanted to try using the sword to channel his Chante fire magic. Overall, he wouldn’t be as efficient at killing the ghouls as Talia, but he would do his fair share of damage.
“While you two focus on group damage, I’ll take out any ghouls that get too close to us,” Lana said.
Jack nodded. Lana’s energy bow seemed to be very efficient against the undead, and she probably had the best ranged aim of all of them. It was a solid plan, or at least he hoped it was. He’d never tried to herd ghouls into a kill-zone before. “OK. Let’s kill some undead.”
Talia chuckled. “That sounds repetitive to me.”
“Right?” Lana said.
Jack sighed. “You two are so funny.”
“Don’t forget beautiful and smart.”
“And elegant…”
Jack gave up. Trying to out banter the two girls when it was just him was not a winning proposition. Instead, he cast health and mana spells on the girls and drank one of his mana potions. He wanted to be at full strength for when the horde arrived.
Stann was now working his way back. He was running, but only at about three-quarters speed. But the results were impressive. There had to be at least fifty undead behind him. As he got closer, Stann yelled, “Where you want them?”
Jack waved his hand in front of them.
Stann understood and changed his direction so that he wasn’t running right at them, but curved so that he’d be going almost in a circle. The horde would run right in front of them. If they kept following Stann instead of stopping, he could just finish the circle and bring them back around for a second shot.
Stann ran past them and the horde followed.
Talia let loose with a blast of fire that hit the entire group.
Jack used his sword to throw a small stream of fire and from his left hand he shot solar bursts into the horde.
Several of the ghouls noticed them and started charging towards them, but the main mass of ghouls was still following Stann, despite being hit with fire magic by Talia and Jack. Those undead who did charge towards them were being taken down by Lana.
By the time Stann came around for a second pass, half of the ghouls had dropped down to the ground. When the rest were hit with a second round of Jack’s and Talia’s fire attacks, most were down or barely moving.
Stann, seeing that his horde of chasers was almost done, turned around and started running back into the remaining horde. His axe chewed through the remaining ghouls and skellies until there were none left standing.
Jack looked at the carnage. The plan had worked flawlessly.
“We should do that again,” Stann said as he started collecting armor and weapons off the undead.
“I agree. That worked really well,” Talia said.
“Same,” Lana said. “But next time I can take Stann’s job and he can watch your butts.”
“That could be fun,” Stann said.
Jack frowned.
Lana saw his displeasure with the idea. “Look, Stann has more armor than I do, but he didn’t take any damage whatsoever, and I am far faster and nimble than Stann. I can avoid ghouls just as well, and with your healing-over-time spell, I can take a hit or two without it being a problem.”
Jack couldn’t contest her argument. “I suppose that could work.”
“We can take turns,” Stann said. “I bet there’s a bunch more undead walking around this city. We’ll make our quota just by running the streets.”
After collecting the gear, they moved farther into the city. They saw an occasional undead, but didn’t see another large group until they were four blocks down. Like the first street, this one had little pockets of undead that seemed to be gathered together randomly.
Jack recharged Lana, who took off at a slow jog. When she was halfway down the street she turned down an alley and was out of sight.
“Now where is she going?” Stann said.
Jack wasn’t sure, but he didn’t like that she was out of view. He turned to Lord Scratches. “Could you fly over the alley and make sure she’s OK?”
The little dragon jumped off his shoulder and flew down the street. He flew a lazy circle over the alley that she’d gone down.
“She must be fine, Lord Scratches isn’t exactly in a panic,” Talia said.
Jack nodded as he watched Lord Scratches go further away. From the dragon’s location it looked like Lana had gone up the alley to the next street and then down it. He waited longer and the dragon started flying back towards their street. It seemed his suspicion was correct. She’d done a larger loop, probably picking up more undead from the alley and the next street.
When Lana came around a corner, Jack relaxed. She was casually jogging, zigzagging down the street. Now that she was within eyesight, he could see her health stats. She’d taken a minor amount of damage, but her health was going up. His health spell was still working.
“Holy hells, she found a whole bunch of them,” Stann said as the horde came around the corner.
The horde was large and growing fast as she made her way down the street towards them. Jack calculated there had to be almost twice the number as the last time.
Stann put his axe on the ground and pulled out his crossbow.
Jack approved of the choice. With so many undead in the horde, it was better for Stann to take the first ones to attack them out with his bow, and then switch to his axe.
Lana started to make her first pass, bringing the horde right in front of them.
Talia and Jack attacked the horde at almost the same time. The horde was so big that Talia’s flame attack didn’t even cover the entire group. But she hit the first section hard.
Luckily, only a dozen or so of the undead noticed them and broke off from the pack while the rest kept chasing Lana, who was now going in a circle to bring them back around.
Both Jack and Talia took the opportunity to drink a mana potion while Stann took care of the undead attacking them. He hit three of the undead with his crossbow before switching to his axe. By the time he was done with them, Lana was coming back and he had to scramble back into position.
They repeated the process three times before all of the undead were destroyed.
Lana grinned at Jack when they were done. “That was fun.”
“Bad form, Lana. Going out of sight. We can’t help you if we don’t know where you are,” Jack said.
“Sorry. But there was a big group in the alley, and when I got to the end I saw even more on the next street. I figured it would be more efficient to grab all of them at once. And I saw Lord Scratches up in the air so I just kept going until I had most of them chasing me.”
“OK. But in the future try not to go rogue like that. We’ll send Lord Scratches up next time so you can just go wherever you think is best. If he dives down to help you, we’ll come running,” Jack said.
“Sounds like a plan,” Lana said as she threw Jack a pair of gauntlets that she’d taken off a ghoul.
Jack examined the
m, they looked like they were the perfect size for him. He cast his identify spell and the stats showed up. 8 health and 8 mana. There were also two unique spells that couldn’t be identified, but Jack could see they required slightly more mana than he had now. But regardless of the additional spells, they were a clear upgrade on his current gauntlets. Jack threw them back to Lana. “Good score. Put them in your satchel for now. Once they’re cleaned up, I’ll switch to those ones.” In truth, it wasn’t just about cleaning the gauntlets. The ones he wore now were the ones Professor Cyr had given him, the ones that had been his mother’s. The gauntlets were one of the only things he had that had been his mother’s, aside from her spell book.
Lana put the gauntlets away. “Sure.”
They finished clearing the undead of their gear. For as many undead as they’d destroyed, there wasn’t much more gear in this group than they’d gotten from the last group. It was still a significant amount, but most of the skellies and ghouls hadn’t been carrying weapons or wearing armor.
“I wonder how many of these ghouls and skellies were just innocent victims of the war?” Jack said.
Talia shrugged. “Probably a good portion, war always has its share of innocent lives that are destroyed. But there isn’t much that can be done about that. And there is nothing we can do for these people aside from destroy them and let their souls go where they belong.”
Jack wasn’t sure he agreed, but it wasn’t like he was well versed in the afterlife. So arguing was pointless. But he did like the idea that destroying the undead they encountered was a good thing. It made him feel less guilty about taking things off the bodies.
They moved to the next street but saw very little undead action. Moving on, they went another six blocks before they encountered a group of a dozen or so undead. There were no other undead on the street, so they didn’t bother running past them. They just attacked.
Afterwards, they kept going. But the undead numbers were far fewer.
“I think we got lucky before,” Lana said. “We haven’t seen a good cluster of undead in three hours.”
Menacing Misfits: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (Darkthorn Academy Book 1) Page 39