by Lee Duckett
Keeping the casting as quiet as possible, Badger pulled out the same trick he had against the orcs. The sound of the large iron door creaking open and quietly closing reverberated through the space, followed by the sound of Shinobot’s voice asking, “Hey, where are you guys? I had to wait for the snake to lose interest before I could sneak in.”
The ghasts froze, the lead one whispering to the others. Four stalked forwards towards the entry hall, one glancing at Badger as it passed, nodding to itself in the knowledge that the wizard was still paralyzed. “Guys?” Shino’s voice asked, along with the sounds of metal boots on stone.
A quick motion and a whispered command rearmed Badger’s belt as he strained to hear the ghasts creep up to ambush what they thought was the fifth member of the party. They were quiet, as quiet as Fayne when she scouted ahead, but it was always harder for four to be quiet than for one. A slight scuff was enough for Badger to get a sense of range, starting to cast the spell from his ersatz scroll.
The magic fought him, the weave and weft of the arcane energies straining at the control Badger had trained for years to develop, but he could. Not. Fail. Finishing the activation incantation the paper in his hand burned with prismatic fire, revealing a golf ball sized sphere, glowing like the compressed conflagration it was. Peaking over the pews, the ghasts had arranged themselves on either side of the closed doors, ready to leap forward and strike as soon as their prey passed the threshold. Perfect.
Thrusting his arm forward the primed fireball shot forward, impacting the floor directly in the dead center of the doorway. The spell roared to life, the explosion a perfect sphere forty feet across. The ghasts shrieked as Badger hurled himself towards his family, one hand starting his next spell while the other fished the potion of lesser restoration from his belt pouch. He wasn’t sure if it would break the ghasts’ paralysis, but it was the best option he had.
He wanted to go to his wife, but she had been dragged right next to his son, and her heavier armor meant nothing to the stilling touch of their foe. Hating himself, he sped towards Fayne instead, the archer better able to strike at a distance and keep ahead of the ghasts’ grasp.
The undead on the archer saw him coming and let go of her, leaping for the wizard. Badger sent a bolt of fire on an intercept course with the ghast’s smashed face, but it twisted out of the way of the cantrip, hand reaching out to tag the wizard. The gnome similarly twisted, though with less grace, the paralyzing claws missing him by millimeters. Once again, his belt registered the attack, thrummed, and lashed out, slamming into the ghoul and sending it flying off with a cry of pain and surprise.
Badger was glad of his height for once as he didn’t need to do more than bend slightly to pour the potion down the elf’s throat. After a moment of horror, thinking it didn’t work and she was going to drown in the fluid she shuddered, coughing as she rolled to her feet, bow still in hand.
She’d lost a few arrows from her quiver when she fell, but had enough to still pose a threat, which she proved when she fired two in quick succession at the ghasts still hunkered over Rurik and Aria. The leader dodged to the side, revealing the dwarf to have ragged gashes in his side, arms, and legs. The one on the cleric tried to copy its leader’s motions, but its hesitation got it an electric arrow in the leg.
Howling, they both charged Fayne and Badger, two more staggering from the fireball’s blast, burned but still alive. The elf glanced at the gnome, who yelled, “Run! You can’t get caught!” Nodding to him she ran backwards, firing another electric arrow which grazed the leader.
As they charged, Badger moved in the other direction, not nearly as quickly, and hurled a Flame Bolt at one of the burned ghasts. It caught the creature in the chest, the undead stumbling and falling to the ground, dead once again. The other burned ghast closed, claws outstretched and reaching for the gnome’s throat.
Badger tried to twist out of the way, but took the blow to the shoulder instead. As the creature’s talons penetrated deep the paralyzation did so as well, locking Badger up once more. However, the now familiar thrum of his belt intoned, punishing that which dared to strike its owner. With its claw sunk into Badger’s flesh, it couldn’t dodge the force lash that struck into its arm. The limb broke off completely, the creature falling backward, milky eyes deadening as it dropped.
Badger could see Fayne bolt past him as he fell, imprisoned in supernatural fright as he was, the other two ghasts in hot pursuit. The leader had two arrows in its chest, heart shots that would have been fatal if its organs still beat.
The other darted forward, claws outstretched to brush her retreating legs but the elf leapt gracefully away, the deadly touch missing by inches. In return she fired two arrows, one similarly missing by inches but the second sinking right into the creature’s eye, the undead creature dying instantly as its brains fried.
Ducking under the false cleric’s swipe, she reached for another arrow, only to find her quiver empty. Swearing, she leapt back, glanced over, and smiled.
The ghast, now leader of a group of one, snarled and gave chase as she ran back to Aria and Rurik. The archer leapt directly over the aasimar, who was now physically shaking, and the ghast followed suit. As it passed directly over Aria, she shuddered and screamed out a single word. “SOLUS!”
Bright golden light poured from the holy symbol, outlining the undead from below in divine radiance. It landed with a stagger, horrible sunburns covering its exposed flesh, and it started to turn, ready to re-paralyze the cleric before she could do any more. “Oh no ya don’t!” Rurik yelled, unable to stand but grabbing it by its ankle and yanking the Ghast down, rolling on top of the undead creature.
As it shrieked in pain, it tried to touch him, only to have both its forearms caught in steely grips. “You!” The dwarf yelled, headbutting the ghast, steel helm meeting undead skull. “Don’t!” Another slam, the samurai’s helmet darkening with the creature’s ichor. “Eat!” The ghast’s struggling increased and it tried to bite its captor, only to receive a mouth full of metal. “People!” the dwarf shouted, rearing back to drive his helmeted forehead through the ghoul’s, a gout of ichor covering his face.
The undead’s struggles ceased and it went limp. The dwarf tried to stand up but couldn’t get his legs to do more twitch, the muscles required severely damaged, those that were left. Aria tried to move to him to heal his bleeding wounds, but was coughing too hard to do so, the stench of burned ghast pervading the chamber but slowly clearing.
“Why did you let it touch you!” the cleric demanded as soon as she could talk, healing the samurai with glowing motes of light drifting down in a stream, the damaged tissue slowly repairing itself.
“I dinnae ken that it could do that!” he shot back weakly.
She glared at him, the healing lessening. “I told you it was aghast!”
“Which told me it wasn’t a bloody dwarf, just like da growlin’ told me they dinna want ta be me friend,” he snarled from the ground. “None of that told me they could wrap ya up like a lamb to the slaughter with a bloody poke! This ain’t on me lassie!”
“Why didn’t you say something!” Aria demanded, turning the question on Badger, who looked at her, confused.
“Maybe because I didn’t know?” he asked sarcastically, still on edge from just how close they’d come to death because of lack of vital intel. The paralysis that had locked him up fading faster and easier, having already thrown it off moments before, allowing him to remove the hand whose fingers still stuck in his shoulder, the pain giving him focus. “If they were magical constructs or aberrations I could, but the study of the undead has always been the domain of the church. They get kinda upset when wizards get too interested in the undead, as you should know.”
“And if it’s not an animal or a dragon, I don’t know about it,” added Fayne, pre-empting the cleric’s next question.
Aria sniffed, stepping back and folding her arms, leaving Rurik half healed. “I’m feeling very attacked right now.”
“
Oh, I’m sure that feels so bad lassie,” Rurik sneered. “As opposed to, ya know, bein’ eatin’ alive! Now are ya gonna heal me or not.”
“How dare you talk your mother that way! It-It was your own fault for not listening to me!” she declared.
“The hell it-” Rurik started to respond, but stopped at Badger’s raised hand, still shaking slightly from pain and lingering paralysis.
“Honey, he just told you that he did listen to you, but he didn’t know what you were talking about because all you gave us was a name,” The gnome informed her, his voice carefully neutral.
She huffed, “Well than he should’ve asked.”
Fayne couldn’t help herself, “How would he have known to ask? Are we supposed to ask if everything we meet has something special, just in case you know but don’t want to say? Besides, I thought it was ghouls that are supposed to have that paralyzing touch!” she argued.
“Ghasts are a type of ghoul,” Aria replied as if it were obvious and the elf was silly to even ask.
“Oh!” Badger observed, voice thick with derision as he threw his hand up, tossing the ghoul’s arm away. “New information!”
“There’s no need to be nasty!” the aasimar snapped.
The gnome didn’t give an inch. “We almost died because we were lacking need-to-know information! I think that’s reason enough!”
“Well that isn’t my fault!” Aria announced.
Rurik sighed, struggling to his feet. His muscles had regrown, as had the skin, but his legs were covered with scabbed over bite-marks and bruising. “It kinda is, lassie. Yer all about how I need to work with the team. You and the wee man’s strength is in yer castin’, but also in yer knowledge. If we were dealin’ with royalty, and I knew somethin’ important, and I dinna tell ya because ya dinna ask, ya’d be right pissed with me, and fer good reason!”
She looked as if she wanted to say something, but settled for “Well you didn’t need to be that mean about it!” She looked at him intently, waiting for something. “Well?”
“Well what Lassie?” he asked.
This was apparently the wrong thing to say. “Aren’t you going to apologize?” she demanded.
“For what?” Fayne demanded in turn. “For telling the truth?”
“There’s more important things than just being right,” she informed the elf, “You’ll understand when you’re older.”
“I’m four times your age!”
“Not where it counts,” Aria dismissed, ignoring the elf’s inarticulate sound of anger as she turned to her husband. “Well?”
Badger’s jaw worked for a moment before he stated, “I’m sorry. I was upset because of the danger we were, are in and I shouldn’t have put it the way I had.”
She nodded, satisfied, “And you should have asked.” At his lack of reply she pressed, “And if you don’t understand what I’m saying you should ask.”
Badger was quiet for a moment, speaking after she opened her mouth to prod him again, “I’ll ask if I don’t understand, but you know I’m not good at juggling things in the moment, so please assume that I don’t and explain fully for everything you haven’t explained yet.”
“You’re right, you aren’t good at that. Fine,” she agreed, turning back to continue healing Rurik. She made a point of healing Fayne, who just had a bruise from where she fell when first paralyzed, before healing her husband’s bleeding shoulder wound.
Chapter Fourteen
The Cold Shoulder
Healed and with repaired armor, the party explored the ruined church, Rurik making sure to decapitate the dead ghasts over Aria’s objections “Just in case.” The corpses had nothing but shredded shorts on them, the pile of rags each had cast off revealing nothing when Fayne used her rapier to poke through them, requesting Badger to clean off her weapon afterwards. Aria took a seat on one of the pews, obviously waiting for something as the rest of the party ignored her and checked everything in the room.
Leading out of the church were two doors, one on the back wall that was iron, the holy symbols on it scratched out, the other stone, where the ghasts had been leading them towards before the party realized what they were.
The stone door looked well used, and swung open, revealing a dark hallway, the space oppressively quiet. The iron door was locked, and after over a dozen attempts Fayne gave up in disgust. “Is this damn thing magical?” she asked the resident wizard.
“Other than the basic anti-rust enchantments that everything down here seems to have, no,” he replied apologetically. “It’s just high quality.”
“It be a dwarvish lock,” Rurik added, smiling slightly. “Made with superior dwarven ingenuity.”
Fayne put away her tools, “Well I guess we’re going to go the other way because of your stupid hammer midget ‘ingenuity’!”
“Oi, no need to be bustin’ out the slurs, lassie,” he called back, sounding hurt.
She sighed, “Right, sorry Rurik, that wasn’t okay. It’s just, dark silent hallways? That just screams undead and I’ve had enough of that for today, or this week. Or really a year or two if I’m being honest.” The dwarf winced. “What, what am I missing?” she asked.
Badger sighed, taking a seat in a different pew than his wife, the low-slung construction fitting his stature. “Before you got here, home, before you got to the game,” he corrected, “Max said he had three major plotlines. Two of which were already figured but he asked us about the third. We got a choice of snakes, something else, and undead. Maggie chose undead, so-.”
“Neither of you said anything!” the named woman shot, annoyed and still in a huff.
“So you’re probably going to see more,” Badger continued as if she hadn’t interrupted him.
Fayne sighed, nodding as she replied, “I guess I better read up on them then, so I’m prepared,” pointedly ignoring Aria’s glare. “We ready to go down more dark, creepy hallways?”
Rurik moved to the door with an, “Aye lass,” Badger nodding and moving to join him. Aria got up without a word and followed Fayne to the door.
Entering the hallway, it led off into impenetrable shadows, doorways lining it on both sides. As the stone door swung shut, darkness encompassed them. Rurik, no longer wielding his flaming sword, could not provide light, and Aria did not turn on her Aureole. There was a long pause before the firelight of a readied Flame Bolt spell lit the corridor.
“You might want to take out one of those everburning torches,” The gnome suggested conversationally.
Fayne looked at Aria, who stared back with a raised eyebrow. Biting back her first response, the elf replied in a strained, falsely casual tone, “I think I will.” Extracting an engraved wooden torch, lit with the illusion of green flame, she stuck it through the back of her belt, illuminating the area without destroying her night-vision and keeping her hands free.
The party continued, trying their best to be quiet but the clicking of Rurik & Aria’s armor was hard to hide, and soon the clicking was met with more from every direction.
~We’ve got company,~ Rurik announced, looking around. As if summoned, a dozen doors creaked open, a collection of dwarven skeletons in broken armor, chipped and cracked weapons in hand, emerged, the red light of necromancy glimmering in their shadowed eye sockets.
The skeletons moved to block both ends of the hallway, forming two groups and waiting, watching. ~Anything about these ya wanna tell us lassie?~ Rurik asked, shifting his grip on his swords. He knew from the first adventure that slashing and piercing would do almost nothing to these creatures of bone and magic, but that blunt pommels could crack their skulls easily enough. Fayne was already reaching inside her bag, extracting a handful of blunted arrows for similar reasons.
~These are skeletons, animated by magic,~ Aria started to explain imperiously. ~They can be animated by arcane or divine casters, though it is only a third order spell for divine casters, as opposed to a fourth order spells for arcane casters. This is prob-~
~That’s nice and all, but I w
as thinkin’ of if they could cast magic or somesuch,~ Rurik interrupted, the skeletons drawing closer. Fayne had a blunted arrow drawn and Badger was ready to release his Flame Bolt.
~I’ll get to that,~ the cleric chided like a schoolmarm, ~but I don’t want to get yelled at for missing something. So. As I was saying. This is probably because of the affinity for positive and negative energy that divine casters have, as opposed to the more elemental nature that most arcane casters possess.~
The dwarven skeletons chose this moment to attack, coming in from both sides. Rurik deflected the blow from the first skeleton, smashing it in its unprotected head with the pommel of his sword. Its skull fractured and it was re-killed, the light disappearing from its eyes and the unnatural shadows in what was left of its eye sockets dissipating.
From the other direction Fayne shot the lead skeleton, blunted arrow hitting it in the arm that held its axe, shattering the limb. The undead dwarf seemed to not notice, using its functioning arm to swipe at the elf, who dodged the blow. Badger hit the disarmed skeleton with his Flame Bolt, blowing apart its ribcage and doing enough damage to dispel the magic animating its body.
~There are many varieties of skeleton,~ Aria continued, not lifting a finger to help. ~Some are enchanted to drip acid, some are clad in necromanticly charged iron, making them much harder to destroy, and some are steeped in unholy magic so they cannot be killed easily.~
~These any of those?~ Badger asked, working with Fayne to take down skeletons, a good dozen more behind them, the ten-foot-wide corridors creating a bottleneck.
~No. Those are distinctive and easily identifiable because their bones seem to be made of solidified blood,~ Aria told him. ~As I was saying, skeletons both see things visually and are able to sense life force nearby. This lets them home in on their prey through wood or thin stone, as well as identify other undead.~