The way ahead was clear. The path led ever downward into the craterous Blackwoods to the inevitable center of sunken earth, beneath which laid the labyrinthine catacombs of the dread lich Gozzpeck. And above which immediately was a vast cemetery of unspeakable horrors, guarded by the grandeur of a monstrous hulk of moving bones. Around all of which was a wall of dead yet moving ground that reformed itself at will and enclosed the great lichyard from all incursion, and spared the outside world from the likewise march of the uncountable undead hoarded within.

Ozzy and Stormen reached the wall and reunited with the ancient trodden path that led to the great gates. Gates which Ozzy knew quite well from one side and the other. Though it had only been a few days, he was daunted by them. It looked so much taller than he remembered.

“Right,” Stormen said. “This is it. As far as most Defenders ever get. These walls are accursed with a blight that terminates all tools of the trade that may be used to scale them. Prop a ladder up and it sinks inward like it’s been laid over mud. Toss a rope up and it rots and frays before you can ascend it. Stack men ten high and the edge of the wall turns dry and crumbles as soon as it takes weight. There’s no simple way in.”

“Yeah,” Ozzy agreed.

Stormen turned to his protege and looked him over. Ozzy felt the suspicious eyes boring through him, not unlike the spear that tore through his hollow fluff-filled body.

“And you got in,” he said. “And then left.”

Ozzy paused before he nodded to confirm. “That I did.”

Stormen turned to fully face him, arms crossed and lip stiffened with a scrutinous tilt under his mustache. “How?”

I haven’t thought of that yet to be honest. I mean, I know how I got out but it wasn’t something I can admit to. Oh, I just jumped! I can jump really good because I’m so very light from having no meat on my bones! That won’t go over well. And how I got in? I didn’t even…

Ozzy racked his brain for some answers but found his own mind wanting, and there was no one else to ask. He had to lie and he had to make it convincing enough to pass the scruff of an old, wizened warrior. The silence grew disconcerting. An honest man wouldn’t need that long to think. Unless…

“It was awful,” Ozzy began. “There’s a…massive skeleton inside. Huge! Made of hundreds of skeletons all conjoined and spread apart, ribcages made up its arms and leg bones made its fingers. It picked me up and threw me over the wall! I landed in a tree and just kind of…slid down. And I ran for the hills as fast as I could without looking back.”

“Hmph,” Stormen said. He stroked his chin thoughtfully and assessed Ozzy’s story. Ozzy hoped he would overlook how he neglected to mention the method that got him inside. “The Walking Graveyard. It’s the key target of this region. Once it’s defeated, the Defender’s Guild is convinced they’ll be able to drive all the skeletons out for good and settle the Blackwoods as a proper territory to be invested in.”

“Y-yep,” Ozzy nodded. “I didn’t believe in any stories like that so…stupid me. I learned the hard way.”

“But how’d you get in?” Stormen suddenly asked.

Ozzy stifled a hiss and looked up at the gate. There was no way to make it open from the inside or from out. The walls were unscalable, as Stormen noted. Planting daggers in to climb up one rung at a time was likewise hard to believe especially for a man as lanky and weak as Ozzy was pretending to be.

“I - It wasn’t here,” he said. “I mean, I didn’t find the gates the first time anyway. I went in around…the side.”

“The side?” Stormen asked.

“Yeah,” Ozzy nodded. He looked up at the ever gray sky above and the constant swirl of static clouds. “I’m not sure which side but -.”

“Let’s go then,” Stormen said. He started walking off, keeping the wall on his left while his eyes scanned the forest on his right. Ozzy hesitated before he ran to catch up. He just hoped that some phantasmal method of entry would produce itself before he was caught and called out as the liar he was. They had a while to walk until they reached the entrance again. If there was any place that even looked like a possibility, somewhere with a fallen tree or a crumbled structure, he’d pick it and hope that the rest seemed too impossible to replicate together.

Once more, where simple labor and physical effort was concerned, Ozzy proceeded effortlessly. He was impressed by Stormen who through it all remained alert and even-footed. He was an older man but stronger than most men Ozzy’s age in life. A proper example worth following as far as a mentor figure.

“I knew a man,” Stormen said, “not long ago. He wanted to enter the lichyard. He was convinced there was treasure. He saw skeletons carrying corpses away from the Zanzan lands, covered in jewels and riches. He was a competent fighter. A honorless, debtful dreamer who lived for himself and spited the world with a smile. I never saw him again.”

“How long ago was this?” Ozzy asked.

“Not long,” Stormen said, with a warning tone.

Ozzy knew there was no chance of finding that man, or any man, alive under the ground anymore. Every blind corner, tall ceiling, and even most of the floors were avenues for lethal ambushes. Entering Gozzpeck’s lair felt like a penultimate dungeon crawl where the difficulty was cranked up without any intentional balancing or testing. Just nonsense numbers for damage and enemy density like the game maker got bored and just wanted whatever party that ventured inside to end the game in failure. He saw the proof, too, and more than enough gold to take back if he made it.

Of course, he had an out. It was a scant chance of one, but it was a trick worth pulling. If he got back inside somehow, he could probably just walk around sans clothing and blend in with the other mindless skeletal drones long enough to find some wayward treasure in an alcove or an overflow storage room to take back. Then he could suit up and trot out with a goblet or a crown or the hilt of a treasured sword. The only thing stopping him was the damned wall.

There were no openings on the first half of the gate side that they patrolled around. The wall was somehow more enormous than he remembered it. Almost like it was taller on the outside than on the inside. Maybe it was, and they were walking at an underground level compared to the lichyard within. He couldn’t tell. The option to leap up from the tree branches was also eliminated because the trees grew so far away from the cursed wall that none could be used to even peer over the top.

They proceeded up the long walk of the next wall segment. Ozzy grew tense. He wasn’t sure if they’d find anything. He started thinking of another good lie to use.

What if I came well equipped but lost it all? Yeah. I went from a tree with a long, sturdy rope - but ropes rot. But I ran across it as fast as I could! I can prove that with a short sprint or just a jump. Or maybe I had some kind of glider? I just opened it up and sailed right over. Are gliders a thing? This world is kind of medieval. But they must have heard of kites? Not that there’s wind around here. What if I came with a bunch of people but they all chickened out? Does that conflict with any of my story so far? Oh crap! I forgot what I even said before! Was I bragging about going it alone back at the tavern!?

Ozzy felt his voice straining against the empty hollow of his throat when Stormen suddenly stopped him. He pointed ahead. “Is that it there?” he asked. Ozzy inspected the suspect element. There was a hill that the wall sort of grew out of, a steep bulge of the ground that was covered with dead grass that went about halfway up the wall and left a perfectly jumpable, climbable section remaining.

“Yes,” Ozzy sighed with relief. “I thought it would have…not been here again.”

“And I hadn’t seen this before,” Stormen said.

“In how long?” Ozzy asked.

He smirked. “Not long.”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Ozzy was just glad to see him in high spirits. If he was happy that meant he wouldn’t have more pressing, important questions to answer. They were just in range of the bump in the terrain when two skeletal guards rushed at them from the woods wielding wide metal scimitars. Ozzy backed himself up to the wall. It felt inviting. An image of the hole he crawled out of upon his new creation flashed through his mind. Like the dirt was reminding him to be glad of where he came from. He rolled to the side to avoid the swing of the sword. The skeleton abandoned the weapon and snarled.

Ozzy yanked his rapier out of the sheathe and did a few stabs at his enemy. The skeleton backed away from it, then reached out and grabbed the blade. Ozzy was startled. He tried to pull away as the skeleton tugged back. Ozzy was caught up in this senseless struggle for two or three tugs of war when he realized how to use it. He waited for the skeleton to tug, then pushed and the blade snapped through its fingers and split through the front of the skull, shattering a huge chunk out connecting the upper jaw to the eye socket. The lights in its head went dark and the remains fell to the earth.

“You all right?” Stormen asked. Ozzy turned with his sword hung at his side. Stormen had taken care of his skeleton in what looked like one swing and had enough time to sheathe his weapon and wait arms crossed for them to continue.

“Yeah,” Ozzy said. “That one was…that was easier than before.”

“Good,” Stormen said. “I’d imagine that hill is how they’re getting out and back in. I’d expect it to be more well guarded than this on the outside at least. Which means the inside might have a more harrowing reception.”

“It might,” Ozzy agreed, sincerely. Especially for Stormen. And also for him as long as he was trying to pass himself off as human. That was probably a breach of skeletal ethics. And Gozzpeck wouldn’t be glad to know he came back for any reason. Before he could protest by making up an impossible plan requiring backup, Stormen crawled up the steep hill without Ozzy. Ozzy ran to catch up and easily scaled the slope as Stormen reached the top.

The way up was still blocked by the wall, but it was far more manageable than any other part of the surrounding landscape. The top of the wall was just in reach of Ozzy’s arms extended all the way up. That was too high to just climb as normal, and he could feel the moving dirt give way under his grasp and crumble away just from the attempt.

“How about this,” Ozzy suggested. “You help me up, and I’ll see if the hill is…still on the other side or if it’s been dug out by the skeletons. That way we don’t both break our legs trying to fall down.”

“That’ll do,” Stormen said. He positioned himself against the wall hunched slightly over and made his back open for Ozzy to hike up onto. Ozzy quickly stepped up and over his ally, not wanting to dwell on his back like a burden. Again, Stormen had to note how light Ozzy was that he hardly felt him kick off as he reached the apex of the wall.

“Good news,” Ozzy said. “There’s still a grade on the other side.”

“Where you came in first?” Stormen asked.

“Y-yeah,” Ozzy said. “It’s soft dirt. I just kind of slid down and held my breath.” Ozzy perched himself carefully on the wall and reached down to give Stormen a hand up. The old man reached up and took Ozzy in a grip near his elbow. Ozzy gave him a good yank up and his shoulder popped clean out of socket with an unsettlingly loud snap. It was such an odd sounding snap of pure bone-against-bone movement that Stormen turned to check if they were under attack again. Ozzy quickly reattached his arm, which forced him to lean forward, and knocked his center of gravity away as the wall crumbled underneath him into sand. Ozzy leaned back and slipped his arm out of Stormen’s grip to fall fully backwards to the ground.

He landed with a rattle. His bones below his hips were detached inside his bulky fluffing-lined pants. It was the same bizarre feeling of his detached arm but it was like he suddenly reclined into a perfectly temperate jacuzzi of slime. The sensation continued up his back, along his spine. He crunched his body forward and reached for his legs to drag them all back together and snapped them back in place. He wasn’t sure what might happen if the feeling of dislocation reached his head. It worried him enough not to test it. Then a sharpened bone landed between his legs.

“KKKKKHHHHH!!!!!” Ozzy hissed. He spun away and clambored for his sword once more as a strange figure hopped and bound into view. A familiar figure. “H-Hewfarth!?”

The bounding skeleton stopped and gaped its bare jaw in shock. “What ho - sir Ozzy!?” The walking bone arbalest bound over with a jovial laugh and reached for Ozzy in a hard, jutting embrace. “What shock and awe to see you again! And done up in such garish garbs as this no less. The plunder of your doings beyond the walls? Whatever brought you back?”

“Uhh,” Ozzy said. He looked back at the wall. Stormen still hadn’t come down. But he was an innovative and determined man with more tricks to the trade than Ozzy could know. “I, uh -.”

“Surely you have proven worthy to our great lord Gozzpeck since you’ve left,” Hewfarth said. “Now to offer such proof of your journey unto him and savor a champion’s reunion, eh?”

“Sort of,” Ozzy admitted.

“I had a hunch,” Hewfath said, pointing to his misshapen back with a chuckle. “A hunch that you were special! One so worthy of following after. And lo - was I right? Off and away on lich’s errand and returning draped in the dressings of your fallen foe! Out not even so long as to disturb the slumbering giant!”

“Marrowbane?” Ozzy asked. “Is he -?”

“Hmm, resting now,” Hewfarth said. “As he grows larger so too does his need to rest before moving. And in the days between movement there’s peace up and ayon in this desolate field. If only just peace for us within. It’s when those like you come out to make their way into the Blackwoods as our vanguards - yet you came out a bit early, methinks, to have met him in his tantrum state.”

Ozzy nodded along as he learned of his enemy’s weakness. “Yeah, that’s what happened. An errand…and -,” he looked over his shoulder and saw movement at the wall. Hewfarth seemed to notice it as well, and Ozzy noticed him noticing enough to turn him away. “It’s a secret. You know, like how it usually is. I had to go all the way out of the Blackwoods to do it.”

“By the lich’s own piercing gaze!” Hewfarth politely exclaimed. “Do tell!”

“It wasn’t to just bring back some clothes,” Ozzy slyly lied, “but a whole living human. And he’s just about caught up to me.”

“Well then!” Hewfarth said as his rickety body prepared another bolt in his ribcage. “Let’s not keep our good lich waiting, eh?”

Ozzy kept Hewfarth turned away from the wall despite the other’s insistence. “I - I need him alive. To go down, into the crypt, with me. Alive. And then…uh, the rest is - once I’m down there Gozzpeck will let me know that I’ve accomplished…something.”

Hewfarth tapped a finger to his mouth and winked, sort of. Ozzy could tell he was trying to be sly. “Say no more. Your mission is your own. I’m just glad to get to know one as important as you. Fellow crusader of ruin, mayhap even future champion of our lich? You do as you ought, and I shall as always stay the steady hand of a guardsman from corner to corner. Let him be none the wiser - your bounty of wasted flesh.” Hewfarth bowed and trotted away on his box-spring legs. He slipped into the cemetery mist just as Ozzy heard Stormen land behind him.

Ozzy hopped over to check on his adventuring companion. “You okay?”

“Just fine,” Stormen said. “I’ve got enough rope for one quick climb from that length of fall. What did I hear from over the wall, if anything?”

“Uh,” Ozzy muttered, “just me. I, uh…talk to myself when I’m not sure what to do.”

“Hmm,” Stormen nodded. “It’s a bad habit. Keep to your thoughts what can’t be answered by others.”

Noted.

“Now where did you find the entrance?” Stormen asked.

Ozzy looked out over the vast expanse of graves, tombs, crypts and mausoleum entrances that made up the cover of the lichyard. He barely remembered his surroundings prior to being unceremoniously kicked out of the underground. And he didn’t need to remember any one of them. He just had to find any entrance and it would complete his circuitous story at last. If the catacombs were as intentionally confusing as he experienced down below, then he ventured a guess that the nearest important looking headstone would secretly host a path below.

He pushed away a carpet of hardened vines and branches to reveal a pitch dark stairway into nothing. “Here,” he said. “I found an entrance like this and just went for it.”

“Like this?” Stormen asked.

“I - I came out of a different one,” Ozzy admitted. “So there’s…at least two.”

Stormen looked over Ozzy’s shoulder at the rest of the cemetery, covered in mist, lumpy with deformed terrain and spotted with dark spindly skeleton-like trees.

“I see,” he said. He patted Ozzy on the back and turned to the wall. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Huh?” Ozzy asked.

“I’ve seen all I need to see,” he said. “We’d best not linger. If the Walking Graveyard is herein, we’re better off not seeing it, let alone fighting it.”

“Uh, yeah,” Ozzy agreed. He followed Stormen to the wall. The old man produced a length of leathery rope attached to a three-prong hook. He tossed it up and grappled his way up the edge. Ozzy jumped and climbed just behind. The grapple was already sunken into the dirt as it absorbed the tool by the time they reached the apex of the wall and fell back to the other side.

“That,” Stormen said, “was a fine first expedition. And your information checked out.”

“Wait,” Ozzy asked. “We’re really not going down in there?”

Stormen looked at Ozzy with wild, almost alarmed eyes. “You’re a good lad and daring, too. Work on your aim, your reflexes and your composure and you’ll make a fine Defender. I’ll see to your recommendation once we get back to town. But as a Defender, you ought not carry such ludicrous plans with you any longer. You’re better than that. Got it?”

Ozzy could feel a hint of respect in Stormen’s voice beneath all his patronizing and caution. He looked back at the wall and the lichyard beyond it and felt the same desperate grip against his immaterial mind trying to goad him back. Stormen proceeded down the hill to lead the way and Ozzy followed. He was determined to see his own path through. He’d be a hero no matter how many times he had to lie to his only skeletal friend…