The next morning saw them packed up and leaving at the crack of dawn. Despite the security provided by Vincent's horde, none of them were able to sleep well while surrounded by the undead creatures.
Elaina found it easier to snooze In the carriage as the continued on the road, but soon they had veered off the beaten path as she continued to direct them to the location she had seen, the echoes of it welling up when she focused on it.
Unfortunately, keeping them in her minds eye required that she continue to wear her glasses, which put her in something of a mood.
A few hours of travel put them near the armory, though it was more of a mound with no discernable entrance.
“Did they bury it?” Vincent said aloud.
Elaina closed her eyes and pushed her senses out.
“It looks like they covered the entrance... Yes, here.” She said, as she moved around the mound, stopping and pointing at one area covered in grass and moss.
“It looks like a cellar door, it's covered in a decent layer of dirt... you should probably get the zombies to clear it.”
Vincent nodded at this, and then at the surrounding horde, causing five zombies to lurch forward. Elaina rapidly backed away as they began clawing at the earth covering the slanted door.
“So... these people died of a plague right?”
“Something like that, it was never identified.”
“You are sure it's not still infectious?”
“I mean... probably not.”
“Probably?”
“I'd be more worried about all the diseases and parasites in the rotten tissue right now rather than some old plague.”
Elaina and Vincent were silent for a second.
“I want a bath as soon as we get to town.”
“Me too. I wish I'd brought Penny. She's been formulating an instant-clean potion. Pour it on you and it just wipes away and disinfects everything.”
“That sounds amazing!” Elaina turned to Vincent. “It would make travel so much more tolerable. It would make an amazing amount of money back in my country.”
“That's a thought... people here tend to not care as much about missing a few baths, but if it's that big a deal over there... I don't smell to you do I?” Vincent asked, suddenly self conscious.
“When you first got back from battle you smelled pretty strong, but... it was not unpleasant. Just a little overwhelming.”
Vincent surreptitiously smelled his armpit, before looking back up. “Yeah... Bathing is the order of the day once we arrive.”
With a crunch the zombies broke through the dirt and started tearing into the wood. Vincent made to tell them to stop, but the rotten wood buckled almost instantly under their onslaught, and they were through. They heard three thunks, and one of the zombies stood up with three crossbow bolts lodged in it's torso and head.
“... So it appears they booby trapped the entrance... I am glad my zombies were a bit too overzealous this time.”
“maybe you should have your zombies go in and gather what they can and bring it out here... Mira would be extremely cross with me if you got a bolt to the face.”
Vincent nodded. “Could you take a look with your divination afterwards to see if they missed anything?”
Elaina nodded. Focusing her senses and expanding her awareness into the underground arsenal.
She searched through the underground, her view shifting around erratically as she scanned every piece of it, until she came upon something odd.
“I think... I think there is a compartment disguised as a brick down there. There is something in it, something powerful. It's making my vision fuzz out whenever I try to focus in on it.” Elaina said, blinking her vision back to her own body.
Vincent started at this, then got up and went down into the now detrappified mound. Elaina guided him to the point she sensed with her words, and he clawed at the brick, fumbling, until he found a small catch, letting him get a grip and pulling the whole brick out of the stone. He brought it up and out of the mound to show to Elaina
“This is weird, the front looks like brick, but the rest is wood.” Vincent said, rotating the false brick around. “I think there's a catch... right... Aha! Here!” A click came from the box, and a side came loose. He quickly opened it, and found a much smaller box, as if for jewellery inside.
“Do you think it's safe to touch?” Vincent said.
Elaina tried to sense if there was anything hostile coming off the little jewellery box, and while she felt magic, she didn't feel anything like a curse or a trap. “I can't feel anything hostile from it so...”
“Great!” Vincent grabbed the jewellery box and popped it open.
“... I was going to say that just means if it's got a curse on it it is advanced enough that I can't sense it, and we should get a zombie to open it, but sure. So what is it? Show it to me!” Elaina said in exasperation.
Vincent presented the opened box to her, and all there was was a single plain gold ring.
“Huh... that is underwhelming.”
“Can you tell what sortof magic is on it?”
Elaina focused again
“It's... the magic on it seems to lead off somewhere else. I don't know. We could ask my twin about it, he loves this kindof stuff, but I can't tell myself.”
Vincent looked down at the ring and looked thoughtful. “Can you tell where it leads?”
Elaina pointed off into the distance. “That way.”
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Vincent looked down at the ring thoughtfully.
“Maybe we should wait till we have whatever it's tethered to to start experimenting with it. Or till we can have your brother identify it.”
“That is probably the safest course of action...” Hans agreed off from the side.
Elaina pouted, but allowed the box to be set aside. She was excited to find her first piece of treasure.
Elaina shook her head. “So, what did we get equipment wise?”
Vincent stood up and began sorting through the pile of equipment his zombies had pulled out of the weapons cache.
“Looks like a good amount of chain mail. The spears are mostly rotted through, but the shields and blades look alright. Got a few decent steel hafted maces, a few warhamers... We have some decent helmets too, should cover the faces of most of the horde. It was all covered in oil before it was stored so it seems in fairly good shape.”
“Do we... Do we have to equip them ourselves, or are they intelligent enough to put them on?”
Vincent blinked, then looked over at his horde.
“I... don't know... let me see.”
The next half hour was as hilarious as it was disheartening. About half of the zombies were able to get the armor on roughly correctly, but the rest either attempted to put the armor on wrong, backwards in some cases, in one case one tried to put the chausses on it's arms, in other cases their limbs were just too broken to get them on on their own. Eventually Vincent gave in and moved to help get his horde dressed in the armor they had salvaged.
Eventually Hans moved in to help with one particular zombie, and Elaina finally came in to asssist with the final zombie, who was of monstrous size, at least seven feet tall, and, at least when they were alive, built of solid muscle. The flesh had sloughed off most of it, and it's belly had bloated and then shrunken, giving him a gaunt abdomen.
“Why isn't all of their muscle just sloughing off them anyway?” Elaina asked
“Mmmm, It's the healing magic, I think. The curse magic binds it into their flesh, forcing them to continually regenerate and patch things together enough to function. The curse then forces them to move, while the healing magic keeps everything usable.”
“I thought healing magic only worked on living things.” Elaina replied.
“Correct. It's a little weird, but the healing magic is actually healing the curse.” Vincent said.
“The curse? Sorry but Curse magic is outlawed back home, so I am completely unfamiliar with it.”
“Mmm, yeah every few years someone here outlaws it in their domain. People get scared of it. Anway, the way the curse works, is it permeates the flesh. It infects it an spreads, like a living thing, infusing every part of the body. Then it takes what is there, and works out how to best use it to move around, and eventually fight. That is why zombies flail around at first, that is the curse figuring things out. Now, obviously, a dead body is going to be missing bits, and every time it moves it's going to break something. You CAN animate a dead body with just a curse, but it lasts for a very short time unless it's a brand new body, then you can probably get away with a few days of use. The healing magic goes in an performs basic repairs, gluing muscles back to tendons and ligaments, repairing shattered bone, that kind of thing. It brings the body back to where it was when the curse first spread throughout the body, using the curse as a sortof template of how things should be. I only wish it could revitalize the brain, give them back some memories... there seems to be some low level muscle memory left, but if they could understand complex orders I bet they'd be even better. Also we wouldn't have to dress them.”
Elaina silently agreed as she feebly tried to drag the chausses up the goliath's legs to connect them to his belt.
“I feel like these are going to look like shorts on this big guy. HRRRNG!” With a mighty heave Elaina got the chausses in place and Hans quickly buckled them in position.
“There!” Elaina exclaimed, stepping back to look at their handiwork. The goliath was laying spread eagled on the ground, the chain mail hauberk tight around his... everything, save for his gut where it draped down like a tent with it's flagpoles removed.
The goliath stood slowly, it's limbs shaking as it moved. It stood upright and looked down on them with all of it's imposing bulk.
“Well, that's...” With the screech of popping rivets the hauberk gave up around the goliath's neck and chest. Rivets popped out, causing Hans Vincent and Elaina to all cover their faces with their arms to keep any shards of metal out. The chainmail slumped down on the goliath, still covering him but with tears near the armpits and neck, showing pale and rotted flesh and bare muscle where the chain no longer covered.
“Huh...”
“Think he was a bit too big for it.”
“Yeah... that being said, I think he looks better like this. Way scarier.” Elaina answered, inspecting their handiwork.
Vincent arched his head one way, then the other. “I guess I'm too used to all my gear being shiny, new, and well made. It's weird to see such old stuff on my soldiers.”
“I think it suits them. If you put them all in gleaming armor it'd clash with their... them. No this looks good.” Elaina said, enjoying the hordes aesthetic.
“Well... I think we've put off our grand entrance long enough. Let us make our way to Wodenshire.”