The undead were really, really not expecting an attack. After all, by their estimation Stonehold should right then be under siege, a sallying force shouldn’t be coming out from it… and especially on its way to somewhere else.
There was a watchtower on top of the ridge. Princess Kristie stopped carving with Briggs and dashed on ahead after I tossed Invisibility on her. By the time the Mick loped up the steep southern side of the ridge, all the undead at said watchtower were Burning white dust, and she’d already flitted off west to take care of the spotters along the line of the hill.
The Dungeons once held by Viamontian invaders were now revealed as sprawling fortified complexes extending into the hills and stone behind them, the Mick commenting on them as he jogged on by. The Summons on top of the small walls barring the way turned their blue-skinned, armored heads after us as he shot on by, but did not otherwise react.
There were a lot of undead ahead. I rapidly sifted through them, marking them in levels of power… and very specifically, marking those who were not Empyrean undead.
There were a bunch of them, but I had a moving Illusionary Wall in front of us, painting us out of the picture, and we drove into the side of the city completely unexpected, no blaring horns or booming spells to alarm anyone.
Those things happened as the undead began to die violently.
I spent my time limning stuff in silvery Faerie Fires, picking out who was to be killed, and who was to be ignored. Anything in white was simply left alone, and those undead just basically stood there and watched us surge past them, hacking and hewing through all the other undead bastards in the way.
Responses were pretty mixed, especially with how fast we were moving. The undead could be very tough, it was true, and they could also die REALLY fast to people with the right kind of Weapons.
Firephasing Weapons anointed with a hastily-taught Undead Slayer Infusion were just those kind of Weapons, in the hands of Melees using them with excellent charge bonuses, opportunity attacks for using magic, and multiple attacks to bring them down all the faster.
I had Cures all ready, and was monitoring basically the whole battlefield, Detect Evil at V painting every damn thing within range and showing everyone where to go. Briggs was heading right for the toughest targets without the slightest hesitation, the Mick was taking secondary objectives, and the Stoneholders, along with the three gurogs who’d again chosen to tag along, were administering master classes in close-up violence.
Mostly, the undead didn’t know what was going on, and didn’t quite know what to do other than blindly attack once they realized what was happening. We took full advantage of it to sweep through the outskirts of the city and drive for the center with speed and energy, ferreting them out wherever they were.
My head turned as Detect Evil pointed out two entities coming into range with different sparks and flavors on them.
“Lord Mick! Fifty yards SSE, there’s a shade, probably an envoy! Take him out! Briggs! I’ve got a powerful Virindi showcasing at ten o-clock, one hundred meters!”
Their figures on my Heavens-Up Display rapidly shifted course with speed and verve, chopping through anything in the way as they zipped past random undead in their paths, their personal squads cleaning up after them.
I think the Mick went through a doorway at speed, chopping through its hinges, and was on top of the shade inside the house before it could really get ready for him. The Royal Scouts promptly spread out around the house to defend it, the archers keeping up ceaseless target-picking as the melees braced against undead charging in to attack them.
I was staying near the middle of the advancing pack, warning everyone not to get out of range of my Cures as we advanced through the town, hauling them back even if they had viable targets there. The undead were already converging, but in ragged, disjointed fashion, no real leadership among them. Pulling back, the Stoneholders could easily isolate and surround them as the undead rattled after us, and were leaving piles of corpse-flesh Burning vivic all through the streets as we headed for the center of the city.
A plume of purple-red energy erupted skyward after what sounded like a bulldozer going through a stone wall went off, and something Aberrant died remarkably fast, probably to its great surprise. Didn’t need no hivemind creature reporting on us being here. The plume faded as fast as it came up, and if there looked to be a white flash climbing it with speed as it faltered, surely it was just a trick of the light.
The clearing of Zaikhal continued with great speed as I spun, painting all the targets, Briggs directed the teams and squads through the Fellowship links, and wolf-packing Stoneholders tore the undead new ones for the first and last time, ensuring that they’d not be coming back, nor warning anyone of our coming.
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“Damn me, he’s still there.” The Mick had turned around, looking back to the opposite edge of the plaza.
A corpse clad in the robes of a Town Crier was still standing there under the stubs of what had once been the town sign, proudly proclaiming the name of the Gharu’n’s most scholarly city, and hence capital.
There was no reason for him to be there, but he’d stayed at his post when most of the living population had fled, unable to leave, even if he had wanted to.
The undead had simply turned him into a zombie and had him continue with his job, in open mockery of what he was.
NPC’s. Unable to decide their own fate, just instruments of whoever was pulling the strings here.
The Mick turned to look at the second floor, an open patio, of one of the stone buildings that surrounded the small plaza. Another walking corpse, with a shock of blond hair that hadn’t fallen out, was still there, standing in the same place as always, waiting for someone to visit him, give him stones or crystals or golum hearts or something, and do what he was programmed to do.
The Mick could almost feel the calling as he moved ahead. It was DEFINITELY not his imagination: he was being called to this place, and this person.
There was a flash of fire on the hilltop behind him, the center of the scholar’s home where once a Translator, Kuyiza bint Zayi, had famously made her abode and overseen the efforts to translate the history of the peoples of the island, as well as manage the lore and research of many Gharu’n scholars.
He hoped it wasn’t a bunch of scrolls going up, just a bunch of undead biting the dust. Yes, snuffing a bunch of undead Dericostan scholars could be seen as savage. Translator Kuyiza and her entourage had lost nine in ten of their number while fleeing to Hebian-to after the Fall, so he didn’t feel bad at all.
He didn’t take the stairs inside. Just as he had in the old days, he tensed his legs and bounced up to the edge of the patio with even less effort than he had back then.
The Stone Collector turned to look at him, but there was no recognition in his dead eyes at all.
Slowly and deliberately, the Mick drew out a Diamond Golum Heart from his Masspack. That received instant recognition, a light going on in the undead Collector’s eye. “Hey, there, sir. Long time no see. I be the Mick, sorry for not visiting after all this time.”
The Stone Collector told him in a clear recital that brought back a rush of memories, "I will take a number of trophy stones and jewels, such as virindi jewels, swamp stones, iron, copper, and granite golem hearts, in trade! What do you have for me?”
“Well, first I be wanting to know your name,” the Mick replied promptly, prodded by his instincts.
The zombie actually trembled, head to toe, as if he’d just broken some sort of pattern. “My… name, Master Mick?” he repeated blankly.
“Aye, sir. Your name. Forgive me rudeness for not asking fer a proper introduction after all this time. I be Mikal McMikal o’ Aluvia, Lord Warden o’ the Royal Scouts of Freehold, it be my honor t’ inform ye, goodman.”
The zombie stared blankly at him for a moment, lipless mouth opening and closing silently on exposed teeth. “My name…” He turned slightly, and the Mick looked over as the Lady Magos rose up from below on her Disk, and his empty eyes fell upon her hand.
His whole mannerism seemed to change in a moment, and the Mick actually watched a soft pink glow light up inside his empty eyes. “My name… my name is Gordi Tanhoffson. Of the Tanhoffs of the lower Jurenso Valley, Lord Mick!”
“Tell me yer mother’s clan, and yer father’s name,” the Mick said softly. “Yer kin will want to know of ye.”
“My kin…” the dead man spoke roughly. “My mother, she was named Bria, of the Kullding Clan. My father was Orland Tanhoffson, a cooper, as was his father before him.”
The Mick nodded slowly and somberly, presenting the Diamond Golum Heart to the man. “Ye know of this still?”
“You’re lucky to find one of these!” The words came out as if scripted, heard a hundred times before. The undead Stone Collector reached out to take the Heart from the Mick’s hands, partially turned away, and turned back with no Heart in his hands, but three glistening diamond Scarabs now sat there in his palm.
The Mick took them without comment. “That’s a fine ring your lady is wearing there. May I see it? One doesn’t see that hue of a stone every day…” the Collector asked.
The Mick met her eyes, and the Magos calmly slipped the Rose of Celdon copy off her finger and passed it over.
The Stone Collector held it up. “Amarinthine Rose Quartz! I haven’t seen this color of stone in ages! The only man I knew who had any was that curmudgeon Harlune, but who knew where he went after the undead all moved in here…”
The Magos said nothing as the Ring was passed back, nor did the Mick, simply bowing to the Stone Collector and receiving a belated bow in return.
“Gordi Tanhoffson, do you want to be free?” he asked shortly, drawing out Bunita and holding it up in a non-threatening manner. Swirls of Lost Light rose, soft and gentle, dancing inside the vivic flames that fell misting and spinning from the chromatic light glinting softly on the razored edge of the Blade.
The Stone Collector’s eyes fixed on that misting unwhite flame, another ripple passing through him. “Lord Mick, I think I’d like to rest a great deal. As would, as would a number of my fellow citizens…”
The Mick turned Bunita around quietly and offered him the hilt.
He had no eyelids to close, but the light in the dark and lifeless orbs only seemed to blaze up for a moment. “Master Harlune always hated the olthoi, Lord Mick!” dribbled out past his lipless teeth, and then he urgently clasped both of his undead hands on the hilt of the dagger-sized Claymore’s hilt.