Terra grumbled as she was shaken awake, glaring blearily up at her grandfather. "..Blerg. Whu?" It was still night. She didn't feel as if she'd slept more than an hour. What the hell was the old man up to?

"Opportunity knocks, child. We've got some zombies to crush. Ones that will be arriving about dawn, apparently. But if want to be there waiting for them... we'd best get moving."

She blinked a few times, before glancing around. The wizard and the priestess were already up and moving, crawling onto the cart despite being only half-awake; and the pile of pig carcasses was still burning merrily into the night. "Ugh. If they don't show up til morning.. why are we leaving now?"

"About a six, seven hour walk for the horse. I'd like to be there, waiting, when they show up. If you can sleep in the cart, feel free... but we're moving." He had a hand extended downward, as if to help her up.

She glared at the devil with irritation for a moment... before a scent caught her nose... and she noticed that the outstretched hand smelled strongly of... Bacon! She quickly grabbed the offered strips, rising to her feet... and started absently chewing on one as she used one hand to shove her bedroll back into a vague shape worth carrying. She checked herself over... piling the ward stakes she usually kept planted around her just in case into the improvised bag... and started dragging it to the cart.

By the time she reached it, an equally irritated Parkins was getting the horses ready... and soon enough, she managed to get back to sleep, laying atop her bedroll on the bench in the back. For a moment, she forgot about the poor horses, and wondered why they didn't just drive through the night in general.... and then it all faded away amidst the sound of hoofbeats.

***

Kylie shook awake at the sound of shouting in the distance; and looked up; seeing Parkins almost nodding off, and the horses tromping on ahead, she could also see that the sun was rising; an auspicious time for the servants of the goddess, and normally when she would make her prayers for the day... and see... a town, up ahead. It had a stout, wooden wall, with boulders and gravel piled up at its base, but a gate that was... currently wide open.

She could see clearly all the way through town in the pre-dawn light, and frowned. "Where is everybody?"

The stranger the devil had dragged along looked at her, clearly terrified. "Hiding! Some in basements. Most of us in the temple of the lady of darkness. They don't seem willing to enter."

"But... they entered the temple of the light?"

"Well. It had been damaged. Some creatures had come through, made a nest, destroyed part of it. Its why we called for adventurers the first time. Now..." The cart slowed down, and stopped at the gate. As they started to pass through the gate, they could hear a shouting; and a loud banging, cracking sound. The man shivered. "Just... protect me, please."

Kylie stretched for a bit, working each of her joints, checking the patch she'd made on her armor... and slid off the side of the cart, pulling the flail from where it had rested beside her.

Even as she did, she could see that Derek had passed Parkins the crossbow; and he and Terra slid off as well, everyone keeping an eye out as they moved further into town.... but nothing happened.

They made it halfway through before seeing their first zombies, and the sun was fully up by then; three creatures, flesh seemingly bleached pale, obvious wounds; missing chunks of flesh of the arms and legs, holes in the torso; each holding a rock as they smashed uselessly at a cellar door. The stranger in the cart whispered, so she could barely here. "If they know someone's inside a place... they just hammer at the door, or window, or anything, trying to get in... and if they get in, they beat them to death with a rock."

They came to a complete stop there, in full view of the three zombies... who still hadn't noticed them at all.

Kylie started walking forward, flexing, swinging the flail slowly back and forth. She glanced back at her companions... the Devil was waiting, clearly wanting to give the 'fledglings' a chance for more fighting, but there if they needed him, while Parkins was waiting, crossbow at the ready... and Derek and Terra both had some sort of spell prepared. She gave a nod.

A sudden snap of lightning as a holt struck one of the zombies, only moments later fire smashing into the same one, sending it falling to the ground, the top and bottom halves of its body split apart... as Kylie charged forward, swinging the flail down, shattering the second zombie with an audible crunch. The second zombie turned as soon as the first fell, giving a low groan; it seemed unusually white and pale for a zombie... and lashed out; smacking her in the chest with a fist-sized rock.. which she barely felt through the armor as she smashed this one's head clean off its shoulders, sending it falling as well.

She looked around for a bit, checking for any more... but they were alone, here. She leaned down, and rapped on the hatch three times. "Destroyed the ones out here. Stay put for now, moving on to the temple." After a few seconds, there was a set of three knocks in return... and she nodded, before heading back to the cart. "Well then. Hopefully all of them are that easy. Lets head for the temple. West end of town, right?" They always put temples of darkness there, if they could.

At a nod from the stranger, she glanced at the sun a moment. "Goddess, shield me from thine enemies." And after a few seconds... strangely feeling a quiet from the goddess.. perhaps displeasure she hadn't said the usual prayer at dawn.. she started heading west... with the others following behind.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

***

Derek stared in horror at the sight before them; not certain this was something they could handle.

There weren't a few dozen zombies out there, all bleached pale in the sunlight; there were hundreds. At the center of the swarm was the tall black edifice of the church of the Goddess of Night; and her proud statue stood over a building with boulders in front of doors, boards nailed over windows, and hundreds of creatures pushing to try to get closer; most of them holding a single rock, while others were completely unarmed, smashing at the door, trying to get it open, smashing at the boarded-up windows, or just beating uselessly on the walls; clearly just mindlessly trying to reach those inside.

He gave a quick assessment. None of them were above level 1. Somewhere in there there was a single... Ah! A level 5. And wearing armor, as well; fairly clean steel plate, a single ringleader stood amidst the swarm. These things were incredibly weak, fragile... Terra's fire orb and his own arc sprite would absolutely devastate dozens of them... and then the rest would swarm over the party and tear them apart.

Fortunately, they were so focused on the temple they didn't seem to have noticed the newcomers. He looked at them thoughtfully... then over at Terra. "That holy oil. How much of it do you have?"

She glanced down at her belt, ran her hands over her pouches. "Five bottles. Not sure how much good it is against mindless undead, though. They don't really react to pain. Should still blind them. Grampa, you want to just go through them like a cleaver and let us clean up whats left?"

The devil studied the swarm. "I think our noncombatants should hide in a cellar, and the three of you should figure out the best tactics to use here. These things are faster than regular zombies, but no stronger or tougher... and seem to be oblivious to their surroundings until attacked."

Derek gave a nod. "Okay. So. They want the people in the temple. We want them gone. So. We make a chokepoint. Tangle it up so that they come through slow. Do something to attract some of them; hopefully not all... and then back off to the choke point. As they come through, me and Terra blast them... and Kylie stays in the chokepoint flailing the death out of them. If its just a handful, we crush them and repeat. If its a swarm, I use a magma sprite, Terra uses her orb, and we just burn them to ash as they mob up at the chokepoint."

He glanced around. "We can check the shops. There's a few bars, and other stuff. Look for barrels of oil or strong spirits. Use them to light up the ground even after the magic fades."

The devil gave a low chuckle. "That... should work. I'm interested to see how it pans out. Go ahead. I can crush them myself if it fails."

Derek looked around... and then focused on the stranger. "I'm sorry, I never did catch you name." "Ahh... Bart, sir."

"Bart." Derek blinked. What the hell kind of name was Bart? "You know the town. Can you help us find plenty of flammables to help mop this group up?"

"Well... yessir. But I don't know if that will help. The first day, the guards cleared up the zombies not long after dawn... but they just came right back the next day."

"I'm sure they just missed some... but just in case, lets not use all of it. Just enough to burn this batch. Alright?"

***

The arrangement was simple enough. Two empty carts, flipped on their side, creating a hole around four feet wide in the middle of the street, with stacked barrels and debris on either side to make an improvised wall. A nasty, vile-smelling pool of oil; Terra didn't even know what kind of oil, just that it smelled horribly of fish and death, and she couldn't imagine who would want to use such to light their home, or anything really. It was flammable, though; they'd tested that.

An intact barrel was sitting in the middle of the street, in a spot where, should it catch alight, it would hopefully burst in such a way as to spread burning oil everywhere; with some oil from the first barrel poured onto it to make sure it happened.

Kylie stood at the gap, ready to call up a magical flail and contain any zombies that attacked... while Terra herself and Derek stood atop chairs, amusingly enough, to let them see over the carts. Grandfather... just stood not far from Kylie, waiting in case things went wrong.

This was going to be a long, drawn-out fight. She wouldn't use her most power-consuming spells until she had to. Now... they just had to hope the zombies didn't -all- swarm the moment they hurt one. If they did... well.

They'd collapse the barricade, blast all their most powerful magics at it, and run like hell.

She was the one supposed to start things off. So... she looked around the swarm, and picked one that was trying to crawl over its companions to uselessly smash at a bit of wall; and carefully released a single bolt of fire, aimed at the thing's torso; the fragile undead flesh burned and flaked away from the impact, leaving charred bits of, surprisingly not rotting, flesh on the ground... as it, and dozens of its companions turned to focus on her... and started charging in the group's direction.

It was perfect. Maybe thirty or forty of them; a small enough number they could handle them, maybe without even needing grampa, using the trap laid out.

They came in as a mob; with her and Derek both blasting more jolts of fire into them; sometimes just one took out a zombie; sometimes it took two; but by the time they reached the barricade, they'd already cleared off eight.

And then... the oil burst into flames before the first zombie arrived, Kylie dropping a lit torch on it... and then setting the final piece in place; a simple block for the zombies to be forced to crawl or stumble over as they reached her.

The swarm arrived, lighting aflame as they reached the oil, stumbling over each other; and as Derek and Terra kept picking them off, one by one, they finally reached Kylie; who, having finally started using a shield 'borrowed' from a nearby shop, was holding it up in the face of the first zombie down the line, stopping it from advancing; as she lashed out with the flail, crushing the skull of the next zombie in line, letting the first one uselessly smack at her flesh, fists connecting with armor but not doing much harm.

By the time the zombies had managed to bunch up enough that the sheer weight of them started to push Kylie back, and one of them managed to get a dried-out fist gripping her hair, causing her to stumble and miss, hitting the cart instead of the zombie... that small group were all that was left. The two spellcasters obliterated the one that had grabbed Kylie, and soon enough, the whole group was gone.

When Terra took a deep breath, and looked out at the mob of zombies, wanting to lure in the next batch before the fire went out...

The single, armored undead was standing out of the mob, looking at her. Its eyes had a white glow behind them as it stared right into her eyes... and let out a shriek. The rest of them all stopped. The constant background noise of stone and flesh hammering on wood came to a halt, something that had been going so long they'd almost forgotten about it... and all of the creatures turned to face the group.

Terra nodded. "...The armored one is a leader, then. It tells the others what to do."

Derek, standing on his own chair not ten feet away, grimaced. "Yeah, that seems pretty clear. If we try to take it out, though, we'll.... Oh. Fuck."

All as one, the remaining zombies; hundreds of them; started charging towards the group, as a single, unified mass; far more than enough to overwhelm their meager trap.