“Hail, traveler!” the man’s voice reached Jim as he examined the river hopefully.
“Hail!” Jim called back, waving his hand in the direction of the Human man that was standing on a large barge that looked more like a raft than a boat.
“What brings you by the river?” the man asked him, shouting to be heard across the distance.
“I’m trying to get closer to the Ubarion Peninsula!” Jim answered, seeing no reason to hide his destination.
“Why would you want to go there?” the man asked, his barge floating closer with the river’s current. “Last I heard, the peninsula’s crawling with undead creatures. Everyone that’s not touched in the head is going as far from there as they can manage; the ones that don’t trust in Grindel’s Paladins anyway.”
“They asked me to map the place out,” Jim explained, happy the man was close enough to not have to shout back and forth with him. “They want to make sure the old maps are accurate and that they know where the undead are making their homes on the peninsula.”
“Well good luck with that,” the man said with a wave as the current carried his barge downstream, back the way Jim had come. “You’ll need it.”
“Thanks,” Jim said with a wave of his own, voice rising as the man floated away. “Can you tell me how it all looks if I follow the river?”
“It’s all fine,” the man assured him. “The waterways are kept clear by the rangers! They don’t accept bandits preying on the folk that use them!”
“Thanks again,” Jim said, still waving as the barge disappeared around a small bend in the river and the trees on the bank hid it from view. “Onward then, follow the flowing river road.”
Adjusting his pack to sit more comfortably on his shoulders, Jim set off, following the river, while checking to make sure that he was mostly going southeast as he moved closer toward the Ubarion Peninsula and his job.
“Sorry deer,” Jim whispered under his breath as he loosed the nocked arrow at the grazing animal.
With a heavy thump that he heard across the clearing, the arrow impacted the deer’s torso, piercing the heart and dropping the animal as Jim stood from his crouched position behind a tree with a groan as he moved to dress the animal.
Moving with purpose and surety, Jim skinned the deer, storing the hide away, and cut the meat away crudely before storing it all in his Bag of Colding. After a slight debate with himself, he also stored the edible organs before cutting the antlers away and storing them as well.
“I wonder if they have trophies here,” he muttered to himself as he cleaned the blood from his hands. “Some way to display a really awesome kill that you’re proud of. Surely, in a world that lets you hunt monsters and dragons, they have those. If they didn’t, that would just be a crime.”
Ready to move, Jim pulled his rucksack over his shoulders and set out again, checking his compass and the crude map he’d been able to make the day before.
“Should have another three days of walking,” Jim muttered to himself as he tucked the compass away. “This is the fourth day walking, and they said if I keep a good pace, then it’s a week’s walk away if I don’t follow the roads.”
Absently examining the woods around him for threats, Jim continued on his way when a series of noises made him stop and look around for the source.
As if by magic, three men in dark cloaks, mismatched armor, and carrying rusted swords appeared, running perpendicular to Jim as they ran through the forest, fear visible in their eyes. One of them saw Jim as they passed and his eyes widened as he ran by.
“Run!” the man’s words reached Jim as he looked from the running men toward where they’d come from. “Run away!”
“What’s going on with them?” Jim wondered as he pulled his bow from his back and strung it without hesitating. Raising the bow, he pulled an arrow from his quiver, examining it to see if it was one of his enchanted ones.
Shattering Arrow: An arrow that has been marked with a Glyph of Shattering. Upon impact with a target, it will cause any fragile or brittle materials to shatter as though it were glass hit by a hammer.
Deciding that this one would work, Jim nocked the arrow and waited for whatever was chasing the men to show up through the trees. He didn’t have to wait long.
“Shit,” he cursed, taking aim at the running group of zombies that were making their way through the trees. As he fired his first arrow, Jim didn’t wait to see its effectiveness before pulling another from his quiver and nearly grinning as he saw the Glyph of Explosion that marked the head. Quickly that one joined the other in flight toward the zombies.
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The Shattering Arrow flew true, hitting one of the zombies in their shoulder and causing a small explosion of gore as it destroyed the bones and weak flesh in the shoulder and that side of the rib cage, sending the creature to the ground, lifeless.
The Explosive Arrow wasn’t aimed as well, but no less effective as it impacted the loose soil in front of the leading zombie and sent a large shower of dirt flying. Most of the dozen zombies were sent falling to the ground at the arrow’s detonation, and Jim took advantage of that to send more arrows flying toward them.
Most of the arrows he shot were unenchanted and mundane, but a few of them were marked with glyphs from his rune carving practice and they all had various effects. One of them froze the zombie it impacted, halting its movements before another Shattering Arrow scraped the side of the undead and the creature was torn into a thousand pieces, tinkling like falling glass. Another sent darkness flooding the area around the zombie before being washed away by the flash of light from another arrow that hit the ground near it. One zombie found itself being attacked by another after an arrow hit it in the leg, and a small group of three found themselves all falling toward where an arrow had missed them all before they were thrown away by a second arrow that landed close to it.
As his rune-enchanted arrows caused chaos among the zombies, Jim did his best to remember what each glyph did as he checked each one to make sure which were enchanted and which weren’t. Finally, the last of the zombies stopped moving, an arrow through the skull and Jim approached the group carefully.
“I really hope that they’re just stragglers that slipped through,” he muttered. “I’d hate it if they were something worse.”
“Halt!” a man’s voice pulled Jim from his examinations of the newly dead creatures. “By Grindel’s will, halt foul creatures!”
Looking up from the undead, Jim watched as a large man in armor, much better cared for than the three that had been running before wore, entered his sight.
“Hey,” he called, waving his hand at the man, recognizing the symbol of Grindel’s Paladins on his armor. “I’m Jim, I’m here to map out the peninsula. How close are we?”
“Excuse me sir,” the paladin said breathlessly, “I am currently engaged in a chase with nearly a dozen lesser undead! I do not have time to stop!”
“These undead?” Jim asked, waving his hand at the zombies that lay on the ground. “I took care of them.”
“Ah,” the paladin said, seeing the undead littered with arrows on the ground. “I see. Thank you.”
“The peninsula?” Jim prompted the man as he began to examine his arrows and groaned when he saw that each of his enchanted arrows had broken from the magic flowing through the lesser materials, just like Barry had warned him would happen.
“The area that our patrols move through begins two hours from here,” the paladin explained as he watched Jim salvage what arrows he could from the undead. “From there, the peninsula is another two days further.”
“Why are you guys patrolling so far out?” he asked curiously as he tucked the last salvaged arrow into his quiver.
“The necromancers that are the cause of this calamity, are more capable than most realize,” the paladin explained as they began to walk back the way he’d chased the undead. “Many of them do not practice Death magic as solely as their titles would imply. We are having great difficulty confining the lesser undead when the necromancers have many that they have either carved runes into, raising their power or hiding them from our sights, or they have their own magic spells written into them.”
“That’s terrible to hear,” Jim said. “Are you at least able to keep the necromancers and the greater undead confined?”
“Capable as these necromancers are, they are not so capable that all of them are able to raise greater undead,” the paladin assured him. “In fact, there are only three that are able to create Doom Knights, Ghoul Lords, Banshee Queens, and Zombie Emperors. Those three are firmly confined at the far end of the peninsula, where they have managed to form an enchantment that keeps Grindel’s sight from them. Thankfully, they are unable to turn their attention to creating more of those undead, so what few are already in play are all they have. Furthermore, if the enchantment were to be destroyed, they would find themselves unable to create any undead as Grindel would grip them in his sight and stop their foul deeds from continuing.”
“Cool,” Jim said. “Where’s your main camp?”
“The Order has made camp in the middle of our patrol area,” the paladin said. “Another day’s walk from here. I was to return there after slaying the lesser undead that chased those bandits away.”
“Why were they chasing them?” Jim asked.
“It is the greatest problem of the lesser undead that still possess rotting flesh,” the paladin explained. “They are capable of causing their condition to spread from bites that they leave upon living creatures. By the grace of the Pantheon of Light’s Goddess, Ygg, Keeper of the World Tree, animals are protected from such a fate, else we would all be undead creatures when rodents fell under their spell.”
“Good thing they’re watching out for the animals then,” Jim observed.
“Indeed,” the paladin nodded. “There is one of my companions, let us see if he is here to take over my patrols of this area.”
“Sounds alright to me,” Jim said. “What’s your name?”
“Ah, forgive me,” the man said with a polite bow. “How rude of me! I am Sir Reginald Azurna, Senior Paladin of the Order of the Long Sleep.”
“Good to meet you,” Jim said. “Again, I’m Jim.”
“It is a pleasure,” Sir Azurna said before turning to face the other approaching paladin.
“Sir Azurna,” the paladin greeted him, face not as hidden behind his open faced helmet. “Junior Paladin Gregory reporting for duty. I’m to take over the patrols of this area.”
“Excellent,” Sir Azurna nodded. “I will be escorting this man to the main camp. He slew a group of twelve lesser undead a short walk back that way, see to it that the bodies are burned.”
“I will do so now,” the younger man said with a salute before moving around them and heading for the dead zombies.
“Shall we?” Sir Azurna asked Jim, motioning toward where the main camp was supposed to be.
“Let’s go,” Jim said with a nod. “Thanks for leading me.”
“No trouble,” the paladin assured him.