[39]

Branching shadows receded as a blood red sun rose above a faraway hill. The chill of the previous night lingered, but that was not what made my spine shiver. In the distance, only a thousand yards away, was an unmoving village nestled among fields of healthy wheat. Dawn was the starting time for farmers the world over, yet not a person, nor animal was in sight. Only a gentle creak of nearby trees registered that this long dead memory was more than a painting.

Slowly, I picked my way from the outer edges of a forest, making my way toward the too quiet town. I knew that only my mind existed outside this place, but the dungeon had been an actual place once. And something had gone very wrong. Instructor Ivo warned us about that, at least.

Heart pounding with excitement, I stepped carefully past a small ditch near the dirt road, making my way closer to the town. I decided walking carefree out in the open would not be the best strategy, not knowing what I would face. I just knew I would face something, and I wanted to wreck it with all the hard practiced skills that Ashmere gave me. Though, I thought of one asset that might help me find it my enemy first.

Detect Magic took about ten seconds for me to cast. After feeling the spell take hold, I crouched down next to the fields of wheat near the road and searched for the presence of magic.

It was a rare inclination that I wished the irritable Ugz was with me. If I had known this morning what the day had in store for me, I would have made plans to bring him. I considered summoning him with the upgraded Never Alone, but having an unpredictable magic event occur in the middle of illusory reality where my mind rested did not seem worth the risk. What if one of us got trapped here? It’s not like I understood the magic that created the space.

Ten minutes later I still had not moved, and neither had anything else. Tension was thick, and the atmosphere was ominous, but damn it felt good to be alone.

No worries about my fellow students, instructors, or… Elaine. I could do whatever I wanted in this mindscape without the fear of walking into another scheme. Just me, and the horror creeping around the town waiting to eat my face. My, how my life had changed.

“Screw it,” I said to myself. Sneaking through the wheat seemed more ridiculous than walking down the dirt road. I would have far less visibility and create a lot more noise. Nevermind the motion from shifting all those crops.

Summoning my poleaxe into my right hand, I started trudging my way along the well-worn road. I did my best to be quiet, but stealth was not a skill I possessed.

Two hundred yards down the road, I encountered my first real clue that a foul deed occurred. Not that long ago either, from the looks of it.

A goat lay on its side, its open rib cage exposed to the elements. Half of the poor animal lay in the wheat field where it attempted to have escaped, and the ass end lay on the road. Whatever had torn it apart was nowhere in sight. Magic continued to be absent, but that was probably a good thing.

I took a few steps forward to get a better look, accidentally kicking a rock. The noise of the pebble bouncing down the road started a cascade of ghastly events.

Suddenly, the dead goat lurched to its feet, spilling black blood and rotting intestines out of the cavity in its chest. A few stumbling steps later, it regained its feet. I knew what I was fighting.

Gozmyr. The undead.

I threw Haunt at it, just like Master Rohan had trained me to do. The hex metaphysically bounced off uselessly. Black eyes turned away from the pebble, glaring at me with an indescribable hatred.

Right as I brought the poleaxe down on its head.

My weapon clove its skull right down the middle in a grotesque spray of rotten fluid. The animating presence within the creature vanished at once.

“So fucking glad that worked,” I said, staring at the thing in revulsion, flicking the awful blood off my weapon.

Why hadn’t Detect Magic worked to spot it? I wondered.

None of the spells I had would work on these creatures, save maybe Darkness. I cast Identify Disease on the goat’s corpse, and it came back with “Gozmyr taint.” Not exactly a priceless piece of knowledge at the moment but knowing that would work later on could be very useful. Unfortunately, the new spell took a lot of energy out of me to cast. Perhaps the power of the magical disease made it harder to identify? I wondered.

Two rotting farmhands burst out of the wheat, moving so fast I barely had time to react.

Unthinkingly, I lanced forward with my polearm, striking the nearest horror in the chest. The infected ignored the wound and slid forward, only to get caught on the head of the poleaxe.

“Shit!” I said, pushing back against the weight of the creature and causing it to stumble.

I saw its companion trying to scramble around it. Waiting until they were side by side, I slammed the one stuck on my poleaxe into his buddy with a hard push. At the last second, I transformed my blade back into a wooden bangle.

Both infected tripped over one another, nearly rolling back into the wheat field. The creatures were not as fast as a normal person, but they were not that far behind. I did not wait for either of them to rise again, summoning my blade and jabbing into their heads with two nasty squelches.

Three more followed behind right after I finished the first two.

“AH!” I yelled, opening with a wide stance and swinging at the oncoming horrors with everything I had.

The poleaxe slammed into the one on the left, neatly bisecting it in half, before continuing deep into the torso of the second one. Like before, the momentum of the swing knocked the two still standing into each other. Not waiting for my foes to gain their feet, I quickly rained two overhead blows down on the fallen corpses, sending messy chunks flying into the nearby fields.

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Right when I calmed down from the psycho-panic that had overtaken me, I felt a pressure on my left boot. Turning, I saw the corpse I had cut in twain’s top, half grabbing my foot with a taloned hand.

“No!” I yelped, kicking it in the face as hard as I could. Its head snapped back, but it did not let go of my foot. A cold detached feeling descended in my mind, and I began stomping down on the dead farmhand in frustration. The creature’s head eventually gave way, and awful black fluid sprayed across the ground from the mess I had made.

Was this what Elmont was doing? I laughed, a little hysterically.

I am gladder than ever I did not go with him. At least demons did not smell bad. These creatures' stink made me want to vomit.

My sudden capacity for decisive violence was a surprise. In a brief time I became hardened, or maybe inured to committing to combat. Training at Ashmere every day to exhaustion, fighting off demons, and assassins, had seen to it. I have to give credit where it is due; Rollo and Saewulf had already laid the foundation.

I crouched low for a moment to get my breath back, thinking through what the encounters had taught me. First, these creatures reacted to either sound or movement. Maybe both. Second, they were much faster than I expected them to be, but not as strong. Third, the only weakness they had was their heads. Fourth, I owe Master Rohan cupcakes. The poleaxe was every bit as superior as he made it sound. Wrecking their skulls had been easier than chopping wood.

As stealthy as I could, I crept closer toward the village, carrying a pocketful of throwing stones I rounded up. Periodically, I threw stones into the wheat, but nothing attacked me. When I was a mere one hundred yards away from the village, I stopped again to look over the place.

White brick buildings with fancy letters and numbers on the doors made up most of the architecture. I could immediately discern that the cultural styling was not just different, but significantly more advanced than what we had in Ergentein. The neat, or maybe precise, dimensions of each dwelling spoke to engineering we no longer possessed. Wards, which were exceptionally rare outside Ashmere, marked the front of every house. I was not sure what they did, but I suspected a stranger like me would have a bad time finding out.

Lamps not so different from Arcanolamps were on poles down the short street that ran through the village. I had a hard time accepting that magic had once been commonplace enough to be in a remote farming village like this one. Who knew what other treasures once existed in a place like this? The Ruinlands excursions made a lot more sense.

In the middle of the hamlet was a large water fountain with a statue of Loviah, the goddess of fertility and seasons. Loviah’s aspect was one of a kind midwife, with painted white stars for eyes, holding out her hands with accepting grace.

Seeing the black veined corpses of the villagers piled around the fountain engendered a profound sadness in my heart. Sure, it happened hundreds of years ago, but I would bet my soul that Loviah still remembered what happened that day. How many of them screamed her name as their friends and family slaughtered them?

Ducking next to a building on the outskirts of the village, I whispered my Darkness spell. Though the radius was not big, it was sufficiently large enough to cover the pile of corpses at Loviah’s feet. With the spell in place, I threw a rock at the fountain, then hid myself behind the building to observe.

Well, I tried to anyway. My throwing arm left a lot to be desired, and instead of hitting the fountain, the rock bounced on the ground some twenty feet short. Only stopping at the feet of an infected grandpa near the edge of the pile.

The bodies untangled themselves quicker than I expected, shambling to their feet. Fortunately, they could not see past the obscurement of my spell. I nearly sighed in relief, but luckily remembered at the last second not to make a noise.

Three tense minutes later, I stood before the eerie, motionless corpses. Every step I took sounded like a trumpet to my own ears, but never once did the infected move. A few times they oriented in my direction, expressing some level of hearing, yet they never left the surrounding blackness.

My poleaxe dropped on the head of the grandpa I woke first, sending it back to the ground in a splatter. Then I waited for the others to charge me, but none of them did. The closest infected dropped to their hands and knees near the source of the sound. That was it for a response.

Less than a minute later, the undead were true corpses again.

“I’m guessing that isn’t it.” I said to myself quietly. I was right.

A rasping sound echoed from a large building that I took for a store, drawing my attention. A large man stepped out in a stained apron, nearly hairless except for a gore-soaked beard. His eyes were maggot white, seemingly blind, but I knew they focused on me.

“Killed my toys, did ya?” he asked, smiling, showing black gums and two rows of sharp teeth.

“What the abyss are you?” I said, stepping back, warily watching the giant maul he held in his hands.

The man, or whatever it was, did not seem inclined to speak further. It ignored my question and stomped forward, continuing to smile with dreadful anticipation.

Unlike before, Haunt worked this time. As soon as the hex took hold, the man stopped his march and let out a keening scream of a wail, swinging his giant hammer hard enough to rip up earth. Again and again, it ripped up the earth in shattering blows I could feel two dozen yards away.

While my hex distracted it, I cast Darkness again, blanketing the creature in blackness. The spell showed no noticeable sign of affecting its behavior, however it caused me to collapse on my knees. I had got so wrapped up in what I was doing; I ignored the mental strain that came from casting so many spells. I could not believe Identify Disease had taken so much out of me.

“Damn,” I said, staggering to my feet. I would not let this monster go.

My legs shook, but I continued toward the insane thing. It wailed, lashing the ground with its black talons, seeming to have given up on its maul altogether, like it was trying to dig its way into the cold earth.

I brought my poleaxe down on it, hoping to stave in its head. But at the last second, the monster seemed to snap back to reality.

It dove forward with remarkable speed, and my weapon slammed into its lower back instead, pinning it to the earth. The creature screamed again, but this time without making a noise. A psychic call ripped through my mind, causing me to fall back on my ass.

Undead from around town responded to the creature pouring out of the houses and shops around me.

“Hell take you!” I shouted at the thing, throwing myself on its back and slamming my dagger into the top of its head. It died instantly, without a sound. However, I almost felt a sense of relief coming from the cursed monster.

Standing up on still shaky feet, I looked around to see a horde coming at me from all directions.

With the nearby buildings protected by wards, hiding inside one was out of the question. I staggered over toward a stable across the central square. The wooden edifice connected to an inn with a flat roof a dozen feet from the ground. I hoped to hide on top of the shelter, out of sight and reach until I got my strength back.

By the time I made it, my vision was not as blurry. I transformed the poleaxe back to a decorative state, then started climbing up the low hanging roof of the stable by using a gate to a stall.

I had almost made it to the top when an undead donkey reached from a pile of hay and bit deeply into my calf, tearing most of the muscle off. A scream escaped my lips, grabbing the attention of other undead creatures in the holdings.

One handed, I reached down and slammed my dagger into the monster’s head, killing it and freeing my mangled leg.

Then, with the last of my strength, I clambered up to the roof, where I stared at the drifting clouds, doing my best to ignore the unholy screams of the blasted undead, and slowly died of blood loss and a malicious infection. I had been so close.

Death by fucking donkey, was the last thought I had.