Alistair tightened his grip on the cold iron pike. He glanced at his vitality, concerned that there was little more than half remaining. The undead were an unknown power level to him. If a dozen redcaps were a threat that could drop his vitality to zero, what would the forces of Evil be capable of?

“Ideas?” he asked no one in particular.

“I’m thinking,” Ilvara replied. The coolness in her voice was gone. Stress had replaced it.

Ilvara faced one direction and Alistair in the other to try and spy the undead coming. In the distance, the groans only got louder with each passing second. Just from the volume, he couldn’t tell their exact number. A large amount, if he had to guess. People called it the undead ‘horde’ for a reason.

The mercenary, awkwardly stuffed between the two, returned to his original state of panic. He had nothing to defend himself with, nor did he have any magic power. All he had was the luck that saved him the first time. Apparently, he decided to try gambling again because Alistair saw him start to run off in a random direction.

“Wait!” he shouted after him.

It was to no avail. No amount of reason could reach a coward.

“You’d be crazy to stay!” he shouted. “Lady, bless me legs with speed!”

Alistair watched as he waded further into the swamp. The fog swallowed the man. Not but a few seconds later there was a cry that was quickly cut short. Then a splash into the water, and nothing else.

“Well, one less person to think about,” Ilvara said.

“That’s a bit cold,” Alistair replied, not thinking.

She didn’t bother to retort, and he soon realized his mistake. Was it any wonder such words came from a winter elf?

Not long after, their enemies emerged from the mist. No wonder they took so long to get to their little island. The enemy formation was a mixed one of shambler zombies and skeletons, with shamblers up front. Both types of undead moved in unison, but the shamblers were aptly named and their rotted, dragging limbs slowed the whole group down.

He counted over two dozen of them. The zombies themselves didn’t carry any weapon apart from their filthy, yapping jaws and supernatural strength in their grip. Unless they could bite through magical plate, he doubted they could do much apart from slow him down. Ilvara lacked the same defense, though.

His concern would be more focused on the skeletons. In their bony hands, they wielded the rusted spears Ilvara had spotted before. Some of them wielded equally ancient swords instead. A few even had shields with which to protect their unliving bodies from harm. Their weapons, while crude, were enhanced with magical energy. Alistair had no doubt they could damage him if they tried.

A few precious seconds later and he knew the wave of shamblers had entered his range. With superior reach, Alistair thrust his pike forward and speared one through the chest. In a grotesque display, the thing remained alive and kept marching, further skewering itself on the shaft. The shambler showed no pain, and it seemed to not notice the new hole in its chest.

Alistair grabbed the pike with both hands and lifted it with all his strength. The pike this time plowed upward through the zombie’s chest. All of the tissue was soft and easy to tear. Cold iron pierced the neck and split the head into rotted pulp.

One down, twenty-three or so to go.

“Ideas?!” he asked again, with a little more inflection this time.

As if in response, he heard a powerful boom and the ground shook at his feet. Alistair risked a glance over his shoulder and saw a geyser of water receding from the source of what he could only describe as an explosion of some sort. Scattered bits of flesh and bone rained down around them.

“What the hell was that?!”

“A bomb,” Ilvara responded. The zombies were upon her now and she ducked and weaved like an acrobat, daggers slashing through soft legs and arms.

“Well, why didn’t you use that earlier?!” Alistair ran his pike through another shambler’s head.

“I only had one!”

“Oh, brilliant.” Just when things were looking up.

A zombie grabbed onto Alistair’s pike after he dispatched another one of its comrades. Then another grabbed on, and another. Their combined strength made it difficult for him to pull the weapon away. He made it so the closest shambler found out just how strong his bludgeoning damage. Alistair’s fist ripped through its face, shattering it into wet bits. One next to it suffered a brutal kick to the shin that shattered half the leg.

Yet still, they kept coming.

Shamblers were all around him now, clawing and gnawing at him. Thankfully, they failed to scratch his vitality. The problem became that they were adept at weighing him down. With Alistair tied down, the skeleton warriors advanced without challenge. He couldn’t escape their spears! Alistair felt the sharpness of their weapons as they pierced his armored skin from every direction. His vitality quickly dropped below the halfway mark.

Every time he threw a zombie off, another one took its place. He couldn’t see Ilvara but he had to imagine she wasn’t faring much better. Alistair knew his damage resistance would help, but he’d fall eventually.

“Are you done thinking yet?” he shouted over the din of combat.

Alistair grabbed a skeleton’s spear and pulled on it. Despite their lack of flesh or muscle, the creatures did have some measure of strength in their magical binding. Even still, he managed to pull the weapon free of its bony hands. He spun the spear around and used it like a club with which to smash rather than stab. The creature’s ribcage broke and its body fell apart. Alistair managed to smack another, stunning it thanks to his Knockout ability.

“Hold still!” Ilvara said, though he couldn’t tell whether it was at him or an enemy.

He got his answer when he felt a sudden heaviness on his back. Ilvara rested on his shoulders like a perfectly balanced performer about to do a trick. With a kind of grace reserved for only her kind, she backflipped off of him. His added height gave her considerable distance on the jump.

She landed outside of the pitched melee, balanced perfectly on top of the water’s surface. The Sight revealed her soles were glowing with magic. One of her powers, it must have been. She risked a glance back at Alistair.

“Keep them busy for a while!” She readied her daggers and disappeared into the mist, running atop the liquid.

Some of the skeletons turned away to pursue her. Without the need to follow behind the slow movers, he noticed they were surprisingly agile. Not incredibly fast, but given enough time they might pose an issue for someone on foot. He couldn't have that happen.

Alistair activated his Living Shield ability and their attention returned to him. The undead dogpiled on top of Alistair and he struggled to stay standing, let alone fight. His vitality continued to drop, now down to a quarter.

Did she plan to abandon him? The errant thought crossed his mind while the undead battered him with their bodies. They barely knew each other; Ilvara certainly didn’t owe him anything. Maybe she saw the writing on the wall and used him as a distraction.

Alistair remembered the paragon spirit’s words from not so long ago. He represented the Aegis, the shield of humanity. Ultimately, he was meant to be the one to shoulder the damage and, if need be, sacrifice himself so that others could live. This might've been his final contribution to the virtue of Charity. No truer offering could be made.

Lady, please watch over me.

The ghostly blue eyes of the undead filled all of his vision. Alistair couldn’t see the swamp or the ground beneath him. Only skulls, spears, and rotting flesh as the enemy swarmed over him. Their teeth chattered, hungry for a taste. His ears were inundated with their horrible cries. The world grew dark.

And then, something happened. The light in the eyes of the undead, a marker of their magical binding, faded. As the light dimmed, their actions became slowed and more lethargic. Then, almost all at once, the creatures collapsed. The skeletons became piles of bones, and then these bones disintegrated and were swept away by the wind. With them, the shambler bodies sank into the ground as if pulled by a magical force.

Aegis Mantle

Level 4 Unlocked

Alistair sighed in relief. He didn’t want to admit it, but this felt earned.

Universal Damage Resistance

20% -> 22.50% total resistance.

Living Shield | Ability

90ft -> 120ft range | 3 -> 4 minutes

Knockout | Passive

11% -> 12% Stun chance

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Inspire | Ability

Small -> Moderate bonus | 2 -> 5 minutes

New!

Internal Damage | Passive

Every time the Aegis successfully hits an enemy, even if the enemy’s damage resistance would reduce damage to 0, the attack still does damage.

Internal Damage does 20% of the original attack power.

Does not activate when an attack is Evaded.

That could come in handy. Over time, Alistair had begun to understand the role of the Aegis as a frontline fighter. He wasn’t meant to deal a lot of damage, but instead to attract and maintain the enemy’s attention for his allies to finish them. Internal Damage would help him contribute even when the enemy’s defenses were too strong for him to pierce with his weapon.

With a moment to breathe, he fought to calm himself. Just a few moments ago he had been close to collapse. Now, Alistair stood on his little island alone, seemingly safe. He wasn’t sure what to make of the sudden reversal of fate. At least, not until Ilvara made her way through the mist again. She waded through the water now, her powers of water walking gone. The winter elf had stowed her daggers, and she didn’t seem surprised the battle had ended.

“You survived,” she noted. There might have been a hint of admiration there.

“You didn’t leave me behind,” he replied, equally impressed.

Ilvara mulled his words over. She didn’t betray what thoughts, if any, she had on the idea. Instead, she waved him to follow her deeper into the mist. The same direction she had gone after escaping the melee.

“Come on, you’ll want to see this.”

----------------------------------------

Dragon eggs were bigger than he imagined. Like a sack of grain or a bag of feed. The surface wasn’t soft like a chicken egg but wrinkled instead. Alistair risked a touch and found the thing to be pleasantly warm. A dim yellow light pulsed from within like a heartbeat.

The egg sat upon a makeshift pedestal of sorts in the middle of the necromancer camp. Next to it had been a series of other strange bits and bobs: various alchemic components, plants, salts. Ilvara suspected the egg had been prepared to be an ingredient in some kind of ritual. What that ritual was, well, he supposed it didn’t matter anymore.

The necromancers had joined their creations in death.

Ilvara had made short work of them. Their camp hadn’t been too far from the site of the battle, and she had rightly figured that the necromancers couldn’t stray far from their creations. Their group was too inexperienced to be able to maintain the binding from a greater distance away. So, she did what she did best and tracked them down. By themselves, the necromancers were cowards that lacked any ability to defend themselves.

In total, there were only three of them. A few other corpses were strewn about the makeshift camp, corpses that Ilvara claimed had already been there. They were no doubt the remains of the mercenaries. The blood was still fresh on some of them. Some of them had signs of something being done to their bodies. Considering the accelerated rot, perhaps a ritual spell to turn them into shamblers.

“Come over here,” Ilvara called to him. She had been rolling the bodies to search for clues. “Help me search them.”

Alistair grimaced but did as she asked. He transformed back into his human body and knelt next to one of the corpses. A woman, one of the necromancers. She wore a dark robe to cover herself, the same as the rest. Surprisingly young, he thought, as he looked over her features.

The woman’s glassy, dead eyes stared back at him. A single clean cut across the throat had dispatched her. She died choking on her own blood. Alistair tried not to look too closely and instead focused on patting her down for items. The Sight did him the favor of identifying things as he went, not that there was much to find.

1 Potion of Rejuvenation | Common | Diluted

3 Copper Bits

1 Amulet of Fire Resistance (10%) | Common

1 Iron Dagger

Alistair smiled, the potion would come in handy. He decided to pop the cork now. It tasted terrible, especially sour. All the same, he felt the gentle numbing and healing process begin within his aching body.

The amulet looked interesting. It took the shape of a teardrop ruby that felt warm to the touch. He decided to hold onto that for safekeeping. For the rest, he pocketed the copper and left the dagger. Something that small would be of no use to him.

He moved to the next person, this one a mercenary. It was impossible to tell which one could have been someone important. They all looked equally filthy at this point. Alistair began to pat him down for anything useful. No weapon on the belt, so he figured it must have fallen somewhere along the way. This one lacked a coin pouch, so he was either destitute or the necromancers had already taken his money.

One thing stood out though. Alistair noticed a piece of paper, rolled somewhat neatly, sticking out from beneath his tunic. The blood from his wounds had thankfully not stained the surprisingly well-made parchment. He glanced it over and realized it was a letter of some description. A commission to steal the dragon egg!

So, someone had hired them to do the horrid deed after all.

What didn’t make any sense to him was the seal at the bottom of the letter. It looked regal, much too nice for a few outcasts living in Deadwood to have. Even the ink and paper were expensive. Something didn’t line up right.

“I found something,” Alistair said. He ran his eyes over the lines again to make sure he read it right.

“Good, so did I.” Ilvara joined him. In her hands was a larger piece of parchment, rolled up. “A map the necromancers had. You?”

“A letter of commission. They were told where to find the dragon egg and then sent to another city for a new note. The seal looks fancy, like a noble might have sent it.”

Ilvara laid out the map. Even for a peasant’s standards, it was a crudely drawn thing. It looked more like a record of the stops they had made rather than a map to tell them where to go. Retracing the steps from where he assumed Deadwood was, the erratic path led back, somewhere up north. The most recent villages up to Bredon had been crossed out with an ‘X’.

He glanced at the elf to see what she made of it. Even with her veil, he could see the visible frustration pouring out of her. Ilvara’s eyes narrowed as she looked the map over again and again. She shook her head in disgust after giving up.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“That whoever made this ought to be dead,” she said. Then she glanced toward the bodies and shrugged. “Which I suppose has come to pass actually. Nothing of value lost." Ilvara slapped the parchment. "This can’t even be called a map. A waste of paper more like.”

“Seems to be from the mercenaries,” he said. “Maybe a record of where they’d been?”

“A record of illiteracy, more like,” Ilvara said, still seething. “They didn’t label any landmarks or borders. If not for the names, it would look more like a child’s doodle.” She glanced at the letter. “Let me see that.”

Alistair gave it to her as requested. The pathfinder poured over the instructions, looking for something in particular. She flipped the letter over and checked the back as well. Ilvara’s fingers gently traced the seal at the bottom. Her mind worked to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

“The letter says they would receive further instructions in a place called Garigell.” She glanced at the map, then pointed to the first notable dot. “That’s there. We can presume every one of these is a place they visited. Each one probably had a letter or message for them to find.”

Alistair looked closer at the map. Things started fairly normal up north. Every settlement was spaced out, names were well written, and a neat line had been drawn between each of them to represent the road traveled. As they progressed further south, the scribblings became more infrequent and frantic each time. At some point, they must have recognized that the dragon had been following them. They started to cross out towns and their stops became less frequent.

“They must have realized the dragon was after them at some point. Maybe they even skipped a city along the way in a rush to find a place to hide.” Alistair traced the path that took them to Bredon, then the blank space meant for Deadwood. “Without a destination in mind, they might have just been focused on getting away from civilization.”

Ilvara pondered this. “I’m familiar with some of these places. Each town they went to in the south was progressively smaller, more rural. Maybe they thought to hide in the wilderness, somehow.” She scoffed. “Stupid daoine, be it a town or a forest, the draca mór would find them all the same.”

“How would they know better?” Alistair said. He only felt pity for them now. “They’re a cheap mercenary band from up north. Without a proper map, they had no idea what they were walking into. They probably thought this was all still part of the duchy.”

“Doesn’t matter, they’re dead,” Ilvara replied. No malice, just brutal truth. “A series of poor choices led them to swift ends. Starting with their decision to steal a dragon egg.” She shook her head at the whole lot of bodies. “Didn’t even get paid for it.”

“How do you know?”

“I checked. Quite thoroughly, I assure you,” Ilvara said. “Only the necromancers had anything left on them.”

Alistair shrugged. “Maybe they spent it all?” He doubted it, though. If they did spend the money, surely they’d have left something of value lying around.

“Or maybe there never was a reward,” Ilvara mused. “Maybe there was something else going on here. A sick game from a duine noble?”

The thought sickened Alistair. Who would willingly sic a dragon on their fellow humans? What would a noble gain from that? The implications of hidden messages implied that there was significant planning involved in the plot.

This all seemed way over his head.

“We shouldn’t stay here.” She got up and dusted herself off. He noticed she decided to keep the letter and map. “There isn’t anything left to take except for the egg." Ilvara pointed at him. "That's yours to take back. With luck, our horses will still be where we left them.”

Alistair certainly couldn’t argue there. He hated this place. The less time spent on this side of the border, the better. Besides, he was exhausted. The rejuvenation potion would stave off his energy loss, but only a bit. They needed to sleep, or at least he did.

“You think we could rest somewhere before we go find the dragon?” Alistair asked as they retraced their steps through the swamp. The heavy egg rested in his arms. “Eat something, maybe?”

“First, I plan to put some serious distance between us and this place.” Ilvara trudged through the filthy water. They were both covered in muck, grime, and sweat at this point. “Then, I definitely need to wash up. Food would be good too.”

“So, back to Bredon then?”

Ilvara shook her head. “No, too dangerous. What if the dragon returns there while we rest? The town won’t survive a second attack.”

“Where then?”

“We make camp somewhere a little ways north. Closer toward the mountains. Then we rest and make our way straight to the nest in the morning.”

Alistair stopped in his tracks. Straight to the dragon? What did she mean by that? She turned around, having noticed him stop. Ilvara gave him a weird look.

“What?” she asked.

“What did you mean when you said ‘straight to the nest’?”

“Exactly what it sounds like,” she said in a huff. “What, did you think I was making some fey expression?”

Alistair frantically shook his head. “No! That’s not what I meant. I mean, how do you know where the dragon is?”

Ilvara just looked at him for a bit and shook her head. She reached into the pack at the small of her back and pulled out a different map from earlier. He could tell the difference by the nicer quality of the scroll.

“Have you forgotten that I’m a pathfinder? Part of that means having maps.”

She unfurled the thing and showed it to Alistair. Just from a glance, he could tell the level of detail was leagues apart from the previous scribblings. This one was more like a work of art. Her finger traced a route from around where they were to a short way up north, near a mountain range. One such mountain had been marked in what he figured was Geevshey, with a symbol he quickly sussed out to mean dragon.

“There’s a roost nearby, I’m guessing we’ll find it there,” Ilvara said.

“Why didn’t you mention you had a map before?” Alistair asked, brow furrowed. Surely Broderick would have found that information useful.

Ilvara neatly rolled the map back up and stowed it in her bag. She shrugged off his question and made to keep moving.

“You didn’t ask.”