As Jonathan ran, the mounds of ash began to open all around him, and bony hands reached out of the ground, looking for his flesh. Jonathan weaved around the morass of grasping hands, and raced through the rows, heading for the edge of the cathedral walls. He was nearing them a few seconds later but he felt an invisible force grasp him by the midsection, and tear him off his feet, tossing him through the air and back towards the center of the room. The noise of cracking stone echoed out from the mausoleum, and spiderweb cracks raced up and down the stone. With a clattering boom, the stone exploded outwards, and revealed a regal looking undead, clad in priestly vestments.
It was nine feet tall, and wielded a large staff in one hand, topped with some piece of religious iconography that glistened in the baleful light that surrounded its form. Four green wisps darted to and fro around the creature, and its face was twisted in glee as it clenched its fist, trying to crush Jonathan between its invisible fingers of force. However, Jonathan might have been too weak to resist the pull, but he was more than durable enough to not be harmed by the attack. It felt a bit uncomfortable, but that was all. He suspected that it was not intended as an actual damaging strike but as a utility spell for unbalancing one’s enemies.
Jonathan gritted his teeth, and pulsed his mana out and into the spell surrounding him, sending veins of purple pulsing through the air. The spell cracked open a moment later, letting Jonathan drop to the ground. Legions of the slavering undead surrounded him, however their leader regarded him with an arrogant glare.
“Why do you wake us, mortal? Do your people not still tell tales of us to their children, to prevent them from wandering out into the cold embrace of the night?” The leader said, in tones that seemed slightly aristocratic.
“I don't even know who you are,” Jonathan responded. He knew that diplomacy was a forgone hope, but he still wanted to delay a bit so that he could come up with a plan. “I was running from my enemies, and I ended up in that city, without knowing what exactly it was.”
“You lie,” the undead said, frowning. It raised one hand, as if to smite Jonathan, but he kept speaking.
"I do not. Whatever your city once was, it is not only a footnote in the maps of this world. You are mostly unknown, save as some sort of blank spot on the world, a place where not to go. My intentions were honest in coming here,” Jonathan replied. His mana was at his fingertips, and he was ready to fight his way out of here if necessary. Other than the leader, the undead here were nothing more than slavering monstrosities, and it was the only real threat to Jonathan. He could always outrun the main force of the undead. However, that telekinetic attack would be quite annoying.
Jonathan waited for the undead to say something, but it seemed lost in thought. He took a quick look around himself, finding that all of the undead were still, as if awaiting orders from their master. In fact, it was likely that they were all controlled by the monster standing in front of Jonathan. He smiled inwardly, but kept this revelation to himself. If he was able to defeat the leader, then he would be able to leave this place.
“You might have been innocent in your trespass, but that doesn't excuse your crime. We have slumbered here for countless years, and we do not take those who wake us kindly.” The monster snapped its fingers, and the undead around Jonathan came to life, snarling and hissing at the air. They shambled towards him, moving at grotesquely sped up paces, which caused their forms to shift strangely through the air. It was like being in a low budget horror movie.
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Jonathan ignored the monsters however, and charged the leader, his fists blazing with purple energy and the red light of his rune. He drove his fist into the monster’s torso, but all he achieved was sending it a few paces backwards, without really damaging it. The energy had been channeled out through the monster and into its thralls, judging by the fact that three of them fell to the ground, lifeless, behind Jonathan. The monster laughed, and waved its hand, sending Jonathan flying through the air.
A series of necrotic bolts surged out of its fingertips over the next second, heading for Jonathan’s vulnerable form. The attack impacted his armor, and sent a freezing pain though his bones and skin, causing his body to lock up midair. He landed amid the undead, who began to batter him with their fists and feet. He was paralyzed for a moment, but as the paralysis wore off, he tore his way free from the monsters, and began lashing out with his fists. None of them had any sort of technique, and they simply stood there and took the attacks, trying mindlessly to get to him. It was an effective strategy, seeing as they were immune to pain, and it was quite disconcerting for Jonathan to be battering one of the creatures while it kept throwing itself at him, even with its head half split open.
He kept sending his mana to his fists in a never ending stream, vaporizing the flesh that his fists touched. The leader of the undead started to circle Jonathan’s position, the monsters parting in front of him like a river before a rock, and began to direct the undead in a more personal fashion, sending them in in waves rather than letting them keep to their own devices. Jonathan was forced to adapt to the new strategies, and he was slowly being overrun by the undead. He had little room to dodge, and only his armor and superior durability was keeping him intact. So far, he had not taken any serious damage, but his body was bruised all over, and he was starting to lose health points to the monsters. Despite their appearance, they were quite tough and strong. Jonathan had no idea how many of the creatures he had taken out by now, but their numbers seemed to be endless, and there was no hope in sight for him.
Eventually, Jonathan made a snap decision, and leaped out of the mess of undead bodies, and towards the leader. The creature sent out another one of its invisible hands towards Jonathan, but he sent his mana in a bow wave before himself, unbinding the attack midair. His fists began to light up with power, and he landed in front of the monster, bringing his fist down like a thunderbolt. It slammed into the undead’s upraised arms, and piledrived the creature into the ground, cracking the stone underneath it, the remnants of the mausoleum that it had emerged from. Then it hit the ash, and the monster accelerated downwards, carving out a crater into the ground.
It leaped out of the pit, its skin a patchwork of glowing scars, and punched Jonathan, imbuing its strike with its telekinetic abilities. The attack sent its force through his armor, rather than glancing off it, and his ribs broke underneath the force of the strike. Jonathan was catapulted backwards, and he landed, dazed, on top of a group of undead, who quickly began to lash out at him with their festering hands.
Jonathan forced himself to snap back to reality, and he kicked away the monsters, getting his feet underneath himself. Jonathan dodged around the clumsy blows of the nearby monsters, and headed back towards the undead leader. His only hope was to defeat the sapient undead, as it held the reins of all of the other monsters in this area. If he tried to escape through the hole in the roof, the monster would just pull him back in with its telekinetic abilities, for the lesser undead to devour him. No, he needed to cut off the head of the snake, here and now.