Well, no sense in wasting time worrying about it, choosing the first passage on the left I get started. The passage twists and turns and there are many branches and side passages, most of which are dead ends. I am walking carefully because I expect there to be traps, but so far I haven't found any.

Then again during peace the soldiers stationed here would use these passages so traps wouldn't be practical. As a defensive measure it would be enough to split up the enemy and make them vulnerable to ambush tactics. Although Bones and I come across several undead wandering the maze we don't encounter anything really dangerous.

It just takes about ten hours to figure out and explore the maze and find the exit. Which happens to be hidden behind a moving wall and is a spiral staircase going down. My best guess is we have gone down about a hundred feet when we come to the bottom.

Before me lies a massive cavern, there are some buildings close to the stairs but the rest seems to be natural. Upon a closer look I see several tunnels leading out of the cavern but they seem to go further down. Is this a mine, is that what this fortress was protecting?

Exploring the buildings first I quickly figure out what this place was, the biggest building was for smelting and refining ore. Several other buildings were obviously for storage, the last seems to have been living quarters. On the top floor of the living quarters I finally find something still intact, it seems to have been an office as there is a desk still facing what would have been a window.

On that desk is a book, it is written in the ancient language and seems to have been a diary. Checking the rest of the desk I find a key but I haven't seen any keyholes so I put it aside for the moment. The diary seems to have been written by the last commander so I flip to the end of the book.

'Day 239 - We seal the second to last gate today. The mages are holding a shield over it but they won't last long against the constant attacks.'

'Day 256 - For some reason the enemy has stopped attacking. It might be a trick so we are staying locked tight for now. Still no word on reinforcements.'

'Day 311 - We lost the gate today, not to the enemy but to the undead. We had stored our fallen in a storeroom and they suddenly burst out and attacked. I had to order the last gate sealed, trapping hundreds of my men with those things.'

'Day 346 - It's over! Even my best knights have fallen to the undead. It is only a matter of time until they reach us down here. If anyone from the empire finds this, know that we fought to the very last. Everything that could be saved has been locked in the vault. Long Live The Empire!!'

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

That is the last entry, the soldiers of the empire were certainly brave and dedicated men. Now if only I knew where this vault is hidden, my curiosity is burning to see what they protected. Besides, the empire is long gone, no reason to leave something buried down here doing no one any good.

I start by carefully searching the office again including the walls, looking for secret walls. After two hours of fruitless effort I finally remember there is an easier way, I found a monocle that shows secrets. I quickly grab it out of the pouch and hold it up to my eye and look around.

There are no secrets in the office, but this will make searching the rest of the place much easier. Then a thought disturbs my search, what happened to the bodies of the commander and his men. My next thought is that it is going to appear behind me because I thought of it like in a horror movie.

A quick look behind me puts that thought to rest but then I hear a sound from outside. I rush over to the window and look out, only to see a massive beast that looks like it is made up of hundreds of corpses. Just looking at it turns my stomach, I really wish Ruby was here so she could throw a couple of fireballs at it.

I can't tell if it has legs or not, but it looks like a thirty foot tall pile of corpses that decided to get up and move around. I am not even sure how to fight something like that, hiding may be the best choice right now. It seems to be moving aimlessly so I crouch down out of sight and wait for it to move on.

Once it is gone I go back to searching, I quietly check the rest of the building using the monocle. When I find nothing I check outside to make sure it is clear before moving to the next building. I check each building from top to bottom but I don't find a single secret until I finally check the smelting building.

According to the monocle there is a secret underneath one of the blast furnaces. Since I can't see any kind of switch anywhere I try pushing the furnace to see if it moves. Of course it is the fourth side that I try pushing on that finally moves the thing.

Unfortunately, I was so focused on trying to move the thing that I didn't think about what would happen when it moved. So as an ear splitting squeal echoes around the huge room, I cringe and cover my sensitive ears. Shortly a roar answers from outside, guess I failed at hiding from the thing.

The massive double doors of the building explode inwards as a huge tentacle made of corpses thrusts into the room. It starts blindly slamming around looking for something to kill, Bones attacks it but it doesn't react to his cut. I quickly move over next to Bones and draw Blitz, then I set my feet and use the chop form.

About ten feet of the tentacle are sliced off, it falls to the ground but doesn't stop moving. The corpses that make up the fallen part of the tentacle get up and start walking towards me. Now that they are separated from the main body they look like normal zombies.

"Bones, aim for the heads!"

Bones has gotten pretty good at dealing with zombies so I leave them to him and take a look outside. The corpse mound is right outside the door so I quickly duck back inside. The upper half of one of the corpses that I cut in half when I cut the tentacle crawls over towards me and tries to bite my leg.

I casually stomp on its head as I take another peek outside, the corpse mound seems to be forming a tentacle again. I need some way to kill the pile, I can't just wait and let it do whatever it wants. A sword really isn't the best weapon for dealing with this kind of thing, but I do have another option I can try.