Interlude : Seed of Darkness

Sivanna kept her eyes open, watching carefully for any movements that might trigger a need for her skills. She was an A ranked adventurer, her team was known as the White Gloves. A name that had somehow circulated from her habit of constantly wearing white gloves when she was out. She wasn't even the team captain but somehow the name had stuck. She watched with a small smile as she saw the broad back of her husband, keeping the mid-level undead away from the rest of their team with his trusty adamantium tower shield. To the left was Shava the bladedancer, whirling around with her slim scimitars as she flowed through the slower undead. To her right was Ta'aka, a tiger beastman who smashed through the mummified opponents with raw power, his bandaged fists tearing through body and armour alike. Next to Sivanna was her best friend, Milini her stern face calm as she threw spell after spell at the opponents' backline.

They had been sent to investigate the nearby area, the haunted forest had some medium level undead and was not that dangerous. The threat was familiar and the people knew to stay away, however, lately there had been a series of disappearances. Some people had sighted a new type of monster, something moving in the dark that they could not identify. The local lord had asked them to investigate, normally such a task would be given to a C-rank adventurers team. Her husband Brumm was an old friend of the lord and had offered to take a look. Giving the reason that even A rank adventurers needed to keep their skills sharp with practice, her lips curved as she looked at her husband. Father of her two children and love of her life, the idiot had ofcourse accepted the job for sub-par pay. Not that their team minded, they weren't in it for the money anyways. She let her thoughts drift as they tore through the undead of the haunted forest, she knew in her mind that she should pay attention but these level thirty-ish undead were truly no threat to her team.

As the White Gloves slowly but surely made their way deeper into the forest Brumm stopped, he pointed ahead. His deep voice cutting through the haunted silence of the forest, “I think that thing is why we are here.”

The rest of the team glanced towards where he was pointing, Sivanna frowned. She read the tag, something she had never seen before, it was... odd to say the least. [C%urrroPt*d uNDe*%d Lev/v/vel :' ??]

“What in the name of Father Sun is that?!” Ta'aka growled, “I think it says corrupted undead but why are we unable to see it's level? Mili, Siv, do you guys see any magical residue?”

The mage made a symbol with her hand and muttered some words, a sigil appeared in the air, with a stretch of her arms the sigil grew. “There are... odd traces of magic in its body, it is not something I recognize. We should report this.”

Brumm glanced at the creature, “Agreed. Mili, if you would?”

She nodded, took out a crystal and started summoning various magical sigils. She recorded the creature and it's data into the crystal, then used another magical spell to send their findings back towards the castle. Such a crystal could be used near infinitely, a message crystal was only connected to a single counterpart. This one was connected to Brumm's friend the lord of Lorro. Once Mili finished with the message and the image accompanying it had been sent she turned back towards her leader.

“Do you want to wait on further orders?”

He shook his head, “Even if we did wait at most they would send another team with similar strength to ours to investigate, we might as well fight it and see what we can find, record the fight if you can. We are lacking information, the fact that we cannot see its level is odd and could prove a real problem. Let us find out how strong the creature truly is.”

The team nodded, Ta'aka rolled his shoulders, Shava twirled her blades and Milini readied another sigil that hovered in the air and would record their combat. Brumm heaved his heavy shield in front of himself and walked towards the unknown creature. With an inhuman screech the creature rushed towards them even though it had a humanoid appearance it ran across the ground using three of its limbs. The way it moved was unnerving, its limbs and spine bent at odd angles. It's head rotated to face them, it's eyes black with red sparks. Inky black fluid leaking from the corner's of its eyes and from its opened maw. It leaped towards the group, covering an impressive fifteen meters before its momentum was effectively halted by Brumm's heavy shield. He bashed the creature out of the air, Ta'aka moved forward and with a glowing fist bashed the creature's brain into mush. Brumm stabbed his sword into where its heart should be. Rule number one of any adventurer, double check to make sure it's dead!

To the slight surprise of the team, the creature was indeed dead after having its head crushed, some undead would still have been able to move after having been decapitated. Brumm and Milini took a few minutes to do some investigating of the body, all of it recorded by the sigil. The rest of team kept a watchful eye on the forest. Once they were done examining the body Brumm turned and faced the Sigil, “The creature we fought used to be a mummified soldier around level thirty-five. The corruption... whatever it was, has changed its body dramatically. As you could see from the examination the previously dried out muscles are pumped full of this inky-black substance. Its battle strength has also increased I would give the creature an additional ten levels compared to the normal mummified soldiers. The true question would be if this strength increase would be similar if the substance corrupted other creatures. We will head deeper into the forest and see if we can gather more information. Brumm out.”

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He motioned for Milini to once more send the message towards the lord as he frowned, the creature was no danger to a team like his. But it would wreak havoc when thrown into a civilian village, if other creatures would be similarly altered it was worrisome, with a move of his head he assembled his team and headed further into the forest.

Along the way they ran into multiple similar creatures, sometimes in groups often alone. All of the corrupted creatures were former undead. He was unsure what to call them and choose to simply refer to them as the corrupted. He considered the undead to already be a corrupt form of life, to have this corrupted even further unsettled him. The creatures so far were no real danger to him, they did not have the strength to penetrate his armour or survive a slash from his blade. What worried him was the increase in frequency at which the creatures appeared, the deeper into the forest they got, the more of the creatures they found. Eventually to the parties surprise, he saw a group of undead fighting the corrupted creatures. The undead were outmatched by their corrupted counterparts and were torn apart, the few that were not torn limb from limb rose back up. They could see the undeads body twitching as the substance took control and their muscles inflated. Ta'aka muttered a curse and sent a prayer to Father Sun, the diety his people worshiped. Shava was as silent as ever, his wife and Milini stayed silent and waited for his orders.

“Let's wipe them out, if we can find the origin of this corruption and cleanse it, we could at least sleep properly. “

The team nodded, Ta'aka showing off his fangs as he grinned in anticipation. They charged the corrupted, tearing through their disorderly ranks with ease, Shava stayed close to the mages and cut anything approaching them into ribbons. Brumm and Ta'aka threw themselves into combat, taking down one of a corrupted with every slash or punch. It took them barely a minute to clear up the group of fifteen or so corrupted. Sivanna walked over to him and frowned at the corpses, “It bothers me that I cannot use my cleansing magic on them. Whatever taint is in their blood it is not something that my magic can detect and eliminate.” She glanced at the corpses as Milini was taking the time to carefully burn them, using magic to check for any remains of the taint before torching what she found.

Brumm looked at his wife and put his armored hand on her shoulder, “It bothers me as well, we just have to our job, perhaps if we can find whatever causes this we will be able to rest at ease tonight. I miss the twins, so the faster we finish this the sooner we get to go home.” He smiled gently and gave her a quick kiss before strapping his helmet back on.

Soon enough they traced the corrupted creatures to what they presumed to be their origin. An old tomb that was embedded deep into the hill and was known as the Crumbling Tomb Dungeon. One that he and his team had entered and conquered years ago when they had still been fledgling adventurers. Brumm smiled slightly at the memory, that smile turned into a frown as he saw the creature guarding the entrance. A crypt lord, normally a level fifty undead creature it had been corrupted. The already hulking and muscular creature had grown a size, its muscles rippled with reserved power. It's skin torn open here and there, unable to contain the inflated musculature. The oozing black liquid dripped from its jaws like drool, the black trails at the corners of its eyes could trick anyone into thinking the monster was crying. Brumm rolled his shoulder and roared at the creature to get its attention. The crypt lord turned, eerily quiet. For a brief instance all was still, then in a burst of movement the creature charged. The ground shook from its heavy footsteps, its legs pumping as it covered the distance at incredible speed.

It leaped into the air, soaring through it as the wind whistled in its passing. Instead of receiving it with his shield Brumm nimbly stepped aside, causing the creature to miss him by inches. In a skillful display he dropped to his knee and with a twist cut through the creatures heel. Sending it crashing into the grass, its tendon cut. Ta'aka moved in from the other side and crushed the knee of its other leg with a charged punch. Both of them stepped back, now that it was disabled there was no need to take any risks, they let Milini pummel the thing to death with her magic. A single of these creatures was still of no danger to them. Still Brumm's brows were furrowed as he glanced at the creature, it's hide had been thick. He had intended to cut off its foot but had been unable too. If a rank A adventurer like him could not cut off its limbs a creature like this would cause devastation if it charged into a battalion of soldiers. He rolled his shoulders to try and get rid of the feeling that haunted him. He once more ordered Milini to record his thoughts and send them to the lord.

Ta'aka walked over to him, tapping him on the shoulder. The beastman tilted his head, “You are being extremely cautious, even for you. Normally you would not send out multiple messages, you would give an initial examination and send your suspicions then send another one when we have concluded the matter. Including this one that is the fifth message you have sent, what has got you so nervous?”

Brumm looked at his old friend and sighed, his shoulders drooped. “To be honest I have a bad feeling about this Ta'aka. If I did not feel it was needed for us to remove the source of this corruption as fast as we can before it has the chance to spread I would have sent for reinforcements. I am even contemplating setting up outside the dungeon and waiting for some other teams to arrive. Siv can't cleanse this taint and the crypt lord just now was far tougher than it had any right to be. We know the dungeon has evolved once since we set foot in it over a decade ago, we do not know what it holds now that it has been corrupted and its normal strength should already have been nothing to sneeze at.”

“You truly think it is that bad?” Brumm blinked as a silky smooth voice broke the contemplative silence, he glanced towards Shava. He recovered from his surprise before he answered, “I do.”

She nodded then sat down against a tree. “Then we wait for reinforcements, after all these years I have learned to trust your instincts.” Brumm smiled as he looked at the veiled bladedancer. He glanced at Ta'aka who shrugged and also took a seat, facing the dungeon entrance. Milini had heard the conversation and was already sending a message to the lord. To her surprise, the lord notified her that he had already gathered another A rank team, the Steel Shield and that he himself had gathered the strongest of his knights and they were gathering supplies and were preparing to reinforce them. She relayed the message to Brumm who grinned, “That is so like him, reading my mind pretending to be all-knowing. Steel Shield huh, I'm not familiar with them.”

His wife put her arms around his neck as she nestled her head on his armoured shoulder, “You should! Their team is basically you copied five times. All of them serious looking and heavily armoured with their big shiny shields.”

Brumm rolled his eyes, never the less he was relieved to hear that reinforcements would be arriving.