They didn't come screaming out of the woods, it was more like shambling. I felt like there should have been clouds, or fog, or it could have been night, because seeing zombies walking through a green grass field on a sunny day was odd. There were even birds singing, like there wasn't some kind of unatural being walking around. Seeing zombies in broad daylight also took away some of the fear, and added a lot more grossness. I mean, they were literally walking corpses. Not only were they decomposing, but they had parts hanging out where they weren't supposed to, or missing limbs, and even holes through their bodies. And then there was the smell. At first it wasn't bad. They were far away, but as they got closer to the walls we started to smell them. It was enough that several of us started to gag a bit. No one puked, which was good. Puking could have started a chain reaction of disgusting raining down on the ground. Though it might have made the zombies slip and fall...

By the time the zombies were half way to the walls Bjorn decided it was time to open fire. "Let's test the firepower of those cannon. Cannons fire at will!"

I expected a boom, followed by a whistling noise and some zombies exploading. What I got was a bit different. I was standing with Bjorn, Marcus, and Lily on top of one of the towers, so we were right next to a cannon. When it fired, there was barely any noise. Just a kind of whoosing noise and a hum, then about five zombies exploaded. There was a bit of a blurry line of distortion that went from the cannon to where the zombies exploaded, but there was no projectile. Not only that, but the ground was perfectly fine. Only the zombies exploaded.

"Of course you have magic cannons. I was kind of hoping for big booms and explosions." Lily looked at me like I did something wrong.

I was going to say something, but Bjorn spoke first, "This is actually better for us. There's no smoke, so we still have great visibility. Traditional cannons would make the battle field very messy. It would be easier for the enemy to hide what they're doing."

"Oh, since when did you learn so much about war?" Lily made her pouty face, before actually looking curious.

"Two tours in Iraq, and a lot of games."

"Is Iraq a dangerous place?"

"Uh, yeah? I mean we were fighting terrorists." He paused to give the balistas the order to fire. "They had guns, and bombs, so... people got hurt."

She looked really confused, "So why would you go on a tour there? What kind of vacation is that?"

Bjorn had been watching the zombies, but when she said that, he looked at her with a hurt expression. "Lily, please don't joke about that." His tone was pleading.

"I was not..."

I shushed her, "Bjorn, Lily doesn't actually know about Iraq. She's from a different world."

He took a deep breath, "I, I lost people there, brothers. It was a tour of duty, not a vacation." It looked like he had a tear, or two starting to form.

"I'm so sorry, Bjorn, I did not know. I am surprised we have not run into this before. There must be a million differences between our worlds."

Marcus decided to speak for the first time since leaving my room, "The game system didn't let us realize. It's a lot looser here, so it's probably translating in a more literal sense instead of translating the meaning. Or maybe we are allowed to notice differences. There's still so much I need to figure out. Just blame the system for your problems. The game system. Not any..."

Bjorn held up a hand, cutting him off, "We can listen to your rambling later. Now, we deal with that."

He pointed to a group of zombies armed with shields and spears. They looked kind of like a Greek phalanx, but dead. As they marched forward, a couple of cannons shot them, but whatever they fired seemed to have no effect on the phalanx, and the balista bolts could not penetrate their shields. They were slow, so it would still be a few minutes before they got to us, but Bjorn seemed a bit concerned.

"They are armed with weapons from the other world. It's probably an older model, but it's definitely the same tech. Those shields are also deflecting everything we send at them, so our squad is the only one that can take them on. Bwyd, I need you to disrupt their formation, Lily, I'll be holding their attention, you just need to keep me alive. I don't know how much damage those weapons will do. Marcus, keep the other zombies from noticing what we're doing. Questions? Good, lets go."

With that he jumped off the wall followed by smiling Lily.

Marcus looked at me, "Ready to risk our lives?"

"It's just zombies, where's the risk?"

Just before I jumped down, I heard him mutter something about flags.

Bjorn didn't pause before he charged through the weak zombies to get to the phalanx, and Lily was right behind him making musical bell sounds and lots of little lights, well fae. As I followed a couple of the little fae came to me, as Lily sent me a few buffs, but I kind of wished that they could make things smell better. Bjorn had just run through a bunch of rotting corpses, and broke them into small pieces. So there I was running through a field of rotting zombie parts, under the hot sun. It was the most disgusting thing I had ever done. I actually did pretty well, until I stepped on an eyball, and it just popped.

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After adding a bit to the disgustingness in the field, I teleported to Bjorn's shadow. He was already at the phalanx, and he didn't look too good. Lily was working hard to keep him alive, but his shield looked a bit like Swiss cheese. The phalanx zombies were holding their spears up, and it looked like there was some kind of energy around them. The lower half was glowing, and as I watched the glow moved up the spear.

"Bwyd, do not get hit by those beam attacks. They ignore armor. I think they're force damage." Lily was the only one capable of talking. "Luckily they take for ever to charge. But it looks like it affected Bjorn more than normal."

He coughed up some blood, "It just hurt. The game isn't supposed to hurt like this."

"Shut up and let me heal you. Bwyd, kill them please?"

She then went back to directing her little fae and ignored me. When I looked at Bjorn, he just shrugged and gave me a thumbs up. I kind of wanted to fireball them, but I figured the shields would mess up that plan, so instead, I lit my skull on fire with flaming skull. It kind of felt weird, like I had a bunch of blood rushing to my head, and it was really warm, but not uncomfortable. It did make Lily stare for a moment, which made me wish I had a mirror, but I was on a time limit now. So next I cast darkness around the zombies, shadow blade and cloak of shadows on myself, and shadow stepped into the middle of the zombies.

My plan was to use all my area fire damage spells, but the moment I appeared inside their formation, the zombies dropped their spears and tackled me. I struggled a bit, but they were surprisingly strong, I barely even got to swing my shadow blade. They even were fast enough to shove some horrible tasting cloth in my mouth.

"You are a foolish mage. You didn't think that I would be expecting an attack like this." There was one zombie that looked a little more humanish. His eyes were still clouded over, like dead eyes, but there weren't any pieces missing from his body. He was also wearing somewhat clean looking clothes. I doubt he would have smelled bad if I could have smelled him over the stench of the zombies pinning me to the ground.

"Now I will let you watch your friends die, before I make you one of my minions. Our weapons are almost ready to use, you won't have to wait long." He chuckled with his deep voice, so it sounded very evil.

I started trying to get the rag out of my mouth, but he noticed and had one of the zombies hold it in. That made me a bit nauseous, and gave me an idea. I had heard that puking when you couldn't open your mouth could kill you, but I had a feeling that breathing fire would take care of the rag. So I did.

The moment I decided to spit fire at them, I became aware of my fire pouch thing. It probably has a better name, but I only felt it, it wasn't like I knew everything about it. I just openned it up, and I felt a burning sensation shoot up my throat. It was kind of like heartburn, but hoter. The rag didn't stand a chance. The fire shot out of my mouth in a wave, kind of like a flamethrower, and completely destroyed the zombie who bravely tried to hold the rag in my mouth. It then washed over the smart one, and I heard him scream.

When the fire stopped, there were still some zombies hanging on to my arms so I made a mental note to turn my head next time. The smart zombie was still standing in front of me, his head tilted back, and arms hanging at his sides, but he was covered in blackened skin. I thought he needed a push to completely die, so I cast burn. His head snapped up and he lunged at me, but this time I was prepared. I shadow stepped behind him and hit him with a firebolt. He stumbled and fell, right where I was laying a moment ago, but he wasn't done yet. He screamed an inhuman scream, and all the zombies charged at me. I cast firewall around me just before they reached me, and then, knowing Lily was nearby, I cast fireball on myself. There was a sickening smell of burning rotten flesh, but the force of the blast forced the zombies away from me.

Well all except one. The smart one. Still burning, he stumbled towards me muttering something. I cast fireshield before he got to me, and got ready to start running and hitting him with more firebolts. Before I could move, he gestured with his hand and I felt something fasten around both my legs. I couldn't see anything, so I knew it had to be magic of some kind, but I could not move my legs.

"Now you pay." His voice was still deep, but much more raspy.

His hands started glowing with dark power. I tried to shadow step but whatever was holding my legs didn't let me teleport either. Then he released a bolt of pure death. At least, that's what it felt like. It looked like pure darkness, but I am very familiar with darkness, so I knew instinctively that it wasn't darkness. As the energy left his hands, I knew it would hurt, maybe even kill me.

Then something unexpected happened. The darkness I conjured, condensed into a single disc of darkness, and I felt some of my mana get used, as the bolt of death hit my shadows, and not me. Almost immediately, my legs were freed, so I took a couple steps back. Not that I needed to. The smart zombie was laying on the ground, not moving, and in the place my shadows intercepted his attack was a spirt figure. He looked like an elf, and he looked furious.

"HOW DID YOU RESIST? YOU ARE NOTHING compared to the might of ..." As he spoke his form faded from view, until we couldn't hear him, or see him anymore.

I looked back at Bjorn and Lily. Bjorn looked okay, his shield was still holely, and Lily looked really excited.

"THAT WAS A GHOST!" She came running up to me and stared at where the ghost had been, the a little quieter, "You got to kill a ghost. I am really jealous. Next time let me see it first."

I kind of chuckled, "I didn't see it till the end there, I'm not really sure where it came from, but do you mind healing me? I burned myself a bit."

Even with my fire resistance I did more damage than I could handle, mostly because my dragon breath hurts me too, since it's degraded. So even though I didn't burn as much as the zombies, I was still a little burned. Lily seemed a little surprised but healed me anyway.

"So Bjorn, how did you take so much damage?"

"Overconfidence. I thought my shield would work against them." He picked up one of the fallen shields they had used. "But I think I just fixed that problem. Grab what you can, these might be helpful. Let's get back to the gate."