A group of unlikely allies had collided and remained trapped together deep in the core of the planet Tenare. Ned growled awake from his slumber breaking the ice. He had previously been an alive wizard, but was unfortunately killed off in a previous episode. He had been frozen on hiatus an indefinite amount of time before suddenly he was stabbed to life.

What stubs remained of his fingers unthawed grabbed at something causing a mild discomfort on his face. It must have been a fly. As one eye opened he could see the other being stabbed with the pointy end of a necromancy crystal leading to Nancy reduced to nothing but her skeleton and armor.

“Wake up Ned. I suspect this will be the first case of a walking corpse more useful than his living counterpart” laughed Nancy, completing the resurrection with a kiss on a nearby rock.

The Queen had disposed of her into lava from the top of a nearby ice castle. It had burned away a lot of her features including eyesight. After miraculously crawling away from danger it had taken her a while to figure out the lay of the land. Having revived Ned from the dead, and herself nothing but a skeleton wearing royal plotting armor. It was time to find revenge.

“Ha ha no fear for I have long ago fortified myself from the ill effects of death with crystal vitamins,” said Ned rising.

“Nonsense, you were always dumb and that belief proves it, but I need your eyes to see blah,” said Nancy.

“Oh I'm so sorry,” said Ned, dusting the snow off his body.

A piece of his frozen wizard robe broke off shattering on impact with the floor. He looked at his arms light blue, and his fingers a dozen freezer burnt sausage stubs. One thumb had become severed completely, and fallen somewhere lost. If being dead had numbed the pain receptors in his mind to this degree what other ways had he been impacted?

“It is what it is, but what about a plan on getting back to warmer weather where all the brains are to snack on” stammered Ned, over a stomach growling.

"Useless frigid brains you have, we must grow our numbers until we can overrun the kingdom.." She folded her bones over chest, and inhaled like a venomous cobra ready to pounce. "Blah if I knew of an escape I wouldn't have revived you,” puffed Nancy, toppling Ned’s corpse again by accident.

There he remained frozen in place. Nancy strutted forward past the extinguished fire pit that the wizard had frozen to death beside. Her hands are out but so far clear going in the cavern pad in the mountains of the core. A frozen landscape where even the dead didn’t like living for very long. The only other thing in the cave was a lot of stalagmites and stalactites forming a maze of spikes taking up a majority of the cavern space and she smacked face first right into one such installation ringing her armor.

On the opposite end of the cavern the two leprechauns were spooked by the reverberating alarm where they hid. Mickey watched the dead from a distance. Ratom shivered, and quivered hiding under a blanket he had unfolded out of his tophat. They had just fallen into this location from being forced onto an experimental teleportation pad and zapped away into a portal by a giant Farc crystal.

“We will be like them soon. Ghouls. I'm afraid Mickey brrrr,'' shivered Ratom, chattering his teeth under the thick covers that seemed to do nothing to stop the cold embrace from seeping into his bones.

“I will give us a way to get some heat brother. You just stay under heated, and I'll be right back with it,” said Mickey darting away.

“We're doomed,” whispered Ratom.

Ratom formed a ball under his blanket, and convulsed around to find the best fold in which to conserve his heat. Meanwhile Mickey winced, taking off his shoe to equip a slippery razor blade. Next he dashed between the various forms of natural cover in CQC mode.

“Ahh so cute, a little green guy,” said Ned fawning over Mickey rolling between cover.

“I need heat here at once! You there dead provide it before I start slicing, '' demanded Mickey, jumping out of the shadows and slashing at the air.

He slashed again this time taking a toe off of the advancing Ned.

“Behind me there's a whole lot of little baby magma crystals to stay warm,” said Ned, stopping in his tracks.

“Good info corpse thanks I guess,” said Mickey, keeping his eyes on the dead while retrieving the crystals from the floor.

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He walked backward, not turning his back on the zombies. The cavern was very dimly lit, and it was hard to tell what crystal varieties he had picked up. Mickey cradled an arm load and sprinted back over to his brother. He dumped their lifeline in a pile. A few sparks from the flint let him do a quick sort. It was a lucky moment at least with so much magma he had picked.

Ratom stuck his head out of his blanket like a turtle upon hearing the first crackles of fire. Micky sparked two together over and over before the rocks caught one after another. The heat quickly spread its embrace, keeping them alive. It was their savior to worship.

“I hate to be the doomsayer here, but the problem with surviving this place alive is that there’s no food,” said the dead wizard lumbering in behind them.

Ratom jumped from where he lay still using his blanket as a shield from the outside. Nancy put her hands into peace signs where she stood but it was facing the wrong direction towards the back wall. Ned backed off trying to right her direction but not yet accustomed to his rotten muscles he ended up pushing her skeleton over to a crash of metal. Mickey laughed, and his brother smiled.

“Nancy, watch out where you're going, what's wrong with you” said the wizard joining in. “Ha ha ha” he laughed.

“I’m the one catching and killing the living food so don’t laugh too hard unless you want to join them,” said Nancy knocking dust off her skeleton.

“Then I'm afraid it is already too late as I was waiting on you to feed me. Originally I remember I went and you brought me back to life” laughed Ned.

“Yes I was caught by the Queen, and intend to take her castle tonight, but first see a hare I have stashed for the first feast,” said Nancy, fumbling around. “Show me to the door,”

Ned escorted her a short distance to the cliff edge and panicky, unable to grab her as she continued towards the edge.

“Help me boys if you want to live,” he yelped.

Ratom stayed put, but Mickey ran out of the cave and grabbed onto her armor at the last second. Rocks fell off the edge while she teetered in the harsh wind. A gust blew them all backwards smashing against the cave walls.

When everyone was back on their feet the next attempt to brave the elements was made. This time they tied a rope around Nancy and the other end on a natural formation inside the cave. Then they sent her outside to go wild. Ned yelled her directions from the mouth. closer she picked up a frozen rabbit that had been hidden. Ned shook his head.

“I starved to death and my cure was just outside, never lucky,” he cried with empty ducts “My once brilliant mind is fried all because of you witch” he called pointing out to somebody who wasn’t looking at him.

Nancy cackled a smokey cough.

“If you were so brilliant you wouldn’t have been so dependent on me in the first place to keep living,” she laughed, lunging forward, feeling her way further along the wall.

Ned had the last laugh by lying about untying her.

“Wow look at the fancy feast she gave us, Ratom. We will eat well tonight” said Mickey.

“Where you nerds at,” said Nancy approaching with supper.

The eager leprechauns guided her bony hands, and the hare directly in the fire. The meat quickly cooked, letting off a mouth watering sent all throughout the cavern. Being nothing but bone Nancy was fire resistant. The leprechauns acted as her eyes while she held the meat in the fire with a firm grip.

"So have we got any kind of plan for getting out of here yet?" asked Mickey.

"Revenge is the main course, consider yourself lucky for not being human because my beef is with them. Not sure if I can manage to keep you alive in the process of overturning the Kingdom until nothing remains. " said Nancy.

They both gulped.

"Yeah don't depend on this one, she isn't a team player," said Ned, shaking his head in the corner.

"I play for team dead" said Nancy, cackling.

Her teeth sparkled white while her empty eye sockets showed no light. The dead formed a protective wall from the winds as the party crept to the cave entrance. Outside the northern lights formed bright lights in an area of neutral ground. The Queen’s ice castle sat on an opposite mountain bathed in lights.

“You are going to need an army of a million dead to take that fortress,” yelled Ned.

“You will take me to cemeteries and crypts said to be located on the highest peak here.. can find it for me,” said Nancy.

Ned turned his attention past the lake, trees, and glacier elements below until he looked in the other direction. There a third dark mountain peak towered over all the rest.

“I see the mountain but it looks deserted,” said Ned.

“Well there’s said to be an ancient temple where crystal power flows the strongest of anywhere else, and if true will be the key to the castle so I need to go” she replied.

“I don’t have to do anything you tell me to, perhaps I will help these two leprechauns before they meet the same fate as I. '' Ned shot back.

“I realize you have no ambitions and would prefer to sit here rotting away in this cave for the rest of time, but this temple is said to be the absolute pinnacle of the power structure of the crystal spirituals going back thousands of years or more where they formed,” she began.

“Oh no of course I won’t let myself rot away here with what promises to be so many artifacts, this is the research of a lifetime holy shit, can we set off there at once?” giddily rambled Ned.

“Take my hand and escort me,” announced Nancy.

“Sorry boys but you're on your own,” said Ned, fumbling to untie the rope he had left tied to her armor, “Uh maybe help me out with this first though please,”.