Lund’s torch revealed a large chamber with hallways running left and right. Straight ahead of them was an open space that might have been an amphitheater or a throne room. In the gloom Isa thought she saw a raised area like a stage. “If this is a baseball diamond, we’re at home plate.”
Four lights appeared over their heads. “Which way?” murmured Mery.
“To the left is the X, and to the right was the circle.” Dulrak had the map in his hand.
Alice took a step toward the stage area. “And straight ahead?”
“Don’t!” Dulrak grabbed Alice’s arm. “Don’t go too far. No telling what’s out there, what’s lurking.”
“Did anyone recognize that writing?” asked Mery. “It’s not something from your plane, is it? Or a dwarven language?”
Dulrak snorted. “Does this look like dwarven craft?” He held up his hands and turned around. “Besides, you said the name seemed familiar. I should be asking you, bard, about this place.”
“Do you have any idea the lines I’ve memorized and forgotten?” Mery rubbed at the hollow part of a sunset scene carved into the wall. “This king, this Menesia, maybe there’s a story about him, a legend even, or maybe it’s just a name some poet plunked from the ether. Hmm? Maybe some shit with a pen and too much time just liked how it sounded: Menesia. Menesia!”
Mery voice was barely more than a whisper, but the king’s name reverberated off the walls and the high ceiling.
“Oh, huh, maybe that was a bad--” Lund’s words were drowned out by a clanking sound that seemed to come from all sides at once.
“That, my friends, is the sound of skeletons.” Dulrak gripped his warhammer. “I haven’t smashed anything in days, so I’ll quite enjoy this.”
But from the darkness came bony figure after bony figure. The skeletons fanned out so that the group faced a line of skeleton soldiers, each armed with a sword. Most of them had bits of armor still clinging to their frames; a few still had helmets sitting atop their bare skulls.
Isa cast her shillelagh spell and waded into the crowd, hoping that their swords were as dull as they appeared. For her efforts she heard bones cracking and, as her staff whirled around, she saw one of them lose his arm and sword.
Dulrak stepped to the side and swung his hammer with a loose-limbed swing that seemed designed to catch as many enemies as it could. Lund and Mery, with their blades, tried to hack at joints to disable or dismember the skeletons, and Alice shot frostbite spells until she suddenly found herself surrounded by skeletons.
For a moment she seemed paralyzed with fear, and Isa tried to smash her way through them to reach her girlfriend. Another skeleton leaped in front of Isa, and its teeth seemed bloodstained in the light of Mery’s lights. She smashed it away but not before it had sliced her leg, the sword trailing down from thigh to calf. And as she watched, another skeleton slashed at Alice’s face with its free hand. Blood trickled down Alice’s cheek as she let off 3 magic missile darts. The force of the darts caved in the ribs of the 3 closest skeletons, but none of them crumbled. In fact, they barely slowed.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Lund!” Isa called as she swung her staff at a skeleton’s legs. “Help over here.”
“Coming,” he said and slammed a skeleton into the wall, breaking into a dozen pieces. Isa could see that Lund was bleeding from several cuts.
“Are you crazy?” She swung again. “You could have punctured a lung.”
“They don’t have lungs,” Lund said as he joined Alice in what had now become a semicircle of skeletons.
Alice slashed upward with her dagger and severed the sword arm of one of the skeletons. Lund swept his greatsword low and toppled two of them. Once they were on the ground, he stomped their skulls, and Alice joined in.
The violence was over in an instant. Barely a minute had passed since the skeletons had loomed out of the darkness, and now they lay in pieces, battered and crumbled.
“Everyone alright?” Dulrak slipped his hammer through the belt around his waist.
“I took a few hits,” said Lund.
“You’re bleeding, babe.” Isa started to touch Alice’s cheek.
“Leave it. It’s just a scratch.” She must have realized her words sounded harsh. She smiled at Isa and said, “Save your spell for when I really need it.” She wiped the blood away with her fingers. “It’s already clotting.”
Isa felt a hand on her arm. Dulrak stood there, smiling. “You also took a few hits, lass. Let me fix you up.”
She tried to shrug him off with “Save your magic,” but the druid’s hand grasped her arm. “Oh, I will,” he grinned and handed her a healing potion. “Thank you,” Isa said as she pulled the stopped free. “I owe you.”
“No doubt you’ll have the chance to repay me.” He tucked his thumbs into his belt and looked around. “Full of surprises this place.” He walked toward the raised stage where Mery was standing.
Isa, Alice, and Lund joined them. Past the stage, cut into the wall were dozens of shallow niches. From this distance it looked like some might hold piles of bones, but Isa couldn’t be sure.
Dulrak nudged her. “If you stay true to your cleric nature, in time you could turn those bones to dust.” He flexed his hands. “To feel your god’s wrath flow through you, to be a conduit for that kind of power…. Heady stuff. Heady, heady stuff.”
“I don’t know how long we’ll be here.”
“Hmm, well, I haven’t seen your magic yet, so I can’t say if it’s a loss or not. But good magic, clear, light, good magic is rare enough, rare enough for the loss to matter.”
While they’d been talking Mery had climbed onto the stage and was carefully walking toward a group of pots that lined the left hand wall. Her hands hovered over the first pot for a moment before she picked it up. A moment later Mery held it upside down and shook it to show it was empty.
The others joined her on the raised platform. “I thought,” Mery said quietly, “that there might be some grave goods. Gems, silks, the like. So far, it’s only dust.”
“How old might this place be,” asked Alice.
Mery shrugged, and Dulrak said, “Impossible to know, but if we find any likely artifacts, an expert can tell us more.”