Chapter 12: A Hand of Death

The world paused, giving me just a moment to reflect about the meaty monstrosity that was about to crush us:

Ball of Meat

What the title implies, it is a ball of meat. Created by the necromancer, Fendrin, it’s primary function is to crush unwanted intruders that walk into his den. Secondarily, however, it was equipped to transform into other objects in order to, once again, crush intruders.

“Scatter!” I yelled. The moment I did, the ball rolled toward us. We all ran in different directions. It made a hard stop. Parts of it flew and hit the floor. Then it began to roll again, this time toward me directly.

Quickly, I sheathed my sword in hopes that me not clumsily carrying it would boost my speed. It did, allowing my legs to run across the floor, making feel as if I were a bullet. Even though it was foggy, I realized then just how much this Adventurer’s body was an improvement from a normal human. The hand was coming toward me faster than I could run and I was coming up to the wall of the room. I felt the feeling of déjà vu wash over me.

Just before I hit the wall, I leaped to the side. I expected it to slam into it and send all of its parts all over the floor like it had before. But instead, it made a sudden stop that would've caused whiplash to any living thing. But this thing wasn't made of anything alive.

The meat within the ball suddenly contracted and the entire thing shrunk just a fraction before expanding back to its normal size. Like a pulse, like it was sensing where I was. But if it was made of the dead, how could it do that? How did any of these dead creatures do any of what they did?

Are they alive?

I had the sinking feeling that I knew the answer to that. It was necromancy, why wouldn’t it be alive once more?

But how?

I didn’t have time to seek that answer, though, as the ball began to roll in my direction once again and I ran as fast as I could. But I knew there was no way I was getting out of this this time, it was going to crush me. It was too fast and I couldn't outmaneuver it.

Just then, I saw Finn appear beside me. He stopped running and just as the ball began to go past him, he threw a dagger at the ball of flesh.

As soon as the daggers made contact, the entire ball lost its form, becoming a blob of meat. Finn ran from it in the opposite direction of me. I didn't know what the mass of meat was doing but I didn't think it was quite over yet.

I was right.

The mass came back together, continuing to force its way to me as it did so, though slower than before. It was forming into a strange structure that I couldn't quite understand until it was done. It was a hand. If a hand was made out of blackened, rotting meat. Now that it was fully formed in its new shape, it took off toward me. The hand was even quicker than the ball and the way it moved reminded me of a spider.

I forced my eyes from the creature as if it would help me get away from it. It was no use as I felt a crushing weight of one of its fingers slammed into the back of me and my feet left the ground. I soared through the air and in that instant, I had a fractured memory of watching this happen to someone else before. They had tucked and rolled. They had been fine, hell, they walked away from it like it never happened. I tried to do the same. If I was lucky I'd walk away too.

I wasn't lucky. My foot caught the stone floor and I felt the world stop dead as the rest of me was tail whipped into the hard stone. Pain shot through my body as something snapped and my head connected to the ground. Just as it did, my vision went black.

It felt like an instant when it came back but it couldn't have been because when I opened my eyes, I saw the creature was right atop of me. I was on my side and I flopped onto my back. I watched as its creepy imitation of an index finger raised into the air. At least a dozen arrows were sticking out of it from all over but it didn't seem perturbed by it.

I squeezed my eyes in anticipation and went to roll to my side in a desperate form of escape. My body hadn't even started the motion when the wind was knocked out of me as the finger smashed into my chest. More snaps, I wheezed and I felt my own spittle land on my face. I tried to take in a breath and pain seared through my chest.

But I was still alive.

I opened my eyes and saw the index finger raise back up as it prepared to hit me again. Gronan appeared beside the creature and went to take a swing but another finger shot out and hit him in the chest and he flew out of my field of view. Tears began to form in my eyes, making everything blurry. Everything throbbed with pain and I felt like my entire body was on fire.

The index finger shot back down but just before it did, I felt my body temperature quadruple and my pain become unbearable. Just as before in the goblin's den, I felt my chest explode outward as a streak of energy shot through the finger. The hand reared back and where the finger had been was now smoke and ash. There was a loud buzzing that shook the very room. It was coming from the creature. It was screaming.

As quickly as it had been upon me, it was gone. I could see its blurred image as it moved toward Finn who was on the other side of the room by the wall. There was a lit torch on the wall just a few feet from him.

An idea came to me then. The beam that came from me was made of intense heat. Theoretically, there might’ve been a chance that it was weak to fire. I tried to yell but it came out as a whisper, I couldn't breathe much less talk. But I had to, the thing was already so close to him. With every bit of strength I had, I managed to gasp, “Fire hurts it!” The words felt like lava as they came off my tongue, I laid my head on the stone ground, hoping the pain saved Finn.

The meat-hand was already to Finn. He dodged it but the creature once again didn't hit the wall, instead, it crawled up it and pivoted back in Finn's direction. Finn grabbed the torch and just as the creature was almost to him again, he threw it. It landed on the creature and the entire thing went alight in flame.

It let out another one of its buzzing screams and I felt my insides shake from it. I gritted my teeth and continued to stare at the monster as it backed away, flailing this way and that to get away from the flames. But it was useless, the flames just got bigger.

It backed itself into a corner, its buzzing scream getting louder and louder until it reached its peak. And then the entire creature went limp, crashing to the ground. The scream died away and as they did, the congealed meat that this thing was made out of began to dissolve into a black, oozing liquid until there was only the liquid to show as evidence of the monster ever existing.

The only sound in the room was everyone's deep, ragged breathing as we stared at where the monster had once been. “Did- did we do it?” Hazel asked at last.

I closed my eyes, feeling pieces of me beginning to mend themselves back together. "You asked that earlier," I said raspily.

I heard Gronan speak, "I think this time, we really did."

Just then, a hand touched my chest. “You got it pretty rough,” It was Gronan. “Quite a few broken bones, a pierced lung, and three slipped discs in your back. Though, your healing power is already taking care of a lot of it. I'll help,” His hand grew comfortably warm and began to glow a bright yellow.

This must be how a balloon feels like, I thought as the air was forced into my pierced lung before the hole closed. The pain in my chest began to subside and it felt like things were crawling just under the surface of my chest. It felt weird and awful, but I could deal with it if it meant the pain would go away.

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I could breathe now and when I cleared my throat, I noticed it didn't hurt when I spoke. “Thank you."

“It's my duty to heal people,” He said with a smile. He was on one knee with a hand still on my chest and the other on the hilt of his battle-ax which he had the blade end on the ground and he used it to prop himself up. He had only been hit once but he had several scrapes on his face and arms and looked tired. He leaned a shoulder against his battle ax and then put a hand to his chest. “You should be completely healed now.”

I nodded. He was right, I almost felt better than I had before this fight. Though, I was a lot more tired than before just like how it had been during the goblin fight. And much like that fight, I watched as Gronan's hand began to glow a bright yellow and his scrapes began to close. The blood that soaked his shirt was pulled out and even the puddle on the ground slunk toward him before going up his leg to his chest where the octopus-like creature had pierced his chest. He looked as if he had never been in a fight in his life. Other than the raggedy hole now torn in the center of his shirt.

“Why do I have to keep the scars?” I asked, a bit angry that I had to go around looking like a war veteran while Gronan looked like he had never left his house.

“Your healing power is not a holy ability is my best guess,” Gronan shrugged.

I got to my feet and found myself dizzy and had to take a step back to keep myself upright. "Well, guess I couldn't get that lucky then."

“I'd say you got pretty lucky,” Finn said as he looked over the monster to see if there was anything to possibly loot. “You can heal yourself. Not many people can do that. We have to get someone like Gronan to heal us or buy an expensive health potion,” He kicked the puddle. “This guy has nothing.”

Gronan came from behind Finn and put a healing hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, we'll have plenty more enemies to loot in the future."

Finn huffed as the wound in his back closed up.

“Let us go through the next door,” Hazel said as she notched an arrow and walked toward the exit.

“What if there's another whatever that thing was?” Finn asked.

She gave the dark pool on the ground the monster had melted into a long look. “Then I suppose we will just have to take it on,” She put a hand on the doorknob. “Are you doing okay, you two?”

“Good as ever,” Gronan said.

“Me too,” I agreed. “Though, I still wish this world had coffee.”

“Good,” She said and ignored my remark. She looked at her hand on the doorknob, weighing her options. She let out a sigh, “Let us go then,” She swung the door all the way open, holding her readied bow out. “Oh, Goddess,” She said breathily, putting her bow up as she took several steps back, her face green.

“What's wrong?” Finn asked as we ran to her. He made it to her first, putting a hand on her shoulder. She pointed into the room and we all peered inside. Along the floor were old body parts: talons, tails, fingers, eyes, legs...

I felt my body shudder as I stared inside, finding new details everywhere I looked. I couldn't help myself, as much as I wanted to stay out, my legs took me inside. I checked the corners to make sure there were no enemies and wished I had found one instead of what I did find. In one corner of the room was a hand. This whole time, I had thought that Fendrin was just getting all of these parts from creatures he encountered and grave sites. But that hand. It held a piece of paper in it. It was a drawing. A drawing of four stick figures. Two tall ones and two shorter ones. On the top of it was written: 'My Happy Family'.

“I'm gonna-” Finn put a hand to his mouth. “I'll wait out here.”

Hazel stared wide-eyed at the scene. “M- me too.”

The two of them turned away from the site and walked to the other side of the room.

“This, this is...” Gronan trailed off as he strapped his battle ax onto his belt loop and walked inside. “By Goddess.”

I looked at the table at the end of the room. It was the only form of furniture here. On it was a pile of crumpled balls of paper in the corner, several pages scattered here and there, and two books in the center of it all.

I went to the desk and looked at the books. One had a leathery-looking cover with a word made out of weird symbols that I found easy to understand. Necronomicon. But how could I recognize the word? I realized it then, this was the written form of the language I had been speaking when I arrived in this world.

I opened the book. There were diagrams of rituals, names of different ways of reanimating the dead, different forms the dead can take, and anything else someone might want to know about necromancy. I put my thumb against the pages and began to let the pages flow past quickly. I stopped on a random page. At least I thought it was random until I looked at the page and read:

Mental Fortitude:

While it may be the case that necromancy reanimates the dead, this reanimation requires the use of putting a soul within. Most of the time this requires a docile soul but that is not a requirement.

If one puts inside a corpse a more intelligent soul, it will have more abilities at hand and in some cases can even hold within the powers of the intelligent being, not that of the corpse itself.

To expound upon this, putting an intelligent soul into an intelligent soul can result in exceptional results. This becomes exponential if one uses a separate intelligent species as the corpse than the soul that resides within.

Good god, I thought. I was right, they are alive.

I wished then that I hadn't snooped inside this damn book, sometimes ignorance was bliss. I closed the book and picked it up. It was heavy, yet it felt like there was something heavier attached to it. As if it pulled on my soul.

I handed it to Gronan. “Can you hold on to this? We can show this to the guards, it's solid evidence.”

Gronan nodded, his eyes serious and his skin looking more wrinkled than normal. He seemed more drained than even when he had been wounded. Like this room weighed on him. I felt it too. This room felt so wrong. Like I had just walked in on a serial killer's base. Which, I guess I kind of did. But there was something else here, something so much darker than I could ever imagine.

I turned back around and opened the other book. It was red and wasn't as well put together as the Necronomicon and didn't have a title to it. Hopefully, this one didn't hold as dark of secrets within.

The first page had a scribbled date:

1-37-5129.

Is this their year?

I went to the next page and read the first part of it:

This will be my diary that will detail my further discoveries of the 'unholy' art of necromancy. I found a Necronomicon only a few weeks ago. I had been scrounging to find one for many months and found an old hag with one in the forest one day. I killed her and took the book from her. I'm sure it holds the secrets that I wish to discover, it must.

I flipped the page:

1-38-5129:

This book holds so many secrets, so much power! I have read over it and a few spells stand out above the rest. One of which is the one I was hoping to find. Coffinatious. To transfer my own soul into another. If I can use that power and manifest a beast I will be truly unstoppable, especially with the help of Mental Fortitude.

Did he do it?

No, of course not. He's still just a man.

I put my thumb against the side of the book and began to quickly go through the pages until the ink-writing stopped. I looked at the last entry:

25-1-5131:

I'm so close. I know I am. But there has been a new development, there was a burst of energy not too far from here last night. I felt it like a massive wave crashing down on top of me. It wasn't unholy, but it wasn't holy either. It was something else, something so much bigger. I have to hurry, even with how close I am I may not finish in time. The end times are coming, I know it. I have to finish this work or I will not survive it. I will be dragged under the waves.

At that moment, I nearly told them about my first day on that beach. But instead, I kept it to myself.

“Can you take this one too?” I asked.

Gronan did so and put both books into his backpack.

I looked around for anything else of note but only found more mangled body parts. I couldn't stay here for much longer. “Let's get out of this room.”

Gronan let out a thankful breath and led the way outside. The siblings were leaning against the stone walls. “Did you find anything?” Finn asked.

I nodded, “Fendrin’s trying to make himself into some sort of ultimate being using necromancy.”

The room hung in silence for a long moment as what I had just said clicked through everyone’s mind.

“We have to stop him,” Gronan said gravely.

“We will. With the help of his books, we’ll be able to expose him for exactly what he is.”

“Then let us waste no more time,” Hazel said. “We shall go to the guard station and show the captain our evidence.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said. “This place is creepy as hell, let's get out of this necrocave.”