In a large complex of big halls many groups of people sat together at big tables filled to the brim with food and beverage, laughing, eating, drinking, dancing and telling each other their life stories, earning loud laughter from the listeners once in awhile.

One of these groups consisting of 13 individuals was merrily sitting together, listening to a new story teller, and how it began for him.

“I was part of a small group of Bandits, just sitting in the woods, and then once every couple weeks raiding a caravan, we didn’t need much and we had even less, but we enjoyed every day to the fullest. I was part of the first attack line, meaning those who circled around a caravan, and with their big armors held back the guards, so our archers could take them all out. I can proudly say, that I even owned a steel helmet, and a steel mace which both served me well as you’ll hear later on.

Well I guess it’s best to continue with the actual story when we first met them, a group of necromancers, 7 in total. We thought they were just normal easy prey, but we quickly found out what they could do. Believe me when I say that you don’t want to experience half rotten corpses suddenly standing up and attacking you…

After some light fighting, we came to the conclusion that the prey was too big for us, and luckily they even wanted to hire us, just to have some more guards they said…

Well, they promised quite a good pay, so our leader accepted, with that all 17 of our little bandit group were guards for the necromancers.

We travelled north, into the mountains, our target an old tomb from some ancient local chieftain. We arrived after two days of travel, and one attack from wolves, that we quickly fended off though.

The entrance was locked somehow, and because we were not able to break the door open due to some weird magic protection, the head necromancer conjured some sort of flame ball, that literally melted the iron door. I have never seen such a thing, but heard that the mages in their little college could do things similar to this…

As soon as the doors were down, we poured into the tomb. The Heavy troops first, archers after them, then the necromancers. We already went into one or two of such tombs in the past, so we had a bit experience in securing such areas. Well, guess what happened next, the bodies of the dead actually started moving, stood up and attacked us.

Although we reacted a bit panicked at first and made some slight mistakes, earing us some light wounds, we were able to quickly subdue them and advance further into the room.

I think I didn’t mention it yet, but it was one big room, with many coffins lying all around. From some of those coffins bodies rose and attacked us, from others not. We had no way to distinguish from which coffin to expect an enemy, so we just opened them all and caved in their skulls quickly with a mace. Sometimes it got a little dangerous because the inhabitant struggled against our well meant effort to lay them to sleep again, but we were able to clear the whole room without any casualties.

We decided to take the room as a base for the next operations, as we assumed that the clearing of the tomb would take a week at least. We took all the coffins and put them to the end of the room, were another big iron door that was sealed stood. In front of it, we used the coffins to build a low wall, so in case anything got out there, we would be able to defend easily. I have to say that only the warriors of us took part in the building stuff, the mages just lazed around or were reading some books.

After we finished making the barricades, we setup our camp, and began taking care of our weapons and armor. The boss talked a bit with the mages to see how we would continue with the operation, and it seems they didn’t really think much of us as they didn’t even listen to what he suggested to implement into the operation.

As night came, the tomb cooled down even more than it was already. The air got heavier and because of some mysterious reason nobody made a sound anymore…

Well, actually nothing happened that night, but still we were all very tense in that very first night…

The next morning we took our equipment as we didn’t wear it all the time of course… try running around with a steel helmet all day and you’ll have a headache pretty quickly.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

We took our standard formation and the head mage fired his magic again, melting the door in the process. We continued with our exploration, finding the living dead in nearly every chamber, and of course sending them back to sleep all the time. After some explorations and multiple splits of our way, we found a dead end in form of a room with only this one entrance.

The room was actually clear of any undead, so because it was only slightly into the afternoon, we decided to take all the corpses and store them here, so in case of an emergency, they wouldn’t lie in the way, resulting in a possible really bad outcome.

Also, we didn’t trust the necromancers, with all the dead bodies laying around, they should be able to raise their own little army, and we would be useless. Well not really useless, we are able to build camps and stuff, while the undead can only attack, but still, we would lose another important negotiation factor for the end sum of money we would receive for our help.

After dumping the last body into the room, we began walking back to the first room, where we had our camp. Sadly we were sort of inaccurate with the cleaning out of all the rooms, because suddenly the boss fell down, with an arrow through the head. We missed an entire corridor, with many undead that now attacked us. Why they didn’t attack before, I have no idea…

We weren’t prepared, we slacked off too much, we weren’t even equipped properly, resulting in us losing another four men, before we were able to subdue those sneaky undeads.

To be honest I was sure to have seen the end of the room the undead had their abush from already… so that would mean we had cleared the room… but how did those undead manage to come in there, I had no idea…

After tending to our wounds, and everyone of had at least a couple cuts, some even broken limbs, we continued with our way back to the base camp.

Where we were promptly greeted with all the undead we slayed in that room standing in front of us arms at the ready. One of the mages just laughed at our stupidity, even asking us if we liked their little ambush previously… Well, of course we fought those undeads, not like we would just submit, we had something like a code of honor too, you know?

But as everyone could expect, wounded bandits without their boss don’t fight very well, so we died one after another, until there were only four of us left.

The head necromancer made some sort of magic ritual while we were fighting for our lives, and now he finished it, engulfing the remaining few of or once big bandit crew in a sinister aura. I’m not sure what he did, but after the aura faded we had to listen to his orders to some extend, still being able to control our bodies, but our focus lied only in pleasing the wishes and orders of this guy. Who did not really have a use for us, besides guarding the entrance of the tomb complex.

So the remaining four of us and the mage who laughed so stupidly when we entered the chamber went out of the tomb and we had to build up another base camp while he was just lazing around. I wonder how they actually grow stronger, they just laze around all the time…

So we started chopping down bushes and smaller trees, using them for firewood. Then the bigger trees that were used to build a small watchtower and a little living space beneath. Of course that was for the mage, we were not allowed to enter the room.

Next we had to start fortifying the entrance, that in case someone attacks, we’d have an easier time defending. No we didn’t build a wall, or even a palisade, we just used simple wooden spike walls, they are effective and easy to make.

We guarded the entrance for a week, then the necromancer got bored and decides to use us  as playthings for his sick hobbies to pass time faster. He mostly used knifes, but sometimes also magic to alter the appearance of our bodies.

After one of my comrades died due to the torture, the curse or whatever that magic thing was  that controlled us somehow faded, not entirely, but it got weaker so we had moments when we were able to operate only through our own will. Although we weren’t quite sure if it was just a new way for the mage to amuse himself, watching us while we got our hopes up.

Well, I think he didn’t know about that binding on our minds weakening, because in such a period, where we were able to control our bodies.  The necromancer again decided to use us for his sick hobbies.

The remaining three of us had enough of his shit, so we stood up, took whatever was currently available and started attacking him.

To be honest it was a messy battle, he was shocked at first, but quickly started using his weird magic while trying to get as much distance as possible in between us. Then flames started coming from his hands, they engulfed us, burned our skin. We ran through it, either we take this chance or we will be slaves for the rest of our lives. That’s not an option to take as a bandit, that is used to strolling through the forests and hills.

We were able to keep up with the mage, although one of our guys went down in the process.

Then the smashing began, just mindlessly trying to get him into mincemeat.

Although we were able to bring him down, he put some sort of curse at all of us, that quickly whittled away on our lives. So we just all died outside of the entrance maybe getting eaten by a random beast passing by…. Maybe getting used in necromantic rituals later on, I don’t know and I don’t really care...

In the end the entrance wasn’t guarded anymore, and none of the mages inside the tomb were aware of that fact.”

The group surrounding the speaker listened eagerly to his talks. It was rare to have a bandit in the halls of eternal honor, only those who truly lived and died while standing strong on the code of honor were able to enter the halls. Needless to say that not many bandits have such a code of honor… most of them don’t even know how to spell it correctly…

In the end he got many congratulations for now being a part of the army to guard the living world in the last battle against the chaos. No matter what profession you had before, if you are honorable, then you will be part of this group.

As such the endless evening of drinking, dancing and singing continues. And of course the next story will be told soon, at the moment a new soul enters the eternal hall of heroes.

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Just a random story I came up with, hope you liked it. If you found any inconstistencies/grammar errors/fails on my part, please tell me in the comments^^