Ghost rushed down the hill, sword in one hand and wand in the other. He spotted Juno in front of Zola, wand drawn as their collective summons fought off a horde of zombie soldiers.
“Down you go!” Ghost said as he cut the first zombie away. He spun and relinquished control to Alistair, who was able to blast a pair of particularly nasty zombies with axes using Nova Strike.
“Bro!” Juno said, as the zombie’s torsos were torn in two by Alistair’s attack.
Rather than reply, Ghost took over again and sent his sword in a sweeping pattern that managed to keep some of the zombies at bay.
Caidan, who had been fighting up the majority of them, was relieved for Lionel to appear, the Abyssal summon able to disappear several of the zombie warriors using shadowy portals. Limbs flew, adding to the pandemonium as Dreadwell’s undead forces continued to take a serious beating.
Yet it was clear how they could be useful, especially if they made it across the border. They were mindless, fearless, and hell-bent on reaching their targets. Released into a city and it would be utter chaos.
“Zola,” Alistair said as he reached the girl, who was nursing her knee. “Are you—?”
“Alistair, I’m fine, just…” Her pants were torn, and covered in blood. Alistair saw a bit of bone. He assumed she had been struck by a blunt object that was perhaps barbed, something sharp enough to cut through fabric and break skin. “Well, not fine. But I’m hanging in there. You can do something, right?”
“I got this,” he told her as Juno got in front of them.
“Fuck these zombies!” Juno said as he pointed his wand at the swarm.
Zapp!
Rawwwwrrrgh!
Not far from them, Zola’s Runestone Onikuma charged through a mass of zombie warriors. It flung one of them into the air, where Yomini torched it to a crisp. Zola’s two summons, strong as they were, would soon be overwhelmed by the horde of undead if they didn’t do something about the zombies soon…
Alistair finished healing Zola using Touch of Grace. “Did you do it?” she asked, her wand aimed at something just behind him. “Alistair,” she said as he looked away.
Zapp!
Zola exploded the head of one of the zombies. “Well?” she asked again.
“It’s done,” he told her. “Kang is dead. I just need to get to Dreadwell.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Caidan asked. “If we don’t do something now, we will be forced to face even more of them.”
Ghost spoke for Alistair: “You all leave. I have it from here. Caidan, take them back to—”
“Hell no,” Juno said. “We’re doing this with you! We didn’t come all this way to sit it out.”
“What about the dungeon core card?” Zola asked. “Are you seriously going to set that up? I thought we said—”
“You’re right. You set it up,” Ghost told her.
Alistair: You seriously aren’t going to argue with them? They don’t need to be part of this any longer, Ghost. It’s going to get dangerous. I can set up the card. It didn’t seem that hard. You and I—
Ghost: We don’t have time to argue. If I tell them they can’t come, they will simply figure out a way to sneak back into the fray. Caidan knows her role.
Alistair: Her role?
Ghost: She won’t let them die. That’s what I’m saying. I don’t trust her, but I trust Senka and… I don’t need to explain myself right now!
Alistair: We literally rushed over here to find Zola bleeding out. She could have died.
Ghost: That may be the case, but it was just a flesh wound. I can see that. Caidan would see that as well. Listen to me. Use Mistmeld again, let’s obscure our advance. Be ready, Alistair, ready for it all. And no arguing.
Alistair used his wand to bring a mist back over the battle. “Lead us to the main tent,” he told Caidan, who naturally took charge, the three students able to track her even if she had a way of slipping in and out of the shadows. Alistair had seen her do this on the trek over, the Dracolich witch blinking in and out of reality using a relic.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
They encountered numerous opponents along the way, but the undead didn’t stand a chance with all of their summons, and the way that Caidan navigated the mist. She stopped, and motioned to something beyond. “There!” Alistair’s vision was hazy at first, but then he saw it, the tent in question, this one nearly the size of a two-story building.
While Juno stood guard, occasionally firing off into the mist, Alistair turned to Zola. “It’s your turn.”
“And you think you can lead him here?”
“I’m certain of it,” Alistair told her, repeating Ghost’s words.
Zola didn’t hesitate. She accessed the card, which sparked for a moment before forming into an orb that hovered above the palm of her hand. As slowly as possible, she lowered to one knee and pressed the core into ground.
A stairwell appeared.
“We have it from here,” Juno said, who continued to fire his wand whenever Caidan missed one of the zombies with her blade. “Head down, Zola.”
Zola took a step down into the new dimension she had just created with the dungeon core card. She looked back up to Alistair and motioned for him to follow.
He caught up with her, his head down just as she instructed. According to what Zola had read in the book by Tarnis and their discussion with him, dungeons couldn’t be created by two people at once. There had to be a sole creator, and because she was the one who had invoked the card, that creator needed to be her. Alistair was instructed to only look up when she reached that point, the point that the dungeon was finished.
He stared at his feet as they came onto a solid platform, one made of a translucent material. Beyond, stars. Beyond a vast scattering of manner that soon became out of reach is the floor hardened.
“You can look up now,” Zola told Alistair.
He did just that to see the girl standing before him, the core now morphed into a cube, one that hovered over the palm of her hand. It flashed into card form, and she pressed it back into her chest.
She spoke again: “Once he’s in, I will seal the location by destroying the dungeon core card.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Good,” Alistair said as he glanced around the minuscule dungeon, which was no larger than a cellar. The space wasn’t meant to contain long passages, nor was it meant to contain treasure. It would simply be a placement to hold someone until they died of natural causes, and then a place to prevent their card from escaping.
“Alistair, one last thing,” she said as he turned back to the stairs leading up. “I want you to be honest with me.”
“About what?”
“Ghost. He’s not just your former master, is he?”
“Come again—”
Zola steadied her gaze on him. “You’re sharing a body with him through the Card of Rebirth, aren’t you?”
Alistair gulped.
“I won’t tell Juno, but he may find out anyway if we have to come clean about what happened here. You know, our future meeting with the Provost and his father that you proposed. Alistair, we have come this far. No more lies.”
Once again, he hesitated.
Ghost: I can tell her.
Alistair: By all means.
“Listen, Zola,” Ghost said as he took full control over their shared body, “there is a lot that you can ask Alistair about me later. What you need to know for now is that yes, you are correct, I am a reborn assassin, a former member of the Unknown Souls, one who was unjustly killed by several people plotting against the Dawncrest Kingdom, all of whom are now dead aside from Dreadwell.”
“I knew it!” she said, Zola less freaked out than she should have been. “I don’t understand the relationship there, either.”
Ghost glanced back up to the opening at the top of the stairs, where Juno, Caidan, and their summons continued to hold back Dreadwell’s undead forces. “This is going to sound crazy, but I was ordered to take Professor Dreadwell out a long time ago, when you would have just been a little girl. I did so, and I received the Card of Rebirth. This meant that he was reborn, and once I died, same for me. And, I suppose now, everything he is doing, including ordering my death, is part of his revenge. But it gets more complicated than that. Regardless of what you may see or hear on campus, I was ordered to kill him by Solarian authorities. They were onto the illegal things he was attempting to do. It was as sanctioned as a murder could be. And now, I suppose I am finishing the job.”
“And then? If you actually do this?”
“And then. That’s all I’m here to do. Don’t worry about that part. Now that the dungeon is set, just worry about maintaining it until I can return with Dreadwell. At that point, focus on getting across the border and taking a carriage back to Lumina, avoiding Solaria entirely just in case Kanda is feeling nasty. And finally, my last point, do the best that you can in your Fledgling year and beyond. Because you have a bright future ahead of you. I mean that. I tell Alistair every chance I get.”
Juno called down to them. “Is everything set? We are getting a lot of activity up here!”
“I was like you, you know,” Ghost told her quickly, “an orphan. That makes us similar in a way. I get the struggle, and I see in you the drive and the desire to do something with this opportunity. Same with Alistair. If we pull this off, the two of you will have proven yourself to not only the academy, but the entire kingdom. Never forget that. I mean it, Zola, never forget how much you sacrificed here, and what it will mean to a lot of people, people whom you will never meet. That part doesn’t matter. Getting to the end of this, does. Alistair? Back me up.”
“Everything he said was true,” Alistair told her. “At least about his origin, and rebirth.”
Zola eyed him for a moment and finally nodded. “Fine. but you have some explaining to do later. Doesn’t need to be anytime soon, but I want to know all of it. Are we clear?”
Alistair nodded. “Sure.”