“Ye cannae honestly be telling me that a pillar of Heaven’s own Light came shining down to mark our way, and now ye be wanting to take it slow? Slower than the smog-touched wagon we already be riding?” Wain clapped an armored hand against the cart they were riding in for emphasis as he looked askance at his companion. “Ye cannae still be worried now, are ya Bachus? After all that business in the sky? What more could ye possibly need? We have tae hurry.”
“Care now.” Maxway said, as his leathery neck twisted near half around out of his shell to look at his passengers. Neither the enchanted cart he was driving – one that did not need a beast of burden to carry it – nor the timbre of his deep, reptilian voice straying in the slightest. He patted the wagon gently, as if reassuring it. “These boards have seen more seasons than any of us. The wood you ride, you ought not chide.”
“He is quite right, you know.” Replied the fourth passenger in a voice like the stillness of soft wind. The owlen’s face turned far past 180 degrees to look down at Wain from his perch at the front seat of the wagon where the scout sat. “Caution in parts unknown is not a swift path, but it is a safe one.”
“Gah! Dunnae turn yer head without bringing the rest of ye about, Saren! I dun told ye a hundred times that ain’t natural! Bird neck or whatever it is ye got, yer gonna break something someday.”
The fifth and six members of the group traveling through the Silent Woods said nothing. Fennekian warriors were notoriously silent amongst others not of their race, a fact that the rest of the group had come to accept in their travels. They walked alongside either side of the wagon, their armored paws disturbing not a single blade of grass as Bachus spoke once more.
“I saw the same thing you did, Wain. What ye not be realizing is that that light–” Bachus pointed in the very same direction they were traveling in, towards the frontier town they had been traveling towards for days now that had lit up like a holy beacon not two hours past. “-- must have been targeting something. If the heavens themselves are involved, and Saren spies more undead by each drop of the candle, then don’t ye think we ought be asking ourselves why?”
As if to illustrate that very point, Saren suddenly pointed sharply off to his right. His head circled halfway up, then back down again as the owlen honed in on the bearings of whatever had caught the scout’s attention.
“Two hundred meters. Behind the lunamor elm next to the grasper bush.” Saren reported, his tone uncharacteristically hard even if it still sounded like leaves rolling over a gentle breeze.
“Another boner?” Wain’s palm lifted from the edge of the wagon in the indicated direction, all fingers extended. A tightly woven beam of yellow light burst from the paladin’s hand, slamming through the tree and burning a hole straight through it. It struck one of the two skeletal warriors on the other side, melting its skull like iron slag.
“Ha-hah! Did ye see that, Bachus? Tossed that one right down its accursed gullet.” Wain barked out a laugh, loud enough that both of the fennekian guards winced. The second skeletal warrior, who had been looking around for an enemy, turned towards them at the sound. Hefting its sword and shield in a practiced motion, the undead charged their group.
It was, predictably, obliterated. Wain’s laughter echoed around the forest once more as the second undead fell, and the man’s delight at taking down the foul creature lightened his mood considerably. His companions however, did not share in his joviality.
The massive ears of both fennekian guards were raised high, the expressions on their faces disturbed. Neither had noticed the danger, and that fact unsettled them. Even if low level undead were not a threat to this particular group, their rates were dependent upon their reliability. Failure to detect nearby enemies was the type of mistake few were given the chance to make twice.
Saren’s feathery face was an expressionless mask, Bachus looked troubled, and the tortis driver they had hired, Maxway, began to slowly chant under his breath. The hymn was a common one, seeking solace for the recently departed, and its somber tones set the backdrop for a new atmosphere that slowly took over the atmosphere. One that the sudden silence of the forest matched all too well.
“Bah.” Wain scoffed, only a second later. “No prompt. Didnae get even a single point of experience for those two, either. Blasted boners are a waste of mana. What’s a man got to do to find some challenge around here?”
“Keep heading in the direction I already done told ye we be headin’.” Bachus responded with irritation in his voice. The three of them were the same rank in the order, Zealot, though Bachus was Wain’s senior by a month and Saren’s by a little over two years. A fact which both made him the leader of their little trio, and rankled Wain’s patience every time the two came into conflict over something. “We’ll keep slow, an’ we’ll keep steady. We dunnae know the native monsters in these parts, so this might be normal. If’n its not, then our first priority be makin’ sure the town and its people are alright.”
“Do you have a plan for if they are not?” Saren asked, his soft voice returning and giving the question an ominous vibe that had been, likely, unintentional. Maxway’s humming rose a notch in volume, and the Fennekian’s touched their leather chest armor in a half-circle pattern. One their people also reserved for wishing well to those who were gone.
“Hopefully.” Bachus said in a tone that was not at all hopeful. “We get ahold of whoever our friend is who parted the clouds. If they’re not around, we investigate until we find either them, or the source of the disturbance.”
Saren pointed off to the other side this time, his head silently snapping to face fully in that direction. “Two hundred and fifty meters. Between the two lunamor elms and just past the harvest sycamore. Same as before, but only one. And this one is… dripping.”
“Dripping?” Wain asked, but no further response came. The man shrugged, sidled around to that side of the wagon, and repeated his earlier ranged magical attack. Searing light bore a hole through another tree, though this time the surrounding vegetation made it hard to see what had been on the other side. The tree he’d struck shuddered, snapped into separate pieces at its new failing structural point, and began to slowly fall over.
“Did he get it?” Bachus asked, as the irritation of the two fennekians rose once more. The guardsmen shared a look, one that only Maxway caught, that made it clear both were wondering why they had even been hired for this trip if the paladins had no need of them.
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“I believe he did.” Saren reported a moment after the tree actually fell, and the two human paladins settled back into their seats as the wagon rolled unhurriedly on. “The dripping has stopped, and the bones have ceased their unnatural clatter.”
“Ruddy boners nae be worth any ruddy exp.” Wain grumbled. “Still didnae get a prompt for that. Turned the damage ones off so they’d stop buggin’ me, but now I hardly ever get anythin.”
“Calm, friend.” Bachus said, laying a hand on his irascible friend’s shoulder plate. “We can go hunting once we have solved this mystery. I dunnae think–”
Bachus trailed off, frowning, his eyes growing distant and unfocused. Wain turned towards him, confused at the sudden stop in conversation. Saren’s face snapped forward this time, only the owlen didn’t point. The fennekians drew their long, curved swords in the space of a breath, green-tinged metal clearing scabbards without so much as a whisper. Maxway’s humming abruptly stopped, as did the wagon.
“What be going on now–” Wain began, but stopped as Bachus’s deepening frown was suddenly matched by eyes widening in alarm. Alarm, and recognition.
“Out.” Bachus ordered, and the two paladins leapt out of the wagon before the word had finished echoing off the trees. The group’s leader began rapid-firing commands as his heavy two-handed broadsword seemed to flash from its sheath over his back into his ready hands. “Saren, overwatch. Guards, protect Maxway. Wain?”
“Aye?” Wain uttered, keeping his face forward as the paladin’s eyes searched the forest ahead for incoming threats. Between them, Saren’s wing-like arms glowed with a soft yellow light as the junior paladin ascended into the air with a swiftly muttered spell. Owlen could glide on their own, but with that spell Saren was nearly as fast as any of the birds normally flitting around the forest.
“Blast it to bits. I’ll go in first. Try not to melt me ass. If I can sense this thing this far out, an’ you take it down without me havin’ to get patched up later, I’ll buy ye enough rounds when we get back to float ye up the hill.”
Wain looked like he might crack a joke of his own, but before he could the Gold Spire zealot felt the twisting, foul wrongness approaching through the haze of nature mana ahead of them. The stench of death mana they had caught wisps of here and there throughout the forest was nothing compared to this. It gnawed at his gut, sparking a hateful mix of rage and disgust that Wain had always associated as his body’s natural reaction to facing a creature borne of the blighted mana.
His own ability to sense the flow of such things was not on par with Bachus’s. That was a talent few people had naturally, and Wain had never been one of them. But Gold Spire taught all of its people to recognize what was anathema to the cause, and whatever was coming for them now matched perfectly with what his long years of training had taught him.
“Seems ye finally brought me a challenge.” Wain quipped, finally shaking off the sense of dread that had accompanied sensing so much death all at once. It disturbed him that Bachus had done so faster than he had, but frontline fighters were hard to shake. “Dunnae be forgetting your oath once we’ve burned this thing into the ground. I expect to be swimming home to the missus after we return.”
“Marin would tan ye like one of her own hides if she knew ye’d been drinking without her.” Bachus pointed out as the man took point in what could loosely be called their formation amongst the stand of trees the wagon had stopped in.
“Then I suppose you’ll be buying drinks for two if’n ye don’t want her to tan yours as well.” Wain responded, keeping the banter up as they awaited their opponent.
Behind them, the Fennekian guards appeared to finally sense what was coming as well. After another shared glance they retreated back towards the wagon, having been initially unwilling to leave their charges despite the direct order. Bacchus was the client, and not ‘strictly speaking’ their boss. Maxway’s wagon had not waited for them. The turtle had either sensed the danger at the same time Bachus had, or had finally found a reason to make haste. The Fennekians, half the size of humans as they were, had to dash for the wagon to catch it as the enchanted wood could apparently move backwards faster than it could forwards.
Both paladins who had remained on the ground managed to trade only a few more well-worn lines with one another before the death creature emerged from the forest ahead. By that time, Saren was already in position, and Wain’s confidence grew with the hope that the three of them might be able to take this thing out with one of their oft-rehearsed offensive tactics.
All we be needin’ is for Bacchus to give the sign– Wain’s train of thought died alongside that same newly kindled hope as the rising sunlight light finally bore away the shadows around the creature’s appearance.
It was an abomination. An amalgamation of at least a few different people, the faces of whom were stitched together by dark threads to form its own. The dark rot of decay colored every inch of its skin, save for the muscles of its arms and legs which were the deep red of heart tissue. Its skull appeared to have ripped in several places, revealing bulging grey matter covered by matted, bloody hair and a distorted mouth that appeared to have been melted shut.
What in the name of the seeking Light is that thing? Wain wondered as the abomination strode forward.
The death creature’s right shoulder appeared to have exploded outward with overgrown, rotted tissue reinforced here and there with woven bones and more of that strange, red flesh. Wain could see more of those unnatural bone growths protruding in several places about the creature’s body, rippling about its arms and legs and making them bulge in ways only the bodies of those who dedicated every hour to exercise could. Just its appearance alone suggested the abomination should be feeling unspeakable amounts of pain – but its steady, unhurried gait suggested otherwise. Its leather-like armor was the color of shadow, and its longsword even more impossibly black. Wain recognized neither of the two materials, but that didn’t matter.
“For the Spire!” Bacchus shouted, simultaneously rallying the other two paladins and informing them which attack pattern to use.
Before the last word had even left his mouth, Bacchus activated his ‘Righteous Charge’ ability and leapt at the abomination, passing through the air with an audible cracking sound. He crossed the dozens of meters still separating them in a blink, bringing his enormous two-handed sword down in a furious overhand slash aimed to cleave the monster from top to abhorrent taint.
Wain activated his ‘Double Shot’ ability, pointing both of his open hands straight at the creature as the three-second delay ticked up the efficacy of his next spell by an additional 200%. Above, Saren was already building the owlen’s signature whirlwind. It would be timed to distract the creature just as Bachus leapt away, leaving it a hapless target for Wain’s burst of holy fire.
The shrill clash of metal-on-metal screeched through the forest, as the abomination managed to block Bachus’s overhand blow with its own dark blade. Dirt flew as the creature was pushed several feet back. Wain’s heart surged with pride over his fellow paladin’s immense might, only to fall sharply when the abomination’s blade didn’t crack. Its back didn’t bend.
Bachus’s did.
Black eyes burned in the grotesque face of the undead horror before them as it activated some unknown ability of its own, and the Gold Spire paladin-zealot facing it began to crumple backward onto his knees. Bachus’s shout of rising pain as struggled to keep his own blade from pushing back into him, as he faced an inexorable strength now far greater than his own, tore at Wain’s pounding heart.
Saren loosed a shrill, howling battle cry of his own as the wind whipping around him roared its own defiance, and the battle between the four of them finally began in earnest.