“This is not worth the money.” Jerald said again, and Harkin almost hit him full in the mouth for it. “We’re better than this.”

“We’re not better than this.” Malis pointed out flatly, her frustration as evident as her suffering in the twisted expression she held while trying to speak without breathing in too much. “That’s the point.”

“Surely the guild will recognize–” Jerald began again, but he was quickly cut off by their point man, Harkin, whirling on the smaller man and pointing at each of the group’s filth-drenched boots in turn as if unable to contain his incredulity.

“No, they won’t! You really think we would be down ‘ere, sloshin’ about in all this diseased muck–” Harkin said through gritted teeth. The hours they had spent down here in these blasted, twisting tunnels finally getting to the lizardkin. “-- if we didn’t have to be!?”

Before Jerald could bluster out another response, Malis spoke over him. Harkin was grateful for that, having the more sensitive nose out of all three of them. Jerald had been the only one amongst them who had paid out of pocket for a salve to block the odors down here from assaulting his nose, and the would-be adventurer had spent the last hour reminding them all of that fact as he complained. Only he could speak and breathe freely down here, as the cost of the salve had been prohibitive on their combined budget, limited as it was.

“Dawn’s Rise isn’t going to let us finish our initiation quest with half the marks we were sent down here for.” Malis said, hitching the buckler in her left hand up so she could plug her nose as she spoke. She pointed at the dripping, patchwork leather bag Harkin had slung over one shoulder, its bottom half a deep, dark red even in the faint glow of the blue fire lantern mote Jerald was holding. “We came down here for forty rats, we’ve got thirty tails as proof. Ten more to go.”

Jerald heaved a dramatic, exasperated sigh, and Harkin was irrationally certain now that the wealthy merchant’s son was purposefully taking in larger breaths just to irritate him. Instead of wasting more time quarreling however, Harkin glared at the brat in front of him for a second longer before abruptly turning back towards the direction their group had been heading in for the last hour. This was their fifth interaction like this since finding and slaying the last sewer rat, and Jerald’s patience was obviously running thin. As it was for them all.

If I don’t kill ‘im before we get back, it’ll be proof enough for the guild that I should be the one in charge here. Harkin thought as he trudged– or rather, sloshed– forward in the miserable, damnable stink and rot all around them. Just because his dad paid for all three of us, doesn’t mean I owe ‘im anything after this is done.

That wasn’t entirely true. Harkin and Malis were both technically kitted out in rented gear. Gear they would have to return to the Brunswick merchant when they dropped his less-than-useless son back on his doorstep after this… but that was a price Harkin was now more than happy to pay.

What’s the point of being on a team, if you’re still doing all the work?

Ridding these sewers of rats had been their first actual, assigned mission. Left unchecked, the filth would eventually evolve into vermin capable of threatening normal chumps when they came up through city grates to scrounge for scraps. Not that Harkin particularly cared about them. They had never done much for him, after all. He knew Malis happened to feel much the same.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. One particularly unlucky chump had lost a leg to a rotneck variant just the week before. It was only after that incident, amusingly enough, that the guild officials had stepped in. Sending in teams of new recruits to do the dirty work their more experienced members weren’t interested in accepting. So, in a roundabout way, the chumps of this city Harkin promised himself he would one-day leave behind had actually managed to help him.

“If we’re not leaving, then how far is it to the next trap?” Jerald asked, his voice echoing down the tunnels in a way that made even Malis want to hit him. “That bait wasn’t cheap, you know.”

“Cheaper than your damn mother.” Malis muttered at a volume only Harkin could hear before gagging on the unholy smell wafting down the tunnel off to their left. “Ugh, I hate this place.

“The trap–” Jerald started, as his other two party members deliberately continued past the nearly physical rank emanating from further down the passageway.

“We’re skippin’ it.” Harkin rumbled, heading for the next trap further down. The air was less repugnant further down for some reason, and while he didn’t know why, he didn’t need to. Just that fact alone was reason enough for him. “Unless you want to check it yourself?”

Malis kept walking behind Harkin, making her point on that particular issue clear. Jerald may have been holding the lantern, but each of them had one. They weren’t reliant on just his light to see.

Jerald took one look at the flickering shadows dancing at the edge of the mote’s light before shaking his head and following along. Willing to grumble he may be, but even he had the sense not to wander down these tunnels by himself. Leather armor only did so much down here, and they had encountered several rats with an ‘acid bite’ ability that had partially melted through more than one layer of his defense.

“On-on the way back then.” Jerald said, as if trying to reassure himself that he was in control of the situation. Ahead of him, Harkin rolled his eyes.

Malis was about to make a comment of her own, willing to speak up more now that her nose was becoming numb to the stench down here, when suddenly the lizardkin in front of her froze.

“What is it?” She asked, suddenly alert. Malis glanced around, as did Jerald, but neither of them could see much past the larger humanoid’s scaly frame. The sewer’s tunnels were wide, eight feet in diameter, and built to last with techniques she didn’t know. But that didn’t mean they were spacious when it came to fights. “Did you hear something?”

“Another rat?” Jerald asked, hopefully. “A nest?”

Harkin’s head tilted to the side, as it often did when he was trying to track something.

“Yes… and no.” The lizardkin frowned, unable to make sense of what his ears were telling him. “There’s a few, but I think they’re fighting– no, fleeing from something. On your guard!”

The trio immediately took ready stances… or at least, tried to.

Harkin braced himself with his spear pointed forward. Malis shifted her right wrist, a throwing dagger sprouting into the ready position between her fingers even as she lifted her buckler. Jerald…

… Jerald tripped, falling with a truly disgusting splash into the ankle-deep sludge they had been traveling in. He managed to stave off disaster with only one arm, but Malis imagined even the pleasure houses wouldn’t be admitting him tonight. No matter how much soap the young man used.

Ahead, even more splashing made its way towards them. Alongside the sounds of several rats shrieking in fear. In the flickering blue mote-light of the lanterns, it was hard not to see imagined horrors hot on the rats’ heels. But even so, the three would-be adventurers held fast. Jerald even managed to get himself upright and poised with his bone-sling in one brown-slick hand.

What followed as the giant rats emerged from the dark could hardly be called a fight. The sewer rats, each measuring up to Jerald’s knees in height and half again that in width, didn’t even try to attack. Instead the vermin tried to dart past their party. One even managed to make it past their line, which caused each of them to curse and begin mentally blaming the others for their incompetence. None of them were looking forward to having to hunt that one down, as its harried splashing continued to grow more distance.

Even so, the trio didn’t leave their positions. Because now, even Jerald could hear the rhythmic, and distinctly not rat-like splashing of something new coming down the tunnel. Something with a shape that, in the dim light afforded by their cheap lanterns, looked vaguely humanoid. Only as it approached, that assumption fell to pieces.

“Un-undead!” Jerald shouted, as if any one of them couldn’t already hear him at a whisper thanks to the inadvertently sound-magnifying structure they were in. He shot a pebble at it, and there was a rising air of command and confidence as the small projectile struck center-true. “Back, foul creature! Back to the depths from which you came!”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

The foul creature in question stopped short in the tunnel as Jerald’s blow landed. Its hulking, pure white frame crossed everywhere with vein-like growths of deep crimson now fully in view for all to see. Harkin felt his pulse quicken at the sight of it, though not so much as when the creature spoke.

In the gurgling bellow of a nightmare given unlife, the undead’s hate-filled voice reverberated off the sides of the tunnel to a painfully magnified volume around the three would-be adventurers.

“Hey, those were ours!” The undead shouted at them, indignation hot in its tone. “Give them back!”

Harkin blinked, momentarily at a loss for words. Malis’ jaw dropped open as if she couldn’t tell whether to laugh or respond. Jerald, meanwhile, had grown red in the face. Fear quickening his tongue even as the man’s own indignant rage spilled over.

“We most certainly will not!” Jerald said, loading another pebble into his sling and hurling it at the undead once more only for it to bounce off the towering creature’s impressively thick shoulder. “Those were our kills! We have a quest, and we’re going to see it through! Now back, I say! Back! Before I–”

Something terribly akin to laughter bubbled up from within the undead’s roiling, crimson stomach, and Harkin felt the blood in his veins turn to ice. His mouth went suddenly dry as the amused, mocking interruption cut his companion off mid-rant. The lizardkin was no fool– he had studied the manuals they had been given. He knew how to recognize dozens of types of undead by sight alone.

He didn’t recognize this one, and that scared him.

“Malis, maybe we leave this one be.” Harkin whispered, just as the undead ceased its harsh cackling. Its skull, filled with a nightmarish pair of burning orbs, shifted its focus to stare at him as the undead began to speak once more.

“Before you what?” The undead asked with a sort of vicious glee. “Throw another rock at us? We were chasing those rats long before you were, meat-sack. And while I may be willing to share some with you for stopping them, you can’t just claim all the credit.”

“Should we see if it’ll let us just keep the tails?” Malis whispered back to Harkin, clearly just as unwilling to engage this creature as he was. “That’s all we need for proof anyway, maybe that’s not the worst–”

“Share? Share?!” Jerald said, his voice rising with ever more incredulity at the thought. He loaded another rock into his sling, twirling it faster than ever before. “We will not be sharing our rightfully-earned spoils with a monster!”

Harkin wasn’t particularly keen on that idea either, but the towering undead standing before them was clearly a different caliber of opponent than the ones they had been fighting in the sewers all night. Its burning orbs remained trained on him, and Harkin didn’t like the look it was giving him. Because while those weren’t eyes in its disturbingly clean white sockets, he had seen that look before.

The gaze of a predator. Harkin readied his spear, adjusting it for a charge as he forced himself to look away from the undead’s burning gaze to take the rest of it in. Black blade… bone shield… a warrior-type, then. We should still have the advantage. If it be willing to talk, then maybe we can buy enough time for a pla–

Jerald’s third shot bounced off the undead’s skull this time, and the sudden blaze of anger Harkin caught on the creature’s face interrupted his thoughts. He watched the towering skeleton tremble as if quarreling with itself and couldn’t help but wonder why it hadn’t attacked already. Was it afraid of them? All monsters were capable of some degree of thought, it was true. Everyone knew that.

Is that it, then? Harkin wondered, the stench of this foul place long forgotten as the echoing silence of Jerald’s last shot stretched out ever further. Self-preservation? Does it not want to fight?

As if in answer, the undead turned and… ran. Right back down the tunnel it had come from.

Harkin blinked, unable to process what had just happened. Had the undead just… fled? Malis gaped openly behind him, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“No way.” She muttered in stunned disbelief. “Did he actually just scare it off?”

“After it!” Jerald shouted, loading yet another rock into his sling and twirling it as if he had any hope of making another shot at that distance. He shoved both Malis and Harkin forward with his free hand. “Don’t let it get away you fools, think of the bounty! This is our chance!”

That got their attention, and the other two members of Jerald’s party shook themselves clear of their shock before dashing forward. Both Rising Dawn and the city of Dervash itself had standing bounties for the slaying of uncategorized monsters, and the rewards were in no way small sums. If they could bring back its body as proof… then their first adventure together might indeed be their last.

A thought which spurred all three of them on, albeit for different reasons.

Not ten minutes later, the would-be adventurers caught up to their quarry when the tunnel the undead had retreated down stopped suddenly, opening up to a large, rectangular room with less sludge on its floor than before. Grates lined the floor on either side next to the walls, spilling most of the muck into places the trio could only guess at. Not that any of them tried, because the undead had turned to face them once more– barring their way forward with its body.

At first, Harkin hadn’t been sure why. But then the flickering blue flames of their mote-lights revealed what was laying on the floor behind it.

“By the blight…” Harkin swore, and Malis echoed the statement a second after him.

Three bloody heaps of cloth and armor littered the ground behind the undead, opposite the bruised and battered body of a savagely wounded owlen. The owlen was breathing, if only barely, but Harkin’s breath nearly stopped when his eyes fell on the prominently displayed crest sewn into the owlen’s outer robe. The same one he could now see was sewn into other bits of the discarded cloth pile.

Gold Spire… Harkin thought numbly, his fear abruptly turning into wild rage. This thing has been feasting on paladins!

As if the undead could read the horror and outrage dawning on their faces, it abruptly raised its hands in what might have been considered a placating gesture.

“Woah now, meat-sacks. I know what this looks like, but trust me.” The undead said slowly, though it didn’t back up as they advanced. “You do not want my friend here to get angry. Not only is he the half who doesn’t want to eat you, but I promise you he’s less forgiving than I am if you set him off.”

“It’s killing paladins!” Jerald all but shrieked, pointing at the fallen owlen as if the other two hadn’t already seen it. He shot another rock at the undead, which to his credit smacked the creature right in the hollowed-out cavity where its nose might once have been.

“Slay it! Slay it now!” Jerald added, loading another rock into his sling and looking at his two party members as if he couldn’t believe that they weren’t already engaging.

“Hey-hey!” The undead said again, sounding a little alarmed but also a little… excited? “There is a very reasonable explanation for all of this, I promise! Stop throwing those rocks and we can–”

“Liar!” Jerald shouted, as Malis readied a throwing dagger of her own and stepped to Harkin’s right to aim. The lizardkin advanced another step as his now-crazed-sounding party member continued to yell behind him. “Wretched monster! You think we would ever trust the word of some thick-skulled, vein-covered boner!?”

All at once, the undead’s demeanor changed. The burning orbs in its skull didn’t so much as flicker, and its skeletal frame didn’t move– but Harkin felt the change. The crimson network of veins crossing all over its body tensed all at once, and a sudden, malevolent intent began to spill out of it. An intent so focused and intense, the creature’s whole body trembled.

When it spoke, the words came out twisted and furious… though it almost sounded more angry at itself than at them.

“I tried to warn you…” The undead said in a tone that sent shivers up all three of their spines. “Tried to share… even tried to be nice after you threw all those rocks at us. All because he wanted me to. You’re lucky he can’t understand a word you’re saying right now, but I can, and I am not having it. Nobody insults my friend like that and gets away with it.”

A crimson whip rose steadily behind the creature, lashing out at Jerald with surprising speed. Malis flung herself in its path, deflecting the blow with her buckler as Harkin took the opening to charge in.

As he ran, the lizardkin gave out crisp, clear orders.

“Jerald, keep on its head! Malis, work the sides! I’m going in, let’s jump this thing and ride it to the ground! Once it's there, we pound it into submission! Go for–”

The clang of metal on metal interrupted him as the towering undead’s bone shield intercepted Harkin’s spear, red orbs blazing in its skull as it moved. Up close, the lizardkin couldn’t help but notice the many chips, cracks, and other dinks all over its skeletal frame. He gave silent thanks to the fallen paladins behind it as their battle began in earnest. To however many had given their lives to weaken the creature they now faced in the heart of its wicked lair.

Your sacrifice will not be wasted. Harkin promised the nameless, faceless slain as their fight continued. We will–

Behind him, Jerald screamed as the sickening odor of sizzling flesh joined the sewer’s stench. Harkin resisted the urge to look behind him, trusting Malis to handle it and focusing on their enemy. Forcing it to keep the majority of its attention on him, as he had been trained.

“Fight me!” The lizardkin roared, activating his sole non-passive ability for the first time this night. Purple and blue-tinged wisps of mana echoing out of his mouth as he shouted. “Not him, me!”

To his relief and dismay, the towering undead obliged.