Chapter 103

"Those poor people..." Riley trailed off. She was sitting up on her hindpaws at the peak of a hill next to Tobias, who was leading Svad by the reins.

"They aren't people anymore. Listen to me, Riley, they're just shells, no matter what they look like. They're husks now, cannon fodder for the lynchpin entity," Tobias replied, who was looking ahead, standing like a statue, with one hand resting on the hilt of his blade.

Just outside of Brewster, a field of shambling horrors moved about below them, made up of the recent and long dead. Rotting and broken bodies groaned, limped, and crawled along with no sense of direction or purpose; their eyes, if they had them, were milky white, unfocused, and dead.

"They always say that in the movies too...it doesn't help," Riley said, staring at the corpse of a young girl, no more than ten years of age.

One arm was gone, and her throat was torn open, leaving her head to hang down upon her chest like a broken puppet. Black semi-dried blood added a dark accent to her once beige dress as she moved about directionless.

Tobias went down on one knee, turning towards her, petting her ears back, "Do you trust me?"

Riley scoffed, "Duh... Why would you even ask that?"

"Then trust me that I know their souls are gone, and we're the only chance these poor people have at putting their bodies to rest before their remains do something horrible. We honor the dead by fighting for the living," he looked at her with grim resolve, gripping his sword tighter as he rose, drawing it.

Riley pressed up against his legs, "You're right. I can feel it. This is an offense against the natural order."

The feeling felt like an instinct; something deep within her, beyond her conscious understanding, that recoiled in horror and knew it had to end.

"Then let's set it back to right," Tobias rose as he spoke, his sword erupting into flame.

Riley cast analyze on the dead girl.

Zombie, Level 2-1, Infernal, Necromancy

Abilities: Sense Magic, Sense Life, Ignore Damage, Unfeeling, Singular Resolve

A reanimated corpse infested with necrotic infernal energy.

Fun Fact: A group of Zombies is known as a "Congress"

"Oh dear," Riley gasped as the Zombies, like one massive entity, all turned in their particular direction.

Tobias grinned, rotating his palm in a clockwise circle before pointing it forward towards the horde.

Firebolt

Riley felt the tug on her side of the magic. White-rimmed balls of flame erupted out of his hand, peppering the horde below, and prompt notifications began to stream in.

Your party has inflicted burning... Critical hit.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Zombies are weak to Holy Magic... Damage increased.

The flames caught, spreading like a creeping disease, igniting strips of tattered, ancient clothing and desiccated flesh. Still, they moved forward, unaware and unhindered, as the first dozen fell, only to be trampled underfoot, spreading the growing inferno.

"This is like a turkey shoot," Riley said, pulling at her power.

Flame Wall

A long barricade of flame stretched across the bottom of the hill, burning with white and orange magical energies. Undaunted, the undead began to shamble through it, igniting and flashing to ash against the holy assault.

Your party has inflicted burning... Critical hit.

Zombies are weak to Holy Magic... Damage increased.

Holding out his left hand palm up, Tobias cast two successive walls behind Riley's as the crowd continued to press forward in a wave.

"Keep up the pressure!" Tobias called out, unleashing another torrent of firebolts as Riley made time reinforcing and overlaying their flame walls, falling into their new practiced coordination.

She stretched, scanning around, referencing their mana bar, which was already down to 65%.

"They can rest now," she said, as a strange kind of satisfaction rested uneasily over her soul.

It was the way they moved and thought, or rather, didn't think, that made it easier. There was no spark of intelligence or will left to them, only a strange instinctual motion and draw that caused her to feel pity instead of guilt.

In a world of terrible choices, this was for the best. Their bodies flashed to ash and could never be violated by whatever it was that had done this to them ever again.

She only hoped that wherever these people had ended up, they were happily ignorant of what had happened with their remains.

Satisfied with her bulwark, Riley conjured her vines. The zombies predictably ignored them, even as they began to slam down into the earth, wiping out columns of them in relentless assaults, all three working independently, only piling up the damage.

An hour dragged by as Tobias began to perspire, and Riley's ears began to heat, with their mana dropping at a steady burn, now at twenty percent.

"I'm getting exhausted," she panted, trying to push away the sensation of a woozy headache pressing against her consciousness.

"That's..." Tobias paused to breathe, exhausted by the mental effort, "How they get you."

With a quick rotating action, a mana potion appeared in his hand, pulled from their inventory.

He gulped it down, letting out a long, slow breath, surveying his handiwork.

The bottle clanged as it hit the ground, joining a collection of three more scattered around his boots.

Riley, meanwhile, held out her paws over the ground and drew them closed, taking a stamina potion from her inventory.

Working the cork out with her teeth, she announced, "Tuck and roll!"

Flopping, rolling to her back before imbibing it, suppressing her desire to cough and choke as it slammed down her throat.

Her thinking cleared, as she saw the effects in her overlay, each bar, replenishing, setting up for the next salvo.

Tobias scanned out over the battlefield, his sword in his right hand, resting at his side.

Piles of ashes were before them as the successive flame walls burned, glowing orange, delineating their edges, lighting up the night like the bonfires they were.

A few zombies still roamed about.

"Time for mop-up duty. Svad, hold," Tobias ordered, as the Cockatrice pranced uneasily but, otherwise, stayed in place.

Riley dispelled their flame wall as Tobias braced his sword low and to one side.

"Let's go," he urged, taking off in a jog, flanking the piles of ash and super-heated earth, moving for Brewster.

Riley followed after, moving a few steps beside in an easy bound as he shifted and weaved, altering course as Zombies turned in their direction.

With a wave of his sword, Tobias drew up into form one, then dropped it, bifurcating the unfortunate creature diagonally, cleaving through its skull, and destroying its brain.

It fell lifeless and dead. Not slowing down, he moved towards the next, his breathing easy.

"This is more like a workout than a fight," Riley observed, just as a black and red light erupted onto the battlefield.

A creature resembling a horned reptilian monkey rested on its haunches just in front of them. A spade-tipped tail rested against their back before curling out, hanging like a vine towering above their head, the spade tip pointed behind them.

"Oh, the master will be so pleased it's you, and even more so when I bring him your heads!" The entity chortled, erupting in a black aura of infernal energy.

Tobias took up a defensive position, as his eyes tracked up and to the right, checking their power, while Riley cast analyze:

Imp Soldier, Chaotic, Infernal, 2-7

Abilities: Infernal Flame, Poisoner, Whip Tail, Entropic Bolt, Dimensional Storage.

Servant of a Minor Devil

Fire Resistant

Servile and base, it will claw you in the face.

Riley could not staunch the instinctual rage that gripped her heart.

"Let's kick his ass!" She cried as the magic began to fly.