Chapter 25

With the graves empty and the dead all missing, there was nothing to stop them from finding the ritual except for … not knowing where it was. So they searched.

Eli, being the sort of person who actually reads headstones instead of walking straight past them on the few instances he’d actually been to a graveyard in the past, noticed something was strange. The headstones had been defaced. But not with the magic that was bringing the dead back to life.

He spent a moment analyzing them and, his eyebrows rising in surprise, he pulled up the mental conjuration of the Runekeeper’s Grimoire and began searching through it. He found what he was looking for in just a few moments.

“It’s a mid level ritual that’s powering the undead,” Eli announced, turning to his mother and the others. “These marks on the gravestone, they’re like receivers or amplifiers spreading the signal. But that’s all they are. If we destroy all the headstones then we might reduce the range that the undead are active, but we won’t actually kill them.”

“That’s what has you all excited? You figured out that—” Junior began.

“They have a directional effect,” Eli said. “So we just need to follow them back to their source!”

Having come to that conclusion, Eli proudly led the group deeper into the cemetery, not bothering to search any longer. He found something that hadn’t been there the last time that he’d visited this cemetery during a funeral of someone he didn’t know, and he was slightly deflated to realize that this addition would have stood out to anyone who was had been here before as well.

A chapel was built off to the northeast of the cemetery, with a traditional front. When they kicked in the door, however, the stench of the arcane ritual grew more intense, and the magic was palpable. At least to Eli and Luke it was; he got nauseous from coming to close to it. He backed out and turned to the others.

“I think that if we destroy the ritual, we win. But I can’t get close enough to study it to see how to dismantle it and—”

“And you’re over thinking it,” Junior said. He pulled out of his backpack a Molotov Cocktail. He looked at the others, who nodded in confirmation with his strategy, then lit the rag that served as the stopper and the fuse of the incendiary and threw it through the doors of the chapel.

The ancient wood—the chapel seemed to be centuries old despite having just appeared in this reality suddenly—soaked up the flames greedily and soon the building was completely engulfed. Eli kept waiting for some sort of notification from the system, but instead they received a visitation.

“Ah, so we have some clever ones in the mix as well,” a dangerous sounding female voice said. The party turned to face the source and found not the woman that they were expecting it to belong to, but her skeleton. “And here I was thinking that this would be easy, but you’ve gone and destroyed my perfectly good ritual. I suppose I’ll just have to play with you until it falls apart!”

The litch extended hands that were clearly not natural, but belonging to some sort of skeletal horror. With claws that were six inches long and bladed, the monster swiftly identified their weakest party member and attacked.

Jose cried out in surprise as a force he didn’t understand enveloped him, preventing him from dodging even as the blades slit his belly open. He screamed in pain and fear, even as the magic holding him in place faded, allowing him to fall.

The litch turned to the next weakest party member, Lucy the Seamstress, and once more launched its combination of paralytic magic and a dangerous slash from its monstrous claws. But it found itself blocked by Erik, who rose to meet it with sword in hand. He cried out as he stood in defense of his girlfriend, and the forces holding her in place switched from her to him.

He found that his body seemed to not want to move anymore, yet his trickster magic continued to function, allowing him to be six inches away from where he appeared to be. It saved his life as those dangerous claws passed through the illusion of where his body seemed like it should be to the eyes watching it.

A gunshot went off, and the Litch’s head exploded. The body turned to face the rest of the party, and Mattie was there suddenly with her new sword. She hacked off the undead monster’s right hand, and when it raised the left to strike at her, Erik Estabon got the it from behind.

Eli, acting a moment late, extended drew his machete and extended its enchantment to his mother and Erik’s blades as the two swiftly cut the litch apart.

The feminine laughter echoed through the graveyard despite the party’s seeming victory, and Eli had a sudden sinking feeling as the corpse of the enemy suddenly puffed into bone dust and reformed as a massive canine figure this time. It launched itself at Sophie, who fired an arrow that caught it in the eye, but proved to be completely ineffective.

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Maia hip checked the scout and stood her ground against the skeletal hound, raising her shield and Smashing the monster with everything she had. She overcame the monster’s inertia and cleaved the beast’s head in with her weapon.

Luke abruptly finished casting a spell. A small projectile passed between the mage’s staff and the hound, and when it connected the skeletal horror was engulfed in flame.

And otherwise completely unaffected as it continued to snap and bite at Maia.

Peter appeared its flank and began hacking the burning beast with his weapon. Eli extended the enchantment of his blade to all four even as his mind raced on how to defeat this battle.

It’s a litch, he thought to himself. It can reform itself as long as its phylactery is intact. So we have to find it’s phylactery, but where would that be?

He didn’t have too long to think. Abruptly the Litch vanished again and appeared next to him in the form of a skeleton once more. It raised its arm—instead of a hand it had a bone sword three feet long—and slashed at him.

He raised his machete to meet the weapon and was surprised when his weapon slid through the bone effortlessly. So was the litch, which looked down at its severed sword-arm with dismay. It vanished again, forming a dust which coalesced nearby, attacking Susan Campos. Susan had put aside her crossbow when it was clear that the weapon would be ineffective and taken in her arms her bo staff instead.

She exchanged a few blows with the Litch, which was still burning, as the warriors rushed to her side. Before they reached her, the litch puffed into dust once more.

It appeared before Luke, who raised his staff, but not fast enough. It stabbed the boy in the stomach and moved on to the next.

It got caught up with Peter, mistaking his young age for weakness, and the young warrior slashed it apart in a moment before it was forced to once more puff into powder.

Eli’s mind continued to work in overdrive as he struggled to come up with a plan to achieve victory. It was only by chance that he saw the flickering nearby when the body of the litch changed form once more. He rushed over to the glinting light, which had landed in the pile where the litch had been ‘defeated’ the first time by Mattie and Erik.

Even as the battle continued, Eli realized that the Litch had made a critical mistake. It had been wearing its phylactery, an amulet. When it was defeated the first time it had dropped it, but the amulet remained where it had fallen.

He picked it up.

You have received Amulet of the Lesser Litch (Argentos)

This is a Cursed Item

Claim Cursed Item? Yes/No

Eli hit No without even considering the other option, then he examined the amulet more closely. It had a large quartz crystal locked into place by several prongs to form a clasp. Surprisingly to Eli, he was able to see the mana flowing from the crystal into the golden amulet.

A plan formed in his head.

“Junior, Catch!” he called out, tossing the amulet to the college student. The nineteen year old as at his brother’s side, trying to both defend the younger mage and help him over to where Alaina was working on healing her husband. Still, the Tinkerer caught the flickering amulet.

“What the hell—”

“It’s the phylactery,” Eli shouted. “Break the clasp and the battle ends!”

The litch heard this, of course, and had a sudden change in priority as it turned from fighting the warriors once more to defending its phylactery. It broke apart into its dust form and slid through the air as a cloud, reforming into another hound. It launched itself at Junior, going for the young man’s throat.

But Junior had already popped the crystal out of the clasp using a screwdriver from his tool belt. The bones of the litch collided with him, but they lost cohesion and fell apart rather. The momentum was enough to knock him over, but he was unharmed.

Congratulations!

You have Defeated the Floor Boss!

Advancing to the 6 th floor in 30 seconds.

Please secure all belongings before transference.

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