The previous twelve months that Terri Tillerson had spent living and studying in Providence had all led up to this last, terrifying, moment. After a full year of service, drudgery, and innumerable lessons on the importance of faith, Terri was about to graduate and finally become an official Cleric of Gravenhall.

On the other hand there was also the possibility that she was about to experience a violent death and then join her fellow Clerics of Avandar in the endless cycle of death and rebirth that they called 'service to god'. As she stepped through the cemetery gates the aspiring cleric considered the possibility that she might already be a part of that cycle, and that her choice of deity might not have been quite as free as she thought it was. Either way, Terri sincerely hoped that this particular life would include many, many years of dutiful service.

The task that Terri had been given was referred to by the students of Gravenhall as 'cleaning up the graveyard' and it was one of a handful of options that a cleric might undertake as their final graduation test. Despite its name and the high probability of an unpleasant encounter with the undead, ‘cleaning up the graveyard’ wasn't the worst possible challenge a student could be given by any means. That dubious honour was held by the task the students called 'curing the infectious poor'. Failure in the graveyard resulted in a much quicker, cleaner death than the aggressive, highly contagious diseases carried by the poor. An aspiring cleric who couldn't cure the potent illnesses of the unwashed masses invariably contracted those illnesses themselves, and as a failure they could expect little to no medical assistance from Gravenhall. All in all, the lumbering undead of the graveyard seemed like a much better option in the eyes of the Gravenhall students, right up until the point where they transformed from 'vague future possibility' into 'rancid, rotting reality'.

It was the smell that caused Terri to stop, just a few steps in from the cemetery gates. It was powerful, pungent, and it stung the back of the nostrils in a way that suggested continued inhalation would be an extremely bad idea. There was no doubt whatsoever regarding its point of origin. The large, ornate crypt off to Terri's left almost resonated with it. The smell was so strong that when Terri turned her head to look she expected the crypt to be either pulsing rhythmically, belching forth poisonous gases, or possibly both. The fact that neither of those things were actually happening did nothing to reassure her. The nostril-melting intensity of the stench itself was more than enough to cause Terri to pause and then consider the alternatives to completing her initiation at Gravenhall.

Unfortunately for Terri those alternatives were few in number and bleak in outlook. Non-lethal failure of the initiation test resulted in the candidate being expelled from Gravenhall with no opportunity to ever return. With no personal wealth to sustain her, Terri would have to go back to the career she'd been pursuing before coming to Gravenhall, if you could call backbreaking labour in another man's fields a career. She didn't have the family connections necessary to acquire an apprenticeship and even turning to a life of crime was out of the question; the rogues' guild took a dim and violent view of anyone who tried to muscle in on their turf.

With this in mind Terri walked slowly forward along the main cemetery path until she reached the intersection that led to the stinking crypt on her left. At the junction she paused, tightened her belt and then began striding resolutely towards the tomb. She was almost halfway there when she was stopped in her tracks once again, this time by a low deep-voiced moan filled with suffering and regret. This was not altogether unexpected. The cleric guild taught their students that while the undead remembered nothing of their former lives among the living, they were constantly tormented by vague recollections of the fact that they had once been alive, and never would be again. Hence the moaning.

As she tried to work up the courage to start walking again Terri took the opportunity to review her surroundings. The cemetery was made up of a collection of tombstone graves and above ground crypts with access provided by wide stone paths. Everything was well kept and well tended. It took a significant sum of money to be buried in the cemetery and caretakers were employed to make sure everything remained spick and span. Those who could not afford the cemetery were either cremated or buried in mass graves to the south of the town, although there were some who took a 'do it yourself' approach via the Forest of Ewing to the east. Even at night, the neat and tidy cemetery was not a particularly spooky place, with the obvious exception being the tomb which stood fifty feet ahead of Terri's immobile body.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

It was compassion that finally got her moving again. Listening to the tormented howls of the undead creatures in the crypt brought truth to something the young cleric had been told in her first week at Gravenhall. When Terri and the other initiates had stood up to leave after their first lecture on 'The Gruesome Art Of Smiting The Undead', Professor Emeritus Nomenclature had pulled her aside and whispered earnestly; "It's a kindness you know, ending the pain of an undead creature. Being animated by necromancy isn't the same thing as being alive, it's more like purgatory or hell. It's a kindness you know...............a supreme kindness."

Professor Nomenclature had then tottered back to the podium at the front of the lecture hall leaving Terri to ponder the reason she'd been given the message, or if there was any reason at all. With Professor Nomenclature it was always hard to tell.

With the aged academic's advice firmly in mind Terri gripped the handle of the blacksmith's hammer she carried a little more tightly, and strode resolutely towards the door of the crypt. It was a cloudless night and while the full moon was bright enough to cast weak shadows across the graveyard, its pale light did little to illuminate the interior of the tomb. Reaching up to her chest Terri took hold of the quartz amulet that all students of Gravenhall were required to wear and uttered a short prayer, "By Avandar's grace I shall bring light to the darkness."

In swift response the amulet began to glow with a warm yellow light that revealed the contents of the crypt. White marble was by far the dominant feature; it lined the floor, the ceiling and the alcoves that made up the walls of the room. In contrast, the large sarcophagus in the centre of the tomb was jet black, made from stone that had been polished until it gleamed like molten glass. Terri was relieved to see that despite the frequency of the moans and the intensity of the stench, only two undead creatures were actually present; a pair of zombies who were pushing somewhat ineffectually at the lid of the black sarcophagus. Despite their best efforts they hadn't been able to move the lid more than a third of the way off its ornate base and they paid Terri no attention whatsoever as they continued to grunt, moan and push.

The zombies were every bit as gruesome as she'd been led to believe. The ragged remains of their mouldering burial clothes did little to hide decaying flesh which seemed ready to slide off their bones at a moment's notice. For reasons known only to the necromancers that raised them, zombies were always strong, slow and stupid while skeletons were quick, dexterous and cunning. A zombie could easily be avoided by staying out of its way but skeletons quickly armed themselves with both ranged and melee weapons, and would look to flank or ambush their prey. Both were highly resistant to cutting weapons, they felt no pain and would continue to fight with a limb removed or even without a head. For that reason the undead were traditionally fought with blunt heavy weapons, either the mace (a wooden or metal handle with a large knob on the end) or the warhammer (a very large hammer, often used in war). Wielded with enough force both of these weapons could shatter the torso of a zombie or skeleton rendering them mostly harmless.

For clerics however, such force was rarely necessary as their weapon was far more effective when it was used as an instrument through which their god's power could be unleashed. Such was Avandar's loathing for the undead that his clerics could destroy the weaker examples simply by touching them with a consecrated object and invoking his name. Avandar's support however, like all gods, could only be earned the hard way. There were no shortcuts to becoming a cleric when every god in the pantheon required an absolute commitment to their values as well as constant demonstration of those values through the cleric's actions. Every year there were a number of young clerics who found out that lip service was not enough when their god failed to provide any meaningful assistance during the final graduation task. For Terri the lighting of her amulet was a good but unfortunately inconclusive sign as it required little power and therefore little devotion from the cleric to accomplish. Whether or not she had earned enough favour to successfully smite the undead would remain a mystery until the young cleric actually tried it.

The uncertainty of this caused Terri to pause on the threshold and wonder whether she had enough martial skill to defeat the zombies on her own without any help from Avandar. First year clerics received basic combat training and Terri's had been of a much higher standard than most, but her lack of real world experience was a massive handicap. In the end she decided that it was probably best not to think about it too much and just dive in. So with a cry of, "For Avandar!" Terri stepped forward and brought her hammer hurtling down towards the shoulders of the nearest zombie.