The reanimated, Fleshless King Docrun stood numbly, waiting silently. Zalan saw that hanging from his hip was a white, dimly shining object. Half of it was an hourglass, and the other was a skeleton head that the sand would pour into, except there was no sand. Zalan heard the faint scratching at the door behind him, the previous room of Fleshless trying to make their way in.
“He is alone?” Yelsa asked to confirm.
“They say the Fleshless maintain some echoes of their previous life. It must be that he preferred to be alone when he was living,” Rep said.
“That would explain why the Fleshless in the previous room remembered how to use some of their weapons,” Fran said.
“And why Docrun still wears his crown,” Gorb mentioned.
“That there! At his hip, there is an Artifact!” Rep said, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “That is a Ressurector! Yelsa was right, Docrun was the one filling that room with Fleshless for any intruders to fight. The one that has access to the Resurrector has the power over the Fleshless.”
“Then who turned him into a Fleshless?” Zalan asked.
The question hung in the air for a moment. Docrun continued to idly watch them, the only part of him moving was his eyes lazily sliding over each of them. His lack of movement was throwing Zalan off. The other Fleshless were always shambling towards them. But he couldn’t read Docrun at all when he just stood there.
“I think he may have turned himself into this creature?” Fran said, more a question than an answer.
No one gave a rebuttal to the claim. It didn’t seem so impossible when he had the Artifact at his hip. A vain man too attached to his wealth and need for power to allow himself to die with dignity. They looked at Docrun, as if waiting for his pale gray form to either confirm or deny the suspicion. Docrun continued to watch them silently.
“So, you said if we get the Artifact, then we would have the power over the Fleshless?” Zalan asked.
“Indeed. You need not activate it, just the simple act of holding on to it will suffice for you to take control,” Rep replied.
“Then that’s our new plan. Let’s get the Resurrector from him and we can have a small army take on the dragon together,” Zalan said, the others nodding confidently.
They took a collective step toward Docrun and he shifted marginally. They stopped, warily watching the former king for any other movements, but it seemed he had returned to observing motionlessly. Zalan took another small step forward, and Docrun shifted ever-so-slightly. The travelers waited again, then took another step. Docrun twisted his head.
“This is disturbing,” Yelsa muttered.
“Better than him coming to attack us,” Rep replied.
“Let me try something. Don’t move,” Zalan suggested. He walked a few steps away from the group toward a wall, perpendicular to Docrun. Docrun walked with him, remaining on an invisible line and preventing himself from being flanked. Zalan looked at his friends who looked back at him.
“I think he’s protecting himself,” Zalan said.
“More than that,” Fran shook her head. “He is protecting the door. He does not want us accessing his treasure.”
Docrun turned to her sharply at the mention of “treasure.” But he didn’t make a move against her.
“Look how he does not charge at us. He knows he cannot overpower us,” Fran said. “We should stop being so slow, we are only making room for him to catch us off guard.”
To Zalan’s surprise, his companions looked to him for a response to that suggestion. They were treating him like an equal.
“Right,” he said to Fran. “We should put a plan together to grab the Artifact.”
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“You throw lightning at his legs, Gorb throws him off balance, and I will retrieve the Artifact. Rep and Yelsa can open the door for us and we can rush out before he stumbles in our way. If all goes well, we will have control of him and all the other Fleshless before we enter the next room,” Fran suggested.
“Sounds good. Let’s just get a few steps closer,” he said quickly, not sure how he felt about the new responsibility of being an equal contributor.
Docrun continued to watch docile, not making any indication that he understood any part of the plan passing between the adventurers. When they were a few dozen paces away, Zalan nodded to Gorb. Then, he raised his hands to emit lightning. Zalan blasted the energy, and Docrun twisted his scepter, catching the lightning at the tip of the staff, the only part not made of metal. He remained standing.
Gorb blinked in surprise, but let out his burst of air, to which Docrun adjusted his stance to withstand the wind without losing his balance. Fran was already in motion and hesitated reaching out her hand for the Artifact. Docrun swept the royal staff under her feet and tripped her. As she gasped and fell forward, Docrun kicked her away powerfully. She fell back into Gorb’s arms, clutching her stomach.
Docrun watched them silently, returning his staff to its upright position.
“Rep?” Zalan asked, looking for an explanation.
“The Ressurector brings people back to a similar Level. He must have been very powerful before he passed,” Rep guessed.
They looked up to Docrun with a newfound understanding.
“I thought he was vain because he was weak?” Zalan asked Gorb.
Docrun stiffened at the word “weak.”
“He was vain because he lacked an Elemental Power,” Gorb corrected. “I heard nothing of his Level or Strength.”
Zalan began to inch away from Docrun to give himself room. Docrun inched toward him.
“Yelsa! Get his eyes!” Zalan commanded.
“On it!” Yelsa pulled the arrow she had already armed and aimed carefully. She fired a quick arrow at Docrun, a perfect shot for his eye.
Docrun caught it midair and snapped the arrow like nothing more than a twig.
“Dear God,” Yelsa gasped.
Docrun took another step toward Zalan.
“What do we—keep him away from me!” Zalan said, firing another bolt at Docrun, only for it to be blocked by the scepter again.
Docrun took another step.
“Over here!” Rep said to Docrun, panicking. He was waving a flame above his head to draw Docrun’s attention. Docrun’s sunken eyes glanced his way.
“Do not set him ablaze,” Fran warned, finally back to her feet. “He does not feel pain as a Fleshless and we do not want to fight a flaming monster.”
“I know that, I just want to…” Rep’s eyes went wide as Docrun ran at him. Yelsa ran backward to keep distance as Gorb and Fran pounced forward with weapons drawn, placing themselves between Rep and Docrun. Docrun rammed through the brother and sister, easily throwing them aside. Docrun ended up with one of Gorb’s swords through his back, but it didn’t slow him down in the slightest. He grabbed Rep ferociously by the neck and held him in the air.
Zalan acted quickly, aiming a bolt and firing at Docrun’s arm, causing it to spasm and drop Rep. Rep gasped for air and shook slightly as he fell to the ground, the electric shock having passed through Docrun’s arm and affecting him as well. Docrun turned his head rapidly toward Zalan, swatting another arrow out of the air as Yelsa tried to blind him once more. Zalan tried to blast more lightning at Docrun, but the Fleshless ducked out of the way and ran at him like a bull.
Zalan prepared himself to dive forward and snag the Artifact from the king’s hip. If he could grab the Resurrector, the battle would be over and they’d have control over this terrifying monster. Zalan jumped, his arms reaching for the white, skull-decorated hourglass, only for Docrun to leap, and a foot to come down on Zalan's back and smash him into the floor. Zalan coughed in fierce pain, the air driven out of him and not allowed to reenter as the pressure increased on his back.
He couldn’t see, his world filled with a mesh of black and blue as his body tried to make out what was real from what was intense pain. He couldn’t even scream. He suddenly felt something like a hurricane on his face and the pressure on his back released, allowing him to double over in pain and breathe. He heard a muffled scuffle happening right over him and blows being traded. When his vision finally returned, he saw Fran and Gorb slashing quickly through the air, trying to remove limbs from Docrun’s body who was keeping a cautious enough distance to protect himself.
Docrun was using his scepter as a formidable weapon, making sure to keep Fran and Gorb too off-balance to get any good hits in. The occasional arrow that would come from Yelsa was ignored unless it targeted Docrun’s head, and he now had a small collection of arrows sticking out of his back. Zalan realized he was being raised from the ground and looked up to see Rep pulling him to his feet. Neither Fran nor Gorb could get a clean strike on Docrun, constantly being battered aside even with the enhancement of Gorb’s wind. But Docrun was able to get more than a few bruises on the siblings with his scepter. Already, Fran and Gorb were reaching their limit from the previous rooms and it was clear they were losing the battle.
“He is too powerful,” Rep said.
Zalan nodded in agreement, then realized that Rep was trying to suggest they change course.
“New plan! Run for the exit!” Zalan called loudly.
He and Rep ran to the door, Yelsa close at their back. They heard Fran and Gorb tossed to the ground as Docrun charged forward to block their exit.