The zombies moved, for once, first, before he could even think of an action to take to save himself from the undead monstrosities about to reach him. With a spring action far faster than they should have the first few zombies grabbed a hold of him with their hands radiating with red and black mist. Their clawed bone fingers digging into his shoulders and arms as they start to pull him towards them, their mouths opening as his flesh draws closer and closer.
Trystan’s mind suddenly catches up with what is happening and he quickly tries to start shaking his arm free, gathering just enough room to move to end one of the zombies holding him with a quick strike of the hedge clipper blade. Using the momentum of the first zombies' death he throws himself to the side, attempting to rip himself from the other zombies' grips, trying to make it to behind his canvas wall. He can feel the wounds ripping open from the zombie claws across his arms and open skin, but their grip is broken momentarily. Drawing his blade in front of him he steadies himself and once again strikes out against the nearest zombie, removing its head from the body; a flood of black blood flows out.
He stumbles backward away from the wall, away from the opening as more and more zombies start filing their way in. The narrowing of the opening though does help him, instead of 4-5 zombies entering every moment only one or two manage to squeeze in. And one or two, even speedy zombies, he is able to deal with, barely, as he continues to retreat. The blood of the zombies begins to splatter the hedge walls with every step he takes. The inexorable flood of zombies continues to make its way towards him. Seemingly unending in numbers the ground and walls blacken with their blood, the grass becoming slick and slippery and Trystan's steps become more and more measured in order to keep himself from falling to the wave of bodies in front of him.
Occasionally one of the zombies, mixing its speed with the attacks of another zombie will manage to get close enough to hit him, bite him, and draw him closer to death’s door. But with the hordemaster out of the way they don’t have any sort of intelligence directing their actions, just a raw and unending need to devour the flesh of the living that they find in front of him. Not that they truly need the intelligence, they have the numbers and a complete lack of pain. Even dismembering them does little but buy him a few more seconds of time before they start finding another way to crawl their way to him.
As the minutes pass he can start to feel his working arm starting to get tired, there were just far too many of them, and he was a normal human, no enhancements, no gifts, no powers. This would not end well unless he could find a way to resolve this. But...it also looked like the enhancement that the hordemaster had activated was slowly starting to fade, and that enhancement’s removal might be exactly what he needed. The red and black mist rising from the zombies coming at him was slowly reducing in size, and while the zombie movement was slowed yet, soon, soon it would be.
His arm falters as he cleaves through the next zombie in front of him, the blade becoming stuck in it as he doesn’t have the strength remaining to finish pulling through. Letting go of the blade he darts to the right, ignoring the tearing pain occurring in his leg and then sprints forward, directly into the line of zombies streaming in from the center area. If he had to make a guess, maybe he had slimmed down the numbers by a third, but he didn’t really have the time to count and check for certain. What he did know was that he had to make it to that center building, there was no other way that he could survive. He couldn’t outrun the zombies long term, not with the damage to his leg that he had, but if he was willing to endure the pain, and endure increasing the damage, well maybe he could outrun and dodge them just long enough to make it.
As he starts weaving through the line of zombies and dodging their clawing hands he can see the red mist rising from them vanish, their movements slowing down drastically as they are no longer buffed by the dead hordemaster’s ability. While this wouldn’t keep the pain and damage from increasing, it would allow him a better chance at actually making it. He continues his dash forward through the zombies, their outstretched hands grasping for him and barely missing as he dodges. The blackened wet grass squelches under his feet as he drives forward, his footing almost giving way a few times as he has to juke left and right. He muses mildly for a moment that the walls of the hedge almost appear to have been drenched, painted, in a thick black paint, the same as the ground under his feet, but that’s a side thought of his as he finally makes his way past the wall of his own construction.
The zombies get less thick here, and he can see that maybe a third of them are actually left inside of the center of the area. Enough to cause him trouble, but not enough, he hoped, to stop him. He starts a full out sprint towards the center marble building. The cracked statues at each corner appearing to him as ancient guardians waiting for his presence, not that they would actually move, but the safety they conveyed would be appreciated. He darts through the open doors of the marble building and closes it behind him. Quickly he tries to find some sort of lock or something he can use to bar the door, finding only a simple deadbolt he quickly turns the knob and then turns to view the rest of the room.
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This is when he remembers that he had seen a lone figure’s shadow moving through the building’s window when he had first spied the location. A shadow that he could now see was indeed something that was in this building. The dark and ghastly hands of a wight reach out and into him as he finally comprehends that the shadow that he saw in the window wasn’t being cast from any specific creature, it was the creature itself.
‘Shit’ he thinks, Shadow Wights were nominally related to the undead, but more often than not they appeared in the higher magical layers of the Tower. They were almost completely immune to physical damage, their touch spreading cold numbness throughout his body. If it weren’t for the fact that it was literally consuming his life force from him he may have actually thanked it for removing the pain that his body was suffering through. How...how could he fight something that he couldn’t even touch.
The Shadow Wight continues to draw closer to him, a shadowed grey light drawing forth from his body to its hands. The drain would be slow for now, it would want to savor his life force, but as more of its body touched him, more of his would be lost, a slow but steady growing slowball of life force loss that would culminate in his end. How could this possibly be a fair test, no one had ever mentioned anything about facing a challenge of this rating during any of the Tests.
Trystan start to stumble away from the Wight, not that it would do much good, he couldn’t move fast enough to get away completely, and there was a complete lack of any ability to actually damage the Wight. ‘Think! Think!’ he thinks frantically. What is it that could possibly be done to the Wight, what damages them outside of special ability, enchanted items, magic...what could possibly save him now. He continues to stumble into the room ahead of him. Shelves and shelves of books stand in front of him, many of them damaged or destroyed, but the majority of them still in good condition. This must have been a library before the zombie apocalypse occurred. Not that it would be of much use to him right now. The Wight’s dark energy would soon overtake his life force, and there just wasn’t anything that he could do about it. He could see the world starting to dim as his energy continued to fall, the blood that had been dripping from his many wounds slowing as it started to congeal.
He murmurs with the last bit of humor that he can manage, “Hello darkness my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again.” A rasping chuckle escapes him as he sees his breath as a mist in the air in front of him. The cold and the darkness would take him now and there wasn’t...wait…darkness.
He fumbles behind him into his backpack, it was slick with blood and closed, his finger’s sliding off of its latch as he tries to claw his way into its interior. The latch finally gives way as the darkness continues to envelop his vision, the numbness coursing through his body now, he can barely feel his fingers as they make their way into his bag. Finally, he grasps the object he was aiming for. Grasping it in his hand he pulls it out, flipping a switch as he does so. Thirty thousand lumens of light floods the room as one of the most powerful flashlights in the world clears the lip of his backpack and starts streaming through the Wight directly.
The Wight screams in agony as it’s shadowy form immediately begins to boil away into nothing, the light of the flashlight removing it’s darkness completely. The flashlight may not be a good weapon as it’s not a part of the system, but the light was light, and beings of darkness could generally not remain living within the light. Trystan grins slightly as he realizes just how lucky he was, but that didn’t stop the darkness from continuing its encroachment upon his vision.
The damage had already been done, the Wight had drained the majority of his life force, and it would take time for it to recover, time he perhaps didn’t have. Dragging himself further into what appeared to be a library he tried to find a nice and quiet corner, one that he could fall onto without being hurt too much. Between the lack of blood and the Wights damage, it wouldn’t be much longer before he wouldn’t be able to keep his consciousness through simple force of will.
Spotting a full oak desk he drags himself to it, and falling slightly pulls himself underneath it. With luck, the Wight would not have allowed anything else to have lived here with it, and that would mean his safety would be assured, but he didn’t know for sure that that was the case. For all he knew, there were a few more of the undead just waiting in the stacks, or worse yet, a few more of the Wights searching for a meal to devour. As his vision and consciousness gives way completely he feels the walls and surrounding of the desk that he can barely see, trying to manipulate his body so that the least amount of him as possible was visible to the rest of the room.
A clicking sound is barely heard as what feels to be a small ornamental design gives way to his finger, and a hissing popping sound is heard as he feels something strike his head. Through the closing darkness, he can see the blue box of a system announcement come into existence, a box he is unable to read as the world fades away completely to darkness, and his consciousness with it.