"i iz gob." said Gob to the Crypt Rat Warrior who had bowed low before him, "i fink i iz not da def slaya yoo iz lookin for."

The swarm of crypt rats chittered amongst themselves until the Warrior straightened and raised his hand, at which point all noise immediately ceased.

"You look like death to me... but the Masster of the Crypt will be the judge of that!" he said confidently, turning to his army, "Sswarm, dissperse! We will reassemble at the Crypt!"

The swarm seemed to disappear immediately into the wasteland without a trace, leaving only the leader there with them, though Gob could trace their bodyheat signatures skittering low along the ground in every direction, ducking from boulder to dead tree as they went, instinctively concealing themselves from normal sight.

Kyle looked around, surprised, "How do you know we won't just... not come with you?" she asked the Ratman.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" he laughed, though his black eyes didn't show any humour, "Ssee if you can't! Have you ever been to the Sshadow Wasstes before?"

"No," said Kylie, "and what do you mean by death slayer? and forseen? And who is the Master? And also, who are you?"

The creature leaned forward towards her, narrowing his eyes as if to squint.

"What ssort of a thing are you?" he challenged her back, "Are you an undead? We hate the undead. We exist to destroy the undead. I can't ssee your life force."

"I'm Kylie!" she said brightly, "I'm a neon fairy. I'm as alive as I can be! Now it's your turn."

He spat on the ground next to him, "Filthy lifeless fae." Then to Gob, the Orc and Leőn as he turned away, "Follow!"

Gob looked at the others. Kylie looked angry. He shrugged and followed the Ratman.

"wot iz yor name?" asked Gob.

The Ratman answered over his shoulder, "We are the sswarm. We have no namess."

"o yoo probly do hav a name. dat lik da orc, he didn fink he had a name, but den da prinssess teld us it woz garfoon. but don call him dat coz he don like it."

"We are the cryptsswarm. We are many, and we are one. There iss the Masster, and then there iss the sswarm."

"ok i cal yoo big black rat. den i no wich wun yoo ar. aktualy yoo iz not very big, but yoo iz biga dan de ova ratz."

As they moved away from the river the wind picked up, and the gusts that had been kicking up low dust clouds by the river bank now blew harshly, whipping around the rocks and dead grey tree trunks, rising and falling in moaning wails. Scattered around on the ground were the cracked and broken bones of long dead creatures, dried and windblown.

The wind didn't bother Gob at all. His new leatherhide seemed thick and robust enough to withstand just about anything. It felt like armour; even more so than his cave troll stonehide had.

The wind definitely did bother Kylie however, and eventually she flew over and took shelter on his leeward shoulder for a rest from the constant flying she was having to do just to move in a straight line.

Ahead of them the ground started to fall away, the first undulation they had seen in the wasteland, and they soon came to the top of a gravelly embankment that sloped sharply down into a dark ravine. It was a short valley that looked like it had been carved into the otherwise flat landscape, and at it's end was a terrifying black doorway.

Hoooooooooowwwwwwwwwwlllllllllllll

The wind howled through the doorway like something possessed, and the very shape and placement of the carved stonework that framed the entrance looked like an open wailing mouth with dead, sunken eyesockets. The doorway was a towering structure, as tall as a castle wall that seemed to state or at them as they descended down the gravel pathway. Lining the path were stakes with skulls mounted on their spiked tips, as well as tall poles with cages that hung from rusty, creaking chains. Some cages held bleached skeletons, and others stunted, rotting cadavers who's arms were pitifully stretched out towards the doorway. As they approached, one of the skeletons turned it's head and snapped it's jaws at them.

"Are they..." started Kylie

"Undead." answered Leőn.

"They are the sspawn of the Liche Queen," spat the big black rat, "may they rot forever in the eternal sshadow."

He pointed to the doorway, "We have arrived at the Crypt of Ssplinters."

"we goin in dat hol?" Gob asked doubtfully, "it look creepy."

"Follow!" said the big black rat.

As they descended the path, the rat swarm started to rematerialise around them until they were an army approaching the doorway.

The closer they got to the opening the louder the wind howled, and the stronger it gusted.

mmmmmoooooooaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnn

another sound joined the howling wind. A lower, deeper more frightening tone.

There was a sudden sharp

WAAAAAIIIIIIIILLLLLLL!

and Kylie flinched, "Ok guys, this place is seriously creeping me out. Are we all actually just going to walk into that?"

"Why Kylie, are you afraid of ghosts?" asked Leőn with a dark smile.

Gob stopped though. His darksight could see beyond the doorway. Inside there was a straight central hall with a high, arching vaulted ceiling. To both sides of the hall were alcoves. In each alcove there was an ornate carved stone sarcophagus, and above each sarcophagus he could see the source of the low moaning and the sudden wails. Clambering over the sarcophagi, or climbing the walls, or simply floating in the air were the ethereal outlines of...

"gosts!" he said.

The ghosts didn't have the bright yellow orange and red signature of the living, but neither did they look purple like the walls and other inanimate objects, but rather glowed a chilling, mysterious green.

The White Orc spoke for the first time since they had left the river, "The ghosts won't come near us. Rat?"

Gob thought it sounded as much like an order as a question. The big black rat gave him a baleful look and didn't answer, except to say, "Follow!"

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"eeeeeeeeeeek!" Kylie cringed in Gob's ear as they passed through the mouthlike stone doorway.

"can yoo see dem?" he asked her as they passed by the first sarcophagus.

"No," she shook her head, "I can't really see anything... but it's what I can feel in here that frightens me. It feels... dark. Not like 'lightless', I mean just... I don't know. Dark. Deathly. Spooky."

"It feels like stealth!" said Leőn, looking around in wonder, actually looking excited, "it's got a strong nefarious vibe, and it's saturated with shadow and night affinities. If we have to fight anything in here, I'll have such an epic affinity boost you guys won't even know what's happening until the battle's over!"

"There iss no fighting in the Crypt." the big black rat rasped, his voice echoing around the crypt, "but you are right Elf, the Masster iss a great Nefariouss Sshadow Warrior."

Gob felt something beside him glanced over his shoulder. With his darksight he could see a wispy purple wraith trying to reach out from it's sarcophagus alcove into the central area of the hall as if to grab him as he passed. The wraith was a skeletal human shape, with just enough flesh on it that it's face bore a recognisable drawn and tormented look, clothed in rotting rags, a transparent purple against a the black of the crypt in Gob's vision. It swirled and eddied towards them with a low moan, but ethereal chains bound it to it's tomb, and as it reached the extent of them, it was jerked back into it's alcove with a

WAAAAAIIIIIIIILLLLLLL!

Kylie jumped again, right next to Gob's ear, "Gob what was that?"

"yoo don want to no."

As they reached the end of the hall, Gob could see that it branched off to the left and the right, and a wide set of stairs descended to a lower level straight ahead. Gob looked down the hall to the left, and for as far as he could see there were rows and rows of the same ghostly apparitions clambering or floating around their tombs. It was the same to the right.

The howling of the wind and the moaning and wailing of the wraiths was constant, and chilling, but the foreboding silence that seemed to emanate from the descending stairs in front of them caused even the White Orc to tense as they approached it.

"Your Master is down there, Rat." the White Orc asked, without asking.

"Follow!" said the big black rat again, but this time the rasp was barely more than a whisper.

They descended into a darkness so deep even Gob's darksight couldn't detect anything. They took a single step at a time, having to feel forwards with their feet to find their footing.

Gob stumbled at the bottom, expecting another step but instead finding flat ground. He looked around. Black. Then a vertical whisp of purple as thin as a thread. Then as if stepping through a curtain, the stooped form of an ancient rat man pushed through the darkness towards them, a flaringly bright signature of bright red and orange and yellow in Gob's vision. He was short and stooped, far shorter than the big black rat, and he hobbled bent over an ancient cane of jagged wood, smooth at the top from years of handling, sharp and split at the bottom.

"Light a torch, sswarm, all our guestss don't have the darkssight. You're probably terrifying them!" the Master's voice was high and husky and breathy like the big black rat's.

A flame flared in the darkness and lit up a large hexagonal space. Behind them were the stairs they had just descended, and at each of the sides of the hexagon were other staircases or passages, another leading up, two down, two straight ahead, and opposite them, a wall. In the centre of the hexagon was a stone altar carved with ornate stone inscriptions, and bearing ancient bloodstains in dried trickles down it's sides. There was a heaviness to it that drew everyone's attention. The Master noticed.

"We use it for initiationss into the sswarm." he reassured them, "not ritual ssacrifice... though I don't doubt there would have been plenty of thosse here from the previouss ownerss... you may have met a few upsstairs..."

The Master looked frail and decrepit. His movements were slow, his fur was matted and patchy and grey, and his clothing was a ragged and torn, dirty grey cloak. His eyes were bound in a torn piece of cloth like a blind beggar.

"Masster," the big black rat bowed to the old rat, "we have brought the sslayer." He pointed to Gob.

The old rat hobbled slowly over to Gob. He was shorter even than Gob was, so he craned his stooped neck upwards, sideways, to look at him.

"You're sshorter than I was exspecting..." he said huskily.

"wy evybody orways say dat?"

"...and you look like a night goblin."

"dey orways say dat too. but i got dese," Gob held up his claws, it was nice to have a decent set back to hold up, "so i iz a trol... but how iz yoo aktuly seein me wiv yor eyez cuverd?"

"So who are you, troll?"

"i iz gob." said Gob.

"I ssee." said the blind old rat, "Lookss like a night goblin. Iss black as night. Iss called Gob. But issn't a night goblin. I ssee." He turned to the big black rat, "Thiss iss not the death-sslayer."

The old rat peered sightlessly towards Kylie, still sitting on Gob's shoulder. He cocked his head to one side.

"I cannot ssee you, fae, but there are other ssenses that tell me you are here..."

"I'm here." said Kylie.

"And who are you?"

"I'm Kylie." she answered flatly. She was still angry from the snub the big black rat had given her, and she wasn't inviting another one.

"I ssee..." said the rat, "are you living, Kylie?"

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, then with a sigh she answered the same as she had the big black rat, "I'm as alive as I can be."

"I ssee. Iss that as true for thiss life as it wass for your other?"

"What did you just say?" said Kylie, her heart skipping a beat.

"WHO are you?"

"I... I..." she trailed off, between curiosity, fear and a desperate longing to find out more.

"Wherever you are, be alive. There iss no place for the undead in any world." said the old rat as he turned and hobbled to Leőn.

"Hmmm..." said the rat, passing him by without a second glance, "Leőn, the mischiefariouss dark Elf. A Warrior after my own heart. You will reach your Level here. The sswarm ssurrounds you and embracess you, brother."

The old rat turned to the White Orc.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I am the White Orc." answered the White Orc.

"he iz caled--" Gob started, but the Orc cut him off with a raised hand and a look that Gob hadn't seen from him before.

"I ssee... but WHO are you... Garthûn?" rasped the Master quietly.

The White Orc tensed. "I am the White Orc."

It came out as a low growl. A dangerous, savage sound.

"What iss the meaning of Garthûn?" asked the old rat gently, but firmly.

Unexpectedly, the White Orc suddenly cast his darkradiance with a low and dangerous

thrummmmmmmmmmmm

It's dense black metallic disc surrounded the Orcs left forearm and pulsed with a powerful and oppressive resonance.

"I am the White Orc." he growled again.

"I ssee... the pale bloated--"

The Orc flung his darkradiance shield towards the old rat with incredible speed and power. The oppressive radiation flew in a tight circuit around the room in the same way the Orc's runehammer had used to, but the dense metal disc of the shield, as it flew, seemed to create a whirling vortex of dark powerful energy in the centre of the space it flew around.

It appeared as though the flying disc must certainly hit the old rat, however he calmly and simply stepped aside, the disc missing him entirely and returning to the White Orc's arm.

"Masster!" Exclaimed the big black rat stirring forwards to intervene. The old rat just raised his hand, and the big black rat, reluctantly, stood still.

"What is the meaning of Garthûn?" he asked again.

Waaaaaaaagh!

Shouted the Orc, stepping forward with a violent sweep of his shield. The rat didn't appear to side step this time, but rather was just somewhere else, to the Orc's right. The Orc swept savagely to the right, and the rat was back where he had been before, in front of the Orc.

"IT MEANS ROTTEN-WHITE ONE!" cried Leőn trying to diffuse the situation, "IN THE ORC TONGUE... IN THE CONTEXT OF BEING... DEAD AND... ROTTING... AND SO NOT GREEN ANYMORE..."

"QUIET, ELF!" roared the Orc threateningly.

"I ssee." said the old rat, "Garth-ûn. White-one. Rotten-one."

STOP IT! bellowed the Orc. He planted his foot in an aggressive forward defence stance behind his shield and suddenly an oppressive black wave of power radiated toward the old rat. It felt to Gob like the temple dungeon had felt, and everyone in the room, even the Orc's friends behind him, staggered backwards from it. Except the old rat, who held up a hand towards the radiance, seemingly unaffected.

"But what does GAR mean in that same tongue, Orc?"

Waaaaaaaagh! the Orc bellowed again, seeming to now push more power into his darkradiance.

"Ah... ah.. KILL! IT MEANS TO KILL!" it was Leőn who answered again, though his eyes were clenched shut and the was looking away and shielding his face from the power of the Orc's attack.

"What else does it mean?" the old rat pressed, "plural." he added as a hint.

"Gar... gar... kill... killers... oh, ARMY! It also means ARMY!"

"and THÛN?" said the rat, determined.

"Umm... one... no, not ûn... thûn... oh, FIRST! IT MEANS FIRST!"

"or?"

"ah.... primary?... umm... in context with army... maybe..." winced Leőn, struggling now to make his mind work coherently with the constant battering resonance in the chamber.

GENERAL! growled the Orc savagely, dropping his shield in frustrated resignation and falling to a knee from the effort of the raw power he had been pushing into it.

"I ssee..." said the old rat, still calm. His raspy whisper seemed to echo around the room now, in the absence of the dark radiation.

"So either you are a Garth-ûn, pale, dead, rotten, bloated one, or you are Gar-thûn, Military General."

"I'm General of no one." said the Orc, still kneeling, and looking down at the floor.

The old rat turned to the big black rat, "No one of these iss the death-sslayer."

"But Masster!" the black rat replied in surprise, "They were on the boat, just as you foressaw! We bribed the Captain, just as you propossed!"

"Who are we my sson?" asked the old rat.

"We are the sswarm, Masster." said the rat, dipping his head with respect.

"Who are YOU my sson?"

"We are the sswarm, Masster."

"I ssee."

"None of these iss the death-sslayer," he swept his hand towards Gob, Kylie, the White Orc and Leőn together, "ALL THESE are the death-sslayer. They are many, and they are one."

The big black rat suddenly looked up at them, realisation dawning on his face.

"ah, masta splinta..." said Gob, "we haz oredy got a kwest, an we keep gettin ova kwests an we reely need to git to cragtop. i don fink WE iz da def slaya yoo iz lookin for."

"I ssee..." he said, "let me sshow you ssomething."