Clear and concise communication. Despite positing myself as a mentor to these mewlings, I had been a bit blaise about what Florence had meant by ‘a lot’ of the undead. My own error - as the role of determining threat was much better levied by myself or Jakob. Sometimes mistakes were part of the learning process, too.

It would have been halfway amusing if I had collided with the wall and found it unrelenting - and briefly, as I careened towards it, the embarrassment played out as a possibility in my head. But perhaps for the sake of my ego, the brickwork had been weakened enough from the flames that it yielded to my mass.

Stonework toppled to the ground beyond as we created a path of our own - rough and uneven, but such was the way of a Ranker. With the dust settling in short order, the reality of our intended enemy became apparent.

A lot meant… at least two hundred - my long-distance vision was obscured by the fog - but it stood to reason there were many more beyond my sight.

“Hold the chokepoint,” I growled, spinning my blade around into a guard position. As score upon score of yellow baleful eyes turned to greet us, the lethargic groans accompanied the shuffling of decaying feet across stone and dead grass.

“How are there so fucking many?” The Ranger’s usual stoic attitude slipped at the sight of so many corpses. Far too many for one graveyard.

“Is this not normal?” Florence sounded a little ashamed that she had allowed us to be unprepared. A lesson now learned.

I took a step back from the hole in the wall. “No.” The undead would only be able to squeeze through two or maybe three at once. Until we cleared a large enough swathe, it made tactical sense to filter them here. Until their bodies clogged our entryway…

Two blazing green arcs hissed around me as [Dual Shot] found the heads of two zombies, the impassive corpses slumping to the ground as the light faded from their eyes. Most were in rough garb - torn linens and dirtied cloth. My mind tried to conjure up the reason for the unlikely amount of walking dead in this area.

“Save ammunition,” I called back as another arrow struck the neck of a corpse - the opponent carrying on their shamble toward me unhindered from the damage. I could sense that the Ranger was annoyed at being held back - but it would do no good for him to be out of options before we even touched foot inside the graveyard.

A ball of fire shot past, over the heads of the first group of zombies, and struck one further back - the illuminating orb of magic then curving off and bursting against a second. There would need to be a conversation with the young woman after this was all done. Her control of the fire magic was…

I swung my blade in a flat arc, decapitating the first zombie to reach me and crushing the skull of a second with the tip of the sword. With a flourish, I spun to hew into the third, limbs and rotting flesh dropping wetly to the floor. I paused then, as any further assailant was still slowly ambling through the threshold. This was a good position, though - easily blocked with Fire Wall should we become overwhelmed.

“Just go for it, Victor,” Jakob sighed. “I can see you tensing, and there’s plenty to go around once inside.”

Florence agreed. “We’ll hold the chokepoint so we don’t get surrounded.”

I turned briefly to give them a grin. Perhaps a little risk could be allowable, as long as we were sensible. Plus, when else would I get a chance like this again?

My eyes glared towards the zombie who had finally managed to stumble forth, half tripping on the corpses already strew across the floor. “Confirm all kills, do not get bitten.”

An amusing warning coming from a vampire - especially one they’d offered themselves up for. It was easy to get complacent, only to find the walking corpse had just become a crawling one, and your ankle or calf soon became a feast. I would do my best to ensure my kills were inarguable, but I expected them to double-check with violent consideration.

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[Enrage] flooded through me, and I leaped forward, grabbing the zombie by the throat and snapping the spine backward. I dropped the inert head and stomped on it. Destroy the brain, always. I burned with anger and felt adrenaline pulsing through me. Crimson blazed along the greatsword as I dove forward, skewering the next corpse and splitting it from stomach to head in a wild upswing.

They were neither fast enough nor durable enough to withstand me. My boots stepped with the graveyard, and I felt a brief shiver of joy. After all, I was still a vampire on the inside - I had an affinity for places like this. It was calming in a way that didn’t temper my furious rage - it was more of a comfort.

Arcs of red drew my path as each swing rent arms and legs from bodies or heads from necks. Thirteen dead - and now a vast throng of them had been drawn by the melee - although they didn’t seem that interested in me. Part of the reason for their inability to truly hurt me was also the reason I was an ignored dish. A powerful undead was not a tasty meal for them, and they were distracted by the two humans at the wall picking off those I left wounded.

Just as soon as this was realized, another eight zombies had been dispatched, and I became a whirling dervish of wide strikes, culling a circle around my two Party members. Every slash or stab widened the safe area, yet making it more difficult for me to cover the full range of angles as I overextended due to the shambling corpses being too slow.

I relented, spinning my blade around and stepping backward. If I left them in the dust, they would get swept away by the horde eventually. A tight formation was more likely for us to succeed together, even if I had to drop Enrage. There needed to be a secondary goal; we weren’t here purely for wholesale slaughter.

“Any idea for the source?” I shouted back, my skill making my voice sound hoarse and feral.

“There are eight mausoleums, closest just to the right,” Jakob called back. A blazing trail of two green arrows shot over in that direction, impaling two zombies over by the tomb sighted.

“Stay near.” I strode in that direction, waving the blade in wide arcs. The zombies had no range, so each swing cut through them like butter, their limp bodies slumping to the ground with each blow. Still, there were at least a hundred in our near vicinity, despite me killing thirty-eight already.

The pair moved in behind me. Enough distance so that they didn’t get the sharp bite of my wide swings, but close enough to follow in my wake before the slow tide of undead enclosed through the empty space. I could hear the sound of the Ranger stabbing through rotted skulls with his dagger. The Mage was keeping errant corpses away with her fire.

Wading through the throng was another risk, but I trusted them. Hands-on experience. Zombies alone were not a threat unless they caught you off-guard. A horde was something else, designed to wear you down until exhausted or surrounded. Zombies didn’t care which one of them got the meal - they all wanted it and cared not whether they or their fellows died in the process of trying to feed.

The trick was not to engage most of the time. Unless you were confident you could clear out every last one and had some situation advantage - they would not relent. Had Florence been a little clearer on the number of corpses, we would have perhaps engaged with a different plan. Most likely going back to the Monastery to see if any real answers came out of those aged heads.

It was clearly a trap. The stink of something benign was not uncommon in such a den of death, but this number of living corpses was almost unheard of unless either an army was gathering or there was… if there was a Villain. Part of me still hoped that the source was just an evil artifact and that putting my blade through it would save us all a lot of trouble. That was the plan for a Villain too, but that had additional complications.

With my arms starting to tire from the repetitive action, I had finally carved a path to the building in question. An underground tomb behind a wrought iron gate. It could be empty or just full of more zombies, but the brief respite from the outside melee would be nice.

A clang reverberated out as I destroyed the lock on the barred gate. I turned back to allow the two humans to filter in first and cut down a couple of zombies too quick for their own good. Then I turned, to shut the gate behind us. Florence put her hand to the destroyed lock, and blazing flame melted some of the metal together.

“It won’t hold forever,” she shrugged, tired eyes looking out towards the horde. Focusing, she growled and cast [Fire Wall] just outside of the mausoleum. “That should hold them back for a bit.”

Green flared out from down the stairs behind us.

We turned and descended, catching up to Jakob, who had but an arrow in both the eye sockets of a zombie.

“There’s a couple down here, too,” he pointed impassively.

Ahead of us, a darkened chamber housed a cracked stone casket, and the walls were marred with bloodied writing in a language only I knew.

At the opposite end, a rough hole had been mined from the wall, descending through the dirt and into pitch darkness.

I raised an eyebrow to the Ranger, to which he responded with a shrug.

“Beginner’s luck.”