The world materializes in front of me, fading from black as if I’ve just woken from a deep slumber. I realize I’m standing and equipped in all my new “gear.” That term describes my collection of basic, subpar items pretty well and I don’t feel much better off than when I was running around in the quarry with only a pair of tattered canvas pants.
“Are you always this slow?”
The voice calls down the hallway and I realize I’m standing just inside the double doors of the palace. A few yards away, the other three are waiting for me. That’s when I notice the bodies littering the hall.
“Holy shit,” I say, hopping between corpses to catch up. Some of these folks are really jacked. As in, it looks like they’ve all been taking piranha baths. All of the bodies have …chunks missing from them. “Did you guys do this?”
Dreadlocks rolls her eyes. I’m pretty sure she’d roll her eyes at me if I said the sky was blue. For some reason, she’s decided I’m an idiot and need constant reminding. Fair enough, I guess. I mean, I did sort of sell my soul to a video game.
“Wasn’t us and we don’t want to stick around long enough to find out who did it,” Keith says. Glad someone in the party isn’t a condescending ass-hat. “Come one, we need to keep moving and find a way out — it’s hard to say if all the guards are dead or not.”
Or if whatever did this is still around, I think as we hustle down the hallway. I also can’t help but notice that these bodies aren’t disintegrating at the rate the Slave Masters had. Maybe for dramatic effect? Regardless, this place is creeping me out and I suddenly feel a whole lot more mortal than any dead person has a right to.
The hall is wide enough that three of us could have walked down it side by side, but there are so many corpses that we’re forced to pick our way through at a jog in single file order. Keith takes point, then the so-far-not-a-total-wench woman of the group, followed by me, then Dreadlocks bringing up the rear. I see my three compatriots have all bee outfitted in starter gear as well and try to guess their builds to take my mind off the mutilated dead people all around us.
I would have pegged Keith for a tank for sure but he’s equipped with even lighter armor than me — what looks like a cloth tunic, tall boots, leggings, a leather cap like mine and a run-of-the-mill sword. Huh.
The lady in front of me wears a padded vest but otherwise is in the medieval equivalent of everyday forester clothes. A quiver is slung over her back and she carries a bow with an arrow nocked to it in her hand.
A glance over my shoulder earns me an impatient wave of the arm and a scowl from Dreadlocks but not before I check out her gear. She’s got a…well, it’s not really a staff, just looks like a long stick, to be honest. Some kind of magic-user? Other than that, she wears what honestly looks like a poncho straight off of a street vendor in Cabo and some basic clothing underneath.
Then there’s me, running around like a caveman with my stupid-ass club. My, what an imposing picture we must make.
I hope Keith knows where he’s going because all of a sudden the bodies are gone. For some reason, this makes me feel even more nervous. The palace is — or was — a pretty fancy place. The sconces on the wall look to be made of silver and expensive tapestries and paintings adorn the stone between doors. There’s even expensive rugs laid across the floor at random intervals.
But who killed all the inhabitants? It’s not just soldiers and guards that are dead — although there are plenty of those. I’ve seen several scantily clad men and women that looked to be entertainers of some sort, along with others who could only be the castle staff. All of them were piled in the same few stretches of the hallway. Now that we’re past them you wouldn’t even know any sort of struggle had occurred.
It’s damn creepy. At this point, I just want out. A terrible thought crosses my mind: what if we’re doomed to wander this palace forever and that’s all? It takes longer than it should for me to realize the entertainment value of that would be pretty bad unless things spice up a bit.
Just as I’m thinking that Kieth halts. The archer woman stops in time but I ran right into the back of her, shoving her into Keith.
“Ouch! Will you watch where the hell…”
I open my mouth to apologize. And then I see what’s caused her to cut off the tirade. There’s a mostly-decomposed person at the end of the hall. And it’s standing. And it’s definitely animated and knows we’re here.
“The undead,” I whisper as sweat beads on my forehead. “I hate the undead. Why did it have to be the Undead?”
Out of all the tropes out there, why did the creators of Vindication Online have to go with zombies? Zombies are the freaking worst.
As if it hears my insulting thoughts, the dead person at the end of the hall rushes toward us. Luckily, it’s not one of those freaky-fast Zombies but it still moves faster than a scullery maid has any right to. I grasp my pathetic club tighter, willing myself to step up to the plate and knock this dead lady out of the park. But my legs don’t move.
Before I can summon the courage to overcome my disgust — have I mentioned how much I hate the Undead? — Keith rushes forward and hacks off the dead scullery maid’s head in a single swing of his sword. For the briefest instant, I feel my tension melt away as the body collapses and the head rolls back down the hall from whence it came.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
But then the decapitated head starts screaming.
The shrieks reverberate down the hall, so piercing that I almost drop to my knees. I definitely drop my club to cover my ears. I assume the rest of the group is in a similar state. The awful sounds carry on for several more seconds and then a square notification icon pops up in the corner of my vision. I look down at it just as Keith crunches the head with the heel of his boot and the hellish sound ceases.
Cry of the Undead — Speed and attack are reduced by 25% for 60 seconds. This awful sound may also alert additional Undead in the area.
I’ve just finished reading the debuff when the distant sounds of shrieks echo down the hall. Something clangs in the distance and I’m pretty sure we’re about to have company. A cold shiver runs down my back. Have I mentioned how much I hate the Undead?
“This way!”
Keith waves an arm and we follow him into a side chamber. As soon as we’re all in, he slams the door behind us and drops a wooden beam in the holders, effectively locking us in and hopefully locking everything else out. At the same time several more shrieks sound — much closer this time. I turn around to find we’re in some sort of garrison quarters. Sun shines through windows located high on the walls and basic candle chandeliers hang from the vaulted ceiling. Beds line both sides of the walls with trunks and stands of armor at the foot of each (all the armor stands are empty, of course).
A glance around shows me there’s only one other door, all the way at the other end of the room. I’m already running for even before the first shuddering bang hits the door we just barred.
“Where are you going?” Keith shouts. He and the others have taken a stand a few yards from the door, like they’re just going to wait for a bunch of rotting corpses to break in and attack them. Idiots.
“I don’t know about you three, but I’m not waiting for whatever wants through that door,” I shout as I reach the doors at the other end of the room. I wrench them open and find a much smaller room that looks like a smithy. Rows of horseshoes line one wall with racks of more basic weapons on the other. Better still, there’s another door ahead.
“There’s another door in here!” I shout over my shoulder. Before I can bother to check if the others are following or if they’ve decided they want to sit around and end up as Zombie bait before they respawn as slaves, something in the forge catches my eye.
A pair of gauntlets rests on one of the tables. I take a step nearer and pick them up, turning them over in my hands. They’re nothing special, at least to look at, just plain metal. Or at least, as far as I can tell. I begin to think that I should really learn some basic commands like “Inspect” when, as soon as I think it, a window pops up in front of me, displaying some basic info about the gauntlets.
Steel Gauntlets
A pair of well-made Steel Gauntlets.
Armor Class: Heavy
Armor: +2
Durability: 12/12
Apparently, some guard must have left these in his haste to answer the threat of the undead, because there isn’t any other steel armor in the room that I can see. Still, at this point, I’ll take whatever I can get. I slip the gauntlets onto my hands then flex and unflex my fingers. A thought crosses my mind and I toss aside my shitty club. It’s been a while since I’ve been in a good, old fashioned brawl. Just then, the others burst through the forge doors. At the end of the barracks, a trio of undead shuffle and stumble toward us like three old ladies racing for the last seat at bingo night.
“Way to ditch us!” Dreadlocks snarls.
“Um, actually, I was looking for a way out,” I say, jerking my head toward the door. “I’m pretty sure that goes out toward the stables.”
As we’re snapping at each other, Keith grabs the door with both hands. It hardly budges.
“This is going to take a minute,” he says. I wonder how he can be so calm at a time like this. Maybe he was a drug runner. Fake zombies ain’t got nothing on drive-by shootings and border patrols
“Incoming! Our archer companion looses a pair of arrows, one hits the lead zombie lady in the head, knocking her over backward. The second somehow sails through a rotting hole in the following undead’s side and does no damage. And now they’re on top of us.
“Move!” I shout and shove her aside. I spin around, dancing lightly on the balls of my feet and lash out with my spiffy new steel gauntlets. The punch catches one of the two remaining zombies in the face. I feel rotting flesh and bone splinter beneath the blow as filthy hands grapple for me. An instant later, the undead goes down. The last of the trio trips over him…right into my left uppercut. Once again, rotted flesh and black blood spray all over and the last zombie falls. The undead woman with the arrow in her head lets out a growl and tries to rise until my steel backhand separates her head from the decaying sinews of her spine.
“Yuck.”
I hold my hand out and shake them, trying to flick the last bits of rotted brains, flesh, and putrid blood. My shiny new gauntlets are filthy but they performed better than expected. A series of prompts is fading in the corner of my vision:
You attack Undead Washerwoman for 25 points of blunt damage…
You attacked Undead Castellan for 21 points of blunt damage…
The list goes on and on, and my kill count rises to three. Interestingly, I see no XP bar and can’t see that I’ve gained any experience from the battle, only kills.
But there’s no time to think about that now because a dozen or more undead are clawing their way through the battered doors at the end of the barrack.
I spin around and see Keith straining against the door. It doesn’t make a damn lick of sense that it would be stuck shut, but after a heave worth of Dwayne Johnson, the door opens enough for us to squeeze through. After all of us make it through, I grab the inside handle with Keith and we pull for all we’re worth. The door closes six inches, then a foot.
And then the undead are upon us.
Half-skeletal hands with shredded flesh and blackened nails pry at the doors. With a cry, Keith lets go of the door and I get yanked forward. I strain as hard as I can to not lose the door, all the while screaming at Keith for letting go like a dumbass. A moment later his sword flashes in the gap, hacking and chopping at undead hands and arms. Enough appendages fall away that I’m able to slam the door shut. Keith drops the bar, securing us for the meantime.
Without waiting to see how long the door will hold, we race down the hall after Dreadlocks and our archer. Sure enough, the passage leads to the stables. And a way out of the undead-infested palace.
"Have I mentioned how much I hate undead?" I ask Keith as the sounds of the snarls and growls fade behind us.