A little known fact about the undead was that they can evolve.

Not in any natural way, of course, as they did not and could not reproduce. Those that could spread their plague of undeath with infection didn’t create stronger generations like the living could.

To do so was anathema to them.

However, if say, one of them somehow ended up locked away within a necromancer’s tower unsupervised and with access to an almost unlimited supply of necromantic ingredients and drugs, they could become more, become greater than they ever were in life or undeath.

They could evolve.

And a once humble undead, bound forever to guard their master’s abode and endlessly stir a ruined brew within a blackened cauldron for said master that’d never return, would change.

Become bigger, stronger, smarter, and cunning.

They’d become a…

Draugr.

A poisoned claw raked across Autumn’s shield as she opened her mouth to scream a warning. The force of the blow drove the witch to her knees and the air from her lungs, but she’d endured worse before and at the hands of greater than it.

“Ambush!!” Autumn yelled.

Her warning came too little, too late however, and was superfluous besides; as soon as it’d hit the ground, everyone had spun to engage it.

Even hunched over, it was taller than most of them and none could match its girth, bolstered as it was by toxin-bloated muscles. It’d likely been a man once; a human one too, judging by its broad shoulders and the thick beard it sported. Although the proud beard had devolved into a mass of matted gore in its unlife.

Its eyes blazed with blue flames.

Autumn only had a split second to take this all in before the draugr snarled at her, decaying teeth revealed through its permanently peeled-back lips.

Another poisoned claw lashed out lightning quick, this one aiming to take Eme’s head clean off. The catgirl squealed in fright and instinctively raised her hands to defend herself. Ragged claw met dragon bone with resounding force, sending the poor girl flying, yet it was the claw that came off worse in that brief exchange as nary a scar remained on the bone while the poisoned claw chipped.

The draugr snarled once more in aggravation upon seeing its surprise attacks fail.

But there was no time to do anything more than roar as the rest of the adventurers now descended upon it.

Iron blades sought the undead’s flesh in a flurry, but only the sharpest found purchase upon the surprisingly dense muscles. Even without it wearing armor, it still felt like striking iron.

Thick corded arms lashed out, driving the adventurers back.

Evrard danced back hurriedly as the poisoned claws sought him out, lashing out with his spear to keep the undead back, but it continued chasing him with grim intent, ignoring the mostly ineffectual blows landing upon it. In less than a second it was in front of him, scything down with a claw to cut him to the quick.

Yet before it could kill the cowering bunny, the claws ripped into a wooden shield.

Roland grunted under the strain upon his shield, the claw having ripped almost down to his arm. He eyed the poison dripping down with fright.

Furious to have its prize stolen from it, the draugr grasped the shield with its other claw and ripped it from Roland who cried out as his arm torqued painfully, but not as painful as the backhand that followed closely behind it, sending him flying off to the side.

Evrard stared wide-eyed at the beast before him.

Yet once more, someone intercepted it before it could capitalise on the opening it’d created. The draugr cried out in rage as the white of a mithril blade cut through its side and it turned upon the grinning pirate.

“Not so big now are you? Oh fuck—”

Liddie ducked under a wild swing, swiftly backpedaling away.

A thrown knife sunk deep into one of the draugr’s eyes.

It was truly enraged now. In its rudimentary thoughts, it’d seen itself as greater than them, stronger than them, smarter than them, and they were proving it wrong.

Glowing blue eyes of undead flame landed on Evrard once more, and no matter what befell it, they could not halt the draugr’s charge. It wrenched the spear out of Evrard’s desperate grip and struck him down with a poisoned claw, parting the silk gambeson and iron chains he wore with ease.

Evrard cried out.

With a mighty crash, Nelva shield-slammed into the draugr’s side, only managing to shift it slightly as she bounced off. Yet that was enough to draw its attention away, and the beast quickly chased after her.

After picking Eme up, Autumn sent the catgirl off to help drag Evrard to safety while she rushed to help Nelva. The draugr was pressing the defender back, pounding heavily upon her shield in rage, ignoring the blades biting into its back. Even Liddie was having trouble truly harming it, leaving only surface wounds that it simply ignored.

Autumn mentally riffled through her magical arsenal as she approached the fight.

Undead were her bane as they felt no fear.

She’d been here before, but this time she had more to work with.

Putting her wand away, Autumn focused on her black-iron blade. When she’d fought Mildred amongst the shining crystals, she’d unwittingly coated her original iron knife with a razor-sharp edge of her magic. However, as the iron couldn’t contain that much power, it’d shattered rather spectacularly.

The black-iron did no such thing; it simply drank the fear until a Dread Knife sang in her grip.

When Nelva next peered out from behind her shield, her eyes couldn’t help but widen in disbelief as she saw Autumn sailing through the air, having kicked off the bony wall. The witch landed upon the unwitting undead’s back and drove her Dread Knife deep into its skull.

“Avada Kedavra, bitch!”

The draugr staggered. While the undead couldn’t feel fear, this one was smart enough to learn. It thrashed, desperately trying to dislodge the witch clinging to its back.

“Oh, shit!!” Autumn screamed as she was sent flying.

Luckily, Liddie caught her out of the air. “Damn, that was hot.”

Autumn smiled weakly.

With a knife lodged deep into its brainpan, the draugr wasn’t as fast nor as coordinated as it was before, and soon fell to a thousand cuts. Liddie’s mithril blade landed the final blow, severing its head as it twitched pathetically on the floor.

Over two-thousand years of waiting, and it died to a witch that’d been in this world just over a month.

Autumn panted heavily, her heart pounding as she stood over the corpse alongside the others. The fight hadn’t taken all that long, a few seconds at most, but it’d felt far longer in her mind. She was feeling pumped as, for once, the fight had gone mostly her way, even if it’d been a clusterfuck in the beginning. And she’d finally gotten one over on the undead.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Although, reflecting on it, she was glad nobody understood her reference. Her cheeks already burned with embarrassment remembering it.

Her musing was broken as Roland rushed over to Evrard, pushing Eme out of the way as he did so.

Autumn frowned as she went over to her catgirl.

“How is he?” she asked.

Eme shook her head sadly before whispering to Autumn. “It doesn’t look good. Without a way to cleanse the undead poison from the wound, anything we do won’t help. I’ve already given him a general anti-toxin, but we need a specific cure or, barring that, clerical aid.”

Although she’d whispered, her voice still carried to all those listening, some less keen to hear such dire news.

“Shut your fucking mouth! He’ll make it!” Roland yelled as he clutched a limp Evrard.

“Hey!” Autumn growled, hackles raised as she stepped protectively in front of Eme. “She did everything to help him. It’s not her fault for being realistic.”

Roland snarled, his visage nearly as gruesome as the draugr’s. “Well, maybe if she’d actually pull her fucking weight, Evrard wouldn’t have gotten hurt!”

Darkness pooled in Autumn’s eyes, weeping down her form until the lights seemed to die. The skittering shadows cheered as they saw the return of their mistress.

Liddie clapped loudly as she stood in between the pair. “Alright! Enough!!! Neither of you are helping! You,” she pointed aggressively at Roland, “shut the fuck up and deal with your friend’s wound. Try to clean it the best you can and cut away any of the necrotized flesh. We can heal it later if he survives. And you,” she now pointed at Autumn, “put away your spooky form and look over at that alchemy station for anything that might help, as slim a hope that is.”

Autumn glared at Roland for a tense second before complying. Around her the shadows sighed as they retreated.

Seizing Eme’s arm, Autumn stormed over to the alchemy bench.

“Hey, I didn’t say to take the cat with you—fuck it; I know how to pick my battles.” Liddie sighed.

Eme gave Liddie an apologetic smile as she followed meekly behind Autumn, her heart thumping loudly and it wasn’t from battle.

“Fucking prick.” Autumn grumbled as they reached the alchemy station. She glanced apologetically towards Eme. “Sorry. I shouldn’t swear so much. Next time just leave that arseho—them to die.”

Eme snorted. “I’m a bard, remember? We’ve a well-versed lexicon of profanity. And you don’t really mean that, do you?”

Autumn fidgeted, avoiding Eme’s eyes, before sighing. “No, I suppose I don’t. Forget it. We should look at all this stuff, right? Too bad Pyre’s not here.”

“Pyre’s one of your other teammates, right?” Eme asked as she carefully picked through the scattered vials and ingredients on the table. Most seemed to have been eaten or broken by the draugr over the many years.

Autumn nodded. “Yeah, an alchemist.” She gestured to the table. “You can imagine how useful she’d be here. Although, she’s an Ignis. Do you know if her hair would ignite the methane gasses outside?”

Eme blanched. “That’s a terrifying thought. But, what’s methane?”

Autumn flinched, scattering some empty vials to shatter on the floor. At the sound, everyone looked curiously over at them. Autumn mouthed a sorry before turning back to Eme, sweat dripping down her back.

“Ah, methane is, um, an odorless, colorless, and transparent gas. It occurs both naturally and is given off by decomposing bodies.” Autumn gestured to the outside where an abundance of such resided.

Eme cocked her head to the side, “if it’s odorless, then why does it smell so bad out there then?”

“T-that’s another gas: ammonia, I think. That one’s a colorless and highly irritating gas with a pungent, suffocating odor.” Autumn recited.

“Huh, you’re really well educated.”

Eme’s sharp eyes watched Autumn sweat before nodding to herself as if concluding something. She then leaned in towards the witch, shrinking the distance between them so she could whisper unheard by the others.

Sweat ran down Autumn’s back. What does she know? She can’t have figured me out already?! How sharp is she?!!

“You’re a human princess that ran away, right. Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret.” She winked.

More glass shattered.

Autumn ignored the others' looks as she gazed at the self-satisfied look plastered across Eme’s face.

“A princess?!” she whispered harshly. “What kind of princess is a witch?!”

Autumn didn’t know why she was trying to dissuade Eme of this notion; it was better than the truth. Despite that, a princess?!

“Exactly.” Eme nodded, her eyes squinted in a smile. “It’s an extremely clever disguise, I’ll admit that, but you’re too smart and educated for some village hedge witch. We had something similar back home—the hedge witches, not the human princesses—and they weren’t as bright as you.”

“I’m not a princess!” Autumn hissed, mildly amused but mainly horrified.

Eme smiled. “Of course not.” she winked.

Autumn just sighed and turned her attention back to the shelves she’d been searching through before Eme had shared her ridiculous assumption. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Find anything?” Nelva asked as she approached with her visor raised.

Relief colored Autumn’s features. She pointed to a locked cabinet bolted to the benchtop that housed a set of intricate made potions; one crimson, the other lime. “Just those, but I’ve no idea what they are.”

The crimson, almost blood-like liquid lay sanguine inside of a teardrop glass vial, the stopper a grinning copper-green medusa’s head with her snake hair curling down and around the bottle.

The other was a lime-green liquid that was constantly in motion inside a fat-bottomed flask stoppered by a knot of wood while a series of vines curled around the glass.

“And why haven’t you grabbed them yet?” Nelva asked with a raised eyebrow, again she had to blow her ear out of the way for it to be seen.

Autumn shrugged. “Cause it’s clearly locked with powerful magic, or cursed, or both. Why else would that undead have left it alone while it’s eaten everything else? I didn’t know they could do that.”

“Neither did I.” Nelva said before turning and whistling, “Edwyn! Get over here and help us open this up! I suppose Liddie should come over too, it might be a physical lock!”

Liddie perked up from where she was trying to tug Autumn’s knife free from the draugr’s skull.

“Did someone say locked goods?! You did, you flirt!”

With the pair of them at it, the lock didn’t stand a chance. However, when Autumn reached out to grab a potion, Liddie slapped her hand away. She looked up at the pirate with a hurt expression as she rubbed her hand.

Liddie drew herself up in what Autumn recognised as a teaching mode. “First rule of adventurer looting: never touch anything magical with your bare hands, or get some other sap to do it. Why, you might ask? Cause it could be trapped, cursed, or just have some strange effect you don’t understand.”

“The leading cause of rookie deaths is touching something they shouldn’t touch.” Nizana whispered over Autumn’s shoulder, giving her a fright.

The pair of assassins looked over the potions as everyone turned to them.

“While I don’t know much about potions, I do know a lot about vicious traps and they look clean. Your senses would likely tell you the same, but I think your teammate was just trying to make a point. A good one at that.”

“Yes, thank you.” Liddie coughed, trying to find her rhythm again. “So, always wrap them up in a thick cloth and take them to be appraised. Something the guild supplies for ‘free’ paid for by our guild taxes.”

Everyone bar the rookies grumbled at the dreaded T-word.

“So, do we give one to Evrard?” Autumn asked.

“If you want them to die in agony.” Nizana answered her when nobody else would. “Even if it was a grand healing potion, it wouldn’t remove the necrotic poison from the wound. We’ve done all we can and it’s up to them now. And until we can get an expert to look over the potions, we keep them wrapped up, understood?”

Autumn nodded. It made sense.

She turned her attention to the still. “What about this? I’m no alchemist, but isn’t this sort of thing really expensive? And if we got it out of here, who would even get it.”

The group shared an awkward look.

Liddie spoke up again. “Well~ We’re in a bit of a gray area right now. Technically, we finished our guild-issued quest when we destroyed the goblin outpost, but as we haven’t turned it in yet, we are technically still on contract.”

“Meaning?” Autumn asked.

“Meaning the guild can force us to share with the rest of the convoy.” Nizana answered with a mocking smirk, “And because they’d have to evaluate it first, every alchemist on the continent would know about it and kill to get it. So, it’ll go to auction first and we’ll never see it again.”

Autumn slumped. “So, there’s no point in taking it?”

Nizana raised an eyebrow. Nelva looked on jealously as she blew her ear away in annoyance.

“I never said that. We’ll still make a ton of gold off of it.” She turned to take in the enormity of it. “If we can get it out, that is.”

“Or~” Autumn began, “could we just not declare it?”

“Are you suggesting we steal from the guild?” Liddie swooned. “Someone hold me~ She’s too much~ I might lose my position as the chief thief!”

Edwyn snorted, but shook their head. “Bad idea. The guild always finds oot aboot that sought of thing. We’ll all be banned, juist tae start with, ’n’ I shudder at the fines.”

Autumn nervously laughed “I was just joking. What about that cauldron? Does it look any good?”

“I checked it oot, already. It’s got an undeath elemental bound underneath it. None of us are touching that with a ten-foot pole, got it?” Edwyn gave everyone a stink eye, “leave that tae another, more equipped team tae handle it.”

“Better them than us.” Nelva nodded.

Autumn opened her mouth to ask another question that was burning her when the sound of a finger tapping on glass interrupted her.

‘Tap. Tap. Tap.’

‘He did not.’

Autumn turned slowly to the sound, her eyes widening in horror as she knew what was coming, spoiled as she was by too many horror movies. Standing in front of one of the glass chambers was Roland, squinting as he looked at something inside and tapped at the glass.

“Yond clay-brained fool didst.” The banshee snarked.

The glass shattered outward.