The atmosphere was rent by the sound of shattering glass as an amorphous crimson mass smashed its way free of its cylindrical prison, lunging for Roland, drawn by his foolish tapping. Immediately, the Lepus collapsed to the floor, his screams smothered by boiling blood rushing into his mouth.

Initially stunned by the sudden violence, it took a second for the rest of them to respond.

“It’s a Blood Ooze!” Nizana called out as they rushed over. “Get it off of him quick, or it’ll rip the blood from his body!”

Autumn watched on in horror as the boiling blood rolled over Roland, leaving behind bubbling flesh where it touched as he thrashed in agony. All across the red mass rippled screaming faces that belched licks of superheated flame into the air, warding off the advancing adventurers.

“How do we do that?! It’s a liquid!”

Nizana answered Autumn as she scanned the monster. “Look for a core; it’ll look like a gemstone orb of some kind. Smash it and the construct can’t hold itself together.”

A task easier said than done.

Sharp blades scythed through the boiling blood with care, trying not to cut Roland in the process of freeing him. However, their timidity prevented them from catching the dark orb hidden within the crimson. The strikes that skimmed the orb only caused it to flinch away, still keeping a suffocating Roland in its boiling grasp.

Autumn narrowed her eyes.

Whipping her wand out, Autumn sent a blast of fear screaming towards it. While the fragile wand vibrated concerningly in her hand, she paid little mind to it as the sight of the ooze recoiling, its dozens of twisting faces contorting in fear, caught her attention.

Autumn grinned viciously.

“Edwyn! Got any ice runes left?!” Autumn asked as she tucked her wand away again.

Edwyn looked over at her. “Juist the one! Got a plan, lassie?”

Autumn nodded. “Yeah, just freeze it after I get it off, alright?!”

After getting an affirmative nod back from the Runecaster, Autumn dashed up to the weakly thrashing Roland, who was growing sluggish from a lack of oxygen. She dipped and dived around great gouts of flame, the intense heat curling the ends of her magically straightened hair, much to her dismay. Drawing to a stop beside the blood ooze, Autumn focused her magic into coating her hands with her Touch of Terror spell and plunged them elbow-deep into the boiling mass.

The heat was incredible.

Autumn bit back a scream and unleashed her magic.

A thick pulse of fear blasted inside the crimson mass like a depth charge. Immediately, the blood ooze squealed and recoiled in a primordial terror, while Roland’s eyes rolled up into the back of his head as he got caught up in the blast. In an act of desperate, fearful flight, the amorphous beast ripped itself away from the Lepus man, leaving behind great wounds upon him. Blood trickled freely from Roland’s pores, his skin covered in oozing blisters.

The ooze tried to run, but it did not get far before a rune shattered across it, turning a significant chunk of the mass around its heartcore to ice.

“Now! Hit it!” Edwyn bellowed.

Already waiting for the cue, the adventurers didn’t hesitate now, and immediately they laid into the frozen ooze with a vengeance till it lay all but shattered and melting, its heartcore cracked in half.

Autumn sat down tiredly on the first clean section of floor she could find, puffing as she tried to get her breath back under control while the adrenaline faded from her system. And while the burning blood hadn’t gotten through her robes, nor the magic surrounding her hands, her fingers still felt tender and looked rather pinkish.

Glancing over at the cause of the misfortune, Autumn’s eyes landed on Roland just as the Lepus was coming around.

Roland’s eyes snapped open in a panic, rolling wildly in his skull as he hyperventilated. When his manic gaze fell upon Autumn, it widened further in fear and he scrambled back into the bloody slush.

“Monster.” He croaked out, casting his maddened eyes about the others. “She’s a monster! She tried to kill me!! You all saw!! We need to burn her before she kills us all!!!”

In a fit of rage, Liddie punched him right in the jaw, bringing an end to his frenzied yelling and sent him sprawling back into the frozen blood. Roland groaned as he clutched his jaw, glaring up at the pirate with madness in his eyes.

“Shut the fuck up!” Liddie growled. “Autumn saved your worthless hide! You should try thanking her instead of screaming your head off. None of us want to hear it.”

“Forget it.” Autumn told her as she picked herself up with a groan. “I don’t need nor want any meaningless platitudes.” She then stepped up beside the pirate to look down upon the defender, still lying on his ass.

“Fucking amateur.”

Liddie snorted as Autumn walked away.

Nizana approached Autumn and tapped her on the shoulder. She held up a cloth-wrapped bundle the size of a fist towards the witch as she looked over. “Here.”

“What is it?” Autumn asked as she took the bundle from her. Inside was a crystal orb, split roughly in two. She looked back up expectantly at the assassin.

“It’s the blood ooze’s core. Seeing as we only killed it thanks to you, it only makes sense for you to hang onto it. You’ll still need to submit it to the guild, but they might let you keep it as a trophy. Who knows? You might get lucky.”

“Thanks.” Autumn wrapped the core back up and stuffed it into her pack.

Turning her attention back to the injured Lepus pair, Autumn nodded to them. “Do you think we should send them back? As injured as they are, they’ll just be a liability.”

Nizana shook her head. “With how they’ve acted? No, they’ll likely run off the first chance they get, taking whatever they can get their hands on while doing so. And if they survived the journey back, they’d be able to sing whatever pretty tale they liked about us to the rest of the convoy. We’ll take them with us. Just keep a keen eye on them.”

Autumn grimaced.

In a lighter tone, Nizana continued. “Or we could…make sure they aren’t a problem anymore. Their wounds do look rather dire, don’tcha think?”

Autumn swallowed heavily and closed her eyes, thinking it over. Her shoulders slumped as she opened them again.

“No. I don’t think I’m comfortable doing that.”

Nizana shrugged, unconcerned. “It’s just an option.”

Autumn followed behind the Umbra Elf as she sauntered over to the where the rest of the group had gathered. The other Elf, Illiamtree, quirked his head at Nizana as she approached, subtle sign language flashing between them.

{Eliminate the dead weight?} Illiamtree signed.

Nizana signed back, {Negative. Wait for now. Too many eyes.}

Autumn gulped.

Quickly, she turned her attention away, lest they think she’d understood their secret communications. Her eyes landed upon Evrard. The others had tightly wrapped bandages around his chest after they’d cut out as much dead or infected tissue as they could, yet blood-soaked cloth reeked foully of necrosis even so.

Currently, feverish sweat ran down his face as he stood propped up by his spear. Beside him stood a glaring, disheveled Roland, having made his way over as Autumn talked with Nizana.

Liddie took them all in, somehow falling into the role of leader.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“Alright everyone, back into formation as we’re moving on! And it’s not a request. So do it on the double! Oh, right. Autumn, catch!” Liddie lightly tossed Autumn’s black-iron knife back to her.

Upon reaching the end of the laboratory, everyone stopped as they got a look at the doorway to the next room of horrors. What had once been a solid black-iron door was little more than a ravaged piece of metal, as something had torn a hole right in through its center. The crinkle of glass underfoot drew Autumn’s attention. She frowned as she trailed it back to the broken last cylinder.

“Did the undead we fought do that?” Eme whispered to Autumn.

The witch shrugged. “Maybe? Whatever it was, it broke the door from this side. See the way the metal folds outwards?”

Eme nodded as she saw what Autumn was pointing at.

“No traps on it. None physical at least.” Liddie reported, “Edwyn? Autumn? Do you guys see anything?”

“Nothing magical from me,” Autumn reported, Edwyn grunting the same.

“Ok then.” Liddie nodded, breathing deeply. “Everyone remember the first rule? Don’t touch anything.” She glared at them. “Let’s go.”

Swiftly, the group followed behind Liddie, dogging her heels as they entered the room before rapidly spreading out to take in the entirety of the room. Autumn hurriedly looked up as she entered.

Thankfully, she spied no undead lurking in the shadows there.

Autumn lowered her gaze to take in the grandeur of the new horror she found herself in.

A morgue stretched out before them, full of stone coffins bearing all kinds of desiccated remains that’d once likely served as fuel for a mad necromancer’s foul experiments. Candlelight from more stinking tallow candles shone down upon the room from within the sockets of floating skulls that grinned at them from on high. In one far corner sat an undead gestalt bound in a cage of black-iron, its thousand faces screaming silently as it glared at them with cruel intelligence.

Displayed upon the grim walls were the dead heroes of yore and legend, mutilated, twisted, and distorted into macabre artworks. Or Autumn hoped they’d been dead before becoming what they were now.

But all this played secondary to the main show.

Dominating the center of the room was a blood-stained altar. Carved from a single dark-stone block, it looked old, older than even the dire tower it endured within. Twisting sigils and glyphs wept blood, looking more like wounds on a dying beast than carvings in stone. Each one whispered dark secrets as Autumn skimmed over them, forcing her to look away lest she learn things she wanted no part in.

Autumn blinked the spots out of her eyes. “Uhh, try not to look at the altar. It’s definitely evil and might try to melt your brain.”

The group looked at Autumn with varying amounts of trepidation.

“Right? Thanks for the heads up.” Liddie said. “Let’s split up into small groups and look for loot carefully. Again, need I remind you to not touch anything until the experts have cleared it? No? Ok we move out in ten.”

Autumn immediately made a bee-line towards a small study full of a scattering of papers and books on the far side of the room, giving the evil-looking table a wide berth as she went.

Eme followed in her wake like a lost duckling.

Upon reaching the large desk, Autumn cast a cursory look over it before doing anything more. Like everything else within the tower, the materials that made it up were of bone and black-iron. However, it wasn’t crude in design, just the opposite, in fact. It looked like a nobleman’s bureau, complete with a fancy seat and a surface polished to a sheen.

It didn’t seem to have any magical traps layered upon it to her, but it couldn’t hurt to be sure.

“Hey Edwyn!” Autumn called out, “Can you come and check this over? I’ve found some notes and papers that might be helpful.”

“Coming!” Edwyn grunted.

After looking over the table for a few moments—even going so far as to crawl under it at one point—Edwyn pointed to a few well-hidden sections. “Here, ‘ere, ‘n’ ‘ere are some very nasty curse-runes. I’ll be only a moment.” Edwyn then used their rune knife to scrape off some links, one after another. “and~ done. It’s all safe now. Well, as safe as anything can be in this place.”

“Thank you.” Autumn said as she turned excitingly to pick up a ratty notebook. Behind her, Eme stood on her tippy-toes to peek over the witch’s shoulder.

Autumn slowly flicked through the pages, skim reading as she went. What hadn’t been scoured by time was all mostly either mad ramblings of a twisted mind or the twisted notes of a mad art. However, there were a few interesting tidbits she gleaned from between the dark musings.

Clearing her throat, she softly read out loud for Eme’s benefit.

Lord Riven has fallen as of last night scoured from unlife by the—

—come in great numbers now. No longer are they some simple creatures or livestock of the devils as my lesser colleagues purport—

—is hidden in Oldgrave, deep below the— — —alas I can’t journey to find it for—

The demon hordes took the deep woods as of writing this, if only Lord — had given me the supplies I asked for then— —Why I bother to —

“Blah, blah, blah. A lot of this is just complaining about the state of the necromancer’s nation. Interestingly enough, I think the demon hordes they are referring to here are the Inferni in the 1st reign, back when they first arrived in the mortal plane.”

“Ooo~,” Eme said. “That’d make this journal really old, right? I bet the government would pay a lot for it; they always snap up historical artifacts like this for their museum.”

Autumn blinked. “I suppose so. Anyway, I’ll keep reading, this next part is strange.”

—was fell by a great blow. Sadly Lord and Lady — fell its —. The —’s bones and flesh will craft the greatest of my works! No longer will— hold the— it’ll—

Its feathers respond well to the — treatments. Living tissue would’ve — alas, I must —

Success! Success! Success! So important to write it thrice.

The — has risen. Once it has gestated in the blood of the — it’ll be unstoppable. Who needs dragon bones any longer — —ill-tempered —

Soon it’ll be my turn to rule the — — — — My first act shall be to drive the hellspawns back to their cages and nail the devils to my door!

Necro-Lord Gravis Val Treach

“Well, I guess we know who owns the tower now.” Autumn joked. “The rest of it kinda devolves into just more mad ramblings and some rather creative vows against his enemies.”

“I suppose so.” Eme nodded, idly shifting things to the edge of the desk. “I wonder what they were talking about? The greatest of their works?”

Autumn cast a look around the dust-filled chamber. “Clearly it didn’t work out as they were expecting.”

“Hmm~” Eme hummed non-committedly.

“Have you lot found anything yet? I’ve had the worst of luck!” Liddie called out as she marched over to them. “Just dust and a desire to drink myself to sleep.”

Autumn gestured to the desk. “Just a bunch of notes and journals. They do have some references to the war between the Inferni and necromancers, though. So they might be worth a bit of coin.”

Liddie whistled appreciatively. “Nice going! You’ve got some good luck. Let me borrow some, will ya?! Alright, bundle it all up somewhere dry and let's get a move on.”

With Liddie urging, Autumn carefully tucked away the legible notes into her waterproof scroll casing that currently only held her map. It was a bit of a tight fit, but she managed it in the end.

Nothing remained of the next room, aside from a heavy smell of sulfur clinging to the stale air and a broken circular formation of blackened runes. Edwyn took one look at them and stiffened.

“Devil runes.”

Liddie glanced over sharply, her eyes hardening to ice. “Good thing it’s broken.”

Autumn didn’t blame the Inferni pirate for her hate. Her people had once been chattel for those rulers of the burning hells. She shuddered. While she had no clue as to what kind of place it was aside from her far-too-active imagination, she doubted it was a place of kindness and rainbows.

“Let’s move!” Liddie barked.

Nobody gainsaid her.

A welcome, but concerning surprise, greeted the group as they arrived at the stairwell to the next floor. Autumn stared up the twisting stairwell, marveling at all the sprung traps and army of broken undead corpses littering its steps. The owner of this tower had clearly sought to stop something from ascending and had ultimately failed.

“I think we found out why we got no welcome party.” Liddie said as she stared upward beside Autumn.

“Who wants to bet that they left after they were done?” Autumn asked nervously.

Nobody took her up on that bet.

Their nerves racketed up for every step they took up that long spiral of a staircase, picking their way over walls of dismembered bodies and glancing at the sheer amount of violence cast upon the walls in long slashes. Luckily, there was a relatively clear path through the center, although in some cases the piles still towered over them.

When they finally made it to the top and entered the third floor, they once more smelt of decay and sweat. A haunting aroma.

A bleak throne room greeted the adventurers, its towering pillars of bone laying broken and scattered across a vast hall of rotting carpets while banners of mold and decay adorned scarred white walls. All across the vast hall lay an innumerable tide of undeath, now devoid of its unholy spark, dismembered by the same blade that’d cleared the way here.

At the far end of the hall, sitting atop a grand dais of grinning skulls, was an enormous throne of bones, formed from the bones of dragons and men.

And a necromancer sat upon it.

He remained deathly still as they approached, but that meant nothing here, so they readied themselves. However, as they approached the steps of the dais, it was clear he was truly dead as a large halberd lay embedded inside his chest.

Autumn blinked, perturbed.

Was that it? She wondered. Their journey upwards would end in an anticlimax?

But Autumn should’ve known better, for as soon as she thought that, a being rose up from where it’d been kneeling, hidden by the rise of the dais.

Feathery black wings dripped with rot and pestilence down upon a gore-marred robe that might have once been a pure white. Its waxy skin pulsed with blue veins as it stretched taut across a skeletal frame that belied a strength hidden within. The being’s face hid away beneath a deep hood that only allowed a set of thin pale lips to peek through.

The being strode languidly across the dais of skulls towards the felled necromancer and stretched out a long arm tipped in long, jagged fingernails to wrap around the haft of the halberd. It hoisted it up effortlessly, necromancer and all.

With a silent heave, Ithuriel the Rotten flung Necro-Lord Gravis Val Treach at the adventurers, commencing the battle for their lives.