Gregory, Guy, the priestess who's name I haven't yet asked and myself. We all walk into the building they called keep, it looks like a mansion with stone walls, but I wouldn't call it a keep. The big wooden double doors are broken. It's still morning technically and we get some sun shining through the doorway and through the doors and it allows us to see a mess on the floor. What was probably a pretty carpet is ragged, cups and candlesticks all over the floor and red stains over the dressers and chairs that were probably set in front of the door to stop the intruders from finding their way inside. The lack of light inside is already alarming, it could be that this place was already lost. Before I can tell them that a shadow moves from the dark, Its legs are armored, like a guard's but as it takes another it's evident this is another undead. He wears a tattered bloodstained shirt and his gaze is blankly staring into us, what seals the deal is of course the giant hole in his side where his stomach and ribs are clearly popping out. He holds a sword, probably what he used in his life. We look at him with worry, but nonetheless I take a step forward and hold my sword with both hands. The undead guard steps forward slowly, behind him more corpses enter our view, and after squinting I realize that everything on the floor that isn't rubble is a human body. They walk and stumble and fall but then another takes their place behind them.

"We need to go." I tell the three behind me, but not only they hear me. The undead have now shifted gears and get up quicker. Guy behind me starts some incantation, they probably can't see this is a place full of the undead. It's not smart to turn your back to an armed opponent but since he's undead and quite far I sprint out of there and grab Guy's robes. "I said we need to go!"

Gregory and Lisa hurriedly follow behind us. "Where are we going?" Guy asks me, now that he understands we need to run.

"Anywhere else." I barely finish my sentence before the guard and a dozen other undead exit the mansion following us. A glance back is all the priests need to realize they need to run away immediately .

"So the noble has fallen? already?" Lisa asks herself out loud.

"Either that or they're having a theme party." hard to believe anyone can make jokes at a time like this but if anyone would it would be Gregory, and with half a smile on his face while he runs from the walking dead. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know, even the town noble fell, I'm not sure there's anyone to help here anymore." Guy says back to him but Gregory stays silent, he's... looking at me. Did he mean to ask me instead? He keeps looking at me with his eyes saying 'well?'. I think... I have to come up with something. And after another glance I do have an Idea, we are outpacing the undead after all, but more importantly…

"Behind this building." I point to a house up ahead that has a stone fence. There are some writings etched on a big stone upfront 'Tanner', probably the last name of whoever lived here.

"Alright, I'll handle them when they come, you guys start the incantations."

"They're prayers, not incantations." Lisa corrects me.

"Haven't we locked ourselves here? We're gonna get swarmed by them.” Guy questions my plan.

“If worse comes to worst we can climb over the fence. even with what you’re wearing.”

“Still, that’s just wasting time we could use to run and gain-” Guy continues to question this plan but stops when he hears Gregory starting the incantation, I mean, prayer. After a moment Lisa follows suit and Guy too.

We can see the undead coming for us, lucky they have the courtesy of coming one by one, unlike the first three, three these are most unarmed, and those who are armed brought with them jugs and pitchers, and one thought it’s wise to bring a whole drawer and hold it like it’s the perfect weapon for bashing heads in. The only two we need to be wary of are the two guards, one from before and one who followed. In total there are probably about a dozen undead. I realized there are probably hundreds inside the mansion but I could only see a handful following us, after the first few seconds. I’m not sure why but if we don’t stay in there the others probably won’t notice, and won’t swarm us. Not only that but they’ll only take whatever they can find as an immediate weapon, and if they can’t they’ll just run in blindly with nothing, as evident with the first undead to reach the inside the stone fence.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

One sword swing, one less undead to worry about, Gregory finishes him off by turning his head to dust.

Another one, finished by Lisa and guy, but now the half stomach guard comes in. Time to show what my armor and skills are worth. He raises his hand to swing down diagonally, before he can swing I dash forward beyond his range. It’s too fast for him and he can barely even adjust before I slash his sword hand off. From there he's wide open to any attack, but instead…

“Gregory!”

“Got it! Return to the cycle!”

I turn my attention to the drawer wielder who already came close enough, Gregory sends a bolt of light to the arm-less undead guard turning him to ashes while he stands next to me.

A pitcher falls down, that one tried to go over the fence and fell. They have battle instincts but awkward movements otherwise. They can’t walk past a messy living room without tripping over, let alone climb a stone fence. Dangerous but clumsy, and when they don’t have their numbers to back them up they’re barely even dangerous.

The other Guard walks up slowly, he still has his torso armor as well as the greaves, but his jaw-less head is a place to aim. I deflect his sword and get in to punch him down to the ground. Then a bolt of light hits his head, his movements don’t stop but after throwing his sword away it’s hardly a danger.

A few minutes pass and the battle is over. The priests take this time to handle any moving pieces and turn the rest of the undead to ashes too.

It’s already noon. “It’s amazing you understood that much in such little time, and came up with the plan so fast.” Gregory flatters me “So what now? should we do that to the rest of the undead inside the mansion? we can clean them up, even before the reinforcements arrive.”

“Grey! look at how he’s huffing, he's tired from fighting so much today. And we’re not in great shape too, these turn undead to dust prayers are taxing, it’s not nearly as powerful as earlier.” Lisa lectures Gregory and gives reasons too, she’s harsh, somehow Gregory doesn’t stop smiling. “Hey, Grey! Are you even listening?”

“Oh yeah, Fren, you can call me Grey, it’s like a nickname.”

“You listen to that, yeah?!” Lisa is furious, under her hood I can imagine her eyes glowing in raging red.

“She’s right, even though she’s only thinking about the food supplies. We can’t keep this up, and Fren here probably used up much of his stamina in the fight too, he’s probably exhausted..” Guy chimes in.

I do feel tired, not ‘exhausted’ though, I can go another wave or two of that, but I did notice the prayers got weaker. It’s interesting, how does that work? I’ll ask Gregory- I mean Grey, later. We hid our supplies in a house near where the carriage left us. We'd need to go back and make fire too probably, it’s easy to take from the houses of those who died but I don’t know how priests would feel about that.

An hour or so later I suppose we get back and open up the supplies.

“Meat, Veggies, still edible, and some seasonings. We could roast these, or we could make soup. I vote for soup!” Lisa gets excited by food, not surprising Grey or Guy. “There’s a well we came across, also the church probably has a kitchen, Grey. you go get the water, OK?”

“I’ll go with, we can’t risk going alone anywhere.” Guy declares decisively, a wise choice.

“Fren can come with me, you go to the church.”

“There’s no need for-”

“It’s alright, Guy, I’ll go with Grey, you guys go on ahead.” Grey is visibly excited when I call him Grey now. We start walking, leaving Lisa and Guy to carry the supplies to the church.

“Hey, so… How long have you been an adventurer?”

“Umm… I haven’t yet, I still have the letter, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. You were really strong today, how did you become so strong?”

Grey is very interested in adventuring to say the least. His happy go lucky attitude sends waves of questions in my way.

“I think you actually killed the named goblin, you know.” I don’t know why he looks up to me so much.

“Say, if you like adventurers, why did you become a priest?” I ask

“Umm” he thinks for a second “The paladins, I guess. I can’t really say which one. The paladins are so cool and strong, I want to become like them. I’m no noble, and not strong enough to be accepted anyway. If I can become a priest I could maybe… you know.”

“Uhh, this stench, is it coming from the well?” All of a sudden when we get to the well, an abhorrent odor is unavoidable.

“Ohh, damn, smells worse than a corpse, and I know cause this village is full of them.”

After a bucket of the most foul water we decided it’s better to leave it alone. We’d just have to cook something else. Defeated by our noses we walk off to the church, it’s the only house with a bell on top. We tell Lisa and Guy about the well but there is another one next to the church apparently. Still, Lisa seems to be in an awful mood.

“Damn it all! We have everything but no ladle!”