“It’s delicious nonetheless.”

“I was in the mood for soup.”

Lisa is still very annoyed by how the meal turned out. It’s a lot better than I thought it would be for ‘rations’, I guess the clergy have standards. I would probably be hunting some bird or gathering fruits from trees by now if it weren’t for this detour I took with the priests so I don’t feel too bad about that. After the meal the sun can already be visible in the windows from the middle of the room rushing ever closer to the mountains on the horizon. The dim yellow and red colors brought out the wooden structures in the village and the angle of the light gave me a nostalgic feeling of the first day in this world, back when I had Dali’s body.

“Something’s on your mind?” Grey asks me as I sit lonely at a random chair at the church. “You have a sad look on your face, are you worried about the villagers at the lord’s keep?”

“I had…” I almost tell him what’s on my mind. But I can’t let him know, about Dali, about myself. “I had a rough day, all of us did.”

“Cheer up, we can sleep in the church’s guest room. churchs normally keep these for visiting priests only, but I think this should be an exception.”

Guy is looking through the church’s documents and Lisa… is taking a nap. I almost felt bad for just sitting down but I guess as long as my eyes are open I’m still not the least helpful around. I feel like I should do some push ups or… do something to prepare myself better. That reminds me… I should follow Rodricks advice and make a better plan for tackling the undead.

“Hey, Grey, do you know anything about the undead? Like they’re weaknesses?”

“Holy magic is they’re weakness, that’s what we learned at the temple at least, and I guess what you do with your sword is good enough too.”

“Nothing else?”

“We learned pretty much only how to heal and how to preach the religion of the dragon god, the undead are classified as ‘eradicate on sight’ just like all the vile creatures.”

“But where do they come from? aside from dead bodies, maybe if we tackle this at the root…”

“Spoken like a true adventurer, hahaha. We’re only interested in eradicating the infestation, originally we were supposed to talk to the lord about purifying the houses around. Guy knows more about it though. HEY GUY!” He screams to an open door of an office in the church.

“Not now, I’m busy.” can be heard muffled from the door. I’d rather walk over there than have a screaming conversation.

“I’m sorry, Guy, but I was interested in what you know about the undead.” I get to the door by the end of the sentence. He skiffs through some documents.

“I was hoping to learn something like that too. I thought maybe the priest here would have an unsent letter with more information. The one who sent the letter to us was the lord, but we’ll need more time before we can go there.”

“What do you think can cause this? a necromancer?”

“Most likely, but I don’t know where his sightings were, or if the culprit was from the village or not.”

Were both dumbfounded, he still goes through the many doors and some boxes in the room.

WAAAAAAAHHHHHHCHHHGHHHAAAAAAAAAAA

A screeching scream that barely resembles a human voice breaks through the air. It’s like a very loud whisper, like an undead trying to speak. The sun is half set under the mountains and it begins to get dark.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Oh yeah, aren’t the undead a lot more active during the night?” I ask

“I don’t know, they shouldn’t be active at all.”

We both get out of the office, Lisa is up, no doubt that woke her from her nap and put her into a frightened state, none of us four are calm.

“Did you hear that?!” Lisa asks.

“Might it have been your stomach, Lisa?” Grey asks her back with a frightened smile. All of us are quiet for what feels like a very long time.

“Maybe we should-”

WAAAAAHHHHCCCHHAAAHHHHGHHAAAAAA

Guy doesn’t get to finish his words before another scream interrupts him. A moment later a Knock comes on the door of the church, more like a banging, slow and heavy banging like someone is trying to break in.

“We should move.” I propose.

“Where?”

“The lord’s keep, we need to find who, or what, is behind this.” Guy answers decisively, I understand his line of thinking.

“The place where we saw dozens of other undead? No, I don’t think that’s a good idea, we’ll be torn to shreds.” Lisa objects, and I understand her too, but…

“We’ll be torn to shreds either way.” I tell her. Whoever is thumping on the door now found a friend, it sounds like a heartbeat and is soon joined by another. “Soon enough they’ll break though. We can’t fight them all, we need to run.” I suggest we flee.

Dan comes into my head. He sacrificed himself just so that I could die again only a couple of days later? Also these priests… we will all die here.”

“No! we’ll stay. We’re priests, we must do this.” Guy sure is stubborn.

“I second Fren!” Lisa sure does support me.

“No! and it’s final. if there’s a necromancer controlling these undead it will be a disaster to any neighboring villages, and if there isn’t then that’s even worse.” It’s… ohh damn it. What do I do? Duhndale, where I came from, is probably not too far, it might be next in line… and I don’t want Grey or Lisa or Guy to die.

“I won’t stop Fren from leaving, but you two are priests, if you don’t stay here and fight you might be hunted as deserters.” Guy tells them both, he’s almost shouting because the banging on the door has gotten too loud. Lisa, under her hood, has a shocked look on her face staring at the door. Grey is shocked as well but he looks at me with sad eyes, as if this is goodbye.

I have a heavy feeling, not despair or sadness, I can’t explain. It’s something I have felt before, I don’t remember where… It’s like time stopped and I’m expected to make a decision, earlier it was… where? Dali’s wife… I remember when I needed to tell her something I had the same feeling. My body is almost frozen, things around me are motionless and the sound has stopped. Whatever I do here will have a large impact in the future, I can tell, but I have decided already before considering anything for a second time. I don’t want to leave them, I don’t want them to get hurt. My heart aches, I feel like I’m betraying Dan’s sacrifice.

“We need to get to the lord’s keep.” I proclaim, the door pounding continues, everything around me moves again, this was an experience I need to remember , what was that?

CRAAACKKKSH

Guess I’ll have to think about it some other time, the door finally gave in, and about ten wobbling corpses are at the entrance.

“Quickly, follow me!” I take a leap toward my sword and slash through. There’s no time to waste here, where the corpses have a chance to corner us. As I slash I notice something odd. I did manage to hit a few, and with the powerful magic swings I barely felt a resistance, but they actually tried to dodge. Either way I cleared a hole in their attack for us to make our escape. it’s already quite dark outside and it looks like the undead crawled up and out, there are a few on every corner. And what’s worse is that I wasn’t imagining, they move well, almost running, it must be the night, their mobility is considerably better.

“Return to dust! Return to dust!” Grey and Lisa jump outside shouting and holding their hand out. Guy behind them found a cane that he uses as a weapon while also casting prayers against the undead. We regroup outside, but it seems we're surrounded nonetheless. No matter where we look there are undead.

“What now?” Grey asks

“Follow me, and cover me with spells… erm, prayers.” Let’s see, the keep was this way, right? I continue, there is no time to linger at any point, lucky for us the undead are unarmed or carry pens and cutlery, I think I saw one with a ladle but I will wait until we get to safety before I mention this to Lisa.

I think we're doing pretty well, I’m spearheading and the three priests make sure to repel from the sides. I remember this road, and I can see the keep from afar. It won’t be over once we get there, it will barely be considered progress if we don’t get any information inside but this is our best bet.

“Stop! Fren, your’e hurt!” ohh, I didn’t notice. Guess I am, but I can’t afford to slow down. The walking corpses behind us will catch up in minutes if we won’t rush it. Inside there may be some dead guards again, with weapons and armor… I need to brace myself. Just outside the keep we see a blockade of undead, there’s no way we're getting inside through the door, was it all for nought?