Fork This Life!

Chapter 24: Skeletons. Skeletons everywhere.

(POV Ferdinand)

With a scratching sound, the final line is marked upon the map. Scooping a large piece of earth up in her hands, Lily lays the newly deceased cat within the shallow grave and sprinkles the earth over it. She looks up at us. “I have the necromancer’s location. The place… doesn’t have a name, but it is near the Empire’s borders to the west.”

“Excellent.” Exclaims Luc. “We should make haste towards him, lest he moves or does further damage.”

I nod.

Joe chews absently on a strand of wheat, seemingly uninterested.

“Indeed, but we should at least inquire at the temples we pass to see if there are any other paladins or priests available to assist us.” Lily says.

(POV Gerald)

We pass through several cities without any trouble from bandits, and very little from monsters. They were likely intimidated by the heavily armoured paladins.

Speaking of, they managed to persuade some other paladins and priests to join our motley troupe. As we go along some of them look sidelong at Ferdinand, but more of them are looking strangely at this empty spot near us I assume Joe is occupying.

In total we have five paladins, four priests, an adventurer, a weirdo and a fork against a single necromancer. Usually good odds, but then again, a necromancer is a one-man army.

When we finally arrive, everything looks normal. A slight breeze tumbles petals through the air peacefully. The scene is so very different from the mental image most of them must have been holding, so much that someone even mutters, ‘Are we sure this is the right place?’

“He’s got quite the compound underground, by the looks of it. The entrance is hidden about a hundred-fifty meters in front of you, and a tad to your left.” I tell Ferdinand.

“But how can I say that without seeming suspicious?” He asks. Hey, I must be rubbing off on him, he’s starting to ask the right questions.

“Not sure.” I reply honestly. “At least some of them can detect lies, so if you just keep saying it, they should believe you.”

Ferdinand starts trying to tell everyone where the entrance is. They agree that they may as well start looking there and start walking over. The horses they leave tied to a lone tree; mounts will only be a hindrance underground.

Meanwhile, I take a closer look at this compound, hidden base… thing. Evil lair. The necromancer is… there. Oh. That doesn’t look good. That doesn’t look good at all.

“Might want to hurry it up a bit. The necromancer is doing some sort of magical… ritual… thing.”

With a lot of corpses. At a guess, around... a thousand?

The rest of the rooms in his evil lair are completely empty, not a sign of undead anywhere… unless those lanterns are undead. Could be.

A feeling of pressure on my handle brings my attention back to my body. Ferdinand is taking me out of his pack. You do know that I can easily get myself out at any tim- aaand he’s handing me over to Luc. Okay, what?

‘Look, if you are having trouble with something… just use the fork, Luc.’

…Alrighty, didn’t see that one coming.

He goes on to clarify that Luc should throw me at an enemy. Luc is understandably confused, but puts me away in a pouch on his belt nonetheless.

That sneaky little… he knows that if I try to do anything here, I’ll expose myself.

“Fine. Just remember that if you get split up from Luc, I won’t be able to help you.” I warn him.

“I know.”

Raising holy symbols, the priests begin to cast blessings upon everyone – me excepted, obviously. Ferdinand says that they have raised both his physical and mental stats by 5, as well as granting him some resistance to death energy, poison and rot. Not bad.

We reach the entrance, and Luc draws his sword. He jabs it into the ground, piercing through into the empty space below. Nodding to himself, he starts slicing at an impressive speed, the first piece starting to fall just as he completes the last cut.

Around us, the earth starts to bulge.

Rather than a single, massive distortion, there are hundreds upon hundreds of small bulges starting to break the earth around them. They aren’t large, perhaps the size of a large ball… or a head.

Skulls start to surface all around them, skeletal hands pulling themselves free of shallow graves to reveal a horde of skeletons. Soil trickles from between empty ribs and hanging jaws, and a few stubborn flowers cling to some of the skeletons’ pale domes.

Three of the priests raise their arms in prayer and call out, ““Holy sanctuary!””. A softly glowing hemisphere expands from their position until in encompasses the entire group. Half a beat later, the last priest raises his arms and calls out “H-holy sanctuary!” in an oddly high-pitched voice, causing the sphere’s glow to get slightly brighter.

As the first skeletons step foot into the sphere’s radium, the dark flames behind their eyes dim considerably, and their movements slow to a standstill. It takes practically no effort for the paladins to cut them down.

Fear fills the priests’ eyes as they recognise the distinctive twanging sound from the rear of the horde; the holy sanctuary repels the undead, it has no effect against ranged attacks!

One of the paladins raises his shield, shouting lowly, “Divine barrier!”. The edge of the sanctuary surrounding the group turns solid, just in time to deflect a volley of arrows. Glancing off the shield, the otherwise deadly quarrels scatter ineffectively into the horde, doing practically nothing to the skeletal undead.

Walking ever towards the living, the skeletons begin to batter at the barrier. Their attacks are unable to breach it, but the bright light slowly begins to dim.

“I cannot hold this for long!” Exclaims the paladin, face pained as he strains to keep up the barrier in the face of constant assault.

“Everyone underground!” Shouts Lily, leading the group down the formerly hidden staircase herself. Luc follows close behind, warily looking around in case of any further ambushes. Next is Ferdinand and Joe, then the four priests – the sanctuary slowly fading behind them, leaving only the barrier itself – the other two paladins and finally the paladin that was holding up the barrier.

Lit only by ominously glowing skulls and surrounded on all sides by dark earth, the group descends the stone stairs in silence until the paladin at the rear groans, “They breached my barrier.” Nobody replies, but their speed increases and their faces tense slightly.

Reaching a set of doors, they open them and enter an empty room with passageways in each direction.

“Which way do we go now?” Someone asks, looking down the nearly identical corridors.

“Right.” Says Ferdinand hesitantly.

A few people look at him suspiciously, but Lily just shrugs. “You were right last time. That said, some of us should stay behind to hold off the undead here. Marco, Alex, Ferdinand and Joe, you four should be able to fend them off using the doorway as a choke point.”

Ferdinand, the barrier paladin and a pale-looking priest nod, while Joe just shrugs.

Turning, Lily looks solemnly into the dim tunnel and moves quickly into it, followed closely by Luc and the remaining paladins and priests. They soon vanish out of sight and hearing.

Alex the priest nervously runs his tongue along his lips to moisten them. “So, ah… I believe, in times like this, introductions are in order?” He glances up the staircase, face paling further as he sees the veritable sea of white bones nearly at the bottom. “I, ah… am Alex. I’m a priest, uh… obviously.” He fingers the holy symbol hanging from a chain on his neck.

Marco glances at him before striding to the door, readying his sword and shield. “Marco, son of Marcus. I follow Oodral, God of the shield.” His voice flows smoothly into the room, clear and strong.

Ferdinand, already at the door, braces himself against the fear of facing overwhelming odds. “Ferdinand, adventurer.” He says, just loud enough to be heard over the loudening din of clacking bones.

“Joe!” Joe says, sticking his arm up cheerfully.

“Well, nice to meet you, Marco, Ferdinand, Joe.” Alex gulps. “I, ah, hope this won’t be our last meeting.”

“It will not.” States Marco, bashing the head of an approaching skeleton with his shield. “We do not need to defeat them, only to hold them off until the others defeat the necromancer. This is a simple task. Long and tiresome, yes… but simple.”

Alex nods worriedly, raising his holy symbol. “Holy sanctuary.” He mutters, causing a dimly glowing hemisphere to appear in the doorway – encompassing Marco and Ferdinand, as well as a few of the skeletons nearby.

“It won’t be as effective as the one earlier but, uh, I should be able to hold it there for a while… because it’s smaller.” Alex finishes lamely.

Ferdinand and Marco make no response, now entirely concentrating on holding back the skeleton horde. Seeing that the two of them appear to be having little difficulty at this early point, Alex glances idly around.

Spotting Joe comfortably reclining against the wall and watching the combat, he frowns. “You aren’t going to do anything?” He asks.

Joe turns his head to face him. “Nah, I don’t fight.”

Alex’s frown deepens. “Then why are you here in the first place?”

“To watch things like this.” Joe points at the two defending the doorway, small piles of bones beginning to pile up around them. “To feel the tension of a fight, to taste the air… bleh, this air is full of death energy!” He spits onto the floor in disgust.

Alex, already in a less than ideal state of mind, is completely unable to handle Joe’s strangeness at this moment. ‘…I’ll just concentrate on the fighting.’ He decides.

Meanwhile, the other group is navigating their way through the tunnels. They pass by several rooms – ones filled with papers, some with various magical items, a room full of mirrors… giving them little more than a cursory glance, the paladins and priests hurry on by.

No doubt, the contents of the rooms are important, but right now finding and defeating the necromancer is top priority; the contents of the rooms won’t be going anywhere, after all. There will be time to carefully search through everything here later.

“Are we sure this is the right way?”

Lily doesn’t waste any time stopping; a second spent here is another second that the entrance has to be defended. “Can you not feel the density of death energy increasing? This is the correct path, I am sure of it.”

The paladin doesn’t respond. Now that she mentions it, he can feel the death energy increasing… and by no small degree either. He barely needs to use a detection skill to feel the malignant energy prickling against his skin, sapping at his stamina.

All of them can feel it. They are close.

Turning another corner, they see the tunnel opening up into a massive chamber, inside which… Their eyes widen in shock that quickly turns to anger as they take in the scene in front of them.

Hundreds of dried up bodies lie in piles in several circles around the room, channels leading from them to a massive stone basin in the floor… both are empty, save the cloaked man standing in the center of the basin.

“What manner of foul ritual is this?” Mutters one of the priests involuntarily.

The cloaked man turns, and one of the paladins shudder. The man’s eyes are pitch black, and his face is a whitish colour, as if completely devoid of blood. “Free at last.” It sighs, but its face shows no emotion.

“Free from what? Your humanity?” Accuses Luc.

Eyeing Luc coldly, the Lich states expressionlessly, “It doesn’t matter.” Its lack of tone makes it difficult to tell what it is referring to. “I am in a good mood right now, so your deaths will be swift and painless.”

Its dark eyes glint malevolently. “You will all make excellent undead.” Before anyone can make a move, it raises its dark staff and quickly chants, “By the dark contracts I call to thee – mass summon undead.”

With a brief flash of light, a battalion of skeletons clad in rusty, corroded armour appear in front of the Lich.

“Holy smite!” With a word, a holy light flies out and strikes one of the skeletons. It falls to the ground with a clatter, vanquished with that single blow.

Completely ignoring the skeletons, Luc leaps over them to attack the Lich directly. Wielding its staff in a startling display of both physical and martial prowess, the Lich parries Luc’s attacks while retreating, chanting rapidly as it does so: “Damned soldiers, never stop; never falter. Death march.”

Chips fly from the Lich’s staff as it continues to parry Luc’s blows, and it appears to be losing ground fast. But just as Luc is about to overwhelm the Lich, three of the undead surround him, and he is forced to switch his focus to them.

Cladding his blade in a holy aura, Luc deftly slips away from their attacks. Shifting his footing, he twists, sword silently cutting through the air and beheading all three of the undead. With barely a pause in his movements, he again lunges after the Lich.

“Strong… you aren’t from around here. This will be an excellent opportunity to familiarise myself with my new body’s peculiarities…” The Lich steps frantically backwards, then looks up as it seems to realise something. “Death march… I almost forgot that I can use these spells on myself, now that I too am undead.”

Its movements quicken considerably, and it manages to break away from Luc, duck around a pile of bodies and slip into the midst of its undead soldiers. Grimacing, Luc prepares to cut his way through to the Lich when a voice rings out over the din of clashing weapons.

“Luc! They managed to surround us! Some assistance would be appreciated!” Before Lily finishes shouting, Luc is already slashing his way through the perimeter. “How did they manage to get around you?” He asks Lily, glancing around before resuming his assault on the skeletons.

The priests appear unharmed, but the other paladins have traces of blood trickling down unmarred skin – evidence of a wound that had recently been healed. “They suddenly sped up, caught us off guard.” Explains Lily, felling another skeleton with another bolt of holy magic. “Cover for me a bit.” She jumps back and starts to chant, not waiting for a response.

Shaking his head in resignation, Luc dashes off again to decimate the rest of the skeletons surrounding them while the others hold off the few at the front. Like a line of dominoes, sets of armour fall to the ground one by one, subtle cuts evident in thinner portions of armour or straight through the metal when his or their position made it inconvenient to target their weak points.

Having eliminated the encirclement, Luc looks up, expecting to see a severely smaller group of skeletons now guarding the Lich that he could potentially charge straight through.

Instead he sees another group of skeletons appearing around the Lich. There are only eleven of them, but they appear considerably more formidable than the skeletons they had seen before. If the first group of skeletons the Lich summoned were soldiers, then these are the generals. Clad in suits of steel armour that are without exception covered in nicks and scratches, but are nevertheless in good condition, they have the quiet confidence in their bearing that is present in only the veterans of many battles.

Despite being undead, they almost feel alive as they simultaneously focus glares on the wary paladins and priests through the eye-slits in their visors. Leaving the soldiers behind, the skeleton generals advance in unison, quickly splitting into three different groups; one which moves directly towards the paladins and two that move off at an angle to attack their flanks.

One of the paladins fires a holy bolt at the approaching skeletons. As it is about to hit, the skeleton tilts its body with contemptuous ease. The bolt flies straight into the gap created, hitting one of the skeleton soldiers behind it.

Eying the paladin in question mockingly, the skeleton general continues to advance unimpeded. Incensed, the paladin begins casting bolts rapidly, but the skeleton generals duck and weave around them effortlessly, and they end up splashing against the skeletons or walls behind.

Noticing that his efforts had only been a waste of mana, the paladin frowns in frustration and instead imbues holy magic into his sword. Behind him, the three priests hurriedly cast another holy sanctuary, the perimeter expanding to encompass them and the four paladins just as the skeletons are about to reach them.

Grinding to a halt, the skeleton generals look warily at the softly glowing hemisphere. Instinct tells them that touching it will bring them harm, and yet within it are their enemies. One of them reaches out and dips a finger into it experimentally, whipping it out a moment later as it feels the holy magic purifying the death energy in its finger. Its eyes dim ever so slightly as the death energy within it redistributes itself to clad the finger once again.

Another skeleton reaches out with its sword. Unlike the skeletons themselves, their armour and weaponry are not part of them, and thus the sword is unaffected by the holy magic. When they see that their weapons can enter without anything happening, their hesitation disappears, and they begin to attack again, although they are careful not to let any part of their body enter within the radius of the spell.

While all the paladins and priests are within the perimeter of the spell, the priests are unable to sustain too large a radius, and thus the skeletons are able to reach the paladins with their weapons. Of course, a smaller area also means that it is easier to defend, but the paladins are incredibly hard pressed to defend themselves, especially when Lily is still chanting.

Wounds begin to appear on the paladins’ limbs despite their shields, the skeletons piercing their weapons into any and every hole in their defences. The only exception is Luc himself, fending off three and sometimes four at once without a single injury to show for it thus far. Still, he appears to be fighting at the very limits of his abilities; eyes restlessly darting about, trying to see everything at once while his sword appears to have a life of its own, twisting and parrying relentlessly.

If not for the sanctuary, and if not for the fact that Lily and the priests are just outside the reach of the skeletons, the seven of them would likely have been overwhelmed in moments under the undead onslaught.

But the paladins and priests are tiring, slowly running out of mana, and the skeleton generals are not. At this rate, it is only a matter of time before they run out of mana and fall.

It is at this point that, unbeknownst to each other because of the noise of combat, both Lily and the Lich finish their chanting.

“…Correct injustice, sever evil from this world. Sword of Judgement!” Shouts Lily. Raising a gauntlet, she curls her fingers, leaving a single index to point at the Lich standing sheltered within the skeletons.

“…Wherever you step, death shall follow. Summon Undead Warlord!” Intones the Lich, lifting the splintered remains of its staff.

A golden sword appears in the air in front of Lily’s finger and begins to shoot towards the Lich at high speed. Noticing the situation, one of the skeleton generals throws itself into the path of the sword, but the sword pierces straight through into its armour, breaks through the bones behind it and out through the back with little reduction in speed or alteration to its course.

Now the only things standing between it and the Lich itself are the remaining skeleton soldiers, which promptly pile themselves into a wall of bone and metal. That too has a thin hole cut straight through it.

And that’s when the undead Warlord appears.

Gerald: Status

Ferdinand: Status