Loremaster of the Amaranthine lands

“That was fun!” Khan said with a cheerful voice, his eyes searching for a new target to practice his sword fighting skills on.

“You see any more incoming?” Quentin asked as the members of the warband each looked at a different street entrance.

“None.” The unified answer arrived between ragged breaths.

“Let’s clean this place up,” the wannabe paladin said as he tapped down on his fallen enemy’s pockets. “Separate anything you find useful or valuable so that we can bring it over to the spell weavers’ guild. After that, we’ll get rid of the corpses and be on our way. The sun is moving fast and we have to figure out a way to close that damn city gate.”

“Yes sir!” Valerie saluted with a sultry smile before crouching down next to her latest victim.

“That’s a lot of good stuff to work with,” Amanda admitted as she stripped an iron scale mail from a higher-ranked infantryman. “I could do a lot with this amount of iron.”

“We’ll first have to recycle these for materials and find you you a usable forge.” Fabien reminded the tall woman before measuring the scale mail to himself.

“This looks way better and a lot more protective than my old shit. No offence Regis.”

“If it’s better, then switch it,” the dark elf said. “If it’s not, then we’ll recycle it. That was the plan from the start. Just hurry up, will you? We have corpses to sacrifice.”

“You just had to fucking say that.” Cruz scoffed as she grabbed several weapons to bring them over to the fast-growing pile.

“Looks like we have an audience.” Khan noted as he looked up towards the window of the 2nd floor of the spell weavers’ guild.

Elder Derris could be seen as he watched them from the safe confines of the guild. Sophie gave the old scholar a slight wave before returning to the task at hand. The now twice-dead fallen had been stripped of their equipment, along with the ones piled up beside their previous barricade. The remains were placed into a new pile that was soon surrounded by the outlanders.

After pricking their fingers and letting a few drops of their blood hit the cobblestone, the ritual finally began. The corpses shrivelled up as each of them focused their mind on what they wished the trade for. Different coloured orbs formed above the ever-shrinking pile of dried corpses, along with several small glass shard-like pieces. When the ritual circle’s light finally died down, everyone held out their hands, beckoning their earnings to separate from the rest.

The large amount of high-ranked undead earned Regis two lesser physique orbs, shoring up his attribute to a round number of twenty. The shard slivers he gained were barely enough to assemble a single proper vigour shard, further bolstering his still low health count. His companions also earned sizeable rewards from the ritual, Khan tapping on Quentin’s shoulder after absorbing a red orb of his own.

“I know we’re in a hurry, but could we go back into the guild house for a minute?” He asked with a serious tone in his voice, earning a nod from the wannabe paladin.

“Sure,” he nodded.” We’re not in that much of a hurry.”

“Is something wrong?” Sophie asked as she walked closer, looking at the young warrior with obvious worry.

“Everything’s fine,” the Mongol youth answered. “I just need a minute for myself.”

“Alright everyone; grab what you can and let’s get back inside for a few minutes!”

“Fine by me.” Cruz agreed along with the rest of the group as they packed up their loot and headed back to the door with the protective barrier.

Regis tapped the glowing white runes he made as replacements and the barrier faded away, allowing them entry. Once it was sealed the back again, Khan unceremoniously dropped down on the ground and began to meditate in earnest. Everyone watched befuddled by his sudden seriousness, but their worry soon proved to be unnecessary as a wave of heavy and dense power pulsed outward from the young warrior’s body. A minute or so later Khan opened his eyes and jumped back up onto his feet with a battle cry.

“I’m tier two baby!” He yelled as he punched the air, making it crackle under the speed of his fist.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Valerie stuttered. “We put in all that hard work and he gets to be the first one to break through the threshold?”

“What can I say,” the youth flexed in front of the others. “No matter what tricks you got up your sleeves, you can never overshadow the awesomeness of the main character.”

His words earned him a moment of silence before a burst of tremendous laughter broke out from the relieved group.

“I guess congratulations are in order.” Regis patted the young warrior’s shoulder.

“Thanks.” Khan nodded as he accepted the graduations from the rest of the team.

“It seems your young friend here succeeded in stepping into a higher tier.” old Derris spoke as he walked down the stairs.

“He sure did.” Quentin laughed as the elderly scholar joined in to congratulate on Khan’s success.

“We’d like to leave these here, if it’s not too much of a bother,” the wannabe paladin pointed at the pile of arms and armour. “Although there are still many fallen wandering around, we can never know when another group of scavengers would show up to take away our hard-earned spoils of war.”

“Not a bother at all,” the old man said. “Just try to bring something edible along as well the next time.”

His reminder earned him a slight chuckle from the group as they nodded in unison before turning back towards the door. The dark elf unsealed the barrier to let everyone out before sealing it up again.

“We should really hurry up,” Osmond stated, looking at the steadily rising sun. “We have a lot to do and time’s ticking.”

Everyone agreed with the pale youth’s thoughts as the outlander warband headed out towards the northeast gate once again. For several minutes, silence filled the air as they walked through the empty cobblestone street before the first undead showed up.

“It looks like we cleared out quite a lot of them,” Amanda noted as she looked at the lone fallen shambling about. “We had to deal with several dozen of them back at the square, but now there’s pretty much nothing out here.”

“The fewer enemies we have to deal with, the better.” Valerie stated as her whip folded in half, taking on the shape of a long sword which she used to cut down their lonesome opponent.

“This feels suspicious,” Cruz mumbled while walking forward with slow and measured steps, her eyes straining from one building to another. “This whole town is supposed to be under assault, but there is no army to face. I expected thousands of fallen crowding the place.”

“Not to mention the demons that Hyord guy talked about.” Khan added to the conversation.

As they talked and walked at the same time, several more shambling corpses appeared from between the buildings, some wearing higher-grade arms and armour than others. None of them lasted more than a few breaths though. Half an hour later the group stopped as the large outer town walls came into sight.

“That’s our goal there.” Quentin nodded at the large gate at the end of the road they were walking on.

“This is too easy.” Regis said in a hushed tone, as if afraid that someone would be spying on them.

“It’s obviously a trap,” Fabien agreed with the dark elf. “The real question is whether we’ll walk into it or not?”

“We can’t stay out here all day. Let’s say hello to whoever is trying to ambush us.” Valerie sighed while heading out towards the gate.

The group moved with a slightly slower speed than before, arcana shields appearing around each of them. A stray undead tried to attack them from time to time, but the abominations provided little challenge. When they were roughly forty or so metres away from the gates, several heavy arrows struck the ground in front of their feet. Two of them drilled halfway through Quentin’s shield.

“There’s our ambush!” The wannabe paladin yelled as he and his companions rushed to the right side of the road, hiding behind the large two-story house.

“Those are some serious arrows you got there.” Osmond noted as he yanked out one of the bolts from the shield.

It was cast from solid bronze, the tip glowing with three different white runes. The feather at the back of the arrow shaft was also made of bronze, making the entire projectile one heavy beast.

“I haven’t seen any archers,” Sophie claimed as she grabbed the arrow to get a good look. “There’s no way you could shoot this with a bow.”

“A heavy crossbow then?”

“Could have been a ballista.” Fabien added before several shield-bearing undead burst through the door of the building beside them with more fallen pouring out from the nearby homes and back alleys.

“Run?” Someone asked as the group watched the small army appear.

“Run!” The unified answer came as it turn around and ran with all its might.

“Why the fuck are we running in the first place?” Khan asked annoyed. “As long as we get out of the range of the archers, we can easily deal with the rest.”

“We could,” Quentin grumbled. “But it’s for the best if we do that as far away from the gate as possible. We don’t know if the ranged enemies can move or not.”

“Just keep running!” Cruz gasped for air as they took a left turn, drawing the small group of fallen that still followed them into a dead alley.

As they turned around to face their pursuers, three mace-wielding soldiers and three spearmen, several swordsmen, at least five arches and two heavily armoured squires stared back at them with a spellcaster appearing at the back a bit later.

“I guess that’s all of them,” Regis panted. “Take down the mage and the archers first!”

As he gave out the command, a pair of arrows cut through the air in quick succession, striking the enemy spellcaster down before the fallen could even react. Spells of different elements were let loose at the undead archers, some proving fatal, others distracting enough to keep them busy while Sophie nocked the next arrow on her bowstring.

The fallen squires broke to the front with iron great swords raised into the air. Regis cast his gale blast spell to make the incoming squires stumble back for a moment, giving enough time for his companions to deal the first strike. Amanda’s great hammer burst into flames as it struck the closest armoured undead in the chest while Quentin shield rushed his opponent.

Osmond cast a shadow arrow before summoning his hell-hound skeletal puppet to set it loose on the incoming undead mace-swinging fallen. Everything felt rushed as if time had come to stand still just for a moment before the two sides crashed into each other with full force. Khan raised his twin short swords, stepping forward once before his body seemed to blur for a moment.

He sprung forward, blades spinning as he drew cross slashes through the air, cutting apart three swordsmen while rushing through the space between them. When he stopped, his body hissed while steam rose from his skin. It didn’t stop him from continuing his assault on the nearby spearmen, swatting their spears aside before beheading them with quick slashes. A mace-wielding fallen stepped forward on the young bladedancer’s left, only to get its head destroyed by a large glowing arrow.

Khan turned to the side for a moment to give a nod to Regis before continuing with his attacks. The few remaining undead soon joined their defeated comrades on the ground with the outlander warband crouching or leaning against the wall, trying to take up as little space as possible while catching their breath.

“Was that your class skill or something, Khan?” Osmond inquired, the young bladedancer giving him a thumbs up with a wide smile.

“Whirling blade-rush,” he answered. “It has a stupid name, but it’s damn awesome!”

“And powerful.” Amanda added.

“How many did we take out?” Fabien asked while wiping the black and rancid blood from his weapon with a piece of rag.

“Nineteen altogether,” Quentin answered as he kept staring at the entrance of the dead alley. “There were at least three times as many back at the gates.”

“There were also the archers or crossbowmen we didn’t see.” Amanda reminded them, her hands patting down at the armour of one of the fallen squires.

“These are definitely not your run-of-the-mill mobs,” Osmond pointed out as he looked at the iron equipment most of the fallen had. “These things have almost the same armour value as our own gear, even without any enchantments.”

“I’m not going to switch my kit,” Sophie stated while collecting her arrows from the corpses. “These things are grimy and they stink of rot.”

“We’ll do a quick loot and sacrifice, then we’ll be on our way.”

“Maybe we can kite another smaller group.” Khan said in a wishful tone.

“We should concentrate on getting our energy back. These spells eat up a lot of arcana.” The dark elf noted as he gather the Amaranth he earned before he began to meditate.

By the time he finished a few minutes later, the corpses were stripped of their armour and weapons, all piled up and ready for the sacrificial ritual. The group stood around at the corpse pile, pricking their fingers to let a drop of their blood fall on the ground.

Soon, there were only dried husks remaining as colourful shards floated towards them. Regis earned two fortitude shards, which he immediately absorbed. The small rush of energy that coursed through his body due to his increasing stamina was just enough to wash away his tiredness.