The Tower of Infinite Evil [A LitRPG Horror Comedy]

Living Dead Girl

I screamed in terror at the approaching wall of teeth and rotting flesh for a few seconds, frozen in terror, but the certainty of death if I didn't get my shit together pierced through the panic. It was just the three of us now; I didn't know if Bella was alive, but she wasn't fighting with us. As the horde came at us from both sides, I chanted the invisible wall spell, leaving about a half of them on the side with the mad necromancer, and half on ours. I stumbled, but saw Siegfried on the floor, and I helped him up. I'd have expected him to be heavier in his armor, but it was just like helping any larger man stand up.

Black fire split apart on the invisible wall as we struggled against the zombies on our side. It bought us seconds only, there wasn't really a good choke-point and it'd run out anyways, but even after everything they'd been through, Siegfried and Hannah fought like mad.

The corpse of a full grown man leaned over me and bit me on the shoulder with full force. I screamed- the bite was so much harder than I imagined, and the pain was unusual in its blunt intensity through the fabric of my clothes. He scratched at my face with dirty fingernails and broke skin, and I couldn't focus enough to do magic. But before the wall spell ran out, my two surviving party members had hacked all but one of the zombies apart.

"Squirm! beg!" the villainous mage screeched, and began chanting. Three syllables- but he continued- five, six, shit. It was a high rank spell and I had no idea what it would do. That had a weakness though- I retaliated with my three syllable icicle spell, just as he was about to reach the climax of his casting and-

Fear is often irrational. That moment that overwhelms your reason and problem-solving instinct and suddenly forces you down the path of fight or flight is rarely one that we so much as remember, and much less consciously guide. The fact that the fear was forced into my mind and body through a spell only made it more horrifying, and I froze completely. I saw Hannah next to me frozen in terror as well, but Sig raised a fist and charged at the mage screaming. I felt blood and sweat pouring down my face and could do nothing but listen to my heart beating in my chest, wide-eyed, staring at the man rushing to meet his death.

The mage didn't even cast any more spells. He raised his staff in a practiced grip, used the reach it provided to poke at Siegfried's face in rapid jabs. Siegfried dodged twice, but a third hit got him in the eye, and he fell back. Blood was pouring from him so badly that I could see it from behind. Something fell out. Probably from his eye socket. The mage swiped his feet out from under him and, with a quick chant and a blast of pure force threw Siegfried into the pack of zombies that had frozen along with us. The spell of fear was released, and the monsters, smelling blood, fought each other for their chance to claw and bite at Siegfried's head and face. Hannah rushed to help, but my adrenaline and dread had merely gone from heart-attack imminent to paralyzing. I tried to think through it, even as I saw the necromancer approach.

I spoke as quickly as I dared, my spellbook was long dropped, and the only sigil I really had firmly in my head at the moment was the invisible wall. He could just walk around it, but that'd be a few more seconds of- oof.

I blinked and found myself flying through the air. I flew for a good few seconds over the mage's head and onto the table where we'd started gathering the loot. I crashed into it, it broke around me and I fell to the floor in a broken mess of metal and splinters. Hannah screamed. Shit, fuck, goddamnit. Fuck. I felt tears running down my face. I was no longer afraid, not really. I learned then, that fear is the feeling you get when you hope that there is an exit, but think that you might not reach it. I had no more hope of escape, as the evil wizard cackled on the other side of the room. I strained to half-sit and swore again.

Hannah had her throat slit, all the way to the bone, but she was standing and looking at me with a blank expression. The necromancer said "Kill him," and she began walking towards me, picking Bella's sword up on her way. The remaining pair of neurons not allocated to panic and despair were still working on a solution, but as she stood over me and raised her sword, I had nothing. And even so my hand moved on its own, and my voice spoke the words without conscious effort, and I stopped her down-swing with the shield spell. I saw something in her eyes then. Not fury, not even blank nothing. Relief. Holy shit, she was not completely gone. I don't know how my mind made the connections in the next five seconds, nor how my broken body managed to move quickly enough to carry out the orders from my brain.

First, I took off my hat and rolled just a half-roll out of her way. It was all I could do. When her swing continued, I struck at her ankle, and she fell to the ground. I put the stupid fucking hat on her head, and I reached for a scroll at random.

One chance in three is better chances than none. I said: "Cast it!" without looking at what it was.

"Die, mortal," the necromancer screamed.

Her vocal chords didn't work right, it was a hissing, screeching expulsion of air. I guessed that couldn't work. The mage wasn't going for anything fancy anymore- as the second syllable of his spell left his mouth lightning crackled around his fingers, forming into a sort of blade.

"Uuuagh!" Hannah groaned as she turned and drove the sword through the necromancer's heart. He finished the spell and threw his hand wildly towards the zombie woman, cutting her upper torso with the lightning blade spell so deeply that it all but cut her in half. I caught her as she fell and kept her in one piece, somehow. The necromancer dropped without further words.

I saved one. I fucking guess.

Hannah was moaning incomprehensibly in my hands, in pain. I had to hold her upper body from the back, as it was cut all the way into the spine. I wanted to panic, wanted to collapse and fucking process what had just happened, but it wasn't over.

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"Chum!" I called.
"Oh hell fucking shitballs, boss. She needs brains," he said.
"Brains?" I said.
"The body is consuming first the magic, then the mind and finally the soul to keep itself running. Once you're dead you're not supposed to be here anymore," he said.
"Brains!?" I said.
"Sure, there's some magic in brains of the recently deceased. Just grab a chisel and scoop that bad mage out like ice-cream," Chum said.
"There's got to be another way," I said. I mean, I probably would feed her the brain if it came to it. But if she had to keep eating brains the kindest thing would be to just let her die, right?
"Shit, anything magic that you can eat or drink. A heart would do," Chum said.
"A mana elixir?" I said.
"Oh, sure that'd be best. Less fun though," Chum said and I swore. I searched through my pockets looking for the last little glass bottle I had on my person, and I fed it to Hannah.

It was like she had taken a breath after gasping for air. She was still cooling, still gray and bloody. She also very much did not take a breath. But the wound at her throat seemed to heal a bit and she spoke.

"Fuck. I am not doing well," She said. Her voice was a low, tattered growling whisper. She tried to get up- all of her limbs were moving when she wanted them to, but at a nasty cracking sound she froze still.
"Chum, will the potions heal her?" I said.
"Some. Internal damage, elemental or psychic damage. Not a bisected chest," Chum said.
"Listen, Alex, listen. I feel sort of numb, I cannot feel emotions properly. I am sad about the rest, but there's no shock, no panic. And if I cannot move around, I am better off dead. Thanks for trying," Hannah said.

"Fuck that," I said and got to my feet. I was bruised and battered all over, and I could only walk with a limp, but I didn't feel like complaining next to the woman literally falling apart on the floor next to me. So I started pacing. What the fuck was I supposed to do. A wheelchair or something? But she could move her arms and neck, even speak now. She could move her feet, she just didn't because with each movement a bigger part of her lower body detached.
"I'm screwed. If I move even a little, I will just snap into two parts. I cannot fight like that," she said.

"Let me think, I'll figure something out," I said and started ripping open all the cabinets and drawers around the room, looking for anything at all that would help. I tripped over Siegfried, I was trying that hard to not look at him. Aaand I had a thought. I had seen it somewhere earlier, one of the supply drawers.

"Hey, Hannah, are you in pain?" I said.
"Not really. I feel sort of sore, and a lot of pressure on my spine, but I'm fine," she said, "A headshot always kills a zombie. Go for that, I won't even feel it."
"I have a dumber idea," I said and got the stapler gun out from a bottom drawer of a supply cabinet. I went over to her and in an act of grotesque intimacy pinched the insides of her skin and ribcage together, and started stapling. After the first two she got the idea and helped me out, holding herself together.
"This will never hold. If I try to get up, I'll rip these out," she said.
"This is only step one, don't worry," I said.

It took a long fucking time to staple her roughly together. Then I taped her wound shut with electric tape for good measure. That would still not be enough, so I set to my least favorite part of the plan. Siegfried's head was basically gone, but the rest of his armor was in surprisingly good state. It was a tight, heavy metal body-suit with leather straps that you could adjust to a very tight fit. Even for someone Hannah's size. So I set to taking off Sig's armor. It took so long. There were way more straps than I thought there would be, and his fingers and wrists had began swelling. When I got the armor off, I left him bloodied on the floor.

For the living, I thought. Metaphysics and fantasy categories were a fun thing to argue about, but in any sense that mattered Hannah was alive. So I got her into the armor, and I pulled the straps on the chest piece tight. Like holding an overfilled suitcase together by tying it off with a rope. Hannah had got the idea when I started removing the armor, and had gone silent. When her chest piece was attached, she tried moving and said: "Shit, this might work." She sat up and with her help we got the greaves and sabatons on. We didn't even talk about separating pieces of the armor for the both of us- if it was not for her condition, neither of us would have considered looting our comrade, and so everything had to go to her. It was not a choice made of logic, but it felt more right.

When the pale-faced warrior with a slashed throat and dead eyes stood and smiled, I pumped my fist into the air. She leaned down and picked up the greatsword she'd killed the mage with and clasped her old cloak on her back. "I am going to fucking kill whoever is responsible for this, Alex. Thank you for giving me the chance," Hannah said.

"Oh thank fuck it worked. Any of us would have done the same for any other of us had we the chance," I said.
"Hey, newbies," Chum said, "I'm gonna have to cut this moment of heartfelt bonding short, because the zombie chick is still fucked if you don't listen to me."
"What do you mean?" Hannah said.
"So, I'm only barely not in the complete fucking dark because I've been doing business for a few hundred years with the best and weirdest of the multiverse. An undead with self-control is a nearly unheard of creature. A lot of things have to go wrong, then go right for one to happen, most of which involve finding a necromancer stupid enough not to extinguish the personality of the zombie as soon as it's created. Then, another wizard giving the undead a chance, then the dead person being willful enough to do anything of their own will. So, well done," he said.
"Why am I fucked," Hannah said.
"You don't run on food and water anymore, just pure magic. You should be d-e-d dead, but you ain't cause of magic shenanigans. The multiverse will continuously try to unfuck that fuck-up unless you keep magic pumping into you. A mana elixir will keep you sane and together for about 12 hours if you don't get injured. In a pinch, the brain and heart of a recently deceased living, intelligent creature will work too. So you need more mana elixirs," Chum said.
"Hold on, I think there's something," I said, and I found the six-pack of mana elixirs among the broken table shards. These were bulbs of thick glass full of blue liquid, and the bottles apparently didn't break easily.
"Well that's a good fucking step one. Steps two to skeletonization is that that meat isn't going to stay fresh. Keeping meat fresh is what life's for. Death doesn't give a fuck. If you level quickly enough in your new class, you'll get some ability to slow or stop the decomposition, but not reverse it. You'll want to invest in willpower and arcana to keep together. Until you go mad," Chum said.
"I feel fine," Hannah said.
"You no longer sleep, only want to eat brains and drink mana potions. Your body wants to eat your mind the first chance it realizes that there is no external mana flowing through your veins. You will go mad, but if you level hard enough, maybe you can go mad with power," Chum said.
"I'm fucking exhausted. I need to sit down," I said and went out into the hallway.