Chapter 17

  Floor Three

  Floor Three was spooky.

  For fuck's sake.

  When we exited the tunnel, we were greeted by a thick fog carpeting the ground, easily half a metre deep. It was so dense that when I glanced down, Rel looked like little more than a vague suggestion. He quickly scaled my body, coming to a stop on my shoulder with an irritated humph.

  “This place should be sued for heightism,” he snapped, indignant. “I can’t believe they’re forcing me to forsake my dignity like this! Sitting on your shoulder like a common house pet? The outrage!”

  I grunted my agreement, but I was too distracted by our surroundings to comment.

  We were in an enormous graveyard.

  Countless gravestones and statues jutted from the fog, looking like ships adrift on a sea of white.

  “Well,” said Rel, looking around, his rant trailing off. “This place is eerie.”

  “I think that’s the understatement of the century, buddy,” I said softly.

  It was dark.

  But not the darkness of night.

  When I looked up, I could still see the sun, but a pall seemed to hang over the graveyard that its light was unable to penetrate.

  Around half a mile away stood a large mausoleum. It was incredibly fancy, clearly the resting place of some rich asshole who had more money than sense. It had marble pillars, stained glass windows, and a ridiculously ornate door that would probably cost more than most people make in a year.

  “Well,” I said, nodding towards it. “That looks like as good a place as any to start.”

  Let me tell you, it’s very disconcerting to walk without being able to see your feet or the ground beneath them. I kept expecting that at any moment a skeletal hand would burst from the ground like in a horror movie and grab my ankle.

  “Why are you breathing so heavily?” asked Rel, his voice startling me.

  I jumped and swore.

  “Don’t do that!” I said, my voice not sounding even the tiniest bit whiny. Promise.

  “Do what?” he asked innocently. “Try and engage my dear friend in conversation?”

  I swore again. This time it was entirely unrelated to our surroundings.

  We soon realised we were not alone.

  The first sign was the unintelligible groaning and moaning noises. The sounds were coming from all directions, and we quickly discovered the source.

  Zombies.

  Lots of fucking zombies.

  They were all around us, staggering forward with an uncoordinated lurch. Their bodies were in various stages of decay. Some were little more than skeletons, while others still had rotting flesh and muscle hanging from their bones. The most disturbing were those who still had enough flesh to resemble who they’d been in life.

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  Have you ever seen something that looks like a person, but their skin is rotting away, and maggots are crawling from holes in their face?

  No? Believe me, it’s probably best you keep it that way.

  I’m not going to lie. I hated horror films, and this place was like my worst nightmare. I wanted to squeal and run away screaming, but I knew Rel would never let me live it down.

  I took a deep breath.

  C’mon, Pete. You can do this.

  A clawed hand snatched at my back.

  I didn’t squeal.

  Rel did.

  He shot ten metres into the air, a fireball hurtling down to obliterate a zombie that had snuck up behind us.

  He landed back on my shoulder and cleared his throat loudly.

  “Did you hear the noise that creature just made?” he said, as if making a casual observation. “Very strange.”

  I said nothing, restricting the glee and laughter to my thoughts.

  Wait till Kaelis heard about how much of a pussy his ‘Grandmaster’ was.

  The zombies continued to close in.

  I may have… overreacted slightly as the first one approached from the front. You see, the thought of my skin making contact with its disgusting, rotting body didn’t really appeal to me. So, when it was around a metre away, I threw a punch.

  In my panic, I may have forgotten to hold back…

  The power of the punch dug a trench of utter devastation. It was over fifty metres long, fifteen metres wide and ten metres deep. Zombies, gravestones, statues and anything else in the path of the blow were reduced to, well… nothing. Even the fog wasn’t spared.

  You have gained 1 strength.

  Current strength: 35

  “Holy shit…” gasped Rel.

  Holy shit, indeed.

  All the zombies that were approaching from other directions lumbered to a halt, did an awkward pivot on the spot, and then shambled away.

  Wow. Even though their brains had rotted away entirely, they still had more sense than the troll king.

  Our path to the mausoleum was now entirely clear.

  We raced forward, an unspoken agreement forming between the two of us to get the fuck out of this place as quickly as superhumanly possible. When we were around twenty metres away, Rel launched a fireball that turned the door and half of the surrounding wall to ash.

  Without pause, we burst into the mausoleum. It was fair to say that the skeletal knight waiting inside was taken by surprise.

  He wore plate mail forged from metal as black as the void, the kind of black that seemed to swallow the light around it. Shadows gathered across its surface, clinging unnaturally to the armour. His head, which would probably be more appropriately described as a skull, was uncovered. In the sockets where his eyes would have been were two blue spheres of light formed of pulsing arcane energy.

  I have no idea how I could tell, but the skeletal knight looked… afraid.

  Who knew skeletons were capable of expressing so much emotion?

  My eyes darkened as I noticed his weapon.

  It was a sword.

  But not just any sword.

  It was the most abhorrent of swords.

  It was the very same sword that an asshole called Sul’Kan had used to cut a hole in my very first shirt.

  I shot towards the skeletal knight in a blur of motion, my movement so sudden and explosive that a crater formed beneath my feet.

  I snatched the sword from his hand.

  He staggered backwards and retreated to stand by the wall at the far end of the chamber.

  “You piece of shit,” I growled, looking down at the sword in my hands.

  I snapped it and then hurled the pieces through the hole that Rel had opened in the wall. They blasted off into the distance, the sound of exploding rock following a few seconds later.

  “I… umm… I… I’m Tarridor, the Undead Champion of Necrodar,” the skeletal knight said, his deep voice breaking slightly as he spoke. “You are… most worthy foes, but a true knight knows when a fight is hopeless. I ask that you spare me, and I will make no attempt to impede your passage through my land.”

  Rel swaggered over to Tarridor, the undead flinching slightly at his approach.

  “What we do next will depend on how you answer this question…” said Rel menacingly. “Do you have any scrolls?”

  Tarridor nodded enthusiastically.

  “Indeed, I do!” he said, relief thick in his voice.

  A scroll appeared in an outstretched hand. He cautiously approached Rel, placed it on the floor in front of him, then quickly retreated.

  Rel’s eyes gleamed triumphantly as he untied the ribbon and unrolled the scroll.

  “Yes…” he muttered under his breath. “Yes… this’ll do very nicely.”

  I gulped nervously and walked closer to peer over his shoulder.

  Cast Spell: Summon Undead Minion(s)

  My mind drifted to the thought of Rel, wizard hat on head and staff in hand, with an army of skeletons marching behind him.

  Oh fuck.