by Matthew Kent
I closed my eyes and bowed my head.
“Nearly three weeks ago, I awoke in a field. An old shaman was there and told me he knew my spirit name.” I looked up at them. “From there I have been relearning our past, the folly that once was the Empire of Marduke, and what may be our future.”
“Then how is it that the lich king has been released?” cried the first voice.,
“I don’t know.” I sighed looking up at him. “But this is a tragedy of unthinkable proportions.”
“You say you are Lorcan Defay who fought with elves and dwarves at the final battle? Do you have proof?”
“Only my memories,” I replied. “Even those I fear are suspect.”
“How is the lich kings return a greater tragedy?” asked a deep voice I believed to be a dwarf.
“The lich king’s minions slay the people of the land, and they rise as the undead,” I said.
“The undead can be slain and lain to rest,” called out another councilor I thought was elven because of the timber and tones of his voice.
“They can. However, undeath affects the travelers. You may slay them, but they will rise again once more to fight for the lich king and convert more to the cause of death. As long as they are here, we can’t stop the undead hordes.” I gave a placating gesture with my manacled hands. “We have learned that the bridge may be the only thing that can help us stop the travelers from either rising or turn them back to the living.”
“And how might this bridge you speak of do that?” the dwarf asked.
“We don’t know,” I admitted. “But the lich king seeks the bridge as well. We felt it wisest to stop his gaining the pieces.” I tried to take a gamble with a hypothesis we had. “We think the bridge may open a way to a higher plane. Or if the lich king were to obtain it, he might open a way to a lower plane.”
“Demons and devils,” I heard a hushed voice say. I nodded. “How is it they chose you to be a champion then?”
“There was no one else,” I mumbled, smiling wanly.
“We have much to discuss,” the first speaker said, and they withdrew.
The shadows deliquesced, and we stood there, our guards fidgeting nearby.
I looked at Synon, then Tekadan, before BarbieQ spoke. “That went well.”
X - X - X
He lived in the shadows of society in Arabella. He might have been Timond Smith in the real world, but here he was the blade master of Arabella. He smiled in thought as he looked down at tonight’s prey. He had followed the young couple for the last hour as they strolled through the town. Aw, young love, he thought to himself. He smirked. It made a person blind. He watched as they went down a dark street. Engaging his Fast Sneak ability, he ran along the rooftop to get set to pounce. Even before he did however, he heard a scuffle in the street below him. Glancing down, he saw that the man was down on the ground. Four forms loomed above him. The girl was cowering in fear.
“You bastards,” he huffed and vaulted over the roof, aimed at one figure below. He activated another skill as he leapt.
Pounce Attack. You have attacked Undead Warrior and strike for 8x base damage +Dexterity Bonus.
You Strike Undead Warrior for 605 damage.
Undead Warrior is killed.
Even before the first attacker was down, he lunged at another that was just pulling its blade.
“I’ll show you!” he yelled as he struck out with his dagger with a flourish, and a second, longer blade joined the first in his other hand.
He sliced the second monster up. Occasionally his hand would flick out at the third or fourth beast. Soon, he had all three of them engaged until he dealt a killing strike on the second. He could feel the smile on his face. He loved the feel of the blades in his hands. They spoke to him; they almost sang to him as he moved. His body seemed to flow from attack form to attack form, his blades slicing, stabbing, thrusting, but always moving. His blade style was reminiscent to death by a thousand cuts more than pure strength.
Finally, all four of the undead lay at his feet. He breathed heavily and then he felt his mouth quirk in a smile as he looked at his prey from earlier in the evening before his altercation.
“You saved us,” wailed the girl as she sat on the ground clutching the young man’s head to her generous bosom.
He smiled at her.
“I did,” he replied and gave her an appraising look, then did a quick flourish of his blades to clear them of the monsters gore.
He leaned down and collected the loot he could find.
“Now that that unpleasantness is done,” he said, turning to the two prone players with a flourish. “Right, you’re on me territory. Pay up.”
The woman’s look of joy at being rescued turned to horror.
“You’re—you’re robbing us?” she stammered.
“No, it’s a donation for the poor,” he said.
“Who is addressing us with this demand?” mumbled the youth on the ground.
“I’m Jack of All Blades,” he said with a flourish and a bow. “Now empty your pockets.”
He pointed his blades at the two players.
X - X - X
“So what do you think they will do to us?” Synon asked.
“I don’t know,” Tekadan said as he lay back on the bed and continued to bounce a hardball off the floor and wall, catching it in a leather glove. Certhunk-certhunk-swish.
Synon looked over at him in annoyance. “Please quit doing that?”
“No,” he said, the smile clear in his voice as he gave the ball another toss. “You need to lighten up and relax a little. You’ll hurt yourself if you ever fall with that stick up your butt.”
Synon looked shocked. “Are you sure you’re a priest?”
“Consecrated and everything, but I was also a Marine chaplain. God understands. He’s forgiving that way,” Tekadan said in explanation.
“Synon, relax,” I said as I looked over the city outside the keep. “They are treating us well, except for blocking our messaging.” I yawned. “Unless this is like Colditz Castle, I’d recommend everyone get some sleep.”
“What is Colditz Castle?” BarbieQ said.
I looked over at her and shrugged. It would pass the time.
“Back about a hundred and fifty years ago, during World War Two the German peoples had a problem. Prisoners kept escaping the prison camps they established. One camp, they made impregnable and housed it inside a castle.”
“Colditz Castle?” Barbie asked.
I nodded in agreement. “They’d built the castle in the fourteenth or fifteenth century on a rocky outcrop overlooking a river.” I had to think to recall the whole story. “They knew it as Oflag IV-C. It housed prisoners from many countries.” I described some of the escape attempts many successful, and then I talked about the crowning achievement. “The prisoners were rescued before they could launch it, but they had built a glider to escape.”
I even had Tekadan’s attention. ”Did it work?"
“I don’t know,” I replied, looking over at him. “As far as I know, the prisoners were freed before they could try it.”
BarbieQ spoke up then. “You know, you said something important. They hid prisoners in secret rooms and tunnels.” She looked up in thought. “Should we look to see if we can find an exit?”
CHAPTER ONE
Untitled
Chapter 18
We started searching for a secret door, panel—really any escape route we could think of. The window gave way to a spectacular vista of woods. The keep we were in appeared to be on a mountain rise overlooking a forest. Below it was a small town. It looked very similar to a town I had visited in Switzerland. High peaked roofs, stone construction, and slate tiles. The windows appeared to be high and narrow with sturdy shutters. Obviously the town suffered through severe winters. It also had a distinct European cast to the architecture. That made sense though as most of the world had been patterned after the western Middle Ages. My part of the search was proving unproductive. The window wa
s sealed. While there was a small ledge outside the window, it only afforded about three inches of room.
“Well, this outside wall shouldn’t have any doors,” I grumped.
“It doesn’t appear that there is a door along the hall wall either,.” Tekadan said.
BarbieQ was the next to report. “I found a small niche, but there were only a few silver coins I left.”
“Synon, anything?” I asked and looked over toward her. She was bent down looking at a spot on the floor.
“I don’t know, maybe?” she said as we all moved toward her. “What does this look like to you?”
I looked down where she pointed. There was a stone with a faded symbol. As I bent down, it seemed to resolve itself into a compass and square.
“That’s a mason’s symbol,” I said thinking.
I looked around the floor to see if there was anything else that could give me an idea. From the base of the bottom arrow, I found a stone that was a different type than the rest five feet away, and at the top of the angle I found another about the same distance.
“I have an idea,” I said with a smile. “Tekadan, you take that stone. I’ll take this one, and we press them at the same time.”
As we did so, there came s slow rumble from the floor as the stones fell away, revealing a spiral staircase.
I looked up and grinned. “Shall we?”
“It might anger the council,” Synon said.
I sighed. “You are right. It might—well, probably will—but come on, adventure?”
“Or maybe that’s their version of us all hanging ourselves in our cells,” Tekadan said.
We all looked at him in surprise.
“What? The thought never occurred to you?” he said with a chuckle.
We each stared at the hole in the floor, consumed with our own thoughts. Looking around the room at the plush furnishings and fine furniture, I got an idea.
“That is one evil grin on his face,” I heard Tekadan say, his words shaking me out of my reverie.
I gave myself a few more moments to think before I responded.
“I have an idea, and it doesn’t involve us putting our heads into a noose. It even goes along with Colditz Castle.” I looked at everyone, then back around the room. “Okay, this is what we are going to do.”
I laid out my plan to them.
“That’s just evil.” Tekadan said with a smirk when I finished. “There is no way they will fall for it.”
“I say we try it. What's the worst that can happen?” BarbieQ replied. “How ‘bout you, Synon?”
Synon looked grave as she examined the room. Then she nodded. “It’s probably the best bad idea we have.”
X - X - X
He’d grumbled when he had been given the assignment. Travelers. He had to check on the travelers. Everyone knew something of those people, men and women who would return from death. He wondered what mysterious gods they must worship to return as they did. No, more than likely, he thought they were so despicable that not even the deities of death wanted to deal with them.
He was escorting the servant with a food cart for their dinners. The wheels on the cart squeaked as it slowly made its way through the carpet-lined hallway. Finally they were at the door to the prisoners’ gilded cage. The room’s only difference was the two guards outside.
“Halt!” he said officiously to the servant.
Then he turned to the door and unlocked it with a key. The guard didn’t notice the servant’s pained look or her subtle shake of the head and let out a low long-suffering sigh. One guard at the door had, however, and he winked at her. Her guard opened the door and let her wheel the food cart into the room.
“Hey, now.” Her guard heard her start then leapt in the room, prepared to defend the servant from the travelers. His spring carried him past the woman, and his blade was drawn and leveled as his feet landed. Looking around to take stock of the room, he found it empty.
“Where are they?” the servant asked, tucking a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear.
“They have escaped,” the guard said, his face going ashen as he ran out of the room and across the hall to pull a chain artfully draped against the wall.
Far off, a bell rang. Soon it was joined by others. The pounding of boots could be heard in the distance as men ran down the hall, the staccato echoes growing louder.
“Report!” bellowed a deep voice.
The guards came to attention even as the voice spoke.
“Sir. They tasked me with delivering dinner to the prisoners. The servant went into the room and was surprised to find them gone.”
“Did you search the room for them?” said the deep-voiced elf in flowing armor that stood over the guard.
“No, sir. Per orders we rang the alarm and stood guard.”
“Good.” He nodded then motioned a hand to the men behind him. Six armored and robed men rushed into the room.
A voice called back from inside . “Sir, you better come see this.”
The leader strode into the room and looked where the men gathered, his eyes grew wide, and his jaw went slack as he saw the open stair leading down. “Sir?”
“Oh, bloody perfect,” the officer said in consternation. “You six after them. You other three are with me. We need to report to the council.”
The first six men in the room charged down the stairway into the darkness while the guardsmen and the servant’s escort left the room to report to the council.
The servant was left standing in the room's middle, looking around as if she were lost and wondering what had happened before she took her cart and retreated from the room, closing the door.
A voice hissed out after a few minutes from under a bed. “I think they’re gone.”
A muffled voice came from the wardrobe. “I can’t believe that worked.”
X - X - X
“I can’t believe you allowed them to escape,” said a gruff-voiced dwarf to the chief of the keep’s security.
“My lord, it is unprecedented. There are no records of a secret passage in the room. I have my men combing through the keep as we speak.”
“Get out of my way,” the dwarf said, and he barreled down the hallway toward the gilded cage where they had placed their erstwhile guests. “You lot of incompetents will pay for this I tell you.”
The door burst open from the force of his passage.
“What? Captain, explain!” he said, thrusting out a hand and waving around the room.
The hapless captain peered into the room and jerked back as he saw the adventurers his men had been set to guard draped around the furnishings in the room.
“My lord, I don’t understand. They were gone only thirty minutes ago,” the guard captain said, scratching his head and looking at the secret passage that tunneled beneath the room’s floor.
The dwarf dramatically raised a hand to his brow and massaged his temple.
“You didn’t search the room, did you?” He sighed. “You’re killing me. Go see if there is anything left of the squad you sent. Idiot.”
I looked over at the councilor and grinned. “Sorry about that. We were playing hide and go seek when your men burst in, and no one wanted to lose.”
He snorted in amusement.
“I take it you are the leader of this rabble.”
“In some things,” I replied.
“Yes, well do you mind if I sit?” The councilor sat in a lower chair suited for his height and build. “I am Hezmen Nightshield, and you present us a problem.”
“Oh?” Tekadan asked.
“Yes. As travelers, we know you return to the land after death and are thus nigh unstoppable. Oh, we could seal you away in a dank prison and stand guards to watch over you, but then something like this happens,” Hezmen said, motioning at the passage. “More troubling is the instability you bring with you. If you were a new race, we could find some way to manage but your kind are seemingly of all races. And now this.”
His voice was filled with resignation.<
br />
“My lord,” I began with deference in my voice as I looked at the other members of my party. I knew this would be a very tricky discussion. “My lord, this what?”
“This undead menace, this horde of unstoppable undeath. Zombie plagues are not unheard of. But they were easy to take care of. You remove the population from the area. You then send in holy warriors and priests, and the infestation dies, but now…now, they rise once more.”
