Happy Birthday to Me!
Session #45
“Nephthys, send these things away with your righteous might so that my companions and I may strike them down!” Ratchis cried out, swinging his scored chain belt over his head, but the zombies did not flee. They kept coming.
Kazrack stepped further away from the niche where the zombie had tried to drag him away and he too called his gods. Several of the zombies awkwardly began to shuffle back down the horizontal shafts, but other more came stumbling out of those on the far end.
Jeremy and Beorth ran at one that lumbered towards the dwarf, hacking it down with a flurry of sword blows. Derek moved up to support them, and chopped down another one with a single blow. Black blood and ichor mixed with sweat streamed out of the young man’s brown hair and down the side of his face.
“Ratchis! Beorth! What is going on down there? Do you need help?” Martin called from above. He grabbed the rope and started to finally make his way down.
The last few were mopped up, but a good number had fled back down the tunnels, filled with the fear of the dwarven gods.
Martin landed on the chamber floor with a grunt.
“They will be back soon,” Beorth said, wiping his brow and dropping the point of his sword into the mucky dirt. He began to work at lighting on of the torches.
“Let me do that,” Martin said, and gesturing with his left hand the torch burst aflame and the paladin replaces burnt nub in one of the scones with his own; made from the furniture in the room above, it burned wildly, spitting and smoking as the pine tar finish ran down its length.
“How much longer will the power of your gods keep them at bay?” Ratchis asked Kazrack, and laying a hand on the dwarf’s head, called on his goddess’ power to heal.
The dwarf was covered in innumerable bruises and cuts. He cast a healing spell upon himself as well and then answered.
“I do not know. The ways of all the gods are mysterious.”
Soon, Jeremy and Derek had two more torches burning in scones on the dark pillars.
“When they do return it will be easier to destroy them all here,” Beorth said, picking up his sword and wiping the blade of black ichor. He sheathed. “We can cut them down as they emerge from these long niches or tunnels or whatever they are.”
“Could it be that these other niches contain zombies?” Kazrack asked, turning and gesturing to the four tunnels on the opposite wall.
“That is possible,” Beorth replied.
“Well, let’s decide how we are going to handle this,” Kazrack began going through scenarios aloud.
Jeremy and Derek sighed in unison. The Neergaardian wrung out his wispy blonde hair, for it was caked with blood and gore. Derek leaned against a pillar and spit.
“I am going to scout out the niches,” Ratchis said, interrupting the one-sided conversation about tactics and began to march over to the ones where no zombies had emerged yet.
“Let us not be hasty,” Kazrack said. Martin nodded.
“Ratchis is right,” Beorth said. “We should be proactive. I will go with him. I am not afraid.”
“This isn’t about being afraid,” Kazrack said. “It is about maximizing our effectiveness while destroying our enemy.”
Jeremy rolled his eyes, and elbowed Derek. “This from the fellow who wouldn’t wear armor.”
Ratchis did not wait. He hopped up into one of the horizontal shafts and began to slowly make his way down it. He had to crouch way down to make his way along it, as it was barely five feet tall. He made his way down into the darkness that was gray to his orcish vision 35 or 40 paces, but found nothing. The hulking Friar of Nephthys hurried back the best he could.
“They go down pretty far it seems,” he told his companions. “I saw nothing.”
“They should be back by now,” Beorth said, and for a moment no one seemed to know what he meant, but the paladin gestured to the tunnels on the opposite side; down which the turned zombies had fled.
“Naw, those things are slow,” Jeremy said, clicking his tongue. “If those passages are as long as Ratchis thinks, it could take them forever to get back.”
“No, it strikes me as strange as well,” Belear intoned. The elder dwarf had just made his way down the rope with Blodnath’s help. He combed his black and gray beard with his fingers. “Such things would return as soon as the fear of the gods left them, unless ordered to do something else, or there was another source of life closer by.”
Kazrack’s face grew worried.
“We have to see what is down there,” Ratchis said. He hopped out of the tunnel he had scouted and moved across the room to begin going down one of the opposite ones.
“I would consider it an honor to go first,” Kazrack said, stepping before his half-orc companion and blocking his way. “And, I am uniquely suited to this environment.”
Blodnath cleared his throat.
“We are uniquely suited to this environment,” Kazrack gestured to Blodnath and Belear with a smile.
“I am going as well,’ Beorth said, flatly.
“Hey, you aren’t leaving us behind,” Jeremy spoke up and gestured to Derek who nodded his head, and patted the haft of his axe.
Martin shrugged his shoulders.
“We cannot all go, someone needs to guard the rope,” Kazrack said.
Blodnath was sent back up and he called to the rest of the dwarves guarding the upper shaft the whole company had come down to arrive here. It was agreed that Helrahd and Kirla would guard the rope, and if the wait were long, they would switch a shift with the triplets.
“How long until we come after you?” Captain Adalar asked.
“Belear and the others agreed that if we do not return to go seek out the gnomes and help them sa you can, it is more important.” Blodnath hurried out to climb back down.
The paired off and each chose a tunnel.
Derek and Ratchis took one with Ratchis leading the way. Jeremy and Blodnath took the next one, with the white-haired dwarf taking the lead. Kazrack and Martin took the third, and Beorth and Belear took the last, the dwarves leading in those cramped tunnels as well.
The humans (and Ratchis) awkwardly ambled along, led by the dwarves that marched stoutly along, happy to have the earth so close above their heads. The tunnels were lined in smooth dressed stone, so obviously great care went into making them. Kazrack’s fine dwarven senses noted that there was the slightest grade downward.
He mentioned this to Martin, who nodded, trying to keep from setting his shaggy and frizzed out red hair from catching fire. Random patches of red fuzz were splatter across his soft round face. No one would ever guess he had not eaten in weeks. The watch-mage’s torch licked angrily at the tunnel ceiling.
The pairs crawled along slowly, unsure if the other pairs were safe even though they were only separated by a few feet of stone. Ratchis tried tapping the stone, but decided it was pointless. They could only go on.
Soon, Kazrack thought he heard something up ahead and stopped suddenly. Martin nearly fell down.
“What is it?”
The dwarf placed a finger to his lips and then Martin heard it; the soft grinding groan of a zombie. The awkward shuffle of their undead gait and worn sandals came to their ears with great dread. Though it was only a few moments, it seemed a long slow time before the thing came into view of Kazrack’s darkvision.
“It is coming,” Kazrack said. “There is only one. Are you ready?”
“Uh… yeah?”
The thing came scrambling on its hands and feet; it’s gnarled knees not touching the tunnel floor. Kazrack let go with a crossbow bolt when it was just barely within the torchlight, but the thing went high and cracked against the stone ceiling, falling ineffectively.
Martin and Kazrack moved back in tandem, and Kazrack hurriedly reloaded. The zombie continued to scramble, often loosing its footing as its stiff muscles seemed hesitant to leave the rigor of death. Kazrack fired again, and again the bolt went too high.
They moved back again, and Martin cast his shield spell.
“We aren’t going to make much progress this way, are we?’ Martin asked.
Kazrack grunted. He loaded and fired again. This time there was a distinct pop and crack sound as the bolt buried itself into the thing’s skull. However, it did not stop coming.
Over and over again the dwarven rune-thrower and the human watch-mage fired and retreated, fired and retreated. The bolts struck the zombie several times, including once right through the eye as it looked up, but they could not stop it and the zombie could not reach them.
“I am going to let it catch up with us,” Kazrack said, handing his crossbow back to Martin and drawing his light flail. “Get ready.”
“Would you like to use my torch?” Martin offered it.
Kazrack merely frowned, and then turned back readying himself to crush the thing’s skull with one blow.
And then suddenly it was upon them. Kazrack punched forward with his flail, slamming the thing with all his might in the chest. Splinters of rib bones punctured out of the thing’s desiccated chest. Kazrack smiled, but his joy was premature. The zombie got its black calcified fist up under the dwarf’s guard and slammed his chin so hard that Kazrack fell on his back. The dwarven priest tried desperately to get to his feet, but his vision was shaking and his ears were ringing, and he gasped for breath. He could see the black figure moving to crawl over him.
Martin did not hesitate. He leapt forward, and thing’s next blow slammed against the transparent shield. He buried the torch into the thing’s chest wound and bloodied clothes, and in a moment they and the thing’s dried flesh were burning.
The zombie swung its arms with mindless fury, and Martin recoiled, holding out the torch. He was amazed to see that now the zombie’s arms were on fire. In a moment, it stopped moving, and Martin was barely able to drag Kazrack out from underneath the burning and collapsing corpse.
Kazrack shook his head clear and wobbled up to his feet. He placed a broad calloused hand on Marin’s shoulder.
“Martin, I must thank you,” the dwarf said, quietly. “That is the second time you have saved my life.”
“Uh, don’t worry about it,” Martin replied flustered at being singled-out for doing anything heroic. “You’ve saved all our lives enough times. Uh… thank you.”
Kazrack cleared his throat and then gestured for them to continue in their original direction, kicking through the smoldering corpse.
“The other are bound to have gotten a substantial lead by now,” Kazrack said.
And he was right.
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Derek spotted the glimmer of flickering light ahead. The tunnel was finally opening into another area. Ratchis moved over as far as he could to allow Derek to pass. The young huntsman moved to within fifteen feet of the opening and then fell to his belly, dragging his body silently to the edge. The light became brighter as he grew closer, but there was the smell of rotten burning filling the air, which gre hazy.
To their right, Jeremy and Blodnath had noticed the opening, too. Jeremy signaled for Blodnath to wait, and he crept up cautiously.
Derek winced as his chin hit the stone floor. He could not believe what he was seeing. The tunnels seem to open into an immense natural chamber. They ended at the top of a stone ziggurat etched with steps leading forty feet down to the chamber floor. The floor of the chamber was littered with broken stones of many sizes. It looked like at one time there were more stone structures here, but smaller and perhaps, a corral of some kind with a stone railing. There were rotten and ragged canvas tents covered in dust and freckled with holes. Some were no more than stained rags hanging on wooden poles. And there were scores upon scores of zombies. Like those the Fearless Manticore Killers had faced above, these zombies were dressed as laborers. They milled around in scattered lines that seemed to have been based on a semblance of order. They moved from place to place, in and out of the darkness as if completing tasks on some list or as part of some procedure, but they actually seemed to be accomplishing nothing. There seemed to be lines of them trailing off to the left and right of the ziggurat as well.
The zombie activity seemed to be focused around an enormous pedestal for what must have once been and enormous stone statue. Derek could barely make out the cracked feet of whatever it had been. The surface of it looked like it had some kind of weird texture carved on it. Four tall fires in large bronze bowls surrounded the pedestal. It was these smoky fires that lit up the chamber.
Derek watched in awe, giving up on doing a head count of the walking dead. He could now see that every so often the zombies were accomplishing a task. Some were dragging corpses up on to stone biers at the base of each fire, where others would tear the clothes from them and tossing them into the braziers. It became clear that these were the tasks the other zombies were mimicking. They moved mindless to their own inefficiency. While the zombies piled on the biers slid down in great piles of rotting desecration, Derek noticed one other thing. There was a significant portion of these zombies that were naked.
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“Well, what have we got out there?” Blodnoth asked Jeremy, when the latter had crawled back a bit.
“We’ve got a sold out show and no script to go by,” Jeremy replied quietly. He squatted against the tunnel wall.
“Huh?”
“It’s a packed house.”
“Let’s retreat some and keep sight of the opening,” Blodnath suggested. “Maybe someone else will come and we can decide what to do.
Jeremy nodded.
to be continued…
