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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3575042" data-attributes="member: 143">Nah, the ghast was right on the edge of the bridge when it got rebuked (see chapter 182). So Dar would have had to go around it to have been in danger. Did someone mention a Friday cliffhanger?* * * * * Chapter 184EVEN MORE DESPERATE TIMES“Form a line!” Dar yelled, moving up to stand beside Talen.  Shay and Kalend came forward to take their flanks, but their formation still looked tenuous in the face of the sheer numbers of undead bearing down upon them.  Allera and Serah came up behind them, ready to bolster the defenders with their healing magic. Varo remained on the far side of the line, staring at the charging undead. “Varo, what in the hells are you doing?” Dar shouted.  “Get back behind the line, man!” But Varo’s concentration did not waver.  The skeletons focused on him, an exposed target, and lifted their claws in anticipation of a strike.   The leading edge of the rush was less than fifteen feet away when Varo raised his divine focus and invoked the power of Dagos. The pulse of negative energy washed over the undead, and this time it had an immediate and dramatic effect.  More than a dozen skeletons suddenly froze, as though they had struck an invisible wall.  Those behind pushed forward, past their rebuked fellows, but before they could get to Varo, the cleric stepped back smoothly behind the line of his companions. “Serah, I believe you will find your turning more effective now,” the cleric said calmly. The priestess of the Shining Father called upon her own power, flooding the tunnel with a flaring light.  True to Varo’s words, another dozen skeletons came apart as the holy blaze touched them, blasting them into dust.  Despite the serious losses, the skeletons kept on coming.  The four defenders in the front rank put their blades to use, and despite the difficulties in using edged weapons against the fleshless undead, the skeletons came apart in droves under their powerful impacts.  More skeletons pressed forward through the storm of bone shards and flying fragments, but their own attacks were weak, easily dodged or absorbed by armor. “What the hells?” Dar exclaimed loudly, smashing a skeleton’s skull into a thousand pieces with a single stroke of Valor.  “Are these the same skellys?  They’re pansies!”More skeletons were rushing forward, but with a gesture from Varo his rebuked dozen leapt forward, engaging their erstwhile allies in a violent melee.  The skeletons could do little damage to each other with their claws, but they kept each other busy, allowing the companions to easily treat with those still pushing at their line.  Serah fired off another burst of positive energy, and another dozen collapsed, leaving just a handful that were being decimated by the defenders, especially the powerful, crushing blows from Corath Dar. “Varo, what’s going on?” Talen asked, cautiously swiping a skeleton that had gotten inside his guard.  The blow was not especially strong, but the holy energies of Beatus Incendia flared bright, and the undead construct came apart in a clatter of bones.  “Dar’s right, these are far weaker than before.”The cleric’s brows knitted in concentration, and he closed his eyes for a moment.  “The negative energy source that empowered them... I would assume that in our flight we left the radius of its effect.  It was like a desecration aura, only far more powerful...”Dar, caught up in his destruction-dealing, finished with the skeletons facing him, and after smashing one that had been troubling Kalend, he started forward toward the melee between those Varo was controlling, and those that were still hostile.  He reached the nearest grappling pair and simply hacked through both, driving Valor down in an arc that sundered ribs and spines, and sent the rest of the pieces flying every which way. Serah had her holy symbol at the ready, but it seemed that there was no further need of her power.  “What do we...” She was interrupted as a cold wave of dread swept over them.  Serah shivered, her words dying as she became suddenly pale. “What... what was that...” Talen said.“It would appear that the source I mentioned is mobile,” Varo said.  “I would ready yourselves for another attack, from the zombies.”“Dar, get back into the line!” Talen yelled.  As the dark power they’d sensed had drawn nearer, Varo’s control over the skeletons had waned, and the undead monsters had broken from their internecine struggle to fall upon their real foe.  Serah unleashed another turning, but the sensation they’d felt clearly interfered with her power, for only a pair of skeletons fell, and the surge of light quickly died, dissolving against a wall of utter black that flared briefly, like a living entity, before fading back into waiting quiescence. Dar stepped slowly back into position, laying about him with his sword with every step.  The skeletons seemed to drink up the invisible waves of negative power that had filled the tunnel, moving faster and attacking with greater strength.  But Valor, wielded by Dar’s hand, still offered the ultimate counter, and skeletons continued to explode around him as he took calm and easy steps back.  A few got around him and came at the other defenders, but they were ready, and more skeletons fell. “There!” Shay warned, pointing down the tunnel.They heard them before they saw them coming, the sound of a hundred low, throaty moans drifting up the passage toward them, a deep thrum that they sensed somewhere deep in that part of the brain where terror resided.  It grew louder as they approached, now clearly heard even over the sounds of the ongoing battle with the remaining skeletons.And then the light washed over their ranks, row after row of zombies shuffling forward, fell power radiating from them like a sharp stench.  There was still a handful of skeletons among them, moving at the slower pace of the horde, and a number of undead that weren’t clearly definable as either, with rotting flesh still covering their bodies, but not enough to keep the pale white bone beneath from showing through.  Some trailed ragged lengths of flesh, sinew, or intestine that dangled from open gashes in their bodies.  Many were missing body parts, with eye sockets that glistened wetly, jaws absent a lower half, ears torn off, or even a limb that ended in a ragged stump.  Things that had been parts of living, hale bodies fell from their ravaged forms and were left in their wake as they shambled forward, squishing as those behind trod upon those ghastly remnants.  The companions watched in revulsion as the undead horde drew nearer.  “By the gods,” Serah breathed, her eyes wide.  More rows continued to enter the light; the ranks of the dead seemed to go on forever.  Already nearly a hundred were in view.   “What do we do now?” Kalend asked, his voice tight. Varo drew out his magical dagger, the odd mithral blade with the gemstone hilt.  “We fight for our lives,” the cleric said simply, stepping forward to take his place in the line.</blockquote>

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