An Epic Hero Story: Book 2 Chapter 39 (Patreon)

Morlo made us stop to examine the shamblers after a while, apparently convinced that there was some clue to be found about their nature on them. None of us knew enough to contradict him of course, so we all humoured the Thaumaturge while he began his studies of the mangled corpses. 

“Hm, I’ve not seen this work before,” he grunted. I for one was not particularly interested in what he was talking about, but of course Vara’s academic attitude was night and day to mine. She wasted no time in kneeling down beside the old man and leaning in to try and overhear his mumblings.

“You can tell the differences in…work? You mean the magic that reanimates them?” Full of questions like always, Vara didn’t show a hint of the disgust I was feeling at standing so close to so much rotting meat. 

“Something like that,” Morlo nodded, “there’s different ways to attain the same result, with both Thaumaturgy and magic.”

“So how was this done?” I found my own interest being piqued now, if only because I was realising that Morlo might actually know how to reanimate bodies himself. 

Oh, uh. As Kyvaine Dragonsbane, the Hero of Anglyn, let this record show that I formally denounce necromancy in all its vile forms, and all that other shit.

Anyway I really liked the idea of bringing back the dead to fight for me instead of against me for once. Sadly it wasn’t to be.

“I won’t be teaching you that,” Morlo snapped.

“Why?” I asked, lowering my voice to ensure I wasn’t overheard. He stared at me sidelong.

“Because you’d actually do it. I might teach Vara, eventually, but it’s still too advanced for her anyway.”

Vara’s disappointment at that actually surprised me, but it shouldn’t have. She had, of course, seen the exact same potential that I had. 

Once Morlo was finished looking at the dead shamblers, he gestured us elsewhere with somewhat more confidence than we’d been wandering with before. 

“I don’t have an idea as to what made these, but I know where they came from at least,” he explained as we walked, “I’m expecting a few more to be waiting for us when we reach the source, so all of you stay ready to fight.”

He didn’t mention the giant undead I’d seen in Sheppleberry, but he didn’t need to. I just knew there’d be more than a few of those waiting for us wherever we headed, life was simply too cruel to let me get away with only facing off against the common types. 

And our march took plenty of time, so I had more than long enough to get myself all worked up and fearful over it as well. At least my bloody grin inspired those among us who weren’t in the know about my yellow streak.

Of all the nasty shocks I’d been growing terrified of encountering, what we ended up actually approaching proved easily the worst. Genuinely, I couldn’t have planned this if I was writing a book specifically about some young arsehole getting terrorised by bad fortune.

It was the Dungeon. In another place, built in a different way, but with a similar enough style, positioning and design that the resemblance was unmistakable. Another Dungeon, and this time I had even less choice about whether I’d be diving into it than I did before. 

Morlo’s reaction could not have been more different from my own of course, he seemed thrilled. 

“This is the perfect opportunity to get to the bottom of things,” he cackled, “are you all ready?”

He got a rousing round of groans, at that, because even those of us who hadn’t already delved into such a place already knew trouble when they saw it. Vara and I were particularly nervous. She was handling it better than I did, at least. I could actually hear my own teeth chattering and am not sure to this day how my Heroic facade survived the level of fear I felt at that moment. She just went quiet and still, took a brief pause to head off from the rest of us and came back resolute. 

++”It’s actually a bit ridiculous to read this all these years later and find out that was how Kyvaine thought I was reacting. My ‘brief pause’ was because I literally pissed myself and needed to change. I tried to puke but nothing came out. I think I cried, too? It’s all a bit of a blur. Resolute, ha!”++

Of course this time wasn’t looking anywhere near so dangerous as our last venture down below the skin of the world. Or, rather, I mean our first, I suppose we’d gone even deeper in the Foggy Peaks. Anyway, with Morlo there things were looking much more promising.

The last time I’d seen one of these mysterious structures, I’d grown up around it. I’d been forced to wait, in fact, just to enter it. Kept to the timetable of wear and tear, and permitted entrance only when nature had seen fit to provide a flood powerful enough to expose part of the structure.

Morlo was not quite as impotent against the face of time, and after only a few minutes spent looking around to see what he could glean from outside, he picked a spot and unleashed his Thaumaturgy. Force the likes of which a cannon would struggle with matching uncurled from his hands and slammed into the stonework. 

Sturdy stonework though, because it weathered Morlo’s attack with surprising ease. It took several more blasts of power before he’d so much as cracked it, and another half-dozen even from there to finally form a breach. By that point the rest of us had stepped farther back to avoid being struck by flying stones, and when it was all clear he gestured us over.

The Thaumaturge seemed to be in a much worse mood all of a sudden. He usually got like that, when his power was resisted.

“Who the fuck made that wall?” he snapped, glaring at it. 

“Based on the ageing I’d say it’s second generation Elynian work, at least the exterior,” Gruin volunteered. All eyes turned to him, most were impressed and Morlo’s were suddenly enraptured.

“You know of the periods within the Old Empire?”

Gruin snorted. “Oh yes, my people know all there is to know about the working of stone and metals. This style was favoured around the final period of what you call the Old Empire’s existence.” 

Even Il’Vanja looked impressed at that, or at least as impressed as she was capable of looking at anything. 

“Can we expect more barricades like that deeper in?” Morlo asked the Grynkori.

“I don’t know,” Gruin admitted after a moment, “I’ve never ventured into one of these structures personally.”

So, he didn’t know everything about stone and metalworking then. I knew better than to say that outloud though, Gruin had mostly finished healing. 

The group started heading down into the dungeon, with Il’Vanja remaining outside along with the trainees and Cedwin while Devyne, Gruin, Morlo, Vara and myself delved into the dark. Most of these choices were easy to make, particularly the damned oreling. It was only Cedwin I’d seen give Morlo pause.

With luck, Il’vanja would be sharp enough to keep him from trying anything while we were down below ground. 

Without luck, he might have a chance to rig up an explosive trap to go off as we tried to leave, or else just kill the remaining sentries and hide out on a hilltop to dome us with that rifle. I shared my concerns with Morlo in secret, who only grinned.

“Let him try.”

I’d have been more reassured by that prior to the Thaumaturge’s period of unconsciousness recently. I didn’t say anything though, just made a mental note that I may have to pick up the slack if I was to make it out of here.

Besides, Cedwin was far from my biggest concern anymore. We went deeper and actually took longer to be attacked than we had on our first venture, perhaps a product of how many more undead were outside of this dungeon compared to the last. Eventually, though, we found them. Of course we did. 

Or rather, they found us.

Or rather still, Gruin found them and chose to fuck off and flank them rather than warn anyone else they were coming. By the time the shamblers made their attack known and came charging at us, Gruin himself was charging them from behind and smashing into their ranks like he’d been shot out of a cannon. 

In the short term, this display was very impressive and manly. It also sort of fucked us, as it meant that Morlo, Vara and myself weren’t able to just blow the undead to pieces as we could have done were we not seeing our own ally fighting so close to them. 

Or rather, it meant that Vara and myself weren’t able to. 

“Shield him!” Morlo roared, then gave us precisely long enough to realise what he was ordering before his flames shot out. Vara’s Thaumaturgy was quicker by far than mine, and I’d still not perfected the art of making solid barricades. I was able to bolster hers, though, and protect Gruin as the fire descended. 

Grynkori are remarkably resistant to heat of course, their bodies adapted to crawling within magma chambers and working through heat that would literally blister the skin off a human in moments. There are limits to such resilience, if you were to douse Gruin in naptha and ignite it I imagine he’d go down quite fast, but combined with the shield it meant that he wasn’t quite cooked alive.

He did emerge with discoloured skin, though. Steam hissing from his body and many of the hard shell-like patches flaking away. But he emerged and did so alive. 

Which was good, because it let him keep killing our enemies. 

Gruin’s hammer proved as useful as ever against the shamblers, doing all the mechanical damage to bones and musculature that actually slowed the deathless things down. For my own part, once the bulk of them had been torched by Morlo, I got stuck in with my own sword and enjoyed similar success. Between its sharpness and the mildly preternatural strength of my arm, I was removing limbs without much hassle and, on one notable occasion, even split a shambler’s head right in half to spill its brains out. 

Vara wasn’t quite as effective in such close conditions, but still made herself useful by clearing them away with bursts of force. There’s really not many situations where the power to hurl a grown man into the air without touching him doesn’t prove useful, but she made it even deadlier here with the hard stone walls, floors and ceiling. Where shamblers hit them with any appreciable speed, bones broke and yet more combatants were neutralised. Gruin didn’t seem to notice this, but I caught the sight of Devyne easing up from the corner of my eye as his own fight became easier.

All in all, it probably took us less than a minute to be fully done with our enemies. I ran an eye over the carnage and found it more than a little satisfying.

How long had it been since I’d first encountered these creatures? 

Nearly a year, I realised with a start. Nearly a year. What had changed so much to make them so tiny a threat? It would’ve been easy to say my armour, my Thaumaturgy, my training and weapon, but the truth was just…me. I’d taken a few steps down the painful, reluctant road to Heroism and I’d not even realised it until now.

I snapped from my reverie as Morlo started heading back down the hall, glaring at Gruin.

“Don’t do that again, you fool.”

Gruin just looked at him, face darker than I’d seen in the Grynkori yet. He made no promises, only followed after.