We entered the tomb and the doors closed slowly behind us, letting only the smallest amount of daylight in through the cracks. Kyren summoned a small orb of light and set it above the group illuminating our surroundings. The mausoleum was ornate, with marble walls and carvings of the deceased carved onto the top of the sarcophagi that contained them.

I ran my hand over one of them,“Why weren’t these disturbed?”

“Those who are remembered by the still living are much harder to raise. These are likely some of Ellis’ most honored ancestors who are well known by many in Caedun.”

I nodded and began leading the way toward a stairway leading deeper into the tomb.

“Wait, let me take the lead. I’ll look out for traps,” said Stone. He began muttering ancient dwarven and his eyes turned the color of his namesake. He directed his stone sense around and took the lead. He navigated the group around a pitfall trap, a falling axe, and an extending spear. Soon we found ourselves in a portion of the tomb that seemed less well maintained than the entrance, but still new. We entered and began searching the room.

There were two medium-sized statues against a wall, behind which I assumed were their remains. The faces of the statues were young and seemed vaguely familiar. Hrig approached them, putting her hammer to the side to gently touch their faces.

“They haven’t been disturbed,” said Hrig.

“No. I don’t believe the necromancer could’ve used them even if he’d wanted to. Your memories of them are far too strong for that,” said Kyren.

Hrig turned and put a hand on her shoulder, smiling in spite of the wetness in her eyes.

“Duck!” yelled Stone.

They obliged, falling forward as a boney creature flew through the entrance and landed against the wall behind them. Hrig rolled forward to grab her hammer as Kyren ran toward me, taking cover behind my bulk. The monster began to unfurl itself, it was a snakelike beast made up of human bones. It’s teeth were ribs, it’s eyes hollowed out skulls and it’s body was a horrifying amalgamation of everything else. The sound of its movement was that of dry bones grinding against each other.

It coiled up again and launched itself in my direction using its tail as a spring. I raised my shield and blocked the strike, but the force of it threw me back into the far wall. I moved forward and struck at it with my club, but it had already coiled and launched itself at Hrig so I hit nothing but air.

Hrig struck, attempting to time her blow with the snake’s and launch him backward with her hammer, but her timing was off and she took a hit to her side forcing her to roll with the hit.

Stone called out to it, “Over here you ugly bastard!”

The creature turned its attention to him and launched itself, but Stone moved at the last moment and the creature slammed into the wall which broke as it hit, leaving him embedded in it.

Before it could extricate itself Kyren reached the wall and placed her hand on its tail. There was a brief golden glow and its pieces all scattered, tumbling out of the hole the creature had made.

“I saw that the wall was weak there,” said Stone gesturing to his still slate gray eyes, “figured we’d need to keep the thing from moving.”

“Good idea,” said Kyren looking over the now inert pile of bones, “Our necromancer was experimenting when he made this. We’ll have to be cautious, looks like it’s not just going to be skeletons and zombies after all,” said Kyren.

The group nodded and we started making our way deeper into the tomb reaching an area where dirt was beginning to poke through tile and cracks covered the walls. We were about to exit a narrow hallway into a larger room when a low groan drifted from it.

“Zombies,” whispered Kyren.

“Can you cast another spell to take care of them all at once?” asked Hrig.

“No, my spells don’t work as well on undead who still have flesh. It would damage, but not destroy them.”

Stone held out a hand for us to wait and moved to the edge of the hallway. I watched him slowly drive a hook into the first wall, tie a rope to it and then put a hook at the other side and tie the rope again. He then returned to the group.

“Let’s draw them in,” he said and we all nodded.

Kyren sent out the orb of light she had following us into the room ahead to an eruption of groans, then she pulled the light back to us. The first zombies came into view, all rotting flesh and exposed bone. It hit Stone’s rope, and fell. Stone then calmly moved to it and crushed its skull with his hammer, sending bits of viscera flying.

Hrig and I took places next to him as more zombies lumbered in, tripped, and we brained them. After a few waves of this the zombies were no longer tripping over the rope, but instead were tripping over the corpses of the others.

“This doesn’t seem very sporting,” said Hrig as she slammed her hammer down onto another of them.

“You’d rather have waded into them and swung wildly hoping for the best?” asked Stone.

“Well, yes.”

He sighed, looking over to me. “Do I not understand women, or is it that there are only strange ones in my life?”

“Both, I think,” I said, stomping on another zombie's head.

After the groans ceased, we climbed over the pile of former undead and made our way into the room they’d come from. It had a high ceiling and rows of opened coffins and mining equipment.

We started moving down another hallway, Stone still leading the way watching for traps. The warm glow of torchlight came into view and a muttering voice echoed around us. Scraps of words like ‘tendon’, ‘fresh’, and ‘bled’ were all that could be made out of it.

Kyren dismissed her orb and we all began moving more cautiously forward. We peered into the room. There was a large atrium lit by torches. Dozens of skeletons were scattered around the room, laying on tables, the tops of sarcophogi and sometimes just loosely laid on the floor. A single man stood on a large white stool in the center of the room. He wore a black robe and was standing over what looked to be an enormous body. Sounds of squelching and tearing could be heard as he shifted his arms through it.

Stone gestured for us to wait and began moving slowly toward the robed figure while we readied ourselves ready to charge. Stone moved carefully, his hammer slung low in his hands, the torchlight throwing strange shadows across the floor. The Necromancer didn’t move, just continued his work, lost in what he was doing.

Stone got within a few steps of him and raised his hammer to strike. He made two swift steps forward and brought the hammer down.

A skeletal arm emerged from the cloak and grabbed the hammer, stalling it’s advance.

“I’m trying to work!” yelled the robed figure. His stool moved and I realized it wasn’t a stool, but a platform held up by dozens of skeletal legs, one of which kicked Stone across the room.

We charged to Stone, taking a defensive posture around him as he recovered. As he stood the various skeletons that had appeared to be being worked on began standing and moving toward us. Unlike the ones we’d encountered before, these paused to pick up shovels, pickaxes and anything they could use as weapons. The necromancer himself kept working on the massive corpse which, now that we were closer, I could tell was some kind of horrifying amalgamation of multiple bodies.

“Keep them off of me, I have to prepare a spell!” yelled Kyren. She then sat and began muttering

We circled around her as the skeletons closed in. I deflected a pickaxe strike off of my shield and slammed my club into my attacker, smashing through his shoulder. Another of them charged me with a shovel, but I knocked the head of the shovel downward with the club’s pommel and drove it into the dirt, then I kicked the skeleton back into two others. They started attacking more swiftly and I gave up on being able to block every hit, instead letting anything less than a pickaxe bounce off my armor while making wide sweeping strikes to hold them back. I found myself pushed back as more skeletons pressed into us , using their sheer numbers in an attempt to overwhelm. If I was alone, I’d be able to simply wade into them, but with Kyren still preparing her spell behind me it wasn’t an option.

After crushing another of them, I got closer to Kyren and found myself brushing elbows with Hrig and being uncomfortably close to hitting Stone with the bottom of my shield.

“A bit of haste may be in order,” said Stone, kneecapping the nearest skeleton.

“Yeah, I prefer not to be close enough to Stone to smell him,” said Hrig.

I slammed my shield into the row of skeletons in front of me and at that moment Kyren stood and released a burst of holy energy that erupted outward, slamming into the skeletons and also, unfortunately, into me. The skeletons fell apart into piles of bones and I collapsed to my knees, my essence reeling from the damage her holy spell had sent outward.

I struggled to my feet quickly, trying to give the appearance that I’d just briefly lost my balance, and heard high pitched laughter. The necromancer was still standing over his horrifying creation his arms raised up in elation. The creature began to sit up. The golem of flesh groaned as it brought itself to its full height, which reached almost to the ceiling.

The look on Kyren’s face was one of absolute hatred and disgust. She stood from her meditative pose and a halo of golden light enveloped her head, her eyes sharing the glow.

“Focus on the monster, the necromancer is mine.”

Hrig and Stone moved to help me up, and I drew up my club and shield as the flesh beast made its way toward us.

The Necromancer threw aside his robe revealing two more skeletal hands that seemed to be fused with the flesh of his back. His fleshed and unfleshed hands moved in strange motions creating arcane symbols and a ghostly hand shot toward Kyren who dismissed it with a bolt of light from her own hand. They began trading spells, sending energies toward one another, dodging or dismissing them, and starting again in a dazzling display of power.

Just as they were heating up, the flesh golem began its assault. He slammed his fists down at me, forcing me back. Stone and Hrig both landed heavy blows on his legs, but he swept one enormous hand behind himself forcing them to dodge. He lifted a sarcophagus lid and threw it at me. It spun through the air and I ducked, hearing the wall crack as it slammed into it.

I charged, deflecting a heavy strike and slamming my club down on its hand. There was a crunch, but the beast made no indication it felt any pain. His other hand hit me in the back and sent me sparking across the stone floor. I was moving sluggishly, still trying to regain my composure after Kyren’s spell.

I looked up to see Hrig and Stone leaping onto the golem’s back, embedding pickaxes deep into it’s flesh. The beast turned and reached for them, but was unable to grab them as they dug the picks deeper.

Kyren was still facing down the necromancer.

“Your spells must be running out priest,” he hissed, “you’ll need to stop to pray soon, and then I’ll turn you and your friends into something beautiful.”

The halo around Kyren grew brighter. “Fighting a necromancer in the name of my god is a prayer. When I bind myself to the will of my goddess, my spells are inexhaustible.” Golden chains manifested wrapping themselves around the necromancer. He struggled against them with all six of his arms, but he couldn’t move. She began walking toward him, her new mace in hand. He started casting spells, but they simply faded into nothing as they touched the golden light that surrounded her.

The golem began moving toward Kyren in spite of Stone and Hrig’s ongoing attack. I forced myself up and moved to intercept it. I put myself in front of it and held up my shield, bracing myself as much as possible. It reared up to strike, but at that moment both Hrig and Stone dropped down and swung their pickaxes hard into the creatures heels. He stumbled, crashing down in front of me. I dropped my shield and raised the club above my head with both hands before bringing it down on his head. I thought it was finished, but the beast’s arms began dragging him toward Kyren. I moved to the right arm and Hrig and Stone moved to the left one where we concluded our systematic deconstruction of the golem.

Kyren reached the necromancer who was screeching incoherently, seeming to have lost all touch with reality at the prospect of his own death.

“For the ancient and wise,” said Kyren, raising her mace into the air. She slammed it down onto the necromancer’s head. I watched the blood from the strike evaporate in the heat of the light that surrounded her which began to fade. Kyren moved to the necromancer’s discarded robe which she gently laid over his now still form.