araknirs Basic Bestiary – Heavy Zombies

The name heavy zombies was given to the strange evolution of zombie that rarely appears. The name is completely inappropriate. Many a novice adventurer has been led to their demise by assuming that these zombies are as slow as their brethren. They are anything but, heavy zombies thrive on the charge. Not only are they fast but they are stronger than even the Large Zombies. Heavy zombies if spotted on the shield are a priority, take them down as quickly as you can or they will press the attack and charge through your formation. Once they break your formation they will wreck havoc. Baraknir wishes the best of luck should you have the misfortune of encountering one.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Z thought about his words, it got the blood pumping. Did his blood even flow anymore, he could find out but even if he didn't feel pain needlessly stabbing himself... Not such a great idea. Ridding himself of the once more randomly appearing thoughts he headed towards the goblin village. He and his troops now walked along the newly created dirt road. Clog kept the spot he had claimed for himself one step to the right and two steps behind. The Guard followed behind Z in two rows. Brainz was somewhere with the rest of the zombies. That one truly did not care where he was.

He walked over towards the village, their walls had been repaired and improved. The former shoddy wooden walls had been transformed into a tall and sturdy wooden palisade. They had a gatehouse and the archers to man both it and the walls. The chief walked out from his Village, he had grown slightly in size and was only a few inches shorter than Z. His green body was covered in red warpaint, the tribal symbols did not have any meaning to Z but the energy they emitted was almost palpable.The chief stopped in front of him and inclined his head slightly in greeting, Z returned the favor. The chief glanced at the oversized Clog with a raised eyebrow and then studied the Guard and their equipment.

The chief tilted his head, red beady eyes gleaming.“You have found weapons or the means to create them?”

Z shook his head, “After I acquired the Stronghold upgrade, I got the option to purchase a personal guard. The armed men you see behind me are the result.”

The chief stroked his chin, “I have yet to spend the points we have acquired from the last battle, I was hoping to exchange some information before I did so. If you would not mind.”

Z grinned, “Exchange of information is always a good thing. I have also forgotten to introduce myself, things have been... Hectic lately.” The chief nodded in agreement. “I am called Z.” Z continued. “I have been a zombie for... Not even a day yet I suppose.”

The chief blinked at that but then nodded to himself in thought. “I am called Yara, I have been chieftain of the Red Grass tribe for two full moons. I do not remember a life before that, nor were there others of my kind in the tribe. I was the first, much like yourself I assume.” Z nodded, “I would like to invite you into my village, I shall tell you what me and mine know.” He stretched his hand in invitation and gestured towards his village.

Z stepped towards the village then hesitated, He motioned Clog to follow him and did the same for four of the guard. He trusted the Goblin chieftain but he thought it would be a sign of disrespect if he entered the village without an entourage. Judging by the chieftain's nod he had made the correct decision. As they entered the village and made their way to the topmost house which resembled a longhouse. They attracted many amazed and awed gazes from the goblin's around the village. Unlike his own faction, there were women and children here, some of them had small gardens that they tended too. He also noticed a few tanneries and what he presumed was a shaman's hut.

The goblins had grown an entire culture, unlike the entirely battle focused faction that Z commanded. To be fair zombies did not need food, nor did they wives or children, not as far as he knew at least. That was an interesting point, would he ever have a village much like this. With people who he would need to protect. He frowned as he lost himself in thought. The walk to the longhouse was short and surprisingly pleasant. Z hadn't noticed how much he missed the air of the living. The boisterous sounds of a busy village doing what needed to be done to get through the day. Back home at the Tombstone there was nothing but silence, no true people to make conversation with. At least not yet.

Yara opened the door and Z stepped into the house, motioning for the rest to stay outside. The chief followed him inside and lead him towards a surprisingly well-made table where they each sat down on opposite sides. “Well then let's start this information exchange, would you like to start?” Z nodded, “That would be best, my story is relatively short after all.”

Z told him everything that had happened so far, how he suddenly found himself in the forest, how a spider had attacked him and he found out the existence of KP. He explained how he had gotten his own territory and how he had built it up, he went into detail about his use of KP. He also explained that the lack of need for sustainability and family had allowed his faction to grow purely in the military strength. He also told Yara about how he expected that was the reason he and his forces grew to a similar military strength as the goblins and spiders in such a short time frame. Yara nodded at the right times throughout the stories, there were a few things he asked Z to elaborate. Which Z did in detail, after the goblin's curiosity was satisfied the tables were turned.

Yara started from the point where he had suddenly appeared in the forest. His start had been very similar to Z's own start. He had been attacked by another goblin however, he had killed the goblin and laid claim to his own little village. The place had a nice defensive position with a cliff behind them, Yara told him that the cliff was almost invisible from the position Z had arrived from, information about the cliff itself and what lay at the bottom was something they had not collected. He had at first been too focused on taking out the other goblin faction that had been harassing him since the start. After he had finally with a lot of effort and strategy managed to take out the opposing faction those abhorred spiders had launched their assault.

As for how he had spent his KP, the first thing he had bought was warriors. After they had established themselves sturdily in their newfound territory, he split his earnings between the military and civilian aspects of his domain. He explained that similar to Z he had not had access to the civilian part of the upgrades until he had gathered his first 10 EP. That was when his faction had grown from a simple military outpost to a true tribe. He had spent far more in the civilian aspect than in the military aspect. He was of a mind that he needed a strong civilian foundation on which to build his military. He did not have as many soldiers, a total of 52 at the moment. But each and every one of them was growable, seventeen of them had evolved into the tier two hobgoblin evolution. One of them was a Shaman, seven of them were archers and the other nine excluding himself were warriors.

Z and Yara discussed strategy and upgrade options for a while before they came to a decision. Yara decided to follow Z's lead and purchased the stronghold option. From the ground a wooden castle sprung from the ground, if it could even truly be called a castle. It was more of a walled house than anything, he then purchased a Base Guardian as Z had done. Yara's Base Guardian was a female archer who had the Sub Leader trait. She had a mischivious glint in her eye and winked towards the chief when she came out of the stronghold. Unlike Z's zombies the goblins simply appeared in a puff of green smoke out of a cauldron of all things.

Yara assigned a personal guard to the mischevious archer who went by the name Laila. The archer got an all female squadron of rangers, each of them with hoods pulled up from their dark green cloaks and their faces masked. They wore tight leather armour and had a longbow and quiver slung from their shoulders. Z eyed the warriors in apreciation, they did look more capable than the normal hobgoblins. By the gling in Yara's eyes the chief was thinking the same thing. He then eagerly purchased his own personal guard. Yara's personal squadron consisted of muscular hob-goblins who wore loinclothes and had similar warpaint to Yara's decorating their bodies. Each of them held two axes and had another two axes sheathed in leather in the smalls of their backs.

Yara nodded in satisfaction, he then spent the remaining points to purchase growable goblins, he outfitted most of them with bows. The strategy the two of them had made was that the zombies with their superiour physical prowess would take lead and that the goblins would back them up with their ranged capablilties. The melee inclined goblins would protect the archer's while Yara and his personal guard would join Z in the thick of battle.

Once they finished their preparation and Yara finished giving orders to Laila they head out of the village. Z motioned with his hand and the zombies fell into formation behind him. If you could call the moblike group of puppets a formation.Yara joined him at the front, with his guard close behind. Yara knew the general direction of the spider's lair. It was time for them to finish of the eight-legged monstrousities once and for all.

Their army kept up the pace for another thirty minutes before they noticed the change in surroundings. The trees turned darker, there were minute traces of webs in the trees and the trees themselves were larger and their foilage blocked the light leaving the the forest in an eery darkness. With a few words Z had his puppets surround the archer group, unlike the zombies the goblins were very extremely vulnerable to the toxin. As a result Z had spread the order around for his zombies to stop the spiders from reaching their new green friends.

The deeper they went the darker the forest became, soon enough the goblins had to light torches to be able to see, a quick word from Z to Yara and the goblins were told to be carefull with the fire because the zombies were flammable. Everything was planned well.

Too bad that even the best laid plans can go to hell.