It didn’t take long for Julius and me to meet up with Andrea at the edge of the village, the elven woman giving me a smug smirk before she fell into step behind me with Julius leading the way out of the village onto what looked like an old game trail.

“So, since nobody bothered to tell me, I figure I’ll just ask. What kind of monsters can I expect to be fighting at this shrine to luna?” I look from Julius to Andrea after a moment when both remain silent. Though eventually, Julius speaks up his voice a little more subdued than normal.

“You’ll be dealing with the undead, most of what is in the temple is of the skeletal variety, however, there are some zombies that formed when the temple fell.” Julius paused for a moment, though he continued to walk, and even from behind him I could tell he was taking a moment to collect himself. I didn’t know Julius well but I’d have bet good money on someone he knew or cared about being in the shrine when it fell to the undead.

“Ahem” Julius continued on as if he hadn’t stopped speaking. “ What you are going to need to deal with, beyond either the skeletons or zombies is the priest of Luna. As you can imagine he was well on his way down the path of the werewolf.”

No, I hadn’t imagined that, I’m way too new at this, but I really should have guessed that a temple dedicated to Luna in a fantasy world would have werewolves.

“When he contracted the curse of undeath it clashed with the lycanthrope blood running through his veins, driving him insane. We didn’t realize what had happened until it was too late and the priest was slaughtering his way through the shrine. Most of the undead in there are enthralled to him.’

Julius turned to look back at me with a frown as if judging my capabilities. “ I can’t say if taking out the lesser undead first or going straight for the priest is a better idea. It is possible the undead werewolf’s death will weaken or even kill the rest of the undead in the temple. If it doesn’t though you’re likely to be facing a swarm of berserk undead.”

I shook my head at that, having a lot of different thoughts jockeying for position in my head at all this information.” I think you mean if I don’t get swarmed while fighting the priest. On that note, aren’t undead...you know able to infect people? How am I supposed to avoid that, or do you guys have the ability to remove the curse?”

To which both elves remained suspiciously silent, which earned them both a glare, first Julius, and then Andrea in turn, Julius turned away to face forward but Andrea just gave me a knowing smirk. Before I could sass either of them and believe you me the sass was coming Julius spoke again.

“As long as you don’t die, we can remove the curse of undeath, but if you rise as an undead there won’t be anything we can do for you but put you down.”

“Well, I guess that means I effectively have the normal rules of engagement then if there is a cure waiting for me outside the temple. I just have to make sure I don’t die, which hey guess what? That’s very high on my list of priorities.”

I try to put a light spin on it, but I’ll be damned if an edge of nervousness doesn’t creep into my voice. The elves were very much sending me on what they deemed to be a suicide run, which means even if I do come out of this alive, counting on them for help would be a fool’s bet to take.

The rest of the trip was done in silence, as we passed through the elven lands we went by several standing stones with runes carved in them. Every time we passed one Julius would hold up a small talisman to the rune on the stone, causing both to glow with soft light, what was interesting was the variety of colors, purple, orange, teal, yellow, and green. I don’t know anything about magic so maybe they were all different spells or maybe people just have different colored mana, but it sure looked pretty.

Which I have to say the elven forest had that going for it in spades, despite being a prisoner, and benign sent on a deadly task I had to admit that the old-growth forest we walked through was simply magnificent. Not only was it teeming with life but none of the wildlife had any fear of us as we walked by them, I saw foxes, deer, rabbits with tiny unicorn horns on their heads, all up close and personal.

I had to resist the urge to stop and try and pet some of the foxes, I figured that might get me a swift kick in the rear by Andrea and after getting stabbed by her, I thought it best not to risk any more violence until my task was done and I had earned my freedom from the elves.

It felt like our walk went by pretty quickly, so as we approached the edges of a lake and I was able to see through the canopy of the trees for the first time in two days I was surprised to see the sun a little past midday.

“Alyx, look.” Julius motioned for me to join him by the edge of the water and pointed out across the lake, on the other side of the lake a peninsula jutted out onto the water, on which a temple had been built, it looked like an Incan, pyramid that had been made from solid stone, resting atop of it four columns that gleamed silver in the sunlight. Around the temple itself though was a faint fog, clinging to the base of the temple despite the heat of the day.

“ That certainly looks like a massive temple, any last-minute advice? Perhaps a layout of the temple itself so I would know what to expect?”

Julius shook his head and pointed off to our right, where the game trail we had taken continued, presumably around the lake and to the temple.” I have nothing that will help you at this point, neither Andrea nor I were more than children the last time we were in the temple itself. We will keep an eye on things from a distance, however much comfort that may be.

Julius turned away slightly at that and unslung his bow from his shoulder, testing the tautness of the string, and if the message wasn’t clear enough Andrea has stepped up beside Julius, hand on the dagger at her waist. “ What he means to say is that if you run, we won’t let you get far. So do your job and clear the temple so we can go home.”

“Yeah, I caught that thanks. The implied threat was more than enough, but at least your honest about it.” Turning away from the two elven rangers, I regard the temple and then the trail before shrugging and taking off at a light jog.

As far as I can tell, clearing the temple of the undead is my best option right now. That does not make it a particularly good option in my book, but the elves have already proven they can take me down. No, what I needed to do now was figure out how I wanted to handle the Undead.

I’ve never been one for stealth, even before I gained the ability to become an Owlbear I could easily have been referred to as a bull in a china shop, making it a simple thing to rule out that option.

With [Stamina Regeneration] and [Health Regeneration] an extended fight would be possible. Do the undead get tired? Probably best to assume they don’t for now and since ambush tactics are out I’ll need to use the terrain to keep myself from getting surrounded, that or if possible outrun the undead.

I was making pretty decent time around the lake as I churned over possible combat tactics and was forced to come to the conclusion that I just didn’t have enough information to come up with any complex tactics. It was as I came to that determination that I nearly ran face-first into my very first undead, the skeleton was luckily facing the other way and I was able to give it a startled shove, knocking the surprisingly light creature to the ground.

“Ahh! Fuck! That scared me dammit!” As it was leveraging itself to get back up, I moved to the side and used a front snap kick on its rib cage, the surprisingly brittle bones cracking from the blow. That did not, however, stop the skeleton from getting back up. Its jaw rattling as it looked upon me with empty eye sockets, which let me tell you was just creepy. Stumbling forward the undead swiped at me with its boney hands, scoring a mark on my left forearm even as I raised it to guard my face.

A notification flickered before my vision, but I didn’t have time to read it right now so I cast it to the back of my mind while I dealt with the undead.

More annoyed by the pain of the blow than any actual damage it caused me I was quick to punch the skeleton in the head, to which my initial assessment of its bones being brittle proved true, as the neck snapped and the head bounced free of the body. The body itself collapsed into a pile of bones now that the skull was no longer attached and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Huh...two-hit K.O. Maybe this won’t be that bad after all, hell I bet as an Owlbear I could take out skeletons like that in one swipe.” Checking my notifications though my heart sank at the system message. I really should have been paying more attention to where I was going, oh well it isn’t like I thought I was going to get out of this unscathed.

“Who the fuck is Mor’noctum”