He hadn’t been kidding; as we passed through the doors we appeared at the bottom of the cliff that lead up to the castle. The swirling fog that had been present started to drift away from us in a wave, revealing the city. The mixed time periods of the city didn’t change from the chaotic mess we had seen from above, but it no longer changed from one glance to another.

Arya’s hand rested on my shoulder and I looked back to her and found her tapping the side of her head. I nodded, guessing she wanted to set up a mental link. That nod seemed to be enough agreement for the system as I saw a new icon above my energy bar.

“Okay, the group is linked up. I figured we didn’t want voices to carry since we don’t know what is here,” her mental voice broadcast to the team.

“If we are going for an initial stealth approach I am going to wait to armor up. I am not what one would call subtle,” Rebecca said.

“Fair enough, I’ll take point as my technique should allow me to sense enemies. Any guesses on what we will see?” I asked.

Surprisingly it was Jacob that responded, “P.I. doesn’t tend to follow the standard trash mobs to bosses in their games. Theoretically we should be able to sneak our way to the goal, but plan for at least one fight. With the mix up of time periods I would guess on anything from prehistoric critters to advanced robotics for enemies.”

I tuned out the discussion as much as I could as we moved forward into the city. From above it hadn’t looked that large, and I remembered a few distinct landmarks: a park, a church, a factory, the docks, and a cemetery. The cemetery was the closest, up against the cliff the castle rose from and off to the west. No compass points meant that direction was a bit fuzzy, but I decided that the castle was due south for orientation purpose.

We all froze when we heard an inhuman screech from the north. Jerome’s voice came through the link, “I think the cleared fog just reached something that isn’t happy with us meddling.”

Jacob responded, “Rough math of the fog clearing and distances would put that sound coming from the park near the center of the city.”

“One location at a time, let’s clear the cemetery first and then head for the park as it is a central location,” Arya said.

It took us about ten minutes to work our way through to the cemetery, the structures seemed to stabilize a bit as we neared it. The architecture reminded me of the old pictures of the United States in the 1950s after World War II. As we neared the cemetery the pattern continued as it appeared to be a soldier’s memorial in theme. As the edge of my radar passed the gateway I held up a hand to stop our team. I then promptly turned to the nearby building and bumped my head into the wall a few times.

Arya’s mental chuckle told me she was using her other techniques to see what I was sensing and she filled in the group, “They went with a classic for a cemetery.”

Soft groans came from the rest of the party as they understood. Zombies of one form or another wasn’t exactly a strange concept in a game, but still it tended to be a bit overdone. The sound of the gate opening brought my head snapping around to see the obviously dead man in a marine dress uniform, missing an arm, opening the gate and looking at us. He opened his mouth, coughed out some dust, and then in a firm voice said, “Are you coming or what?”

I blinked a couple times while looking at the zombie soldier. He repeated himself, “What, never seen a Marine before? Get your asses in here already, if the old man pushed back the chaos that means that time is advancing here now.”

Rebecca spoke up, “Sorry corporal, but from our understanding the walking dead aren’t usually considered friendly.”

Have you ever seen a zombie scowl? It isn’t a pretty sight, especially when they apparently have Marine training in looking scary before they start walking around after they are in the ground. His dry voice barked out, “I’m a Marine, girl. The job wasn’t over when they put me in the ground, just came to a new battlefield. Now are you going to get Thanatos out of his chains or do you want what peace the dead have be permanently ended.”

I sensed as both Rebecca and Jerome snapped to attention at the tone of command in his voice. I also detected a sudden motion coming towards the gate and watched as the zombie turned and drew the saber that was part of his uniform and cut behind him, a trail of black flame filling the air where the blade passed, and cutting through what looked like a desiccated corpse covered in pitch black skin with teeth that wouldn’t look out of place in a sharks mouth.

The dead soldier spat out to his side and barked out again, “Get a move on, I’ll keep these monstrosities from getting out. They have him chained in the central mausoleum.”

I once again took the lead, it was hard not to rush forward with my physical enhancement running, but I didn’t want to deactivate it as I had seen how fast those things moved. I would have to rely on speed and force to beat opponents for now as I wasn’t yet confident in my skills.

“Jacob, don’t shoot unless you have to; the noise will probably bring them running. Rebecca, if you can avoid armoring up while we move that would be best, but you’re still quieter than a gun shot. Jerome and Alex move hard and fast, these things aren’t alive so don’t hesitate,” Arya’s mental voice came through clearly, mental communication had the advantage of not needing lungs to project it.

As we moved I did a low step, my hand sweeping out to grab some gravel from the pathway. I wasn’t in the costume which meant no ammunition except what I could make for myself. None too soon it seemed as I sensed two spots of motion ahead coming at us from either side; one was larger and a little slower than the other, but both moved at a speed that could match professional athletes.

“Jerome, you have one coming in at two o’clock. Alex I assume you see the one at ten?” Arya’s mental voice sounded before I could say anything.

For a split second I was slightly annoyed, but my rapid-fire thoughts quickly analyzed and spat back out a more logical reason: she was calling it out so I could focus on the fight. She didn’t have any way to hit them from a distance, and most of her techniques were support and information gathering not combat. It did make more sense for her to use my sensory technique to manage the battlefield while those of us with higher damage output did our thing.

My own mental voice almost tripped over Jerome’s as we both gave an affirmative to her call. Since I didn’t have to rely on just my eyes to see my target I focused on lining up a shot at the approaching target, causing the targeting lines to appear. I could only see the outline of my target, like a three dimensional line drawing, but it was shaped more or less humanoid if a bit gaunt. Aiming while running was a tricky prospect, which made me glad that Phil had insisted I do that as part of my training course. I did a sidearm throw at the creature, launching three of the gravel pieces at it. All three sped off at high velocity to impact it, one in the torso and the other two taking it in the throat dropping it into a graceless tumble that it didn’t rise from.

Shortly after it dropped the other one appeared to normal vision. It was huge, as in professional football lineman huge, with a ebony skin and muscles that strained to be held in. No hair was visible and its eyes glowed with a violent red light. I watched as it sprang at Jerome, hands with sharp talons extending from the fingertips outstretched. Jerome was up to the task though, and with a quick step forward he swept his arms in to catch the creature’s wrists. It didn’t stop the forward momentum though and it impacted into Jerome at full speed.

Have you ever seen a dog try and corner too fast and tumble into a cabinet? That’s what it reminded me of, but at about double the speed. Jerome pushed the arms back around its back and then with a sharp bed backwards into a wrestler’s supplex slammed its head into the stone path we were following. The stone cracked, and the creature stopped moving as the lights in its eyes faded.

“Arya, did your power reading technique give you any information about these things other than mindless?” I asked.

“No, it only works on sentient creatures. It’s an imposed limitation, now I wish I hadn’t taken it,” she responded.

Jacob interjected, “Not to worry, I’ll come up with something we can use for analyzing enemies without a brain.”

My mind kept moving, part of it keeping track of every motion around us. It was odd, for most of my life my constantly unable to focus brain had been a detriment in situations that required focus; but a high stakes situation like this, even if it was technically a game, brought that ability to rapidly shift thoughts and analyze things to an advantage especially with the technique I had chosen. There wasn’t any more motion within my range, but I couldn’t see inside of the sealed mausoleums, and wasn’t interested in looking in them either. That would be too much like a bad zombie movie.

“Our target is just ahead, let’s keep moving,” Rebecca said.

We kept going a bit more cautiously, but still quickly towards the mausoleum the zombie soldier had said held Thanatos. Apparently whoever wrote this scenario had decided that using the old Greek Lord of the Dead for this was a good idea. I wondered if Time and Fate would follow the same source material, although there was a multitude of options in mythology. It only took us a couple of minutes to reach the large central mausoleum, the stone building with large oaken doors loomed before us in the darkness.

“Shock and awe, or stealth?” Arya asked.

“Let’s go shock and awe, if we can put whoever is in there on their back foot it will give us a moment to take in the situation. There is a chance that whoever is holding Thanatos already knows we are here,” I said while I hoped the bad guy would do a classic monologue.

My radar sense showed me Rebecca being covered in an armor, reminiscent of 14th century full plate, made out of ice as Jerome took a step forward and slammed his booted foot into the oak doors, causing them to crash inwards.

Within the chamber was a marble floor covered in sigils and circles containing a chained figure, he wore a pair of black jeans and had a bare chiseled torso. His long dark hair hung down over his face, as his arms strained against the chains that shackled him. Wings of shadow lifted from his back and seemed to strain against an invisible wall around him. Behind him rested an open sarcophagus where another black skinned individual stood. Unlike the ones we had seen outside this one’s eyes didn’t glow, and his form was less gaunt. He also wore clothing, a medieval style tunic, pants, and boots. In his left hand he held a sword that shed a black flame and in his right he held an obsidian knife dripping with blood.

The chained Lord of Death looked up and said, his whisper carrying in the silence, “Realmwalkers, flee this place. If time has no sway here than he cannot complete the theft of my power.”