“This…was…a huge…mistake,” Zeke spat, swinging his mace in short, overhand bursts. Interspersed between swings was the occasional shield bash, but for the most part, his kite shield was used to block the zombies’ raking claws. With a mighty push, he sent a pair of the undead monsters flying backward, making a little space.

Beside him, Abby had already given up on her bow. Instead, she’d been hacking away with her hatchet. The effect, which would poison her enemies, was useless against the undead, but they were weak enough that she could still dismember them with relative ease. Pudge stood at her side, a veritable tornado of claws and teeth.

All three sported various wounds that would eventually fester into the disease that would turn them into zombies. Even Zeke, whose resistances seemed to protect him to some degree, would eventually succumb. If they survived the surging horde of undead, Abby would need to spend quite a bit of mana to cure them. Zeke desperately hoped she would have the chance, because their prospects of getting to that point didn’t look very good.

A zombie launched itself at Zeke, but he met its charge with the flat of his shield. His feet dug into the well-churned earth, but he didn’t move. The undead monster wasn’t so lucky, because it rebounded from the collision, momentarily disoriented. Zeke took that chance to cave in the creature’s rotted skull, following up with front kick to the thing’s chest. Luckily, his booted foot didn’t sink break through its weakened ribcage, and he sent the monster flying into its gathered brethren.

“We can’t keep going like this!” he yelled.

As she decapitated another zombie, Abby spat, “I’m open for suggestions!”

Zeke’s jaw flexed beneath his helmet as he ground his teeth in frustration. It had started so well. When they’d first begun, the path to the tower had been completely clear. So long as they remained to the north of the estate, keeping to the surrounding forest for concealment, they could avoid the undead host. Or at least that’s what they thought; however, they were proven wrong when, about halfway to the tower, they were set upon by a trio of smaller, much weaker undead that might’ve once been goblins.

The little monsters were weak enough that killing them had never been a question. A single arrow propelled from Abby’s bow took one out. Zeke pounced on another. And Pudge’s swiping claw made quick work of the last. But before Pudge’s claw connected, that third goblin zombie had let out a piercing screech echoing through the twisted, mist-shrouded forest. Both Abby and Zeke clutched their hands to their ears, but even so, Zeke had felt blood seeping out.

But it was never intended as an attack. Rather, it was an alarm, and every zombie in the vicinity – which included the entire estate as well as its surroundings – had heard it. Before they could react, they were swarmed by the rotting, walking corpses.

Ever since then, they’d been fighting for their lives. At first, it wasn’t difficult to keep the resurrected monsters at bay. They weren’t high-leveled, and even then, they seemed even weaker than their levels might indicate. On top of that, the trio were well-versed in combatting hordes of monsters. However, the zombies’ numbers were endless, and the trio’s endurance was finite. Eventually, Abby began to flag. Not long after that, fatigue slowed Pudge as well. And finally, hours into the fighting, Zeke’s own reserves came to a drought. Even though they’d dealt with hundreds – maybe even thousands – of the monsters, they were still losing, slowly but surely.

Something had had to give, so instead of a defensive battle where they could maintain the strategic upper hand of superior positioning, they chose to go on the offensive, carving their way through the endless sea of decaying flesh. Their destination remained unchanged, and over time, they made progress toward the tower they hoped would be their salvation. It may have been a fool’s hope, but it was the only viable solution to their zombie problem.

That’s what they thought right up until they reached the tower only to find that its lone entrance was closed to them, both with a physical lock as well as a tangle of runes that combined into an impenetrable ward. If Zeke had enough time, he might’ve been able to unravel it. However, the surging sea of rotting corpses were loathe to give him the opportunity to utilize his still fledgling expertise in runecraft.

And so, back to that metal door, the trio made what they all expected to be their final stand. For a while, they made progress. They even killed enough zombies that Zeke felt himself progress to level sixteen. But the tide never ceased, and they were, for all their gifts, still subject to fatigue. Eventually, their reserves of energy would run entirely dry, and when that happened, they’d be lost to the unending wave of rotting corpses.

Not for the first time, Zeke found himself wishing they’d made a better plan. For whatever reason, the caprids had either never showed up, or they’d been incapable of making a noticeable difference. Either way, he had neither seen nor heard anything of the goat-like humanoids, though he supposed it was possible that he had missed the sound of their clash against the undead while he and his companions were fighting their way to the tower. Whatever the case, the plan had been an abject failure. It would’ve been better if they’d chosen to skirt the estate altogether, going far enough around that they wouldn’t have alerted the zombies.

“What do we do?” Abby asked during a slight lull. Fear brought a slight tremble to her voice. “Do we try to break through? Run?”

Zeke shook his head. “We’ll never make it,” he said.

“We can’t keep going like this!” she hissed. “I can barely lift my arms anymore. And it won’t be long before the disease starts working on us. We need to get somewhere safe so –”

A zombie threw itself at her, raking its claws down her suddenly raised arm. It left a few jagged gashes, but they weren’t the first. Abby responded with an overhand chop with her hatchet, and the monster collapsed. She clutched her injured forearm to her chest, tears gathering in her eyes.

Abby was right. Something had to change. And given their options, there was only one way they could get out of the mess in which they’d become mired. “Cover me,” Zeke said. “Pudge, you know what to do.”

“What are you talking about?” Abby asked. “I don’t like –”

Pudge cut her off with a roar. During the melee, the bear had reached level fifteen, so he’d finally managed to catch up. And with his advancement had come a marked increase in his power. During the fight, Zeke had noticed when Pudge’s claws started biting a bit deeper, when the monsters flew a bit further, and when their attacks rebounded from his thick coat. It wasn’t a huge difference, but it was noticeable – at least to Zeke, and definitely to Pudge, who reveled in his increased power.

But it wouldn’t be enough. Pudge needed an edge. And he knew precisely how to get it. So, activating his version of [Heart of the Berserker], Pudge tore through the surrounding zombies like a clawed wrecking ball. He seemed like he was everywhere at once, his claws and teeth lashing out to devastating effect. Suddenly, the surging mass of undead monsters halted in it tracks, its momentum robbed by the rampaging bear. It was the opening Zeke needed.

He turned to the tower’s entrance, knelt to where the runes were eye-level, and placed his hand on the cold, metal door. Immediately, he saw that, while the rune was complex, it wasn’t completely beyond his understanding. Only mostly. But with the nature of [Heart of the Berserker], he knew the reprieve wouldn’t last long. He was on the clock, and he didn’t have time to lament his ignorance. Nor was their room for failure. So, with dogged determination, he bent his mind toward the task at hand.

Luckily, he didn’t need to completely understand the rune to render it ineffective. He only needed to find a weak spot that he could exploit. Once he did, he could work to undermine it, then use that foothold to unravel the entire thing. In the troll caves, he’d had plenty of practice taking curse runes apart, and though the one on the door was far more elaborate, the principles remained the same. So, he was confident that he could do it. The only question was whether he’d have enough time before the zombies regained the advantage.

Zeke closed his eyes and sank his awareness into the rune. The sounds of battle faded around him, and he bent the entirety of his concentration to the task. Even so, he felt like he was staring at the most complicated puzzle to have ever been conceived, and for a moment, he had no notion of where to even start. He was overwhelmed by the sheer scope of its complexity, and he nearly lost himself to its tangle of symbols, glyphs, and patterns.

Taking a deep breath, Zeke calmed his mind. He refused to let something so mundane as a magical door lock beat him. Not after everything he’d been through to reach this point. So, he poured every ounce of his willpower into the task, and a few seconds later, he was rewarded when he saw precisely what he sought. A weak point. A lone glyph that seemed to hold the entire structure together.

He pushed against it with his mana, but the glyph remained surprisingly steadfast. It may have been structurally weaker than the rest, but that vulnerability was relative. Compared to Zeke’s exploratory touch, it was an immovable mountain. Knowing he couldn’t dislodge the glyph – not with the power he possessed, at least – Zeke wracked his brain for another solution. He pushed. He pulled. He railed against the glyph. But it refused to budge, not even a metaphorical inch. He was stuck. He would fail. Abby and Pudge, who had both put their faith in him, would die horrible deaths, then live on as undead abominations.

“No,” he whispered to himself in a voice he was in no position to hear. He couldn’t allow that. There had to be a way.

Then the solution that had been staring him in the face revealed itself.

He didn’t need to move the glyph. Once it was set, that would be impossible. But what he could do was overload it. Because of his many achievements, all of Zeke’s stats were equal to someone quite a few levels his senior, and his intelligence, which dictated the amount of mana at his disposal, was no different. Usually, his huge mana pool didn’t make much difference to him; his skills weren’t mana intensive, so he usually just ignored the stat. However, in this instance, it would come in handy.

So, he extended a tendril of mana to the glyph, first attaching it, then boring into it. Immediately, a conduit between him and the glyph opened itself. Zeke took that opportunity to push his mana through that conduit and into the rune. At first, it did nothing, but as he poured more and more into the rune, it was suffused with a soft glow. He pushed everything he had into that stubborn glyph, and soon, it was bursting at the seams with more mana than it could safely contain.

He kept pushing. A low growl escaped from between his lips. It became a scream. Pain blossomed in his mind, and agony arced through his soul as he pushed every last drop of mana into the glyph.

For the briefest fraction of a second, everything went silent. It would have been peaceful if it weren’t for the anxiety hanging in the air. The glyph flexed, sending a shudder through the complex rune that surrounded it. Just when Zeke thought he’d failed, that all-important glyph imploded, compressing and pulling the entire ward within its confines.

Then it exploded.

Molten shards of metal erupted from the door, each one coated with a piece of the ruined rune. Most clanged off of Zeke’s drachnid armor, but some found their way to exposed skin. He screamed in agony as the tiny bits of metal melted through the upper layers of his flesh only to embed themselves in the underlying muscle.

Even more concerning was the empty sensation of using all of his mana. It left him feeling like a husk of a person. Without the trickle of mana necessary to keep the skill going, the [Mark of Companionship] he’d used on Abby winked out. Then, following closely after, [Mark of the Bear] dissipated from both Abby and Pudge, staggering them with the sudden loss of stats. And finally, [Leech Strike], which he often left toggled on, fell away.

It was the first time Zeke had ever used even half of his reserves, and without a drop of mana in left in his core, he had nothing left to keep his skills activated. But more than that, every bit of exhaustion of the difficult day came crashing down on him, and it threatened to send him careening into unconsciousness. Luckily, his wisdom was even higher than his intelligence, and it immediately went to work to regenerate his mana. It wasn’t enough to give him access to his skills – that would take some time – but it was at least enough to keep him from passing out. For that, he was grateful, because the door was finally open.

He looked up, seeing a much smaller hole than he expected. The rune had been barely four-inches wide, and when it had exploded, it had taken a chunk of the door with it. Other than that relatively narrow hole, though, the door remained intact. More importantly, the rune had overlayed the physical lock, and when Zeke had overloaded it, it had taken the lock with it. So, their way into the tower was now open.

“Quick,” he croaked, staggering to his feet. “Inside. Pudge first. Then Abby. I’ll bring up the rear.”

Pudge, who’d valiantly kept the zombies at bay, had reached the third level of the detrimental effects of [Heart of the Berserker], which meant his endurance had plummeted. He’d paid the price for the decreased stat, too, and his thick hide now sported dozens of deep, bleeding wounds. On top of that, his front foreleg looked as if it was hanging on by a tendon.

But he was alive.

As soon as Zeke opened the door, Pudge bounded away from the zombie horde and barreled into the tower. Zeke hefted his mace, holding the rest of the monsters at bay while Abby followed the bear inside. Then, Zeke backed into the tower and slammed the door shut. Putting his shoulder into it as the zombie horde surged against the other side, he shouted, “Find something to block the door!”

A few moments that felt like an eternity later, Abby dragged a heavy table into place. Then, the two awkwardly levered it against the door. The impromptu barricade held, if only barely.

“That’s not going to last,” Zeke muttered, barely able to stand. “We need to find a more defensible position.”

Abby said, “There’s a cellar and an upper level. Which one?”

“Cellar,” Zeke said. “It’s more likely to have a heavy door. Let’s go.”