With our foes massing up to get over the moat I needed to resolve our flying pig problem immediately. I shoved the last remaining bundle of sugar spikes into the siege weapon and let Scott send out another volley, forcing the mounted gnomes to take to the ground.

“Poison orb!”

On instinct I grabbed Scott and rolled to the side. The orb crashed into the side of the siege weapon and snapped a metal brace. The wooden beams cracked under the pressure and it set off a chain reaction. Tensed heavy crossbow strings snapped, and ripped through wood and metal alike, tearing apart the apparatus, spewing debris and splinters in every direction.

“Damn it, where is he?” I barked as I got out of the ground and looked around me.

Perception Skill : Success!

+1 XP gained.

A gnome was peering around a corner of a damaged house. As I locked eyes with him, he hopped around the corner and aimed a small crossbow. I was out in the open, with no options for cover. I heard the twang of the string drop, and the world slowed down as the bolt headed right for my core. I tried to parry the bolt in vain and closed my eyes fearing what would happen next.

Bing!

I cracked open my eyes to see the gnome look at his weapon, then me. His bolt lay in front of me on the ground, bent and most of all, not piercing my flesh. My dragon scale armour still gleamed, and didn’t even have a scratch. The gnome threw down his crossbow and fled, his tiny red shoes in a flurry of motion only to stop dead when he ran head first into Yara.

Yara growled under her helmet and brought her foot back. I ducked behind a house and craned my neck to follow the gnome arcing up into the air. I strained myself to listen and heard him land somewhere far away, hitting the ground with a crunch.

The sound of fighting had died down, and I saw my friends making their way to the waterpump shack. I turned my attention back to the outer wall, and standing over it was now a mass of bones. Skeletons had interlocked together, and formed a makeshift bridge to span the gap.

Lair Action : Ended

It looked like the crystal had a time limit for lair actions. I mentally commanded it to do so again, and nothing happened. Looks like it had a cool down timer too. I got out of my cover and joined up with the crew, seeing everyone looked to be in one piece still.

“Aye, that seems like a problem,” Sten whistled. “Would be impressed if they weren't trying to kill us.

Burn leaned on rock rubble beside me, exhausted from being chased and covered in scrapes. He called over Scott and took off shouting over his shoulder. “Hold them back, I’ll get the bombs!”

“Bombs?” I asked, but to no avail they were gone.

Charging across the top of the macabre bridge was a formation of rusty armoured skeletons. They marched in perfect sync, striding right into my town, over my now useless wall. Their ancient chainmail bounced around underneath torn surcoats and dented helmets. The leader of this squad lowered his heavy spear and came at us at full speed, with his troops following him on his heels.

“Rope of Binding!” I said, throwing a string at them.

The heavy spearman was bound and crashed down onto the street, tripping the skeletons following in his wake. As the unbalanced skeletons tried to right themselves, Yara and Sten rushed in, picking off the easy targets.

Lin gasped beside me, and shouted. “Yara, to your right!”

Down a side street six more armoured skeletons appeared out of nowhere, coming out with weapons mid swing. The first two missed as Yara twisted out of the way, their heavy axes falling short. The bound skeleton on the ground wiggled forward and head butted Yara’s leg, tripping her on the ice.

“Josh, I think we have company here,” Rolada whispered beside me.

Crawling over roof tops were the faster zombies, on ground level were skeletons and back at the skeleton bridge a wild army of undead animals from stag hares to elk were charging across.

One of the armoured skeletons brought a mace down at a prone Yara, the cruel bludgeon coming down at a killing arc. A sense kicked off in the back of my head, and the black ring of binding appeared. The words were already leaving my mouth as I sent an orb of fire at the skeleton, but one of his fellows stepped in the way, bringing up a shield.

My fire orb hit him, punching through the rotten wood and turned his surcoat into kindling. A blazing beacon appeared in the street, and the black ring vanished as I saw the skeleton get torn apart from behind. A raging Yara held the mace, the old owner's arm still attached to it. She began punching or bludgeoning skeletons around her, each fast moving arc of the weapon killing a foe. Sten managed to break through the skeletons and tossed her halberd back to her.

I felt my feet shake as Bent crashed through a wall, a zombie clutched in each hand as he slammed them into walls. I turned my attention back to the fight around me, Bent and Lin were killing anything that got close, while Rolada played her flute close by. A shimmering copy of Rolada ran down a street leading a force of zombies away from us, thinning the herd.

I made my way towards Rolada to help protect her, hacking away at solitary skeletons that stepped in my way. The weak cannon fodder was little more than a nuisance on their own, and the sparring was paying dividends as my sword was going exactly where I wanted, most of the time. I still messed up once in a while, getting my sword caught in the shoulder blades or ribs of skeletons and getting slugged back in return. Each time I was hit my armour absorbed the impact, leaving me completely unscathed.

“Holding up okay?” I asked Rolada.

Rolada leaned heavily on a wall, sweat beading on her brow despite the chill winter air. Her fingers danced across the flute to produce the magic holding her spell together, yet her hands shivered from the constant fatigue to maintain it. She gasped and lowered her arms, and the zombies she had led away turned around.

“J-Josh, toss me a berry,” Rolada rasped.

I tugged on the strap of the pouch and produced one of the grey go berries. Rolada popped it into her mouth, and her ears visibility perked up like she had just downed a pot of coffee. Together we took a step forward, pointed our palms towards the charging zombies and shouted in sync.

“Produce Fire!”

The orbs of fire shot out and pushed against one another, twisting together to turn into long coiling snakes of fire striking the lead zombie. A resounding shock shook the ground as a wave of fire blasted out around our target. Flaming zombies ran towards us, crumbing and dropping dead in the streets.

I stepped ahead of Rolada and held my sword near my hip, bringing it up in a wild uppercut, depicting the first zombie that ran through the smoke rising off the corpses in the street. I brought the sword down onto the next one, hacking off one of its arms and brought the pommel up to its gnashing teeth, striking it on the temple. The zombie stumbled and I thrust the sword into its neck, dragging it to the side with a vicious wretch, ending it.

Two zombies reached me with grasping hands, grabbing my arms and tried to push me to the ground. I had gotten stronger in the past few weeks, and I was stronger than a singular zombie, but their combined efforts were enough to overpower me and slammed me down onto the frozen, hardened ground.

Lin appeared above me, thrusting her daggers into the eye sockets of the zombies. I turned my head away as zombie juices dropped onto the street around me, holding onto my breath. Lin pulled out her blades and threw them forward, scoring two more headshots. She drew another longer knife and rushed into the last four zombies, a flowing white haired river that couldn’t be touched.

Every single punch, bite or swipe from the zombies rotten bodies were no match for Lin’s agility and grace. Each time she had an opening she landed a kill shot, before moving to the next. I pushed the two revolting corpses off me and got up, surveying our fight. Bent was back guarding Rolada, a pile of bones beside him while Lin downed her last foe.

Lair Action : Detect creatures in region

Undead 250

Undead Animals 1

-Dire Bear

“Holy shit, we’re actually doing it,” I said.

“We are the best team around,” Lin said, dusting the snow off my cloak and grinning ear to ear.

“Well one of us has a cheat code,” I said dryly as Lin’s smile managed to grow even wider.

“L-lets, join the others,” Rolada huffed, with her hands on her knees. “I think I need another berry.”

“Are you sure?” I asked cautiously, “What if you’re knocked out-”

Rolada’s sharp glare cut me off and I gave her a berry. It was better if we had spells ready and she was focused. I held one in my hand and put it back, I’d take one if I started to feel tired.

Bent scooped up Rolada to get her over the piles of bones, debris and ice as we rushed back to the others. When we arrived I found Sten and Yara surrounded by a menagerie of animal corpses. Sten’s beard was full of webs and Yara was coated in blood, yet her armour remained unscratched.

“Where’s Burn and Scott?” Lin asked.

Sten shrugged, and slapped more webs off his helmet. “I can’t keep track of a goblin in this mess. I can barely see out of this damn helmet. I got webs coming out of my ears and down my pants right up my-!”

“Ugh, Sten,” Rolada winced. “We talked about oversharing.”

The ground shook and rounding the corner was the dreaded bear with his rider. The wight captain was smug despite losing half his forces already. Slung under his arms were Burn and Scott, ice binding their arms, legs and mouths. The wight tossed them onto the ground beside his steed, like he was discarding garbage.

I heard the wight chuckle in a strange wheezing sound, he drew his sword and twirled its blade around, with ice forming on its edge.

“Thank you for your donation to my forces, goblin,” the wight grinned, his undead skin peeling at the edges of his lips.

In his hand was a clay jug with padding around it, and as he tore off the wrapping I saw a skull and crossbones on its surface. The writing was foreign to me and I heard Burn’s terrified muffled screams as he tried to wiggle away from the wight captain.

“Sir Harrsal, we have a job to do,” a fiery voice snapped. Behind the bear were more armoured skeletons together with the one foe I had been hoping wasn’t present.

The armoured knight stood in freshly polished armour, most of the rust gone with only a few deep pitted spots remaining to blemish his gear. He wore a fine black and white checkered surcoat, sewn with silver thread, and over his dead heart was a ruby brooch shaped into a rose. The magnificent greatsword he had rested on his shoulder, and now I could see the details. The pommel was a shaped orb of brass with a roaring lion's head, with the crossguard being outstretched eagle wings. The symbols dotting down the blade were some of the more advanced Igni runes I had trouble learning and that tipped me off to just how powerful his blade would be when it was ablaze.

Knowledge Arcane : Failure!

I didn’t need to pass a skill check to know his sword was a cut above anything I had. The very sense of dread in my heart filled images of a blazing death in my mind.

“Why sully our own magnificent blades on these low lives when we have the underlings to do our work for us?” the wight captain asked.

The undead knight stared at me with his blazing eyes, and he pointed right at me. The armoured skeletons surged forth, and I readied my sword. Yara, Sten and Bent went ahead of me and I felt Rolada pull me back.

“Josh help me free these two, and leave the fighting to them. No offence, they're better at it,” Rolada said.

“I’ll cover you guys,” Lin said with her blades in her hand, body blocking the scene of the battle from us.

I reluctantly agreed and followed behind Rolada, crouching beside a house. Scott and Burn were slowly moving like caterpillars away from the enemy commanders. Rolada and I walked low and steady hoping we would go unnoticed.

Stealth : Success!

+3 XP gained.

We managed to get close enough to Scott and Burn, the chaotic loud fighting hiding us. We dragged them back to safer ground behind our allies and started to hack away at the ice. The ice holding Scott’s hands together cracked under the pommel of my sword while Rolada chipped at Burn’s bindings with a dagger. Burn kept looking nervously towards the fight and as Rolada freed his mouth he started to let out a string of words in his own tongue.

“This is bad, they have the bombs!” Burn panicked.

The first wave of basic axemen that had fought with our team were picked apart piece by piece. The enemy wasn’t able to push towards us, and the wight captain held up a hand holding the second wave back. Instead he started to laugh, and held up the clay jug in his hand. The skeletons tucked their weapons onto frayed belts, or into battered scabbards and pulled out their own.

“How many did you make?” I asked, as I slowly turned to Burn. “How many bombs were sitting over our heads?”

“A…few,” Burn said nervously.

The bombs sailed up into the air and fell into the middle of us. We all ran towards the dungeon entrance and when the first pops sounded behind us, we dove. I pulled Rolada under me and prayed my armour could save us.

More sad pops and fizzling filled the air. Smoke, sparks and flames enveloped the air. Yet when it was all said and done I heard murmurs of confusion. I rolled off Rolada and we sat up, seeing only a black cloud behind us.

“Bah! That’s goblin work for yah,” Sten chuckled.

“Hey, I was working with bad material!” Burn shouted.

The smoke slowly settled and the skeletons came towards us with blades at the ready. When one of them kicked a failed bomb away, an ear shattering explosion erupted in front of us, flinging most of us further towards the storage building with the dungeon entrance.

A wave of heat drowned us as the explosion catapulted debris and other bombs outwards, causing them to detonate inside nearby houses, levelling them and anything else that stood out almost entirely as they impacted.

The smell of charred bones, cracked stone, molten metal and smoke enveloped us shortly after.

The ringing bells in my ears subsided and I managed to get a hold of myself. I stood up to snatch a view of the total destruction the bombs had caused.

Multiple craters speckled the area where we just had stood. Besides a few black bones and partially molten weapons and armour, nothing else had been left of the horde of skeletons that had just been coming at us. Most of the houses around the area had been reduced to nothing more than rubble, the rocks still cracking as the water in them evaporated.

Whatever Burn had put in these things, I was sure to never let him do it again. I then quickly helped up everyone else, and administered health potions with cracked vials, before the enemy could use the chaos to their advantage. The horrible smells made my legs wobble, and I tried to stuff my nose under my shirt to help.

“Heninekia’s fat tits, I don’t know what's worse. The bombs smell like rotten eggs while the potions smell like sewer water,” Lin gagged as she helped Sten take a potion.

The damage to Bent was minimal and he stood in front of us as the smoke cleared. At first the coast looked clear.

Lair Action : Detect creatures in region

Undead 170

Undead Animals 1

-Dire Bear

I shouted to Bent, “Hey, the bear is still-”

My warning was too late and a brunt, very angry bear the size of a cabin came out of the black sulphurous smoke. Its claws were chipped, its hide was torn with strips of flesh hanging off its body, yet it came towards us like a speeding truck.

“Dumb bear, go away,” Bent Plate snarled as he stepped in the way, shoulder checking the bear.

The dire bear reared back onto its legs, towering over the ogre as the flat top of the bear’s skull was level with the smouldering roof of the storage building. A massive paw, the size of my chest was brought down, slapping Bent in the shoulder. The ogre shook, but held his footing, and brought his own fist into the bear’s chin, knocking it back a foot.

Reinforcing skeletons came out of the smoke, and Sten intercepted them, shoulder charging them back through the smoke. Yara pulled me back before moving ahead to aid Bent. I swayed on my feet, and was steadied by Lin.

“I’ll take a berry, go help Sten,” I wheezed as I fumbled with my pouches.

My cold fingers felt like stiff metal rods as they failed to turn the ways I wanted. Rolada summoned a fire orb, and held it by my hands to warm them up. I popped open a pouch and we both chomped down on a berry. A rush of fluid soaked into my tongue, and I gagged. It tasted like a mix of mint mouthwash and gasoline. The foul liquid however did as advertised and all at once I felt like I could run a marathon. Even the disorientation from the explosion eroded.

“Merp,” Scott grumbled before he ran back to the dungeon.

“Hey, I’m going to join the minions down there to help,” Burn said, jutting his thumb over his shoulder.

He stepped back and came face to face with zombies dropping down off the roof of the storage building just as Scott made it inside. The goblin let out a shrill cry as the first zombie tried to take a bite out of him only to get hit square in the face by Rolada’s frying pan.

“Well, I’m not using this to make pancakes anymore,” Rolada said as she flicked teeth off the cast iron.

Lin joined Rolada to clear the way to the dungeon while I tried to help out with the bear. Yara was trusting her halberd’s spear point into its hide, tearing out chunks of flesh while Bent had it in a headlock. The maw of the bear bit down on Bent’s arm and a sickening crack filled the air.

Bent went pale and slugged the bear. He hollered in pain as he stumbled back with his bleeding arm clutched to his chest. The bear seemingly ignoring the fact Yara was carving out a section of his ribs snapped his jaws towards Bent.

“Rope of Binding!” I shouted.

The string wizzed towards the bear, turning into a thick rope that twisted around the bear’s skull, muzzling it. The bear shook his head, the ropes straining under the force, fraying one by one. There were only a few precious seconds before it was free and I ran up to it, thrusting my sword into its baseball sized eye.

The bear roared in pain, the sudden movement breaking the rope. It tossed its head around, tearing my sword from my grasp and lunged to me. I slipped on the ice and crashed onto the ground, the swift movement actually saving me as the bear’s jaws closed where my head had just been.

“Smite!” Yara thunderously yelled, bringing the head of the halberd straight onto the bear’s neck. “In Ishaka’s name I end you!”

The blade sunk deep into the thick sinewy neck, slicing apart flesh, and bone. The accompanying flare of light was blinding and scorched the flesh of the bear, burning away all blood and hair. The bear’s lifeless body crumpled into a headless heap in front of me, and for good measure I kicked it.

Yara tore my sword out of the skull and tossed it to me when I rose. “Good opening, but we need to work on your footwork.”

Yara went up to Bent who was on his knees, holding his limp arm. The big guy was fighting back tears and I could see he wasn’t doing well. Dozens of cuts crossed his chest and his shoulder was dislocated from where the bear had slapped him.

“Ishaka, by your golden light mend these wounds. May this warrior receive your strength and fight to live to see the morrow.” Yara’s solemn prayer was accompanied by her black gauntleted hand glowing. Gold beams of radiant light knit together his flesh and a pop came from his shoulder being set back in place.

As Bent rose Yara started to wobble, I put a hand on her back to steady her as I surveyed the fight. The way to the dungeon was cleared, and Burn was throwing fistfuls of sand at the empty skeleton skulls. I had no clue if it was helping, but he lacked his pouches and bags. Sten and Lin were back to back, dealing with more foot soldiers while Rolada was tossing out illusions of me to get the wight to waste his remaining bombs of which most seemed to be duds, yet occasionally other explosions echoed in the distance levelling yet another structure.

Lair Action : Detect creatures in region

Undead 140

We were tiring, burning through spells, but we were still fighting. Sten seemed tireless, as he grappled soldiers to the ground and caved in their rusted helmets, and Lin was still unhurt. I grinned and got ready to join them, we could win this. Rolada stood tall behind Lin and brought the flute to her lips, ready to burn what might be one of her last drops of mana.

“Oh little fox, what a thorn you are,” sneered the knight, appearing behind Rolada in a cloud of flames and roses.

I turned on the spot, covering ground as fast as I could with a string already in hand. But it was no use, the greatsword in his hands burst into flames, melting snow and ice all around as he brought it down in a flash of steel. The lethal strike went for Rolada’s neck and as she uttered a cry she vanished, leaving behind only a single strand of singed hair that the sword sliced through.

Leaving me face to face with the furious knight.