If I was not wearing layers of armor right now I would have been very unhappy, landing among all kinds of bone fragments with different shapes and edges. A few of them actually found their way into the weaving of my coat. I had no choice but to keep moving, though, rolling forward from the fall and onto my feet before hunkering down and jumping clear over the fence to get back into the camp.
"Karen, if you have anything like those Physics Fire Bombs, now would be a great time to use them," I call out as I land awkwardly in camp, having already used up the excess energy that came from being artifact healed.
"Fine, but you're making breakfast," she calls back, gleefully cackling while opening her cloak and taking out multiple different colored bottles. Honestly, when she threw open her coat while I was looking at her I was afraid she would be showing off her other arsenal. Luckily, she was only revealing that she had multiple sets of vials and bottles strapped about her body.
The world soon came to life with new lights and sounds from multiple different explosions as the bottles lobbed into the air by Karen hit the ground or valid targets. Not only were there a few familiar fire bombs that painted the entire hilltop with the color BRIGHT but there were a few acid bombs that swiftly softened bones. Two of the dozen or so bottles that went flying into the air actually contained some form of sound that, as a Sci-Fi nerd would be expect, turned nearby skeleton bodies into dust clouds.
When the world settled back down, Eliza in the sentry tower calls out, "No more above ground on all sides but the front. Mass has been reduced by half… again!" I could tell the poor girl was probably really awkward about being the one to status report, but that was honestly the loudest I had ever heard her and it sounded like conversation volume.
"Leo, focus the flames at the mass and push if you still have the energy for it," I call out after casting an apologetic look in Ms. Gwyn's direction. "Front line, rally on me. If no more are coming out of the ground, then this is it!"
After my words, all of the fires burning around the camp suddenly started to lean and then simply left the wood or grass or bodies behind. While everything that was left simply smoked and smoldered, a mass of flames was forming into a wall outside the gateway ahead of me by the time the others had gathered up with their preferred equipment, the wall pushed.
Moving ahead of us as gunshots still preceded the attack, the ten-foot wall of flames that was several feet thick seared its way across the ground that was left dark and ashen in its wake. Sadly, the undead were faster than the flames and very scared of them. They had already started backing away before the wall was fully formed.
So, less than a minute after forming, the flames faded out after only charring away the crippled crawlers on the ground. Still, this meant we had less to worry about while moving in. With Fred and Frank on either side of me, Carlos and Emile on the outsides, and Poniard clinging stealthily to the back of my coat, I lead the way out into the wake of the flames as the fires around camp went back to burning like normal.
Without any fire fending them off, then few dozen remaining undead started pushing forward all over again and we happily went to greet them. I left Fred and Frank to close the gap in our V formation with their shield and leaped out into the middle of the bodies. Poniard jumped off once I stared falling, not only increasing my falling force as I smashed my sword into a behemoth's chest but also letting me take all the aggro.
As if he had timed it intentionally, Poniard landed on the back of a more apelike pigorilla than the living ones as it charged at me, driving his higher grade ivory spear down into its head. The body collapsed at my feet as as I turned to face another undead. Poniard leaped from one body to the next, landing and smashing with his spear while centering around me.
The others outside the press of bodies around me were keeping their attention divided, bashing and hacking their way toward my position. I just did my best to take care of whatever was in front of me while trusting Poniard to leap around behind me with his spear. His main targets were the smaller undead, too, so they piled up quickly all around as I smashed through the limbs of bigger bodies.
Spinning about face into a low crouch while holding my sword out spine first, I sweep through the front legs of a four-winged griffin-looking creature before jackknifing back in the other direction while standing up. Swinging the immense sword with the blade facing forward, now, I easily cleave through an undead's midriff of fused spinal columns. For the moment, it felt like I would die the instant any movement was not an attack.
Then, only a minute or so after jumping into the dwindled crowd of undead the undead were all lying scattered about the area. Still, I could not help but continually scan my surroundings for three-sixty, seven-twenty, and then ten-eight degrees around with my sword pointing up and at the ready until a small grumbling voice caught my attention. "Sifu."
Looking down, I find Poniard standing casually with his arms hanging on the spear he carried across his shoulders. "Good job," he said when I finally calmed down and lowered my sword, raising his hand up toward me.
Faintly smiling, I nod gratefully and say, "Good job, Poniard," before giving him a high-five.
"Gob whisperer," Frank mutters out of the corner of his mouth, actually raising the pitch of his voice to try and sound like somebody else.
"Poniard, punish," I say emotionlessly, pointing at Frank as the others started laughing. Little did they know, Poniard was a uniquely trained goblin designed for speed damage and mobility who was probably nearing mid E right now. After Poniard turned to look at the target, Frank saw the seriousness in his eyes and stopped laughing.
Because the battle was over, Frank had relieved himself of his gear and had no shield to defend himself with when Poniard suddenly broke into a perfect sprint. In three of his small steps, the twelve yards of distance were covered and he was airborne with an empty hand raised high. Both of them were E grade so if Frank had not been wearing a helmet he would be in pain after Poniard successfully Superman slaps him in the side of his head.
Despite his small size, Poniard was close to the lower average strength for hobgoblins of E grade and he was currently wearing his full regalia to increase his weight. That flying slap did not hit lightly but probably every bit as hard as it was loud. And in the silence that followed tonight's fighting, that slap echoed clearly.
"I taught him to do that to break up the fights between other goblins," I say with a proud smirk after Frank was forced into a sitting position after Poniard all but landed on his head. "Now, before what happened… happened… that would be funny as hell. But after what happened… never again."
"Whoa!" Ms. Gwyn, who had been walking out of camp with the others, suddenly calls out after having witnessed such utter savagery. "What the hell was that?! Malcolm, explain yourself!"
"Hold on, ma'am" Fred says quickly, sobering up like the others as the seriousness of the situation rises. "See, he earned it. He called Malcolm the g-" he almost said it until I coughed from behind him. Poniard even cleared his throat as well. "Remember that thing we told you about that happened when we did that ogre dungeon? He brought it back up and completely ruined the moment Malcolm and Poniard were having when they high-fived at the end of the fight."
Scowling down at Frank who was unable to meat the team leader's gaze, Ms. Gwyn says, "Wow, he did earn. Look who just got whispered to by a goblin."
Damn, this lady was cold as ice. She basically just kicked him and then spit on the man while he was down. Then again, he did bring up what could possibly have been the second most traumatic experience of my life. Yeah, he earned it.
"Moving forward!" Fred says while clapping his hands loudly, a sound that make Frank frown at him. "What do we do about all of… this?"
"The depends," Ms. Gwyn replies while helping Frank get off the ground herself since nobody else seemed willing to. "There are all kinds of phenomena in this world that cause things like this, many of which we do not even know about. If this is some kind of natural phenomena then it is from the accumulation of negative magical energies.
"If they were summoned by someone, for this scale it'd probably be one or two summoners and they sacrificed themselves. However, that one can be debunked in general because when a summoned undead dies it turns to dust and leaves behind whatever the summoner used to control it. These are all still intact. The other option im aware of is the worst one, this land was intentionally cursed somehow and it will just keep spawning undead every night or week or month or hundred years."
"We won't know until morning," Leo says quickly when she tiredly becomes frustrated with the idea of a cursed undead territory. "If its natural, the physical parts left behind will convert into what we call stardust which is basically a fine crystalline powder form of mana. This stardust usually compresses itself into a magic stone of some sort but there are times when it becomes other things or other items can be found as well. If it's a curse… it all gets sucked back into the ground."
"Sucked back into the ground? After all that effort? What about the stuff that we killed earlier today and used for bait? What about the pigorillas? Are they just going to feed the curse as well?" I ask almost hysterically as the others show similar expressions and reactions.
Nodding his head more than a little sadly, Leo says, "Yes, if it is really the curse. But we won't know whether or not its a curse until the sunrises. Theoretically, there are ways to deal with the curses but you'd have to know some part of how it was done, what with, why, and so on. This is not our world and we know nothing but what we speculate, though."
"If it's a natural phenomena, does it perpetuate or does it last as long as the negative energies?" I ask curiously, hoping they had some kind of answer for me.
Shaking his head, Leo simply says, "Nobody can be certain, we've only been dealing with portals themselves for a couple years and everything on the other sides are pretty much random. However, it is believed that natural phenomena will perpetuate or possibly even grow until the manifestations are destroyed and the mana is spent. Cursed settings, though, use all forms of ambient mana in this world to perpetuate."
"If this turns out to be a cursed revenant field I'm having Poniard slap whoever your friend is, Ms. Gwyn," I say with a wink before turning and heading back into camp. "By the way, I'm calling it a night so somebody else can use my gun in the tower."
*