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Aspax, Basin: Desolate Ash: Sacred Underground, Time: 4:50 PM
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Don and Layla were fighting against the mummy who was freshly out of the coffin. Don shot a crossbow bolt at him, but the mummy manipulated his body to create a hole where the bolt went through him.
"Dammit, I missed it!" Don reloaded his crossbow before his leg got caught by the mummy fabric. Don and The Mummy were having an awkward stare at each other.
"Can you let go?" Don asked, putting his hands together. The Mummy answered his question by swinging him around the ground.
Don was panting; he underestimated this old fossil. "Okay, holy shit. He's strong- WAAAAAAAAAAH!" Layla could only watch him being thrown around like a doll.
"'Kay, Harmony Note!" Layla released a bunch of magical notes which floated around for a bit before homing in on The Mummy, creating a spark on his body.
The Mummy threw Don aside, crashing him into a pillar before he started emitting a dark purple glow inside him, causing a dark energy sphere to appear.
"Uh oh." Layla decided to book it before a barrage of purple energy started to home in on her. The Mummy kept throwing more and more at her.
Layla slid into a broken rubble, which could only protect her for a moment before it started to crumble.
"I have made a mistake!" Layla was running around as the dark energy exploded around her, causing more terror.
Don groaned, extricating himself from the rubble as he watched Layla frantically evading the Mummy's relentless magical barrage. This desiccated corpse was proving more formidable than expected.
Loading another bolt, Don aimed at the tattered creature's back while it was distracted. But the instant he fired, the Mummy whipped around, shards of linen fragmenting off its body to intercept the bolt inches from its chest.
"Oh come on!" Don exclaimed in frustration. The Mummy clenched its gnarled fists, arcane energy crackling as it prepared another onslaught.
Thinking fast, Layla strummed her lute, "Harmony Note!" Notes manifesting and circling before a forceful chord sent them careening into the undead. The Mummy stumbled, dark magics disrupted.
Seizing the opening, Don and Layla regrouped, standing back to back as the monster regained balance. "This bugger just won't quit! What else you got?" Don asked hurriedly.
Layla pondered desperately before inspiration struck. "Get ready to grab and pull," she instructed cryptically. Before Don could ask, she played a specific melody Don strangely recognized from old pirate lore...
"Ooooh, there was a man who went to sea..."
The Mummy froze, tatters fluttering as an unseen power held it rigid. Layla yelled "Now!"
Without hesitation, Don wrapped his gadgets around their immobilized foe while Layla kept playing, her song pinning their enemy in place.
"Heave ho!" Don yelled, pulling with all his might. Sandaled feet scraped futilely against the smooth floor till the whip went taut - and the Mummy's torso separated cleanly from its anchored legs!
Don crashed onto his back while Layla ended her song with a triumphant clash of notes. The ominous light in the Mummy's eyes dimmed as it went limp. Laying there in silence, Don and Layla simultaneously broke into disbelieving laughter.
"Fucking got him! Easy!" Don celebrated, he wished he could pop a champagne right now.
"Yup, Now let's get the hell out of here," Layla stated, and both of them started escaping the pyramid labyrinth they had been stuck in.
Don and Layla began hastening down the corridor away from the incapacitated Mummy. But a few paces on, they heard an odd skittering noise behind them.
Risking a nervous glance back, they were horrified to see the severed Mummy torso dragging itself after them at an unnatural speed by its sinewy arms, ragged bandages trailing behind the abomination like a bridal train.
"Oh come on, that's just not cricket!" Don exclaimed in disgusted dismay. He fired his crossbow once more at the monstrosity, but as expected the relentless creature twisted its torso into a nightmarish contortion, allowing the bolt to pass through a gap in its ribcage.
"Ugh! Will this beast just give up the ghost already?" Layla vented in frustration. Racking her brain for a solution, she had a spark of inspiration.
Grabbing the torch mounted on the wall, she hastily ignited the oil-soaked cloth wrapping at one end. As their headless assailant closed in, she flung the torch at its chest where old preserving ointments had left the linen highly flammable.
With an unearthly shriek, the Mummy lit up in a whoosh of scorching flame and acrid smoke. It flopped and flailed but the conflagration consumed its animated form rapidly.
Coughing in the stinging haze, Layla and Don shielded their eyes from the pyre's intense heat as the abomination disintegrated before them into a smoldering pile of ash and charred bones.
They both sagged in relief and utter exhaustion, the adrenaline draining from their systems.
Peering down the silent corridor ahead, Don muttered "Reckon that did the trick then?" Their ordeal had left nerves frayed but at least the cursed creature seemed banished for good. Or did they?
Don and Layla had only managed a few shaky steps down the adjoining corridor when an uncannily familiar skittering arose once more from the smoky chamber behind them.
"Oh, you must be joking!" Don exclaimed, whipping around in sheer disbelief to behold the blasted Mummy's charred skeletal torso dragging its way toward them yet again with single-minded persistence.
"Does this freaking thing not know when to quit?!" Layla vented in exasperated vexation. Yet despite their dismay, an involuntary chuckle escaped both at the sheer absurdity of their relentless pursuer's undying tenacity.
"Maybe we should just adopt it as a pet, give the poor bugger a bone to gnaw on," Don suggested with a helpless grin. The reanimated ribcage seemed to almost quiver eagerly at the prospect.
Layla rolled her eyes in amused resignation. "At this point, nothing would surprise me..." She strummed her guitar, conjuring a glowing bone-shaped treat that the skeleton fervently fixated on. Tossing it away from them, the diligent bony torso scampered after its prize.
"Come on you silly bag of bones, let's get you something nicer to play with," Layla cooed, leading their unlikely new companion away from the cindered chamber. Don laughed heartily at their preposterous new team member.
"Holy shit, I forgot you can still befriend Eldritch in this world..." Don forgot that you don't have to fight Eldritch as you can just earn its trust and move on.
"See? No violence needed." Layla smirked, The mummy wrapped itself into the burned cloth, giving it a cool-looking black coloring instead.
"Well, let's just go find my best buddy then." Don was worried about what was gonna happen to Cauli. The mummy could read his emotions, he knew he was a good kid.
As Don, Layla, and their undead companion ventured deeper, an ominous rumbling shook the ancient subterranean corridors. Dust and debris rained down as the tunnel integrity grew increasingly unstable.
"Ah shit, this whole blasted place is coming down!" Don exclaimed, shielding Layla from a large falling rock. They had to hasten their pace despite exhaustion in hopes of outrunning the structural collapse.
The underground was crumbling around them as Layla and Don quickened their pace to escape this place.
Before they could see it coming, an ankh pillar was falling in front of them, ready to crush Layla and Don instantly.
Out of kindness, The Mummy instantly slapped both of them further, and they tumbled onto the ground, out of the pillar's reach.
"No!" Layla yelled out; the mummy was trying to get across the pillar, but his limb body couldn't handle the strength of it.
Don and The Mummy stared at each other before he nodded, "Come on! We need to go!" Don dragged Layla away as the underground was on the brink of collapse.
"We need to get him!" Layla whined; this was her first time seeing an eldritch saving a human.
"It's too late; he already sacrificed himself for us!" Don was running for his dear life as both of them looked back to see The Mummy waving at them, the yellow gem was shining before rubble crushed him completely.
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Aspax, Basin: Desolate Ash: Arclops Palace, Time: 5:00 PM
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Don and Layla finally reached the entrance to the underground of the palace as the stone blocked the entrance forever.
"Holy shit, we made it..." Don was panting; he couldn't believe they were alive.
"Yeah, all thanks to him..." Layla decided to have a moment of silence for their new member for about 5 minutes.
Don looked at his hand, smiling. "Hey, don't worry. He's still with us, in spirit." Don showed Layla the thing that just appeared in his hand.
A dirty wrapped fabric rune stone with a yellow glowing gem in the center was in both of their hands.
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