Just the journey through the city, all the way up to "The Portcullis", an inn that has been built in the guardhouse, inside the city's walls, was already exausting for Nicole, but they had to stop, lunchtime was upon them, and she'd rather not eat on the road.
The inn had been renovated a few times, and was now outgrowing the guardhouse and barracks it started with, but its entrance remained in the wall's gates, and was still cramped as ever.
The owner, Harth Stonehead, was a dwarf whose head barely reached above the counter, but he knew his stuff when it came to cusine.
His dishes were extremely spicy, but once you got used to it, they tasted divine.
The inn also had a "special" menu meant for dwarves only - or the foolish -, where half the ingredients were poisonous to humans and the other races, but to dwarves a lesser poison is nothing more than a bit spicy.
The group entered the inn, Nosh struggling, as ever, to fit the narrow entrance, and they were immediatly greeted by Harth
'Welcome! What can I get you? Oh, it's you, Nicole. And Nosh? Gareth too? That's a strange pairing if I ever saw one'
'Good day Harth, a table for the three of us, please'
'Sure, sure, follow me'
He showed Nicole and the others to a small round table, right next to a fake weapon rack full of replicas.
'So, what's the story, eh? You know good 'ol Harth can keep a secret'
Nicole chuckled, the dwarf was notorious for spilling secrets the moment he heard them.
'Don't worry, it's nothing so secret, it's just that Nosh found something strange and I want to check it, that's all'
'Ah, then there's nothing to worry about'
Harth winked, while Nosh was looking a bit perplexed
'We then decided to add Gareth because it might involve magic in some way'
'Ah, magic, bad stuff that one. No offense boy'
'None taken'
A few more guest entered the inn, and Harth had to greet them.
The inn was getting busy, and they could barely hear eachother over the noise, but the food arrived relatively quicky.
After paying - and what a sum it was, basically twice what you'd get asked at a regular inn - they were ready to go.
Before going, Nicole noticed that Nosh stood at the counter for a bit longer than the rest, speaking with Harth, she couldn't hear what they were saying, but she noticed that the two exchanged something, and it wasn't just the payement for the food.
'Something wrong there?'
Nicole asked
'Nothing at all, but before we go, I need to get to the cellars'
'What for?'
'I keep some of my magical items here for safekeeping'
Gareth's eyes sparked with joy
'Magical Items? Which ones? Can I touch them?'
'Just a precaution, don't worry about it'
'I'm not worried, I want to study them!'
They reached the cellar, inside there was a safe, as tall as an adult, masterfully concealed in the stone.
Nosh produced a key and opened it.
Inside there was a magnificent bow, but neither Gareth nor Nicole could guess its craftsmanship, they assumed it was elvish. It had runes all over it, and Gareth was all but crying with joy at the mere sight.
The Protector exchanged his bow for the one in the safe, and also produced a ring from a hidden comparment, before handind a small potions to the other two
The potions were ones that Gareth made, clearly his own brand of healing potions.
As much as the mage was, well, a disaster for most problems concerning magic, his brwing skills were top-notch, he even managed to replicate a weaker version of the Healing Potion, one of the best guarded secret of the Church of the Six, the main cult in the region.
'Oh, I know that ring! That's a Ring of Soul Protection'
Gareth exclaimed
'And what does it do?'
Nicole barely knew anything about magic, but it did sound powerful
'Ah, allow me to explain, it casts a veil of prote-'
'It makes it so that I can't turn into an undead, your ladyship'
Nosh cut the eager mage short
'Well, that's the short version of it... But what about the bow?'
'It's a custom made enchant, Master Gareth, I hope I won't be needing it'
They finally managed to depart, to the relief of Nicole.
Nosh refused to say anything else on his bow, and Gareth soon found something else to be interested about. Like flowers.
The journey was slow, with Nosh jumping at every shadow, making the group go offroad more than once, and Gareth stopping to gather every item he go interested by, but somehow they finally reached the swamps.
At the edge of the area, Nosh suddently spoke up, his tone much more intense than usual
'You ladyship, Master Gareth, I request that from now on you follow my every lead, please follow my footsteps as well'
So far there were no threats in sight, but there was something in his voice that put the other two on edge. Fear.
Nicole was expecting the swamps to be more of a challenge, they were proceeding almost at normal pace! Even Gareth was barely worked up.
It took them ten minutes to see the tower, but once they saw the rotting remains of what once was a mighty tower, so did they see the undeads.
Blood froze in the veins of the party members.
Calling them a mere hundred was no exaggeration, it was an understatement.
Hundreds between skeletons and zombies roamed the area, circling the tower like vultures.
In the distance, next to the tower, they could see bigger shapes moving, but of what they could not tell, not even Nosh's trained sight.
The scout signaled the others to stop, but it wasn't necessary, they were frozen with fear already.
He escorted them behind a bush, to consider what to do next
'I... I... can't...'
Gareth was struggling to form a sentence, and was down on his knees.
'What do we do, Nosh, what can we do?!'
'Calm down, Miss Ortman, Master, I don't think they have spotted us so far, so, keep quiet and let's return to town. There we will send a call for help to the Royal Capital, they will send us a group of specialists'
He spent some time calming down the other two, especially the mage, before asking him
'Master Gareth, we need your expertise, what could have caused this'
the alchemist's eyes were still wide with fear, but at least he could sort of speak
'I don't know. Never seen anything like that. Actually, that's impossible. All of this is impossible, how can there be a thousand bodies here? Wait, there's a magic in the air, this has to be an illusion! Has to be! Nothing else would make sense!'
The furhter he came along with his realization, the louder he spoke
'And how would we check that, Master Gareth?'
'We would need to interact with one of them, just fire an arrow into the crowd, belive me it'll run straight through'
He was still clearly shaken, but at least he was making sense now
Then Nosh froze, and rose up, bow at the ready
We heard it too, soon after, the sloshing sound of something moving in the waters.
From the reefs, a skeleton emerged, covered in mud and plants, it looked at us and opened its mouth as if to speak, but an arrow appeared in its skull, exploding it, while the rest of the bones collapsed
'That looked real enough to me!'
Nicole was panicking again, while Gareth was trying to formulate another hypotesis
'M-Maybe the horde is an illusion, but there's a few real ones'
'I regret to inform you that I'll be testing that idea shortly: we are surrounded'
Another skeleton emerged, before ending the same way as the first one
Nicole swore that the skeleton said something, before collapsing, it sounded like "My Mas-"
Another one emerged, but Gareth shouted
'Wait, they're saying something!'
Another one emerged, two behind him , and this time Nosh waited for the skeletons to talk.
They spoke in perfect sync, or maybe they were just pretending to talk. Either way, a voice spoke up, ethereal, but perfectly clear.
'Our Master kindly invites the trespassers to His tower. He offers tea. Please follow us'
The three exchanged glances at eachother
'This is clearly a trap'
Nosh muttered, just loud enough for the other two to hear
'Trap or not, I don't think we have another choice'
Nicole said, hinting at their back, where two more skeletons appeared
'They are moving with a bigger picture in mind. This is impossible!'
Gareth was torn between being terrorized and in awe at whoever managed this feat
'Our Master kindly invites the trespassers to His tower. He offers tea. Please follow us'
They repeated, stopping at a few meters from the party, circling them
'I think we have to follow them, they don't look so hostile, maybe it's just a misunderstanding?'
'Your ladyship, I appreciate your optimism. It also seems we have no other choice, they don't seem hostile for now, but I don't think it'll last forever'
'Our Master kindly invites the trespassers to His tower. He offers tea. Please follow us'
They were becoming more insistent
'We accept your invitation, show us the way, please'
The party was then surrounded by the skeletons, now above ten in numbers, and was escorted towards the tower.
The closer they got to the tower, the more powerful the undead looked: At first it was mostly zombies and skeletons, mostly crudely armed.
Then the armors and weapons became more and more complex, refined and integer.
They had archers and kinights as well.
At last they got closer to the unknown ones, they were giants, made by fusing together great numbers of skeletons. They were humanoid in shape, but were over five meters tall.
This whole menagerie of horrors stopped and kneeled at the party.
Finally arriving at the gates of the tower, they had no choice but to open it and enter.
Nothing could have prepared them for what was inside.
They expected more and more horrors, huddled together in the small confines of the tower, which was about twenty meters in diameter, a respectable bastion, but it could hardly fit the legion of undead at display.
Instead they found themselves in a wheat field, spherical in diameter, ranging about a kilometer, they hazarded to guess. Around it, pure darkness, except for the Tower gates, which were the same on the inside. At the center of the fields, a small farmhouse, with a dirt road that connected it to the door.
'I've seen... But this size...'
Gareth was making little sense, while the other two didn't even know what to expect anymore.
They decided to enter the house.
It was a perfectly normal farmhouse, a kitchen, a table, and doors leading to the other rooms, but sitting at the table, a robed figure awaited them, of whom they could only make out its eyes, two small orbs of red light that barely illuminated the eye sokets they floated in.
There was no mistake, they were talking to another skeleton, but this one had something about it.
'Please come in, trespassers, I made you all tea. I hope my creations didn't scare you all too much'
The words were polite enough, but there was a coldness in its voice.
The party sat, not daring to touch the tea that had been prepared for them, not daring to say a word, the tension almost tangible.
'Don't worry, if I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead by the time you entered my domain'
Nosh gritted his teeth at how casually he stated that they would have no chances
Nicole was the first to speak up
'We are merely passing by, we didn't mean to trespass'
'Unlikely. That one'
He said pointing at Nosh
'was here just the day before, before turning tail. But you look decently highborn, this is no "Adventuring party" coming for some easy glory, no. You have a mage with you, I'm assuming you were investigating the rumors surrounding my domain'
'We actually heard no rumors, our scout here, Nosh, found this tower and we had to investigate it'
'Hm. I see. And just when I thought I made my statement in Lannsport clear enough yesterday'
'If I may, I heard no urgent news from Lannsport'
'That is because nobody lives there anymore'
The way he spoke froze the three, who were unable to answer back, except for Nosh who was barely suppressing his rage
'But I was sure I had written some sort of message with the bodies... Maybe next time I should leave a survivor'
'May I ask what your objective is?'
Nosh spoke the words while making a tremendous effort not to scream his rage at the skeleton
'My objective? Short term, I want to cleanse all life from this region'
At those words, Nosh acted, so quick, the other two had no time to react.
Bow in hand, he spoke a command word, that made his entire bow glow red, and shot a single arrow at the robed figure, that planted itself in the right shoulder of the creature.
In all response, the skeleton simply looked at the arrow and said
'Ah, a "Sure Kill" bow, you don't see these anymore'
Nosh kept notching and firing, again and again, but the bow no longer flashed red, and now for some reason the arrows were bouncing off the robes, as if they were made of stone
Nicole cowered under the table, as Gareth rose from the table shaking like a leaf, with a small wand in hand
'A Ring of Soul Protection too, you did come prepared. But it's not enough'
The monster spoke a single word in an arcane language, and a single ray of darkness poured from his finger, going towards Nosh.
Gareth also spoke an incantation, and projected with his wand a veil of light, right in the way of the ray.
When the two collided, the ray went on through unhindered, the veil ripped into magical shreds, landing on Nosh, who froze for a split second, and then fell on the ground, as if sleeping.
The monster looked at Gareth
'You call that magic?! I'll show what it means to be one'
Another incantation, faster than the one before, followed by a blinding flash of light.
After the flash was gone, nothing remained of the young mage.
Not even a trace
This had to be a bad dream, Nicole started thinking, I'll just wake up shortly.
'Hm. I did say one survivor, and luckly you still live'
He grabbed her and pulled her up, making sure she would face him
'See, I just had the best idea: you now run back to your little village, tell them that an army is coming.
I then give you all time to prepare, maybe an entire day, and then my army comes for you all.
But a game where I am the only possible winner is no fun, how about I let you all live if you survive for three days?'
She then realized: the nightmare was just beginning.