Faraway-R: You won't need an interlude to find out how the wizards are doing. They play an integral part in the main plot. We just need to get to it.

Harry's words were cut off when a high-pitched scream came from down the hall. That was no zombie's cry. It was far, far too human.

Chapter 4
Deeper into the Dungeon

The scream was abruptly cut off, and even though it was impossible to hear such a thing at this distance, Harry had no trouble imagining the gurgle that undoubtedly accompanied it. It was loud, close, which ruled out it coming from someone on the floor above them or below. It had to be on this same floor, and his mind flashed back to the open door he had seen when they were climbing the stairs. Another group, then, one that had found themselves in serious trouble.

Dudley gripped his axe in two hands and started moving towards the scream, his steps heavy but getting faster as he shifted his bulk into a run. He was built for strength, not speed; the latter was Harry's area of competence. "C'mon, Harry! We've got to get over there!"

"Are you really just charging in… And you're gone." Harry pinched the bridge of his nose before sprinting down the hall after his cousin. "Crystals' light, Dud, your heroics are going to get us killed one of these days."

There were two problems with running wildly through an old haunted house like this. First, all the dead things trying to kill them would wake up and chase after them. Second, they had no idea where they were going, which raised the likelihood they would run into a dead end and then be trapped with all those monsters. There was no way this was going to end well.

Sure enough, zombies were crawling out of the walls and falling from the ceiling; Dudley might be swinging his axe around and smacking them away, but the Knight was still pushing forward more than anything else. As soon as they were out of the way and were not grabbing onto his armor, he ignored them. Already a crowd of injured zombies were forming at his back, ready to pounce as soon as he stopped moving.

Downwards arc with a flair on one end, a squiggle in the middle to make a crude approximation of a flame. "Flareblade," Harry whispered, and fire swirled up the length of his rapier.

A zombie at the very rear of the pack turned around at the sound of footsteps and got two swift stabs into its eye sockets for the trouble. Those strikes, on top of the damage Dudley had already done, was enough. The body collapsed into ash and embers, and the tip of Harry's blade sunk into the back of the skull of the next. The good part – the only good part – about Dudley's charge was that he had drawn out every undead in his path, and with how they were bunched up they got in each others way when a few did turn Harry's way. Between his flaming sword and a few Cure spells fired into the crowd, it was not hard work putting down the monsters Dudley had wounded on his path. It was just slow, and more than once Harry had to hop backwards to keep some space between a particularly quick member of the horde. All the while, his cousin was still racing ahead.

Dudley had better not get himself too deep into the mob, or Harry was going to find a way to resurrect him just to kill him again himself.

Something moved behind a couple of zombies, and an axe came back around to split their heads open. "Get a move on, Harry. We're in a hurry."

"Don't you give me that, you son of a—"

Dudley was moving again, and Harry swallowed his diatribe to follow. It quickly became clear why Dudley had turned back, and it was not pure familial fondness. A second crowd of undead was visible up ahead, smaller than the one Dudley had roused but still large, and this one was not just zombies. Instead, the hazy silhouettes of ghosts floated around and through the bodies of the zombies, which themselves were bent over the ground. The dripping chunks of matter they pulled into view was all the proof Harry needed that they were busy eating.

"They're probably all dead by now, and there's not a damn thing we can do to help them, you know," he said, rolling his head and shoulders in small circles to loosen them up. "I'll handle the ghosts and you deal with the zombies?"

"Sounds like a plan. Go!"

The warcry Dudley let out as he charged into the fray certainly caught their attention. "Stomp!" His axe glowed blue as he poured his power into it, and when it hit the nearest zombie in the chest, the body was flung backwards with an impossible amount of force and coated everything in a cone in its remains. The zombies screamed and hissed and leapt at the eager Knight.

Harry, meanwhile, picked out his targets. Ghosts sucked, there was no two ways about it. They were almost totally incorporeal, which meant that although they could theoretically be hurt with weapons, it was never going to kill them in any reasonable amount of time. Worse, they did not attack with teeth and fingernails like their physical cousins. They threw out magic, in particular poison spells and the same curse that Dudley had fallen prey to before. They were also weak to magic, fire specifically, though in the way of all undead they too could be re-killed with healing magic.

And Cure was cheaper on his magic reserves than Flare.

He kept an eye on Dudley and fired a couple of spells his way, but by and large his attention was on spraying the ghosts with green sparks that ate away at them like rain falling on the dirt and dodging out of the way of the roiling orbs of darkness they flung his way. It did not take long before the ghosts had been exorcised, and yet even so he did not rush to Dudley's side. His cousin was handling himself just fine, and right now there was a burning in his chest and arms that had nothing to do with physical exertion. He was close to his limit in terms of how much magic he could cast without a good rest or else expensive items he would prefer not to use if at all necessary.

A swing of the axe, and the last zombie was split in twain. Harry pushed himself away from the wall and walked towards Dudley and the carnage before them.

It had been a decent party, six people that he could see. They had taken a wrong turn, or else they had made the rookie mistake of trying to run away from the undead down an unexplored route and found themselves in this hallway without an exit. Or, he realized when his eyes landed on ancient-looking jewelry sitting in the dust, they had the misfortune of running into a wight, a far more intelligent species of undead that was never without its retinue. They probably focused on killing it, which was a smart idea, but in the process they left themselves open to all the ghouls it had brought along for the fight. Between the sheer numbers, the ghosts throwing around foul magics, and the wounds they sustained fighting the wight, they could not drive off their enemies.

"I recognize her," Dudley said, pointing at a blonde woman in a blood-soaked robe. "She's one of the Clerics I wanted to try recruiting. I guess she got snapped up by this bunch first."

And now she lay cold and still, chunks of her flesh ripped out and gnawed on. He looked over the bodies, part of him saddened by their senseless deaths while a colder, calmer piece picked out what he and Dudley could use or sell. It would undoubtedly shock and abhor the common folk that he would come across a scene like this and think only of what would benefit them, but at the end of the day he and Dudley and everyone in this party were Adventurers. They knew what they were getting into, and rare was the Adventurer who would begrudge others taking what they needed when he was dead and gone.

A faint motion grabbed Harry's attention, and he reached for his blade. A zombie, a ghost they had not finished off?

The chest of one of the bodies rose and fell ever so slightly.

"Dud! I think this one's still alive!" He jumped over an armored corpse and slipped on a patch of blood, though he managed to turn the fall into a slide on his knees to the fallen woman's side. Shaking her shoulder did nothing, though whether it was because she was too injured to respond or because of something else, he had no way to know. Grasping at the few last drops of mana that still lingered in his body, he shoved a Cure spell into her. Her color improved the faintest of degrees from the corpse-like pallor she possessed, but he knew it would not be enough. He had a good idea what the ghosts had done to her, after all, and simple healing would do little to help when she still had their noxious poison flowing through her veins.

He opened his pouch and dug through the pockets stuffed into its impressive depths. He and Dudley had one panacea between them, but this girl needed it more than they did right now.

"Good grief, these guys came prepared," he heard from beside him, and he glanced over to find Dudley rooting through the pouch of one of the fallen Adventurers. His cousin pulled an arm out to reveal a spherical bottle, the fluid within somehow clearer and purer than the freshest spring water. "Catch."

The bottle of holy water fell into his hands, and he uncorked it and forced the woman's mouth open. Curse was among the worst of all status magics because there was no way for the person afflicted with it to do anything to help themselves. From the way Dudley described his experience, while under its effects he had been unable to make any decisions, even to walk or defend himself. Instead he had been beset by crushing self-doubt at every option available to him. It had been, to hear him tell it, the worst experience of his life. If this woman was to do anything to help them help her, the curse was the first thing that needed to go.

With the woman unable even to swallow of her own volition, he did the next best thing. He poured the holy water into her mouth, then shut it and pinched her nose. The fact that people could still breathe while cursed was proof that it did not take away all movement, and that meant the simple subconscious things people did to keep themselves alive were still in full force. Sure enough, the woman swallowed, and between one second and the next she went from lifelessly still to swinging her fists at him.

"Hey hey hey! Stop!" On the plus side, clearly she had some fire in her. It might be the only reason she was still alive. "We're trying to help you!" He reached back into his bag and pulled out a vial of antidote. "Swallow this next. I gave you a little bit of a boost, but we need to get rid of the poison, or that's what's going to kill you."

Her eyes were coal black and blinded when she turned them to him, but she still opened her mouth and let him pour the horrid concoction in her mouth. As a reward for her cooperation, he pulled out a leaf of sightgrass while she was coughing on the medicine and rubbed it between his hands to squeeze out the sap that he then applied to her eyelids. A few blinks, and the darkness cleared away to reveal a much more natural brown. She looked up at him and moved her mouth without words coming out.

With a sigh, he gave her a bundle of herbs to chew on that would rid her of the muteness. "Those ghosts really did a number on you, didn't they?"

"You have no idea," she replied in a hoarse voice. "Where's Mikaela and Geoff? My teammates. They should be nearby."

Oh, they were nearby, all right. It was probably them that was soaking into her clothes. She looked up and down his face, and any hope within her died. "Oh."

"Yeah." This time he pulled out a pair of health tonics, which would heal her as effectively as magic could. "Drink these, then we should get you out of here. It… might be best if you shut your eyes."

She shook her head. "This isn't the first time I've seen the aftermath of a zombie attack."

But it was probably the first time she had ever seen it done to her teammates, he wanted to say. If she wanted to get back on her feet that badly, though, that was her decision at the end of the day. He offered her a hand, and she pulled herself up. That motion put the bodies directly in front of her vision. "Oh, no. No, no, no," she whispered. Tears started streaming down her face.

She was actually taking this extremely well. It was probably the shock.

He turned to look at Dudley, who winced but shrugged. They could not leave this woman here, not when she had just watched her party be murdered. Should they escort her out of the manor, however, they were basically giving up whatever chance they had of finding artifacts and the Earth wands with only a single portrait and a few zombie bones to show for it. The woman pulled her hair back, revealing a pair of feline ears on top of her head, and the lost expression on her face made the decision for them. "Let's get your team's stuff, and we'll lead you back outside—"

"No!" She whirled on him with a savage anger. "We came here for a reason, and I'm not walking out all but empty-handed. That would be throwing their lives away for nothing! I'm staying here, and if you want to try to shove me out, I'll make you regret the day you were born."

Harry took a couple of steps backwards, holding up his hands in front of him in surrender, and Dudley chimed in, "Okay. No problem. Just offering. You're down a group, though, so why don't you tag along with us for a while until we all get out of here. Anything we find, we'll split three ways, and you keep everything you and your party found before all this." Her seething settled down as Dudley's words washed over her. "Sound good?"

"That's fine. I can work with it." She looked down at the bodies again, and the last traces of her scowl faded away. She glanced back up at Dudley before turning to Harry. "…Thanks."

She took a few steps away from where they found her and bent down to pick up a bow taller than she was, then she tapped the end of the leather quiver on her back. A dozen arrows appeared, red smears of blood fading off the fletching even as Harry watched. A Hunter, then. Another hybrid class like Harry's Fencer, Hunters were archers who could imbue their arrows with debilitating magics like poison and blindness. Even without that, they could still shoot from a respectable distance, which allowed them to hold their own in a fight. The fact that she was struck down with status magic must have added insult to injury.

"Haven't really introduced ourselves, have we?" Dudley said, breaking the silence with all the grace of a bull in an apothecary. "I'm Dudley, and that's my cousin Harry."

The woman turned back towards them. "Hermione."

"Great. Now that we're all introduced, let's get a move on," Harry said.

Dudley shook his head. "Not so fast. Don't think I didn't notice you giving her health tonics. You're all out of mana, aren't you?" Harry sighed when his cousin started digging in his bag. "We're not leaving until you've taken a couple of spirit herbs."

"We were saving those for a reason"—mostly expense—"and I have a sword. I'll make do…"

He trailed off when a long, narrow vial filled with a bright blue potion entered his field of vision. Hermione was deliberately not looking at him, but she gave the spirit tonic a little shake. "You used up a lot of magic coming over here after Mikaela screamed, I bet. Not everyone would have done that. Consider this thanks for trying to help and… you know… saving my life."

Harry gave her a look up and down before reaching out and taking the tonic for her. Spirit herbs worked okay for restoring mana, and they were hard to find. Tonics made from them were even rarer, but so much more effective. A spirit tonic for a life might seem like a cheap trade, but among Adventurers it was more even than it first looked. Popping the vial open, he tossed back the contents and sighed when strength flowed through his arms again. This should easily carry him through the rest of the manor.

"So where do we go from here?" Dudley asked, breaking the increasingly awkward silence. "I spotted a couple of rooms on our way over, but I don't know how much stuff is actually inside."

Hermione walked to the wall at the end of the corridor and tapped on it a couple of times. "Geoff was knocking on this wall for a minute or so when we came to the end of the hall. He thought it was weird that it would just end like this. That's when the new girl came running up with all the zombies chasing after her. I guess she found the wight and decided to use white magic on it, and then came to us when she was so obviously out of her depth. Stupid bint. Anyway, Geoff's instincts were rarely wrong, and we've found hidden treasure by following them before. There's almost certainly something here. I just can't figure out how to open it."

That was a challenge, but did they really need to open it the same way the builders intended? He looked over at Dudley, who looked back with an expression that quickly turned puzzled. "What?"

"Just thinking that we could make our own entrance." He pointed at Dudley's axe. "Think that will work as a skeleton key?"

Dudley opened his mouth as though to argue, but he cut himself off with a sigh. "If this plan breaks my weapon, all your shares of the contracts we get are going to buy me a new one."

"Quit griping and knock down the wall already."

The Knight hefted his axe over his shoulder and ran at the wall. Planting his forward foot, he spun and slammed the blade into the smooth cream wall. For a moment Harry was worried that it would encounter the stone exterior, but first the axe and then Dudley crashed through the flimsy surface and into a hidden room.

"I found something!" Dudley called out.

Harry stepped through the hole his cousin made followed by Hermione, an arrow already nocked on her bow. This room actually looked… almost normal. It was an old-fashioned sitting room of some kind, old-fashioned in that it was lit entirely by a few candles set in sconces high on the walls. Another moving portrait sat above a long-cold fireplace, proving that it also held items of value. That was not to say that it was in perfect condition. A solid third of the carpet on the floor was soaked through thanks to a shattered window that looked out on leafless trees, and at the far end stood a door that had been braced closed with a velvet couch. The torrential storm outside poured in through the window and stirred the raggedy curtains. "Anyone know how it's raining out there when it was a nice day when we came in?" asked Dudley.

"I've heard stories of places like this, but I've never seen one myself," commented Hermione, "and I've been in my fair share of dungeons and monster lairs. Maybe it has to do with all the undead in here?"

Harry gripped his blade tighter. "Who knows? All I can say for sure is that this place gives me the creeps. Spread out and grab what you can, but let's get out of here as soon as we can."

They moved apart, stuffing whatever they could in their pouches. There was a wide assortment of things that might or might not be what the client was looking for, including the portrait and a little broom that floated on its side a couple of inches off the ground, but even things like an elaborately carved chair were fair game. Harry reached a desk on the other side of the room and stuffed the papers strewn about on the surface into his bag, but when he grabbed the handle of the drawer, it refused to budge. Yanking harder, all he managed to do was make it rattle.

"Shouldn't bes touching that."

Harry whirled around with his sword up at the creaky voice. No one had been inside waiting for them when they entered, and they would have noticed anyone coming through the hole or moving the sofa. Yet somehow, in the middle of the room on the edge of a glass table, sat a tiny figure wrapped up in a thin cloak. His first thought was that it was a Kobold, but even they were not so light on their feet that they could manage this.

"Who are you?!" Dudley, ever the soul of tact, demanded.

"Shouldn't bes touching. Missus wouldn't like it. Missus said protect the house. Shouldn't touch nothings." The figure rocked back and forth in its spot, and its already high voice grew more distressed. "Missus not like Master. Missus not hurty. Missus said protect the house. Thieves breaking in. Thieves taking everything. Can't protect the house. Missus would bes upset."

He looked over at Hermione and pointed at her bow and then the person rambling on and on about 'Missus'. He had no clue who this was or what they wanted, but the insane rambling did not give him much in the way of confidence that this would end peacefully. She nodded and drew back her arrow; not to its full distance, but enough that she should be able to loose it in an instant.

He, on the other hand, twisted around to tap the desk with the point of his sword. "What's in here that you don't want us taking?"

This conversation was going to end in tears, but the little fellow was insane enough they might be able to get some useful information out of him first.

"Missus's things. Missus wouldn't like it."

Or maybe he would just keep repeating himself. That was also a possibility.

If he could not get open answers to his questions, maybe he could trick the figure into revealing more. He would just have to take a – admittedly stupid – risk. "Dud, the desk is locked, and I can't find the key. Mind smashing open the drawer?"

"No!" screeched the figure. Harry braced himself to be pounced upon, but the tiny man just rocked faster and faster and reached out his hands to pull the cloak tighter around himself. "Don't touch. Can't touch. Missus… Missus…"

Harry was not listening. His attention was on the other figure's hands. Hands that gleamed white in the candlelight without a speck of flesh upon them.

"Kill it!"

The Hunter released her arrow, but instead of sinking into rotting flesh it bounced off and ricocheted into a wall sconce. The impact was, however, enough to wake the creature up from its ramblings. "Thieves! Thieves in the house! No thieves!"

A rip of fabric filled the air and the table shattered as the figure sudden grew with monstrous speed. Smaller than the average Kobold to as large as a Human to bigger than a hulking Osgul, and still it grew. The room deformed and stretched to grant the gigantic beast space to move without its head slamming into the ceiling, and the hood fell back to reveal a skull with two triangular fins coming from the sides poking out from a ragged robe. It roared its fury, and the high pitch of its voice coming from this massive shape would have been comical were it not for the obvious danger presented to them and the name that was whispered maliciously in Harry's ears, Gaia itself letting him know just how much trouble they had gotten themselves into.

Grand Lich.

"Oh, shite."

Harry could tell that the others had heard the monster's name from their reactions. Dudley immediately used Armor Up to further protect himself and charged, his horizontal swing slamming just below the lich's knee but doing little to stagger it. Hermione jumped out of sight behind the creature, though where she was going he could not tell.

"The hole's gone!" she shouted.

Had she tried to ditch them? He could not say anything because he was busy dodging the hand as large as his chest that tried to slap him out the open window, but that was going to have to be discussed. Just as soon as they were not in danger of dying.

The twenty-foot skeleton screamed and leaned forwards, and from its mouth poured a wave of ghostly emerald flames. Harry pushed himself to sprint as fast as he could and dived, turning his fall into a roll that got him out of the way of the flames as they splashed like liquid on the wooden floor and sodden carpet. "Dudley, get this thing off me!"

"I'm trying!"

Sketching a star, Harry flung a Cure spell at the Grand Lich. It was not the best way to get the gigantic undead to ignore him, but if he was going to be targeted, he might as well get some damage in.

"That's not helping, Harry!"

An arrow flew from out of nowhere and sank into the open ear canal in the skull, which did not seem to do any extra damage but certainly distracted the lich for a second. Rather than turn its attention to her, however, it swiped at him again. "Change of plans!" he shouted, hopping backwards to avoid the sharp tips of the finger bones and tossing his rapier into a corner away from the fighting. There was no way he was about to try stabbing this abomination, and the empty scabbard at his side was leather, lightweight and pliable compared to what it would be like with the sword inside it. "If it wants to dance, I'll dance with it! Go red and kill this thing!"

The inarticulate sound of confusion Dudley let out revealed what he thought of this plan. He did not argue, however; he too could see that there was little chance of distracting the Grand Lich. Harry's comments had earned him its undying enmity. Instead, there was a brilliant flash of ruby light, and when it cleared Dudley looked as though he were glowing that same color even through his armor. The Knight let out a bellow, the sound filled with rage, and started hacking at the nearest part of the lich with greater strength and speed than he had previously possessed.

The green flames had died out, and Harry ducked and rolled through the space before launching another bolt of white magic. "Hermione, can you—" A streak of blue light flew from her corner of the room and sent colored ripples over its cloak. "Yeah, that!"

"Undead are immune to practically all status effects! I'll lower its defenses and strength as much as I can, but I don't know if it'll be enough!"

It would have to be. There was a reason he and Dudley never went after big enemies like this; they were too strong for two people to take down, and obviously even three was still pushing it. There had to be some way to wear it down faster than they were, though. A crazy idea came to him, one that he would normally never consider, but in this case he might be able to use the monster's size against it. "You have to be better than that!" he taunted the undead. "I'm stealing all of the Missus's things!"

The Grand Lich screamed its hate again and bent over. Harry waited until he could see the first hint of the green fire before he rushed towards it and dived between its bony legs under the edge of its cloak. Even with that effort, he still felt the heat licking at his heels as the flaming vomit poured out on top of where he had once stood. Rolling into the pile of scrap wood in the middle of the room that was all that remained of the chairs that once stood there, he spun around to find that his foolhardy plan had worked. The lich wailed in pain this time as the fires sank into its cloak and caught it alight.

He had absolutely no way to know if it would do any damage to the creature, but at the very least it could not hurt. He knew from his early attempts at spellcasting that running into his own spells could injure him, though, so hopefully Gaia would be fair to him right now and let the same apply to this thing.

Red light flickering grabbed his attention, and Dudley staggered backwards as the berserker's strength faded from him. Unfortunately, the light show had been seen by the Grand Lich too, and the massive undead turned and backhanded the Knight. Dudley's feet actually left the ground as he bounced off the floor and rolled bonelessly into the dead fireplace.

"Dud! Cure!" His spell flew the distance, but now the Grand Lich was interested in crushing his cousin. Harry shifted his aim to the monster. "Cure! Hermione, get over to Dudley and get him back on his feet!"

Peppering the overgrown zombie with spell after spell finally did enough harm that it turned back towards Harry. "That's right. Over here, you giant bastard. Come at me," he muttered.

It took several steps towards Harry before screeching again. The Grand Lich raised its clenched hands toward the ceiling, and Harry turned tail and ran out of the way of the blow that he knew would fall. He managed to get away from its reach, but that proved to be less important than he imagined when the floor beneath his feet shuddered, sending him to the ground.

He turned over to find the Grand Lich crawling his way, the empty sockets of its eyes somehow still capable of expressing burning hatred. Clenching his teeth, the threw another Cure spell into the one on the left and almost smiled at the cry of pain it let out. "Don't like that, do you?"

The Grand Lich hissed at him, and once again deathly green welled up in its throat.

Thunk.

The top of the lich's skull slammed down on its lower jaw, and gouts of emerald fire billowed out from the holes of its nose and the corners of its mouth. It grunted once. Arms giving out, the skull fell forwards and hit the floor with bone-rattling force.

Stuck into the back of its head, the arrow that had finally ended its life still quivered gently.

Some of you might have figured out who that boss used to be. If not, just know that was a canon character and I am a terrible person.

Silently Watches out.