Chapter 4

We tear through the second floor

As Hanz finished off those still alive from the two rooms and Snarly searched their bodies for valuables, I scowled at the doorway. Malachite had checked it, cracking it open, and it led down into darkness so there must be another door at the bottom.

"Thinking of blowing this one up too?" Malachite asked. "That was pretty neat, what you did with that door."

"Thanks. I figured being down here it would be pretty rickety. But no. Now that we're down here and I have a second I can feel some weird magic coming from further below us."

"How weird?"

"The closest I can say is that it feels like Pluto magic, but it isn't the type I normally feel. Like something old is reaching out from this place."

"Demonic?"

I shook my head. "Could be. It gives me an idea though." I gestured to the body that was left in this room and floated it upwards. "Be back in a second." I hauled it through the air into the other room, where the two were finishing up. "Are they dead?" I asked Hanz.

"All dead," he confirmed. "Why are you bringing this one?"

"I don't often get to do this," I explained. "And the magical energies in this place seem right for it. I'm going to get us some reinforcements. It will take a few minutes so watch my back."

"Very well."

I tossed the body with the others and started pulling mana into the spell. While not exactly "easier" the mana seemed "eager" for what I was about to do, and two minutes later the bodies of the former bandits started to get up. They seemed to have an aura about them, a darkness I had never seen a zombie possess, but they stood there waiting my orders. "Perfect."

"You have reanimated them?" Hanz asked.

"That's right. They're under my complete control."

"That's really 'reepy," Snarly told me, staying away from them. "Did ya have to do that?"

"Well, no I didn't have to, but I'd rather send these fellows in first and let them cause some confusion and maybe take some hits meant for us. I'll be dragged down a bit, controlling them, but I figure it'll be worth it."

"As long as we don't bring 'em home 'ith us."

"I wasn't planning to."

"Good."

We headed back and I told Malachite not to attack them, and called the zombies into the room. They shuffled in. "Right," I announced. "I'll take a look down there and see what we're up against. We can make our plans then." Casting the same divination spell I had before I expected the same result. But something was wrong, I couldn't quite see down there. I wasn't blocked, exactly, but it was like trying to see through a mud stained piece of glass. "That's never happened before," I told everyone. "I can't get a good look at what's down there."

"So we just have to hope for the best?" Malachite asked.

"There is another way. I just hope they don't have magic to counter it. Come on. Troops, follow behind us," I told the zombies. "We'll head down the stairs and I'll take a peek through the door. They won't be able to do anything about it, and we can quickly come up with a plan."

"Is this dangerous?" Malachite asked.

"As I say, unless they have the one exact spell to counter this, not at all. Come on."

We headed down, setting some of the lamps at the top of the stairs so we could have some light, and at the bottom I took extra care and time in casting a spell on myself. I became less solid and nodded to the others. "Wait here a moment." I stepped through the door. On the other side were several men in the same type of robes the guys upstairs were wearing, not typical bandit fare as far as I knew. They were in a circle, being led in the chant by a guy in the middle, and there were several dead bodies laying there. They looked like farmers by their clothes. One of the men gasped, stop chanting and pointed.

"Master, a ghost just came through the door!"

"Continue the chant!" he ordered, turning.

"Yes master."

I put a hand on my hip and regarded him. Are they the source of the weird magic or was the magic here and they're just trying to use it? The man had a kind of black flame licking at one arm, but didn't seem concerned about it.

"Are you a ghost?" he demanded.

"What if I am?"

"Then I shall be about my business and ignore you."

"That's no fun. Actually, my people and I have come for some stolen goods. I couldn't see into this room so I came to check it out for myself. Just what exactly are you doing in here?"

"My men are dead?"

"I'm afraid so. But you don't have to be. Surrender and come back to Gloomhaven with us. Face your punishment like a man."

"Gloomhaven? Ha! You know nothing. Even if you have killed my men in the chambers above, this chamber will be your end! The Gloom cannot be stopped." He held up his hand, the black flame climbing higher. "The Gloom will destroy all who oppose it!"

"The Gloom will destroy all!" echoed the men around the circle.

Okay, crazy then. Good to know. "Sure thing friend. I'll just take my leave then, shall I?"

"Come back here!" he shouted as I stepped backwards through the door.

"We may not have much time, they're doing some kind of ritual magic in there," I explained. "There's enough room here, I'm taking us into the astral. The zombies on the stairs will fall a little but they'll be fine. We'll head through, get into position just like last time, and I'll step us back across. Any questions?"

They shook their heads and so I had everyone grab hands and I started casting. We slipped across dimensions, becoming closer to Heaven and as the stairs didn't exist here, just as I said the zombies fell a bit but righted themselves. "Try to remain undamaged," Hanz said to Snarly.

"Tha's the plan!"

"Come on, he's doing something!" We rushed into the chamber as the guy in the middle was pouring black flame across the corpses, and they were beginning to stir. I found a side chamber with an open door and went in there, out of the way, and the others got into position. I told the zombies to simply attack anyone that hadn't come down the stairs with them and hoped they were smart enough to understand that order. They didn't start trying to attack us so it seemed fine.

"This chamber seems big enough to negate the photonic concern I had with the last one," Hanz remarked. "I will take out the leader." Their hand switched over into weapon mode and they got behind the guy.

"Ready!" Malachite called.

"Weady!" Snarly called, behind a guy and with daggers poised to strike.

I nodded, calmed myself and put the box back around my emotions, then let the spell keeping us in the astral plane go. Hanz wasted no time, a beam of energy hitting the main bandit (cultist?) in the chest and basically burning a hole right through him. His clothes caught on fire but he didn't even have time to scream before falling over. The black fire kept pouring into the zombies though, who were now rising. Strangely, even my zombies were attracting this strange fire, their bodies beginning to dim as it flowed towards them. It seemed they weren't exactly following my command either, they were heading towards it like a moth to a flame.

As Snarly stabbed into the back of the guy he was behind Malachite thrust with the sword he carried, but neither dropped. They whirled, realizing something had happened.

"The master is dead, kill the intruders!" one needlessly shouted. All raised daggers, they must have gotten them out while we were getting into position. Several started towards Hanz, who to be fair was the biggest threat in the room. The one stabbed by Malachite spun and slashed with his dagger. He dodged back but got hit, not that it did anything against his scales.

I started casting, wanting to get the knives away from these guys. It seemed as if Malachite and Hanz were in no danger but Snarly certainly was. I wasn't quick enough, the one he had stabbed slashed back, but Snarly deflected it with his daggers. My spell went off, a magical circle filling the room under the feet of the bandits. But I felt the pull of the magic I was already sustaining to keep the zombies active, and that was enough to distract me. None of the knives dropped from the bandit's hands as I had intended. Had I not locked my emotions up I would have been quite cross at that, but as it was I simply accepted it.

"Who did that spell?" demanded a bandit. He looked around and spotted me. "Ah hah!" He sprinted towards me.

Crap. He was going to reach me in about a second, limiting my options. I needed to cast a spell in that time and have it stick, or I was going to have a bad time in a second. I started casting, cutting the last part of the incantation out so he would still be a little distance from me when I got it off. I got it off before he reached me, and he dodged to the side (or tried to) as my bolt struck his head. He cried out but didn't go down. Still, he was right there, and shaking his head as if to clear it. I had to risk it, and lashed out with magic again, this time only saying the first word of the incantation. Luckily I struck him again, and he went down in a heap.

I looked to see how everyone was doing, and two of the men were surrounding Hanz, trying to grab them. They swung their sword in an arc in front of them, catching one of the men in the leg but only a grazing blow.

Malachite got his opponent through the chest with his sword, yanking it back as the man fell. While Snarly slashed twice with his daggers, forcing the other man to dodge back. I figured I would help him out, and started casting a spell on his opponent. I felt this one go off, it was a tough one to resist and silently cheered our smallest member on. It didn't stop him attacking though, and he barely missed Snarly who ducked out of the way. I was pretty sure Snarly would attack next and helped him out further, flexing my muscles to cast a Mars spell on him. He hit, but the man seemed hardly to notice. Well, it never hurts to help, right? I started casting my wind attack, aiming for the man's head. That should slow him down. It struck, and while the man was staggered he remained standing. But not for long, as Snarly dodged a clumsy attack and plunged both his daggers into the guy. He went down.

With the bandits down I switched my attention to the zombies, who now seemed to be fighting each other over the remains of the black flame. It had subsided as the last bandit died, and they were now slugging it out. They seemed more energetic than normal zombies, the black flame seemed to be some kind of power source for them, but it seemed zombies were evenly matched. I aided mine with some magic and set some of the others on fire, and finally only two of mine remained standing. I set them on fire as well, marched them into the pile of zombies while Snarly checked over the bandits for valuables, then we set the lot on the fire and made sure everything was burning nicely before we left. The air stank of cooking flesh and we would need to get out of there pretty soon because of the smoke, but there wasn't much down there. Malachite grabbed a chest and we headed upstairs and into the light again. Hanz and Snarly grabbed up the weapons, there were several more bows and quivers of arrows stacked against the wall, so we had a small pile of stuff when we made it out. Their swords, the bows, arrows, and Malachite had taken one of the red sashes they were wearing and was looking it over.

"So what was all that about, oh master of the arcane arts?" he asked me.

"I'm actually not sure," I admitted. "My zombies were still under my control, the spell wasn't broken, but that black fire seemed to entrance them in some way. Powered them up a bit too from what I could tell. I talked to the man when I was looking the room over he mentioned something about "the Gloom" and that it would not be stopped."

"I did notice they all wore a black robe with a red sash," Hanz announced. "Some kind of cult?"

"I jus' hope that puts an end ta it," Snarly decided. "That zombie stuff freaks me 'ut."

"I hope so too. It's got me a little worried. But zombies are just magically animated bodies, they can be useful in the right application. There's no need to be prejudiced against them, they're better than just burying bodies and getting no more use out of them."

"I'll take yer word fer it. Let's just 'ope the stuff we're 'ooking for iz in heres." He tapped the chest. "A minute with the 'ld lockpicks and we'll have 'er sprung." He got out a set of lockpicks and started working on the lock. Meanwhile Malachite went up and got our packs, handing mine back to me.

"Thanks."

"Well 'ookie here!" Snarly started passing the stuff in the chest out, and I took a look. Several vials of liquid that seemed magical to me. Four of them had a symbol of a sword on them and five had the symbol of healing. One pocket watch that also radiated magic, and seemed to be a compass on one side and a clock face on the other when I opened it. A scroll which had a magical formula on it. A map to a location further north of town, with "crypt of the dammed" written on it, and thankfully Jekserah's missing scrolls were in there too. It had been opened and Snarly looked it over. "Gibberish," he decided. "Anyone read gibberish?"

"I can," I told him, taking the scrolls. "But should we?"

"We risked our lives for this," Hanz told me. "I think we should see what all the fuss was about. I know well the dangers of information, these scrolls could be very dangerous."

"Okay." Strange though, for supposed thieves this is an awfully small haul. Did we miss their main stash? They went out of their way to steal some scrolls they couldn't read, a few other odds and ends, what was the point? I cast a spell to let me understand a written language and was surprised to see it remained gibberish. "Now that's unexpected. I should be able to read this perfectly now. What in the world?"

"It seems to be a cipher of some kind. I am not surprised."

"A what now?" Malachite asked.

"A code. The information has been modified in a way that only the sender and receiver know. That way if it falls into the wrong hands without the means to decode the message the information is safe. Odd to see it used in this time, however. Though it was used even in the time of the ancient Romans as I understand it."

"Could you make sense of it?" I handed it over.

"Given time, perhaps. But with so little text to go on, only these few pages, and not having any idea what the contents might be, it would be slow going. For example if I knew it was addressed to her, I could conclude this first word is her name and work from there. But I do not."

"Well, it's safe so we'll hand it back to her," I decided. "Are we taking the other stuff?"

"Might be we can 'ell it?" Snarly put in, looking hopeful.

"We can try," I agreed. "Was there anything on the bodies?"

"A little coin." He dug out some coins and handed them around. Just copper. It was better than nothing. "No rings or anything like that."

"The sash is interesting," Malachite announced. "Look. There's a symbol sewed into it." He turned it so we could see and there it was. It was a skull (of course) with some wavy lines around it. Flames, maybe? "Ever seen it before?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"We can ask around town. If these people were part of a cult dedicated to making souped up zombies, someone should be warned about it."

We agreed.

"I'll get my horse out. Put that stuff into a bundle and I'll just float it alongside us. Can you carry the chest, Hanz?"

"Of course. I do not tire like an organic so I was going to offer anyway."

"Then let's get away from here. That weird magic seems to be going away but I still don't like this place."

With the weapons and such tied up with the sash and my horse carrying me, we made good time back to the town. I put my disguise back on once we made it to the gate, and put my horse away. Back at the inn we sent a messenger to Jekserah to let her know we had returned safely, and celebrated our first successful mission together. I looked over the spell, it turned out to be a spell to ignore weather conditions like cold or rain, which I felt could come in handy in our travels. If we stayed together, that is. But none of us seemed in a hurry to split up, which of course could be simple pragmatism so everyone got their share of the money. The messenger returned and said Jekserah would see us in the morning, so we headed to bed. Plenty of time to deal with our "loot" and such tomorrow. I wasn't completely thrilled with how many people we had murdered, but the land was a little safer because of it. So I took what comfort I could from that and went off to sleep.