Chapter Two: Floor 1 Level 1

TWO

Roan blinked rapidly as his entire world changed. Gone from the overcrowded office he stood in a dusty hallway of black stone. There was an inch of dirt and sand on the ground, but he could feel the hard stone beneath that under the soles of his shoes. The walls of the hall reached twelve or fifteen feet and were covered in dense spiderweb that shone a silver-blue color under the flickering flames of dozens of candles.

Every few feet was a sconce filled with a mostly melted white candle. The wax dripped over the metal and down the black stone in frozen waterfalls. The light from them kept the hall dim, but Roan could see well enough that the stacks of corpses in the walls were evident.

Every body was laid flat on their back in a bed carved into the stone itself. Six to a shelf with a shelf every ten feet or so. Sweat broke out along his back as he saw that everyone of the skeletons had a weapon placed over their chests. Rusted battle garb covered their bodies while tattered clothes were nothing more than rags stretched over bits of leathery skin or bones.

“They’re definitely going to animate.” The thought spurred Roan to reach to the closest of the dried out corpses and grab its weapon. The long handled, single-bladed axe was stuck in the sinewy hands until Roan jerked and heard things break. Fingers detached from the skeleton’s hands and fell to the ground at his feet.

Roan lifted the axe to his eye, looking over the thin line of rust along the edge of the blade. The handle felt wrong in his hand, fragile like it had dry-rot.

“Should have gotten a weapon,” Roan complained to the skeleton he’d robbed. The creature’s head turned from looking at the ceiling of its grave to stare at him with empty sockets. Emerald light flickered in the skeleton’s eyes, candle flames of light as its mouth popped open to reveal crooked black teeth.

“Hell no!” Roan shouted as he punched the skeleton with his free hand on instinct. Its head rocked back and a tooth went flying, but the creature’s legs started to move as it used one of its mangled hands to grab the edges of the grave and start to pull itself free.

Roan chided himself as he shook out his aching hand even as he swung his axe around to strike the skeleton with a side chop of the axe. Rusted steel split ancient bone as he split the skull; the flickering emerald fire died in the creature’s eyes. It collapsed in a heap, whatever magic holding its body together failing as the bones separated into separate pieces.

INFERIOR SKELETON

10 CREDITS

Roan pushed the words out of his mind with ease, the notification feeling intuitive. He looked around himself but none of the other skeletons were moving yet, their bodies still at rest. Each second was a baited breath as he waited to see if the undead would rise to chop him into pieces. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of skeletons clustered all around him. No matter how fragile they were, he’d be turned into piecemeal if they all rose together.

When they didn’t, Roan slowly let himself relax. A shaking breath hissed from his mouth as he leaned over toward the defeated skeleton and looked over the grave to see if there was anything in it. The beast-kins words about there being unique items were firmly in his head as he checked the shallow resting place.

In the back corner of the grave, where the stone had cracked, was a single flower. Its petal was bone white, nearly luminous in its intensity. The undead’s head had been blocking it from his sight when he first looked at the grave, but with the bone’s breaking apart he could see the corner.

“Bag of holding would be perfect,” Roan said, still kicking himself over his choices as he reached into the grave and grabbed the flower by the base. It broke easily enough, coming free of the grave with a simple jerk of his wrist. Nectar flowed from the petals, running down the stem and over the pad of his fingers.

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