Symphonic Odyssey
: Vol. Three: Dark Sarcophagus: Verse One-Hundred and Forty-Six

As they descended further into the catacombs of this ruin, the two took notice of more and more bodies that had been desecrated. Some had been pulled from their burial nooks and had their bones scattered across the floor. Others had been stripped entirely and lay hanging off the edges, their careful preservation destroyed in search of the wealth they carried.

The smell of death soon filled their nostrils, and the air grew stale and heavy. Cobwebs hung from every place they looked, and rats could be seen skittering across the floor and hiding within cracks in the walls. Only the sounds of their muffled footsteps could be heard, along with the crackling of burning torches and the echo of dripping liquids.

Every so often they would come across crushed skulls or already activated traps. Even a few fresh bodies could be seen from time to time and it was quite gruesome to come across. Some were caught in spike pits with shabby bridges built over them. Others were laid out on the floor, their rotting viscera a fine meal for the small scavenger animals that had taken up refuge in this tomb.

Finn’s Deep had been touted as some kind of plundered ruin some shitty bandits had holed up in, but obviously, it was more of a crypt than anything. Occupying a place like this was wrong in Cypher’s eyes. The dead should be left to rest.

As such, Cypher felt no sadness as he saw the fates these graverobbers had suffered. As far as he was concerned they deserved it. The two of them never exchanged many words. It was risky to do so when enemies could be around the next corner or doorway. Despite that, more often than not, Cypher and Alex would share a look of disgust or disdain at the state of the place around them.

It wasn’t long before they heard the scrabbling of something larger than rats. Ahead of them, a large chamber opened up and as they slowly moved into the room, they could see various sarcophagi cracked open. A few of the bodies were trampled and desecrated, however, that wasn’t really the main concern.

Several corpses wandered aimlessly around. Some were in heavy states of decomposition, while others were still somewhat preserved. Still, there were several bodies that had been reduced to nothing more than shuffling, clacking bones.

They teetered on unsteady legs held together only by the influence of negative energy. They had very poor balance and were prone to falling over quite often. Some carried weapons that hung from limp limbs, and others were adorned in tattered robes that drug across the floor.

In places such as this, death was the ruling presence. It was no surprise that undead now roamed its abandoned halls. Tombs such as these were ideally kept preserved and respected precisely because of the possibility of undead spawning.

When kept in pristine condition, negative energy wouldn’t be able to gather in large enough quantities for the undead to spawn. The living took great care in burning or burying their dead so as to avoid such abominations from appearing. This was why bodies were buried with parting gifts. Even the dead needed to be appeased it would seem.

However, the members of Zealot’s Ring had clearly not cared about such trivialities and just plundered without a care in the world. On one hand, this could appear as an oversight on their part. The quality of the undead here was low. Their bodies lacked the power that they would have had while alive, and only a few of the ones here were at the peak of the first rank.

Given that, it could be reasoned that they simply ignored the possibility of undead appearing since strong ones wouldn’t be a concern. Over time that would prove to be a fatal mistake though. As time passed in an area plagued with the undead, more and more negative energy would accumulate. This in turn would spawn more powerful undead, or even convert existing ones into something more dangerous.

However, if one thought about it, these few undead could serve as a line of defense. The moment they caught sight of the living, they would attack relentlessly, and that would prompt a battle that could cause a ruckus, alerting those further inside to the presence of intruders. Furthermore, it wasn’t like Zealot’s Ring couldn’t control the amount of undead either.

For weak humans with enhanced bodies, undead were quite difficult to put down. For starters, they were already dead, and non-enhanced normal people just simply wouldn’t be able to stop these corpses from endlessly attacking. Undead were stronger than the living since their brains no longer regulated the strength of their muscles. Even the skull of an undead could still deal out devastatingly strong bites.

These bites would also cause a toxic reaction in living flesh that would eventually claim the life of the injured party in question. At that point, they would be reanimated as a zombie, the weakest of undead creatures, and join the ranks of the other undead.

The only way to stop undead for these kinds of people would be to disable their ability to move. But even that was only temporary. The severed body parts would eventually recombine and the corpse would be ready to attack again.

For Conductors or simple spellcasters, it was a different story. Magic was highly effective against the undead, depending on the spell in question. There were of course certain undead that had a resistance to magick, however, they were among the most powerful and were rarely seen.

In most cases, an undead could be defeated by destroying the body completely with fire spells, cutting it into minuscule pieces with wind spells, trapping it with earth spells, or immersing it in corrosive acids using water spells. Sealing spells also worked quite well against them, since, unlike the living, they had no will to resist such spells.

Of course, there were other ways to deal with them. Undead had plagued humanity for thousands of years, it was only natural that they would devise various ways to handle them. Any sufficiently enchanted weapons could do the trick, but they were usually costly and commoners were often unable to afford them.

As it was, Cypher and Alex were well-equipped to handle these few annoyances. The two leapt into the room and quickly dispatched several of the corpse-type undead. A few of the skeletons slowly shambled their way over and began to swing their rusted weapons at them.

Cypher and Alex soon made quick work of them as well with low-power spells and a few swipes of their enchanted weapons. With that, the room was cleared, but the sounds of slow shuffling seemed to continue as one headed further in.

This was also no surprise, since, underground, negative energy could gather more easily. Cypher and Alex cut their way through several dozen corridors and chambers worth of undead. It was gruesome work, and they soon found the stench of decay sticking to their clothes. However, their silent pace had paid off, and they soon came across the first of the living opponents in these lower levels.

They were a group of five sitting around a table drinking. Four of them were only bandits with rank one bodies, while the remaining one was a Wild Conductor at the bottom of the first rank. This would be easy to handle, but stealth would be crucial since they didn’t want to alert the others to their presence yet.

To that end, Cypher prepared his lightning bolt spell. In the years that followed during his solitary training, he learned to scatter the bolt and chain it to multiple enemies. It was a tricky bit of mastery, but one he had managed to learn all the same.

That said, it wasn’t a skill anyone could simply pick up and master with practice. While it was true that Conductors could use the full range of elemental spells, the subsets of each element had special abilities that could only be used by those with an affinity to the root element.

Cypher was a Null affinity, however, he had a strong bias towards the fire element and could mimic having a fire affinity. That meant that he had access to the full potential of the lightning subset, and this was quite a handy technique. He once again felt bad about attacking enemies who were weaker than himself by several orders, and couldn’t even defend themselves against his sneak attack.

That said, he didn’t hesitate. He knew what he was in for the moment he decided to enter Heartwell village. With a crackle and a flash of light, his spell shot out and instantly killed all five of the men sitting around the table. Their brains had been fried before they even knew what had happened, and the two advanced again as weapons clattered against the floor of the room.