The Fallen Ascending 01 -- Rebirth
Hidey Hole

For the next several hours, we meandered back and forth around the forest, picking off groups of the dead. As we traveled and hunted, I learned to tell the difference between the way the skeletons and zombies moved across the land. Skeletons had a lighter impact upon the earth and moved quicker than the shambling, slower zombies – but they posed absolutely zero threat to us while Crystal held the blade I’d made.

Heartblade was the name that Crystal decided to attach to the weapon, since she could feel my heartbeat while holding the hilt. I thought it was somewhat wimpy for a weapon; it certainly wasn’t any Snowflake Razor or Azure Skyrose; but it was what she wanted to call it, so that was its name now. Personally, I would’ve preferred something intimidating such as Crystal Deathbreaker, but I suppose Heartblade will do since it’s what Crystal likes, and she’s the one who’s carrying it and using it.

With Heartblade in Crystal’s possession, we could casually walk huddled together through massive swarms of the skeletons, and leave nothing but shattered bones behind in our wake. Once we’d grown confident in the blade’s area – it shattered every skeleton that got within a dozen steps of Crystal – we actively decided to hunt and clear as many skeletons as possible while moving ever so slowly forward towards the barrow mounds and underground tunnels.

As the sun slowly moved across the sky, no one felt the urge to stop and eat for lunch. The smell of dead flesh and decaying organs from the zombies was a massive turn off for everyone’s appetite; and the overall tension of moving towards the skeletons and zombies, while avoiding the other dead I sensed from time to time, didn’t help any either.

In games, such hunts were often viewed as a simple walk in the park where characters grind levels and experience easy from massive kills of their opponents. Unfortunately, since I wasn’t reborn in a game, there was a constant sense of fear and dread attached even with the easiest of fights, and the stress levels were quite intense for all of us. Never knowing if one skeleton was strong enough to resist the blade; never knowing if the dead carried a disease or contagion, never knowing if something had an immunity or ability which we weren’t prepared for – it was quite a stressful day, even if it sounds like we simply skipped along laughing and singing while the dead collapsed at the mere sight of us.

I’m certain if a bard were to tell our tale, they’d make it sound amazing – we’d be the Legendary Deathbane Band, or something equally silly and presumptuous, and it’d sound like we were simply overpowering heroes casually wiping out a menace to the world. Bards never seem to include the worry, the fear, or the smell of rotting putridity which settles in the nose and never fades. Bastards only tell the parts that people want to hear and are willing to pay them to tell, or buy them a drink to share – I don’t know if I’m honestly jealous, or disgusted by them!

By the time the sun started to settle down lower in the sky, we must’ve destroyed dozens of zombies and hundreds of skeletons, and still it seemed to me as if we’d barely made a dent in the total number that I felt moving throughout the enclosed circular area that encased the graveyard. Finally, I judged that we needed to get to the Barrows so we’d still have some time to explore and replace a suitable place to hold up for the night, before the sun set and it got too dark to see what we were doing.

Heading to the barrow mounds, it was almost impossible to tell when we were upon them. The ground here sloped up and down in small natural hills, and the mounds were interspersed between the natural hills, covered with grass, vines, and shrubs, and were almost impossible to tell apart. I have no clue how the other team managed to know where to dig, to open up the mounds that they had broken in to, but I was beginning to worry that they might have taken someone with earth magic along with them.

If there was a girl with twice the skill in earth magic, that Dino had learned in fire magic from the school, they were screwed. My skill and mastery with the ground was leaps and bounds above anything that Dino could even pretend to imagine (and I’m not just saying that to brag on myself), and he was going to be considered ‘ready to graduate’ at the end of this school year. I was truly worried that the team might’ve brought someone along with them, and that they’d fallen prey to the corruption when they’d worked their magic on the earth around us.

Being extremely careful, I slowly sensed the earth all around for the different holes that the other team had opened into the mounds. After a few moments, I led my own tired group to a small mound that I could tell didn’t connect to the tunnels beneath us.

The mound itself appeared to be nothing more than a natural rise in the land, covered with blackish grass and wilted shrubbery. Working our way around it, we found the hole that the others had dug before us – a small pile of excavated earth in the side of the mound that was scaracely large enough for a person to crawl through.

“Here’s our destination for the night,” I told the others.

“In there?” Jess asked, shivering. “Are you certain it’s safe?”

“It’s just a small cavern sort of place,” I told her reassuringly, “and there’s no movement at all in there. It doesn’t connect to any of the other tunnels around here, so it should be a safe place for us to rest tonight. As safe as anywhere can be in this place, I imagine,” I said with a shrug.

“Dino, would you like to lead the way for us?” I asked, casually.

“Me?” Sounding shocked, he held up his hands and shook his head from side to side.

“It’s either got to be you, or it’s got to be me,” I told him as calmly as I could. “It’s going to be dark in there and only the two of us can make light easily with our magic. You just need to decide – do you want to be the first in there, or the last out here, bringing up the rear?”

Paling at his choices, Dino swallowed down a lump in his throat and then slowly moved over to start crawling into the tunnel; a small flame hovering and floating before him. For a change, he didn’t argue, complain, or whine. Maybe there was some hope for him yet.

Once I could feel him inside the mound, I nodded over to Jess. “Your turn, dear.”

Turning almost as pale as a sheet, Jess slowly approached the hole and whimpered. For a few moments, she simply stayed on her hands and knees and stared into the darkness, while her arms and legs trembled as if she was ready to collapse at any moment.

Sighing, Crystal finally walked over and firmly kicked her in the ass and half punted her into the hole. “Get in there! We don’t have all day to wait out here. You’re putting My Lord at risk by just being a damn lump on a log!”

Looking back and glaring briefly, Jess finally scurried on in the rest of the way by herself.

“Wasn’t that just a little harsh?” I asked Crystal.

“Nope.” She shook her head from side to side, completely unapologetic. “Sometimes folk need a good swift kick in the ass to get them moving. This was one of those times. Now, do you need one, My Lord?” Arching an eyebrow, she stared hard at me and pointed to the entrance. “You next.”

“I was going to bring up the rear,” I tried to tell her, but Crystal just snorted and pushed me towards the hole.

“No need to argue, My Lord. My blade helps turn and shatter these things, so it simply makes sense for me to go last.” Tapping her foot impatiently, she just stared. “Do you really want to sit out here and argue over this all night long, while it keeps getting darker out here? Or do you want to get your ass on in there, like a good lord?”

“Fine.” Sighing to myself, I crawled on into the hole and wiggled my way down the short passage to join Dino and Jess. Sometimes, I have to wonder exactly which one of us is in charge – me or my slave! Really, I don’t guess it matters that much; I’ve always had an uncertain relationship with the women of this world, ever since I was reborn here.

Shaking my head to clear my drifting thoughts, I took a moment to glance around the cavern as soon as I was out of the tunnel. Dino had a small flame floating in midair, and it was bright enough to illuminate the small one room chamber we were in. The floor we were standing on was stone, as well as the walls and ceiling, so overall the place gave a sort of stone storehouse feeling.

From the outside, the mound had grown over and looked completely natural. Inside though, this was obviously man-made – or made by intelligent creatures at least, I reminded myself, thinking about the lizard tails which were such a prominent part of the dead we’d seen so far. The floor was smooth stone, and the walls and ceiling were cracked plaster-covered stone. I could almost imagine this being a bright and almost cheerful place back before it housed the dead.

As for the dead inside the mound, there simply wasn’t any. I had no way of knowing if they’d gotten up and crawled out to become part of the swarm we’d been dealing with all day, or if they’d simply rotted and decayed naturally over time. All I knew was this place was completely empty of everything now – no dead, no loot which might’ve been buried with the dead, no anything. We were simply standing in a small, empty, stone room with a single crawl hole leading out to the surface.

“This looks like an excellent place to hold up for the night,” I told everyone as Crystal slowly crawled into the chamber with us.

“I guess,” Dino replied, sounding uncertain. “It certainly isn’t a five-crown tavern, but it seems like it’ll be safer than trying to set up the tents and camp outside with the dead walking around everywhere.”

“Not that I really feel safe anywhere, since we entered this area,” Jess finished with a slight shiver.

“Honestly,” I admitted, “I feel almost the same way Jess. The taint and corruption is all around us and this place makes my hair stand on end. I don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s the best place for us to rest tonight. That’s a small entrance for the dead to be able to approach us from, Crystal can place her sword there to help repel any that try to enter through that way, and Dino and I both need a chance to recover some of our energy before we start into the tunnels later.

“And, maybe from here, I’ll be able to sense which tunnel the other group is in. Those catacombs are winding all around in the forest between us, and I couldn’t sort them out from a distance earlier. I’m hoping that now that we’re here, I can make a little more sense of them and locate the others. If not,” I admitted, “I don’t really don’t know how the heck we’ll replace them and get them out of here.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, My Lord,” Crystal said encouragingly as she shoved Heartblade into the stone floor directly in front of the opening. “For tonight, let’s simply eat, rest, and try to relax as much as possible. We’ll deal with the morrow, on the morrow.”

With everyone too mentally tired and stressed to argue with her, that’s exactly what we settled down to do for the evening.