“Darn it! This isn’t fair!”
High Elf Archer’s shout was drowned out by the roar as two monsters charged toward her. The ancient shrine, which should have been the sanctuary of the Earth Mother, was now the site of a desperate battle.
A fearsome descendant of the nagas kicked aside the goblins mobbing him, then went after the man in red-black armor.
“Eeeeeyaahhh!”
“You call that an attack?!”
There was an audible crack as sword met claws. Sparks flew, the hot, red flashes illuminating both combatants.
It was not a contest, this matching of prodigious strengths. Lizard Priest swung his claws, fangs, and tail with everything he had, the claws of his feet scraping as they slid across the floor. He was only keeping his opponent at bay—even he, who had gone toe to toe with a red dragon.
“A descendant of the fearsome nagas has entered my stronghold? Oh, how the mighty have fallen!”
“Is it so? They say my forebears could see in the dark!”
Keeping the opponent at bay was nothing to be ashamed of. Lizard Priest howled again and traded another set of blows with the vampire. A single stroke from the Earth Mother’s staff might have been effective, but having come so far—it wasn’t that he wouldn’t use it but that he couldn’t. If his opponent grabbed hold of it during their exchange, he would have no way to fight back; it would be taken from him. Then they would be back to square one. These experienced, hardened adventurers were not going to make such a foolish mistake.
Which was precisely why…
“There…!”
High Elf Archer didn’t miss a beat; she kicked off the walls of the ruins to get some height and then let her arrows fly. They were pitiful goblin arrows but fired by a sublime archer. Wielded by a high elf, they might as well have been magic missiles.
Which is to say, they were inerrant, finding their mark even when the target was locked in combat, the rusty old arrowheads burying themselves in the vampire.
“That tickles!”
“Oh, for—! You’d think he was some kind of ogre!”
It was bad enough to have your arrows deflected with a flourish of the sword, but to have them simply picked out after they’d hit their target—that was a bit much.
Despite their poor state, the arrows had bitten deep, but the vampire didn’t begrudge a bit of torn flesh as he pulled them out. Dark, rotten blood flowed forth but only for a second. The next moment, the flesh bubbled up and closed the wounds.
High Elf Archer flew through space, watching it happen with almost divine vision; she bit her lip.
Unfortunately, they had more to worry about than just the vampire.
“GGGGG…”
“BB…”
Goblins. No—not quite.
They were something that had once been goblins.
Their skulls had been crushed, their throats torn out, their innards pierced—and yet they stood. Rose. Returned from the dead. As the vampire’s miasma touched them, first one and then another got to its feet.
This—this was the power of the Death, the special privilege of the Dungeon Master. The very same thing that had tormented those heroes of the forces of Order as they faced the Army of Darkness.
“BRAAINN…”
“BBBRRRRRAAAAAIN…”
The moment Lizard Priest moved to attack the vampire, the party’s fighting strength was hampered.
“I’ve got you!”
When even High Elf Archer had to move to reinforce him, it seemed the end was at hand. She perched on a stone pillar, literally raining arrows upon the unholy horde that now defiled the Earth Mother’s sanctuary.
One, two, five, ten. The goblin corpses piled up again in the blink of an eye. It was an important act of reinforcement for the adventurers—if nothing else, it bought them a second to breathe.
But only a second. For an instant later, the creatures creaked and twisted and rose again like broken puppets hauling themselves to their feet.
“Never gonna see the end of ’em at this rate!” Dwarf Shaman said in between strokes of his ax.
“That’s normal,” was Goblin Slayer’s reply. He had never known a battle with goblins to have a proper end. The only limit was how many of them there were in a given place.
But these are not goblins.
He tried stabbing one in the throat with a dagger, as he so often did, only to have it shiver and continue after him. He beat it back with his shield, gaining himself enough time to reposition.
When a creature comes back from the dead, its brain is rotted, so it’s unable to form proper thoughts. Considerable devotion and study are required to become a superior form of this sort of life, like the vampire.
Which is to say, goblins could not become vampires.
All that was left to the shambling corpses was their greed—although in that sense, they weren’t so different from when they had been alive.
Goblin Slayer didn’t know the first thing about the undead—but he was getting the idea, just by comparing these creatures to their living counterparts. There were two major differences. One was that, of the major biological needs, only hunger remained.
The other was that, apparently, stopping them took more work than usual.
“What should we do?” he asked.
“Get it so they can’t move!” Dwarf Shaman yelled. He was busy wielding his weapon, trusting to his people’s natural strength to get the job done. It would have been great to use a spell, if they could—but were there any spells that would work on a vampire? Playing one of your all-too-limited cards in an uncertain situation would show if not a lack of nerve at least a lack of forethought.
Dwarves have their own way of fighting. Dwarf Shaman wasn’t done yet. And so he chopped the spinal cord of one of the corpses like a log.
“Arms and legs!” he called. “Or the spine! That’ll do, too!”
“Understood.”
With the decision made, Goblin Slayer acted quickly. He didn’t know how to destroy a zombie—but he knew many, many ways to destroy goblins.
Moreover…
If only the girl was here.
Then they could have hit the creatures with Holy Light and started carving a path through the stunned monsters or perhaps used Purify to take care of them all in one swoop.
Under his metal helmet, he grunted at the thought, then took out his annoyance on a goblin corpse.