#draft 1

Cadfan breathed in the dense earthy air. The cemetery was coated in fog so thick that it was hard to even see the iron-wrought fence. He briefly squatted down to touch the mossy ground. This cemetery had not been visited in some time, and the trail was overgrown with vegetation. 

“We’ll have slippery footing,” he warned Menes and Cateline. “Are you two ready for this?”

“Stop dithering, Cadfan. It is unbecoming of a man.” Menes removed his sword from its scabbard. His dark skin was mostly hidden by his plate armour except for the slits in his visor. He winked at Cadfan good-naturedly. “Ephemera, guide my blade against the undead we are about to face.”

In response to his prayer, the sword started to glow a soft red. It now matched the embossed sunset trim of his armour.

“Let us go.” Cateline agreed. She tied up her wavy black hair, and the pair of large hoop earrings on her left ear chimed when they rubbed each other. Her priestess robes were simple and humble, but her earrings glittered in the red light from Menes’ sword. 

“No wonder we can never sneak up on our foes.” Cadfan loosened his shoulders with a couple simple stretches before removing his morning star from its anchor point on his belt. “Menes, watch our six in case they try to swarm.” 

“How many times have we fought the undead? We are specialists, Cadfan. And in case you never noticed, I am always watching your six. And your pecs. And-”

“Save it for later, please. I beg you.” Cateline sniffed the air. “They are coming. I smell the rot of dark magic.”

Cadfan had to trust the priestess; he only smelled dank petrichor. He swung the morning star in one arm to release his malaise, then the other. The clearing of undead at this cemetery was a hefty commission even for an experienced team like theirs. They had to be careful to leave a path to ensure their escape if necessary.

Menes lightly tapped Cadfan on the shoulder. “Do not worry. Ephemera is on our side. For Her glory!” 

The reddish holy light of Ephemera’s blessing filled the cemetery’s courtyard. It revealed the moss-covered headstones, the overgrown hedges that bordered the vegetation-laden path, and a large mausoleum in the centre. Fungi crusted the trunk of the tree next to the mausoleum like rusty leaves since it had none in its crown. 

Five humanoid shapes rose up from behind headstones, and shuffled their way. The walking corpses were old. They barely had any flesh left on their bones, their sinews were missing, and their clothing were rags. Unholy magic was all that held them together, and the tattered rags appeared to be fused into their bodies, like they were filling in for the missing flesh. Two of them had bronze daggers, one had a half-rotten cudgel, and the last pair were unarmed. All five’s jaws were cracked, as if they had bitten something so hard that they had ruptured the bone.

As a distributor of blunt-force injuries, Cadfan was familiar with the look of a smashed jaw. The hairline fracture on the walking corpses was not caused by a true weapon. “Did they bite something? It must have been harder than-”

“My-”

“A rock.” Cadfan interrupted Menes firmly. Heat rushed to his face and ears.

“I mean, it rhymes with rock.” Menes chuckled.

“If you keep at this, I will not heal your injuries. You will have to recover at a normal rate, and my ears will be happier.” Cateline warned him. 

“Cat, do you really think an injury will stop me for long? Ephemera wants me to bring others joy-” 

“Can we focus?” Cadfan grumbled. His blush only darkened when Menes winked at him again. 

Instead of acknowledging the heat Menes inspired, Cadfan rushed at the slow-moving undead. This is what he was made for. This was simple. His long legs covered the distance quickly, and the corpses almost seemed to wait for him to strike with his morning star. He crushed the first one’s skull with a downward swing. The body staggered, then collapsed in a heap as the magic that animated it weakened. Cadfan side-stepped to maintain some distance from it, then did the same to the rest. 

“You are a fine specimen.” Menes complimented him. “I may swoon.”

“No one will catch you.” Cateline smirked at the large man, mildly amused when Cadfan blushed again. She was a full head shorter than Menes, and he weighed more than she could lift even without armour. With it on, Cadfan was the only one who could move the warrior-priest if he got injured.

“Can you two actually help? I can’t finish them.” Cadfan crushed the first corpse’s knee when it tried to stand. 

“He is bossy in bed too.” Menes whispered to Cateline. 

“I’ve heard.” She put her hands together and chanted a quick prayer to release the corpses’ souls from their bodies. Something made her frown, and she went over to one of the bodies. “The magic to animate them was strong. They weren’t driven to rise by resentment alone.”

“Ephe says that this place has not experienced joy in centuries.” Menes said after a moment. 

“Are cemeteries ever joyful?” Cadfan asked dubiously. Menes’ goddess had a strange perspective when it came to the material world. Any gift was joyful, even the gift of death. It may be why she liked red so much.

“They border the arcane. This one has not had the living to tend it, so its joy faded with too much stagnancy. No gods were called to bring the souls into the cycle of rebirth.” Menes frowned as he listened to Ephemera’s chatter in his mind. She had a tendency of speaking in an uneven cadence, as if their link fluctuated in strength. “She is saying this place sucks away joy like Cat’s puritanical god. I am quoting.” He added defensively when she glared at him.

They were interrupted by the sudden flaring of red light in Menes’ sword. This time, Ephemera’s light illuminated twenty stumbling undead. Five were ghouls, their flesh intact but taut over bones, their teeth as sharp as feral dogs’. Ten were skeletons, their flesh completely worn away by time. The last five were wraiths, their darkened souls kept in place by evil magic. 

The adventurers went to work. Cateline started to cast a large-scale holy spell to purify the undead. Menes sliced through the ghouls who tried to rush the priestess. Cadfan knocked the skulls off of the skeleton’s shoulders one by one, then bashed their leg bones to immobilize them. The undead almost seemed to freeze before they were hit, resulting in heavier damage to their bodies. Once the skeletons could only crawl towards the adventurers, Cadfan went to hold off the ghouls while Menes dealt with the wraiths. They shrieked as the holy blade cleaved away vestiges of their corrupted souls. 

Finally, Cateline’s spell encircled the undead. The wraiths dissolved into motes of light, their physical forms long-since reduced to dust. The ghouls shrieked, but dissolved into pools of rotten flesh. The re-animated skeletons fell apart with a relieved sigh.

“Did that seem too easy?” Cadfan checked his morning star for damage. He wanted the spikes to stay nice and sharp.

“The ghouls seemed sluggish.” Menes agreed.

“Those wraiths just screeched. They cast no spells despite their strong miasma. They should have had the ability to use magic.” Cateline thoughtfully fiddled with her earrings which doubled as anchors for her spells. The purification of the dead had tarnished them. She removed a small vial of water she had blessed, and dampened a cloth before wiping the residue of evil magic away. 

“Is the miasma still present?”

Menes concentrated, then nodded at the same time as Cateline. “There’s more.”

“Mausoleum?”

“Mausoleum.” Menes agreed sourly. It was difficult for him to maneuver well in narrow spaces. A mausoleum would reduce him to being Cateline’s shield, not a second fighter. 

“Come on. Be a nice shield maiden.” She teased.

“If I was a maiden, you-”

His retort was cut short by the rumbling of earth as it moved. A group of twenty skeletons in full plate armour rushed out of the mausoleum, apparently released by the sound. Their iron boots crushed the plant life and scraped around the cobbles below.

Menes stood in front of Cateline protectively while Cadfan darted around the new group of undead. Unlike the ones before, their modern armour was in good repair, though the padding worn underneath the metal to prevent chafing had rotted away. He bashed out their knees and retreated. While his morning star’s spikes could pierce the chest plate, it was likely to get stuck. It was more practical to immobilize them.

The stench of rot sharpened, and Ephemera’s light flickered. Shocked, Cadfan glanced back at Menes but the man was still fighting. If he was wounded, it was hidden by the gloom and his red armour.

“Holy purification!” Cateline shouted.

The light of her magic rushed out in a cone pattern, and the skeletons crumbled. Oddly, the ones who were safely at the edge stepped into the beam of light. They followed their brethren into oblivion. 

Cateline wheezed. Her tanned skin was sweaty, and she nervously checked for more undead.

“Mana check.” Cadfan kept his eyes on the mausoleum. He had a bad feeling about it.

“Low.” She admitted. “Waves are more draining than a large cast.”

“We should go. We can come back tomorrow and finish the job after we rest.”

“But that treasure reward! You know those scavengers will swoop in and clear the rest of the trash now that we have taken care of-”

“Menes, I can’t finish off undead. It’d be all you. That’s suicide if there’s another wave like that.” Cadfan shook his head. “It hurts my pride too, but we need to be smart.”

A putrid fog exited the stone structure in the middle of the cemetery. Ephemera’s light flickered again as it encircled them, fully obscuring their path to freedom. The temperature dropped ten degrees, and the air grew heavy and hard to breathe. The fog coalescended into a gaunt man. His skin was stretched tight over his near-skeletal figure, but there were no signs of rot like the other undead. He wore a bronze crown on his head.

“A cleric, a warrior, and a paladin walk into a cemetery,” the creature’s voice was like a deep boom of shattering rocks. It echoed in the air and in their bones, as if he was speaking to their essences. “All the undead said ‘party’.”

The living trio stared at the creature, waiting for it to do something. They needed to catch their breath, and this creature seemed happy to wait for an answer to its strange words.

“What?” Cadfan ventured.

“Party. Like a party of adventurers.” The creature explained helpfully. It slapped itself on the leg, and laughed. 

That was when they realized it had told a joke.

“One more?” Menes asked Cateline. 

“It would be a service to all.” 

The creature took that as encouragement. “Have you heard about the carpenter? He became an alchemist when he left the door ajar. A jar. Get it?”

“Ephemera aid me!” Menes ran out the creature, Cadfan at his flank.

While Cadfan’s morning star cleaved through mist that instantly reformed, Menes’ blade was stopped by a dark barrier.

“Oh Ephe! Well met, once again.” The creature chuckled. “I’ve improved over the last few centuries. All of my friends laugh now. Wait. Where is everyone? They should be chattering with laughter.” He looked around the cemetery, occasionally parrying Menes’ blade. He saw the clusters of bones and armour, and his aura increased in potency. “My loyal minions! You!” Fog surrounded Cateline just as she finished her incantation. Light flared around her, but the creature moved through shadow out of its path. He reformed, his hands over her mouth. “Silence.”

She struggled to breathe through the stench.

“I’m a neck romancer, woman.” He added, stroking hers with a near-skeletal finger. “You know. A necromancer, but-”

“We get it!” Menes shouted. He swung his sword at the creature while Cadfan hastily drew a circle with chalk in an open patch of ground. While he could not activate the rune of holding, Menes could after the fact. “You. Are. A. Disgrace. To. Ephemera.”

Earthen shackles clamped around Menes’ ankles, and suddenly the large man was falling forward. The creature used magic to throw a gravestone at Menes, denting his chest plate. Ephemera’s light dimmed as Menes gasped in pain. 

“Sad thing about Ephe, child? She loves it when her priests are murdered as well. I’m her first priest. I should know.” The creature threw Cateline to the side, and his hands shifted into shadowy claws. He was about to swipe down at Menes’ neck when Cadfan rushed him.

With his morning star now coated in the last of their holy water, the creature had to parry Cadfan’s weapon instead of discorporating. When the earth trembled, Cadfan leapt away before the shackles could catch him. He swung again to protect Menes while the man fought to breathe with a dented chestplate. He heard Cateline chant, and his weapon became imbued with her holy magic. It was their last resort in a fight because it used up her mana at an excessive rate. She would not be able to heal them after this.

“Cat be nimble. Cat be quick. Cat is a trick. Like a cantrip.”

“Nonsense.” Cadfan grunted as the creature used its foggy stench to try and enter his mouth. It was hard not to gag as he waved it away with the morning star. 

“By Ephemera’s light.” Menes whispered. His hand was in the middle of a rune he had drawn in his own bloody saliva. Red light flared and the creature was temporarily stunned.

Cadfan bashed its head in, then its chest, and kept striking the mist until it flowed away. 

Cateline saw how its aura was resonating with a small statue near the opening of the mausoleum. It was a small shrine of sorts. “Phylactery is the statue on the dais.” 

Without hesitation, Cadfan ran up to the statue of a woman and destroyed it with a sharp blow. The dank aura of resentment disappeared from the air. The natural scent of petrichor was almost sweet after so much rot.

Ephemera’s light flared angrily around the shattered remains of the statue. Cadfan suddenly realized he had destroyed a goddess’ idol. Thankfully, Menes’ status as her bonded warrior-priest gave him a chance to avoid divine retribution.

“Sorry Ephemera. The lich made it his phylactery. I’ll make it up to you through Menes.”

“Yay. Glory done.” The man wheezed. The red light disappeared from the air, and from his sword.

Cadfan shuffled over to the still-prone Menes, exhausted. Cateline joined them, and they caught their breath.

“Ephemera- ow.” Menes hissed in pain, then continued at a lower volume. “Coin purse has the treasure. He buried himself to reanimate.”

Cateline went into the mausoleum since Cadfan was too tired to stand. She returned with a large bag of gold and a nice necklace. By that point, Menes had recovered enough to sit. Between the two of them, they helped the armoured man to his feet, and the trio hobbled out of the cemetery. 

Only then was Cadfan relieved enough to say; “imagine being stuck listening to that madman for centuries. No wonder they wanted a true death.”

“Absolutely monstrous.”