12 Chapter 12 (1/2)
Interlude : Seed of Darkness
Sivanna kept her eyes open, watching carefully for any movements that might trigger a need for her skills. She was an A ranked adventurer, her team was known as the White Gloves. A name that had somehow circulated from her habit of constantly wearing white gloves when she was out. She wasn't even the team captain but somehow the name had stuck. She watched with a small smile as she saw the broad back of her husband, keeping the mid-level undead away from the rest of their team with his trusty adamantium tower shield. To the left was Shava the bladedancer, whirling around with her slim scimitars as she flowed through the slower undead. To her right was Ta'aka, a tiger beastman who smashed through the mummified opponents with raw power, his bandaged fists tearing through body and armour alike. Next to Sivanna was her best friend, Milini her stern face calm as she threw spell after spell at the opponents' backline.
They had been sent to investigate the nearby area, the haunted forest had some medium level undead and was not that dangerous. The threat was familiar and the people knew to stay away, however, lately there had been a series of disappearances. Some people had sighted a new type of monster, something moving in the dark that they could not identify. The local lord had asked them to investigate, normally such a task would be given to a C-rank adventurers team. Her husband Brumm was an old friend of the lord and had offered to take a look. Giving the reason that even A rank adventurers needed to keep their skills sharp with practice, her lips curved as she looked at her husband. Father of her two children and love of her life, the idiot had ofcourse accepted the job for sub-par pay. Not that their team minded, they weren't in it for the money anyways. She let her thoughts drift as they tore through the undead of the haunted forest, she knew in her mind that she should pay attention but these level thirty-ish undead were truly no threat to her team.
As the White Gloves slowly but surely made their way deeper into the forest Brumm stopped, he pointed ahead. His deep voice cutting through the haunted silence of the forest, ”I think that thing is why we are here.”
The rest of the team glanced towards where he was pointing, Sivanna frowned. She read the tag, something she had never seen before, it was... odd to say the least. [C%urrroPt*d uNDe*%d Lev/v/vel :' ??]
”What in the name of Father Sun is that?!” Ta'aka growled, ”I think it says corrupted undead but why are we unable to see it's level? Mili, Siv, do you guys see any magical residue?”
The mage made a symbol with her hand and muttered some words, a sigil appeared in the air, with a stretch of her arms the sigil grew. ”There are... odd traces of magic in its body, it is not something I recognize. We should report this.”
Brumm glanced at the creature, ”Agreed. Mili, if you would?”
She nodded, took out a crystal and started summoning various magical sigils. She recorded the creature and it's data into the crystal, then used another magical spell to send their findings back towards the castle. Such a crystal could be used near infinitely, a message crystal was only connected to a single counterpart. This one was connected to Brumm's friend the lord of Lorro. Once Mili finished with the message and the image accompanying it had been sent she turned back towards her leader.
”Do you want to wait on further orders?”
He shook his head, ”Even if we did wait at most they would send another team with similar strength to ours to investigate, we might as well fight it and see what we can find, record the fight if you can. We are lacking information, the fact that we cannot see its level is odd and could prove a real problem. Let us find out how strong the creature truly is.”
The team nodded, Ta'aka rolled his shoulders, Shava twirled her blades and Milini readied another sigil that hovered in the air and would record their combat. Brumm heaved his heavy shield in front of himself and walked towards the unknown creature. With an inhuman screech the creature rushed towards them even though it had a humanoid appearance it ran across the ground using three of its limbs. The way it moved was unnerving, its limbs and spine bent at odd angles. It's head rotated to face them, it's eyes black with red sparks. Inky black fluid leaking from the corner's of its eyes and from its opened maw. It leaped towards the group, covering an impressive fifteen meters before its momentum was effectively halted by Brumm's heavy shield. He bashed the creature out of the air, Ta'aka moved forward and with a glowing fist bashed the creature's brain into mush. Brumm stabbed his sword into where its heart should be. Rule number one of any adventurer, double check to make sure it's dead!
To the slight surprise of the team, the creature was indeed dead after having its head crushed, some undead would still have been able to move after having been decapitated. Brumm and Milini took a few minutes to do some investigating of the body, all of it recorded by the sigil. The rest of team kept a watchful eye on the forest. Once they were done examining the body Brumm turned and faced the Sigil, ”The creature we fought used to be a mummified soldier around level thirty-five. The corruption... whatever it was, has changed its body dramatically. As you could see from the examination the previously dried out muscles are pumped full of this inky-black substance. Its battle strength has also increased I would give the creature an additional ten levels compared to the normal mummified soldiers. The true question would be if this strength increase would be similar if the substance corrupted other creatures. We will head deeper into the forest and see if we can gather more information. Brumm out.”