Frank woke to the sound of knocking from downstairs. Used to sleeping light, he was alert immediately. He got out of bed swiftly, grabbing his mace and moving the cabinet out of his way so he could open the door. It was nearly pitch black in the hallway, but he didn’t light a candle. He made a mental note that they needed to find a supply of candles. It took about thirty seconds, from the sound waking him to Frank standing in front of the main door. He didn’t open it, instead of calling out.

“Who is it, and why are you here in the middle of the night?” Frank asked.

“I’m looking for Frank, uh, I’m Lana, and we traded weapons,” a feminine voice responded.

“Can you let us in? There’s some really scary stuff going on right now.” Her tone was anxious, pitching up with uncertainty, a marked change from the confidence she’d had in Frank’s two previous encounters.

Frank considered for a few seconds, then readied himself for potential combat before opening the door. The wood swung out of the way, casting the weak light of a moon filtered through smog over him. Three people, one of whom was, in fact, Lana, recoiled at the sight of a shadowed figure holding a club.

“Jesus fuck!” the one man in the group exclaimed. He dashed to the side as he did so. Lana took a step back, while the other woman with her froze in shock.

Frank looked them over. He stepped outside and closed the door. “Why are you here?” he asked.

“Fucking hell, this is the guy? Standing there like a slasher villain with a bigass club. Shit scared me,” the man said to Lana.

“Who asked you to be so jumpy?” She groused back.

“Hey, I didn’t see you standing still either,” the man responded. Lana didn’t reply. Instead, she answered Frank’s question.

“Everything just went to hell tonight. I mean, it’s already been like that. It went to hell again. A bunch of things came running over the bridge. We got caught between them and the perimeter that the Provisos had up, so we were on our own. I decided to come here.”

“Why?” Frank asked. He suspected he knew, but he wanted to hear it from her.

“Because you had like five of those ‘equipment’. I asked around, everyone who has one got it as a reward for killing something. I figured you might help us out in exchange for the information.”

Frank nodded. “I’m sure the others will have woken up to this. Wait here for a bit.” Frank went back inside. Maria soon appeared, holding a kerosene lamp.

“What’s going on?” she asked, concerned.

“Visitors,” Frank responded. “Can you get everyone else up?”

Maria nodded. She went back up the stairs. As it turned out, everyone else was just Bill. Rina and Felix soon appeared at the top of the staircase, have come to investigate the knocking themselves. A minute later, Maria returned, a groggy Bill following her. None of them had their weapons except for Rina. Frank noted that, and then opened the door again. “You can come in,” he told them.

They moved to the parlour, illuminated only by the lamp Maria held. Only Lana was armed, and when Frank asked her, she left her sword by the entrance. Eight people stood in a rough circle, Lana and her companions grouped towards the entrance, Frank and the others facing them.

“Can you explain in detail what happened?” Frank asked.

Lana nodded. “I was out looking for stuff with Tara and Daniel.” She gestured to her two companions. “We had gone looking for watches. I saw your Rolex was still ticking, and I figured that mechanical watches still work, so it’d be good to get one. I had no idea where to find them though, so we were out searching. It had gotten late, and we were going to head to Daniel’s apartment, which was just outside the perimeter. But then we heard shouting and screaming.” Her face visibly shuddered as she recalled that, and her voice struggled to stay even. “We went to see what was happening and we saw a couple of people get run down trying to get to safety by these things.” She broke off.

“Fucking burned looking things with flames for eyes. Ran so fast too,” Daniel continued for Lana. “No fucking way we were gonna deal with them, so we booked it the other way. When we were figuring out what to do, Lana brought up this Frank guy, so we came here. Seemed better than just hiding somewhere.” Daniel didn’t look too good either while recounting things.

Frank nodded at their story and then got into action. “Maria, grab some lamps, we need to light downstairs. We’ll move everything essential upstairs. Everyone needs to get their pack ready in case we have to leave on short notice.”

“You think they’re gonna come here?” Rina asked.

“They could. I wouldn’t say it’s likely, but we should be prepared for that,” Frank said in response. “We’ll need to keep watch. One person watching the back from upstairs, one person watching the front.” Frank looked at his watch. “It’s about ten-thirty right now, so we’ll need two shifts. I’ll go first with Rina, Bill and Maria second. Four hours each.

“What about us?” asked Daniel.

“You can stay the night. Take one of the empty bedrooms for all of you,” Frank answered. He could keep an eye on them. He didn’t plan on sleeping tonight, even though he was only taking watch for half of the remaining night. He could catch up in the dungeon. Frank addressed everyone there. “Start moving stuff.”

Maria went to grab the lamps, and with sufficient illumination provided by three of them, Frank’s group got to work. Lana and her companions stood around awkwardly until Maria unceremoniously dumped a pile of stuff into Daniel’s hands and pointed up the stairs. With them helping, it took around twenty minutes for things to be moved about to Frank’s satisfaction. The master suite had a balcony on the side of the castle, to which Frank secured a rope. If they had to leave, Frank could just jump down with his physical stats, but the three visitors probably couldn’t. He left it coiled on the floor, ready to be thrown over, and explained that was the escape route if necessary.

That done, there was not too much else to be done. Frank moved furniture in front of the first floor doors and blocked off the path from the back door to the stairs, but that didn’t secure much, given he hadn’t had time to board off the windows. If something came in, it’d be through the stairs. Frank went to take his position for the watch, while everyone besides Rina went to their rooms.

Four hours passed without incident. Realistically, given the position of the castle, all Frank could do was look for movement immediately around it. Nothing came close to the place while he was watching. After grabbing Maria and Bill, he relieved Rina and went to his room. He wandered over to the window, peering out while keeping his ears open for something happening inside. That something came when he heard footsteps approach his door.

“Come in,” Frank said, wondering who it was.

“Frank, there’s something out there, come take a look.” Bill’s voice sounded through the door.

Frank walked out into the hallway, and Bill lead him to the study. They both looked out the large window along the outer wall of the room, peeking around the edge of the curtains adorning it. Frank saw it immediately. It would be hard not to, given that the figures walking around were smouldering like embers, giving off a faint red glow.

“What do we do?” asked Bill, worriedly.

“Go wake everyone else up, and get ready to move immediately. Other than that, we need to wait for sunlight,” Frank told him while keeping an eye on the figures. Bill went away to do that, and Frank watched as the number of things milling about the yard started to increase. He frowned at that.

There was no reason for them to be congregating around the castle unless they knew something was here, or there were so many they were overrunning the entire region. Neither was a good thing. The increase in numbers was a huge problem, but he didn’t trust anyone else to be able to work at night. If they kept building up he’d go as soon as the predawn twilight permitted. It was a shitty situation no matter what, but being able to see was necessary.

Bill had everyone up and gathered in the study, at which point Frank started checking each window on the top floor, spotting as many creatures as he could. He saw eleven of them, scattered throughout the grounds, but concentrated in the direction of the front gate. That was potentially relieving, as it indicated they hadn’t made it over the walls, and that it might be possible to hold that entrance and systematically clear them out of the property.

Frank pondered what to do as he made a second pass, and spotted two more. He wasn’t getting a system message, because they were a ways away and obscured by darkness. He couldn’t see them clearly enough for the system to acknowledge that he had observed them. That meant he had no idea what level they were. Given they were so clearly related to the now mostly spent fire across the lake in Bellevue, there was a chance they were high enough levelled to pose a serious threat. Death and misery always made things worse, in Frank’s experience.

Frank returned to the study, looking at the people gathered. The thick curtains were enough to block lamplight from escaping, allowing the room to be at least dimly illuminated. Frank explained the situation as he saw it.

“At least a dozen things, mostly humanoid, have wandered through the front gate. They pose a serious threat, especially since they seem to be related to fire. This castle is stone, but there’s enough flammable stuff in it, enough wooden beams and floors, that if a fire started, the whole place could go down. We aren’t secured against them gaining entry either, they can break a window for access,” Frank led off, describing the situation. Worried reactions played across the faces of everyone present. Frank continued. “We need to clear them out, and then secure the entrance. We are going to do that as soon as it’s light enough to see.”

Maria and Bill nodded. Neither looked happy, but they agreed immediately. The responses of the others were decidedly less encouraging. Rina looked worriedly at Frank.

“Can we deal with that many?” she asked. “None of us have ever done anything like this.”

It was a good point. He’d always had them fight with a numbers advantage, while he was standing by to step in. He’d prefer not to throw anyone into the fire like this, but circumstances demanded it. If the creatures kept building up, then eventually it’d reach a point where he’d be the only person still able to escape. Everything that he couldn’t carry would be cut off and likely destroyed.

“There isn’t a better choice. If these things keep coming in, then we need to go as soon as you all can see.” Frank saw the fear in her eyes. Felix started praying to himself after Frank’s last sentence.

“Prepare yourselves as best you can. This is unavoidable,” Frank stated flatly.

“What about us?” Lana asked.

Frank looked the three over. “If you come with us and help, then you can stick around for the time being. If you don’t have it in you, stay inside. If we succeed, then I’ll let you stay only until I can get you to the beach. From there you can do as you please.” Frank left unstated what would happen if they failed, or if they were forced to flee.

All three of them agreed to come along. Only Lana was armed, so Frank set about finding the other two an improvised weapon. Daniel was given a metal curtain rod, and Tara a wooden bat, signed by someone Frank had never heard of. Bill looked aggrieved when Frank took it off the wall. After that, all there was to do was wait. Frank kept checking the numbers outside, his tension building as they steadily grew. Everyone else fidgeted uneasily, afraid to make too much noise and potentially alert something, too unnerved to speak to each other.

When it was finally light enough to go, there were over twenty of the things. Frank didn’t tell them the numbers. It would only cause more distress. He just slipped his arm through his shield and hefted his mace.

“Time to go,” he said, heading for the front door.

They stepped out, Frank in the lead, Bill and Maria bringing up the rear. Felix had waited until the last moment to conjure his blade, in case it alerted the enemies outside, and took one flank, while Lana took the other. Frank ensured that Maria was beside her so that she could be covered if need be by both him and the most competent fighter among the rest. Rina and Tara had hesitated, stepping out, but a gentle push from Maria got Rina going. Tara, however, stood still at the door’s entrance, unable to deliberately put herself in harm’s way. She probably wouldn’t have been helpful anyway, thought Frank.

Burnt Husk of Vengeance(Level 4)

It took less than fifteen seconds for the first creature to notice them, and when it did it shrieked loudly, rushing forward. Its bipedal form loped unnaturally across the lawn as it beelined towards Felix, who blanched in fear. Frank shoved him aside and met the creature with a shield slam, knocking it off balance, leaving it wide open for a blow from his mace. He whipped the end of his weapon into the creature’s side, caving in its chest. Immediately, Frank turned his attention to their surroundings.

The scream had attracted the other creatures, and they streamed forward. Frank immediately pointed to the wall of the castle itself and ran there himself. He engaged the second creature to arrive solo, while the rest of the group moved past him to the wall. Frank smacked it across the knee as he backed towards the others, sending it spinning to the ground as it suddenly lost the ability to support itself. It screamed angrily and crawled towards him.

Frank relinked with the others just in time for three of the husks to arrive. He met one, while Bill and Maria stepped forward to deal with the others. They now formed a tight semicircle along the exterior wall of the castle. Rina and Daniel were in the back, while Frank, Maria, and Bill met things head-on, and Lana and Felix filled the gaps.

A stone from Rina pegged one husk right as it got close to Bill, and though it recovered almost immediately, the momentary loss of body control was enough for Bill to hack it down. Frank and Maria met their’s at the same time, but things immediately went poorly. Maria took a careful, defensive stance, but the husk that she had positioned herself to meet veered past her. Her spear thrust out, but only caught it in the torso, slowing it slightly as it shrugged the hit off and went straight after Frank. Frank had just met the first one with a shield blow, knocking it back just as he had the other two when he registered the second husk approaching him. He turned to face it just as it leapt at him. It dove straight for his midsection, but Frank had his shield out, managed to avoid getting tangled up with the thing, knocking it down at the cost of taking a step backwards.

The other husk had time to recover, but Daniel took the initiative to jab at it with his curtain rod., keeping it at bay briefly. Felix stepped forward to swing his ice blade at the downed creature, so Frank pivoted back to the other one, trying to end it quickly. The third wave of five husks was nearing, and more were close behind. Frank swung out, and in a fortuitous bit of timing, Daniel jabbed the husk in the leg, holding it briefly in place, leaving it helpless to do anything as Frank’s mace crashed into its head.

The defeated husks, a few seconds after being slain, roared alight in a pyre of flame, burning away to nothing. The heat was so intense that anyone near one was forced to step back, Frank included. He was momentarily blinded by the sudden flash of bright light, as unfortunately, he’d been staring straight past a corpse when it flared up. He backed up, making a sweeping swing in front of him with his mace as his vision quickly returned. What he saw was four figures rushing straight at him, heedless of the others.

Frank stepped sideways, towards the leftmost husk, to avoid having all four reach him at once. That was all he had time to do before they were upon him. A stone from Rina dropped the trailing one, leaving Frank with three of the things ready to tackle him. He blocked one and dispatched a second with his mace while the third cleanly tackled him. Frank allowed himself to fall into a backwards somersault, simultaneously throwing the body that was on top of him past and behind him. It weighed less than a similarly sized human, and so with Frank’s power, he was able to clean launch it six feet past him into the wall. He didn’t have time to deal with it though, as even though he sprung back to his feet like an acrobat, the remaining one was upon him. He hastily stepped in and mashed his shield into its gut, stopping it dead. It clawed at him, but Frank shoved it away.

The others were slow to react but did attempt to help. Felix moved over to finish the one Frank had thrown, while Daniel stepped around to the side of Frank and kept poking with the curtain rod. It wasn’t going to kill anything, but he was unexpectedly useful. The creatures were focusing on him, Frank realized. So did Maria, as she pivoted away from Lana, Bill, and Rina, who were dealing with the one that had tried to get to Felix, in order to support Frank. That was just as well because a steady stream of husks began to set upon him, even before he’d dealt with the previous wave entirely.

Frank, with the assistance of two people disrupting anything that came at him, started beating down everything that stepped in front of him with one or two movements. He didn’t trust either of them to cover him, but they were effective at disrupting the husks, allowing him to knock them down consistently. Bill continued to engage enemies one at a time, cutting them off and forcing them to deal with him, while RIna showed surprising mental fortitude and stepped up with her sword to help him. Frank didn’t like seeing Bill step out like that. He was making the assumption they wouldn’t converge on him, but he was too busy fighting himself to give any direction.

The fact that they focused on Frank was, in the end, a blessing, as it meant that no one besides him dealt with the full brunt of the assault. Though they were close enough to retreat to the door if need be, it proved unnecessary, as outside of the initial surprise at the suicidal and single-minded tactics of the husks, Frank was completely in control. It wasn’t even three minutes before the worst of it was over. The steady stream of husks depleted, and Frank immediately called for everyone to move.

“To the front gate!” he yelled and began moving there himself.

The others moved to follow him, and without the advantage of numbers, the fact that Frank was the target just meant he dealt with them before they could pose a threat to anyone else. Arriving at the front gate took several more minutes. Once there, Frank gave instructions.

“Hold this point. I’m going to make sure there aren’t any left on the grounds. One of you keep watching back inwards in case something finds you, everyone else be ready to deal with anything that comes your way.” Frank instructed, before moving off on his own.

He found four stragglers, which he took care of, over ten minutes of searching. As well, there were two spots where the husks had started a more permanent fire with how they went up upon death. Frank returned to the gate and grabbed Daniel to help him put out the blazes. Without access to large amounts of freshwater, he’d have to smother them, which meant dirt and a shovel. Daniel followed him closely, treating proximity to Frank as equivalent to safety.

“How’d you get so good at fighting, man?” Daniel asked, curiously.

“Lots of practice,” Frank responded.

“Yea, but like, against who? Who’s fighting with swords and shit? An hour with you and Lana cut down one of those mixed up animal things herself. You like a Shaolin monk or something?” Daniel kept talking, nervousness obvious.

“HEMA,” Frank said. “They’re all over the place.”

“That renaissance fair shit? Naw don’t front,” Daniel replied. “I took five years of karate and it didn’t teach me anything like that. You were fucking shit up.”

“Don’t know what to tell you,” Frank answered. Frank idly wondered if karate would have accounted for part of Daniel’s competence in the fight. Probably not, he concluded. The man was just decisive and level-headed enough to try and help.

“Well if you don’t want to say it, whatever. Not like you owe me an explanation for anything,” Daniel kept going as they rounded towards the back of the house. There, a small garden plot provided the necessary material, and a wheelbarrow left outside the means to transport it. Frank broke the lock on the garden shed to grab a pair of shovels, and the two quickly filled the barrow.

“Why were those things going after you specifically anyways? Not that I’m complaining, made it safer for me, but that didn’t make any sense? You and the guy who could do magic. I saw one went for him. But mostly you,” Daniel chattered. “This whole situation doesn’t make any sense though, so I don’t know why I would expect you to know…” he trailed off

They arrived at the first fire, which had grown slightly but was still no larger in area than parking space, and the wheelbarrow was soon emptied to smother it. One dump of soil wasn’t enough, so they made another trip, before heading over to the other fire, which fortunately had not spread super far, and soon was smothered as well. Daniel did not stop talking the entire time. After several minutes of quick work, Frank led him back to the front gate, and everyone else.

“We need to secure this immediately,” Frank told everyone upon walking back. “That means we need to be able to physically block it with something hefty. The easiest thing to do would be to find a van on the road and bring it back but to do that we’ll need to go searching for it. In the meantime, the gate has to be defended. I doubt these things are going to stop coming.”

“Why didn’t we do that before?” Maria asked.

Frank tamped down a surge of annoyance. “I made the call to do something else,” was all responded with. He left implicit the question of whether she had a problem with it. Maria met his eyes but didn’t argue with him.

Frank considered who he wanted to send where. That he’d go out was obvious, but past that, he didn’t know. It could take a while to find something that was both large and still in good enough condition to roll. Anything that was on the road when its driver disappeared was liable to crash and anything in park was going to be too difficult to move. He needed people to help him drag and push it back. He’d have to do the biggest chunk of that job, due to his strength, so he also needed someone reliable to watch the surroundings.

The problem was anyone reliable would be valuable watching the gate. Frank mulled the dilemma over. Eventually, he decided to take Bill and, if he agreed, Daniel. The man didn’t owe him any allegiance though, so if he declined Frank wouldn’t worry about it. He had a feeling none of the three would stick around, once Frank followed through on his earlier words and sent Tara packing. Maria, Rina, and Felix would hold the gate, with Lana helping. If Daniel didn’t want to go, he’d stay too, and Frank would hoof it with Bill alone. Just thinking about it left Frank with some serious trepidation. None of them were reliable. He wanted his old comrades back.

“Bill, come with me. Daniel, I’d like you to come too,” Frank said.

Daniel declined. “Naw man, I’ve got a curtain rod. It’s like, pretty solid for a curtain rod but I’m not going out into avoidable danger with a curtain rod. No offence man.”

Frank briefly explained to everyone left behind how best to guard the gate; have two people there and focusing on the surroundings for twenty minutes at a time and rotate them. Everyone else would be on standby nearby, that way they’d all avoid too much mental fatigue. That worried him too, that someone might crack under the tension of just waiting for something to try and kill them. He couldn’t fix that though, seasoned survivors with a wealth of life or death experience were in short supply.

Feeling more than a bit of worry at what would happen while he was gone, Frank left, Bill following behind, to search the surrounding area.