The Misfits flew above the zombie hordes the next day aboard the Empress. In an exchange of magical knowledge, Deathberry had been able to help the elves craft an entirely new type of machine. As recompense for this new technology, the elves had left one of the airships and a small crew of elven mages with the Misfits while the rest returned to San Francisco.

Looking below them, the guild could see a vast army that stretched the length of the valley along the river toward the north. Deathberry instructed the elven crew to sail northward and for the first time the Misfits understood what they were going up against. It seemed like every person who’d ever died on the planet had joined the undead army. At the northern end of their valley was a reservoir and it was swarming with creatures they’d not yet seen: giant skeletal warriors, bloated zombies, zombie dogs, and the like. Beyond that it looked like a temple had been constructed of bone and flesh. It pulsed and oozed on the mid-horizon and the Misfits stared in awe at its grotesque caricature.

Just as he was going to instruct the elves to move them closer, Cheezus called out, “Enemies at 10 o’clock.” The group looked off their port side and saw giant skeletal birds of some unknown origin. However, no living creature today had a wingspan as large as these. They must be some sort of dinosaur undead, similar to the mutant stegosaurus they fought back in California.

“Prepare for combat,” Deathberry shouted.

Several elves started casting holy and fire spells. Holy damage was a good idea and one that Deathberry would have liked to implement. Generally, his Change Spell Type ability would have allowed him to alter his spells to better work against his enemy’s weaknesses; however, since holy spells were in direct opposition to his spell school he would have to find something else to work with. Fortunately, undead were often weak against fire spells so he started modifying one of his unholy bolts to instead be unholy fire. Firing one off at a nearby skeletal pterodactyl he closely observed the damage:

-457 unholy/fire

He tried a few more variants but he noticed that while the fire damage that some of the elves were using would do double damage his unholy fire didn’t seem to have the same effect. Trying something different he fired a regular unholy bolt at one of the creatures:

+510 unholy

Just as he’d suspected, they were weak against holy and fire but were healed by unholy damage. They were probably also healed by darkness spells. Being an Unholy Sorcerer, his spells were limited to unholy and darkness spells. Although he did have an illusion spell. Sadly, most undead were too stupid to see the illusion which he suspected was the case for these creatures. After trying a few more spells he gave up. It was probably a good thing that he hadn’t been with the Misfits defending the bunker since he would have been useless. Before they got into their next fight with the unholy army below he would need to secure some new magical spells that would be more effective.

Thag wasn’t having any difficulties whatsoever with the bone fliers. Similar to what she’d done with Linca and Seona before, she activated her new general ability and changed her aura. She and Linca got as close to a group of elven casters as they could and all of them started seeing their spellpower greatly magnified. Quickly, they mowed through the pterodactyl ranks:

-7045 holy/fire/aura boost X7

Instakill

-6722 holy/fire/aura boost X7

Instakill

Instakill

The power of Thag’s new aura combined with the elven casters using both holy and fire damage blew through the skeletal fliers like they were paper airplanes. The fight was quickly brought to a close but the Misfits could see more of the enemy on the horizon. Deathberry was grateful that they had Thag with them and he agreed that he and Cheezus had been foolish to skip that holiday quest. However, it was probably best to retreat at this point as the sky was becoming completely white and gray with bone matter. They weren’t going to be able to get any closer to the origin of these mysterious undead creatures without a great deal more firepower than they currently had.

While the Empress retreated the group had their hands full with more of the pterodactyl like creatures. Some of them even spit acid and had started to damage the sails and rigging. Thag stood in the middle of the deck with her holy powers engulfing several of the crew and Linca in an orb of white. Bolts of fire, flashings of white light, and the like streaked from the center every few seconds downing another skeletal creature.

Cheezus hung from the rigging fending the creatures off as best he could but daggers weren’t ideal for dealing with skeletons and his didn’t have any fire or other magic imbued in them. Apparently, Deathberry wasn’t the only one who would need to figure out a more effective way to fight the undead after this battle.

Seona and Smashit were on the front deck. She was healing him with her nature energy and trying to entangle the creatures as best she could while he taunted them and tried to keep them from burning the ship with their acid spittle. Sean would probably have been better off bringing his Paladin to this fight but it wasn’t like they knew what they were going to go up against when they’d started.

Seeing that they probably wouldn’t make it all the way back to base, Deathberry started scanning the ground with one of the telescopes the elves used for wayfinding. They needed to find a place to take cover but where could they hide an entire ship?

One valley over there appeared to be some sort of cave and Deathberry instructed the helmsman to make haste towards that spot. Hopefully, their ship would still be flying by the time they got there. While Thag’s aura made it possible to keep the mass of the creatures at bay there were just too many of them. It was hard to see the sky behind them as it was filled with bones and silent flapping wings punctuated by the occasional spit of acid.

As they got closer to the cave system, Smashit sent him a whisper, “What’s the game plan?”

Deathberry relayed his idea and directions to the officers and got the thumbs up to proceed. Hopefully, it worked out better than their last plan had. He instructed the helmsman to get them in as close as he could and then cut the sails so they presented a smaller target.

They were inside the outer portion of the cave now and the ground was only about a hundred feet below them. Smashit and Seona jumped off the side of the ship as she cast a float spell on both of them. A few seconds later they had reached the ground safely. “Pull in the sails,” Deathberry called out to the crew. They hastily scrambled up the rigging to pull everything in.

Thag and those with her continued to light up any skeletal fliers that got too close. The noise of canvas blowing in the wind suddenly stopped and the air was still. “Brace yourselves,” he called out. The Empress flew straight down and his stomach lurched. The sensation slowed after a few moments. Seona had caught them with her float spell and was guiding them down into the cave system.

Now protected on all sides but one, the airship’s defenders were able to focus their fire on the remaining skeletal pterodactyls and keep them mostly at bay. Cheezus shouted from deeper in the cave system, “Seona float the ship towards me. I’ve found another bunker and we can had hide inside here.” A few minutes later they were inside a different bunker. The heavily damaged Empress had made it entirely inside except for the main mast which was too tall and had to be speedily chopped down. She wouldn’t fly again anytime soon, Deathberry thought. The only question was where had they escaped to?

He and the rest of the crew were inside the large storage compartment that housed the airship. From down the corridor he heard Cheezus yell out, “Everyone come here and check this out. It’s unbelievable. We hit the jackpot.” Deathberry made his way with the Misfits and remaining elven crew members through a maze of hallways and finally into a slightly larger room that looked like a mechanics bay. Inside were a dozen new Gears.

After that they explored the new bunker thoroughly. It looked like a sister bunker to their own except there was no sign that anyone had been here and when they checked the command panel it didn’t appear to function. Had this been another base that had been under construction by Mr. Tiel’s company? The layout looked similar enough that it could be although certain elements of the architecture seemed too different. When Thag found some weaponry in the gun closet there was a corporate logo on the inside that said Terrazon Megacorp. So, these folks were competing with Mr. Tiel?

“Clearly, we weren’t in the know at the old company, were we?” Cheezus said to Smashit.

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter anyway. Let’s take what we can and try to find a way out of here,” Smashit replied. “It’s going to be a while before we can use that ship though. We probably should check out the rest of the cave and see what’s out there.”