After she finished screaming she silently berated herself. What a B-movie thing to do, she thought. Yet looking at the melting face of the dead creature in front of her, she couldn’t help but be repulsed and more than a little scared. Were these the same nasty creatures hanging out in front of the bunker where her real body lay, ready to break in and devour her? She’d hated zombie movies as a kid and always had to look away during the scary movies. Now she was living in one. The only difference was that she had awesome healing powers now that could melt these monsters into oblivion.

Over the next several minutes she did just that – turning zombie after zombie into charred remains. Channeling her magic into an Enhanced Holy Light spell felt like drinking a red-bull and then setting off a massive static shock all through her arm as she pulled the magic out of her and sent it hurling towards her foe.

Smash had aggroed the creatures in the now corrupted Cathedral to him and they attempted to swarm him but he beat them back with a savageness she’d not seen before. Must be his new rage ability. One of them had wiggled through his defenses, past his shield while he was hammering away at two others with his sword. Its dead eyes and bloodstained mouth made her cold with dread. Swallowing the bile in her stomach she pushed down the fear and blasted it:

-7401 holy

Instakill

Despite her aversion to the creatures she had gotten quite good at this. There was a time not that long ago where she’d never thought she’d be the one putting out the best DPS numbers in the group. But there was no time for self-congratulations. Three more undead surged in to replace the one she had destroyed.

Seona and Deathberry were holding their own. Neither of their spells were optimized for killing undead but they had managed to make some modifications. Seona’s blond hair whipped around as she turned and smashed one of the creatures with her staff. She’d summoned the earth elemental behind her to protect her back and its powerful rocky arms smashed any zombies that dared to close the distance. Deathberry was on the other side of the Cathedral, surrounded in fire. He’d had to modify one of his unholy spells to do that and she could see his mana bar was rapidly depleting. Fortunately, so were their foes. There had been about a dozen or so undead at the beginning of their fight and there was no only one creature left of Smash.

Linca heard the smash of wood behind her. The tall wooden doors of the Cathedral’s entry had been torn off their hinges and she knew she would have another nightmare tonight if they survived. Before them were a group of skeletal warriors with swords and shields at the ready. Their bones were grey and brown. Clumps of earth still hung from some of them and they smelled sweetly rotten like the freshly dead.

Unlike the zombies, the skeletons were well organized soldiers. They filed into the great church in an orderly fashion and when Smash moved to intercept them, they surrounded him in a tight military formation. He was flanked and with their shields locked together he had few openings against the bone army. The rest of the soldiers moved in to close ranks on remaining Misfits.

Deathberry moved towards her and they stood back to back. He yelled out, “Don’t let them surround you, we need to break their formation.” Seona moved in and the three of them stood back to back. She then ordered her earth elemental to use its mass to break through and try to reach Smash.

Smash was bleeding profusely from a dozen small wounds. While he was holding his own for now, it wouldn’t take long for the skeletal warriors to break through the rest of his defenses. Unfortunately, he was also far enough away that her healing spells couldn’t reach him.

***You’ve entered Raid Chat***

Linca: I’m out of range to heal Smash.

Seona: I’ve got him.

Looking up, Linca noticed that Seona’s earth elemental was taking all the attacks from the skeletons, shielding her friend’s body as she cast Healing Wave toward Smash. It looked like he was going to make it for the next thirty seconds. They just had to break free and get closer before that time was up.

Like they’d done so before in the Outback, Linca timed her Enhanced Holy Light spells to hit with Deathberry’s fire and they soon had the skeletal warriors surrounding them burned to ash. Just a little further, she thought. Finally, they were close enough so that Linca could add some of her cooldowns to Smash’s to keep him from being pummeled completely by the group that surrounded him. His rage had finally exhausted itself and while he had smashed a few of them to pieces it was clear that he was trapped.

They weren’t far from him and might be able to help but just then more skeletons and zombies started entering the cathedral. It looked like every grave in the adjacent cemetery had opened up and body after body started crawling towards them. The only good news was that these undead didn’t appear to be nearly as intelligent or well organized as the skeletal warriors they were still fighting. Nonetheless, the sheer amount of unholy coming into the Cathedral right now was enough to make Linca grow cold with dread.

***You’ve entered Raid Chat***

Deathberry: I’m going to try something. Linca see if you can use your AOE heal on these bad guys.

Linca cast Healing Aura on the group of skeletal warriors surrounding Smash. Immediately, four of them disintegrated. However, that one spell had taken nearly two-thirds of her mana. Smash broke free of the remaining warriors and quickly joined the rest of them. He flashed Linca a grateful smile.

***You’ve entered Raid Chat***

Linca: The only problem with that is how much mana that uses.

Deathberry: Cool. I think I’ve got a solution to that as well.

He channeled a cast, purple energy coalescing all around his body. A second later Linca felt a surge of mental energy and her mana bar shot right back to full.

***You’ve entered Raid Chat***

Linca: Awesome!

Deathberry: Yeah, I won’t be able to do that very often but glad it works in a pinch.

Deathberry looked exhausted after that spell. Looking down at his mana bar on her raid HUD, she could see it was greatly reduced. He’d probably gave her some of his mana for the cast. Still, that could come in handy considering she could dish out a lot more DPS than he could against the undead.

With the skeletal warriors’ formation broken it didn’t take long for the Misfits to mop up the remaining enemies. The Cathedral was once again silent. Outside, they could hear rain begin to come down on the old stone building. Inside looked like a horror flick. Blood and guts stained the once pink columns and wooden confessionals. The group looked around to see if there were any survivors but it looked pretty grim. Suddenly, Seona yelled, “Hey, one of them is alive.”

They all rushed over to see what she was talking about. One of the townsfolk children was in a corner, hiding under one of the pews. Linca and Seona coaxed him from his hiding place with reassurances. “Are you going to eat me?” the little boy said.

"Of course not, silly. We’re alive,” Seona said. “Everything is going to be alright.”

Linca wondered about the lies that survivors were told. Clearly, everything was not going to be alright for this kid. His parents were probably half eaten in a pile not thirty feet from here. Looking the boy over, she could see he was probably somewhere around 8 or 9 and wore school uniform. He wasn’t an NPC so he didn’t have a level or name above him; however, she did notice something over his shoulder that looked like a debuff. Weird. She bent over to examine him a bit closer and saw his face turn from human to something else. Fangs distended from his mouth and his smile turned into a grimace. Locking on to her, his black eyes looked inhuman. “Linca look out,” Smash said shoving her out of the way. The kid attacked, clawing at Smash’s unprotected face. At the last second, he brought up his shield and knocked the kid turned monster in the face.

Deathberry was casting a spell while Seona ordered her earth elemental to grab the kid but they were too late. He disappeared a second later, the sounds of batwings echoing through the empty Cathedral.

“What was that thing?” Linca asked.

Still looking around, trying to see if it was still in the room, Deathberry responded. “Most likely a new form of undead we’ve not fought. Based on its fangs and intelligence it was probably a vampire.”

“It’s probably still here somewhere,” Smash said. “Let’s look around.” A few minutes later Seona found a staircase leading down behind one of the wooden doors that said ‘staff only’.

Smash took the lead and headed down first. At the bottom of the staircase was another wooden door that looked like it hadn’t been used in centuries. He nodded to Deathberry who watched closely as Smash opened the door, waiting to see if anything jumped out. It was a long dark hallway. Smash grabbed a torch off the wall and lit it.

The chill air of the crypt before them made the hair on Linca’s neck stand up. When they finally found out who was behind all this, she was going to punch them. Their footsteps clanged loudly on the stone floor of the narrow hallway. Beyond the light of the smoking torch, she could just make out dozens of sepulchers lining the walls. “I hate this place,” she whispered.

“I don’t know; it’s got a certain charm,” Deathberry smiled wryly. When she looked at him he had a smug look on his face. He knew that she wasn’t a fan of horror and here they were walking right onto the set of one freaky show.

Several more skeletal warriors emerged from the darkness; however, in the tight corridors they couldn’t use a phalanx attack against them and with Smash defending from the front while Seona’s earth elemental covered their flank, Linca’s and Deathberry’s combined holy/fire spells quickly reduced the defenders to dust.

Around the corner was an open sarcophagus, its stone lid had been pushed slightly to the side. Smash crept up closer to the lid and Linca found herself holding her breath. She had never been particularly into religion before now but she was coming to appreciate the way that her ancestors must have felt clinging to their crosses and praying for the light to save them. As Smash peaked into the open coffin, suddenly the sound of laughter filled the crypt.

“Welcome to my home mortals. Soon you will feed the graves you have trampled on,” the words were ominous and it sounded even creepier coming from a 9-year-old.

With that said, the small boy leapt from the ceiling and was trying to stab Smash. Linca prepared an Enhanced Holy Light spell and was just to release the tension buzzing within her when she was thrown into the crypt wall. Behind them were dozens more skeletal warriors. She could see their sepulchers opening and the creatures bursting forth.

Linca shook away the stun and tried to focus. She saw Seona’s elemental attacked on three sides by the skeletal warriors. She was attempting to help the elemental but her spells didn’t have much effect. Deathberry was attempting to aid her with his fire spells and had begun chipping away at one of the warrior’s health. Smash and the vampire child were wrestling on the ground. Linca couldn’t tell who was winning but they were locked together so closely that she couldn’t get a cast on the enemy if she wanted to.

Finally recovered, she cast Healing Wave at the group of skeletal warriors smashing away on the earth elemental. It had lost an arm and was quickly being depleted of health. If it went down, their entire rear line of defense would be compromised since none of the rest of them could tank these soldiers. Her spell destroyed four of the creatures and she was nearly stunned by the amount of mana the spell drained from her. With Deathberry engaged with two other enemies she couldn’t rely on his help and would have to manage her remaining mental energy carefully.

With the element of surprise now gone, the remaining skeletal warriors were quickly decimated by the three Misfits. The earth elemental also was destroyed during the combat, finally haven been pummeled extensively by the skeletons.

Turning back, Linca saw Smash facing off against the vampire. He had slashed it several times but every time he hit, the wounds would close after a short period of time. Smash on the other hand had taken quite a bit of damage and was down to less than a quarter of his health. Linca healed him up, using one of her lower level healing spells since she didn’t have much mana left herself. Seona was also a healer but had used all her energy trying to keep the earth elemental from being destroyed. They would need to finish this creature quickly or Smash would die. He looked drained from having used up his rage and she could see him taking huge breaths as he tried to stay standing. His stamina nearly depleted, he had few attacks that would damage the vampire left.

If only they had another source of magic. Wait, there was one other magical source they had access to. “Seona, use the ring,” Linca yelled out excitedly. She had completely forgotten about it but they had a ring that could restore a dead creature. Maybe it would hurt the vampire since it wasn’t alive or maybe it would restore it to its previously life. Either way it was worth a shot.

Looking up and wiping some blood off her face, Seona smiled and gave her a thumbs-up. She held up her hand and the ring began to glow. Smash looked at her with a knowing smile and grappled the vampire once more using his remaining strength. The vampire could see that it’s foes were up to something and he struggled frantically against Smash’s iron grip but could not escape. Seona came over to the boy and touched the ring to his head.

Light blinded Linca temporarily and when she could finally see again she saw the vampire on the ground. The terrible countenance he’d had moments earlier was gone, his fangs replaced by regular canines. He was lying in his school clothes and appeared to be fast asleep.

Smash found a sword in the corner of the room and inside one of the burial urns Linca found a small scepter. Seona walked over and gave her a high-five. The horror show was over and Skyrim was safe, she mused, chuckling at the thought.