I went cave exploring once when I was a kid with my uncle. Out in the middle of the mountains, a dark cave that we had to explore with cheap flashlights. It had been frightening but also enthralling to be an explorer in the modern day like explorers of old. At the end of it all I figured out it was actually quite safe and the area wasn’t known for having any predators.

Diving into ancient stale catacombs with a cat girl knowing damn well it was going to be dangerous was a whole different ball park. Worse yet Lin was hoping for trouble. Weak undead were a staple for the low level plucky adventurer to pick off but going up against real zombies was almost surreal. But one fact nagged at the back of my mind.

“Will a single zombie bite turn you into a zombie?” I asked.

“Only if it's a more powerful ghoul. Those have a lot of tell-tale signs and I haven’t felt any yet.” Lin said as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “Hurry up Josh, we don't have all day.”

I turned on my flashlight to help her light the way. The stairs had led down into a tight damp tunnel going off in either direction, the ceilings were arched with reinforcements that had seen better days and everything felt damp. I ran my hand along the uneven walls finding the marks left behind by pickaxes.

Lin took out a circular metal tin and gingerly opened it. I had to crane my neck to see what it was. It was a small well made compass that had signs of excessive use. The small compass needle spun and pointed straight ahead, with our bearing set we were ready to go.

“This looks…safe.” I said, knocking on the walls.

“I’ve seen worse.” Lin said, standing to her full height. “At Least this one is tall enough to stand in, last time I had back pain for days.”

“Which way, captain?” I asked.

Lin sniffed the air and gagged. The air here was foul and smelled of ancient damp decay. Lin produced some squares of cloth and helped me tie a bandana around my neck to help fight off the stench.

Lin’s speech was muffled as she swore. “God’s be damned, I never remember the stink.”

With no real indication of where to go we headed east, keeping an eye close on the walls and floor. My wisdom told me this place was sure to have some level of defences, either a trip wire or pit trap. Just ahead of us the tunnel sloped downwards, but before the next room was a wire as thin as a hair stretched across the tunnel.

Lin held up a fist and I stopped in my tracks. She held up a finger to her mouth asking for silence as she crept towards the wire. I held my flashlight in line with the wall giving her enough light to work with as she took out a set of delicate tools. Using a wire hook and thin pliers she pulled on the wire keeping the pressure on it as the hook undid the connection point against the wall. The end of the wire came out and Lin backed up towards me.

As she dropped the wire I heard mechanical gears spool to life in the walls around us as the metal gnashed together with the squeal of rusted parts trying to move. Lin held a steadying hand onto my knee, telling me to hold still. At the end of the tunnel spear points shot out of the wall attempting to skewer whatever foe might have been present.

Part of the wall to my left crumbled as rust and sludge oozed out of the hole. The trap and mechanisms ground to a halt and silence once again reigned supreme in the crypt.

“Fucking amateurs built this place, your going to barely get any experience here. Now that the trap is gone, want to go first?” Lin asked.

I bundled myself deeper into the cloak feeling cold. The rusted spear points had corroded and broken apart, littering the floor of the catacomb’s tunnel. The mechanism had shattered and the wire was gone meaning there was no threat of it going off again but I still felt hesitant.

Hoping to calm myself and get my nerves in order I checked to see what the experience point gains were.

An ally has disabled a trap.

XP reward divided.

+5 XP to Josh

+1 XP to LIn

It wasn’t too bad all things considered. Lin gave me an encouraging push on the back and I stumbled towards the next room. If she felt it was safe enough to rough house then I should be fine. I walked up to the entryway carefully avoiding the jagged bits of metal still jutting out of the walls.

I stood at the entryway and cautiously took a look inside trying to get my perception skill to work overtime. No pop ups appeared which didn’t fill me with confidence, either there were no traps or I wasn’t trained enough to see them. Traps could always work entirely differently than I assumed, the wire traps didn’t come with any pop ups but that could be a result of how obvious it was.

The room was pretty big compared to the tight tunnel, about thirty feet across and about half that in height with the arched walls. Taking up most of the room were two wide stone shelves. They had cut outs closely packed together to accommodate the multitude of rotting wooden coffins stacked floor to ceiling. The walls had similar cutouts holding onto even more coffins or urns. It was a dead end too, meaning we didn’t have to worry about where to go after.

“Don’t see any traps, I guess it's safe.” I said.

Lin joined me at the entryway and directed me to shine my light around the room for her. It was a slow quiet minute of me listening to my own heart beat as Lin’s eyes darted around inspecting every inch of visible space.

“We are good to go!” Lin shouted, rubbing her hands together. “Let’s crack open our mystery surprises.”

“Lin this might be that grave robbing you were talking about. These people may have been buried and forgotten about, but isn’t it wrong to steal from a holy burial ground?” I asked.

Lin’s ears fell as she frowned looking over the graves. She took me by the hand to the middle of the stone self and tapped her knife onto a metal disc. Rust fell away and I could vaguely make out the shape of the symbol on it. It was too hard to make out what it really was but my best guess was some kind of snake with a fire behind it.

Knowledge : Divine failure!

“This god is a huge prick, which means this is an evil cultist burial ground. So no, I don't feel bad at all.” Lin said.

“Even if you don’t like their god it’s still a holy-”

“Watch out!” Lin yelled.

She had somehow pulled out a crowbar while I was distracted and was cracking open the first coffin. The wet sound of rotting wood splitting apart filled the room as the coffin burst apart. A skeleton and mound of sludge fell onto the floor between us and I had to dance away dodging the foul goop.

Coins, a copper ring and a necklace surrounded the skeleton. The shiny trinkets where begging us to come closer and I could see Lin was stalking around the edge of the goop. We kept our distance at first, waiting for the skeleton to rise to attack us. After nothing happened Lin took out a thin stick, lifting out the ring and necklace. I held the light steady on the coins as she used the stick to move them to the edge of the foul liquid.

“Well I guess he won’t miss it.” I said.

“The afterlife isn’t supposed to be about wealth and all that so if anything we are helping their spirits reach their full potential.” Lin said.

I moved the light around the room checking the lowest coffins and found each of them had a gaping hole in the side. Skeleton hands or shattered bones were visible in the breeches and I got closer to take a look.

Perception skill : Success!

+1 XP gained.

Dried out muck coated the floor near the broken coffins and after a moment I figured out what it was. Small boot prints coated the floor and I could count two matching pairs of them. The muck looked pretty recent and I put two and two together.

“The gnomes already took everything on the coffins they could reach.” I shouted over to Lin.

She came to me and leaned over my shoulder, purring in approval. “Josh, you make me so proud, look at you learning.”

She reached out to ruffle my hair affectionately, but I dodged the attack and backed up into the wall trying to fend her off.

“Get those muck covered fingers away from me woman!” I yelled.

Lin wiped her fingers off on a rag and chuckled. Having failed in her attempted ambush she returned to opening the coffins we could reach, skipping over the lower ones. It took half an hour and we managed to pull in a large pile of loose loot, including an old dagger.

The old weapon had been wrapped in protective leathers that had worn out over the years. They did their job protecting the blade from the worst of the rust, with only a few places having deep rust spots. The blade was about a foot long and came to a razor sharp point.

“Better than nothing, just be careful not to cut yourself.” Lin said.

“Just stick ‘em with the pointy end right?’ I asked.

“See you are getting into the swing of it, now move along. Time is money.” Lin said.

The leather straps on the sheath were stiff and awkward to tie around my belt. After several failed attempts I had to get Lin to do it for me. With the dagger within easy reach I now had some semblance of defence outside my spells and we did one last check of the room.

Perception skill : Success!

+1 XP gained.

A small loose stone caught my attention and I dug at it with my new dagger. Dirt fell away and soon I had dislodged the stone. Casting it to the ground I was left with a tiny hidden pouch and a quick check revealed little gemstones. I stuffed them into my bag for later, I could show Lin after we cleared the place out.

“Onward my faithful companion!” Lin said, dragging me back down the hall.

The west of the entry tunnel rose up a few feet and started to change in style. It was much more refined and polished, the pickaxe markings changes into smooth chiselled wall that glided under my fingers. The floor was even and little lights like the one in my dungeon had been placed against the walls. A sense of grandeur and richness came through the quality of the work on this side, something Lin pointed out.

“We must have found where the lower classes were buried first, this place is going to be way more defended.” Lin said, slowing us down and watching more carefully for traps. “That means we might have found ourselves an untouched jackpot.”

“More deadly traps, how is that good news again?” I asked.

“Because it means more experience points for you.” Lin said.

She slapped me on the back, getting me to move on again, against my better judgement. Ahead of us was a broken down wooden door, bent pieces of reinforced iron stuck out at jagged angles and we came to a halt.

Lin went ahead herself, checking the floor and walls and concluded there were no traps. Someone had beaten open the door when they failed to pick the heavy lock. Lin gave it a quick go and after she jiggled the picks I heard a click come from the lock.

An ally has picked a lock successfully.

XP reward divided.

+5 XP to Josh

+1 XP to LIn

“Not a bad lock, I can see how they had trouble.” Lin said. She removed the lock and the broken chunks attached to it, tossing it over her shoulder. “Too bad our payday might have just gone up in smoke.”

I joined her at the broken door and we checked the next room. It was more squared off and reinforced, with murals covering the walls. A door against the north wall was closed and covered in a layer of dust while a door straight across from us to the west was also beaten open.

We checked the floor but didn’t see any traps or even footprints from the people who had come before us. Once we deemed it safe Lin headed towards the untouched door hoping to get anything inside first before we checked the beaten down path.

The lock proved more difficult and I busied myself checking the murals around the room. What I found didn’t inspire confidence. The images were strange, men wearing the hoods of beasts or dragons while performing rituals. There was imagery of fire, bloody sacrifices and walking corpses. My outlook started to shift, these weren’t the good guys so any troubled thoughts I had about grave robbing vanished.

The lock was finally defeated and I brushed off the pop up. It was just spare change in comparison to battles. After this whole adventure I would take a look over my experience but right now I needed to stay alert. It wouldn’t do well to get distracted now.

Speaking of distractions, Lin was dancing, swaying her hips and jutting out her chest. She lifted one leg and spun around like a ballerina. When she stopped she shot out her hands and waved them.

“Cute little dance, what was it for?” I asked.

“I just hit rank eight in lockpicking!” Lin cheered.

“That's awesome to hear Lin, I guess no door is keeping us out now.” I said to her, the happiness rolling off her was infectious and I almost felt like dancing with her.

“But on a serious note this door is super trapped.” Lin said, waving at the door. “Like going to explode if we open the latch.”

Looking at the door latch I started to get an idea. The room looked well made and reinforced, a little explosion shouldn’t collapse it. Lin had gone to all the trouble to get it open so I didn’t want to miss out on all the waiting treasures. We had gained around the same amount so far that the gnomes had on them. A measly five more gold wasn't getting me anywhere closer to my shrine, it was time to take a bit of a risk.

“What if we tie a string on the latch?” I asked.

“It’s worth a shot.” Lin said. She dug in her coat and pulled out a spool of thick twine. “Hold this and for the love of Heinekia, do not pull on it.”

I held the spool while Lin tied the end to the door. She walked me back into the hallway, while she held onto the twine keeping some pressure on it. When we got around the corner and into safety she let go of the twine and covered her ears. She gave me a nod and braced against the wall.

I tugged on the line and felt the door latch give. The door’s hinges groaned in agony, decades of rust attempting to halt it. After the initial lurch the door made no other sounds and Lin relaxed.

“Guess I was wrong-”

The tunnel shook around us from a deafening blast that tilted the whole world. An incoming wave of dust was visible up ahead and coming at us fast. Lin had lost her balance and was prone on the ground beside me holding onto her head. With no time to lose I threw myself on top of her and held down the cloak just as the dust hit us. Tiny rocks pelted my back and I held my breath as a choking cloud descended on us.

Lin pushed up against me flipping me onto my back and I coughed, fighting to get air. She grabbed onto my arm and dragged me back up the stairs. When we reached the mid way point I was able to finally breathe again. We climbed the rest of the stairs and threw ourselves onto the grass, tearing off the bandanas gasping for air.

Lin reached over to me and rubbed some of the powdered rock off my cheek and gave me a smile. She opened her mouth and started to hack out the gunk in her throat but I got the message.

When air finally started getting back into my lungs I sat up and gestured towards the catacombs. “I think you were right, good call Lin.”

Lin sat up beside me laying her head on my shoulder. She looked dizzy and I put my arm behind her back to steady her.

“I think I have a migraine now. What fucking moron packs that much explosives in an underground place?” Lin asked.

Before I could come up with a funny quip the tower behind us glowed intensely. A red bolt of energy shot out of it into the sky and split apart into dozens of tiny beams that struck the ground throughout the town. My internal alarm bells started to ring and I felt my veins glow hot. This was magic, a lot of magic.

“Oh fuck.” Lin said.

The grounds of the town churned and long forgotten dead crawled out. Even ones with only a few bone shards remaining were reformed. The quickly growing skeletal army glowed with dusky red hues and their eyes burned with hatred. They all were aimed at us, the world was still as if time had slowed down.

“How many do you think there are?” I whispered.

As far as I could see skeletons shuffled on long forgotten bones towards us, down every alleyway and over every fallen down house. There could easily be a thousand bearing down on us right now with even more on the way.

Lin grabbed me by the wrist and we fled back underground. There was no escape route up top, but underground meant we had little other options. The undead horde was a slow moving mass meaning we had precious minutes to ourselves before they could reach us.

We ran past the blown out door, the promise of loot long forgotten. Lin cursed under her breath, even in languages I hadn’t heard before. We didn’t even bother double checking for footprints or traps as we followed a trail of destruction from the previous grave robbers.

“What are we hoping for?” I asked.

“A way into the tower to disable it, find the source and smash it.” Lin said.

“Easier said than done.” I said.

Lin’s grim face and lack of a response meant we were in the thick of it now. I wasn’t a very religious man but hard times called for desperate measures. I started praying to every god I had learned about so far, desperate for one to answer.