The next day, he worked with the Geomancer to install those alarm-ward stakes. Spiking the things into the ground to form a line, Vonn started to see a vague haze if he stuck his snout almost up against it. That work took a little pressure off of the guards but now, someone had to remain in one small area at all times for the ward to work. Or their maker had to stop by every few hours to poke them, which wasn't practical due to the several-mile walk. The point of this new ward was to detect any undead tromping toward Shieldpoint by the most direct route.

Vonn, Tazo, Kotta, Polestar and the Geomancer traveled armed and accompanied by several burly men from the riverside slum who wanted to see what the fuss was about. (The Baron had decreed that it couldn't be hidden forever, so the town might as well let people see the truth instead of making up nonsense.) Together they came within sight of the dungeon zone and Vonn got his first look since its transformation.

The land had merged with the dungeon and erupted from underground. Where once had been several hills on sloping ground, with entrances to the iron mines, now it looked like a mass of fanged maws of stone. Most of it was mottled with the same sickly hue like ultraviolet lighting, making it feel dim even in daylight. There were right-angled trenches and at least one leading farther underground. His Earth-imported brain helpfully supplied sinister video game music.

Tazo bristled. "What is that blobby thing?"

Vonn followed her pointing and saw the horrible creature with the wandering eyes. "Grimace," he decided.

"But it hasn't got a mouth."

Polestar snorted. "I second the name. Makes it ridiculous."

Kotta said, "I see the bone-insect critter you mentioned... two of them. Great."

One of the river travelers whistled. "I guess you can at least scoop treasure out of there without going into the tunnels."

"So far as I've heard from the Baron's team, there isn't much loot and no magicite."

"Then what's the point? The gods don't make these things useless, right?"

"I guess not."

Ian the Geomancer began instructing Vonn and Tazo, pointing out features of the corrupted landscape. There was a clear transition area where the dungeon's influence ended. "The delvers said that the monsters do leave the zone. Which tells us what?"

Tazo answered, "The monsters it constructs are true undead, not just the usual sword fodder a dungeon uses to challenge us."

"What's the difference?" asked Vonn.

"A stable magic pattern that isn't tied to the core itself. It's like it's making these instead of treasure."

The travelers exchanged a worried look. One said, "Some kind of sick Necromancer trick?"

Ian said what he was allowed to. "Yes. So we're fixing that. The local Necromancers were not involved in causing it, though."

"But they're here!"

Vonn looked again. A party of six people, three of them in the grim robes of the Bonefire Guild that operated on a swampy bit of shoreline, all armed. They'd come from due south and now approached the site. He looked to the others and asked, "What do we do?"

"Hail them!" said Tazo, who'd heard too many of Vonn's stories. She called out and waved. They waved back and changed course.

Meeting up in the middle, the lead Necromancer said, "We're hoping to pull one of the weaker creatures out." He smelled of river muck and preservative chemicals. "It could be stronger than a regular zombie, and learning its secrets is useful for fighting it."

Their usual technique was like a phantom leash. "How does that work?"

"Cover us and watch. Run if the blob thing gets interested."

Vonn's group reluctantly joined in, heartened by strength in numbers and by having some relevant experts. They crossed a rough line in the ground where grass gave way to dark stone. Everyone looked around, weapons out. Ahead, a trench crossed their path.

Polestar looked angry to be here, but hadn't complained. He pointed with his spear, saying, "There. That's new."

The beast blundering around in the trench resembled a bull or a gorilla, hunched over with a head of swept-back horns. It made a low-pitched thump as it walked.

"This is a good place to try," said one of the robed men. Their leader nodded. The third ignored the beast and kept watch.

Vonn tried to see what the guildsmen were doing. "You're trying to sense necromantic energy?"

The watchman nodded. He threw back his hood to show a sickly-pale Human man with inky black hair. "It's not an absence of life, but the opposite. Yet it can bring movement and action."

Ian asked Vonn and Tazo, "Have you done sensing spells yet?"

Tazo nodded but Vonn hadn't gotten that far. So really, Vonn had been working blind with his magic, paying little attention to what he was conjuring or healing, and hoping that throwing Mana into a job would make it work. He said, "I'm letting something sneak up on me, aren't I?"

"You tell me," said the Necromancer. The rest of the group was looking around too. "Where does the energy flow differently?"

Differently? Vonn knew the beast pacing the pit below was running on anti-life energy, so he tried to sense how it felt at a distance. Between wary glances all around, he let his mind slip into the state of focusing on the magical layer to things. Nothing stood out. He frowned. He began trying to conjure a healing spell, but with no targets to latch onto he couldn't manage it. "Can't tell," he said.

The other two robed men seemed to be pantomime fishing. They were reaching toward the oblivious creature with large gestures. It wasn't raw mystic force, but with Tazo starting to figure things out, she was able to point out the path of the faint, shadowy threads they were casting. It made him queasy at first sight. Where a healing spell pumped Mana into repairing flesh, this kind had some nasty leech-like effect that stuck on the beast and gradually drew its attention. It looked up with solid black eyes.