The Light Elves are currently ruled by the Alanthíer family, they are known as Royal Elves and have high affinity with elemental forces. From their capital city of Teilianthar somewhere in the center of the Forest of Tellesear, they have ruled the elven kingdom since its inception before the time of demons. The elves are known for their collective magical might and the mastery that each individual has in their chosen role.

Adrian

The corpse does not respond to the quarrel from Abagail’s crossbow, no perception of pain or being impeded by the wound. It begins to lumber towards us, clearly hostile regardless of the lack of groans or calling for brains.

“Do you think it is viral or a real undead with negative energy?” Bryan asks, calm in contrast to the panic that Abagail has at seeing the walking dead.

“It isn’t breathing so we can assume that it is not some sort of super rabies. Blunt and piercing damage is probably going to be ineffective” I say as I clumsily swing a blade to strike at the corpse’s arm.

Bryan does the same and while the flailing limbs of the zombie prevents me from getting a clear hit, Bryan has better luck or perhaps simply is more skilled and his blade severs several of the muscles of the corpse’s left arm which goes limp. No blood leaks from the wound though the stench of rotten flesh grow stronger as some pieces fall from the creature as its bone becomes visible.

I dodge an arm by taking a step back glad that the corpse is slower than me. A blade passes between the ribs from behind and I can only guess that Tomas is the cause and while it does make it harder for the zombie to move that sort of lethal injury probably does not mean too much to the corpse.

Bryan hacks at the arm he previously injured while I do the same, managing to hit as Tomas’s blade holds the corpse in place. It is not long until the arms have fallen to the ground. I smirk, “disarmed, I don’t think it can do anything to us anymore.”

“That’s a terrible pun” Tomas comments as all our worry over dealing with the creature leaves.

“Shouldn’t you finish it off?” Abagail asks.

“We’ll get to it” Bryan comments before the two of us repeatedly hack at the legs of the creature as it lumbers at us in some form of ineffective charge.

After one of the legs is removed the zombie falls unable to maintain its balance on a single leg and stops moving. Tomas kicks it a few times but it just lies there like the corpse that it used to be.

“I think it’s dead again” Tomas states and Bryan and me shrug in response. It does not really matter if it has lost whatever forces were animating it since it no longer has a method of attack aside from maybe biting those who put their hands in its mouth.

“Onwards then?” Bryan asks.

“Why didn’t either of you use any magic?” Tomas asks Abagail and me.

“I don’t know any spells, we haven’t had time to study with that knight around” she answers before I do.

“Didn’t need to” is all I say.

Not that I have a whole lot to work with. Maybe I can pull some lightning from the clouds or play with fire after someone uses one of the alchemist’s fires but I still need a starting point. Though I might be able to use Spatial Aim for something other than guns. . .

Regardless of my musings we continue on our path towards the graveyard itself. If we are going to get anything useful out of this trip. I also think that sir Brightblade will take his time in getting to the source of the problem.

“RETURN TO THE GRAVE TORMENTED SOUL!!!”

I may be wrong on that note. I look back at the direction of Brightblade’s shout and give a sigh of relief that he is not in sight.

“This way” I say taking the lead once more while feeling out the locations of the nearby death energy. That corpse was a source of it so I can assume that even if it is not negative energy, it is associated with undead.

We turn a few street corners before arriving at the metal gate to the graveyard. The black iron bars rising from the stone wall doing nothing but making the place look more sinister. The gate itself is also made of intricately shaped tubes of metal and are spread wide while two things in rusted chain stand before them.

One of the two look at our group before the sound of bones knocking against each other and an ethereal voice comes from the walking dead man, “no knights? A pity I do love reanimating their corpses. They always have the best reaction when others see them.”

“Sentient Undead or some form of Undead Lieutenant?” I ask.

“Someone that knows a bit of the dark arts, what are you doing here?” the voice within the rotten corpse asks.

“Adrian, shouldn’t we just attack already?” Tomas asks and I sigh with a slight nod.

“Stay back for a moment. I want to try something” I whisper and reach out towards the clouds above as while delving into the Sphere of Lightning.

I feel some small charges, only the potential for a storm but that is enough. I grab ahold of it and force it to grow before mentally pulling it down while gesturing with my right hand. An act that is unnecessary but helps me focus on just what the charges are to do.

A rumble spreads across the sky as small bolts arc towards the clouds directly above us. The undead or its control recognizes something is wrong and charges at us but only manages a few steps before a streak of lightning comes down on it. Thunder sets my ears ringing as that body is rendered inert.

The clouds lighten and while I can still feel a small charge it would take some time to build it up to another lightning bolt. Even so I smile, I’ve always wanted to do that.

“Holy shit” my three friends all say, at least that is what I think that they said, I’m still deafened by the ringing sounds.

The second corpse begins to lumber towards us but it is slower than the first and looks like it is heavier. I don’t smell any burnt flesh so what I just destroyed was probably a skeletal undead rather than a regular old corpse. I also doubt that it was the leader since it was acting as a guard. . .

Abagail fires a quarrel at the second guard and while it punches straight through the chainmail it does not seem to hurt that thing. It is probably a zombie under that armor, this might be a problem since chainmail does well against slashing.

“We need an axe” Bryan comments after finding that his sword fails to cut through the armor.

“Decapitate it! Doesn’t that kill zombies” Abagail shouts.

“No, but it might rely on the head to see” I answer her as if it were a question.

This might be something we should use some of the alchemist fire on though since it is only a single target I personally think it would be better to wait for there to be more undead. Not to use it all at once but that I should be able to manipulate the flames to burn them all.

As the three of us boys continue to try to get a disabling hit on the corpse Abagail shouts out, “there’s more!”

I turn and take a grazing blow to my left arm and see that she is right. Several undead are walking towards us at a slow but stead pace. I disengage from the armored zombie and check the other direction only to find that there two are we being approached by undead. The Graveyard itself has some quiet but strange sounds and I reach out to feel the Sphere of Death.

Many motes of that dark energy are moving towards our position. I retrieve a vial of alchemist fire from my satchel through Translocation Grasp before tossing it at the wooden wall of a house. Sure the village might burn to the ground but I need the fire and the dry wood of the homes is fast kindling that probably won’t go out even if I pull enough fire off of it to burn my foes.

“What are you doing?!” shouts Abagail but I don’t answer, the answer is obvious enough and will only become more so.

The flames race up the side of the wooden building, the wood suffering from the same malady that the front gate did, dry rot. I grab a portion mentally and have it race at the nearest corpse before pushing that flame to burn hotter and faster.

It’s color shifts to blue as the worst smelling smoke I’ve ever smelled rapidly rises from my target before it falls inert.

“Stay close to me” I shout to my friends, there is no way I’ll be able to contain the flames and fight with them but I should be able to keep us from being burned alive.

I smile as watch as my surroundings slowly become ash. Unfortunately, the wooden buildings burn a little too fast and I can hear the screams of the living. I probably accidently killed some of the soldiers. Still the undead seem to be almost as vulnerable to fire as the dry rot wood is.

The flames continue to spread and while I am pushing them away from our immediate surroundings the temperature keeps rising.

“We need to move” Bryan says as Tomas is looking at the flames.

I push Tomas lightly to get him to move towards the graves, which is both our destination and only option. When we pass by the gate there is a ghastly scream that Abagail immediately fires her crossbow at.

It turns out to be a skull, probably a Sentry Skull but there is no way that our location is not already known.

“Adrian, can you teach me firebending?” Tomas asks and I groan.

He only recently stopped bothering Abagail and me about magic and now this?

“That wasn’t firebending. That was just my magic” a answer Tomas.

“Are you sure you can’t teach me?”

I don’t answer and am not the only one to increase my pace. That brings a small amount of comfort that I’m not the only one who would rather rush towards danger than be bothered by ceaseless pestering for something I cannot even give.

After several minutes of walking we arrive at a stone church in the exact center of the graveyard. It’s glass windows stained as if the glass was mixed with the color of fresh blood. The wooden doors are open and unlike the rest of the wood they seem to be in perfect condition aside from stains near the bottom.

Within the church there are no pews only a stone altar covered in bones and burning candles. Behind the altar is a stair well that goes down into the ground.

I glance back for a moment at the inferno that still burns at the entrance to the graveyard. We enter and the wooden floor boards that hold the tiles we stand on creak but there is only silence and the distant crackling of flame.

A clapping sound echoes through the chapel as a figure in black robes ascends the stairs into our sight.

“You’re too late, I’ve already teleported the demonic core away” the figure says.

“What?” several of us ask at once.

“Oh, I didn’t think someone capable of weather control would be a pawn. I suppose you’ll want me to explain it and all.”

“That would be nice” Abagail responds.

“To bad there is no reason to tell one who will soon be dead.”

The figure continues to speak a few more syllables but none of them make any sense to my mind, I can’t even tell the language. A clear rod is extended in his hand and he points it at us.

“Dodge” I shout as I drop to the ground feeling my hair begin to stand on end while Bryan does the same. Abagail and Tomas do not react as quickly and a bolt of lightning launches itself from the glass rod. There is no Sonic boom though the crack of some form of thunder as Tomas is the unlucky one to be hit.

He falls to the ground and while I can see his chest moving I cannot tell in an instant if it is convulsions alone from the electricity or if he is still breathing. I feel my face become wet and I touch my cheek for a second before pushing down my emotions.

Death is all that awaits us unless this thing dies. I rush at the figure while Abagail rushes to Tomas. Bryan likewise rushes to our friend, asking if he is okay.

My blade enters into the body of the figure but I do not feel nearly as much resistance as I should. The cloth catches on a nick of my blade and a ripping sound fills my ears as a skeletal figure is revealed.

There is a disembodied laughter as a torrent of flame spreads out from the body but I grab onto it in my anger and turn it back on the body figure, taking control of his spell and turning it against him. The bones splinter under the heat, far too easily for it to be the source of my torment.

I fall onto my knees in the center of a ring of soot, practically untouched by the flame as silent tears fall. There is a disembodied laugh that fades away as if it were leaving but I know it does not do this because of my actions, in fact there was nothing I could do against it.

A short few minutes later the heavy steps of a knight who was not there when he was needed echo in my ears.

“You have done well hopeful squires. The evil has left these halls, come we must return” the man who can only be Brightblade says completely ignoring that Tomas lies dead by his feet.

I turn and silently pick up my friend's body with Bryan before we are stopped by the prick in plate, “you must leave him. We cannot be slowed in returning to report.”

“He died driving away the creature you supposed to be here to fight. He . . .” I start with venom in my words before the knight interrupts me.

“It cannot be helped, I was delayed by the search for survivors. We must go, there is no time.”

“No, you will either wa. . .” Bryan starts before the knight knocks him in the side of the head with the pommel of his perfectly polished sword.

The unlit candles in the room ignite as I pull fire that was not there from them and throw it at this disgrace of a paladin in the few seconds before my vision goes black after pain erupts from my right temple.