Tyson prowled in the shadow of his Master. The thought heavy with distaste. But the emotion disappeared behind a much bigger feeling, anticipation.

The ancient door seemed to call to him, resonate with his spirit.

With heavy steps Lucy walked towards the door, holding up the her lantern so that the fickle glow could illuminate its facade.

Intricate carvings, all pictures of a man fighting the armies of their kingdom, killing hundered with a wave of his hand. A strange magic at his command.

An ancient power seemed to emanate from behind the gate, and Tyson could swear he saw shifting shadows leering at them from beyond the light.

Gleaming into the eyes of the fool, he could see his ignorance of the danger ahead. For the briefest of moments he contemplated to wait, for Sara would come to rescue them sooner or later.

No, there could be something usefully in there, something giving me an edge for my next evolution. Something…

He shook himself, concentrating on the here and now.

Lucy had found a magic switch on the gem in the had of the ancient hexenmeister, but after a low rumbling and some dust falling nothing more seemed to happen.

So now, she with the help of Michael were trying to peer the heavy door open.

A thin gap was created and a thick presence started to pour out.

Tyson's ephemeral form stiffened as he felt the air grow heavy pressing against him.

The flames behind them flickered.

Michael, to his credit, tensed up and walked forward almost silently, took the lantern out of / hand and shone the light through the gap.

„Seems clear.“He whispered but refused to relax his guard.

Shifting sideways he pressed himself through the entrance, followed by Lucy. Tyson went last, a strange feeling in his gut.

Fear is the mind killer, control yourself.

A perfectly spherical room laid before them, although the light of their lantern only reached halfway across towards the statue in the middle. It depicted the same middle aged stern man, clad in long robes.

A set of ruby eyes stared down at them.

But that wasn’t what drew their attention, instead they stared at the old skeletons around the room some of them cad in armour and clothes century’s out of style.

A few rusting and broken weapons laid on the ground.

There were around ten of them.

Michael placed the Lantern behind him and readied shield and sword.

Most of them had broken bones and missing limbs, but they couldn’t spot a single trap across the room.

„It should be the statue, no one builds something like that without some creepy magic inscribed into the gems.“

Michael whispered, and Tyson silently admitted to agree.

Then, something on a corps leaning against the statue coughed his eyes. Silently slithering forwards, he stared at the spine of the victim.

„There are bite marks on the bone, looking like … human teeth?“

An instant later, an old broken axe sailed right by him sinking deep into the skull of the skeleton.

Turning around he could see Michael shrug.

„Sounded much like zombies to me?“

On his clue, the statues eyes seemed to gleam, becoming more than the mundane.

Slowly the skeletons rose to their feet, like puppets held by invisible strings.

Lucy readied her spear before her, calm and composed.

„Might have underestimated you, to think you would even know stories of the walking dead. But be careful of stories, they don't always show the full picture.“

She attacked.

„They are held together by strings of magic impossible to break on with our order. We can only incapacitate them, or destroy them so thoroughly there is nothing left to puppet.“

As if waiting for her command, the headless skeleton next to Tyson clawed itself up.

The dark magic hung thick around their bones, almost obscuring them to his sight.

Their shades of power almost looked like people.

Without hesitance, Tyson glided up the Statue and studied the eyes.

Immediately he formed shadowy claws and tried to pry apart the magic.

Sadly his weak limbs found no purchase on the smooth stone, and he needed to stop.

It sounded reasonable so he looked down to see Michael fight.

They would be able to survive, he assessed but they would be wounded, exhausted, slow.

And he really wanted to go deeper, before Seria could find them.

Sadly his Arsenal was limited. In melee he would be torn to shreds, and every one of his more powerful rituals required sacrifices.

He closed his eyes and remembered the lesson Brom had given him only hours before. Against ephemeral beings spirits and remnants, hexes were extremely effective.

He imagined a flower slowly shrivel up and die, removed from the water. Grasping the feeling weaving it into his grey mana he shouted out concentrated on one of the skeletons.

Wilt

His will punched through the skeleton like it was made of air. Within moments it started to to decay, bones cracking under its own weight. Only a pile of dust was left.

Then he felt the emptiness.

Checking his status Tyson had seen that the technique had drained a whole four points of chakra. That was immense, worlds above anything his class skills drained. No wonder some people went their entire live learning not a speck of magic.

„That was damn strong attack, can you do it again?“

Michael shouted but he ignored the terrorist.

Destroying them all would cost him roughly forty points of chakra, not something he could afford.

For a moment he was stunted as the desperate fight raged on. Then it clicked.

His hex, like all direct magic, was hindered by lives resistance to tempering.

And in this twisted world even remnants were counted as alive.

But despite the heavy aura, thick with death, they were just constructs, puppets of the ruby eyes.

A grin stretched over Tyson's face.

Trusting his stealth, especially against magical means, he flowed down the statue and wound himself up on a skeleton without legs.

Reforming his claws, he etched runic circles into the skull, densely packed symbols to construct a ritual of his own creation. Now, normally the ritual wouldn’t work lacking in fuel. And draining others magic was difficult as all beings from ant to evil overlord had a natural protection against direct magical influences, although their effectiveness varied.

That's why you traditionally killed your offerings before they could be drained.

The skeleton ignored him, not afraid of his scratches.

A pulse of grey mana to start the ritual announced its doom.

Still walking forward, its movement became sluggish and lethargic, the thick red aura draining away into a grey vortex.

Already Tyson moved to his next target.

Not even twenty seconds passed before the room lit up in a burst of pale blue light.

Flames, in the same unnatural colour started to surge towards the celling burning the bones to ashes.

Michael and Lucy were smart enough to kick and push away the undead around them, before they themself were consumed by the growing inferno.

For a moment everything stilled and a strange calm settled around them. Then, the morass of dark magic flooded them again, only now having somehow become less of itself?

Lucy shot Tyson an approving look and walked towards the statue, trying to pry away the ruby's. Sadly even with liberal use of violence, she had no success.

„That was amazing, you are the damn best familiar I could hope for pal. Since when can you use those things?“

Annoying terrorist.

„Brom taught them to me. The ritual cost almost all of my chakra though.”

A blatant lie obviously

“He said I should be prepared to face some of the more common monsters, never thought it would come in handy so soon.“

Lucy, behind Michaels back, gave him a knowing smile and turned away again. A shiver went down his form.

The boy tried giving him a fist bump but he shifted away.

Annoying, for that I should rip him ap…

He ignored the strange train of thought and kept focusing on his objective.

A scowl crossed Lucy‘s face as she hammered at the stone around the statues eyes leaving not a single scratch, before shifting into a look of resignation.

Michael meanwhile picked up the lantern and searched the room. Besides a few ancient coins, they found nothing important.

Finally they opened the door leading deeper into the temple.