In the brief period of confusion as the world manifest, I thought I was fourteen again, waking up after too much stolen gin. Memories flooded in of the abandoned house we would frequent during my extended period of orphan delinquency. I could feel the unyielding wood of the floorboards beneath my back and head. All that was missing was the snoring drone of my unconscious friends and the dull glow of the streetlights through the gaps in the peeled back plywood.

My disorientation gradually ebbed away. The first thing I noticed was that I didn’t feel Cris’s hand any more, only the rough grain of wood beneath my palms. Not quite believing what my night eyes was showing me, I pulled out a torch and my mind reeled. I was in a coffin. The floorboards I’d felt were in fact the base of my narrow prison. In the sudden glare, I was almost as blinded by the light as the lack of it. I squinted as much as possible and the next thing I noticed had my gut twisting. Covering the coffin lid only inches from my face were deep, wet scratches in the wood and two, dangling fingernails. In my claustrophobia induced panic, I stashed the torch and started to punch the lid. The timber started to crack and give under my powerful onslaught, splintering away in chunks. I pulled out my shield and cast shield bash, almost vaporising the age-weakened wood. Blinking away the slivers and dust, my mind almost cracked when I saw the layer of stone waiting just above it.

“Let me out!” I cried.

In spite of the terror clamping my heart in a vice, I realised my voice carried further than the narrow tomb. It wasn’t muted, dull, closed in. Turning to my left, I noticed why and desperately scrabbled through hole that had been torn through the coffin’s side. I landed painfully on the stone floor amidst the debris and shuffled away from the grave lest it try and drag me back inside. I closed my eyes and calmed my racing heart. The shock had just knocked me for a loop.

After a few moments, I climbed to my feet and started to pat dust from my clothing. “What’s wrong with dropping me in a bed like you did in Kherrash? Where the hell am I?”

The answer was staring me in the face, but I didn’t immediately click. All across the floor were chunks and slivers of broken wood and slate. A dozen other nooks contained coffins too, all of them in varying states of destruction. It suddenly occurred to me that the damage caused by my spell wasn’t the only source of the exit hole. Whatever had been laying in the coffin in which I’d awakened had already clawed and broken its way out. As had every other tomb in the mausoleum I was now stood. The thin slabs stone that sealed the coffins from graverobbers lay shattered on the ground beneath my feet. The entrance had been broken open, its iron gate buckled and twisted on the ground outside. I pulled up my flashing quest log to confirm my choice.

Quest – Save the kingdom of Tulahr from the undead legions (World-Main)

Description – Defeat the necromancer Hamon Dred, and his undead accomplice, the Lich King Raz’Gharag.

Reward – Loot Box (Legendary)

Celestial Affinity

Bart, are you there?

He didn’t immediately answer, but with the world being minutes old, I didn’t stress it too much. He was probably flipping switches on the spaceship, setting things up. I took a moment to look around. The dates of death were a mystery to me. Their months and years were nothing like those on Earth.

Mark, can you hear me?

I hear you, mate. That was quick. I was expecting silence for a while.

I was in the can. Sorry.

You were going to the toilet?

We don’t do that. I was just being silly.

Careful, or Sun will punch you in the danglies.

I’d rather she didn’t. How can I help?

Can I change my mind on the world? This is freaky as shit.

I’m afraid not. Cris and the others are being integrated as we speak. There might be a bit of a delay, as there was in Osterland.

I figured as much. I think I’ve got to go and do some brain bashing while I wait. It looks like some of the people buried here have been getting restless.

I’ll be back as soon as I know more about their arrival. Good luck!

Bart disappeared, leaving me in the spooky surroundings of my world-birth. The first thing I did was get myself fully armed and armoured. Spidey was standing by, though I wondered how much use he would prove to be. The dino world had been rough on the poor little fella, and it was only going to get worse. At least Cody had the affinity skill that powered up Red’s combat attributes.

My second act was to pull up the map. It was larger by far than Kherrash, with a multitude of rocky ranges, vast forests, castles, and townships all over the land. I was near one of the towns, smack dab in the centre of the local cemetery.

I guess I was right about the age of the place if there’s still fortresses like that.

At least we wouldn’t be dodging eyes-in-the-sky for our entire time in the world. Just all manner of undead horrors.

Checking around the room for any clues, I realised I was procrastinating. The empty doorway beckoned, but I knew what vileness waited on the other side. As if to reinforce the point, I heard a faint shuffling sound and a forlorn, gurgling groan nearby. Switching between my new war hammer and the trusty bastard sword, I preferred the extra range of the blade and left it equipped.

“Here goes nothing,” I whispered, cautiously approaching the exit.

My field of vision opened wider the nearer I got to the outside. Hundreds of tombstones and dozens of mausoleums surrounded me. A thin layer of mist clung to the ground, adding another layer of creepiness to the scene. I emerged carefully, watching my surroundings. Wandering between the unkempt rows of rotting wooden crosses and skewed stones was an enemy that needed no introduction.

Name – Zombie

Description – A reanimated corpse, doomed to walk forever in death, eating the flesh if the living. The necromantic magic that summons these horrors from the grave makes them extremely hard to kill.

Weakness – Fire

Resistances - Physical

Immunities – Poison. Disease

The disgusting creature didn’t notice me at first as it was staggering away. A faint glow to my right was calling to it from the town’s distant fires.

I took the opportunity to assess the risk of the cadaver. It had once been a woman, but the grave hadn’t been kind. What hair remained was matted with filth and attached precariously to scant patches of scalp. Her yellowed skull was visible through the peeling rot. Judging by the layer of dirt covering most of her body, she’d been buried deeply, lacking the funds to rest forever in a vault. Her dress was nowhere to be seen, leaving the nakedness as another form of mockery to the living. The self-excavation had been even less kind, stripping away layers of suppurating skin to reveal decomposing muscles. In places, the meat had torn fully from her body, hanging in weeping scraps. It left the bone of her forearms completely exposed. Her hands themselves were lost to the soil, leaving only two ragged bone’-daggers at the wrist. Nothing so badly decayed had any right to be mobile. It was as ghastly a sight as I’d ever seen, made worse by the knowledge that she was one among many.

I heard more movement and spun round. A dozen more were shambling their way toward me, groaning with excitement at the meal to come. Their exultations had been heard by the woman who turned around, revealing a jaw-snapping skull with no face. Every natural fibre of my being recoiled at the sight, and for the first time I did wonder if I’d made the right choice. Though they looked as pathetic as any of the Hollywood zombies, I knew their threat came in sheer number and their inability to feel pain. Not to mention the fact they had once been us. How many innocents had died in the movies? Running sobbing to their dear departed, only to get a neck-bite for their efforts of joyful reunion.

There was no alternative to going to war, so I summoned up the courage of one of my heroes. “Time to nut up, or shut up.”

Another group were filtering through the gravestones, pushing the number of enemies up to fifty or so. I hefted my shield and ran for the woman. Drawing near, I held my breath from the indescribable stench that emanated from her body. It was like a physical blow, stopping me in my tracks. She raised what was left of her arms towards me, losing more flesh as it sloughed from the bone.

“Kill the brain, kill the zombie,” I said, firing off a shield bash and immediately regretting it as her distended stomach burst, spraying me with fluids best not ever mentioned again. I forced down my bile as she crashed to the ground, darted forward and stabbed downward, piercing her forehead.

“Well, shit,” I groaned as she continued to writhe in spite of my pinning strike.

Displaying a vigour normally reserved for the living - and whole - she broke free of the blade, opening her skull fully. The black soup inside poured out onto the dead grass and that time I did puke.

All over her.

She didn’t seem overly concerned at being soaked in my recent cup of tea. Trying to climb to her feet, I jumped back and slashed wildly, taking what remained of her head cleanly off. It spun a few times before hitting a gravestone with a dull, wet crack. Though unable to bite me any longer, the headless body stood up and raised its stumps, lumbering forward once again.

“Fuck this!” I yelped, hacking at her knees.

The rotten joints gave way easily, dropping her back to the ground. Knowing I was about to be surrounded, I completed the dismemberment in double-quick time, taking both arms and the rest of her upper legs. When the separate parts continued to twitch, I came close to losing it entirely. I just knew that if she’d had fingers, the hand would be crawling towards me like Thing from the Addam’s Family. Actually, it wasn’t that friendly and beloved, so I changed my view to that of Ash’s self-severed extremity from The Evil Dead. That Thing was an arsehole.

I took the advice of the bestiary tab and dropped a few torches on the separate parts. The mere contact with the fire was enough to have the limbs writhing around in torment. Patches of the rotting meat started to scorch, but there was no spontaneous combustion. Whatever I left of the creatures would need a pyre, and to hold the fuck still while they burned.

As much as I was recoiling from the gore, I was also hardening myself in ways I hadn’t been able to before. Rounding on the approaching crowd, I treated them to a Țepeș Stakes which tore up through their weakened forms. Damaged heavily, any that were ran through by my spell fell in a gory heap. The punctured zombies nearest to me started to crawl over one another, the terrible holes leaking organs and clotted blood. I fired off smite and the night lit up as the brilliant, heavenly power melted them down to a pile of charred bones.

Undeterred by the slaying of their kin, the hungry corpses continued their advance, walking straight through the ash. I called forth my rodent swarm and set them to work on the monster’s joints. For every leg or arm that fell off, the zombies beset one of my minions and tore them apart with nail and teeth. I ignored their shrill cries, knowing they weren’t real. Using the distraction, I hacked at the growing horde, rending limbs indiscriminately. Eventually, after finding no sustenance in the mana-flesh, the zombies gave up the fight entirely and came for me even as they were still being gnawed upon by my matriarchs.

“You just don’t know when to quit, do you?” I asked my festering fans.

They replied with the wet moans of the decayed. All around their feet, my remaining summons vanished in puffs of blue spell-smoke. My limited mana prevented a pike-fest, and I wasn’t keen on using my last reserves to cover myself in more gore from shield bash. I opted instead to keep my distance and use my speed to lop off anything that presented itself. The horde was soon just a pile of quivering parts that held no real threat to me. Their burning would have to wait. Now that the one-sided fight was over, the distant sounds of a much larger siege carried to me on the night air.

I turned toward the distant glow, ready to rain divine justice onto the undead.