by Saless
Chapter 50

The stone lid of the sarcophagus crashed down with a deafening crash. Inside was a corpse that was better preserved than most of the others, and clothed in plate mail armor. A spear was held in one hand, and a shield in the left. Erica looked on in horror as a red glow suffused its empty sockets and it sat up. "Mike, can you hold this door?" she asked.

"Yeah, I think I can." Mike replied, and threw himself into the corridor, thrashing around with tail and sword with abandon.

Erica turned to face the undead creature rising from its tomb and stepped forward with sword raised. "Stand back Sarah!" she yelled, trying to put herself between them. Jill drew her sword and stepped up next to Erica. Vash jumped to Sarah's shoulder and watched worriedly.

I'm not sure what kind of undead that thing is, but it's definitely a lot more dangerous than a zombie! he said to Sarah.

"Any idea how to kill the thing besides the usual hack and slash?" Sarah asked anxiously.

Not that I know of, but I'll try to help. Vash replied.

Erica tried to decapitate the thing before it was on its feet, but it intercepted her swing with its shield. Her sword cut deeply into the shield and caught there. She struggled desperately with it and managed to pull it free. Jill, meanwhile, tried to do the same from the other side. Its spear intercepted her attack and she was forced to dodge backwards as it stabbed at her.

The undead was on its feet before they could stop it, so they tried for its legs. It surprised them all when it jumped over their attacks and landed on the floor between them.

Erica took a two handed grip of her sword and swung it with all her strength. This time it didn't anticipate her attack and she sliced it neatly in two. The top half of its body slowly toppled, leaving the lower half standing for a moment before it suddenly collapsed as if it were a puppet with its strings cut.

"Everyone take cover behind the sarcophagus!" Sarah called out. They all hunkered down behind it. "Mike, you too!" she yelled, and almost as soon as she'd said it he was right there beside her. "Vascor!" she yelled, blasting the remaining zombies with another fireball. They were all glad they had the sarcophagus for cover, as a good portion of the blast washed back over it.

"Well," Erica said, "was there anything besides the hideous undead monstrosity inside the sarcophagus?"

Jill and Sarah stood up to look while Mike slithered back to the door in time to hear another explosion down the hall. "What's going on out there?" he wondered aloud.

"Who knows, but it looks like we've found something!" Jill replied. Erica glanced over to Jill and noticed she wasn't looking inside the sarcophagus.

"What did you find?" she asked, stepping over to her.

"The sarcophagus is empty, but this guy had a really nice necklace around his neck." Jill said, holding the necklace up.

"A necklace?! Why would we care about that?" Erica exclaimed.

"Vash says it's magical." Sarah explained. "He's not sure in what way yet, but he should be able to figure it out later."

"Are you three done looting the place, or can we move on?" Mike asked from the doorway.

"Are there any more zombies out there?" Jill asked.

"No. I can't see or hear anything out here." he replied.

There are more, but they are some distance yet. Vash said.

They stepped out into the hall, with Mike in the lead again and Erica in the rear. Sarah had thrown her bow over her shoulder, as it was obviously not going to do them any good in the tomb.

They made it back to the intersection without incident, though they did see a new pile of charred and dismembered corpses just beyond the intersection in the main passage. "Did you do that Sarah?" Mike asked.

Sarah shook her head, "No, I saw where all my fireballs went. None of them came anywhere near this far."

They continued forward cautiously until they came to another door. This one was ajar and another fresh corpse was there, being chewed on by undead. These looked different than the others. "Ghouls." Erica said in disgust. She drew her gun and fired into the room. The explosion ripped the corpse apart, and threw the ghouls across the room. She holstered her gun and started forward. Mike was right beside her and they quickly finished off the injured ghouls. When they were done they found the room empty except for the dead ghouls, and the sarcophagus.

"This one wasn't opened, either. Do we dare open it?" Jill asked.

"Yes. Mike, you and Jill attack the thing as soon as you can. It'll probably block you. Erica, you can then use that magic sword of yours to decapitate it or something." Sarah said. The others nodded and Sarah pushed the lid off the sarcophagus.

The corpse inside was much more decayed than the other had been. It did, however, sit up and draw a sword from its scabbard. That's about as far as it got before three swords hit it at once. The sword was knocked to the side as its hand was cut off and its head went flying. "Well, that was anticlimactic." Sarah said, looking down at the corpse that had collapsed without any sign of life left to it.

"Works for me!" Jill said while picking up the sword. It was an ornate, basket hilted rapier. "I like this a lot better than the broadsword!" she said happily, swinging it around to test it and obviously pleased with how much more easily she could handle it.

"Here." Mike said, holding out the scabbard. "The sword belt has pretty much disintegrated, but the scabbard looks fine."

Jill slid the sword home and managed to jam it into her improvised rope belt. As they searched the room they heard another explosion. They found nothing so hurried out into the hall. Zombie body parts were scattered along the corridor, some smoking. "What is going on out here?!" Mike exclaimed, looking about for whatever threat might be there.

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." Erica cautioned. "Let's go finish this place." With that they continued down to the intersection and turned towards the only direction they hadn't gone so far. The corridor continued unbroken for at least a hundred feet before suddenly opening up into a large room with a vaulted ceiling. A large, ornate sarcophagus dominated the center of the room, and was surrounded by undead. These were skeletal and wore plate armor. Some had swords, some spears, and a few had axes. Those that carried smaller weapons also had shields. On the other side of the sarcophagus a robed man was reading from a book.

"I can take care of those skeletons easily enough." Erica said, patting her guns.

"Wait, I have something I want to try first." Sarah said, taking her bow off her shoulder and stringing an arrow. She took careful aim and whispered, "Vascor." Flaming sparks ran from her fingertips across the bow and bowstring and onto the arrow. They collected on the arrowhead and it seemed to burn without being consumed. She released the bowstring and the arrow streaked across the room trailing sparks. The mage was oblivious to their presence and had no chance to protect himself. The arrow embedded in his chest and exploded.

The mage was blasted back to the wall, obviously dead. All the skeletons turned towards Sarah. "I was kind of hoping he was controlling them." Sarah said, shaking as what she'd just done sank in.

"That was still a great shot! Now it's my turn." Erica replied. She sheathed her sword and drew both guns. She fired several times from each gun into the mob and soon they were reduced to bone splinters, scattered all around the room.

"Bit loud, aren't they?" Sarah said.

Erica nodded, "Yeah, the explosive bullets don't help that part any. But they work great!"

They moved cautiously into the room, but there was no sign of anything else living or dead. Mike cautiously approached the sarcophagus. "Do we want to mess with this?" he asked.

"We have found a few things in those things. It might be worth our while." Erica said. Shrugging, Mike pushed the sarcophagus open while the others stood around it ready to attack if need be.

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