The group considered their options in silence. “I think we need to do option one,” Mitch offered, “We’ve already cleared that path, and with OS1’s walls still in place, it’s going to be the safest trip we have, and it gets us to where we really want to be. The other options are potentially riskier for worse results.”
Sarah nodded her head in agreement with Mitch, “I agree, we could run into another bunch of cockroaches the other two ways and end up having to do option one anyway.”
Everyone looked at Katie, “I don’t really want to go back that way, but I guess it’s better than the other options we have.”
“Alright, back the way we came then,” Drew said with a shrug, giving Katie a hand up while Mitch and Sarah picked up their weapons.
They made their way back to the central atrium, Katie unsummoning the walls as they went to clear the path. As they got closer everyone fell silent, the site of the ambush weighing on their psyches. When the last wall came down, Drew held up a hand. A faint thumping could be heard echoing through the space.
“What is that?” Sarah whispered. She was near the back, behind the cart. Mitch and Drew were in the front, Drew holding the rope of the cart, since it was the easiest for him to drop if they got into combat because everyone else carried a two-handed weapon.
“No idea,” Drew motioned for Mitch to check it out. Mitch peered out and then looked back shrugging, “Nothing out there.”
They left the cart there, no one wanting to drag it around when there might be a fight pending. The pounding echoed through the room, making it difficult to tell the source. “I think it’s coming from…” Drew frowned, advancing on the tomb they had made for Juan. Sure enough, the pounding got louder as he put a hand on the wall. He could feel the faint vibrations as something pounded a dull rhythm against the inside.
“It’s Juan,” Sarah said, her voice tight and shrill.
Katie moved to dispel the walls and Drew raised a hand to stop her, “That can’t be Juan. There’s no air in there. The pounding is constant, no breaks for rest.” Realization blanched everyone’s faces as they stared, horrified, at the tomb.
“What do we do?” Katie asked the silence.
“Leave it,” Drew said with a shudder, tearing his eyes away from the tomb to glance around the room. He hissed; there at the edge of the light were three forms. Impossibly tall, bipedal and covered in thick fur. The others looked up at Drew’s wordless alarm and raised their weapons, backing up reflexively. The light shifted with them and the figures advanced, seemingly unwilling to come into the light, they nevertheless stalked forward as the light allowed. They appeared menacing, but not overtly hostile.
“Hello?” Drew called out, his fingers pointing at the figures ready to cast fireballs.
The biggest of the three walked slowly into the light, nearly eight feet tall and covered in thick black fur. Scraps of clothing seemed to cling to its torso, stretched near to the breaking point. One hand was shriveled and small, like you see in movies when something has been cut off and is slowly growing back, the last clue to its identity was the name tag, “Omondi” on the ripped ODU scraps still clinging to the body.
“Rob?” Drew asked, backing up with the others as the big figure approached. “Rob? Is that you?” The creature was taller than Rob by several feet, and Rob had been a larger guy already. The creature growled at him, baring fangs the size of Drew’s fingers. Sarah let out a soft scream, dropping her spear. The group continued to back up until the light barely illuminated the tomb, where the thing that had been Rob stopped and pounded on the tomb’s wall. Shards of concrete went flying from the impact. He continued to hit the surface until he had chipped away enough mass for a hole to appear.
Sticking the fingers of his good hand into the hole, the creature roared and with a loud crack more concrete went flying. The walls Katie had made apparently didn’t have rebar support within them, as he was able to tear out chunks of the stuff. Feral light shone in Rob’s eyes.
The group watched stunned as it dug Juan out, but what emerged from the tomb wasn’t the Juan they had interred. Juan had been short, at five and a half feet. The thing that stood up in its place was just under seven feet, similarly covered in thick brown hair and powerfully built, his clothing shredded to account for the increase in size. The newly risen beast shrank away from the light of the glowstones. All four of the creatures retreated away from Drew’s group, dragging the two orc bodies with them as they disappeared into the gloom of the hallway from where Drew had originally come.
“What the fuck?” Mitch asked after the strange scene had ended.
“Another ‘gift’ from the Advent,” Drew said shakily. “Looks like human corpses turn into…” He paused, searching for the right words, “Wereghouls.”
“What the fuck is a wereghoul?” Sarah asked, picking up her spear now that the threat was diminished. No one thought it unusual for the normally clean mouthed officer to curse; what they had just seen warranted the profanity.
“Nothing. Nothing that should exist. A lycanthrope like a werewolf but combined with a form of intelligent undead called a ghoul.” Drew answered, his mind coming up with a solution from his days of playing Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons.
“Fuck, you’re telling me that these things are intelligent undead werewolves?” Mitch asked, and Drew simply nodded his head.
“Why intelligent? They could be zombies?” Katie interjected.
“No, if they were zombies they would have attacked us. They were just coming to gather their new packmate and had plenty of food with the two orcs. We weren’t worth the risk. They seem to be photosensitive. Although the one I saw earlier didn’t seem to mind my torch, maybe just mana created light?” Drew mused, glancing around, “We should move, I don’t really want to be here if they come back hungry.” Drew nodded towards the stairs they had been too afraid to go down last time. It now seemed like a much better option than dealing with these wereghouls.
The group followed him, staying closer together than they had before-no one wanted to be near the edge of the light. Katie blocked up the door to the stairwell after they got in. It had taken the wereghoul that had been Rob several minutes of pounding to break through. It hadn’t been quiet or quick, and all of them were happy with a little bit of time and warning before having to deal with the wereghouls again.
They descended two flights of stairs, ending up on the sixth floor. Only a few hallways and they would be out.
Drew sensed that it wouldn’t be that easy though, and as soon as they exited the stairs he looked around. The coast guard paraphernalia that had decorated the floor had been trashed. In its place, scrawled on the walls in what looked to be blue blood, were strange symbols, angular and harsh with difficult to read words intermixed.
“Shit,” Katie said when she saw them. “We’re so fucked.”
Chapter Thirteen — Deathweaver
They had only traveled about 60 feet before they heard the clapping. From somewhere up ahead in the darkness, the sound of a slow and heavy clap rang out. Everyone pointed their weapons towards the sound and halted, focusing their eyes on the edge of the light. The voice that followed was rough and guttural.
The words had a strange guttural quality to them as if English was not his native tongue, “Congratulations. You almost made it out of the dungeon alive. I was surprised that you were able to defeat ten of the brethren we sent to kill you, but the survivor informed us that their mission was successful, your Deathweaver is dead. It is no wonder you could not progress through the other paths. Without his aid, you are clearly lost.”