Anne slaps her sister’s arm back on her stump. A dark blue bubbling of energy moves over Kelly’s shoulder and the arm reattaches. Anne turns to Ryuk and offers him a wicked smile.
He unloads on her, and she deflects his marbles with casual arrogance.
“Anne is self-aware! She’s defending herself – real zombies don’t do that!”
“What?” Tamana gasps and tightens her grip on her sword.
Zombie Kelly’s shuffling charge gives Tamana ample time to swing her giant sword and hack her head off. It hits the floor, bounces once, and Ryuk incinerates it with a molten marble.
Instakill!
Level up!
Ryuk moves up one level, Tamana two, but both of them are too distracted by Anne to check their stats.
Dark blue necrotic magic ripples around Anne’s arms and legs; Hiccup lifts his shield and clashes his ax against it. “Well, you two got her good and pissed by killing her sis. Let’s finish this!”
(x)__(x)
A blast of dark blue energy washes over Hiccup’s shield. He drops it and curses as it blackens, shrivels, and disintegrates into dust. “Fick! That was Cousin Spew’s second-favorite shield!” With a flick of his wrist he launches a tomahawk and she zaps it to dust.
Anne marshals her energy and releases a blast that strikes all five of them.
-80 HP!
The gnomes shriek in dismay; Chantrea starts praying in some unintelligible language.
“I’ve got this.” Tamana grips her sword in both hands and strikes it against the ground. A nimbus of blinding white energy envelops the blade. She winds up, swings, and hurls the brilliant ball of incandescence at the un-zombie.
Anne defends with a shield of necrotic energy, but Tamana’s attack is too strong, too bright.
-183 HP!
Bright light burns all around the zombie mage, but she recovers quickly, snarls as she charges more necrotic energy.
“Fick yeah, Tammy! Jolt her ass again!”
Tamana releases another bolt of blazing white energy.
-221 HP! Critical hit!
This one causes even more damage, and Ryuk doesn’t need the CliffsNotes to tell him that the Zombie Anne is susceptible to white magic. He holsters his marble gun, retrieves his slingshot, and fires a clear marble as he shouts, “Healing Light!”
The marble connects and Anne turns bright orange. She coughs and a burst of flames comes out of her mangled maw. She coughs again, exhales deeply as she comes to understand her new fire-breathing ability.
Anne turns to the three.
Fuck! Simple Request didn’t work!
A wall of hellfire scorches out of her mouth and blasts over them. Ryuk’s vision pane flashes red.
- 90 HP!
“For fick’s sake, Marbles!” Hiccup uses his mechanical hand to bat a fire out on his leg.
“I’ll fix this!” A halo forms around Tamana’s head, and twinkling blips of white light heals the three Mitherfickers and the gnomes.
+55 HP!
The magic dissipates and she returns her free hand to the hilt of her buster sword.
Anne rears back for another blast and Hiccup equips his biggest shield, protecting them from the blazing hellfire. “Someone kill this be-yotch already!”
Ryuk pops up and zips a clear marble over Hiccup’s head. “Healing Light!”
A Simple Request!
-190 HP!
An arc of pure light cuts the zombie teen down; Hiccup casts his shield aside and pitches another tomahawk.
-34 HP!
As undead Anne struggles to pull the tomahawk out of her forehead, Tamana darts in and neatly decapitates her.
Instakill!
Level up!
Tamana leans on her sword and exhales loudly. “Whew!” EXP is doled out and everyone gains yet another level thanks to Dirty Dave’s magic.
“Shit, that was a lot of assfickery just to get some treasure.”
The cantankerous goblin approaches Anne’s decapitated head and nudges it with his boot. “Nope, not gonna make a necrophilia joke,” he mutters under his breath, “not today, anyway.” He brings his ax down onto the head, splitting it in two. “Well? Let’s get the treasure and get the fick out of here. This was supposed to be a fickin’ side quest, not an entire adventure unto itself.”
As Ryuk reholsters his slingshot, he catches some murmuring over his shoulder. Arun is comforting his wife, who is upset and distraught by what’s transpired. Tamana slips her buster sword into its sheath and approaches Chantrea.
“Are you going to be okay?” she asks the gnomette.
“I’ll … ” the granny gnome wipes her nose on her rag of a dress. “I’ll be fine. Just a little shaken up. They, well, Anne, wanted to kill us – us! Can you believe that?” she asks Arun.
“No,” he mumbles, but the serious look in his eyes says differently. “But let’s focus on what’s important right now. Did you feel it?” He shows her his ankles. “The cuffs are gone!”
“They ... ” She lifts her dress and examines her ankles. “They’re gone!”
“We can leave; we can go anywhere, anywhere, Chantrea!”
FeeTwix: What is taking you guys so long!?
Ryuk: Sorry! Zombie and looting issues. Coming now.
He makes the ‘let’s wrap it up’ gesture to Hiccup, who gives Ryuk the thumbs up.
“We have to join our friends and finish off the zombies outside,” Ryuk announces.
“What Marbles means is take us to the treasure now.”
“You stay here,” Arun tells his wife.
“I’ll stay with her,” Tamana says.
“But before we go … ” Arun unclasps a necklace from around his neck and hands it to Ryuk. A small silver circlet formed of superimposed characters hangs from a fine silver chain. “This necklace and pendant was made in Unigaea by Olivas, the renowned master silversmith.”
“Thank you so much,” Ryuk says with a bow.
“Yes, thank you.” Tamana chimes in.
Before Ryuk can examine the necklace, Hiccup is on him like rats on rice.
“Oooo! Shiny!” He snatches the necklace in a blur of motion. “I’ll just hold onto that.” He chortles as he sends it to inventory.
Ryuk bristles but says nothing.
“What? It’s for Twixy to give Liz. I’m just an old romantic at heart!”
Arun steps in front of the two and waves them forward. “Please, follow me.”
Once they reach the far end of crypt, the gnome gingerly kicks his tattered footwear against the thick wooden door. He fumbles around in his tunic for a moment and produces a key. “It’s not as easy as it seems,” Arun says as he starts fiddling with the lock, the face of which is shaped like a lion.
“I think I could have cracked that,” says Hiccup.
The gnome sighs. “This lock would have cracked you. Only authorized users can open it; if you tried, the lion face would have grown to full size and devoured you whole. I watched it happen once. I came down just in time to see it slurp up what was left of the thief. Some hobbit named Dildo Bugger or something.” The lock pops open and Arun waves them in. “Follow me.”
The three enter a small, low-ceilinged room that forces Ryuk to crouch and bend his neck. Directly in front of them are two trunk-sized treasure boxes.
“Now these I can crack!”
“Not so fast, goblin.” Arun points to the chest on the left. “This one must be opened first. There’s nothing inside, but if you open the other one first, you and anyone in your party will die instantly. It’s a pretty powerful algospell; Mr. Bannon paid a dark mage in Valhalla a small fortune to create it.”