Before we could return the greeting, there was a pounding at the door and my dagger began to glow a faint shade of blue.
“Crap, get ready people. We have company,” I said, jumping up.
As I spoke, the doors broke open, and what looked like a group of zombies began to stumble through the opening. We were in trouble, all right.
CHAPTER 11: DUNGEON WAR Z
I stared at the rotting,lumbering creatures. They were more terrifying than any movie portrayal, because these zombies were directly in front of me, very real, and not just moving pictures on a screen. The sight of rotting flesh sloughing off of the bloated corpses was bad enough, but in a few places, bones peeked through the flapping skin.
I caught my breath, backing away.
“Holy fuck,” Thornhold said, frozen in place. Brynn let out a strangled cry, and both Reggie and Ray looked like they were ready to faint.
Geoff, on the other hand, jumped to his feet, apparently ready to go. “Your blades will work on them,” he said, unsheathing his long sword.
I glanced around. There was no escape. We were going to have to fight our way through. Breathing through my mouth—the smell was atrocious—I held out my dagger, wishing I had room to bring out my bow. But they’d be on us before I could get off more than a couple shots, and then I’d just have to switch weapons again.
“Guys, we’re going to have to gothroughthese things,” I said, trying to keep my voice from wavering. We could do it.We’d taken down a Trogger and a couple of ogres, along with some skeletons. We couldtotallyface the zombie apocalypse. Couldn’t we?
A warm wash of air blew over us, filled with the smells of the dead flesh. What was left of my breakfast threatened to make an abrupt appearance again, and I had to swallow hard to keep it down. Geoff was already headed toward the creatures, sword at the ready.
I quickly counted heads. There were four of the creatures, but I wondered if they’d be more dangerous than the skeletons. Dangerous or not, though, I couldn’t let Geoff go in on his own — that wouldn’t be fair. I broke my paralysis and moved forward. As though waiting for my cue, Brynn and Thornhold closed in behind me.
As Geoff and I took on one zombie, Brynn and Thornhold split off, engaging one each. Reggie and Ray headed toward the last.
There was no time to think, or strategize which direction might be the best to attack from. The zombies might be slow, but they wouldn’t stop. Not until they were cut or smashed into pieces. Ray might be able to turn them, but he wasn’t high-level enough to drain the unnatural life out of their bodies. And turning them meant we’d have to deal with them when the spell wore off and they turned around and came back.
As I held out my dagger, it occurred to me that I should buy a sword. Going in with a dagger was dangerous and put me too close to the enemy.
Geoff caught the zombie’s attention and I slipped around behind it, darting in as I slashed with my dagger. The silver did more damage than just steel, but a dagger was still no match for a longer blade. The zombie clawed, swinging at Geoff. It didn’t seem to notice me.
Unlike ghouls and ghosts, zombies and skeletons didn’t have much in the way of brains. They were more mindless automatons, and they had to be raised by some form of necromancer and then given a geas. Whereas ghosts were actual spirits, and ghouls…Well, nobody knewhowghouls worked. We hadn’t gotten that far in the game.
Every time I plunged my dagger into the back of the zombie I shivered, cringing as all manner of disgusting liquids came splashing out. I tried to avoid it because I thought maybe it was poisonous or acidic, and we didn’t have any poison resistance potions or antidotes with us.
As I neared the door leading into the hallway, I closed it, preventing any further creatures from joining the zombies. We could take care of them if we didn’t have to worry about anything else crashing the party at the moment.
Brynn was using her sword, and she cleaved her zombie almost in half. It fell to the floor, both halves still twitching. The feet were kicking, but they couldn’t do much. However, the top half of the zombie’s torso dragged itself toward her, hands grasping at the stone floor. Brynn had the upper hand, so to speak, and she hacked at the torso, letting out squeals of disgust as she chopped the zombie into tiny pieces.
Oh gods, we were going to have to do that, weren’t we?We were going to have to make pulp of these creatures if we didn’t want them still rambling around the dungeon, whether it be a single hand or a torso or fully intact.
“Remember, we have to destroy them entirely,” I said, raising my voice to be heard over the din of the fighting.
The zombies were groaning, letting out primal grunts as they fought.
The sounds of Thornhold’s axe squishing as it contacted flesh made my stomach lurch, but I forced my attention to the zombie that Geoff and I were fighting.
I managed to land enough slashes through its backside, that—when Geoff made another swing—his long sword managed to sever the spinal column. The top half slid to the ground, and the bottom half began to flail around, still on its feet.
Watching the lower half of the walking dead stumble around did it for me. I turned and threw up in the corner, pausing to take a swig of water and rinse my mouth out afterwards. It was all just too much. Somehow it didn’t seem the same when we were just talking through it around the table. Even the online version — which I played on my own — didn’t seem nearly as disgusting as this.
It took us about twenty minutes, but finally we stood there, panting, the floor covered with remains. An eyeball stared lazily toward the ceiling from one of the zombies faces. It was mangled and distorted, and I turned away, trying to breathe through my mouth rather than through my nose.
“Should we look for treasure?” Brynn asked in a shaky voice.
“I amnotgoing through all of that goo spread all over the floor. If you want to look for treasure, go ahead. I just want out of this room.”
I yanked open the door and peeked out, relieved to see there was nothing waiting for us. I slid out and stood in the hallway, leaning back against the cold stone. It wasn’t even killing the zombies that had bothered me so much — they were alreadydead, after all. It was the massive amount of gore that had triggered me.
