Sharp

I went to the first grave, where my father was. The bodies were now decomposing as they should. The smell was intense.

I went through the first shovel of dirt in the grave when a movement caught my eye. My perception was improving as my Hunter senses levelled.

I turned around to see a large wolf-like creature stalking me. It had bigger shoulders than a wolf and no hair. Its shoulders came up to my chest. Its teeth were sharp, and it stared at me. That was not what scared me, though. What scared me was the long gash in its stomach and its intestines hanging out. It was undead.

“No, no, no.” I backed away toward the nearest tree.

Then, several things happened at once. I caught another movement in the corner of my eye, so I dropped the shovel and leapt for the tree. The creature howled, and the noise struck me like a physical force and threw me, so I missed the tree I was going to climb.

I hit the ground hard and rolled, catching a glimpse of a second creature. My breath was knocked out, and before I could recover, a third one had pounced. Its claws dug into my back despite the piercing resistance of my fur.

I rolled again, trying to get away, but it was quicker in getting to its feet as the other two circled around behind me. It charged just as I got my feet under me, and I could only just avoid its jaws. I dug my sharpened claws into its hide and found I could as I was dragged along with it briefly.

I brought my feet up, dug my toe claws in, raised a hand, and jabbed the neck, trying to get to the brain. My claws skidded off the skull bone, peeling skin with it. Then I was struck by another howl, and my unwilling mount and I rolled sideways.

I lost my grip on the creature, but not before it got its claws dug into my stomach, and my fur turned a disembowelling into deep lacerations that bled profusely.

So I will become an undead. Goddess, somebody, please kill me quickly.

Jaws clamped onto my arm and leg, and I felt like I was going to be torn apart.

Then the jaws on my arm let go, and it looked like the whole forest was suddenly turned into a raging inferno. I guess I prayed for a quick death.

The jaws on my leg let go, and I was dragged somewhere, but things were fading fast.

“Here, kid, drink this.”

A potion was poured down my throat, and I started to come, too. I saw a human face with very dark skin in front of me. What struck me most was that he had no hair on his head. How could someone have no hair?

“Stay with me, kid. Let the potion work.”

I just nodded because what else could I do?

“Rufus!” yelled a loud, obviously Leonid voice. “There are more!”

“Coming!” Rufus yelled.

Then, I saw a massive pile of molten rock walk up behind Rufus.

“Stay with the lava golem, kid, and you will be fine. I will be back soon.”

A lava golem, really? Is this death or undeath? Either way, it is nothing like what I was expecting. I put my head back to rest for a minute.

When I woke, I was in the bed at old Macdonald's house. That dream was not like the others. Then I heard someone walk around in the room next door. I sniffed. There was no smell of death. Maybe it wasn’t a dream?

I cautiously got up. My wounds were healed, although my fur would have to grow back.

Time to see if it was real. I opened the door and looked out. The first person I saw was a large Leonid eating some cooked meat.

“Oh, hey, you’re awake? Nice to meet you, kid. I am Gary.” He reached out for a hand to shake, and my hand was engulfed in his. “Hey, everyone,” he yelled, " the kid is awake!”

Two people stood up from the deck and came in. The first was the strange guy with no hair. I kept looking at his bald head. It was so weird.

“Hi,” he said, “I’m Rufus.” Then he looked at me. “Is there something wrong with my head?” he asked, reaching up to pat it.

“You have no hair,” I said.

“I told you it was weird,” Gary said.

“Don’t mind them,” said the third person, a small human female with freckles on her face. “I am Farrah.”

“Hi,” I said, “I am Theo.”

“I think it might be our fault the howlers attacked you,” Rufus said. “We were whittling them down, and they got past us,” He looked pointedly at Gary.

“It is not my fault my golem is slow,” Gary said.

“You have the lava golem?” I said in wonder.

“Ah, no,” said Farrah. “That one is mine. He has a Foundary Golem—basically a big slow hunk of metal. They are short-term summons.”

“Hey!” Gary said in complaint.

I looked at her, “You are all an adventuring team?”

“No,” said Farrah, “Gary and I team together, but Rufus is tacked on for this mission.”

“Yeah,” said Gary, “They wanted a big Two-Star adventurer to be in charge.”

“If you had kept your mouth shut in front of that silver ranker, maybe that would have been you,” Farrah said to him.

“The guy was a jerk!” Gary said. Then he looked at me and said, “Hey, do you want something to eat? We have plenty.”

Before I knew it, I was sitting on the deck, picking and eating the vegetables out of a plate that was mostly meat.

“You don’t like meat?” Rufus asked.

“I have been put off recently,” I said, waving my hand at the village.

“Ah, yes, understandable,” he said. “We need to talk about the village. Do you know who piled all the bodies into the pits?”

I nodded, “That was me.” my voice broke a bit, “I was burying my friends and … and… family.”

“See,” said Gary, “I told you he didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Do what on purpose? Yes, I did. I needed to give them a funeral,” I said.

“That is not what Gary means,” Farrah said, giving Gary a cross look. “Piling the dead together like that concentrates the magic and is one way to create the Death essence, which is restricted by the Adventure society as it often leads to the undeath confluence.”

“What! I didn’t!”

“You did, actually,” Rufus said. We thought it might have been the undead priests making more essences for their use. It is a common method and a reason to turn so many normal people into Undead.”

“Oh, no!” I was stricken. All my plans only worked for the enemy. I cursed everything. I can’t do anything right. “Just kill me.” I whispered, “I can’t take it anymore.”

“You are fine, son. It wasn’t your fault, and you were doing what you thought best. We have collected the essence and given your villagers a proper funeral pyre so it won’t ever happen again.”

“Farrah, here, has the volcano essence, so she made sure it was thorough,” Gary said.

“The adventure society gives a reward for finding and handing in any death essenes. It is an uncommon essence,” Farrah said, “and the reward is the equivalent of a common essence in exchange.”

“If you don’t hand it in,” Gary said, “you get hunted down by gold rankers.”

“The reason for that is that this,” Farrah waved to indicate the current disaster, “ is the result. However, your aura is clean. We will be crediting you with the discovery.”

“I am not sure I deserve it,” I said.

“Your village just got wiped out in a zombie apocalypse,” Rufus said, “You did what you could, and you need to continue to move forward from that.”

“We will help,” Farah said. “The Adventure Society has a forward camp about a day’s travel away. The Healer has some priests there to cleanse you of the curse, and then survivors are being portalled to Stillwater.”

“Curse?”

“It is a Zombie curse,” Rufus said, “A bad one too. Even a scratch and it transfers, but you won’t turn undead unless you die first. We will all have it by now, but we need to do our part to clean this up.”

“The trick,” said Gary, “is not to die.”

“Yes,” said Farrah, “we found more than an undead essence.” She pulled out three small stones. “They are awakening stones. They are all uncommon, and none are banned.” She pointed to each in turn as “Corruption, death, and disease.”

I backed away, “are you sure they are not banned?”

“Yes,” Farrah said. “I am a member of both the Magic Society and the Adventure Society. We keep track of these things. I take it from your reaction you don’t want these.”

I shook my head.

“We will sell them then. There are Affliction Specialists that will pay a premium for these. You can use the coin to get some stones that are more suitable for you.”

“But shouldn’t you have them?” I asked.

“We are being paid to help clean up this disaster,” Farrah said, “We are only on the periphery as we are only low bronze rankers. You are the one that has lost their village and needs a fresh start.”

“Speaking of fresh starts,” Rufus said, “My family runs a school for adventurers in Vitesse. I could probably get you a scholarship if you wanted. It's something for you to think about going forward.”