You are Summoned

“Tear their contraptions apart and bring their people into the cold embrace of undeath. This village has been a thorn in my side for too long, and I will have every living thing inside it eradicated. Take the giant with you, it may be useful,” the gravelly voice said.

“Master Pharox, do you wish us to return when our task is completed, or stay to develop this village into a forward outpost?” another voice asked.

“Stay, even with the casualties your forces have suffered, the gnome bodies will provide enough materials for you to rebuild and hold this place. Once you have secured the village, work on sending scouts to find our next target. You were my adepts, succeed in this venture and I will consider you true necromancers. Now, I must take my leave, there is much for me to do back in the crypt,” the gravelly voiced leader, apparently named Pharox, said.

I felt a surge of magic then saw a burst of purple light as a spell was activated. It must have been teleportation magic of some sort because I didn’t hear that Pharox guy again. The giant stomped off toward the village, but several others stayed behind to discuss the best way to destroy the mechs.

Staying hidden wasn’t going to do Fitzfazzle and the gnomes any good, I needed to sneak out and get a look at who was out there. Crawling out from under the mech, I made far more noise than I wanted to. Nobody, living or undead, must have heard or noticed, because I made it out without raising any alarm. Creeping along, using the body of the giant as cover, I peeked around the creature.

Standing nearby were two men and a woman, all dressed in black robes with a red sash over one shoulder. They were armed similarly with a long, curved dagger in a black leather sheath. These must be the fledgling necromancers that Pharox left to command the attack.

“Bring up the ghouls, if the giant fails, they can tear those machines apart with little trouble,” one the acolytes, the woman, commanded.

“No Verani, it’s too soon. We can’t afford to lose too many of the ghouls. They must be reserved for an emergency. I vote we send in the last of the zombie reserves, command them to bypass the village and attack the cave these gnomes are all fleeing to,” one of the acolytes, a rather corpulent man, argued.

“This is not a democracy, Thurston. Master Pharox has taught us that those who hold power do not need to negotiate, we demand. If you haven’t learned that yet, maybe you’d serve our master better as one of the undead,” the woman, Verani, threatened.

“What do you think you’re going to do Verani, kill me? Ha, I can best you at any time, but the master has a task set before us that we must complete before we can think of fighting for position,” Thurston said. The final member of the trio, a slender, older man with pale skin that resembled the corpses he commanded. He looked like he had embraced the whole necromancer lifestyle better than the other two bickering acolytes.

Instead of continuing the argument, Verani drew her dagger and started chanting. Realizing that she was about to try and kill him, Thurston also began to chant as he clumsily pulled his weapon from its sheath. Verani had beat him to it, and a blast of greenish-yellow energy flowed from her mouth to envelop Thurston. As soon as the energy came in contact with his skin, Thurston began to scream in pain. The flesh anywhere the energy touched died and rotted.

The pain caused the acolyte to fumble his spell, and in a last-ditch effort he lunged forward, trying to slash Verani with his blade. The knife ripped into her robes and Verani’s next spell faltered as her chant was interrupted by a grunt of pain. Her first spell had done its job, though, and Thurston gave a final gurgle before collapsing to the ground dead.

“Move your robe from the wound, allow me to bind it up. We will follow your plan.” the skinny acolyte told his surviving companion. Verani pulled her robe open to reveal a nasty-looking slash across her stomach. While the older acolyte bandaged Verani’s wound, I figured it was time for me to make my move.

“Very good Durgan, when you have seen to my wound, we will call up the ghouls and end this thing. I will show you how a necromancer works,” Verani said with a smug look on her face.

As he tied off the bandage, I readied my mace and wand. Charging out from behind the dead ogre, I fired the wand at the acolyte, Durgan. He was turned away from me, and the magic missile hit him right in the center of his back, cracking his spine. The man went down hard, I didn’t know if he was dead, but he sure wasn’t getting up anytime soon. With him down or distracted, I readied my mace and charged toward Verani.

“What kind of deviant sends zombies to attack kids,” I said as I swung my mace right at Verani’s head.

She was quick, drawing and bringing up her dagger to block my strike. The dagger’s blade shattered as the mace impacted, but the block consumed a lot of the attacks power. Instead of crushing her head in, my blow grazed her temple and knocked her back a step. My second strike was blocked by her arm, which didn’t fare any better than her blade had.

Verani shouted a word I had never heard before, a word that held some dark power and caused my mace to heat up in my hand. I was forced to drop the weapon as the handle burst into flames and the metal head of the mace glowed red with heat. My right hand was burnt badly, but I wasn’t going out that easily.

Drawing my dagger with my injured hand wasn’t in the cards, but maybe I could finish Verani with some good old fashioned martial arts. I launched a front ball kick right where her wound had been bandaged. She gave a yelp of pain and stumbled backward. I did the same after realizing I had used my injured left leg to launch the attack.

Unwilling to give her even a moment to recover, I fought through the pain. Using my good leg, I swept Verani’s feet out from under her. After that, I hit her with a Psionic Jolt that only made her flinch a bit. Her willpower must have been significantly higher than my own. I could feel the wand in my left hand was ready to fire again, so I aimed the wand at Verani and activated it.

The magic missile finished off Verani, and as soon as the wand was ready again, I made sure that Durgan would no longer trouble this world. The wand had about a nine or ten second recharge time. It seemed a bit longer than Fitzfazzle had mentioned, but it could also be due to being rank zero and only having one cantrip to my name.

I also needed to get better at coordinating my attacks. Between melee weapons, martial arts, spells, and magic items like the wand, I had a lot to work with and keep track of. If I had hit Verani with the Psionic Jolt before attacking with my mace, the fight might have ended much sooner and not cost me my main weapon. The mace itself was a write-off. With the head warped by the heat, and the handle burnt to a crisp, I wouldn’t be using it again during this summoning.

Shortly after Durgan died, a horrible howling sound was heard in the nearby forest. Out of the trees a swarm of undead creatures ran toward me. These weren’t simple zombies; these must have been the ghouls that the acolytes had mentioned. Humanoid shaped, the ghouls had elongated heads with sharp teeth almost like a shark’s mouth. Their claws were curved, wicked-looking things with filth and gore encrusting them.

Getting bit or clawed by these things would probably only be the start of your problems. I wasn’t sure if you’d turn into a ghoul if bit and scratched, or just die from the infection. Either way, I didn’t want to find out.

I was still hobbling along, so there was no way I was going to outrun the pack of monsters. They were moving at the pace of a fast jog, running hunched over with their claws reaching out toward their prey. The house nearby was destroyed, and going back into my hiding place under the mech wasn’t going to work, those things would dig me out in no time, and I’d have no room to fight.

About the only thing I could think of was heading back to the barn. My leg was screaming in pain after fighting the two acolytes, and the short trip across the yard to the barn seemed like it took an eternity. I made it there just as the pack of ghouls was nearing my destroyed mech. The old man had only opened the barn door enough for them to slip out, so as soon as I was inside, I pushed the heavy door closed with all my strength.

It swung slowly into place, and I could see a locking bar on the ground next to me. I barely placed the locking bar across the door when the first of the ghouls slammed into it. They hissed and screamed in frustration as their prey eluded them. My respite might be short lived, though, as I could already hear them clawing at the wood door. How long would it take them to tear their way inside?