The Fallen Ascending 01 -- Rebirth
Through the Dead

After walking a small way, we began to see more of what the catacombs truly looked like. My magics had roasted the walls and the wind had blown the area clean where I’d cushioned the others’ fall, but now we were beginning to see more of the natural layout of things. The stone walls here were tainted black with corruption and sometimes what seemed to be clear passages were instead filled with black cobwebs that blended into the darkness and got tangled in the face and hair. Soon, I was moving my small flame left and right down the tunnels in front of us, trying to burn the path clear before us.

The smell of the tunnels was old and musty, with the odor of damp stone intermingling with mold, mildew, and the stench of the dead. The lack of sunlight and the chill of the narrow passages made it feel as if they were pressing down tightly, trying to crush us. All in all, it was an oppressive atmosphere that wore on one’s nerves and tired them out.

And, of course, the dead moving about and trying to make us join them didn’t help matters any. Skeletons still fell and shattered as soon as Crystal approached them, so they weren’t that great a threat; but the tunnels became so think with them at times that we had to walk over their fallen bones to continue on. The sound of old bones breaking and grinding under step is not one that I will ever forget – no matter how much I wish to.

Intermingled amongst the skeletons were more of the slow moving zombies which weren’t difficult for Crystal to dispatch in the narrow tunnels. They could only approach one or two at a time, and her blade sliced through them like they were made of melting butter. Processing through the tunnels themselves was slow with the constant interruptions, but me made steady progress as the morning marched on.

It was midmorning when we had our first real set back, and when I began to get truly nervous about everything. Before, I was bothered by the dead and the corruption to the flows of magic that we were seeing, but I felt as if my own talents were strong enough to blast a way in and out no matter what. Around midmorning, I was proved wrong.

We were traveling and came to an intersection with an uncountable number of dead down each branch leading off from the tunnel we had been fighting through. I figured the easiest and quickest way forward was to simply burn another hole into the wall and cut us another path to a different tunnel. Part of my mind had been thinking that we could simply burn a straight path to the other group and then out, but that wasn’t meant to be.

Gathering up the flows of fire energy from deep in the earth, I focused them on the wall which I wanted to bypass. For a moment, the wall began to heat and scorch, like before, but then the energy and hit was dispersed by the corruption all around us. A dark wave of twisted death energy pulled the heat from the wall and forced it to spread outwards to the surrounding stone instead. When I increased my flow of power, the corruption did the same – and then it grew even stronger.

Soon the walls were being covered by frost and ice, and the temperature of the tunnels began to drop instead of raise. The more I tried to channel fire and heat, the more the tunnels resisted and channeled the cold essence of death. Black ice formed a layer over the walls and floor, and our breath became hotly visible time we exhaled. Finally, I had to admit defeat.

The corruption was too strong. Too powerful. I couldn’t overpower it alone. If Le’Nara was here, with the Azure Skyrose to work as a focus and a power source, I think I could’ve gave this place a run for its money. Without it, this place would freeze us solid before I ever managed to overpower it like I was trying.

There was always the option of reaching for the power of the deep earth, and bringing it to the surface again – but somehow I wasn’t certain unleashing a volcano while we were underground and trapped might be our best option. For now, I simply motioned for Crystal to lead the way down the left tunnel, which was the one that seemed to have the most skeletons and the least number of zombies to bar our way. Channeling just enough fire to melt the ice on the floors, and to light our way, we drudged on.

After that, the day turned into a grind. Even by feeling the tunnels, and knowing where I wanted to go, and the shortest path to get us there, we still had to push through the ever thickening hoard of dead. At one point, there were so many dead that surrounded us and poured into the tunnel that we were in, we had to fight and crawl over their remains as they fell too deep to simply walk over.

At this point, I think everyone was in a panic, though Crystal and I both did a better job of hiding our discomfort and fears. Jess simply whimpered as she crawled slowly through the tunnel half-filled with remains, but Dino was cussing and complaining loudly about everything. Stupid Mongo. Stupid Michael. Stupid dead. Stupid stupid!

It seemed to be his coping method, so I simply bit my inner cheek and endured.

Crystal was pale, sweating, and exhausted when we finally managed to break free from the swarm – even through it all, she had been the vanguard and kept the zombies down and clear for the rest of us. I could see that she couldn’t go on much longer, but I didn’t want to stop and hold up in a room like the others had when we were so close. Chances are, we would’ve simply gotten trapped as they had, with the dead amassed outside and keeping us from ever leaving. Our “safe spot to rest” would most likely turn into our final resting spot instead.

Tapping her on the shoulder, I gave Crystal a slight tug. “You’ve done good, my dear,” I praised her, causing her to grin back feebly. “But now’s the time for you to rest. We can’t have you falling over from exhausting before we need you the most.”

“So.. we stop where.. and rest?” She was gasping for breath and drenched in sweet.

“We don’t,” I told her. “If we stop, we’ll simply get trapped like the others. We have to keep moving at this point, or else we may never end up able to move again.”

“Then… I guess… there’s no rest… for the wicked,” Crystal gasped, resigning herself to lead on as long as she possibly could.

“Perhaps not,” I told her, “but you’re not wicked. You have to rest, but we have to move on. Let me borrow your sword for a while, and you use my staff to lean upon.”

“I can’t do that, My Lord,” she said, shaking her head stubbornly.

“You can, and you will,” I told her, staring firmly into her eyes. “Like it or not, it’s an order.”

For a long moment, she stared back into my eyes and then finally letting out a deep sigh, she lowered her head. “Fine.” Turning the blade so the hilt would we towards me, she waited until I took it. After she took my staff in return, I twirled and swung the blade a few times to test the heft, balance, and feel of it. The heartbeat in the hilt was hard to get used to, but otherwise it was an excellent weapon for fighting. No Snowflake Razor, but it’d do. Heck, in this particular place and time, it might even do better.

“A moment more, before we move on,” Crystal demanded. Sitting my staff against the black stone wall, she unfasted her chain robe and took it off. “If you’re going to be up front, you’ll be needing some better protection.”

“I’m not used to the weight of the chain,” I told her.

“Tough,” she simply shrugged, uncaringly. “You’ll get used to it quickly enough. Besides,” she added, “if I’m going to rest, I don’t need the weight on my shoulders for now. I’ll get my strength back faster, without having to carry it around.”

“Fine.” Sighing, I could tell by the feeling of the earth that I wasn’t going to have time to sit and debate with her. The dead were already starting to converge in on us once again. Holding out my arms, I let Crystal help me slide the robe on, as I shifted Heartblade from one hand to the other as I put an arm through each chain sleeve. Finally tying the sash to hold the robe shut, I moved forward to intercept the approaching swarm that was threatening to clog the tunnels again.

“Dino!” Yelling, I didn’t have a chance to look back to see if he was going to listen and follow my orders; I just to trust that he’d know how serious things were and would follow for a change without arguing. “Grab whatever bodies you can and toss them backwards behind us. There’s more dead approaching from the rear, and that path’s half-filled already. See if you can cause a roadblock back there so we don’t have to worry with the bastards swarming us from both sides.”

Moving forward, I placed myself in the center of the nearest intersection so the dead couldn’t keep crawling and pilling upon each other trying to fight in the narrow tunnel itself. It meant that I had to face threats from three sides at once for now, but I thought I could handle it. After all, I could sense the difference in the way the skeletons and the zombies moved, and I knew the skeletons wouldn’t be a threat. Using them as a buffer, I could spin and slice at the zombies as they approached – and Heartblade did the job of dispatching them quite effectively.

“Jess, you and Crystal dump whatever we don’t need from our packs,” I demanded from them, as I danced amongst the zombies and the skeletons scattered all around. “Frying pans, extra clothes, tents, sleeping bags – all that stuff! Lose the weight. Crystal’s right, we don’t need it down here. It’s just holding us back and slowing us down. Only keep the essentials!”

“We’re on it!” Crystal yelled back, sounding quite weary.

“What the hell?!” Dino yelled all at once, causing me to divert my attention towards the group. “What the hell are you doing?” He had stopped tossing bodies and was staring directly at Crystal now, who had yanked her leather tunic off over her head and was now rummaging through the packs topless.

“I’m cooling my ass off as quickly as possible while My Lord buys us some time!” She yelled back at him as she tossed a sleeping bag down the passage behind us. “Now get your ass back to blocking that passage!”

Turning my attention back to the dead, I’d been distracted for too long; several zombies had closed in from all directions and were pressuring me from all sides. One scraped at my arm, while another grabbed the lightest fistful of hair as I danced to try and avoid it. I suppose Crystal was right to pass me her robe; without it I would’ve been scratched and bleeding from my forearm now.

Shoving forth a surge of my own mana, I exploded the air out in a hardened gust in all directions. The dead that were pressing in on me were picked up and flew backwards, crashing like bowling balls into the dead pushing ever forward. “How much longer?” I yelled behind to the others, as I began dancing back and forth once more trying to keep each way from being overran.

“We’re as weight free, as we can be,” Crystal answered, moving up to push back a few of the dead from the tunnel leading off to the left. Glancing over, I could tell she was still topless – which, though providing quite an interesting view, was also quite worrisome.

“Where the hell’s your top?” I shouted at her. “Get that damn thing back on. You need the protection! If I have to wear this shitty robe, you have to wear your armor too!”

“I’ve got magical protections on better than the leather,” Crystal yelled in response as she helped push back the ever increasing horde. “It was just to keep the chain from pinching places that don’t need to be pinched. Jess is wearing the tunic now. Our healer needs the armor more than a tired warrior does!”

“Screw it!” I didn’t have time to argue any longer. We were going to get overran if we stayed here much longer. “Keep y’all’s asses up, or die!” I screamed as I pulled in my energy once more. This time, I released it in front of me, gathering the stale air from around us, and the damp moisture which had accumulated on the earthen tunnels naturally, and I twisted it into a spinning cyclone and forced it down the tunnel in front of me. As it hit the dead, their bones scattered and twirled, caught up in the magic.

As bones broke and shattered, the fragments and shards intermingled with the moisture in the magic and began to look like icicles spinning and grinding like a massive drill that moved and scattered everything in front of us. I couldn’t wait to see if the others would keep up; the strain to hold, compress, and control so much air in these tunnels was overwhelming. I didn’t know how long I could keep it up, but I knew we weren’t that far from where the others were held up now. All I could do is run forward as quickly as possible and hope that losing as much of their burden as they had, lightened the load so the others could keep up. We were all exhausted, about at our limits, but I didn’t have to luxury to slow or coddle anyone.

The burden of trying to maintain the light along with the cyclone became too great, and I had to release the flows of fire back into the environment. In the darkness we ran; Dino too out of breath, too tired to create his flame for us; with only my sense of the earth to guide us. Of course, the others didn’t have any trouble knowing which path to take and follow along. The roar of the cyclone sounded like a freight train rushing down the tunnels, and the tornado of twirling ice, bone fragments, and broken pieces of zombies, grabbed up anything and everything in the path and shredded it, giving us a passage free of obstructions.

Finally, as I feared I’d reached my limits, we reached our destination. With a last herculean effort of will, I forced the magic to blast on forward and down the tunnels for as far as it could reach before it dissipated naturally, and I collapsed to my knees. Almost too weak to even channel the energy to force a light back into existence, I forced myself to do so, so the others wouldn’t stumble past and continue to follow the magic as it moved away from us.

Crystal was so close at that point, she barreled into me, knocking us both to the ground in an exhausted heap. Glancing, I could tell we were in a passage with several stone doors along either side of it, and the door right beside us was closed tight. “Werb hare,” I slurred, having trouble trying to force my eyes to remain open and the light to remain steady.

As it flickered and threatened to go out, Dino and Jess caught up from where they both had lagged slightly behind. Closing my eyes to preserve what little fleeting strength I had left, I could feel the dead starting to come our way once again. From countless tunnels which we had passed, skipped, or barreled past, they were emerging, and they were coming for us.

I tried to force myself to get up. To do anything. We were here! The others were right on the other side of the door!

But, it was just too much. I’d pushed myself too far; used too much strength. Darkness descended over my consciousness and the light went out.