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The Misfits of Dametreos IIChapter 17: The Crypt Of Dernhal
The rain began to pour down as the Forestmen rangers marched through ankle-deep mud in single file. The black and foreboding forest opened up to reveal open land and the Tudor village of Dernhal, a hamlet on the eastern frontier, ancient battlefield. To the northwest lay a graveyard and a crypt.
“I don’t like this place, Fraun. It reeks of death and evil.” shuddered Dordrot.
“Nonsense, ancient superstitions. I’ve fought all o’er the world, and this little hamlet is surely not cursed.” replied Trevelayn.
Fraun rode calmly, his bow tucked tightly under his shoulder. His green attire was stained dirt brown with mud.
“Just keep moving. If we just keep on, we’ll be out of here in no time.”
“Yah, out of the fryin’ pan and inta the fire, more like it. We get past these barrows and next thing ya know, the Wolfpack are all ‘round.” warned Trevelayn.
“Point taken,” replied Fraun.
The troop moved on until they were in the main square. The place looked deserted. The smell of death permeated the air all around, skulls littered the ground, the streets broken, and the houses overgrown with weeds.
“Perhaps Dordrot was right...this place is cursed.” said Trevelayn.
A ranger picked up a skull and looked at it fearfully. Suddenly the ground shook. Bleached-white skeletal arms poked out of the ground, grabbing for the surface and pulling armored bodies out of the earth. The rangers unsheathed their swords and gathered in a circular formation. A skeleton tugged on the end of Dordrot's green cloak and with a hard blow he knocked it out. With that, the skeletons charged the group. The rangers crashed into the skeleton force and killed them all. Soon the battle was over, only a handful of Rangers dead.
“Sir, there is a Wolfpack army blocking the pass to Siastrahkan. We have not enough men to head through there.”
“Alright. I have an idea,” pondered Fraun. “The crypt!”
He pointed to a large stone mausoleum to the northwest.
“There should be a tunnel that lead out the other side in that crypt. We’ll go in there.”
“Alrighty then? What are we waitin’ for?” yelled Trev.
Dark clouds gathered as Dordrot and Fraun pushed away the runic door to the crypt and peered inside. Almost right in time a crack of thunder rumbled on the horizon and rain began to pour down on the rangers. Hodge looked up warily.
“I guess we’re leavin’ just in time mates.”
Fraun lit a torch, and the group of twenty-something headed inside. Some of the walls were carved with Mephistaran designs, others held long-dead skeletons moldering in tiny catacombs. Cobwebs hung around the long corridor and the farther they went the colder it became, the more potent the stench. Finally the hallway ended at a cold metal wall covered in dust and cobwebs. Trevelayn blew the mess away to reveal a brass symbol, a sinister-looking silver skull with one eye peering from it. Almost immediately some of the group shot back with fear, but Trevelayn only looked at them bitterly.
“What er ye afraid of, ye cowards?” he complained.
Fraun stepped forward to analyze the runes on the macabre emblem.
“Hmmm. Looks like ancient Nehimar. Probably a gravesite for a band of Necromancers who got stranded up here.”
The rangers looked about the tomb.
“We Forestmen are superstitious,” noted Hodge. “Don’t mind ‘em.”
Fraun read the inscriptions more intimately.
“Whomsoever disturbs the dead... the dead will disturb you. So unless you wish an untimely doom...turn back.” he grimly added.
Fraun and Trevelayn looked at each other eagerly and both threw open the vault. Immediately the torch flickered out in the cold, oxygen depleted air. Fraun scrambled in the darkness to light it again. When he did, he immediately wished he hadn’t.
“Fraun... I think we know what happened to the villagers…”
Two red-eyed vampires stood grinning evilly, their razor-sharp fangs glowing ivory in the evil crypt.
“Chodan help us…” pleaded Trevelayn as he rammed his saber into the black heart of one vile creature, and out he other end. Black blood, like bile, issued forth from the night-creeper, and the next leaped onto a ranger, biting into his neck. The elite screamed as the Vampire gorged itself on human blood. The men scrambled about, yelling and shouting, stabbing at it with their blades. Hodge tossed his cleaver, and the Vampire fell over, wounded but hardly dead, with the instrument sticking form its back. The ranger fell over as well, pale and stiff, his neck scarred. He was dead.
“Megabloksit, Fraun, we should have never come here!” cursed Trevelayn.
“You were the one so eager to go,” shot back Dordrot.
“Well, we could’ve at least have died honorably fighting the Wolfpack!” yelled Trev, “Now we get to rot and molder in some, Chodan-forsaken tomb, surrounded by bloody vampires and mutilated corpses!”
The room was domed, and a statue of some evil four-armed god stood triumphant over the next doorway, brandishing a war axe in one hand and holding the severed heads of Chodan, Heliopa, and Ichtyess in it's three others.
“Mephistar...God of Death and Evil. Let’s keep on. We don’t want to waste time.”
The group cautiously advanced by torchlight, the dim-yellow glow filling the grim hallway. Lining the walls, brass statues of sinister lost souls, mouths agape in a silent scream, stood undisturbed.
“I’ve seen crypts like these,” said Fraun balefully. “Reminds me of my days in the Dark Wastes of Vampyre Bay. Booby traps, eh…”
A ranger stepped forward impatiently. A dart whizzed out from one statue’s mouth and landed squarely in his neck. The ranger reached for the projectile in vain, falling sideways onto the stone floor.
“See? What did I say?” laughed Fraun. The men looked at him as if he’d gone mad.
Trevelayn tossed stones on depressions in the floor. The darts shot out as if they’d found an invisible intruder.
“Safe now. Let’s keep moving…” growled Trevelayn. The platoon kept up, weary, yet alert with fear. A broken, decomposing wooden door stood in their way. Dordrot promptly shoved the thing open, revealing a horrific sight. In the center of the room, a pile of human skulls stood in a circle, set in bronze, while an obsidian statue of Mephistar stood on top, his eyes glowing red rubies, brandishing a ruined axe. Surrounding this testament to evil where a cadre of gaunt skeletons, still dressed in robes the color of ebony and brass. The rangers stared at the hellish monument, aghast with shock and horror.
“Fraun... I think that statue just... Moved.” shivered Dordrot.
“Nonsense, what are you-”
Fraun was cut short, as the Mephistar statue sprung to life and hurled a ranger across the room, where he landed with a sickening crunch on a wall. Screaming a piercing bloodcurdling shriek, the obsidian monster rampaged through the rangers.
“A golem! It’s been enchanted…” snapped Trevelayn, rushing at it with his saber.
“DIE YOU MYTHICAL BEST-LOCK!” he yelled as he charged it. He bashed his saber onto the cold obsidian armor, but the blade chipped. The golem turned to it’s attacker and was about to sever his head, when Fraun raised his hand.
“KAUSKONUS ILLUMITI!” he shouted, a beam of pure light piercing the stone beast. The rangers ducked as pieces of obsidian exploded through the room.
“That... was good,” exclaimed Trevelayn.
“Thank you Trevelayn. I have some skill in magic. But not as much as the one that taught me.” said Fraun.
“Who is the one that taught you?” asked Trevelayn.
“A great wizard named Voolmark.” Fraun replied. “What I wouldn't give to have him here right now.”
Suddenly there was a flash of light and there stood a man adorn in dark green with two straps forming an X on his body and pouches. He had silver gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard and moustache. He wore no hat and had a wooden white staff and green gem on top. He gave a white-toothed smile and exclaimed, “Hello Fraun. You called and I answered.”
Fraun smiled and said, “Haha. I how did you know where I was?”
“Well of course silly. I have a crystal ball. But I can only see and hear when you are in a place filled with extreme magic within. So, when you entered this crypt with is full of magic and got attacked by the Vampires I quickly came here to help. But I see that you have already done away with them.”
“Yes we have.” chuckled Fraun.
In a more serious tone he said, “But we don’t have many men left, and we need to get through those Wolfpack troops blockading the pass.”
“Well, why do you think I came? I can easily make an illusion to make your force look three four times as big as it is. The Wolfpack troops will surrender as soon as they think they're surrounded.”
“What are we waiting for then.” bellowed Dordrot. “Let's kick some Wolfpack bee-hind.”
“Oh no...I’m not taking any chances on some, crazy, mumbo-jumbo spell!” cried Trevelayn.
“What? Well what do you expect us to do, then? Waltz out there in front of the Wolfpack army?” snapped back Fraun.
“Or stay and rot in this evil crypt?” said Dordrot.
“Well, it’s better than being murdered and strung up by those Wolfpack fiends.”
“It’s the end of the tunnel!”
“There’ll be no need,” sighed Voolmark. “Fraun, I taught you of magical barriers, didn’t I?”
“Yes, sir. The conflicting natures of magic that flow through the world can often conflict and cancel each other out.”
“Yes, and that is exactly what has happened, my boy. This place is far too evil for the light side of magic to come through. I’m afraid that here, I can only cast the most minor of spells.”
“Tyco…” growled Dordrot.
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