Alexia asked Megan "Who do you think this ally could be?"

"Not sure. We should get moving on." Megan said.

The group headed down the only other tunnel connected to the chamber and it once again started to get pitch black. As they went they found several pits in the tunnel they had to move around. Taking a look into one Alexia found she could not see the bottom, and could very faintly hear what sounded like running water. Moving past the pits, the tunnel began to head down again.

As they were walking several skeleton arms suddenly sprung from crevices in the tunnel grasping at them. Henrik and Bob took the lead and began to smash the grasping arms. Lena let out a loud squeak when one of the skeleton arms grabbed onto her and started to pull her to the crevice. Beryl brought her shield down upon the skeleton arm severing it. Lena pulled off the skeleton arm, and was scared to see it start to crawl back to the crevice.

Megan helped her up and said "It's the corruption in the air, these things hunger for the taste of life. We must be getting closer."

Getting past the grasping arms without too much trouble they began to hear more chanting. When they began to see lights Alexia indicated she would sneak up to take a look before coming back. She cancelled her Flameshield to make her less obvious and carefully moved forward.

Reaching the entrance to the chamber she took a look. At least double in size of the previous chamber, this chamber has more decorated in carvings along the walls. They depicted various scenes of battles of undead overwhelming the living. A larger statue of the Evil Goddess was present in a different pose this time, with a come hither look. In her hands she held a skull that she was using as a cup.

Like in the previous room, there were a bunch of cultists offering blood to their goddess, and would be of little threat. However several seemed to have already passed and have become level 1 zombies. There were several skeleton guards of higher level stationed through the room. The last major threat in the room was a man chanting right in front of the statue wearing a strange mask. From his clothes she marked him as a noble.

Going back to the group Alexia said "Like the other chamber most of them won't be a threat. There are some skeleton guards that look like they have a similar ability to the zombie from before, so they might rise again. The Major threat is going to be from this Vampire called Mark Writhing."

Megan said "Writhing? I've heard of him. Not a pleasant fellow. He's a vampire? Do we have a way to stop it from regenerating?"

"Yeah, and he seems to have some mind manipulation powers so be on your guard everyone. To stop him, I have a potion of acid that I picked up from earlier." Alexia said.

She started up the Storm of Flames skill, when it was prepared, she stepped out and fired it at the worshiping crowd. The cultists fell into panic then death as the wave of flames overwhelmed them. The Low level zombies were to dumb to even dodge and were incinerated.

Mark growled and charged through the wave of flames directly at Alexia. Beryl stepped in front of Alexia and blocked the Vampire. She swung her sword down at Mark who caught the blade with his right hand and tried to yank it out of her hand. She managed to barely hold on while blocking attacks from his left hand with her shield. Lena broke the tug of war by shooting at his head, which he dodged and flipped backwards.

While this was going on, Henrik and Bob were dealing with the skeletons. While not difficult in themselves, the skeletons kept reforming over and over again. Bob yelled to Henrik "Crush them to dust, let's see them come back from that!" Swinging his mace he started to smash the bones in front of him to pieces.

Mark growled in anger and waved his hand at the groaning cultists who lay dying. With a loud sick pop, blood exploded out of them forming a strange looking thing that was humanoid, but made out of blood. With a loud cackle it pounced towards Lena jumping on her and starting to cut into her. Lena dropped the crossbow and tried to pull the blood creature off of her.

Mark went after Beryl, and ripped her shield from her hand, and then thrusted his hand towards Beryl's neck, when Megan caught him around his neck pulling him short of ripping Beryl's throat open. Mark reached up to untangle the whip, and Beryl took this chance and ran him through with her blade. Roaring in anger, he smacked Beryl causing her to tumble away dazed.

Alexia was helping Lena get the blood creature off and managed to pull it off, only for it to start attacking Alexia. Having none of this she activated her Flameshield which started to burn the blood creature. Screaming it jumped away from her only for it to be hit and destroyed by a flameshot. Turning her attention back to the Vampire, she saw him pull out the sword lodged within him.

Mark turned and chucked it at Megan, who managed to dodge at the second. Henrik and Bob had finished dealing with the skeletons, and started to head at Mark when the Vampire turned towards them and in a commanding tone said "Stop what you are doing and attack each other." The two stopped and started to turn towards each other with weapons raised.

Megan quickly yelled with her own commanding voice "Don't listen to him, fucking hack his fucking head off."

Bob froze, and did not do anything else. Henrik on the other hand turned and charged swinging his greatsword at Mark. Mark cursed and fled the blade quickly retreating near the statue. "You fools will not stop my destiny! I will become her lover and then the world shall be ours!" Mark cackled madly and grabbed a cultist from the ground and tore into his neck and began to drink.

Alexia quickly pulled out the bottle of green bubbling liquid and chucked it at the vampire. Mark had just finished and tossed the body to the side when the bottle hit him breaking apart and splashing over him. Confused for a moment Mark started to laugh and said "What was that supposed to be? I will enjoy ripping out your throats and feasting on your entrails!"

Megan looked at Alexia and said "I thought you said you had acid?"

"I thought it was acid!"

Mark began to approach and they prepared to fight him, when all of a sudden he started to twitch. "What did you do to me?" Mark started to wail in agony and ripped open his shirt and underneath his skin they could see something start to form and push out.

To their horror they realized it was a malformed version of Marks head. Mark screamed in terror and pain and so did the second head as more of marks flesh began to bubble out wards. Limbs and flesh started to pour out his body, and he kept screaming till a foot emerged from his mouth, and soon all that was left was a pile of flesh that shook and grew for a moment. Then it shuddered and was still.

Alexia and Megan's horror at what happened was broken when both of them felt the level up energy flow through them leveling up twice. After they returned to their senses, Alexia went to Lena and checked her injuries. Using her healing skill she closed up her wounds. Lena said thank you and went to retrieve her crossbow.

Beryl got up and winced in pain. "I think I broke a rib" She whispered, not wanting to speak.

Alexia went to her and said "I'm not sure how well this will do on broken bones." Placing her palm under Beryl's armor she poured in the healing energy.

"That feels better. Still sore but I'll live." Beryl said and stood "That thing dead now?"

Alexia said "Yeah, I think so. Examinations are not working on it right, but it says it has no health."

"You got that potion from Jimmy's stock?" Beryl asked. Alexia nodded. "Dammit, he's making corrupted potions. That's not something a so-called amateur can make. He fucking played us for fools." Beryl said and kicked the flesh lump. "Had to let him go, someone paid for his bail. Had I known he was making corrupted potions. I could have kept him locked up. Do you have any more corrupted potions?"

Alexia said "Just one more I can't identify. It's different from the other one."

Beryl nodded and said "Don't use it, God knows what it could unleash."

"Wait is that where you got those health potions from?" Lena asked Alexia. Alexia said yes, and Lena turned towards Beryl and said "Hey you look like you need these more than I do." Handing the two Health potions to Beryl. Beryl pushed them back into the otters hands.

Henrik and Bob went to Megan and thanked her. "Damn bastard nearly made me hurt Henrik. How could I live with myself if that happened?" Bob said angrily and Henrik patted the Dwarf's head.

Alexia said "Let's get going, we must be getting closer to where they are summoning this Evil God."

They moved forward and as they went the tunnel began to start to climb. As it did so red glowing veins started to appear in the walls around them. Every few seconds they seemed to pulse and mana spiked. Alexia could taste a strange odor in the air and identified it as corruption.

"We should be okay from the corruption for right now" Megan said. "Our contracts with gods should provide us some strength. Our party system seems to be blocking it as well."

Continuing forward, the tunnel began to tilt upwards, it was almost impossible to walk up wards, and they had to resort to crawling. Lena lost her grip and was only caught from rolling down, by Beryl. The tunnel began to shake unexpectedly and the Red Veins pulsed brightly turning everything sickly blood red.

After the Tunnel stopped shaking they kept going and the tunnel eventually leveled back out. From ahead they could make out more chanting and the lights of torches. Carefully they approached the cavern and looked out. The cavern was large at least five hundred feet in length and two hundred in width. The Ceiling was about thirty feet above and was crisscrossed with those veins lighting up the cavern with pulses of red light.

Similar carvings lined the walls along with statues of various undead. In the center of the room was a statue of the evil goddess. Unlike the others this one looked to be in great pain, and had a hole in her chest as if something was missing. Her demonic wings were fully extended, and a sickly red glow was starting to come off the statue.

Hanging from chains nearby was Oliver. He was hanging over a pit filled with blood and several vampires engaging in an orgy. Oliver was covered in cuts dripping blood down into this pool, and he looked almost out of it. Using examination to check on his health, Alexia was startled to see his race this time.

Pure didn't mean virginity, it must have referred to him being a Angel, a pure connection to a god. For his last name she guessed he must be a servant of the Sun Goddess Niamas. At least he didn't look too close to death. The blood pool fed a series of diagrams around the Statue of the goddess obviously part of the ritual. Oliver moved his head taking a glance at her direction, having obviously felt her use examination on him.

Leading the ritual was an ancient looking man, his skin a sickly pale. He was standing nude and was covered in a strange blood red tattoo. Reading from a book he was chanting in a tongue that made Alexia's head hurt from listening. He was also making arcane gestures. Using Examination on him she was startled to find how powerful he was.

"Well this looks like trouble." Alexia said.