Lain crawled over Nay and the others who were injured in the blast.

“Your face,” Nay said, reaching out and pointing at the injured healer.

But Lain didn’t even stop to examine herself. Instead, a golden acorn materialized in her hand and she tossed it into the air. A tree of light flashed and suddenly golden leaves were falling on all of them.

One of the leaves touched Nay’s skin and the pain from the bone shrapnel faded. The bits of bone popped out of her flesh and the wounds closed, mending. The same thing happened to Lain and Tuk-Tuk as the healing restored them to new.

The sound of fighting caught Nay’s attention.

They all looked from each other to the scene that was unfolding next to them. Ilyawraith was engaged in combat with Gideon the Audacious. And on the other side, Quincy and Fluxwell were fighting the two hulking Decay Golems.

Ilyawraith and Gideon circled each other.

The necromancer blurred and vigor sparks flew as bone scythe met Hoarfrost, Ilyawraith’s ice and coral bo staff.

“The staff is a common weapon on Yseros,” Gideon said, smiling. “Is it not?”

“There’s nothing common about my weapon,” Ilyawraith said.

Gideon moved in again, vertically swinging the scythe and Ilyawraith leapt backwards while jabbing forward with Hoarfrost. Icicles appeared near the tip of the bo and darted at the necromancer. They shattered upon collision with his bone breastplate but one slashed him across the cheek.

He put a hand to his face and then looked at his own blood. “Well done.”

Nay couldn’t sit here and watch her mentor fight this guy alone. She activated Salvo of Knives and her weapons disappeared. Instead of reappearing inside Gideon, two skeletal arms appeared from his back, the boney hands catching her blades. It was some type of defensive necromantic ability.

Gideon looked at Nay with an admonishing smirk and tilt of his head. “Honestly, where are the manners?” He looked back to Ilyawraith. “Can’t they see we’re dueling?”

Nom’s Disintegration Ray blasted him in the chest. His bone armor turned red, absorbing the ray. It did no damage whatsoever to Gideon.

Next came Tuk-Tuk’s arrow, but one of the skeletal hands caught that projectile as well.

Gideon sighed as if he was a socialite at a dinner gathering and someone broke etiquette. “Very well. I can see your party needs something to occupy them. I shall oblige.”

Gideon whistled an odd tune. It was just a few notes. Was this the music they had heard on the surface? For Nay, it was hard to tell, for the tune was so short. It was just a brief call.

And it was answered by three spectral spirits that rose from a vigor portal that opened on the floor. The light shimmered and three ghost-like phantoms appeared. Two women, wearing flowing white dresses. Pre-Raphaelite beauties even in their state of undead. The third spirit between them was a man. He was wearing a doublet and leggings with tassels.

Gideon leveled his gaze at Ilyawraith. “Consider these minions thematic.”

“Thematic to what?” she said.

“As to my guess concerning your identity.”

The three spirits opened their mouths unnaturally wide, jaws distending, and they shrieked.

Nay’s ear drum felt like it had been turned into the central hub for raw and shredded nerves. She had never felt this level of pain with an aural attack before. It was piercing, as if someone was shoving an icepick into her brain through her ears and eardrums. She crouched and held her hands over her ears. Blood trickled out from between her fingers.

Fluxwell and Quincy had stopped mid-fight with the Decay Golems and contorted in pain. One of the golems smashed Quincy against a wall while he was doubled-over .

“Banshees!” Fluxwell said. “Plug your damned ears!”

He pressed one of the vigor stones on his helm, presumably to produce some noise cancelling effect, then the maugrim blocked a blow from one of the golems with his gauntlet.

Nay and Lain pulled out the rabbit fur earplugs Tuk-Tuk had given to them in the fight with the harpies.

Nay’s weapons returned back to her hands and she stood to face the banshees. But the male one singled her out and he released a scream. She could see a line of circles, the sound waves, rippling through the air and coming at her. They hit her in the stomach and she folded over and was taken off her feet. Her ear plugs had managed to dampen the worst of the sound, but the scream itself hit her hard.

Tuk-Tuk shifted into polar bear form and charged the banshees. The two females released screams at him, but the aural attack passed through a Mirror Image of him. They were surprised to discover the real Tuk-Tuk plowing into them.

He activated Shred. It turned out the banshees were part corporeal. Because he ragdolled one of them into the floor, disrupting her spirit form.

The other banshees floated away and then released more sonic screams at the polar bear but his form was so massive the sound waves just disrupted his fur coat, his layer of fat and muscle absorbing most of the attack. His blubber shuddered from the sonic waves.

Gideon made a motion with his hand and more skeletons arrived, bursting through the walls and ceiling.

Nay cut down the newcomers with ice scythe, sending them in a scattering of bones to the floor.

Lain threw one of her hoops in the air and it flashed red, cutting even more skeletons down as it swept in a devastating line across the fresh wave of minions.

Ilyawraith and Gideon exchanged attacks and parries, probing and testing each other’s defenses. Nay’s mentor summoned a gust of wind and ice, and sent it at the necromancer.

He rolled, dodging the spears of ice and the powerful wind. He popped out of it and gestured at the floor. The scattered bones of the dismantled skeletons vibrated and lifted into the air. Then in a blink they shot forth at Ilyawraith.

She summoned an icewall in front of her. The storm of bones flew into the ice, exploding into yellow dust. But more bone spears kept coming, cracking the ice. Nay joined her mentor and applied Chef’s Thermometer to the wavering shield wall, blasting it with cold to keep it steady.

“What rank is this motherfucker?” Nay said, crouching next to her mentor.

“He’s Silver,” Ilyawraith said.

“Not Gold?”

“We would instantly know if he was Gold. No, he’s Silver and he’s using trinkets to enhance his power. Especially with his minions.”

“What do we do?”

“Stealth yourself. Underneath his breastplate, he’s wearing a necklace that has a vigor trinket on it. I’ll incapacitate him while you remove the necklace. Do you think you can do that?”

“Sneak around like a little thief? Sure. It’ll be like shoplifting when I was a teen except this time I won’t get caught.”

#

Fluxwell managed to dodge the Decay Golem’s fist. It hammered the ground and the chamber floor shook. He hit the ground with his rocket mace, sending a tremor of earth and root at the golem. Pillars of earth erupted from the ground, coming up to the undead minion’s knees and entangling it, causing a slow effect on the golem.

Fluxwell looked behind and saw the other Decay Golem. He adjusted his position then rechecked the Decay Golem and his place between the two monsters. He taunted his attacker. “Alright, you undead knob polisher! Gimme your best shot!”

The Decay Golem punched the maugrim and there was the sound of rock-hard bone smashing steel. His breastplate crumpled some from the impact and the blow sent Fluxwell flying faster than the eye could track. He tucked in his knees and arms and he hit the other Decay Golem in the back like a cannonball. Before he made impact, he pointed his spiked gauntlet forward but held it close to his body so the collision wouldn’t break his arm. As a youngling, he had learned the lesson of broken bones the hard way.

Quincy barely got out of the way as the maugrim exploded out of the Decay Golem’s torso and crashed on the ground, rolling past him. The wounded Decay Golem staggered and looked down at the maugrim shaped hole in its stomach.

It collapsed to a knee and Quincy split its skull with Gertrude. Blight and noxious gasses slopped out of it in a red and green goo. The Decay Golem fell over, dead.

Fluxwell held up his spiked gauntlet and it was covered in golem gore. “These golems are too soft to truly threaten a maugrim! But I am building up quite the thirst from this tussle! Where’s my tentacle friend at?!”

“You rang?” Nom said, appearing to aid him and Quincy.

“Get your ale table ready, friend! Victory is close at hand.”

“I like your confidence,” Nom said.

The remaining Decay Golem released point its palm at them. An orifice swirled open on its goopy flesh and a noxious crimson cloud spewed forth. Fluxwell and Nom dodged it but it hit Quincy full on.

The blight had no effect on Quincy. It looked at him confused. The lodge owner swung his axe into the thing’s side with a chunk.

More of the poison gas blasted out of the wound and this time some of the spray hit Fluxwell. It seeped through the cracks in his armor.

He bellowed as his skin turned gray, becoming discolored. The skin on his face decayed, sloughing off his cheeks. The maugrim bellowed in horror.

One of Lain’s hoops appeared over Fluxwell. It bathed him in a golden healing shower. Restoring his flesh and overriding the decay cloud. The maugrim spun against a wall to get away, the healing stream restoring his flesh.

The healer herself was tossing acorns of healing power at Tuk-Tuk like she was chucking shurikens, keeping him up as he fought the banshees.

Nom slithered towards the Decay Golem. It hammer struck a fist into him, smashing the ground.

Then it lifted its fist, confused.

There was no smashed tentacle there. Instead it was a few feet away. It blinked, flabbergasted.

And then the tentacle was between its legs, serpentining off the ground. Nom spun, his green fins acting like blades.

Nom entered the Decay Golem’s groin and drilled vertically through its body, splattering Quincy with viscera. He traveled through its torso, rupturing its center mass. Then the golem’s head burst as Nom exploded through its neck. The tentacle landed on the ground, slick with blood and guts, with a plop.

Blood and decay sprayed into the air from the neck stump. The golem collapsed, the life gone from it.

#

A huge skeletal hand erupted from the floor and punched Ilyawraith, sending her airborne. Another huge skeleton hand appeared behind her, catching her. It squeezed her tight, trapping her.

Lain’s healing hoop appeared over her like a halo, healing her as the skeletal hand tried to squeeze the life out of her.

Ilyawraith released her own sonic scream, blowing Gideon across the chamber, keeping Gideon at a distance so he couldn’t hurt her with his bone scythe. She stopped screaming and the bone fingers around her exploded as she broke free.

“Now, this is most curious,” Gideon said. “The Banshee Sect is dead. But here you are fighting with their techniques. Most curious, indeed. My contacts in the Ligeia League should be interested to hear about this.”

“You’ll have to make it back to the Peninsula first,” Ilyawraith said. “Which I won’t allow to happen.”

Gideon kept on speaking, as if he didn’t hear her. “But they probably won’t believe me. They’ll want to see proof for themselves.”

Lain’s hoop returned to her and she flanked Ilyawraith. Gideon noticed her.

“Ah, a healer!” Gideon said. He looked back at Ilyawraith. “Now, that’s finally enough to put you at an advantage. Maybe it’s time I put us back on even ground.” He held up a hand and gestured with two fingers. Come hither.

Another person appeared, seemingly materializing out of thin air. It was a petite woman in a black and purple poofy Lolita dress. She wore black leather boots up to her knees and she had on baroque makeup that made her face look like a Day of the Dead sugar skull. She had black hair in pigtails and there was a closed black umbrella in her hand that she was leaning on like it was cane.

“Bianca,” Gideon said. “Thank you for gracing us with your presence.”

“Need heals?” she said. She took in the opposing party, unimpressed. “Against this crew? They don’t look like much.”

Nom slithered forward, revealing himself. He appraised Bianca’s appearance. “Nice fit. The boots are a nice touch.”

The black-haired girl looked over at the tentacle. Her eyes grew wide. “Why’s there a tentacle with them? Who’s the warlock here?”

Gideon began. “No warlock –“

“Uh, is that a maugrim? Did it just kill your Decay Golems? You were right about the North. The past really is coming to life.”

Gideon did a double-take, as if noticing Fluxwell for the first time. “I think you’re right. New plan. Supply me heals, but also permission to kill all of them except for the maugrim.”

Bianca shrugged and then popped open her umbrella. She assumed a stance, readying herself in her battle stance and support role. “This should be fun.”

Nay approached Gideon, stealthed, praying that he couldn’t detect her.