Almost as soon as the word “wraith” left Luella’s lips, Lexi noticed that there was one shape towards the back of the chamber which differed from the tree-like columns that gave the room it’s arboreal atmosphere. Nestled between a pair of stone pillars whose mighty girths dwarfed the whole of their peers, there lay a rectangular stone platform, which Lexi at first struggled to identify. However, as soon as she looked closely and saw that the large stone lid set atop the edifice was slightly askew, the proper name of the thing came flooding into her mind.

That’s a fucking sarcophagus.

From out of the hollow void exposed by the slightly open lid, a faintly glowing mist began to pour. Thick as soup, the mist clung to the ground, and rolled out to quickly fill the entirety of the chamber within which the four adventurers had found themselves. Before any of the girls even had a chance to do a double-take at the unearthly mist’s sudden appearance, they were already knee deep in the impenetrably thick haze of condensed vapor.

A sudden crashing sound from behind the quartet caused all four girls to nearly jump out of their skin. Whirling around, sword drawn and ready to strike, Lexi saw that the passageway through which they had just entered the mist-laden chamber was now barred. An immensely thick black iron portcullis had been cleverly concealed within the archway itself, and had fallen down to completely cut off any retreat from whatever was being borne out of the sarcophagus on this fell mist.

“Shit!” Luella cursed, slamming all four of her palms against the portcullis’ cold iron. “Wraiths have no scent, so I had no forewarning that anything like this was waiting for us here…fuck!”

“Just how bad is this?” Lexi asked, hoping that the mothkin would assuage the mounting feeling of dread creeping over the paladin. The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck were practically standing up straight, so palpable was the sensation of raw and unabashed malignancy coming from the sarcophagus.

“Let’s just say that, compared to a wraith,” Luella rattled off frantically, the edge of her frayed nerves bleeding into her speech. “That sphinx we just tangled with might as well have been nothing more that a warm up exercise.”

“I am unfamiliar with this type of being,” Samantha said, her stoic facade as of yet unbroken, her sheer solidity lending Lexi more than a bit of strength by proxy. “Are there any special tactics of their that we should be aware of, or any stratagems we ought employ specifically against them?”

“Yeah!” Danica piped in, poking her head out from behind Samantha’s hulking bronze thigh. Whatever dread Lexi felt, the elf was apparently immune to it. Her entire demeanor was so clearly suffused with excitement at the novelty of the situation, her eyes wide and long pointed ears bobbing up and down with interest. “What even is a wraith anyway? I’ve never even heard of something with that name before, and—”

As usual, Danica found herself cut off mid-sentence. Although, this time it was not from an interjection from one of her comrades, or one of their hands being clasped over her mouth. Rather, it was the piercing shriek which suddenly echoed forth from within the sarcophagus, rebounding off the stone walls and ceiling, filling the entire chamber with an unholy cacophony of high-pitched wails. All four of the girls buried their ears in their palms, trying in vain to blot out at least some of the ear-shattering dissonance of the wordless shriek.

When Lexi finally regained enough presence of mind to look back up, she saw that the two huge pillars on either side of the sarcophagus now each had a thin line of glowing blue light etched upon the surface, taking the shape of a doorway. The illuminated lines suddenly flared brightly and then faded into cool, faintly glowing outlines now drawn deep into the stone itself. The carved lines were, in fact, so deep that Lexi could have sworn that they were doors, and not merely images of such — a supposition which was proven wholly accurate when they swung open in unison.

“OK, now what the fuck are those supposed to be!?” Lexi shouted at Luella, her voice thick with terror, her upraised arm pointing frantically at one of the dark alcoves revealed to be inset into the massive columns behind the previously hidden stone doors.

Within each shadowed recess stood an upright human skeleton, dressed in matching suits of blackened plate and chain mail, and clutching two-handed long swords, held with the pommels below their chins and the blades pointed down. When they first came into view, they looked to be nothing more than the skeletal remains of long dead warriors. However, as soon as the unwholesome mist coiled about their shins, the black sockets of each skull began to glow with fiery sparks of red light, yielding an impression of sheer malevolence. When the figures moved to step forth out of the darky shadowed alcoves and into the starlit — at least in Lexi’s perception — chamber, the paladin noticed that there was an almost shimmering transparency to the pair of skeletons, as if they were only partially really there.

“Fucking hell!” Luella yelled, her antennae trembling so wildly that they appeared a blur in Lexi’s starlight vision. “You know how I said a wraith was bad? Well this wraith is apparently high up enough on the undead food chain that we’re not only facing him, but also this pair of spectral knights that he’s using as his lackeys.”

“So these creatures fight on the wraith’s behalf as proxies?” Samantha asked pointedly, her clipped tones carrying a clear sense of urgency.

“Right,” the mothkin said with a stiff nod. “There’s no getting out of here without somehow subduing the wraith, and we won’t be able to get to him with these things in the way.”

“But…they look so slow!” Danica giggled, unshouldering her long bow.

Before Luella could open her mouth to respond, the elf had drawn a bead on one of the specters with her bow, and let fly three times in blindingly rapid succession. Although each arrow hit its mark, the tip flying straight and true for the creature’s chest, the missiles passed through the specter, clattering noisily against the stone column behind him, with the creature itself advancing forward as if nothing of any consequence had occurred.

Descriptions of monsters from the innumerable RPGs that had rotted Lexi’s brain flooded into the paladin’s mind, reminding her that “piercing” weapons were pretty much useless against skeletons, but that “slashing” or “bludgeoning” weapons would have a better chance of doing serious damage. Somehow, the fact that the fact that Danica’s arrows had not clattered off of the skeleton’s bones, but instead had passed completely through the creature to rebound off of the wall behind it, did not occur to Lexi. Overconfidence once again surged within the young futanari as she strode towards the skeletal knight, readying her huge broadsword.

“Lemme taka a crack at this,” she said.

“Wait!” Luella cried. “It won’t—”

But the mothkin’s cry came too late.

Just as the words began to leave her ruby red lips, Lexi reached the specter and laid into the slow moving creature with a powerful diagonal slash aimed straight at the crook between its neck and shoulder. The specter did not make any move to either dodge or parry the blow, but instead simply continued advancing slowly towards the party, its sword held point down clutched in both bony hands. The mighty slash should have cut the creature in two. However, much like the arrows Danica had fired off directly into the specter, Lexi’s blade passed clean through. There was, she found, no solidity to the specter. It was like chopping through a being coalesced from the mist itself.

“What the fuck!?” Lexi yelled in confusion.

She gaped at the creature, its slow march carrying it impassively forward, either oblivious or uncaring of the fact that the paladin had just failed in her attempt to cut it in half. The paladin was so shocked that, for a moment, she simply stared dumbly at the specter, watching it walk straight towards her. Thankfully, the spell was broken when a quartet of furry white arms grabbed a hold of her, yanking the paladin back several paces out of the specter’s path. It was only then that Lexi realized that both of the skeletal knights had silently reversed the grips on their swords, now holding them in an upright position, ready to strike as they closed in on the four adventurers.

In the seconds before the undead warriors made contact with the group, Luella tried to explain their dire situation as quickly as possible. “Only magical, or magically enhanced physical attacks will do the slightest bit of damage to specters. So, unless you’ve got something like that ready to go, make some space between yourself and these things. You can’t hit them with a normal blow, but they can definitely hit you.”

“Shit, OK.” Lexi panted. “New plan! Since we’re still down our magic user, we’ll have to come in hard with whatever enhanced kinetic attacks we’ve got. Samantha, I know you can fucking bring it, and I’ve got my flaming sword trick. Danica, have you got any tricks like that up your little sleeves?”

The monk gave Lexi the barest hint of a smile, cracking the knuckles beneath her hand wraps loudly in response. For once, however, the elf was mercifully silent, simply shaking her head glumly, realizing that her role in the fight would be to stay out of the way and keep an eye out for any opportunities where her other skills might be of use.

“Right,” Lexi continued briskly. “Do your best to steer clear of these slippery fucks then, but keep your eyes peeled. How about you, Luella?”

“I’ve got something,” the mothkin replied, her upper two hands reaching down to deftly draw out the rapier and dagger hanging easily on her wide hips.

“Good deal!” Lexi said enthusiastically. “I’ll grab this one on the left, and you and Samantha tag team the other one.”

“So be it,” Samantha said softly, and then spun on her heel to run charging towards the specter advancing on the party from the right, closing the twenty foot gap between them in a matter of seconds.

“Gah, wait for me!” Luella called after the monk, scrambling to catch up to the huge warrior woman’s enormous strides.

Seeing that Danica had heeded her command and tucked herself away between a cluster of stone columns off to the side of where the action would be happening, Lexi turned back to face the spectral warrior still slowly treading towards her. Dropping down into a combat stance, Lexi drew back her broadsword, intoning the magical command words that would activate the spell that she hoped would put her on more or less equal footing with this undead foe.

Sword of Flame!

Light exploded throughout the chamber’s darkness, bathing the entire room in the fiery brilliance pouring out of the magical flames which now wreathed the huge blade that the paladin wielded. The supplementary effects of the Holy Illumination which was combined into the Sword of Flame spell took hold immediately, visibly staggering the advances of each of the spectral knights, the magical light seeming to diminish both their solidity and vitality.

To her right, Lexi saw Samantha slam her fists together, bellowing out the words which would activate her Fists of Fury combination as she barreled towards her skeletal warrior. Behind her, Luella had apparently activated some sort of enchantment of her own as well, although it was not one with which Lexi was familiar. The mothgirl’s rapier and main-gauche dagger were both glowing with pale blue light, which did not appear to cause the same visible deterioration in their enemies’ capabilities, but clearly evidenced some magical enhancement to the two blades.

Trusting that her two comrades could handle themselves for now, Lexi focused all of her attention on the specter closing in on her, bringing her flaming sword up swiftly to meet in a furious clash of steel against the very solid blade wielded by the undead knight.