"No, the amount hasn’t changed... Maybe no one was replaced after all, but if that’s true, then our instincts are way off and that leaves a bunch of things without answers" Marlene squinted her eyes, not convinced much.
"I think someone over there just went completely limp though" Irgot pointed out, Iritim expected the intruder to get booted out of the barrier instantly, not for one of the adventurers to pass out.
"He looks dead to me" Arandniel looked left and right, by now, everyone else was lying down, sleeping or not paying attention to them in any way, getting the clue Irgot used one of her abilities, shrouding the surroundings a way that made everything harder to perceive, making it highly ignorable. Discover stories at novelhall.Côm
The elf slashed open the man’s gambeson, revealing a gaping hole, his chest and stomach cavity had both been completely hollowed, his ribs sticking out chaotically, bearing marks of having been eaten away by acid, a clear signs that his insides had been dealt with by the black blood.
No trace of anything foreign was inside, taking closer looks around, this wasn’t the only signs of damage, thin passageways appeared to have been carved all the way across the inside of his body, considering that this guy had still been moving a few moments prior to the barrier being erected, he had been puppeteered.
No wonder no one was able to notice something was off, the sensation of somebody missing was simply wrong, their corpse was still there, moving with them.
"Since it wasn’t an entire being, but just a part having been injected inside a person, the barrier erased it all" the priestess dusted herself and stood up.
"What do we do with the body now? Do we tell the others or...?" Tilke questioned, looking up at the ceiling.
The five of them looked back at one another for a few moments, their decision making interrupted as the rot around began to move, making way for armoured skeletons, many of them.
As they revealed themselves, the usual sounds they produced became apparent, leading everyone else to be alert, simultaneously, the rot started to expand, closing in on the previously vast room, spitting blood as it went.
All this time, it was only needed for them to rush through without any thoughts, the death hunters, with their numbers and life arts would have easily made it all the way down there, their caution had been warranted but unnecessary either way.
Although the threat that had taken all of those people down hadn’t shown itself just yet.
Soon, they arrived before a great gate, and Marlene could tell.
"That’s a boss gate alright, everyone feeling good, well rested? This is where the real challenge is!" she was excited, but also starting to feel nervous, all in all, this dungeon wasn’t very dungeon-like, only the uppermost portion had any sort of labyrinth, the part filled with rot was more so a straight path leading to a straight path leading down.
This was no dungeon promising treasures and rewards, that they had all known from the very beginning, in fact, when they had found the cube opening the way, accompanied with a description of what was sealed here, they hadn’t been certain whether to go there or not.
But, this here was the key to them not having to work another day in their lives!
Felling a close member of the long gone undead king was certain to get them undying praises and rewards, instead of spending their lives roaming around, hoping for luck to strike, they were going to put it all on the line for a chance at taking that luck for themselves.
Also, it was rather common for seals to sap the energy of the one being locked down, after all, seals couldn’t be trusted to last forever, they would inevitably degrade as time went by, the purpose was to weaken the target and then have someone skilled swoop in after a while and permanently dispatch the threat.
This seal was one set by the gods themselves, Iritim was a learned priestess, so she knew of the ’Great Silence’, when the link between the gods above and mortals below was pretty much severed, this also entailed that the divine seal had also endured a great blow.
The seal was weak, and this had pushed them to rush their decision of taking this fight for themselves, since it could break on its own at any time.