Of Zombie Hordes and Great Swords

John swallowed, his staff trembling in his hands as he tried to pull another [Lesser Air Burst] together. He shuddered, fear rolling down his spine. Even the warmth of his spell felt like nothing down here. Golden light paled in comparison to the teal glow of the creature’s mana.

“John?” Ela whispered, raising her weapon. “Have you scried them?”

“O-one second,” he stammered back.

Ela took a step back in front of him, glancing around at the foes which now surrounded them. Bodies writhed among the darkness on the edges of The Gamer’s vision as he tried to will himself to act. He **** a deep breath, seizing what resolve there was within him.

’Alright… What's the trick here?’ John thought, wracking his brain.

Exhaling, he scanned the room. The horde continued to grow, though he now noticed that many were in poor shape. Almost all of them had been damaged or dismembered. Many were unable to get to their feet. Slowly, their desiccation began to undo itself, blue-streaked ooze flowing over brittle bones, replacing long-dead muscle.

Ela moved forward, her suit beginning to thrum with mana as she postured for space around them. “Hurry.”

John nodded. ’No time for distractions.’

First, he checked over the boss, the gnarled abomination of flesh. Its back was still radiating vibrant, neon shades of blue. He might have found them pretty in another context. Its rib-teeth were undulating, as if the creature’s entire body was one giant lung. With its shoulder still burning from his previous spell, the squirming sinews of its arm continued to retreat around the point of impact. The Gamer narrowed his eyes at that as he cast his scrying spell.

’Holy… what is that mana total?’ he wondered, quickly checking the damage math in his head. ’That must be what the back is… Interesting that it’s not actually all that tanky.’

Leaving his curiosity about the boss’s design for later, he peppered the rest of the room with [Observe] casts, trying to catch as wide a swathe as he could. All of the enemies that The Gamer checked were on critical HP, their red health bars only ticking up slowly as their bodies were repaired by the ooze. The slick black substance seemed to move with a mind of its own, reverberating with the movements of the Harvester.

The Gamer dismissed the windows, preparing to share the results with Ela when he noticed something. The boss was staring back at him. As they locked eyes, John had a disturbing feeling that this enemy knew that he was doing something to it. An odd cunning gleamed in its pale blue orbs.

“Ela,” he started, confused. “The big one’s watching us, I think.”

She flexed her shoulders, adjusting the grip on her axe as the crowd around them began to move closer. “What about the rest?”

“Nothing special. They’re all really hurt,” he scrambled to speak, turning to point his staff at the nearest enemy. “Seems like the ooze needs time to fix the-”

Another roar shook the world, bits of rubble falling from the ceiling all around. This time, a chorus of screeches and wails came from the horde all around. A pulse of blue shot through the world, invigorating the undead. Bodies of bloody, muck-dripping muscle shuddered with anticipation.

On the far end of the room, the boss began to stitch itself back together, bones and flesh and teeth interlacing as its chest-maw closed up. With its fleshy folds withdrawn, the Harvester turned and dashed away from John and Ela, down the far side tunnel.

He had no time to wonder where it was going.

With snarls and snapping jaws, the rest of the monsters descended upon the two of them.

John fired his [Lesser Air Burst] immediately, ripping into a Ghoul coming from the side. Golden winds exploded with verdant color, scattering bones and ooze into the darkness. Steeling himself, The Gamer moved to begin gathering another of his Aero spells before the light from the previous could fade.

Meanwhile, Ela faced two more from the front. Her blade slammed into the first, crushing its arm inward. Bones snapped as she pushed through from arm to rib, throwing her foe sideways down into the muck. The second tried to lunge at her from behind, but she whirled, eyes aglow, sliding underneath its swipe. Her arm rippled as she sent mana into her suit, leaping from a crouch and bringing an uppercut into the monster’s jaw, shattering it. As the ghoul stumbled back in the sticky ooze, she grabbed her axe with two hands, bringing it down on the creature's shoulder and sending it crashing into the floor.

The blonde’s headlamp flashed around the room as she prepared for the next offender. A verdant ball of magic wind flew past her, exploding upon another ghoul trying to close on the pair. Ela turned, looking to John, finding him hurriedly regrouping with her. Yet more enemies were appearing from the tunnel they’d come from.

The Gamer cleared his throat. “It isn’t hard to kill them, but I’m going to run out of mana before we get all these things!”

“I am burning mana quickly as well…” She nodded.

Then her eyes suddenly widened. “Duck!”

It took John a second to process her shout, barely crouching underneath his companion as she pounced past him. He slid past her, swapping places, as her bone-bladed axe met another foe. The Gamer turned to find her locked with another ghoul that had tried to jump him while he was distracted. Leaving that one to Ela, he focused on covering their front, loosing a third [Lesser Air Burst] at the next cluster of approaching monsters.

“Ela, they’re getting back up!” John called, a fresh dose of fear and adrenaline pumping through him.

The knight turned and followed his vision to where she’d left her first assailants. Fresh ooze slipped between their broken limbs, pulling bones together, repairing flesh, and restoring their strength. Slowly, they twisted and writhed as they reformed once more.

“You were right, then. This nasty stuff is holding them together!” Ela shouted, cutting down another Bloated Fisherman.

John hit a running punt on a torso crawling towards him, kicking it backwards into the crowd. “Yeah! The boss had a ton of mana; I’ll bet it’s keeping them alive!”

“I have heard of that sort of binding necromancy before.”

“I’m not sure I could still call these zombies anymore.” John half-heartedly chuckled, in spite of their ongoing fight. “But that makes sense as a game mechanic, too. Do you have an idea?”

“We need to go after it!” she shouted, cleaving through a pair of ghouls.

“How are we supposed to get through all these things?” John jumped backwards as a bloated fisherman attempted to take a bite out of him.

As he raised his staff in a swirl of golden winds, a flash of blonde twintail flew past him, Ela’s armored fist thrumming with mana. The knight threw a haymaker with her whole bodyweight, shattering the monster’s skull and launching its remains backward into the darkness. The Gamer turned to where she’d come from, launching his prepared ball of verdant mana at a group of creatures that had attempted to follow her.

Mana-infused winds flew across the room, crashing into an undead torso with a pop and a sizzle. Moments later, the cluster of enemies disappeared in a burst of holy damage, golden fire scattered across the floor. Their bones, so worn and dry, cracked under the heat. The ooze swamped over the flames, struggling to douse them and restore the bodies..

Before he could think about that, Ela grabbed his shoulder, turning him around and pointing toward where the boss had gone. “I think it is trying to wear us out. We will be overwhelmed if we stay and finish this fight. If we can get out from the middle, we can make a break for the boss.”

“OK… OK,” he nodded, clutching his staff tightly, "and how do we do that?"

“Quickly.” She smiled. “I will break their line. Do you still have that greatsword?”

He quickly raced through his inventory, drawing out the Blade of the Keeper. The weapon sank into the ground, handle to the sky. It was in as bad of a shape as he remembered, the blade’s tip having long since been snapped off, dozens of chips and scratches adorning the poor quality steel. Ela slipped her own, much nicer weapon into a strap on her hip, drawing the sword from the ground.

“That will do,” she sang, muscles flexing as she swung it around.

John noticed that her suit maintained a near-constant glow while she hefted the massive weapon, her mana ticking downward.“You sure you want to use that thing?”

The blonde smirked, responding by planting a foot on the ground, the sword held low. “I do not need good. I need something big. The design is not quite right, but it will do.”

Her entire body lit up with mana as she channeled her strength. For a moment, Ela waited, body tense, as enemies continued to close in. Then, she pivoted on her heel, springing forward with a single, wide sweep, the arc seeming to glow icy blue behind the blade. The Keeper’s Blade slammed into monster flesh and bone, crushing as much as it was slicing, the nasty crackling of steel accompanying the sounds of tearing and dismemberment.

She allowed her swing to follow through, spinning the weapon around to rest next to her head, its missing point aimed straight towards where the Harvester had fled.

“Well, I like the proof of concept,” John admitted, watching frost grow on the bodies.

“Stay close, straight behind me,” she said.

He nodded, moving into position. As his companion brought the massive weapon she now wielded down, entering the same low stance as before, John took a second to take stock. The Gamer had burned through half his mana already, but hadn’t taken any damage. In contrast, his Polish party member had taken some chip damage already, missing maybe fifteen or twenty percent of her health. She’d used much less mana, maybe a third or so, but it was ticking downward noticeably now.

The sound of a smooth exhale cut into his thoughts. “Go.”

With another icy slash, Ela began her advance. She brought the blade upward, seemingly into nothing. As it reached its peak, she twisted, allowing the weapon to swing back down on her other side, from where it flowed into another upward slash. Pivoting again, she spun the blade above herself, maneuvering to allow it to continue to move constantly. The air around the two was decorated in blue now.

It almost seemed like a dance to John, as he watched his blonde friend twirl to continue her neverending sweep. As her speed began to build, she allowed the weight of the blade to carry her forward, a sudden leap of momentum, accompanied by a swathe of ice as she cleaved through the front of the horde.

The blonde knight landed gracefully, never stopping her ballet of ****. Faster and faster she spun the blade as John cautiously followed behind her, a [Lesser Air Burst] held on his staff in case something tried to jump him from behind. Ela slew another half dozen foes with her next routine, the weapon seemingly all around her as she danced onward.

Even the monsters now seemed wary of approaching them as she cut through their ranks. Still, the Pole’s mana began to waver, the drain increasing as her momentum grew. John could hear her groaning with effort as she maintained her ****. Bits and pieces of the sword were chipping off with every enemy she hit, the blade beginning to fall apart in her hands.

She rotated the sword over her wrist, bringing it sideways into another ghoul as the pair finally reached the far side of the horde. John shot his precast Aero spell behind them as enemies began to pour into the swathe that Ela had cut, trying to swarm from behind. Amber waves of light cascaded all around, leaving the parted crowd alight as The Gamer continued to follow his companion.

With one final combination, Ela launched herself towards the tunnel that the boss had fled down. The greatsword rolling between her hands, she delivered a final coup de grace, shearing through a hapless ghoul, her momentum coming to a crashing end as all her **** drove the Blade of the Keeper into the ground. Dirt and ooze and gore went flying in all directions.

“John!” the blonde called, vaulting herself over the blade.

The anxious nerd turned to the opening she’d made and dashed outward. Ela huffed, pale face deeply red with effort, and slid the half-buried weapon back towards herself, ripping it from the earth as she moved to join John. Together, the two broke out down the tunnel, sprinting away from the ever-growing mass of flesh and undeath.

“What the heck was that?” The Gamer asked, pushing himself to keep up with his party member’s speed. “That was awesome!”

Her breathing was heavy as they continued the chase. “I spent some time studying greatswords as a bodyguard’s weapon. This was not entirely how I imagined using those forms.”

“Ten outta ten improv.”

Ela smiled, allowing the pair to fall back into silence as they ran towards their target. This tunnel was not completely devoid of enemies, though the peppering of ghouls and fishermen was far less dense here. Unfortunately, as quantity diminished, quality seemed to increase. These undead had much less desiccated bodies, more concentrated with mana. Some even seemed to glow faintly.

“How much longer will you be able to fight?” Ela asked, spinning to cleave through a monster in her way. In a single motion she dispatched the enemy and moved her oversized sword to rest on her shoulder to continue sprinting. “I see your mana continues to drop.”

“I… only have three or four of these spells left,” he admitted, glancing over at his health and mana bars. “Just one if I try my [Ice Surge] out.”

“Make sure you save enough to escape this dungeon, if you need to.”

John nodded in affirmation as something huge came into view in front of them, a zigzag of steel tossed around. They’d finally found the train, he realized. The great metal beast had been thrown from the tracks every which way, cars rolled to the side, split in half, or flattened. Living corpses shuffled among the wreckage, drawn to the noise the party was making. The train had piled over and settled on top of itself here, as if a steel wall had been erected to bisect the subway.

The Gamer looked all around, doing his best to track a dozen new enemies emerging from every corner. Eyes in the darkness gazed back as they passed into the crash site. Along the walls, John began to notice fleshy growths emerging from large swathes of ooze. They too faintly glowed in fluorescent colors - greens and blue and reds unnaturally illuminating the tunnel around them.

“This way!” Ela shouted, gesturing towards a train car with an open door. “I think I see an opening!”

John followed, hoping that she was right. This car had been left to sit at a nasty angle, its front end well off the ground, perched atop another abandoned car. Now, it was their only ramp over the dozen hunks of steel piled in front of them.

They burst in through the back entrance to a passenger car, its once comfortable interior matted with blood and other fluids. A handful of corpses lay rotting in the seats. Down the length of the car - and another connected to it - John could just barely make out an exit to the rest of the side area. From the other side rang an echo of the boss’s bellow.

“How fast is this Harvester thing to be this far ahead of us?” John muttered.

“Trade me,” Ela stated, handing the greatsword back to The Gamer as the bodies within the car began to move.

He stored away the weapon as his companion drew her axe again, abandoning his curiosity for the time being. As she began to square up to clear the path in front of them, John turned to check behind them. The large horde they’d started within was still in the shadows beyond his vision, but had gained ground as they’d slowed. Stragglers joined the mass of undead monsters, funneling towards the opening he stood in.

’First time for everything,’ he decided, drawing mana from deep within himself.

Gritting his teeth, The Gamer chose to use some of his remaining strength on a [Lesser Frost Wall], blocking the door behind them. It began as an icy blue targeter in front of his outstretched palm. He closed his hand and the humidity around him skyrocketed. Even the old metal around him began to sweat. Large, icy white crystals exploded from the floor, layer after layer freezing over each other upward until the doorway had been frozen over by a slab of ice.

Frost crept outward from his work, which gave off faint snaps and crackles as it settled into place.

John swallowed. “Better than I expected, but that’s not going to buy us forever.”

He whirled around, finding Ela already locked in battle with some of the creatures inside the car. Her fist shattered ribs as she laid into a simple Bloated Fisherman, its unformed physique no match for hers. She brought the back of her weapon up into the monster, flinging it back into a ruined row of seats. The blonde’s muscles rippled with mana and power as she twisted around the confined space, battering back against another creature.

Behind him, John could hear the beating of limbs upon the ice of his wall. Faint snaps and chips, a drumbeat, almost, crept in all around him. As he ran up behind Ela, slaps and hefty, fleshy impacts rang out on the car’s back windows. Glass began to crack. He scrambled up the ramp-like interior, **** to stay ahead of everything behind them.

’And I am now officially the one that boxed us in. Nice job.’

He spun the battle staff around so the sharp end was forward, trying to preserve mana for now. As the thumping and thuds of meat on steel and glass and ice grew more frequent, The Gamer moved to assist in Ela’s advance. She’d downed another pair of enemies in the time he’d taken to set up his wall, but they were already pulling themselves back together.

John drove his weapon’s blade into each as he passed, trying to scatter their bones enough to slow further resurrection. Together the pair moved systematically down the car, Ela taking the brunt of the combat and John confirming each kill as best he could. A twinge of pain shot down John’s spine every time her health bar was shaved down by the enemies.

As they reached the far side, he turned to see the first chunk of his front wall cave inward, freakish, gnarled limbs shoving their way through the cool whites and blues, staining the inside with the muddled reds and blacks dripping from their bones. The pair lept out into another stretch of tunnel, with yet more overturned cars around. This new section at least offered a clear path forward.

The Gamer hesitated for a second before casting a second [Lesser Frost Wall] at the exit, hoping it would buy them another minute or so. ’Two spells left…’

The battering of monsters upon the barriers behind them seemed to ring even louder in his ears now, and he did his best to block them out as he and Ela turned to continue their race to catch the Harvester.