Hopeful thoughts in a damp, dim cave

Zora's hand was hanging in front of the door's handle, hesitating. He was frozen in his tracks, even though he was determined to push forward. He was scared though, and that feeling itself, made him anxious, as if a self-replicating loop. He hasn't felt fear since his last deployment at the Specialized Space Marine Corps. In that moment that memory felt so distant to him, that his rekindled emotions made him confused. But those feelings also somehow relieved him. He was afraid for his life. He was able to care again, about his life, his goal. This meant he is living his second chance.

Suddenly he took a step back and let his arm fall back in line next to his body. He was getting emotional at a crucial step, which is no good. Every military training he got before kicked in at once to tell him to stay cautious. Which once again, amazed him in a way.

He always thought of his training as a means to serve, just a tool to use when the order is given, such as for lumberjacks their axe or for doctors their stethoscope. But as he was listening to his military conditioning whispering its wisdom into his ears, he started to see his knowledge and skills in a new light. Something that offers him the means to survive. A way to further his goals.

Standing in front of that door in a chilly and damp cave he made two life-changing realization at once. He spent almost five minutes simply by glaring at the door and thinking. Nothing happened yet, but he felt like another lifetime of experience and wisdom got laid upon him.

Obviously that was quite the exaggeration, but he still took his time to digest whatever line of thought he had at the time.

A few more minutes later he shook himself awake, then started working on what he was there for to begin with.

He extended a few tendrils of his mana to feel trough the door and its mechanisms. It had a few magical properties, but none of them seemed to be a trap or meant to kill someone. But he also had no idea what they did. There was a whole field of science out there for magical items and enchanting, something that he had yet to dip his toes into.

Even though his instincts told him the door was fine, he still made some precautions, such as conjure an earth wall for cover, and instead of manually opening the door, he used force-pull on the door handle. Opening from a distance made it safer for sure.

But all that paranoia was for naught. Nothing happened. The door simply opened up. It was rather anti-climatic. Only a chilling gush of air rushed trough it. It smelled rotten.

He found himself almost wanting for something to happen there, for his adrenaline to surge, just like back in the days on the front lines.

But once again he calmed himself. It is quite enough when trouble finds you, you shouldn't seek it yourself on top of that.

Filled by another shot of wisdom Zora focused back on the task at hand.

He checked the door again. It didn't change much. Next he scouted ahead and found a ton of magical contraptions lying around and working in the walls, floor, and frankly, almost everywhere.

The corridor itself was a lot more spacious than the previous cave tunnel, with an almost 4 meters in height and 5-6 in width. The walls were made of some sort of brick, but it was decrepit and faded. It looked like he just walked into a crypt or catacomb complex.

The place was giving Zora the creeps, but he steeled his resolve once again and started moving forward. Right after sending out an orb of fire for lighting, which, this time, closely hovered below the ceiling. Zora even gave it some extra juice so the whole area gets proper illumination, just to make sure.

With that he was able to move for about 10 minutes forward, walking with his own speed, that was quite slow, but safe at the same time. There was not much to see in the corridor, except the many underlying artificial mana circuits.

15 minutes in he noticed the first new thing, a door on his right. He opened it with the same caution as before, then entered, when nothing happened.

From the outside it looked like a burial chamber, with a few sarcophaguses in the corners and burial urns scattered around.

When both his feet touched the floor inside, suddenly a strange pattern of light appeared below him, some sort of contraption, probably a trap activated.

"F@ck, I really had no way to foresee that, I have to get some lessons in these things for sure when I get back. I can't run around in ruins like these without the proper knowledge."

He could do nothing just prepare and see what happens. He pulled up a simple force barrier around himself, that is supposed to keep everything physical away from him, as long as he had the mana to support it.

The formation below him shot out energy pulses, which ran trough the ground like cracks on breaking ice, all the way to the sarcophaguses.

Reacting to the energy, the lids of the containers broke apart and a hand seemed to move the pieces aside from inside.

The dead woke up and hurried to crawl out of their resting places.

Once again shivers ran trough Zora's spine. He was familiar with the setting, he saw films and stuff about zombies back on Earth, but its always more scary in the flash.

Even before the first waking dead managed to stand up from its tomb, Zora threw a few small ice spears at it. He didn't want to wait for them to make the first move, but wasn't really sure how to attack them effectively either.

The spears cleanly impaled the zombie as it fell out of its sarcophagus. It didn't seem bothered by them, instead it looked up at Zora with its rotting face and loose jaw. It just glared at him for a second, before jerking his head back and letting out a bone-chilling shriek.