Lair of Death

What awaited them was a giant room at the end of a long straight corridor.

No, it was more of a giant dome. It was so large that they could barely see its walls. Dread filled them as it imagined what would have happened to them if it was filled with skeletons.

Luckily, most of them had already been dealt with.

"EVERYONE STOP!" Shouted Berg. "We fight from here!"

Berg made the right choice to stay in the corridor to finish the remaining skeletons.

The remaining skeletons were quickly dispatched, and only a few stragglers remained. They didn't pose any danger to the soldiers. It was time to loot the mana crystals.

If they were left, the skeletons would reform in a few hours and all that work would be for nothing.

Chris and Mia were finally allowed inside the room when it was secured.

Suddenly they heard Berg calling for them "My Lord, Miss Mia, you have to see this!" His voice was shaking a little.

They followed Berg, and the scene that awaited them immediately struck them. In the center was a huge pile of bones and skulls, many meters high.

On top of it were two figures, one looked like a mummified human in dark mage clothes. He held in one hand a scepter from which a grey light escaped and illuminated the surrounding darkness. His face was distorted by what was most likely pain and rage as his chest was pierced by the hand of the second figure, a skeleton.

The scepter appeared to be hovering above the bone pile; it was as if the moon was in the cave. Its grey light illuminated the bone pile, highlighting the skulls in a creepy display as the eye sockets were still filled with darkness.

At the bottom of the pile was a large river of blood, making sloshing sounds as it circled the bone pile. The scepter's light reflected on the river and sprayed the surrounding in a gloomy dark red glow.

"Is that?" Asked Mia.

"It's real blood, Miss Mia." Confirmed Berg. "It seems to still be flowing."

They turned their heads to the bone pile and inspected the two figures in more details.

"That's the necromancer right? The skeletons turned on him? Why?" Wondered Chris.

Mia was perplexed "I'm not sure..."

Chris walked to the circle of blood, surrounded by his escort. [The river is about... Two meters thick. And the blood is really flowing... Does magic still power it?]

He pushed the tip of his 5+ sword into the blood and a sizzling sound was heard.

Berg immediately grabbed Chris' shoulder and dragged him back. "My king!"

"Whoaa." Shouted Chris as he looked at the tip of the sword. It was now charred black and parts of it were crumbling.

"Let's be careful..." Added Berg.

Chris and Mia nodded. "Yes."

Ferlin came forward and asked: "What do we do? The river of blood is too large to cross by jumping."

"We could just walk around the blood circle and leave it there." Offered Berg.

"But if we do that, we'll always worry about what might happen here." Answered Chris.

"I think... The staff is providing the mana through the mummified necromancer." Guessed Mia. "The spell was likely cast when he was still alive, but death is not recognized as a condition for the spell to stop."

"So what do we do?" Asked Chris.

"It should be fine if we can separate the necromancer and the staff." She offered.

"Then it's simple." Said Chris with a smile as he picked up a nearby rock. "We just have to knock it down. As it turns out I just had some training earlier."

Chris aimed at the mummified body, threw the rock... And missed.

[Damn it! No wonder Petunia kept winning at Hopscotch].

"Let me do it." Said Ferlin with a light smile.

His rock hit the mummified body, and it started falling backward as the hand and staff finally separated.

Right at this moment the blood river stopped moving and the skeleton that pierced the mummified body disintegrated into fine powder. The sloshing noise of the blood river stopped and the cave was finally completely silent.

Ferlin came to Chris' aid as he noticed Mia ready to tease him. "Don't worry my Lord. It's quite dark, so it's harder to aim without practice at night."

Berg took the opportunity to test the blood river now that its flow had stopped. Luckily there was no reaction, and the blood was now being absorbed into the ground little by little. It was likely that the river would disappear in a few hours.

He went through the blood river, climbed the bone tower, he could hear the bones cracking and breaking under his weight. He drew his sword as he got closer to the necromancer's body and stabbed it... Just in case. There was no reaction. Therefore he picked up the staff and went through the necromancer's pockets. There were only a few mana crystals in there.

And climbed down. Even he wouldn't stay longer than he needed to.

Chris looked at the staff: "So this is a mage's staff?" It was a finely crafted piece of wood embedded with a huge grey mana crystal. There were runes carved into the staff, but he didn't know if they served a purpose or were just decorative. He did his best to resist the urge to point the staff in front of him and shout "Fireball!".

Berg's eyes were fixated on the staff and his face was a little dark so Chris asked him what was wrong.

"My Lord, the modified body was human, this staff was made for the royal mages of the old kingdom. The mage probably just replaced the mana crystal embedded in it with one with death energy. But I'm sure it was one of our mages."

Mia sighed: "He probably turned to necromancy to fight the Kunalls... And failed."

The troops continued exploring the cave, and they found the storage area and the necromancer's sleeping area. All the valuables were looted and were piled up at the entrance prepared for transport. Mia would prepare a full list later.

There was nothing left here, so it was time to go back.

As soon as they were out, Chris gave his orders to Berg. "Let's clean the cave. We might need it for storage or something else later on. For now, we need to make sure nothing dangerous can be triggered inside. And we need to clean up the undead stragglers around."

On his orders, forty men and a few carts were left behind to clean the site and guard the loot until it was time to pick it up.

Chris looked at Mia and Berg. "Is this the kind of surprises I can expect on a regular basis?"

"Huhu. Unfortunately, necromancer lairs aren't that common." Teased Mia.

But even Chris didn't know if he was happy or disappointed when he looked at the pile of mana crystals they had collected.

It was now time to go back home.