Zombie Monolith

By this time, Ozyrus's previous clone had disappeared. The trio, made up of two players and one companion, sprinted through the streets of the City of Stomrus to find an enemy they could turn into a new minion.

The first two groups of enemies they encountered were useless. One group was a swarm of Brightborn Locusts, while the second was a single, gigantic, undead viper. The party managed to kill each of these enemies with much of an issue, but they were all growing impatient as they had to keep eating more food to keep their Hunger Clocks at safe levels.

It almost felt like the game was taunting them, as close as they were to reaching the boss encounter itself and unlocking a checkpoint!

Finally, the trio found what Ignatius had been seeking: a huge crowd of townspeople who had been turned into zombies with burning red eyes. The zombies themselves were hardly a threat to any party with decent AoE damage, but they were also supported by a monolith of bright white crystal, which hummed menacingly as it hovered above the ground in the center of the swarm.

According to the game's lore, Brightlord Temporix had learned the darkest secrets of lithomancy, or stone sorcery, from a lich. He had learned how to create totemic monoliths which resonated with the wills of mortals, allowing them to control weak minds and to transfigure them into monstrosities.

In game terms, that meant Ignatius and his allies needed to destroy the monolith, or the undead would just keep coming back to life! Ignatius and Siegmund lured the crowd into a narrow street where only three zombies at a time could get to them, then devoted themselves completely to defense. The zombies bit and scratched, but they were slow and fairly weak. Neither Ignatius nor Siegmund had trouble dodging, evading, and parrying all their attacks.

But as the pack was denied its prey, it became angrier! The zombies near the front slowly gained speed, and the zombies who were behind them grew enraged at the tasty scent of living flesh. Their eyes glowed an even brighter red, indicating that their overall power was rising.

The whole swarm tried to clamber through the street, even knocking down the zombies in the front of the pack so that the monsters behind them could try to get through! In moments, it was as though a wave of zombies were crashing toward Ignatius and Siegmund, as though a floodgate had broken to allow the ocean to submerge the streets!

Ignatius and the Onion Knight turned and sprinted away from the horde. "What's our progress!?" he shouted toward the rooftops as he ran.

"Nearly finished," Ozyrus called back. At that moment, a swirling cloud of celestial silver and blue manifested above the streets and covered a huge portion of the sky!

Indeed, the entire point of Ignatius and Siegmund trying to hold off the zombies was to give Ozyrus a chance to charge up one of his Astrologer skills, [✧Spectral Storm]. A moment after the cloud appeared, dozens of sparkling silver-blue comets began raining from above. They rang sweetly like silver bells as they slammed into zombies, instantly killing the weak enemies with one hit each and creating a small AoE that slowed and damaged the other zombies who were within arm's reach.

This had very little effect on the zombie horde itself, but these attacks were only a side effect of the skill having fairly low accuracy. Over half of the comets actually hit their target—the monolith at the center of the zombie swarm!

A horrid noise like an agonized woman's scream filled the air as Ozyrus's spectral comets punched holes through the shining white stone, causing the light to fade as cracks formed in its chalky surface. Where the light vanished, text could be seen written on the monolith in an ancient language.

The monolith lasted only a few moments before crumbling into radioactive powder. At the moment it died, a shock wave blasted out from its position, knocking all the zombies over.

"Quickly!" Ignatius called to Siegmund. They immediately grabbed the closest zombie, which seemed to have been an old woman before she'd been killed and transformed by Brightlord Temporix. This had all happened so recently, of course, that there was no sign of decay on any of the bodies.

The zombies were stunned by the destruction of their shepherding leader, but they would soon rise again. Ignatius knew this from experience. However, they would still retain their basic state as hungry undead, and would return to hunting their prey. But he and Siegmund each grabbed one of the female zombie's arms and they dragged her into the same building which Ozyrus was standing on top of.

The building turned out to be a small house, and it had a heavy board inside which could be laid across two metal prongs to bar the door against outsiders. The City of Stomrus was well known for its sinister Thieves' Guild, after all. Ignatius quickly barred the door, hoping that the wooden slab would be enough to keep the weakened zombies away. Then he looked up as Ozyrus descended from the rooftop.

The Astrologer nodded in approval. "Excellent work. You knew what you were talking about, alright." Without another word, he immediately began casting [✧Astral Clone] on the zombie.

She woke up from her daze a few moments into the casting, but Ignatius and Siegmund were holding her arms down, and none of her snarling and kicking was able to convince her captors to let her go. At the same time, the zombies which had been left outside began slamming their bodies against the barred door. It was quite an unsettling combination of noises, but the door held, and Ignatius was able to ignore it all and concentrate on the task at hand.

Finally, the skill finished charging, and a ghostly copy of the female zombie manifested alongside the other party members. Ignatius immediately sent a [✧Sacred Fist] into their prisoner's face, splattering her brains all over the floor.

"Poor lady," Siegmund said with a sigh. "She deserved better than this. All these people did."

"Yes," said Ignatius, "but we're here to stop anything worse from happening."

Ozyrus gave Ignatius a strange look. "Be careful," he warned. "This scenario is only a bit of fiction, remember that. Don't lose yourself, simply because this is the only reality we have now." He seemed as though he wanted to continue, likely to explain the nuances of what he believed this reality to be compared to the fictional setting of Path of the Immortal... but then he glanced at Siegmund and stopped talking.

Ignatius shrugged. "I think I get what you mean. I'll take the advice as well-meant. To be honest, I just find it funny. Playing along with the NPCs, I mean. On occasion."

It felt very strange to be justifying his actions to another player. Ignatius didn't like it very much. He thought back to the paladin he'd met in the game's waiting room... Zamniel. That had been his name. For some reason, Ignatius felt like Zamniel wouldn't be the kind of person to be so self-important about a bit of roleplaying.

But then, Zamniel wasn't a cultist who'd deliberately killed himself to live forever in a game.

At least, Ignatius didn't think that he was.

"Well," said Ozyrus, turning and looking at the stairs to the rooftop, "let's get going. We have a few orbs to catch."