“Are you both in shape to fight?” Alyssa asked urgently as the three of them raced down the hall in the direction that the scream had come from.

The sounds of fighting grew stronger with every step they took. There definitely was a lot of it. And, judging by the screams and cries filtering through the cacophony, whoever was in front of them probably wasn’t having a very good time.

“What kind of question is that?” Alex replied as they raced around a corner. “I’m always ready.”

Ropes of moss hung from the ceiling and matted the walls, pulsating with sickly energy. While this was definitely the same section of the Ancestry they’d been in before finding Shawn’s room, it definitely wasn’t the same area. Alex had never seen this room before — but it didn’t look like Alyssa had noticed yet. Her attention was on the fight somewhere in front of them.

“Just do what you can,” Alyssa growled between breaths. “And be careful. Our coins aren’t active. That means this isn’t our group. They could be from any family. There’s a good chance they turn on us the moment the fight shifts.”

“Well aware,” Alex replied. “I hope you can keep a secret, because I’m going to have to kill you if you can’t.”

Alyssa let out something between a laugh and a huff at his perceived joke, but Alex didn’t wait for her response. His clothes rippled as he adjusted the band on his wrist, deactivating it. The magical dress shirt vanished. Sleek black cloth rippled to take its place.

The tuxedo that the only mildly insane Barb had made him washed over his body like water. It covered him in an instant, finishing with the doglike bone mask that covered his face. He still wasn’t sure how it could completely obscure him without blocking his vision. There had definitely been some magic involved.

“The hell is that?” Alyssa asked, nearly missing a step as she caught a glimpse of him behind her. “It’s creepy as shit!”

“A disguise,” Alex replied, his voice shifted to a raspy growl by the mask. “I may have a few enemies. Just pretend we ran into each other at some point. Better yet — let Claire deal with it. Just agree with anything she says.”

“Whatever you want,” Alyssa replied. She readied her brush before herself as they grew closer still to the sounds of the fighting. They were almost upon it now. They made another turn through the hall.

Before them, a closed door waited at the end of the hall. Flashes of light slipped through the crack at its bottom. The strong smell of earth, blood, and ash hit Alex’s nostrils even through the mask covering them.

Alex activated Armament Elegy before they’d even reached the door. There was no point running in unprepared and getting himself killed the instant the fight started. But, as much as it hurt, he refrained from summoning Princess’ chainsword.

Too many people had seen him use that weapon. He had to make sure that nobody recognized him. And that meant swapping things up a little.

I’ve got to get a bit creative here. I wonder if this counts toward increasing the challenge. I bet it does.

A grin stretched across Alex’s lips.

Glint’s cloak materialized around him. But, instead of flowing at his back, he directed the silvery cape to wrap down around his right arm like a silken cloth of pure silver. It wasn’t going to be as effective at blocking anything while wrapped around him — but it also wasn’t going to look anything like normal.

Spark’s piece of equipment formed as well. The jagged pieces of inky black metal formed into the shape of a suit of armor, each one floating separately from the other. There was just one change. Instead of encasing him for protection like a normal piece of defensive gear, the armor floated several inches behind Alex’s body like a metal apparition haunting his every step.

And then they were upon the door.

Alex drove his silver-wrapped shoulder into it, sending it flying open with a crash, and the three of them burst free from the hall into a sea of moss.

Rolling green, almost picturesque, hills filled the Olympic swimming pool-sized room. The ceiling hung so far overhead that thick clouds had gathered above, and a faint rain of dewy water pattered down from within them.

The drizzle did absolutely nothing to wash the rivers of blood flowing down the hills away. It was little wonder that the stench had greeted them before they’d made it into the room. The blood was everywhere.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Bodies littered the hills, completely ruining any chances of taking a marketable picture for a screensaver. There must have been dozens of dead people strewn about the moss. About five still remained standing, their backs pressed to the wall, magic brought to bear before them — and surrounding the remainder of the warriors were several dozen skeletons.

Their bones, bleached and yellowed by age, were covered with thick patches of moss that ran throughout them in veiny masses of replicant flesh. The pulsing moss seemed to be the only thing connecting any of the bones together. Thin green strands rose from every single one of the skeletons, swaying in the air like antennae. They glowed with the same energy within the moss, seemingly pulsing to the beat of some invisible and inaudible drum.

Information shimmered through the air above the monsters. Not above any single one of them, but the group itself.

Rotmoss Horde(Adept 8)

Holy shit. It’s fucking fungus-zombies. Just without the fungus. And the zombies.

For the briefest instant, the fight unfolding in the room paused. Every single one of the moss skeletons turned in unison, their skeletal heads spinning on the spot without even bothering to turn the move of their bodies.

The group of battered defenders stared at them, hope, fear, and desperation mixing within their expressions.

“Well,” Alex said. “I guess we figured out why there’s a moss section in the rot dungeon.”

“Help us!” a woman from the dwindling group of survivors screamed. “Help me! I’m Hazel, of—”

That seemed to piss the not-zombies off. Evidently, they preferred calm and collected conversations to yelling. The monsters lurched into motion without so much as a sound. There really wasn’t any need for it. More than enough sound was already coming from everyone else.

A huge ball of fire rolled through the air as one of the people in the group brought his hands down with a ragged scream. It engulphed one of the rotmoss skeletons, burning the moss away and sending bone spinning through the air.

But before the bones could even finish falling, strands of moss shot out from the rest of the pack like vines. They wrapped around the pieces of the monster and pulled it back into place in a blur, rebuilding the monster so fast that Alex barely even had time to register what was happening before it was done.

The mass bore down on their captured prey, lashing out with sharpened bone fingers and whittling away at what little remained of their defenses — but they hadn’t forgotten about Alex’s group either.

A small pack of them broke away and raced toward Alex, Claire, and Alyssa. There wasn’t a single thought in their eyes. They didn’t have any. There was just hollow bone and mass.

“I hate this place,” Alyssa said through gritted teeth, her brush dancing through the air before her to paint steps into existence. “I’m better at defense. I’ll help them while you two figure out a way to kill these things!”

“Sounds good to me,” Alex replied. His gaze was fixed on the monsters racing toward him. They, like the other zombies he’d fought in the Ancestry, seemed to have forgotten to watch the original zombie movies. Zombies weren’t meant to run. They were supposed to shamble.

Alyssa sprinted through the air above him, painting platforms beneath herself as she ran to help the group across from them.

A blur shot past Alex as Claire’s wings snapped out from her back and tore down through the air, propelling her toward the nearest one of the monsters. The two of them collided with a loud crash.

Claire grabbed onto its arms, spinning once before launching the entire monster toward the far side of the room with a grunt. It sailed through the air before smashing against the wall and crumbling to the ground in a rain of moss and bones that quickly started to rebuild itself.

The other monsters moved to encircle Claire, but Alex wasn’t about to sit around and let them get away with ignoring him. He bounded forward, closing the distance between them in two steps before rearing back and swinging his fist with all the strength he could muster.

One of the skeletons’ heads exploded into fragments, shattered by the silver metal wrapping his arm. The monster barely even flinched. It swung a clawed hand at his neck.

The fragmented armor floating behind Alex moved. A black metal hand slammed down around the skeletal arm. Then, with a crunch, it tore the arm clean free. Claire’s heel slammed into the monster’s chest, pulverizing bone and sending it rolling to the side from the force of the impact.

By the time the monster had finished falling, it had already gathered back much of its body. Even the fragments of its skull were getting pulled back into place by the moss. Alex was starting to see why this room was problematic.

How the hell do we kill these things?

“You got a plan?” Alex asked as he and Claire turned their backs to each other, making sure nothing could get the jump on them too easily.

“Working on one,” Claire replied. “Nothing yet.”

A skeleton leapt at her and she dodged out of the way, batting the monster out of the air with one of her wings. It hit the ground with a bounce and a crunch.

“Great,” Alex said, not a single hint of sarcasm in his voice. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”

A group of enemies whose main ability was incredible tenacity… that was the perfect target to test some things out on.

I think I owe Shawn a thank you. He just delivered me the perfect fight. After all, where else do I get to play whack-a-mole to my heart’s content without feeling like I’m an idiot for wasting energy instead of finishing the monsters off?

Alex’s fist crashed down on one of the monster’s shoulders with a loud bone-shattering crunch. His armor grabbed the skeleton before it could retaliate. With a powerful swing, it sent the monster smashing into another one in a loud explosion of clattering yellow-white shards.

The grin behind Alex’s mask stretched farther still.

This is exactly what I’m talking about. I should do Ancestries more often.