Trindus was kind enough to move the bodies into a pile for us. Liselle and I sat beneath the shade of a nearby tree. "At least his knightly virtues are good for something." I said.

  "I take it you're not a fan?" Liselle asked.

  "I always thought honour and chivalry are poor traits for a warrior. In the stories I've read, the knightly figures always die from facing an impossible foe, or picks a fight or other in the name of honour. But in real life, there would probably be other options that help more people in the long run."

  "Real life isn't a story book, either." Liselle sighed, as she picked up a stick and played with the grass. "But to be honest, I agree with you."

  "Really? I thought a worshipper of the crusader goddess would be a bit more argumentative."

  "The Goddess encourages all sorts of things, and tells us to be good and honest in all walks of life. But the most important part of following the Goddess' ways is being good and defeating evil. My father sometimes says that being honourable and being good aren't the same. If I was one or the other, I would rather be good." Liselle sighed again, staring at Trindus haul bodies. "I don't think he gets that distinction. He's always dreamed of being a knight, and now that he is one, I think it's gotten to his head. It's like all he thinks about nowadays is glory and honour."

  "You think he's taking it too far? Too serious?" I asked

  "Everyone should treat a job like that seriously. It's just... It feels like he's forgotten the little things in life..." She trailed off.

  "My father says the same thing." I added, examining a small lizard wade through the grass.

  Liselle giggled. "Maybe the two of you are more similar than you think."

  "Don't be ridiculous." I added in, before Trindus called us over.

  The bodies had been stacked a few feet high, with branches and dead leaves all throughout. Liselle and I both held out our hands. I released four flames before she recited "Oh Goddess, please grant me the power of thy flame." The flame she conjured was noticeably larger than mine — at least two feet in diameter. The inferno I had started engulfed the whole pile.

  "Woah she's also a mage?" Asked Eeuna.

  "No she's a cleric." I whispered. Though even I could barely hear my words, Eeuna seemed to understand just fine.

  "What's the difference?"

  "Her powers come from a goddess." I whispered again, trying not to sound like a lunatic in front of the other two.

  "What was that?" Asked Trindus.

  "I said let's get moving. We don't want to be here when the smell spreads."

  ...

  The three (four?) of us descended a dark set of stairs beside each other, a flame floating on my hand the only thing keeping the darkness at bay. The walls were lined with countless coffins. Some ajar, some tightly closed, but none of them seemed filled. We probably would have noticed if they were by now. The ceiling, just low enough to be lit was filled with numerous carvings. Whatever they depicted was eroded and impossible to tell, even in good lighting. The stairs eventually ended a few yards away from a wooden door in surprisingly good condition. "Get behind me." Trindus told us as he put his hand on the black ring handle, his axe in his other hand.

  He gently opened the door, revealing a room which my flame didn't even come close to penetrating. The second his foot entered the room, bright lights appeared periodically down the room, assaulting my eyes, causing me to close them. When I opened them again, there was a massive room lit by pale blue lights. It was maybe 10 yards in breadth, but 10 times in length. Lining the walls were numerous coffins, much like the stairs behind us. Except these ones clearly hadn't been disturbed in a long time. Indeed the stone in that room was flawless and grey, almost reflecting the cool light — unlike the rest of the ruin which had been eroded and caked in dust, grime and moss. As we followed Trindus into the room, there was a disturbance coming from one of the coffins. No, from all of them. One by one the coffins opened, and the corpses inside stood themselves up, picking up shoddy, rusted weapons and scanning the room for the creatures that disturbed them. These zombies had decayed such that I could see their bones, but being this well protected from the elements for so long meant they were likely much more agile and strong than the zombies I'd seen in the forest. They were still pretty stupid though, and being just woken up must have meant they were still quite sluggish. When they finally saw us, they stood still and stared at us for a few moments before recognizing us as living creatures. "Trindus, this is more than you can handle, if you can let me-" I started to say something before he lunged at the nearest zombie, burying his axe into it's head.

  That is when they started to move. There was something soldierlike about them. They moved in unison, with each soft step hitting the floor at the same time, as they tried to create a square formation, and not even tripping over each other. Trindus lunged forward again, letting out a war cry as he decapitated a zombie that had not joined the line, and then another. But by then, the other zombies had already formed up, and raised their various weapons. Though most of the "weapons" were merely improvised tools or blades that had been blunted so much they might have well been clubs. Either way, they were pointed forwards as the zombies advanced towards us. Trindus charged forward as usual, swinging down on one zombie before any of them could react. He then stepped back before the others could counter attack. He continued this dance of dashing in an out of their reaches, taking out the zombies one by one, while also trying to force back any zombies that tried to reach his flank. If this were a battle against living people, he would be already be a goner. I could already see him getting tired. His movements were almost matching that of his opponents.

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  "I can't bear to watch this further." Liselle said to me as she clasped her hands. "Oh Queen of Heaven, lend thy servant a fraction of thy holy power." As she completed the incantation, a yellow light burst fourth from her. I could feel strange warmth in my bones, as the light enveloped both us and the undead unit. A burst of living energies. The zombies stood paralyzed, as Liselle put her hand to her chest, trying to catch her breath.

  Trindus looked back, eyebrows furrowed "I can handle these guys on my own, I don't need your-" His sentence was cut short when a zombie thrust a pitchfork towards his heart. But Trindus reacted in time to direct the blow to his shoulder. He regretted not wearing a shoulder pad on his right shoulder, breathing sharply before cutting the zombie's hand off. Even so, he kept fighting. Both the zombies and the pain as he lifted his axe each time. Clearly he was not yet skilled with weaponry to quickly change his grip or one hand the axe. And clearly, Yishna did not deem this fight worthy enough to deliver us a more powerful burst of energy.

  "Aren't you going to help them?" Eeuna asked, more like a curious child than anyone concerned for their safety.

  No matter how I looked at it, this fight would end in Trindus' death if I did nothing. So I sighed, mumbling "We're wasting time. Spiritus venti..." I raised a hand and focused my thoughts on rushing gales and tempests. Pressure was building in my hand, but it was not enough for what I wanted. I imagined my entire body as a vessel for air, twisting and twirling as it coursed through my body, with each wisp of air spinning and twisting together as one.

  Liselle noticed was I doing. You could even say she had caught wind of my intent, and looked at me with thankful eyes. "Trindus! Get down!" She warned the injured man, who stood at a stand still with the zombies.

  "No! I can finish this honourably! Without the fancy magic!" He said, fending off a wayward strike.

  "If you want a few broken bones, be my guest." I retorted, struggling to keep my spell contained. But he wouldn't move out of the way.

  That was when Liselle ran forward, Trindus' arm, and yanking him backwards. But with him not expecting the sudden interruption, they crashed onto one another, out of my peripheral vision. That was good enough for me, as I unleashed the pressure inside me. A whirling tornado of a barely perceptible green mist tore itself from my hand and touched the ground, spinning violently towards the unit of undead. as it made contact with them, it instantly flung them every which way, turning them into rag dolls as their bodies crashed into the stone. The spell had created a cacophony of howling winds, snapping bones and clattering metal. I was relieved to hear the silence when the spell ended, and the last few bodies hit the ground. Though, it was short lived, as the other two awkwardly scrambled to get off of each other. But after that, there was silence again, as we surveyed the carnage.

  Most of the zombies hadn't outright died upon impact. But they were all fairly skinny, with little muscle or fat to absorb the force of the impact. So most of them had fractured so many bones they they were basically immobile. Trindus and Liselle were quick to sit down to examine the former's injury, as I made sure the zombies stayed dead. They had to roll up his blood stained sleeve, revealing the gash. But it was actually two wounds so close together that the pooling, running blood made it look like one. Liselle tried to tear a rag from from robe until Trindus stopped her.

  "H- hey, what are you doing? Try this." He produced a bandage and a cloth from one of his pouches.

  "Sounds like you know what you're doing." Liselle joked, as she started cleaning up the blood with the cloth. Trindus winced as she dabbed his wound

  "Yeah well... I get hurt a lot." Trindus said, scratching his head.

  "I remember. You used to visit my father all the time when we were kids. But we're not..." She trailed off before sighing.

  "I know. I guess I was way over my head this time." Trindus answered.

  "This time? Try all the time!" Liselle snapped, dabbing the wound harder then she intended, making the knight wince. "It's like you're so infatuated with the idea of being a knight that you don't care about anything else!"

  "Ow ow, I'm sorry!" Exclaimed Trindus. There was then a moment of silence before he sighed, continuing. "Nah you're right, there's more at stake now. I guess being a knight has been getting to my head. I'll try to rein myself in next time." Clearly the weight of possibly dying had sunk in for him, as his voice was a pitch more demure than it was before. Though I wasn't sure if that was because hie had suffered an injury or because his pride had. I was more inclined to believe it was the latter.

  "Do you promise?" Asked Liselle.

  Trindus held out his little finger. "Pinkie promise."

  "You're still such a child." Liselle sighed, smiling.

  I stomped the head of a still wriggling zombie with my boot, as the two made their pinkie promise. "You better." I said. "Next time I won't hesitate if you're in the crossfire."

  "You hesitated?" Trindus teased "I guess you're more of a softy than I thought."

  "Don't make me regret it."

  ...

  At the end of the room was another door, its oaken frame and metal hinges though far from pristine, was spared from the carnage of the tornado spell. Trindus opened it, revealing a small chamber, barely enough to fit the three of us. In the middle was a pedestal, upon which sat a bronze ring with a garnet the colour of flesh blood encrusted onto it. I could feel a tingling in the back of my mind, and as I grabbed the rapidly pulsing crystal ball from my satchel, I knew I had found the artifact.

  "What does it do?" Trindus asked.

  "Only my father would know. All I could tell is that it is powerful. Very powerful." I answered him. But deliberating there would do me no good, so I grabbed the ring, placing it on my finger. Instantly, I felt something electric pulse from the nerve in my finger to my brain. The two of them caught me as I stumbled back, as something tried burrowing into my mind like a voracious mole. I could see flashes of images, and hear snippets of noises. They were erratic, seemingly random. Screams, destruction, death, blood and fire. But the sensations left almost as quickly as they came. It was almost like a curious animal, taking off when a person saw it.

  "Woah that tingled! It kind of felt familiar too..." Eeuna mused.

  "Are you alright?" Liselle exclaimed.

  "I'm fine. But we need to get home as quickly as possible." As I said that, the wall in front of us slid down, revealing an ascending staircase, with sunlight shining down. We swiftly climbed the stairs into the forest above. I never knew how much I appreciated fresh air until I left that ruin. But the air wasn't as fresh as I remembered it.

  Trindus sniffed. "Is that smoke?"