“Hey, I think I heard some rumor about this retly,” said Balthazar, rubbing his casually.

  Both the ord the lizards did not share his calm, however. The three warrior brothers tensed up, their muscles flexing as their brows furrowed deep. The lizard envoy peered deep into the darkness, looking for movement while his watcher moved closer to his rear, hiding in his shadow as she sed the area behind him for any danger.

  “There is something foul upon the nds tonight,” Khargol said.

  “Oh, please,” the dismissive crab said with a shake of his cw. “Some adveold me about something like this the other day, but knowing how those idiots are, I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  “I would be more ed if I were you,” said J’ath, pulling his long spear from his back. “I smell the stench of death.”

  “I swear it wasn’t me,” Balthazar joked, attempting to lighten the mood with no success.

  The dense cloud of green mist poured out of the grass and washed over the cobblestones of the road like bile, the moaning and grunting growing louder as the sound i jois uling chorus.

  “Stand ready, brothers!” the chieftain anded. “And you, crab, if you value yolden shell, stick close to your bodyguard!”

  “I sense movement from within the mist.” J’ath gripped his spear tight before hissing a and to his watcher. “Jazk, to the shadows!”

  Balthazar barely had time to look behind the envoy ahe other lizard step out of the light and into the darkness, making no sound or leaving any trace.

  Still skeptical about the threat, but seeing no reason to risk his precious behind, the crab remained close to Bouldy’s legs as the golem used his higher point of view to look over the approag fog.

  As his rocky friend pointed one of his thick fiowards the ter of the green mass, Balthazar saw the first figure emerge from it.

  The tall figure of a man in bck, tattered robes slowly walked out of the mist, his head slightly thrown bad his mouth ajar. He had sickly pale skin and a gaping hole where one of his eyes used to be.

  Balthazar winced in disgust, but for some reason, he felt like he reized the man from somewhere.

  Following close behind came awo figures, both moaning and shambling along aimlessly.

  One looked to have been a wizard at some point, his robes now old and filthy. He had the most erratic walk among the trio and most of his body was torted in unnatural ways, as if most of his bones were broken.

  Oher fnk came what looked like your average adventurer, wearing on armor and no remarkable features, other than that he looked very dead. As the crab looked closer, however, he realized his face artially smashed in.

  Balthazar squi the walking dead ing out of the grass, fog hard on the nagging feeling that there was something familiar there, but it wasn’t until he looked again at the oh the smashed fad noticed him dragging a leg as he walked that it finally dawned on him. The undead adventurer’s ankle was nearly cut off from the rest of his leg, like it had been snapped.

  Snapped by a mighty pincer of karma.

  “Wait a minute! I know these s!” Balthazar excimed, pointing his cw at the shambling dead.

  His words, however, were either ignored or not heard by the others, as the chieftain shouted warnings to the others.

  “Burznarfuogol, take the left! Yaturwurtguthvarbu, to the right! I shall hold the middle,” Khargol ordered, before looking at the lizard envoy. “J’ath, there may still be more dangers hiding in the mist. I trust you cover our fnks?”

  The lizard nodded. “I got it covered, friend.”

  Both of the orc warriors tossed their still lit torches down on the road, their e light overpowered by the now much strreen glow ing from within the mist, as they pulled out their clubs from their belts.

  Balthazar shook his shell as he watched the group of warriors preparing for bat. Not only did he wonder how the orcs didn’t find it unpractical to say all those long names in the middle of battle, but he also didn’t uand why they were making such a big fuss over a few dumb former adventurers.

  Ping his moh his silver pihe crab tried to take a better look at the approag ghouls.

  [Level 13 Zombie Neancer]

  [Level 7 Zombie Wizard]

  [Level 5 Zombie Fighter]

  As he suspected, they were three of the first adventurers he ied with so long ago, when he first came in tact with the Scroll of Character creation on that oeful day.

  “Guys, e on, don’t worry. I’ve met these idiots way back when they were still alive, and trust me, if they weren’t smart before, I bet they’re even worse now.”

  The others did not seem vinced by the crab’s reassurances, but as they prepared to eh the zombies, the shamblers suddenly stopped.

  A fourth shadow began f behind the smoke-like substance surrounding the dead. The green glow grew stronger as the shade took shape, as if whoever roag was the very source of the sickly light.

  Balthazar’s eye stalks stretched forward, trying to see who was ing their way and ihem with his monocle.

  A man, or at least what resembled oepped out of the fog, wearing long, embroidered dark robes covered in runic symbols. A hood extended from the robe’s shoulders, pulled over his head and face that looked more like a skull covered by a thin yer of skin.

  He waved his left hand, and the mist moved aside as if anded by his will. In his other hand, he held a long, twisted staff ending on a green ball.

  [Level 30 Areancer]

  There was something else that came with him, something Balthazar couldn’t quite see or expin, but the air that surrouhe man was heavier, and even mreen, as if he himself were emanating a green glow.

  What finally gave the crab reason for , however, were the effects it seemed to have ohers.

  Khargol and his two warrior brothers had frozen in pce, fists ched tight, teeth grinding as if fling against a strong gust of wind. The lizard envoy, J’ath, held on to his upright spear with one hand as the other o down to the ground along with one of his knees, looking as though an unbearable weight had fallen upon his shoulders.

  Something was amiss. Something about the Areancer himself was affeg them, but despite Balthazar also feeling the same cold, heavy air around him, he could not feel anything else different.

  “What… kind of sorcery is… this?” the orc chieftain straio say, between ched fangs.

  “Ahh, finally,” the ghoulish figure uttered, in a voice that sounded like someone who really needed a drink of water for how dry it was. “Corpses that will be worth raising. Strong, muscur, and agile. Not fbby, unfit, and ridiculous looking like some of those other adventurers I’ve found so far. You will definitely be a worthy addition to my army.”

  “Uh, excuse me, creepy fel?” Balthazar asked, rising a cw. “This here is the front of my bazaar. If you could maybe take your stench elsewhere, that’d be nice, alright? Thanks.”

  The man looked in the crab’s dire as if it was the first time he was notig his presence. With a short and swift motion of his hand, his three servants stepped aside and made way for their master to go forward. He walked, yet his slow motion towards Balthazar looked almost like he was floating over a thin yer of fog around the edge of his robes.

  “How peculiar,” the Areancer said, bringing his long, creepy fihat reminded Balthazar of a spider’s legs up to his .

  “Yes, I know, a talking crab. I get that a lot,” the unbothered mert said, turning his arms and cws into a shrug.

  “You seem ued by my aura,” the other tinued, ign Balthazar’s words. “That is most unusual.”

  “You have an aura? You mean other thaink mist ohe crab said, one eye stalk raised higher thaher.

  Through the er of his eye, Balthazar spotted J’ath, who was now behind the man’s view. He could barely raise his head, but he was letting go of his spear aing himself fall to the side, as if making room for… something.

  Out of the dark at the edge of the road, a lizard in dark armor leapt into the light with a speed and grace that made not a sound around her.

  With one swift move, Jazk grabbed her ander’s spear and spun into the air, rushing towards the Areancer with the tip of the on held in front of her.

  The ghastly man tilted his head calmly, not turning but yet making it clear he had noticed someone was ing at him.

  The Shadowstalker did not make it any closer to him than two or three steps. As if pushed down by an invisible hand, she fell to her hands and khe spear rolling away from her as she struggled not to colpse pletely.

  That weird figure pletely incapacitated all five of his guests, and he had not even o raise a fio make it happen. Balthazar was beginning to suspect he might be dangerous. At least just a little.

  Puzzled by how he was doing it, Balthazar looked around, trying to make sense of it, when his monocle picked up on something and gave him a notification.

  [Dread Aura]

  [Demoralizes lower level se beings in the area and keeps them from fighting back.]

  Balthazar would have snapped his fingers, had he any.

  “So that’s what it is!”

  Once again, the man seemed to pay no mind to the crab’s ramblings and tinued on his own monologue.

  “There must be something special about you if you resist my powers. I have never reanimated a crab before, but perhaps you will be the first.”

  “That’s a good question,” Balthazar said, also paying little mind to the fact that a powerful Areancer was a mere five paces away from him. “Why the hell is that aura thing doing nothing to me?”

  He rubbed his for a moment before his eyes bulged out and then frowned as he put it all together.

  “Hey, wait a moment! Is this stupid system insulting me again by insinuating I don’t t as se?! Oh, that is just typical!”

  The undead master tilted his staff horizontally and began swinging it slowly, causing the orb at its tip to glow as green swirls of magied around it.

  “You talk too much,” the man said menagly. “Good thing the dead don’t speak.”

  H0st