Rise of the Undead Legion

A long corridor stretched out ahead of the regiment. The floor and pillared walls were made of seamless polished gray marble. Glowing crystals set into the vaulted ceiling at regular intervals illuminated the hallway.

Dave signalled the units behind him to stop.

There were three passages they could take.

"What now Dave?"

Dave didn't know which path to take, he turned to ask Bud.

"Bud, can you smell anything?"

"Old blood...everywhere…danger...everywhere. Kishtingbrah…trust Bud?"

"I trust you, Bud."

"Bud takes units…left…Dog takes units...right…Lord takes units...middle."

'Whoa, Bud is growing, he's d smarter and more coherent all the time.'

Dave decided to follow the ghoul's plan.

"Alright. Bud, you and Spark take three squads and kill your way to the boss. Dog, you take four squads. The rest are with me."

Bud turned to Lone with a shy, shark-toothed smile, "Pretty elf...go with Bud?"

Lone giggled and smacked the ghoul's arm, "You're sweet! Maybe next time, Bud. Someone has to make sure your fearless leader stays out of trouble."

"Hnnn," the ghoul nodded sagely.

Dave looked at the two, opened his mouth to say something then just shook his head.

'The hell!? Did Bud just try to ghoul-block me…? Nevermind, grinding to do, EXP to getz.''

"Alright boyz move out."

The leaders gathered their undead and each party moved into their corridor.

Dave and Lone took the middle opening. After they'd gone a short distance the floor inclined, they were moving deeper.

The hallway ended in an open doorway, as they got closer it looked like the floor dropped off.

'Is it a trap that got sprung and didn't reset?'

They moved carefully to the door and looked through. They were standing at an opening and looking out into an enormous chamber. But instead of being at floor level they were at the very top. The floor was so far down they couldn't see it clearly.

Broken pillars lined the walls of the room, each one shorter than the last, like a series of descending steps. Big steps. They would need to leap to reach each one. The distances between the pillars were just within reach of what the Undead could make if they were going down. They would not be able to jump their way back up.

"Well, I guess we are going down. Everyone can make these jumps right?" Dave turned to his Undead.

They nodded back at him.

"Alright, let's go!"

Stinger rushed forward and jumped to the closest pillar, the dunlord recovered, then ran and jumped for the second one.

The Undead started jumping from pillar to pillar. The uneven tops of the broken pillars were wide enough that a number of Undead could perch on them.

When Stinger and Pincher landed on the third pillar, they heard an angry scream come from below.

Dave hastily ordered everyone to stop where they were. Stinger moved to the edge of the pillar top so Dave could look down. He could see the floor of the chamber now, but wished he couldn't.

A brown-skinned cyclops wearing a filthy loincloth looked back at him balefully out of its one eye.

He could see it, and unfortunately he could smell it now too, but he was still too far to inspect it.

It easily reached three dunlords height and was grotesquely muscular, a horn grew out of its forehead right above the single outsized eye.

Around his wrists were two cuffs attached to heavy chains leading to two wrecking-balls of battered steel.

The cyclops started howling incomprehensibly at Dave.

Then it started swinging the steel balls at the pillars, smashing through the stone bit by bit.

"Fuck! This thing's going to kill us before we get down! EVERYONE MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!!"

When Stinger was about halfway through the pillars, Dave looked back up. Everyone in the group was now on the pillars. The last few units had just jumped from the door to the first, and highest, pillar. That was when the cyclops' twin wrecking balls finally destroyed the first pillar's remaining integrity. It started collapsing with a rumble and a billowing cloud of dust, making Dave's heart thump against his chest in fear for his Undead.

Unpanicked, the Undead on the pillar leapt as a group for the second pillar. But they didn't even bother going for the top of the pillar, they just latched on wherever and however they could, most of then clinging to the pillar's vertical face. The few undead unlucky enough to miss the pillar were grabbed and saved by their more fortunate brethren. Then they started crawling rapidly down the pillar --like four limbed insect-creatures from a nightmare.

Even before the dust and debris from the collapsing pillar had settled the cyclops had shifted his demolition efforts to the next pillar. The wrecking-ball chains crushing the stone in a steady rhythm of booming impacts.

But the cyclops' destructiveness was no longer of great concern. The rest of the undead learned from the actions of their comrades and gave up taking the 'regular' stairstep route. Instead of jumping from pillar to pillar they all started climbing down the pillars like an army of ants. The dunlords adopted the same strategy and went down the pillars.

The cyclops soon noticed their change in tactics and grew frustrated, its rhythmic pounding faltered and stopped. The one-eyed monster looked all around, frantically trying to decide which was the best pillar to destroy. The undead were everywhere, it was hard for its tiny brain to make a decision.

When the first undead, a skeleton, reached the ground it rushed toward the cyclops to attack. But the hapless skeleton was struck by one of the steel wrecking-balls and hurled into a nearby pillar.

More undead reached the floor, leaping the last distance then running at the monster.

Then the dunlords got within range to use their ballistae.

"Fire!" Dave gave the command the moment Stinger touched the ground.

The cyclops howled in pain as the ballista bolts pierced it's body.

Still climbing down the pillar, Lone ordered Pincher to jump for the ground.

In mid leap Lone used [Penetrating Shot], aiming for the cyclops's eye.

"Eat this!"

The arrow pierced through the Cyclops' eye and it howled again in helpless fury and pain. It began to thrash about itself with the wrecking balls.

Lone kept up her distracting skirmishing shots, directing Pincher in and out of the cyclops aggro zone and avoiding the deadly steel wrecking-balls.

Dave was impressed with her tactics and not to be outdone, he started casting [Spectral Skulls] and detonating them right in the cyclops' face, continuously resetting the Blinded status.

He activated [Aura] and jumped on the monster's back, going to town on it with his gauntlets. More of the regiment's Undead joined him, climbing on top of the Cyclops and hacking into its flesh with their weapons.

The monster was soon drowned under in a deluge of undead, making him barely able to to mov.

When the remaining dunlords reached the ground, they charged at the giant cyclops.

Two zombies were latching on the monster's right leg, but when they saw one of the dunlords rushing toward their location they jumped out of the way.

The dunlord barreled into the cyclops' leg and snipped at its Achilles tendon with his pincers, crippling the behemoth. The cyclops lost its balance and fell onto its back, crushing the unfortunate undead who didn't jump away in time.

Dave had grabbed on the cyclops's horn and pull himself from the back of the monster to the front before it fell.

"Don't let it get back up!" Dave ordered and the undead stabbed at the cyclops in a frenzy adding to its suffering.

When the twenty dunlords of Dave's units surrounded the fallen monster, they hammered it with attacks plummeting its HP.

Before Dave even Inspected the monster, it was already dead. He quickly acknowledged the notification about a decent gain of EXP from the kill, then moved in to loot the body.

1 x [Cyclopian Eye] Crafting material

2 x [ Prisoner's Iron weighted shackle] Weapon, improvised (rare).

1 x [Stone Tablet]

Dave inspected the wrecking-ball shackle.

Category: Weapon

Iron Weighted Shackle

A heavy Iron ball used to shackle and limit the mobility of prisoners.

But those with enormous strength can use it for other purposes…like to 'smash!'

Base Damage: 2,500-3,000

Attack Cost: 500 Stamina

Requirements

600 STR

Level 350

Bonus Abilities

[-100 DEX]

[-100AGI]

[Ball Throw] can throw the steel ball like a cannonball.

[Steel Tempest] rapidly spin the ball around the caster causing a knockback effect. Targets receive 50% increased damage with every successive hit of the ball while the user is still spinning.

Scaling/Class

S: STR Damage Modifier

Rare

"What a nice weapon, too bad it adds a negative to DEX and AGI, otherwise it would be broken for any STR build."

[Stone Tablet]

One of many ancient tablets used to unlock a secret passage in the Storms Labyrinth.

"What did you get?" Lone asked.

Dave showed her the items.

"That Tablet is mysterious. We should probably keep it until we figure out what passage it opens."

"Yeah. Let's keep going."

"What about the other groups?" Lone Asked.

"Give me a sec." Dave opened his undead management panel and checked on the status of the other Undead units.

"Looks like Dog already finished a fight. His units are recovering and no one is losing HP. Bud's units seem to be in the middle of fighting, their HP and numbers are fluctuating now, but I don't see anything too worrying in their Stats."

"Good. Hopefully we'll rejoin soon. Especially before the boss fight"

"Yeah, now let's see what else there is to this dungeon."

After the group healed and recovered they went through the only gate that was on the floor level of the room. Another corridor leading them even further below.