Apostles of Doom

“Indeed. However, compared to where we were this morning, I’m just grateful that we have the power to fly the MAHCs,” Leighton said.

The leftenant grinned broadly. “Leave it to a priest to always find reasons to thank the gods.”

Leighton chuckled, returning the grin. “We all play our own small roles in the gods’ plans.”

“Incoming!” one of the lookouts shouted.

Leighton turned to see a gryphon and rider coming in for a landing. Both were looking much worse for the wear. He moved in to assist once they were onboard. Brother Thelen was also readying himself. Leighton would work on healing the Warden, and Thelen would heal the gryphon. Once more, he was very relieved to actually have the mana to do this. He didn’t even want to try and imagine how bad things would have been if Lord Orcus had not come to save the day.

Knee-Deep in Zombies, Reggie, Boggy Estrebrius

“This is sick, man!” Reggie said with a frown, staring at the goo on his claws. He, Boggy and Estrebrius had gone out on their own to a less D’Orc-heavy region and were wading through undead, ripping them to pieces. At the moment they were wading through zombies and wights. The putrid corpses were really disgusting.

“When can we go back to ripping apart ghouls?” Reggie asked. “This is just nasty!”

“I don’t know. I like squashing the heads between my claws. It’s like squishing rotten cantaloupes or pumpkins!” Estrebrius said.

“Remember not to breathe!” Boggy shouted as he broke a zombie in two over his head.

“Definitely!” said Estrebrius. “Half the nasty is the smell!”

“It’s hard to talk if I don’t breathe!” Reggie yelled back.

“Breathe through your mouth,” Estrebrius suggested.

“Be careful though; I was doing that and ended up swallowing some intestinal splatter,” Boggy warned as he shook his head.

“Hey, is Tizzy going to join us?” Reggie asked. “He’s no longer singing; it’s been all instrumentals for a while now.”

Boggy paused and a zombie tried gnawing on one of his wings. “I would think so.” He frowned. “Normally he enjoys this sort of thing as much as the next demon! I wonder why he hasn’t shown up?”

“His loss!” Estrebrius shouted in glee has he smooshed two severed zombie heads, which were gnashing their teeth in frustration as they tried to bite him, together between his two hands. Reggie winced at all the rotten brain goo dripping through the demon’s fingers. Things seemed so much cleaner in zombie movies. Well, most zombie movies — that guy with the chainsaw hand splattered lots of goo, and his zombies could also remote control their body parts.

Battlefield, Tom

Tom released the flame from the Rod of Tommus and watched the smoldering remnants of the lich he had spent the last few minutes barbecuing flutter to the ground. Or sprinkle to the ground, as he was mostly dust. The problem was that simply incinerating a lich would not slay them.

He and Talarius had touched base about an hour ago, and the knight had told him that liches were problematic because the source of their immortality was a phylactery that contained their vital organs. Until one destroyed the phylactery and the organs, the lich could eventually return. Typically, Talarius informed him, the lich’s spirit would seek to possess someone’s body and then use that body to capture, kill and embalm a new body for it to use.

So, in many ways, this was futile from a long-term perspective, but it was more pleasant than fighting ghouls and ghasts, which looked like normal, living people. Flesh-starved, insane people, but still people. Zombies and most of the other animated undead seemed to be easy enough to leave to others. Thus, he’d been seeking out liches and larger threats. He’d run up against a few vampires, but none had presented too much of a challenge. The liches and their ice dragons could at least put up a fight using wizardry.

Tom glanced to his portal. Night had finally come to the Isle of Doom, so he closed the portal. He didn’t want any of the flying corpses to make their way through the gate. He looked around for his next target. There we go! he thought, spotting a zombie dragon. He wondered if they were flameproof? Actually, thinking about it, how could you have a zombie dragon? Dragons were demons. His very first fight had been with a dragon, whose cave he had stolen. Tom frowned at the memory. He still felt guilty for that, but fortunately he’d been assured that the death would not be permanent. That was what was puzzling — if dragons were demons, then why were there dragon corpses to reanimate? Well, time to find out. Tom took off towards the zombie dragon.

Knee-Deep in Zombies, Hilda