Chapter 198: The Gravekeeper

"Everyone follow me, now!" Merlin yelled before thrusting his hand into his inventory, pulling out his beginner lockpicks.

Merlin quickly scanned the area for a house that could be used as a base, he was especially cautious about houses that showed immediate signs of being breached by the undead forces. He quickly found a house that looked safe enough, so he dashed towards it.

The rest of the group quickly followed, unsure as to why Merlin was suddenly acting so frantic.

'Crap, crap, crap.' Merlin thought to himself as he forced his lockpicks into the door's keyhole.

He attempted to calm his breathing, knowing full well that rushing himself while lockpicking would cause him to mess up and lose his progress, but the thumping sound was getting louder.

After a couple of failed attempts, Merlin finally heard the click he desperately wanted. He quickly pushed the door open and leapt inside before signalling everyone else to do the same.

Everyone suddenly piled into the building. Merlin tried to release his lockpick from the door before he closed it, but it seemed to be stuck. In Merlin's haste, he attempted to quickly wiggle the lockpick free, but the additional force alongside the already poor durability caused the item to snap.

"Damn it," Merlin muttered, ripping half of his lockpick from the door before closing it.

"The curtains, close them quickly!" Merlin ordered in a hushed voice. "Cut off the line of sight to the street!"

Snowbunny quickly closed the curtains, although the material was clearly more decorative than for privacy, it still provided some small degree of protection.

"Everyone find a hiding spot, don't leave yourself exposed to the street and be very quiet!" Merlin said in a hushed voice once more before grabbing a nearby chair and blocking off the door.

The rest of the group did as they were told, and Merlin quickly followed his own advice, ducking behind a cupboard.

Typhoeus, Snowbunny and Alvira quickly laid prone underneath the main window frame that was covered by the decorative curtains. Tiny and Nora dashed into an adjoined room, and Zankoku vanished up a set of stairs.

"Remain perfectly still until I say it's safe," Merlin whispered as the thumping sound became rather loud, the vibrations were causing some of the decorations filling the abandoned house to shake around, and Merlin could hear faint metallic clanging from the adjoined room. It sounded somewhat like metal cutlery being shaken around.

Whatever was making the sound was getting extremely close, and then the light seeping through the curtains was suddenly cut off as if something obscenely large had parked itself in front of the window.

Merlin calmed his breathing and began hiding his presence before barely peeking out from around the cupboard. What he saw immediately quelled his suspicions.

'I knew it, it was a bloody Gravekeeper.' Merlin thought to himself while staring at the heaping pile of rotten flesh that was just outside of the window.

A shudder ran through Merlin's body as a large bloodshot eye suddenly opened. The eye gazed through the curtain-covered window and began scanning the interior of the building.

Merlin kept perfectly still while continuing to hide his presence, and for a moment he could have sworn that the monster's eye had locked on him, but it quickly closed moments after.

The heaping pile of flesh crawled away from the window, causing loud thuds that echoed throughout the house, making a mess of the building's furniture.

As the heaping mound moved past the window, light seeped back into the room. Merlin could see that his three friends who were laying stiff as corpses underneath the window were sweating bullets.

'It probably sensed their life energy, since they were too close...' Merlin thought to himself, 'That was a close one.'

When the stomping creature was far enough away, Merlin finally gave the signal that it was safe to move, although he mentioned that everyone should still be rather quiet.

The group all gathered upstairs where Zankoku was hiding, and they sat around while catching their breath.

"What the hell was that?" Alvira asked Merlin, who clearly knew what was going on.

"That was a Gravekeeper." Merlin said, "A heaping ball of flesh and necrotic energy, and the last thing you want to encounter when raiding an undead zone."

"Could you elaborate further?" Alvira asked. "What does it do? Why did you suddenly freak out? Is it the boss of this area?"

The group all turned to Merlin, waiting for a response.

"Well, firstly no, it's not a boss," Merlin said.

"What? That wasn't a boss?" Typhoeus said, "I could feel how strong it was through the wall."

"Nope, not a boss." Merlin repeated himself, "Think of it more as an obstacle to avoid rather than an encounter."

"Why didn't we just run away?" Nora asked, "Did we need to hide in a house?"

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"There's a reason we hid, and I'll go further into that, but first I'll explain what it does," Merlin said, shifting into lecture mode. "So, a Gravekeeper's purpose, to put it simply, is to eat corpses and create undead."

"Right, so it makes more zombies... That doesn't explain why you were so jumpy." Alvira said.

"Besides making more undead, including higher level undead, the Gravekeeper itself is an extremely high-level undead. From what I saw, I believe that the Gravekeeper is stronger than any monster we'd find in the necropolis, perhaps aside from the boss." Merlin explained.

"But its overwhelming strength isn't what makes it terrifying. Gravekeepers have the ability to alert all nearby undead in a massive range, which means getting targeted by one means you're likely fighting every single undead in a region unless you have a means of silencing them."

"Wait, every single undead in the region?" Typhoeus asked, "So if that thing screamed in the city, how far would it go?"

"I believe it'd alert every undead in the Necropolis. Maybe even the neighbouring town of Sparta, depending on the Gravekeeper's level." Merlin answered.

"Oh shit." Alvira said, "So, why did we hide and risk getting caught instead of running away?"

"Because we'd likely be running through the path we came from, or at least near it, as that's the only way out that we've cleared." Merlin began explaining once more, "The issue with that is that the streets are now lined with the corpses of undead monsters. And when the Gravekeeper finds those corpses, it'll fly into a rage and follow the path we created, easily catching up with us and attracting nearby undead to block our way."

"Oh god, this thing sounds terrifying," Snowbunny said. "And you only decided that now was the time to inform us of this?"

"Well, the Necropolis is newly formed." Merlin said, "I didn't expect a Gravekeeper to generate so quickly."

"But there are so many undead in this place, wouldn't that thing be making them all?" Alvira asked.

"Undead can form through necrotic energies or necromancy, provided the conditions are right." Merlin corrected her, "The formation of a necropolis, and a city full of helpless civilians to use as catalysts, those are prime conditions for a surge of undead to appear."

At that moment, the group heard a metallic-sounding cry, it was an obnoxiously loud piercing sound that sent a wave of fear through their bodies.

"The Gravekeeper found the corpses..." Merlin muttered.

"What do we do now?" Tiny asked.

"The tracking cry isn't as large of a range as the detection cry, but a massive wave of undead will start moving towards our exit." Merlin said, "We'll stay in the house until the Gravekeeper calms down and a majority of the undead begin to scatter."

Everyone nodded at Merlin's decision and they all began to explore the house that they found themselves in.

The house was rather large for a house near the edge of the city. It had two floors, the bottom floor contained the guest or entertainment area, the kitchen, an adjoined pantry full of rotting produce, the bathroom and the bathing area.

While the top floor contained a guest bedroom, an office and a storage room full of wilted plants and herbs.

"Ah, it seems like the people who lived here were alchemists of some sort, or perhaps just herbalists," Merlin muttered as he picked up the wilted stem of what he believed to be White Horehound. "It's a shame the necrotic energy has infested this place, they seemed to have quite the stockpile."

"Hey Merlin, come help us with this." Zankoku's voice rang out, causing Merlin to leave the storage room and check what he was being called for.

Tiny, Alvira and Typhoeus were standing around the only door on the upper floor that hadn't yet been opened.

A faint jingle rang out as Alvira turned around to face Merlin.

Merlin's eyes quickly found the source of the noise, a bag full of a random assortment of knives hanging from Alvira's belt, ranging from a steak knife to a handful of butter knives.

"Those are all temporary items, you know that right?" Merlin asked.

"You never know when they'll come in handy," Alvira responded.

"If you jingle like a Christmas tree, in a location where we can't afford to attract too much attention, I'd say not handy at all," Typhoeus remarked.

While Alvira and Typhoeus began their bickering, Merlin turned to the proper adult of the trio and asked why he was called over.

"Could you pick this lock?" Tiny asked, pointing at the last door.

"Sorry, no can do, I'm afraid," Merlin said, "I broke my lockpick trying to get into this place."

"I guess that leaves us with the option of busting the door down, but I don't want to alert a swarm of zombies." Tiny responded.

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