Chapter 95: 89: Entering Highwer

Looking at the apparently burned bodies of these creatures you quickly decide that spending 120 energy on minions that might not be effective is not a very wise idea.

“Summon spider!” you command and an impressive half-spider, half-human female creature appears. She still has burn marks from your last combat encounter but combined with her other aggressive features, your minion looks far more intimidating than these walking piles of ash. It helps that your spider is twice their size. Speaking of which, you think and command, “Priscilla! Bind these walking corpses with your webs.”

“Priscilla, eh?” your spider asks about her new name with a smile and proceeds to bombard the nearest gray body, instantly immobilizing by binding its legs together. The creature falls, hisses, and proceeds to crawl on the ground in your direction, using it scrawny, but surprisingly strong arms.

Eisheth spreads her smooth and elegant wings and flies into the air to avoid the monsters. She then brings her arms up and with a swift jerk of her hands extends her fingernails tenfold, turning them into foot-long thin, razor-sharp claws. Eisheth then turns mid-air toward the dark corpses and swiftly dashes in their direction, flying over them. With a single swipe, she splits the head of one of the creatures into five pieces. As the head falls apart, each piece crumbling apart upon heating the stone ground, the body stops moving and falls over awkwardly.

Meanwhile, you see Rosetta air juggle one of the creatures with her fancy sword that is the size of a claymore, before slicing it up like an apple. The sliced corpse falls to the ground and slowly crumbles apart, one piece at a time. Like firewood crumbling into charcoal as it burns away.

Looks like these things aren’t that tough, you think just before you see another creature sprint at Rosetta and tackle her to the ground. Then one more creature jumps on both of them, pinning the girl to the ground. The blue-haired girl takes out one of her daggers and jams it into the creature's temple, up to the hilt. Rosetta's dagger cuts through the creature's head, nearly half of the blade appears on the other side. The other corpse gets the same treatment before it can claw at her, but now the girl pinned under two corpses and surrounded as all the other creatures change directions and dash at the prone girl.

“Priscilla!” you shout at your spider, and without saying anything else, she understands your intent. Priscilla spews webs at the dark creatures that are rushing at Rosetta, starting with the closest.

Elza does the same, pinning the creatures in place with her ice spells. Epsilon trips one with her whip and Gorrazsh jumps onto the immobilized creatures crushing them with all his strength. Alpha attacks another creature from behind, piercing its head with a single, committed thrust.

With your combined efforts you deal with the creatures without sustaining any injuries more serious than a couple of bruises.

“Hard to imagine these things are capable of moving at all,” Elza says while looking at one of the crumbling ash-like bodies at her feet.

“I have never seen anything like this,” Gorrazsh utters nervously. “What is this witchcraft?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Eisheth says. “If they stand between me and my sister, they will perish.”

You look at Epsilon, crouched at another corpse, examining it. She looks at you and shrugs before standing up. Encouraged by the success of this small, unexpected skirmish your party follows Eisheth into the shadows of the entrance to the capital. You pass through the broken gates and enter the gatehouse. It’s about thirty feet to the other side, pointing to the absurd thickness of the walls that encircle the capital. However, inside the gatehouse, there’s not a single soul in sight, not even a body part. Though you see a lot of combat equipment lying around. Pieces of a shattered wooden shield sprayed across the stone pavement, the front part of a steel breastplate. A short sword in the corner, countless wooden arrows lying about, many broken in half.

Without saying a word, you keep on going forward, your pace slows down as you see what awaits you on the other side. Devastation. Burnt houses, broken doors and windows of shops, broken barricades on the main road, made from barrels, rocks, doors, furniture, pretty much anything and everything the defenders could get their hands on. Overlooking this destruction are the brownish stone walls that surround this entire part of the city. Standing about a hundred feet tall they four times higher than the highest building here. The wall opposite of you is about half a mile away. The main road slopes slightly upward and turns right about half-way from the wall.

And among this destruction you see dozens of charcoal-colored corpses wandering about. They have no clothes, no weapons. No discernable items or features of any description that would let you tell the creatures apart. They look more like shadows of the people they once were. Slowly they drag their feet as they aimlessly roam the streets. Some are slouching, their black, hairless, featureless heads hanging low. Others would seem to be gazing at the sky, if only they could see with their blank, pale eyes.

You would think it takes all their might to make a single step, yet none of the corpses collapse from exhaustion. And from your previous encounter, you know what feats of strength and agility they are actually capable of.

And these corpses are not only on the main street leading from the gateway. Another body slowly shows itself behind the rubble of a partially crumbled corner of the building next to a dark alley. Among the rooftops, on the roof of a three-story brick building, you see the top half of a burnt black and gray body, stuck in a chimney of all places. The creature does not appear to make any attempts to escape and, bracing with both arms against the damaged edges of the brick chimney, it slowly turns to one side, then another. Through a window opening, you see a shadow creep inside the charred stone building. The window itself is gone, black coloring on the stone above it indicates that a fire raged inside so strong, that it spilled through the windows, spreading to nearby buildings. If this section of the city is any indication, it would seem that the entire capital is overtaken by these creatures.

Standing in the shadows of the gatehouse, Rosetta takes charge and signals you to follow her. She swiftly slips to the left of the gatehouse, to the alley in the darkness between the massive outer stone wall and the nearest building, which, judging by the fortifications and a sign hanging on a single hinge, was once some sort of barracks, perhaps for the garrison stationed around the entrance to the capital.

One by one your party follows Rosetta and successfully manages to enter the city without notice. You creep along the wall, as quietly as the creatures themselves. Passing another narrow alley that leads away from the wall, you see another burnt creature’s back some sixty feet from you. You pass the alley, but your path is soon obstructed by heavy rubble that is twice your height.

“We can scale this without problems,” Rosetta says, encouraging the others to continue.

“But what after that?” Elza asks. “The streets are filled with those things! Sooner or later we’ll end up noticed and have to fight our way through. And if the entire city is like this, we could end up facing thousands of these monsters!”

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“And what’s your suggestion?” Rosetta asks.

“Isn’t there a way to get on those walls from the inside?” Elza points to the giant structure we stand in the shadow of. “Through the gatehouse or some inner stairs?”

“The whole point of these walls is to act as additional obstacles and slaughter enemies from above. Obviously, they wouldn’t create any feasible ways to scale them from here. I’ve never been up there, but from what I’ve heard, the only access to those walls is on the final two levels of the city, the inner fortress and the military district.”

“We have a spider that spews nearly unbreakable webs,” Epsilon says. “Can’t we have that spider scale the wall and then create some form of rope for the rest of us?”

“Maybe,” you say and look up to the top of the walls. From down here you don’t see anybody or anything behind the embrasures, between the triangular merlons. You consider such an action, but come to the obvious conclusion, “If there are monsters here with ranged attacks, we’d be target practice even if Priscilla’s webs could hold us all at once.”

“Priscilla?” Elza asks.

“I think it’ll be a fitting name for my minion.”

“The city does have a sewage system…” Rosetta says with no enthusiasm.

“No way!” Epsilon and Eisheth protest in unison.

“We might be able to get deep into the city,” Rosetta says, though judging by her face, she probably is no more eager to go there than the other girls.

“But if we get surrounded in those tunnels?” Elza asks. “It’s a death-trap! If it comes to that I’d rather fight these monsters in the open.”

"Wait, Eisheth, you also have a teleport spell," you remember the succubus phasing out of the brothel earlier in the day. "Can't you use that now to get us further ahead? Or just to scout?"

"It uses a lot of my energy," Eistheth says. "I will not use it so recklessly before a potential fight. And that ability works only on me."

“I think we should go back,” Gorrazsh says. “I do not expect to find anyone alive in this cursed place.”

“At least not alive in the way we understand it,” Elza adds.

“Absolutely not!” Eisheth snaps at the two adventurers. You turn around to see if you’re still not surrounded as the conversation gets heated. You sneak to the corner of the building and peek to the alley leading away from the outer wall. You see two charred walking corpses, but they don’t appear to have noticed you yet.

"Does anyone here even have a way of locating this missing girl or are we just going to run around this city blind?" Elza asks.

Silence. You see Eisheth frown, but you have no doubt that she'll continue the search one house at a time if need be.

“We could just use bait,” Epsilon says and everyone looks at the bunny girl, quickly realizing what she meant.

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