Soul Merger

The Boneyard was positioned beneath a church between the lake and the bay. Specifically a massive cathedral staffed with undead killing warriors and priests. The windows were all on the second story or higher, and the whole edifice was stone and steel. The dungeon entrance itself was in its own sub building behind iron fencing.

The fees for maintaining all that, plus the general lack of good loot at the upper floors, meant it wasn't popular among normal delvers. So there wasn't much of an entry line when Alissa arrived around eightish. Judging from where Rosalina was in line, the priestess hadn't been here long either. She moved up to join the other woman.

"So you can have that hood down in public," Rosalina said with a wave. "Was wondering about that."

Alissa rolled her eyes and brushed some of her red hair aside. "We need to show our IDs to get into the dungeon. Anyway at this level you're just as distracting as I am."

"Fair enough! And I'll take that as a compliment." Rosalina smoothed down her tabard, drawing a fair number of looks. And Alissa was happy to let her companion steal the spotlight.

It took about ten minutes to get to the front of the line. The secretary's eyes lingered on them far longer than was required, but their information got written down quickly. "Length of delve?" he asked.

"Should be one day," Rosalina responded, handing over her entry fee. Alissa added her own coins to finish the deal.

The secretary marked off that payment had been collected. "Thank you. Everything should be registered. By the way we've had a party go over their scheduled return. Since this is a necromantic labyrinth it's twenty crowns for retrieval, plus a five crown bonus for each found alive. Or standard bounty if undead."

Alissa grimaced while Rosalina nodded grimly. No one wanted undead delvers regaining their power and coming back to haunt the living. And dead delvers needed to be checked for signs of foul play. While many people with 'real jobs' didn't care if delvers ended up as corpses, the whole system would fall apart if the labyrinths became free for all murder zones.

As they headed down the stairs to the first layer, she looked over at Rosalina. "You have anything special for more powerful undead?"

"Yes, but we should avoid them if possible. It's hit or miss," Rosalina said. Alissa nodded in agreement. "In any case, I'm going to summon a light."

"Ah. I suppose that's fine." Alissa usually used darksight drops, but undead could see fine in the dark, so the shadows wouldn't help her.

Rosalina's mystic light revealed the mess that was the Cemetery. A forest of mausoleums that nearly reached the ceiling, broken up by clumps of more ordinary graveyards. The ground beneath their feet was soft and muddy, even though the ceiling of the next level down would be hard stone. It was, all in all, not a nice place.

"Well, let's get to the fun part," Rosalina said, before setting off down the path towards the stairs. Alissa moved to her side, drawing her sword as she did. Her knife wasn't as useful against creatures that felt no pain.

The next few minutes were the squishing of the wet earth, briefly interrupted by the clack of heels on iron as they went down the ladders that separated the floors of this layer. Occasionally they passed signs of battle, but the layer's deathly silence hid the other adventurers and monsters from them.

Finally as they approached the passage to the layer transition Alissa heard the scrape of bone on stone. She reached out and grabbed Rosalina's shoulder, stopping the priestess. Rosalina blinked and looked down at her. "Wha-"

A quick motion shushed the woman, and Alissa closed her eyes to get a better listen. Rough scratching, multiple limbs. The echoes were confusing but she was certain it was somewhere above them....

She opened her eyes to see Rosalina had boosted the power on her light. A smart move. Alissa looked up between the mausoleum roofs as the shadows twisted and flickered. "There we are."

The skeleton scrambled from its hiding place and threw itself at her with a scream. The damn things were so annoying. She slapped the monster's blade aside before kicking it to the ground.

As the skeleton screamed and gibbered she stomped on its spine. Rosalina's boot came down on its head a moment later, silencing the thing. Alissa stomped on its hips to make sure it was broken, while Rosalina ground the skull further into the muck.

"It's amazing how something without a soul can be so annoying," Rosalina said as she gave the corpse a final kick. "Did you know they might not even be made from actual humans? They're probably artificial bones molded into a skeleton."

"I suspected. Unmerged humans don't go delving often," Alissa replied as she looked around for any other annoyances. Fortunately it seemed the skeleton had been alone.

Rosalina picked up the crude sword the creature had used. "Didn't even have a shield. What a waste."

"There's a reason most delvers leave this nonsense to the churches." Undead cleanup was time consuming and didn't give much money. It tended to fall to charity workers.

They moved together to the final ladder down into the Catacombs. Here the entire labyrinth was made of piled bones, though the tred of monsters and adventurers had at least smoothed the floor into something easy to walk on. From here it was much easier to reach the correct floor. A spiral staircase with a railing made of femurs took them from the top down to where their target was.

"Let's see." Rosalina pulled out her map. "We'll want to follow this carefully. There's a few well hidden turns. Probably why no one's found it yet."

"That and this level is one of the worst to hunt on." The final floor of a layer had the strongest monsters, but rarely any better loot. And since undead rarely had bounties, that meant more danger for less reward.

"Eh, it's great if you're looking for specific materials. Those crazy Potionologists who want the strongest skull of a risen nightmare or whatnot," Rosalina said. "But otherwise yeah, I never go here."

Alissa nodded slowly. She rarely did commissions outside of guild work, but that made sense. Maybe she should get an intermediary to find work like that. Potionologists were generally useless frauds, but they had a lot of money to throw about.

They carefully maneuvered through the bone corridors, Alissa giving the various skulls in recesses a poke to make sure they weren't some undead horror in wait. They continued in silence, neither wanting to distract each other from the sounds of the dungeon, despite the ominous air.

They were pausing for Rosalina to check her map, when a faint rapping echoed through the bones. Alissa looked over and saw Rosalina checking her as well. So they'd both heard it.

After a pause the rapping happened again. Now that they were listening it was the ancient distress call. Three short, three long, three short. Might be a trap but it might be the adventurers they were looking for.

"Should we call out?" Alissa asked quietly.

"Hey!" Rosalina yelled. "We're here to help. Keep up the banging so we can find you!"

Well that answered her question, Alissa thought with a roll of her eyes. Still it worked. The banging came back louder, and they began following the noise, weapons out.

Finally they reached a T intersection and came across one of the strangest sights Alissa had seen in a while. A woman in torn robes was stuck by her back to the ceiling, the ground below her littered with shattered undead and scorch marks. She was banging her staff as hard as possible against the ceiling, only stopping when she saw Rosalin and Alissa. "Oh thank God. Finally someone came."

"How did you get up there?" Alissa asked. Sure it was possible to climb the walls but the woman wasn't even using her hands!

The woman looked away uncomfortably. "Slime merge." There was a squelch and she slowly came free from the ceiling, dropping to the ground below. Slime lingered where she'd been sticking, and Alissa noticed the woman's robes were well and truly soaked. Even her shoulder length blue hair glistened with slime.

"Why were you stuck?" Rosalina asked. "Looks like you're good enough to handle any of the monsters down here."

"Only at range," the woman said, trying to clean up her ruined outfit. "I'm a mage, so close fighting isn't my specialty. Besides, there's some dangerous stuff down here." Her expression darkened. "More now."

That had Alissa checking both ways, but the bone corridors still looked empty. "Were you part of the adventuring group that got lost down here yesterday?"

The woman nodded. "I'm Fili, a graduate of the Malamute Tower. I was hired along with two others to watch over a hero aspirant. But he screwed up, and we had a wipe."

"Tch." Alissa shook her head. Hero wannabes were dangerous for everyone. People who wanted powerful merges, too poor to buy a dragon but rich enough to hire other people to guide them down into the Labyrinths to hunt down the 'perfect' merge for a first kill.

Rosalina looked down at her. "Are there any creatures worth merging with down here?"

"Shadow Drakes are in the Bloodmire," Alissa said. "Though heroes tend to train on undead because there's no chance of getting an accidental kill."

"Yeah he wanted to be a thief." Fili collected what bits of metal remained on the bone piles before walking over. "Unfortunately we ran into a tomb cobra and he hesitated...."

Alissa put two and two together. "And it all went to shit after that?"

Fili nodded. "That worthless bastard Galah ran away screaming and knocked me over. Jacques got bit trying to slot in his Poison Cure spell, and after that... well I didn't want to find out if my merge gave me poison immunity."

Rosalina checked her own rod, pressing down on one of the chips in the side. "I'm glad I didn't need to pack a bunch of extra buff spells for a human. That would cut into my emergency spell set. I've got Poison Cure loaded, and now prepped."

That was good. Still there was another problem. "There's going to be zombies in addition to that snake. What weapons did they use?"

"Thaddius, the client, was a short sword user. Jacques had an orb, and Galah used a zweihander, though I don't know if he got killed." Fili said. She looked up at them hopefully. "Are you willing to help me put them to rest?"

"Of course." Rosalina stood up straight, her smirk replaced with determination. "We'll not leave anyone to rot in this place if we can help it."

Alissa sniffed. Her new ally was quick to put them into a fight against monsters that neither of them were strong against. Still if their quarry was freshly raised by the dungeon they'd be weak. "Suppose we should. They're also offering double retrieval. Plus a bonus for living people, so thanks for that."

Fili managed a weak smile. "It's not fair. They never pay you the living bonus for getting yourself out."

That earned a chuckle from Alissa. It was good to see the woman had some fight left in her. A mage would give them an advantage against undead.

Rosalina tapped her on the shoulder. "Shall we officially join her in? Fair third of the shares."

It was a strange request. They didn't owe Fili anything as a rescue. But Alissa liked the idea. Seemed much more fair then just dragging the woman along and keeping all the money. "Sure. But she has to give us a third of the rewards for the kills she collected."

"Oh no." Fili didn't even bother looking at the scrap she'd collected. It'd probably work out to two crowns. "I'm devastated. But I have to accept."

"Ha!" Rosalina barked out a laugh and gave Alissa a heavy slap on the back. "You two are great. Well this is turning out even better than expected. Come on, let's do the heroic nonsense and then get the real treasure. Where were you ambushed?"

Fili put her hood up and looked around. "Um, further along the corridor you came from and, uh, I think it was a left and two rights? I wasn't paying good attention when I was running away. And I dropped my personal map in the mess."

Alissa peered past Rosalina's arms as the dragon woman traced the direction on her own map. There was a long pause as her finger reached a big X on the map. "Uh, did that ambush happen past a secret door hidden in a coffin?"

"Yes!" Fili nodded vigorously. "There were some poison gas traps, then a chest with pots next to it. The snake was hidden in one of those."

"What a coincidence!" Rosalina said cheerfully. "I think I know the place. Follow me."

As Fili fell in with them the woman looked over at Alissa, "Um, I don't suppose she's suffering from MC syndrome? Like I assumed that was something kids made up but it's kinda a coincidence you happened to be going to the place our party wiped..."

"No idea," Alissa replied. "We met yesterday. Suppose we'll find out. If there's some magical cleric staff in the box we're doomed to be sidekicks."

Rosalina puffed out her chest. "Of course I'm the main character. It's a requirement for a dragon merge. I'm just setting up the best backstory for my epic quest to learn the truth of the Fall, and reclaim the old world."

Once again the small mage looked up at her, but Alissa just shrugged. She was pretty sure Rosalina was joking, but they had just met yesterday. Under rather odd circumstances now that she thought about it.

Instead she turned towards more important questions. "What's the plan if there's more than just the tomb cobra?"

Rosalina's grin faded. "We'll have to take the front lines and do our best while our new friend takes out the zombies. The big danger will probably be the warrior if they caught him. Should I take him?"

"I'll do it," Alissa said. "I've got the beginnings of a technique I can try out. And I'm more resilient than I look."

"Right. First target is the snake, then we keep Fili here safe," Rosalina said.

"I'll try to work fast." The mage clutched her staff close and fiddled with some of the chips embedded in the wood. "Expect fire."

They started moving again. Rosalina's boots crunched into the bones as she whispered the directions over and over to herself to keep them in mind. Fili's sandals left soft squiching sounds as she walked. Meanwhile Alissa was doing her best to stay absolutely silent, which her merge was willing to accommodate.

As they moved towards where the secret door was supposed to be, their caution paid off. Alissa heard the low moan of zombies and she held up a hand. As the other's stopped she concentrated, closing her eyes. Three voices. She nodded and held up three fingers. She couldn't hear the serpent, but that was to be expected.

Rosalina and Fili readied their casting focuses and waited. After a long moment Alissa realized they were expecting her to do the countdown. She slowly ticked off fingers, then when she reached zero she stepped out towards their foes, letting her cloak fall away.

The stench of rot hit her, and the moans of the undead turned to pained wails. Three zombies stood in front of the closed coffin, with no snake to be seen. Her eyes flickered to the one alcove, but it was too small for a tomb cobra to hide. Small blessings.

"Protection!" Rosalina incanted, and a warmth settled around Alissa's body. She wasn't used to defensive magics, but it might give her a bit of leeway if something went wrong.

She returned her attention to the foes present. The orc merge with the massive sword was already walking towards her, movements surprisingly fluid. His head was dangling because someone had ripped out half this throat, but that wouldn't inconvenience the zombie too much.

The other two zombies were much less graceful, their bodies jerking and spasming still. Perhaps the poison that had killed them was messing with whatever forces animated the dead. Hopefully that would make things easier for Rosalina.

The warrior was within range of his sword now, and Alissa slipped her dagger into her left hand. She'd need both blades for this. The man's odd movements were worrying, but his sword was set for defense still. She watched carefully to see how that would change.

A single step, and he shifted his blade to point backwards, his arms and shoulders tensing up. He was aping a technique. Perfect. Alissa started her counterattack, bringing her sword and dagger up in an x shape. Time to put theory to practice. Heat blazed past her as Fili conjured something, but she kept her focus on her target.

Sure enough the warrior's blade came crashing down in a vertical slice designed to cut her in half. She desperately twisted both her own weapons and swept her sword to the right with all her power, redirecting the blow. The zweihander nearly ripped her dagger out of her hand as it hit every wave in her blade, but she held on. Between her strength and the warriors his sword slammed into the bone floor beneath, sending shards flying.

Alissa forced herself to follow through, continuing her spin. Using her legs to push herself up and forwards. She had to commit her whole body to the move, accepting she'd be vulnerable until it was done. Her sword swung around, raising to neck height on the warrior, and she cut with all her strength and skill.

The flesh parted easily. The bone jarred her hand, but the resistance faded after a moment. And then she was through, the zombie warrior's head falling from his shoulders.

It took her another two steps to regain control, which wasn't great. She still needed to practice. But when she looked up the other two zombies had been dealt with. Both had smoldering holes through their torsos where their hearts should have been.

She looked around and relaxed as the battlefield seemed clear. "Not bad."

"I think you mean pretty damn good," Rosalina crowed while pumping her arm in victory. "Sure they were zombies but we cut through all three without a scratch. That was almost a fighter level technique there wasn't it Alissa? And Fili just blasted the other zombies before I could get a good punch in."

Fili tugged at the hood of her robe to hide a blush. "It was nothing. I'd prepared spells for undead after all."

Alissa wondered why the mage was so embarrassed by praise but then she noticed the woman's eyes trying not to stare at her outfit. She granted Fili a small reprieve by letting her cloak back down over her arms. "Succubus merge," she explained.

"O-oh. Sorry." Fili blushed even more, slime dripping from her hair. "It's... you're very pretty. Sorry."

"I'm well aware. And I know my outfit is ridiculous. Just get your staring over quick and we'll be fine." Alissa felt a little twinge over how blunt she was being, but it did get old. Fast.

Fili looked away. "No, it's fine. Just surprised. Anyway, let's finish the job here."

"About that." Rosalina had finished lining the bodies up, making sure to put the head with the warrior's body. "Unless the chest inside's got one of those legendary bags of holding we're not going to be able to get three bodies back safely. I can use a spell to keep them from reanimating, but we're gonna have to settle for IDs and a map for verification."

"We should take their weapons too," Fili said. "That way other undead can't use them."

Alissa nodded, "Good idea. I'll grab the IDs. Rosalina, do you want to hold the weapons?"

"Probably for the best. I can flail at someone if we get attacked." The dragon woman put two short swords and an orb away before picking up the zweihander with her off hand.

Alissa turned to the pouches of the fallen delvers. It felt very weird sifting through their spare change and personal items but she quickly found the three IDs. A quick check showed none of them had suffered serious damage. She handed them over to Fili. "I hear it looks better if one of the original party turns them in."

"Thank you." Fili hesitantly took the cards and put them in her pouch. That done, awkward silence fell on the group. The three corpses on the ground were an ugly reminder of the dangers of delving, and that several lives had recently been cut brutally short.

Rosalina was first to act, moving to stand over the dead. The woman folded her hands in prayer and recited. "Lacrimosa dies illa, Qua resurget ex favílla. Judicandus homo reus: Huic ergo parce, Deus: Pie Jesu Domine, Dona eis requiem."

They all bowed their heads in prayer as the sounds of the ancient language of the gods faded. It would have to do as an epitaph. Labyrinths didn't give time to mourn.