Chapter 5

Darkness was starting to fall and everyone tried to be as quiet as they could.

A few times they came across a couple of ghouls and had to deal with them swiftly.

The first one they saw, Dusty locked up in surprise and Suzan swiftly separated its head from its shoulders before it could raise alarm. The group was creeping along and one came out from around a tree and it looked as surprised to see them as they were to see it.

Another thing that surprised Dusty was the lack of blood from them as Susan cut off its head. They had a grayish look to them and the skin was sagging from their frames. No one would ever mistake their looks for healthy or alive.

The next time it was an actual attack from behind as two leaped from out of nowhere to come down in their mist, but Seth easily swung his two headed axe and took them both out mid jump as they came down from the trees.

From that point on everyone stopped only just concentrating on the ground in front of them and started trying to pay attention to everything around them.

The closer they got to the cave entrance the more they had come across and even more of groups of them. Dusty, no longer surprised by their appearance, killed a group of four of them with extremely quick and silent efficiency on his own. The others never got a chance to move as fast as he did once he got over his shock of seeing them.

Kat was totally surprised to see his movements as he reacted like he did.

She had watched Aric and Brianna move and fight using unarmed combat, but most of their moves were primarily standard kicks, flips, and a few submission holds, with a few well selected punches thrown in.

But this was the first time she had ever seen someone use elbows, knees, and even shins in the way Dusty did to such a devastating degree. He wasn't kidding when he said that he was a weapon and didn't require one to be efficient.

Again she felt a sense of loss for her chance to be with him because Suzan had gotten to him first, but she quickly reined that in.

But as they approached the dungeon and killed more varied groups, Kat really began to notice how well Suzan and Dusty fit and worked together. It was hard to miss how easily they complimented each other.

Suzan it seemed was displaying a modified form of Dusty's moves as she combined those moves with the use of her sword. Often times, one of them would attack high as the other attacked low, and sometimes one of them would even throw a leg over the other ones head as the other used low attacks to shattered knees, legs, shins, or hips from below.

But while it was clear that Suzan was using the same elbow and knee strikes as well as back hand and punches that he was, she made up for some of his power with the ranged use of her sword. The way she swung it, it flashed brightly from time to time and it almost hummed as it cut cleanly through anything in her path.

It was almost like watching a dance between the two of them, and it was easy to believe that the two of them were simply dancing alone together the way they moved in concert with one another.

Kat knew without a doubt that they were a matched set that no one would ever be able to break up.

Before long they were at the entrance to the cave. Thankfully there weren't any guards or ghouls there, but there were scattered body parts all around.

"Ok, so this is where we need to be? Ok anything we need to know before we go inside?" asked Dusty softly to Tyrell.

"Well, only that we just need to go inside and see what we see. Only then will we find out why they keep appearing all around us and why they seem to be so organized," said Tyrell softly.

"Well that sounds easy enough," said Suzan as she leaned her sword against a tree for a moment and checked herself to make sure that she hadn't been bit or scratched by the last ghoul attack.

Ghouls had a form of fast acting poison in their hands and mouth, and if they could just scratch or bite you they could paralyze someone, but sometimes it just barely broke the skin and took a little longer to act on someone.

Though normally it was the deeper the scratch the longer you were paralyzed rule. She just wanted to make sure that her clothing had done its job.

As she finished she moved on to check Dusty and see about the area's he might not be able to see.

While Suzan was checking on Dusty, Tyrell noticed Suzan's sword. He couldn't miss the size of the two handed sword that Suzan often swung with one hand. How she used it like she did was amazing to him.

The sword had a mixture of what looked to be dark steel a silver hilt and with gold interweaved into it. It also was wrapped at the hilt in something that didn't quite appear to be leather.

Wanting to get a better look Tyrell reached for it before he realized it.

"Wow that is a pretty nice sword you have there. How sharp is it to cut through everything including small trees like it does?" asked Tyrell as he reached for it.

"DON'T!" cried out Suzan loudly before she realized it, and then they heard the soft moaning sound suddenly all around them.

The ghouls, while they hadn't quite pinpointed them from her shout were now aware they had someone else in their midst.

Tyrell, thinking to just throw her the sword now that they were discovered, tried to lift it and found he couldn't budge it. He then pulled at it and just barely got out of the way as it shifted and before it struck the ground with a heavy clank. It had hit a few rock and then made very loud thud as the hilt hit the ground.

Both Tyrell and Kat looked at the blade in shock. The weight of the sword and how Suzan swung it didn't make sense and they couldn't seem to mentally register what they were seeing. How could Tyrell not even lift the oversized blade that Suzan swung with ease?

Suzan quickly started for the sword to retrieve it, but Kat bent over and also tried to pick it up to test its weight before Suzan reached her. When she did she was amazed at how heavy it was. Even though she saw Tyrell fighting to lift it, she wanted to test that weight herself as if to confirm that it was indeed to heavily to easily use by a normal person.

As Kat tried to enhance her strength enough to lift it she found it was starting to take a lot to just even budge it. Given enough time she could enhance it enough to just lift it, but that would be quite a lot of magic wasted in the mean time.

"How can you swing this like you do? How can you even budge it?" whispered Kat in amazement as she stood back up and Suzan bent and easily retrieved her blade.

"Only I can wield it or Dusty," whispered back Suzan simply as she easily picked it up off the ground and put it back in her back sheathe.

Both Kat and Tyrell looked at that smooth movement by her in amazement. Watching what she did almost caused their eyes to bug out of their heads.

Suzan mentally kicked herself for being part of the disturbance that gave them away. She should have put the sword in it sheathe from the start, but she was in such a rush to check everyone out that she didn't think it through.

While Kat and Tyrell looked at her, Seth just looked around to see if anything was coming. He had long gotten used to the weight of a sword that no one could use but those two. It was almost as if no one but the two of them were deemed worthy enough to handle it.

"Well now that we've alerted them we need to move quicker. But point if you see anyone here who sounds human, even though more than likely they aren't, but even then we probably will still have to kill them. We'll have to make sure, but they are probably close to being turned and it will already be too late for them," said Tyrell softly.

"What does that mean?" asked Seth.

"It means half of the things we've been killing up to this point were some of the town's people, guards, and other folks from the countryside that have been turned. Something is turning them into ghouls," said Tyrell as he gestured to what was the torn tunic of a former guard.

Dusty, Suzan, and Kat had already noticed that they were fighting some guards as they closed on the cave.

"The rest of the parts," whispered Tyrell as he gestured in front of him at the caves mouth "are the body parts of the others who resisted being turned. We need to find out what is going on."

He then started for the cave's entrance at a low crouch.

The remaining four looked at each other and then followed him moving at a crouch also for the cave's mouth.

Once they entered the cave it was pretty much the same as what they had seen outside.

There were pockets of ghouls here and there where they either surprised some Ghouls or were surprised by them, but they always managed to get the upper hand.

One time it was close when Seth was attacked from below and his pants leg was first torn when he was scratched by a Ghoul and then he was bitten and he locked up and couldn't move. But thankfully Dusty was looking his way and when the creature stood up to take a bite out of Seth's neck Dusty was already in motion and slammed his booted foot into its head crushing it.

He was able to quickly heal Seth almost in the same movement so that they could continue to fight. Dusty lost no time combining the two movements to keep the fight rolling.

Kat moved to the center of the group instead of near the front as she had been when they entered and she used her magic to provide a light source to see since it was so dark. After Seth was attacked she made the light a little larger and brighter, and then also went on paralysis watch duty to make sure that no one was harmed or killed during the fights.

Slowly they made their way further and further into the cave. Eventually it gave way to a cracked wall that opened into a stone hallway.

Looking around at each other, Dusty went first and looked around, and then waved everyone else into the room.

Getting out of the cold and dank cave was only slightly better than the cold and dank dungeon they were now in.

Dusty took that chance to look around and was astonished at how big the dungeon was. He had no idea how many people were housed here, but it was clear that there were quite a few at one time by all the skeletons lying inside the cells.

"Wow this is huge, how is it possible that he had this built?" asked Dusty softly.

"He used magic to build most of this himself. He was a very cruel mage and ruler who went out of his way to spread that around," said Kat solemnly.

"You sound like you were here first hand," said Seth in a whisper.

"I'm a student of history. Those who never learn from the stupid mistakes of others, or at times themselves, are going to repeat them time after time. I like to think that I am one of the few who learns," said Kat with a smile and in a soft voice.

"I wonder where we go from here?" asked Suzan.

"Well we probably need to look everywhere to see what is going on. We need to find out how the people are getting turned into ghouls and try and stop what's causing it," commented Tyrell.

As he led the way, Dusty was impressed at his strength of character, but surprised to see him move from having a back seat in this adventure to trying to lead it and trying to make a few command decisions.

This was supposed to be his mission and he found Tyrell was now he was leading it, but he couldn't say much because so far he had been right at ever turn. The best thing to do was sit back and let someone who knew what to expect lead the party instead of him trying to force the issue.

Shaking his head with a rueful smile he followed Tyrell further into the dungeon.

As they progressed they attempted to at first climb the stairs but quickly found that the stairs going up were blocked by dirt and heavy stones and rubble, and so they needed to go down instead.

Tyrell and Kat mentioned that it must have been when the castle collapsed that was the source of the rubble in the door area.

Going the other way they searched room by room for any signs of anything out of the ordinary.

A few times they surprised some ghouls, but for the most part, with as much noise as they were making killing the ones they found and opening doors, the element of surprise was long gone.

Now they found that Dusty and Kat both needed to use magic to stop them.

Dusty started with Lighting, but found that simple fireballs were far more effective and did more damage. A few times some of them tried to run into their group while on fire, but Dusty used a few well placed wind or ice spells to keep them away.

Sometimes the wind put out the fire, but it was simple enough to re-ignite it.

Dusty wondered about Kat because he didn't know how long her magic would last, but she didn't seem to be in any distress from either over use or showing signs of switching to lower power spells to conserve power as they spent hours working their way forward.

"I see you're handling yourself well. Are you ok? Are you getting low on magic?" asked Dusty as he used a spell to shoot one ghoul and high knee another in the face.

"No I'm good. I have a long, long, ways to go before I'm at that point. But I may top it off later once we get back to town. I hate not being at a certain level," said Kat with a sweet smile as she held her left hand high still giving light as she cast a fireball with her right.

Dusty had no idea what that meant, but he did see her eyes flash once with undisguised desire as she said this, right before she managed to reign in the look back in. Then it was gone as if it had never been there.

He knew Suzan wouldn't be happy if she saw what happened, but he saw it for what it was, desire on her part without the intent to follow it up. He appreciated her not giving into the desire and making his life more difficult.

Dusty went back to his fighting and they slowly started to kill the mass number of ghouls that were attacking. Dusty still wanted to know how Kat was casting without power words, but she was obviously doing it and it was definitely magic that she was using, and it was also obvious it wasn't her first time in a fight.

So Dusty left her alone and concentrated on his own fighting.

Eventually they realized that the ghoul tide was slowing down.

Trying to catch their breath they looked around and couldn't believe the various bodies around them. Some of them were of young and small children as well as adults. Some had barely any grey coloring to their skin or had barely any sag. It was obvious that these were the newest ones freshly converted into ghouls.

"That is disgusting. Someone needs to pay for this," said Suzan as she looked down at the small bodies of the children.

"Our biggest problem is how they are getting created. Is someone new doing this or something left over from before the time before that is doing it? Either way we need to stop it," said Dusty as he looked around.

Tyrell seemed to nod at him as they started off to head further down into the dungeon.

Lori sat at her work bench and was just a touch frustrated. She was happy when Rachel called her earlier that day to tell her about Amber. It was unexpected, but the sky was the limit for that child if handled properly. As a parent she already knew that there was nothing like knowing your child would be viewed as special by everyone around you.

But now that she had returned to her work, she was stuck on a few ideas for what she wanted to work on, but she was having a few problems getting the ideas to stick as she envisioned them.