Chapter 38

We’d arrived in a shop classroom, woodworking machines all over the place with a single Zombie in a lab coat that immediately started staggering towards us. Our archers scrambled for their arrows from waist quivers (why they didn’t just draw one from their inventory I couldn’t imagine).

“Mine.” I called out quietly, stepping to the end of a row of lathes and drawing its attention while surreptitiously setting down my cursed whetstone, it wouldn’t help this group. The staggering thing and I met at the corner; I slapped my little shield into its face and my knife into its heart. A quick twist to maximize the wound and the former teacher dropped only a second after it closed its arms around my shield. With armour on my torso and arm, a single Zombie’s nails held little hazard for me now.

I cleaned out the Silver and walked back to the group, keeping my head on a swivel. “Alright, let’s look for nice shiny toys, anything clean that you can equip. Who normally carries the Silver and Goodies for your group?” I quietly called out to blank faces. “What?”

“You just, killed it ... just like that with your big knife?” our surprised looking archer (the blond one; Amy) said.

I glanced back, not really getting what was happening. “Well ... isn’t that the idea?” I asked. This was getting weird, I mean weirder than being magically transported to a dimly lit filthy Highschool to kill Zombies.

“Ummm...” she started again.

“Let’s save it for later, suffice to say that we will use our formations, Footman and I will cut down any that hit our lines and you three will headshot them while they are walking into range. Everyone keeps quiet to avoid drawing in big swarms of the damn things and once the place is clear we tackle the Boss, or Bosses.” I stated, keeping it simple and refocusing the group. “Now, quietly look for clean items around here that you can equip, move it!”

The group dispersed, picking up and putting stuff down. I picked up the whetstone (so someone else didn’t find it) and made my way over to where Robbie had his arms around an obviously terrified Sarah. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t think she’s ever been in before, she’s really fucking scared and it’s bleeding into me through our collars.” Robbie replied, sounding unsteady. If this was true I couldn’t imagine how the fuck she’d had her weapon already.

“Want me to pull hers off?” I asked. Robbie was damn near the only one I could trust in here, I didn’t want him distracted.

“No, no ... I’m keeping her calm through the connection; and if you slip that collar she’ll have a total breakdown. He replied, stroking her back as she shuddered against him.

I pulled out her sceptre and tugged Robbie over to the downed Zombie. Sarah followed along unwilling to stray too far from him. Lugging up the corpse, I leaned it over a lathe and mimed striking it with the short club-like weapon. Striking it on the arm then shaking my head ‘no’ before pointing to the misshapen head and nodding ‘yes’. I passed the weapon back and she immediately stored it. I pulled it again and mimed hitting it in the head before pointing to her, then the Zombies head again. She looked resigned, and pretty grossed out. After taking the sceptre back again, she held it with one hand and tapped the unmoving Zombie on the head, I motioned her to use two hands and the sceptre disappeared.

Frustrated, I pulled out her weapon and pounded the dead things head. While it didn’t split like a ripe melon, it did break and things oozed out. I finally dropped the gore-covered weapon on the body and walked away. If that didn’t get through to her what her job was, then she was a lost cause.

I noticed the girls crowding around the corpse, poking at it themselves.

“Footman, can you scout outside of the room?” I asked quietly, raising an eyebrow. He’d been hovering over Sarah, and I also wanted to know if he could bear to be separated from her.

“Yeah, kinda. These things can’t see very well, but they also hunt by smell. I can sometimes fool them if there’s other humans around, but never if I’m the first one in up close. It’s kind of a drag.” He replied, his eyes leaving the girl for the first time since we got in here.

“Can you kill them from the ... um ... invisible-ness?” I asked, lamely.

“No man, I have to keep moving fairly slow or I just shed the effect. Anything more than a slow walk wrecks it. I can stab someone from it, but as soon as I move any part of me quickly it’s over.” He replied evenly, his eyes sliding back to his pack mate before he stepped away quickly toward her. The girls parted nervously and he led her to one side and spoke quietly for a minute.

“Ladies:” I called out in a low voice as I approached the reformed group. “Have you found anything?”

“We poked at the Zombie but didn’t find any Silver in its head. Amy found some sort of saw that was hanging on the wall.” Tina said, pointing at my diminutive former tour guide.

“If you normally each keep what you find then we’ll just go with that. I’d love to see it when we all get back into the start room though.” I said with a smile. In reality I could see that it was not a magical item, and was truly just a saw, I think it was called a ‘flush-cut backsaw’ if I remember my own grade ten shop class correctly. I pulled out a clean rag I’d once found (yeah, I stole it from a corpse in the morgue) pointing out to them how it was cleaner than all the stuff around them. I then asked them to keep an eye open for out-of-place garbage that looked too clean also. Takeout containers, Starbux coffee cups, Burger Thing bags ... all these could potentially hold Silver nuggets, free for the taking if your eyes were sharp enough. I’m pretty sure they didn’t get it though.

“Footman, shake a leg!” I called over to Robbie. We needed to make sure we kept the initiative from what I’d read earlier. Wiping out groups of 5-10 Zombies would sure beat the hell out of tackling the whole herd of them all at once. Robbie detached from Sarah and smiled at her before vanishing completely. “He’s going to scout.” I said quietly to the gasps of the ladies, noticing that Sarah didn’t flinch at all at this display of Robbie’s Skill. The door slowly opened with a small squeak, apparently all on its own then shut slowly a moment later. I cast about for any oil or spray lube, hoping to keep as quiet as possible as we moved through the school. Popping open a dirty red cabinet with a small squeak of its own, I actually found some; and it was clean!

“Hey, look a bit harder eh?” I chided the girls, holding up the lube can in my hand before it disappeared into Inventory. Oddly it was Robbie who had pointed out that a tool or item you could really really really use was often found in the portal, if you just could look about a bit. He mentioned that it was always best to have an ‘Scroll of Identify’ on hand. Shame I didn’t have one.

Walking over to the doors, I squeezed a bit of oil onto the three exposed hinges. Hopefully that would help things. A second or two after I’d stepped back from the door, it swung halfway open and quickly closed. Silently. Nice.

“There are twelve of them on the way, I might have gotten in the door by the time they the first ones turned the corner, but they’re following smell anyways.” Robbie got out as he came into view, rushing over to us.

“Alright, let’s blockade off the first two rows of lathes and force them to come at us from one pathway. This’ll give the archers a chance at them.”

We piled chairs and stools up at the edge of the walkways, funnelling the dead so that they would have to walk towards the front of the room before turning along the front row. Robbie and I were going to work a fighting retreat across the front of the room; there being just enough room for the two of us to fight side by side. I took the right side, putting my shield in the middle; right alongside his sword arm.

“Alright, Fire Mage: avoid any shots at that red cabinet there, it’s full of flammable shit. Archers: Headshots as they come into range. Any that make it to the front row; you leave them for Footman and me. Got it?” I called out, no longer all that concerned with silence. Nodding heads all around, but only our pyromaniac looked at all confident. “Look, the two of us could probably take all ten of these things by ourselves but you three thin down the herd and we’ll all do just fine. Footman: pop the door.”

Robbie remained in sight as he walked to the door and swung it fully open. It looked like it stuck that way so we were committed I guess. The first rotting corpse shambled in and my accomplice had his sword and sword-breaker in his hands instantly. A quick swat to an outstretched arm then a jab and the first undead was down, blocking the doorway partially and slowing the rest of the group entering the room as they tripped over the ‘dead’ body. It would’ve been funny except for the fact that they would crawl for a bit before getting upright again, basically ducking behind cover from our archers and Fire Mage.

When fire did come from our ranged weapons it went high. Excited archers (and Fire Mages) always shoot high. “Ok, they’re too close to us now, cease fire on the ones at the front and we’ll take them from here.” The girls hadn’t even made one kill, and there were eleven Zombies basically lining up to meet us in the space between the front row of machines and the instructors desk. I dropped my cursed whetstone and got ready to work.

“We’re out of arrows anyways...” one of the archers whined.

I should have asked more questions last night.

Robbie was obviously pissed. “You are a fucking Weapon ... these are your weapons and there is literally nothing in the world that can keep them from you! Reach out and pull them back into your inventories you idiots!” he called out between clenched teeth.

After that the two of us had our hands full, fighting a slow retreat across the front of the room, there seemed to be a few gaps in the lineup against us, so the ladies might have had an effect. At least they were smart enough to drag the first corpse clear and close the door once we had the last two engaged.

“We didn’t know...” “Nobody told us...” “I think I got one!”

The three had learned something at least, Sarah had cowered in the corner; not only leaving us without backup (however weak it would have been) but also chipping away at any credibility we were building with the rest of the group.

Robbie was a revelation; he moved like a cat, completely in control of his blades and totally badass. I might have put four down, five with the first one in the lab coat. The archers seemed to have picked off one (out of twenty or more shots!) and there looked to be a dozen or more corpses strung out along the front of the room so he had put down two to my one. Not really in Mace’s league but still an excellent grunt to keep around, all I had to do was keep him around.

The Fire Mage was breaking open heads with her staff, poking around for Silver. “You know...” Robbie started before I elbowed him hard.

“You know where to find the Silver in the Zombies? I asked over him, someone was keeping these chicks in the dark over general Weapon skills and knowledge and I was going to play along until I figured out who and why.

“Duhh ... Tina replied, in full ‘valley-girl’ voice. “The rotten brain of course, I’m two-for-two so far!”

I patted Robbie on the back and I nudged him back toward Sarah with a small head shake before stepping through the line of corpses; pulling the Silver from eight of them as I went, then started breaking skulls open at the other end of the line working my way back to where Tina was working with the two archers. “I found only four Silver.” I opened up my palm with two Zombies worth of gooey silver pieces.

“Score! That’s beer and weed for a week!” One of the archers exclaimed and I was getting concerned. The ‘Stoners’ group I used to run with at least had the professional courtesy to talk drugs and alcohol and parties after the run. These twits lost half a team somewhere, somehow and still didn’t seem to grasp the seriousness of this.

“Ok, Archers! Front and centre.” I called out, a little louder than I’d been before. The two young ladies begrudgingly schlepped over, eyes cast on the floor. I hauled up a corpse, putting it in a chair at the front of the room and leaning it back against the blackboard. “Ok, one kill out of a dozen enemies is not earning your keep. They were less than twenty yards off. I have no idea how you managed to miss the fact that you can retrieve your arrows straight into inventory but you also managed to miss your targets so maybe you’re just plain dense. Everyone who gets a weapon is granted at least some skills with it. Some people even get weapons that they have trained with for years,” I sounded like a disappointed hockey coach... “show me what ya got. Headshots ladies.”

The two of them had their hands full of arrows which they tucked into their hip quivers. The first arrows didn’t leave the bows until about ten or twelve seconds later, and those were body shots. “Too slow and too low.” another round rang out, both body shots again. “What part of ‘Headshots’ do you two not understand?” The next two went high, puncturing the backboard a foot or so over the target.

“Ceasefire.” I called out, pointing Robbie towards the door again. “Go scout.” I paused, looking over the scared little girls that the women had suddenly become. “I have two parts to my weapon, and I can call either one. I want you to learn how to call one arrow at a time, right to your bowstring; go practice over there.” I pointed to the corner of the room with racks of old and dusty wood.

“FireMage: front and center” I called out again. Quick as she could, a smiling girl scrambled over. “When these things get too close your best bet is a lunge, now place your feet like this...” I spent the next ten minutes showing Tina footwork and how she might best to use the ‘Kindle’ charm she was borrowing. It was guesswork at this point but at least we could try.

The door opened and shut again and Robbie popped back into visual existence again. “At least another dozen on the way but I didn’t see any Ghouls at least.” He had ran across all the dead corpses to Sarah who was still useless but at least out of the way at the far back of the room.

“Ladies: you ready?” I got nervous nods from the three. “Footman, you are going to relieve Tina here after she drops the first one or two with her new moves. You see any issues and you step in right away ok?” I called to Robbie’s back.

“Sure...” he gave me with a small turn of his head, his eyes no doubt fixed on Sarah’s. I took some time to roll or drag some of the already-dead undead out of the way enough for us to retreat once the door was cast open again, and still minimize our exposure to having to fight two or more at a time by keeping the walkway crowded.