Looking For Lost Knights

Job Details:

Job Sign-Up: Page 20, Post Number 489

-Fat Monsterland, 11:00 P.M.-

Wearing her Azure Armor over her blue Steel Matron t-shirt and khaki cargo shorts with her Silver Dagger secured to her left hip, Victoria had driven her Centaur to Fat Monsterland to get here as fast as she could. Once she had arrived she parked it a short distance from the clearing where she had encountered the zombies several times before and dismounted the hovercycle. The night wind blew her ponytail about as she examined the scene in front of her.

She saw a lot of zombies lying on the ground... she counted approximately thirty zombies lying about the immediate area, give or take a few. She was not sure if it was zombies only playing dead to lure prey closer or if they were dead for real. The brunette summoned her .44 Magnum Revolver to her right hand and began walking towards the scene to get a closer look. While walking towards them she recalled why she was here.

Victoria had been hired by the Order of Lightbringers to look for a force of Knights that had been sent to stop a ritual being carried out by Zupazu's Executioners. The knights had been dispatched to Fat Monsterland three days ago and the Order had not heard from them, so she had been sent to find them. Since the Order was spread so thin looking for Zupazu's Executioners, only a single Order member would be available to help her. Her orders were to wait for the Order member to join her, then proceed deeper into Fat Monsterland and find the missing knights.

If they were alive they were to be brought back to Order headquarters. If they were already dead they were to be counted and set aside for retrieval. If the knights had joined the ranks of the walking dead they were to be terminated and left where they had fallen for later retrieval.

Victoria approached one of the fallen zombies and found that it had a deep stab wound through its forehead that went all the way through its skull. It was one of those skinny ax-wielding zombies that could run almost as fast as a human. Knowing that it was truly dead, Victoria walked away from it and looked at the body of one of those obese zombies lying only a half-meter to the left. The obese zombie had had a hole blasted in its forehead, either with a firearm or with Holy magic. Whatever method was used to dispatch it, it was definitely not getting up again.

Victoria looked up and saw some humanoid shapes approximately 60 meters in the distance and adopted a two-handed shooting stance while waiting for them to get closer. She was not sure if they were the missing Knights, so she would hold her fire to keep from accidentally shooting the people she was sent to rescue. The brunette watched them draw closer and closer while waiting to see what they were. She held her ground until they were within thirty meters of her and could get a good look at them.

Victoria heard what sounded like moaning in the distance but held her fire. They drew to within twenty meters of her and she saw flying objects closing in. She also heard moaning coming from the approaching group and realized the full extent of her mistake.

She had let a gang of twenty-two zombies get too close to kill them all before they got within range of her!

Victoria ducked under the projectiles and stood back up, then targeted the closest zombie she could. She carefully aimed for the head of an obese zombie and fired an Armor-Piercing Round that punched through its forehead and downed it in one shot. The rest of the zombies continued to close the gap on Victoria and she was not sure how she was going to take them all on without her Grenade Launcher.

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" A voice shouted. Victoria turned around and saw a short person holding out glowing golden hands and preparing to fire a big spell. The brunette wordlessly ran right for three meters, then dove onto the ground moments before the spell fired. The area behind her briefly flashed gold and she heard the zombies moan before the light faded.

The Sabertooth mage got to her feet and brushed off the front of her Azure Armor with her left hand, then turned back to the zombies. They had all been vaporized by her rescuer. Victoria then turned towards the pink-haired person and saw that her rescuer was none other than Amberlin the Order Cleric.

"It seems like I got here just in time, Victoria!" Amberlin greeted Victoria.

"You sure did, Amberlin!" Victoria greeted Amberlin. The brunette did not bother trying to save face because it was painfully obvious to both mages that without the cleric's intervention Victoria would be in a tough spot right now.

"I'm here to help you find those knights. I'm all the help you're going to get because the Order's stretched pretty thin. We've been fighting Zupazu's Executioners for several months now and we've taken quite a few losses." Amberlin explained why she was here and why she was the only one assigned to help Victoria in this endeavor. The brunette did not raise any objection to that. Amberlin was a powerful mage who had worked with Victoria several times in the past and the latter was glad to have the pink-haired mage helping her again tonight.

[Post Word Count: 918]
[Total Word Count: 918/11,000]

"I'm glad that you're here to help, Amberlin. I'll need it." Victoria said to the pink-haired cleric. Even though Amberlin was the only cleric available to help her, the Sabertooth mage knew from experience that Amberlin was good enough to more than make up for the fact that she was the only one helping Victoria tonight. The brunette felt the wind blow her ponytail about as the cleric looked at her.

"And I'm glad that you're here to help us find those knights. I just hope we're not too late to bring them back alive." Amberlin replied.

"I hope that we can find them in time." Victoria chimed in. Fat Monsterland was a dangerous place and the knights had been here a little over three days. Victoria was hoping that the knights had survived and were holding out somewhere, but she was not going to hold her breath. She was not terribly optimistic about their chances of survival.

Amberlin looked towards Victoria, then towards the clearing that loomed ahead of them.

"Are you ready to get moving, Victoria?" Amberlin asked. Victoria gave a thumbs-up with her left hand.

"Whenever you are, Amberlin." Victoria answered. The brunette turned around to face the clearing when she spotted one of those obese zombies lumbering towards them. It was about thirty meters away and it was bellowing its war cry at them.

"MEEEEEAAAAT!" It bellowed at the two mages. Victoria frowned. She raised the Revolver in her right hand and took a two-handed shooting stance, then aimed for its head. She led the target just a little and held off on squeezing the trigger until just the right moment, then fired an Armor-Piercing Round. The obese zombie groaned and fell onto its back at twenty-three meters away with a gaping hole in its forehead.

"Nice shot." Amberlin complimented the brunette's marksmanship. Victoria kept her frown as she turned towards the cleric.

"I hate those guys. They're deceptively tough for a zombie. Aiming for the head's a good way to kill them, but unless you use Armor-Piercing Rounds or using really strong magic you're just wasting ammo and making a lot of noise." Victoria remarked about the obese butcher zombies. Amberlin let the remark pass without comment.

"Well, we'd better get going before more of them arrive. Do you want to use my Centaur or do you want to walk?" Victoria asked, offering to drive them further into Fat Monsterland. Amberlin momentarily turned her attention towards the stationary hovercycle, then turned her attention back to Victoria.

"I think we'd better walk, Victoria. As much as I appreciate the speed of riding on a vehicle, that might be one case where speed could get us into trouble." Amberlin opined. Victoria thought about her response for a moment before giving it.

On one hand, if they went faster, they might be able to reach the knights in time to rescue them and bring them home alive.

On the other hand, the cleric had a point.

Zombies tended to travel in large groups and if the pair ran straight into a group of them while zooming deeper into Fat Monsterland, the vehicle might make getting away from them harder because it was not very maneuverable at high speeds. In a worst-case scenario the pair might literally run into one of them and be sent flying off of the Centaur. It did not take long to imagine what would happen to the dazed and injured mages once the zombies got to them while they were lying on the ground.

Victoria thought about her response a little longer before weighing in on what Amberlin had said.

"OK, we'll walk then." Victoria finally conceded. Amberlin had made a very good case for why they should walk instead of use the Centaur and the brunette was going to go along with what the cleric wanted.

"You have the key for it, right?" Amberlin asked. Victoria nodded.

"Yeah, don't worry. I've got the... oh wait, no I don't! Hold on!" Victoria started to answer before feeling her pockets and realizing that she had left the key in the ignition. The brunette jogged over to the Centaur and gently removed the key from the ignition, then put it in the right cargo pocket of her khaki cargo shorts.

"OK, now I've got the key. This time I have it for real. Let's get going!" Victoria called out to Amberlin before jogging back over to her. Amberlin silently looked at Victoria as the brunette rejoined her.

"My Centaur should be safe now. Unless there's a zombie that can get past the security and hotwire it, it should be waiting for us when we get back!" Victoria assured Amberlin that their way out of here would be safe now that the brunette had the key to it. The pink-haired cleric nodded and pointed towards the clearing.

"OK then. Let's get going. I'll lead the way." Amberlin said. The cleric took several steps forward and Victoria followed a step or two behind to her right as they headed towards the clearing that led deeper into Fat Monsterland. The pair had now begun their mission to try and find the missing Order knights before it was too late.

[Post Word Count: 870]
[Total Word Count: 1,788/11,000]

-275 meters deeper in Fat Monsterland-

Amberlin and Victoria had passed through the clearing and were now walking down a wide forest path that was littered with corpses. The trail of corpses stretched for roughly four meters before coming to a stop. The grim trail was composed of a mix of the ax-wielding zombies and the obese butcher zombies.

The Sabertooth mage kept her revolver at the ready while Amberlin conjured a golden glowing ball of light to light the way for them. The light hovered above her and just to her left, casting a golden glow that lit an area of 25 meters for them. Amberlin walked just to the left of the "trail" and looked each body as Victoria followed close behind ready to use her revolver in case the bodies were not really dead. Once the pair had passed by all the bodies the cleric spoke to Victoria.

"Hmmm... none of those bodies belong to the knights we're looking for. They all have head wounds caused by either edged weapons or from concentrated bursts of Holy magic." Amberlin said to Victoria and explained how the zombies had been dispatched. Victoria felt a glimmer of hope that their rescue mission was not going to be futile.

"That's a good thing. Maybe we're not too late to save the knights." Victoria opined, trying to look on the bright side of things despite her gnawing pessimism. Amberlin did not look convinced by the expression of optimism.

"I hope so too." Amberlin remarked with an economy of words. She then began to move forward at a brisk walk without further delay. Victoria hurried to keep up with the cleric as they moved deeper into Fat Monsterland.

-Deeper in the forest, 400 meters later-

Amberlin came to a halt on the path that led deeper into Fat Monsterland and put her hands on her knees. Victoria stopped four steps ahead of the cleric and began looking for any zombies who might have been drawn to the light hovering beside Amberlin. While the brunette stood watch the cleric recovered from walking so fast for so long.

"Hold on... just. A minute. Please." Amberlin pleaded with Victoria to wait for her to recover from her exertions up to this point. She had shorter legs than the Sabertooth mage, so it was not much of a surprise that the cleric had to work harder to keep pace with the taller brunette.

"Don't worry, Amberlin. I'm not going anywhere without you!" Victoria assured the diminutive cleric that the former was not going to leave her behind. Over the past several months Amberlin had become a friend to the Sabertooth mage. She had helped Victoria during several past adventures and the two tended to work well together. There was no way that she would willingly leave Amberlin behind.

"I hate. Having such short legs." Amberlin lamented to the brunette. Victoria was busy trying to think of an appropriate response to that when her thoughts were interrupted by moaning and the sight of a lone figure approaching them from thirty meters away. It approached them with a lurching gait and did not make any kind of sounds like calls for help. Victoria raised her revolver in a two-handed shooting grip while Amberlin stood up straight and held her hands out in front of her to prepare a spell.

"MEEEEEAT!" It bellowed at the two mages. After hearing that Victoria knew that the figure was one of those obese butcher zombies. She waited until it was within the area the light illuminated, then aimed for the head and fired an Armor-Piercing Round that punched through its forehead and killed it. It fell backwards with a groan.

Once it had went down the two mages began to scan their surroundings for more zombies. The .44 Magnum Revolver was a loud weapon. In between the sound of gunfire and the glowing golden light they might have attracted other zombies to them, so they needed to be ready for more walking corpses to come after them. They waited in place for five minutes before concluding that no other zombies were on the way.

"It's been around five minutes, give or take a few seconds. I haven't heard or seen any more zombies. I think the coast is clear." Victoria commented. Amberlin closed her eyes and muttered an incantation that caused the glowing ball of light to glow bright enough to illuminate an area of thirty-five meters. Victoria looked around them and saw a small group of nine figures running at them with no signs of slowing down.

"Um, Amberlin... I don't think those are the knights we were sent to rescue." Victoria remarked. The figures ran into the light and were revealed to be zombies. Amberlin raised her hands and Victoria hurried to get out of the way before she got caught in the big spell that was about to be cast.

Victoria saw the flash of golden light behind her and heard the moans of the zombies as they were disintegrated. Once the light faded the brunette turned towards Amberlin and gave a thumbs-up with her left hand.

"You saved us again, Amberlin. Thanks." Victoria thanked Amberlin for the timely assistance. Amberlin gave a small smile.

"It's no problem, Victoria." Amberlin assured the Sabertooth mage. Victoria faced forwards again and did not see any more zombies rushing towards them. She turned back to face the cleric and spoke.

"Maybe this time it's safe to get moving again." Victoria said in a hopeful voice. As if to refute that statement a chorus of loud groans sounded from at least seventy meters in front of them. Amberlin gave Victoria a pained smile and the brunette groaned.

"That's what I get for being hopeful." Victoria dryly remarked and faced the direction from which the zombies would be coming. The zombies slowly lurched into view and the duo counted at least twenty silhouettes of obese zombies heading their way. Victoria prepared to stand her ground against the undead butchers lurching towards them with meat cleavers ready to cut into living flesh.

[Post Word Count: 1,016]
[Total Word Count: 2,804/11,000]

Victoria waited until she could clearly see the obese zombies shambling in her direction before opening fire on them. The moment one lurched into the radius of the light the brunette aimed for its head and fired an Armor-Piercing Round that punched a quarter-sized hole in its forehead. It fell onto its back and ceased to move, but its fellows continued to shamble towards the two mages.

Victoria aimed at the head of a second zombie and fired another Armor-Piercing Round, taking it down in the same manner as she had the first. At thirty-five meters the zombies began retaliating by either throwing meat cleavers at them or by vomiting globs of acid that flew on a straight trajectory. Victoria ducked under a meat cleaver and Amberlin jumped to the left in order to avoid taking one to the chest. Victoria stood back up and fired an Armor-Piercing Round at the head of a third zombie, taking it down and causing it to fall forward onto its face since she had shot it in mid-stride.

Amberlin held out both hands and closed her eyes, then began to charge up for a spell. Victoria continued to fire at the zombies with her revolver whenever she had a clear shot and did not have to dodge projectiles. Victoria aimed at the head of a fourth zombie and fired, taking it down with a shot right between the eyes just as she felt something hit the center of her armored chest.

She looked down and saw that a glob of vomit had hit her!

Victoria did not have much time to feel disgust because Amberlin shouted a warning to Victoria. The brunette instinctively ran to the right to avoid getting caught in the spell that her partner cast. The zombies were hit with a wide beam of Holy magic and they groaned before being disintegrated. Once the light faded Victoria looked at Amberlin, who fell to her knees.

"Amberlin!" Victoria shouted. Disregarding the state of her Azure Armor, Victoria walked briskly over to the pink-haired cleric and dropped to a knee in front of her. The cleric lifted her head and made eye contact with the Sabertooth mage.

"I'm OK." Amberlin replied with a weak smile.

"You sure don't look like it." Victoria remarked dryly.

"I'm just a bit tired. That's all." Amberlin assured Victoria. The brunette was skeptical about that, but she did not argue with the cleric. Amberlin slowly raised herself to her feet and held her hands out towards Victoria's chest.

"I see that you took a hit from that acidic vomit. Lemme clean that up for you." Amberlin said. Victoria stood up and Amberlin held her hands out while chanting. Moments later Victoria's chest was encased in a golden glow and the dark green acid disappeared, leaving only a fist-sized area where the acid had begun to eat through the armor.

"OK, the acid shouldn't be a problem anymore." Amberlin informed Victoria. Victoria looked down at the front of her armor and noticed that the acid was indeed not a problem. It had disappeared like it had never been there... the only evidence it had been there was a small area about the size of Victoria's fist that showed signs of the kevlar being eaten through before the acid had been removed. She could get that fixed later, though.

"Thanks for the help, Amberlin. You're a lifesaver." Victoria thanked Amberlin for the helping hand. The brunette felt like Amberlin was carrying her through this job. First she had taken care of multiple hordes of zombies with her magic and now she had removed the acid from the brunette's armor before serious damage could be done. Victoria was glad that the cleric was her partner for this job.

Amberlin was just about to reply when the pair heard what sounded like... clanking metal?

"Did you hear that?" Amberlin asked Victoria in a near-whisper. The brunette nodded.

"Yeah, I heard it too." Victoria answered in a low voice. She heard the clanking again and turned around to face the source. She saw a human silhouette looming just beyond the reach of the light and readied her revolver. She raised the revolver in a two-handed grip and waited for the figure to step into the light.

Once it did Victoria saw an armored figure clad in full plate mail and a chainmail coif covering their neck and most of their head walking towards them, but something about the person was off. Their stride was stiff and awkward. Victoria did not shoot just yet because she was not sure if the person was a zombie or not. Maybe they had had to run for their lives and their legs were threatening to cramp up from the exertion.

"Hello?" Amberlin asked the person while Victoria kept her revolver aimed at the person. The person did not respond and kept walking towards them. The brunette held her breath.

"Hello? Can you hear me?" Amberlin asked the person. The person approached to within twenty meters of them and still did not answer the cleric.

"Hello? Answer me!" Amberlin implored the person. Victoria was not liking how close the unidentified person was getting, but she held her fire. She was rewarded when the person answered Amberlin at last.

"Graaaaagh!" The person moaned and reached for them with both hands. Victoria's heart sank.

"What do you want me to do?" Victoria calmly asked Amberlin for instructions.  

"End their suffering. Shoot them in the head." Amberlin replied in a sad tone of voice. Victoria aimed for the head and fired an Armor-Piercing Round that took the person down with a quarter-sized hole in the forehead. They spun a quarter-turn to the left and fell to the ground.

Amberlin walked over to the body and Victoria followed her. The cleric reached the body first and looked at it.

"That's one of the missing knights." Amberlin grimly confirmed what Victoria had suspected. Victoria looked down at the body and saw where the knight in question had taken a large bite wound to the left cheek where their chainmail coif did not protect their face. They also had multiple scratches on both sides of their face; all of the scratch marks looked to be consistent with those made by human fingernails. The hapless knight must have lost their helmet during the fight that had ended with them becoming one of the undead.

[Post Word Count: 1,070]
[Total Word Count: 3,874/11,000]

"I'm sorry that we couldn't save him." Victoria apologized for shooting and killing the knight who had been turned into a zombie. Even though the man was a zombie and would have killed them if given the chance, the brunette still felt bad for killing a member of Amberlin's organization. Even the fact that Amberlin had requested that Victoria take the shot did not make the latter feel any better about what she had done.

"It's not your fault, Victoria. Zupazu's Executioners are the ones to blame. They're the ones who made it necessary for the knights to come out to this dangerous place and thus run the risk of being turned into zombies." Amberlin told the Sabertooth mage. That statement helped ease Victoria's guilt a little. However, that statement also raised a delicate question that she had to know the answer to before they moved on.

"Before we move on, do you want me to end the suffering of any more of the fallen knights we come across?" Victoria asked Amberlin a difficult question in the softest terms she could. The cleric nodded.

"OK." Victoria said without further elaboration. She began to walk forward when Amberlin called out to her.

"WAIT!" Amberlin shouted. Victoria turned around after taking five steps forward and faced the cleric.

"Wait. Please." Amberlin requested in a softer voice.

"What is it, Amberlin?" Victoria asked her.

"I just need a moment, please. There's something that I need to do." The cleric requested.

"OK." Victoria consented to taking a brief break. She was slightly tired from all the walking they had done up to this point, so taking a brief break was something that she had no objection to doing unless they were in immediate danger. They were safe for the time being, so she kept an eye out for trouble while Amberlin did whatever it was that she needed to do.

Out of the corner of her eye Victoria saw Amberlin kneel over the fallen knight's body and say some words in a language that the Sabertooth mage could not understand. After a few moments the cleric stood up and faced Victoria.

"OK, Victoria. I'm ready to go now." Amberlin informed her partner. Victoria gave a thumbs-up with her left hand and the pair immediately resumed their trek into Fat Monsterland.

-Deeper into Fat Monsterland, forty minutes later-

The pair had pressed deeper into Fat Monsterland while brushing aside sporadic attacks from the fast ax-wielding zombies. So far they had not attacked in large groups like the obese butcher zombies... they had only attacked in ones or twos, but their speed made them every bit as dangerous as their obese cousins. The ax-wielding zombies were nearly as fast as a living human and that speed gave the mages less room for mistakes when fighting them.

"BRAAAAINS!" A lone ax-wielding zombie shouted at the pair from thirty meters away and started running towards them as fast as it could go. While it ran towards them Victoria took aim with her revolver and fired a single normal shot aimed at its head. The zombie groaned and fell backwards with a hole in its forehead, dropping the ax it wielded when it fell.

"Nice shot, Victoria." Amberlin complimented Victoria on her marksmanship and quick aim.

"Thanks." Victoria replied. She was glad that the fast zombies were not tough like the obese butcher zombies. While they were certainly fast, a single normal shot to the head was enough to stop them for good.

The pair continued to walk through the area until they reached a medium-sized clearing that had several bodies lying scattered throughout it and stopped just outside the entrance. Neither mage could tell if the bodies were dead zombies or dead knights. The pair slowly and carefully approached the corpses until they got close enough for the hovering light to shine light and allow them to get a better look at the bodies.

The pair saw that there were nine of the fast zombies lying on the ground along with eight of the obese ones. All of the zombies had stab wounds to the head or holes where concentrated magic had punched through the forehead and hit the brain. They did not see any dead knights lying about, suggesting that they had survived the skirmish and had continued their mission to find and stop Zupazu's Executioners.

"There aren't any knights here. They must have all survived the skirmish." Amberlin opined to the Sabertooth mage. Victoria nodded.

"I'm thinking they did, Amberlin. It looks like they won this fight and then kept going. I'm seeing more bodies on the path leading into the forest." Victoria informed her partner and pointed towards the path in question with her left index finger. The path was approximately twenty-two meters away from their current position and the hovering light extended far enough for the pair to spot more bodies lying on the ground.

"Yeah." Amberlin replied laconically. It was pretty obvious that the path in front of them was the path they needed to take.

"Before we go down that path, let's wait a few minutes to see if any stragglers catch up with us. We might have missed a few zombies earlier and I don't want them catching up to us at a bad time, like when we're fighting another group of zombies." Amberlin suggested a plan of her own. The Sabertooth mage did not have to think very long to see the merit of that plan.

"Good idea, Amberlin. I don't want to get caught between two groups of zombies either." Victoria readily agreed to the plan. Once that was settled they walked to the end of the clearing and stood at the start of the path that led deeper into the woods. There they stood back-to-back with Victoria facing the clearing they had just walked through and Amberlin facing down the forest path they were going to take. If anything approached from either direction the mages would be all but guaranteed to see whatever was approaching and have enough time to act accordingly.

[Post Word Count: 1,014]
[Total Word Count: 4,888/11,000]