Chapter 9: Fervour & Fury

Kaius stood on the wide trail beaten through the undergrowth of the subterranean glade, watching the two undead that slowly approached with spears levelled at his chest.

Their weapons had the stout look of boar spears. Leaf shaped blades capped by lugs on a stout haft six strides in length. They were weighty, unwieldy things. More meant for planting firmly in the ground to arrest a boar's charge than true weapons of war.

They still held the reach advantage. If only barely

Kaius grinned, the Bloodsong still running hot in his veins. Mere seconds previously he had slain their allies. They would be joining them soon.

Feinting a step forward, Kaius watched the undead thrust toward him, warding off an assumed advance. Like the others they were strong and fast, but ungainly. Their bodies lacked the smooth flowing balance of a trained fighter, wooden fingers struggling to rearrange themselves as they adjusted their grip.

Even the points of their spears wavered through the air, as if uncertain of where to strike.

With each step they took forwards, Kaius took a calm one backwards, holding his sword at the ready.

The left one cracked first. Suddenly lunging, it drove its spear towards him with its rear hand, thrusting towards him in a great extended stab. A snarl left his lips as he flicked his sword, pushing the spear away from him.

He stutter-stepped forward, bringing himself inside the first spearman's guard. He grabbed the spear haft, capitalising on the undead's sluggish reactions to shove it upwards and knock away the second spear thrust that had been poised to take him in the chest.

Yanking hard on the haft he held, he pulled its stumbling owner towards him. Kaius pivoted on his leading foot, scything his rear leg outwards.

His shin met the side of the undead's knee with a gruesome crack.

Its leg gave out and its grip slipped from the spear as it tried to arrest its fall.

Its companion was not idle, their own spear already descending in a sharp cut towards Kaius.

His eyes widened. His kick had put him out of position, and with a sword in one hand and a spear held mid haft in the other, he had no way to block or parry.

Instead he chose to give flesh to take bone.

Twisting, Kaius felt the half blunted edge of the boar-spear cut a line of fire from nipple to hip, a wet stream soaking his tunic in moments, quickly followed by the rapid itch of hisHealthdraining to heal the wound. It enraged him. He’d been overconfident again.

A quick step took him out of reach of the downed undead that was even now grasping towards him, taking its spear with him. A few more took him out of the range of the still standing one.

He took a moment to look down. His front wassoaked, a deep red spilling across the dyed green fabrics and staining the hardened chestnut brown leather reinforcement of his hunting clothes. It would takehoursfor them to repair themselves.

They had been agift.

Kaius narrowed his eyes at the standing undead, a vein on his neck bulging as he saw his blood drip off its spear point.

Creating some more distance, he tossed his stolen boar-spear up in the air slightly and reversed his grip.

He hauled the heavy spear over his shoulder, raising his sword with his other arm to aim at the undead that continued to stumble towards him.

Twisting and engaging the muscles in his back, he heaved.

The spear flew.

The undead attempted to bat the projectile out of flight.

It missed.

The spear smashed through the undead’s chest, lugs ensuring its momentum was fully transferred. It fell.

Kaius let out a dark laugh. Running towards his downed opponent, he ignored how each step sent another lash of pain through his chest.

By the time he arrived the undead was already scrambling at the ground, hurrying to right itself. His downwards chop ended that.

**Ding! level 13 Undead Huntsman slain**

He turned to the remaining undead, advancing towards it. It was actively clawing at the ground, dragging its way towards him. Its empty expression infuriated him. The way its slack mouth revealed rotten nubs of teeth and a shrivelled tongue. Its empty eyes betraying a total lack of thought, even of those primal functions such as hunger or rage.

He spat on its face, then shattered its skull with a stomp.

**Ding! level 14 Undead Huntsman slain**

Kaius let the moment wash over him, his thumping heart and screaming chest doing little to dampen his jubilation at his victory. He was starting to feel like it was actually possible. Surviving the Depths as an unclassed.

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Five undead, and little more than a scratch to pay for it. Sure, it was a small raiding party. He knew that as far as things had gone so far, he had played it incredibly safe. Greater threats there might be, but he had a lot of room to grow. Seven more merged skills, one within hands reach. He could do it.

He could get out and find Father

The blood leaking from his chest started to soak into his pants, he grimaced at the cool stickiness on his skin.

‘But first, I should probably clean myself up,’he thought.

After cleaning his sword on some loose leaf litter, Kaius sheathed it and jogged back to his pack. A clean cloth from his first aid kit and some water was enough for him to start mopping up the blood that coated his chest, the tear in his tunic giving him convenient access.

It didn't do much for the rapidly drying blood that had soaked into the cloth and leather, but the cleaning enchantments would take care of that. The rip still annoyed him though. He hadn't lied when he said they had been a gift.

One his father had given him for his most recent birthday, now that he was fully grown. Like all of Father’s gifts, they were superbly made, and he had personally inscribed them. Strong, but simple inscriptions meant to keep the garments in perfect repair while providing some minor resistance to the elements. Still,Self Repairwas a notoriously complex enchantment, a testament to Father’s skill.

They straddled the line between hard wearing hunters clothes and armoured leather. Tough cotton, with at times double width hardened full grain hide protecting his important bits.

Rinsing his cloth of blood as well as he could - he did still want to preserve his water after all- Kaius returned it to his pack before fetching a large needle and thread. A few minutes of fiddly work and the rent in his clothes was held together with an ugly but firm stitch.

Once the tear had repaired itself he would be able to pick the thread free, but for now it was more important that his clothes were secured tightly in case he ran into anything else unsavoury.

Packing everything away, he swung his bag onto his back before returning to the scene of his battle. A frown crossed his face, his brow furrowing in surprise. In the heat and intensity of his clash with the undead he had missed something.

The messy tracks that he had followed to track the undead?

They continued.

‘That's interesting.’

His eyes flicked to hisResources.

Resources:

Health - 139/200 (2/min)

Stamina - 174/200 (2/min)

Mana - 120/120 (2/min)

His health was still slowly dropping, but it was quickly levelling out as the cut on his torso finished healing. Half an hour to top himself off. Not bad. He could always keep his distance if he found anything noteworthy in the meantime.

Afterall, the undead he had seen up until this point hadn’t exactly been the most perceptive things.

He eyed one of the discarded boar spears, the one that had slashed him through the chest. It could come in handy, having something with a bit more reach. Even if it was in poor shape, its stout construction meant it should hold up fine. At least temporarily.

The fact that it wasn't covered in undead viscera like the one he had planted in its owner's chest helped too.

New spear in hand he set off following the trail.

It ended up being much longer than Kaius had anticipated. Luckily his new armament acted as a half decent walking stick, even if it was a little cumbersome.

Now Kaius watched the looming cavern wall draw closer and closer. Wherever the tracks led, it seemed to be positioned at the base of the cavern wall.

As he continued on, he was relatively surprised to find that the tree growth failed to thin out. The portion of the cavern that he had originally entered had been relatively sparsely populated by plant life. Still enough to qualify as a sort of forest, but the trees were spaced wide apart.

It had gotten denser as he had penetrated deeper into the thick of the glade, but he had thought that the lighter tree cover extended around the full circumference of the massive cavern. Apparently he was mistaken.

He closed the remaining distance to the looming cavern wall, leaving the trail to pass through densely knotted trees and bushes. He wanted as much cover as possible, though he stayed close enough that the undead's tracks were always in sight.

Once he got within a hundred long-strides of the cavern wall he found a suitably memorable tree, another one of those rare fruit laden plants that he had seen in his travels. Scoring its bark with his hunting knife, he made sure the mark was clear and visible from the bush beaten tracks he had been following. Then, he stashed his pack.

Spear held at the ready, he pushed his way through the undergrowth.

The soft glow of the cave moss shone between the closely nestled trunks. He approached slowly, keeping his profile as minimised as possible as he used the ample foliage as cover. Once he got as close as was comfortable, Kaius put a thick tree trunk between his body and the edge of the trees.

Peering around it, he saw that the trees abruptly stopped a good thirty or so strides before the cavern wall. The no man's land covered in long grass and a few scraggly bushes.

It was what he saw on the cave wall that drew his eye. Off to his right, in the direction of the tracks, was what looked to be a compound set into a great opening that had been worked into the stone, its jagged edges reminiscent of mining. Three stone structures standing proud in the shadow of the cave.

They seemed to have a similar architecture to the church where he had made his home. The same tall slatted roofs, with thin slitted windows set high in each wall. Where the church was clearly a place of worship, this seemed to be some sort of hunting lodge.

The main building, situated at the back of the shallow cave, was a wide and squat building. A veranda spanned its front face, collumned stone holding up its awning. Across its paved surface numerous drying racks were set up, ratty and hole ridden fur pegged in place.

The other two buildings were smaller in scale. One was set close to the entrance, a large smoke stack jutting out slightly from the cave and rising above its lip. The most likely reason for its positioning, he supposed. If he was to guess, it had to be some sort of smoke house, though he was in no rush to see whatever meat stores were kept within.

The final building was a small, but over engineered, building set just off to the side of the main lodge. From the little Kaius could make out through the dark shadows that drenched the cave, it had no windows, and it's heavy set door was barred tight with several chains.

The sight of that set Kaius’s heart thumping.

It wasn't just the Bloodsong and the wealth of experience available that sent so many into the Depths' embrace. Monetary reward and otherwise unobtainable resources did that enough all on their own. Artefacts, rare materials, and strange alchemical ingredients could all be found here. Often they were tied to some Depths-born construction, from what he had heard.

Just like a secure locked building attached to a hunting lodge built into the side of an impossibly sized cavern.

‘There’s just one problem’He thought to himself.

The entire place was crawling with undead.