Master Of None

Since Walker was the only one who could sense undead mana, it made it hard to get through the fact that he sensed it everywhere. It either meant that there were a lot of undead here or that the undead moved and spread the mana they radiated all around these ruins.

With the quality of the walls and the area itself, there were a lot of clear passages to move from what the party was guessing too. Therefore, they all understood that the wandering undead was a worse situation. The adventurer group and the guard groups behind them would find themselves struggling if the undead were able to wander in to them first.

Midnight and Onyx seemed like they would suggest heading down different passageways. If they were safe enough to travel through, then they didn’t worry that they would struggle. Especially since Midnight and Onyx had taken dragonkin from and Onyx a smaller form already. They wouldn’t cause any cave-ins even if they did manage to break the stone walls.

”We can split up, if you two encounter an undead you can deal with it or you can lure it to use. You can sense me.” Walker saw Midnight and Onyx both give a slight look of affirmation before taking the right most passageway. Onyx marked it with his tail for the other groups to know to follow them too.

Su and Gil headed down another while Walker, Remey, and Alice took a central passageway. Splitting up hadn’t been their main plan but it was just more practical right now with the fact that wandering undead was a very real potential for them. It would be better to have everyone spread out to handle the dangerous opponents than stay together and risk the weaker guards and adventurers.

Where things seemed to be more dangerous was that Gil already spotted a trap.

”It’s just a small trip step, it’s not a major trap but it’s made so that someone who doesn’t notice it will stumble and alert everyone else. If it was a monster heading down this passageway, then it would most likely stumble making a much larger noise.” Everyone heard this warning before they got too far along. It was always good to develop sharp hearing.

Hearing his evaluation of the small trap and how it was set up intentionally to warn of monsters proved that every single thought was not to protect from other races and to protect from monsters. Not many people would make traps set up like this. However, as their group stepped over it, they saw some small wooden fragments.

”This is where the mouse doll was broken, I would guess that it made some sounds when it moved over this area. So we are going to have to worry about the walls and ceiling moving.” Walker placed a hand on the wall and could feel ambient earth mana along with undead mana.

He was right, the walls had moved and smashed the doll that Mela used. She had puppeted it to scout but it had made too much noise in a trap that only a monster would have tripped over.

”I have a feeling that the undead are trying to protect the tower. They might not have proper intelligence and just act as they did in life to survive. That was the deepest will of people of their era from what we have understood.”

”It feels like we are just breaking in to their home and trying to steal what they have left. But not really since they are literally undead monsters who want to kill us if they find us, you know?” Remey was still idly making a few potions using small balls of alchemy flame she controlled. She was even humming a little while doing this.

”I hear a noise ahead.” Alice had stopped her own humming of her buffing songs causing the light to dim around them a little. But then, when the shapes of others ahead of them became clear, everyone fell in to battle stances.

”Did the passageway we went just wrap in to this one?” Su stood ahead of them with her shield prepared and now lowering. Gil didn’t even take the arrow away from his bow that he had notched. Instead, he turned and released it in the opposite direction causing a racket of cracking.

When everyone looked at him, they realized he had just fired an arrow in to what seemed to be a glass sheet. ”Sorry, but I saw movement and that wasn’t natural.”

There was a slight rumble and everyone realized that the passageways had been made this way for this reason. The idea had been to convince those who entered and didn’t know the way. The response of attacking something oddly shaped ahead was more than normal for many people, especially unintelligent monsters.

Gil’s move had been normal since seeing something that was not easily recognizable was exactly what he had needed to do if that was a monster. It made sense that he ignored the shapes of Su, Walker, Alice, and Remey’s flames. So sending an arrow at the distorted shapes in the light would be fine.

But the fact that the walls were now shifting and seemingly preparing to slam together made Walker reach out to the white mana all around them.

He felt pressure immediately. He wasn’t trying to take entire control of the earth mana but it was clear that he had to do that right now if he wanted to be able to get anything down. The walls were being pushed with incredible control like the undead able to sense the changes and noises was more than just attached to the walls.

When this thought occurred, Walker stopped trying to control the earth mana and instead drew it to him. The sudden pull of mana made the undead mana shift as well before the wall rumbling stopped.

”I pulled away the earth mana from the source. I think that the undead we are sensing is not able to move when it controls the walls. That means that it is in contact with some remaining runes formations to be able to control the walls better and still manipulate earth-” The crackling sound of bones on stone came to their ears as a growl from Midnight ahead of them echoed.

Everyone rushed ahead to find a central passage with all the other tunnels meeting it and an undead skeleton in sparse rotting fabric being crushed to dust in Midnight’s clawed hands. ”This thing was trying to move the walls and trap his brother. We handled it.” Onyx’s cool response was also a little heated since it seemed he was very unhappy that this undead had attempted to cause them harm.

’Undead earth mage

This undead earth mage is an ancient undead able to use ambient earth mana to control rune formations and manipulate walls it created. It does so through extensive memory of its skills when alive. Despite losing its mental faculties, it is still able to manipulate earth mana with great control which is why it is able to maintain the remnant traps within ruins…’

Walker didn’t pay much attention to the appraisal before the skull of the undead was crushed. The information was not enough to help them with these explorations but only to help them realize that the earth mages might be even weaker in their undead states due to the time that passed. So defeating them despite their earth affinity should be simple.

However, this left them lost since the main passageways seemed to stop right where they would have kept going ahead. There was no staircase to go up or down. Just a solid wall and confusion.

”I bet that the passageways are all blocked to look like they aren’t here. Perfect way to trap monsters invading your home, right?” Everyone looked at Gil again. They had no idea why he was getting everything so on the nose but it was enough to keep everyone prepared and taking the best way they could travel. Besides this, they also realized that Gil was crouching slightly and trying to remain in the shadows of the light around them. He was training his stealth skills!

Walker didn’t say a word about any of it and focused on the stone around. Sensing the air mana on the opposite side of walls or the floor wasn’t easy since he had to look for the wind mana, encountering the earth mana within the walls. But after a few moments he felt a slight shift of something moving underneath their feet.

It wasn’t the stone moving, it was wind mana moving since something moved through the space below them. Wherever it was it was sure to be another undead. However, that was not their goal, they could fight it. They needed to move the floor somehow to be able to travel deeper in to the ruins.

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