13) Dead man walking

  In the hopes of ending Viola’s current rant, I tried to divert the Fairy's attention. “What were you doing with those Cores?”

  The lavender skinned fey paused in her complaints and looked at me blankly, before rising into the air on her fluttering wings that only seemed to appear when they were in motion. Spinning around she looked at the collection of higher ranked Cores half covered up with an old cloth.

  Dropping down to her feet, she turned and shrugged with a grin on her face, “I just wanted to make sure no one walked off with them.”

  Who would… As I began to ask who could possibly show up in here with us that would be more interested in the random collection of orbs, but not me, there was a groan.

  Or possibly a wheeze. In any case, both me and the Fairy froze in place, before she slowly turned her head toward Nictob’s corpse, and took a step back.

  As I watched the body through my Core, I could see it roll slightly until it was face down and then slowly lift its backside into the air.

  Then it paused. “Viola? Is that normal for a corpse?” I mean, how would I know? It was my first dead body, but from what my innate knowledge seems to have to say for itself, normally dead bodies tended to stay at rest. In fact, they were famous for it.

  It shifted its arms into a sort of push up position, then lifted its head up, before snapping it sideways over to look at me with its cold dead eyes. One eye with its iris fully open making it look solid black, and one of them nearly red with burst blood vessels from the blow I had struck him on that side of his head.

  I noted, in some satisfaction, that he did in fact have two ears. As I had surmised. Then Viola screamed, flew up into the air, and began flying wildly around the room.

  “Undead! Undead! Kill it Fell! Burn it! Have your summons tear it apart!”

  Jerking away from the madly screaming fey as she flew by close to the now standing corpse, Nictob awkwardly pawed at the air in her direction. Long after she had flown out of its reach. “It's trying to eat meeeee!”

  “I doubt its digestive system is working at this point Viola.” Really, I shouldn’t tease her. I know full well the fear of being eaten, but I was kind of curious about what it was up to. “Maybe just get clear of it and I’ll see what it will do.”

  She flew over to an open gap on top of a bookcase to the creature's left and peered distrustfully down on it with her tiny sword that burned with slow motion multicolored flames.

  Good enough. “Nictob? Big man? Can we talk?”

  The corpse shuffled awkwardly around to face me, but neither its dead eyes or its head angled down to the sound of my voice, instead, it began to slowly step toward me. Its gaze was fixated on the floor a good ten feet in front of it. Which put it gaze well past me at this point.

  Oh. It’s going for the door.

  Questions occurred to me. Can it even open a door? Do I want it to? Where was it going?

  I had already been wondering what to do with the corpse. The smell would eventually attract even more vermin than the Dread Cockroaches, so it had to go, but the question had been?

  Burning it? No. This room was a firetrap, although I didn’t need to breathe, so it wouldn’t be an issue for me. But the heat might be, even if my Core did have a fire affinity.

  Have my minions eat it, or dismember it and carry the bits off somewhere else. That would have been messy. No, having it walk off would solve at least one of my problems. But would it create more?

  “Viola? Do you have any idea where it’s going?”

  For once the tiny fairy thought her answer over. “Someone had to make it into a walking corpse, it might even be something Nictob set up himself. So either it going after someone he thinks killed him, or if someone else called it to rise, they may be calling it to come to them.”

  The thing had already stepped past me and had gotten to the door where it was trying to lift a bar with fingers that didn’t quite work.

  So I had a moment to think. …Hmmm. The gods called him a Vile Arcanist because he did stuff they didn’t like, and as indifferent, or rather, as neglectful as my own god was, I wanted to stay on the good side of the rest of them. So stopping Nictob would be a good idea if making his corpse stand up and go for a walk was something he had done.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  If someone else had called for it to come looking for them, they might be able to get it to lead them back to me.

  Time to kill Nictob, again.

  “Get him.” Blinky call up my Dread Cockroaches as well, I might need some reserves.

  The Air Hawk leaped off its perch on a shelf and beat its wing wildly as it hovered over the corpse’s head clawing at its bald scalp, and the Undine scampered across the floor to begin beating at the corpse's ankle with a bundle of keys gathered up in one of its hands.

  As for the rest, most of them went after Nictob’s legs and feet, rather ineffectively. My summons were tiny compared to the corpse of a full grown man. My best hope was to set it on fire, just not in here.

  “Pull back.” Even as the corpse began pawing at the air to try to smack my Hawk, my creatures began to back out of its reach. “Viola? What am I dealing with?”

  The Fairy, who had been cheering my summons on from the safety of the top of the shelving, gave me a surprised look. “Why don’t you… Oh right, you have to learn that. Identify! Share!”

  [ Rank 2 Level 1 Hexed Corpse ]

  Before I could ask, Viola called out, “It's a Witch! Witches do Hexes and bad things to fairies. I don’t think we want to find out what she might do to you. We got to kill it Fell!”

  We? What are you doing to help? …well she did find out what I was. “I’m going to let it get out of the door, then it can burn.”

  “Ohhh. Good idea Fell. We wouldn’t want to suffocate in the smoke.”

  Ah? Oh right, she would need to breathe. I guess.

  As the creature finished sweeping its arm around in a great arc over its head, it paused, standing motionless as it realized nothing was attacking it anymore, then lurched around to once again begin trying to lift the bar holding the door shut.

  After an absurdly long time, the thing finally lifted the bar up high enough it tumbled free of the upright metal things to either side of the door that had been holding it in place and then began working on the pull handle. By this time Viola had joined me on the floor and was leaning on my core as she watched it try to slide its fingers under the loop of black metal mounted on the door in order to pull it open.

  “Not exactly a cunning foe Fell.”

  I shrugged my imaginary shoulders. “I think it’s more about it being difficult to kill the dead, plus turning a fallen foe or ally into another opponent.”

  The fairy gave me a curious look. “So you’re saying Witch recycle.”

  “Recycle? I guess.? It’s a good word.”

  After pulling the door open into its own face for the third time, stumbling back once, and then closing the door shut again in front of it as it stepped back into place again, the thing finally opened the door and began to shuffle forward into a long hallway that ended in steps at the far end. Steps that went down.

  My Uncaring God, the thing was stupid.

  Viola made a face, “Oh, nasty. I remember that smell from when I was brought in.”

  “Do you remember what was out there?”

  She shook her head. “No, the cage was covered in that cloth I was using. But I remember the smell. Good stuff, it would really make the flowers grow. At least in a lesser concentration.”

  Huh… cryptic. As the creature got a few steps out of the door, I had Caesar come up behind it and begin breathing its flames up into the dark tattered hem of his pull over robe, as well as the loose fitting pale pants he had tucked into his low felt boots.

  Despite the blood soaking his clothes, the dead man went up pretty well, and Viola once again made a face. “Ugh! I thought he smelled bad when he was alive.” Waving he hands in front of her face, the fairy turned and rushed over to the tattered cloth covering my unclaimed orbs. Tearing off a long strip, she began to wrap it around her lower face.

  The corpse began wildly beating at the flames on its lower body, spinning and tumbling as the sleeves of its robes caught fire as well.

  I sent the fire snail to race up his legs, and his back, and then come to a rest on top of his head as the flailing corpse began losing its balance, thumping up against each of the three doors in the hall before finally falling down the stairs at the far end.

  Watching the flicker of flames on the ceiling of the stairway, I had to hope that had put a stop to it.

  Or send someone to check. “Viola…”

  I guess a Dungeon Fairy is of some use after all.