Following the maid revealed hidden corridors in the castle adjacent to the much larger ones that I previously roamed.
And with the continued stalking of the rotting undead, I finally found out something that had been bugging me for some time.
The Malaise is a disease, plain and simple.
Meaning it doesn't give a damn on the type of person it infected, if it did, it wasn't a disease anymore but a parasite that was strangely insistent on its hosts death.
But then again it piloted the host from beyond death so it may be something similar to a parasi- 'Shut it Slade and return to the topic'
Ending the mental tangent with a soft mental chiding, I continued what I was thinking.
Anyways.
Since the malaise didn't discriminate like the Europeans with the Natives, it infected all that it could get their hands on.
Those people being the Fat Nobles (The Dining Hall) and the Royal Guard (Hallways)
But that begs the question.
Where were the people that maintained the castle?
Even if there was magic maintaining the castles image, that didn't mean that all personnel could just be dismissed.
Even if tractors could do all of the work, that didn't mean that people weren't needed to operate the technology.
Well as it turns out, all of those staff were just hidden within these very corridors.
Using a simple stealth technique that redistributed the weight of the body around the soles of the feet so that little sound would come from my footfalls, the tips of my toes touched the ground before my heels made ground fall.
Placing the flat sides of my soles against the ground, the maid zombie completely unaware of what I was doing continued to wander through the dark halls.
They were still carrying the basket filled with pork textured flesh, leading away from what I now realize is actually a simple butchery set up to somewhere unknown.
I honestly have no idea why I was following the maid zombie, but if I were to say it I guess it would have to be because I haven't seen any other undead?
'Oh speak of the devil and he shall appear.'
Seeing two zombies shamble over from a turn in the hallways, the light from the sparse torches
Stifling my breath, I briefly pondered on whether I should continue following the maid or the newcomers before settling on the maid once more.
Then I realized that these undead were different from the maid.
'I guess I now know what I'm doing.'
Ignoring the maid undead that was undoubtedly bringing more food for the now slaughtered nobles in the dining hall, I looked at the newcomers.
They were short, roughly at waist height but in their hands they carried a pair of daggers that gleamed under the dim lighting.
'Definitely more interesting then the maid zombie.'
Focusing on the two newcomers, I made a few observations underneath the scant lighting.
With grey skin akin to that of the Timekeepers, they wore black cloth over their chests and legs, orange eyes gleaming underneath their hood as sharp ears poked out from the slits in the hood.
In other words, they were definitely not normal.
They were also definitely not alive, the fact that the maid zombie ignored them confirmed the fact.
The funny thing is, despite being having all of their sensing organs being rotten, they were still able to differentiate between alive and undead.
I honestly have no idea how that is since there were literal skeletons roaming about.
It didn't help that literal skeletons without eyes were somehow able to hear things.
'What even is the logic at play there?'
Blankly wondering about those things, when I came to my senses, I was now confronting the undead.
I would've liked to hide from them, but there was little one could do to hide in a straight laced corridor heading from one end of the castle to another.
'I mean, I can't even turn invisible.'
Holding up my shield, my body instinctively performed riot shield tactics with the tower shield in my hands.
Pushing and letting attacks slide off of its force dissipating the force, I pushed forwards at the short figures wielding daggers.
And despite the much lower weight class, the weight behind their blows was anything but.
'Glad I paid attention in riot control.'
Letting the blade slide off, my hands tingled with vibrations before I shoved the shield straight into their skulls.
A bad move I should've probably not done as the little midgets just used their daggers as a makeshift climbing hook.
Hooking the hilt of the blade over the top of the shield, they pulled their body upwards and flipped overhead, their blade held tightly in their hands as they prepared to stab me straight in the head
Letting the shield fall, my hand flew upwards.
Catching the blade with my own, my now free hand braved through the shower of sparks created from the collision aiming to grab the Undead by the throat.
But there was one thing I was forgetting.
The Midget wasn't alone.
"Ugh" Grimacing, a sharp pain shot up my hand as I barely escaped the edge of the blade from digging straight into my palm.
Leaving a sharp scratch through the bandages, blood spilled through the gap and soaked the bandages on my hand.
And taking the chance granted by midget number 2 I would now call two for simplicities sake, numero uno fell downwards and backtracked their steps.
Placing their daggers horizontally across their bodies, the two midgets stared at me with unfeeling orange eyes.
Me?
Flames now coating my hands, I placed a burning finger against the wound and pressed hard.
*Sizzle.
Gritting my teeth, burnt but now cauterized flesh covered the wound and stopped the bleeding all the while I pulled out something else from my inventory.
Blocks of wood.
Tightly holding them in my grip, the vine rune activated sprouting vines that wrapped around my wounded hand like a gauntlet.
Seeing this, the Dark Trackers split up before attacking me from both sides.
A pincer maneuver as the military would like to call it.
'God damn it, of course they know tactics, they always knew tactics, I just never made that damn connection.'
Gritting my lip, the vines in my left hand sprouted like an explosion, covering half of the hall in an instant.
My sword hand on the other and stabbed at one before transitioning into a cut and a slice with smooth movements.
Clashing against the edges of the blade, the collision sparked loud clangs with bursts of light.
Metal against metal, metal against wood.
Fighting against One and Two at the same time my mind now used to cold combat with bits of hot magic felt uneasy.
'But why?'
Furrowing my brows, my blade continued to spark flashes of light all the while the loud cacophony of metal against metal and wood slamming against stone rang out in the narrow halls
Then I realized why I was feeling uneasy.
'We're making so much noise and nothings come to check in yet.'
Eyes flashing wide open in realization, a tingle on the back of my neck caused me to instinctively backstep even at the loss of my balance.
But it was for good reason.
Because what use was balance when your very life was on the line.
Piercing through the wall like a hot knife through butter, the large purple blade head of a spear jutted straight through the stone cutting the space where my head previously was.
Cutting the cloth tied around my head, the billowing black flames covering my head revealed themselves lighting up the dark place with a bit more light.
'Ah'
Pulling back the spear, I hurriedly tried to put myself back into balance with inhuman core strength only to be forced to abandon it once again when the walls of the castle were torn apart by a sudden whirlwind.
Breaking through the walls with brute force, a giant broadsword the size of an average adult male cut through the wall while generating sharp winds that pulled everything into the shredder.
And as someone who would very much rather stay alive and not be turned into slices of cheese, I stopped and stabbed the vines made of wood into the ground.
Anchoring myself, the metal like tips of wood dug deep into the stone and stopped my body from lifting off of the ground and into the shredder.
The Other Undead on the other hand?
Will they didn't give a flying damn.
Stabbing their knives into the ground, One and Two linked arms before simultaneously using their one dagger to dig deep into the ground.
Then like mountain climbers climbing the tallest mountain in the world, they alternated their stabs into the ground, climbing the ground to get to their goal.
If only their goal didn't consist of me being turned into slices of ham.
'It doesn't bleeding help when there are more of these dead fuckers.'
Biting my lips till they drew blood, I stared past the undead forcefully forming a miniature tornado around them by just swinging the broadsword and focused on the other royal guards surrounding them.
The one wielding the spear that had just pierced the wall like butter had stuck the head of the blade into the ground.
The one next to it had an arm encased in heavy gold, the fingers of their gauntlet digging into the ground to prevent itself from being turned into shreds.
And then there was the skeletons clad in purple cloth clinging to a pillar and the bombardier with a cannon strapped to its back.
'Fun.'
Cursing a certain god in my mind, the Guardian Knight slowly began to stop their spinning action causing the winds to die down.
+++
Tree