Rhun glanced down and spotted a wide spot on top of the pillars that supported the balcony. “Let's go Frank!” She swung over the balcony rail, landed on top of the pillar, and followed it to the ground.
After throwing his maul to the ground below, Frank stepped over the rail, dangled off the edge by his fingers, and fell almost a story to the ground. He landed at a crouch and stood up easily, snatching up his weapon.
The other four skeletons were too busy pursuing Bron to notice them.
Rhunal took a big rock in her hands and rushed towards the rearmost of the four skeletons, with Frank following closely. Her target spotted her and raised its shield to defend itself. She had never intended to throw it towards its body, and hurled the stone underhand towards its ankles. The stone slammed its legs out from under it, and it collapsed to the ground in a loud metallic crash.
Her maul wielding companion bypassed the fallen enemy and laid into the one next in line, who was wielding a greatsword. The skeleton outreached Frank and his maul by a great margin, striking him first, chips flying from the top of his collarbone. But a sword is a poor weapon against a stone skeleton, and it lacked the brute strength necessary to crush his reinforced bones. Frank twisted from the hit, stepped in despite it, and slammed his opponent across the body with his heavy maul. Rusty steel crushed inwards and several stone ribs cracked apart under the weight of his weapon. They exchanged blows back and forth, but Frank had the better weapon against his own kind.
*
Bron was already torn up and bloodied, but his armor and shield protected him from the worst of it. These armored skeletons were taller and armed with better, sharper weapons. But with only two opponents left against him, it had become an even fight. It began badly, with a great axe finally shattering his shield, concussive force slamming against his arm. He stepped back, just out of reach of a second swing.
He took a large rock from the ground beside him and hurled it into the nearest skeleton’s face. Its helmet crumpled under the impact, and the skull below fractured, but survived. The next one stepped in with its voulge raised high to strike. He parried it at the last moment, but the much larger voulge forced his weapon to the side. But both weapons tangled in the clash. He stepped towards his opponent, dropped the sword from his hand, and grasped his cheap flint dagger on his belt.
The skeleton was too close to swing at him with the long voulge. It awkwardly smacked him with the side of the haft, but the weak blow did not move him. Bron slammed the dagger into the eye socket; the crystal smashed and the dagger got stuck halfway.
Behind them both, the great axe raised. Bron lifted the skeleton by using the dagger into the path of the great axe. Bone fragments flew right in front of his face, and the sound of crushed stone echoed in his ears. The great axe embedded halfway into its comrade’s rib-cage.
Bron quickly scooped up his fallen sword by the cloth wrapped blade once more. Before the skeleton could free its axe, he hammered the hilt of his sword through its damaged head.
*
Rhunal’s fight with the shielded skeleton had begun well, but dragged on into a stalemate. Beyond just the shield, it was also the most armored of the four. She repeatedly knocked it down by many combinations of her ice, fire, or stone spells, but it wouldn’t stay down.
Finally, a well-aimed stone projected forward at high speed shattered one of its feet into fragments.
Even that wasn’t enough to stop it entirely. It limped towards her on the rocky stump of its leg bone. Its armor was crushed in multiple places, but intact enough to protect its vulnerable joints. Rhunal was breathing heavily and becoming angrier by the second.
Frank and his maul stepped away from the pile of splintered bones that had been his opponent and stepped towards the stubborn skeleton with the shield. His heavy swing smashed the stumbling skeleton back, directly towards Bron from the opposite side, who slammed down on the back of its head with his sword hilt.
The heavy helmet it wore resisted the blows as he hammered it again and again, until he finally hammered down so much that it crushed the skull beneath it. It resembled a round shapeless sheet of metal more than a helmet by the end.
He looked beyond the armored ruins of the shielded construct and made eye contact with the one beyond it. Its golden eyes, with one eye socket cracked and wider than the other, stared back at him as it ground its jaw together.
“Good boy”, chuckled Rhunal as she approached the skeleton. It shook its weapon angrily at her in response.
“Good job, Frank.” she corrected, and he nodded slowly in her direction in return.
The entire exchange entirely confused Bron, “How do you even know its name?”
Rhunal grinned mischievously and raised her half-healed palm. ”It was easy. I just got inside his head.” She chuckled at her own joke.
“What are you talking about?” he said, confusion turning to annoyance. “And what took you so long!”
She pointedly ignored his last question. “Damn, Bron! Did you pray to your god of light? Because he sure felt like testing us here today! I’m glad that’s finally over. Lets see what’s in the mausoleum! Come on Frank!”
Rhunal pushed through the gate towards the mausoleum. The skeleton, Frank held back, staring at him with a steady eerie gaze.
A feeling of foreboding overtook Bron, “What is in that mausoleum?”
Frank slowly shook his head. An effective summary of danger from one who couldn’t speak. The skeleton stepped towards him, raising a fist and holding it towards him. “I am not about to let a skeleton show more guts than me,” he said as the skeleton turned to follow her.
He bent down and strapped the sturdier iron-plated shield to the stump of his arm and tied it as sturdy as he could make it. He scooped up a short battle axe and warhammer from among the scattered bones and tied the lot around his waist, dangling from the rope that was his belt.
He caught up to her in front of the large ‘door’ to the mausoleum. A door that spanned the entire front of the mausoleum and didn’t have any hinges or mechanisms. But as they approached, the door shook and rumbled, slowly swinging open from the left. A gap appeared on that side. The inside of the mausoleum was too dark to see anything, except for an eerie amethyst light coming from somewhere inside. The three stepped back as the door swung towards them at an accelerated rate.
Rhunal looked to Bron, regretfully, “I just had to see what was here, you know? I should have been more careful.”
He smiled grimly, “Too late for that now. We can only get ready for whatever it is. Are you with me? I probably can’t outrun it.”
Her cavalier attitude faded as she narrowed her eyes. “To the death. Obviously.”
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