Thief in the Night

Scrag Nightswift crept slowly and silently through the rotting catacombs, his eyes darting quickly between the alcoves where the dead lie in rest. These were not designed to honor the dead like other human catacombs, these were efficient. These cutouts in the walls were just barely big enough to slide a corpse into and offered no respect for the dead who laid here in droves. This was a storage solution he figured, easy access to bodies at a moment's notice and enough here in this small room alone to threaten a hamlet. As long as they remain at rest this will be an easy job he thought.

Wishful thinking. You don't break into a necromancer's lair and expect no dead to rise. No, it was not a matter of if, but a matter of when. When will they discover him, and will he be able to escape before being turned into a shambling skeleton like the rest of these poor souls?

He shuddered at the thought and quickly traced two lines down his snout with his claws, a religions sign to the ratman god. He'll need all the help he can get here.

He padded on quickly in a low hunch, his tail helping him balance in this abnormal stance. Normally he'd stop and search the corpses for any gold or silver teeth but this place made his fur stand on end and he wanted to be out as quickly as possible. Get in, get the gemstone, get out. Quick and easy he told himself, trying to push the idea of his own corpse rising from the dead out of his mind.

At the end of this long hallway flanked by alcoves of the dead stood a large iron door, wider than Scrag with his arms outstretched and twice his height. Whoever made it had quite the eye for craftsmanship. The entire door seemed to play out some scene he could not entirely understand. There were men fighting elves and dwarves in fields, with the dead littering the battlefield. On another side devils crawled out of a crack in the ground and spilled onto the battlefield to attack the mortals. At the very center, where the other scenes all surrounded, was a large grinning face. Everything about this face was wrong and it sent a primal fear through Scrag, nose to tail, and everything in him wanted to turn and run and to never come back. Far too many teeth in the smile, horns that leapt from the forehead and curled around on themselves and back into the skull to pierce its brain, and eyes like a snake with triangular pupils stared him down from the door. The iron eyes held his gaze and refused to let him leave. The longer he stared the more the edges of his vision darkened and burning runes appeared to hover just before the door. Tears welled in his eyes as he dropped to his knees. The madness would overtake him soon and Scrag knew there was nothing he could do to fight this other worldly horror. Scrag would die here, in this tomb he was sent to rob. Ironic that his final resting spot will be one he walked himself into he thought as the darkness took his vision. 

Hammer & Bone

Faen Slagson stood before a large stone crypt in the Ashill cemetery. It was made out of marble and topped with a simple copper gabled roof. The entranced was flanked by marble statues depicting the twin gods, Vie and Mor, of life and death. Good workmanship for humans he thought to himself, though even being a lesser noble family they would have been hard pressed to find a dwarf to work within their budget so he can't really blame them. He ran a heavy hand along the cool marble, could he even meet his race's standards now? It had been so long since he had worked stone, long since he joined the order. Now his trade was only death. Of course he could, he reassured himself, a dwarf never forgets.

Pressing on, passed the iron gates which barely clung to their hinges Faen entered the building. Inside was just as ornately carved as outside, and was spacious enough to hold 5 stone sarcophagi on a raised dais at the back of the room. One was slightly ajar he noticed. He swung the rifle off his back and brought it to bear. Opening the chamber he removed the shell and put it back on his bandolier and grabbed the firearm buy its barrel and gave it a test swing like a makeshift club. Shots won't be effective against the undead, but there's very few things in this world that can stand before a dwarf and a hammer he laughed to himself.

The lid of the sarcophagus slid open easily. Something had been in a hurry and not secured it properly from the inside. He could see the steps inside descended down and around going deeper into the cemetery. If there's any place for a necromancer to hide it would be here he reckoned, and lifted himself over the edge and descended the stairs.

At the bottom of the winding stairs, Faen saw a large hallway stretch on 60 paces long and12 abreast with an unknown number of alcoves each holding a corpse in different stages of decay from just beginning to show signs of maggots to bones stripped of all flesh. The musty air down here would have made made him gag if he had not been wearing his bandana over his face. It helped just enough to keep dinner in his stomach and not the floor.

After winning his battle with his stomach, Faen caught movement in the side of his vision and knew his real battle was about to begin. A fresh corpse had slid off it's stone slab and impacted the cold floor as a mass of rotting meat. Slowly pushing itself up it stood and stumbled towards him. She may have once been the pride of a mother, her curly auburn hair came down to below her shoulder and she seemed muscular, most likely the daughter of a farmer. Now she was an abomination. Her left eye was gone and replaced with a writing colony of maggots that spilled out with every one of her shaky steps and her jaw hung loosely in her skin where it was dislocated from her fall. The girl was a zombie, raised by dark magic to do terrible deeds in the name of her master. Faen felt pity for her. Pity for the girl that would never know life beyond those few years she got to experience. That girl was gone now though, and has been for some time he reminded himself. There is no pity for monsters.

The butt of his shotgun swung off his shoulder at an inhuman speed, and found it's mark on the temple of the zombie approaching him. Skull disintegrated with the impact, launching brain, skin, and skull onto the floor 10 feet away as the zombie collapsed into a pile where it stood. Then, all in unison, Faen saw more of the bodies start to rise. It looked like only about half of them were moving now. The necromancer must have been too busy to reanimate them all. Very lucky for him. It would take more than a couple dozen zombies to take down a dwarven Deathsinger.

"Come now you pawns of darkness! Come and hear the song of your doom!", bellowed  the dwarf as a deep, throaty melody began to fill the room.