Chapter 17: The Ward
Valens had once seen a group of old grannies soak all their clothes in a giant basin, flush them with water and soap, let them rest for a good fifteen minutes, then hang them together over a rope stretched between two houses to dry.
This strange creature looked just like those, except it was bigger in size, and had limbs instead of sleeves. Dark tendrils stretched randomly from inside of it, dozens of them just floating about. It had no eyes, no nose, or a mouth. Nothing that suggested it was a living thing. Red words floated in and out above it.
[Necromancer’s Ward - ???]
“Bah!” Nomad pursed his rotten lips at it. “This one’s a clever one, then? He even patched the holes feeding into the main cave with Keepers.”
“A damned Ward,” the woman cursed under her breath once she saw it. She raised the spear hesitantly, creeping toward the side wall, gazing at Nomad as if she expected him to do something.
“What? You want me to handle that? Look at its tendrils! I’m basically naked below the waist. They’d get my bones good if I try to make a move on it. You go first.”
“You’re an undead! Don’t tell me you fear a Ward.”
Nomad pulled his left fist up. “I don’t fear that creature, woman. I just don’t see a point in me going in blind. It’s over Level 100. You do it. Got some good healing out of nowhere, didn’t you? Pulled your ass out just when you were about to kiss the death in the lips, have we not? Show us your appreciation, then. Poke it with that stick.”
Valens felt a bit odd that the shadowy mass just stood there while the two bickered back and forth. The creature almost seemed unaware. Or uncaring, now he thought about it.
Is it alive, at all? Or capable of perception?
“Can someone tell me what the hell is that thing?” he voiced out the question with mild annoyance. “Why does it not move?”
The woman gave him a side-eyed glance, eyes raw and narrowed down. Valens then thought asking questions about things that appeared to be common knowledge probably wouldn’t help him to quench the suspicion burning in those blue eyes.