1-3-12

After they made it past the gate, Prince Gaius and Captain Meralco hatched a plan.

Their vast company would divide into four groups to be able to more quickly search for the “focus” of Belford Mansion. Prince Gaius the lion, Zenny the tiger, McGrath the scorpion, Zobel the rat, Cindy the skunk, Kiana the spider and about four lemming townsmen would search the right wing and basement of the mansion. Captain Meralco, Vic the lemming, Earl the beaver, Camia the parrot, Juarez the buzzard, Danilo the alligator, Steno the hyena, Medina the water buffalo and two other water buffalo men would look through the left wing and third floor of the building. Sanchez the dog, Fr. Stanwick and about five lemmings and three water buffaloes from the town would comb the central section and the second floor. All those remaining would have to go back to town or the Chenodia to get additional reinforcements and munitions with Zane the cobra particularly promising to bring more explosives and incendiaries and Sienna bringing along more books of magic containing information on how to counter necromancy.

With that discussed and gotten over with, the groups went their separate ways.

“So okay, where do we start?” asked Beryl at all those with her.

“Let’s try a window,” said Steno the hyena. “I think they’re old enough to be broken into easily.”

“No,” said Medina the water buffalo. “We must go through the front door.”

“Huh?” the hyena looked at the water buffalo dumbfounded. “Why?”

Medina didn’t reply, nor did she need to as the great front doors of Belford Mansion opened of their own accord with a loud creak. Then after they had gotten in, the voice of Nadia Belford came into their heads once again. This time there was a sense of urgency in her voice. This time she was clearly frantic and frightened.

“Hurry!” her voice came. “I can’t hold them back!”

And that was when the moaning and groaning of voices came their way. The undead were coming! A horde of wraiths, skeletons, ghosts, zombies and Creator only knows were on their way to them.

That was when the three groups went their separate ways, hurrying through the corridors and hallways of Belford Mansion.

+++

Zobel the rat, McGrath the scorpion and Zenny the tiger fought off the oncoming zombies behind them with all their might. Together they tore at undead flesh and shattered bone but only managed to secure small victories against the oncoming tide of undead. Meanwhile Cindy and Kiana cleared the way forward using their blunderbusses which they took turns at firing at the undead before them and then reloading as quickly as they could. Prince Gaius helped with the townsmen lighting their own Candle of Protection which flickered as if being blown by the wind despite the fact that there was no wind around them or even outside.

“The doors!” Gaius shouted while holding up a lantern over the din of battle and the groaning of zombies. “We need another way through!”

And that they did with Gaius and Zenny and at least one townsman trying the doors on the side of the corridor. Most were locked and they had to go from door to door to find safety. While McGrath, Zobel, Cindy and Kiana fought valiantly and while some of the other townsmen did all they could to keep their candle alight, they were quickly losing ground.

Getting desperate, Gaius started kicking at the doors, hoping against hope that they were rotted away enough to budge under the weight of his boots. After almost two minutes of kicking, one door finally gave way and swung open. Gaius was about to smile at this development when a skeletal hand in a tattered sleeve shot out from the darkness of the doorway and grabbed his foot then quickly dragged him inward.

“Prince Gaius!” Cindy shouted and fell back with Kiana following suit.

“Protect the prince!” Zobel rushed back and into the dark room with McGrath right behind him.

The lemmings went in next, trying hard to protect the flame of their candle burning.

Zenny came last, fighting off the undead that came after them. She fought back with everything she had, severing decayed limbs with her sword and breaking old bones with the hilt. Still, she fended them off and hurried into the dark room and quickly shut the door behind her before any of the zombies could come through.

+++

The wraiths quickly followed Beryl’s group through the hallways of Belford Mansion. Some came through walls or windows. Others entered through the mist at the windows. All around them the incorporeal undead came, hungry for their warmth.

Vic the lemming was immediately assaulted by images of his sister. In his mind, her clothes were all torn and her body was all beaten and bruised. Tears flowed from her hollow eyes which were filled with misery and despair.

“Look what they’ve done to me Vicente!” Pia Dubois said in his mind. “Why did you let them take me, brother? You’re supposed to be a man! You were supposed to protect me! You really are useless just like what father and all the others said!”

Vic was on the verge of tears upon seeing and hearing this in his mind. But then, a comforting hand found his shoulder and he found Captain Meralco the mink standing beside him. She was offering a smile of encouragement which made him stop and rethink his situation.

“Don’t listen to them,” Beryl said to him. “They lie, none of it is real.”

“She is right,” said Medina the water buffalo as she held up a Candle of Protection which flickered in the darkness. “These wraiths lie about everything. They have no substance of their own and their own memories have faded over the years. All they can do now is dredge up your own memories and use them against you until you die and become one of them.”

“Well, I don’t want to become one of ‘em,” said Earl the beaver. “They got another thing coming from this beaver!”

“Keep boasting you old fart,” Camia the parrot scowled. “And we’ll all be ghosts before this is over.”

“We’re here,” said Medina, as they stood before an enormous set of double doors. “This is Count Belford’s personal collection of artifacts. We’re getting closer to the source of the Belford Mansion’s curse. Are all of you ready?”

+++

Prince Gaius struggled with the skeleton that had grabbed him. It was an elephant skeleton so was actually a lot larger than he was. Luckily, its tusks had broken off long ago and the lion only had to fight off its attempts to strangle him. That said though, it proved to be strong enough to overpower him even without the advantage of musculature. It was now strangling him and Gaius could only fight it off for a few moments before losing consciousness.

It was then that one of the townsmen shoved the Candle of Protection into the elephant skeleton’s eye-socket that it reared back and released Gaius. While it had no vocal cords, the monstrosity shrieked loudly into the room. Cindy finished off the elephant skeleton with a blast from her blunderbuss which sent the thing’s bones scattering in multiple directions.

Zenny looked around the room as McGrath picked up the lantern Gaius had dropped earlier and shone it around the room.

“What is this place?” Zobel said as held aloft his halberd, ready for anything.

All around them were the mounted heads of dinosaurs that had been preserved through taxidermy. Here was a small flock of velociraptors. Over there was a deinonychus with its feathery arms spread wide. And near that was a head of a T-rex, its jaws opened wide. Then the light of the lantern fell on the head of a triceratops that was mounted not far from them, its horns held forward in an aggressive display.

+++

Vic soon found himself in a vast room with so many artifacts either hung on the walls or kept safe inside cases of glass. Here was a suit of wooden armor with a helmet that featured a scowling mask. There was an old wooden staff, gnarled and etched with runes that Vic couldn’t understand. Not far from that was an old crown of silver, surrounded by corroded rings. Further away, near the edge of the room, warriors made of clay brandished spears in the dozens.

“Where are we?” the lemming asked.

“Looks to me like it’s some kind of museum,” said earl the beaver. “This Belford fella must’ve traveled a lot.”

“And that he did quite a bit,” said Medina as they walked on. “He and his wife traveled all over the place. From the frozen mountains of Waldoria to the deserts of Surdalia. He came here to Pyril as it was one of the few places he hadn’t yet seen much of. It was also here that the man began to lose his mind.”

Steno the hyena looked around himself and began to pick at a glass cage containing an old sword and a strange pistol with five barrels. In less than a few seconds, he had it open and quickly stashed some of the stuff he found in a sack that he carried. He came to the next glass cage that contained some old books and scrolls. After opening it and stashing them into a sack, he thought to himself that they might be valuable to some rich wizard or academic somewhere like the owl or the cobra back on the Chenodia. He soon came to another glass case which instead contained jewelry which he was more than happy to pick at. However, as he began to stash the contents of the glass cage into his sack, the suit of armor near him began to move and the warriors of clay moved.

Beryl, Earl, Camia, Juarez, Danilo, Medina and just about everyone else failed to notice that there were things that began to move.

The suit of armor raised its huge sword while Steno was completely unaware of it.

That was when Medina noticed that the flame of her candle had suddenly turned an eerie bright blue.

Before the suit of armor could bring the sword down on the hyena, Vic managed to block it with a long wand that was on display and not contained in a glass cage. There was a bright flash of light that surprised Steno, Medina, Vic and even the suit of armor making the attack which was followed by an explosion. The suit of armor was hurled back by the force of the blast and knocked on its back but it neither fell apart nor gave up. Instead it stood up as the clay warriors began to march towards the intruders that had entered in their midst.

+++

Gaius and his grouped charged through the corridors of Belford Mansion, using the triceratops head they found as a battering ram. Zombies were either impaled on the triceratops’ horns or thrown aside by the speed and force of the group as they ran along. Behind them, Cindy and Kiana covered their retreat, blasting at zombies behind them or those who were thrown aside.

They ran at full speed, McGrath and Zobel carrying the triceratops skull forward. On either side of them were Gaius and Zenny, killing off the undead who were trying to attack them from the side. Behind them were the lemming townsmen, with one holding up their Candle of Protection with the other carrying the lantern that lit their way through the dark corridor.

+++

Danilo the alligator and Juarez the buzzard tried to cover the other’s retreat as the moving suit of armor and the clay warriors followed after them.

“We must retreat!” Medina said. “Those relics are now possessed by the spirits of Belford Mansion. There’s very little we can do to fight them now. Even the Candles of Protection can’t defend us from all of them.”

Beryl then ran ahead with Medina at her side as the others followed her. Vic dragged Steno to his feet and the two started running after everyone. Danilo and Juarez stood at the far back, their own cutlasses and pistols drawn but clearly shaken by the possessed relics that were walking their way.

+++

Gaius soon found a trapdoor beneath them as the group continued to plow through the hordes of zombies that were coming their way.

“We’re running out of ammo,” Cindy shouted as she shot at another wave of zombies. “We need to fall back!”

McGrath the scorpion mumbled something that no one but Zobel understood.

“We can’t go down the trapdoor,” the rat shook his head at the scorpion. “We don’t even know what’s down there.”

McGrath replied with another long stream of unintelligible sounds.

“Alright,” Zobel said then turned to the prince. “Your Highness, McGrath says we should try for the trapdoor.”

“That’s a good suggestion,” the lion prince said as he shot one of the zombies with his pistol, making it double over and then went immediately to the trapdoor’s handle. “We need to get away from these things!”

+++

“Hurry!” Medina said, pointing up a staircase. “Up the stairs, c’mon!”

Vic, Steno, Earl, Camia and all the rest tried to follow.

One of the clay warriors raised a short bow and struck one of the water buffalo men that came with them.

Danilo immediately went to help the stranger but two clay warriors raised their own and struck the alligator in the chest with arrows. With a cry, Juarez the buzzard rushed to help his friend but was then stabbed by one of the clay warriors with a long spear. Some of the others wanted to go back and help, including Vic but were held back by Beryl and Steno.

“It’s too late for them,” Steno said. “There’s no point!”

And so up they all went to the third floor of the Belford Mansion.

+++

“Jump!” Cindy said. “Down the trapdoor!”

Zenny hesitantly followed, plunging into the darkness beneath Belford Mansion. Prince Gaius followed after her with his female bodyguards in tow. The lemmings that came with them went down next, shedding some light into the dark below. McGrath and Zobel were the last to enter, using the triceratops head as a kind of barrier and then shutting hard the trapdoor behind them with a loud thud.