They turned another corner about an hour later, and Grimjaw raised his hand.

  The group slowly came to a stop, and they all stood there for a moment.

  “What is it?” Damian asked in a whisper.

  The hobgoblin pointed a head around the corner, and Damian, as well as the others, looked forward.

  They saw faint movement in the shadows, in the tunnel ahead that was filled with light from someone’s mana-lantern.

  Darrow covered the one he was holding under his cloak, preventing the blue light from spilling out just to make sure they wouldn’t be noticed.

  The group crouched low. They kept their heads down—at least those who were taller than the average goblin.

  Darrow leaned back.

  “Stay behind us,” Darrow said to Elora, and she nodded, clutching at something in her satchel.

  They crept forward behind Grimjaw, and this low, the smell was something else. The smell of decaying material was nearly overwhelming. Dragon’s shield, Elora felt pity for any lionin who found themselves, and their sensitive noses in the sewer tunnels.

  The chamber they came up to next was wide and open. It had a wide, clear area, and from its appearance, it looked like an ancient, abandoned maintenance hall.

  It had four pillars lifting up the roof in the small yet wide open room, and placed pipes that led to what was probably an exit tunnel.

  In the centre of the roomy tunnel, there were more than a dozen corrupted. Their eyes were all pitch black, and that sent chills down both brothers’ necks.

  They had seen these corrupted before, and that time they had run.

  They looked down, and they hadn’t been wrong the first time they faced them. They were goblins, humans, elves, and many others. Darrow even saw one or two massive half-giants.

  They were all just standing there motionless. Not dead, not alive. Just standing.

  “Darrow, are you seeing this?”

  “What the…,” Darrow said, muttering under his breath.

  They all came to a stop at the edge of the dim light, then they waited. For what, they weren’t sure.

  But if they expected the corrupted individuals to move, they never did. None of them even lifted a finger.

  They just stood like the warforged waiting for orders—only in this case, they weren’t the men of iron. None of them were.

  The silence felt wrong. It felt heavy even, but only Darrow realised why. They weren’t breathing. Or maybe they were just doing it so quietly that it unnerved Darrow’s [Altered Awareness] skill.

  Damian’s grip tightened around his sword, and he asked the question they were all thinking.

  “Why aren’t they moving?”

  Darrow looked up at each one for any signs of movement, but there was nothing.

  “Must be under someone’s control,” he guessed.

  “Like puppets?” Elora asked.

  “Exactly.”

  They found themselves in furious fascination, and since the corrupted individuals were not moving, they instead moved closer to understand what they were looking at.

  “Is it some sort of necromancy, then?” Damian asked, looking at one of the corrupted figures as he stepped forward.

  Grimjaw narrowed his eyes.

  “Not death mana. Dungeon mana,” he said softly, as if speaking any louder would wake the corrupted.

  “What’s the difference?” Damian asked, feeling his hand relax around the grip of his sword.

  “Death mana is caused by rotting. you can smell it. And dungeon mana… too much, and you start to change.”

  “They are not rotting. They look like curved ivory,” Elora noted, whispering as she said the word.

  She moved past the whole group and started looking at the faces of the unmoving corrupted people.

  She hoped—or rather, she didn’t hope—to see her father. She moved as fast as she could, making sure to avoid touching anything. She missed Damian’s question.

  “Darrow, the goblin we found had the same black boils look,” Damian said and pointed at the skin of one of the corrupted that had swelling rushes.

  The corrupted he pointed at had rashes beginning to form, and its skin was starting to change back to normal.

  “That’s definitely no necromancy,” Darrow said.

  “Then do you think it is close?” Damon questioned—after all, they had just been in an undead dungeon together.

  Grimjaw let out a grunt, agreeing.

  One of the goblins edged closer to one of the corrupted, and Grimjaw could feel the poor fellow brimming with curiosity.

  “Don’t,” he warned—but it was too late.

  The goblin poked the nearest corrupted with a pipe he carried on his back.

  The corrupted jerked its head, and like a disturbed wave, all the corrupted moved their heads. They shifted together, all in one synchronised motion.

  There was silence as they all stopped. They all waited for the corrupted humanoids to go into a frenzy.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  But nothing happened. Damian and Darrow both exhaled in relief. They had both fought the corrupted before, and the last time they had to run.

  “See, it’s all—” Darrow began before they had a squeak of terror.

  One of the goblins jumped back. The face that had looked vague to the goblin now looked too familiar.

  “They moved!” the goblin said, then stumbled into one of the frozen corrupted goblins.

  The tumble caused the corrupted humanoid to fall forward, causing it to pile over a human man who had been turned and still wore his beggar’s clothes.

  The sound of falling bodies echoed through the wide tunnel.

  Darrow cursed. This time, they would surely wake up if they had been sleeping.

  From the far passage in the back, they had footsteps coming around in a rush.

  “Someone’s coming,” Grimjaw said as he pulled his cleaver from his back.

  Damian and Darrow both readied their sword and daggers.

  The muttering continued, and soon a man appeared from the back tunnel.

  The man was human, tall, bald, and for all that, they were in a sewer. The man’s robes looked unmarred by any stains or dirt.

  The mage’s eyes widened from the high exit tunnel.

  “Who dares—” he began to say, but Grimjaw interrupted him.

  He raised his cleaver.

  “Human! what did you do to my scouts!!?”

  Damian and Darrow watched the man look at the hobgoblin in absolute disgust. It was not a surprise, really, goblins had a reputation after all, and for those who classed themselves in the high society, the goblins were even more vile creatures.

  “Attack,” he said and pointed his wand at Grimjaw.

  The rune-inscribed wand glowed once, then the mana-corrupted twitched to life. Their bones creaked, fingers cracked, and their eyes blazed with a black and blue similar to the wand that the mage held.

  This was bad.

  Damian and Darrow both knew they couldn’t win against the regular corrupted. The last time they had tried fighting them, their weapons had just bounced off. Now they knew why. It was their ivory skin.

  They weren’t going to take any chances.

  “Fallback!” Damian yelled as he moved to get away from the waking corrupted around them.

  The mage looked down, and his eyes narrowed at the human and the half-elf who was pointing up towards him.

  Elora gasped and pointed.

  “Look,” she said, and there was shaking in her voice.

  Behind the man, there was a wagon that gleamed faintly with the blue lantern attached to it. This wagon was one of the many types the nobles let their servants use, and this one had the blue, yellow, and white insignia shield of Lord Graldo.

  What had Elora's attention was what was in the cage of the wagon. What gave her pause and grabbed her heart was the sight of her father in that prisoner's wagon.

  Elora looked in shock. Her father’s eyes widened as he called out to her.

  “Run away Elora. Run!!” he said, shouting loud enough that the others in the cage with him shielded their ears.

  She didn’t step back. Instead, she moved forward, and a hand grabbed her.

  Damian reached for her shoulder and stopped her.

  “Elora, don’t—”

  “Father,” she screamed.

  This had the very notable and obvious reaction of attracting all the revenants towards her.

  The corrupted jerked towards her, their eyes fixed on her, then they came. They launched themselves towards her.

  “Run!” Darrow yelled, and they all backpedalled. The goblins were caught among the waking corrupted, and they fought to get free. Some used skills, and they escaped grasping hands that went to grab them with unnatural ease.

  Grimjaw’s cleaver flashed, then bounced off one of the creatures. The corrupted human woman went to bite his arm, but the hobgoblin twisted his blade around and blocked, letting the woman bite his cleaver.

  The sound of clanging metal, scrambling goblins, and the corrupted running towards them made the tunnel feel chaotic.

  “There’s too many!” one of the goblins yelled, and when Darrow turned, he saw Penny there.

  The goblin scout was holding her heavy crossbow in both hands and letting off shot after shot. Yet whenever the bolts hit the corrupted individuals, they just got back up.

  A corrupted half-giant man ran forward, and Grimjaw went to intercept him. One second, he was bracing himself, and the next, he was sent flying back by the half-giant man.

  Penny, the goblin scout, ran forward and started pulling him up to his feet and back towards the tunnels.

  Damian reached out and swung his sword, but like last time, it just bounced off the corrupted goblin’s skin. He tried to stab, but even that simple move went a few inches before the corrupted goblin bashed it to the side and clawed for his neck.

  There was a flash as a yellowish-blue barrier appeared in front of him. It shattered, and he felt the string necklace Elora had given him shatter into pieces as well.

  Damian's eyes were wide as he jumped back. He felt for his neck, but the protection enchantment had done its job.

  “Fall back!” Grimjaw roared.

  Damian swallowed, and with Elora beside him, he made sure they retreated—even if that meant they were taking it step by step.

  However, in the chaos of their escape—or due to her inexperience in a fight—Elora stumbled behind him, and he couldn’t keep moving without knowing he would leave her behind.

  He parried a blow, then another. In one smooth motion, he moved to help her up—but to his surprise, she was already being helped.

  He turned to see Darrow beside them and helping the half-elf to her feet.

  Elora got to her feet, then withdrew something from her satchel. She had three small enchanted wooden tablets, but instead of giving one to Damian to replace his last one, she threw them at the revenants.

  Damian watched as they landed, then exploded into small fragments that sent the corrupted stumbling back.

  That gave them enough time to get back to Grimjaw and the other goblin scouts.

  “Keep moving!” Damian yelled and then stepped back.

  He watched Darrow throw a couple of daggers at the corrupted, but they just bounced off its chest and kept on coming.

  “It’s still not working,” Darrow said.

  “Forget fighting, just run,” Damian said and cursed.

  They ran back the way they had come, and behind them, the tunnel seemed to shake as the corrupted chased after them.

  The corrupted, for all they were powerful and invulnerable to all sorts of weapons, they weren’t built or reanimated for a chase.

  They got deep into the cave, and Damian shouldn’t have been surprised to hear it. Elora was sobbing quietly.

  They turned around a bend, yet one of the corrupted that wasn’t as slow as the others rushed towards the escaping group. Its footsteps tapped against the stone tunnels, then it jumped.

  Grimjaw noticed how fast it was moving. He ordered his goblin scouts to keep moving, and he slowed. He let the trio catch up to him, and when the former rogue turned corrupted, he jumped at them. Grimjaw turned once, his cleaver flashed, and he used his level twenty-five threshold skill.

  The swamp tunnel water on the corrupted human grew heavy, and his cleaver cut through any wet surfaces on his body.

  Grimjaw felt the strain in his body, as he always did after using [Cutting Waters]. He looked down at the corrupted man, then took a breath just before he cursed.

  The corrupted human man started crawling towards him with his hands since he was missing the lower portion of his body.

  He cursed as even more came around the bend.

  Being born of the tunnels, Grimjaw used another skill and ran through the tunnels as if he were on solid ground, not the slippery, moist ones of the tunnels.

  When he caught back up with the rest of them, he saw them just standing. He grew furious, wondering why they weren’t running.

  Even his skills wouldn’t protect them or Penny if the corrupted caught up, and they would.

  “What are you doing?” the goblin asked, coming to a stop.

  He was very much angry, and what made it worse was that the scouts had also stopped and were looking back. They should have run. Run as fast as they could to warn the camp. This was something he expected stupid surface-dwelling folk to do—not his goblins.

  “Don’t you hear it?” Darrow asked.

  “What?” He turned to face him.

  The corrupted had been gaining, then suddenly they had stopped.

  Now the silence lingered, with a few occasional screeching noises—but nothing came from around the corner.

  Grimjaw turned as well, noticing the oddity. His cleaver was still ready, but he wasn’t sure if he should be thankful or scared of the silence.

  “What happened?” a panting Elora asked him, and he just glanced at her before his brows knit as he focused on the tunnel.

  Darrow frowned, and Damian noticed it.

  “[Altered Awareness]. Something is wrong,” he said after using his skill.

  Darrow could hear it. Some of the other goblins with a perception skill could as well.

  The place hadn’t gone silent, and the corrupted hadn’t stopped chasing them. No—it was something else.

  Darrow heard the soft, rhythmic sound. It sounded like footsteps, but steady and much more deliberate than the shambling corrupted.

  “Someone's fighting them,” Darrow said.

  “What?” Damian asked.