Zombieland

[Rii/Thell]

Continuation of Memory is My Compass
Gerudo Hideout

Kokiri Forest was close. Everyone knew how to get there, so there had been no need for special navigations. Upon retrieving her belongings from the Gerudo, Thell had also found a map shoved deep into her pack. It wasn't old, but it was detailed thanks to her travels around Hyrule. She had asked people to fill in smaller villages just in case she found herself half on fire and in need of a medic once more. There was no Nolna on the map. She never seemed to meet people who had ventured near a certain part of Kokiri Forest, either. They would draw lines of roads that would fade off in one particular area and they would say "I'm not quite sure after that. I think it just trails off." Or something like that, anyway.

Still, Thell was not deterred. It was time to get to the bottom of this. "Blade, could you get there from here?" Thell asked, stopping where she stood on a faded dirt path that followed the edge of Kokiri Forest and completely vanished into grass where her feet were.

She wasn't sure what she expected to find there. She used to be scared of what it would be like to go and confront the guy who killed her father. But the moment he had gotten to her there had been no room for fear. Everything she did now was fueled by rage and irritation. She had also always figured she would know how it would end. she'd find this scumbag in some dark alleyway and chop his head off after she beat the explanation out of him. But now that she knew there was a town and some cursed forest nonsense, she no longer knew.

(ooc: Nolna's basically a wreckage that smells of blood and rotting... well everything. You can tell it used to be a village, but some sickly vegetation has taken over it. If Blade had ever run into it before this point, it likely just looked like a a village invasion with all the blood and crumbling buildings. But it's gotten worse.)

[Faro/Blade]

(Gotcha.)

"Yeah, give me a minute." He said. He moved ahead of Thell pushing her aside as if he were in a trance. The wind was blowing toward him, which meant that the smell of the village would be wafting on it. The only way it could be easier is if the moon was full. His arms hung limp as he moved forward, sometimes standing on his toes, nose pointed as high as possible. A gust of air flowed into his nose, and his eyes widened. He shrank from his trance-like state, knees bent, hands clasped over his nose, nearly doubled over from the scent. Revulsion swept through his entire body as he attempted to comprehend what had just entered his nose.

It smells like smoke. And rotting corpses. He thought. It always smelled bad, but never like this. Whatever happened there, it's gotten worse. He recovered, and explained his fit to the others. "It's through here," He said. He turned his head to the others. "But you better be damn well ready for whatever we find there, Got it?" He called. "I've got a bad feeling about this." He dug around in his pockets for a bit until he found a small clay bottle. He gave a satisfied smirk and put it back in his pocket. Smelling salts could come in handy later.

[Eldrin/Vai]

"Gah!" Eldrin growled, standing next to Thell. "That's pretty dang ominous, Blade," he muttered thinking about the cart. They had been forced to abandon it a while back when the left rear wheel had broken on an old root. Eldrin missed nothing more right now than the sweet relaxation of lazing about while a horse did all the work. "So... Guess the forest won?" He asked, walking after Blade. He was curious about the little bottle that Blade pulled out, but didn't bother asking.

[Kadina]

"What's with all the raunchy smells? First Blade, now this? No offense, Blade. It's just that you kind of smell like a wet dog," Kadina wrapped her shawl around her neck and pulled it up over her nose. She drew her dagger from its sheath and followed the group. This Nolna experience was turning out nothing like she expected. She imagined more along the lines of a woodland paradise. Not a smelly death ridden town of ruin.

[Rii/Thell]

Upon approaching the ruins, Thell wondered how the village must have looked before it became overgrown by the forest, but her wondering didn't last long. "What kind of plant would you call that?" Vandir asked from his spot on Thell's shoulder, glaring at a sickly green set of vines that seemed to be squeezing around a torn down wall, forming a large mass of vines that, if hollow, could have easily held a person inside. Strange purple veins seemed to surround each vine and pulse with some sort of... Thell wasn't going to call it life. It definitely wasn't life. It was something awful and disgusting. Similarly sized masses of vines were on other buildings too.

The ground was just as revolting, as the stones of the road had slowly sunk into it, and it seemed to try and swallow Thell's feet every time she stepped. The stench was so strong now that they were actually in the village that Thell felt like she should be vomiting. There was blood. A lot of blood. Thell wasn't sure why. The village seemed almost twenty years abandoned. But the blood looked freshly spilled and covered every inch of the village that wasn't covered in the revolting plant variety that was on display. Thell couldn't believe it, and neither could Vandir.

And then she heard heavy breathing. Thell spun Lumin in her hands, shifting her feet to face the sound. She expected something deadly.

She did not expect the frail figure that stumbled forward, crumpling the moment he saw them, chest heaving. His eyes had once been green but were now covered with a film of white, the mop of coppery hair on his head was stringy and faded. He had once had fair skin as well, but Thell could see now his skin was nothing more than snowy parchment, dried and folded in on itself numerous times.

And yet she somehow recognized him.

"Skah?! Holy Triforce, what happened to you?" Thell yelled at him. He managed to look up at her in horror.

"Quiet, you insolent child!" he managed to hiss softly at her before dry heaving. "What are you doing? Why aren't you leaving this instant?"

Thell gaped at him in disbelief, impatience evident on her face as she approached him and held out a hand. "Same to you, old man. You're supposed to be, what? Forty?" she shot back in a whisper to the man, who appeared to be ninety years in age. He tried to grip her arm, but in the end she had to carefully lift him up so he could lean against her.

"Well I could look like a possessed corpse. Would you like that better?" the man asked before vomiting, bile spilling down Thell's front. Thell grimaced, but didn't let go of the old man. She was too distracted by what was now covering her stomach to really register what he had said.

Vandir had not missed Skah's words, however. "What do you mean... possessed corpses?"

But Skah was out of it. He didn't hear Vandir's words. Instead he muttered, "He knew you were coming." Then he passed out in Thell's arms.

"What are you talking about?!" Thell shouted, losing her self control.

It was then that the different masses of vines began to pulse. Diseased looking fingers with sharp fingernails slid through the vines, prying them away to reveal corpses. They were almost perfectly preserved, some with gashes in their stomachs, others with the marks of a person who had been strangled to death. Their eyes were milky white, skin sickly pale, and their veins were purple just like the veins in the vines. Some held weapons in their claw-like grip, though it was soon made clear they wouldn't need weapons.

In sync, the corpses opened their mouths to reveal yellowed fangs and released high pitched screams and low bellows. Oh. Possessed corpses.

[Kadina]

Kadina grimaced with repulsion at the sight and odor of the mob. She was startled by Skah's entrance, but the coming horde of rotten zombie-like beings was a whole new level of shock.

"This is not what I signed up for," Kadina complained as she backed away from the swarm. Her disillusioned visions of happy woodland people with baskets of freshly picked fruit crumbled away in her mind like Skah's flakey complexion. Dead and gone. This certainly wasn't what she imagined. It was a living nightmare.

Kadina felt something claw at her hair from behind. Her eyes widened with anxiety, and before she realized what she was doing, she had spun around slicing her dagger through the air and cut a zombie's arm clean off. Purple blood spewed from its arteries and showered its surroundings, including Kadina.

"Oh...," She wiped her mouth, "That's interesting," Kadina was captivated by the fountain of strangely colored blood. She had forgotten the danger of their current situation until another corpse grabbed her around the head and attempted to gnaw it off before she spun out of its grasp and stabbed it through the stomach. Her heart rate shot up like a rocket and her charge surged rapidly through her veins. Take a deep breath Kadina...

She narrowed her eyes in concentration then charged the enemy.

((I can edit this if you need me to. I just assumed they had blood because of the plant cocoons that seemed to be feeding them. Just let me know ))

[Faro/Blade]

Blade had been holding his nose all the way to Nolna. After smelling just a trace of of it on the wind, he had worried that getting a whiff of the whole town would incapacitate him. Unfortunately, this forced him to fight with one hand, and by extension, one hooksword. He kicked the first corpse that rushed at him, turning it around long enough for him to slip the hook over its head, place his foot on its back, and pull. The head came free with a clean cut and rolled away as more of the corpses converged on them.

[Eldrin/Vai]

Eldrin kicked a zombie hard in the ribs, sending it sprawling into the horde and holding them back for just a moment. He took this opportunity to fling a throwing knife into one of Blade's zombies. By the time the knife left his hand, the zombies were already coming back, having thrown aside the fallen one. Eldrin growled and drew his dagger. "Damn it... I HATE DEAD THINGS!"

The first zombie to reach the thief had its throat slashed with Avarice and his dagger plunged into its chest at least six times. Before the zombie had even hit the ground, Eldrin was already in the middle of the horde. The thief moved as fast as his body would go, slicing and slashing, tossing knives when he had a chance. Most of his weapons were close ranged, and even his unarmed fighting style was up close and personal. Against zombies, these were all bad ideas...

Eldrin roundhouse kicked two zombies at once, and stabbed another as soon as his foot hit the ground. He knocked this zombie off his blade and took out a fourth with a hard uppercut. The zombies neck shot up with a sharp crack, and it fell dead. He tossed one of his bombs into a zombie's gaping mouth, punched it closed, and kicked it back into the horde. With a discordant roar, a fiery explosion ripped through the horde, sending limbs, organs, and purple blood scattering into the air. The bomb created a giant dent in the horde, but it was immediately filled in by even more zombies. It seemed that, for every zombie they killed, even more emerged from the cocoons. Eldrin gritted his teeth and quickly formed a plan.

The next zombie to reach Eldrin took a sharp blow to the solar plexus, forcing it to double over. Eldrin stepped onto this zombie's back and jumped as far as he could. The thief soared over the zombies' heads, just barely making it out of the horde. He hit the disgusting ground with a squelch and rolled. Spotting the cocoon pods, he reached to the back of his belt and smirked. Pulling out all five of his remaining bombs, Eldrin tossed them into the pods just as they closed themselves up. It was as if they knew what he was doing, but he was too fast for them. It was already too late by the time his confident smirk faded, and he realized that he was way to close to the pods... With a sharp whistle and an agonizing pop, all sounds ceased. Eldrin was thrown backward by the shock wave, tumbling like a rag doll upon hitting the ground. The pods themselves were ripped apart from the inside by the bombs. Pieces of plant and zombie flew everywhere.

Eldrin couldn't hear a single sound. Everything was silent, the world spun. His head pounded with an agonizing pulse, originating from the inner part of his left ear. A warm stream of blood trickled out of that ear. Slowly, sound returned. But only to his right ear, the left was still silent. The first sound he heard was the hissing of snakelike vines slithering about. He looked up, head spinning, to see the cocoons he had just destroyed. His vision slowly steadied itself enough to comprehend what his eyes were seeing.

They were back.

"Son of a-" he was cut off as a zombie jumped on top of him. It successfully knocked him back to the ground, but simultaneously broke its own fragile arm off. It snapped at him, yellow fangs reaching for his throat. Eldrin punched the zombie in the jaw, momentarily disorienting it, and then threw it off of him. That zombie was immediately replaced by three more, all throwing themselves on top of him. Eldrin thrust his dagger into the eye of one, which immediately recoiled, robbing him of his dagger. Another two zombies took its place. Eldrin punched and headbutted frantically, savagely beating the zombies, but they were unrelenting. He viciously bit at a hand that was reaching for him, ripping off two fingers. Purple blood splattered across his face. A zombie snapped at him, held back only by Eldrin's outstretched hand. The thief's eyes widened with panic as he fully realized that he was completely screwed.

"I hate dead things..."

[Argoth/Maximus]

Purple blood splattered onto Eldrin as an arrow plunged through the cranium of the zombie that he held at bay. It dropped instantly and before the others could swarm the unfortunate thief little Max jumped into the front lines, ripping his blade through the kneecap of an encroaching zombie. The undead fiend attempted to advance but the cut that young Max had slashed through its knee had been so deep that after its first step a loud crack of its bone sounded and it toppled over; the leg completely snapping off. As it descended to the earth an arrow sunk into the top of its skull with a disgusting thunk, like someone had just shot a pumpkin. Once it hit the ground a revolting purple brain ooze gushed from the hole. "Hey!" Max shouted playfully, "That one was mine!"

"Better be faster next time, kid," Argoth replied with a smile. The assassin advanced releasing arrows as he did so dropping zombies with deadly accuracy. As he closed in on Max and Eldrin he relinquished his bow back onto its resting place in between his shoulder blades. He withdrew his blade and relieved a zombie of its arm as it reached for him. His next swing was aimed for the base of its neck but the undead man suddenly dropped before he could connect. Argoth raised an eyebrow in confusion before realizing that little max had taken out its legs from the knees down. He caught him just in time to see the boy finish it off, plunging his dagger straight in between its eyes. The skull of the zombie was so soft and squishy that his arm sunk into its face, creating a repulsively looking crater that oozed purple brain matter all over the boy's arm. Some even splashed onto his face and clothing. Without a moments hesitation Max looked up at his mentor, "Should have been faster, boss," he mocked. Then he looked back at his arm and grimaced, "Ewww.."

Argoth couldn't hold back a grin, "Think you're funny, huh?" he laughed. The two of them then stood back to back beside Eldrin, Argoth offering him a hand while he hacked into a zombie. "Need some help?"

[Faro/Blade]

Blade was having a bit of trouble fighting off the possessed corpses. Fighting with only one arm, he just couldn't keep up. This was different from fighting men or monsters, they usually had a sense of self-preservation. Unlike these walking dead, they weren't willing to dash themselves against his blades in order to close in. As they shambled closer, he was forced to to switch back to a dagger, which meant that he was in that much more danger of smelling the entire town. He tried to keep his right arm as far away from them as possible, and had a good bit of success despite losing a lot of ground. When Argoth showed up, it seemed like he might finally catch a break.

Until he heard it.

A piercing shriek sounded off to his right, and he saw a corpse barreling toward him, newly killed, and not so rotten. Before he could react it raised its arms and struck at him, pulling his right hand away from his nose. Blade's eyes widened in horror as the worst stench he'd ever come into contact with flooded his perception. His stomach turned, and he vomited all over a corpse, eyes watering like springs. It filled his mind and became his only thought. All he could do was retreat, he couldn't fight back. Not here. He only had one option left, and it could cause problems for the others. He pulled out the clay bottle, crushed it in his hand, and tossed the contents into his face. As the white smoke surrounded his head, he inhaled.



Just like that, smell vanished. Not just the town or the zombies, the smelling salt he just inhaled was so powerful, it shut down his entire sense of smell for a full day. Unfortunately, Blade hadn't learned to cope with that very well, and he went a bit crazy when his strongest sense was cut off so completely. It made him a bit... mad. He drew his other dagger, not bothering to transform it. He licked his lips, and his entire body pulsed. His pupils grew slit-like and his eyes became bloodshot.

"This should be fun." He rasped, charging into the horde. He dodged one swipe and impaled the offending zombie on both daggers. He pulled it apart easily, and the real fun began. He picked up the lower half and smacked a zombie with it, breaking the leg off of the pelvis, and the head off of the zombie he smacked. He tossed the leg aside, and dived back in with his daggers. He wasn't in the mood for a Claw Tornado, so he simply jumped up and came down hard, stabbing and tearing with his twin blades. He slit the throat of one zombie and punched another, and crossed his right arm over his left to stab a third. He slammed his head into the face of another zombie, then grabbed to one to his right, and brought it's head over for a healthy stab to the temple. All the while there was a faint chuckling...

[Iona]

Long song. Just get rid of it when you get tired of it.

Its dragged itself through the muck, its soft, rotted head tilted to a side, its torso turned a completely different way. And yet, it, for its gender was long since indistinguishable, dragged itself around with purpose. In its possession, it came to hate two things, light and life. A croak, made gravelly from maggot worn vocal chords, sounded from yellow lips and yellower teeth. It pulled itself along with new found intensity.

There. There it was. A slithering sounded as the half dead blinked and a roach scurried out of its eye socket simultaneously. In a mass of the stinking plant life was a body. It reveled from the heat it gave off and in how the skin was so intact. It stumbled over, emitting breathy laughing sounds, and shoved its hand on the body's perfectly round shoulder, not half gone like its own, marveled in the warmth and softness as its palm bone felt the healthy, trim arm so perfectly connected to it. It could sense the beatings of its heart, the hot blood flowing through it, the gentle rhythm of breath. It screamed as it opened its unhinged mouth to sink its teeth into the body's smooth neck...

No thought was processed when pure electricity coursed through it, frying the maggots that held it together up. Iona stood up from the curled up position she had assumed on the ground and ignored the body. She saw masses and masses of the half deads gathering around a small area. A small smile came over her lips as she approached the congregation of moving rot, immediately assuming a stance where her head was thrown up and she dragged her leg. A barrier of electricity formed around her so she can get a better look of what was at the center of the zombies' interest. The undead idiots threw themselves at her and instantly fried up like a fly landing on the sun might. She quickly was in the center, having forced her way through with the electricity like a knife in butter.

A familiar face. She pushed herself forward, head still tilted back and leg dragging through zombie carnage. "Blarrrrggghhhhh....." she moaned, her tongue sticking out of her mouth. Then she snapped to normality. "Hi Blade! Can I join? I won't cheat!" she said brightly, then pulled out her chainblade, sans any electricity, then swung the chained scimitar horizontally, slicing several heads off at a distance. Grabbing the sword as it came back to her, Iona jumped with a wild scream and flung herself at an adjacent zombie. Her electricity gone, the possessed freaks concentrated and zeroed in on Iona with a vengeance, full of blood lust after not being able to kill her for a week.

Iona got to work.

[Rii/Thell]

Thell fell forward, barely catching herself with one leg before she came down with Skah. She glared over her shoulder at the corpse that was approaching her, eyes wide and filled with such a hollow feeling that she couldn't even comprehend. She needed to get Skah out of here. Sorcerer he was, but at the moment he looked far too ill to even be standing upright.

"Vandir, I need a place to put Skah!" Thell informed her wooden dragon as she sliced off the first corpse's head with a swing of her axe.

"On it!" the creature shouted, taking off from her shoulder with his small wooden wings to look for a safe house. Meanwhile Thell was fighting for the air she was breathing as more heaps of rotting flesh came at her, suffocating her with their stench and their sickly fingers as they tried to claw at her. She kept swinging her axe, slicing some in half and beheading others, occasionally removing an arm only to realize that wasn't enough to knock the corpse down. At one point, a clawed finger came at her neck. Thell ducked to dodge the arm of another, and when she realized the finger was now coming straight for her mouth, she bit down.

It was by far the most foul thing she'd ever tasted, and Thell proceeded to vomit up any and all things that her stomach had once contained, as well as all her stomach could have hoped to ever digest. A corpse's finger had not been one of those things, but it came up right with the rest of it. She tried to hack at things while disposing of her organs (at least that's what it felt like) but it wasn't going so well.

Luckily Vandir was back, ripping at a corpse's neck to distract it long enough. Thoroughly hollowed out, Thell straightened, cringing at the aftertaste and the stench she was still covered in. Since she hadn't been effectively hacking at anything for the past minute or two, zombies had reached her and cut her in several places, and she tried to shake them off or at least push them back. She herself still felt sick from the awful smell and taste. "I found a place you can set him down in. Some small room in a building near the east gate of Nolna. The plants didn't touch it." Odd, but Thell was wiling to take it. Her neck began to grow green after a couple seconds, as she found calling up life while surrounded by death was not such an easy task, signaling for Vandir to open her pack so she could summon a couple helpers. She'd have to carry Skah if she even dreamed of getting to the room.

Pack opened, Thell was quick to revive some of her wooden creations, which ranged from her new wolf to a couple birds of prey she still didn't know the name for. While she lifted up Skah, they hacked at eyeballs and necks and (in the case of her canine) bit off legs. They were still slow to make progress, as her creations weren't taller than a foot, but Thell bolted when Vandir pointed out the building. Most of it was actually far more heavily infested with the diseased plant life than the rest of the town, but one door had not been touched except by time itself. A zombie grasped at Thell's ankle, having fallen because of a leg injury caused by the wooden wolf, but the moment Thell fell forward because of it, knocking the old door off its weakened hinges, the zombies stopped. They didn't cross into the room, and Thell scrambled to her feet upon realizing she'd fallen on an unconscious forty-year-old... kind of ninety-year-old man.

The room was a nursery. Everything was picturesque, everything untouched except by the thick coat of dust. Not even rats or bugs of any kind had made their home here. Thell settled Skah into a chair and looked around, eyes narrowed and chest heaving, red and purple blood mixing with grime along her skin and in her fresh cuts. She felt highly out of place in the room, unlike before when she was outside and everything looked gross and covered in blood and her vomit. Why was the nursery still here? And why weren't plants here? And since when did possessed corpses care about the room?

Her vision started to grow blurry, and Thell quickly stole back the energy she had been giving to her creations, leaving Vandir the only one still alive. She needed to eat something, and fast.

Luckily, she had emergency bread, which she devoured as she tried to think of a plan. With one last swallow her vision wasn't blurry anymore, though she wondered how smart of her it was to eat bread after having upheaved enough food and bile to feed an army. She needed to return to help them fight the hoard of zombies, but it was evident by the vine sacks that there was plenty to go round. Better plan. Quick, quick, quick. Better plan needed now.

Shoot, Thell wasn't much for plans.

"The nursery," came a voice from behind.

"You weren't out long," Thell observed, glancing back over at Skah and frowning at how sluggish the act itself was.

"It's the nursery," Skah basically repeated, as if he had discovered the secret to the entire world. Thell glared at him, wondering if his new physical appearance was going to his head. Was his brain now just as dusty and dry as his skin? "So part of him is still human."

"Part of who, Skah?" Thell snapped at him.

Skah shook his head. "It's a good thing. You woke up his trap, and he's certain I'm too senile and ill to help you. He's certain I'll die. But seeing as I'm not dead and I know he's still human..." Thell felt the strong urge to tell him that the evil man was right about Skah being too senile, but she didn't get the chance. "His informant must not have known who you were traveling with. It figures. Now, you ignorant child, I'm going to tell you something very important. There could be hundreds more of those corpses stocked up to be used. But, if you can magically burn the source, that supply goes away. Magically burning the vines will limit where they can spawn from, too. Luckily you can just kill the Guardians, the blasted vermin. They're so stubborn and lethal that they believe they don't need that protection against magical death."

"Magical..." Thell's face brightened at this knowledge. Kadina had an odd magical electricity problem! Magical sparks equalled a magical flame! "Skah, you're a genius! But where's the source?"

He pressed a finger to her forehead, light as a feather, and it glowed blue. "Ask and you'll see." The glow faded, and Skah opened his mouth as if to talk again, face going grave. But once more he slid into unconsciousness.

Thell frowned, muttering a curse as she straightened again, shuddering and desiring to vomit the bread she'd just devoured. Actually, she probably needed more food. "Vandir, watch Skah. I've got to go get Kadina," Thell informed him before running out the door, axe in hand to clear her way back to her group.

"Kadina! Kadina!" she shouted, continuously calling for the gypsy and hoping her voice wouldn't go hoarse.

[Eldrin/Vai]

Eldrin barely felt the release of the zombie's attacks. He rolled over, onto his hands and knees and spit out the zombie fingers. Saliva stained purple leaked out of his open mouth, pooling on the ground below him. With a violent surge of pain, his entire body convulsed. He retched hard with brutal dry heaves, but nothing came out. His eyes burned with stinging tears. "Stand... gotta... stand... friends... nee-" the thief gagged, more saliva pouring from his mouth, yet still no bile, "help..." His chest heaved as he breathing became increasingly more rapid. He gritted his teeth, bracing himself. Shakily, he struggled to his knees.

As soon as he had managed to stand fully, the pain in his ear returned. An agonizing pulsation shot throughout his head. Through every bone in his skull, and every tooth in his mouth, an aching pain coursed. He instantly fell back to his knees as bile rose once again in the back of his throat. Eldrin felt like everything inside of him was being forced out of his throat. His entire body trembled violently even after he had finished vomiting. The world around him spun rapidly, leaving him swaying unsteadily. Right as he was about to collapse into the dirt, his head stopped. Everything steadied itself out, and above him stood a very familiar face. Argoth held out a hand to help him to his feet. Guess I don't hate all dead things...

"Need some help?"

Eldrin gripped Argoth's hand and heaved himself to his feet, his eyes conveying the thanks that his mouth wouldn't. "Yeah right, you're just stealing my kills!" he joked, chuckling shakily. After stabilizing himself for a moment, he released Argoth's hand and turned to face the approaching zombies. He had lost his dagger, but his hands were ready to unleash an brutal vengeance. They stood in a triangular formation, taking on the zombie horde with intense vigor. No corpse came within two feet without meeting their wrath.

Eldrin pounded a zombie with a barrage of punches and finished with a skull-shattering thrust kick. The next met Avarice, ripping through its throat. He stumbled slightly as this second zombie fell. He was hardly good for a fight in this dizzy, disoriented state, but he persisted. He blinked several times, clearing his vision again, just as another zombie lunged at him. He snapped this one's neck, and simultaneously tripped another. A third grabbed him by the shoulders, but Eldrin responded immediately with a ferocious headbutt. The zombie reeled backward, the middle of his forehead caved in from the blow. The thief himself doubled over as his body threatened to once again empty itself, but found that he had nothing left to vomit out. After a moment of allowing the recoil to leave his head, he proceeded to stomp on the head of the zombie he'd tripped earlier. The head burst into purple slime and chunks of skull.

That was when he heard Thell. "Kadina! Kadina!"

Eldrin gasped. "Kadina!" She was in trouble. That was the only logical solution for why Thell was screaming her name so frantically. Eldrin knew he had to act, but didn't really know what to do. "Argoth, we need to find the others! Kadina and Blade, and a Gerudo named Thell," he said, gesturing a little to the right of where Thell's voice was coming from. He couldn't quite tell, as his spacial perception was a little off. "Can you clear a path?" he asked, knowing that he couldn't.

[Kadina]

Kadina was managing rather well at first, but the horde was getting thicker and her close range combat wouldn't be enough for long. The smell was worse than ever with the corpses advancing and multiplying. She punched the jaw off one zombie and swung her dagger through the throat of another spurting blood everywhere. Suddenly an explosion rang out behind her and plastered her back with purple blood and rotten body parts that burst out in every direction. The force of Eldrin's bomb had knocked over the zombies in Kadina's general area and blown her hair into a jumbled mess that masked her face. Her hearing was shot after the explosion, but the silence was soon filled with an increasingly loud ringing. Using her forearm covered in purple blood, she lifted her hair from her face and turned around to see what had happened. The site wasn't pretty.

(I guess since everyone else is providing music.... This is me being funny:

“What the--?” She flung her hair behind her and held her hands out in disbelief of the multiplying zombie's unaffected by the blast. “Really?!” More body parts rained down from the blast. A dismembered arm landed perfectly in her extended hand just in time for her to whack a zombie that had dragged itself toward her and taken hold of her ankle. She gagged a little and dropped the rotten arm then charged another oncoming pack.

Three zombies lined right next to each other were leading several more toward Kadina. She decided to meet them half way and ran up to the one in the center grabbing its face from under its jaw. While holding its mouth shut, she threw her left hand around from the side and bashed the other zombie's head into the one she was muzzling. As they fell to the ground, she pulled her right elbow in and swung it out into the head of the zombie to the right. Before it could fall to the ground, she reached her arm around the back of its neck, twisted it, and pulled upward with enough force to snap its head clean off with a satisfying crack. With the decapitated head wedged under her arm, she took hold of it and threw it into the face of another zombie. While that one stumbled backward disoriented, Kadina roundhouse kicked two more and launched her dagger between the eyes of another.

She ran and slid in the purple blood with her leg out to retrieve her dagger knocking several more zombies off their feet in the process. It was quite the thrill, slipping and sliding through the particularly fascinating color of blood. It splashed outward in her wake as she gracefully slipped by multiple zombies. As if in slow motion, she looked above her and watched their snarling faces pass by like clouds in the sky. As she wrenched her weapon from the skull of the corpse, she heard Thell calling out her name. Automatically assuming she was in danger, Kadina kipped up onto her feet, blood splashing, and charged through a mass of zombies toward Thell's cries. They clawed and grasped wildly at her as she fled through them knocking as many over as she could.

Finally reaching the gerudo, Kadina saw that Thell seemed mostly unharmed. “Are you ok? I don't know how to stop these things! Eldrin's explosives only held them off, but those damn cocoons are invincible.” A zombie tugged at a decorated lock of Kadina's hair and yanked it out proceeding to hiss spit from its gaping fanged mouth. Kadina yelped and held a hand to the tender spot on her head. She turned around and served a furious punch to its face before snatching her tiny lock of hair from the zombie's grasp as it fell to the ground where she smashed its skull in with the heel of her foot. Her lip quivered slightly at the loss of her pretty lock of hair that was decorated with one of her favorite charms.. After momentarily pouting, she huffed and questioned Thell, “I forget... Why are we here again?” She just wanted to end the madness, take a bath, and have a drink in the security of a normal village.

[Argoth/Maximus]

After Argoth helped Eldrin to his feet the three of them began to unleash hell upon the zombie horde. A compilation of limbs, blood, and vast amounts gore littered the ground beneath their feet; which happened to make various squelching sounds as they stepped around to dispose of the enemy. Max had just finished slicing the back knees of a zombie, forcing it to eye level and the slamming the blade onto the top of its skull when Eldrin asked for assistance. The boy flinched a little as an intense amount of purple goo and skull bits exploded from where its head used to be. His gag reflex was immediately triggered, however he calmed his churning gut before it could release its contents. The smell was absolutely horrid, and Max and Argoth did their best to ignore it. As a matter of fact, it was rather simple for Argoth since he was enjoying the thrill of battle so much...maybe a little too much.

The veteran assassin retained a massive grin from the moment they had arrived, of course, this was typical Argoth. He was currently twisting the neck of an unfortunate zombie(twisting it so hard in fact that the spine disconnected from the rest of its body and he ended up ripping the entire head clean off with the whole spine still attached) while horizontally slicing another clean in half. This didn't even slow the zombie down as it crawled helplessly toward him. Argoth finished it with a strong curb stomp exploding the head into an array of bone fragments and purple brain matter.

"Argoth, we need to find the others! Kadina and Blade, and a Gerudo named Thell,"

"Can you clear a path?"



Argoth's grin became even wider and he looked over at little Max, who had adorned the same smile while looking back at him. "Can we clear a path he asks.." he said jokingly, "Let's get to it, kid."

The two of them immediately went to work, slicing through the horde as if they were comprised of wax paper. Max opened a large gash on the inner thigh of a zombie before delivering a powerful kick to same location. A resounding snap signaled the leg releasing itself from the zombie, and it toppled over still reaching for its prey. As it fell Argoth plunged his blade into the chest of the zombie behind it while Max finished the one on the ground with a boot to the neck. Another undead fiend limped toward Argoth's left, but little Max was already there to cover him whipping a hidden knife into its temple. A squishy noise along with a spurt of purple blood came from the zombie before it fell over. Argoth finished the zombie he was on, ripping his blade out through its side causing the entire ribcage(and part of the spine) to be violently torn out as well. Every organ contained within the bone apparatus instantly spilled onto the ground as a reaction, the large and small intestine still dangling from the ribcage. A stomach churning sound from the ribcage being torn out made Argoth's face wrinkle in disgust. It didn't last long however as he laughed to himself a bit on how gory it was. Argoth shook the rotting flesh and bone from his sword and moved onto the next set of approaching death walkers. A group of five coming in from the left, ten from the front, and six from the right.

Argoth smiled at the challenge, "Max, take the front!" he commanded while executing a kick to the chest of a zombie on his left. The rotting sac of flesh crashed into its buddies creating a domino effect and buying the assassins some time to deal with the other sixteen.

Well, fifteen. "Got it!" Max complied. He was in the middle of forcefully tearing off a zombies arm(which didn't take much force anyway). The purpose was to drag it to the ground so Max could finish it but the arm had come off too easily, releasing a sick squelch of a sound. Grinning, Max used the arm to his advantage and smacked it against the zombie's right kneecap; caving it inward with a horrifying snap. As soon as the zombie hit the ground Max raised the arm high above his head and with all his might slammed it onto its cranium. Purple ooze erupted outward covering Max's torso and face.



The little assassin ditched the arm and headed for Argoth, dragging his dagger through the hamstrings of a zombie he passed. Max did as Argoth demanded, taking the front and the ten zombies head on. He jumped forward driving his blade into the sternum of a rotting corpse and rode it to the ground. As Max and the zombie lowered out of Argoth's way he decapitated one to the right of the boy while flinging a hidden knife in between the eyes of another on farther behind it. Blood spurted from each before they descended to the ground.

The smell of the corpses was getting heavier now and Max was struggling to go on, however, he did so for his friends. Once the two of them had reached the ground Max withdrew his dagger and delivered a punched that caved in the zombies face. Purple gore covered his fist but Max ignored it and moved onto his next victim. As another zombie reached for him he sliced its fingers off and leaped onto its torso, latching onto its lower jaw to hoist himself up. Once in place Max easily ripped its jaw from its face and removed its head with one swoop of his dagger. Now collapsing to the blood soaked ground Max kicked off the zombie and landed to Argoth's back. Four now limped in from the front, still six from the right and five from the left. Now that there was a considerable gap from the four advancing from the front Argoth had time to deal with now recovered five from left, and Max the six on the left.

Argoth deposited his sword back into its scabbard along his belt and withdrew his bow, knocking it with and arrow before he even had it out in front of him. Three went down with arrows to the face before the remaining lucky ones came to close. Argoth reacted by smacking the zombie on his right with the end of his bow before grabbing an arrow from his quiver and jamming it into its eye socket. Blood spurted from the wound as Argoth slammed his foot into its chest sending it backward a good six feet. The very last zombie was also subjected to the same fate, however its arrow was placed rather violently under its chin. That took care of the right side. At least for now.

"Argoth!" Max yelled frantically.

Argoth's eyes augmented but before he could whip around to save his pupil a zombie latched onto his shoulders and drove his face into his neck. With immense strength and speed Argoth brought his arm up and wrapped it around the head of the biting zombie. He then lurched forward while yanking on the zombies head, although instead of it flipping over his shoulder the head just popped right off, covering his back in purple blood. Luckily for Argoth he had reacted in time to avoid the bite, but just barely, he could feel slight teeth marks on his neck and that made him shiver a bit. His mind then shifted back to his apprentice who was in need of his assistance.



When he turned around Max was on his back fending off three of the six zombies. The other three lay in pieces on the ground. Like lightning Argoth had his bow back into his hand and killed two of them. The third Max had dispatched himself by snapping its neck. Max shoved the zombies off him and returned to his feet. "Whew, that was close." he breathed as sigh of relief and turned to face the last four that were already upon Argoth, grabbing onto him with their sick rotted hands.

By now there was a big enough gap for Eldrin to make it to Kadina and Thell, who Max could see quite clearly on the other side. "Eldrin make a run for it! We'll meet up with you in a second!" he shouted to the thief.

Argoth was struggling with the four that had latched onto him, he was trying his best to keep moving so that they couldn't get a good grip on him. With his free hand he punched a zombie in the temple to try and deter it away from him but it was to no avail. A sharp pain then erupted in his upper right bicep and Argoth immediately knew he had been bitten. He swore loudly and drove a fist into its face pushing it backward a few feet. Its nose had come off it was so rotted and Argoth chuckled at how funny it looked.

Before the other three could sink their teeth into the assassin young Max swooped in and took out two of them; leaping onto the first's back while slashing the neck of the second before snapping the neck of the one he was on. The two fell instantly and Argoth killed the last two; the first with a powerful kick to the side of the head that bashed it so far inward that it basically imploded, splattering blood and brain juice everywhere. The last one, the zombie with the missing nose, died from Argoth clutching it by its tattered clothing and bringing it in for as many punches as he saw fit. He hit the zombie so many times that its head was an indistinguishable lump of purple blood, skull fragments and, brain ooze. Tossing the zombie away Argoth looked at the opening they had created and bolted for Kadina and the Gerudo woman. "Come on Max!" he beckoned. While running toward Kadina Argoth had time to assess his bite; it was minor but it bled nonetheless. He would be fine.

The boy didn't waste any time and followed right behind him.