We stopped about a hundred yards out from the commune’s front gate. By the looks of it, I don’t think it ever had a lock on it. It was only there to keep loose animals in.

  I’d been here maybe twice since moving to Eddington. Once for a party, and I couldn’t even remember why I came the other time. The last had been twenty, maybe twenty-five years ago.

  Leaving the back hatch open, Shadow slipped out after Bhaarrt. Only three of us would be visible. Her job was to get inside and find where the people were.

  The main part of the commune had a large main hall, two barns, a chicken run, and a couple of other buildings. One had a chimney, and through an open door I caught sight of what looked like a small forge.

  Everything was wood-built, rough but sturdy, some of it clearly milled by hand. There were also a few houses and two dormitory-style buildings. It was all well-kept, cared for…yet eerily empty.

  Down the hill, two sagging tobacco barns leaned toward each other, gray and weathered. I figured they were drying something else these days. Three windmills spun lazily as they stood around the grounds. The closest drew water, while the other two fed cables running back toward the main hall. Solar panels gleamed dully on most of the roofs. They were serious about staying off the grid.

  What was missing were people and sound. Not a soul in sight. No children’s laughter, no chatter, not even a body. That silence had settled over the place like a heavy quilt. Only birdsong and the faint squeak of the windmills broke it. My skin prickled. It looked abandoned…or worse.

  That wasn’t a good sign. PokerRun had told us there were usually people around, or they were in the main hall and you could hear them. Especially the kids.

  Bhaarrt had created the party while I was driving.

  [William of Brinsford:] [PARTY] [You’re the party leader, Bhaarrt. Time to go in?]

  [PokerRun:] [Party] [I see ya. Ain’t seen no one since I’ve been in position. Just keep the main hall front door in view if you can.]

  [Bartholomew Ironshaper:] [PARTY] [Roger that. I’ll take the lead. I was probably the one of us here last. Course, I don’t look like I did. But I know one or two of their people. They come to the shop for welding work. We’ll be good if I can talk to them.]

  Bhaarrt opened the gate. Metal scraped against metal with a shrill squeal as it swung wide. “If this wasn’t their doorbell, it’d sure work as one.”

  [William of Brinsford:] [PARTY] [PSYCHIC SHIELDS going up.]

  I cast them on everyone but PokerRun. He was too far away, though I knew I was still within his range.

  “Hello? Anyone here?” Bhaarrt shouted. His deep voice carried across the grounds. “Hello?”

  Nothing.

  “Anyone here? I know I don’t look the same. I’m Daryll McCormack. I did the welding your cooler a couple summers back. Anyone home?”

  Still silence.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “Main hall,” Bhaarrt said. “If they’re anywhere, they’re in there.”

  “Lead the way. Unless you want us to look in the windows first?” I asked a little too loudly.

  “I think the front door’s fine.” He gave me a grin.

  Bhaarrt had two kinds of grins. One was friendly, like this one. The other….Ingrid said after the battle that he’d practiced the second one in the mirror. The grin that promised you just messed with the wrong ogre and I’m going to enjoy messin’ you up,’ grin.

  The porch roof barely sheltered the entryway from rain or the rare snow. Wood groaned beneath Bhaarrt’s weight as he stepped up.

  [Urako Sarutobi:] [PARTY] [I already checked the windows. left side shows a bunch of people lyin’ on a star thing painted on the floor. pentagram. out cold. right side’s a dump room. looks like bodies. don’t see what killed em.]

  [Ingrid:] [PARTY] [The people on the floor…do they look alive?]

  [Urako Sarutobi:] [PARTY] [yeah. I’ll go round the back n check the other buildings.]

  [Bartholomew Ironshaper:] [PARTY] [Roger that. Goin’ in the front.]

  The porch creaked again under his massive frame. “What the hell is going on in there? There’s no sound anywhere around here. Not even bugs.”

  Bhaarrt turned, bent, and squeezed his way through the doorway. Ingrid followed close behind.

  [Ingrid:] [PARTY] [This place smells of blood and rotting flesh. Gangrene kinda smells like this.]

  The corridor beyond was short and narrow, with two side doors leading into the rooms Shadow described. Bhaarrt cracked open the right one, and the stench of decay rolled out. He slammed it shut, grimacing.

  Ingrid opened the left. “They’re breathing,” she whispered. I grabbed her scrubs and pulled her back before she could step in. A pentagram almost covered the floor. It was ringed with strange symbols. Five people lay there, knees bent, heads touching each other at the center point.

  I didn’t know what all the symbols were, but I knew I'd seen something like them before.

  Stolen story; please report.

  When I cast DETECT MAGIC, the symbols on the floor lit up. So did the people.

  [William of Brinsford:] [PARTY] [Don’t go in there! That’s game magic. Break it, and I don’t know what’ll happen. Bad magic, I think.]

  [Ingrid:] [PARTY] [OK. We have to save them if we can.]

  [Ingrid:] [PARTY] [I should’ve taken HOLY SHIELD. I didn’t think I’d need it. Nothing’s been this kind of evil so far.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [PARTY] [You’re going to need the holy side from now on. Bhaarrt, check what’s ahead.]

  He nodded and moved forward. We followed into the main hall, not bothering with silence. Bhaarrt’s steps drowned us out anyway.

  [Ingrid:] [William of Brinsford] [I saved two points. Holy Shield or Detect Evil?]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Ingrid] [Even I can feel the evil here. Shield first. Don’t touch anything marked like that circle.]

  [Ingrid:] [William of Brinsford] [Done.]

  A golden glow wrapped around her. She looked steadier, though the room didn’t feel any less cursed.

  Tables had been shoved aside, stacked edge-on in the main room. Symbols painted on walls and floor echoed the pentagram. In the far-left corner sat a chair draped with red velvet, low-backed like a throne. Melted black candles surrounded another, smaller pentagram. Blood spattered the floorboards.

  “Of course, the candles are black. What else would they be?”

  The room was like some bargain-basement haunted house…Like an amateur haunted house some friends had convinced my wife and I to go through the year before the accident.

  “Looks like someone thinks pretty highly of themselves,” Bhaarrt whispered. “Made their own throne.”

  [William of Brinsford:] [PARTY] [Like a low-budget horror flick. Don’t step on anything. Necromancers make trap symbols at Level 5.]

  I got roger that’s from both of them and Shadow. Nothing from PokerRun.

  We spread out, giving each other line of sight. Nothing stirred.

  Bhaarrt looked back. “Chair or hallway?” he whispered.

  “Your lead,” I whispered back. “I’m watching our backs.”

  Ingrid put Holy Shields on us both. I prayed it would help.

  The hallway had two rooms mirroring the ones by the front door, and a door straight ahead to the outside.

  Straight ahead, the back door led outside.

  His head swiveled left and right as he inched his way up to the doorways.

  [Bartholomew Ironshaper:] [PARTY] [Kitchen on the left, pantry on the right.]

  [Urako Sarutobi:] [PARTY] [found some live ones in the dorms. several to a room. stats say charmed.]

  [Bartholomew Ironshaper:] [PARTY] [Roger that. Keep checking but don’t enter. Necro traps inside. Don’t step on anything that looks like a symbol.]

  [Urako Sarutobi:] [PARTY] [roger that]

  We were heading out the back door when we finally heard from PokerRun.

  [PokerRun:] [PARTY] [Guy in long black robes just came out of an outbuilding. Got two Skeletons behind him.]

  We bolted out the back. I threw MANA SHIELDS on Bhaarrt, Ingrid, then myself. DETECT MANA showed no ley lines nearby, just the weak background level. Useless. I pulled a rechargeable Mana Battery from my pouch and activated it.

  Waiting for us across the yard, was an emaciated, scraggly, black-haired guy in a dirty black robe that looked like he’d been living in it since all this started, if not longer. He’d painted dark red symbols on it in what might have been blood. He was a couple of inches taller than me, but just shorter than Ingrid, based on what I could judge of him.

  He clutched a thick, black book in his left hand. There was a wavy-bladed dagger in his right. The two Skeletons beside him weren’t the worst thing.

  Next to him, PokerRun raised his rifle…and aimed at us.

  “Shit!”

  [Urako Sarutobi HAS LEFT THE PARTY]

  “PokerRun? What the fuck is going on?” I shouted.

  “Master said bring the strongest. I brought you,” he said, voice flat, not his own.

  We all cast REVEAL STATS. Iago… Level 6 Necromancer/Mentalist. CHARM PERSON on PokerRun. And something new on his STATS: MINION.

  “What the hell is a Minion and how do you put it on someone?”

  I know what a normal evil villain minion is, and not just the little yellow guys wearing blue overalls and goggles. I’d never seen a skill or power that could do that to someone, including under Necromancer spells.

  Bhaarrt hefted his maul. “What you do to friend? Tell Bhaarrt or get smashed.”

  The Necromancer laughed, a high-pitched cackle. “Fools. He’ll sacrifice himself to me with a word. I’ll be the strongest man alive.”

  He gave a strange sort of laugh. “Editorially, the word cackled would work just fine right now.”

  Quickly casting a DISPLAY STATS, the upgrade to REVEAL STATS, it told me Iago, Level 6 Necromancer/Mentalist. He can raise Skeletons and Zombies. Make the symbol traps we found inside the main hall. And had four levels of a CURSE spell. Plus, the usual BOLT, BALL, and SHIELD spells.

  He held two items. They looked like a sacrificial Dagger and a book, a book whose title I recognized from where his hand wasn’t covering it. The Book of Going Forth By Day.

  Laughing, I pointed at his book. “I’ve read your book. Does it contain all 37 chapters? Or is it one of the abridged ones?”

  Ingrid shot me a strange look.

  “You lie! This is the one true Book of the Dead! I’ll be immortal! I’ll rule forever!”

  [Ingrid:] [William of Brinsford] [How could you have read his book?]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Ingrid] [Edited an Egyptologist’s translation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The Book Of Going Forth By Day is the Egyptian title.]

  [Urako Sarutobi:] [William of Brinsford] [keep him talkin. I got PokerRun. won’t hurt him much]

  Iago thrust the dagger forward. A green bolt slammed into me, stealing my breath. Ten points were stripped away by Ingrid’s shield, five still burning in my gut. I doubled over and stumbled backwards, like he’d hit me harder.

  “At least it didn’t repeat like the Shaman’s Curse spell.”

  Bhaarrt CHARGEd. Iago threw up a NECRO SHIELD just in time, but the blow still staggered him. Skeletons rattled forward, bone on bone, like they were sticks hitting together as they ran around him and attacked Bhaarrt.

  Ingrid’s healing warmth spread through me. The damage vanished.

  Shadow materialized behind PokerRun, SAPped him. Throwing herself sideways and down, she rolled back up to her feet and VANISHed again. Out of sight, safe from Iago’s CURSEs.

  Now Iago couldn’t see her to hit her with a CURSE.

  Bhaarrt’s maul shattered a skeleton, bones flying like shrapnel. I hurled a MANA BOLT at Iago, but his shield absorbed it. His SHIELD was stronger than I’d thought.

  He raised dagger and book high, chanting in guttural tones.

  I don’t know what he was saying, and I wouldn’t know ancient Egyptian if I heard it.

  “Get the book! Stop him!” I shouted.

  Ingrid lunged forward, her spear held in both hands, aimed at his chest. As far as I knew, it only had the +2 WISDOM I’d put on it today.

  “Now I’ll ascend and kill you…aaaahhhh!” His words twisted into a scream. A blade burst through his chest from behind. Ingrid’s spear drove through him from the front, and I blasted his hand with a MANA BOLT.

  I was shocked when it hit the book. The force tore the book free, flinging it across the dirt.

  His shield winked out. The Skeletons collapsed in heaps of bone that sounded like a box of hard wood dowel rods spilled out on a concrete floor.

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