Episode Nine: Little Town
Lilith was simmering, annoyance like hot tea under a lid. How did Little White Dragon forget that the annoying one's defense was ridiculous, a wall of stone no needle could pierce? A squishy tactician fussing over her—what a joke, like silk worrying for iron.
Blame Nidhogg—she kept shoving Lilith behind Little White Dragon, making her play the backline like a stage prop. Lilith almost forgot she was a proper Black Dragon, scales like night on water. Even a sharpened bone was a splinter against Nidhogg’s hide, thick as ironwood bark.
She cracked a tentacle down, anger like a whip in a storm. The flat earth coughed up dust and held a small pit, round as a raindrop on clay.
But the rescue was done; the tide was out. Little White Dragon couldn’t keep sulking, her breath cooling like mist. She used the Taint clustering around her like smoke as an excuse to keep some distance, then let her voice settle like lukewarm tea and spoke to Nidhogg as usual.
“These fields grow dark-aspected plants,” Little White Dragon said, eyes glinting like frost on leaves. “So where do those plants draw their energy?”
They walked the old road of the Grand Mausoleum, a path like a vein through hard soil. Four figures moved toward the Undead town. Skeletons came in waves, pale as driftwood in moonlight. Little White Dragon spun her tentacles, one sweep per clatter, sending them off like leaves caught by wind.
There were too many—bones like hail in a hard rain. She barely fussed over them, mood cool as stone. She drove tentacles into non-vitals, not sharp but certain, then strung them behind her like skewers, a line of rattling meat-less kebabs. When several hung in a row like fish on a reed, she dropped them at once, drew out the Moonswallow Mist like tide from sand, and pointed more than a few Undead toward the road out of the Grand Mausoleum, a path like dawn after fog.
“Not sure,” Nidhogg said, voice steady as a bell. “Likely the Moonswallow Mist. I’d guess the Undead once struck a deal with the Reaper Fragment, or used it in some other way. They bottled the Cataclysm’s calamity, sealed it like a storm under stone—maybe beneath the Grand Mausoleum. Then they lived off that energy, like a city living on a buried river.
“Decades ago, for some reason, the Reaper Fragment slipped the reins, like a bull breaking fence. With the Moonswallow Mist, it made puppets of every Undead, strings cold as moonlight. That’s how the Grand Mausoleum became what it is.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Lilith nodded, thoughts drifting like fallen petals. “Stories about borrowing wild power and flipping the cart—happens everywhere. I’ve heard them till the words went thin.”
“Still, it’s just a guess,” Nidhogg said, caution like a lantern in fog. “Without proof, it’s wind. If you care, look for answers when we go deeper into the Grand Mausoleum.”
“Alright,” Lilith said, tucking that thought away like a blade under cloth.
“By the way,” Little White Dragon said, curiosity like a sparrow hopping ahead, “we keep running into skeletons. Where did the zombies go?”
When they first entered the underground of the Grand Mausoleum, the world around them was a black forest, trees like soot-stained spears. The place was packed with zombies, uniform as a field of crows. No other Undead showed face.
But out in the fields, not a single zombie trudged by, only skeletons, chalk-pale and endless, like bones washed onto shore. Little White Dragon had strung so many skeleton skewers she’d lost count, the rattles blending like rain on tiles.
“Maybe they lived in different zones when alive?” Nidhogg mused, a guess like a pebble tossed into a pond. “Check your notebook—the one your little fan wrote for you.”
“He’s not my fan. He looks older than me,” Little White Dragon shot back, impatience like sparks under her tongue. Lilith slapped the ground with a tentacle, a dull thump like a drum. Still, she obediently pulled out the bestiary and flipped to the front, pages whispering like dry leaves.
“Zombies,” she read, voice calm as ink. “The most common among the Undead, lowest rung in their society. They have strong bodies and tough skin, hard as boarhide, that shrugs off iron cuts like rain off stone. The price is poor agility, feet heavy as wet clay. Since raw strength isn’t king in daily life, most work the forest edge, doing jobs that chew up muscle.
“After infection by Moonswallow Mist, zombies barely change. Their eyes go empty, and ghost-blue fire replaces their pupils, a cold flame like winter lanterns. Easy to deal with, no special caution needed.”
“Skeletons,” she continued, rhythm steady as a metronome. “More agile than zombies. Without tough skin and flesh, their defense drops, bones bare as bleached branches. But no tight skin slows their movement, so they fare better in daily life. They live around town fields, doing farm work that needs some strength but prizes nimble hands, like pruning vines.
“Once infected by Moonswallow Mist, skeletons turn tricky. They craft simple bows from their own bones—mostly ribs, curved like crescent moons—then dip arrows made from bone or whatever they find in the Moonswallow Mist. They shoot any living thing they see, arrows hissing like angry bees. Even in close quarters, they cling and tussle like briars, far more dangerous than zombies.”
Little White Dragon shut the notebook, the snap like a chopstick on porcelain, and slid it back into her satchel. “So their homes differ because of their jobs before infection,” she said, thoughts stacking like bricks. “But really—these vast fields, all farmed by skeletons?”
“It’s one big tribe,” Nidhogg agreed, calm as a still lake. “Enough people to keep the wheels turning, like oxen on a mill.”
“Maybe,” Little White Dragon said, excitement rising like a kite in wind. “I’m more curious what Undead live inside the town.” Lilith’s pulse quickened; back then she barely knew zombies and skeletons, shadows in a mist. Seeing them with her own eyes now felt electric, like first snow. The Taint-beasts she’d met before lacked that unique undead chill, the grave-cold that sets teeth on edge.
“Step by step,” Nidhogg said, patience like a slow river. “We haven’t even seen the town’s silhouette.”
“True. These fields go on forever,” Lilith said, gaze drifting like a boat. She felt they’d walked half a day through rows like ribs, yet the field never ended. Boredom tapped along her tentacle; she slapped the ground, a lazy smack like rain on canvas. “Come to think of it, this is weird.”
“What is it?” Nidhogg asked, attention sharp as a needle.
“Normally, even fields have villages nearby,” Lilith said, head tilted like a sparrow. “At least a lone hut, smoke like a thread. There should be somewhere for skeletons to live.”
“But we’ve walked this long,” she added, tentacle sweeping like a willow, “and haven’t seen a single house, not even a fence post.”
Her next strike felt wrong, the jolt hollow as a drum. It was like the earth underfoot had lost a piece, a bite taken out by a blunt mouth.
Little Dragon looked down, breath held like a note. A small chunk of ground was missing, edges smooth and round, as if something soft-hammered had tapped it out—like her tentacle, a mallet in silk.
“Nidhogg,” Lilith said, voice cooling like frost on stone. “We might be marching in place.”
