The Library of Ahb pt2 (of 2)

They left. Gemma couldn't help but wonder if she should have looked into the room where the two suspicious characters had been waiting. But there were now at least two corpses in there, probably changing clothes, and it would look mightily suspicious for her to not be bothered by that fact.




Beyond the door, the passageway was light and beautiful. The grey stone was interrupted by patterns in white stone that faintly glittered. Glassless windows and elegant doors led into side areas, which had clearly been comfortable offices. There was another fountain in the center of a widened atrium. At least, she thought so until they fully stepped into the room and she could see that stairs wound clockwise up and around the room, which was not a simple chamber at all.




The walls above the first floor were fully lined with books. The first floor had tattered tapestries and aged maps. There were more of the stone-walled garden areas scattered about, occupied by faintly glowing mushrooms that gave the room a pleasant fragrance. There were benches everywhere, as well as rickity looking tables and chairs and what must have been sofas before the fabric had become worn down by time into mere suggestions of comfort.




"Oh my god," Sunshine said. It came out like a prayer. "Just- just look at this. It's amazing."






She unstuck her jaw to agree.




"It's gorgeous," Samantha murmured. She seemed enthralled.


Takumi was the only one who seemed less taken by the beauty and more excited by finishing their task. "This is it," he crowed. "That book has got to be here. Now we just... have to find it." He laughed, a little incredulous. He craned his neck to look up at all the shelves.




It did seem daunting. There were a great many books in this place.




And no people or corpses. 'So how', Gemma thought, 'had Mac gotten past that gate?'




Without coordination, all of them digged into pockets or bags to extract the paper that they had been sent in with. It didn't contain much in the way of a description such as color or size that would make it easy to pare down the amount of titles they had to look at, but it had a series of ancient characters that were supposedly the title of the book they needed.




"Scanning shelves," Sunshine said mournfully. "This is the worst part of my job. Reading spines to see if the books are in order," he clarified, although no one had asked. "This is even worse. I recommend memorizing the first character," he said. "If you don't find it, just move on to the next one. Only worry about the second character if you get a match to the first. You'll remember the full sequence pretty fast, dependinig on how common whatever this word is."




The others agreed and spread out across the room, each separated by several shelves.




Gemma took the highest ground, walking further up the spiral than anyone else so that it was easier to see what was happening. She kept all 3 of the others in her line of sight as she ambled around the room, deliberately slower and less graceful than she really was.




It was very difficult to balance reading the books and watching her companions. She fell into a trance, broken only occasionally by the excitement of a book that matched the first two or three characters of the book they wanted. Eventually, her head began to spin and she felt dizzy and disoriented. But she couldn't stop, she had to keep reading titles, because if she fell behind someone would pass her on the stairs and then she'd have to watch both sides in her peripheral vision.


It was hours. It must have been, although there was no way to judge the time. Sunshine let out a hoarse cry.


He was holding a book up level with his face, staring in disbelief. “I think this is it,” he said.


“Let me see!” Takumi tripped on his own feet in his rush up the stairs to compare the book’s title with their reference paper.


Gemma tensed and wondered if she was imagining that Sunshine wanted to keep the book away from the other man. But the moment soon passed. Takumi took it reverently and laughed. He was shaking.


“Thank god,” Samantha muttered. She crossed herself. “We can get out of here now. This place is just evil.”


“You don’t want to sit in this accomplishment for a moment?” Takumi teased. He sniffled. “I’m emotional.”


“You always are,” she said simply. “And it’s my duty to shove you through doors. There’s the door, let’s go. I want to go home.”


"No, no, let me see that one more time," Sunshine said. "I can read this a little, I want to be really sure we have the right thing."


Takumi definitely exchanged a meaningful glance with Samantha, but he handed it back over. Sunshine didn't seem to notice the tension. He opened the book to the first page, read for a while, and then flipped to a random page. And then another. He was not a fast reader of this ancient language, by any means, and the other three shifted uncomfortably. His face became screwed up with concentration.


Gemma could see the tension was rising. Samantha and Takumi were very, very unhappy with that book being in Sunshine's hands. Perhaps violently unhappy. Her heart pounding, she cleared her throat. "What are you thinking so intently about?" She asked, deliberately cheerful. "We don't have time to read all day, young man."


Sunshine looked up, startled. He gave an uncomfortable laugh- and handed the book to Samantha without prompting. Then he ran his hands over his curly hair. "Oh, just thinking about how I'd put that in my library," he joked. "It belongs in with UD, or QC."




That was met with blank looks.




"Probably QC." Sunshine put his hands in his pockets and rocked forward on his feet. He gave Samantha a smile. It might have been genuine. "Physics. We don't have a dedicated section for real, honest to god magic, for obvious reasons." He laughed. "But that- it sure looks like a book that is about magic. About doing magic."


He seemed, Gemma thought, spectacularly uncomfortable. She made her own smile. "Librarian jokes," she said confidingly, as if she understood it. "I'm afraid this isn't your audience, dearie. Shall we?"




"Yes, please." Samantha zipped her knapsack shut and pulled it back on.




She had definitely not been imagining things. The tension had gone down significantly.




'...I think they were ready to kill him, if he tried to keep the book.'




Why? Did they want the glory of bringing it out? They said they were contractors, maybe their pay was contingent on being the ones to get the book? Were they working for a third party who wanted to intercept it?


“I can’t disagree with that,” Gemma said. She was still descending the stairs, gingerly. She didn’t feel the joint pain that she’d expect, but that was no reason to go rushing about.




They left the library. Gemma walked deliberately slowly, and gestured others ahead so that she was the back of the group. She didn't feel safe with those two behind her. Samantha took point, Sunshine next, and Takumi was third. They passed the room that connected to the wardrobe, and Gemma did peek in. Hundreds of white pants and tops were neatly folded on top of a wooden shelf that encircled the room. There was a pit in the center, full of old clothes and shoes and bags that apparently didn't match the necromancer's aesthetic. She wondered if she recognized a pair of aged hiking boots.


It was a grim group that walked out into that long, winding hallway.




She could hear Sunshine inhale sharply when they reached the shelve-tombs. These early ones were just bones, victims from god knows how long ago.




"Were the skulls facing the hallway when we came in?" His voice was very, very quiet.




He was right. All the skulls were turned, as if to watch them.




"I'm not certain," Gemma said.  "I... I don't remember them being this way. But I don't remember noting what these bodies looked like. There's just so many."




She did have a sinking feeling.




"The hallways definitely change," Samantha said quietly. "We didn't come this way. We didn't see this." There was something in her tone, Gemma thought, that wasn't just fear or horror at how ghastly it was. She seemed uncertain. "We only saw a chamber with about 20 skeletons. Looked like some kind of burial vault. It was creepy and sad, but it was... respectful. This is so clinical."


"Storage," Takumi agreed, unnerved. He cleared his throat. "But we can't really judge a culture we don't know anything about by our standards."


The spiral wound on and up, revealing increasingly intact bodies. Every single face was turned to see the hallway.




The hair on the back of her neck stood up. These bodies were all but drained, but ahead- ahead-




Samantha screamed and skittered backward, knocking into Sunshine. In her defence, she was the one at the front, and therefore the first to see the change.




The bodies from here on out were no longer laying down. They were standing. Their faces were turned down the hallway to look toward the living.




"Oh, my." Gemma swallowed.




"Oh, shit," Takumi corrected.




The four stood for a few agonized seconds. But the corpses didn't move. They were just standing against the wall, watching.




Sunshine took a deep, steadying breath. "Alright," he said. "Alright." He cleared his throat. "They're not doing anything, are they? Just like... just like before. So... let's go." He took a hesitant step forward- and then the others moved with him, because no one was willing to be alone.




"They really are watching," Samantha said. Her back was unnaturally straight, and the pupils of her blue eyes blown wide with fear. "They're..."




She didn't have to say it. They could all see that as they passed each corpse, eyeless heads turned to follow the movement.




Gemma felt her whole body shaking.




These corpses were mummies of sinew and bone and faded rags. The group walked faster anf faster until they were basically running up the spiral. More and more visible material became visible on the corpses, until they reached the most recent shelves. Gemma stared at the corpse that she knew was her mother, unable to look away.




The only thing that drew her attention away was Sunshine's sob of fear.




He was looking at the very fresh corpses, some of which had not even finished carving their names onto their shelves. There were 12, standing and watching. 12 of the people who had entered the tombs together that day were dead in white.




"That's almost all of us," Sunshine said, in disbelieving horror. "I thought we were just fastest. That- that means... there's only 4 people left alive in here somewhere."




"The man who was behind me didn't make it into the tomb," Gemma admitted. She probably shouldn't have said it, but she had no filter anymore. "3 other survivors, at maximum." Assuming that Takumi and Samantha were not plants, that was, which she was not about to say.




"Shit," Takumi said, choked. "Just shit. This is the worst shit I've ever seen."




"Keep it together," Samantha said.




And as they cleared the occupied graves, all of the watching dead behind them, there came the sound of footsteps.




Gemma turned. She shouldn't have, but she did.




The corpses were following them, in slow, deliberate steps. In perfect unison.




They all lost their minds. All that she knew was wild fear, for her mortality, for this perversion, for the quiet menace walking behind them. It didn't even feel like her fear. It felt like it belonged to someone else and they had forcibly given it to her.




They reached the gates. Sunshine pulled down the lever with a bang and a wild look in his eyes, gesturing everyone ahead. She realized that the dead had fallen far behind at this point, almost past the range of her senses. They were just walking. At the same pace. Just walking.




The clang of the second gate coming down behind the four of them was somehow comforting, despite the fact that only one body would have to hold the lever in order for the rest to pour through.




"This isn't the way we came," Gemma said. She was surprised to hear the words come out of her own mouth. "S- Eugene, we did not pass this way. Did we?"




He surveyed it, and frowned. "You're right," he said, sounding disconcerted. "I didn't see any turns or doors..."




"Magic," Samantha said grimly. "It happens. I don't need an explanation, I just need to react well to it. Lights out, everyone, I think we can expect something nasty waiting for us."




They spent a long time walking in tense silence. The flashlights were indeed necessary, as the light dimmed and dimmed. The hallway became increasingly narrow. There were many doors, but all of them were locked shut. It was this horrible place's last stab at killing them, Gemma hoped. But more likely, it was leftover psychological torment from the long-deceased necromancer who had clearly been both powerful and sadistic in the extreme.




They absolutely had to stop and rest, at a stretch where they could lean against the wall without touching any curses. Gemma noticed that Samantha silently and subtly signaled Takumi to rest in a certain spot. That meant he didn't have spellsight, then.




"How much more food and water do you guys have?" Takumi sounded bleak. "I'm drinking my last bottle. and I ate all three peanut butter sandwiches, and my crackers, and my trailmix, and three bananas and two apples, and my cookies. This is insane. Didn't they say this should take a day or less?"




"Did your mother pack that lunch?" Sunshine teased tiredly. He uncapped his own water. "I have one more after this... I didn't bring so much food. I expected to be out sooner."




"It would be nice if watches worked in here." Samantha looked at her wrist, face sour. "That's a peculiar and inconvenient spell side-effect, don't you think?"




"I have more cookies," Gemma said, opening up that tupperware and setting it on the floor to share. The other plastic box on the bottom of her bag was lasagna, which she did not offer to share. When she was finished, she put the fork back inside the plastic bag and rearranged her bag so that the most useful things were again easily accessible.




They started walking again, feeling a little better. The terror from before seemed distant. The endless stone tunnel began to show imperfections. There was rubble here, a misplaced stone there. The doors disappeared.




And then some light disappeared, too.




“Shit,” Takumi sighed. He shook the flashlight, but the light kept flickering. “That battery was supposed to last 24 hours of usage. No way. I have a spare, but I didn’t think I’d have to use it.” He started to dig around in a cargo pocket.




“Don’t. I’m fucking tired,” Samantha said bluntly. “There’s no way to know how long we’ve been down here, or how long it will take to get out. We need to conserve our resources. Let’s just use two flashlights at a time. Getting trapped down here without light is the end of the line.”




“It shouldn’t be much longer,” Takumi said. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. “I really didn’t get the impression that this was going to take more than 24 hours.”


“It’s been significantly more than that,” Sunshine disagreed. His dark skin was wan. And the fact that she could see his eyes were sunken and tired, despite the darkness, meant that things were quite bad, Gemma realized.


She pursed her lips, feeling a little guilty. She was constantly getting small trickles of rejuvenation from all the dead things about. The young people, however, were just using up the energy they’d started with. “Perhaps we ought to take a rest,” she suggested.


“Not unless we have to,” Takumi disagreed. “I don’t feel relaxed after stopping here. I definitely can’t sleep here. I think it’s best to push on.”


“You’re probably right.” Sunshine let out a hissing sigh. That seemed to end the conversation.


By unspoken agreement, Gemma and Takumi were the two who put away their flashlights. Gemma’s spellsight wasn’t reliant on light, in any case.


They ended up on a system where Samantha’s light panned ahead, while Sunshine tried to illuminate where they had to walk. It was a struggle of climbing and avoiding rocks in the increasingly wild-seeming area. She didn’t know exactly when, but at some point they had gone from a hallway that contained rocks into a cavern system with occasional ancient tiles.


“Did you hear something?” Samantha barely breathed the words aloud. Gemma could see the back of her dark hair turning from side to side. There was no disguising the genuine fear in her body language. Her flashlight went from side to side, but could barely make a dent in the dark vastness. The ragged stones blocked the light at every angle, casting threatening shadows at the rocks and walls. Perhaps that was why she pointed the handgun in her right hand wherever she pointed the flashlight in her left hand.


“Maybe,” Sunshine murmured from just behind Gemma. His own flashlight, far weaker than Samantha’s, was just barely sufficient to show their footing.


“Calm down,” Takumi soothed from the back of the group. He didn’t bother to modulate his voice. “We’ve dealt with everything so far. The dead don’t care about us. I don’t think they’re following anymore. They don’t want to go past the gate.”


Had to admit that was true, Gemma thought. And yet. There was a smell in the surprisingly damp air that she didn’t like. It didn’t smell pleasant, but it wasn’t the dusty mustiness of the tombs.


Something cracked under her foot. She looked down- and Takumi screamed. There was a clatter of rocks as both Sunshine and Samantha cried out, but the blood pumping in Gemma’s ears obscured whatever they said.


Something was on top of Takumi. He was still screaming, but the sound was muffled, like he was running out of air. She could hear the sound of him struggling and kicking at the cave floor.


Gunshots rang out. One, two, three, and Takumi was still screaming. Gemma thrust her hand into her handbag and providence had her own flashlight instantly in her grip. She lifted it and flicked it on with unerring accuracy to illuminate the filthy, matted animal sinking teeth into Takumi’s shoulder. It was bleeding heavily and it did not seem to care.


Even in the dark, Samantha was a good shot, Gemma noted. And…


Ah. “Put your light in its eyes,” Gemma ordered, as she tried to do just that. It was difficult to be heard over Takumi’s screams. “Eugene, your light! Blind the damn thing. Samantha, shoot it at the base of the neck.”


They weren’t quick enough so she barked, “Now!”, even as she circled around to the beast’s front in order to catch its eyes and attention.


Anything that lived this deep was either photosensitive or blind, and this particular nasty was sensitive to light. It detached its teeth and arched its back to heave Takumi up. He was sobbing now. It banged him against the cave floor once, twice. Mercifully, it dropped him then. But he had stopped screaming.


Yellow eyes fixed on Gemma. They were reflective in the dark. She wasn’t prey, so she stood straight and still and frowned at it. “Shoot the damn thing,” she said, in her teaching voice. “Back of the skull. Neck is protected.”


There was a single shot. And the troll-bear fell. Unfortunately, it fell on top of Takumi. He didn’t make a sound.


Gemma felt a familiar spark of hateful magic alight on the cave floor. She sucked in air through her teeth. That spell had quite the range.


“Babe?” Samantha’s voice was small and wounded. She took a hesitant step towards Takumi and then sprinted the distance.


Gemma stood back and used her flashlight to check the surrounding area while Sunshine rushed to help Samantha heave the monster off Takumi’s corpse.


‘After we leave here,’ Gemma told herself, ‘I am going to learn ‘detect life.’ I now see that it does indeed have practical utility when excavating tombs. I was incorrect.’


There was a second spark.


Horror crept around around her heart, cold and hard. The necromancer certainly did not plan to walk a reeking troll into his private palace. That gave her an entirely different impression about why he was trying to raise both Takumi and the troll.


“Samantha, he’s dead.” She abandoned kindness and the pretense of ignorance. “He is being animated right now, as is that troll. And that tells me that the necromancer is close, and he intends to use the two of them to kill us.” She didn’t have to work too hard to inject urgency into her voice.


She backed toward the two living humans. She was at a point where she had to trust them. “We need to go.”


Sunshine cursed. “Shit, shit, shit,” he said, his voice getting bigger every time. “You’re sure?”


“Yes,” Gemma said. Her voice was shaking. “It could take as little as five or as many as ten minutes, and then the necromancer will have full control of those bodies. And he’s going to use them to kill us.”


The dead do not tire or flinch at a friend’s face. And the odds would get easier for the necromancer with every person who fell.


“How do you- No. No, The necromancer is dead,” Samantha denied. She sat up on her heels and shook her head. “Long dead, this is a tomb this is a relic this is a fucking nightmare-“


“The necromancer is alive, well, and recharging his spells with every person who dies here.” There was no time to coddle. “We need to take Takumi’s gun-“


Samantha leaned over and began fumbling with the corpse. “He had a knife, too,” she said.


“Take that too,” Gemma ordered. “Wait- Eugene, can you cut through the tendons on this thing? Back of the joints. It won’t stop it but it’ll slow it down,” she said, thinking of the corpse that had stumbled after the ponytailed girl.




They ought to have done it to Takumi’s body as well, but even Gemma’s stomach turned at the thought. And then they ran.




It was a shockingly short time before a horrible sound echoed behind them. It rumbled against the stone, blood-curdlingly low and cold.




"Is that the fucking troll?" Sunshine sounded a little hysterical. "They- the dead can talk?"




"When a skilled necromancer wants them to," Gemma panted. Her feet were hurting from the force with which they pounded against the stone floor. They were going upwards now. The cave had become a hallway again. She could feel the two dead presences behind them, moving.




The necromancer didn't know that she could feel them, though. That was why he wanted the howling- he wanted them to run, he wanted them scared. And damnit, it was working.




They abandoned caution, using all their lights to illuminate the path. Visual input was a flashing nightmare, as they all pumped their hands while sprinting. Gemma was shocked by her own athletic ability- she felt 30, not nearly 70. But then, she’d never been so steeped in death before.




‘And that’s why the necromancer is using the old spells on the ruins.’ She suddenly understood. ‘It’s the same person. This is a giant vanity project to one person’s immortality.’




Gemma missed the pain in her joints, torn with revulsion at this awful thing. What a misuse of magic, of power, of life. How long had this monster been hunching over the ruins? Is that why the damn place was abandoned? People had fled their homes to escape an unknown predator, and he had merely adapted his hunting ground into a trap. And every so often, he created a pretense to lure people into it.




There was ambient light. Gemma meant to stash her flashlight in her bag but she dropped the damn thing by accident. She almost stopped to get it but there was no time, no time. She used her free hands to hold her bag to her chest so that it didn't swing and hit her as she ran. She considered dropping it, but didn't.




Another roar.




"Does that sound closer?" Samantha's voice got a lot higher when she was stressed.




"Yes," Gemma said. "The troll-bear is close. T- the other body is behind it, but not by much. If we stop, they'll be on us in about two minutes."




"And they're gaining ground?"




She didn't answer.




One of the young people sobbed. She couldn't tell who. They were both ahead of her.




Somehow, it got worse. It got worse.




“There’s dead ahead,” Gemma panted out. “We’re being herded. 6. 6 bodies.”




"Oh, you're a necromancer," Sunshine  informed her, sounding as if he'd just solved a mystery. "That's how you stopped that corpse right before we met. I knew I didn't hear a shot."




“Focus. Any tips on putting zombies down?” Samantha asked, bleak. Her pace slowed just the slightest bit.




“Cut the body into pieces,” Sunshine suggested mournfully. “I don’t suppose you’re, like, really good with that knife Takumi had?”




“I might be able to break the necromancer’s connection to one or more bodies,” Gemma admitted, choosing to ignore Sunshine's not-entirely-useful commentary. “But he’s a lot more powerful than I am. And the instant I do, we lose any tactical advantage from my abilities. He’ll shield against me. So if I do that, we have one shot.”


“Speaking of which,” Samantha said in an undertone. “My bullets are low. T-Takumi’s gun wasn’t used, though.”




“I’m stocked but not good with a moving target,” Sunshine panted.




Of course, the guns were metal security blankets. They wouldn't stop a corpse. You'd need a cannonball to do enough damage, really.




They were all slowing now. They were heartbreakingly near the 6 dead waiting to ambush them ahead, while the 2 behind them gained ground. Their weapons were insufficient, her magic was underpowered, their death was imminent. As far as she knew, the only magic Sunshine had was in seeing spells.


She could- she could perhaps trip a body, she could inanimate one or perhaps two, she could make one uncomfortably warm with the spell she used to heat bath water, but that would be quite pointless.


Out of time, out of options.


They cleared the hallway even as that goddamn bear troll roared again, sounding perfectly alive and furious. They came out into a wide open chamber with quite a bit of natural lighting.




Clap, clap, clap.




They turned to face the sound. It was coming from the figure of a middle-aged man in a suit and tie, leaning against a pillar. He walked out to meet them.




They were so close to being outside, Gemma thought. She could actually see sunlight up the slope. Day, it was day, though god only knew what day.




“Mr. Tomlinson,” Samantha said. "My employer," she clarified for the other two. "An influential government official, who was concerned that someone might try to take this very valuable book." Her tone was quite sour. It seemed that she did not feel relieved to see the gentleman in question. She hadn’t put down her gun.




Neither of the young people had, despite knowing that they’d be useless against the dead. Of course, Gemma had been clutching her handbag to her chest as she ran, so she was hardly more prepared. She needed her hands free for magic, or a bit of string.




“We have the book. The book that you need to stop the Blight and tremors.” Even she didn’t sound convinced, more that it was worth trying. But she wasn't pointing the book directly at Mr. Tomlinson.




'Just as well,' Gemma thought. It wouldn't do any good against him.




Six-white clad figures stepped out, from against the walls and out of sight. They formed a loose ring around Gemma, Sunshine, and Samantha.




The three reshuffled without a word, turning so that their backs were facing each other.




Gemma did recognize the 7 faces in the room. Every single one of those wearing white had been in the initial group waiting outside with them to enter the tomb. And so had the suited man, although he’d been dressed differently then.




‘My memory is good,’ Gemma noted. ‘Samantha and Takumi were not in our original group.’




That was something to keep in mind. But more crucially, Samantha and Sunshine were looking at the wrong spot. And she didn’t have a way to tell them without outing herself.




‘It’s a distraction.’




Gemma quietly slipped a hand inside her handbag. She carefully balanced her attention between the three figures dressed in white that she could see from her vantage point, not willing to focus on one more than the others.




“Oh, no,” the suited man said pleasantly. He put a hand in his pocket. “I don’t really need that. In fact, you'll be pleased to know your mission was a success andd your heroism is being celebrated. I stopped the curse yesterday. I simply haven’t read that book in a while. Thank you for fetching it.”




She felt around, trying not to make a sound or let on that she was doing anything other than clutch the bag like a helpless old woman. Her fingers found an empty juice box. A plastic bag with a wet soapy rag inside. Her pillbox. Oh dear, she was probably behind on her medication.




“You could have had one of your zombies do it!” Samantha bit out. Gemma could see in her peripheral vision that Samantha's hand was shaking. The gun was still trained on the Mr. Tomlinson. Assuming that was his name, of course.




Gemma found what she was looking for. She carefully turned it the right way inside the bag. She couldn't even see the suited man from her angle.




“You are out of bullets,” he informed Samantha. He sounded eminently reasonable.




“Bullshit,” she spat. But she didn’t shoot.




“Go ahead, then.” Despite herself, Gemma glanced over to see. His arms were spread out wide to create an inviting target. And then her attention went back to what was in front of her. The six white-clad figures took a step inward, making the enclosure uncomfortably small. “Do you think you’ll make it if you shoot me?” he asked, conversational.




There was the sound of a gun cocking.




Every face that she could see stretched into a smile. The necromancer was having all the corpses mimic his facial expression, Gemma realized. She did not like it.




"Go on," the talkative corpse said, in a tone so quiet that she barely heard it.




Takumi and the hulking monster came into the room. The necromancer was making them both breathe heavily. It was the loudest sound in the room- stuttering growls from the troll-bear, and wheezing from Takumi's crushed lungs. It sounded like he was in pain. It had to be killing Samantha.




"I think that you should hand me the book," the suited man said quietly. "And then we can have a discussion."




...maybe the book was important after all.




That was not the focus for the moment, though.




"Grapes!" Gemma shouted. Faces looked at her for a moment- and then all eyes were on Sunshine, who let out a yell and barrelled into a zombie.




In that instant, Gemma fired three of her 8 shots through her purse at slightly different angles, hoping to get a hit. Aiming through a bag was a ludicrous concept for an amateur, but the necromancer had stepped quite close with the 5 corpses ringing them.




Blood splattered on the necromancer's white clothing.




He fell, looking confused. The expression was mirrored on all the corpses- and then absolute hell broke loose. All the corpses shouted and started forward. The troll picked up Takumi's body and hurled him at the group. Shots and screams rang out, there was the sound of scuffling against the ground, and Gemma drew the pistol out of her purse as she took two steps toward the ancient necromancer on the ground. She leveled it at his head and clearly enunciated, "Fuck off."




And she fired a single shot.






Note A
This is set in a fantasy universe where they inexplicably use the American Library of Congress book classification system, and have German guns. No further questions about any of that. Time period is a vague analogue to 1960s, if you about that type of thing, backdating from when Gemma got her gun. Also why the necromancer wasn't quite wise to how he couldn't keep getting away with this type of thing every 50-60 years in a society with mass media and when people move more between settlements.
(though I hope any librarians reading this went 'oh, shit, what's in that book' and 'the shelf-reading would be the worst part of this day,' at the appropriate times.)


Note B


There are 5 people unaccounted for, and after a break and re-stock at the nearest town, our three heroes go back into the now-fairly safe ruins to pull any survivors out and give them all boxed juice as 'it's nice that you didn't die' prizes. After that, Eugene and Gemma join Samantha as guns-for-hire and are beloved for solving pesky necromancy problems and retrieving things from creepy old ruins, which this universe has an inexplicable amount of. Eugene makes them learn the ALC classification system so that they understand his library jokes and can use it as a code.