//------------------------------//
// Chapter forty-five, Crypt-ick: Accepts. 
// Story: Airship Mauled 
// by Darkonshadows 
//------------------------------//

-Deeper Catacombs a few hours later, Flamberge-

I watched as a Draugr evaporated under the strike of my sword, the fire of my blade was exceptionally effective against them as much as the even hotter fire I could breathe out.

Turning my head, I watched as our new… companion… slice a pony Draugr in half from head to tail in a single leaping swing of that axe. Fortitude trusted her with our backs. Even if he does so, I was still quite wary of her and a little more than curious how she ended up as a skeleton.

We were easily ripping our way through the twenty or so remaining Draugr, what was left of them after Fortitude rammed his way through a horde of them without stopping.

My brother might not be as well armed as he was when we fought the skeleton, but at least he wasn’t going into this entirely unarmed. He was wearing two torches on his horns and anything he didn’t get with his horns, he could smash with his hooves or throw a lit torch at.

There was plenty of material to make torches out of around here, Fortitude was not going to run out with at least twenty makeshift torches to throw. 

That thought, my brother Fortitude had a lot to get out of his system. There was the grief about the loss of his shield that he’s had for many years that had served him faithfully until this day and his anger towards the source of this problem.

You haven’t exactly seen a true yak until you’ve watched one as they decimate half a room on their own in under ten seconds. It didn’t matter whether that happened on purpose, an accident or in a fit of rage. Yaks were scary and my brother was no exception to the destructive potential his bulk lent him.

Fortitude took out most of the Draugr on his own with only torches as weapons, he was still amazingly effective in a fight and only archers could make him pause in his rampage.

So far, Fortitude hadn’t taken any wounds since the skeletal pony joined us in our merry berserker assault towards the main problem behind all this. Said assault was sending bits of Draugr flying everywhere as we shredded our way through them.

Seriously, I’ve lost count after taking down fifty Draugr and I was running out of breathe and could use a bit of time to stop for a moment to catch it. We had managed to push quite far into the catacombs, if there were Draugr to be fought then my brother and I were eager for combat.

“Yak stomp!” I came to a stop to witness Fortitude smashing in the head of another yak Draugr, he sat down and started to actually take a break. “How many more of the fallen do we have to see?”

The skeletal comrade came up and seemed to make several gestures with her left hoof. Her other hoof was occupied with balancing the mystical axe across her spinal column, it looked completely pristine despite all the Draugr she had eviscerated with it.

“Can you be a bit clearer?!” Hoping for a good answer, I looked to her and her red floating orbs became slanted hemispheres that looked vaguely angry. She pointed to the throat that didn’t exist and stared back at me. “Are there more or less than what we fought here at least?!” 

I pointed up or down, as emphasis. The silver haired skeleton pointed downwards insistently.

“Well that’s good, looks like we’re finally wearing this ‘source’ down and running them dry of Draugr at least.” Though I wished the pony skeleton could tell us why they’ve never cleared them all out before, but I realize that her bones can still be incinerated. Explains why she took down the dragon Draugr when the opportunity presented itself, she must have destroyed its wings and rear legs in an earlier fight before we ever met her. “Hear that brother, we might be getting closer to the source of this mess and we can finally rid ourselves of it for good.”

That and with the Draugr as strong as they are, she could have been destroyed by them if she hadn’t been as careful as she was in her attacks to keep them suppressed. Didn’t explain why there were so many Draugr or why they didn’t destroy her earlier if she was such a big problem for them.

“That does sound like good news brother, we will rest for a few more minutes then we will continue forward.” I set down and rested my back against my brother’s side and the skeleton just sat down against a distant wall and started looking left and right.

She was a tireless sentry, one that had been stuck in this state for who knows how long. I actually began to feel sorry for the pony stuck in those bones, even if I still distrusted her somewhat.

Knowing she was honorable didn’t stem the tide of mild suspicions and concerns that I had about her.

-???-

Maybe… maybe they could end this.

Could I finally know rest?

I would be by their sides whether in victory or defeat, hopefully I would fall and be welcome to the afterlife I deserved… it has been so long.

Would any of them still be waiting for me there or did they move on knowing that my day would eventually come?

-Fortitude-

We passed through several chambers, a chill in my spine grew as they were silent and empty of anything and were nothing more than halls filled with shadows. The shadows that we destroyed with the lights we carried with us.

The temperature was dropping steadily as we got closer with the skeleton maiden leading the way, we turned the corner and saw the guardian facing us and she point behind her.

A door, massive in size and made of metals in a vaguely gold color, some of the surrounding walls were also made of the material that was starting to seem familiar to me. I could even hear the faint sound of flowing water coming from beyond it.

“Beyond this door?” Our friend just nodded and readied her axe.

I would like to think of her as my friend at least, my brother was less welcoming and he had the right to be distrustful after the kind of fight we had with the guardian. He was walking off the heavy bruising caused by those spikes, like any reasonably tough dragon or Viking would do.

I nodded to Flamberge and the guardian to stand back, I untied the torches from my horns and passed them off to them and took several steps away from the door.

“Have you tried to get through the door previously?” Clarification helps with knowing how hard I had to go, the guardian showed me her answer.

The guardian swung her axe with full force and it bounced off the metal of the door which glowed brightly the second the axe hit it, the door was completely undamaged. Her axe’s mystical might couldn’t damage it and I’ve seen it cut through metal and break what it could cut through with raw force.

“Right, then I know how hard to hit the door!” With everything I had. I scraped my left hoof against the floor and snorted loudly, my rage was still frothing. The source of the Draugr would not last long under some well controlled yak fury, Sekhet is always teaching good lessons about keeping control while not losing one’s emotions. “Stand aside brother and friend… because Yak Smash!”

I charged toward the door lowering my head, my hooves thundered heavily against the floor and the entire hallway leading up to the door shook at my approach. My friend standing on either side of the door watched as I loosed my full strength upon the door that thought it could stop me.

Hitting the door with all my might, I didn’t knock it off its hinges. Instead I knocked the door and the surrounding walls outwards upon impact and created a line of destruction before me.

The room beyond became visible to me as I lifted my head up and looked at the raw destruction I had unleashed with a grim smile, nothing could smash like a yak.

It was an old aqueduct of some kind, I heard screaming before me and I saw a sickly hoof sticking out from under the rubble and a slightly damaged posing statue.

To my right was a waterway with a Viking boat sitting in it at the bottom of some wooden steps, what caught my attention was that the boat looked freshly made compared to everything else down here. To my left were decrepit shelves with rotted dusty books, broken science stuff and not a Draugr in sight.

Well there were no actively dangerous Draugr in sight, besides what had been waiting behind the door for an ambush. I smashed them all with said door and the walls surrounding it.

“You idiot, do you know how long it is going to take me to capture enough lost souls to build more Draugr from scratch!” The statue seemed to yell despite not moving its lips, a neat parlor trick at best. “It took me ages to construct a working Draugr from all those old body parts the last time this happened, I reinforced that door for just this reason!”

“You are the source of the Draugr?” My confusion was warranted, it was a pony statue… in a golden color.

The Guardian surged forward and swung her axe, it simply bounced off the statue. She had been aiming to take its horn off first, good idea when it became available to do so. 

“It seems the thorn in my side for thousands of years is here too… joy… couldn’t you have just destroyed her and saved me all the trouble of having to do it myself?” The unicorn statue seemed rather condescending, it was only making me angrier and he would not like angry yak. “Really shouldn’t have tried to do something different with her, came back to bite me pretty badly when she still had free will after what I did to her. Anyway I’m…”

“Smashed!” I rammed into the statue head first, only to become dizzy when the statue held against my weight. It didn’t fall over or even move an inch despite me hitting it to the best of my current abilities, the statue was assuredly protected by magic.

“Do you really think you can destroy me, my statue is impervious?! Well mostly anyway, given that you somehow managed to damage it. An impressive feat I must say, you’d really make a good Draugr.” The unicorn statue with the cape and the smug smile was only making me angrier by the second. “That skeleton right there, I only regret that I failed to make her correctly to be my perfect general. At least I got one thing right with her, she can’t harm anything inanimate holding my magic. She’s be making a mess of my Draugr for thousands of years with that loophole, the crafty little wench.”

The skeleton glared at the statue with seething anger and then stalked over towards my brother. I turned back to the statue.

“I doubt you can do any better than she has thus far, aside from that one small fluke that chipped me somewhat. Unless you can destroy magically charged white gold, one of the toughest materials in this world, then you’ll never be able to beat me.” He likes hearing himself talk too much. “It will only be a matter of time before I can capture more lost souls and discarded body parts to rebuild my Draugr army back from this! So, as I was saying before you rudely interrupted me… I’m one of the most intelligent unicorns in the field of life and death. I’d say I’m the master of it and my name is…”

A loud crunching noise was heard, I turned to Flamberge eating a large red gem and next to him was the guardian with her skeletal grin seeming that much wider.

“What? All that fighting made me hungry!” Flamberge then bit into and ripped out another piece of the large red gem with his teeth. He chomped that down to a fine powder and swallowed. “This is tastes delicious by the way!”

“What?! No, you fool, that’s the only thing that’s been keeping my statue charged with… er… ignore what I just about to...!” Throwing my right hoof into the statues horn, it broke away cleanly and all I heard afterwards was blood curdling screaming coming from the statue.

“Pony statue is being louder than you, that being new record!” Before I could continue to smash the statue, I let the guardian break it apart into small bits and pieces. I can tell she has been waiting to do that for a long time given her fierceness in the statue’s destruction. Without the horn or the gem, the statue was now vulnerable to her. “Keep eating your meal brother, while we smash!”

The guardian, receiving catharsis upon destroying the statue, seemed much happier now.

“As if that would really get rid of me permanently!” The spirt of the unicorn floated up above the remains of the destroyed statue. “All I need to do now is steal one of your bodies and I can start my research anew in this day and age... I choose the dragon since he ruined my setup!”

The ghostly visage shot for Flamberge, he readied his sword and kept eating the large gem with his other hand.

Before the monstrous unicorn could reach or get close to my brother, a glowing ghostly spear pierced his back. He was stuck with a look of agony on his face as he was pinned to the floor.

A most beauteous sight descended upon us on large wings with an equally large body… it was a Valkyrie.

“I was spending special time with great husband... you are also being very evil for not letting warriors souls find rest!” The large female yak with the vibrant feathered wings grabbed the unicorn’s spirit and started to drag it towards a howling vortex of souls that opened up in the floor. “Eir is unhappy. No mercy, I smite!”

With that the unicorn’s spirit was forcefully thrust into the vortex, then the yak turned to the skeleton looking upset.

“I am sorry, but I cannot help you.” At the Valkyrie’s words, the skeleton pony bowed her head while looking quite forlorn. “I look for solution to still living soul trapped in bones! In the meantime find something to do, this might take a while. Now back to great husband! Wait...what should Eir be saying to make up for disappearing all of the sudden?!”

“Uh… maybe you went to the bathroom?” The Valkyrie rushed over to me and gave me a big bone crushing hug, she is stronger than any yak and is almost choking the very life from my bones. She is not one I would ever wish to fight in any circumstance.

“You are now a good friend of Eir, thank you for wonderful idea!” With that the winged yak flew off through the ceiling.

“What just happened?” Flamberge was confused.

“Worry not! Now we need to find The Mists of… Travel... On…” I looked at the pristine boat floating in the waterway next to the slightly rotted docks. “Hey, we found it!”