"Grab the sodder, Gord!" Chert bellowed, but Yeo was already in motion, babbling a weird series of one-syllable sounds in incredibly varied pitch, from high soprano to bass and everywhere in between. The skeletal form danced about as he sang thus. He took a second to thrust the staff into the belt of his robe and then raised the object he held in his right hand. The thing was of puce color, opalescent, and left a trail of faint amethystine coruscations in its wake as Yeo waved it above and around his head. None present knew exactly what it was. but it was obviously a magic item of some sort.
The cadaverous figure leaped and shouted, robe and shawl flapping as if affected by a wind that blew on him alone. Chert, Gord. and Biff moved forward to engage Yeo but, his sallow visage contorted hideously, he danced back into the shadows screeching in triumph.
Gord had both his sword and dagger drawn and ready. The enchantment on the former weapon enabled him to see through the gloom of the chamber, and he cried a warning to his companions. "Beware all, there are undead here!"
The halfling. armed with his own, shorter sword, moved up beside Gord and shouted to the cleric, "Poztif! Aid us now!" But the cleric was of no use in his present state.
"Blistering brazen balls!" Chert fairly groaned the expostulation, grabbing for a weapon that was not there. "Were my good axe Brool here now, I'd mow those zombies down like wheat!" He pulled forth the small sword he carried at his hip and readied to face the shuffling corpse-things.
"Biff, see to your friend Poztifl" the young thief said without looking at the halfling. "Yeo's fell staff worked some foul bonding upon him!" Then Gord turned to concentrate on the undead monsters that approached in slow, creaking steps, shedding moldering bits of flesh and exuding a putrid stench as they came.
Maegus Yeo was somewhere among these things now, exhorting them on. "On, dear ancestors, faithful guardians of imperial Suhfang in the decadent East. These foul men would desecrate our temple and steal the holy relics you placed in my trust. Send them to gibber and beg in the nethermost regions of Hades for the glory of dark Nerull!"
"Throw something heavy at them. Chert!" Gord said loudly. "I fear we're in for something we won't like. "
The big barbarian made a razzing sound but nevertheless picked up a low-backed chair with one hand and flung it toward the bony legs of the horrid corpses that slowly approached. The missile impacted with a sound of snapping twigs as brittle bones cracked and splintered. Two of the undead things were scrabbling around on the floor, but were quickly upright and advancing again. "Their rotten bones fly together and mend themselves!" Chert muttered in astonishment.
Gord, who had seen the whole process, set his teeth and leaped to attack one end of the line of corpses. "Keep knocking them down anyway! it's all you can do!" Then he hacked and slashed at the stinking creature that was turning and reaching for him.
Meanwhile, the halfling was in a real quandary. Biff ran around and around the frozen form of Poztif, afraid to touch the lilac light that seemed to crawl rather than flow around the body it encompassed. Even as Biff paused and pondered on a course of action, there was a pulse of deeper color. A beam of lilac reached out from the cleric and fastened itself to the block of translucent mineral. The mineral began to grow brighter, and its surface showed a layer of transparent material of the same hue and as bright as the light that enveloped the unmovtng cleric. The stone seemed to attain a tremendous depth as Biff stared at its surface. It was like peering off a mountaintop into the vast regions beyond, while the mists obscured the scene. And now Biff could see that something was moving within those depths!
"Help me!" he shouted. "A dragon comes from within the stone!"
Coughing and retching from the vileness of the stench that arose when he'd sundered the undead corpse that he had attacked. Gord allowed the rotting parts to fall as they may. Chert had dropped his useless little sword in favor of furniture. A heavy screen flew edgewise into a group of the advancing corpses, tossing them back, snapping limbs as if they were matchsticks. These same monsters would arise unharmed moments from now, but every attack bought time.
"Use everything available to slow those things, Chert!" said Gord. "I'll go aid the halfiing."
Just then a beam of violet-tinged light sprang past him. Gord felt the hair on the back of his neck rise in horripilation at the nearness of the ray. If he exposed himself going to the aid of Biff, the terrible Yeo would engulf him in the same stuff he'd used to blind the cleric. He shouted to the halfling, "Catch — and ‘ware the point! it slices stone as cheese."
The dagger turned lazily in the air. Biff saw it coming in the light given off by the glowing mineral and snared its pommel easily, ducking quickly thereafter to avoid another bolt from the twisted staff of Maegus Yeo, this time meant for the hafling!
"Use the dagger, man, before it's too late!" Gord shouted in desperation.
"This had better work as the young fellow claims," Biff muttered to himself, "or Poztif and I. too. are fodder for that. . " The snaky form of a violet-colored dragon was sinuously turning and twisting, growing larger as if approaching through mists of stuff that palely reflected its own coloration. Although to Biffs eyes the dragon was no larger than a smallish lizard, the halfling somehow knew it was actually of monstrous proportion. Without thinking further. Biff thrust the dagger at the threatening form coming through the now-transparent stone.
"Graauuugh!"
The roar of pain seemed to come from a vast distance, yet it nearly ruptured the halfling's eardrums. The sound reverberated through the underground room, and Yeo howled mournfully when he heard the strange sound of pain. It was as if he, too, suffered.
"The bloody dag sunk in to its hilt!" Biff cried in excitement and delight. When the blade pierced the rock, the tongue of metal seemed to elongate and grow small at the same time. It had barely pricked the oncoming dragon, and in proportion to the monster it had seemed only needle-sized, but its touch had sorely troubled the creature. Biff pulled out and thrust the poinard into the lilac-hued block again and again, watching the results. The roars and screams of the dragon redoubled, and the thunderous noise grew louder as the monster slowly increased in size and moved toward the exit from its transparent prison.
"It's coming out!" the halfling yelled as he jerked away from the stone, fear scribed in etched lines across his little face.
While all this was going on, Gord and Chert had continued their combat against the undead ancestors of the evil Maegus Yeo. Staying on the move and using the skeletal monsters as shields against Yeo's staff, they each attacked as they could. Of the ten that had appeared. Gord had felled one almost immediately, then continued hacking mightily on another, having to bound and weave with all his skill to avoid the touch of the grasping bones of their clawed hands. The exercise was tiring for Gord and not especially devastating to the undead creatures. Eight of the things still came toward them, only one of them bearing damage from Gord's sword.
"Yeow! Watch out!" Chert cried, dodging a missile that whizzed by and was heading straight for Gord. "Gord!" Chert screamed as his friend was hit by one of the evil bolts.
Gord felt like his entire body was alive with static energy. But the effect quickly wore off. and the momentarily triumphant Yeo quickly shot another bolt in the young thiefs direction. Again, the same thing happened, with Gord recovering a little more rapidly this time. "Your staffs getting short on energy, eh?" Gord taunted, this time successfully ducking his evil host's attempted attack.
Gord and Chert were slowly being forced by the undead monsters back to where the huge stone was, with Poztif immobile and light-enwrapped a short distance from it Chert was out of things to hurl at the undead ancestors of the shrieking Yeo, Gord's sword was doing little good, and as the two of them were pushed back, they saw that Biff was standing stock-still, horror-stricken, staring at the stone.