It was a cloudless night today, and both the moon and the stars were clearly visible in the night sky, casting a soft glow on the grasslands. Usually, on a night like this, Miranda would have been lying by a cozy warm fire and enjoying the wonders such a clear night could offer. Or at least, that what she would have prefered to be doing. Unfortunately, the situation she is currently embroiled in does not allow such luxuries, something which brought a slight stab of regret and dissapointment through the brown haired spellcaster.

Once again, Miranda's legendary sense of directly managed to land her in a less than favourable situation. Legendary, in this case, of course means in a bad way. Like legendary evil demon dragon bad. Not only had she managed to get herself lost in a grassland, she had also managed to stumble upon a cursed graveyard, and even better, not realise that it was cursed (Despite the distinctively omninous aura that was enamating from it) until the skeletons started reanimating. The whole scenario would probaly have been highly amusing if it wasn't for how dire the situation was. So, now, Miranda was streaking through the plains at speeds she never knew she was capable of, with a horde of skeletions, zombies, the walking dead, and just about every other undead creature on two legs in hot pursuit. Dead man's chest, anyone?

Despite being pursued by a horde of tireless, dogged and single minded enemies, Miranda was, through her speed alone, able to place quite abit of distance between her and the horde. It wouldn't last forever though, already, she was starting to slow down. However, it would give her a chance to lose them, and she was just starting to feel optimistic before she spotted someone directly in her path. Instinct took over at this point, and she abruptly sttempted to stop her forward movement. Unfortunately, the momentum built up from running at that speed isn't something that would go away very easily, and despite having stilled her legs, her body continued moving forward, and would most probaly collide with whoever it is in her way. Unless whoever or whatever it was had killer reflexes, and even then she would still land face first into the ground. With a horde of undead creature close behind. Some luck, eh?

FINALLY! Out of those woods and back on the road! And it only took a day of wandering around, meeting new people, and going insane. Now he was...in....a very strange place...with zombies. And other nasty undead. Gods damn it all to hell again. Why did he have to end up in THIS kind of place? Why couldn't he end up in a happy meadow filled with wonderful foods?!

He then saw someone running from the undead. Oh. So THAT'S why he was here. Well, then, he'd better get started. He unsheathed his sword, and ran into the night. After a few moments, he arrived, going between the zombies and the other creatures. He began to slash wildly, taking them down with the best of his ability. He needed to get this innocent person to safety! It would be thought though. This was the first time he had ever dealt with the undead. He had no idea at all what to expect from these creatures, and considering how strange this place was, they likely had an advantage here. Oh well. Complaining about it was not going to solve anything.

"Miss! Please head to the west! There's a forest off in that direction, a place safer than this!" He yelled out to the one running from the undead. Hopefully, she would comply. Or, better, she could have some powers of some sort and help him slay these undead beings. But that would be too good to be true. No way could he have that kind of luck now. He'd likely have to slay each of these things with his own sword. A shame he still did not know any holy magic, otherwise he might have been able to end this without major agony and pain. He sighed, though, and continued slashing at the undead hordes.

The cursed land of Dori'ba, land of the dead. In a sense, it was another wasteland, just like the desert she called home. However, that was where their similarities stopped. There was life in Anfauglir, although the life of the desert was a different kind of life, a life that those used to Arda's lush grasslands and flowing water would never understand. Dori'ba was nothing but a place of death. There was no life in this land.

The mute walked through the cursed graveyard, her hand resting lightly on the hilt of her scimitar. At any moment, the undead that she had heard stories of would rise, hungry for blood. This was the place where most foolish adventurers traveled, proud of their skills with a blade. Usually, those adventurers ended up joining the undead army. Amani Thana was not one of those adventurers. She had not come here full of pride to demonstrate her abilities. She was here to test them, to see how far she had to go before she was strong enough. Battle, after all, was like dance. Without practice, she would never improve. Her blue eyes hardened in determination as they scanned the surrounding area.

"I don't like this place..." said Nadia, her fairy companion.

The tiny creature flew beside her, looking at her surroundings carefully. There was a slight tremor in her voice as she spoke. Amani nodded, but did not bother reaching for her journal to reply. In this situation, her hands needed to be on her blade, not on her quill. Suddenly, she heard it, the combined sounds of shuffling feet and groans as the dead of Dori'ba rose from their graves.

A figure appeared in her line of sight, heading towards her. Amani tightened her hand on the hilt of her sword, ready to attack when she saw that the figure was no zombie, but a woman. She barely had time to process this before the woman barreled into her, nearly knocking the dancer to the ground. Amani straightened up, gently pushing the woman off her and gesturing at Nadia to deal with her as she stared at the undead following her.

It looked like she had been joined by one other, a masked man who was also wielding a blade. He shouted towards the woman who had bumped into her, now rushing forward towards the undead with his own sword. Amani drew her scimitar in one graceful movement, charging into the rush of undead. She moved as if she was dancing, gracefully turning to the side to dodge the advance of one undead, her scimitar slicing through the air to cut of its head. A second undead moved to attack her from behind. Amani turned, blocking its hand with her scimitar. Her face was furrowed in concentration as she moved, slashing through the advancing undead with all the grace she held when she danced.

One zombie made a move to reach for her, attempting to hold her into place. Amani jumped backward, her palms landing on the ground. She pushed off with her palms, gracefully back-flipping out of the incoming attack. Her scimitar sailed through the air as she stabbed straight at it, impaling it with the slightly curved blade.

Nadia meanwhile had grabbed onto the woman's shirt, pulling her quickly in the direction of safety. The fairy's pulling was to no avail, however, since the woman was many times her size.

"Come on!" shouted Nadia, "We have to go while Amani and the masked man hold them back!"

Sayuri drew herself back up after ramming directly into the brown haired female, who somehow managed to keep herself from falling over. What's better is that whoever she was is obviously no stranger to battle. She quickly engaged the undead horde, wielding a weapon with a curved blade. As if to prove that luck comes in pairs, another person joined the battle. This one had a slightly creepy mask and yelled something about there being a forest towards the west before joining the female in engaging the horde.

Lucky? Perhaps not. They were still outnumbered by about a hundred to one, and unless one of those present knows how to cast a large scale destructive spell, chances are none of them are going to survive this night. Well, not in a head on battle, at least. However, she didn't have time to ponder about this fact, as it was then when she noticed the small creature tugging at her waist, or more importantly, the mace wielding skeleton warrior that was creeping up behind her, and by extention, herself.

She reacted instinctively, casting a minor heal spell into his face. As it reared back from the magic, she grabbed the mace that hung losely from it's hand and swung it straight up into it's chin, almost hitting the small fairy sized creature in the process. The mace hit home, and sent the skull spiralling away from it's torso, much like a baseball. However, a second skeleton appeared exactly where the first one had fallen, followed quickly by a third and a fourth. Appearently, two warriors isn't enough to hold back the entire horde, and those which got around them are starting to amass behind the front lines. In plainer terms, they are getting ready for a pincer attack. Miranda leapt backwards, barely avoiding the scything claws of a zombie, and found herself back to back with the masked combatant. "This doesn't look very good...." She muttered to herself as she eyed the approaching horde.

Meglumar was not too surprised about being surrounded by the undead hordes, at this point. What he WAS surprised about was that he was being helped by the people he was trying to save. It was kind of funny, in a way. There was one woman he did not see until just now She had a scimitar in hand, and was dealing death out to the undead just as well, if not better, than he was.

The other person, meanwhile, had healing magic, from what he saw. She was able to take down a skeletal being with it, and steal it's mace. Again, an impressive feat to be sure. He couldn't help but wonder WHY she was running in the first place, she could probably have taken down these monsters fairly well with the magics.

Oh well, couldn't be helped. The girl with the mace had said things did not look good. "I disagree! This looks like an even fight." He said, charging into the undead horde, slashing one of them clean in half, and kicking another one's arm off. He suddenly felt a stabbing pain from his side, and saw that one of the undead had given him a nasty slash to his side. He REALLY needed to but some armor! Pain did not feel good, especially when you knew it was avoidable!

"foul undead cretins....Reteurn to the place from whence you came!" He yelled out, continuing his slashes against the undead, starting with the decapitation of the zombie that slashed him. Hmm, maybe the woman was right. Maybe things would not turn out so well. Should they retreat? He'd prefer not to, he was trained to kill undead. Still, the dead can't kill the undead, so maybe retreat WAS wise....Maybe

The woman and the masked man seemed to be doing fairly well. Amani did not spend too much time dwelling on their state. She hoped that they survived, but in a battle such as this, it was every warrior for himself, or herself as the case applied. She whirled around again, her scimitar slashing off another zombie's head. She could hear Nadia's voice in her ears as the fairy tried to convince the woman to go. Nadia would be fine. The fairy could fly away if things got too serious, and could take Amani with her thanks to the magic she was equipped with.

A sharp stab in her upper arm made her turn around towards one zombie, quickly slashing of its head. She winced slightly, glancing at the wound. She would need to deal with that as soon as this was over, before it had a chance to get infected. She had been a little too careless with that one. She whipped around again, slashing through a zombie as she twirled gracefully, looking almost as if she was dancing. Thankfully, she could see well in the dark, so she had no problem being aware of her surroundings. The masked man had also gotten wounded, from what she could see. She allowed herself to glance at them for a moment before returning her focus back to the battle. She would not allow herself to die here. She was a child of the desert. She would survive, if only for the sake of the pride of her homeland, and for the sake of the promise she had made to Malika that she would return.

"Hey! Watch where you're aiming that!" screamed Nadia as the fairy flew out of the way of the woman's mace. She flew higher into the sky, obviously giving up on trying to help her. There was an angry expression on her tiny face as she glared at the woman.

Sayuri didn't bother answering to the strange statement of the masked man, instead taking the energy to swing her mace straight into the chest of an approaching zombie, a strike which smashed straight through the brittle bones of the undead creature and sent it staggering away from the brunette.

However, she momentarily forgot that she no longer had the masked man watching her back, and paid for that with a deep wound in along her back, caused by the scything blade of a skeleton warrior. She retaliated by smashing her mace through both the blade of the bony creature and it's spine, which snapped like brittle spaghetti under the force of her mace. However, that action only served to open her would further, and she fell onto one knee as the blood from the wound started seeping into her clothes. She barely heard the enraged yell of the pixie sized creature, instead focusing on the situation at hand.

Most of the undead were being drawn towards the masked man, the main reason being that he was making almost as much noise as he was fighting, allowing her a slight breather. She couldn't actually see how he was faring, but judging from how bones and decaying flesh kept flying away from the center, he seemed to be holding out pretty well. The other fighter was doing fairly well, twirling around with that blade of hers while the zombies around her fell one by one. However, even someone as skilled as her managed to get wounded; blood flowed from a wound in her shoulder. The situation is quite frankly pretty dire, and probaly would end with their deaths if things kept going at this rate. Especially when there's still a steady stream of undead pouring in from the deadlands. She focused her energies on her wound, sealing it. It isn't a complete recovery, and the wound still hurt when she moved, but at least the bleeding stopped. She got up from her kneeling position, convinently decapitating a stray skeleton in the process, before sending a healing bolt straight towards the cluster of undead around the cloaked person.

(Hope you don't mind if I join)

Arthur had been following the trail of the undead for awhile now they seemed more active of late. He rarely came to the land of the but he had to now. The reason he believed that they had some mad purpose and he intended to find it out. He checked the ground several tiems when his quarry led him this way and that sometimes though he had to use his sense of smell when he could not fidn the right path. TO any normal creature they would not be able to sense it but Arthru was no normal being. He supposed it was the dragon in him that helped him decipher things that none could.

He then shook himself out of his brooding when he noticed a graveyard up ahead and he could clearly hear the sounds of battle. He smiled and took his helm and placed it on his head. The armor matched this land perfectly he would seem a demon to those fightign the undead but he would be the destruction of the undead. He was not in dragon form even if fighting the undead owuld be easier that way. He liked challenges anyway. He ran quickly and saw a masked man and two women fightign a horde of undead. HE smiled and spread out his hands and said," Sunbeam". A bar of light shot from his hands and went through several undead burnign them like so much fire wood. HE then drew his sword and charged un and became the wind of death.

...Ok, maybe they were going to have a little trouble after all. He saw the woman with the scimitar get attacked, and that she was bleeding. Of course, as he was distracted by that, a skeleton moved up to him and stabbed him in the shoulder. Meglumar proceeded to dispatch the skeleton, but noticed he was being surrounded. "Good...it is an even fight." He said, with a small, weak smile behind his mask. Like HELL it was even! Megumar was grossly out manned, and he couldn't handle this much of the undead attacks! He was going to be in trouble, he couldn't handle getting wounds anymore, otherwise he'd end up dead.

He then saw a burst of light, followed by several undead catching on fire. He stopped completely, stunned at this. Looking, he looked for the source of this new attack. He then saw that it came from two sources! The first came from the woman who was running. She seemed to cast a healing spell to destroy quite a few of these zombies! The other source was from....some rather intimidating person with enough sense to be in armor. Well, seems this undead slaughter was quickly growing into a popular thing!

Not to be out done, Meglumar decided he had to step things up, injuries or not! He turned to see the undead zombies staring on at the gaping destruction that was occurring. Perhaps the spells those 2 used scared them? Oh well, it didn't matter to Meglumar right now they were targets! Charging into them, he began slashing with as much strength as he could. He was NOT going to fall behind in this! He WAS going to kill as many undead as he could. This was no longer survival for him. He saw it as a game, one he would not lose!

The situation was slowly beginning to turn against them. Even as Amani fought, slashing through the undead with her blade, she could sense that things were taking a turn for the worst. There seemed to be a lot more of them than usual, and they seemed to be moving in closer each time. Her room to fight was slowly beginning to get more limited as more undead joined the fray. They either needed to find a better area to fight in, or to consider retreating. The undead that had chosen to fight them tonight were fairly weak, but they were strong in number.

A burst of light tore through the darkness of Dori'ba, burning through the undead as easily as if burning through firewood. Another had championed their cause. She turned her head slightly, barely making out the outline of an armored figure before her attention was drawn towards the fight again. A skeleton had made an advance. She parried the blow with her scimitar, but was unable to parry the blow to her side. The dancer found herself being pushed back. She flipped backwards to keep herself from falling, wincing as the strain made pain shoot from her injured shoulder all the way down her arm. Amani looked down, seeing a fresh wound on her side.

"AMANI!!!"

Nadia's voice tore through the chaos. The fairy flew directly over her head, a panicked expression on her face. Amani winced in pain as she clutched her side, looking up at Nadia as if to silently tell her fairy friend that she was all right. The undead continued to come, so she plunged back into the fray, her movements halted slightly by the wounds she had incurred. Nadia followed above her, staying just out of reach of the undead's attacks, a look of fear on her face.

"Amani, come on, let's go. We can find somewhere to get those wounds treated. Come on, Amani..." pleaded Nadia, her voice filled with worry for her young master. Amani did not make any move to acknowledge Nadia's words, continuing to slash through the undead.

(OOC: Sorry for late reply. RL issues.)

Miranda's attention was drawn by a sudden bright flash of light, or more accurately the several legions of shriveling undead that it left in it's wake. She turned her head towards the source of the spell, and singled oout someone wearing armour plate charging into the fray, cleaving the heads clean of three zombies in one stroke. Has zombie killing become a sport lately?

Still, Sayuri didn't complain; God knows that they needed help right now, and she isn't one to decline aid when it so willingly delivered himself right up to her doorstep. Heh, Doorstep. She made a joke, and a rather good one too. That's something that didn't happen everyday. The heavy footdalls of a lumbering group of zombies brought her back to reality, and she shook her head to rid of any lingering thoughts. She couldn't afford to get distracted now. There was still alot of work to be done. An entire batalion of undead to dispatch, for starters. She readied her mace and charged towards the small gathering of warriors, and managed to dispatch two of them until a shrill scream caught her attention.

She whipped around just in time to see the female warrior stumble backwards out of the fray, clutching a bleeding wound in her side. The source of the scream seemed to have originated from the small pixie like creature that tugged on her shirt a few moments earlier, obviously worried about the warrior's situation. She instinctively sent a healing bolt spiralling in her direction, hoping that it would reach the warrior in time. It wouldn't be a complete fix, though. The wound would probaly still hurt for a long time after that. But it would seal up the wound, stopping the flow of blood, and more importantly also prevent the possibility of an infection.

However, this lapse of concentration, while certainly good for Amani, wouldn't be as good for the spellcaster. Within the few moments it took for Miranda to cast the healing spell, a particularly fast zombie had managed to wrap it's chilly fingers around the brunette's right arm, i.e. the arm that was holding the mace. Sayuri shreiked in surprise, and struggled to free her arm from the creature's grasp. She instinctively took a step back; her foot struck something on the ground; one of the many inanimate skulls that littered the area; and lost her footing.

Both she and the vile creature crashed to the ground, the shock of which made her losen her grip on the mace, which fell out of her hands and onto the ground a meter away. She panicked at this point, struggling frantically in the dirt, screaming at the top of her voice. She didn't want to die here. Not yet, no, and she certainly did not want to join the ranks of the undead as a zombie. In desperation, She sent another healing bolt at the undead warrior; it barely nicked the side of it's head. And by the time she gathered enough energy for a second bolt, it would have been too late. Her last lifeline was cut. She screamed, if possible, even louder, as the undead creature moved it's head closer for the bite of death....

Arthur slashed threw the undead as if they were nothing and to him they weren't. Numbers had no meaning to him he had afced tough odds before and this was just another one of those days where the odds were aginst him but he would conquer. Arthur twirled his blade stappign one that was sneaking up behind him then finished off two more. Arthur then heard screaming and looked to his side as one girl was almost about the be bitten. HE snarled and said," Not on my watch". He swung the blade in a spinning arc and the blade crashed into the undeads head takeing it off and spinning with it to the ground.

Arthru was not weapon less he drew a sword from his back this one diffrent from the fisrt. Unliek the other this one had a more cruel and sinister look and was more finely crafted. SUch were the blades known as The Bloodshed. Rare and powerful even if you moved them slowly they were blurred. HE then started the dance again and cried in Elvish," Carai an Caldazar, Carai an Ellisande. Al Ellisande." The blade moved faster and faster as Arthur increased his speed and porficeny till he and the blad appeared as if an dance. One by one undead fell and for every one fallen two replaced but Arthru cut through them the Longsword of Bloodshed cutting them like paper. ANytime they struck hsi armro there weapons boucned off and shook and Arthru killed them.

Finally Arthru said," Thats enough, time to end this". He summoned his magic and said," Summon Master Warrior, Clone Warrior, Summon Greater Monster". Soon five new allies appeared. Two looked just as Arthur did the other three were small monsters ferocious but deadly. HE smiled and started killing anew his summons goign to their bloody buisness and he started to chant a battle chant,"

There is some delight in ale and wine
And some in girls with ankles fine
But my delight, yes always mine
Is to dance with Jak O’ the Shadows


We will toss the dice however they fall
And snuggle the girld be they short or tall
Then follow Lothomedil whenever she calls
To dance with Jak O’ the Shadows".

What...the...HELL!? The new person in this fight just summoned like 5 new allies instantly! What was he?! Other than terrifying and destructive? Oh, now he was chanting/singing. Now he was also just plain scary. He was carving the undead into nothing! Meglumar didn't even see a point in trying, this miniature army was DESTROYING the undead horde. Meglumar almost felt sorry for them. That is, until a stray undead snuck up behind him and bit him in the leg. "OW!" He yelled out, turning around, and stabbing the zombie in the head. On second thought, they can all die and burn." He thought, annoyed.

He couldn't help but feel useless now. This stranger, with god knows what magic, is fighting an army, technically on his own! Meanwhile, he a paladin, was unable to destroy them properly. How embarrassing this was! Yes, it was true he was still a beginner, but that did nothing to soften the ego-blow that was dealt by this. This person had fearsome armor, a sword that looked like it was actually new, and he could use some weird looking spells and summon things! Meanwhile, what did Meglumar have?! What, exactly?

He had a cheap mask. He had an old, worn down longsword. He had a cloak that was dirty, bloodstained, ripped, and in general need of replacement. He had his pathetic clothing, and NO armor! He MAYBE had 3 spells. A healing spell he was taught, A holy spell he'd not even USED yet, and was not even guaranteed to work, and MAYBE that weird thing that happened in Estolad. MAYBE. He still had not learned what it was. All Paladins have to start somewhere, right? Do they all start out at such a lowly level? Meglumar felt himself get angry at this, and himself for starting a pity party for himself in his mind. He kept his grip on his sword, and moved at the undead not yet killed by this warrior and his summons. He continued killing. He was going to vent some anger on these undead. With Violence!

Amani staggered backwards, her left hand holding on to the wound at her side as her right hand frantically tried to keep up with the undead's attacks. She could not die here. Dying here would mean joining them, becoming an undead just like them. She couldn't allow that to happen. She had to return back to Malika and back to the desert that was her home. She could hear Nadia shouting from above her. Leave? She couldn't do that either now. She wasn't alone here. Leaving would mean abandoning these people who had come to be her allies. Although she knew that at times, sacrifices had to be made, this was not one that she cared to make at the moment.

That was when she felt the wound close up. It still hurt quite a lot but the bleeding had stopped. She would be able to continue the fight, but at the expense of the spellcaster who had cast the healing spell. Amani quickly turned her head, her eyes widening in alarm as she saw the spellcaster about to be struck down by a zombie. She moved forward, about to join the fray when the armored man saved her, stopping the zombie before it could land the fatal blow and summoning four, no five new fighters to aid them in battle. It seemed to the dancer that the new warrior was much more powerful than she. While she was grateful for the help, the thought frustrated her somewhat. She may have been skilled enough to survive on the streets of Angband, but there were many more warriors much more powerful than she was, not all of them good. Eventually, one of them would find their way into her desert city, and then she would not be able to stand a chance.

She did the only thing she could do now. She continued to fight. In order to get stronger, she needed to continue fighting, otherwise, she would merely become another weakling who cowered when things got tough, another rat of the city of Angband.