Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

Their alphabet was strange. Some symbols stood for letters or sounds, yet others stood for an entire word or phrase, and others still referred to concepts rather than a specific word or phrase. Those symbols that stood for concepts were rather concerning as they could mean any multitude of things when paired with surrounding symbols.

Natali had never fancied herself a scholar, but she was interested in learning new things. Jade on the other hand was utterly fascinated by the information. The researchers at Grimspire kept a constant staff at the camp. So much so that a couple of merchants had moved in and started up shops in a couple of the carved out rooms.

Because of their constant work here, they also possessed the most up to date copy of the world\'s current understanding of the demon language. Jade was ecstatic to learn about this and requested to see it, which the researchers were all too happy to do so long as she agreed to provide them with the definition of her mark.

One of the researchers went up to Lucius to ask about his mark, but then saw how it stretched around his wrist and thought he had tattooed around the original symbol. That made the researcher furious and the rotund man began to scream and berate Lucius for his stupidity.

Before anyone could react, Lucius had quickly struck the researcher in the gut, knocking him unconscious and kicking his limp body to the side of the ravine. From that point on no one was willing to go and talk to him from the researcher\'s group, though many adventurers had no problems continuing to try and communicate with the man.

All of this, of course, happened before Natali fell asleep. What she was hearing as she woke up was nothing like the series of events she went to sleep to. Screaming echoed through the walls of the ruins and the sounds of metal beating against stone and other hollow-sounding materials. Something akin to the rattling of marbles also met Natali\'s ears.

Jade was asleep beside her and had woken as well and began to clutch the shortsword she always hid under her clothes. Natali pulled her daggers at the ready and stepped to the doorway. The nighttime fires were still going, but the people monitoring them were missing. Most of the camp was empty and the mocked-up doors to several of the rooms were closed and sealed shut.

The lights inside were completely doused to further conceal their presence.

The shadows created by the moonlight trying to peer over the ledges above created a strange jumble of shapes that prevented Natali from determining what was going on without getting closer. When she fully stepped outside, she saw one of the researchers from earlier, the one that got along well with Jade and introduced her to their documentation, panicking and rocking back and forth on the ground.

"You…what…happened?" Natali managed to say. She was getting better, but talking with any sort of volume above a whisper was still very difficult.

"The undead. They appeared again. More than before… they broke through the lines. So many adventurers…"

Natali quickly grabbed the researcher, threw them into the room with Jade and sealed the door after commanding them, "Stay."

She hurried to the nearest sound of battle and thought she smelled the familiar scent of ozone, which indicated that Lucius had activated his Thunder Magic. Even though she could smell the results of the spell, she could not hear the telltale signs of him battling.

Rounding one of the corners, she caught the eye of a few of the adventurers who were talking with her and the other girls about boy talk earlier. One of them was dead, her eyes glazed over and in her hand she held her partially severed leg. She was surrounded by a pool of blood which indicated she died from blood loss.

Rena was frantically casting healing spells on another one of the girls who had a large slash wound across her chest. Fortunately, it looked to be healing with Rena\'s help and would soon no longer be life-threatening.

"Natali, good, you\'re here. Lucius left camp an hour ago to prepare for tonight\'s horde, but it\'s bigger than we anticipated. We lost contact with them and the horde is closing in on the camp from both sides." She explained quickly then moved to another injured warrior.

Rena\'s face was pale, but she swallowed the contents of a rather foul-smelling potion, which returned some of her color. "We need a moment to regroup. The creatures can\'t seem to climb, can you maintain an ice wall?"

Natali nodded and rushed towards the fighting. The adventurer who greeted them when they first arrived was commanding the front lines like a veteran sergeant. In between commands he would lash out with attacks of his own.

It was here that Natali finally saw the enemy. There were hundreds of shambling creatures filling the once empty streets. Almost all of them were made up of bones, though a few had strips of desiccated flesh still clinging to their bones. Among the shambling bones were a handful of creatures that looked to be rotting corpses. They moved faster than the skeletons did and hit harder.

"Stand back!" Rena shouted.

The entire front line retreated backward several paces, opening space for Natali\'s spell. "[Glacies: Ice Wall]!"

Pale-blue light poured out of her hands, fell to the ground then surged toward the gap between the monsters and them. It spread across the width of the ravine and sprouted a ten-foot-tall wall of opaque ice.

"Normally, I\'d ask if we could get that to be see-through, but I think a bit of ignorance of the enemies\' faces would do us a hell of a lot of good. Thank you, little missy." The grizzled adventurer was clearly exhausted and his light chuckle even sounded forced. No one could blame him though.