When Aotrys landed on the bottom of the crevice he felt something crunch beneath his feet, only to realize that he was standing in an accessible area filled with the corpses of dozens of men, all wrapped in torn, linen cloth that resembled that of a priest or scholar. This explained why there was traces of previous adventures in the entrance of the cave, this was a burial site for members of the holy order once they were disbanded and killed. This was a secret that the apothecary failed to share.

He had to gain himself if we wanted to get out of this place alive, so Aotrys grabbed the torch from off the floor and searched desperately for the fungus that Gabriel described and that’s when the realization came to Aotrys. There was a chance that the apothecary never wanted him to find the fungus, but rather wanted him to die down here to keep the secret of his past. Aotrys searched around the room and found the fungus, it wasn’t on the walls of the cave, but was growing from the eye sockets of the skeletons that plagued the floor.

Carefully Aotrys went to retrieve the fungus with the leather glove in his hand. As he put the tips of his fingers around the mushroom, he pulled back the fungus from the eye socket of the skeleton only to have a breath of spores explode from the skulls. After getting enough mushrooms to fill the leather pouch on his belt, Aotrys discarded the leather glove and proceeded to make his way back to the entrance of the crevice before his torch blew out. Just as he was about to reach the mouth of the crevice, a fearful creak erupted from behind him from where he picked the fungus.

The corpses of the holy men rose from their moldy graves and collected their skeletal ligaments before turning towards Aotrys in unison, approaching him ready to attack.

In one hand Aotrys held the torch, then drew the sword from his belt to defend himself. The first skeletal figure ran at Aotrys head on while another tried to outflank him. Aotrys swung true and landed the blade on the ridcage of the advancing skeletal figure, causing it to crumble under the weight of the blow and fall into pieces on the cave floor. Aotrys stepped backwards and swung again at the second corpse but wasn’t quick enough to deal a deadly blow and only managed to take its arm off at the elbow. Instead of attempting to raise his sword again in time, the warrior hit the corpse with his torch and sent the linen on its body up and flames which resulted in it crumbling to ash and charred bones before him. The third skeleton rushed at Aotrys when his back was turned, and the pointy ends of its fingers gashed the warrior across the cheek and sent his blood flying across his face.

After kicking the skeleton backwards to create an opening for a strike, Aotrys swung his blade again connected directly into the corpses chest and caused its whole upper half flying into the distance. Before the warrior could even collect himself, more of the undead beings were rising from their fungus filled graves and began turning their sockets towards the direction of Aotrys.

What the hell are these blasted things!? Aotrys asked in his mind.

There was no way he would manage to take on the dozens of undead corpses that we beginning to surround him like wolves surrounding a doe, so he took his chances and dropped his sword and torch to begin climbing back up the crevice after taking a leap upwards towards its opening. Before he could make it very far up the crevice, the skeletal figures were grabbing at his feet trying to put him down with their bony arms wrapped in decaying, white linen. A sudden pull from one of the corpses sent Aotrys downwards back onto the floor of the cavern, landing on his back that took the air right out of his lungs. The first thing the warrior did when he caught his breath was grab the sword laying near him and swinging at the waist of the skeletons standing on top of him, taking as many of them down as he could before they grabbed him by the arms and lifted him eyelevel.

One of the corpses picked up the dying torch from off the cold floor and approached Aotrys as he stood there held in position by at least four of the corpses who were ensuring that he could’ve move his upper half. The warrior kicked with mighty strength at the skeletons he could reach, only managing to take out half of dozen of them before the torch-wielding corpse was standing in front of him. Struggling proved to be useless against the strength of the undead and Aotrys was forced to succumb to his fate at the hand of the madness in front of him, dying to an army of corpses at the end of a cavern. The corpses stabbed Aotrys in the stomach with the torch and quickly engulphed him in flames, his body was screaming in pain, but the warrior didn’t let out a single noise as his body slumped onto the floor in a ball of fire.

Aotrys felt his body cease it endless pain and drift into the afterlife. In a flash of an instant he awoke, standing beside the torch surrounded by the once lively corpses, without a single ember on his body. All a hallucination, a bad dream? Thought Aotrys. He didn’t dwell any longer for the remnants of his torch were soon to fade away and needed to get out of the cavern before his mind faded along with the torch.

It took time to keep his grip, but once he managed to find it Aotrys got out of the crevice and proceeded to follow whatever path he took to get into the cave and raced towards the dim light of the opening. His knees were sharp with the paint of sliding along the edges of the stone, cutting up with every mistake he made in the darkness of the cave.