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“Hah! You may be unaffected by my aura, but a pathetic crab poses no danger to me.”

Balthazar smirked.

“Maybe not, but you know what else doesn’t count as sentient? Rocks.”

The man’s creepy smile faded slightly as his thin eyebrow rose. “Huh?”

“Bouldy,” the crab said, turning his eyes up to his friend. “Smack this Arch-Stinker!”

Rising up from his hunched position behind Balthazar, the golem took one step forward towards the surprised man, who quickly flung his charged blast at it. The spell hit the solid rock and fizzled out with no effect.

The same could not be said of the punch coming his way, sending him flying several paces to the side into a messy pile of rolled up robes.

Something changed in the air around them as the Arch-Necromancer was hit and Balthazar realized the aura was gone.

The orcs and lizards felt the same thing as they all let out gasps of relief, finally free of the demoralizing effects.

Struggling with his robes, the man tried to stand back up, his hood now pulled back, revealing a shiny bald head. “Don’t just stand there, you useless sacks of bones, attack!”

The three zombies stirred back to unlife and turned to their targets.

Khargol stood up and shook his head vigorously. After regaining his focus, his gaze landed on the three incoming zombies and he growled. There was a rage in his eyes that made Balthazar glad they were on the same side.

“Take the fighter, I will handle the wizard,” he commanded in a fierce voice, and the other two orcs obeyed.

Without hesitation at their chieftain’s orders, the two warrior-brothers grabbed their clubs again and moved in on the mangled-face zombie. The former adventurer readied to lunge at them, but the pair split up as they charged, one to each side, making the confused shambler turn his head left and right, unsure of where to focus his limited thinking power.

The one Balthazar was fairly sure was called Burz struck the zombie behind the right knee with his club, causing the creature to fall with a crisp sound of brittle bone snapping. Yatur quickly moved in as the moaning corpse turned his attention to the orc that had just attacked him, taking the opportunity to deliver a finishing blow to the back of the head.

The zombie fighter fell to the ground with a loud thud and moaned no more.

A short distance away, the fallen wizard twisted and flexed his many broken fingers and small blue sparks began crackling between them as he fixed his dead eyes on Khargol.

“Hey, big guy, shouldn’t you have brought a weapon too?” Balthazar yelled from the other side of the road.

“I would be a shameful orc chieftain if I required a weapon to handle this foul trash,” the imposing orc replied, cracking his knuckles as he walked unafraid towards the undead mage. “I have all the weapons I need right here.”

Before the wizard could finish casting, the orc leapt forward with one powerful step and cleared the distance between them with surprising speed for someone so big.

Leaving no time for his foe to react, Khargol delivered a devastating jab that landed right under the zombie wizard’s chin and sent him flying high into the air before falling back down like a sack of bones.

“Oof! He levitated and fell down. Again. So unlucky,” Balthazar joked with a mocking wince.

The crab looked up the road, searching for the last zombie that had moved in on the lizards.

Jorg’ath was the farthest away, still regaining his footing after the effects of the aura cleared. His companion stood between him and the incoming corpse, with her claws flexed and ready to strike.

The necromancer extended one arm out as he shambled on, mouth ajar, only a sickening moaning coming out. Faint, translucent tendrils of a purple color began forming out of his hand, reaching for the shadowstalker.

Jazk dodged the incoming strike from one of them by stepping to the side in a smooth, almost dance-like movement. More tendrils pushed forward, and she was forced to do a backwards somersault out of harm’s way.

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Realizing his watcher was in trouble and unable to get close enough to their opponent to strike herself, Jorg’ath called out to her.

“Jazk, to me!”

She glanced back at him for a split second, and that was enough to understand his intention.

As if choreographed and without the need to exchange any words, the watcher rolled to one side, frustrating another of the necromancer’s attacks and wrapping her long tail around the spear she had dropped on the ground before. With one quick twist of her body, she tossed the spear towards Jorg’ath, who jumped up and grabbed it in his right hand. Before even landing from his jump, the lizard commander spun in the air and threw his spear forward with great force as he landed on one foot.

The sharp end of his weapon cut through the ethereal tentacles and pierced straight through the zombie necromancer’s chest, making another hole right next to the old one he already had, from a certain Sword of Heavy Might.

His one remaining undead eye went blank, and he dropped dead once again, sprawled on the road with the spear’s handle sticking up from his torso.

Just like that, all the commanded dead were taken out, and Balthazar chuckled. He turned to look for the Arch-Necromancer and enjoy a good dose of gloating.

The robed fool was on all fours by the edge of the road, frantically looking for his staff in the grass.

“Well, well, well…” the smug crab started. “Like I was saying from the start, I was sure this would be nothing.”

The man stood back up quickly, fighting with his own robes but with the staff back in his grip. He was looking far less intimidating and much more deranged.

“You may have taken out those weak, useless zombies,” he started, panting in between words, “but I will make much better, stronger ones out of you all!”

Just as the tip of his staff was beginning to glow again, and before Balthazar even needed to say a word, a giant stone hand grabbed the hood of the ghoulish man’s robe and lifted him up into the air.

Taken by surprise, he flailed his arms and legs, dropping the staff. “Put me down! I am a high-level Arch-Necromancer! This is absurd! You are just a crab! I will turn you and your friends into mindless zombies for this!”

“Blah, blah, blah,” the crab mocked, while approaching the suspended man and picking up his macabre staff. “You dumb adventurers, always thinking so highly of yourselves. I can’t really have you turning my clientele into worthless zombies, you know? That’s bad for business. I already got one undead client, and that’s enough.”

Balthazar pressed the staff in his large iron pincer and it snapped in two with a loud crack and a small burst of green smoke. “No more of that.”

“You will pay for that, crab!” The man flailed even harder, swinging his arms forward helplessly as the golem continued holding him up. “Put me down! Put me down right this instant!”

Balthazar smirked. “You heard our fiend, Bouldy. Do as he said.”

The boulder looked at the crab, looked at the man, shrugged, and pressed the Arch-Necromancer down against the ground with his giant palm.

There was a slight squish sound accompanied by some muffled cracking, and after Bouldy lifted his hand, the man moved no more.

Balthazar winced again. “Ooh, should have been more clear with your request, I guess.” The crab poked the back of his bald head with a claw, getting no reaction. “Ah well, at least you won’t be bothering us anymore now. Good riddance.”

“Are you alright, Balthazar?” Jorg’ath asked, forcibly pulling his spear out of the other necromancer’s chest.

“Me? Oh, I’m fine,” the merchant cheerfully replied. “Told you all it would be nothing.”

“That did not feel like nothing,” Khargol said as he joined them with his heavy scowl. “That was foul magic. I’ve never felt more horrible in my life. I nearly felt… cowardly.”

Balthazar did his best to hold back an amused smirk as he saw what looked like a shiver run down the orc’s spine.

“He is right, my friend,” said the lizard envoy, turning to Balthazar again. “This Arch-Necromancer used some very powerful magic aura to sap our morale and steal the courage from our very hearts. I know myself, my watcher, and even our orc friends here. None of us are weak-willed. Yet, you managed to resist it. This is most astonishing.”

“Indeed,” the chieftain said, crossing his arms in his usual fashion. “Perhaps I have misjudged you yet again, crab. You must have a brave heart and a strong mind inside that shell, if you could show such unabashed grit in the face of such a vile foe.”

Balthazar stood still for a moment, staring at the other two, as if unsure whether they were pulling his leg or were actually serious. Then he remembered one of them was Khargol, which answered that rather quickly.

“Heh,” chuckled the crab. “Bravest of crabs. Yep, that’s me. You caught me. No point being humble about it, I guess.”

Who was he to turn down a free opportunity to be shown the recognition he seldom received from others?

“I am honored to count myself as one of your acquaintances, mighty crustacean,” Jorg’ath said, taking a slight bow after unceremoniously cleaning the tip of his spear in the necromancer’s robes. “And hopefully, in time, perhaps even as a friend.”

“Things could have gone much worse tonight, were it not for you and your golem,” Khargol said, bringing his fist to his chest in his traditional form of respectful greeting. “You have earned this orc’s respect, and that is no small feat.”

Balthazar nodded at the two of them. He almost felt humbled by their words. Not quite, but almost.

Above the crab, Bouldy smiled before giving his friend a gentle pat on the shell. “Friend.”

“Hey now, stop it! Watch the polish, will you?” Balthazar said, trying to hold back a smile of his own.

Behind them, Burz and Yatur picked their torches back up off the ground and double checked all the corpses really were dead by giving them a few kicks. The merchant frowned as he realized Jazk was once again gone without a trace.

“Hey, Jorg’ath, is your watcher going to be alright?”

“Ah, yes, worry not, my friend. She will be fine. Her pride may have been harmed, but physically she is uninjured.”

They looked around at the collection of bodies scattered all over the road.

“Well, crap,” Balthazar said, placing his pincers on the sides of his shell. “This is sure to stink up the place by the time the sun comes up.”

The orc chieftain stepped forward. “Do not worry. We will gather these fools and take their remains far away from your business, dump them down some deep hole where they will cause you no trouble or bothersome questions. It is the least we can do after what you did here tonight.”

“Oh, great,” said the crab. “That’s a relief, because I’m still terrible at using a shovel.”