Big Tom had to lean a bit to get through the door of The Old Bluff’s Tavern where the rest of his party was waiting. He was tall, muscular, and handsome, the very image of a paladin, right down to the fine cloak draped over his shoulders and ornate hilt of the short sword on his belt. He wasn’t wearing armor. Contrary to what popular tales might suggest, paladins did not strut around in in shining plate all day; that would be wildly impractical. Instead, Tom wore plain comfortable trousers, a deep blue vest and a white linen shirt. Oh, yes, and the cloak. Naturally, it was a magic cloak. At his rank, wearing an ordinary cloak would be a sign of an adventurer in deep trouble, an image, that he definitely did not want to project.

Except that he, and his party, were caught in the most basic kind of trouble. They were running out of money. Now, how would you say it could be possible, that a party of such acclaim as his would be broke, but they were. No roadside bandits had ambushed them lately, no goblin raiding parties had crossed their path, and the town’s bounty board was completely bare for the last month. To make matters worse, Evelyn insisted on sleeping in a real bed and eating a real dinner every night, so longer treks out into the wilderness were out of the question. They couldn’t just let her go either – she was the only real healer in the party and healer adventurers were a bit hard to come by in this part of the Twelve Kingdoms. Of course, Big Tom could lay hands on someone in a pinch, but he would be way too busy in the middle of a fight to be counted on doing it every time healing was needed. And, if truth is to be told, he was not very good at it.

As expected, Tom scraped his head against the doorframe as he entered the common room of the tavern. The party had claimed its usual corner, and judging by two empty ale jugs on the table they were well into their evening reveling. Even little Reeve was not ‘working’ tonight. The thief sat quietly with his back to the wall, listening to a story spun by Gezriel, the only non-human among them. The half-elf archer-druid could spin a good yarn, though his stories grew more and more fanciful with each re-telling. Evelyn was, predictably, holding a glass of wine, the woman did have expensive tastes, but her ability to remain completely composed in the heat of a battle and heal exactly the one who needed it most were beyond price.

“What tidings you bring, o glorious leader?” Zeppe the Barbarian, the fifth and final member of the party asked. Where Tom was tall and handsome, Zeppe, was squat and broad, his face covered in scars, at least the part that was not obscured by his full beard. Zeppe was frequently taken for a half-dwarf, though he claimed to be a full-blooded human. Tom really did not care one way or another, as long as Zeppe could wield his shield and axe like a true dwarf.

“I bring the best news of them all. A contract.” Tom said grinning.

“No more rat infestations, I hope?” Evelyn asked, her face twisting in distaste.

“Evelyn, that was the only contract on the board, and we needed the money,” Gezriel came to the party leader’s defense.

“I know, I know, but ... rats?”

“No, not rats. A real contract,” Tom replied, still smiling. “A mad necromancer.”

“Eeeek,” Evelyn replied. “That is going to stink”

“‘Fraid so. Never met one that didn’t summon something that reeked. But it is a real adventuring contract. With a real pay. One thousand gold ducats, half upfront.” Tom pulled out a hefty purse bag and put it on the table. It made a very satisfying thud.

Evelyn’s hand immediately sneaked inside and came out holding a handful of coins. Reeve made an appreciative whistle from the other side of the table, though he did not say anything under Evelyn’s glare.

“I will need it for incense and perfumes, since you all are going to stink.”- she stood up and left the tavern in a swirl of her emerald green cloak.

“We are leaving tomorrow morning. Tonight, we can celebrate.” Tom pulled Evelyn’s abandoned glass and tried the contents. “Ah ... she picks good stuff. Bluff!” he yelled to the barkeep, “A bottle of this!”

The grey mist of a teleportation spell dissolved revealing a bleak mountain valley, bare stones battered by bright morning sun. Big Tom unfolded the map he got from their mysterious employer and tried to orient himself.

“Why does it always dump you in the middle of nowhere?” Evelyn grumbled surveying their surroundings. “Why can’t it just take you straight to the target, Big Tom hits him on the head, and we are done?”

“Has to do with the way magical beings distort lay lines,” Gezriel replied. “The field density starts to oscillate and you have to recompute the...”

“Gezriel!” Reeve grumbled.

“Fine, fine,” Gezriel muttered, cutting himself off. “That’s just how it works, okay?”

“Oh ... ok,” Evelyn replied. Tom just shrugged and focused on the little scrap of parchment that was attached to the map he was holding.

“This is telling us to follow the left fork. He should be about a mile up the valley,” he said pointing the way. The valley split three ways at that point. The Mad River was running down the central fork, coming from the snow-coved peaks of the mountain range to the north. A pair of nameless streams that carved themselves a pair of small valleys to the sides joined it creating a small pond.

“Does that say left, going upstream or downstream?” Gezriel asked.

“It says that way,” Tom replied.

They marched up along a wide stone path that followed the stream.

“That valley is green,” Gezriel insisted, focusing on something.

“He does have a point,” Reeves chimed in. “Always trust a druid when he’s talking to a tree. No necromancer would live in a place with hedgerows.”

“Lay it off, Reeves,” Tom grumbled. “I see no hedgerows. I can even see a single bush of any kind.”

“If it is a green valley, it will have hedgerows,” Reeves stated with authority. “Besides, adventures are supposed to banter while waiting for something to happen.”

“I said, lay it off. Hedgerows or no hedgerows, the contract says left fork. So we go that way.”

“We do what the glorious leader says,” Zeppe said, his supposedly friendly arm over Gezriel’s shoulders knocking the wind out of the half-elf just as he was preparing another verbose objection.

Tom just turned and started walking in his chosen direction.

The stream, that was murmured peacefully next to their path, cut a wide valley through the soft stone that formed the foundation of the high plains. Here and there large granite outcroppings jutted from the valley walls, blocking their view ahead. The land around them was nearly lifeless and Tom started to wonder whether their archer-druid actually knew what he was talking about. His experienced eye picked the signs of necromantic creatures’ passage on the ground in front of them, so when a gust of wind brought with it unmistakable stench of rotting flesh, he was not surprised.

“Zombies, right ahead,” he said, raising his hand to motion the party to a stop. His steel breastplate with the sigil of his holly order glittered brightly as he placed his helm onto his head.

“I can smell the joy already,” Evelyn muttered, taking out a piece of fragrant cloth and pulling it across her nose.

Gezriel silently pulled the bow from his back and stringed it with practiced ease. The three fighters in the party advanced down the path with weapons at ready. The zombies were shuffling forward ahead of them, going towards a white picket fence that was backed up by an impenetrable-looking row of tall thorn bushes. As the party appeared in sight, the zombies turned around and immediately made a bee line towards the adventurers. Zombies really were mindless creatures, which attacked the closest living thing within their radius of perception. They were not all that powerful, but they were annoyingly hard to disable. Like all undead, zombies had no sense of pain, did not require air for breathing, were fully immune to illusions or any other kind of mind spell. They were, quite literally, mindless. In order to dispose of a zombie, you had to sever its spine – either chop off the head or break its back. Head was the easiest.

Gezriel drew his bow and fired an arrow chanting a spell. His shot struck true and the lead zombie burst into flames, which did not seem to have otherwise slowed him down.

“Idiot!” Evelyn commented from the back. Her voice was a bit muffled by the cloth. “Now you have a walking torch to fight instead of just a zombie. You flame mummies, skeletons, liches, but not zombies.”

“Why don’t you do something?” Gezriel snapped. “You’re a cleric. Undead are kind of your thing.”

“I was hired as a healer, not a fighter,” she replied coolly. “I do not get paid to deal with undead, I get paid to patch you up after you deal with them.”

Gritting his teeth, Tom raised his sword and rushed forward to meet the oncoming monsters, Zeppe running right behind him. Despite being a more than a head shorter, Zeppe could move remarkably fast when he really needed to. Tom suspected that he had some kind of enchantment on his boots, there was no way a dwarf could run that fast.

In the end, the zombies proved relatively easy to deal with. The only real damage Tom took was the burns from the walking torch of Gezriel’s creation, that managed to sneak up to him and try to throw its burning arms around him. The cape did its work protecting his clothes but the open skin of his face suffered several painful scorch marks. Evelyn, ever efficient, dealt with them with as single healing spell, which she cast while continuing to mumble under his breath: