Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Gold Digger Fan Fiction ❯ Golden Oportunity ❯ Chapter 13 ( Chapter 14 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Notes –


New Web Site: http://shi_hanna.tripod.com/

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Golden Opportunity
Chapter 13
Cory D. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
(c) 2003
**********


The sky crackled with energy as the dimensional barrier that covered Seer’s hamlet continued to disintegrate. Still, it provided enough light in the upper reaches of the Great Tree for people to see. The massive bulk of the undead Dragon stood in the shadows, its eyes glowing, as it watched the light show. The boom and crash of thunder filled the air ever few seconds.

Stepping in front of the large Dracolich, G'nolga knelt down as Rook walked out of the shadows and stood in front of her. His black armor made him hard to see as the polished portions reflected the light from hundreds of lightning bolts filling the sky.

Spotting them while fighting the werelion was easy enough with light show going on above them, though she was pretty sure Onoli hadn’t seen them coming. "Master, it is good to see you."

Rook’s mask made it impossible for his face to be seen, but G’nolga could tell that he was studying her. "Is the Upper Palace taken yet?"

"No sir, we encountered unexpected resistance when we took the Base Palace an hour ago. A squad of specially trained dwarves arrived. They delayed the attack with weapons that I've never seen before."

“Did you deal with them?”

“They were slowed down by the stairs. It should take them some time to make their way up here, and by that time they will be exhausted and weak. I’ll take care of them myself.”

Rook nodded. “Excellent, then everything is on schedule. How goes the rest of the plan? Have the items been place yet?”

“Yes Master.” G’nolga said. “The Undead Knights have been placing them at the sights of various attacks since we entered the city. No one has spotted them or taken any either. They finished just before we took the Base Palace.”



"Excellent, and what about the rest of the Edge Guard? Have they been taken care of as well?"

"Reports say that most of them are still alive, but spread out across the city trying to take care of all the attacks at once. I've had random groups of undead attacking them every few minutes to keep them occupied as well. With Onoli out of the picture they shouldn’t be a problem."

"Even better.”

"As you ordered, we have been quickly converting the citizens as we moved across the city. Survivors have been kept occupied as well just to make sure they couldn’t form any kind of defense against us. The Skeleton army has been pressing every defender in the city for hours now and every time one of them dies they instantly convert and join our side as a zombie. We have tripled our forces in just a few hours, Master."

Rook chuckled. "The stars are in alignment, but time is short, so we need to be inside the Upper Palace within the next six hours. Can it be done?"

"Easily Master, perhaps within the hour."

"What did you have in mind?" Rook asked as he watched the darkness around him.

"Now that we're up here we can modify the teleport spell for the stairs to work again, bringing up as many troops as we might need. The sheer size of this tree makes holding that many troops child’s play. I was also thinking of having the Dracolich bombard the outer portions of the Palace’s magical security to make it collapse them around the Council's ears. They depend on it to do the job for them."

"You think you can set this set up within the hour?"

"Yes Master, easily."

"Then get going, I'll have the dracolich attack when he needs to... the others are waiting for the barrier to fall so they can join the fight." Rook stopped as the looked back towards the stairs. "But first, take care of her. She’s ruined to many of my plans."

G'nolga turned her head and wasn't at all surprised to find Julia Brigand Diggers standing at the top of the steps. Her battle leathers were showing quite a bit of damage and testified to the amount of trouble she'd had coming up the stairs.

"She seems to have made it past the several squads of zombies placed on the stairs earlier, she has to be tired from all the fighting."

"Kill her, it will make the plan easier to pull off."

"Oh, gladly." G'nolga snarled as she stood up and turned to face her greatest rival and for a second she seemed to glow with a deep read glow that covered her entire body. Even while brainwashed into obeying Rook, G’nolga wouldn’t pass up a chance to fight her greatest rival.

As the dwarf turned and started to walk towards Julia, Rook turned and walked over to a small fence to look down on the city below them. Raising his gauntlet he quickly cast a spell he’d prepared earlier. Far below them, the items G’nolga mentioned earlier started to glow.

**********

"Earth Flail!" Thropan screamed as he slammed the butt of his bladed nunchaku into the ground with the blunt end. A sphere of energy formed around the weapon, its energies reflected in Thropan's eyes as the sphere expanded out and sent a wave of earth flowing down the street to envelop and bury a small squad of skeletons. He was dressed in his normal leathers, but they were tarnished and covered in dust from the constant fighting he'd had to survive lately.

Thropan's cloak was long gone, shredded during the initial fight with the platoon of skeletons and those Undead Knights that had swarmed over him and Tirga just a few hours before. He was covered in small scratches and gasping for air even as he used the magic of his weapons to fight for his life. At his back Tirga was dressed in tattered clothing, everything below his knees was shredded as if a cat had gotten a hold of his legs.

They were both exhausted after fighting non-stop for hours upon end and it didn't look like there would be a time to rest any time soon. Neither one of them liked fighting a hoard of undead on their own, but they couldn’t find any of the others. Gar was missing, Shelia was with that Ranma fellow, and Onoli wasn’t answering their summons.

Tirga held his morning star at the ready as he watched their backs. His fur was singed and matted from the long fight, and he was barely able to stay on his feet. He knew is duty and that if he fell now Thropan would be left to fend for himself and there was no way he was going to do that. "Pan, we have to find a place to rest for thirty minutes at least."

"There isn't any place we can do that." Thropan pointed out as his eyes scanned over the new graves he'd just created for the skeletons, their shattered bones were buried. He just hoped they would stay there, the things weren't acting like they were supposed to and it bothered the hell out of him. He took a second to holster his weapon before turning back to Tirga.

"We may not have any choice. We both have better than average endurance, but we've been fighting nonstop for close to four hours now. These just aren't backing down, we need to recoup our energies." Tirga reminded him. “We need to plan our fights before things get any worse.”

"This area has already been evacuated by the paladins. You notice that? I’ll bet we an ‘borrow’ a room for a while."

Tirga nodded. "Yeah."








"And what will the evacuated residents say?" Thropan snapped.

"Who gives a shit?! We have to rest and let our regeneration have a few minutes to get us back up to speed or we won’t even make it through the night. Anyway, you barely pulled off that last attack and look at you. I could push you over with a finger." Tirga snapped.

He raised a finger as if to demonstrate that very fact just as they both heard something. They both spun to look down a nearby street as they heard the sound of splintering wood and a large explosion. Then they saw a column of dust raising into the air about half a block away from where they were standing. It appeared to rise into the sky nearly fifty feet above a house.

"What was that?!" Thropan yelled as he pulled out his own weapon.

"No rest yet, let's go and check it out before we do anything else happens." Tirga complained as they jogged down the street, each one keeping an eye out for an ambush or anything else that might jump out at them.

A few streets away they found what they were looking for and had to stop and stare at the three story house that stood before them. It looked like it has seen better days and just recently started to show it's true age. What caught their attention right off the bat was the almost completely caved in roof on the right hand side of the house. They could still see the dust hovering about the hosue.

Thropan didn't waste time with words as he ran for the front door of the old house. He punched the door without slowing down. Like all werecats he was faster and stronger than any human, even while exhausted, so when the door blown off it's hinges he didn't even notice where it went as he forced his way through with Tirga just a few feet behind.

They didn’t make it to far though, just as they turned the corner, they skidded to a halt right before they would have fallen into the rather large hole that took up over half the building. They both took a second to gape at the destruction and gazed down into the smoky darkness below.



There was to much dust in the air to really see anything with the sun down it was almost pitch black even to their enhanced eyesight. Stepping away from the edge of the hole, Tirga gook a second to try and assess the situation. He could tell that something large had fallen through the roof and caused all this damage.

"Can you see anything at all?" Tirga asked.

"No, just the very top of a pile of debris filling what I'm assuming is a basement." Thropan said.

"I can't even see that much, but I sure smell something and it's got me worried."

Giving his friend a glance, Thropan sniffed that air and focused on that more than his eyes. "Impossible!"

"Our noses don't lie." Tirga muttered. "We have to figure out how he got down there."

"But he should be on patrol right now!"

"Nope, he's down there instead. The only way we can get some answers is to go down and ask him ourselves."

With practiced ease they sheathed their weapons and looked around for a way into the basement. "There has to be a door and a set of stairs leading down there." Thropan said.

"Let's just jump." Tirga said and prepared to do just that.

Thropan grabbed a handful of Tirga's thin shirt and pulled him away from the edge. "We can't see where we would land and there may be something down there that might impale us. Lets use the stairs and be sensible about this."

"Oh yeah." Tirga muttered as he let Thropan pull him along by his hair.

"You're not usually this dense."

"Yeah whatever, you can let go of me now." He reminded his friend.

"Just don't run off. Those stairs have to be nearby and there are only so many doors." Thropan explained as he let go.

Grumbling to himself, Tirga started checking doors on one side of the room while Thropan took the other side. It took a few minutes, but they finally managed to find the door to the basement nearly hidden beneath the stairs leading to the second floor.

Tirga, still a little impatient yanked the door open and stuck his head inside to see what was down below. Only to have a wave of dust blow out the door when he pulled it open to fast. He glared at a smirking Thropan and coughed a little before stepping inside and looking down the stairs. "It's still dark down there, we may need a torch."

"To bad Sheila isn't here."

Tirga laughed for a few seconds. "Yeah, that hair of hers could burn for hours and her regeneration would replace it as fast as it burned."

"Yep, but since she's not...let's grab that board laying on the ground at the bottom of the stairs."

"Naw, I have a better idea." Tirga said as he pulled out his mace and twirled it a few times, then held it out in front of him as the spiked ball burst into flame. "I forgot it could do this I use it so rarely."

"That works too. Now let's see if our noses are right or we’re smelling something that isn't here."

"Impossible, I'm a great tracker and my nose is never wrong." Tirga said with pride.

"Yeah, just don't let that over sized ego of yours get in the way. It may not fit in the basement."


"Hey!" Tirga yelled indignantly.

Chuckling, Thropan followed the weretiger down the stairs and looked around as the light from the flaming morning star lit up the area. Whatever had fallen through the roof seemed to have pulled most of the debris along with it at the same time. Most of the roof was down in the basement with them and it was hard to make things out with all the dust hovering in the air. "It's hard as hell to breath down here."

"I noticed. Let's be quick, I can smell him over this way." Tirga pointed to a secondary pile of roof tiles and bits of the floor.

"You don't think he's underneath all that do you?"

Tirga nodded. "Yeah, it looks like we'll have to dig for a little while."

"This air is horrid, we need to be quick or we might end up passed out on the lawn out front as our regeneration takes care of dust filled lungs."

The pile was a few feet high and from the looks of it the thing would be easy enough to knock over with their strength. Within a couple of minutes of carefully picking up and tossing various pieces of wood and tile they uncovered a boot. "It is him!"

"How in the world did he get down here?" Tirga asked as they cleared the last of the wood off of their friend and got a good look at Onoli for the first time on several hours.

"I don't know, but he's a mess and most of this damage isn’t' from the fall. That is staff damage if I've ever seen it."

"Looks like those bruises that Gar and his girlfriend had on them after that fight with G'nolga the Dwarven weapon's master back during the Tournament of Arms." Tirga said as he examined their leader. "Someone beat the living crap out of him."

"You see his swords anywhere?" Thropan asked. "When he wakes up he's going to want them."

“It’ll have to wait for now, let’s get him outside where he can recover a lot quicker. Let’s use that long board there as a stretcher.”

“You’re kidding right?”

“What do you mean?” Tirga asked in surprise. “You don’t want to take him outside?”

“Yeah, but that board isn’t strong enough to hold Onoli’s eight hundred pound body. It’ll snap like a twig when we’re half way up the stairs.”

Tirga nodded. “Hadn’t thought about that.”

“We’ll just have to do it the werepanther way.” Thropan said as he grabbed Onoli’s bloodied body and pulled it up on his shoulders. “Okay, let’s go up through the hole there.”

Nodding as he looked up at the hole above, they crouched and jumped. Tirga led the way and landed on the edge with ease and stepped back as Thropan landed a couple feet from the edge and had to take a second to adjust his balance. Then they headed outside and glanced around and sighed in relief when they didn’t spot any undead heading towards them.

Onoli’s breathing was a bit ragged, but even enough that they could tell that his body was quickly repairing the damage it had sustained over the last few minutes. They walked over to the side of the house where the shadows were beginning to lengthen and sat the large werelion down on the ground.

“You wanted a place to rest Tirga, this is as good a time to do it as any other, but we need to have a look out. So you rest for twenty minutes, then I’ll rest for twenty minutes okay?”

Tirga nodded. “That works and hopefully Onoli will be awake by then and we can find out what in the hell happened to him.”

“Yeah, though he’s going to be pissed about losing those swords. They meant a lot to him.”

“Yeah right!” Tirga snorted as he sat down next to Onoli. “The big guy here never loses his temper. You know how much he takes after ol’Gaja.”

Thropan nodded, but didn’t say anything.

**********

Ranma stood on the edge of the building and looked up at the great tree towering above them like some kind of god. A full moon hung in the sky above them sending an eyrie looking glow over the entire city. He could almost feel a presence from the Tree as he watched it. Even from this distance he could see the wind moving its leaves around in the breeze.

He could also see something moving around up there, but the distance was just to much for him to see any details. There was a fight going on, he could tell that at least. A sword fight if he was reading the sparks he occasionally saw. Sheila was also watching the fight, but she was a stumped as he was about it.

“There shouldn’t be anyone up there to fight…” She muttered. “Just the Council members.”

“Probably just some undead that got up there.”

“No, they can handle just about anything like that. They are some of the most powerful wizards in the land.”

“No matter how hard I try to focus on the people fighting I can’t make out any details. Just those sparks as their weapons connect.” Ranma said, and then he trailed off as something seemed huge started to move towards the fighters.

“What’s that?”

“Sheila gasped. “A Dracolich…”

Ranma frowned. We have got to get up there.”

“We can’t fight a Dracolich!”

“People are in danger and we have the power to help them.” Ranma told her. “It’s moving towards the people fighting.”

“They are dead then.”



“I can barely make the thing out in this bad lighting. A crap…” Ranma muttered as the area around the fighters lit up and a bolt of lightning seemed to fly off the tree and fall to the ground some ways away.

“What do you suppose that was?”

Sheila shrugged. “I’m not sure, some kind of lightning spell I suppose.”

“Any guesses? It might be important.”

“I’m not sure, Thropan is the best magic user among us. He built all our weapons after all. He’d know for sure.”

Nodding, Ranma had to resist the urge to just run for the base palace and head up the stairs. He could get past the undead easily enough, but it would be a lot harder since Sheila had to come with him. “We need to get up there.”

“Well duh.” B muttered.

Ranma glared the Peebo. “You be quiet, you haven’t been much help since we got here.”

“I’m supposed to protect you.” B snapped.

Ranma snorted. “Fat lot of good that’s doing you.”

“Exactly Mr.-I-can-punch-through-solid-stone-with-my-bare-hands.” Be snapped. “You don’t need much protecting. I just need to make sure that giant ego of yours doesn’t get out of control.”

He glanced down. “Yeah right.”

“Now calm down you two.” Sheila said as she rolled her eyes. “Let’s make some plans here so we can get something done.”

Snorting, in imitation of Ranma, B rolled over to Sheila and glared at Ranma from behind her ankle. Ranma almost expected it to stick a tongue out at him, if it had one that is. Sheila ignored him as she turned looked over at Ranma.“We still can’t access the base palace Ranma. It’s the only way to get up there.”

“There are always other ways.”

“Like how?”

“Well we could climb up the side of the tree…”

Sheila started to laugh. “Yeah right! It’s been done before and no one has ever made it. The tree protects itself from that kind of thing.”

“How about just climbing up to one of the stairs and bypassing the base palace all together?”

“The area behind the palace and everything around the tree has been made into a kind of park area. It’s a protective ring of magic that prevents that very thing. The further into the park you go the more you want to leave. It’s a kind of spell barrier.”

Ranma frowned. “How about flying then?”

“Flying?” Shelia asked. “But we don’t have wings.”

“True, but I think I know a spell that will allow me to fly up there. I’ve just never used it before. Let’s give it a shot.” Ranma said as he prepared to jump off the roof.

“You can’t be serious.” Sheila snapped. “The idea has possibilities, but I’d like to find Onoli and the others before we try anything.”

“Then go and look for them.” Ranma said. “It could take us days to find three people in this city. I’m pretty sure G’nolga is up there already and I want to put a stop to this if I can.”

“The Edge Guard can handle it.”

B started laughing. “They are doing such a ‘good’ job so far.”

Now Sheila glare at the little thing. “Why you little…”

“Yeah, but…” Ranma muttered as he suddenly picked B up and started to toss him into the air and catch him.


“Whaaaa…are you doing?!”

“We have to be careful about this Ranma, just rushing in will only get us killed.”

“Cut it oooouuuttt!” B yelled.

Ranma wasn’t in the mood to listen to the little loudmouth at the moment. He needed to get to the base of the Tree without being caught by the Undead Army. The dwarves had pulled it off, but he didn’t have the time to think up a way to do the same thing with just Sheila for help.

“Any more ideas?” She asked.

“No.”

“There are too many undead around here to just fight our way through.”

Ranma snorted as he snatched B out of the air and tossed him into sub his subspace pocket with his backpack. “Looks easy enough.”

“You bastard!” B yelled just before everything went black.

Sheila slapped the back of his head. “You may be able to pull off the impossible and ignore odds, but I can’t. Now let’s go and find Onoli.”

Sighing, Ranma nodded. “That’s the only option left, I guess, though I still think that flying will work.”

Sheila shrugged. “Guess we are just going to have to…”

“If we are going to go and find the rest of the Edge Guard let’s go where they would most likely be instead of wandering around looking for them.” Ranma explained.

“I say we check that that thing that fell a little while ago. The lightning strike, though it is quite a ways away.”

“MmmmmPh mmmm mmmnnmm!” B yelled from inside Ranma’s subspace pocket, but Ranma ignored him.

“Alright, then if that doesn’t turn up anything we head for the tree and try your plan. Okay?”

Ranma nodded. “Fine, let’s go.

He picked up Sheila and started roof hopping towards the impact point. He had to be careful running over thatched roofs, but knew how to make himself light enough not to cause any damage. A couple of minutes later Ranma jumped off the roof, landed in the middle of a dirt street below, and sat Sheila down.

She had a harried look on her face, but didn’t say anything as they looked around. “Well I don’t see anything here.”

“I think we are still a couple of streets off.”

“Let’s look around a little. It’s way to quiet. We can’t even hear the fighting going on a few streets over.”

Sheila looked impressed. “You’re right, I hadn’t even noticed.”

“Someone is watching us.” Ranma said quietly. “Be on guard.”

Nodding, Sheila glanced around but still couldn’t see anyone moving about. She pulled Ice Fang out as she started to walk down the center of the street with Ranma following behind her. Her tail lashed back and forth a few times to prove how nervous she was.

“He’s close.”

“He?”

“Just a hunch.” Ranma explained.

“Right.”

“Check out the roof of that building over there.”

Shelia turned and even though it was dark she could just make out the large hole in the roof of a building. “Wow.”


“What do you think did it?”

“I’m not sure, but I’d guess that something fell through it.” Ranma said. “It’s a little hard to make out, but I don’t see anything but the hole itself.”

“There would be stuff on the ground it something came from inside.”

Ranma nodded. “Exactly.”

“Any idea what?”

“No.”

“Kitty Kat.” Said a voice several yards away.

They turned and spotted Tirga trotting over to them with a big grin on his face. Sheila ran forward and gave him a quick hug. “Where have you been?”


“Chasing monsters all over the city for most of the day.”

“Us too, the swamp is full of undead animals.”

“Those things are everywhere aren’t they.” Tirga stated with an annoyed growl.

She punched him in the arm. “Where is everybody?”


Tirga sighed. “Well the Compound was compromised and burnt to the ground earlier along with several other buildings around the city. I found Thropan a little while later and we hooked up, I’m not to sure where Garfield is though, we could really use his leadership right now.”

“He’s at Healer Nali’s clinic, seriously injured.” Ranma said.

Tirga glared at him for a second. “Onoli may be joining him then.”

Sheila frowned. “Why?”

“He just took a belly flop off a branch of the Tree.” Tirga said as he pointed upward. “Landed in that house over there. Me and Thropan pulled him out, but he’s going to be out of it for several days while he heals.”

“That was Onoli?!” Sheila screamed.

“Yeah.”

“We’re screwed!” Sheila panicked. “Who did this to him?”

“The only thing he said was…G’nolga. We haven’t found his swords either, but he won’t be able to use them even if we do find them. His hands are a mess. That lightning bolt that hit him ripped him apart more than the fall did.”

Ranma looked up at the gigantic tree again. “When I first came into Seer’s Hamlet I couldn’t see the tree unless I was near the lower palace, now I can see it from anywhere in the hamlet.”

“You’re a magic user.” Sheila said. “The tree is so big that it tends to dominate things, so the Council decided to hide it from the sight of the normal people. You have to be a strong mage of some kind to see it without help. After a while you tend to ignore it even when you can see it towering over the city.”

“Well the reason I was asking is that Onoli fell from a limb of the tree, what was up there that threw him off? Does anyone know?”

Tirga blinked. “I’ve been thinking about that. It’s supposed to be impossible to get up there unless one of the Council brings you there or you walk up the stairs that circle around the tree.”

“Those dwarves were after G’nolga earlier, so they may have chased her all the way up the stairs too.”

“Yeah, do you think she may have been the one to toss him off the limb?”

Growling, Tirga nodded and made a fist. “Onoli did mention her by name. If it was her I’m going to make sure she pays for it.”

“She will pay for everything she’s done today.” Ranma said.

“Tirga, can we see Onoli?”

“Sure, Thropan is with him right now. I spotted you a little while ago and we weren’t sure just who you were so we got Onoli hidden out of sight.” Tirga explained.

They walked over to a nearby house and saw that Thropan was kneeling in the shadows of a house. On the ground next to him Onoli was laid out with a ratty looking blanket covering his body. Sheila ran over and knelt down next to him. She could instantly smell the blood that permeated his clothing. The werelion didn’t even seem to know she was there.

“How bad is he?”

“Bad, I’m not sure what’s keeping him alive to be perfectly truthful.” Thropan said quietly.

“We need him!”

“We’ve been trained to take charge of things in any kind of situation Sheila. Including the loss of our leader.” Thropan said.

“I don’t like it, but he is the one that has the Jasper.”

“That’s probably the only reason he’s still alive.” Tirga said.

“What?”

“Huh?”

“Gaja used to tell us that The Jasper is a powerful magic item that has amazing powers. I bet it’s what’s keeping alive as his body regenerates. I’d bet on it at least.”

“What about that other guy that’s been helping?” Ranma asked. “Perhaps he can help out with Onoli.”

“What guy?” Thropan asked as he checked Onoli over again.

“Asha-something” Ranma explained. “He helped Sheila out the other day too and he’s been running all over the city for the last few hours helping out as much as the rest of us.”

“You think he can do anything?”

“I’m not sure, but I know he uses magic.”

“Even I can cast a couple of spells.” Tirga snorted.

“As can I. What did you have in mind?” Thropan asks.

Ranma glanced up at the tree again. “Why can’t we fly up there and put an end to this once and for all? With the Undead gone we can get help for evderyone.”

“Fly?”

“Using magic or something. I had the idea a little while and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.”

“Flying with magic is quite hard.” Thropan said. “It’s easy enough to hover in the air and fire off spells, but to actually fly for long distances? There are very few mages that can do that.”


“It’s not that rare.” Tirga muttered.

“I’m not saying it’s impossible, but most magic users don’t fly around without the aid of something like a flying carpet, a large beast, or something else. To just fly by magic is quite hard.”

“Well yeah, that’s true.” Tirga muttered.

“It seems pretty straight forward to me.” Ranma said. “Just a simple lightness spell and a directed wind gust and off you go.”

Tirga and Thropan broke up laughing.

“It’s not that simple!” Tirga snapped.

Thropan nodded. “You’re just looking at the basics of the spell. You need to think of how the spell will work if you screw up. Lots of things really. Its just not that simple.”

Sheila rolled here eyes. “Can we get Onoli out of here now? We need to get him to Nali’s clinic and then find a way to get up to the High Palace.”

“I wasn’t sure about moving him just yet.” Thropan explained. “He could have injuries we know nothing about.”

“I know a little about first aid like this.” Ranma said. “He should be fine if we build him a litter and carry him there while he’s laying down like that. I think that once we get him to Nali she can take care of it from there easily.”

“What do we make it out of then?”


“Whatever’s handy.” Ranma said with a shrug. “There should be enough junk floating around here that we can use.

**********

The High Palace shuddered as the Dracolich slammed its claws into it over and over as Rook directed it to hit in specific spots to form a pattern. The Dracolich's entire body glowed from the energy discharge given off by the shield with very solid hit. The barrier surrounding the large building refused to give into the onslaught of power thrown at it, but that didn't slow the undead dragon one little bit.

It kept up the onslaught using every bit of strength it could muster for the job. Every now and then, if one looked close, they could see a face peak out a window to watch the display of power. From several yards away, Rook watched his minion and knew that it would only be a matter of time before the shield went down.

The fools didn’t seem to have any other defenses in place except the shield, which was odd, but it didn’t really matter one way or another. He planned long and hard to account for every little obstacle that might pop up. If they weren't prepared for a Dracolich to pound on the shield every now and then, who was he to blame them?

Of course the fools were supposed to have that gold dragon here to help them out and even gave him a lair full of gold to lord over. The poor thing hadn't been seen since it was swatted out of the sky just a few hours ago when he was bringing in the rest of his undead troops and dropping them off near the outskirts of the magical barrier.

With Goldwave out of way over a third of the Palace’s defenses were taken away and that was all he needed to make his plan work. Everything else would fall the instant the shield went down and the Dracolich got a little closer to the building. Of course certain defense would still work, but he wasn't worried since his attack was unexpected.

Certain defenses had to be set up ahead of time with power spells cast with more than one of the Council members. Rook knew that those spells hadn't been cast though. A spell he'd placed more than a year before when the Tournament of Arms took place still functioned perfectly. He tweaked it with a flick of his finger and nodded as it told him the same thing as usual. No high level magic was being cast.

He glanced over at the front door of the Palace and noticed the body of the undead that G’nolga sent up earlier. There wasn’t much left of it after the defenses finished blowing it into small pieces, but it was still intact enough to tell what it used to be. He knew of the spell and figured it was well known enough that any of the Council wizards would have it handy.

Of course there was also a couple of other bodies slumped against the walls of the Palace. He was a bit surprised they weren't up and walking around by now. It only took a second for him to take a closer look to tell that they weren't dead at all. Just unconscious, perhaps comatose or something. They would have to be taken care of as soon as possible.

That reminded him of G'nolga and he glared at her from a distance. The Dwarf herself was proving to be rather undependable as well. Even though she obeyed his every order there was a resistance beginning to form unconsciously. He almost wished that Mrs. Diggers would do what she usually did and kick the living crap out of the dwarf once and for all.

A flash of light told him that the shield was beginning to weaken and that it would only be a few more minutes. It was exactly what he was waiting for. “Time to set in motion the final step of my plan.” He muttered to himself as he reached below his pitch black breast plate. He pulled out a palm sized crystal made of obsidian.

It was almost impossible to tell the difference between his hand and the crystal as he stared at it. Then he started chant quietly, slowly increasing the flow and depth of the rhythm until the crystal started to glow with a purple light lighting up the air around for several feet in all directions. Then holding his hand out he dropped it on the wood below him.

“A sacrifice is called, a sacrifice is given, I call up on the Zareth the Black’s soul to do as I Bid!” Rook yelled just as the crystal hit the wood and spread out across it like a stain, turning the wood as dark as pitch as it washed across the wood like water.

At first nothing seemed to really happen, but then the dark stain slowly started to spread across the surface of the tree. Branches around the inky liquid started to droop the instant it even got close to them. A pendent hanging around Rook's neck also started to glow with purple light, slowly growing in intensity.

A burst of light caught his attention and he turned to see dozens of spells being thrown at the Dracolich from the roof of the Palace and blowing several large holes in the monster, but not much else. Rook noted that they passed through the shield quite easily.

“They must be getting desperate.”

"Sir."

Rook turned as a smaller Dracolich lumbered out of the darkness around them and leaned in close. "What is it?"

"The rest of the wing is having problems getting through the barrier holding Seer's Hamlet."

"I told you all that it wouldn’t be easy to get through it."

The Dracolich sneered at him. "Yes sir, but even then it takes three of us just to open a hole large enough to get one of us through."

"The barrier will be down by midnight, then you can sweep in over the Hamlet and eat as many of the survivors as you want."

Leaning down over the Rook, the Dracolich glared with it's glowing red eyes and brought it's tail around. Rook noted that a good portion of it's tail didn't exist anymore.

"Just be patient."

"We have been, now it's time for you to give us what you promised." It hissed.

"The Deal was made weeks ago Dracolich, live with it." Rook snapped. "Or else."

Hissing out little flecks of dead skin the thing twisted it's head around to each side of Rook, as if examining him. "You promised us power and treasure flesh bag…"

Now Rook was starting to get mad. "I will give you all the gold in the Palace Draolich, until that shield goes down we need to just be patient."

It glared at him for a few seconds before spreading it's wings and launching itself into the sky. Rook had to resist blowing out of the sky, but disciplining the useless things wasn't his job. Turning around he took another glance at the growing stain slowly spreading across the tree. Soon his plan would reach a climax.

Laughing to himself he turned to watch Julia as she continued to kick the crap out of G'nolga. Life was good.

**********

Nali was not in a good mood as the group of heroes barged into the clinic, hopped over various people spread out on the floor, and dropped the werelion off right next to Gar. There really wasn’t any room to take in any more patients, but she didn’t say anything. No matter how busy she was the Edge Guard was always welcome to come to her for help.

She heard a giggle as they left and sighed. She would even see them when Tirga hit on one of the female nurses. Some days she just didn’t want to get out of bed and deal with all the weirdoes.

“Do you think he will survive?” Sheila asked the tired looking healer as they headed for the door. They had to weave through another path of bodies covering the floor and hallways just to get anywhere in the building. Several apprentices were doing what they could while Nali talked to the newest arrivals. Nali scowled as Tirga talked to another girl.

Then she frowned and shrugged. “I don’t know. By all rights he should be dead after falling from that high up, but he is a werelion so he may pull through. He’s in shock at the moment so I can just monitor him as best I can in this chaos.”

Tirga eventually made his way out of the building, leaving several girls blushing in his wake, and making sure he remembered them the next time they met. He watched as several haggard looking paladins made their way up the street. Their once shining red armor now sported holes, burns, and combat damage from fighting all day without a break. Even the magic that helped to maintain the armor could only do so much.

Even injured, the paladins still looked mean and dangerous enough to make most people stay away from them unless they had to get close to one of them. Tirga glared after they passed and shook his head.

“I’ve never liked them.”

“None of us do Tirga, but we have to put up with them. The Edge Guard can’t patrol every street, path, and track inside and outside the city constantly. There are only a few of us. The paladin’s take up the general slack and allow us to focus on the special jobs.” Thropan said.

Ranma was leaning against the wall of the clinic ignoring the conversation, when he suddenly glanced around. “What’s that?”

“What’s was what?” Thropan asked.

“I just felt something, like a spike of emotion or something like that.” Ranma said. “It’s hard to explain. I just felt it.”

“Didn’t feel a thing.” Tirga said.

“Same here.” Thropan agreed. “Are you sure you felt it?”

Ranma nodded, though not as confidently as before. “I’m sure of it…there it is again.”

The two edge guard looked around. “Still don’t sense anything.” Tirga said.

“It’s like a spike of pain this time, but I feel it in my head instead of in my body.” Ranma explained and rubbed his forehead.

Before they could continue Nali and Sheila stepped outside and the guys looked over at them. Sheila moved over to Ranma and sighed. “Onoli is going to be out of it for a while. Nali here says he may survive.”

The guy’s nodded.

“If that’s all, I have too many patients to deal with right now.” Nali said as she turned around and went back inside.

Ranma opened his mouth to say something when something powerful hit him. Groaning, he staggered around and grabbed his head as a wave of pain seemed to pass through his body. The others quickly grabbed him before he fell to the ground.

“Ranma!” Sheila yelled. “What’s happening?!”

“Don’t…know.” He muttered as lights flashed before his eyes.

“Why is this familiar?” Tirga asked Sheila and Thropan. “We’ve seen something like this before, but I’m not sure where.”


Sheila gave him a look. “You’ve seen something like this before?”

“Yeah, but it was a long time ago and I can’t remember what it means.”

“What can we do?” Thropan asked.

“Nali is to busy and she all but dismissed us a few seconds ago.”

The others nodded.

“So I think we’re on our own with this one.”

“You think activating his transformation will help?”

Tirga wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t going to pass up a chance to see the good looking red headed girl again, even if it was Ranma. Lugging Ranma into the air, Tirga walked over to a nearby barrel attached to the side of a building and tossed Ranma in.

Seconds later a female Ranma surfaced and spit out some water as she glared at Tirga. “I hate this form.”

“But you’re so cute.”

Sighing loudly, Ranma climbed out of the barrel and hopped to the ground. Her headache was gone. “Well at least the pain is gone.”

“Were you able to figure out anymore?”

“Only that something is dying and it’s nearby, big, and in great danger.” Ranma explained. She turned a dangerous glare on Tirga and Sheila had to grab her should her to distracter her.

“Could there be a telepath in danger nearby?”

Tirga blinked a few times at Sheila’s question. “Of course! Telepathy! Gaga used to get headaches just like that whenever a large scale battle was going on and he got to close to things.”

“So?” Ranma snapped.

“The headache was so bad at times he used to brew up a potion just to dull the pain. He could barely function when it happened.”

Thropan nodded. “That’s right, I’d forgotten all about those times. After Onoli came along he Gaja rarely went into combat anymore so the headaches faded after a few months.”

“Are you saying Ranma is telepathic?” Sheila wondered out loud.

“He might be.” Tirga said.

Ranma snorted. “I’ve never been tele-whatsis in my life. I’m a fighter and will always be one.”

“You shouldn’t rule it out so quickly Ranma. I think…”

He cut her off. “No, it’s ridiculous to even think that I might be. We are in the middle of a full scale battle here and fighting over this is a waste of time.”

Refusing to look at her, Ranma turned and started walking up the street. Sheila glanced at the other two. “Ranma, where are you going?”

“To find a way to the Tree.”

“We’ve discussed this.”

“I’ll go alone if I have to.” He yelled back.

“We might as well see what he has in mind Sheila.” Thropan said. “I think something is going on here that we don’t understand.”

“Like what?”

“I’m not sure, but my gut feeling is to go along with what he has in mind.”

“But the danger…”

Thropan shrugged. “Ranma seems determined to do this for some reason. We help him do what he has to do, then we worry about what happens next, later, when everything is finished.”

“But…” Sheila muttered.

“I agree.” Tirga said. “I think I understand what Thropan is talking about.”

“Explain it to me?”

“No, if I’m wrong I’ll sound like a fool.” Thropan nodded off to the side.

“You haven’t encountered these things before, but you can feel the building tension in the air can’t you? That’s what I’m talking about, that feeling, and Ranma seems to be connected to it somehow.”

“That’s stupid!”

“Even so…it’s not like we have much of a choice. We can either let him go alone or catch up with him and make sure he survives.”

“But…” Sheila muttered.

“Let’s go, he’s nearly to the end of the street. Can anyone tell where he’s headed?” Tirga asked as they jogged after him.

“Isn’t the compound in this direction?” Sheila asked.

“What’s left of it.” Thropan muttered.

“I don’t think he would head there. He knows the Compound has been destroyed.

“Ranma wait up!” Sheila yelled.

Ranma stopped and glanced behind him as the three members of the Edge Guard quickly caught up with him. “What?”

“We’re going with you.” Sheila told him.

“Why? You don’t need to and the city needs to be defended. I can do this alone.”

“Not without us you can’t.” Thropan said.

Tirga nodded. “You said you wanted to go up the stairs? To the High Palace?”

Ranma nodded. “Yeah, I have to get up there.”

“Well I know a few spells I can teach you, so does Thropan, and we can get you the supplies you need for that fight.”

“Besides, it’s quite obvious the big battle will be taking place up there. Onoli started that fight, we need to finish it before things go to far.”

“What did you have in mind? The sooner I get up there the better.” Ranma explained.

“Supplies.” Thropan said.

“Where are we going to get those?”

“We have several caches of supplies spread throughout the city for when we needed them.” Sheila explained.

“Why haven’t we gotten them before this?”

“Well…” Sheila started. “It takes at least two member so the Edge Guard to open the caches. It’s a security precaution really.”

Shrugging, Ranma glanced at all of them. “Let’s go.”

About half an hour later they arrived at a door nearly hidden at the back of a dark alley. The first thing Ranma noticed about it was that it didn’t have a handle and no visible way to open it. Tirga and Thropan move in front of Ranma and touch the door and for several seconds nothing happens. Just as Ranma is wondering if they even know what they are doing the door clicks and swings inward.

“There we go.” Thropan said.

“Sorry it’s so slow, but the magic has been around for several hundred years.” Tirga explained.

Sheila nodded when Ranma glanced at her.

“Well let’s get inside and grab what we need.” Tirga told them and headed inside with Thropan close behind.

“It’s safe enough.” Sheila said as she moved after the.

“MmmMMmmmMM.” B yelled from inside Ranma’s sub space pocket.

“You ever going to let him out of there?”

Ranma shrugged. “He’s been annoying me.”

“Well yeah, but that’s just B and he wasn’t really hurting anyone.”

“Humph.” Ranma muttered as they entered the room. “He went from cute and kind of fun to this annoyance. He’s having a little ‘time out’ for now. I’ll let him out when I need him for something.”

“He’s going to be mad.”

Ranma shrugged as he glanced around a room that was little more than a closet, with boxes stacked against the wall, a few barrels, a chest, and a large cabinet of some kind set against the back of the room. Tirga and Thropan were pulling a large box off the top of a pile and lugging it to the floor. Even for werecats with their enhanced strength it appeared to be quite heavy.

“Oh not that thing.” Sheila muttered as they sat it on the floor.

“Why not?” Tirga asks.

“Cause, we don’t need heavy armor for this.”

“I say we do.”


“You got armor in there?” Ranma asks as he looks over Sheila’s shoulder.

“Yeah, it’s what the paladins used to wear before they updated their armor about a hundred years ago.”

“So why do you have it here?”

“The armor has protective properties. A lot of the old armors like this are floating around the city, sometimes displayed, though usually stored away like this in an attic.”

“I say we use it, the armor can use all the same powers as the current paladins.” Tirga muttered.

“Wear it if you want, but we are going to be running up those stairs and I sure won’t do that in full armor unless I’m forced to.” Ranma said.

Turning around, Thropan walked over to the chest and flipped it open. He pulled out a small pack and tossed it to Ranma. “If we are going to do this, you need to wear some proper clothing. Put that on.”

Ranma opened the pack and found nothing but a ball of blackness in the pack, along with a small package. “What’s this?”

“It’s a mage suit.”

“A what?”

“Mage Suit, like what Dr. Diggers wears. We used to keep them around for emergencies. Gaja used to wear one under his robes. You can do the same thing and it will protect you from all kinds of things.”

“I’m not sure I need this.”

“You need every chance you can get Ranma.”

Tirga stopped fiddling with the box, sniffed the air, and suddenly hopped over the door and shut it as quickly and quietly as he could. “Quiet, all of you.”

“Wha…” Ranma started, but Sheila shushed him.

Over by a small window Thropan used his dark form to watch from a shadow as the sound of moving feet could be heard. Ranma, a little irritated at being told to be quiet, suddenly understood that they were in danger. He carefully moved over to Thropan and glanced out the window.

Half a dozen zombies, two Undead Knights, and a group of prisoners were moving down the street. Ranma didn’t like what he was seeing and had to resist the urge to go out there and save all of them, but none of them were moving to help.

“We have to…” He started.

“Be quiet!” Tirga hissed. “We will help, once we have the advantage and not them.”

Ranma shrugged. He agreed with what Tirga for the most part, but didn’t think waiting would do them much good. They waited till the procession finished passing by the mouth of the alley. Tirga slowly opened the door and stepped outside and pulled Fire Claw from his belt.

“Lets go.”

“Ranma, put the mage suit on.” Thropan said. “It’s completely black and will help with stealth, though it won’t cover those bracers.”

“Whatever, how do I put it on?”

“It’s magic, just hold it and will it to cover you.”

Taking the mage suit Ranma concentrated on it and after a few seconds the black mass turned liquid and flowed around his hand, up his arm, and over his body as if absorbing his current clothing. Ranma stood there for a second as it finished moving and shuddered.

Sheila was gaping at him, blushing slightly.

He shuddered. “That was weird.”

“Now picture yourself wearing your regular clothes.” Thropan explained.

Nodding, Ranma did just that, in seconds he was back in his long sleeved red shirt, and loose black pants. Ranma noticed instantly that his clothing was a lot cleaner than it had been just a few seconds before, even a little brighter. Thropan just smirked for a second.

“You’re a natural Ranma. It took me a week to get my own mage suit to function like that.”

He shrugged. “Let’s go and help those people.”

Sheila shook her head as Ranma turned and walked out of the little room to meet up with Tirga. She noticed that Thropan was giving her a look, a smirk, a hint of amusement, and that the was about to say something.

“Don’t even think about it.” She snapped and stalked out of the room.

“Whatever you say Kitty Kat.”


**********

Ranma peaked around the wall of the alley to watch the Undead herding their prisoners. From the looks of things he was pretty sure that they were heading right for the base palace. Once they reached it Ranma knew that saving the people would be next to impossible.

There were just to many undead surrounding the place for one person to be effective. Even before he got into this odd situation and met Julia Diggers back in Shangri-la he would have known that much. Not that it would have ever stopped him of course. Now he knew that going in alone wouldn’t work and he had to help the others if he wanted to succeed in anyway.

Crouching nest to him, Tirga watched them as well, but Ranma wasn’t sure what the weretiger had in mind. “If we do attack them we need to be quick or they’ll kill the prisoners in an instant. Then they will get reinforcements.”

Ranma frowned at that, but nodded. Each of the prisoners were bound with leg chains to keep them from running, but at least they were still alive. “We need to find away to get rid of those chains. Then everyone can get away on their own while we take care of the undead.”

“The Undead Knights need to go down first, once they go the rest will fall easily.” Thropan explained.

Ranma nodded. “You guys take out the Undead Knights and I’ll free the prisoners.”

“Those chains won’t just break if you hit them.” Tirga snapped.

Ranma shrugged and just grinned. “I have something easier in mind than hitting them till the break.” Then he jumped to the roof the building and ran after the group of prisoners.

Turning to Sheila, Tirga gave Sheila a look. “Is he always like that?”

“Not really, but so far today he’s been in two large fights, once against Gar and the other against Hanza.”

“He fought Gar?” Thropan asked. “And won?”

Sheila nodded.

Thropan looked impressed. “Gar is an Advanced student of Julia ‘Brigand’ Diggers and Ranma beat him?”

“Remember that Ranma is her student too.”

“But Gar has been training for years, I thought Ranma just started.”

“No, Ranma’s father taught him how to fight. Julia has just been polishing up his techniques a bit.”

“Anyone that can beat Gar can defeat a chain.” Tirga said, though he looked a little impressed. Come on Sheila, it’s time to attack those Knights.”

“Plan C?”

“Might as well, it’s the most effective against the things.”

“I’ll handle the zombies.” Thropan offered. “Then we all turn on the skeletons.”

They all nodded as they walked out of the alley and started running at the back of the group. Tirga spun his mace around as he ran and sent off a pair of large fire balls with a yell. Sheila was right behind him as she pulled out Ice Fang and to sent two blasts of Ice about three seconds behind the fire balls.

The undead Knights went up in flames, their armor turning white hot in less than a second. Then the ice blast hit them and they just appeared to explode in their saddles, taking their horses with them.

“Yeah!” Tirga yelled, still running.

Thropan stopped as soon as the Undead Knights went up in flames, pointed one end of his Nunchaku at the ground near the zombies and whispered a word. With a loud crack, the ground suddenly flowed like water, lifting itself up into the air, and engulfed them, instantly burying them under the street. Above him Ranma jumped off the roof and landed among the prisoners, his hands glowed as he raced among them almost faster than sight.

Their chains just started to fall apart as he passed. Freed they all turned and ran away from the scene heading in different directions. As the last one ran away Ranma came to a stop several yards away from the skeletons, took a stance with his legs spread apart and his arms crossed at the forearms, and started to glow.

Tirga, Sheila, and Thropan all launched attacks into the skeletons just as Ranma threw his to the sides in a slashing motion. All four attacks slammed into the group and annihilated it from existence. The whole thing took less than ten seconds from the intital attack to the where where skeletons clattered to the ground in burning pieces of charred bone or shattered from being flash frozen.

Ranma slowly relaxed and looked to see if anything was still moving when he gasped and grabbed his head. The pain from before was back with a vengeance and he nearly fell over as he staggered. Sheila rushed over to him.

“Ranma, the pain is back?”

“Yeah.” He hissed through his clenched teeth. “Worse than before.”

“Any idea what’s causing it this time?”

“No, it’s to overwhelming to even grasp. Just lots and lots of pain.”

Thropan walked over. “Ranma you need to meditate to control this, if you don’t you’re going to be useless to us.”

“I’ll get it under control.” Ranma snapped as sweat started to bead along his forehead.

Looking worried, Sheila could only watch as Ranma started to mutter something under his breath and his face relaxed. He slowly stood up straight and opened his eyes, they were a little blank, but that was a sign that he was in a deep meditative trance.

“You better?”

“Yes.” He said. “I should be fine for a while. I just need to figure out why I’m in pain, then get rid of it.”

“We explained earlier…” Thropan started.

Ranma cut him off. “True, but I can tell that it’s only part of the problem. There is something causing it happen now and I need to get rid of whatever it is.”

“Can you describe it?”

“Kind of like a giant unfocused feeling of pain.” Ranma said. “That’s about the only way I can describe it.

“That doesn’t help much.” Tirga muttered.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“We’ll figure it out Ranma.” Shelia said as she hugged him suddenly.

“I know one thing though, it has something to do with the Tree.”

“The Tree again?” Thropan asks.

Nodding, Ranma points to the top. “That thing.”

“We still can’t get into the base palace Ranma.” Tirga points out.

“I know, but there has to be another way to get to those stairs besides going through the undead army.”

They stopped as someone stepped out of a nearby building and descended a short flight of stairs slowly. Ranma could tell that it was an old man, he was wearing a white dogi edged in gold, had long brown hair tied back in a pony tail, and a gleam in his eye.

“I might be able to help you there lad.”

Sheila, Tirga, and Thropan all gasped.

“Master Leep.” Thropan said simply.

“So what, never heard of ya and we’re busy so go away.” Ranma snaps.

“Ranma!” Sheila yells and punches him in the arm. “That’s Master Leep! One of the greatest fighters on Jade.”

Ranma snorts. “So what?”

“RANMA!”

“Listen to that!” Thropan yells and starts hopping up and down.

All around the sounds of the city started to change as the sounds of battle filled the air. Master Leep smirked at them. “I brought along my students when I heard about what was happening here.”

“How many?” Tiga asked.

“Eighty six students and five hundred of their friends should be sweeping across the city as we speak.”

Tirga grinned. “That’s great! What about the base palace? Is it going to be freed too?”

“Yep, the husband of my greatest student called in a favor to get this set in motion. We should be done in a few hours.”

“We need to get up to the High Palace.” Ranma explained.

Leep just nodded. “We should free it soon. My students are some of the best fighters in area and can take out any of these things. As for the Tree and those stairs…”

A blue haired girl dressed in a skimpy ninja outfit suddenly dropped from the air and landed next to Master Leep. “Master, forty percent of the city is ours, the surviving paladins need just a little push to get everything set in motion.”

“Excellent Carla, is the Library still intact.”

“Yes Master.”

“Good, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Carla nodded, glanced at the group just as she jumped to a nearby roof and vanished from sight.”

“The library sir?” Tirga muttered.

“What you need is there.” He intoned.

Ranma could feel the old guy’s aura and knew he was quite a fighter, but something about the guy just felt off. Shrugging, he watched as the old guy started to move down the street a lot faster than most of the could walk. Just a few minutes later they reached a large building nearly hidden among some trees. Ranma also spotted several half naked girls hidden in the trees, a couple standing guard by the doors, and more on the roof.

“What’s with all the girls?”

“They are my students.” Leep explained.

“Where are the guys?”

Sheila coughed as Tirga burst out laughing. “Ranma, Master Leep…”

“I can answer myself.” Leep snapped. “I will only train women who can’t learn anywhere else, or who have learned to ignore the most dangerous of training regimes.”

Ranma looked confused.

“Who wants to train a ugly sweaty man when I can have a good looking sweaty woman as my opponent instead?” Leep explained.

“You’re a pervert.”

“Yep.”

Ranma fell over. He decided then and there that the old man would never learn about the curse. Never.

Once inside the Library Ranma witnessed something that would haunt him for the rest of the year.

“Stealth Goose!” Leep yelled as he literally goosed one of his students as they passed a desk.

She squealed and jumped at least a foot, landed with a curse, and tried to remove Leep’s head with a nasty looking pole arm. Instead of ducking, Leep just laughed, caught the blade with his thumb and forefinger, and gave the girl smirk. “Told you to pay attention T’illa.”

“You…you…&%$#@#$”

He goosed her again, this time Ranma didn’t even see it. One second he was in front of her and the next he was getting a good feel. Tilla’s long green hair literally stood on end as she squealed even louder.

“AGHAAAA!”

“Back to what you were doing girl, and remember, pay attention or next time I’ll get an even better feel.” He leered at her.

Sheila suddenly stepped behind Ranma, as if she was hiding in case Leep decided to goose her as well. The old man didn’t say anything about it as he led them deeper into the library shelves. Ranma wasn’t sure where they were, the inside of the building was about five times bigger on the inside than the outside.

After several minutes of walking they reached an old section of the library, this one covered in dust and unused for some time. Master Leep pointed to a book case set against the back wall. “There’s we need.”

“A book?”

“Not quite.”

“I don’t understand.” Tirga muttered.

“When the Hamlet was being set up originally, the Tree was obviously the focus point of he whole place. It was only logical that the Mages would set up some place in the tree. Until then this library was the original governing body in the hamlet.”

Ranma shrugged and Leep glared at him for a second.

“Well after the Base Palace was under construction and the stairs that led up to the High Palace were nearly finished, they needed some way to get up to the Tree that was a little quicker. That way has been hidden for some time, but when my grandfather was a on the council over five hundred years ago he used this to get up to the High Palace.”

Walking over to the book case, Master Leep ran his finger across the books until he found a small one, nearly black with age. He pulled it out, held it up for them to see, then put it back and touched the spine. “Clavicam.”

The book suddenly started to shine like a star and a series of lines started to form on the floor beneath them. Ranma gaped at the lines and realized that they were made of pure magic. The lines twisted and about the floor until all of them were encircled except for Master Leep.

“Since I activated the access way, I can’t go with you. It’s a kind of security measure. One person has to be touching the book for it to work. Now… ‘Oooshioff!’

**********


Ranma blinked suddenly as all four of them were surrounded by pillars of light and he felt a shifting sensation. In the next instant the world came into view and he gasped and stepped back in shock. All of them were standing near the edge of the stairs as they spiraled down below them. A slight breeze swirled around them as the magic finally settled down and they were able to get their first look at their surroundings.

Along with the slight breeze, they noticed that lightning was flaring across the sky. The rumble of almost continuous thunder also filled the air. Some distance away they could see the walls High Palace, it’s surrounding walls, and the large undead dragon slamming a large claw into a magical barrier.

Ranma and Sheila gaped at the thing for several seconds.

“A Dracolich!” Thropan gasped. “Its supposed to be impossible for one of them to even get close to the city.”

“Impossible?” Ranma asked.

“They’re used to be a large number of undead dragons around this area of the world. As Seer’s Hamlet grew in size the Council made a deal with the Conclave of Mages and set up a barrier that was supposed to keep the things out of the city.”

“Look over there.” Tirga whispered to them and pointed off to the right, about a hundred yards away.

“That’s Julia and G’nolga, their fights are legendary. Look at them go.” Thropan gasped in awe. “Its rare to see two skilled opponents like this fighting each other. Look at the damage they are doing to ground around them.”

“I can barely see them move, the darkness isn’t helping, but even then they are just a blur of movement.”

“Remember how they nearly killed each other at the Tournament of Arms.” Tirga reminded them.

“We didn’t see it, remember we were dealing with that moron Tyrant and his group.”

“True, but someone made a magical recording of it. Quite a fight, those two just can’t back down from each other. Every time they meet one of them ends up going to a healer, usually both of them.”

“I’d like to see that sometime.” Thropan said.

“Julia can handle her.” Ranma said. “We need to do something about saving the people in the Palace while she keeps the Dwarf occupied. That shield can’t hold for long.”

“Let me check something first.” Thropan said as he walked over to one of the walls along either side of the stairs and tapped it. A map slowly formed in the air right in front of the wall with a number of moving dots. “It looks like we have visitors coming up the stairs.”

“How many?” Tirga asked, instantly taking a business like attitude.

“One second… it looks like nearly two hundred undead are on the move.”

“We need to stop them from reaching the top, if we don’t, G’nolga will win.”

Ranma walked over and glanced at the map before pointing at the stairs leading away from them. “Blow away this section of stairs.”

“DO YOU HAVE ANY KIND OF IDEA THE TROUBLE THAT WOULD CAUSE?!” Tirga yelled. “We can’t do it!”

“Not every step, just this section for about two hundred steps down.” Ranma explained. It will be to far to jump and make it hard for them to climb over on a rope. Me and the old man ran across something like this one the road once.”

Pointing at the map again Thropan pointed at several dots moving up behind the undead soldiers. “These twenty dots seem to be attacking the undead from behind Ranma. We may not have to worry about to many of them reaching us and if they do we can make quick work out of them.”

“One of us will have to stay here and watch out for them though.” Sheila points out. “I’m not sure if I want to do that or not.”

“I’ll do it since I can use the map.” Thropan volunteered with a shrug. “I have several weapons I want to test on willing targets.”

“What about Julia and Dracolich?” Tirga asks.

“Remember what Onoli always tells us.” Sheila said. “Take every situation one step at a time.”

“Do the easiest first then. That way we can all work on the hard one together. We help Julia fight G’nolga.”

Reaching into his subspace pocket, Ranma pulled B out of storage and glared at the little robot. “B.”

“Oh, so now you come crawling back to me.” B muttered.

“I have a job for you.”

“I won’t do it.”

“You will or I’ll drop kick you off the Tree.”

B sweatdropped. “What you got?”

“I need you to look around the area over by the High Palace over there.” Ranma explained as he held the around to he could see.

“Over by the big scary monster. Right.” B dead panned.

“Exactly, you’re small so he won’t notice you. Scout around and try and find us a way to defeat that thing or get into the Palace.”

Frowning, the little bot didn’t say anything for a second, then it nodded. “No problem, it’s the first useful things I’ve had to do since we arrived. Right Ranko?.”

“Why you…” Ranma growled.

B hooted as he raced off before Ranma could do anything.

“That thing…”

“It can be fun at times, but at the moment we have to be careful and he’s our best shot at defeating that thing.” Ranma explained.

“Before we go Ranma, we need to keep the element of surprise here so you need to change your clothing back into the mage suit. It will help you blend into the shadows.”

It sounded like a good idea, so Ranma concentrated and his clothing blurred for a second. As the effect vanished he stood before them in his skin tight black mage suit as it clung to every curve and bulge of his body. “This thing may be useful, but I don’t see why it has to be skin tight.”

“Gah…” Sheila gaped at him. Ranma didn’t appear to really notice as he twisted around trying to see if there were any muscles not defined by the mage suit. He was grateful that it didn’t conform to his privates though. It must have been designed into the suit.

Tirga nodded and his own clothing suddenly lost their color and shrank down a bit and turned black as well. “You can have it look how you want, so long as it’s black so that we can hide in the shadows.”

Ranma concentrated again and the suit flared out a bit and the suit altered into a black version of his usual clothing, sleeveless shirt, and loose pants. “Much better.”

Sheila didn’t bother, she was still wearing the black spandex outfit she borrowed from Britanny. So she could already blend in as well as they could. “We need to be careful with G’nolga, she can be tricky.”

“Good luck Thropan, call any of us if you need any help.” Ranma told him, then turned to the others.

“I got it covered.” The werepanther said with a smirk. He already had several ideas in mind that would keep the undead jerks from ever getting near the top of the stairs.

Ranma crouched down and jumped out of the lighted area and into the darkness just beyond safe area and dashed into the shadows, vanishing from sight instantly. He quickly his way over to where Julia and G’nolga were fighting a savage battle. He didn’t know it, but both women were well aware that he was heading their way.

Once he got to a spot where he could see both women, he stopped and knelt down about ten yards from the fight so that he wouldn’t accidentally get in their way. A few seconds later Tirga and Sheila joined him as they appeared to step out of the shadows around him. “What do you think we should do the fight, just attack G’nolga and lend a hand?”

“No, that has never worked on G’nolga. She’s to experienced. Can you cast a spell at her?”

He shrugged. “Probably.”

“Well we need to stop her, so how about that fireball spell you used earlier?” Sheila suggested.

“Maybe.” Ranma muttered. “I’m actually not sure I should interfere in the fight now that I’m here.”

“Damn it Ranma, we don’t have time for this.” Tirga growled. “Everyone’s lives are at stake here, we need to stop this now. I’m not good enough to fight G’nolga, you claim you can, so get out there and do it.”

“Tigra!” Sheila hissed. “Don’t be like that.”

“Well?” He snarled and ignored Sheila completely.

“Fine.” Ranma snapped. “Get ready in case me and Julia have any problems.”

As they nodded, Ranma stretched himself out on the ground and uses his fingers and toes to snake his way across the ground, weaving between a couple of branches that appeared in his path. He stops for an instant just as a large bolt of lightning lights up the sky. The barrier around the Hamlet was still intact and slowly repairing itself, but it was still quite unstable.

Ranma ignored that as he got closer and closer to the savage battle taking place in front of him. Even for ten yards away he could see that both of them were covered in cuts and bruises. He’d never seen G’nolga in an actual fight before and Ranma was a bit daunted as he realized that the dwarf really was almost as good as Julia.

He gulped in worry. Then he moved to get into attack position…

“Moron.” G’nolga snapped. Her hand suddenly changed from a block to pointing right at him.

“Ah crap.” Ranma gasped as he barely dodged something as if sailed past his ear and ripped out a couple of hairs. He dropped to the ground and rolled before he had time to think about it. He came to his feet and nearly fell of the branch of the tree, but managed to catch his footing a second later.

“Ranma, stop playing around in the dark!” Julia yelled. “G’nolga is mine!”

“But I can help!”

“I’ve got it covered!” Julia snapped. “Now let me finish this…”

The two woman blurred from sight once more and Ranma gaped as G’nolga’s head suddenly twisted to the side, then in one unseen motion, Julia lifted the dwarf off the ground and body slammed her into the ground. Something glowing fell out of G’nolga’s shirt.

Julia reached down, saw that it was a necklace, and ripped it off her before the dwarf could stop her. The instant it was gone G’nolga cried out in pain and convulsed before collapsing unconscious at Julia’s feet. The necklace stopped glowing a few seconds later and Julia glanced at it. She didn’t recognize it, but she wasn’t a n expert on magical items. She quickly stuffed it in her pocket.

She turned to glare at Ranma. She was angry with him for even thinking of interfering in her fight. “What are you doing up here?”

“Came to help, the rest of the city is in chaos down below us.”

“I know that. Why are you here?”

“Because I have to be.” Ranma snapped.

She gave him a confused look. “You aren’t anywhere near ready to take on something like this, student.”

He winced. “Still, I can help out.”

“Mrs. Brigand.” Tirga said as he and Sheila walked out of the shadows behind Ranma. “Hello.”

“Tirga, Sheila, I’m surprised to see you up here as well. Where are the others?”

“Thropan is at the stairs making sure no undead make it up the stairs. Gar and Onoli are both to injured to fight.”

“What else is happening down below?”

“Master Leep brought his students and a few of their friends, they’ve been routing then undead for the last hour or so.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Julia asked. Master Leep hadn’t left his training grounds in twenty years. “Why would he even bother to come?”

“He mentioned something about a favor.” Ranma said.

“To who?”

“Didn’t say.”

“We could use his help now more than ever.” Julia sighed. “We have two fights left I think. The Dracolich and Rook.”

“Rook?”

Julia nodded. “Yeah, he’s behind this whole thing. We have to stop him before he is able to complete a spell he’s working on. Even worse, he seems to have changed recently.”

“How so?” Sheila asked. She recalled defeating Rook easily the one time they fought.

“He’s not acting like a fool for one thing. He had G’nolga attack me while that Dracolich over there started to try and take down that shield around the Palace. Normally he would just try and take care of things himself while letting others entertain him.”

“Tsk tsk, and to think I knew you would defeat G’nolga.”

They all turned to watch as a black armored form walked out of the shadows around them, his cape edge dragging heavily along the ground behind him. He was decked out in head to toe in black full plate armor with a helmet hat hid his features completely except for a set of glowing yellow eyes. They could actually feel a massive amount of magic swirling around him as he came towards them.

Rook came to a stop several yards away to look them over for a second and let a bit of is power flare up. “Every step of this fight has been planned out in meticulous detail, my dear Julia. Do you think I didn’t take such a simple thing into account? I have plans and counter plans set in motion to take care of anything you 'heroes' might even think to throw at me.” He gloated.

“Rook, this is the last time you will ever endanger the lives of these people. Seer’s Hamlet has had enough evil to last it a thousand years and you just waltz in and make things worse? No more you undead monster.”

Chuckling darkly, Rook glared at them in a way that gave them the willies. “I’ve already won, everything is in place and it’s only a matter of time before the final piece falls and I achieve my goals. There isn't a think you can do to stop me.”

“I've heard enough of this.” Julia growled as she raised her sword.

Both Tirga and Sheila copied her as they readied their weapons as well and tried to think of the fastest way to take the monster down. Ranma frowned a little, he could feel something stirring in the air around them, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. He folded his arms and glared at the man that set all this in motion.

It was quite obvious that Rook was to confident and he wondered if what he said was true. Ranma really hoped it was a bluff, but he'd been in to many fights recently to completely blow this guy off as a nobody. Daishi had taught him several valuable lessons about underestimating opponents. Even if his father would have laughed at this guy for dressing like a pompas ass he wouldn't have underestimated the guy.

He suddenly winced as he felt another spike of pain in stab right into his brain. Ignoring it as best that he could, he could tell that Sheila had noticed and gave him a worried look. There was something seriously wrong here but he just couldn’t' figure out what it was. He was pretty sure that it was obvious if he only saw whatever it was. Gritting his teeth, he prepared to slam the armored jerk to the ground.

Julia suddenly shot forward and attempted to remove Rook’s head with a savage swing of her sword. For just a second, Ranma was surprised that Julia was going for an instant killing blow, but then he noticed Rook's stance change just slightly. His gauntlet moved to catch her blade while the other moved back and punched her in the stomach.

She collapsed to the ground coughing and he kicked her in the chin to send her sprawling. Her reflexes were as fast as ever and with a simple roll she was back on her feet. She turned toward him with a snarl. "No trick armor this time?"

Rook laughed lightly. “Please Julia, even you should know by now that I’m not at all like the man I used to be. I’m not dependent on the magic of my armor anymore. I learned that lesson from you after you embedded me in that wall. I've taken the time to remember some of my old training and trained myself to be a fighter again."

Still holding onto Julia’s blade, he casually tossed it out into the night sky and let it fall into the city below. Julia cursed as she watched the blade fall. Then he straightened up and let his cape ripple around him as he looked at the red headed woman. "I seem to have seriously underestimated you Julia, I expected better. Maybe fighting G'nolga just wore you out?"

“You don’t actually think that will stop me do you? G’nolga has hit me harder than that hundreds of times.”

“Why take all the fun out of a good fight by beating everyone in half a second?” Rook asked mildly. “Might as well place a throne on a rock in the middle of nowhere and sit down. How boring.”

A few feet away, Ranma could feel the pain right behind his eyes now and it kept building no matter how hard he tried to calm his mind. He could barely think as sweat broke out on his forehead and tried to keep an eye on the beginning of the fight. He still watched Rook though, he wouldn’t be caught flat footed by a guy like him. Even his father wouldn’t fall for that when it counted.

“Ice Kapowie!” Sheila screamed and launched her attack. As it flew off the edge of her magic blade, Sheila hoped it would be enough of a distraction to allow Julia to get in a good hit. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw that Tirga was also getting ready to release his own attack.

Holding up his hand, Rook used his hand to defect the magical energy and sent it flying up over his head where it slammed into a some low hanging branches about ten feet above them. Instantly encasing it in a thick layer of Ice and frost. Ranma felt the blood in his veins turn to ice for several seconds.

At the same time Tirga launched a ‘Fire Claw’, not at Rook, but towards the wood at the monster's feet instead. Rook reacted like any soldier by jumping back, but his armor allowed him to jump about fifteen feet in the air as he hopped backwards, easily clearing the magic attack. The saw his eyes flare even before he landed.

By the time he landed red lightning arched around his hand and he fired a couple of powerful blasts at the two Edge Guard members, but they easily dodged. Ranma wasn't in the line of fire, so he didn't have to dodge anything. He was in to much pain to even try. Julia used the distraction to get out of the way as well and moved over to Ranma. “What’s wrong?”

“Massive headache, I don’t know why.” He explained.

“Fight past the pain.” She snapped. “This isn’t’ the time for something like this to sideline you.”

He growled. “I know that, but the meditation trick I know isn’t working like it did last time.”

“Ignore the pain, student, or else.”

He glared at her for a second before nodding. “Fine.”

Straightening up, he relaxed a little as he held his hand toward Rook as a blue aura formed around him for just a split second. I ruffled his clothing and hair as his eyes lit up with magic. “Gust.”

The word echoed in the air for just a heartbeat before the very air around Ranma fired off like a cannon shot. Leaves were suddenly ripped from branches as the wind swirled around Ranma and hurled towards it’s target with a vengeance. Rook barely had time to throw up any kind of defense as it slammed into him.

Wearing a cape at that moment nearly cost him everything as the wind grabbed it and nearly tossed him into the air. He yelled out as he slammed his finger down into the wood of the tree and held on with ever thing he had. Tirga and Sheila dove to the ground and tried to hold onto something as well as the wind tried to rip the clothing from their bodies.

Julia just turned into the wind and mostly ignored for the thirty seconds it lasted, all she had to do was plant her feet in just the right way. Then Rook’s cape ripped away from his armor and sailed into the blackness around them and he was able to ride out the rest of the spell with little harm. At the same time the frozen leaves and branches above Rook shattered under the force of the wind and crashed down on him just as the wind died off. Ranma lowered his arm and sighed as the pain came back, nearly knocking him to his knees.

“Damn.” He muttered.

“Good try.” Julia said. “He will go down, no matter what we have to do.”

Rook started laughing loudly as he sat on the ground and let the bit of ice fall off him. “Do you think that first level spells are going to bring me down?!”

“I know for a…” Ranma started to snarl.

“You don’t stand a chance!” Rook screamed and pointed to the sky where the magical barrier was still covered in red lightning. “It is time!”

The Dracolich roared in the background as the barrier around the High Palace collapsed with a barely heard ‘pop’ the very air around them changed. As the roar died started to trail off they all watched as the Dracolich brought its head back around and fired off it’s breath weapon through the roof of the Palace.

“No!” Julia screamed.

"S#!&#!" Tirga yelled. "The Dracolich!"

Sheila could only gape as she watched in fascinated horror as the Dracolich launched it's attack on the helpless Palace. She'd never seen anything like it before. Grayish black smoke issued from the thing's mouth, but it moved as if it had a mind of it's own. Filling the four level Palace in a matter of seconds.

In an instant every living soul in the Palace was dead as the poisonous gas billowed from every window and crack in the building. The few guards that managed to make it out of the building collapsed dead seconds after the smoke flossed over them. Even worse, Ranma could feel the growing aura of death as the smoke slowly vanished.

Rook laughed. "Excellent!"

Ranma shuddered as he felt the living beings inside the building die in such a horrible way. He didn’t even stop to think about how he knew what he did, or how he even felt it in the first place.

“FIREBALL!” He screamed and fired off a powerful one just as everything around them started to glow.

Rook ignored the fireball flying at him as he held both hands in the air and started to glow with power. “The sacrifices are complete, the gates are nearly open, now is the time for the next step!”

A gigantic bolt of lightning fell from the sky and struck Rook. Thunder rolled across the city nearly deafening everyone, and Ranma’s fireball just flared a bright red and vanished from existence less than ten feet from where Rook was standing. He stood there crackling with power as a feeling of power filled the air.

“I’ve done it.” Rook yelled.

“I wish Theo was here.” Julia muttered. “He knows magic and could give us some idea what just happened.”

“A Pact.” Tirga said as he walked up, his clothing in taters. “He’s made some kind of evil pack with something.”

“How?” Ranma asked.

“Seen something like it before, though on a much smaller scale than this whole set up. Usually the bigger the sacrifice the more power the individual gets, so long as they do what they are told.”

“He’s still a wimp.”

“No matter how strong he is defeating a magic users is usually pretty easy.” Julia said and shrugged.

Tirga gaped at them.

Looking a little nervous, Sheila walked over and stood next to Ranma as they watched Rook. “This is not good. What do we do now?”

“We fight.” Ranma said.

The Tree started to shake, as if an earthquake was going on and Ranma staggered as a burst of pain behind his eyes dropped him to his knees. Grabbing his head he fell over and started to shake. Sheila ran over to him looking panicked.

Julia looked a little concerned as she knelt down beside him. “Ranma, describe what you’re feeling.”

“Describe it?” He snapped. “It’s like my brain is being set on fire!”

“Mrs. Diggers, Thropan and I were talking to Ranma abut this earlier and we thought it might be some kind of latent Telepathic abilities of his. Something he didn’t know about.”

“I’ve encountered those before, but never anything that caused this kind of pain. The most I’ve seen happen is a migraine headache. A good nights sleep and they would be back to normal.”

“Ranma has been pushing himself since he got here.” Sheila said.

Rolling into a sitting position, Ranma took a deep pain filled breath, and reached into his sub space pocket to pull out a book. Julia noticed that it was beginners spell book given him a few days before he came to Jade. He held his hand up and formed a ball of glowing energy that lit the pages enough for him to read.

“What are you looking for Ranma?” Tirga asked.

“Need…blocking spell.” Ranma said between clenched teeth. “Need to block the pain.”

“A blocking spell doesn’t work like that.” Tirga said.

“It does.”

Ranma stopped near the end of the book and quickly read through the spell he wanted. Nothing about it mentioned that it had any limitations, so he just figured Tirga didn’t know any better. Closing his eyes he pictured the spell pattern in his head and magical energy flared around his body for a second. The pain instantly started to recede and he sighed in relief as he got to his feet and put the book away.

Tirga gaped at him. “The spell…”

“Works.” Ranma snapped. “Worry about what it should and shouldn’t do later. Where’s Rook?”

“He walked over to the Palace while you were casting your spell, he didn’t seem to even care that we were here.” Sheila explained.

“B!” Ranma yelled out. "Where are you?!"

“B?” Julia asked.

“A Peebo that Brianna gave to Ranma before he came here.” Sheila said. “It’s supposed to be guarding Ranma, but so far it’s done very little of that.”

After a couple of minutes B didn’t show up Ranma shrugged. “He may be busy or can’t get out here for some reason.”

“Remember he was looking for a way into the palace and that Dracolich was over there.”

"He should be alright. We just need to find him and see if he spotted any weak spots on the Dracolich."

Over by the palace the Dracolich was crouched down next to the building, glowing slightly. It seemed to be looking in their direction. Ranma considered the beast and wondered for a second why the human undead were nearly useless while a monster like this made everyone fear for their lives.

“That thing is just an overgrown skeleton.” Ranma snapped. “Break him into little pieces and scatter the pieces.”

“Don’t be a moron!” Tirga snapped. “Dracoliches like that are a thousand times more dangerous than a regular skeleton. It’s a Lich, not a skeleton, and that means that it’s a magic using undead monster and completely sentient!”

“He’s right Ranma, a Lich can easily survive being broken into pieces. Their souls aren’t even apart of their bodies, but kept elsewhere. It gives them a kind of immortality. The broken pieces would just reform eventually.”

“There is also the Fear.” Tirga reminded them and ran his hand through his hair nervously. “Get within a hundred feet of one and its aura will scare you so bad you wet yourself. It even controls it consciously, so it can move about undetected if it wants.”

“Rook needs time to do something else, no matter what he's been boasting about.” Julia said. “Otherwise he would have just killed us a little while ago. That whole fight was just to waste time and keep us occupied.”

“Well let’s get in there and see what he’s up to.” Ranma said. “I still don’t think that Dracowhatsis is going to be a problem. Also, someone is coming.”

Ranma turned and looked behind them as several forms walked out of the darkness with Thropan in the lead. A group of dwarves broke off to go and chain G’nolga up while the others quickly formed a circle around the group. Thropan just grinned as half a dozen paladins came to attention a few feet away. Their once red armor was now covered in substances better left unsaid, but they were still willing to fight.

Their commander walked over to them and took his helmet off to reveal the face of a grizzly old soldier with a thick mustache. He saluted Julia. “Hello all, Armsmaster, sorry we’re so late. Had to fight our way through a small army of undead on the way up here.”

“Perfectly alright Commander.” Julia said. "How is the lower palace faring?"

"We have most of the building taken back, but the Undead army is still sitting outside the gates waiting for their orders. I'm not sure how long they will wait before they begin to think something is wrong though. We don't think they will move until given orders, but the undead are hard to predict at times. Also, eighty percent of the city is back in hour control with Master Leep's students taking a hand in the clean up according to my last check a few minutes ago."

"The undead aren't putting up much of a fight?" Tirga asked.

"Whoever has been controlling them isn't giving orders anymore, so it allows us to get in close enough to destroy them easily. Though the Undead Knights seem to be trying to rally them for something. We just haven't been able to figure out what it could be. Those girls Leep brought with him are kicking the $#!% out of them every time they even get anything started."

Julia nodded, it sounded just like what Master Leep would have done with his students. "How many of the citizens were converted?"

"Well around two thousand or so, we haven't been able to do an accurate count yet. It's mostly old men and women so far, those that couldn’t fight back effectively or those rare fighters that were stupid enough to attack large groups of undead by themselves."

"Have they started to attack Healers yet?"

"No ma'am, the protective magics around the healer's houses and clinics are keeping them at bay so far."

“Anything else to report?"

"No ma'am."

“Then let your men get a little rest while they can. We have a hell of a fight coming up and I want them as rested as possible within the next hour or so. Eat some food, get something to drink, do what you need to do.”

"We have some Fatigue spells built into our armor, Armsmaster. We aren't allowed to use them unless we are under orders. Can I have your permission?"

"Yep, get everyone some food and drink as well, this is going to be a very dangerous battle." Julia commanded him. As an Armsmaster of the Realm she had a duty to take charge when she needed to.

He nodded, spun around, and walked back over to his men yelling orders and quickly getting them organized into several smaller groups.

Off to the side of the main Ashaton Chaos finally arrived from his long climb up the stairs and ended up jumping out of the Commander's way. From the looks of Ashaton's clothing things hadn’t gone well after he left them earlier. He called out to Ranma and Sheila as he jogged over. “Hey guys.”

“Ashaton.” Shelia said. “What are you doing up here?”

He grinned sheepishly. “Can you believe I got drafted? That old paladin just grabbed me off the street and threatened to disembowel me if I didn’t do what he said. Kind of rough way to enter military life, but since he was taking ‘volunteers’ for this battle, I decided it would best if I came along. Then the jerks nearly left me behind while running up the stairs, I barely got to fight at all.”

Tirga smirked at him. “Glad to have you around anyway, we need all the help we can get at the moment.”

"YOU!" The Paladin commander yelled in Ashaton's ear as he dragged him off towards a group of paladins sitting on a large branch near the stairs. "Come with me you slacker!"

“Guys, we are going to need to use the special magic built into your weapons.” Thropan said as he walked over. “I know it’s dangerous, but I simply don’t see any choice now that Onoli is out of commission. We can't depend on Onoli's extra power this time so we'll have to use every adventage we have to win this”

“You mean that power that amplifies our weapons magic?” Tirga asked. “The one you told us could very cause our weapons to blow up in our faces and kill us in the process?”

“Yep.”

“Good, I’ve always wanted to see what Fire Claw could really do.”

Thropan laughed. “Here, let me see your weapon for a second, I need to cast a couple of spells on it to release the safeties. Sheila give me yours too.”

He moved off to the side and sat down with the weapons at his feet and stepping on the crushed remains of leaves. Then he pulled out some scrolls and started to cast some spells on them under his breath, touching each weapon as he went. After each spell was cast the weapon would glow a little brighter and brighter as the magic built into them tried to stabilize the power levels.

Ranma watched for a few seconds and noticed that he could actually feel the weapons releasing some hidden strength. He shook his head and strengthened that blocking spell he'd just cast a few minutes before and turned back to studying the Dracolich. “Something isn’t right, but I just can't put my finger on it.” He muttered just loud enough for Sheila to hear.

“What was that?” Sheila asked.

“Something isn’t right and it’s right in front of me. My old man used to play games on me like this all the time. Mind games where even the obvious solution was a feint used to misdirect a person from the real goal. I’ve never been good at them.”

"You'll figure it out."

"Maybe, I used to get lucky every now and then and accidentally figure out what was going on. I've never been able to figure it out from just watching the things going on around me. Pop always got mad at me for being to dense." Ranma explained.

Julia and Tirga both glanced at him. “Do you think it may have something to do with what was causing you that pain earlier?”

Ranma shrugged. “No, this feels like one of the traps my old man used to set up to train me in some very dangerous forms of the Art.”

“It may be important so try and figure it out.” Julia told him.

He shrugged. "Like I said, I'm bad at figuring these things out, but I'll give it a try."

"Just what makes you think something is going on?" Tirga asked in a way that made Sheila glare at him.

Ranma ignored the tone of voice as he answered. "Rook was to willing to give away information, G'nolga went down way to easily, That Dracolich is just sitting there for no reason when it could easily have breathed that poison gas on all of us. About how easily that shield around the palace went down and how all these Undead are so easy to beat in a fight."

Thropan was nodding by the time Ranma finished his explaining his thoughts. "I agree, things have been way to easy. Even I noticed that."

After several seconds Julia nodded as well. "He did say that he had plans in place for anything we might try."

"What about taking the time to gather more forces up here. It'll only take an hour or to and we can every fighter in the city up her for the next leg of the fight." Tirga suggested.

"I'm not sure we have that long to wait." Julia said as she looked over that the Palace. He's inside and ever minute that passes gives him more time to pull off his plan."

Behind them several dwarves ran by with G’nolga trussed up in chains from head to foot, carrying her on their shoulders, heading for the stairs. The rest started to assemble at the top of the stairs leading down from the soon to be battle ground. It was quite obvious that they didn't plan to stick around for the battle.

Julia watched them for a few minutes and wondered what would happen to her rival now that she was back with the dwarves. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the amulet she took from G'nolga earlier. She turned to the dwarf issuing orders. “Here, this may help her a little.”

He glanced at her from under his hood. “What you got there?”

“Rook was controlling her with this necklace. Once we got it off her she collapsed and hasn’t been awake since. I think it possessed her in some way. It may help clear her name a little since I know she would never pull something like this off under normal circumstances.”

Another dwarf jogged over and took a close look at the item. “Aye lass, tis a dangerous object you have there. They used to be dead common in the dark days, back before the first Armsmaster appeared. That there is a control stone.”

Julia gaped at the thing. “This is a slaver stone?”

“Aye, it is. Combine that with the right spells, some mental conditioning, and you can control even a god with that thing.”

“Then G’nolga isn’t at fault.”

“It may help save her honor, but she’s a dark soul, she was to willing to accept what happened to her. Even the legends say that these were never very effective on the really strong willed fighters. Yet G’nolga did all this?”

“Here, take it with you and try use it to at least help her case.”

The lead dwarf nodded and took the object and carefully placee it in a pouch at his side. “The road home will be long.”

“Will you stay around to help us?”

“Nay! The sooner we are away from here the better. There is death in the air tonight an I want no part of it.” The Dwarf snarled and gripped his special crossbow a little tighter as the other Dwarf spoke up.

“The sooner we leave the better. This is not our fight, we have what we came for and you’ve nearly won anyway, the city below is back in your control all the surviving paladins are on their way up. Just be patient and you will have all the help you need within an hour or two. You have no need for our small squad.”

“There are more paladin’s coming?”

“Aye, we could see them below us several spirals down the stairs as we reached the top. They should be here in about twenty minutes or so.”

“Good.”

The dwarves quickly trotted down the stairs with G’nolga and vanished from sight a few seconds later. Julia was disappointed, but she wasn’t very surprised. The Dwarves weren’t known for interacting with humans on a regular basis. Most of the clans kept to themselves and rarely left their homes deep in the mountains. Only a rare few ever ventured out among the world and see what they could and most of those were like G'nolga. Rogues who were more than willing to fight anyone that got in their way.

She turned to Tirga. “You heard?”

“I did. We should wait for them to arrive now that we know they are on their way, before we start the next attack.”

“I agree, but I still think time is moving against us. The longer we leave Rook in there to do whatever he’s doing, the more danger we place ourselves in.”

“Sheila is getting that Ashaton fellow and the paladins up to date on what has happened so far from our point of view. They’ve all been staring at the Dracolich as well and I can smell their fear. I’m not sure they will be of much use, most of them are wore out from marching up those stairs.”

“They’re professionals Tirga, you know the kind of person you have to be to even be considered for a position.”

“True. I have no doubts that they will fight no matter what, but all of them are wore out mentally and physically. I’m not sure how much more they can give.”

“They will give as much as we tell them to.” Julia said quietly and turned away, her feet crushing some of the dead leaves scattered across the ground.

Tirga sighed. He understood what she meant, but didn't like it one bit. Everyone turned to watch as the Dracolich suddenly started to move around, crushing a portion of the wall surrounding the Palace and building up a small hill of debris. It turned it's glowing eyes on them and almost seemed to grin at them as some grayish black smoke wafted out from the sides of it's mouth. Lighting filled the sly behind it, giving the beast a demonic aura of evil.

"Then again, she may be right after all."

**********

To Be Continued...


End Notes -

Ashaton Chaos (later in BHC he will be known as Ashaton Chaos Saotome)Fighting Style: Chaos Wind StyleWeapon: Large England BroadSword Age:21 Hair/Eye Color: Brown Height: 6ft (largest WereRat to date)Weight: 190 in WereRat, 210 in human,also has werecheetah blood that was recently unlocked

Attacks: Aero Beam

The Edge Guard: http://www.monmouth.com/~roxikat/edgeguard.htm

Sheila is Gar’s sister. She has a rare werecat birth defect where her human form has her strength and speed instead of her hybrid form. She’s an adult in a teenager’s hybrid form. She chooses her hybrid form in combat usually because her human form lacks the healing and jagwere dexterity. Also, she’s accepted more as ‘one of the guys’ when she’s small, not as a gorgeous damsel to be put on a pedestal to court. Despite her insisted maturity, she uses words like pow and kapowie. Most of her elemental attacks are based around them. She’s infatuated with Tirga, but refuses to let him know.
Race: Jagwere
Class: swashbuckler/ fighter
Weapon: Ice Fang, scimitar
Special Ability: The fastest healer in hybrid form.

Gar is second in command of the Northern Edge Guard. A dark and brooding warrior since Brittany Diggers spurned his affections after he tried to defeat her lover Stripe in hand-to-hand combat. Since he was trained by the famous armsmaster, Julia Diggers, the fight was nearly his. Gar refuses to let go for reasons of his own. But Julia taught him first and foremost to have patience without hesitance.
Race: Jagwere
Class: Martial artist/ fighter
Weapon: Thunder Edge, partisan (spear)
Special Ability: During a solar eclipse, Gar can focus his power to perform the Lunar Rave, increasing his strength, speed, and size.

Tirga is a hedonistic, vain womanizer, who relies on his charm to get out of most scrapes. But behind his fun-loving demeanor, Tirga is a cautious, secretive person. Often uses disguises to blend into his surroundings when tracking his quarry.
Race: Were-tiger
Class: Rogue/Tracker/Tactician
Weapon: Fire Claw, morning star mace
Special Ability: His powers of vanity allow him to grow his hair to any length or style to aid in his disguises.


Onoli is the leader of the Northern Edge Guard, and their strongest and wisest member. Raised in bushido schools of thought, Onoli lets little disturb his tranquility. Well-versed in the laws of the Retreat, he makes an eloquent public speaker at the Council.
Race: Were-lion
Class: samurai
Weapons: Seraphim and Necro, swords of Light and Dark soul energy. The Jasper - Rain

Thropan is a mechanical artifact expert as well as a mechanical and magical engineer. He rebuilt and modified the standard issue Edge Guard elemental weapons and gear with his own experimental designs including the device that lets them gate around. With science and technology outlawed on Jade, Thropan toes the line with all his technological experiments using magic for power.
Race: Were-panther
Class: Magical engineer/ martial artist
Weapon: Earth Flail, dragon’s claw (bladed nunchaku)
Special Ability: Master of the School of Xiao Pai Long