The Undead shouted back wordlessly in unison and started moving south.
Dave headed to the front of the column and Lone followed.
"What is that?!" the archer had spotted a new type of creature among the Undead.
"Oh, that's Dog the dullahan, and he's riding a basilisk. Which he tamed for himself. Somehow." That was still a bit of a sore point for Dave.
Lone inspected the basilisk and her eyes widened.
"That is just broken, the basilisk has so many skills!"
"Yeah, basilisks are very powerful. I'm going to breed them. As some point I will have a bunch of them as mounts. Basilisk heavy cavalry."
A ghoul on a dunlord approached Lone.
"Pretty-elf...wel...come...back."
"And who is this charming fellow?" Lone cooed, already won over by the 'pretty elf' statement.
"This is Bud, he's one of my first undead. You probably don't recognize him because he's evolved a few times since then."
"Hello again, Bud. Your new 'look' is so cool!" she gushed at the oversized Shadow-Ghoul.
Dave could've sworn Bud blushed at Lone's compliment. But that wasn't possible.
"So, what now Davy? Are we going somewhere in particular?"
"I haven't explored much to the south, so I don't know what we'll find. At the very least we'll find some 'free-range' mobs to kill."
"Why not go to the third Raid Zone?"
"Tch, I'm not going back there for a while. That place is dangerous, we had to fight our way through thousands of mobs when we tried to explore it."
"Thousands?"
"Yeah, literally. Maybe even tens of thousands. I'll send you a clip of the feed, you can watch it while we travel."
Several times the regiment scouts came across and reported spoor from lone shadow-tigers. But Dave wasn't interested in tracking down single weak mobs.
Lone finished watching the painted dogs video he'd sent her.
"That was way cool but risky, Dave. You could have died and lost everything."
"Heh. Yeah, I don't have to worry anymore about losing the Legacy if I die, or my rank in the legion. Hell, even the Undead expansion is no longer linked to my death."
"WHAT!?" Lone reached across and punched his arm. "That's for letting me worry!" Then she punched him again, "And that's for not telling me until just now!"
The Undead had heard her first exclamation and started looking around for an enemy, ready to defend against an attack. When Lone punched Dave they were unsure how to respond.
Since their Death Knight leader just rubbed his arm and smirked, the undead took their cue from him. They ignored the 'incident' with the Living elf and resumed marching.
A little later Lone exclaimed, "Hey look over there!"
Dave looked where Lone was pointing and saw pillars the size of skyscrapers rising up from the scorched land. Some them were upright and some had fallen, the debris spread all over the area.
The regiment moved in closer to the pillars.
Dave and Lone both received a notification.
You are the first to discover the Storms Labyrinth.
All kills award double EXP for seven days (in-game time).
The first kill of any monster inside the Storms Labyrinth has a 100% chance to grant the best loot.
Lone was almost vibrating with eagerness, "It's a dungeon, Dave! A dungeon! So where's the entrance, where!?"
Dave was also looking for the dungeon's entrance, he didn't see anything but the pillars.
Only a single pair of the enormous pillars were still standing and more or less intact, and the regiment was about to pass through them. The moment Dave crossed between the two towering structures his vision blurred and the world darkened around him.
He looked back, realizing the two pillars were a gate to another place.
They were now marching on a paved stone surface instead of bare ground.
The stone road led to a gate made of solid gold, the surface decorated with patterns of inset jewels in all colors. But what caught Dave's eyes were the two Drahmsize statues standing on either side of the gate.
The one on the right had a wild mane of reddish hair, his body was taut with well-defined muscle, including an impressive six-pack of abs. The other statue was bald with the build of a powerlifter, including the belly of a happy Buddha. He carried some sort of bag across his neck and shoulders and heavy, spiked cestus encased his thick forearms and fists. Both were depicted wearing only loose Arabian-style pantaloons with wide cloth belts wrapped around their middles.
Strangely, a metal hoop rose up around the lion-maned statue, spaced evenly along the ring were many small drums. Appropriately in his hands were a pair of drumsticks with massive spherical heads. They looked like they would serve just as well for beating drums or bashing in heads.
"I know these guys!" Lone said, looking at the two statues. "From mythology. These guys are Raijin and Fujin. They are the protectors of the gates to the Otherworld!"
"Okay, I'm impressed. Let's just hope these really are statues. That they are here JUST for decoration, not to come alive and gank us all. That would be A Bad Thing."
Dave moved closer to the gates while prudently keeping an eye on the statues, hoping they don't move.
When he got within a few paces of the gates, they opened silently on their own.
Dave's heart jumped, "Gah! Creepy."
He looked around again for anything that might be getting ready to jump out at him. Seeing nothing, he shrugged and led Stinger forward, followed by Lone and the regiment.
After the final member of the Undead regiment passed through the gate, the doors slowly and silently swung closed. Thus, there was no one left to witness the two statues turn their heads in unison to look across at each other and smile in sinister fashion then disappear, leaving behind only echoes of eerie laughter.
Chapter end
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