Chapter 84: Corpse Road
Matthew Warrens entered Dread Fort with a spear, a coil of rope, two empty sacks, and no intention of approaching the main gate on foot.
The four Golden Axe members with him had entered level 4 today prepaird for scouting rather than raw strength. Their party included a shield-bearer, a healer, a mage, and the guild’s best tracker. All five had cleared the first three levels together before earning access to Kildra’s fortress.
They appeared on the same pale hill Five Knots had described.
[Dread Fort]
[Suggested level: 25]
[Objective: Kill Kildra, Warden of the Last Threshold.]
[Kildra normally resides within the throne room.]
[No additional completion conditions.]
Matthew looked at the distant fort and then at the road. "We find the wagon. That will be our point of entry."
The tracker led them through the grass without crossing the road. Five Knots’ map proved accurate enough to guide them toward a shallow depression overlooking the last mile before the gate. They slowly crept into the depression that hid them from sight and set their plan in motion.
They waited. Dread Fort did not reward impatience. The cold wind continued for almost an hour before the tracker spotted movement in the distance.
Two pale horses pulled a covered wagon toward the fortress. A hooded driver sat motionless on the front bench. The canvas over the wagon’s bed sagged beneath an uneven load.
The Golden Axe’s healer frowned. "Those are bodies."
"That is why nobody at the gate asks them for an invitation." Matthew answered.
They intercepted the wagon behind a line of dead trees while it was out of view ffom the guards. The driver did not speak when Matthew stepped onto the road. It raised its head, revealing a face that had dried tightly against its skull. The creature reached beneath its coat.
Matthew struck once with the butt of his spear.
The driver fell from the bench. The shield-bearer caught the reins before the horses stopped. The fight ended too quickly to attract the fortress patrols. They dragged the driver beneath the trees and pulled back the canvas.
Orin’s prediction had been correct. The wagon was filled with dead bodies. Some wore fragments of armor. Others were wrapped in stained sheets. None moved, although the tracker watched them for a full minute before accepting that fact... just to be sure. They were fighting undead after all.
Matthew removed the driver’s cloak and handed it to the shield-bearer.
"You are driving."
"Why me?"
"Because you are the only one who can sit still for ten minutes."
The shield-bearer looked toward the pile of bodies. "And the rest of you?"
Matthew lifted the canvas. "We take the comfortable seats."
There were no comfortable seats.
The party buried itself beneath cold limbs, rusted armor, and rough burial cloth. Matthew ended up on the bottom with someone’s elbow pressed against his cheek. The healer slowed everyone’s breathing with a support spell. The mage spread the driver’s cloak across the shield-bearer’s armor and dimmed the living warmth surrounding him.
The wagon returned to the road.
Every rut forced the dead to settle around them. A boot pressed against the mage’s throat until the healer shifted it without lifting the canvas. Something small moved beneath Matthew’s shoulder, stopped, and began moving again. He decided it was an insect because the alternative possibilities were less pleasant.
The shield-bearer drove using only the reins. The pale horses ignored whispered commands and responded to pressure with the certainty of animals that had followed the same route for years.
That discovery became another note for later: anyone stealing a corpse wagon needed to know how the dead horses had been trained.
Max watched from his office.
He had placed three corpse wagons on routes leading to Dread Fort. They were not intentionally placed mechanisms to allow entry. They existed because the fortress collected bodies, and an open-ended level needed routines that continued whether adventurers used them or not.
Matthew’s party had turned one of those routines into a plan.
Anna stood beside his chair, studying a second view of the main gate.
"How long until the inspection?" She asked while wondering how difficult it was going to be for this group to infiltrate.
"Two minutes."
"Can the guards tell the difference between a living and undead when the living is disguised?"
"Some of them can detect life essence." He answered.
Max did not say which ones. The wagon stopped outside the gate.
Matthew heard metal boots approach. A spearhead struck the side of the wagon twice. Something pulled back the canvas.
Light entered between the bodies.
An armored skeleton leaned over them. Pale green flame burned inside its helmet. It inspected the dead without interest before turning toward the disguised driver.
"Late."
The shield-bearer lowered his head.
The guard waited. Matthew could not see what it expected. The body above him shifted as another guard pressed its spear into the pile. The point passed through a sheet and stopped against Matthew’s breastplate.
He did not move, not even when the guard pushed harder. Metal scraped metal beneath the bodies. The healer’s support spell that softened their presence trembled.
A bell sounded from the eastern tower.
Both guards straightened. The first dropped the canvas and struck the wagon’s side once.
The gate opened and the shield-bearer urged the dead horses forward.
Nobody beneath the canvas breathed normally until the gate closed behind them.
Matthew counted three turns before lifting one edge of the covering.
They had entered an outer yard filled with narrow stone buildings. Undead laborers carried crates between storehouses. Armored patrols crossed raised walkways. A line of robed figures moved toward a chapel while bells directed traffic through the courtyards.
The wagon did not travel toward the inner keep. It turned downhill. Green light flickered beyond an archway ahead. The smell reached them seconds later. It was not rot. It was something harsher, like burned hair and old chemicals.
The mage looked through a gap in the canvas.
"They are taking the bodies into a processing hall."
"Processing them into what?" The healer whispered, but he also realized that any answer to that question wouldn’t be good.
Matthew pushed the corpse above him aside. "We are getting off."
The party slipped from the rear of the moving wagon as it passed between two storehouses. The shield-bearer abandoned the driver’s bench and joined them before the wagon entered the green-lit archway.
They hid behind stacks of empty crates.
Getting inside had required patience. Remaining inside required information.
The tracker watched the patrols. The bells did more than mark time. One long note sent laborers away from the central road. Two short notes opened the doors leading to the barracks. Three descending notes caused every servant in the yard to stop and bow toward the inner keep.
Insignia mattered as much as sound.
Undead wearing a crowned skull insignia passed through any outer checkpoint. Those marked with a broken sword were restricted to the military quarter. Servants wore blank iron discs and moved through smaller passages that the armored patrols ignored.
Matthew collected a blank disc from an unattended cloak.
The tracker found stairs leading onto the wall. The mage identified wards protecting a gate that led to the inner keep. The healer discovered that several buildings contained living prisoners whose presence had not appeared on the exterior map.
The prisoners created the most difficult possible plan.
Through a barred basement window, the healer saw three people wearing clothing from no guild she recognized. One noticed her and moved toward the bars. He did not call for help. He silently pointed toward a door at the rear of the building and then toward the inner keep.
"We could release them." The healer whispered.
Matthew studied the patrol crossing the next street. "We do not know whether they are allies, bait, or inhabitants with their own purpose."
"They are alive in a castle filled with undead."
"That is not the same as harmless."
He copied the building onto the map and marked the rear door. Leaving the prisoners felt wrong. Opening an unknown cell during their first visit felt foolish. Dread Fort gave them no assurance that every living person inside wanted to help the adventurers who found them.
They would return with a plan for the prison. Every discovery created another possible route through the fortress. But It also took time.
The missing driver was eventually found where the party had left his body.
The fortress bells stopped following their normal sequence. One heavy note struck from all four towers at once. The moment they rang, every undead in the area turned toward the outer gate.
Then the second note sounded. They turned toward the storehouses.
"We have been found." The tracker said.
Matthew did not waste time asking how the enemy knew. "Waterway."
They ran through the service passages rather than the main road. The blank iron disc allowed them through the first checkpoint. At the second, an undead servant looked at Matthew’s spear and raised one hand.
The shield-bearer closed the door between them.
The party reached the lower wall before the alarm spread completely. Water rushed through a stone channel beneath an iron grate.
The mage knelt beside the locking mechanism of the water grate.
"I need a minute."
But they did not have one.
The first patrol entered the passage behind them. The shield-bearer blocked the narrow stairs while Matthew stood beside him. The healer and tracker helped the mage work at the grate.
Max changed the viewing angle but did not close it.
Matthew’s group was not going to escape. That did not make the attempt a failure.
The grate moved half an inch. Another patrol entered from the opposite end of the water channel.
The party had found an exit route and learned that Dread Fort would close it during an alarm. That knowledge would remain after their bodies did not. Maybe they could take advantage of that if they remained undetected next time.
Matthew mumbled his own observations making sure to keep them sharp in his mind.
"Four bells means begin the search. Blank discs grants passage through servants’ doors. The lower grate locks from the inside."
The undead soon reached them and the fight lasted less than a minute.
Matthew’s spear broke against a black-armored knight. The shield-bearer fell beneath three weapons. Green light filled the channel when the mage’s final spell struck the water.
Then the instance emptied.
[Party defeated.]
Matthew opened his eyes in the Sanctuary hospital.
His four companions occupied the beds around him. The healer sat up first and immediately repeated the bell sequence. The tracker followed with the patrol routes. The mage asked for charcoal before leaving his bed.
Matthew touched the spot where the knight’s weapon had passed through his chest. There was no wound.
"We got inside." The shield-bearer said.
"But we got caught."
Matthew climbed from the bed. Outside the hospital, Five Knots and Rod’s party were already waiting to hear what they had learned.
Kesh spread fresh parchment across an empty meal cart. The tracker described the streets while the mage drew the yard used to control the lower grate. Matthew repeated every bell sequence in the order they had heard it, including the four-tower alarm.
Their bodies had spent only a few hours inside Dread Fort.
The map they carried out would survive every reset.
Max closed the viewing screen only after the first lines appeared on the page. Anna remained beside him, reading the defeat notice on her clipboard.
"No reward." She said.
"The hospital returned their equipment."
"That is not what I meant."
Max looked once more at the party who were comparing memories before the image disappeared. "They went in with one possible entrance. Now every qualified group knows an entrance, an exit, three kinds of insignia, and how the alarm changes the fortress."
Anna smiled. "So there was a reward."
"Just not one the menu needed to provide."