“By… uhhh… Cland! I command you to die… for good!” Grom said, holding up his holy symbol, not at all expecting it to work.

  The vampire thralls surrounding Grom, Ellen and Syril in the dark crypt turned to dust, and the vampire lord they’d battling shielded his eyes, retreating involuntarily from the light shining from the raised pendant.

  “One so devout!” the vampire hissed in anger.

  “Ummm, yeah…” Grom said.

  Syril began to cough, choking on the dust and trying to fan it away from his mouth.

  “Not again,” he moaned.

  The vampire fled up his dais, and as he neared his throne a hooded figure—a ridiculous affectation in the dark crypt—stepped out from behind the ornate chair, stake in hand. With a quick and decisive blow, he pierced the vampire’s heart.

  The finely dressed man—if you ignored all the aged blood stains—froze completely still, falling to the ground paralyzed.

  Ellen pulled out her hand drawn map of the buried temple turned vampire den, checked the time on her pocket watch, squinted to judge the distance from herself to the fallen vampire lord, and then shot a barrage of magical bolts into the ceiling.

  Stone fell at the impact, creating an opening through which the light shone in from above. It came through the hole at an angle, landing directly where the vampire had fallen—just as the wizard had calculated.

  With a scream of pain, the vampire lord burst into flames, rapidly burning but unable to move until nothing was left but a cloak and a ring.

  “Good job everyone!” Linar called, bending over to pick up the items.

  “Stop!” everyone shouted at once, but Linar paid them no head, shaking the ashes off the cloak and then throwing it around himself. The cloak had no hood but had a high collar. It was black on the outside and scarlet within. Cloak on, Linar examined the ring, polishing the ash off of it on his old cloak.

  “It might be cursed,” Ellen said.

  “And we need to decide who gets what,” Syril added.

  “And we need to make sure everything is dead,” Grom put in.

  “You do that,” Linar said. “I saw a secret room behind this throne.

  They gave up, allowing the rogue to do his job and find a way into the secret room as they cleared the space.

  Once the room was considered cleared and Linar was not yet through his door, Ellen went up to Bill’s corpse. He’d been slain outright at the beginning of the battle when a swarm of bats attacked them as they entered. In the swarm the vampire lord manifested, catching the warrior by surprise and slaying him with a bite to his neck.

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  “What are we doing with Bill?” Ellen asked the group. “I don’t think he’ll fit in my bag of holding.”

  “Why don’t you revive him again?” Linar called from where he was working on the secret door.

  “That won’t work,” Grom said.

  “Are you sure?” Syril asked. “That turn undead worked much better than it ought to have with the conviction you put into it.”

  Grom sighed.

  He rose his hands up to the ceiling and in a halfhearted voice intoned, “If it be your will, raise this mighty warrior from the dead so that he may continue to serve you!”

  The bloody neck of Bill’s body healed rapidly, the blood falling away to reveal pristine flesh, and the Bill gasped for breath, sitting up.

  “Vampire!” he shouted, looking around the room.

  When he saw the trio staring at him, and realized he was on the ground, the fear left his face.

  “Did I die again?” he asked, feeling his neck.

  “Yeap,” Ellen said.

  Carefully, having learned his lesson at his funeral, Bill climbed to his feet, using his axe as a crutch.

  Once fully standing, he gave a shallow bow to Grom—not out of disrespect but out of a desire to not fall over.

  “I owe you my life twice over now,” he said.

  “Don’t mention it,” Grom said, waving away the gratitude.

  “Don’t be so humble,” Bill said. “Your faith is marvelous.”

  “No,” Grom said. “Really. Don’t mention it. Tell no one. I don’t need that kind of attention.”

  Bill was thoughtful for a moment—a strange look on his usually blank face.

  “As you wish,” he said with another bow. “Truly you are humble and not a glory seeker. I will try to emulate your ways in gratitude of what your god has done for me.”

  Grom grunted noncommittally and turned away.

  “What happened to the vampire?” Bill asked, looking around to piece together the battle.

  “I calculated the position of the sun and opened a hole in the ceiling to burn it to death,” Ellen said, trying to sound nonchalant about it but failing.

  “Ummm… good job?” Bill said.

  “Stop trying to overcompensate for your noodle arms,” Grom whispered to her after Bill walked away.

  “I can’t help it,” she whispered back, “I can’t stop thinking about it. He basically dumped me.”

  “You were glad he was dead, so you didn’t have to make an excuse to dump him,” Grom said.

  “That’s not the point! I’m a catch. I bend the power of the arcane to my will with my mind,” she said.

  “Yeah…. I don’t think that’s what Bill's looking for in a woman,” Grom said, gesturing to the warrior who was flexing his arms to check for atrophy after his second death.

  “I do cardio!”

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