Necropalypse: The River of Souls

"I was thinking to let you help me set up these bombs, Rol. You're the one who uses explosives. Unless your knowledge stops at 'click button and throw for boom'. Then I think we shouldn't let you anywhere near explosives ever again." She says while putting her hand through Scott's armor to reach for his mana core.
"Otherwise you can start rigging up a chain of your explosives while I work on building the container for the mana bomb. Meanwhile stranger danger over there can do his copying thing and Doomy.. eh you can try looking for an easy exit?"
Once she has found the core she takes it out and tosses it at the stranger for duplicating. Before moving on to rip one of Scott's legs off to build a bomb casing.


"..Looking for exits.. Okay will do. Up right?"

"Oh. I know how to chain an explosion."

The bounty hunter smiled, though no one could see it. 

"it's bewm bewm time!"

The stranger clones it quickly and hands the copy to the faceless girl before cloning another and handing the original back.

"Just in case on the off chance something goes horribly wrong. One never fails if they have a back up plan." 

The Stranger says so slightly annoyed.

"And you all may call me... Herst."

The pause before the name seemed hesitant, as if unsure about giving it. either way, as he gives his name, he pulls out a pouch and puts the backup Mana Core into it before placing it back into a pocket in his cloak. 

"Just replace the core back and I'll start moving the Robot out of here somehow. I easily lose sense of direction is these labyrinths..."

"Good, we need at least 17 explosives to set off this core. But my calculations might be off a bit. It isn't my habit to do those kind of equations in my head on the spot. So throw in a few more if you can." She says to Rol before turning to Herst.


"Good idea. A plan B is always a good thing to have. That's a lesson these guys should have learned already. But most of the time they don't even have a plan A."
She takes the mana cores and places the original back into Scott.


"Okay Herst, you can call me Reganya. Or just Ren, like some people who seem to be unable to pronounce my full name. Go along with Doomy, even if you get lost I'll still be able to find you if I merge with the pyramid. It's easier to find groups."
She then returns to building the bomb.

"If you don't have plans you can't fuck up. Which probably sounds stupid, but makes sense if you knew the people in our group. Mostly me."

The bounty hunter started counting his explosives. 

"Oi. Herst, i'm sure it slipped out sometime, but I'm Roltharus. And I should be a big and famous bounty hunter but no one really knows who I am. Which is weird since I almost broke everything.. BACK TO EXPLOSIONS" Rol segued, horrendously.

Herst just sighed and picked up Scott casually like a sack of potatoes and then awaited for the one called Doomy to return and lead the way to the exit.

"Wait, if I'm helping with the boom boom and they're gonna go and be safe and shit. How exactly will I get out? You've got your wall through thing.. Or was I just not paying enough attention to the plan?"

Rol scratched his head, looking at Ren.

"We'll set a timer. 10-15 minutes ish. That should be enough time to get to safety." Doomy shows back up a few moments later.


"..I almost got lost."
"Almost?"
"..."
"Here take these to mark your path so Rol can follow them later." She throws a bag with markers to Doomy.
"Herst over there is gonna come with you. I'm sure at least one of you is competent enough to find an exit, right?"


"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means you need to get your ass moving or I'll blow you up next."

"I'd say blow our way out but but for all I know, we could be underground. Just lead and I'll follow, lugging this robot won't slow me from a running march." Herst says casually.

"Man, I wish I had a flying mythical beast here or something."

Rol sighed and started to look over the explosives.

"Are we going to blow this popsicle stand?"

"Kk" Doomy nodded and walked ahead. Marking the walls as he progressed through the hallways.


"If you have the explosives ready I can put them in and make the timer. And then we can get out of here before the popsicle stand goes boom."

"Them explosives are ready."

Rol handed over the explosives to Ren, after doing a quick once over to make sure he didn't fuck up.

Herst meanwhile, proceeds to tail Doomy carrying the robot, yawning even.

"Okay, thanks." She puts the explosives in what was once Scott's leg. Closed it and set the timer. "Let's get the hel out of here. I set the timer to fifteen minutes in case we get lost."

----
Doomy walks ahead, marking his path. "If we keep going in the same general direction, we'll eventually find a way out, right?"

((Since I can see it's kinda hard to reply here I'll fast forward to a more interesting part, the explosion.))

+/-15 minutes later:

Everyone and an unconscious scott reach the abandoned village again.
"Think we're far enough?"
"We'll find out in about.. 5."
"Five?"
"..4,3,2,1.."
"Oh shit!"

Behind them the pyramid blasts apart. A bright blue ball of fire expands and rises above where the pyramid once stood. The shockwave blows away the houses around the group And they all die.
The group is blasted off their feet but is otherwise unharmed. Above them they see a gigantic mushroom cloud above a crater the size of what was once the marsh. An afterglow of Mana residue lights up the area slightly.

The moon slowly loses its green color and returns to normal now that the pyramid is no longer directing the soul river at it. Reganya is the first to get back up. "Everyone okay?"

Considering that Herst wasn't knockdown in the first place, he never had to get up, but was shaking his head from either the bright light, dust having flown into his face or both. 

"Knew I should have thrown a barrier up..."

He muttered annoyed.

"WHY DO I ALWAYS GET DIRTY?"

Rol yelled, while brushing dust off himself, or maybe it was sand, or leftover undead powder. OR COCAINE.

"Jeez. Someone should have thrown a barrier up" The bounty hunter started saying before Stranger danger/Herst made the same compliant.

Herst tilted his head in what may be confusion, though he can not be blamed. The one called Roltharus had said "showed" where a "should" would have been, thus ruining his sentence.

"Ugh..That was not fun. Let's not do that again. Wait.. Why is everything blue?"


"That's just the Mana fallout. It's not as dangerous as it's name would make you think."


"No.. I mean like I only see in shades of blue.. "


"You looked towards the explosion didn't you?" She sighed.


"..yes..."


"Figures, It'll wear off in a few hours.. or days. More importantly we still have a job to do. We might have destroyed the pyramid but according to what we read, we still need to find the source of the river of souls and reboot it. Guess it's time for Doomy's family reunion."


"Dammit my name isn't.. ugh whatever I give up."


"It'll go faster with a vehicle so let's get back to the Inn first."

Herst seemingly gave everyone a blank look.

"Considering I just finished my job to the fullest capacity, I'd normally leave. Yet... Something... Compels me to not leave you..."

Herst seemed out of it, before sharply bringing out a journal and opening it up, only to stash it away again in a few seconds of reading something.

"Nay, it appears this will mark a new chapter for me. I ask you all a favor, and that is to allow me to journey with you for a time."


Herst then knelt on one knee as a knight would and awaits answer with his head bowed.

"Something tells me it's Ren's responsibility to answer that question."

The bounty hunter looked at Herst doing his kneeling thingy. He whispered to Scott's unconscious body, well not so much an actually whisper, but a yelling whisper.

"Man, what is with this guy? He's strange. I'm stranger. But he's strange.. OH NOW I GET WHY I CALLED HIM STRANGER DANGER."

"Not sure why it would be my responsibility. Then again I'm probably the only one here with any sense of responsibility... Sure, we could use all the help we can get."


"Is this guy seriously kneeling?.."


"Let's get back to the Inn we can drop off the robot there while we're at it. And then hope there's a vehicle available."

The party gets a new member and they travel back to the Inn. When they get there they see Kiro (like I said, Kenichi is too japanese for a name. Kiro could be anything. So Yeah, changed my characters name.) watching over a construction crew while they slowly rebuild the Inn. He really stood out with his white fur and tail. Some of the workers seemed to be scared of him. Mostly because he looked like an albino blood wolf. But those don't exist, even Kiro himself wasn't sure what he was.
He seemed to be the only member at the Inn today.


"Kiro, we need a vehicle to get to Valkyrea."


"Valkyrea?"


"Doomy has relatives there who might know how to stop a third undead plague."

Reganya told him about everything that happened. Including the scott bomb and stranger danger. "Figured that explosion I heard was you guys.. My ears are still ringing from that." He wiggled his ears.
"Luckily we still have an ornithopter for you guys. I can't fly it though, I need to stay here and make sure this construction crew does it's job. Any of you know how to fly that thing?"


"Don't worry about that, I can get us there."


"Alright, just leave scott with me and get going. And Herst was it? Nice meeting you."
Kiro turned his atention back to the workers and the Inn. Reganya then walked over to the ornithopter and opened the door. "No time to waste. Let's get going." Doomy nodded and got inside. "You sure you can fly this thing?"


"Doomy I can fly anything. You don't remember the times where I flew you?"


".. shuddup.. That's not the same thing anyway."


"Isn't it?" Reganya said before possessing the Ornithopter and starting the engine.


"..how the .."

"Damn Deathy, not satisfying your women so she resorts to machines and toys. Jeez."

Rol started to enter the vehicle before stopping himself and turning towards Deahty.

"Would it be rude if I entered your girlfriend before you did?" The bounty hunter asked, not wanting to be offensive.

Herst stood there awkwardly to the side.

"I'm just gonna go by foot. I'm... I never enjoyed flight without actual wings..."

"Roltharus, I know you're trying to say something but all I'm hearing from you is 'Would you please punch me in the face, Dreadfyul?'."

Dreadfyul/Doomy said before going into the ornithopter and sitting down.



"..Herst you've never seen an ornithopter it seems.."
Reganya then activated the wings and two bird like wings popped out. They flapped once and the vehicle lifted a few inches off the ground. It hovered right there in place.
"Going on foot would take days, we don't have the time for that."

(It looks something like this:
But with bird wings instead of insect ones. And bigger.)(I might have to make my own concept art of this one day.. since I don't like the design of the above one much. The other pic wouldn't work so..)