Sarah’s cough slowly subsided as we made our way back to the church. While the air at street level hadn’t been too bad, the roof had been blanketed with smoke. Still, we had chosen our ambush point well. If the stone building had collapsed from the fire, I doubted either woman would have survived.

  When we got to the church, we cleared every room for more inhabitants. Sarah seemed confident that the bone golem was a solitary monster, but we were not taking any chances. We finished the sweep in the basement back room, having found no sign of other creatures.

  The back room, the bone golem’s den, was devastated. Uncountable gouges marked the stone walls and fragmented remains of furniture and storage crates littered the room. There had clearly once been a large amount of goods stored here, but the bone golems' presence had ravaged them. There wasn’t a splinter of wood or scrap of cloth bigger than my hand out of what covered the floor.

  The only item to survive the golem’s blender whirlwind was a glass case against the far wall. The ornate case stood six feet tall and there wasn’t a scratch on it. Inside the case hung a gorgeous set of full plate armor. The steel was polished to a silver sheen, and gold decals decorated every piece. A golden cross dominated the center of the breastplate.

  Gerald waded through the debris, practically salivating. “Oh yeah, now we're talking,” he muttered. He put one gloved hand against the glass, admiring the armor within. There was a hiss like gas escaping, and a delicate click. Gerald stumbled back, almost tripping over the uneven footing. “What’d I do?”

  I braced for some trap to spring, but all that happened was the glass door swinging slowly open.

  “It’s Crusader armor,” Sarah said. She had crossed next to Gerald and studied the armor. “Makes sense that a Crusader would be able to open it. Give me a minute to identify its properties.”

  Gerald’s hands twitched towards the armor before dropping to his sides. I could tell he wanted to just grab the gear, but was smart enough to let Sarah finish consulting her tome. We didn’t know if this game had cursed equipment, but we were not going to take the chance. Gerald could come across as reckless, but he was still a professional game tester. I shuddered to imagine being trapped in the game with internet randos.

  Sarah let out a low whistle as she finished her inspection. “Congrats big guy. It’s a fantastic find. All holy magic, so no curses or conflicts with your class. It has resizing and durability enchantments, but that’s just the appetizer.

  “The main enchantment is a massive defensive working. If I am reading this right, it should protect you against anything that tries to bypass the armor. Extreme heat or cold, gasses, mental magic, as long as it doesn’t surpass what the armor can take, you will be totally immune. Hell, I’d bet it’s even waterproof. Not that I would recommend swimming. It would keep the water out, but it doesn't have an air supply. You would still suffocate pretty fast.”

  “Thanks for that image,” Gerald said, rolling his eyes. “So I can take it?” He cast a guilty glance at the rest of us. “I don’t want to hog all the cool loot.”

  “It’s all yours,” I said with a snort. I might have been able to use that holy plate, but it was Crusader armor. Trying to take armor clearly designed for the big guy’s class would be the height of douchery.

  “Guess I won’t need the Magdalene relic after all,” Gerald said as he started pulling the plate off its stand. I had been trying to convince the Crusader to take the relic for its anti-possession properties. As a fellow member of the Church, the relic could be tuned to him instead of me. As the party’s tank, it was more important for him to have the extra defense. But with his new armor, he was already protected from external influences.

  I nodded to the big man, but he was so engrossed in putting on the new armor I wasn’t sure if he saw. “Well, what’s next?” I asked.

  “The altar,” Sarah said. “Need to check if my hunch about the ritual is correct.”

  Only the base and a pile of stone rubble remained of the altar. It hadn’t changed much from when I had recovered the St. Piran relic, though more of the rubble had been scattered across the room. Luckily, the altar’s devastated state didn’t hinder Sarah’s ability to study the ritual magic.

  “There is just one line of power coming from the altar,” she said, fingers sliding up the wall as she traced the magic only she could see.

  “So it’s a deadend?” Eva asked, forehead wrinkling. “This altar connects to the one at the hospital and that’s it?”

  Sarah shook her head. “That can’t be right. Come on, let's retrace our steps.”

  We went up stairs and back onto the street where Sarah could pick up the original trail. She followed the trail into the church, but instead of going downstairs, traced it back to the main floor altar.

  As she studied the second altar, I looked over the rest of the area. It was bigger than the lower chapel. I could imagine a thousand people filling up the ornate building. If people fled here for protection when the apocalypse hit, like they did at the hospital chapel, it must have been a massacre.

  “Ha, knew there would be more to it,” Sarah said. “There are a half dozen lines of magic coming from this altar. One of them is going straight down. That’s the one that connects to the underground altar.”

  “Ok, so that’s three altars connected,” I said. “Probably safe to say the other lines connect to other churches or chapels then.”

  “What does that actually tell us though?” Gerald asked.

  “The lines by themselves? Not much,” Sarah admitted. “But there are more traces of magic here than just the lines. The altar is surrounded by a magic circle. I can’t identify all of these runes, but a ritual was definitely performed here. And there is this.” She led us around the altar and gestured.

  Blood was splashed against the side of the altar’s remains and pooling on the stone floor. It was bright red and still looked wet. Despite there being more blood than a person could afford to lose, there was no sign of a body. I glanced at Sarah, the illogical idea that she had somehow been injured without me noticing flashing through my head.

  “Ritual sacrifice,” Sarah explained as she kneeled. She touched the bloodstain, but her hand came away dry. “This happened a long time ago. The residual magic is just strong enough to imbue the blood with an illusionary vitality.”

  “Human sacrifice to destroy a holy site isn’t new,” Eva commented. “It’s a pretty normal convention in a lot of fantasy.”

  “Not just one site,” Sarah explained. “If our theory is correct, this one ritual destroyed seven consecrated altars. And from my research into what happened during the Night of Jagged Teeth, every church fell at the same time.”

  “There are a lot more than seven churches in the Old City,” Gerald said.

  “There must be more ritual sites,” Sarah said. “Enough to hit every consecrated place. But that’s not even the most important part. An undead, even a greater undead, couldn’t have done this ritual. They don’t have the vital essence to interface with this kind of magic. A human must have done this.”

  “Death cult,” Eva said quickly. “I’m calling it here, it was definitely a death cult.”

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  “I got government conspiracy,” Gerald said, catching on quickly to Eva’s game. “Considering what Will told us about the Milladen, I wouldn’t be surprised if the government was responsible for the apocalypse too. Something like a weapon test that got out of hand or purging of political rivals.”

  “Whatever it ends up being,” Sarah said, cutting off the speculation, “we now know the apocalypse wasn’t a natural disaster. Someone deliberately set off the undead plague.”

  After taking notes in her tome, Sarah wanted to trace the other lines of power. That line of inquiry was tabled for now though. There wasn’t much light left in the day, and we needed to get ready to help Adam on the wall. I wasn’t really looking forward to spending the night fighting endless waves of undead, but the Halberdier had been extremely helpful in the fight against the bone golem and we owed him. At least I would be on the wall this time, instead of fighting on the bridge.

  When we got back to Westminster, Adam showed us to some rooms we could rest in, then left to tend to his own preparations. Gerald and Eva claimed cots and were soon asleep. A nap was probably a good idea, since it would be a long night.

  Instead, I sat next to Sarah at the room's table. Her brow furrowed in concentration as she compared the drawings of ritual runes she had made to the notes in her tome. Not wanting to break her concentration, I opened my own journal. I was delighted, but not surprised to see that I had leveled. I hadn’t been too far away and we had fought a lot today. Even split between my party, there was enough XP to push me to level ten.

  As it was an even level, I received a point in each of my skill trees. I flipped to the first tree and examined my options.

  I had taken all of the Multi-Weapon Fighting skills on earlier levels, so now I was back to old choices. Guard Master and Measure 1 seemed solid, but didn’t match well with my blitzkrieg fighting style. Fight Under Cover would be very effective when fighting a single opponent, but probably wouldn’t see much value against hordes of monsters.

  I ended up taking the less flashy option. Footwork 1 didn’t give me any amazing tactical choices, but would provide a constant benefit. Adam’s Hold the Line skill showed me the value of preventing opponents from just bowling me over.

  Next was the magic skill tree.

  Rereading Dispelling Push 1, I realized that it wouldn’t help against the wards Eva had mentioned. The skill didn’t work against inanimate objects. Still, I had wanted the ability to dispel enemy buffs since my fight against the Grey’s enforcer.

  The only other tempting skill was Lasting Creation 1. My wooden shields were practically disposable at this point. Having my force shield up continuously would be extremely convenient.

  I decided to take Dispelling Push 1. Lasting Creation would be convenient, but Dispelling Push was something I couldn't just replicate with mundane equipment. Choice made, I moved on to my third skill tree.

  My new option, Holy Armory Contact 2, was a little vague, but sounded good. Being able to choose what item got buffed each day would provide some versatility. I wished it gave more detail about how the blessings worked, but I was still convinced. I selected Holy Armory Contact 2 and closed my journal.

  Seeing that Sarah was still deep in thought, I left the table quietly. I stripped out of my chainmail, and flopped down on an empty cot. Closing my eyes, I contemplated my todo list. Track down Sarah’s ritual, get contractors for Gerald’s outpost, help Adam with the siege, find a ward breaker to help with Eva’s heist. And that didn’t even touch on my own quest. I needed to raid the Milladen base sooner rather than later and had no idea how to get evidence against the Assistant Commissioner.

  My thoughts slowly became less lucid and my plans less useful as I drifted off to sleep.

  Well, November is over. Did I make the goal for the Writeathon? Absolutely not. But did I make my personal goals? Still no. But at least I put in an effort. It’s something, if not as much as I hoped to get done.

  My goal from here is to publish a chapter a week until the second book is finished. Knowing me, that will probably turn into a chapter every 1-2 weeks.

  Thanks for reading, and as always, feedback is appreciated.