Fat-foots?

"It's not doing anything evil," He thought, and tried to divert his attention away from the shadow.

There was a little task at hand, and Bardeelus' abilities were effective for it. In almost a literal sense, he managed to sniff out the necromancer who attacked them!

The only issue was that he didn't think this issue through entirely. He wanted to have a peaceful conversation, with the same necromancer who wanted to kill him and the group. Regardless of will, cooperation seemed out of the question.

The group had followed that snug corridor for about five minutes, and found what they were looking for. This was no dead-end, Bardeelus spotted the necromancer who they were looking for, hanging around on the corridor's upper section of walls!

The upper walls had a lengthy opening, which could feature a whole other section of the ruins, but the details on that didn't matter for now. The enemy necromancer had a vantage point, and was using it well.

Bardeelus was nervous, but he still yelled out. "Come down here, we need to talk! I don't really want to kill you, that would be very stupid here."

The other did not answer, and pretended that their hiding spot was secure. Bardeelus could literally hear where the necromancer was hiding at, as he sensed a heartbeat and saw a literal trail of red-dots too, which led towards the corridor's upper portions. 

Whoever inflicted the resurrection spell on that boa, was clearly up there!

Anyway, since cooperation wasn't in their immediate future, it took little time for the situation to escalate! 

Within the darkness, Bardeelus saw several spells breaking out from above. The spells flew as if they were a flock of ducks, but the purpose they had was greater.

The collective pile of red dots landed about twenty meters away, in front of the group. It wasn't a random shot, that necromancer knew the surroundings well here, and was about to use them!

Bones crackled right away, to the point where everyone could hear their poppy sounds, without even paying attention!

"Bet it's another boa," Bardeelus said, and then jokingly yelled out. "Moron! I'm going to push its bones up your asshole!"

Cooperation had been the goal, but he figured that if he didn't assert dominance now, then he had to kill the opposing necromancer in order to progress. He didn't want to do that, regardless of his recent threat. 

For now, he focused on the problem at hand. He tried to make sense of the skeletons in front of them, but within seconds, he heard how those countless bone-popping sounds lessened, somehow?

"Huh," He slightly panicked, "Can't be a boa… it's too quiet."

It only took a few braincess to figure that out, but he still got painfully nervous. The threat factor suddenly felt higher now, and for a couple of seconds, he couldn't really predict what was approaching them!

Then, out of a sudden, he heard a beating heart from the other side. This was unprecedented!

"They're humans? He's using corpses?" Bardeelus asked himself.

He noticed that the throbbing heart in front of them, ticked a lot like a human's. The rhythm of beats was slow, much like a heart that's been revived.

This made him feel slightly comfortable, he thought. "Hey, that's almost like what I do."

Things escalated, however, when he heard more than one heartbeat. That necromancer was trying to resurrect a tiny army, just to have these three 'intruders' killed.

"Guess that's why he threw around so many spells," Bardeelus said.

Afterwards, he faced the ladies and pitched a plan. "I'll handle these undead bastards, you go after the necromancer. He won't see this move coming, and I'm sure that he can't kill you two either."

At first Audera was hesitant, but then she processed what her friend fully meant. Unlike Bardeelus, other necromancers couldn't really blow up a living person's heart. The typical necromancer only manipulated the dead, which limited their arsenal of power at least slightly!

In other words, this enemy wouldn't be able to defend itself that much, especially against a couple of raging mages. Audera could force this person towards insanity if she pleased!

Anyway, Erdeta grabbed the other right away, and they leaped towards the upper portions of the corridor.

In the meantime, Bardeelus counted the thirteen opponents that he was supposed to take down. Apart from that, he finally got a glimpse of the red-colored spell which he was supposed to defuse ~ The dots were all over these undead attackers!

"Good thing they're slower than that boa, guess their bones aren't cooperating yet." He cackled.

Afterwards, he focused on a single opponent, and unnecessarily shouted. "Cleanse thy darkness!"

A spell unleashed from his very palms, and it was silent, quite invisible too regardless of how loud he was about it. Its effect was instant too, at least against one of the opposing bodies!

He dissolved the red-dotted spell which kept the enemy's heart pumping. The results were instant, the red-dots were shunned.

There were twelve enemies left now, and at last, he got a better look at them, as they were a bit over five meters away.

"What? Those can't be humans…" He said, and carefully backed away.

The stature of shorter people was easy to miss on some occasions, but here where he specifically focused on them, it was more of a surprise than anything else! These 'people' were barely human, they were a race of short goblins!

"Fat-foot goblins? From all of the things that I wanted to see today, they were last on my list! No wonder they were so slow." He said.

The reason why he mistook them as humans until now, was because they were partially human, by heritage. A lot of heartbeats could be confused with that of a human's too, come to think of it, but these goblins were special.

For some reason, thousands of years ago, a couple tribes of humans thought it smart to breed with goblins. The tale was as well-spread as dirt particles are, these goblins were proud of their heritage too, so there was really no way to be confused about their existence!

However, they were called 'fat-foots' for a reason, so Bardeelus didn't want to make them feel threatened just yet. It was risky!

These goblins had human-like skin, but unlike a human, they could shake the ground to their favor!

"Gotta pick them off one by one… they're technically alive now, so maybe I can get myself some help." He thought.