Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Laboriously he stood up from a small crater in the cobblestone. Seth stood in the middle of a narrow alley. Through the thick fog, he could barely see the entrance to the alley. What had happened?

He tried to recount his memories.

Until yesterday, he was able to look out of the window of their airship and there would have been the vast ocean and the Koor Worm that chased them all the way across the sea. They had traveled straight across the ocean and now came close to the south of the detached continent.

This was when things changed. As they came closer to land, the world outside the window was covered in a thick mist that dispersed the hateful sun into a sickly and uncomfortable light in a realm of grey nothingness. They were technically flying blindly, only reliant on the skill.

Their plan had been simple. Fly deeper inland, lose the sea serpent, and then turn back to the northern shore where the ruins were supposed to be.

Who would have thought that they would end up in a giant bank of fog?

This explained the fog...

~ Your little nutshell was attacked. ~ Puffles helped Seth's jumbled head.

Right. Seth was about to return to his cabin when he heard Hubert scream from the cockpit. The whole vessel shook. Things and people flew around before they could hold onto something. He remembered falling.

Looking at the crater in the cobblestone, no wonder his memories were in disarray. He had no pain anywhere; the golden fleece must have healed him up.

~No, it was me, mom! I was faster than the golden rag! ~ the Imugi, Tatzel, called out proudly.

~Good job. ~ Seth answered with a smile, though he felt a little awkward. Calling his cloth armor a golden rag? Puffles started rubbing off on the impressionable snakelet.

Looking at the foggy city awoke unpleasant memories for Seth. It reminded him of the mist world they had accidentally entered back in Y-City.

"Pheles, are you there?" Seth asked in the void.

No answer.

This complicated things. Seth didn't really have a way to locate the rest of the party. To his knowledge, there also wasn't anybody in the party with this kind of tracking skills.

If this was a normal situation, he would have directly put on the Helm of Hades and started exploring. But he couldn't do that because of the recorder that was still there, by the way. It was one thing to make it look away once in a while, but just disappearing would be too obvious.

Oh well, it didn't get him anywhere to stand here and ponder.

The city streets were empty, lit by dim streets lights. The air was moist and smelled of mold and earth. The houses bordering the streets were in disrepair with wooden windowsills and balconies warped from the moisture. The narrow boardwalks were filled with broken glass and damp residue of the render that had fallen off their facades while.

Was this the effects of the fog?

Checking his <Map> he found himself on a peninsula on the southwestern side of the continent. There was no further information. As he was checking the map, he felt something pop up in the back of his mind.

Seth couldn't locate the rest of the Party, but he had a way to find Ellie. The slime rancher still had Golmini with her. Although he could give others control over the golems he made, he still had a connection with them.

Just now, another little signal was added close by to him. It had to be golmini. She must have taken it out of her inventory. Following this connection, he would be able to find her eventually.

However, when Seth was about to leave the alley, he had been passing, two men suddenly appeared from the mist in front of him.

"We finally found you, little bard." he left one said.

At the same time, Seth noticed movements in the surrounding houses. <Life Detection> had not reacted until now, but now he found himself surrounded.

"Our mistress will be very plea- what are you doing? Stop that!"

Oz was already playing a catchy tune. The moment they appeared in front of him, Seth saw through the power of their blades. If he did not want to reveal his skill at this point, there was only one thing he could do.

Seth didn't like this, not at all. Because this was a song that did not distinguish between friend and foes. Or himself. However, they left him no choice. It was time to show the world what a demonic bard can do.

...

Had their target noticed their ambush? Curses! He wanted to quickly kill the bard, but the tunes of the music had already seeped into his body. It no longer listened to him.

"Attack!" he gave the command, however, the lower undead in the surrounding building did not budge. Nothing moved. Nothing except for the bard. He looked into the bard's eyes, which burned with the flame of unwillingness and reproach as he stared them down.

At first, he couldn't understand what he was chanting, but soon the text swelled on.

"..it, move it. I like to move it, move it~"

Unknowingly, his own body had started copying the movement of the bard, as if compelled by a sinister puppeteer. At the same time, he felt his mana being slowly sapped from his body.

"I like to move it, move it~ You like to-?"

"-Move it!" his partner beside him suddenly voiced as he started dancing violently with an almost manic expression.

"No.." he thought, and his eyes widened as he, too, started dancing with vigor. The control of his body and mind slowly slipped from his grasp. His last conscious thoughts were those of despair and denial when he was finally forced to join into the dance and sing along.

...

As the power of the music swelled and bloated, fueled by the power of its victims, it kept spreading like an acoustic plague. The ballad was powerful, but also extremely dangerous. As it kept propagating itself, Seth saw himself faced with controlling this overwhelming power. If he lost control, he would be unable to stop the song and dance until he lost his life.

The blacksmith only dared to open pandora's box, because the scale right now was small.

From the houses to the sides, hordes of undead flooded to the streets, dancing erratically and groaning along with the song. Probably the previous inhabitants of the city. Undead often lacked a high willpower, which made them especially susceptible to this kind of manipulation.

Even if the listener had high willpower, the force of this song swelled, with the size of its growing chorus. As long as it was a big crowd, Seth could even take down those vastly more powerful than him. Of course, only if he managed not to be swept away himself.

He kept singing the demonic texts, that made even the unliving dance vigorously and brought out the Staff of Seth, his second big rod. His movements immediately became faster and more powerful. This was the epic version of the staff of Seth, he had crafted in preparation for the trip.

Dancing like a maniac, Seth started weaving in attacks from his staff. He did his very own grinding dance, as he pranced among the crowd. Crushing head and body with overwhelming violence, he ground his dance partners to dust.

In this mosh pit of madness, he was the only one with a clear mind. A mind intent on getting rid of his enemies before he ran out of steam himself.

In the middle of his lyric carnage, he suddenly heard a bright voice join in with the crowd of inarticulate groans. At the edge of his decomposing audience, he could see a real live rendition of blob dance.

A mass of undulating jellies joined at the perimeter of the crowd. Among them, he spotted Ellie. The slime rancher was happy twirling and going along with the mind-melting melody.

This was a sign for Seth to stop. He had already finished the two high-ranking undead that had led the crowd. With Ellie as reinforcement, he would have no problem taking care of the zombies left behind.

It took some effort to slowly cut off the stream of power that flowed through him and was channeled to Paymon, the demonic sugar daddy of this ballad. A last "Move It!" ended the nightmare and only Oz played a little longer as the melody faded out. The scene finally fell silent.

Many of the undead also collapsed. People said the undead had unlimited stamina. This was true. But when they were drained of their mental energy and mana, they would collapse too.

Seth didn't mind the stunned undead that surrounded him rushed to Ellie's side. The short woman was holding her siding and breathing heavily. She was drenched in sweat. A physical manifestation of exhaustion.

The blacksmith couldn't say he felt much better. He was not as physically exhausted as her, but he took a big hit mentally. After all, he had just shown himself dancing to the whole empire. Maybe he was lucky, and they wouldn't show it, right?

"Wh-What was that? I haven't danced like that in ages..." she groaned

"... I will explain later. Could you clean this up for me?" he asked and gestured at the horde.

"Sure..."

The crowd of slimes, which had been happily undulating until a moment ago, started replenishing their energy with a feast.