[hider=BETTER GIVE YOUR SHORT SWORD SOME ACTING LESSONS TOO!] [color=FFDEAD][b]"WHAT THE HELLS!?"[/b][/color] would be the first words to burst from Vani's mouth at the sight of the three shambling corpses making their way out of the pile, their decayed, rotten visages nearly driving the paladin to gag again if the contents of his stomach hadn't already been emptied out onto the floor prior. He stared in abject horror, having never known the true face of such dark magics until now. This was the truest essence of necromancy; To break men and women under the heel of unholy energy, and then making monsters of them. It was beyond disgusting, beyond revolting, and to Vani... It was beyond acceptable, even to a half-baked paladin such as him. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/6aRZH0F.png[/img][/center] [color=FFDEAD][b]"Lolan, give me the strength to right their suffering,"[/b][/color] he would say, deftly cutting the hand of the first undead to reach out for him. Undaunted, the undead mess of men would approach him despite his gradual retreat, the Paladin backpedaling slowly as he made superficial cuts to limbs, but nothing seemed to be working. A trying stab at the hearts of one of them only lead to the zombified human sinking further onto the sword, walking towards Vani as if the sword in its chest didn't matter. Vani would kick with all his might to knock the zombie free of his sword, now slick with crimson, and bash away the approaching hands of the second with his sheld. The third however managed to grab his shoulders and with rotting breath beating against the elf's neck, attempted to bite at him. Pressing his sword against the teeth of the corpse just in time, Vani was growing fearful that he'd be unable to slay the beasts. He had no taxonomic knowledge of monsters or magic, and as such he knew not that simply crushing their heads would be enough. Not that "crushing" was easy with a sword. Just as he started to feel cloying, decayed hands grab at his ankles, Vani would hear the sound of a wall being blown apart. A woman's voice cut through the dust filling the church before a being nothing short of the most divine thing Vani had ever laid eyes on cut through one of the zombies, the one that he'd knocked over prior. Vani was stunned, not just by the angelic suit of armor, but also from the visage of the high elf that had summoned it. With his shorter sword now at a slight amount of attention from a mix of adrenaline and the sight of an elven maiden kicking ass with magic, his long sword could finally find purchase as he slammed his gauntleted fist against the zombie who's breath was turning his own sour. In that moment with its head turned, he would plunge his sword's tip into the zombie that had been crawling and grabbing at his ankle, kicking himself free of it before shoulder tackling the zombie in front of him, plunging his sword into its neck and decapitating it in the confusion. Exhaling, Vani would feel the adrenaline at work as he smiled ever so slightly, before turning to look at the archer that had been charmed. Dropping his sword for fear of harming her, Vani would slowly approach before his voice boomed all throughout the church, as if a supernatural force possessed his vocal chords as his unignorable Challenge of the Adherent of Thunder resounded. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/z7VaIBt.png[/img][/center] [color=FFDEAD][b]"By the hammer of Lolan, the fragments of your mind that remain, and my honor, STAND AND FACE ME!"[/b][/color] he would bellow, his words especially resounding in the mind of the archer. [color=FFDEAD][b]"I swear, I will save you,"[/b][/color] the paladin would say, before approaching rapidly, shield at the ready in his left hand, and clenching his right hand to try and knock the living daylights out of the archer. He hoped that Kaze and the mage that had arrived could handle the necromancer...but some part of him, probably the part that felt honor-bound, deemed that his duty was to save this woman from the curse that ensnared her mind. [/hider]