“Yo, babe, wazup?” Shinead Sidhe, Last Survivor and Eternal Avenger was interrupted in her revenge fantasies by a grave voice. The language spoken wasn’t one she knew previously, she was sure. She would have remembered knowing a grating, dark language, that sounded like… dead people coughing up their lungs.


    “Hey, dude, chill! The babe just croaked!”


    “No shit, Bro, those douches didn’t even put her under. Buggers!”


    “Yeah, Bitch! That''s just dope! A floozy, a hick, and a… whatsit come to our joint, and just leave stiffs everywhere! Do you see a sign, this is a storage for dead Treehuggers? Sorry, Spiorad."


    Shinead understood every last word, despite being new to it. How could that be possible?!? She quickly checked her Character Parchment, just to find a new entry under languages. [Speech: Deadian]: 75%. That explained everything! It was widely known, that every last dead or undead person miraculously learned that language, as soon as they went belly up. So, those disgusting indeed did a red to her! How dare they?!?


    Anyways, being obviously undead meant, that her gambit for becoming an Eternal Avenger worked out in the end! Well, she was an Elf, and Elves were the true masters of Fenria, if not of the whole of Arkadia – not making something work was simply impossible for them.


    Well, there were instances, where making something not work was the goal in the first place. Like, for example, making that mine, city, or person not work anymore. Anything could be made not-working, it was just an accident away in the end.


    Only one question remained: who was talking to her?


    Turning around, she came face to face with six ghostly apparitions. That wasn’t exactly surprising, she had her accident right next to ancient ruins, and she was warned that, like every normal ruin, it was haunted.


    The six undead – Shinead was loath to call them people, obviously, only Elves were people – consisting of a wide mix of species and a few ex-species. The Dragonkin warrior clad in strange scale armor and wielding a thin scimitar, shackles, and chains was most likely a Ghost.


    Another, skeletal form in tattered black robes was almost certainly a Wraith.


    There were two floating Specters, translucent figures with desiccated faces, and a slickly green aura.


    One was a Phantom, an indistinct contour lurking in the shadows – even if there weren’t any shadows around. It was probably not a Dragonkin or an Elf.


    The last one was once an Elf, but now… faded white clothes, skin and hair: a Banshee!


    They were all so stereotypical. Turning undead obviously made other species even more pedestrian and vulgar, than they already were. Even the Elf! A once proud person turned into an ordinary thing without a fashion sense! The clothes weren''t even see-through or form-fitting! How could an Elf wear such clothes?!?


    “So, babe, peachy yet?” the Wraith asked.


    “Dude, she’s still blown. You would be too, after getting offed by your pals and suddenly seeing ghosts!” one of the Specters interjected. Shinead had the feeling, it was male.


    “Yeah! All us hotties and dolls and even you hunks! I would be blown too!” the other, tentatively female, Specter said.


    “Get a grip, sweat pie! Getting popped by your pals ain’t the end of the world. Look, these suckers whacked me, but I still hang out with them, even after all these millennia! Get the buzz on!” the braindead ex-Elf tried to cheer Shinead up. She wasn’t exactly prepared to spend eternity with some extinct subelvians. She had some very important revenge killing to do.


    “Yeah, dudette! It''s all fun and games here! No hardcore douche tries to be a twat here! Come on! We are having a dress-up party!" the Phantom told her "See, I''m playing a Phantom!"


    “Dear Sir, you are indeed a Phantom. It is a superfluous endeavor!" Shinead blurted out. It came out more formal than she intended. She mentally tried to put the sentence together in different ways, but wasn''t able to. Maybe 75% in her new Skill wasn''t enough. Or it was language drift over countless millennia.


    “Hah! I’m not a Phantom, I’m just playing one! I’m a Ghost!” the Phantom said “Acatl there is the Phantom!” he pointed at the male Specter.


    “No need to be posh, babe! We are all bros and broettes here!” the real Phantom said.


    “Respected incorporeal fellow undead. It is an unfortunate happenstance, but it seems, that there was a language drift in the passing millennia since you were transformed into your new forms. My gifted new language Skills only provide with this kind of speech." Shinead informed them.


    “Language drift? Doll, you know, Deadian is a dead language, no language drift is going on. You don’t have [Speech: Deadian] at 100%?”


    “No, just 75%”


    “Figures. So, you know only the posh way to talk. Bummer, folks, that will be annoying." The (probably) Banshee said. "Doll, at your next Level-Up, get it over a hundred. No rad deadhead will wanna talk in posh. Only drags do that! And douches."


    “Yeah, bitch! Talking posh, and everyone will assume, you are a fresh, a douche, or a twat."


    “A fresh?”


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    “Newly dead. Undead, I mean.”


    Shinead decided, not to waste valuable Skill Points on such a pedestrian Skill. If filthy undead decided, they didn’t like her way of speech, they could learn Elven. Why should any Elf, or freshly undead Elf lower themselves to speak some inferior language?


    Elves were the crown of all creation, so everything they did or invented was the best too!


    While she didn''t entertain the idea of spending the rest of her unlife with some ancient… things (she needed to invent some slurs to refer to Dragonkin), she was well prepared to pick their brains for information.


    Well, not exactly brains, incorporeal undead didn''t have them. Organs were, indeed, mostly superfluous redundancies for undead. Dead people simply didn''t need blood and intestines, and… those things that did stuff to alive people in order to keep them alive.


    All right, they did need blood and brains and flesh and other things, but only as metaphysical foodstuff. But that was the same as a steak for the living: it was needed for sustenance, but if you stuffed one in your head, it did nothing. Besides making you sick.


    The first information, Shinead received (and discarded immediately) were the names of the costume party’s members.


    Acatl was the real Phantom, Spiorad the Elven Ghost, Centeotl and Chihuahua were a Wight and a Wraith, respectively, Eloxochitl was a Specter, while Brightscales Saunders, a Naga, was a Deathwisp. Strangely, there wasn’t a Banshee in their “real” collection.


    Why they played dress-up in the middle of the most inhospitable place, Shinead was aware of, was easy to answer: They were bored out of their minds. Only the Dragonkin were bound to the ruins, but the other two were unwilling to leave too – for some strange reason, a lot of folks didn''t exactly like undead, who were feasting on their still-alive (or recently deceased) friends and families.


    It was a kind of survival instinct.


    Besides sleeping for centuries in an underground structure beneath the ruins, they had to invent their own entertainment. For a few centuries, they played forms of government. They went through different forms of Monarchy, Dictatorship, Meritocracy, Plutocracy, Kleptocracy, Ochlocracy, and even Theocracy (where they had to invent gods), Communism, complete Anarchy, and finally Democracy. They got bored in the end by the last one, not being able to decide anything, no matter how many committees they created.


    A few times they held crafting competitions, art shows, literary contests, sports championships, and martial arts tournaments. Most of those ended in draws – without an outside arbiter or audience, every last piece got exactly the same number of votes: One.


    Incorporeal undead obviously got the same negative Perk, Egocentric. Shinead was sure, they had other Perks too, but the collective effect was, that no one was willing to acknowledge, that someone else was maybe better at something.


    Even if they showed their Character Parchments to each other.


    If Shinead was to vote on something as an outsider, she would vote for Spiorad. Naturally, Elves were better in everything, than everyone else, after all. If the losers complained, the Reds were given the opportunity to cause some accidents. Or the Blacks were sent to raze a few towns. Most people realized centuries ago, that the Elves were better anyway, so there was seldom the need for some pointed reminders.


    “See, babe, we even invented a few rad games too! You know that game, played with Arkadia’s rules? Is it still around? We made it into a Live Action Campaign! Ran it for a few decades!”


    “Oh, yeah, dude! We had a knight, a thief, a wizard, and a healer. That was soooo rad!"


    “Yeah, doll! We should play that again!”


    Shinead started to have a feeling – it was a bad idea to let a couple of immortal morons to their own devices for more, than a few days. Or hours. They even corrupted a once proud Elf with their childish games! Why try any other form of government, when there was the perfect, Elven way? Or play silly live-action games with Arkadia’s rules?!


    After hours upon hours of useless talk – no wonder, the Dragonkin died out, if they were this unfocused! – they finally arrived at the important point. The perverted Traveler, the perverted Vampire, and their perverted little gang.


    Shinead learned about the cur''s mission and had to concede, it was for the advantage of the Domain. Getting the Elven lands safe from all those foreigners was indeed a good idea. That a few countries'' worth of them would have died in the process… Well, if your goal was national security, a little bit of non-Elven collateral casualties were not important.


    Even when basically agreeing with the cur''s mission, they still would have to be accidented away. If not for the other cur''s treachery and an unfortunate accident with her slit throat, she would have sicced the remains of the Traveler''s party on Guillermo. Getting the few tired, most likely wounded, and confused survivors into accidents would have been child''s play.


    Anyway, without her guidance, only the perverted cur died, fittingly shot by her lover – but the Traveler found a replacement female for his urges! The stories were indeed correct! Those Travelers could build their harem, no matter where they went and what they did! How could the Heavenly Game Master allow this?!?


    Anyways, they obviously were intelligent enough not to try to return to the Domain. Every border guard worth their name would just kill them on sight without an Elven minder, and throw their corpses into a ditch. They weren''t even worth being left in a clearing, the proper Elven way! Shinead was surprised, that the three (now four) perverts together had enough brain power to figure it out without a child making a drawing.


    Not, that she would have allowed an Elven child near those… people.


    Shinead only had one problem. Besides finding the party of miscreants. Finding gear. Her corpse was thoroughly looted – that was normal procedure, dead people don’t need valuables and gear, after all. Unless they turn undead in the middle of the Valley of Torment.


    There was gear left behind – but Shinead wasn''t willing to be caught dead with any of that crap. Not only weren''t they non-magical, but the quality was… subpar to be honest. Only monkeys and curs would wield such junk.


    The knives they left behind were even worse – while she was passable with a bow, her main weapon was knives. She had more, than 150% in [Knives], but barely 50% in any other weapon; her choices were limited.


    “Wazzup, babe? The steel not good for you?" the Wraith named something or other, starting with an E asked her after she went through all the remaining gear.


    “Dear fellow undead, I''m proficient with the shorter kind of melee weaponry, trained to deliver surprise attacks to unsuspecting foes. These pieces, left over by my debauched slayers are, to use an impolite word, excrement." Shinead started to get annoyed by having to be polite to corpses. While Deadian did not experience language drift, Elven obviously did. She could barely understand Spiorad, and so was forced to talk posh.


    “Ya need a shiv, dudette? To shank the cookies? Squad, do we still have the stuff lying around? The new chick needs a new kit!"


    “Cool! We can play dress-up with her! I will get the enchanted chain bikinis!”


    “Let me take a look at the armory. I think, there were some absolutely rad shivs hanging around. Ya need ones for shanking or chucking?”


    With that, the six undead almost started to vibrate. Shinead wasn''t exactly sure anymore, it was such a rad idea to ask bored blokes for surplus gear. But then again, who knows, what kind of ancient, legendary weaponry and stuff they kept around? Probably stuff better, than a generic, low-level plusone.