A cool autumn breeze blew across the woodlands, its scent carrying the promise of snow that was, for now, still trapped in distant mountains. The wind rustled leaves across the ground, shaking a few remaining bits of gold and crimson foliage from their branches. Birds sang in the background, but the clearing was otherwise silent, except for…
“Amiri, can you please lie still,” Seelah’s voice was firm, and only a touch strained, “for just a few minutes more? Once I have finished the rite of the blade, I can heal you again, and then recite the prayer of—”
“I’m fine.” Amiri’s voice was laced with frustration. “You don’t need to finish any rites, and I certainly don’t want to wait for one of your endless prayers. I don’t need any more healing than you’ve already provided, Seelah. I’m ready to take on whatever else is out here.”
Seelah shook her head and continued her rite. She had already cleaned her longsword with the eleven small cloths she carried for that purpose and now needed to put it all away mindfully, treating the cloths and her sword with the honor and respect they deserved as instruments of justice.
“We don’t know that, because we don’t know what’s out here.” Seelah kept her tone even and her eyes focused on what she was doing. “Certainly, more giant ticks like that one,” she indicated the two halves of the monstrous insect that had attached itself to Amiri before the duo had cut it apart, “could have either killed the hunting party or sickened them enough they can’t make it back to the village. But they’re locals, and the villagers called these ticks a common threat; I wouldn’t expect a well-equipped party of four men and two hunting dogs to have been overwhelmed so easily.”
Amiri shrugged but managed to lie still, screwing her eyes shut to block out distractions. “All true,” Amiri said, “but no one and nothing likes ticks—especially ticks the size of badger-hounds. So, since they thrive here, these woods are unlikely to have anything tougher than them in them, or that tougher thing would have killed off the ticks. It’s one reason I insisted on coming and checking this hunting trail while the others waste time looking through the village records.”
Seelah tried to suppress a smile.
“Yes, and since you insisted on coming out here, someone had to come with you in case you needed backup. And as your backup, I want you fully healed before we get any deeper into the woods.” Seelah carefully placed her ritual kit next to her backpack, then laid her sword on the ground within arm’s reach. “Now, are you going to allow me to ensure you are at your best?”
Amiri took a deep breath and forced herself to relax.
“Oh, go ahead. We might as well, at this point.”
Seelah knelt next to her ally and placed her left hand over where the vile tick had dug into Amiri and begun draining her blood. “Inheritor,” Seelah prayed silently, “please heal this mighty warrior whom I have seen face the greatest foes with valor, and ready her to stand against injustice in all its forms.”
A golden light formed around Seelah’s hand and silently poured into Amiri’s remaining wounds like glowing, liquid amber. The puncture mark from the tick’s attack, already half closed from Seelah’s first effort at healing it, disappeared entirely, leaving no sign the wound had ever existed. Amiri’s eyes popped open, and she grinned at Seelah.
Seelah heals Amiri with Iomedae’s holy power in this illustration by Christoph Peters, from Pathfinder Player Core 2.
“Right, now let’s get the rest of the way up the trail and—”
Seelah shook her head.
“I know I’ve already strained your patience, Amiri, but if you just wait a little longer, I can—”
“Shh!” Amiri interrupted, holding up a finger. “Listen.”
Seelah stopped talking and co*cked her head to pick up whatever noise Amiri had heard. The woods were filled with susurrant shuffling, the sound of dead leaves brushing over thick grass and, farther away, bird noises that seemed more like short, concerned chirps rather than the songs they’d been singing earlier.
Seelah shook her head. “Other than some bird sounds, I don’t hear anything but the rustling of leaves.”
Amiri stood, lifting her enormous sword into a ready stance. “Yes, the leaves are rustling… but the wind has died.”
Seelah’s eyes widened in realization, and she quickly turned to strap her shield firmly to her forearm. Amiri was right, of course: the wind had stopped, but the sound of rustling leaves was growing louder and closer. Amiri leaped off the ground, already ten paces ahead by the time Seelah was standing and fully ready, but she swiftly stopped her advance, large sword held high as she peered into a dark copse of trees that seemed to be the source of the rustling. Seelah knew her eyes were not as keen as Amiri’s, and she carefully glanced around them as she closed the distance to her companion. It would not do to be caught unaware if a threat attacked from another direction.
From the dense woods to the side of the hunting trail, figures shambled toward them. Three were humanoid in shape, but moved with a slow, unsteady gait. As they stumbled into the light, their faces came into view, showing rictus grins and sagging, yellowed flesh. The arms and legs of each were twisted and curled, as if locked in awkward positions they could only barely control.
Beside the shuffling corpses, two smaller figures moved jerkily forward, crawling on all fours. Once, they had clearly been hunting dogs, but jagged wounds ran the length of one’s ribcage, and the other’s throat was missing. Both had blank, white eyes.
Amri turned to Seelah, her nose wrinkled in distaste.
“What in iron are those?!”
Seelah’s expression darkened. “Zombies. Freshly risen, from the looks of them.”
“But zombie… dogs?!” It was clear from Amiri’s tone that she felt such abominations were worse than the bipedal undead shambling along beside them.
Seelah nodded grimly. “Anything living can be perverted to undeath one way or another. This is almost certainly the missing hunting party. Whatever killed them visited this further indignity upon their corpses, an indignity I will not allow to go unche—”
Amiri bellowed a challenge, charging the nearest zombie hound. Seelah knew that cry and the expression of pure fury on Amiri’s face.
There would be no retreat in this battle.
Amiri’s charge brought her to within reach of the zombies, and a single swing of her massive sword felled one of the undead hounds. Seelah rushed to protect Amiri’s flank as the zombies clumsily surrounded her companion. Their slow movement kept the undead from overwhelming Amiri, but the remaining zombie hound bit at Amiri’s boot and tried to pull her to the ground.
Seelah hefted her shield as she reached the once-dog,. She slashed it with her own sword, watching as the blade peeled its flesh apart as easily as a canvas sail. Amiri was exchanging blows with the zombie hunters, and just as the undead hound collapsed, one of them caught her with a powerful blow to her chin. Blood flew, and Seelah whispered a hasty prayer to Iomedae to lessen the attack while ducking under Amiri’s massive sword to split the zombie’s skull with her gleaming longsword.
A fist smashed Seelah’s shield, cracking the wood and bruising her arm, but then suddenly there was only one zombie left. Seelah deflected another blow with her shield, then she and Amiri struck it as one, dropping the corpse back to the earth, skewered and sliced by the pair’s steel.
Seelah saw Amiri scanning the woods and trusted her to be alert for any danger, while the paladin ensured all the undead were truly destroyed.
“Well, ticks didn’t do that,” said Amiri.
“No,” Seelah agreed. “Whatever created these horrors is either new to the area or willing to make itself known in a way it hasn’t before. Unless it has, which is a thing that might be recorded in the village’s records.”
Amiri frowned, then nodded. “All right, so we should go back and see if the others have found anything. Right after we take whatever time you need to heal us both. But I’m going to stay standing this time.”
Seelah began unstrapping her shield, assessing the damage it had sustained during the fighting in the process. “And why is that?”
Amiri grinned grimly. “Because the villagers said four hunters went missing, and this only accounts for three.”
A cold wind blew from the woods, bringing a chill that no longer felt tied to any natural season.
Owen K.C. Stephens is a veteran game designer and writer with more than 25 years of experience. A former Paizo developer, he worked extensively on the Pathfinder Player Companion and Starfinder lines and remains a fan of Golarion and all of Paizo’s games. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2023 and is delighted to be back to doing some professional writing. He regularly releases new content on his Patreon and has a GoFundMe campaignto help cover the costs of fighting cancer. You can also find him on Facebook, Twitter/X, and BlueSky.
Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.
