Tamil Farlong looked over at his companions and nodded. Khelgar Ironfist bashed the door open with the haft of his axe and charged into the room. Tamil followed him in with her bow raised and an arrow knocked, ready to fly. As the two burst into the room the third member of their group silently trailed in behind them and slipped into the shadows.
Tamil stopped and looked across the chamber they had entered. At the far end was a robed figure standing with a hand pointed menacingly at another figure, which stood back against the wall, seemingly in a daze. At the sound of the trio's entrance, however, the robed figure turned to face them. From beneath a dark hood came a sinister male voice, "Ah, fresh materials to work with."
Whatever questions Tamil had remaining about attacking the dark robed man were answered when he dramatically raised his hands into the air and the dozen or so corpses at his feet crawled up off the ground. Yep, this was an evil necromancer. She let her arrow fly towards man. Unfortunately, he had already surrounded himself with a shield of faith. Recognizing the magic, Tamil made a mental note: evil necromantic priest.
Khelgar didn't hesitate to charge across the chamber. In the eerie magical light cast by the altar and torches in the room, Khelgar's diminutive form glowed eerily. Khelgar was a shield dwarf, which meant he was shorter than all but the shortest of humans. That didn't diminish from his stature as a warrior, however. His bald head was shaped like granite and he wore his thick brown beard with pride. He led into the fight with his fine dwarven waraxe, tearing a chunk of flesh from the first zombie he encountered.
Neeshka did not find this sort of battle much to her liking, however. While not exactly weak, her lithe form was not optimal for a straight up battle. She preferred to battle in the shadows, being able to spot an enemy and take it unawares. She attempted to sneak along the walls of the room where the light did not fully illuminate, hoping to bypass the reanimated dead to strike at the human who had raised them. To her dismay, however, a pair of the undead sensed her life force and trudged in her direction, cutting her off from getting to their master. Neeshka sighed and readied the twin daggers she carried.
The robed priest gauged the threat a trio of adventurers posed to his plan. He came to the conclusion that the threat was serious enough that he should call on the powers of his master. Using his force of will and the connection to the darkness of the Plane of Shadow, he attempted to draw a living shadow into the world to aid him. Somehow, though, something went wrong and he lost control of the connection.
Oddly, the connection to the Shadow Plane became entangled with the shadow portal which allowed him and the other priests of shadow to communicate through the Shadow Plane. To the priest's shock, the portal widened to nearly twice its normal dimensions and expanded outward briefly before retracting and changing to an odd ripple. That was when one figure, then three others stepped out of the air and the portal from the Shadow Plane abruptly collapsed completely.
One of the newcomers turned to the others and muttered something the shadow priest found completely unintelligible. The man was cut off from finishing, however, as the nearest zombie turned and took a swipe at him. The foursome spread out along the back wall, moving away from the priest's undead minions and started pulling out strange objects from their multi-colored green and brown outfits. There was a sudden crack of thunder and the zombie who had attacked the stranger jerked backwards.
Jack O'Neill pulled the trigger on his P-90 submachine gun once more and the walking dead thing jerked to the opposite side, but kept coming. Seeing the undead creature continue to pursue his friend, Teal'c leveled his Ma'Tok staff weapon at the creature. The ends of the staff snapped open and an orb of plasma shot out and blasted the corpse into small pieces.
Tamil Farlong observed the coming of the newcomers with interest. She recognized them as human and noted their odd attire. When the zombies started attacking them and they attacked back, she figured they were on her side, or at least not on the side of the dark priest. Not wanting to risk hitting them with an errant shot or risk them misunderstanding, she dropped her bow and drew her long sword. With an intense look on her face she began striding towards the creatures and humming rhythmically.
She noted that Khelgar had just finished chopping a second zombie apart. His axe had cleanly cloven through the first abomination of life and gone on to strike the shoulder of the next in line. Now that one was down and he was off to rip through the next. Neeshka was stabbing at the corpses advancing on her and then dancing back out of their reach, trying to lure them off so she could slip around them and get to the evil priest.
Tamil saw one of the newcomers, a blond haired female, point one of their odd looking weapons at a zombie. Then she heard the noise of several short thunderous explosions and fire erupt from the hole at the front of the weapon. Tamil watched as the zombie in front of the female from the portal was jerked repeatedly back and forth, its flesh literally ripped to pieces. One of the green clad humans said something, but Tamil didn't understand what it meant.
The strange necromancer priest witnessed the destruction of his minions and heard the communication as well, though understood it no better. These newcomers were clearly not sent by his dark master to aid him. With a snarl, the priest targeted the biggest of them, the one carrying the staff weapon that had blown one of his zombies to pieces, and quickly chanted a spell.
Colonel O'Neal saw Teal'c blow one zombie apart with a single shot from his staff weapon. Then Major Samantha Carter fired a stream of bullets into another. The creature went down, but only after a lot of ordinance was spent on it. Not knowing when they would be able to re-supply, it would probably be a good idea to save the limited ammunition they had. "Everyone, switch to zats. Three shots."
That was when Jack noticed the priest gesturing at Teal'c. The Jaffa warrior was turning to point his weapon at another zombie when the dark robed figure finished saying whatever indecipherable thing he was saying. To Colonel O'Neill's shock, he saw his friend freeze in mid-movement. Teal'c was paralyzed where he stood.
Samantha Carter pulled her zat'nik'tel from behind her back and trained her weapon on the nearest walking dead. She fired a quick burst of energy at the creature. The energy, much like electricity, cackled around the creature, but with seemingly no effect. She fired a second burst. This time the creature lurched, but it still continued towards her. Her third shot, though, struck the creature and turned it completely to dust.
She noticed the surprise on the face of the short bearded person who was chopping away at the zombies with abandon. There were two others in the room fighting against the undead creatures. One was brunette swinging a sword and humming rhythmically, the other was a fire haired female who, oddly enough, seemed to have a tail.
"Be careful not to hit the friendlies!" she shouted to the rest of SG-1.
Dr. Jackson looked at her for a second then noticed the others combatants in the room. He fired his zat at a nearby zombie. Seeing it continue to come after him he fired at it again and began to backpedal. His shot missed and he began to get a little frantic.
Colonel O'Neill lost only a little time holstering his submachine gun and pulling out the Goa'uld zat'nik'tel he also carried. Without hesitation he took aim at the priest who had done something to Teal'c and fired. He looked in surprise as it appeared that the energy discharge was simply absorbed by some sort of surrounding field. He saw the priest muttering something and gesturing towards him. Jack fired again, but again the energy was absorbed.
Just as the necromancer was coming to the end of his chant he was struck by an iron blade that tore a gash through its arm. The priest gave a yell, ruining whatever he was trying to do to the colonel. Tamil Farlong brought her sword back into a guard position as the priest drew a cudgel and glowered at the woman. She didn't notice the zombie coming up behind her.
Jack O'Neill did. He fired off three consecutive blasts with his zat, instantly disintegrating the creature.
Samantha Carter took aim at one of the zombies engaged with the strange girl with a tail and ended its existence with three careful shots. Then she turned to the creature that was slowly approaching to threaten her and did the same thing to it. Fortunately, the things moved at a slow pace and spreading out had worked to SG-1's advantage. She looked over to see that Daniel had finally managed to vaporize the creature coming after him as his last shot was at point-blank range.
Tamil was impressed by the firepower of the newcomers. Their lightning weapons were fast and efficient against the undead creatures. It seemed they had no fear of using up all the charges they had against these weak undead. The priest's force of zombies had been reduced to less than half their original numbers and he was now the one who was outnumbered as well as out-classed.
Khelgar Ironfist was insulting the undead creatures as he fought with four of the remaining six zombies. They were too slow and awkward to pose much of a threat and his chain-steel shirt was sturdy enough to turn away their clawed hands when they did manage to strike him. Their rotting flesh did not stand up so well against the bite of his axe, though.
Tamil Farlong saw the priest feint and try to strike her for a stunning blow to the head, but she was skilled enough to evade the strike. She continued to hum a cheerful tune and trade strikes with the dark priest. He wasn't a bad fighter, perhaps were this a one on one fight they would have been evenly matched. But she had a rogue on her side who, now free of the engagement with the two zombies, had positioned herself for a deadly strike to the priest's exposed back. Neeshka drove her blades into the necromancer's back and Tamil finished the murderous spellcaster off with a thrust to the gut.
Explosions of electrical discharges around the room informed her that the foursome who had appeared out of the dark portal was taking care of the rest of the undead in the room. Khelgar ripped another zombie apart with his axe to turn and find the last three he faced had been destroyed. He complained loudly about that.
With the undead destroyed, Tamil made sure her companions were uninjured and then turned to the newcomers. She stood with her sword drawn, but lowered. They kept their weapons in their hands as well, but pointed at the floor. Tamil greeted the group in Common. When none of them seemed to understand, she tried orcish, elven, draconic, celestial, infernal, and abyssal. At hearing the attempt to communicate, one of the brown haired males stepped forward.
"Hi, I'm Daniel Jackson. We came here by accident. We mean you no harm." Daniel repeated this phrase in several languages with his palms turned up to show he was interested in peace. The woman standing across from him with the sword in her hands did not seem to understand. He turned back to the rest of SG-1. "Well, she's not speaking English, Spanish, ancient Egyptian, Ancient, Russian, Arabic, German, or Goa'uld. In fact, we can pretty much rule out any…"
Daniel's comment was cut off abruptly when the woman with the swords said something and suddenly reached out and touched him on the shoulder.