The spirit had failed to close the gap and while his sense of sight was gone, his other senses and memory were still perfectly intact. The spirit had made it's mistake.
"I do not play in the dark, spirit. You can keep it."
He withdrew, trusting in the spirits poor choice and his greater then average speed to change the setting if not grant an outcome in itself.
Azri's ears perked up as Nigrum darted away. "Well, then, I guess it's just us." she said, lips quirking upward in the darkness. "But we're not going to play that blame game. We owe you exactly nothing - you started combat when we would've happily helped you without it, so it's entirely your own fault if you don't get what you want." her goal, for now, was simply to distract the ghost while the others worked on resolving this matter. It could conceivably cause them quite a lot of trouble if it popped out of walls and floors to stab at them, so if she could distract it, they ought to be fine while they searched for a better resolution.
And the ghost might have a hard time seeing, too. Unless it was looking specifically for living things, of course, in which case... well... yeah.
Mihara darts back with Nigrum, hoping to help the others find the source of the ghost's anger.
"Find anything?" she asks.
Selena barely hears the sound of voices upstairs as she descends the stairs to the basement...
Silence followed those retreating upstairs, but whatever the spirit was doing or planning it allowed them to move through the darkness unmolested. For now.
Selena opened to the door basement to reveal a heavy staircase, once again covered in thick dust. The huge tree extended down into the basement, great roots through the earthen floor. Shelves, about half empty, extended to the south and a door to the west stood open, darkness beyond.
Selena warily steps into the basement, looking at the tree great roots.
"" the half-succubus shouts up the stairs, before moving closer to the open door...
.
Aibek had followed Selena down the stairs, though not as quick as the monk, and upon hearing the others coming down had stopped, concerned and feeling pulled in two directions.
As the other entered the ground floor, Aibek motioned towards the basement door, "I checked all around this floor earlier and found little except a few things behind the bar and signs of rodents in the kitchen, hopefully whatever we need is easy to find downstairs. I'm going to go lend Selena a hand and suggest we meet here afterwards to make a plan if any would like to wait here to catch their breath after dealing with that enraged shade - if we've not found anything, some of us may need to try to re-search the upper floor or going for Azerna. It would have been great if he had told us more about what to help him with but trapped beings are rarely sensible..." Aibek said, anxious brain already trying to come up with as many possible plans as possible, while motioning to the others that the witchwolf was now going to head downstairs...
"You okay?" Aibek calls down after Selena while walking slowly, trying not to be distracted by anxiety or the amazing tree roots I think we're looking for something important to him, either his body or an item connected to him." Aibek said while looking around, mind still pulled in many directions and debating whether changing into wolf form would be of any extra use here...
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1...2...still someone up there. Ayreth waits at the bottom of the stairs in the darkness. She tries casting her reliable light spell only to watch it flicker for a moment, then be consumed by the darkness. She rubs her arms nervously, feeling an illusory cold grip at her. No, I'm not back there, in the mist. I said I would get everyone out. She jumps when Selena's voice calls out of the darkness. Her voice cracks when she tries to reply. She takes a deep breath as Aibek answers.
Emmitt rubs his face against her neck and she is comforted some by the contact. "Y-yes, if there is anything. Though I d-doubt it after all this time," she yells out nervously.
"Still, I must say, this is a terrible first date." Azri said as she continued talking to the crazed undead. "I like my men to have a little more... substance... to them." Heh. "So tell me, how many other people have tried to help you over the years?"
"This darkness really isn't helping," Mihara vents her frustration, fully aware of how pointless it is to express such a thing.
She attempts to give the party some more light to work with by invoking the gift of spirit lights given to her kin.
The Dancing Lights aren't powerful enough to defeat the spell, but they allow anyone with Darkvision to see within 20 feet of Mihara. Beyond that, the darkness is still impenetrable.
From that darkness, the ghost's voice emerges. "Too few. None understood. It must be completed. Then my bones must be burned."
"Well, maybe they would have understood if you'd actually talked to them." Azri pointed out. "If you truly care to have something done, calmly explaining works a lot better than attacking people who don't instantly agree." Most ghosts probably didn't have TOO much sense, but you could never be entirely sure, and she figured it was worth the words to try. "Also, I plan to be in this city for at least the next few hundred years, and it's going to be very inconvenient for me if they think dead people can't be reasoned with." She was very reasonable as long as people presented decent arguments.
Selena nods to herself when she hears the others: something about a...date?
"All in one piece, sneaky guy." Selena responds cheerfully to Aibek, while walking around the tree's roots to see if there was anything strange about them ().
In case she doesn't find anything of interest, the half-succubus moves to examine the side room with the open door.
The room beyond is huge, vast shelves of equipment. It doesn't take much knowledge or leaps to realize that this is a set of stills, each labled in Sylvan with a cursive, flowing hand. It appears that the inn is quite capable of providing it's own sets of quite a few liquors.
The Ghost made no reply. Either it didn't care to, or the idea was too complicated for what was left of it's mind and soul to process.
Aibek gave a small nod to Selena's comments, then followed her towards the side room with the open. Slowly walking through, Aibek noted the beautiful penmanship before turning attention to the rest of the room...
Azri shrugged. Worth a try - and whether it succeeded or failed, she was continuing to be distracting. From what she remembered, ghosts tended to be fixated on the things in front of them, so all she really needed to do was keep being distracting - and wait for the lights to come back on.
In all honesty, only half of this was wanting to protect the rest of her family. The rest was stubborn pride - she had every intention of ruling this city for centuries (time didn't mean to her what it did to others), and she didn't want to start a precedent of allowing every haunt and spook to boss her around or force her to do what they wanted. As she saw it, they were going to owe her their loyalty, and any who first turned their backs on the city and/or its rulers would be losing some of the protections they were entitled to as residents. Even if they were dead. She was happy to aid those who followed the rules, but if they started attacking others or otherwise being a problem, well...
Aibek's perception find one thing that's curious - a path of turned over soil, as though freshly dug, by the roots of the great oak. Given that no one has apparently been down there for much time, it stood out. Further examination of the hard dirt floor revealed a trail walked into the dirt.
Aibek's eyes followed the tree roots down to the ground, head tilting in confusion at what was found there. Taking a few steps back, the witchwolf motions and pointed it out to Selena, the cautious, wary expression on Aibek's face very clear for all to see even when still cloaked in shadow...
"Well that's...strange." Selena comments worriedly. "Should we dig that up? We'll need something to do that, though..." the half-succubus turns around to see if there was an appropriate tool for that in the basement.
Aibek continued to eye it warily before looking over at Selena, "I'm not sure, maybe we could look for tools as well as other clues to what caused it...or what would settle that trapped ghost... Aibek said, stepping back further before moving to explore the basement area further...
Nigrum waits outside, listening for any sounds of distress. Perhaps now that he was no longer inside the ghost would remain quiet. If not he would run back in. Potion in hand, considering if he should use it or not in the meantime.
As Selena watches, the soil moves slightly.
Mihara quietly joins in the search, beleaguered amongst all this talk of ghosts and unfinished jobs.
"If he's still here, then yes! Don't worry about me!" Azri called back. One day, she would gain the power to make even the deepest darkness into something she could smirk through - but she still had a ways to go before she reached that point. Sigh. Oh well!
"Uh-oh." Selena sighs as the soil starts to move. Turning her head in the direction of the stairs, she bellows to her friends upstairs
""
Waiting for the others to arrive, Selena takes a step back and readies herself to strike whatever strange creature was about to jump out.
Aibek moved back closer to Selena as the monk shouted up the stairs. Watching the moving soil with wide dark eyes for what felt like a very long moment, Aibek could think of not much to say except, "Um...that's not a good sign. I should probably take a form with more claws and bite now..." while pulling the shadows around closer to Aibek's still small hands...
Nigrum curses under his breath. Rushing in with his sword drawn he follows where he thought he heard the voice.
"What is it?"
He looks around in every direction, expecting the ghost to come out of a surface somewhere or another threat they had not encountered at first. If he was called because of a rat or vermin he would not be understanding.
Frost crackled across the broken ground in slow waves, as though someone or something was breathing in and out in a slow rhythm. Slowly the earth moved aside, peeled by by skeletal hands as a corpse rose from the resting place.
Still dressed in the armour it had worn in life, two swords hung at it's belt and a viciously serrated blade pierced the monster's chest. Cold, blue eyes surveyed the room as it rose from it's grave, a deep hissing noise escaping a throat long since incapable of making any kind of noise.
Frost chilled the ground as it took a shaky step from the tree.
A voice near Azri whispered, "My corpse protests at intrusions."
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"I protest people attacking my family." the lich girl answered immediately, carefully walking through the darkness. "And this is - or will be, anyway - our city, claimed by blood and deed, Mark and Symbol under the ancient laws. I do not recognize your body's right to regard us as intruders - we will go wherever in this city we want to in our search for the Symbols, and none have the authority to bar our way when we already bear the Marks. We have every right and reason to destroy your corpse if it gets in our way - so I suggest you make it stop while you still have the chance for a happy ending. We don't want to destroy it, because we're not evil and don't like seeing bodies desecrated without good cause, but you started this when you attacked us when we were already agreeing to help you... and if we have to be the ones to end this, then so be it. You brought it upon yourself and had every opportunity to stop, so may you rest better in whichever outer plane your soul is bound for."
Nigrum spies the undead. He was growing tired of the dead not staying so. He races across the room bring down Tsui, a second strike followed through in less then a moment.
"By all the gods can't you even accept your shame with honor!"
"You misunderstand," the ghost whispered again. "My corpse and I have long been separate. Many have fallen to it's curse of ice. Many who would have helped. And all must help end this torment. All. Too many I have seen go another path, leave to help others...and taken those who would help me with them. I can not remember who I am. Why I am here. Only that the job must be done. I can never see the Boneyard until that is done."
The ice-coated skeleton shuddered as it was struck, chips of bones flying...and ice ran up the length of Tsui's blade, toward's Nigrum's hands.
"I'm not getting close to that thing, if I can help it," Mihara says, drawing her bow and taking aim from just a few feet away.
"Let's see..."
Seeing the unnatural ice running up his loyal blade, he growled but refused to let go. A part of him with grim humor thought of the old saying, it could only take his blade from his cold dead hands.
The deathly ice covered his hands but did not spread much more. Leaving a prickling sensation on his hands but not effecting his grip or numbing him overly much. It seemed his earlier fighting and time outside in the sun had helped him resist the undead's power.
"Then make yourself useful and show me the way to your body." Azri countered. "All includes you, now - and I seriously doubt you're trapped in this one spot if your body is elsewhere, yeah? Oh, and turn the lights back on." Keeping her in the dark was just rude, and if her family was fighting, she wanted to go join them.
"Yeah, not going to touch that..." Selena grumbles, drawing a shuriken from her sleeve. They taught to her to use them in an emergency when she couldn't bind someone, but that hadn't been a problem since now. Half-heartedly, the half-fiend tries to shoot the weapon for the firs time.
Aibek watched in horror for a moment, fingers twitching. Hearing Selena's comment and watching the monk's Shuriken attack, Aibek paused for a moment, then nodded as if with sudden memory realization came through the anxious thoughts while putting hands that the shadow assassin had been pulling shadows into together, "I don't think I want to touch them either in that condition - and I think it is too long trapped and warped to be persuaded to stop sadly. I really wish this trapped being would stop making it harder to help..." Aibek thought outloud, before swiftly creating a light repeating crossbow out of the solid shadows that the shadow assassin had gathered.
Forming blunt bolts with the crossbow, Aibek fires at the corpse, knowing that they would last long enough to hit but would soon dissipate once it left the shadow assassin's hands.
There was a pause, and the Ghost replied, "As you wish." The effects of Deeper Darkness faded, leaving a much more friendly, regular darkness. "I will help as I can. I know it's tricks."
In the basement, the skeletal creature shrugged off the attacks, blades and spikes slipping off the bone of the creature beneath the flesh. Aibek's bolt hurt it, however, and Tsui's raw force accomplished a lot as well. But it wasn't dead. Or deader. Hissing, is flexed bony hands, looking for a target.
"Curse of ice and general undead nastiness?" Azri mused. "I can work with that." Ice was one of the many things she was resistant to. With that, she began swiftly moving downstairs, arriving on the first floor and already looking to move across the inn and towards the stairs heading downstairs.
"Uh...whoops." Selena furrows her brow.
No, not like that. I had to throw it this way, maybe?
Once again, the half-succubus slings another shuriken at the undead, hoping to damage it this time.
Nigrum swings yet again, bring Tsui to bare. After studying his opponent a little more to pick out it's weaknesses.
Once again ice surged along the sword's blade (). The blow hadn't hit the monster as hard as it could have, and the skeleton was still standing.
The skeleton surged forwards with a clicking noise, bone toes protruding through rotting boots, as it savaged the closest person - Nigrum.
As it attacked the Ghost appeared behind it. "Be wary of damaging it's skull," he called. "It contains the core of the curse that animates it."
Meanwhile, Azri was busily racing across the upper floor, moving towards the stairs heading downwards... sadly, she'd yet to learn how to teleport.
Again the ice came up his blade, he ignored it even as it ate away at his paling flesh slightly. The dead man's blows of force and frost failed to land or go through his armor for the most part. He felt the touch of death on one that did land even if the strike itself did little harm.