Begin Combat Round 9
Georgi ( x_X )
Tyrus (8 damage)
Dante (28 damage, -8 and dying)
Luca (5 damage)
Fleshdreg 1 (8 damage)
Dreamer (51 damage)
As the Dreamer struck out at Tyrus, the haze in Luca's mind stabilized somewhat. It seemed to have recognized the damage done to Tyrus - and may have only been noticing the danger just now. It really didn't seem to understand how humans thought about things... and truth be told, even with the blade actively trying to help her, Luca was bad with weapons. Her deadliest attack was basically an outward poke that any halfway competent swordsman would have no trouble swatting aside.
On the bright side, she wasn't alone - and the two creatures under her command were actively working to help out and ensure her blow could land. So there was that, at least.
for
The pool of blood around Dante grows a little larger each second.
Well technically Luca didn't roll for the miss chance...
Luca strikes once more, the foreign knowledge of blade forms sending her muscles into unfamiliar positions. As strange as the motions are to her body, they are enough - the point of Dante's rapier pierces the back of the Dreamer, and instead of finding incorporeal mist it finds resistance like flesh. The Dreamer, poised with its claws up to rake Tyrus once more, suddenly evaporates into nothingness, leaving the echoes of its death cry behind.
End Combat
Georgi ( Fallen )
Tyrus (8 damage)
Dante (29 damage, -9 and dying)
Luca (5 damage)
With speed belying his bulk, Tyrus moves to Dante's side, already pulling needed tools from his pouches and pockets. He works with inspired efficiency, and staunches the most dangerous wounds quickly.
As Tyrus halts Dante's headlong rush towards death, Luca check on Georgi. Sadly, she finds their guide to be quite beyond help. The man is dead where he lies, eyes staring up to the sky in a frozen death-rictus of terror.
As the spirit vanishes, you feel a rush of power. Something had been holding the Void back, preventing it from sending more aid. Now it's strength pours in, and it realizes how close it has been to losing its vessel. It wants you out of this city.
Death surround you. But so does life. You have held both in your hands even in the last few days. And the meeting with that messenger... something great lies ahead. Something new. And perhaps, it holds hope for you yet.
"Dante!"
The Blade's voice calls to you through the murky blackness of a sleep so deep it is very nearly something else.
"Come back lad. We've still so much work to do. You must wake, and it is I that must sleep, for reaching another mind cost me dearly. But fear not. We are both stronger for it."
Luca slumped down slightly, dropping Dante's weapon as Tyrus moved to help the man. After all of their caution and focus on backing away... Georgi still hadn't made it. They really weren't cut out for this sort of thing, and it wasn't long at all before the two creatures vanished into the ether, no longer part of this world.
"I'm sorry." she whispered, rocking back and forth slightly. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's all my fault..." A few tears trickled down her face. "I... I don't think we should be here anymore." Not that she'd be surprised if Tyrus decided she was more trouble than she was worth, too. Dante had almost died - and still might, if something else attacked them - and she clearly wasn't able to protect anyone.
Abruptly, Luca's body stopped shaking - and instead, a runic circle appeared on the ground beside her as a quiet litany flowed out of her lips and infused the creation with power. A full minute later, her speech cut off as abruptly as it had started, and a familiar-looking beast lurched out of nowhere to land in it. Yet there was something distinctly... diminutive... about it. It was definitely much smaller than before, and without a word, it began to carefully creep around and scout through the area, looking for both places of shelter and anything the group might find useful.
"I'm sorry." she whispered, rocking back and forth slightly. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's all my fault..." A few tears trickled down her face. "I... I don't think we should be here anymore." Not that she'd be surprised if Tyrus decided she was more trouble than she was worth, too. Dante had almost died - and still might, if something else attacked them - and she clearly wasn't able to protect anyone.
Tyrus crouched down by Luca, knees cracking. His pale skin was pallid in the aftermath of the attack.
"Luca. Luca, listen to me. None of this is your fault. You followed the plan as long as you could, and you killed the monster. You've done the right thing."
The shrunken version of Fluffy proves to be an able scout. When it returns after a few minutes, it reports that it detected nothing moving about in the immediate vicinity, alive or undead. However, there is a corpse that appears to be entirely... peaceful, for the moment, on the ground floor of the one of the northern apartments. It was dressed, armored, and armed in modern fashion.
Tyrus' words didn't seem terribly convincing to the girl as sense returned to her... and she cast a bitter glare at the small eldritch beast as it reported to her, to which it seemed entirely impassive. <"Ah h'geb."> she said flatly. In Obanese, the closest translation for the alien tongue was "Bring it here" - if it was useful, then as far as she was concerned, the beast could do the heavy lifting to bring the body over. And if things got violent? She wasn't going to be particularly upset if it got hurt. They kept taking control of her body and hadn't even been able to hit that ghost, much less hurt it... and now a good person was dead.
Fluffy disappears again, and this time is gone for several minutes before it appears in view again, dragging the corpse by leg by sinking its teeth into the breeches. It is awkward for the small creature to move such a large load, but it manages at last to bring the body clear of the building. It then disappears inside once more, and returns with a curved blade held between its teeth, which is deposits beside the body.
The body is of a fairly tall man, clad in mail armor of good quality and without any apparent tears or marks of distress, though blood has seeped through on one side. On what skin you can see he bears large tattoos in glyphs and symbols. His skin is dark, and you would guess him to be Kadeshi or perhaps Gola. The sword by his side is a large, two-handed curved blade of excellent workmanship and the hilt is decorated with small gemstones and gold inlay. He also carries a curved dagger on his belt.
The tattoos are marks of the Goddess Haiyaph, primarily worshipped in Southern Golm. She is a goddess of purity and is known to be a prominent enemy of Undeath.
Paladins and other holy warriors of Haiyaph often have runes etched into their bones that mark them as claimed by their goddess, and which protect them from most forms of undeath.
The man has a coinpurse with the equivalent of 14 silver ducats in it. He also bears a vial of deep red liquid in a belt pouch, along with two bars of what appear to be travel rations.
The only active magic you detect on the body comes from the vial of red liquid.
Tucked into a oilcloth pouch at the small of his back is a small leather-bound book.
This appears to be a journal of the dead man's travels. There is a great deal of writing.
*Drool*
*Bleed*
*Twitch*
*Groan*
As Tyrus did... Tyrus-y things... Luca quietly examined both body and blade, using both physical observation and the all-purpose magical scan to see how things worked out. She couldn't get a good reading on the vial - so she left it alone - but she did thumb through the man's journal. She wasn't familiar with the language in question, but given time, she might be able to decipher it...
You thumb through the journal. You don't know the languge it is written in, but you have enough schooling to recognize some of the words by their relation to other languages. Prominent among them are the words "shame" and "debt."
"We need to get Dante to cover - soon. I think I've managed to stabilise him long enough to get him to one of these buildings. Luca - can you have your thing help me carry him? Torble isn't much help."
Unexpectedly taking charge, Tyrus drags Dante's body into the nearest building that hadn't just had a corpse ragged out of it.
Once Dante is settled, he leaves Torble on guard and comes out to Georgi. Carefully he binds the corpses hands and legs, muttering "Last thing we need is for him to animate while we're hiding." and drags the body back to Dante.
Finally he comes out to help Luca with the last body.
"Paladin of Haiyaph?" he asks Luca "No need to worry about him coming back then, not with all those runes etched onto him. What is the book about?"
Despite his misgivings, Tyrus is even less happy with the idea of leaving a corpse so close to their hideout, and takes the man in to lay alongside Georgi.
"Can you have something sweep the ground outside? Hopefully we can avoid luring something in."
Then he sets to Dante with a will, stitching, setting, cauterising and bleeding.
Luca's beast wasn't large enough to carry Dante - but she managed to at least improvise something he could be dragged around on. <"Ah'bthnk f'nw."> Loosely translated, 'move that body to their place'. It was often difficult to adequately translate the concepts between the two tongues, but the creature seemed to understand, and helped Tyrus move Dante. Then, at his other request, <"Fhtagn geb."> 'Wait here', right by the entrance to the building.
"I can't make out all of it, but... something about shame and debts." she said as he worked on stitching up Dante.
Nothing troubles you while Tyrus works. He is forced to remove Dante's armor and cut away his shirt to get at all the wounds. He salves and bandages them after ensuring all prominent bleeds have been staunched. But after a pair of hours, he puts Dante slowly and surely back no the road to health, and soon after the young warrior regains consciousness - though the brush with death has taken its toll.
"don't move unnecessarily" warns Tyrus "The dreamer did something to your heart, I believe. You've got enough stimulants in you for three men, and you're barely walking. Take some time to rest."
He turns to Luca "So - should we wait here until he's recovered, or make a break for better sanctuary?"
Luca blinked. People didn't usually ask her opinion on matters like this... it was kind of a strange feeling, really. "Um... I... the <hafh'drnnyth> can help drag him out of here. Other things might want to move in now that that ghost is gone... and the sooner we can get out of here, the better." It wasn't - by any stretch of the imagination - safe. But there were no safe options - and as far as she could tell, retreating out of the area was more likely to ensure their survival than camping for the night.
"Alright, Dante. We're going to try to get back to the sanctuary from last night. Georgi took about half an hour. Luca and I will try to move Georgi's body. There's another body we found hereabouts - I'd like to get it out if I can, but I don't think that's possible. At a minimum we need to become grave robbers and take his possessions - possibly they're valuable enough to pay for Georgi's resurrection."
Tyrus coughs "Sorry - I mean pay his way into the next life. Funerals. Debts. Mourners. A small mausoleum, perhaps. Money for his children - did he have children?"
Luca eyed Tyrus for a second. He... he wasn't old enough to be going senile, was he? (That could be bad in soooooo many ways.) She wasn't too sure about death rites, but a few prayers over a body probably weren't going to hurt.
From speaking with Georgi over the course of your journey together, you know that the common burial rites of the area focused on keeping a body or spirit from being gripped by the curse of Keldradt. Thus, most bodies are burned, and their funerals are focused on setting their souls at ease with a focus on what they achieved and accomplished in their lifetime. Other rites with the same objective are often organized by priests, clerics, and paladins of the gods.
There was a loud thump, an intake of breath, and Dante's eyes popped open. "What? Wha...?" The rest of his words became a garbled mess as he tried to settle into reality know that the dream was gone. He looked around and moved sluggishly into a sitting position. Pain caused black spots to flutter about his vision, threatening to coalesce into darkness again. But each breath drove them further away. He took a deep breath and gained some semblance of control. "Sorry. What?" He just realized Tyrus had spoke to him but he hadn't made sense of any of it yet.
After re-explaining the situation to the addled Dante. Luca and Tyrus try and remember the route back to the campsite they had used the night before.
Fortunately, both of them were paying close attention to the route, and they distinctly remember how to get back, as well as the areas Georgi said were most likely to hold danger.
Due to Dante's weakness, it takes much longer, and you are forced to stop so that Dante can rest several times. But two hours later, you arrive back at the building you had used the night before. The barricades you constructed are still intact and can easily be put in front of the access points.
Dante is overly quiet and not in a productive way. He wasn't trying to be stealthy or focused on their surroundings. Instead, his eyes stayed glued to the cobblestones ahead of him, detouring Georgi every now and then. His focus was introspective. Georgi was dead and it felt like his fault. He'd stopped and turned to fight. And even when the creature retreated, he pushed to continue until it was defeated. His intentions were righteous but that didn't relieve the guilt. Now they were all severely wounded, deep in the city and had to watch his body so it wouldn't reanimate.
Worse still was that his blade no longer had any life in it. No words of wisdom or encouragement. And what was that void of souls? Was it dangerous? Was he going to be sucked in when he died? Could he avoid it now that he was attuned to it? It was some heavy stuff for a 17 year old.
Aso soon as the camp is secure Tyrus collapses against a wall.
"Dante. Luca." Tyrus' voice seems slurred with tiredness even after such a short day. "It's a long way back. My memory isn't what it used to be. Do either of you remember the way out of this cursed place? Can't exactly just pick a line and walk it."
He blinked a few times, one eye slightly behind the other "Luca: anything helpful in that journal? Dante, you and I need to try to formulate a strategy. Perhaps cross-study."
Tyrus closes his eyes for a few moments, then reopens them. "I'm not sure how we're going to get his body back with us. In this city, Georgi told me it was all about stopping the deceased being forced back to unlife. Burnt to ashes, funerals, consecrated ground. Destroying it here, though, without a proper funeral... might not work."
"Um... I, um, attended a funeral when my grandfather died." Luca said hesitantly. She didn't really like talking about her family - not even Anastacia - but her Grandfather had died before she'd even started to exhibit her powers... back when the world still had hope in it. "I think, um, saying a few words over the body would help. A-and perhaps apologizing to him - formally - for not being able to protect him. A lot of people did that at grandpa's funeral. I-I think they didn't want him to haunt their future business dealings..."
Dante's weak and injured... Tyrus might be losing his mind... Georgi's dead... no, no, no! Bad things always happen to good people when I'm around!
"We should leave him here. We can go back to that fort and get help. I am sure they will want to know about him," he says pointing at the foreigner. "They can get him in the process," this time pointing at Georgi. For some reason he felt uncomfortable saying the name. "Hopefully this place can prevent him from rising."
"We probably should have left his body behind. In fact I think we should put as much distance between us and him as soon as possible." He gets to his feet, a little shaky and needing the wall for support. "We don't know how long it takes for someone to rise here." He glances at the body nervously. "And I'd rather not fight an undead with his face. Just grab the gear and lets go. The nights are going to be hard without a fourth watch."
Luca looked down at Georgi's corpse and winced slightly, but knelt down by him and whispered for a few moments before standing up again. She looked like she was ready to go - and her companion was ready to scout ahead and lead the way.
"No." Tyrus' voice is firm. "You need rest Dante - by all rights you should be dead. Too much exertion and you will be. I'm all but dead on my feet. Even Luca is injured. I've no real spells left - and I suspect you are the same. We rest, then travel. I'd rather travel at night than as we are now."
"If Georgi rises here... then he rises. I've secured him - you're welcome to check. If he's still like this when we wake, then we'll talk about it. I'm not sure destroying his body is going to help."
He thinks for a moment "Although - those glyphs on the Paladin are meant to keep a body inviolate. Can't help to try putting them on his body, I suppose. I almost felt like I understood them. I don't suppose the book reproduces them, Luca?"
"Ropes aren't going to do much if he turns incorporeal. We should at least move him somewhere else. That one too," he says pointing at the foreigner. He hadn't heard about the glyphs yet. They come as a surprise, and for once, a happy one. "Hang on. Those runes on his body prevent reanimation? Can you apply them to Georgi? Then we could leave both of them here without fear of them rising while we sleep and go get help. Those glyphs could lessen the number of dead here."
The protective runes used by the adherents of Haiyaph are complicated magic carved directly into the bones, only possible with the aid of clerics of the goddess - and, furthermore, must be carved while alive.
The tattoos on the paladin are, as far as you know, purely decorative and devotional and have no magical effects.
Tyrus looks uneasy "Can't hurt, I mean. Common belief is that they do nothing, but perhaps there is something, and it can't take more than ten minutes."
"No, the foreigner won't rise. Georgi might. I imagine that the Brazier will keep him down while we sleep. Should do that. Torble can stand watch in case. I don't like using up something that cost that much gold - we'd be weeks - months earning that much again in a safe job." He pauses "But it meant a lot to Georgi to stay down. We owe him at least that much. If we use the Brazier, maybe we can push through tomorrow and get him home - or at least to that sanctified safe house."
"...All the wealth in the world doesn't matter if you're dead." Luca said quietly. "This trip has been bad enough without allowing greed to make it worse." ...Another vote in favor, then, assuming anybody else thought her opinion should count. She certainly had trouble accepting that it might. Besides, if they really needed money, she still had the Mensha...
"I don't think any of us are going to be able to take a watch tonight." Dante takes the brazier out of his pack and picks up a few small pieces of wood off the floor. A few scrapes of flint and steel later and the brazier is lit. He places it in the center of the room and calls it a not.
Dante places some errant wood into the brazier alongside the lump of coal, incense, and metals and sets it alight. Immediately the globe of coal takes fire all around and burns with a fire that is not red-orange but white like the sun. Warmth floods outwards from the flame - warmth of body, warmth of spirit, warmth of mind. Despite your wounds you immediately feel more at ease. You know that in the light of this flame you are safe.
As the light falls upon the body of Georgi, the corpse begins to twitch - and yet you feel no alarm. Its eyes open, the rheumy eyes of a mindless animated corpse.
As you watch, the pallid flesh begins to catch flame with the same white light. It burns swiftly across Georgi's fallen form as the zombie struggle sluggishly against it's restraints. Before long, the entire thing is consumed in white light and its movements cease - and not long after that, it collapses into fine white ash.
The Paladin's corpse, on the other hand, remains unaffected.
As one, you settle down for the night, which passes peacefully an uneventfully. When you wake, the last vestiges of the brazier's light are flickering. It will go out soon.