Rahiv fumbles a bit with his pockets and produces the wand before giving her a gentle poke with it.
Zinli grumbled, reloaded her gun, and tried again.
"As Calistria and Gozreh as my witnesses, I'll will reduce you to dust if you attack her again!"
Dav poured his very essence into the magic missile, targeting another skeleton before it could harm Joza or any of the half-elf sorcerer's other friends.
Joza's eyes flutter open as Rahiv manages to wring a little healing magic from the wand. "Wha...? Eep!" she squeaks as she realizes that there's an awful lot of fighting taking place over and around her.
Rahiv heals Joza, as Zinli blasts a skeleton with her thunderous weapon.
Davlamin sends another magic missile in the last undead, and the creature is still standing, but barely. It launches a pathetic counterattack on Warren.
Rahiv gives Joza a gentle stroke on his head "Careful, careful...We've got this, let's get you up now." he said before poking her with the wand again near the worst of the wounds.
"Hang on, Joza! Almost over!"
Hope that it will be the last shot...
The last skeleton nearly explode under the impact..
All is quiet now!
Of course there is still the unconscious man
"Urgh...abominable bones!" Joza groans as she pulls herself to her feet, retrieving her dropped weapons as well. "Thank you, everyone...I shouldn't have charged in like I did. I was overconfident," she sighs, hanging her head.
"But at least we are all still alive. And him, what about him?" she asks, indicating the unconscious man the skeletons had been dragging along.
Rahiv got up as Joza did and after she seemed to hold her balance well enough, he moved over to the unconscious man. He wasn't sure what the undead would want with a living body or anything of the like.
He motioned the others over before offering a healing prayer.
"Oh my dear Joza, I'm so happy to see you alive and well. I was beside myself with worry and anger when the skeleton nearly took you down! I thank both Calistria and Gozreh that you are now safe!"
Rahiv looks at the man, and teh chaman realises the man is dead.
He looks like a guard or something
Rahiv sighs, this made a bit more sense. He looked up to the others "Looks like they were recruiting... A little worrisome, might have to let the town and guards know that it seems the tower has started attempting to steal corpses."
"Er...thank you Dav," Joza responds somewhat shyly. "I'm glad that you and everyone else is safe too."
Her expression grows grim as Rahiv pronounces the man dead. "Storm and salt! I was afraid of that," she sighs.
The guard seems to be one of the Blue Basilik recruits, usually found as caravan guards.
He still as a longsword by his side, which wasn't very helpful against the skeletons, and a purse with 20 GP
"Huh...he doesn't look like a Hellknight," Joza adds as she studies the man's armor. "Maybe someone that was passing through?"
Rahiv did a small bit of searching on the body "I'd say...caravan guard, possibly the Blue Basiliks. Still, we should inform the guard when we head to town again to try and mitigate death around the spire." he said before standing up slowly and looking around for somewhere to put the body.
"He won't be needing his gear, it'll at least be useful if we run into anything other than skeletons. We should at least move the body till we have time to do something with it." he said after some thought.
Warren looks at the man for a moment and says, "Maybe we should see where he came from and see if there is anyone else that needs help. Four skeletons carrying a body should leave a bit of a trail."
"You're most welcome Joza. I would hate for anything to happen to you. Besides, not only are you an amazing warrior skilled combat, but I must dare say that you are extremely and exotically attractive," Dav says as he flirts with the catfolk ranger.
Returning his attention to the matter at hand...
"Hm...That would be a good idea Warren. Maybe Joza could track for us. She is the best tracker here. And I agree, Rahiv: the Blue Basiliks should be informed of this. I have a bad feeling about this. Surely whatever evil infests the Emerald Spire is already making its move, testing the defenses of the town."
"Really?" Joza responds, eyes wide. She doesn't seem embarrassed or upset with Dav's forwardness, but surprised. "Most humans and others I've met seem to prefer others of their own race, but then again there are a lot of...er..." she stumbles, a small part of her mind warning her that she might be bordering on saying something offensive. "Nevermind. Thank you Dav, I'm happy you think so," she smiles.
Her demeanor then returns to its more task-oriented norm as the suggestion of checking for tracks is made. "Yes, good idea! Let me see..."
As Rahiv manipulates the dead man, he feels something under his fingers.
In the man's back, there is a broken crossbow bolt.
Joza has no troubles to follow the track. A little over one mile from the Spire, you find a scene of destruction and carnage.
Five bodies are on the ground, but you can't get your eyes off a macabre duo: another skeleton, its skull crushed, still holding an ancient sword deeply thrusted into a woman's throat.
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"Believe me, they're not all that picky," Zinli said to Joza with a playful -and one might even say sassy- wink.
She sighed when she saw the corpses:
"Oh... S***. You know, the Spire would be nice without all its dead people. Seriously. We're always getting dead people. Why not cute puppies? What is wrong with this place?!"
The gnome kept mumbling as she examined the place, looking for useful stuff -or any indication of what happened here.
Warren shakes his head at he sight. "We should bury these people to keep the animals out of them and let them know in town where they are. They may want to return their remains to town. If that was a caravan guard, where is the caravan?"
"Yes, burying them would be a good idea," Joza agrees with a sad sigh. "I wonder why so many creatures are drawn to this place? And such a variety, too..."
Voyla nods, shedding a tear.
If you had a shovel, or two, it would take some time to buy these men. Without adequate tools, it would be even more time consuming, but still doable.
Zinli finds something, some tracks in the ground. A few people, loaded with weight
Warren pulls out his folding shovel and prepares to start digging when Zinli finds the tracks. "Do you know where those tracks head? Do we want to ensure the living's safety or bury the dead?" he asks the others.
"I can move ahead a little and see where the tracks lead while the rest of you work on burying these people," Joza offers. "If the tracks lead into the Spire or too far into the wilderness then I'll return to the rest of you and we can decide what to do."
"You're most welcome joza," Dav said.
After they found the battle site....
"Yes I'm puzzled and curious to why so many different beings are being drawn to the Spire as well. There must be something here that is connected to the Azlanti. Hmm....I wonder if they built the Emerald Spire over something else, and whatever that is, it's getting loose...or more likely trying to but can't at the moment."
While Warren is digging up graves, Joza tries to follow the tracks, but soon lost them.
All she can say is that is was a small group of humanoids and that the trail was recent .
But whoever made these tracks took the time to hide the trail.
As you put the corpses into their graves, Zinli notices that some of them suffered cuts, and some got different, puncture wounds, which looks badder than the cuts, and smell strangely. Most of the bodies were robbed of their belonging, but you find a well hidden purse on one corpse, with some gold and a small gem into
Rahiv watched the others for a moment before joining Zinli in looking over the bodies. He sighed as it was a waste of life that these people had been taken so early and with the lack of belongings he could only assume banditry.
He shrugged as he looked at Zinli "I can offer nothing as to the cause of death. It was not nature who did this."
"I dunno what it was either. Let's just hope we won't meet it on our way."
After a few minutes Joza returns to the rest of the group, shaking her head. "The tracks are fairly recent, but I wasn't able to follow them very far - someone took the time to hide them," she reports.
Warren frowns as Joza informs them someone hid their tracks, "That sounds more like bandits than skeletons. Back to the Spire once we are done here then?"
"I believe so. I'm afraid I can't identify the wounds as well. Though I do feel sorry for them. I hope that Calistria can give us the strength to avenge their deaths on whoever did this. Though now that I think about it, maybe the undead and the bandits are working together. I know that's odd but I get this feeling that the Emerald Spire is actually drawing all sorts of evil to it like metal to a magnet or moths to a flame," Dav said to the others.
"Really? But why?" Joza asks as they finish up their burial of the bodies and prepare to continue on.
"That's just it: there are some many possibilities it's mind boggling! The only one that seems to make sense is that the Azlanti built the Emerald Spire over the ruins of another civilization that existed long before them. I know there are various different civilizations but none that are anywhere near here. The other possibility is that the Azlanti built the Emerald Spire to contain/study some sort of evil. And after their civilization fell, the Azlanti abandoned the Spire. With no one to maintain the seals on this evil, its prison got weaker over the years until it could extend its influence beyond the confines of its prison. While it can't get out, this evil can draw others that are easily manipulated by its influence, namely those who are already evil and vile. Maybe as the more evil beings that it causes to be in proximity to itself, this evil's prison grows weaker until it can escape completely. Now these are just theories. But there the only things I can come up with," Dav explained, answering Joza's question as best as he could.
Joza's head spins as Dav shares his theories with them. "You speak of many things beyond my understanding, but I do understand one thing - if there is some sort of seal here, it was likely put here for a good reason. Perhaps to contain something wicked, as you said. If so, we have to make sure such a thing doesn't falter."
You reach the Spire quickly, and descend to the first underground level.
You can either retrace your way through the rooms you already explored,
or try a new path.
"Hum...this is largely up to what Voyla and Warren decide but maybe we should try this door in front of us?" Joza suggests once they finally reach the second level of the Spire again. "It might eventually lead us back to where we've been earlier but even if it doesn't, it might be a good idea to not leave an unexplored area at our backs."
Rahiv tapped his chin a bit, he looked around surprised to find them back at the Spire. He had still been contemplating what to do with the poor caravan and their guards. He shook his head and pushed their appearances to the back of his mind for now. "Indeed, I'm not that great at mapping out places...let alone a place that is possibly strong in magic. I'll let the ones who prefer the frontlines to take the lead after the last time I opened a door." he said with a slight shudder.
Warren moves up to the door in front of them and turns to Voyla, "Would you care to check this door for traps and unlock it if needed."
Voyla winks at Warren, and starts checking the door.
Voyla finds no traps, but the door remains locked.
She isn't sure she can open the door. She nearly broke her tools, more by lack of luck than by lack of skill.
"We could always try to force it open if it can't be unlocked," Joza offers. "It'd make some noise but after all the ruckus we made last time we were here you'd think that anything able to hear it would've joined the fight then."
Voyla cleans the sweat from his brow.
"Let me try again"