"Stop touching me you shadowy-creepy-jerk thing!" Ziphora snaps at the wriath, while turning the full power of her water jet at it.
Indignant at the wight's irreverence, "You will bow to me!!!"
Between Beachhead and Ziphora's attacks, the wraith finally dissipates, its black substance disintegrating into the air.
The wight stubbornly refuses to submit to Hungry's will. It glares at him defiantly.
"Wrap this up, Hungry, or we'll have to take care of it."
Not feeling like changing tactics when the fight's going so good for him, Hothead keeps launching magical flame at the last remaining wight. Why fix what is not broken?
Hothead blindsides the wight with a blast of flames, and it collapses into a heap of flaming bones.
"Oooh. And so we're done." Ziphora looks concerned at Hungry. "You were biting one of these earlier - ok it means you're hungry and we need to look for some food, right?"
Ohh goody, they've been rendered inert. Now let's get this magic artifact and get out of here before Tomorbataar shivers more show up.
Tomorbataar votes to use the body's legs for digging
"Are we not going to talk about the fact that these things did more than hit us? It feels like they took some of our energy. How do we get it back?
"Hungry, how do we get the energy back?"
Wait, he's asking Hungry about it? I thought I was the healer around here!
"Well, I might be able to help. Depends a bit on how your energy has been taken away," Hothead says, trying not to let his voice betray his annoyance. "Do you have any specific symptoms? Muscles aching? Stiff joints? Or do you just feel like, uh, just generally drained?"
"Generally drained." Ziphora answers Hothead listlessly. "Again, maybe a good night's rest MIGHT fix that."
Beachhead votes along with Tomorbataar. Whether or not the legs start digging, he continues the conversation.
"If you can help, Hothead, great. I just feel... less. But Hungry is the one who knows about undead, so maybe the two of you can work together.
"Put your heads together! Ha ha ha!"
Hungry stares off at the corpse of the last wight. "Need more... need more..." Hungry snaps up and looks at his siblings realizing that they were talking to him. "Food would probably be good. Uh yeah give me a minute to think about it!" He then shares what he knows with everyone.
Sometimes a good night's rest cures energy drain. If not, it takes divine magic to restore the drained energy.
Your body paws awkwardly at the ground, but it manages to dig through sheer bulk. After a while a toe touches something metal, and looking in the hole, you can see the glint of gold.
"Ooooh Shinny!" Ziphora exclaims excitedly and starts digging more."Was there a rainbow by any chance? They say at the end of a rainbow lies a pot of gold."
Ziphora votes dig, dig more
There are no rainbows underground. Tomorbataar says, looking at the ground with mild fear. I want the treasure, but not if it's covered in dirt.
Did you know that dirt is really just decomposed corpses?
"No, no, its where the rainbow touches the ground, underground there's a pot of gold!" Ziphora corrects Tom. "If it is, that's good, I guess. I always wanted to go back to the Earth after I die. I mean becoming a cloud would be better, but Earth isn't all together that bad."
"I believe you mean soil not dirt. And you're not entirely correct. Soil is a mixture of minerals, organic matter (not just decomposed corpses), gases, liquids, and countless organisms that together support life."
With a short magic phrase, Hungry casts detect magic again first looking at the gold thing the scanning the dirt around it.
"We're all just future corpses!" Beachhead says cheerily, yet unhelpfully.
"Ok, Hothead, do you know the sort of magic that can help?"
The gold object is, indeed, the source of the enchantment aura. Hungry does notice that the remaining unaccounted-for necromancy aura is a little bit off to one side of the hole you're digging.
A bit more digging around the area, and you're able to pull out a scepter. It's beautifully decorated object, made of enchanted gold with carefully arranged gems.
Ah Tomorbataar says, eyeing the others closely.
You aren't undead, are you? I mean if you are then I can't touch you, not that I really want to touch you anyway, but I could if I wanted to. If you were living. But if you're undead then even if I needed to I couldn't touch you, and what if I need to? Tomorbataar looks down at the ground, sighing heavily.
Oh goody, look at that. I bet we can get lots and lots of things for that, perhaps we could carry it with us to the bigger humans and see what they would give us for it.
"It seems this staff is a Suzerain Scepter. It helps you be more knowledgeable about the noble folk and better at influencing people. The wielder can, once a day, fill up to seven creatures with hope. It also makes the wielder more leaderly."
"The Hungry artifacts are bit off that way Hungry points in their direction and will require more digging."
Ziphora happily helps hungry dig dig. "Shinny? Shinny?" As she digs she begins muttering to herself.
Beachhead agrees to dig, but doesn't stop nagging Hothead.
"No... I don't think my magic would help, sorry," Hothead says sheepishly to Beachhead. "It's more for... Like... Stuff. Can't really explain it in a simple way... Let's just say that it works for some things and doesn't for others. But I can try to fix your wounds at least."
After casting the spells, Hothead joins his fellow heads in digging the hole.
After a while, you uncover a large, black gem that sparkles with multiple colors in the sun--a giant onyx.
"Not Shinny!" Ziphora exclaims.
"Thanks, Hothead!
"Hungry, is this it? You said 'auras' which seems a little new-agey, but I'm no wizard. But you said it as a plural, and there's only one gem here."
Well, I certainly deserve to be the most leaderly here, so I suppose I should hang onto the staff, for safekeeping, until we can find a good way to dispose of it. Tomorbataar eyes the staff as he says this, not wanting to touch it as it is still covered in dirt.
Oooh, sparkly and nice looking. Tomorbataar says, transfixed by the giant onyx gemstone.
"I'll clean the staff if you want." Ziphora offers, as she gives the staff a good blowover.
"Yeah, Beachhead. I was thinking the same thing. Give me a moment."
There are no other auras around, but as Hungry investigates the aura around the onyx, he realizes that it was somehow being used as a focus to create and maintain the undead you fought. Now that they are destroyed, the aura on it is slowly fading. Likely the other auras were from the undead themselves.
However, it also occurs to Hungry that this onyx would be large enough for creating undead of his own...
Hungry's eyes light up and a huge smile crosses his saurian face. "It must be my birthday!!! It's so pretty and just what I always wanted!" Hungry quickly recollects himself, "It seems like most of the auras were the undead things and this onyx which was used as a sort-of focus for their animating energies."
Thanks Zip Tomorbataar says, taking hold of the staff in his mouth.
Omhn no Hnngry, eeew will naat aake oore of tose Tomorbataar struggles to get the words out with the staff in his mouth. He does not look like he wants to let go of it.
Whhhhat do we do wit it nouw? Sall we rest or shry to carry on troo te nyt?
"...what?"
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"It's the staff making him better at influencing people, obviously."
"What did you say, Tom? I have your full permission to experiment with this crystal and make undead minions?! You're the best leader there is!!"
"You might have his, but you don't have mine." Ziphora gives Hungry a nasty glare.
Tomorbataar smiles at Hothead, nodding his approval. Ov cars.
When Hungry replies, however, Tomorbataar shakes his head vigorously, Nohw, nohw, nohw. Don't be shelly. As Tomorbataar says this, he notices that their stomach is rumbling.
We shud go geth shum hhood.
Beachhead slithers in between Ziphora and Hungry.
"You have my permission, fine sir," he says facetiously while bowing his head. Then he perks up at Tom's words.
"Yeah, we should totally hunt."
You spend the rest of the evening hunting, but the sun is well and truly down before you stumble across a small herd of deer. They scatter and flee at your approach, but between some fire and lightning and a couple rocks from Mo you bring two down before they can escape.
It's not the most filling meal, compared to how well you've been eating of late, but it will do, even after sharing a little with Mo.
Nothing is foolish enough to bother a hydra and a giant in the middle of the night. You wake to your stomach rumbling, however.
Beachhead votes to find some more food.
"As much as I love the thrill of the hunt, it's too bad there's not some magic that we can use to make us not hungry."