Aleister's splash of acid is enough to do the already beaten down undead creature in, and it makes an awful hissing sound as it falls to the floor and begins to rapidly turn to dust.
"That went easier than expected." Aleister muses. "Let's hope there are no more of these things lurking about."
Steave approaches and lays his hand on Menedemus's shoulder. "It appears Aroden's Herald still favors you. Come, let's heed Lisandra's advice and clean this place." Steave stows his shield and shouts while starting to clean. "All clear Aenevia! Lead in the troop."
How was it possible? He cut all the ties he had with Iomedae, and he doubted that a deserter would still have her favor.
"I...I don't know. I'm not sure that my powers are still given to me by the Inheritor." he will touch his eyes as he respond to Steave "It's not the first time something weird happens to me since the attack. When we fell down here, I found that I could see if someone was gravely injured or not. Or so I thought. It seems I can also know if something is alive or not, like I did with that Haecuva."
Menedemus shrugged "Well, there's no use in asking ourselves questions. We have to get everyone to safety first, and answers will come by themselves in due time."
I hope...
The two injured people and one insufferable ass come into the temple. Anevia looks around the chapel, and a sudden despondence comes over her as she settles Aravashniel down onto one of the benches and then slips into the distant corner of another one, falling silent.
Horgus mutters, "Maybe we should split up. Some people here are slowing us down." His eyes dart toward the injured woman, whose distance immediately snaps into fury.
"It's no surprise that a man afraid to acknowledge his own faith wouldn't be moved by a forgotten temple! Being ashamed of your faith is just as bad as worshipping demons."
That makes the round noble reel back a little before chiming back with, "Ironic, from someone who consorts with thieves."
She falls silent again, this time her eyes narrow, rage teeming as her face grows red with fury.
"Settle down. For the time being, we're a family. You don't get to pick your family, and we didn't get to pick one another. However, we must live together for the moment, so keep the peace." Steave replies to the room.
"We're going to clean this temple for the next hour, so everyone can either relax in leisure or reverent work, as you wish. The real questions are what to do afterward. Lisandra, I believe the dragon scale allows you to reconsecrate this temple, which I think would be a good idea. The other thing is that front door is very strong. We could hold up here to rest. I don't know if we'll find another safe and fortified location to camp down here in these caverns."
Steave pauses cleaning the temple and goes to close the front stone door.
The two share a furious stare, but eventually give in. Anevia's face starts to return to its normal coloration, and Horgus heaves a heavy sigh and just lounges across as much bench space as he physically can.
Leander put away the holy water as the skeleton was turned to dust in a matter of seconds. "Nice job. Never seen one of those before." He moved closer, inspecting what remained of the thing.
At Aeryx' suggestion to keep moving he smiled, "I don't know about you bird man, but I do still ache from the fall, and the vermin in here isn't helping. I'd be thankful for some time to recover." As he said it her did not look at Aeryx but instead looked at both Anevia and Aravashniel, before meeting the bird-man's eye. He should understand.
"A rest if fine. I don't know how deep we are underground but it doesn't sound like there's anything happening on the surface." Aleister says.
Not that the lot of us could stand against something like that anyway.
Pulling the scale from her backpack, Lisandra goes about the temple consecrating the grounds of the temple. "That ought to set things right; what a tragedy that befell this hallowed ground."
Once her work with the temple is complete, Lisandra walks coldly past Horgus and tends to the wounded more closely given the available time. As she approaches the wounded pair, she smiles "If you'll allow me, I'd like to properly dress those wounds."
Looking towards her new-found allies, Lisandra adds "If anyone else has injuries, please come and see me."
It takes Lisandra a little longer than expected to consecrate the temple, but she ultimately manages to do it.
Aleister shows no sign of injury and waves off the offer.
He finds a relatively comfortable spot to sit and addresses the group."Anyone have a guess as what happened up there? As to how that fiend managed to get into the city?" Aleister asks.
At Aleister's question, Menedemus shakes his head "I don't have the faintest idea, sadly. Shouldn't the wardstone have kept them at bay?".
Unconsciously, Menedemus mind jumped to the moment of the attack: demons everywhere in the streets, fire,blood and screams left and right.
The screams, gods, the screams!
They echoed in his head, every time he closed his eyes, Menedemus could see the terrified eyes of Kenabres' citizens, that split-second before falling into the ground repeating over and over...
"We have to get to the surface" he will say while clenching his fists "We may have no chance against those demons, but we have to save as much people as possible. I won't rest until I have searched every street, every house, every building, I won't rest until I've made sure that I saved all that could be saved. And if I die doing that, my only regret will be that I didn't do everything in my power to save everyone..."
He stared in front of himself for some time, but after realizing that his venting was extremely out of place he will apologize to everyone "I...I'm sorry, that was uncalled for."
It couldn't be helped tough.
He knew that the only way to stop the screaming in his head would have been to go in the city and rescue all the possible survivors, but he would have never admitted that it was only to shake the guilt off himself.
And he knew that he would have been glad to die while doing that, but he would have never admitted that it was only because he wouldn't have been able to cope with his failure.
"Yeah, we need to find a way to the surface, but lets by careful. You actually want to get there and not die down her because you missed something in your hurry." It was something he learned from his father, that it was never good to hurry too much as you'd lose sight of what you were doing. The fact that he mostly spoke about treating the sick and the wounded didn't matter, it applied to everything else as well. Making haste was good, hurrying not so much.
He proceeded to move along the edges of the newly consecrated temple. "We'll get out of here alive and then worry about saving the rest of Kenabres and how we do it. Dead folks can't do anything." And if the latest inhabitant of this place was an accurate representation, neither could undead folks.
As you step out of the rechristened temple, divine light washes over you in appreciation for your service to reclaiming the place of worship from the cleric who forsook his faith.
"I don't know. They seemed easy enough to exterminate. Better than spiders at least." Aleister says taking his place in the formation the group had decided upon.
Menedemus, too, moves in the chosen order, keeping an eye out in case he saw the flames of life of an enemy or a survivor.
Aeryx and Leander scout in front of the group. Steave leads the rest. Aleister carries the torch.
Per Steave's request Aleister charges the crusader's helm with magical light every 10 minutes or so.
Anevia once again takes Aravashniel with her, hobbling slowly behind the group, with Horgus looking more ragged and defeated, making up for his low potion with more obnoxiousness when prompted.
Menedemus threw a quick glance at Horgus and Anevia
I wonder what she meant when she said that Horgus was 'afraid to acknowledge his own faith'? It seems they were talking like they knew each other...
Leander moves in and sneaks past the rest, clinging to the shadows. He made sure never to move into open spaces where he could possibly be caught, staying inside the hallway if that was what was needed.
The proper passageway of the cave stretches for about 3,000 feet, taking you more than half an hour to navigate, before ending after a gradual 30 foot slope upward. Stone figures are carved into the walls of this cavern. Each depicts a different crusader clad in armor and wielding weapons, but their carved stone features contain expressions of sadness.
"Puzzling, there must be an entrance somewhere let's have a look around."
Menedemus will move closer to the carvings and examine them.
"Maybe they're important crusaders from the past? I'm not one for historical studies, so I can't tell..."
Steave stands around the statues and describes them to the blind wizard while looking for an exit.
The elf looks in surprise at Steave as he speaks, nodding his head intently and listening to his words. "Interesting, interesting. I have a theory--one of many--that these carvings may support."[/b] Horgus groans as they're yet again slowed down by someone's need to talk, but he doesn't say anything. "There is a legend that after the First Crusade, a group who had become infected with Abyssal energies fled into caverns beneath the city to raise their deformed children in peace, and that those descendants live on today in tunnels below the city. It's not a well supported myth, as nobody could even prove there were caverns beneath the city, but this certainly lends credence to it. Perhaps drawn by the mutated children."
"Interesting." Steave sincerely replies to the elf.
After someone who can detects for magic at the statues, Steave nods to Aeryx to lead the way into the cavern.
Menedemus will move his finger on a scar on his forearm, and then throw a glance at his tail. Painful memories started to flood his head.
"Well" he will say with an hint of sadness in his voice "At least parents and children had each other. It must have been hard to live down here, but I'm positive that they would have had a terribly difficult life on the surface. From my experience, most people are not very open minded, and will always find an excuse to take their pain on someone else..."
Why am I suddenly complaining about that? If the people that fled here did so, it's because they were wrongfully stigmatized by others on the surface. It has nothing to do with me... I deserve every scar I've got.
Aleister finishes his search of the room, then nods to the path. "If no one's found anything we should continue."
No magic is found in the room.
Aeryx's noises don't seem to disturb anything, the cavern remaining perfectly still, and he's unable to find anything save for more carvings along the walls.