"Let's see if the fish people have any clues on them."
Broom cautiously began looking over the fishmen. At first she was looking for any clues at John's suggestion, but quickly forgot about that and became engrossed in neatly arrange their corpses on one side of the room and tidy up a bit here and there.
As she did so she became curious about the slimy nature of their skin. Something about it seemed familiar. Many of the thoughts that she encountered were of creatures that lived in the depths and slimy skin seemed to be a common trait among them.
Not opposed.
Do we just need to rest to recover spells?
The infernal healing will get me back ready to go.
As the last zombie fell, the shadow shrank slowly back to Desdemona's shape, as if being drawn into her. Her defiant pose relaxed, just as slowly, until the shadow was her own once more, whereupon the black orbs of her eyes drained to their normal storm-grey color, and she staggered a bit, one hand going to her forehead as she looked around woozily.
"What... what happened?"
Reine, who had gone strangely silent as the combat had worn on, helped move the bodies around and loot through them. She also took some time to investigate the rooms for additional clues or treasures.
Her thoughts about the fight itself, as well as whatever else had been bothering her led to Reine's searches being somewhat perfunctory.
Wand of death knell (18), Wand of infernal healing (23), Wand of bless (17)
Broom looked at Des with concern "You don't remember? The zombies and fish men attacking us?" she said while motioning to the corpses about the room. "We are OK for now, but Des looks tired" she answered in response to John's questions.
"If we do rest though, shouldn't we go back to the agency? There is still the woman we met at the door in here somewhere and we don't know what else might be around. We should at least let them know what we have found so far"
"I... I don't-" Desdemona swayed as her mind took a sharp right turn to avoid whatever she'd been about to think of.
Recovering her physical balance, she gave Broom a bright smile. "Well, those... ruffians are done with. I could do with a bit of a rest. I simply fear that if we leave this place, we risk losing anything that might prove useful in our pursuits to whomever might otherwise venture within. And I do believe we are not the only players in this particular game." She pursed her lips. "John, perhaps you might close and bar the entry gates once more? It would make retreat more difficult, but it would make further entry more difficult as well."
I answer to no one.
She wasn't sure if that was the shadow's thought, or her own. Her smile creaked at the edges as she went about searching the dead, and re-dead. Her shadow slid over each downed opponent as well, as though the light were behind her.
The dead mercenaries were well equipped, each in well made studded leather bearing their mercenary company's logo and bearing masterfully made longswords and longbows.
The skum each carried their own trident but not much else in the way of equipment. Searching the dining room and the next room found several bags that appeared to be the skums' personal items- in this case, what looked like coins, jewelry, and other valuable looted from the fort.
The next room to the east was the magistrate's courtroom. The walls of this semicircular room were clad in wood up to half of their height, and decorated with murals of the town’s civil life on the upper half. A bench ran along most of the curved outer wall, under three grated windows fitted with stained glass. Opposite the bench were a trio of highbacked chairs and a desk with a stool. Two more benches sat in the middle, near a central pillar supporting the ceiling.
Reine looked up after they had stripped the dead of useful things.
"I can use these," she said, hefting one of the longswords, "I mean, I know how to use one - but they're heavy. We might be better off selling them and seeing what kind of equipment we can secure for ourselves with the proceeds. Once we get out of here."
Reine looked about at the group and nodded. "Desdemona is right. We're not the only people involved here. And if we leave - especially if we start selling gear with the mercenary company's mark on it - it'll let everyone else know that the fort is open. That'll attract attention we probably don't want just yet."
"We are ok right now, We uh... didn't have much We could do when the zombies were immune to Our electricity." Broom said sheepishly. "We were just worried that Des might be too tired but if everyone else wants to look around some more, We can do that."
Broom looked at the tidy piles that she had helped arrange everything into "We don't know if Our magic pack can hold that much stuff. Maybe we should just take the coins for now and leave the rest here to take on our way out?"
"John might want to bring one of these bows," Reine said, "they've got a pretty strong pull. But yeah, if we can hide them under the table, or by the door if we're barring that again, we can grab the rest on the way out."
Wand of death knell (18), Wand of infernal healing (21), Wand of bless (17)
Broom nodded and dutifully began stacking up the accumulated equipment under the table trying to keep it as out of sight as she could. Once done she looked over at the door that they had just come through.
"Should we go upstairs where the zombies came from and make sure there are no more?"
"Good call on the bow ... I could use a better one."
He calls over his new dog and trys to calm it down after the battle.
Broom paused for a moment as she collected her thoughts. She had been certain that the zombies had shuffled down from above, but that other part of her was saying that they had wandered in from the door to the courtyard.
"We may have been mistaken about the zombies coming down the stairs. If so though, we should still go up to have a look. We did see zombies in the towers when we were at the front door. We should go see if they are still there, especially if we are thinking about staying here for the evening."
"Maybe going upstairs will give us a better view."
Broom nodded and carefully began sneaking up the stairs, peeking around the corners and over the landing doing what she could to remain hidden from any zombies that might be lurking above.
Broom finds her worst nightmare at the top of the stairs. Everything in the room was in disarray. Overturned and broken furniture littered the floor, sprays of dried blood mark the room’s stone walls, the large wardrobe stood open with its drawers thrown to the floor and all its contents strewn around at seeming random, and the mattress had been pulled off the bed and sliced open, throwing downy feathers everywhere.
Even the cracked mirror hung on the eastern wall at the top of the stairs was askew.
There didn't appear to be any enemies, though, undead or not.
Broom peered around the room with intense dismay. She instinctively took her broom in hand from where it was tied to her pack. "I don't see anyone. she whispered loudly as she motioned for everyone else to have a look.
"It almost looks like someone was looking for something, they went through all the drawers and even cut up the bed" she said with a frown as she considered whether to summon her invisible friend to help put the place in order.
As much as she wanted to get started, she refrained. There would be plenty of time to do what needed to be done when they had finished their investigation.
Reine came up behind Broom, her eyes scanning the mess.
"If they resorted to cutting up the mattress, they were desperate - and probably didn't find it."
Reine didn't find anything with just a scan of the room but it is pretty clear that nearly every piece of furniture had been opened, turned over, or cut apart. One of the desk's drawers was taken all the way out and thrown on the floor and the other hung halfway out. There wasn't much left to search unless someone wanted to start prying up floorboards.
With Reine joining her upstairs, Broom was emboldened to enter the ransacked room and have a closer look around.
As she poked around, she inevitably started tidying up even without thinking about it. The drawers were put back in place and the clothing moved into a pile for future sorting.
There was little that could be done about the mattress at the moment, so she swept the bedding into another neat pile or future attention.
She frowned at the blood on the wall "It looks like the occupant of the room probably didn't make it. Do you think that he ended up in the kitchen for the fish men?"
Without enough time to scrub the walls properly, she turned her attention to the mirror. Given enough time she might be able to mend the crack with her magic, but that was also something that would need to be done later. Instead she just straightened it.
In doing so Broom remembered the mirror out in the courtyard and the precautions that they had taken there. Thinking about it for a moment she then turned the mirror so that it faced the wall.
"That's smart. I don't know what creatures live in mirrors, but I don't want to know either."
While tidying up and looking around, Broom and the others found a few items of interest. First, from the mix of clothes and items she was able to deduce that this room belonged to- from the spray of blood on the wall, likely had belonged to- a married couple. Probably the aging couple in the portrait she found on the floor in a pile of thrown-aside belongings.
Second, there was a crack between two floor planks under a knocked over bedside table that couldn't be fixed by rearranging. She found that one of the planks lifted up and there was a small pouch of coin and precious gems inside .
Third, and best hidden, was a skeleton key stuck to the underside of one of the desk drawers with a blob of dark red wax.
"Its kind of sad to think about this old couple just being in their room when monsters suddenly burst in and kill them. We need to make sure that doesn't happen to anyone else."
Broom examined each of the items found in the little pouch taking a moment to quickly polish each of the pearls before carefully stowing the treasures in her pack.
"Hey, look what We found!" she exclaimed as she pried the key from its hiding place and held it up for the others to see. "What do you think it opens?" she pondered as she gave the key to John before turning her attention to rubbing away the waxy residue from where the key had been affixed to the bottom of the drawer.
"Probably something horrible," Reine said, but her songbird's voice was gentle, and the ghost of a wry smile played across her lips for a moment as she said it.
Then she sighed, looking around the room.
"So, now we're searching the place for the lock to match?"
Satisfied that there was nothing else to do in the room for the moment, Broom went to the West door and opened it a crack. She peeked through to the room on the other side ready to shut the door again at a moment's notice.
John closes up behind Broom in case something nasty tries to eat her as she peeks through the door.
Broom barely had the door cracked open when she realized there was a zombie mercenary standing outside, sword drawn. She immediately shut the door but was sure the undead soldier had seen her, too.
Broom ever so carefully opened the door just a crack and peeked through. Whether or not the zombie standing on the other side of the door had seen her, the small gasp and the click of the door being swiftly shut again ensured that it knew someone was there.
She took a step back away from the door and got ready in case the zombie came through "There is another soldier zombie on the other side." she whispered a little too loudly to everyone else.
Wand of death knell (18), Wand of infernal healing (21), Wand of bless (17)
Staggering backwards from the door, Broom steeled her resolve and made ready to toss an acidic glob at the zombie should it enter the room.
John draws Red Destiny and steps up to the door, then looks over his shoulder to make sure the others are ready.
John opens the door and stabs a zombie.
(favored enemy, power attack)
John pulled open the door and stabbed the one on the left in the chest, inflicting a grievous wound that didn't seem to do much to slow the undead soldier down.
As good as the others had been, these two seemed to be less capable swordsmen and neither could get through John's armor.
Desdemona had seemed to be in a haze as she followed the others meekly about - but at the sight of more dead men, she jerked back, reflexively throwing out an arm in defense.
Her shadow, unsurprisingly, was less frightened. It had oozed around the doorway like mold as they prepared, and now it spat out from around John to tear at the zombies' shadow once more.
Defense:
20% miss chance in bright light, 50% miss in any other lower level of light. Immunity to death effects, disease, and poison. Evasion. Cold/electric resistance 10.
Offense:
Slam reach 10', bite reach 5', 2 claws reach 5', increased by 5' each when Large. Melee attacks affect incorporeal creatures as if it had the ghost touch weapon property. All attacks are treated as magic. Combat reflexes (3 AOOs).
Reine stepped up beside John and did her best with her "borrowed" trident to knock the zombie off-balance and easier to hit.
Des's shadow savaged the zombie in the doorway but it wasn't enough to re-kill the undead warrior. Reine jabbed her trident at the eternal soldier but couldn't do much around the corner of the door without fouling John's blade.
Wand of death knell (18), Wand of infernal healing (21), Wand of bless (16)
Once the door was thrown open and the zombies revealed everyone rushed forward and Broom was again faced with all her friends (and the shadow thing) blocking her from shooting the undead. She fretted for a moment about the zombies being unharmed by her electricity and then resigned herself to pulling out the Sarenrae wand and holding it aloft.
"Praise the sun!" she intoned as she had done the last time.
She hadn't even had to cast her thoughts out to search for how to activate the wand. She simply spoke the same words as last time and just as effortlessly the power flowed from the wand imbuing all who it touched a feeling of warmth and security.
John stabs again.
(favored enemy, power attack, bless)
Broom invoked the power of the wand and John once again proved he was more than a match for the mercenaries, even "upgraded" into unfeeling undead, as he stabbed Red Destiny fully through the head of the soldier holding the doorway then kicked it out of the way as it fell.
The other zombie, heedless of its companion's re-demise, moved back into the door and slashed at John to keep the intruders bottled up inside.
Even as the second zombie stepped up to savage John, Reine felt her anger reach a tipping point.
Enough of this half-assed poking and slapping defensively. It was time to put these things down. Forever.
So she hauled back and jabbed throught the gap between John and the zombie, hoping to accomplish something damaging to the enemy.
Recovering from her startlement, Desdemona nevertheless seemed uncertain... but what she was attempting hadn't gone so well before, after all.
"Destroy them!" She commanded the shadows, hurriedly adding, "I mean the dead men - only them!" She wasn't able to see if there were more than the one, but she was taking no chances... no other chances.
The smaller shoal of shadows swirled about ineffectually. The larger, serpent-shadow paused, then lashed out again, but after its first strike, its movements were languid, as though mocking her.
Broom gasped with alarm at the serious wound that the zombie guard delivered to John. She reached into her pack pulling out the wand of evil healing and with a practiced familiarity uttered the strange word that filled the air with the smell of brimstone and ignited John's wounds which began to burn shut once again.