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"You killed them?!" Aiden's voice growls coming out of the undead throat. "You murderous zealots! I hope your souls weigh heavily for what you have done. He was on a mission to tip the balance away from Geb. You idiots might have just kept this land undead forever." His harsh tone breaks a bit and he sighs. "Is it possible that you can give us something, a symbol or a password to keep the next band of zealots from murdering us?"
He turns to the others. "Our mission is the temple. If we finish there, we can pay our respects to what is left of Heth. If we don't finish what he started, it doesn't matter."
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Molos was working through the facts in his mind while the others were having their discussion. ”Obviously our mission comes first. We have to find the tome. But we need to know the location of the burial site, as if we are able, we should visit and return the bodies for proper honoring and funeral rites by the society.”
Kuryn's face reddens at Aiden's outburst but he quickly seems to realize that arguing won't do any good and instead simply exhales slowly.
"I'm deeply sorrowful over what happened, whether you believe me or not. We did what we could to atone for the damage we did and I've passed along your man's message, as his spirit asked," he repeats. "If you follow the path through the swamp towards the temple you'll pass right by where we laid your allies to rest - just look for the cairns."
There's a sudden shout and the sound of steel slicing through...well, through something much closer now, perhaps only a few buildings down. Kuryn and his two acolytes tense, clearly ready for battle.
"Look, it's dangerous here and we can't linger; I've got to get these people out of here. If I were you folks I'd take advantage of the chaos and get out of here too," the priest says quickly as he removes a holy symbol that had been hanging around his neck and tosses it to Aiden. "Take this. If you run into any of my allies it'll make them think twice before trying to just cut you down - and I'll get the word out among them about your group, too!"
With everyone in agreement that now might be a good time to get out of Dodge Corpselight, you all quickly slip away into the darkness and leave the Pharasmins to their mission. If Kuryn is correct, the Urgathoan temple should only be about a mile to the south of the town, with Joktan Heth's final resting place somewhere along the way - and so south you do go.
A narrow, twisted, forking path of dry land winds through the wetland, leading to a low, solitary hill rising from the horizon to the south. An ominous stone cairn serves as the crown to the hill's crest - a cairn that you can see has only recently been erected. This must be where Joktan and his allies were laid to rest. You notice that the area is covered in an unnatural pall, and even natural sounds seem dulled and subdued.
There doesn't seem to be anyone or anything around.
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"Hey guys. I don't like the looks of this place. Seems desecrated, not consecrated. I'm going to cast that hiding spell now. If any of you want to vanish from undead, circle round."
Guy waits until those who wish to become invisible join him and casts a DC 17 Hide from Undead spell on whoever is within touching distance.
And if there is time and someone could use the wand of mage armor he will bum an activation off an arcane caster.
Immediately suspicious of the uneasy atmosphere that hangs in the air, everyone huddles up for Guy to hide you all from the eyes of any undead that may be nearby. A few of you also take a moment to bolster yourselves with your own magics or with wands.
Once that is done, both the Ghost Writer as well as 'Bubba' offer to creep closer to scout out the area immediately around the grave...
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Not wanting to let your scouts get too far ahead, several of you give it a few seconds before slowly following after 'Bubba' and the Ghost Writer - albeit at a respectful distance. Though the hour is still late and the night dark, the dark gifts granted by your transformation allow you to see as easily as if it were daylight. Everyone sans Guy and Molos creep closer, some more quietly than others, watching for any signs of trouble or other perhaps other undead such as yourselves roaming the countryside.
But there's nothing but empty air and the oppressive silence.
Deciding that maybe it's safe after all, 'Bubba' presses ahead and approaches the lonely cairn at the top of the hill. As he nears it, he, the Ghost Writer, and Tiera become aware of the sound of religious chanting and the sound of footsteps frantically sloshing through the swamp.
Yet there's no one to be seen.
It suddenly hits you - the area around Joktan's grave must be haunted! You know that a haunt manifestation may be circumvented by the use of positive energy, though it often takes specific actions - each haunting is different - to cleanse a haunt for good.
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Molos
Tiera
Aiden
Frankie
Ghost Writer
Guy
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?????
Active Conditions: Hide from Undead (Everyone)
Environmental Conditions: None
Tiera, Frankie and Ghost Writer may act!
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Bubba stops and looks around nervously. He quickly starts to shift and dance about, almost like he's reenacting a comical monk's defensive pose. What the heck's going on!
Blundering Defense (Combat): Your feverish and sometimes comical defensive techniques offer enough distraction to aid allies. Prerequisites: Cautious Fighter, halfling.
Benefit: Whenever you fight defensively or use the total defense action, allies gain a luck bonus to AC and CMD equal to 1/2 the dodge bonus you gain from the action you are taking. Allies only gain this bonus while they are adjacent to you.
Spooked and unsure of what's happening 'Bubba' adopts a funky-looking defensive posture, ready for anything that might be about to jump out at him!
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Molos
Tiera
Aiden
Frankie
Ghost Writer
Guy
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?????
Active Conditions: Hide from Undead (Everyone)
Environmental Conditions: None
Tiera and Ghost Writer may act!
Though she hears the strange noises Tiera can't see where they're coming from; she continues to move forward to give 'Bubba' some backup.
Guy seems to pick up on the fact that there's something weird happening based on the strange little defensive dance 'Bubba' suddenly starts doing; he listens and becomes aware of the strange chanting and running, splashing footsteps but he can't specifically determine where they're coming from. All he can tell is that it seems to be emanating from somewhere in the vicinity of the cairn.
______________
Molos
Tiera
Aiden
Frankie
Ghost Writer
Guy
==============
?????
Active Conditions: Hide from Undead (Everyone)
Environmental Conditions: None
Ghost Writer may act!
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Too paranoid to ever be surprised, the Ghostwriter senses that something is wrong. He also realizes that it is probably beyond his ability to understand. Knowing this, he does the only logical thing he can think of, which is to shout a warning to his allies as he flees away from the sound of chanting.
"Ghostly chanting! Beware!"
The Ghost Writer calls out a warning as the sounds get louder and closer. Suddenly, there appears a translucent figure of a person that looks just as ghastly as the rest of you currently do. The figure stumbles, falling over a stone as he looks back, and as he struggles to right himself, the translucent figure of Kuryn Jexel steps up to him.
"By the Lady of Graves, I banish thee!" the faint echo of words comes, even as Joktan pleads, "I'm not a ghoul, I'm not!"
Kuryn's hand glows and he reaches forward to slam his palm onto Joktan's chest. As he does so, the area all around the grave erupts in a bright flash of positive energy! 'Bubba', being the only one close enough to be affected, feels his flesh burn and wither under the power of positive energy!
After this burst the images slowly fade and the air grows quiet again...but you're all left with the foreboding feeling that the scene you just observed will, eventually, repeat itself.
It seems that Kuryn's best efforts to conduct a proper burial for Joktan weren't enough to allow the slain Pathfinder's spirit to rest. You suspect that perhaps the application of holy water by a goodly cleric might be enough to cleanse the remaining bad energy that lingers here.
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Bubba hisses and recoils from the light "Yowsers that's bright!" He looks around quickly to see if any more of those Pharasmins are coming to zap him again.
"It looks clear, for now?" He scurries closer for a few moments to have a peek. Wonder what that was all about, maybe it'll not happen again...
With the danger seemingly past, at least for the moment, more of you converge on the cairn to check on 'Bubba' and/or to have a look around for anything else strange or suspicious.
At first, nothing seems out of the ordinary - the cairn looks to have been erected quite recently, but this isn't surprising and lines up with what Kuryn told you. It also doesn't appear to have been disturbed in any noticeable manner. However, Guy, the Ghost Writer, and 'Bubba' notice something strange about the ground around the cairn. Dotting the ground and difficult to spot through the grass are numerous tiny holes in the earth, as though a number of tiny creatures recently dug their way in...or perhaps out.
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Guy stares for a moment and then frowns.
"Anyone else notice that the graves have been violated by some kind of tiny diggers? Normally I wouldn't think much about it, but considering where we are, I have a bad feeling about this. I don't want to dig them up, but I don't know what else to do."
Guy eyes the scorched kid with the brainz fetish and asks, Hey, Bubba, you want some healing there?"
Though right after he says it, he remembers that his channeling ability isn't any user here.
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Guy eyes the scorched kid with the brainz fetish and asks, Hey, Bubba, you want some healing there?"
Bubba stops and pauses, looking like he's remembering something. His little dead brain churns out a response. "Brainz!" A little wand slides into his hand and he sneakily tries to heal himself.
In mere moments his sunburnt skin flakes off revealing semi-supple baby ghoul wrinkles once more. "Brainz." He grins and stows the wand back up his sleeve.
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Bubba gets down on the ground to listen and sniff at the holes, his limited experience not helping him figure out what made them. "Wormz?" Is all he can come up with as he pokes around the area for something that could be more interesting.