As the zombies lurch up from the ground, Brental is ready. He points Vod towards the one between him and Lina.
"Anfalla."
Then Brental swings his blade back and brings it forward in a tight arc, aiming to sever the head from the body.
Vodnykel proceeds to slam his mighty feet down upon the zombie as it attempts to crawl up from the earth. Bones snap and flesh tears as his tusks join the fray but it is Brental's impressive swordsmanship that severs the woman's head from her decrepit body and leaves the remains to collapse, soundlessly into the dirt.
"Let's get this over with.", Morof comments a little nervous. He still can't get used to the idea of undead about.
Lina sends Morof a sympathetic glance, knowing what it’s like to run up against an obstacle to one’s preferred forms of magic.
And that’s when she stirs something up as she starts moving around the fort. As zombies start clawing their way up around her, several inconsequential thoughts run through her mind as she looks for a way through arms about ready to grab at her ankles: first, surely this is an accident of her positioning, and can’t be because of Aedonia - You call it off with one Gyronnan -, then, that Morof’s a wizard, so she’s pretty sure that he has more options for dealing with undead, even with illusions, if that’s something he’s interested in, while, finally, she’s very grateful that she’s comfortable with a sword, even if she'll never be a wizard herself.
With a sweep of her free hand, the witch laughs unnervingly and steps to one side, slashing out at the undead creatures clawing up at her.
Lina carves into the zombie directly behind her causing the undead woman's head to split unnervingly and yet it continues to reach out at her ankles, seemingly intent to pull Lina down to hell with her.
Morof fires his ray into the undead woman crawling up form the earth but it seems to have limited, if any, effect.
Meanwhile, the zombie with the cleaved head that Lina just struck attempts to bite at her legs but the woman swiftly kicks the creature's head aside.
Signy moves up just a little ahead of Brental and slashes at the zombie behind Brental's with her dueling sword.
Meneas whirls his sword, before kicking Veil into a charge. He slashes at the undamaged zombie , carving into its flesh to the best of his ability.
Veil, meanwhile, rears back and kicks at the zombie in turn.
Signy slashes away at the zombified woman pulling herself up from the dirt and manages to carve off one of the creature's arms, which is fortunate as the creature was just about to use that arm to strike out at her elven friend.
Meanwhile Meneas comes thundering along atop his mighty steed and uses the power of the charge to sever the creature's spine leaving it in two lifeless halves upon the ground. Fortunately, there is no blood, that seems to have dried up long ago.
The group can breath easy as it seems all is going according to plan until even more lifeless women begin crawling their way out of the earth, surrounding Meneas and Lina as the moan horribly and breathlessly at their soon-to-be victims.
Awkward, Lina thinks, as she finds herself mostly surrounded by zombies, though at least she has the slope and wall of the fort to her back (the part of her that, like any good elf, drops by the Savoured Sting’s temples every now and again to say a quick prayer tries – fails – not to make too terrible a mental joke about how this is not how she might like to think about being pressed up against a wall, but-) and, anyway, she knows how brutally effective the others are, so she’s not worried too too much.
Still chuckling to herself, Lina can tell that her backswing is rather desultory as she holds onto her magic, but at least this time she can feel her spell take effect. The display is wasted on the zombies, as her features seem to sharpen and grow lividly pale, but the important thing is what the chill she feels run over her skin means.
Lina manages to get a much more solid strike in this time and absolutely carves through the undead creature's flesh like butter. Falling into bits on the dirt Lina knows she's one step closer to safety even if she is still pinned against the wall by women woefully less attractive than she would have hoped.
Meanwhile Morof pulls out a stick of butter of his own. Rubbing it over his hands as the half-elf rolls up his sleeves he mutters the incantations and makes the appropriate gestures to summon forth a puddle of the most slippery grease he can manage below the zombies behind Meneas leaving both clumsy creatures to tumble helplessly into the earth and flail randomly attempting to right themselves..
Another zombie does throw itself at Lina attempting to bite at her soft flesh but the elven woman kicks it away with surprising grace and agility, entirely unfazed.
Lina follows up her kick at the next zombie that lurches towards her with a vicious slice that the opening provides, bolstered by the distraction Signy offers to whatever unholy instinct drives the reanimated creatures. She's never really thought too much about it - some sort of crude lifesense, unnaturally reawakening the other senses in a dead thing?
Really not the time to speculate, she reminds herself, bringing her sword back up to a guard position.
As soon as they begin to cut down the quartet of zombies that rise from the ground, another quartet arise and surround Lina and Meneas. Thankfully, both of them are amply capable. Lina in particular does a bit of flashy swordwork to knock an ineffective blow away and follow it up with a bit more carving. Elves always did like doing things in artful ways.
Brental focuses his attention on the zombie that has clawed its way up directly in front of him, with plans to direct Vod following the results of his initial foray.
With the order to attack already firmly in place and no intent to stop, Vod follows up, tusks first.
Brental's glancing blow pales in comparison to the righteous fury of his companion. Both of them advance over the (presumably) re-fallen bodies of to press the advantage and give Signy a clear flanking opportunity.
Lina executes a graceful performance with body and blade and in a single motion removes the zombie aggressor's lower jaw leaving it oddly more horrific and yet less dangerous at the same time.
Brental, meanwhile, slices off a good chunk of the undead woman's withered flesh from before him but Vodnykel steals the show. With a ferocious trumpet her snaps the woman's spine in twain with his goring tusks and topples her then stomps on the dry bones beneath his feet snapping them into splinters like so many twigs.
The zombie behind good sir Meneas continues to struggle to get to her feet, hissing malevolently as Signy and Meneas go to work on the remaining undead.
Signy sticks to her original target , thinking one dead zombie is better than a couple of sliced up but still kicking ones.
Signy's dueling sword flashes in the sunlight and, just like that, separates the zombie's head from its shoulders. The head itself flips through the air before landing in the dirt with a thud beside the unmoving corpse of the zombie.
Meneas flicks a glance back towards the zombies behind himself and Veil. Taking them in quickly, he knocks his heels into Veil's sides, prompting her to kick back against the zombies. Unfortunately, her accuracy leaves much to be desired.
Even as she does so, he turns and slashes with his own weapon, aiming to butcher the undead - and remind it that it is dead.
Just as the zombies that Morof had impeded with his clever use of grease begin to rise Meneas makes short work of one of the pair cutting off the upper half of her head as she attempts to rise.
Meanwhile four new undead rise up behind the party's defenses and reach out hungrily towards the half-elven spell caster moaning in perpetual agony.
Things seem to be going quite well, and then yet more zombies start pulling themselves out of the ground on the other side of Morof, and Lina’s fairly sure that the wizard is even less equipped to be surrounded by their clawing hands than she is, from what she knows of his usual spells.
Trusting scornfully that she’ll be able to outmanoeuvre a zombie, she half-turns her back to the last one standing between her and Signy, and slips between Brental and his mammoth friend, fingers already clenching in preparation for the gestures the spell she has in mind will call for.
Rocking back on her heels for a bit as she gets her momentum under control on the other side of Brental, the witch raises her hand and a crackling invocation that flares out into a burst of flame that fans past Morof to bathe the quartet of zombies beyond.
Threading her way through the melee so as to minimize the risks of getting caught a blow by a zombie as she goes hampers her focus, and even as it gets to the point that she has to release her magic, Lina can feel that it's going to burn cooler than she would like.
Lina unleashes a torrent of flame from her burning palms which washes over the new pack of undead women as they rise from the earth. The flames engulf all but the one furthest from Lina which manages to only get mildly singed by the fire. The others emerge from the flame still moving forward noiselessly as their flesh smolders and burns down to the bone.
Morof tries to follow up on Lina's show of magical prowess by stepping back and summoning forth another puddle of slimy grease beneath the recently risen.
Once again, all but the one furthest back from Lina slip and fall in the grease while the final zombie maintains its unsteady footing.
The unliving woman before Signy, meanwhile, launches herself at the blonde woman and she only barely manages to keep the creature back, shoving its snapping maw away and towards Brental and his animal companion.
Brental sees a new crop of zombies pop up and stagger towards Morof. The druid watches as Lina works some swift fiery magic towards the zombies, while the half-elf responds with another layer of grease. His attention divided, Brental directs his calf to handle the single zombie while he takes care of the latest arrivals.
Brental feels the difference in temperature caused by Lina's gout of flames, drawing energy from one region and redirecting it to another. As he steps to her right, he draws on the relative vacuum and condenses the moisture into tightly-packed snow. The snowballs steam in the early summer morning, not belonging before Brental hurls his arms forward and sends dozens of snow pellets forward to destroy the zombie women.
Meanwhile, Vodnykel steps into a flanking position with Signy and tries to follow up his last skewering with a new one.
Vodnykel rips and tears through another zombie as easily as one would shred paper. Dried chunks of flesh fall to the floor and are crushed into dust underneath the mastodon's bulk.
Meanwhile, Brental unleashes an absolutely devastating hail of ice and snow slice, freezing and shattering the zombies Lina and Morof had just cast upon until all the remains are various pieces of frozen limbs sticking up out of the slippery earth.
Signy comes around to attack the remaining zombie from the side. Putting elegance aside, she brings her sword down on it in a heavy overhead chop.
Signy brings her blade down upon the final hapless zombie and bifurcates its head completely causing the undead creature to return to Pharasma's embrace.
All is silent now as the party look out over the butchered women, completely unscathed.
Meneas dismounts with a sigh, wiping his blade down with a bit of cloth. "That went well." He observes. "All women, though. Probably the cultists of the goddess whose scribblings we saw in the fortress?"
Brental sheaths his blade and smiles. "Most likely, yes. Let's hope we haven't earned ourselves another enemy. I'd like to be done with this place and the awfulness of what has transpired here."
Although he has many spells still active, Brental feels his magic spent. "If we're uninjured, let's finish packing and make our way north. We may even be able to make it back to the Post by nightfall if we push hard."
"Yeah, moving out right away sounds good to me. I think breakfast is spoiled for me now, but I could really do with some home cooking for dinner."
Brental grimaces at the gore surrounding them. "Yes--food doesn't sound particularly appetizing at the moment."
The druid begins piling the bodies off to the side for a ritual burning. Re-burying them at this point would be counterproductive.
In the silence that falls abruptly after Brental’s flurry of magic and Signy’s deft whirl against the last zombies, Lina cleans up while peering down curiously at the wreckage. It’s really rather tricky to sort out the damage done just now by the adventurers and whatever the deal with zombies and the arrested processes of decay is anyway – she’s definitely not much of a necromancer – and what happened even before that, but the witch furrows her brow and looks for any clue as to cause of first death. An all-out brawl in some raid? Thieves in the night? Some magical atrocity?
It’s not a particularly pleasant speculation, and, again, Lina lets part of her mind wander off to how she might tell the story later to avoid letting her mood get too grim. With the last bit of the fight, especially, she can imagine that there’s an obvious lesson about teamwork and cooperation to be drawn that the excitement and glamour of narrating magical combat would make less boring. Fire and ice! Arcane/divine, urban/wild, girl/boy…
It would be trivially easy to produce a series of reductive complements that could fit in with a faux-naïf fairy tale, but of course she doesn’t believe that anything’s that simple. Not least because, if she and Brental worked narratively well together for the last bit, Lina’s not sure she likes the implications of what it would mean that from what she’s seen so far, Brental’s would seem to be the nice, upstanding citizen and…
Well. She gets on with helping tidy up the bodies, since it is only the decent thing to do, and then getting things ready to head back to the trading post.
Brental sees Lina taking a look at the corpses' varied wounds, and turns his attention to separating the most recent felling blows from what originally happened to them. He was no coroner, but as an amateur gravedigger he had learned to piece some things together. When the body stops, any healing arrests pending the application of a good mortician (or a bad necromancer). So you could examine patterns of bruising to make sense of premortem and postmortem injuries.
While assessing the quiet re-dead, Brental seems to read Lina's mind. He picks up a conversation thread from yesterday.
"I suppose we can spin some bardic tale from all this. If we ever rub elbows with nobles, they tend to enjoy these kinds of stories. Magic and blade employed in the dispatch of menaces to the living."
The party spend the better part of an hour piling up the corpses and getting them to set fire. It's tedious work but at least the bodies are so old they no longer stink.
In the forest to the west crows begin to gather in the trees. Possibly drawn by the smell of carrion though, their numbers are starting to grow rather alarmingly.
Akiros wanders out of the fortress looking hard in the direction of the gathering corvids. "Well, that's... certainly ominous. Hopefully not a portent of things to come." He shrugs his shoulders and turns to the others. "Good work on the dead. Are you all ready to depart to wherever it is we're headed now?
Brental stares off at the murder of crows, considering the number of omens he has seen in the last few weeks.
He confers with Lina as well, combining his knowledge of decay with her knowledge of the arcane. The results are...unfortunate.
"Once again, incredibly powerful magic is at the root of the original death of these women. We continue traipsing in the wake of beings out of our depth." There was the portal to the First World, and then the dead unicorn. What was going on in these lands?
Brental prepares for Lina's whimsy to counter his relative dourness. She provides good balance that way.
To Akiros' comment, the druid concurs. "We'll make our way North to the trading post of Oleg and Svetlana Leveton."
"It sounds like you're coming with us after all then?" Signy asks Akiros hopefully.
Meneas rubs his hands together absently. "Should we drop Akiros off with Jhod?" He asks, remounting Veil. "Did we mention him to you already? An Erastilian priest with a similarly checkered past to you."
Sounds like a good way to get Jhod murdered from what I've seen of the man...
"Uh, maybe the trading post is the best first stop? Good cooking and friendlier faces might be a better start?"
Meneas shrugs. "Well, the Temple of the Elk's between here and there, so we've got some time to decide, at any rate."
Brental stares off at the murder of crows, considering the number of omens he has seen in the last few weeks.
He confers with Lina as well, combining his knowledge of decay with her knowledge of the arcane. The results are...unfortunate.
"Once again, incredibly powerful magic is at the root of the original death of these women. We continue traipsing in the wake of beings out of our depth." There was the portal to the First World, and then the dead unicorn. What was going on in these lands?
“Necromancy, but not mage-work. At least, not any I’m familiar with, by the looks of it,” Lina nods solemnly. “Some cultist or cleric, maybe.”
She falls silent as she considers the possibilities. When a coven of followers of the Hag Queen fall out, as she knows all too well, it can get messy, to say the least, but who knows? Maybe some internecine convulsion, maybe some rival lunatics getting a good shot in and then some.
Eventually, as more and more birds arrive and once everyone’s ready to go, her attention is drawn from the smouldering pyre.
She turns to consider the fort again – something will have to be done with it, probably, before some other ne’er-do-wells take up residence – before glancing back towards where the crows are settling. She tilts her head curiously for a moment as if trying to sort out their voices.
“That’s a lot of secrets,” she says after a moment, “assuming one wraps round again, though I won’t pretend to have counted better than that to predict sorrow or mirth or whatever.”
Meneas rubs his hands together absently. "Should we drop Akiros off with Jhod?"
She smirks wickedly at the mention of the Erastilian as the group sets off again. “On a related note, I think getting a cleric to put a blessing on what’s left of this place to reconsecrate it is a good idea, but, as much as - gods forgive me! - I might laugh to see Jhod stir up more trouble for himself, I think we could hold out for someone friendlier, to use Signy’s word, and I’d like to transcribe some of what’s on the walls first. There are spells for that, of course, but I haven’t prepared any today.”
For historical purposes, obviously, and it’s easier to guard potentially dangerous lore in a book than it is all over the walls of a place, but Lina doesn’t think that needs to be explained, surely.
Brental chuckles at the idea of pairing up Jhod and Akiros. They may both have a checkered history with the church, but one sought redemption within the faith while the other had run away as fast as he could. Outside of both getting into their situations because they caused deaths, they had little else in common.
"I'm sure they'll meet eventually if they both stay in the Greenbelt," he offers.
Lina's reaction surprises the druid. The elf usually had a curiously-worded observation, laden with poetry, wit, or weird. She cheers a bit towards the corvids and then provides her usual refrain regarding Jhod. So she's not completely thrown, but she was clearly bothered by the necromancy. That worried Brental even more.
Brental makes a note to reserve magic going forward to commune with birds or speak with animals. He then checks the straps on the horses' saddlebags, the fullness of their bag of holding, and Vod's comfort with his own load. He then hops up on his horse, ready to leave.
"Do you know of any other clerics in the Greenbelt?" Meneas inquires, peering curiously at Lina from beneath his hood. "Because there aren't many people we've met... maybe the boggard was a priest? We could ask him!" He chuckles dryly. "But yes, consecrating the ground would be wise."
The knight considers for a moment. "Were the scribblings on the walls somehow magically relevant?"
"Do you know of any other clerics in the Greenbelt?" Meneas inquires, peering curiously at Lina from beneath his hood. "Because there aren't many people we've met... maybe the boggard was a priest? We could ask him!" He chuckles dryly. "But yes, consecrating the ground would be wise."
Lina darts a meaningful look in Signy’s direction. In all honesty, as a proud elf, the witch would prefer something from her own background, but as Meneas points out, clerics are thin on the ground here, and she suspects that it would take more conviction than she can muster to get the attention of most of her people’s gods about the fort. Unlike the mine they found earlier, there’s no particularly obvious power to invoke to watch over the place. Well, maybe the head of the pantheon, by extending a link from spite towards retribution, and so forth. That would still mean finding a priestess, but, failing that, one could do much worse than Cayden Cailean for an alternative. The main thing Lina’s concerned with, ritually, is breaking the connection with Gyronna, if possible.
In any case, Lina has an interesting relationship with honesty, so she leaves things at a speaking glance before moving on.
The knight considers for a moment. "Were the scribblings on the walls somehow magically relevant?"
“Not as such, from what little I could tell, but they might yield something useful for cursing in general,” she shrugs, before adding, “I know what they say, but believe me, sailors have nothing on Gyronnans once they really get going. Could be inspiring, maybe.”
She’s not much of a rider and won’t be pushing her steed through any fancy manoeuvres any time soon, but the easy way she adjusts to her mount’s movements as she chats while the group turns back upriver betrays her upbringing on boats up and down the rivers criss-crossing the Shifting Lands. She’s clearly well-placed to give those other witches a run for their money.
Lina's glance doesn't go unnoticed by Signy. She shrugs and puts a halt to that line of thinking.
"I'm not a priest, more a troubleshooter I guess you could say. There's nothing I can do about the place if something really needs to be done. I could say a few words, but they'd be nothing more than a few words."
"He's a bit different from Erastil, but I know a priest of Hanspur who travels up and down the Sellen. Signy knows him, too, actually. Talain. And no, he's not one of the drowning types."
Akiros half-smiles in response to Signy's questioning and nods his head as he makes ready his horse having already seen a bound Sneeg onto the spare. "Aye, I suppose that I shall for now. I have no real preference where we go and don't know that I shall stay... I suppose I just need to find my next direction in life, wherever that takes me." He sighs wistfully and mounts up.
Brental consults his maps of the Greenbelt and picks a spot about halfway from here to the Fort that could be a sufficiently defensible (and safe) place to rest later in the evening, and then begins charting the group's course ahead.
"We'll have Lana's home cooking tomorrow night, Signy. But I believe I can rustle up something reasonable for us tonight."
"I'm not a priest, more a troubleshooter I guess you could say. There's nothing I can do about the place if something really needs to be done. I could say a few words, but they'd be nothing more than a few words."
“Fair, I didn’t mean to presume,” Lina concedes, a bit embarrassed, her hand floating about vaguely to indicate her acknowledgement of all the ways people are called to and empowered to follow their gods. Gods are weird, she finds herself thinking, not for the first time, unable to quite imagine what it would be like to feel such a vocation, whether as a regular sort of priestess, a cursed oracle, a druid like Brental, or whatever sort of more flexible agent Signy might be.
“Just, I’m guessing your people all have ways to bless houses?” she asks curiously, her glance taking in the whole group of mostly humans, each with their own traditions, she’s sure. “Back home, we’d probably find a follower of the Guiding Hand, and… Anyway, I think a few words would be fine, just to show our intentions in the space. I’d be happy to do it, even, but I think here I’d take my chances and hope that the Savoured Sting is listening and would get a laugh out of it, if anyone.”
Without a community actually in place, she imagines it would be tricky to get Findeladlara’s attention, the most prim and proper of all the powers in the elven pantheon. Calistria it is, then, and she resolves to make an appropriate gesture when her travels next take her by the fort.
The long shadow of the old ruin makes for a melancholy day’s ride: the Stag Lord and the Gyronnan coven before him are undoubtedly responsible for terrible things, but they suffered them too, Lina thinks it’s important to note, just to acknowledge the fact, and now, like the ruin itself, they’re bound to fade away into landscape and a footnote in history at best, probably.
Once again, she finds herself trying to find a way to put a happier spin on things as the group makes camp for the night. Alternatively, she reflects, the ruined fort in the wilderness, with its secrets and ever-so traditional gang of bandits, makes for a great romance. There’s even an innocent heroine or two, a motley crew of friends, and a tortured soul seeking redemption. And…
“What next, do you think?” she asks around the campfire that night. “Some well-deserved gloating over the Stag’s fate, toasting Lana and Oleg, and then… Wait to see what the city wants, and watch for unusual crows and murderous fairies?”
Brental had already evoked his celestial flame this day in marking the graves of the slain bandits, but as the bodies of the fallen Gyronnans burn and Lina vexes about consecration, Brental offers a few agnostic words.
"Now-unknown adherents of Gyronna. I do not claim to know what brought you to your faith, nor why your mortal coils were reanimated in this fashion. Your vigil is at an end now. May you find your reward."
It was no consecration--Brental wanted no re-dedication--but it was a blessing.
* * *
That night Brental resumes his cataloguing of what they have learned in the region in a gazetteer. Part of it would be the report back to the Aldori swordlords who had hired them. Part of it would be, as worked out in his deal with Oleg, the first draft of a narrative to accompany the maps of the region. His writing was probably more utilitarian than what would sell for a novel in the cities, but it could serve as notes for someone with more of an interest in publishing tales.
"Next," he ponders. "Well, we have completed our charter of exploration and making the region safe once again for trade. I suppose..."
Brental looks stumped for a moment. He still wasn't entirely sure why the Oakstewards had chosen him for this mission. He was still waiting on word from them--hopefully a letter was waiting for him at the trading post--to provide some further insights. But the contract was complete, and so...
"I suppose after the wedding I will need to return to Sevenarches. My training may be complete, but my superiors can send me anywhere the Will of the World calls."
Akiros leans back on the log he had dragged out of the woods to serve as a make-shift bench for himself and stares up at the sky. "There are many paths we walk in life... I find it is often far easier to not think about what is next or what was and simply focus on the now. The skies are clear, the air is cool, and, for the first time in as long as I can remember, the Greenbelt is at peace. Take time to appreciate the little things... You don't know how long they'll last." he sighs.
[ooc]Any more campfire discussion or should I teleport ya'll back to Oleg and Svetlana's? Also time to really think about what positions you want in your new kingdom as I suspect we'll be starting that in the very near future~[/oov]
Meneas folds his hands in his lap. "For myself, I would see these lands protected. Banditry isn't something that just disappears because one leader dies." He takes a quiet breath. "Besides, this place is closer to the First World than Brevoy."
If Signy seemed curt with Lena, it wasn't intentional. She's feeling a little down. As Brental had put it, "Well, we have completed our charter of exploration and making the region safe once again for trade. I suppose...".
The coming wedding would be fun, but after that, what? Signy is starting to feel at loose ends. How would she fill her time? If she stayed, would she be trying to find things to while away the days? Maybe it was time for her to move on to a new place. But where next?
Without a problem to tackle, to anticipate and be ready for, everything starts seeming flat and colorless to Signy. It's a problem she has.
Akiros leans back on the log he had dragged out of the woods to serve as a make-shift bench for himself and stares up at the sky. "There are many paths we walk in life... I find it is often far easier to not think about what is next or what was and simply focus on the now. The skies are clear, the air is cool, and, for the first time in as long as I can remember, the Greenbelt is at peace. Take time to appreciate the little things... You don't know how long they'll last." he sighs.
“Hmm.” Lina can get behind that sentiment, in some ways, though it’s skewed by her determination to be around for at least another couple of centuries before – she’s not sure: going planeswalking? Wherever Sovyrian is, maybe?
“I’ll probably be up and down this river again, that’s for sure,” she considers. “Chasing spells, and, as best I can, being the witch you need.”
“If only because someone needs to provide the glamour of enchantment,” she adds, bearing in mind that it seems not to be a school of magic that Morof seems much interested in, and she grins easily to show that she’s not being serious and arrogant about the whole being the necessary witch thing.