I may not get a chance to post again until Monday, going on a short camping trip. I might be able to before then, but if you wind up waiting on me, feel free to bot.
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Petra nods wordlessly to the thanks for the healing-- the gods provide that, she is only the bearer of the gift, as she sees it, but she supposes the humans would think it rude if she made no acknowledgment. "I do know how to track," Petra says slowly, "but I am used to doing so in the desert, not on these busy streets with the mobs of people. Still..." She at least studies the hard-packed earth of the city streets to see if there's any sort of sign of the recent corpse passage.
Petra frowns at Mirri's supposition. "I do not think mere grave robbers were responsible. The guardian spoke of one man, a necromancer. But such degenerates as this may know the Necropolis, and where necromancers lurk, perhaps?" The dwarf's shoulders slump a little. "I do not know this city. I must rely on you, Say'ri al Bashere, and you, Ibrahim al Sahure... and you Mirri...." (it occurs to Petra she does not know the halfling's surname) "...to guide me in the fulfillment of my-- our-- oath."
Petra dutifully knits the flesh of her comrades back in place with the wand, with a vague frown for how quickly the power of the gods is spent against the hordes of the dead. "There, you should both feel better. Now, where is this silver chain?"
Petra frowns as she listens to Say'ri's explanation. For a few seconds after, she is silent, and then she says in loud, angry tones: "A whole gang of those who steal from the dead? Anubis shall rip them limb from limb. I shall send them to him. Where may we find them?" (Despite poor Say'ri having just admitted the bases are unknown.) With an indignant huff, Petra moves around picking up dropped wands. "Are any still hurt?"
Petra moves up, raises her now-glowing bow, and lets loose.
With her healing discharged, Petra raises her bow. "Anubis... help us all to cut down these abominations."
Petra moves a few feet to line up her shots. Mad Dog's club, and her own bow, start to glow faintly.
With her blessing already given, and the zombies somewhat resistant to her normal arrows, Petra muses briefly over whether to activate the bow of Senenmerek or to be useful in other ways. She decides on the latter, hurrying up behind the others and snapping a second wand into her hand (the first one dropped onto the flagstones to be collected later). "...bird!" she says, very tactfully, to Say'ri's spiritual companion. "Here.... just... bump into my hand."
Petra hurries up, snapping her wrist to drop the wand into it in a practiced fashion, and calling the blessings of the gods upon them. "Abominations! This servant of Anubis will return you to your sleep."
Petra acknowledges they are not zombies, and once inside she looks around critically at the other survivors of the auction house attack. "Do any yet need healing? Have there been more incursions while we were gone?"
"We must try and find this necromancer," Petra said unhappily. "...but I do not know where to begin to do that. For now, I suppose the auction house is as good as any place. I pray the rising of the dead calms with the day's light."
After delivering the message, Petra offers a short bow to the scribe, and returns with Mirri... keeping a side-eye on Mirri to ensure nothing in the temple happens to.... go missing. When they rejoin Say'ri and Ibrahim, Petra frowns, overhearing the tail end of the conversation. "What is this now about the wights?"
Petra looks concerned as she studies Say'ri's trembling hand. "They drain away some of the soul of a person, when they strike. I did not realize you had been so afflicted. There are prayers that can restore you to yourself.... you might also recover in time, but that is no guaranteed thing." The dwarf sucks her lips in thoughtfully. "The priests here may have such a prayer in the form of a scroll, which I could recite over you, but I do not imagine it would be cheap. Several hundred coins, I would think."
With another salute, Petra wordlessly turns and runs off towards the inside of the Pharasmin temple, although she has a stitch in her side and is really tired of this running nonsense. As soon as she sees an acolyte inside, or anyone really, she calls out: "The commander orders us to seek Brother Husef. Where is he?" To Mirri, Petra only grunts. "Servitors of one of the great lords of the grave, perhaps, such as the one I serve."
Petra takes no offense to the brusque tone; it sort of reminds her of home. The elder dwarves had little patience for their time wasted either. She stands the rest of the way up, having mostly caught her breath. "I am a recent arrival to your city, commander. Had I known your rank I would have spoken more freely. But I do not think you wish a common soldier to hear these words." Petra continues: "We are one of the teams that explore Wati. In a temple of Nethys we came across an ancient guardian created by the church of Nethys to safeguard a great object. He told us of a necromancer who forced past him and stole a relic of power, though the guardian did not know precisely what that relic might be. "However, an inscription in that temple read thusly:" Petra closes her eyes, then recites in a scholarly monotone: "Woe to you who would plunder the Reliquary of the Thrice-Divided Soul. Turn away, lest the harsh judgment of the Forgotten One fall upon you and your descendants for a thousand generations. Turn away, for his ka cannot be appeased and it shall call forth legions of the dead and the damned. Turn away, and may the All-Seeing Eye and the Lady of Graves take pity on you, for if not, the Forgotten Pharaoh shall consume you, body and soul." Clearing her throat, she re-opens her eyes. "The legions of the dead and the damned have been called forth, have they not? That fits what we see in the city now. "As for the gate at Wati: some of the stronger undead are coming through, now. We destroyed a shadow that passed through the wall and attacked the guard there, and we came immediately here. If there are more shadows that threaten, the force at the gate may soon be overwhelmed." Petra's delivery is largely emotionless, but solemn.
Badly out of breath, Petra bends double with hands on her knees for a bit, trying to suck down some air.
She has no idea what the quadrupeds are. Or who the human is. This is not her city. But they are Pharasmins, so she straightens up and offers a polite nod. "We live. Is that not enough, for the abominations to pursue us? I am Petra, a servant of Anubis. We come from the gate to the Necropolis. The situation there is dire. Who is in charge? We have news that may explain the rise of the dead."
Petra looks up somewhat dubiously at Mirri's hands, knowing the halfling is very quick but not the most muscular.... well, worth a try. "Say'ri! Grab hold! We go together!"
Her doubts were proven wrong. A dwarf can fly!
Petra's too out of breath to answer at length. She nods at Say'ri, and takes off at a dead run again, her short legs working as she tries to find a shortcut.
She manages to figure out a path, and takes it, but soon finds herself faced with another wall.
It sucks being four feet tall when faced with a tall building...
Petra looks to see if Say'ri makes it up, but then focuses on the troubles ahead.
She is not able to immediately figure out a path.
Petra is driven by the press of the dead behind her and manages a surprisingly effective adrenaline fueled burst up the rickety pipe. She groans under her breath however as she sees the gap ahead.
You know how 'red bull gives you wings'? Apparently the 'black jackal' does as well. Petra lands across the gap-- hard-- but she's across, wheezing to herself as she scrambles upright.
Petra looks glum-faced at the giant pothole before her. Dwarven legs are not meant for such things.
Fortunately, Anubis is with her, and she manages to clear the pothole, perhaps spurred by her knowledge of the deadly pack of ghouls that pursues and the fate that waits at their claws. "Keep going!" she tells the others.
Petra's fears of the dark thing they face are swiftly dissipated by their decisive victory, between flail and the stormburst of Ibrahim's weapon. Blinking, Petra retrieves her wand from Mirri with a quasi-apologetic shrug. "This was not needed after all. Praise Anubis. Well done, both of you. "Say'ri, are you hurt? I saw it touch you. Do you feel weaker?" she asks, giving a quick nod to the priestess but hurrying after Say'ri without delay.
Petra's face paled somewhat under her dark desert complexion. "A shadow!" she called. "One of the greater undead..." In her limited world experience, at any rate. "It is like smoke. Without enchanted weapons, you can do nothing at all to it! Mirri, grab my wand- the healing magics will be painful to the creature, if you can use it as you did once before!"
"Strike well comrades! Mind its arms! It can reach you from a distance, and sap the very strength from your bones!"
Petra nods briefly to Ibrahim as they leave the youths making the right choice. "That was well-done. You have a tongue of gold," she grunts before hurrying on in the night, despising her short tread. At the Necropolis, Petra nods once to the priestess. "As you serve Pharasma, I serve Anubis: the restless dead are the enemy of us both," she says solemnly. "But we may know something of why the horde rises. Who is in command here?"
Petra drank wordlessly, once, of the cider when it was passed around. Hospitality rituals were important. "I fear that if we seek to help all in the city, the source of the disruption will only continue to grow in strength. One must strike at the head and not the feet. Until we know better where the head is, the Necropolis is the best place to begin... if only to tell the Pharasmans of the situation. "The guardian did not know where the thief took the relic. But he did say the thief was a necromancer. It makes sense that a necromancer would go to where there are dead in near-countless number to raise and to control... the Necropolis." She looks to the others, frowning. "I can move tonight. Time is of the essence. Do any feel that we need to wait until daylight?"
Petra watches the effusive thanks of the baker to Mirri, grunting to herself, then turns to Ben. "I believe I know what is happening. "In the last crypt we explored, there was an artifact missing-- stolen-- according to the guardian of that crypt. Though he himself was undead, he was honorable, strange as that may seem. The temple of Nethys had created him as a guardian for that artifact. There was a dire curse laid upon it, that should it be taken, all manner of evil might be loosed... and the dead walk. I fear that is what disturbs the rest of all in the city, now," Petra intones solemnly, her eyes worried.
Petra's look of respect turns to a disapproving exhale at the plundering, and she snifs before digging out her curative wand once more...
(A discreet tap to Say'ri's shoulder as she embraces her husband.) "Are any else here wounded?" she says brusquely, looking to the other people taking shelter within the temple's walls.
Sparing no more thought for the fallen abomination, Petra scans the street for any other undead that move, but sees nothing. "I will heal you inside, my friends." She hurries to enter the tomb, giving Mirri a newly respectful look as she goes.
Petra nods in satisfaction as the dead fall, and turns on her heel to go confront the corrupt priest. "Anubis, devour these corruptions of the rest of the tomb..."
Petra grimly looses another arrow.
"I still stand with you," Petra says in answer to Ibrahim's words. "I will not leave you outnumbered at any rate." She sends an arrow streaking towards the one she now has a clean line of shot towards.
"Fallen priests! Strike with enchanted steel," Petra shouts. "Mirri, we're coming!" She takes a step and looses an arrow at the cursed priest she can see. However, her arrow goes wide.
Petra drinks, and knows things. Actually she just knows things. She shouts out the secrets of slaying the zombies even as she moves into position to be able to see them.
"Mirri! Where are you?"
Petra looks to Ben and nods at him. "We will do what must be done. Lord Anubis demands I destroy these abominations." She holds the bow that the tomb guardian had given her, eyes sliding nearly shut as she invokes its power.
"Is there a way onto the roof of the temple?"
Petra runs forward to join Say'ri on her shorter legs, snapping the wand down into her hand as she goes and scanning the bodies of the zombies on the ground.
Seeing that the Nethyn priests have the matter in hand, Petra quickly prepares to travel, not wasting further time. "May all gods who loathe the walking dead guard this place," she intones solemnly, and hurries out into the street after Say'ri and Ibrahim, an arrow on the string as she anticipates the undead at every turn.
Petra crouches by Ibrahim, not knowing what magic slowly heals him but knowing they need all of them together and on their feet-- there is no time to waste for slow magics.
"Can you hear me, Ibrahim?" As the man's eyes flutter, she nods shortly, then looks up from her crouch to Say'ri. "You have opened your home to us. As has your husband. My debt is to you and to him. We will go find him," she states, as if it were as simple as that. Raising her voice, she calls to the others in the building: "Priests of Nethys! Can you help? Many in here are wounded, two of our number in defending all of you. I have some prayers of my own, but they must be conserved."
One way or another, Petra tries to see to the healing of her companions and at least some of the townspeople's injuries. She pays no heed to the bag, letting the others look at that. "You people should barricade yourselves in here. Perhaps the dawn and the rise of the sun will send these abominations back to their graves. But our duty lies elsewhere; we cannot stay to protect you."
Seeing that Ibrahim is already down, Petra makes a hard moment's choice: work to keep another warrior standing, or save a man already on the ground. Seeing Ibrahim's nose starting to knit together helps Petra decide-- she invokes Anubis's gifts of life and touches Say'ri on the shoulder.
Petra rolls her eyes wordlessly at all the people rushing forward only to get caught in mummy's life-sucking presence.
GM:
Petra looses an arrow at the foul undead, then hurries closer-- Say'ri still has injuries left from the first wave of undead, after all.
"Mummy," Petra calls out over the assembled room. "All of you who cannot fight, get to the other wall, quickly! Fire will help destroy this beast, if any have it at hand!" She reads from the scroll in her hand, intoning the protections of the old gods of Osirion to lift the fear of the grave from Say'ri. "Say'ri al Bashere! Your warrior's soul knows only courage!"
Petra moves around the crowd, trying to see into the room and see what has Say'ri speechless. "What is it?" she frowns... and then sees it.
She has her answer, and hisses through her teeth at another foul undead.
At the sound from inside, Petra turns and hurries back in. Passing Menya and Mad Dog, she says, "Close that door to the outside and start piling chairs before it! More of them may come."
Petra makes a cautious way outside, an arrow on the string, scanning the dark streets. "I think the press of the dead damaged the structure and caused the collapse... that is better than some intentional sabotage."
Petra listens for the sound of more screams on the night air, or the horrible noises of undead feet approaching.
Petra nods approvingly at the General's swift work dispatching the hand, and strides past to block more things coming through the doorway. At Menya she says, "Get over with the others, where it is safer." Another arrow nocked, and loosed, at the things that plague Mirri. "Hold still for this shot, Mirri! I do not wish to hit your hand!"
Saying nothing but nodding slightly at the freed child, Petra sidesteps a dozen or so feet, eyes darting between the hand swarming Mirri, the hand on Ibrahim, and the hand on the fallen man.
"Hands that crawl," she says shortly after watching her arrow hit its mark. "They will try to grab you by the throat to silence you."
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