Bright light pours from Tavar's holy symbol, obliterating the last archer. The warlock now looks both panic-stricken and desperate.
Barel climbs down to face the final warlock. He swings his hammer in a giant slow arc that seems to conjure an ice storm right on top of the warlock. Barel sneers "This is when I would normally ask if you yield...but since this seems to be a test of some sort, I will let my friends finish you off."
Bringing his wintery chill with him, Barel looms at the warlock's midriff and bloodies him. The man drops his sword and holds up his hands.
"Not that much of a test. I've some rudiments of self-preservation left. I'll surrender."
Tieflings aren't generally noted for their mercy, but Arishat isn't feeling herself. "I won't be killing you if you yield." She takes a few deep breaths, trying to recover some of her resilience, before saunteering in the direction of the last warlock.
"Yielding. Look. No sword."
Sensing that this may not go well without some further inducement, the warlock still looks concerned. "I've nothing else to offer."
"What kind of assurance can you give that you will not try to hurt us?"
Lynore looks dubious.
"I'm unarmed and I want to live?" offers the warlock.
Thom looks over at Lureene and sees her services are no longer needed...at least not in combat anymore.
"Tell us about the Tomb of Horros, and we will let you live."
Lureene sizzles back to her home demiplane after casting a last dulcet look at the warlock.
"Erm ... wasn't that destroyed? All I know is that we were ordered to create more undead. Well, not me. I was supposed to stop anyone stopping us."
"Your life is ours to give or take. If you provide us with sufficient informaion, I promise to try and give it back to you."
"That's ambiguous, but I've got no reason not to cooperate and you've got no reason not to believe me. I'll tell you what I know."
"I can hear the sand of your life's hour glass ticking down, so spill what you know and be quick about it."
"Yes if you satisfy us I may allow Lureene to have some fun with you before she sends you on to your richly deserved reward."
"Really?"
The warlock's eyes light up and he speaks. Much of what he says makes little sense at first, but gradually a strange pattern emerges.
"We were sent to follow a group of eladrin. You know the deal, follow them, find out what they were doing, kill them."
"They wanted to know why an old eladrin graveyard got restless. Do you know it? - The Garden of Graves they call it. Turns out those eladrin were right. Someone had been tampering. Nice piece of work, channeling the power of the Feywild through the dead. Someone built an engine to siphon off the power and send it - elsewhere."
"Now, the thing is, we partly messed up. We couldn't stop the eladrin destroying the Fey Engine. We stopped them though. They came through here, looking for another portal and we got them then."
The warlock's grin turns feral with delight as he remembers and then changes as he remembers who he's talking to.
"Look - just work, OK? Nothing personal. They were headed for Moil. They reckoned there was something there. You know Moil?"
"I understand all to well the job. I am inclined to believe you, is there anything else you can tell us or give us? Like a name or a map?"
"No map. Just a portal sigil. It'll take you to Moil if that's where you want to go. I wasn't planning to visit the City that Waits myself. I am not cut out for the Shadowfell."
Hoping that Arishat might have heard something about Moil.
Thom ears perk up at the mention of Moil
Arishat and Thom know quite enough about Moil to make the warlock's reluctance understandable.
Millenia ago, the City of Moil stood on the earth - a symbol of all that was great. In a deluded attempt to maintain and increase that greatness, the citizens entered into a feckless bargain with Orcus and were rewarded beyond their wildest dreams.
When they attempted to end their foul bargain, they discovered to their cost the price of trying to defraud the Prince of Undead. Uplifting the city by its very roots, Orcus cast it down into the depths of the Shadowfell. Orcus gloated as the glorious city of Moil became the City that Waits, a rotting, decaying hulk, dropping piece by piece into absolute nothingness and inhabited only by undead threads of former lives.
Thom and Arishat know more. They know that the depths of the Shadowfell are cold beyond imagining and the light of healing comes hard in such a place. Nor is death there likely to be the end, with Orcus gleeful shadow so closely entwined with the city.
Lynore's insight may not be great, but she is convinced that the warlock isn't lying.
"Well it sounds delightful, I think I will plan a trip for next summer. The heat can be unbearable here."
Lynore makes a sour face that does not match her words.
"Unfortunately, I don't think we can wait that long Lynore. Anything involving the Prince of Undeath is bad news all around."