Nak'T narrows his reptilian eyes and fixed them on Irakelesh. "በጉዳዩ ላይ ሰላሜን ተናግሬአለሁ ፡፡ ይህ ነገር እንዲኖር እንዲኖርዎ መርጠዋል ፣ ከዚያ የሚያመጣው ማንኛውም ጉዳት በእጆችዎ ላይ ይወርዳል። ግን የእኔ ምክር እዚህ እና አሁን እሱን ለማስወገድ ነበር!" he says before turning and flying up and ahead, scouting the path back towards this massive temple.
Deciding to leave the woman and her 'husband' she walks off toward her shop as the remainder of the mob grumbles but moves off in the opposite direction, whatever becomes of the woman and the undead you may never know, but at least you know you prevented what could have been a bloody brawl in the streets. Luckily the distraction didn't set you too far off your original goal of checking in with the guard. You start to head west but after a couple of blocks you come to a gruesome sight. A low sandstone building—worn smooth from centuries of exposure—stands out among the larger, more recent constructions. Statues lining the wall hold swords and scales, but the fresh corpses scattered on the street outside the doors hint at something far darker within.
Scimitar in hand, Ai'sha moves closer to one of the doors and inspects one of the fresh corpses.
Ai'sha looks the bodies over. It’s immediately apparent that each of them has had one eye removed. She can tell that the unfortunate victims display bruises and other signs of restraint, and that they likely died from shock soon after their eye was removed. The blood pattern suggest that whatever happened to them occurred inside the building and they dragged themselves out to the streets before passing away. The bodies are all reasonably fresh each dying within the last couple of hours.
"Either some eye-eating monster or some creepy cult gathering eyeballs would be my guesses. Didn't happen that long ago.", she mutters to the others, waiting to for them get in position before entering the building.
"Looks like trouble."
Khufu pulls out his Mage Armor wand and refreshes his protection.
Irakelesh accepts Nak't's reply and nods in response but makes no other reply as the dragonman gathers himself and moves off into the air and in the direction of the guard station.
"Well, our new friend is certainly grumpy sometimes." A smile quickly returns to his face. "Yes, Ai'sha, I'm right quite often. But sometimes the people I'm around just don't have the wisdom to see it."
"Eww. This is just, well, strange. What kind of thing would do this." Irakelesh pulls at the goatee on his chin and tries to remember if he had read anything about this back home.
"We had probably check the old building. IF there's something around here killing people and eating their eyeballs, we're better prepared to deal with it than most."
Nak’T lands and studies the bodies, then tightens his grip on his glaive before cautiously leading the way inside.
Nak't leads the group forward, pushing open one of the two doors into the building. Inside the building you quickly see it is a court room, but one out of a nightmare as blood covers the floors almost everywhere. In the judges seat is a skeleton but it looks strange, it is covered in blood and gore, unlike a normal skeleton and oddly it is talking to a woman who is being held by two other normal looking skeletons. He speaks in the ancient tongue.
The bloody skeleton stands and beings to move toward the woman who, not understanding what is going on, is just crying miserably, a puddle of urine on the floor beneath her.
"Save the girl!" Khufu calls out.
He raises his right hand and directs a Blast of Holy Sunlight at one of the skeletons holding the woman.
(touch attack)
In Ancient Osiriani Irakelesh shouts out. "Hold it! You have no right!" He points at the bloody skeleton. "By the holy light of Irori, command you to leave that woman alone." As his words fade he moves to arm himself with his cold iron mace.
Seeing the blasphemy taking place, Nak’T can not contain his rage! He bellows a draconic roar and rushes the first skeleton restraining the woman, bringing his glaive down at it in a rush!
Ai'sha moves up as much as she can.
Aliva rushes into the building to support her allies. "By the gods this place is a blood bath. What is going on in here?" Aliva directs her question to anyone who will answer.
Aliva and Ai'sha move into the room followed by Nak't charging forward to attack the nearest skeleton guard. He slashes at it with his glaive, but the weapon just glances off the skeletons broken armor.
Khufu steps over to get a better view and casts a spell. The searing light slams into the skeleton who explodes into thousands of tiny sharp shards.
The shards slice into the frightened woman, Nak't and Aliva. Irakelesh pulls out a weapon ready to join the fight.
The bloody skeleton seems taken aback for a moment as he calls out to the remaining skeleton in the ancient tongue.
Before the other skeleton can act the bloody skeleton walks over to the woman and knocks her to the ground, pinning her down, ready to pluck out her eye.
"I've never seen one explode like that before!"
Aliva moves 10' forward drawing her morning star as she goes, Aliva uses her momentum to smash into the skeleton on the west.
"Did he say Baliff? What kind of court room is this?" Aliva asks
[spoiler=Aliva recognizes this bloody skeleton as a more advanced version of undead. As opposed to most skeletons being mindless, these actually possess an intelligence, some remember parts of their old life, but usually in a twisted version. Worse, these skeletons naturally heal themselves slowly over time and even if struck down will return to life unless dispatched with positive energy or holy water.[/spoiler]
Aliva moves to try and help the fearful and now injured woman. She smashes the other 'baliff' and, just like the other that Khufu destroyed' it suddenly explodes sending shards of bones flying to hit everything nearby.
The bones slice into the panicked woman as she cries out in pain, while also cutting into Aliva as well.
Khufu pulls out his new Wand of Grease and uses it to cast on the floor under the eye collector.
Casting grease under his feet. DC11 Reflex or fall over.
"No you won't!", Ai'sha switches her battle stance and performs a fast dash, appearing behind the skeleton and hitting it with her scimitar.
Irakelesh moves into the temple and towards the sole remaining creature.
"አንተ መጥፎ አውሬ ከእሷ ውጣ!" Nak'T exclaims as he advances and spins his glaive around and down through the skeletons torso in a powerful arc!
__________
Ai'sha moves up to the bloody skeleton slashing at it with her blade, she strikes it but the blade glances off the bones only doing a little bit of damage. Nak't follows Ai'sha in and with a mighty blow strikes down the skeleton in a single swing, even with his weapon not being as effective against the undead.
While the thing is down, Aliva knows that it can only be truly destroyed with damage from positive energy or holy water. Otherwise, it will only be a matter of time before it regains consciousness.
"This all seems too random for it to be the act of a conscious actor."
"The dead, some long dead and some recent, just seem to be coming back to life."
Ai'sha will turn to the woman.
"It's alright, you're safe now."
She will pull out a wand and spend a charge on her.
"Irakelesh, can you get her out of these chains?"
Irakelesh relaxes when the last of the skeletons fall. "Yes, Ai'sha. I'll help with that." He looks over the chains holding the woman, inspects the lock for a bit and then uses his lock picking tools to release her.
The woman lays on the ground, covered in blood, bone fragments and urine. She is completely in shock just staring up at the ceiling. Ai'sha heals her wounds completely and Irakelesh unbinds her but still she just lays there starring up at the ceiling shaking.
You notice the bloody skeleton is slowly starting to piece itself back together from the pile it is in on the floor next to the woman.
"Ummm ... it looks like he's getting up again..."
Nak'T glances down at the reforming skeleton, and periodically stomps on it to keep it from reforming. "ከእናንተ ካህናት አይደላችሁምን? ይህን ነገር ቀድሱ!"
Irakelesh replies to Nak'T in Ancient Osiriani. "
አልችልም። አልቪን እጠይቃለሁ". Switch to common. "Hey, Aliva, he's asking if you can sanctify this. Oh wait. You've been studying Ancient Osiriani. You probably understood what he was saying." Irakelesh smiles and shrugs then moves to search the room.
While Nak't keeps stomping on the skeleton to keep it from completely reforming Irakelesh goes about searching the place. He notice the bloody skeleton has a fine looking circlet around his head. The rest of the place has little of interest. Though he does notice that in one of the side rooms and tomb, laid in the floor has been distrubed. It looks like it was once sized for three people. There is a plaque overhead in ancient Osirian that reads "Magistrate Sotenre and his two loyal bailiffs; Ahtep and Mussa."
Irakelesh address Nak'T in Ancient Osiriani. "Hey, hold on a sec. There's something on that thing's head. Let me take it off." He reaches down and pulls off the ringlet. "Hmm. So what is it?"
"By the way, that guy's name is Sotenre. And those other skeletons were Ahtep and Mussa." Irakelesh ponders the circlet while trying to recall any knowledge about the magistrate. He spent many hours at home reading through historical tomes. Something there must have mentioned the magistrate. Legal papers, court proceedings, something.
Aliva Shrugs, "I used all my powers up earlier today and I hav eno holy water, does anyone have any? It will stop them from healing." Aliva offers
Nak’T grumbles something and leans down and places a claw on the things skull. His hand glows golden a moment as positive energy flows into it.
"Let my check this ringlet.", Ai'sha asks, trying to detect magic on it.
Nak't ends the bloody skeleton. As soon as the positive energy flows into the creature it crumbles to dust. Irakelesh looks at the circlet but nothing comes to mind. When Ai'sha takes a look she finds that it is magically enchanted but she's not sure what it does.
The woman, after a while finally finds her feet, still shaking in terror. She looks around at each of you, the shock of it all starting to ware off as she stutters out "Th...tha...thank... y...you...." Still partially in a daze she slowly shuffles toward the door, obviously wanting to leave this horrid place.
"Let me take a look Ai'sha."
Khufu will cast Detect Magic and help examine the circlet.
Khufu recognizes the item as a circlet of persuasion.
"Aha! Khufu says. See here on the outer edge of the headband you can make out the magical runes." Khufu says.
"I've seen a similar item before. It is called a 'Circlet of Persuasion'. It will enhance efforts to influence others and magnify the wearer's natural charisma."
"Useful for diplomats and performers."
"I guess it would look good on me, not that I'd need any magical help persuading others.", Ai'sha says, trying the circlet. "How do I look?"
Then she turns to the woman.
"Head to the Church of Pharasma, it's safe there and the way is clear."
"It does suit you yes, now how did you all come about being here?' Aliva directs her question at the woman before scanning the room for anything else.
Nak'T will extend a claw to the woman to help her to her feet. When she just turns to leave instead, he narrows his eyes and just watches her leave.
He then turns and begins searching the room as well for further threats before moving to secure the entrance.
The woman hesitantly nods to Ai'sha and is about to leave when Aliva asks how she got here "I... um... the skeletons, they ones holding me, they took me from the street and brought me here. I thought I was going to die for sure. I'm glad you came when you did!"
Looking around there is nothing else of interest. It appears this courtroom, turned to grim purpose for the wicked undead no longer poses a threat, as long as all the recently deceased don't start to rise at some point as well.
"We better hurry.", Ai'sha says, leading the way west once again.
"Agreed." Khufu says back to Ai'sha.
He settles his hawk companion on his right shoulder and follows her.
The group heads back out into the streets, eyeless bodies still littering the road outside. The recently rescued woman grimaces at the sight and cautiously steps between the bodies before running off to seek shelter.
The group continues on their path toward the guard house. The city seems to have calmed a bit, there isn't the constant background noise of fighting and screams, now only the occasional outburst somewhere in the distance. As you walk you see some people are starting to open their doors and windows checking if it is safe once again in town. You feel your assistance has played some part in making the city streets safer, at least for the time being.
Turning a street corner, something curious happens. The group is intercepted by a strange bird-like creature, roughly the size and shape of an owl, but wearing a mask what appears to be a mask over its face. The creature suddenly bursts in front of them, flapping its wings in a frenzy, and hooting loudly.
She seems to be begging for help in a confused jumble of languages interspersed with babbling that makes no real sense.
"Danger! -- Help! -- Ptemenib!" are the only things you can really make out from the stream of conciousness the little bird is spewing out in various languages. You recognize the name, the priest you met at the temple that told you about the auction.
You can tell that the creature means no harm and wants their help, but is unable to express herself clearly.
This is a type of Psychopomp know as a Nosoi. They eagerly fill the roles of clerks, scribes, and messengers in the bureaucracy of the hereafter. They record the circumstances of each mortal’s death, any judgments for and against its soul, and its final destination along the Outer Planes.
Mortals recognize nosois in their roles as messengers, counselors of troubled or disbelieving dead, and guides along the River of Souls, and some ancient texts refer to them as scribe psychopomps, death’s messengers, and yanakeion.