Sister Hilan's First Encounter with Hostile Undead

After finishing their meal, once again Sister Hilan aids in rowing their boat to shore. Denlo takes the boat to hide it among the rocks, in the same spot as he did before. “Is everyone ready for the little hike?” Felazo asks at the shore as he looks out past the strange metal and stone building, towards the depths of the swamp.

“These new clothes be quite well suited to this here environ, I must admit,” Renalt replies. Denlo nods along, agreeing with the sentiment.

“Okay, let’s head out then,” Felazo states. The good Sister makes sure to stick close to her necromantic captain. Not because she doubted his capability. But the last time they were attacked, she had been too far ahead to protect him. Besides, the others would be gone before she knew it.

Indeed, as they crossed out from the shallows and past the treeline, Alessari and Denlo vanished up into the trees. It’s what they were good at doing. Quietly as they could, Sister Hilan, Felazo, and Renalt made their way through the muck in the direction that the captain had said was tombward. They walked with confidence, because the holy woman had yet to see their captain make one of his many miscalculations and the musician did not care if he had. The Sister of the Darian Order noticed her musical companion’s eyes partly glazed over and his hands drifting, not unlike when one of the conductors for their holy orchestras is working on a new rendition. She suspects that the conversation that the mage and the bard had over breakfast had helped the latter in writing his newest attempt at a ballad.

As it turned out, Felazo had miscalculated. But not by enough for it to matter, just enough for those paying attention to notice. It was around five hundred paces past the strange mages home that Sari and Denlo reappeared to halt the group, finger over their lips to keep us from making noise. Denlo holds up five fingers, points in the directions they were just walking. Sari nods, then holds up four fingers and points at Felazo’s spellbook. Denlo cocks his head, before realizing what she’s saying. To clarify, he, too, points at the spellbook, but then mimics with his hands the motions that Felazo did to raise the corpses in the street. So, if Sister Hilan is understanding their pair of scouts correctly, ahead there are five people, four of which look undead. Sister Hilan can’t help but wonder what that last one is. She nods. Felazo points at Alessari and gestures towards a tree, then mimics drawing a bow, clearly telling her to set up a sniping spot above. Pointing at Denlo, he gestures in a curved motion in the opposite direction of the tree he indicated Sari head up. Den nods, as it was likely what he was planning on doing anyways. The two of them split off, and Felazo turns to his remaining crew. “Our killers have our backs in case things go wrong, but I figure we try to talk to whatever non-zombie is managing to live out here? They might be helpful.”

Sister Hilan nods. Not because they might be helpful, but because she was too curious about what could survive out here. As they approach through the edge of the clearing, making certain they are not near Sari’s tree nor the bush they think Den is in, Renalt says loudly, “Salutations good swamp soaked strangers, what brings you to these parts?” The skeletons turn towards them, warily. The look in the stranger’s eyes as her head turns towards the group of three is not one of friendly greeting, but one of ravenous hunger.

The strange woman launches herself at the trio. As she does so, Denlo propels himself out from the bushes, smashing through one of the skeletons with ease. Its bones shatter, scattering across the ground. The other skeletons turn towards him. An arrow streaks down from the treeline, into the elfish woman. It seems to rip through her shoulder, blood oozing out. Sari can tell something is off about the wound, but not quite what that is. The woman rushes past them, to flank, brushing against Renalt as she moves by. Renalt’s hand moves almost automatically to his shoulder where she touched and he says, “No thank you.”

As though his words did real harm, the elf woman shrieked in hungered pain. Renalt seems to almost contemplate attacking, before instead playing a tune that Hilan had never heard before. Some kind of inspiring battle-song, a song of facing down an enemy with a glorious purpose and no retreat possible. And, feeling inspired, Sister Hilan takes up her shield in both hands. But Renalt isn’t quite done yet, as he spins around, swinging his leg low in an attempt to trip the woman. She deftly leaps out of the way, which opens her up to his follow up as, planting his hand firmly into the soft mud, Ren twists his legs over him and plants both feet into the woman’s chest, pushing her back. The force of the push also helps him flip back up onto his feet. Sister Hilan uses this opportunity to place herself between Renalt and Felazo and this hungry woman. She slams her shield boss hard into the woman. The woman seems to react negatively to it, though not as bad as normal. Holding her shield high, Hilan awaits the coming assault.

Felazo has not even looked at the woman. She’s not particularly helpful to them anymore. But these others could be. He begins to trace sigils in the air as he stares down the skeletons. Knowing his companion well enough, he gestures towards the one furthest from Denlo. “You belong to me now,” he says aloud, beckoning through the subtly glistening sigils hovering before him with a pair of fingers. The sigils trace themselves over the skeletons skull as well, settling in. And Felazo smiles because the spell worked. “Come over here, please,” he says to the skeleton.

And, as the other two skeletons turn to attack Den, the third begins instead to walk over to wait by Felazo. It stands near Felazo and readies it’s glaive to strike at any foes that try to strike at Felazo. The other pair strike at Den. The Elfi’ika deftly avoids the twin strikes of the near one, but the further steps towards him and manages to knick his leg.

Denlo walks between the two skeletons ignoring the blows they make to try to stop him. And he begins to strike. Swiftly he strikes at each twice, and they are both destroyed as thoroughly as the first he had attacked.

Alessari had not been paying attention to her massive, murderous colleague. She’d been focused on the strange lack of effect their blows had been having on the woman. Normally they were more effective than this. There was something quite wrong about this elf. Something otherworldly. Taking a deep breath, she struck once more, firing an arrow to test her theory. As the arrow plunges into what should be the woman’s neck, it passes right through to the other side. The facade the woman had of being alive is gone entirely. This was some sort of ghost creature. So she draws an arrow, lets the vines gather, and asks nature to aid her. Nature listens and vibrant green light echoes out from the arrow, glowing with life itself. And the ghost seems to shriek once more, much like what had happened when Renalt refused her touch.

The shrieking ghost rakes her now ghostly claws at Sister Hilan, and she barely gets her shield up in time. As the claws rake against the sister’s shield, she can feel the ghost pulling energy out of her. In retaliation, she focuses on her shield and unleashes her fury. Now realizing this woman is a ghost, not a living foe, Sister Hilan simply reaches forth and smiles. Letting the burning, healing grace of the Twin Flames burn through this ghost, she watches as it dissipates with one final, horrific scream. With a sigh, she turns back to the others. “I doubt it is gone forever, so let us find this tomb and be gone before she returns to her unlife.”

Denlo nods, looking at the skeleton. “Do we need to worry about him?” Den asks Felazo.

“Not until tomorrow, and by then he should be here and we should no longer be,” Felazo explained. “Okay, the entrance should almost certainly be around here. Anything out of the ordinary, other than the corpses walking around?”

Sari nods. “I saw it from the perch. Those tall roots of the tree over there, they’re hiding a hole. Seems large enough to fit through.”

Denlo heads over. He sees almost immediately the worked nature of the dirt. “Doesn’t look to be naturally dug.”

“You sure?” Felazo asks.

Den shakes his head. “No, I’m hardly an expert, but just looking at the soil’s packing pattern, if this was dug by an animal, it would have to be one using tools. And I don’t know of any den building creatures that also can use tools.”

“I do, but none around here,” Sari corrects the less learned man. They all gather around the hole in the ground.

“Who shall enter first the depths below where undeath may yet lurk?” Renalt asks.

Sari sighs at the strange bard’s ridiculous nature, then twists her arm as she has before and releases out from nowhere some more of those bioluminescent spores, illuminating softly the path downward. “I suppose I will,” she says, clambering in.

“I have the rear,” Denlo informs the rest of us. Not a request, a statement of fact. And Hilan at least was not planning on arguing. She’s seen Denlo leap into action, and distance between him and his foes matters far less than to her. And having someone capable of holding back the enemy in the front and the back was important. Besides, ever since the ghost woman had struck her, Sister Hilan has felt exhausted. She thinks it is probably best if they don’t count on her noticing dangers or being able to ward foes off, not until whatever that creature did to her has finished wearing off.

“Felazo, you can see better than I, perhaps you follow our fair scion on the run, Sister, I assume you wish the middle?”

“Yes,” Sister Hilan agrees, “Though we best hurry before Sari is attacked while she is alone.”

The skeleton and Felazo head down, and Sister Hilan follows. She is less concerned about the duo behind her than the trio ahead of her. The musician and the murderer are chatting among themselves about events of the prior night, and whether or not Denlo needs to take a proper bath or just really should. But in her best estimation, young Alessari is not well suited for this sort of place, and Felazo is unlikely to adequately assess risks. Especially when he is looking for something. And the Lady is whispering on the wind that he is looking for something in particular here. Hence why he was so happy that they’d agreed to do this.

She stays ready as they slowly make their way down the path. Sari is sticking a few paces ahead of the others, changing her step and elevation in case of assault, and keeping an eye out for dangers. But beyond a few tripwires they deftly avoid and a couple of pressure plates along this path, there is hardly anything to worry about. And as they turn the corner, they come to a massive cavern. Even Den and Ren shut up gazing down. A small waterfall, tricking down and through the cave. A ship shattered at the base of the cavern, waterlogged and half sunken into the rocky mud. A beautiful form without a face staring them down from the cracked bow. And several shambling undead creatures walking about, led in their unending and ineffectual ship repairs by a hefty, dwarfish pirate. Or, at least, the ghost of one. “Den, Sari, how well do you think you can take out the corporeal ones without being noticed?”

The pair look at one another, and give a simple nod.

“Good, if we stay up here, we should only have to deal with the ghost captain,” Felazo explains, “So do it quietly for as long as possible, and if you two need any help, give a shout and I can send our new expendable buddy here to do some damage and draw some fire while I draw the cursed pirate’s attention.”

“Fair,” Den says, slipping down into the cavern without a sound and barely any indication he was there, despite his size. Sari nods and follows the massive man silently.