Latest revision as of 00:22, 24 June 2016

Participants

Date

23/6/479

Log

It is a hot, muggy evening and the air is full of the drone of summer insects as the sun dips over the horizon. The Potter's Field lies a short distance outside the walls of the city and is, unsurprisingly, in ill repair. Looking at the place, it is hard to believe that anyone could notice intruders here. The walls are overgrown with climbing vines and crumbling in some places. There is a large, rusting gate of worked iron, but it hangs crookedly upon its hinges. Outside the walls of the graveyard itself lies the caretaker's cottage, which is considerably better kept. A stooped old mole stands outside the cottage with a lantern hanging from a long walking stick, apparently expecting visitors.

Kazel is clad in her shiny silver armor that covers every inch of her body and peers at what lies before her through the slits in her ventail. She checks the straps of her shield as she makes her way towards the little cottage, nodding to herself, seeming to be satisfied. She addresses the mole as she gets to him. "You the one who called for aide?" She looks around herself to see if others are approaching as she waits for an answer.

Zuri steps up alongside the rest of the approaching beings. The small spotted salamander skips along happily, eager to get back into the 'action' of Freesword contracts after months spent doing much more glamorous but far less exciting work. He peers over at the walled graveyard, stretching his neck up as if it would somehow help him see over the walls from this distance. "Huh.. " He hurries on after his brief pause, rejoining the group and greeting the caretaker with a big bright smile and a wave.

Rokarion walked behind the excited salamander, idly humming to himself. A cool breeze can be felt around him, tickling his aromatic petals for hair. "Greetings, gentlebeing. I hear that your graveyard is supposedly haunted. Let us hope it is just a couple of unruly children." he says with a cocky smile.

Angus slings his musket over his shoulder, making sure the repaired leather strap isn't going to snap anytime soon. Walking up to the cottage he squints a little from the lantern, ears folding a bit from the irritation. "Heard you were having a bit of a problem?" He asks as he looks around at the others who have joined. "Evening Zuri, Rokarion. Long time no see."

Not too long after Lord Solacious himself arrives, so would a short, orange feline known as Lidara, clad in his usual purple robes, but actually without his backpack for once. Instead, he has a pistol on his side opposite the dagger, along with a shortbow and quarterstuff slung across his back in place of the pack. As they approach the cottage, the cat does pause for a moment to eye the graveyard a bit warily, though his attention would quickly return to the cottage and the being in front of it. By the time he reaches it though, most of the questions he could have asked have already been asked.

As the summer insects are buzzing through the air, Cara rushes past the outskirts of the city on her way to the graveyard. As soon as the light of the lantern becomes evident, she rushes torwards the light. Upon making it to the site of the cottage, she slows down to a stop and walks over to the old mole. She smiles to all of the gathered beings who happen to be around the cottage and speaks nonchalantly "Does anyone know exactly where the noises were heard?"

"Let's hope, yes," Cassidy says, nodding at Rokarion's words, testing the string on her bow as she stands next to Angus before slinging it around her back once more. "But whatever the reality of the situation is, it's nothing we won't uncover and settle, with any luck."

The mole blinks in surprise at the motley crew who have arrived on his doorstep. "Well, shoot," he says, "I wasn't expecting the whole guild to show up." He nods at Rokarion. "I expect that's all it is," he says, "Just some kids messin' around in the old 'haunted graveyard.' I'm just too old to go chasin' them off and my no good apprentice has run off. Said he got religion or something." The old mole waves his lantern toward the rusty gates of the graveyard. "Doubt it graverobbers," he says, "The poor souls in there got nothin' worth taking. I don't got much to pay you with myself, but if you can get those hooligans to clear off, I'll see to it that all of you get a hot pie from the Missus."

Kazel raises an eyebrow under her helmet. A hot pie is a lot less than she usually charges for her services, but she is already out here. She gives a sharp nod to the mole and marshes towards the gates of the graveyards, giving them a push as she gets to them and eying the area behind them-

Zuri smiles wide on seeing Angus. "Hiya! Long time, yea! Glad to see you out and about. I-" He was about to ask Angus a bunch of questions when his tirade is interrupted by important talk. He nods at the caretaker. "Yea! Probably! But best be safe than sorry. Even if it is kids, a graveyard is no place to be playing in.. dangerous and all." He nods as the rest of his sentence, showing not much additional emotion until the hot pie is mentioned. He blinks. "Pie? Oh.. oh wow!" He turns to the rest of the group. "Okay gang! We have to find whoever's messing about in the graveyard. It's imperative that we set up a full cordon around this place and stop then!"

Rokarion nod his head at Angus, "And a good evening to you, Angus." the youth answers before looking back at the mole, "You might want to get yourself another apprentice then." The plant being looks towards the graveyard, "Very well, scaring children for pie. An acceptable diversion." Roka shakes his head and pats Zuri's head as he walks towards the graveyard, "Relax, dear. You will get your pie by the end of the day, no need to fret."

Angus perks his ears up, looking around at everyone that had showed up, taking note of who was joining and what new faces he might be encountering. As Zuri and Rokarion starts talking to him he smiles, giving them a nod as it was indeed good to be out and about again! "Well a pie is always nice. Warms you up more then coin" He murmurs, watching Kazel walk up to the gate he waits to see what they find while letting everyone else talk and ask their questions.

Lidara throws a quick glance of his own around the group, and... wow, there really was a lot of Freeswords here today. His attention, however, thankfully is drawn back to the conversation before he could miss too much important stuff. "Hopefully it is just some kids," is all he really has to add for the most part. When pie is mentioned though, he does get a slight grin on his face and even lets out a giggle at Zuri's reaction. With that though, the orange feline simply turns to follow after the rest of the group to the graveyard, his attention flicking over to the grey fox as the move, and... a slightly curious look forming in his eyes. Seems he's thinking about something.

Cara smiles slightly for a second from the idea of a pie, but her expression remains focused as she keeps her right gauntlet covered hand on the hilt of her sword. From there, she looks to everyone else and speaks, "This might be paranoia on my part, but we should move as a group. That way, we can handle whatever might come at us quickly and easily." She glances towards Angus, Rokarion, Zuri, and Cassidy before continuing, "It's nice to see that I get to work with you guys again." She nods towards the graveyard gates and she begins to slowly walks to the front of the group before glancing towards Lidara, "Thanks again for helping." Then she turns around and she waits behind Kazel in case anything comes up.

Cassidy watches Angus for a moment before tilting her head as she sets off with the others. "It's been a long time since we have worked together. I hope being a father hasn't made you too rusty with that rifle there," she teases light heartedly, giving her cousing a playful prod on the shoulder accompanied with a grin.

The graveyard gates squeals like a thousand damned pig souls as Kazel shoves it open, revealing the shabby cemetery beyond. It looks like someone has done their best to maintain the grounds, but they are fighting a losing battle. There are all sorts of scattered, stone markers, though there is little order to their positioning and very few seem to bear any kind of engraving. Everything is overgrown. There are a few meandering footpaths that are probably meant to wind through the graves in a thoughtful way, but in the dark, hot night they just look shabby.

The mole waddles gamely along with the group to the gate. "I'm trying, son," he says to Rokarion, "But you can imagine how hard it is to find an apprentice caretaker for a regular graveyard. One for beggars and criminals is a heluva lot harder. Lot more traffic here, for one. I mean the dead, o' course. The living don't come here real often and it's hard to find a young being willin' to handle the dead like we have to. We do our best to see that everyone gets a spot. For as long as we can anyway. Gotta lot of turnover here too. Some folks only get a decent grave for a year or two. Eventually they all end up in the bone pits over yonder." He nods to a distant corner of the shabby graveyard. "Real tragedy, this place," he sighs, "Y'all come back when you're done and we'll have a little reward for you."

Kazel looks back at the others to make sure they are following along and steps forward through the gates. The heavily armored bat is somewhat careful to stay on the path as she heads forward, but her real focus lies on making out any shapes and movements in the darkness ahead of the group.

Zuri nods quickly at Rokarion. "I hope so! It would be a shame to be promised pie and then get no pie..." He walks alongside the others, standing at ease as he expects no trouble from this place. It's just a cool graveyard! Full of criminals! He listens to the mole's description, nodding slowly. "Wow.. so, they get unburied and reburied over there? That's... kinda sad." He stays behind Kazel, peering in through the gap between her and the opening left by the gate.

Rokarion nods, "Indeed, such a pity. You might need to ask ask the crown for help. I would have thought that they were obliged to fund a place like this." With a yawn, Rokarion saunters forward into the graveyard. The plant being's pace makes it seem that he is here to take a leisurely stroll rather than get rid of any troublemakers. Rokarion goes down the winding paths of the graveyard, eyes taking in the sights as well as any movements. "The place could certainly use some flowers here and here."

Angus frowns a little, that lantern was going to be a bit of an issue if they were looking for their targets. Quietly unslinging his rifle he does look to Cassidy for a moment. "Heh, I'm still as good of a shot as ever." He answers, sticking his tongue out at his cousin before he switches back to silence, his stance wide while his foot falls remain quiet, trying to linger just at the edge of the lanterns light.

Lidara gives a quick nod to Cara at that. "Probably a good idea for us to stick together, yeah. Strength in numbers and everything. And thank you for helping too." That said though, his attention goes back to the gate, the cat's ears folding down against his head for a moment whenever it's opened up. His attention quickly returns to the mole though, the orange feline continuing to listen, though the only thing he actually adds is another nod at Zuri's later statement, along with a quiet, "Yeah." Once the rest of the group starts stepping into the gate, he throws one more glance over to Angus before simply shrugging to himself and beginning to follow behind everyone else, his steps light and cautious while his hands linger a bit closer to the weapons at his side.

The feline slowly begins to walk into the graveyard and she unsheathes her sword. She begins to look around the dilapidated graveyard markers and sighs, "Maybe better care should be given to these." As she continues to walk through, she walks forward and waits for everyone else to appear behind her. Suddenly, she gets a rather bright idea and walks back to the rest of the group. The green markings on her body light up and she attempts to figure out if any corrupt callers might be in the area. Her skill in sensing them might not exactly be the best, but it's better than nothing at this point.

"Good to hear. I wouldn't want word to get out you've gone soft," Cassidy says with a wink, pulling her bow around into her grip again. "Can you imagine how many people might try to take advantage of that rumour?" She slips to the middle of the group so that she had people on all sides between her and whatever might approach.

The mole and his lantern remain at the cemetery gate and the warm light is soon left behind for the damp darkness and the hum of summer insects. A discussion on graveyard practices and finances will have to wait for another time.

It is quiet in the graveyard, aside from the sound of the night bugs, an occasional froggy croak from somewhere in the darkness, and the consistent clank, clank, clank of Kazel's armor. The place seems pretty much abandoned. Wobbly rows of mismatched graves stretch out in all directions with only the rudest of markers to show where the dead might be. Tall, drooping trees are randomly scattered around the grounds to provide shade in daylight hours and to provide a fairly consistent screen along the high, stacked stone walls of the place. It looks like there is a lot of ground to cover.

Kazel lets out a quiet groan as she presses forward, she much prefers it when the enemy comes to her. If there even is one. She rolls her shoulder and draws her broadsword just in case there is one. Looking over her shoulder she takes a couple of seconds to make sure everyone is following, before her attention turns back on the road ahead.

Zuri is quite relaxed, given the circumstances. Free ride to pie in this salamander's mind! He grins up at Rokarion, sensing an opportunity he can't give up on. "Not everyone can have beautiful flowers everywhere they go." He giggles and hurries off, stepping towards the other side of the group to peer towards the other side of the graveyard rather nonchalantly, as if nothing ever happened. "Huh.. The caretaker was right, there's really nothing worth stealing here." He pauses, then adds. "I mean, totally from the point of view of a Freesowrd who's, uh.. done his sort of cleanup before. Not.. not that I want to.. steal anything." Not anymore, those are old days. He steps off from the group to go peek behind one of the rows of graves, as if expecting something interesting to be there.

Rokarion giggles at Zuri's comment and shakes his head amusedly at his pilfering observation. With a yawn, Rokarion eyes one of the trees and nonchalantly walks towards it before he begins climbing upwards, looks like he is either intent on lolly gagging or using the tree as a watchtower of sorts.

Angus keeps wary, the hammer on his musket down with his finger away from the trigger. He finally notices a glance from Lidara, blinking for a few moments as he turns his gaze to them with a curious look before focusing back on the task at hand. Staying at the tail end of the group he keeps his eyes on the shadows, looking and waiting for any movement as he keeps his musket at the ready.

Lidara keeps his attention on the graveyard rather than the conversation for the most part, though Zuri does get another slight giggle out of the cat. After all, he doesn't know many of the group he's with, and now wasn't exactly the time to get to know them. This time though, it's him who misses the look from Angus, the cat focused more on keeping an eye on the area behind the party, his hands now on the hilt of his dagger and grip of his pistol, neither of which had been drawn quite yet though.

Cara stays quiet for a moment and she speaks to the rest of the group only to notice that some of them already branched out. "Oh yeah, the influence of Corrupt Court is possibly in these graveyards." From there, she keeps her sabre at the ready, and looks for any sign of movement from any possible members of the undead. She makes sure to listen to her surroundings as well.

"Hm. How bothersome. They should not be within the city," Cassidy says with a frown, drawing one of the arrows from her quiver, ears twitching as she looks around the graveyard. "I suppose it was too much to hope for just being a group of children playing around."

Neither Zuri's, nor Rokarion's methods of reconnaissance seem to yield much in the way of results, though the tree does command a rather better view of the place than traipsing aimlessly through the long grass.

The muggy heat of the evening starts to cool as night sets in in earnest and a chill breeze starts to blow. The group has come to an overgrown, weedy pond where they are greeted by the croaking of frogs and an occasional splash from whatever fish populate the mucky little water feature. A pair of broken benches are nearly hidden by the weeds. Looks like this must be the center of the graveyard.

Kazel frowns under the metal of her helmet. "You don't suppose that they will come out if we yell nicely, do you?" She chuckles at the thought as she continues to head forward, idly cutting at some of the high weeds that are in the way here and there with her sword.

Zuri steps back towards the group after his brave exploration of the delapidated graves. "Nothing this way!" He walks over towards the broken benches, giving one of them a prod with his foot. "Sheesh.. place really could use some fixing up. I guess not many feel the need to follow the text of the First Book to the letter when it's a criminal graveyard.." He looks towards Cara. "So.. you figure something evil is around here?" He doesn't draw his weapon yet, but he keeps one hand at the hilt. "Hm..."

Rokarion yawns as he finds a comfortable spot to relax on, making sure that he is covered with as much branches as possible. In his spot, the jasmine finally allows his vine to slither onto a branch and extend as far away from him as possible. With his vine hidden on another branch, the plant being begins focusing, causing the bud on the end of the vine to glow with white light. This way, Roka begins surveying the area again, hoping that if the enemy does have a form of ranged attack they will be trying to fire on the source of the light, away from his body proper.

Angus lets out a pent up breath, sighing a little as he slings his rifle. "If they really want to come out they'll come out on their own time I guess." He answers Kazel, as he keeps his eyes around. "The question is, what is here? If it was evil, don't think there would just be some noises."

At the mention of the Courrpt Court's influence being about, Lidara finally draws his weapons, the pistol in his left and dagger in his right, which upon further inspection would appear to be meant more for parrying, considering how large the handguard is. Another giggle escapes the cat at Kazel's comment, but it isn't until they reach the lake the he actually speaks up again. "If there is something that bad here, then we should probably find it as soon as possible." For the moment though, his pace doesn't change much, the orange feline simply continuing on at the same, cautious pace as before. "It would be nice to know exactly what from the Corrupt Court is here though, yeah."

Cara glares directly at Kazel for a moment, and sighs before turning towards Zuri, "Well, yes, I can actually tell when the influence of the Corrupt Court is nearby if I try and I found a trace of it but I'm going to need someone to cover me so that I can work on that." From there, gets back to looking for any other signs of the undead.

Cassidy keeps her own bow at the ready, a frown on her lips. "I still don't trust it. And feel free," she says, shrugging at Cara. "With everyone here, there's no better time than now to do what you need to do, I suppose."

The cool breeze suddenly become chilly and the singing of insects and frogs goes ominously and instantly silent. Something has just changed, and not for the better.

From his perch up in the treetops, Rokarion can feel the air of some kind of projectile whip past his head. Looks like the group has been spotted by whoever is out here! A flurry of arrows flies from the darkness, raining down on the group, though the well armored freeswords are uneffected by this first volley, arrows pinging and sliding off of armor. One notable exception being a single bolt that tears Angus's hat from his head and pins it to the ground!

Kazel hits her shield with the flat side of her sword a couple of times, sending a threatening sound of metal hitting metal through the silence, before she gives the others a sharp nod and raises the shield in front of herself and starts charging into the direction the arrows came from like this, the symbol of a rose that seemed to be etched in her armor suddenly vanishing.

Zuri draws both his weapons - the small dagger in his right hand, and the heavy broad blade in his left. He uses the latter to knock the arrow loose from his armor, having become embedded in his shoulder pad. "Take cover!" He steps up in Kazel's side, sticking to her shadow and trying to use the graves as cover.

Rokarion licks his lips and smirks at the success of his ruse, letting his vine slowly drop out of the tree to imitate a falling victim, dimming his light on the way until the vine is no longer luminescent. Back in the darkness, Rokarion keeps still eyeing the last spot he saw movement in to see if the arrows are coming from there.

Angus hits the ground as arrows start flying, the hat going unnoticed for the moment as he draws the pistol at his hip and moves to use one of the fallen logs as cover. While sitting there he finally realizes something is off, reaching up to find that his hat is gone before turning back to look at it. "....Creator damned archers, have to love ambushes." He mutters to no one in particular, cocking the hammer back while keeping the barrel of his pistol pointed at the shadows.

Lidara perks his ears up almost the moment that things go silent, his gaze flicking about the area around the group rapidly as he does so... but thankfully he is able to react quick enough to drop down a bit closer to the ground when the arrows come by, managing to keep his head on his shoulders... for now, at least. He's quickly on the move again though, falling in behind Kazel. The cat moves along in a slight crouch, doing his best to keep himself hidden behind the heavily armoured bat and with his weapons still at the ready, just in case they do run into someone.

Cara yells out to everyone as the markings on her body light up, "They are attacking from the North East and they are definitely involved with the Corrupt Court." As the arrows fall towards her body, they actually seem to bounce off of her robes. From there, she swiftly moves behind another tree in order to get out of view of any incoming arrows. "Rush for the North East!"

Cassidy lowers her ears and ducks, making herself an even smaller target as the arrow come flying in. She sets her own arrow against her bow, poised to draw it back at a moment's notice as she tries to figure the trajectory of the arrows before moving off to take cover against anything coming from that direction.

In fact, they are NOT attacking from the Northeast. The volley of arrows seems to have come mostly from the northwest and from above ground level. There must be archers in the trees! Another volley comes raining down out of the dark skies!

Kazel stops her charge as an arrow hits her armor. That should have been blocked by her shield...unless. She frowns and eyes the trees, before yelling: "Everyone hold onto something." The armored bat concentrates for a moment to violently shake any ranged fiends out of their holes and trees.

Zuri dives behind one of the gravestones, his quick reactions and the handy dandy nearby cover allowing him to escape the volley of arrows completely unscathed. He pops out from the other side of the row, his weapons still in hand. "They're above!" Having a similar idea to Kazel he raises his dagger in one hand, tracing it through the air like a pen as he invokes magic of his own. With a sweep of the blade he lets forth a rolling wave of dark math at one of the nearby trees, trying to disable and cloud the senses of whomever is there.

With the fight joined and everyone distracted, the plant being slowly hops off the tree he was on and begins to slowly sneak through the edges of the graveyard towards the building he seems to spot in the northeast, taking out his dagger and keeping a look out in case he spots enemies on his way.

Angus curses under his breath, wishing he had brought mister with him on this one. "Just give me a target!" Came his shout as the pistol is holstered, unslinging his musket to rest along the log that he was using as cover as he does his best to brace himself while still at the ready to take the shot.

Lidara is, for the most part, able to avoid the arrows shot in his direction, save for one that manages to graze his right forearm, causing the cat to wince and move just a little bit faster. Thankfully though, he does still manage to stop before running directly into Kazel. He does give her a curious look for a second once he sees her magic, but would soon simply duck to the side and hide behind one of the tombstones facing in the direction of where the arrows were coming from, his head occasionally poking out slightly to see if he can actually spot any of the archers.

The feline quickly swerves out of the way of the arrows that are apparently coming from the trees to the northwest. From there, she glares directly at the direction in which the arrows came from and her hand left hand begins to glow brightly as the calculations are quickly made. Then, she waves her hand toward where the arrows from the trees were shot. From her hand comes a rather powerful fire spell that threatens to burn those who shot the arrows from the trees.

There is a rumble of earth as Kazel's spell ripples through the graveyard, toppling poorly placed grave markers and shifting loose earth from shoddy graves to reveal the occasional cracked box buried too shallowly. From the scattered trees of the cemetery, three figures tumble to the earth with unmistakable cracks of breaking bone, though there are no cries of pain.

Cara's wave of fire magic crackles along the long, weedy grass among the graves, setting the unkempt area alight and revealing the fallen archers to be no living flesh, but moldering corpses in armor almost as ragged as their patchy flesh! The fallen undead haul themselves laboriously to their feet, raising surprisingly well kept crossbows. A pair of arrows streak out of nearby trees toward Kazel and Cara. Looks like shaking didn't get them all down.

Heading away from the fighting, Rokarion soon finds himself in front of a little stone outbuilding. If he had not known where to look from his overhead surveillance, he might not have found the place, overgrown as it is, though a well worn track does lead up to the door which stands a little ajar.

Cassidy peeks out from around her cover, trying to hazard a guess where the arrow might have come from before she draws back her string and lets loose an arrow. Given how many arrows came for them, she imagined a fairly dense opposition. Even if she couldn't see them, she might still be able to hit one.

Kazel smirks as the figures fall out of the trees. but the smile soon vanishes as there is another clonk of an arrow on her armor. She rotates herself into the direction of the attack and sends more tremors into that direction in an attempt to shake down the remaining archers. It was a good thing that she is wearing her heavy armor today, it seems.

Zuri blinks as he regards the shambling... things. "Oh, ick! Not-dead things!" He curses. Such a waste of his magic, trying to blind and confuse the -undead-. He leans forward and charges directly at the nearest one, jumping and swinging at it's neck to try and stop it in its tracks.

Rokarion glances the battlefield in the distance after the fire illuminated the area there. Seeing that his salamander was doing fine, Rokarion turns around, sheathing his dagger and taking out his rapier, and moves towards the building, eyes peeled as he slowly opens the door to get inside.

Angus scowls as it's undead that they are dealing with, taking aim at the nearest target that isn't engaged. "Undead, I hate undead! Especially when they ruin my hats!" Squeezing the trigger he fires, a puff of smoke and a flash as thunder roars from his musket.

While all of that fire and ground shaking is going on, Lidara simply keeps ducked down behind the tombstone. Once all of that has finished, however, the orange cat pokes his head out again, this time actually ending up with line of sight on the archers that had been harassing them, and what he does see... causes him to go a bit wide eyed for a moment. Soon though, he'd take a deep breath before jumping out of his cover so that he can start dashing closer to the position of the undead that were firing upon them. Once he's finally close enough to strike, he'd lunge forwad, dagger in hand, to plunge it directly into the nearest of the archer's chest.

Cara leaps away from the pair of arrows and she quickly concentrates once more. As the fiery math emits a very noticeable red glow from her left hand, one more fire spell is unleashed into the direction where the arrows came from. This spell is sent out in the form of a barrage of fiery arrows that intend to light up anyone who might still be in the trees. "Cover me!"

Cassidy prepares another arrow- This time one of her bladed arrows meant for undead things, ducking out from around her cover to take aim at one of the dead opposition, firing for the neck. "Try not to create too much fire now. I don't want to risk it spreading to anything nearby."

Sound advice, though a little late as the rain of fiery projectiles fills one of the drooping trees with heat and light. The skeletal figure amid the blaze is revealed as it raises its crossbow to fire another round toward Cara. The three battered skeletons on the ground suddenly find themselves fully occupied by flashing daggers, arrows and in one case a heavy musket ball. Kazel's second round of earth magic has rather less dramatic effect than her first, simply causing a pair of nearby headstones to tumble over. But since no further arrows lance through the air, it seems that she at least distracted a would be attacker.

Inside the little building is a staircase leading down into the earth. While no one is readily visible, the flickering light of a torch rises from the stairwell and there is a mutter of distant voices. For some reason, it seems to be especially cold here. Despite its obvious age, the door swings open with only the slightest groan of protest. Someone must have oiled it recently.

Kazel notes that the others seem to have the archer situation mostly under control. She raises her shield high and heads for the small building as well to support Rokarion, in case that something of note was going on in there.

Zuri picks another nearby target, the small salamander approaching this one cautiously, both weapons held at the ready. He swings with his broad blade, held in his off hand, and follows up with a stab from his dagger. He's in the thick of it, facing the shambling undead head on.

Rokarion purses his lips and gives the battlefield another glance, looks like there is indeed no rest for the wicked. With a shrug, the plant being turns back towards the staircase and begins slowly descending, taking extra care with each step on the ancient, run down staircase. With any luck he will be able to sneak onto whoever is in here.

Angus grunts a little, grabbing and wrenching the ramrod from his musket as he starts to reload the thing. Tearing wadding from the bag at his hip he starts ramming ball, powder, and wadding back into the barrel after making sure no sparks would set it off in his face.

Lidara simply continues his attack on whichever of the undead that had been unlucky enough to end up his target, carefully circling around them in a rather defensive stance in the event that someone takes another shot at him, though if the undead themself tries to shoot he'd bump the arbalest to keep them from aiming. Eventually though, the cat's stance changes slightly and he suddenly takes a back step, followed by another quick lunge forward... though this time the skeleton would end up with a pistol barrel right against its chest rather than a dagger point. This is, of course, followed up by a point blank shot.

Cara rushes away from the firing archer skeleton and she shouts out once more, "Head to the north east after dealing with the enemy in the burning tree!" From there, she runs directly toward the third ground skeleton. As she rushes towards the skeleton, she raises her blade and attempst to slash the skeleton.

Cassidy draws back the string on her longbow, frowning. "Give me a target," she calls to her allies, keeping herself at least half behind cover while she scans the darkness for a good mark. "I'll shoot til I run out of arrows. And I've got plenty of arrows."

Amidst the burning grasses and the flaming tree, it is easy to see the combat that rages almost as hotly as the flames. Two skeletal archers fall, one under Zuri's daggers as they cleave through a rotting spine, and one blasted away by Lidara's well placed pistol. A third tumbles to loose bones under Cara's vicious slash. The fight is not yet over, though as the archer in the burning tree swings down from the branches, bow and armor alight and charges toward Angus, weilding its ruined crossbow like a club! From somewhere, another arrow zings into the fray toward Cara!

Rokarion has little trouble negotiating the worn, stone steps down into a dry, sandy tunnel. Alcoves line the walls, mostly empty this close to the entrance, but they are obviously meant to hold the bones of the dead.

"Did you hear that?" come whispered words from up ahead, "You said the old man wouldn't bother us! We need more time!"

Kazel is thankfully still under Heiour's blessing and her armor does not seem to weigh her down at all in this situation. The warrior bat slows down as she reaches the building and her ears perk up as well as they can in the confines of the helmet as the voices reach them. She slowly enters the building to reduce the amount of noise she makes and heads down the stairs after a short inspection of the room.

Zuri cheers triumphantly after felling bad guy number two. "Yea, take that!" He looks around at his companions, just in time to see a a rather flamey zombie-thing charge at Angus. He lets out a soft 'eep' as he readies his weapons again, pauses, reconsiders.. and then instead raises his dagger to trace mathemagical symbols in the air. He unleashes the magic with a thrust of his dagger, sending a burst of air-math supercooled air at the flaming creature, the numbing cold of winter hopefully dousing it and/or slowing it down enough to allow Angus time to retaliate.

Rokarion begins slowly moving towards the bend in the hallway, nodding at the armoured bat being behind him. Once he reaches it, the youth purses his lips and taps his chin before looking behind him and pointing forward with a flourish. "Ladies first, keep that shield up." he says with a smirk, "They are most likely expecting someone to enter."

Angus finishes loading up his gun, just in time to see the flicker of fire in the corner of his eye. Stumbling to his feet he almost reaches for the blade at his hip, but when the undead branchies its crossbow as a club, slamming it against his armor hard enough to make him grunt in pain he brandishes his Musket. "Die you creator forsaken filth!" He shouts, as he brings it down upon the things head!

Lidara gets a slight smirk on his face as the skeleton in front of him falls, even letting out a quick, "Whoo!" of his own to go along with Zuri's, and as those nearby fall along with it, his stance even relaxes just a little bit. Well... right up until the point a flaming skeleton drops down from one of the trees anyways. When that happens, both the spent pistol and the dagger go back to their holster and sheath on his sides, and his hands instead go back to grab hold of the quarterstaff slung across his back. Then, he steps forward with a twirl, ending the spin off by slamming the metal end of the staff into the side of the flaming undead's skull, in addition to the end of Angus's musket on top of it.

Cara swerves away from the oncoming arrow and she sighs as she realizes that she'll have to aim for the being who just fired yet another arrow. From there, she concentrates for a moment as the calculations are completed. Then, she waves her hand and sends a wave of superheated air toward the direction from where the arrow was shot from, "Cassidy, shoot in the direction that I'm sending the heat wave and head for the north east!"

Cassidy lifts her brow, taking aim towards the opposing archer, humming for a moment before prepping a second arrow as well, drawing the string back with a practiced hand before firing both towards the target. She remains where she is for now, though.

If nothing else, that skeletal archer could certainly follow instructions. The abomination's skull shatters in blackened shards and the once more lifeless corpse falls to the fractured earth. Meanwhile, Cara has set yet another tree aflame. Despite the odds against it, it is, in fact the tree occupied by another archer. Fortunately, it reveals the skeletal being within, allowing Cassidy to cut it down with her well placed shots. Unfortunately, the flames are starting to burn out of control, turning the graveyard into a quickly spreading inferno!

"Did you hear that?" comes a muttered voice in the underground crypt, "I think someone is here! Tell them to hurry it up in there! And send some of the walkers!"

Kazel nods at Rokarion as she reaches him, agreeing with his statement. She raises her shield and tightens her grip on her sword before charing with full speed around the corner at whatever might be there, however she is disciplined enough to make sure not to crash into a wall should there be more curves ahead.

Zuri looks around at the growing flames, biting his lip. "Uhoh.. uh.. this isn't good." He races over to Angus' side, sheathing his weapons before checking on his friend. "Was that the last of them?" He turns to look at Cara and Lidara. "We may need to do something about this fire, it looks like it might go out of control at an time. This place is horribly overgrown!"

Rokarion gives the bat being a three to four second head start before he also takes the bend and walks forward, scanning his surroundings as he does so in case something or someone is hiding.

Angus weezes a little after removing the skeleton, having taken a blow to the ribs. "I'm fine." He answers Zuri when they come over to help him, leaning against his musket a bit as he straightens himself out. ". . .But at the moment I think we better put out these fires before they start to spread. Who knows what else were are going to deal with." Rubbing at his side he checks to make sure nothing is broken, slinging his musket back over his shoulder while trying to clean off the bits of undead skull on the stock.

With another skeleton down, Lidara finally turns his attention to the only one left inside of a tree... just in time to see it dropped by two accurate arrows. Finally, the cat breathes a sigh of relief and stows his quarterstaff along his back once more, his battle stance... not quite faltering completely, but it's certainly a lot more relaxed than it was before. That's shortly followed by the orange feline getting a smile on his face and letting out another short laugh though. "We did it!" However, he doesn't have long to celebrate now, his gaze flicking over to Zuri and then out onto the spreading fire around them. That makes that smile of his disappear rather quickly. "I don't think that I have anything that would help put out this much fire, unfortunately...." He takes a few steps closer to the party, eyes continuing to scan the fire.

Cara groans immediately, at the spreading fire and sighs, "Okay, whoever can use water magic needs to stay with me and help put out the fire. Whoever can't should run and head to the Northeast to rout the corrupt callers that are in that direction." From there, she concentrates as the calculations are completed and she unleashes everything she has directly towards the blazing inferno in an effort to put out the fire immediately.

Cassidy frowns and finally pulls back from her cover, fleeing away from the fire and towards another vantage point. She had no water magic to call her own, sadly, so all she could do at that point was stay out of it!

While things heat up above ground, things are getting steadily chillier below. Kazel's charge sends her careening into a pair of figures in black robes, sending them staggering backward! They tumble to the ground, but quickly regain their feet. "You shall not pass the dread portal!" one of them cries, his voice cracking on the last word.

Meanwhile, Cara's well meaning air magic is not having quite the intended effect. While it IS preventing the spread of the fire in two directions, it is spreading it very quickly toward the north west corner of the graveyard.

Kazel smirks as she crashes into the cultists and does not stop there, using her momentum from the charge as well as her enhances strength she continues her charge until at least one cultist finds themselves between her shield and a hard place, probably a wall and, equally probably is squished to death.

Zuri watches helplessly.. at first. He watches as his companions scramble about for solutions, and as Cara pours seemingly every ounce of magical energy she has into a mighty gust of wind. "We'd need some water magic to..." He pauses, then facepalms. "Water! Duh!" With dagger in hand he traces mathemagical phrase, one designed to draw in moisture and condense it into droplets. Usually meant for rain, he's going to use it a little bit differently, adding it to Cara's magic to turn it into a torrent of gushing water.

Rokarion shakes his head, "Dabbling with necromancy? Such vile villainy needs to be addressed, no?" the plant being says as he takes up his duelling stance and quickly lunges at the other cultist, aiming a strike at his shin, "Now, goodbeing, would you care to tell me more about your loathsome activities down here?"

Angus sighs, standing up as he catches his breath to watch both Cara and Zuri try to douse the flames. "This is why fire is a bad weapon against the undead." He mutters to himself, patting himself down for a moment to find his water canteen. "Zuri if this doesn't work, try earth magic if you've got it. Bury the flames in dirt and it will smother it."

Lidara pauses for a moment at Cara's orders, his eyes flicking between the fire and the direction that... he's pretty sure is Northeast. He throws one more glance back to the fire, and, seeing that the others seem to have that taken care of, mumbles to himself, "Right... Northeast it is then." Then... well... he begins to dash off in that direction, leaving the three to hopefully put out the fire and drawing his quarterstaff off of his back once more as he does so. He didn't exactly have any mathemagic he could use to help in the first place.

Cara begins to really feel the exhaustion as sweat begins to coat her form, yet she continues to send more air magic toward the inferno. As she glances to the side, she smiles upon noticing that Zuri is there to actually help with this. The feline to continues to send out more of the wind blast, but it seems to be weakening due to her fatigue. "Thank you, Zuri. Angus, the cultists are in the northeast."

"Certainly a bad idea when you're near civilization," Cassidy agrees with Angus, running her fingers over her quiver, taking a mental count of her remaining stock. "Well then. Shall we go try to put a stop to these cultists before they escape or something?"

The muggy night air suddenly becomes desert dry as Zuri condenses the moisture into a spray of water to join Cara's whipping winds. It is not ideal, but it does reduce the inferno to a general smolder. The fire is not out, by any means, but the danger is probably past.

Below ground, Kazel performs an excellent impression of a wine press with a grape as she smashes her opponent against a stone shelf with her shield, eliciting a rather horrible crunch and gurgle as the cultist's hood falls back to reveal a young rat, a froth of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. The being facing off with Rokarion, a youthful looking rooster cries out as the Jasmine slices into his leg and he falls to one knee. He stares in horror at his dead comrade, then turns a sneer on Rokarion. "All hail the Lady of Bones!" he spits.

Kazel turns around, the remaining cultist between her and Rokarion now. She smirks under her helmet once more as steps towards the hooded cultist. Her grip on her sword tightens as she thrusts at him and then draws her blade up, intend on first piercing and then slicing open the enemy.

Zuri flops down after he finishes his magical handiwork. "Pfuh.." He pauses, then looks around, finally taking in his surroundings after the chaos of that fight. "Hey.. where are the others? Where's Kazel and Roka?" He hops up onto his feet, wandering over to Angus' side.

Rokarion shakes his head, "Ah, yes, her. Not sure what I was expecting." he comments as he eyes the rooster. "So...." the only word the plant being utters before Kazel jumps in to stab the cultist. Rokarion simply moves aside and begins moving towards the tunnel, "How rude, we were having a civilized conversation before you came in." the youth quips at the bat, "Don't take too long." Roka adds as he moves deeper into the crypt.

Angus offers Zuri the water canteen as they come over. "That's a good question, I lost them in the fight. Lets take a second to recollect ourselves before we go wandering off again, I think we have made a big enough mess as is." He answers, taking a head count of who's here at the moment.

Lidara does start to gradually slow his pace as he gets closer and closer to the hut, until eventually he'd be continuing on at more of a walk. This was, after all, likely one of the few chances he'd get to take a bit of a breather, even he realized that much. He did also, eventually, look back at the fields once more, a small smile coming to his face again upon seeing the fires put out. Beyond that though, he simply continues to draw ever closer to the hut.

Cara pants heavily for a moment and points to the direction of the northeast. "They probably went after the cultists in the northeast. Kendrac dedicants can sense followers of anyone from the corrupt court if they use their gifts." The feline immediately catches a good breather and she stops to stare at Angus. She clutches her phoenix tears pendant as she takes a look at Angus, "Do you want me to help fix you up before I head off in that direction? Rokarion and Kazel might need our help right now but I better take care of you before I head for them."

Cassidy pulls an arrow from her quiver, holding it in her hand as she nods at Angus. "I think they're... I don't know," she frowns, glancing around. "I lost them, too. Hopefully we prevented too much fire damage from taking place. Tch. Always have to keep the environment in mind with fire. Ar you alright, Angus? Not too roughed up I hope!"

The poor, misguided Rooster dies with a wet gurgle as Kazel slices him open, leaving the way ahead clear. It may just be that the catacombs are underground, but it seems to be getting rapidly colder.

Above ground, it seems that there is little more to be done. "Angus and I will keep an eye on things here," Cassidy says, "You all go see where the others have gotten to."

Zuri looks around, still trying to locate Kazel and Rokarion. He nods at Angus and Cassidy, smiling brightly. "Gotcha! I think they might have gone.. uh.. " He looks left, right, then back towards Lidara and Cara. "Uh.. I guess we should go.. which was is that direction you were saying, Cara?" He re-sheathes his weapons for now, freeing up his hands for the time being.

Rokarion sheathed his rapier as he continued walking through the dread portal or whatever did the cultists call it. "Looks like the Crown used to spend more money on burying their criminals." he idly remarks as he takes in his surroundings, looking for any writing that identifies the dead here, while making sure to avoid stepping on any skeletons by accident.

Kazel smirks at the comment the plant gave her before leaving and takes a moment to to crush the skull of the dead rooster under boot, still influenced by the power given to her by Heiour. Done with this tasteless business she nods to herself. Better save than sorry when spirits are involved, especially the one he shouted about. She eyes the rat she killed earlier and he seems reasonably destroyed, so she wipes her metal boot on the stone floor and heads down the tunnel Rokarion took.

Cara nods to both Angus and Cassidy. Then, she stares at Zuri for a moment as she resheathes her saber. "Zuri, we're running towards the north east." Then, she proceeds to point in that direction, "We better get going immediately." From there, she rushes off in that direction, her legs pumping rapidly as she makes sure to avoid any obvious obstacles that might be in the way.

Eventually, Lidara does realize that... well, all he really knows about exactly where he's going is a general direction.... He throws one more quick glance back and, seeing the Cara at least is already on her way, the cat stops where he is to let them catch up, using the opportunity to quickly reload his pistol and check his equipment. Once they do reach him though, he'd fall in line behind Cara and Zuri and starts running again.

Following Kazel's trail through the long grass and weeds is not especially difficult and the group above ground has no trouble finding the little mausoleum with its door hanging open and dim torchlight spilling into the night.

The "Dread Portal" is not especially intimidating. It is just another stretch of excavated tunnel leading further downward. Honestly, Catacombs is far too charitable a word for this place, but it is better kept than the graveyard above ground. The path is smooth and well traveled. The caretaker must spend a lot of time down here. The way is getting dim up ahead, now that the torches of the robed youths have been left behind, but it seems that there is a fork in the road. Right? Or left?

Zuri giggles! "Northeast! Yea!" He follows along with Cara and Lidara, navigating the landscape until finally reaching the mausoleum. "W-woah. That.. that looks pretty spooky." He looks back at Cara and Lidara. "Think they went in there?" He keeps his gaze on Cara, who seems to have some kind of handle on things right now.

Rokarion stops at the fork, and taps his chin, "The curse of choice. I don't recall their lady favouring a specific direction." he says before turning around and regarding the bat, "So, any suggestions?"

Kazel shrugs her shoulders, causing her armor to make metalic noise. "We could split, or go back and get the others, I suppose. Both is fine with me." She peers into the darkness ahead and frowns slightly at the situation.

The feline comes to a stop as she reaches the front of the mausoleum. As she shifts her gaze to Zuri and Lidara, she smirks, "Well, the door is open and I doubt that anyone would just leave the door open unless they were in a hurry." The feline takes a moment to concentrate as the runes on her body glow once more as she walks into the building.

Lidara throws another quick glance behind the group once they reach the mausoleum, bringing up the rear just as he had been before. He does shift around a bit uncomfortably when they reach it though. He gives a slight nod at Cara's statement. "Yep. Plus I don't think that there's many other places they could've gone to in the first place." There's a bit more shuffling and the cat's hands drift down a bit closer to his dagger and pistol, but once Cara starts to walk in he follows not too far behind, his ears perked up and his stance a slight crouch again.

Angus frowns at the mausoleum, reaching for one of the torches hanging near the entrance. Grasping it he takes out flint and steel from his pack, striking it until the torch is set ablaze. "WEll, only one way to find out. Besides, Rokarion and Kazel are trained freeswords, they should be okay." Looking once more at the entrance he steps towards the door, making sure that the pistol at his belt was loaded before decending.

It is a hop, skip, and unpleasantly squishy jump past the grizzly remains of Kazel's handiwork for the rest of the group to catch up with Rokarion and Kazel. Angus's foresight in bringing a torch along is a welcome boon, revealing that the tunnel branching to the right is rather short before it opens into a small room. To the left, it extends quite a bit further and slopes downward again.

Zuri steps behind Cara and Angus, moving with quiet steps as if expecting more trouble right around the corner. He navigates around the unlucky fools that faced off against Kazel and Rokarion earlier, his hand once again movng to the hilt of his sword. "Mmm.. I think that.. hey, I think that's them right ahead!" He breaks stride with the rest of the group and runs towards Rokarion, giving the plant being a quick surprise hug before clearing his throat and trying to act 'professional' again. "So uh.. yea, we took care of the guys outside." How are things in here?"

Rokarion nods, "Now that is an idea." the plant being says before he hears noises from the mausoleum, "Well, either the cultists reanimated faster than expected or the rest of the group are here." the plant being remarks as the group is finally reunited and he gets a hug, "Kazel rudely interrupted my conversations with one of the cultists outside, he refused to speak to me since." The plant being casually glances the two paths again as the light exposes more details. "Ah, there we go. Left path it is. Someone might want to check the room to the right." Roka comments as he begins marching towards the incline on the left path.

Kazel snerks and nods. "I could tell it was going to be a boring, one sided conversation." She smirks under her helmet. "And I would not count on those two rising again anyway." She raises her shield slightly in case of a surprise attack and follows Rokarion into the tunnel, eventually passing him and positioning herself at the front to shield the others.

Cara stares at the corpses for a moment and she sighs, "Here we go again." Upon seeing Rokarion and Kazel, she walks over to the two and responds nonchalantly, "I take it they must not like visitors. Anyway we hav-" She stops for a moment and nods, "Yes, the path on the left has the corrupt influence upon it. However, they're probably going to expect us by now." She begins to walk over to the left path, but she stops and walks over to the right path. "It may be superstition on my part, but Lidara, could you accompany me while I check the path on the right. It may be best to see if something might be there."

Just like before, Lidara stays at the rear of the group, his ears still perked up and still throwing an occasional glance behind them. Once he does actually get a look at the dead cultists though, particularly the one that had been gutted, the orange feline gets a rather awkward look on his face and does his best to step around them. Zuri hugging Rokarion gets another slight giggle out of the cat, but his attention quickly goes over to Cara, who he gives a nod to and begins to follow once more. "Sure. We might as well check it, that shouldn't take very long."

Angus flicks his ears. "So guys not talking?" He asks, keeping his attention on the other path as Rokarion points it out. "Do you guys have any light?" He asks Rokarion, making sure to keep the torch up high so as to make sure everything is visible. As Cara starts heading that way he shakes his head. "Better be ready, won't be able to easily see without a light."

Suddenly, a blast of frigid air shrieks up from the lower path, scented with death and rot. Accompanying the clying cent of decay comes a faint sound of chanting.

The dim confines of the little room, lit only by the glowing marks on Cara's skin, are hard to make out. But there is a small table and several shelves lined with wicked looking tools and jars. Some kind of torture chamber, no doubt.

Zuri steps up alongside Rokarion, his tail waggling softly and dragging on the ground behind him as he looks around. "Hm.." He stops as the blast of cold air hits him, shivering lightly and hugging himself briefly. "Pfuh.. " He wiggles his nose, making a funny face. "Erk.. this place is not good.." He reaches for his weapons, drawing them again and keeping them at the ready as he stalks forward, trying to keep low as he breaches into the room and starts poking about, heading towards one of the nearby tables and getting on his tip-toes to inspect what's on it.

Rokarion shakes his head, "Nah, we are trying to sneak up on them, no need for a light source to do that." The plant being's head swivels back towards the source of the noise, "Looks like they are busy chanting, should make it easier to surprise them. Also we should probably get a move on, with any luck we will be there just in time to witness the ritual's completion and then kill whatever monstrosity they spawned, just like a good book." the youth snarks before increasing his pace.

Kazel makes a bit of a face as the gush of stench hits her nose. "Ah, the smell of necromancy in the evening. So refreshing it even wakes the dead." She chuckles at her own lame joke, before adding, "I agree, lets pick up the pace." She does as she says and in addition to it raises her shield in battle position.

Cara sighs as she walks over to the table. She shrugs her shoulders and breathes a sighs of relief, "Well, we better go back down the other path, Lidara. This is just a dead end and we better go back and help the others." From there, she walks back down the path before she turns around, "Sorry for bringing you on the wrong path. I was honestly sure that we could find something here."

Lidara gives a quick examination of the room, squinting slightly to help him see better in the dim light, but... well, there really wasn't very much in the room to see. He gives another quick nod to Cara, and it seems like he's about to respond before before he feels the breeze from the left tunnel hit him, the cat shuddering and making another one of those awkward expressions when it does. "Right... yeah... we should probably head back.... That wind isn't a good sign. Oh, and uh... don't worry about it. It's good that we checked, at least." With that, he starts to walk back towards the others, his pace a bit quicker than before. "Although... I am kind of curious about how they got all of this stuff down here without anyone noticing."

Angus just blinks as the cold stench hits him, knowing that smell all to well as he draws the blade at his side with torch held high. "There is no point in sneaking anymore, if they are summoning something best to strike at them now before they do manage to summon it." With his ears flicking, his gaze narrows, his stance widening a bit as he starts walking towards the chanting with his weapon at the ready.

After a short descent, the passage takes a sharp turn. There is one more short tunnel and flickering fire light fills the passage that opens up into a long, low room. Carefully wrapped corpses lie in stone shelves along the walls, three alcoves high, with thick, squat pillars to support the roof just tall enough for a heavy clanner to stand erect. Maybe eight feet. In the middle of the room the floor is covered in patterned, stone tiles with a great, round, iron lid set in the center. Currently that lid has been lifted away and the scent of age and decay rises from the hole.

If only things were as simple as replacing the lid. Around the hole are arranged five beings in dark robes, unidentifiable under their hoods as they chant together. Arrayed in battle formation around them is a contingent of skeletal warriors in light armor, all facing the tunnel. They advance menacingly when the party arrives, shining, new weapons raised in their rotted fists.

Zuri steps down the creepy passage alongside his companions, looking a bit uneasy as the scent that seems to be wafting from dead ahead starts to really get to him. He steps into the room on silent feet, but as the wall of skeleton warriors start to advance in their direction there's no point in keeping up the stealthy action. He clutches both weapons in hand before charging forward towards the skeleton on the far left side of the 'wall' they are forming, taking a swing with his broad blade at the creature's knee.

Rokarion prepares his rapier and sword-breaker as the group arrives towards the chamber, "It appears that the villains are trying to raise an army." he quickly remarks. "Hark, cultists. Cease your chanting or feel the bite of my blade." The plant being declares in a loud voice, trying to disturb their concentration, before he rushes forward, intent on dodging the undead warriors and striking their masters first.

Kazel raises her shield in front of herself and brings it close to her body, angling herself to support it with both her arm and shoulder as she first takes a few steps back and then sprints at the group of undead at full speed, intend on crashing into them and driving the group apart and maybe breaking some bones.

The feline finally notices the smell and she immediately brings out Kendrac's half spear. She quickly speaks to Lidara, "We need to head to the left pathway." She rushes back to the pathway, turns and she begins to run down the left corrider.

Lidara nods to Cara once more at that, his walk turning to more of a sprint as he chases after her. As they get further and further down the corridor though, that awkward expression on his face starts to grow more intense. In fact... one could say that he's almost starting to look a little bit queasy, really. Thankfully though, he seems to be able to, for the most part, shake it off once they finally reach everyone else and he spots the skeletons, his hands quickly going down to grab his pistol and the dagger once more.

Angus sighs as more of the undead are revealed, coming at them with fresh weapons. "Don't bother with the heroism speeches, anyone with air magic hit the skeletons with a wave. Will force them to reform which will buy us some time." He snaps out as sheaths his rapier and starts focusing on throwing as much wind as possible at them.

The fight is met quickly! Zuri's decisive charge gets him in under the guard of his chosen corpse and wedges his dagger into the joint of the abomination's knee! The skeletal warrior may be hobbled, but that does not keep it from lashing out at the little salamander with its sword, slicing a groove in his protective armor, but not quite penetrating.

Rokarion is not so lucky in his charge and is intercepted brutally by two skeletons that interpose themselves between the Jasmine and the chanting cultists. The first scores a pommel strike on the young flower's skull, though his fast reflexes spare him a second blow, sparks flying from the stones as the second skeleton's sword clangs down. Rokarion's reflexes send his rapier lancing between the skeleton's ribs, though it seems to have little effect.

Kazel's charge does not fare much better than Rokarion's. The shieldbat's target swings in a wide circle, sidestepping her charge and swinging back in at her unprotected flank. It's blade does not penetrate her armor, but it leaves a sizeable dent in the plates on her shoulder, trapping her arm down in its current position. It will no doubt leave a mark for later.

Angus's magic, while well meant and well planned is somewhat lacking in execution. It manages to blow the robes of the cultists about and clear the air of the smell of grave dirt, but has little other effect.

Zuri acks as the skeleton takes a swing at him, the salamander's quick reflexes and well-crafted armor combining to muffle the retaliatory strike just enough to leave the little guy unscathed. He steps back from the skeleton, pulling his sword out of the shambling terror's knee as he gains some distance. He looks at his companions, spotting Angus' scary looking musket. "Angus!" He calls out. "Take aim!" He keeps his broad blade in front of him in a protective stance while his off hand traces mathemagical symbols in the air, calling upon and coalescing the cold air around and into Angus' gun, imbuing it with the bitter bite of deep winter.

Rokarion controls the pain instead of recoiling from the blow to the skull, just enough to dodge the second blow and then attempt to stab the second skeleton...why did he do that? Must be the blow to the head's fault. Feeling his pride wounded, the plant being drops his plans with the cultists and instead focuses on his two new friends, legs never stopping as he draws a circle in the air with his dagger to give the two skeletons an explosive response. He also begins singing loudly for the benefit of his cultist friends, "There was a knight from Cliffside, on a white steed he rode...."

Kazel groans as her shoulder is hit and the left arm of her armor starts to take a lot of strength, even in her current status to move. This is nothing that would stop the seasoned veteran though as goes through some mathemagical calculations in her head, smirking at the two skeletons around her as the ground between her and them decides to favor her side in this battle and first push them away and then become clingy and sticky, imparring them.

The feline dashes into the room and upon seeing the sight of the many skeletons, she should be smiling. Unfortunately, everyone else has already started and they appear to be in trouble. With everyone in front of the way, she glances towards the four extra skeletons and she rushes towards two of the skeletons with the intent to stab them both with the half spear.

Lidara finally enters the fray himself, though rather than actually attack any of the undead, it seems like he's simply planning on making a charge of his own. Hoping that the others, especially Rokarion and Kazel, have managed to distract the skeletons enough, the cat ducks not around, but in between the crowd of skeletons, particularly through the groups that have already engaged with his comrades, dipping and weaving through the battle as best he can. Hopefully his somewhat smaller than average size comes in handy here.

Angus curses as his magic doesn't work, an ear lifting as he hears Zuri's call out. Dropping the torch he unslings his musket, drawing back the hammer as he watches a chill coming over his musket. He takes a moment to check targets, before switching his aim at the nearest cultist! Dropping the hammer back fully with a click before looking down the sights, squeezing the trigger.

If the skeleton facing off with Zuri could roar in frustration, it no doubt would. Instead, it reels backward, limping on it's injured (If that is the right word here) leg before lurching forward with its sword. A second skeleton joins in the attack as well, coming at the little salamander from the other side. Zuri manages to roll swiftly through the legs of the first skeletal warrior, but the sword of the second finds him, slashing deep through his armor.

Rokarion's magic, while not particularly powerful, DOES cause one of his foes to stagger back a step, giving him a bit of breathing room. Enough to see his other dance partner raise his sword and lunge!

Kazel's magical play for time works as her two foes stagger in the sticky mud. But the respite will not last for long.

Cara's charge sends her straight into the arms of a skeletal warrior and he offers no resistance as her short spear plunges through his exposed ribs, though it seems to do little to the skeleton. The undead abomination raises its sword high, but by the grace of her reflexes and a bit of luck, Cara manages to dodge the blow, along with the stab of a second skeleton that comes up on her flank!

Lidara's speed is admirable, but not quite up to the task of weaving through the battle. The cat manages to avoid Rokarion and his elemental explosion, but not the staggering skeleton that actually trips over him and sends them both clattering to the ground!

Meanwhile, the chanting cultists carry on in their work, uninterrupted. Right up until the nearest of the five cries out in pain! There is a gout of blood where Angus's ball struck, though that is quickly swallowed up in a spray of icy magic and the cultist tumbles forward into the deep pit in front of him. Three hooded figures continue to chant, unimpeded, but the fourth stops chanting and scrambles away to the far side of the room. I guess we know who the real diehards are.

Zuri tumbles aside after narrowly avoiding two more blows! He dances around to the side of the skeleton he had struck before, keeping on the move to avoid being an easy target. He waits until he spots the perfect opportunity, and then.. he strikes! Fast like lightning, he leaps into the air and brings his blade in a swooping arc aimed at the skeleton's neck, intent on severing it in a single swipe.

"...and he rode towards the mountain, to seek that mythical fountain.", Rokarion raises a brow as he continues singing loudly when the small cat arrives just in time to lie down with the skeleton. Trusting he will handle himself, Rokarion instead raises his sword-breaker towards the other skeleton, intent on parrying him before giving the skeleton a strong kick to send him sprawling on the floor with his friend.

Kazel nods to herself as the undead are occupied for the moment and eyes the damage in her armor again, before rolling her left shoulder, which was left undamaged so far. The grip on her sword tightens as she makes for the cultists that her charge get her close to and takes a wide swing with her broadsword, going right for the neck of the being.

Cara places the half spear back on her back. Then, the gauntlets on her hands both glow a vivid white and she smiles for a moment, "Just get out of the way." Then, she rushes toward the skeleton with her fists raised, and she leaps into the air as she proceeds to use a spin kick with the sole purpose of finishing off both of the skeletons with her armored feet.

Lidara may have fallen, but he wasn't about to stop his charge there! Not while the aggro was still mostly off of him! There is a gasp from him as he goes tumbling to the ground, but, as fast as ever, the cat throws off the skeleton and scrambles up to his feet again, resuming his dash forward to finally break through the other side of the skeletal crowd, even if the dash was probably a bit more clumsily done than before. Then, assuming that he's able to get up without trouble, he straightens up his stance a bit and lunges forward even further, in an attempt to send his dagger plunging into the side of the nearest cultist.

Angus doesn't focus on the downed target, instead leting his musket drop to let the straps pick up the slack as he pulls out his pistol and takes aim at the next target that didn't run. Firing once more he shouts. "Lay down your weapons and come quietly, no more deaths are needed!"

That is one less skull roaming about. Zuri's well placed slash finds its way between vertibrae and sends the head of one of the combatant skeletons tumbling away. Whether the enchantment lies in the heads of the undead or it was just the last straw, they skeletal soldier crubles to loose bones.

Rokarion's song, while incredibly irritating, does not seem to be having the desired effect. His sword breaker is rather more effective as he manages to fend off the attacks of the remaining standing skeleton beside him. He does not manage to get in any hits himself, but neither does his opponent.

Kazel's vicious strike hits home, but instead of cleaving through flesh and bone like it ough to, it sends the hooded being tumbling as if struck by a blunt club. The cultist ends up sprawled out on the floor a short distance from the pit, his robes askew and his hood thrown back to reveal a grinning skull, its species hard to discern.

Cara's charge is met enthusiastically by her opponents. One of them manges to duck below the kick, speedy for shambling soldiers, but the other is not so lucky, taking the full force of the tigress's kick in its rotting ribcage! It staggers as its bony parts start to crumble, but cannot hold on, finally tumbling to the ground.

Lidara and Angus both manage to target the same cultist, the cat's knife slipping effortlessly between ribs and the fox's pistol shot finding its mark. Unfortunately, it seems to have no effect aside from making the hooded figure sway a little. Lidara, looking up into the hood can see the empty eye sockets of another skeleton looking down at him, though the sounds of chanting still come from within somehow.

The remaining skeletal warriors hurry across the field, abandoning previous targets. Four are scrambling toward Kazel where she stands near the fallen cultist who is climbing back to his feet, the two fighting Rokarion turn their backs on him to pursue Lidara, and while one remains to fight Cara, two more lurch toward Angus!

Zuri steps back after defeating one of the skeletons that was engaging him, while another breaks off to find a different target. He looks left and right, at the skeletons charging at his friends, while the others break off to attack Kazel. Fearing that Kazel may be left stranded and outnumbered he decides to help her. He sheathes his dagger and plants both feet on the ground. With careful motions he starts to trace mathemagical symbols in the air, once again gathering up the ambient moisture and concentrating the frigid air. He unleashes the spell, causing pellets of ice to rapidly form around the charging skeletons and begin swirling rapidly, impacting them at various angles. Very quickly a vortex of hailstones forms around them, guided by the small salamander to the best of his ability.

Rokarion stops his singing once one of the cultists is revealed to be a skeleton, "So much for that." The plant being wastes no time, quickly dashing towards the skeletons that are leaving him, aiming a pommel strike at the skeleton's head.

Kazel is, of course, a gentlebeing and helps the fallen, skeletal cultist up. By grabbing his bony neck and holding the light creatures in the air with her sword arm, after sheathing the weapon. "Doubt I can kill you like this, can I?" She shrugs. "Oh well." A second later the cultist gets the ride of his lifetime. Thrown down a dark hole of death.

Cara glares at the last skeleton who is apparently still in her way. The feline swerves around the skeleton and she pulls her left hand back while the gauntlet glows a vivid white, "Hold still!" Then, she swings her fist forward with the intent of punching the skeleton away.

Lidara smirks slightly when his dagger lands, but that rather quickly fades when he realizes exactly how little the blow did. And when he looks up to be greeted by the skeletal face... the cat's eyes even widen a little bit. The fact that he's standing close to something that reeks heavily of death probably isn't really helping very much either. Eventually though, he does pull out his dagger and instead step to the side slightly, at an angle that would leave the cultist between himself and the pit... and then, he plants his feet firmly in the ground, his shoulder against the cultist, and gives the best shove that he can.

Angus reacts to the lurching targets by drawing his blade, striking out with it at the things skull to try and remove it. "I hate the undead." He snaps, muttering to himself as he sneers just a bit with the lung, wanting this to be done fast!

The deperate push from the party has more than satisfactory results. Zuri's localized ice storm manages to keep the skeletal soldiers at bay, shattering two previously damaged ones and Rokarion shatters the skull of one of his own attackers. It is not enough to keep them all away from their targets, however.

Even as Kazel sends a coweled skeleton howling into the bone pit, a skeletal soldier rears up behind her, sword raised high! The abomination crashes down on her wounded shoulder, its shining sword biting deep through armor and into flesh.

Lidara finds himself in a similar situation. He has only a moment to savor his triumph as the chanting skeletal being cries out in shock, tumbling into the pit. Then a skeletal hand wraps around his ankle and pain like fire slices across the back of his leg as the skeleton actually BITES into his calf!

Cara and Angus manage to pull a one-two knock out in the far corner of the room, each managing to shatter the skull of one of the skeletons, leaving only two of them to trouble the group. And one more chanting cultist, who despite being very, very alone continues to mutter and wave his arms.

Zuri maintains the icy maelstrom for as long as he can, but eventually the little salamander has to cease it, huffing tiredly. Magic is always so tiring.. he draws his sword again and sizes up the room once more, free to pick his targets with every single skeleton focused on someone else right now. He grimaces as he sees Lidara's leg being bitten by one of the shambling minions, and quickly charges towards it to help the embattled feline. He brings his broad blade down on the skeleton's arm, trying to bash it in the joint to force it to release the leg it's holding.

Rokarion pulls away his rapier, taking a step forward and moving closer towards Lidara, only to spot Zuri rushing there. Seeing as how the group was handling the situation, the flowerling instead moved towards the whimpering cultist, pointing his rapier downwards and gesturing for the cultist to stand up, "You better start tweeting, songbird."

Kazel's eye twitches as she is actually hit. She can't even recall the last time that happened. She turns towards the foe and it is good that she is wearing her helmet, because the look on her face would even scare the dead. She draws her sword again and brings it down on the skeletal fighter. And again. And again. Striking at the spine, neck and head of the fiend.

Cara glances towards the remaining chanter and she rushes toward the chanter in a burst of speed. The runes on her body glow vividly and upon reaching the remaining chanter, she slows to a stop. Then, her gauntlets shine white once more as her stance squares up. She takes a deep breath before promptly launching a series of punches faster than anyone could possibly see. Her fists continue to move in a blur as her desire to pummel the chanter makes itself known.

Lidara smirks again when the robed figure goes tumbling down, this one seeming a bit more confident than the last... but it wouldn't really last much longer, unfortuneately, quickly being replaced by a grimace of pain as he feels, well, pain shoot up through his leg. The cat lets out a cry and wobbles a bit before eventually tumbling, though thankfully he manages to keep enough control of himself to fall onto his side rather than into the pit in front of him. There's a quick glance back, and as much of a thankful smile as he can manage up to Zuri, before he begins to kick at the skeleton's skull with his free leg.

Angus steps back, working to reload his pistol. "Cara, stall them for a moment so I can help Kazel!" He shouts as he jams the ramrod into the barrel as he works to reload the thing. Looking up from his work he scowls once more, ears flicking a bit in irritation as it takes way to long.

Whatever these cultists or whatever they are were trying to do, it looks like it has been stopped! And thank goodness! Who knows what a bunch of necromancers could have done in a place like this?

Kazel's rage does the job for her hanger on, shattering its skull and shoulders until all that remains is its skeletal arm dangling from the sword caught in the armor on her shoulder. It says something about the bat that she is more concerned about smashing the things bones than binding up her bleeding arm. Between Lidara and Zuri, it seems that the last skeletal warrior is dealt with, Zuri breaking its hold and Lidara's frantic kicking sending it sliding over the edge of the pit.

Angus's call to Cara seems unnecessary as her fury seems to be enough to finish her opponent. The last cultist tumbles backward and lies still on the floor, wrapped in his dark robe.

"D-d-d-don't hurt me!" the shivering cultist in the corner says, slowly rising with his hands in the air, "N-n-no one was even supposed to be here!"

Zuri gives Lidara a big smile and a thumbs up, before once again scanning the room. As it seems the situation is under control he sheathes both weapons and makes his way to Rokarion's side. The small salamander first checks over the jasmine to make sure he's unhurt, then turns to listen to the cultist's pleading.

Rokarion sheaths his two blades and nods his head, "And I am assuming you were dabbling in necromancy for completely innocent reasons then?" The plant being removes the hood off the cultist, "Now do carry on, who organized this, what was your plan, and was the graveyard keeper involved?"

Kazel grunts and sheaths her sword, seeing as everything is dead or a coward. She squints and her left hand grabs the sword that is somehow still stuck in her shoulder and pulls it out, causing blood to squirt out of her wound and, moments later, flames to burst out of her armor. As the flames vanish, the wound on her shoulder is gone and she turns to face the cultist, walking up to him.

Cara stares at the now collapsed figure for a moment. She looks at the skeletal figure for a moment and then proceeds to walk towards the still whimpering cultist. Cara takes a look at the cultist for a moment and silently waits for an answer.

Lidara returns Zuri's smile once the skeleton is dealt with, even giving a quick, "Thank you! A lot," to go along with it. Rather than get up to go and help interrogate the cultist though, the cat rolls to a sitting position and pulls up the bottom of his robe slightly, revealing a pair of brown trousers beneath... which he then grabs onto and, using his dagger, cuts a piece off of the bottom of the garment, large enough for him to bind his leg with. It obviously wasn't much, but it would do to at least stop the bleeding until he gets something better.

Angus cocks the hammer on his pistol just in time to see the last skeleton fault. Taking a deep breath he holsters the pistol, rubbing at his ribs a bit as he finally remembers the pain at his ribs. "Everyone okay?" He asks as he tries his best to catch his breath.

The cultist turns out to be a rather chubby little groundhog. "Th-they said that it wou-would please th-the Lady," he stammers, "Th-that the d-d-dishonored d-d-dead would f-f-finally have their say." His trembling chin firms up and he stares around defiantly. "Th-then the Lady would accept m-me!" he says, frowning around furiously, "She would let me sp-speak for the dead!"

Rokarion shakes his head, "Let me guess, you and your friends are from the shanties?" The plant being idly places a hand on Zuri's head as he continues, "Now tell us, who are they? And did the mole upstairs know about any of this?"

Kazel just kind of looms over the already scared cultist and breaths heavily, not speaking. The fully armored being does certainly add to the atmosphere of the questioning, if nothing else at this point.

She looks at the cultist for a moment and sighs, and her gauntlets lose their white glow. Her tail flicks for a moment and she speaks, "Listen, if you wanted to do that, than why would you need to bring the dead back as the aggressive warriors who tried to shoot us from the trees? There would be no need for that. Plus, if you wanted the dead to be honoured again, than why not just restore the graveyard instead or spread a new holiday that honours the dead?"

Lidara finally climbs to his feet against now and begins to make his way over to where the rest of the party was gathered, even if he'd be walking just a little weirdly now, with most of the weight being put on the leg that hadn't been bitten. He does quickly glance over to Angus though, even giving him a small grin as he does so. "I'm alright, at least. That abomination really bit into me," he glances down to his leg again, "But I'll be fine." After that though, he simply goes quiet, allowing the others to interrogate the cultist and listening along.

The chubby groundhog sneers at Rokarion. "The old man?" he spits, "No. He doesn't care about the dead! He's just as happy to sit in his cottage and let this place fall to ruin!" He swallows hard and shakes his head again. "I'm no d-d-desperate shanty towner!" he stammers, "A-a-and I w-w-won't tell you any more. I h-have my p-p-pride!"

Zuri listens to the groundhog's words, seeming somewhat uncertain as he listens. "You know.. it is kind of a miserable state that this graveyard is in. The First Text itself has very clear guidelines on how these sacred grounds should be maintained." He pauses, then scratches his head. "But unburying the dead and animating them.. isn't really any better. Truth be told, you're both being negligent, in different ways." He nods at Cara's words. "Yea, exactly."

Rokarion raises a brow at the groundhog, "If you are this annoyed about the dead not being respected, why didn't you and your friends offer to help the graveyard keeper, instead of blaming an old being for not being able to maintain an entire graveyard by himself." Rokarion shrugs, "Regardless, you will be coming with thus and the authorities will continue this discussion. You might discover then, that we are a lot nicer when it comes to interrogations."

Cara sighs as she places her hand onto her forehead, "I think it might be best if I help with the interrogations as well. Something tells me that I might be useful for this."

With the battle over and adrenaline fading, Lidara would definitely be looking quite a bit more tired than before, and even with a bit more of his weight going to the uninjured leg. Plus he was getting that same queasy look from before on his face again right about now, since there's nothing to distract him from the horrible stench in the room. He doesn't much to the conversation until the end, simply nodding along with everyone else up until that point. "So... we should leave as soon as possible then, right? To get him to the guards?"

Angus puts a hand on Cara's shoulder. "I think it may be best if you stay here, to many people will just make it worse." He comments on the course of things, leaning a bit to much on Cara as he continues to hold his ribs, winching just a little bit.

Whatever else the groundhog may be, he is not a complete coward. He glares around at his captirs in sullen silence.

Zuri nods at Rokarion. "I think we should just hand him over to the guards. Our work here is done, anyway." He gives the groundhog a sad glance, then turns away to walk towards the exit, feeling like he should get some fresh air.

Rokarion nods his head at Zuri, "You heard the salamander, get moving." Rokarion says as he turns around and begins to leave as well.

Kazel roughly pulls the cultist up and gives him a nudge forward. "Get going." She then walks over to the hole in the middle of the room and pushes the lid back in its place, before leaving as well.

Cara wraps her left arm around Angus's back and she waits for the groundhog to move with the rest of them. She makes sure to help hold Angus up as well.

Lidara gets a smile on his face as the group starts to leave, and the cat is sure to follow close behind them, moving at a slightly faster than walking pace even with his leg being a bit hurt, which would result in a kind of funny looking gait, really.

Angus shakes his head, patting Cara. "I'm fine, I'm fine." He answers her unspoken comment, standing back up to pull Manacles out of a pouch at his hip. "I'll take them with me I guess." He mutters, waiting for them to put their hands out before slapping them on.

The cover clangs back into place and the manacles clang around the chubby groundhog's wrists as he trudges along in the midst of the group without looking anywhere but at his feet. Honestly, he looks rather relieved.

Above ground, the old mole caretaker is waiting with Cassidy. "Barty?" he asks incredulously, holding up his lantern, "What happened here?"

Zuri keeps close to Rokarion, staying silent as he watches the reunion that's about to take place. He looks up at the others, gauging their reaction to this revelation.. especially Cara.

"Your apprentice decided that religion included bothering the dead." Roka remarks as he exits the graveyard, ruffling the salamander's head, "You should file a report to the Crown and tell them that old one cultists were operating within the graveyard. That might get them to repair the place."

Cara looks at Barty straight in the eyes with solemn expression on her face before turning to face the old mole caretaker, "That was actually part of the reason that he did this in the first place. Just do everything you can to get this place repaired and if you want me to help out, then I'd be honoured to aid you in the repairs."

Once the group does finally enter the graveyard again, Lidara ducks off the side, and... well... the sounds of some gagging and a bit of wretching should make it rather obvious exactly what he's doing. After that though, he quickly rejoins the group and finds something to rest against for a bit, leaving the talking to them while he focuses more on keeping his last meal down.

Angus gives the Mole a nod in greeting, not bothering to give the answer as he continues to drag the kid away in irons. Grumbling to himself he made a mental note to make sure he visited someone to make sure that he didn't just break a few ribs.

"Well," the mole says, blinking in obvious confusion, "I suppose you got that all cleared up then?" The caretaker turns and leads the way out of the graveyard. "Got pie all ready for you!" he says. He is in for a surprise when he goes down into the catscombs again.

Zuri blinks, then smiles very wide! "Pie! Yay!" The small spotted salamander had forgotten his reward! He breaks off from the group and heads up the path back out of the cemetery grounds. "I wonder what kind of pie it is.. I hope it's apple. Or raspberry..."

Cara blinks for a moment and then opens her mouth. "Did he..?" In her confusion from the apparent oblivious nature of the caretaker, she turns directly toward Barty and shakes her head in disappointment, "Is he always this oblivious to what's going on?"

Lidara can't help but get another smile on his face when he sees Zuri's excitement, he even calls out after the salamander, "You can have my pie if you want it!" With that though, he gets up again and starts making his way out of the graveyard and back in the direction of the city gates. He does, however, add on, "I shoud probably get some rest...," after a moment. In a much quieter tone though, of course.

Angus shakes his head, declining pie as he continues to tug the kid towards the exit. "Nah, I appreciate the offer but I will have to decline. You have yourself a good day sir." He answers, trying his best to smile before heading out.

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 =Log=
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+<div></div><br> <br>It is a hot, muggy evening and the air is full of the drone of summer insects as the sun dips over the horizon. The Potter&#39;s Field lies a short distance outside the walls of the city and is, unsurprisingly, in ill repair. Looking at the place, it is hard to believe that anyone could notice intruders here. The walls are overgrown with climbing vines and crumbling in some places. There is a large, rusting gate of worked iron, but it hangs crookedly upon its hinges. Outside the walls of the graveyard itself lies the caretaker&#39;s cottage, which is considerably better kept. A stooped old mole stands outside the cottage with a lantern hanging from a long walking stick, apparently expecting visitors.<br> <br>Kazel is clad in her shiny silver armor that covers every inch of her body and peers at what lies before her through the slits in her ventail. She checks the straps of her shield as she makes her way towards the little cottage, nodding to herself, seeming to be satisfied. She addresses the mole as she gets to him. &quot;You the one who called for aide?&quot; She looks around herself to see if others are approaching as she waits for an answer.<br> <br>Zuri steps up alongside the rest of the approaching beings. The small spotted salamander skips along happily, eager to get back into the &#39;action&#39; of Freesword contracts after months spent doing much more glamorous but far less exciting work. He peers over at the walled graveyard, stretching his neck up as if it would somehow help him see over the walls from this distance. &quot;Huh.. &quot; He hurries on after his brief pause, rejoining the group and greeting the caretaker with a big bright smile and a wave.<br> <br>Rokarion walked behind the excited salamander, idly humming to himself. A cool breeze can be felt around him, tickling his aromatic petals for hair. &quot;Greetings, gentlebeing. I hear that your graveyard is supposedly haunted. Let us hope it is just a couple of unruly children.&quot; he says with a cocky smile. <br> <br>Angus slings his musket over his shoulder, making sure the repaired leather strap isn&#39;t going to snap anytime soon. Walking up to the cottage he squints a little from the lantern, ears folding a bit from the irritation. &quot;Heard you were having a bit of a problem?&quot; He asks as he looks around at the others who have joined. &quot;Evening Zuri, Rokarion. Long time no see.&quot;<br> <br>Not too long after Lord Solacious himself arrives, so would a short, orange feline known as Lidara, clad in his usual purple robes, but actually without his backpack for once.  Instead, he has a pistol on his side opposite the dagger, along with a shortbow and quarterstuff slung across his back in place of the pack.  As they approach the cottage, the cat does pause for a moment to eye the graveyard a bit warily, though his attention would quickly return to the cottage and the being in front of it.  By the time he reaches it though, most of the questions he could have asked have already been asked.<br> <br>As the summer insects are buzzing through the air, Cara rushes past the outskirts of the city on her way to the graveyard. As soon as the light of the lantern becomes evident, she rushes torwards the light. Upon making it to the site of the cottage, she slows down to a stop and walks over to the old mole. She smiles to all of the gathered beings who happen to be around the cottage and speaks nonchalantly &quot;Does anyone know exactly where the noises were heard?&quot;<br> <br>&quot;Let&#39;s hope, yes,&quot; Cassidy says, nodding at Rokarion&#39;s words, testing the string on her bow as she stands next to Angus before slinging it around her back once more. &quot;But whatever the reality of the situation is, it&#39;s nothing we won&#39;t uncover and settle, with any luck.&quot;<br> <br>The mole blinks in surprise at the motley crew who have arrived on his doorstep. &quot;Well, shoot,&quot; he says, &quot;I wasn&#39;t expecting the whole guild to show up.&quot; He nods at Rokarion. &quot;I expect that&#39;s all it is,&quot; he says, &quot;Just some kids messin&#39; around in the old &#39;haunted graveyard.&#39; I&#39;m just too old to go chasin&#39; them off and my no good apprentice has run off. Said he got religion or something.&quot; The old mole waves his lantern toward the rusty gates of the graveyard. &quot;Doubt it graverobbers,&quot; he says, &quot;The poor souls in there got nothin&#39; worth taking. I don&#39;t got much to pay you with myself, but if you can get those hooligans to clear off, I&#39;ll see to it that all of you get a hot pie from the Missus.&quot;<br> <br>Kazel raises an eyebrow under her helmet. A hot pie is a lot less than she usually charges for her services, but she is already out here. She gives a sharp nod to the mole and marshes towards the gates of the graveyards, giving them a push as she gets to them and eying the area behind them-<br> <br>Zuri smiles wide on seeing Angus. &quot;Hiya! Long time, yea! Glad to see you out and about. I-&quot; He was about to ask Angus a bunch of questions when his tirade is interrupted by important talk. He nods at the caretaker. &quot;Yea! Probably! But best be safe than sorry. Even if it is kids, a graveyard is no place to be playing in.. dangerous and all.&quot; He nods as the rest of his sentence, showing not much additional emotion until the hot pie is mentioned. He blinks. &quot;Pie? Oh.. oh wow!&quot; He turns to the rest of the group. &quot;Okay gang! We have to find whoever&#39;s messing about in the graveyard. It&#39;s imperative that we set up a full cordon around this place and stop then!&quot;<br> <br>Rokarion nod his head at Angus, &quot;And a good evening to you, Angus.&quot; the youth answers before looking back at the mole, &quot;You might want to get yourself another apprentice then.&quot; The plant being looks towards the graveyard, &quot;Very well, scaring children for pie. An acceptable diversion.&quot; Roka shakes his head and pats Zuri&#39;s head as he walks towards the graveyard, &quot;Relax, dear. You will get your pie by the end of the day, no need to fret.&quot; <br> <br>Angus perks his ears up, looking around at everyone that had showed up, taking note of who was joining and what new faces he might be encountering. As Zuri and Rokarion starts talking to him he smiles, giving them a nod as it was indeed good to be out and about again! &quot;Well a pie is always nice. Warms you up more then coin&quot; He murmurs, watching Kazel walk up to the gate he waits to see what they find while letting everyone else talk and ask their questions.<br> <br>Lidara throws a quick glance of his own around the group, and... wow, there really was a lot of Freeswords here today.  His attention, however, thankfully is drawn back to the conversation before he could miss too much important stuff.  &quot;Hopefully it is just some kids,&quot; is all he really has to add for the most part.  When pie is mentioned though, he does get a slight grin on his face and even lets out a giggle at Zuri&#39;s reaction.  With that though, the orange feline simply turns to follow after the rest of the group to the graveyard, his attention flicking over to the grey fox as the move, and... a slightly curious look forming in his eyes.  Seems he&#39;s thinking about something.<br> <br>Cara smiles slightly for a second from the idea of a pie, but her expression remains focused as she keeps her right gauntlet covered hand on the hilt of her sword. From there, she looks to everyone else and speaks, &quot;This might be paranoia on my part, but we should move as a group. That way, we can handle whatever might come at us quickly and easily.&quot; She glances towards Angus, Rokarion, Zuri, and Cassidy before continuing, &quot;It&#39;s nice to see that I get to work with you guys again.&quot; She nods towards the graveyard gates and she begins to slowly walks to the front of the group before glancing towards Lidara, &quot;Thanks again for helping.&quot; Then she turns around and she waits behind Kazel in case anything comes up.<br> <br>Cassidy watches Angus for a moment before tilting her head as she sets off with the others. &quot;It&#39;s been a long time since we have worked together. I hope being a father hasn&#39;t made you too rusty with that rifle there,&quot; she teases light heartedly, giving her cousing a playful prod on the shoulder accompanied with a grin.<br> <br>The graveyard gates squeals like a thousand damned pig souls as Kazel shoves it open, revealing the shabby cemetery beyond. It looks like someone has done their best to maintain the grounds, but they are fighting a losing battle. There are all sorts of scattered, stone markers, though there is little order to their positioning and very few seem to bear any kind of engraving. Everything is overgrown. There are a few meandering footpaths that are probably meant to wind through the graves in a thoughtful way, but in the dark, hot night they just look shabby.
+The mole waddles gamely along with the group to the gate. &quot;I&#39;m trying, son,&quot; he says to Rokarion, &quot;But you can imagine how hard it is to find an apprentice caretaker for a regular graveyard. One for beggars and criminals is a heluva lot harder. Lot more traffic here, for one. I mean the dead, o&#39; course. The living don&#39;t come here real often and it&#39;s hard to find a young being willin&#39; to handle the dead like we have to. We do our best to see that everyone gets a spot. For as long as we can anyway. Gotta lot of turnover here too. Some folks only get a decent grave for a year or two. Eventually they all end up in the bone pits over yonder.&quot; He nods to a distant corner of the shabby graveyard. &quot;Real tragedy, this place,&quot; he sighs, &quot;Y&#39;all come back when you&#39;re done and we&#39;ll have a little reward for you.&quot;<br> <br>Kazel looks back at the others to make sure they are following along and steps forward through the gates. The heavily armored bat is somewhat careful to stay on the path as she heads forward, but her real focus lies on making out any shapes and movements in the darkness ahead of the group.<br> <br>Zuri nods quickly at Rokarion. &quot;I hope so! It would be a shame to be promised pie and then get no pie...&quot; He walks alongside the others, standing at ease as he expects no trouble from this place. It&#39;s just a cool graveyard! Full of criminals! He listens to the mole&#39;s description, nodding slowly. &quot;Wow.. so, they get unburied and reburied over there? That&#39;s... kinda sad.&quot; He stays behind Kazel, peering in through the gap between her and the opening left by the gate.<br> <br>Rokarion nods, &quot;Indeed, such a pity. You might need to ask ask the crown for help. I would have thought that they were obliged to fund a place like this.&quot; With a yawn, Rokarion saunters forward into the graveyard. The plant being&#39;s pace makes it seem that he is here to take a leisurely stroll rather than get rid of any troublemakers. Rokarion goes down the winding paths of the graveyard, eyes taking in the sights as well as any movements. &quot;The place could certainly use some flowers here and here.&quot; <br> <br>Angus frowns a little, that lantern was going to be a bit of an issue if they were looking for their targets. Quietly unslinging his rifle he does look to Cassidy for a moment. &quot;Heh, I&#39;m still as good of a shot as ever.&quot; He answers, sticking his tongue out at his cousin before he switches back to silence, his stance wide while his foot falls remain quiet, trying to linger just at the edge of the lanterns light.<br> <br>Lidara gives a quick nod to Cara at that.  &quot;Probably a good idea for us to stick together, yeah.  Strength in numbers and everything.  And thank you for helping too.&quot;  That said though, his attention goes back to the gate, the cat&#39;s ears folding down against his head for a moment whenever it&#39;s opened up.  His attention quickly returns to the mole though, the orange feline continuing to listen, though the only thing he actually adds is another nod at Zuri&#39;s later statement, along with a quiet, &quot;Yeah.&quot;  Once the rest of the group starts stepping into the gate, he throws one more glance over to Angus before simply shrugging to himself and beginning to follow behind everyone else, his steps light and cautious while his hands linger a bit closer to the weapons at his side.<br> <br>The feline slowly begins to walk into the graveyard and she unsheathes her sword. She begins to look around the dilapidated graveyard markers and sighs, &quot;Maybe better care should be given to these.&quot; As she continues to walk through, she walks forward and waits for everyone else to appear behind her. Suddenly, she gets a rather bright idea and walks back to the rest of the group. The green markings on her body light up and she attempts to figure out if any corrupt callers might be in the area. Her skill in sensing them might not exactly be the best, but it&#39;s better than nothing at this point.<br> <br>&quot;Good to hear. I wouldn&#39;t want word to get out you&#39;ve gone soft,&quot; Cassidy says with a wink, pulling her bow around into her grip again. &quot;Can you imagine how many people might try to take advantage of that rumour?&quot; She slips to the middle of the group so that she had people on all sides between her and whatever might approach.<br> <br>The mole and his lantern remain at the cemetery gate and the warm light is soon left behind for the damp darkness and the hum of summer insects. A discussion on graveyard practices and finances will have to wait for another time.
+It is quiet in the graveyard, aside from the sound of the night bugs, an occasional froggy croak from somewhere in the darkness, and the consistent clank, clank, clank of Kazel&#39;s armor. The place seems pretty much abandoned. Wobbly rows of mismatched graves stretch out in all directions with only the rudest of markers to show where the dead might be. Tall, drooping trees are randomly scattered around the grounds to provide shade in daylight hours and to provide a fairly consistent screen along the high, stacked stone walls of the place. It looks like there is a lot of ground to cover.<br> <br>Kazel lets out a quiet groan as she presses forward, she much prefers it when the enemy comes to her. If there even is one. She rolls her shoulder and draws her broadsword just in case there is one. Looking over her shoulder she takes a couple of seconds to make sure everyone is following, before her attention turns back on the road ahead.<br> <br>Zuri is quite relaxed, given the circumstances. Free ride to pie in this salamander&#39;s mind! He grins up at Rokarion, sensing an opportunity he can&#39;t give up on. &quot;Not everyone can have beautiful flowers everywhere they go.&quot; He giggles and hurries off, stepping towards the other side of the group to peer towards the other side of the graveyard rather nonchalantly, as if nothing ever happened. &quot;Huh.. The caretaker was right, there&#39;s really nothing worth stealing here.&quot; He pauses, then adds. &quot;I mean, totally from the point of view of a Freesowrd who&#39;s, uh.. done his sort of cleanup before. Not.. not that I want to.. steal anything.&quot; Not anymore, those are old days. He steps off from the group to go peek behind one of the rows of graves, as if expecting something interesting to be there.<br> <br>Rokarion giggles at Zuri&#39;s comment and shakes his head amusedly at his pilfering observation. With a yawn, Rokarion eyes one of the trees and nonchalantly walks towards it before he begins climbing upwards, looks like he is either intent on lolly gagging or using the tree as a watchtower of sorts. <br> <br>Angus keeps wary, the hammer on his musket down with his finger away from the trigger. He finally notices a glance from Lidara, blinking for a few moments as he turns his gaze to them with a curious look before focusing back on the task at hand. Staying at the tail end of the group he keeps his eyes on the shadows, looking and waiting for any movement as he keeps his musket at the ready. <br> <br>Lidara keeps his attention on the graveyard rather than the conversation for the most part, though Zuri does get another slight giggle out of the cat.  After all, he doesn&#39;t know many of the group he&#39;s with, and now wasn&#39;t exactly the time to get to know them.  This time though, it&#39;s him who misses the look from Angus, the cat focused more on keeping an eye on the area behind the party, his hands now on the hilt of his dagger and grip of his pistol, neither of which had been drawn quite yet though.<br> <br>Cara stays quiet for a moment and she speaks to the rest of the group only to notice that some of them already branched out. &quot;Oh yeah, the influence of Corrupt Court is possibly in these graveyards.&quot; From there, she keeps her sabre at the ready, and looks for any sign of movement from any possible members of the undead. She makes sure to listen to her surroundings as well.<br> <br>&quot;Hm. How bothersome. They should not be within the city,&quot; Cassidy says with a frown, drawing one of the arrows from her quiver, ears twitching as she looks around the graveyard. &quot;I suppose it was too much to hope for just being a group of children playing around.&quot;<br> <br>Neither Zuri&#39;s, nor Rokarion&#39;s methods of reconnaissance seem to yield much in the way of results, though the tree does command a rather better view of the place than traipsing aimlessly through the long grass.
+The muggy heat of the evening starts to cool as night sets in in earnest and a chill breeze starts to blow. The group has come to an overgrown, weedy pond where they are greeted by the croaking of frogs and an occasional splash from whatever fish populate the mucky little water feature. A pair of broken benches are nearly hidden by the weeds. Looks like this must be the center of the graveyard.<br> <br>Kazel frowns under the metal of her helmet. &quot;You don&#39;t suppose that they will come out if we yell nicely, do you?&quot; She chuckles at the thought as she continues to head forward, idly cutting at some of the high weeds that are in the way here and there with her sword.<br> <br>Zuri steps back towards the group after his brave exploration of the delapidated graves. &quot;Nothing this way!&quot; He walks over towards the broken benches, giving one of them a prod with his foot. &quot;Sheesh.. place really could use some fixing up. I guess not many feel the need to follow the text of the First Book to the letter when it&#39;s a criminal graveyard..&quot; He looks towards Cara. &quot;So.. you figure something evil is around here?&quot; He doesn&#39;t draw his weapon yet, but he keeps one hand at the hilt. &quot;Hm...&quot;<br> <br>Rokarion yawns as he finds a comfortable spot to relax on, making sure that he is covered with as much branches as possible. In his spot, the jasmine finally allows his vine to slither onto a branch and extend as far away from him as possible. With his vine hidden on another branch, the plant being begins focusing, causing the bud on the end of the vine to glow with white light. This way, Roka begins surveying the area again, hoping that if the enemy does have a form of ranged attack they will be trying to fire on the source of the light, away from his body proper. <br> <br>Angus lets out a pent up breath, sighing a little as he slings his rifle. &quot;If they really want to come out they&#39;ll come out on their own time I guess.&quot; He answers Kazel, as he keeps his eyes around. &quot;The question is, what is here? If it was evil, don&#39;t think there would just be some noises.&quot;<br> <br>At the mention of the Courrpt Court&#39;s influence being about, Lidara finally draws his weapons, the pistol in his left and dagger in his right, which upon further inspection would appear to be meant more for parrying, considering how large the handguard is.  Another giggle escapes the cat at Kazel&#39;s comment, but it isn&#39;t until they reach the lake the he actually speaks up again.  &quot;If there is something that bad here, then we should probably find it as soon as possible.&quot;  For the moment though, his pace doesn&#39;t change much, the orange feline simply continuing on at the same, cautious pace as before.  &quot;It would be nice to know exactly what from the Corrupt Court is here though, yeah.&quot;<br> <br>Cara glares directly at Kazel for a moment, and sighs before turning towards Zuri, &quot;Well, yes, I can actually tell when the influence of the Corrupt Court is nearby if I try and I found a trace of it but I&#39;m going to need someone to cover me so that I can work on that.&quot; From there, gets back to looking for any other signs of the undead.<br> <br>Cassidy keeps her own bow at the ready, a frown on her lips. &quot;I still don&#39;t trust it. And feel free,&quot; she says, shrugging at Cara. &quot;With everyone here, there&#39;s no better time than now to do what you need to do, I suppose.&quot;<br> <br>The cool breeze suddenly become chilly and the singing of insects and frogs goes ominously and instantly silent. Something has just changed, and not for the better.
+From his perch up in the treetops, Rokarion can feel the air of some kind of projectile whip past his head. Looks like the group has been spotted by whoever is out here! A flurry of arrows flies from the darkness, raining down on the group, though the well armored freeswords are uneffected by this first volley, arrows pinging and sliding off of armor. One notable exception being a single bolt that tears Angus&#39;s hat from his head and pins it to the ground!<br> <br>Kazel hits her shield with the flat side of her sword a couple of times, sending a threatening sound of metal hitting metal through the silence, before she gives the others a sharp nod and raises the shield in front of herself and starts charging into the direction the arrows came from like this, the symbol of a rose that seemed to be etched in her armor suddenly vanishing.<br> <br>Zuri draws both his weapons - the small dagger in his right hand, and the heavy broad blade in his left. He uses the latter to knock the arrow loose from his armor, having become embedded in his shoulder pad. &quot;Take cover!&quot; He steps up in Kazel&#39;s side, sticking to her shadow and trying to use the graves as cover.<br> <br>Rokarion licks his lips and smirks at the success of his ruse, letting his vine slowly drop out of the tree to imitate a falling victim, dimming his light on the way until the vine is no longer luminescent. Back in the darkness, Rokarion keeps still eyeing the last spot he saw movement in to see if the arrows are coming from there. <br> <br>Angus hits the ground as arrows start flying, the hat going unnoticed for the moment as he draws the pistol at his hip and moves to use one of the fallen logs as cover. While sitting there he finally realizes something is off, reaching up to find that his hat is gone before turning back to look at it. &quot;....Creator damned archers, have to love ambushes.&quot; He mutters to no one in particular, cocking the hammer back while keeping the barrel of his pistol pointed at the shadows.<br> <br>Lidara perks his ears up almost the moment that things go silent, his gaze flicking about the area around the group rapidly as he does so... but thankfully he is able to react quick enough to drop down a bit closer to the ground when the arrows come by, managing to keep his head on his shoulders... for now, at least.  He&#39;s quickly on the move again though, falling in behind Kazel.   The cat moves along in a slight crouch, doing his best to keep himself hidden behind the heavily armoured bat and with his weapons still at the ready, just in case they do run into someone.<br> <br>Cara yells out to everyone as the markings on her body light up, &quot;They are attacking from the North East and they are definitely involved with the Corrupt Court.&quot; As the arrows fall towards her body, they actually seem to bounce off of her robes. From there, she swiftly moves behind another tree in order to get out of view of any incoming arrows. &quot;Rush for the North East!&quot;<br> <br>Cassidy lowers her ears and ducks, making herself an even smaller target as the arrow come flying in. She sets her own arrow against her bow, poised to draw it back at a moment&#39;s notice as she tries to figure the trajectory of the arrows before moving off to take cover against anything coming from that direction.<br> <br>In fact, they are NOT attacking from the Northeast. The volley of arrows seems to have come mostly from the northwest and from above ground level. There must be archers in the trees! Another volley comes raining down out of the dark skies!<br> <br>Kazel stops her charge as an arrow hits her armor. That should have been blocked by her shield...unless. She frowns and eyes the trees, before yelling: &quot;Everyone hold onto something.&quot; The armored bat concentrates for a moment to violently shake any ranged fiends out of their holes and trees.<br> <br>Zuri dives behind one of the gravestones, his quick reactions and the handy dandy nearby cover allowing him to escape the volley of arrows completely unscathed. He pops out from the other side of the row, his weapons still in hand. &quot;They&#39;re above!&quot; Having a similar idea to Kazel he raises his dagger in one hand, tracing it through the air like a pen as he invokes magic of his own. With a sweep of the blade he lets forth a rolling wave of dark math at one of the nearby trees, trying to disable and cloud the senses of whomever is there.<br> <br>With the fight joined and everyone distracted, the plant being slowly hops off the tree he was on and begins to slowly sneak through the edges of the graveyard towards the building he seems to spot in the northeast, taking out his dagger and keeping a look out in case he spots enemies on his way.<br> <br>Angus curses under his breath, wishing he had brought mister with him on this one. &quot;Just give me a target!&quot; Came his shout as the pistol is holstered, unslinging his musket to rest along the log that he was using as cover as he does his best to brace himself while still at the ready to take the shot.<br> <br>Lidara is, for the most part, able to avoid the arrows shot in his direction, save for one that manages to graze his right forearm, causing the cat to wince and move just a little bit faster.  Thankfully though, he does still manage to stop before running directly into Kazel.  He does give her a curious look for a second once he sees her magic, but would soon simply duck to the side and hide behind one of the tombstones facing in the direction of where the arrows were coming from, his head occasionally poking out slightly to see if he can actually spot any of the archers.<br> <br>The feline quickly swerves out of the way of the arrows that are apparently coming from the trees to the northwest. From there, she glares directly at the direction in which the arrows came from and her hand left hand begins to glow brightly as the calculations are quickly made. Then, she waves her hand toward where the arrows from the trees were shot. From her hand comes a rather powerful fire spell that threatens to burn those who shot the arrows from the trees.<br> <br>There is a rumble of earth as Kazel&#39;s spell ripples through the graveyard, toppling poorly placed grave markers and shifting loose earth from shoddy graves to reveal the occasional cracked box buried too shallowly. From the scattered trees of the cemetery, three figures tumble to the earth with unmistakable cracks of breaking bone, though there are no cries of pain.
+Cara&#39;s wave of fire magic crackles along the long, weedy grass among the graves, setting the unkempt area alight and revealing the fallen archers to be no living flesh, but moldering corpses in armor almost as ragged as their patchy flesh! The fallen undead haul themselves laboriously to their feet, raising surprisingly well kept crossbows. A pair of arrows streak out of nearby trees toward Kazel and Cara. Looks like shaking didn&#39;t get them all down.
+Heading away from the fighting, Rokarion soon finds himself in front of a little stone outbuilding. If he had not known where to look from his overhead surveillance, he might not have found the place, overgrown as it is, though a well worn track does lead up to the door which stands a little ajar.<br> <br>Cassidy peeks out from around her cover, trying to hazard a guess where the arrow might have come from before she draws back her string and lets loose an arrow. Given how many arrows came for them, she imagined a fairly dense opposition. Even if she couldn&#39;t see them, she might still be able to hit one.<br> <br>Kazel smirks as the figures fall out of the trees. but the smile soon vanishes as there is another clonk of an arrow on her armor. She rotates herself into the direction of the attack and sends more tremors into that direction in an attempt to shake down the remaining archers. It was a good thing that she is wearing her heavy armor today, it seems.<br> <br>Zuri blinks as he regards the shambling... things. &quot;Oh, ick! Not-dead things!&quot; He curses. Such a waste of his magic, trying to blind and confuse the -undead-. He leans forward and charges directly at the nearest one, jumping and swinging at it&#39;s neck to try and stop it in its tracks.<br> <br>Rokarion glances the battlefield in the distance after the fire illuminated the area there. Seeing that his salamander was doing fine, Rokarion turns around, sheathing his dagger and taking out his rapier, and moves towards the building, eyes peeled as he slowly opens the door to get inside.<br> <br>Angus scowls as it&#39;s undead that they are dealing with, taking aim at the nearest target that isn&#39;t engaged. &quot;Undead, I hate undead! Especially when they ruin my hats!&quot; Squeezing the trigger he fires, a puff of smoke and a flash as thunder roars from his musket.<br> <br>While all of that fire and ground shaking is going on, Lidara simply keeps ducked down behind the tombstone.  Once all of that has finished, however, the orange cat pokes his head out again, this time actually ending up with line of sight on the archers that had been harassing them, and what he does see... causes him to go a bit wide eyed for a moment.  Soon though, he&#39;d take a deep breath before jumping out of his cover so that he can start dashing closer to the position of the undead that were firing upon them.  Once he&#39;s finally close enough to strike, he&#39;d lunge forwad, dagger in hand, to plunge it directly into the nearest of the archer&#39;s chest.<br> <br>Cara leaps away from the pair of arrows and she quickly concentrates once more. As the fiery math emits a very noticeable red glow from her left hand, one more fire spell is unleashed into the direction where the arrows came from. This spell is sent out in the form of a barrage of fiery arrows that intend to light up anyone who might still be in the trees. &quot;Cover me!&quot;<br> <br>Cassidy prepares another arrow- This time one of her bladed arrows meant for undead things, ducking out from around her cover to take aim at one of the dead opposition, firing for the neck. &quot;Try not to create too much fire now. I don&#39;t want to risk it spreading to anything nearby.&quot;<br> <br>Sound advice, though a little late as the rain of fiery projectiles fills one of the drooping trees with heat and light. The skeletal figure amid the blaze is revealed as it raises its crossbow to fire another round toward Cara. The three battered skeletons on the ground suddenly find themselves fully occupied by flashing daggers, arrows and in one case a heavy musket ball.
+Kazel&#39;s second round of earth magic has rather less dramatic effect than her first, simply causing a pair of nearby headstones to tumble over. But since no further arrows lance through the air, it seems that she at least distracted a would be attacker.
+Inside the little building is a staircase leading down into the earth. While no one is readily visible, the flickering light of a torch rises from the stairwell and there is a mutter of distant voices. For some reason, it seems to be especially cold here. Despite its obvious age, the door swings open with only the slightest groan of protest. Someone must have oiled it recently.<br> <br>Kazel notes that the others seem to have the archer situation mostly under control. She raises her shield high and heads for the small building as well to support Rokarion, in case that something of note was going on in there.<br> <br>Zuri picks another nearby target, the small salamander approaching this one cautiously, both weapons held at the ready. He swings with his broad blade,  held in his off hand, and follows up with a stab from his dagger. He&#39;s in the thick of it, facing the shambling undead head on.<br> <br>Rokarion purses his lips and gives the battlefield another glance, looks like there is indeed no rest for the wicked. With a shrug, the plant being turns back towards the staircase and begins slowly descending, taking extra care with each step on the ancient, run down staircase. With any luck he will be able to sneak onto whoever is in here.  <br> <br>Angus grunts a little, grabbing and wrenching the ramrod from his musket as he starts to reload the thing. Tearing wadding from the bag at his hip he starts ramming ball, powder, and wadding back into the barrel after making sure no sparks would set it off in his face.<br> <br>Lidara simply continues his attack on whichever of the undead that had been unlucky enough to end up his target, carefully circling around them in a rather defensive stance in the event that someone takes another shot at him, though if the undead themself tries to shoot he&#39;d bump the arbalest to keep them from aiming.  Eventually though, the cat&#39;s stance changes slightly and he suddenly takes a back step, followed by another quick lunge forward... though this time the skeleton would end up with a pistol barrel right against its chest rather than a dagger point.  This is, of course, followed up by a point blank shot.<br> <br>Cara rushes away from the firing archer skeleton and she shouts out once more, &quot;Head to the north east after dealing with the enemy in the burning tree!&quot; From there, she runs directly toward the third ground skeleton. As she rushes towards the skeleton, she raises her blade and attempst to slash the skeleton.<br> <br>Cassidy draws back the string on her longbow, frowning. &quot;Give me a target,&quot; she calls to her allies, keeping herself at least half behind cover while she scans the darkness for a good mark. &quot;I&#39;ll shoot til I run out of arrows. And I&#39;ve got plenty of arrows.&quot;<br> <br>Amidst the burning grasses and the flaming tree, it is easy to see the combat that rages almost as hotly as the flames. Two skeletal archers fall, one under Zuri&#39;s daggers as they cleave through a rotting spine, and one blasted away by Lidara&#39;s well placed pistol. A third tumbles to loose bones under Cara&#39;s vicious slash. The fight is not yet over, though as the archer in the burning tree swings down from the branches, bow and armor alight and charges toward Angus, weilding its ruined crossbow like a club!
+From somewhere, another arrow zings into the fray toward Cara!
+Rokarion has little trouble negotiating the worn, stone steps down into a dry, sandy tunnel. Alcoves line the walls, mostly empty this close to the entrance, but they are obviously meant to hold the bones of the dead.
+&quot;Did you hear that?&quot; come whispered words from up ahead, &quot;You said the old man wouldn&#39;t bother us! We need more time!&quot;<br> <br>Kazel is thankfully still under Heiour&#39;s blessing and her armor does not seem to weigh her down at all in this situation. The warrior bat slows down as she reaches the building and her ears perk up as well as they can in the confines of the helmet as the voices reach them. She slowly enters the building to reduce the amount of noise she makes and heads down the stairs after a short inspection of the room.<br> <br>Zuri cheers triumphantly after felling bad guy number two. &quot;Yea, take that!&quot; He looks around at his companions, just in time to see a a rather flamey zombie-thing charge at Angus. He lets out a soft &#39;eep&#39; as he readies his weapons again, pauses, reconsiders.. and then instead raises his dagger to trace mathemagical symbols in the air. He unleashes the magic with a thrust of his dagger, sending a burst of air-math supercooled air at the flaming creature, the numbing cold of winter hopefully dousing it and/or slowing it down enough to allow Angus time to retaliate.<br> <br>Rokarion begins slowly moving towards the bend in the hallway, nodding at the armoured bat being behind him. Once he reaches it, the youth purses his lips and taps his chin before looking behind him and pointing forward with a flourish. &quot;Ladies first, keep that shield up.&quot; he says with a smirk, &quot;They are most likely expecting someone to enter.&quot; <br> <br>Angus finishes loading up his gun, just in time to see the flicker of fire in the corner of his eye. Stumbling to his feet he almost reaches for the blade at his hip, but when the undead branchies its crossbow as a club, slamming it against his armor hard enough to make him grunt in pain he brandishes his Musket. &quot;Die you creator forsaken filth!&quot; He shouts, as he brings it down upon the things head!<br> <br>Lidara gets a slight smirk on his face as the skeleton in front of him falls, even letting out a quick, &quot;Whoo!&quot; of his own to go along with Zuri&#39;s, and as those nearby fall along with it, his stance even relaxes just a little bit.  Well... right up until the point a flaming skeleton drops down from one of the trees anyways.  When that happens, both the spent pistol and the dagger go back to their holster and sheath on his sides, and his hands instead go back to grab hold of the quarterstaff slung across his back.  Then, he steps forward with a twirl, ending the spin off by slamming the metal end of the staff into the side of the flaming undead&#39;s skull, in addition to the end of Angus&#39;s musket on top of it.<br> <br>Cara swerves away from the oncoming arrow and she sighs as she realizes that she&#39;ll have to aim for the being who just fired yet another arrow. From there, she concentrates for a moment as the calculations are completed. Then, she waves her hand and sends a wave of superheated air toward the direction from where the arrow was shot from, &quot;Cassidy, shoot in the direction that I&#39;m sending the heat wave and head for the north east!&quot;<br> <br>Cassidy lifts her brow, taking aim towards the opposing archer, humming for a moment before prepping a second arrow as well, drawing the string back with a practiced hand before firing both towards the target. She remains where she is for now, though.<br> <br>If nothing else, that skeletal archer could certainly follow instructions. The abomination&#39;s skull shatters in blackened shards and the once more lifeless corpse falls to the fractured earth.
+Meanwhile, Cara has set yet another tree aflame. Despite the odds against it, it is, in fact the tree occupied by another archer. Fortunately, it reveals the skeletal being within, allowing Cassidy to cut it down with her well placed shots. Unfortunately, the flames are starting to burn out of control, turning the graveyard into a quickly spreading inferno!
+&quot;Did you hear that?&quot; comes a muttered voice in the underground crypt, &quot;I think someone is here! Tell them to hurry it up in there! And send some of the walkers!&quot;<br> <br>Kazel nods at Rokarion as she reaches him, agreeing with his statement. She raises her shield and tightens her grip on her sword before charing with full speed around the corner at whatever might be there, however she is disciplined enough to make sure not to crash into a wall should there be more curves ahead.<br> <br>Zuri looks around at the growing flames, biting his lip. &quot;Uhoh.. uh.. this isn&#39;t good.&quot; He races over to Angus&#39; side, sheathing his weapons before checking on his friend. &quot;Was that the last of them?&quot; He turns to look at Cara and Lidara. &quot;We may need to do something about this fire, it looks like it might go out of control at an time. This place is horribly overgrown!&quot;<br> <br>Rokarion gives the bat being a three to four second head start before he also  takes the bend and walks forward, scanning his surroundings as he does so in case something or someone is hiding. <br> <br>Angus weezes a little after removing the skeleton, having taken a blow to the ribs. &quot;I&#39;m fine.&quot; He answers Zuri when they come over to help him, leaning against his musket a bit as he straightens himself out. &quot;. . .But at the moment I think we better put out these fires before they start to spread. Who knows what else were are going to deal with.&quot; Rubbing at his side he checks to make sure nothing is broken, slinging his musket back over his shoulder while trying to clean off the bits of undead skull on the stock.<br> <br>With another skeleton down, Lidara finally turns his attention to the only one left inside of a tree... just in time to see it dropped by two accurate arrows.  Finally, the cat breathes a sigh of relief and stows his quarterstaff along his back once more, his battle stance... not quite faltering completely, but it&#39;s certainly a lot more relaxed than it was before.  That&#39;s shortly followed by the orange feline getting a smile on his face and letting out another short laugh though.  &quot;We did it!&quot;  However, he doesn&#39;t have long to celebrate now, his gaze flicking over to Zuri and then out onto the spreading fire around them.  That makes that smile of his disappear rather quickly.  &quot;I don&#39;t think that I have anything that would help put out this much fire, unfortunately....&quot;  He takes a few steps closer to the party, eyes continuing to scan the fire.<br> <br>Cara groans immediately, at the spreading fire and sighs, &quot;Okay, whoever can use water magic needs to stay with me and help put out the fire. Whoever can&#39;t should run and head to the Northeast to rout the corrupt callers that are in that direction.&quot; From there, she concentrates as the calculations are completed and she unleashes everything she has directly towards the blazing inferno in an effort to put out the fire immediately.<br> <br>Cassidy frowns and finally pulls back from her cover, fleeing away from the fire and towards another vantage point. She had no water magic to call her own, sadly, so all she could do at that point was stay out of it!<br> <br>While things heat up above ground, things are getting steadily chillier below. Kazel&#39;s charge sends her careening into a pair of figures in black robes, sending them staggering backward! They tumble to the ground, but quickly regain their feet. &quot;You shall not pass the dread portal!&quot; one of them cries, his voice cracking on the last word.
+Meanwhile, Cara&#39;s well meaning air magic is not having quite the intended effect. While it IS preventing the spread of the fire in two directions, it is spreading it very quickly toward the north west corner of the graveyard.<br> <br>Kazel smirks as she crashes into the cultists and does not stop there, using her momentum from the charge as well as her enhances strength she continues her charge until at least one cultist finds themselves between her shield and a hard place, probably a wall and, equally probably is squished to death.<br> <br>Zuri watches helplessly.. at first. He watches as his companions scramble about for solutions, and as Cara pours seemingly every ounce of magical energy she has into a mighty gust of wind. &quot;We&#39;d need some water magic to...&quot; He pauses, then facepalms. &quot;Water! Duh!&quot; With dagger in hand he traces mathemagical phrase, one designed to draw in moisture and condense it into droplets. Usually meant for rain, he&#39;s going to use it a little bit differently, adding it to Cara&#39;s magic to turn it into a torrent of gushing water.<br> <br>Rokarion shakes his head, &quot;Dabbling with necromancy? Such vile villainy needs to be addressed, no?&quot; the plant being says as he takes up his duelling stance and quickly lunges at the other cultist, aiming a strike at his shin, &quot;Now, goodbeing, would you care to tell me more about your loathsome activities down here?&quot; <br> <br>Angus sighs, standing up as he catches his breath to watch both Cara and Zuri try to douse the flames. &quot;This is why fire is a bad weapon against the undead.&quot; He mutters to himself, patting himself down for a moment to find his water canteen. &quot;Zuri if this doesn&#39;t work, try earth magic if you&#39;ve got it. Bury the flames in dirt and it will smother it.&quot;<br> <br>Lidara pauses for a moment at Cara&#39;s orders, his eyes flicking between the fire and the direction that... he&#39;s pretty sure is Northeast.  He throws one more glance back to the fire, and, seeing that the others seem to have that taken care of, mumbles to himself, &quot;Right... Northeast it is then.&quot;  Then... well... he begins to dash off in that direction, leaving the three to hopefully put out the fire and drawing his quarterstaff off of his back once more as he does so.  He didn&#39;t exactly have any mathemagic he could use to help in the first place.<br> <br>Cara begins to really feel the exhaustion as sweat begins to coat her form, yet she continues to send more air magic toward the inferno. As she glances to the side, she smiles upon noticing that Zuri is there to actually help with this. The feline to continues to send out more of the wind blast, but it seems to be weakening due to her fatigue. &quot;Thank you, Zuri. Angus, the cultists are in the northeast.&quot;<br> <br>&quot;Certainly a bad idea when you&#39;re near civilization,&quot; Cassidy agrees with Angus, running her fingers over her quiver, taking a mental count of her remaining stock. &quot;Well then.  Shall we go try to put a stop to these cultists before they escape or something?&quot;<br> <br>The muggy night air suddenly becomes desert dry as Zuri condenses the moisture into a spray of water to join Cara&#39;s whipping winds. It is not ideal, but it does reduce the inferno to a general smolder. The fire is not out, by any means, but the danger is probably past.
+Below ground, Kazel performs an excellent impression of a wine press with a grape as she smashes her opponent against a stone shelf with her shield, eliciting a rather horrible crunch and gurgle as the cultist&#39;s hood falls back to reveal a young rat, a froth of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. The being facing off with Rokarion, a youthful looking rooster cries out as the Jasmine slices into his leg and he falls to one knee. He stares in horror at his dead comrade, then turns a sneer on Rokarion. &quot;All hail the Lady of Bones!&quot; he spits.<br> <br>Kazel turns around, the remaining cultist between her and Rokarion now. She smirks under her helmet once more as steps towards the hooded cultist. Her grip on her sword tightens as she thrusts at him and then draws her blade up, intend on first piercing and then slicing open the enemy.<br> <br>Zuri flops down after he finishes his magical handiwork. &quot;Pfuh..&quot; He pauses, then looks around, finally taking in his surroundings after the chaos of that fight. &quot;Hey.. where are the others? Where&#39;s Kazel and Roka?&quot; He hops up onto his feet, wandering over to Angus&#39; side.<br> <br>Rokarion shakes his head, &quot;Ah, yes, her. Not sure what I was expecting.&quot; he comments as he eyes the rooster. &quot;So....&quot; the only word the plant being utters before Kazel jumps in to stab the cultist. Rokarion simply moves aside and begins moving towards the tunnel, &quot;How rude, we were having a civilized conversation before you came in.&quot; the youth quips at the bat, &quot;Don&#39;t take too long.&quot; Roka adds as he moves deeper into the crypt. <br> <br>Angus offers Zuri the water canteen as they come over. &quot;That&#39;s a good question, I lost them in the fight. Lets take a second to recollect ourselves before we go wandering off again, I think we have made a big enough mess as is.&quot; He answers, taking a head count of who&#39;s here at the moment.<br> <br>Lidara does start to gradually slow his pace as he gets closer and closer to the hut, until eventually he&#39;d be continuing on at more of a walk.  This was, after all, likely one of the few chances he&#39;d get to take a bit of a breather, even he realized that much.  He did also, eventually, look back at the fields once more, a small smile coming to his face again upon seeing the fires put out.  Beyond that though, he simply continues to draw ever closer to the hut.<br> <br>Cara pants heavily for a moment and points to the direction of the northeast. &quot;They probably went after the cultists in the northeast. Kendrac dedicants can sense followers of anyone from the corrupt court if they use their gifts.&quot; The feline immediately catches a good breather and she stops to stare at Angus. She clutches her phoenix tears pendant as she takes a look at Angus, &quot;Do you want me to help fix you up before I head off in that direction? Rokarion and Kazel might need our help right now but I better take care of you before I head for them.&quot;<br> <br>Cassidy pulls an arrow from her quiver, holding it in her hand as she nods at Angus. &quot;I think they&#39;re... I don&#39;t know,&quot; she frowns, glancing around. &quot;I lost them, too. Hopefully we prevented too much fire damage from taking place. Tch.  Always have to keep the environment in mind with fire. Ar you alright, Angus? Not too roughed up I hope!&quot;<br> <br>The poor, misguided Rooster dies with a wet gurgle as Kazel slices him open, leaving the way ahead clear. It may just be that the catacombs are underground, but it seems to be getting rapidly colder.
+Above ground, it seems that there is little more to be done. &quot;Angus and I will keep an eye on things here,&quot; Cassidy says, &quot;You all go see where the others have gotten to.&quot;<br> <br>Zuri looks around, still trying to locate Kazel and Rokarion. He nods at Angus and Cassidy, smiling brightly. &quot;Gotcha! I think they might have gone.. uh.. &quot; He looks left, right, then back towards Lidara and Cara. &quot;Uh.. I guess we should go.. which was is that direction you were saying, Cara?&quot; He re-sheathes his weapons for now, freeing up his hands for the time being.<br> <br>Rokarion sheathed his rapier as he continued walking through the dread portal or whatever did the cultists call it. &quot;Looks like the Crown used to spend more money on burying their criminals.&quot; he idly remarks as he takes in his surroundings, looking for any writing that identifies the dead here, while making sure to avoid stepping on any skeletons by accident. <br> <br>Kazel smirks at the comment the plant gave her before leaving and takes a moment to to crush the skull of the dead rooster under boot, still influenced by the power given to her by Heiour. Done with this tasteless business she nods to herself. Better save than sorry when spirits are involved, especially the one he shouted about. She eyes the rat she killed earlier and he seems reasonably destroyed, so she wipes her metal boot on the stone floor and heads down the tunnel Rokarion took.<br> <br>Cara nods to both Angus and Cassidy. Then, she stares at Zuri for a moment as she resheathes her saber. &quot;Zuri, we&#39;re running towards the north east.&quot; Then, she proceeds to point in that direction, &quot;We better get going immediately.&quot; From there, she rushes off in that direction, her legs pumping rapidly as she makes sure to avoid any obvious obstacles that might be in the way.<br> <br>Eventually, Lidara does realize that... well, all he really knows about exactly where he&#39;s going is a general direction....  He throws one more quick glance back and, seeing the Cara at least is already on her way, the cat stops where he is to let them catch up, using the opportunity to quickly reload his pistol and check his equipment.  Once they do reach him though, he&#39;d fall in line behind Cara and Zuri and starts running again.<br> <br>Following Kazel&#39;s trail through the long grass and weeds is not especially difficult and the group above ground has no trouble finding the little mausoleum with its door hanging open and dim torchlight spilling into the night.
+The &quot;Dread Portal&quot; is not especially intimidating. It is just another stretch of excavated tunnel leading further downward. Honestly, Catacombs is far too charitable a word for this place, but it is better kept than the graveyard above ground. The path is smooth and well traveled. The caretaker must spend a lot of time down here. The way is getting dim up ahead, now that the torches of the robed youths have been left behind, but it seems that there is a fork in the road. Right? Or left?<br> <br>Zuri giggles! &quot;Northeast! Yea!&quot; He follows along with Cara and Lidara, navigating the landscape until finally reaching the mausoleum. &quot;W-woah. That.. that looks pretty spooky.&quot; He looks back at Cara and Lidara. &quot;Think they went in there?&quot; He keeps his gaze on Cara, who seems to have some kind of handle on things right now.<br> <br>Rokarion stops at the fork, and taps his chin, &quot;The curse of choice. I don&#39;t recall their lady favouring a specific direction.&quot; he says before turning around and regarding the bat, &quot;So, any suggestions?&quot; <br> <br>Kazel shrugs her shoulders, causing her armor to make metalic noise. &quot;We could split, or go back and get the others, I suppose. Both is fine with me.&quot; She peers into the darkness ahead and frowns slightly at the situation.<br> <br>The feline comes to a stop as she reaches the front of the mausoleum. As she shifts her gaze to Zuri and Lidara, she smirks, &quot;Well, the door is open and I doubt that anyone would just leave the door open unless they were in a hurry.&quot; The feline takes a moment to concentrate as the runes on her body glow once more as she walks into the building.<br> <br>Lidara throws another quick glance behind the group once they reach the mausoleum, bringing up the rear just as he had been before.  He does shift around a bit uncomfortably when they reach it though.  He gives a slight nod at Cara&#39;s statement.  &quot;Yep.  Plus I don&#39;t think that there&#39;s many other places they could&#39;ve gone to in the first place.&quot;  There&#39;s a bit more shuffling and the cat&#39;s hands drift down a bit closer to his dagger and pistol, but once Cara starts to walk in he follows not too far behind, his ears perked up and his stance a slight crouch again.<br> <br>Angus frowns at the mausoleum, reaching for one of the torches hanging near the entrance. Grasping it he takes out flint and steel from his pack, striking it until the torch is set ablaze. &quot;WEll, only one way to find out. Besides, Rokarion and Kazel are trained freeswords, they should be okay.&quot; Looking once more at the entrance he steps towards the door, making sure that the pistol at his belt was loaded before decending.<br> <br>It is a hop, skip, and unpleasantly squishy jump past the grizzly remains of Kazel&#39;s handiwork for the rest of the group to catch up with Rokarion and Kazel. Angus&#39;s foresight in bringing a torch along is a welcome boon, revealing that the tunnel branching to the right is rather short before it opens into a small room. To the left, it extends quite a bit further and slopes downward again.<br> <br>Zuri steps behind Cara and Angus, moving with quiet steps as if expecting more trouble right around the corner. He navigates around the unlucky fools that faced off against Kazel and Rokarion earlier, his hand once again movng to the hilt of his sword. &quot;Mmm.. I think that.. hey, I think that&#39;s them right ahead!&quot; He breaks stride with the rest of the group and runs towards Rokarion, giving the plant being a quick surprise hug before clearing his throat and trying to act &#39;professional&#39; again. &quot;So uh.. yea, we took care of the guys outside.&quot; How are things in here?&quot;<br> <br>Rokarion nods, &quot;Now that is an idea.&quot; the plant being says before he hears noises from the mausoleum, &quot;Well, either the cultists reanimated faster than expected or the rest of the group are here.&quot; the plant being remarks as the group is finally reunited and he gets a hug, &quot;Kazel rudely interrupted my conversations with one of the cultists outside, he refused to speak to me since.&quot; The plant being casually glances the two paths again as the light exposes more details. &quot;Ah, there we go. Left path it is. Someone might want to check the room to the right.&quot; Roka comments as he begins marching towards the incline on the left path. <br> <br>Kazel snerks and nods. &quot;I could tell it was going to be a boring, one sided conversation.&quot; She smirks under her helmet. &quot;And I would not count on those two rising again anyway.&quot; She raises her shield slightly in case of a surprise attack and follows Rokarion into the tunnel, eventually passing him and positioning herself at the front to shield the others.<br> <br>Cara stares at the corpses for a moment and she sighs, &quot;Here we go again.&quot; Upon seeing Rokarion and Kazel, she walks over to the two and responds nonchalantly, &quot;I take it they must not like visitors. Anyway we hav-&quot; She stops for a moment and nods, &quot;Yes, the path on the left has the corrupt influence upon it. However, they&#39;re probably going to expect us by now.&quot; She begins to walk over to the left path, but she stops and walks over to the right path. &quot;It may be superstition on my part, but Lidara, could you accompany me while I check the path on the right. It may be best to see if something might be there.&quot;<br> <br>Just like before, Lidara stays at the rear of the group, his ears still perked up and still throwing an occasional glance behind them.  Once he does actually get a look at the dead cultists though, particularly the one that had been gutted, the orange feline gets a rather awkward look on his face and does his best to step around them.  Zuri hugging Rokarion gets another slight giggle out of the cat, but his attention quickly goes over to Cara, who he gives a nod to and begins to follow once more.  &quot;Sure.  We might as well check it, that shouldn&#39;t take very long.&quot;<br> <br>Angus flicks his ears. &quot;So guys not talking?&quot; He asks, keeping his attention on the other path as Rokarion points it out. &quot;Do you guys have any light?&quot; He asks Rokarion, making sure to keep the torch up high so as to make sure everything is visible. As Cara starts heading that way he shakes his head. &quot;Better be ready, won&#39;t be able to easily see without a light.&quot;<br> <br>Suddenly, a blast of frigid air shrieks up from the lower path, scented with death and rot. Accompanying the clying cent of decay comes a faint sound of chanting.
+The dim confines of the little room, lit only by the glowing marks on Cara&#39;s skin, are hard to make out. But there is a small table and several shelves lined with wicked looking tools and jars. Some kind of torture chamber, no doubt.<br> <br>Zuri steps up alongside Rokarion, his tail waggling softly and dragging on the ground behind him as he looks around. &quot;Hm..&quot; He stops as the blast of cold air hits him, shivering lightly and hugging himself briefly. &quot;Pfuh.. &quot; He wiggles his nose, making a funny face. &quot;Erk.. this place is not good..&quot; He reaches for his weapons, drawing them again and keeping them at the ready as he stalks forward, trying to keep low as he breaches into the room and starts poking about, heading towards one of the nearby tables and getting on his tip-toes to inspect what&#39;s on it.<br> <br>Rokarion shakes his head, &quot;Nah, we are trying to sneak up on them, no need for a light source to do that.&quot; The plant being&#39;s head swivels back towards the source of the noise, &quot;Looks like they are busy chanting, should make it easier to surprise them. Also we should probably get a move on, with any luck we will be there just in time to witness the ritual&#39;s completion and then kill whatever monstrosity they spawned, just like a good book.&quot; the youth snarks before increasing his pace. <br> <br>Kazel makes a bit of a  face as the gush of stench hits her nose. &quot;Ah, the smell of necromancy in the evening. So refreshing it even wakes the dead.&quot; She chuckles at her own lame joke, before adding, &quot;I agree, lets pick up the pace.&quot; She does as she says and in addition to it raises her shield in battle position.<br> <br>Cara sighs as she walks over to the table. She shrugs her shoulders and breathes a sighs of relief, &quot;Well, we better go back down the other path, Lidara. This is just a dead end and we better go back and help the others.&quot; From there, she walks back down the path before she turns around, &quot;Sorry for bringing you on the wrong path. I was honestly sure that we could find something here.&quot;<br> <br>Lidara gives a quick examination of the room, squinting slightly to help him see better in the dim light, but... well, there really wasn&#39;t very much in the room to see.  He gives another quick nod to Cara, and it seems like he&#39;s about to respond before before he feels the breeze from the left tunnel hit him, the cat shuddering and making another one of those awkward expressions when it does.  &quot;Right... yeah... we should probably head back....  That wind isn&#39;t a good sign.  Oh, and uh... don&#39;t worry about it.  It&#39;s good that we checked, at least.&quot;  With that, he starts to walk back towards the others, his pace a bit quicker than before.  &quot;Although... I am kind of curious about how they got all of this stuff down here without anyone noticing.&quot;<br> <br>Angus just blinks as the cold stench hits him, knowing that smell all to well as he draws the blade at his side with torch held high. &quot;There is no point in sneaking anymore, if they are summoning something best to strike at them now before they do manage to summon it.&quot; With his ears flicking, his gaze narrows, his stance widening a bit as he starts walking towards the chanting with his weapon at the ready.<br> <br>After a short descent, the passage takes a sharp turn. There is one more short tunnel and flickering fire light fills the passage that opens up into a long, low room. Carefully wrapped corpses lie in stone shelves along the walls, three alcoves high, with thick, squat pillars to support the roof just tall enough for a heavy clanner to stand erect. Maybe eight feet. In the middle of the room the floor is covered in patterned, stone tiles with a great, round, iron lid set in the center. Currently that lid has been lifted away and the scent of age and decay rises from the hole.
+If only things were as simple as replacing the lid. Around the hole are arranged five beings in dark robes, unidentifiable under their hoods as they chant together. Arrayed in battle formation around them is a contingent of skeletal warriors in light armor, all facing the tunnel. They advance menacingly when the party arrives, shining, new weapons raised in their rotted fists.<br> <br>Zuri steps down the creepy passage alongside his companions, looking a bit uneasy as the scent that seems to be wafting from dead ahead starts to really get to him. He steps into the room on silent feet, but as the wall of skeleton warriors start to advance in their direction there&#39;s no point in keeping up the stealthy action. He clutches both weapons in hand before charging forward towards the skeleton on the far left side of the &#39;wall&#39; they are forming, taking a swing with his broad blade at the creature&#39;s knee.<br> <br>Rokarion prepares his rapier and sword-breaker as the group arrives towards the chamber, &quot;It appears that the villains are trying to raise an army.&quot; he quickly remarks. &quot;Hark, cultists. Cease your chanting or feel the bite of my blade.&quot; The plant being declares in a loud voice, trying to disturb their concentration, before he rushes forward, intent on dodging the undead warriors and striking their masters first. <br> <br>Kazel raises her shield in front of herself and brings it close to her body, angling herself to support it with both her arm and shoulder as she first takes a few steps back and then sprints at the group of undead at full speed, intend on crashing into them and driving the group apart and maybe breaking some bones.<br> <br>The feline finally notices the smell and she immediately brings out Kendrac&#39;s half spear. She quickly speaks to Lidara, &quot;We need to head to the left pathway.&quot; She rushes back to the pathway, turns and she begins to run down the left corrider.<br> <br>Lidara nods to Cara once more at that, his walk turning to more of a sprint as he chases after her.  As they get further and further down the corridor though, that awkward expression on his face starts to grow more intense.  In fact... one could say that he&#39;s almost starting to look a little bit queasy, really.  Thankfully though, he seems to be able to, for the most part, shake it off once they finally reach everyone else and he spots the skeletons, his hands quickly going down to grab his pistol and the dagger once more.<br> <br>Angus sighs as more of the undead are revealed, coming at them with fresh weapons. &quot;Don&#39;t bother with the heroism speeches, anyone with air magic hit the skeletons with a wave. Will force them to reform which will buy us some time.&quot; He snaps out as sheaths his rapier and starts focusing on throwing as much wind as possible at them. <br> <br>The fight is met quickly! Zuri&#39;s decisive charge gets him in under the guard of his chosen corpse and wedges his dagger into the joint of the abomination&#39;s knee! The skeletal warrior may be hobbled, but that does not keep it from lashing out at the little salamander with its sword, slicing a groove in his protective armor, but not quite penetrating.
+Rokarion is not so lucky in his charge and is intercepted brutally by two skeletons that interpose themselves between the Jasmine and the chanting cultists. The first scores a pommel strike on the young flower&#39;s skull, though his fast reflexes spare him a second blow, sparks flying from the stones as the second skeleton&#39;s sword clangs down. Rokarion&#39;s reflexes send his rapier lancing between the skeleton&#39;s ribs, though it seems to have little effect.
+Kazel&#39;s charge does not fare much better than Rokarion&#39;s. The shieldbat&#39;s target swings in a wide circle, sidestepping her charge and swinging back in at her unprotected flank. It&#39;s blade does not penetrate her armor, but it leaves a sizeable dent in the plates on her shoulder, trapping her arm down in its current position. It will no doubt leave a mark for later.
+Angus&#39;s magic, while well meant and well planned is somewhat lacking in execution. It manages to blow the robes of the cultists about and clear the air of the smell of grave dirt, but has little other effect.<br> <br>Zuri acks as the skeleton takes a swing at him, the salamander&#39;s quick reflexes and well-crafted armor combining to muffle the retaliatory strike just enough to leave the little guy unscathed. He steps back from the skeleton, pulling his sword out of the shambling terror&#39;s knee as he gains some distance. He looks at his companions, spotting Angus&#39; scary looking musket. &quot;Angus!&quot; He calls out. &quot;Take aim!&quot; He keeps his broad blade in front of him in a protective stance while his off hand traces mathemagical symbols in the air, calling upon and coalescing the cold air around and into Angus&#39; gun, imbuing it with the bitter bite of deep winter.<br> <br>Rokarion controls the pain instead of recoiling from the blow to the skull, just enough to dodge the second blow and then attempt to stab the second skeleton...why did he do that? Must be the blow to the head&#39;s fault. Feeling his pride wounded, the plant being drops his plans with the cultists and instead focuses on his two new friends, legs never stopping as he draws a circle in the air with his dagger to give the two skeletons an explosive response. He also begins singing loudly for the benefit of his cultist friends, &quot;There was a knight from Cliffside, on a white steed he rode....&quot; <br> <br>Kazel groans as her shoulder is hit and the left arm of her armor starts to take a lot of strength, even in her current status to move. This is nothing that would stop the seasoned veteran though as goes through some mathemagical calculations in her head, smirking at the two skeletons around her as the ground between her and them decides to favor her side in this battle and first push them away and then become clingy and sticky, imparring them.<br> <br>The feline dashes into the room and upon seeing the sight of the many skeletons, she should be smiling. Unfortunately, everyone else has already started and they appear to be in trouble. With everyone in front of the way, she glances towards the four extra skeletons and she rushes towards two of the skeletons with the intent to stab them both with the half spear.<br> <br>Lidara finally enters the fray himself, though rather than actually attack any of the undead, it seems like he&#39;s simply planning on making a charge of his own.  Hoping that the others, especially Rokarion and Kazel, have managed to distract the skeletons enough, the cat ducks not around, but in between the crowd of skeletons, particularly through the groups that have already engaged with his comrades, dipping and weaving through the battle as best he can.  Hopefully his somewhat smaller than average size comes in handy here.<br> <br>Angus curses as his magic doesn&#39;t work, an ear lifting as he hears Zuri&#39;s call out. Dropping the torch he unslings his musket, drawing back the hammer as he watches a chill coming over his musket. He takes a moment to check targets, before switching his aim at the nearest cultist! Dropping the hammer back fully with a click before looking down the sights, squeezing the trigger.<br> <br>If the skeleton facing off with Zuri could roar in frustration, it no doubt would. Instead, it reels backward, limping on it&#39;s injured (If that is the right word here) leg before lurching forward with its sword. A second skeleton joins in the attack as well, coming at the little salamander from the other side. Zuri manages to roll swiftly through the legs of the first skeletal warrior, but the sword of the second finds him, slashing deep through his armor.
+Rokarion&#39;s magic, while not particularly powerful, DOES cause one of his foes to stagger back a step, giving him a bit of breathing room. Enough to see his other dance partner raise his sword and lunge!
+Kazel&#39;s magical play for time works as her two foes stagger in the sticky mud. But the respite will not last for long.
+Cara&#39;s charge sends her straight into the arms of a skeletal warrior and he offers no resistance as her short spear plunges through his exposed ribs, though it seems to do little to the skeleton. The undead abomination raises its sword high, but by the grace of her reflexes and a bit of luck, Cara manages to dodge the blow, along with the stab of a second skeleton that comes up on her flank!
+Lidara&#39;s speed is admirable, but not quite up to the task of weaving through the battle. The cat manages to avoid Rokarion and his elemental explosion, but not the staggering skeleton that actually trips over him and sends them both clattering to the ground!
+Meanwhile, the chanting cultists carry on in their work, uninterrupted. Right up until the nearest of the five cries out in pain! There is a gout of blood where Angus&#39;s ball struck, though that is quickly swallowed up in a spray of icy magic and the cultist tumbles forward into the deep pit in front of him. Three hooded figures continue to chant, unimpeded, but the fourth stops chanting and scrambles away to the far side of the room. I guess we know who the real diehards are.<br> <br>Zuri tumbles aside after narrowly avoiding two more blows! He dances around to the side of the skeleton he had struck before, keeping on the move to avoid being an easy target. He waits until he spots the perfect opportunity, and then.. he strikes! Fast like lightning, he leaps into the air and brings his blade in a swooping arc aimed at the skeleton&#39;s neck, intent on severing it in a single swipe.<br> <br>&quot;...and he rode towards the mountain, to seek that mythical fountain.&quot;, Rokarion raises a brow as he continues singing loudly when the small cat arrives just in time to lie down with the skeleton. Trusting he will handle himself, Rokarion instead raises his sword-breaker towards the other skeleton, intent on parrying him before giving the skeleton a strong kick to send him sprawling on the floor with his friend.<br> <br>Kazel nods to herself as the undead are occupied for the moment and eyes the damage in her armor again, before rolling her left shoulder, which was left undamaged so far. The grip on her sword tightens as she makes for the cultists that her charge get her close to and takes a wide swing with her broadsword, going right for the neck of the being.<br> <br>Cara places the half spear back on her back. Then, the gauntlets on her hands both glow a vivid white and she smiles for a moment, &quot;Just get out of the way.&quot; Then, she rushes toward the skeleton with her fists raised, and she leaps into the air as she proceeds to use a spin kick with the sole purpose of finishing off both of the skeletons with her armored feet.<br> <br>Lidara may have fallen, but he wasn&#39;t about to stop his charge there!  Not while the aggro was still mostly off of him!  There is a gasp from him as he goes tumbling to the ground, but, as fast as ever, the cat throws off the skeleton and scrambles up to his feet again, resuming his dash forward to finally break through the other side of the skeletal crowd, even if the dash was probably a bit more clumsily done than before.  Then, assuming that he&#39;s able to get up without trouble, he straightens up his stance a bit and lunges forward even further, in an attempt to send his dagger plunging into the side of the nearest cultist.<br> <br>Angus doesn&#39;t focus on the downed target, instead leting his musket drop to let the straps pick up the slack as he pulls out his pistol and takes aim at the next target that didn&#39;t run. Firing once more he shouts. &quot;Lay down your weapons and come quietly, no more deaths are needed!&quot;<br> <br>That is one less skull roaming about. Zuri&#39;s well placed slash finds its way between vertibrae and sends the head of one of the combatant skeletons tumbling away. Whether the enchantment lies in the heads of the undead or it was just the last straw, they skeletal soldier crubles to loose bones.
+Rokarion&#39;s song, while incredibly irritating, does not seem to be having the desired effect. His sword breaker is rather more effective as he manages to fend off the attacks of the remaining standing skeleton beside him. He does not manage to get in any hits himself, but neither does his opponent.
+Kazel&#39;s vicious strike hits home, but instead of cleaving through flesh and bone like it ough to, it sends the hooded being tumbling as if struck by a blunt club. The cultist ends up sprawled out on the floor a short distance from the pit, his robes askew and his hood thrown back to reveal a grinning skull, its species hard to discern.
+Cara&#39;s charge is met enthusiastically by her opponents. One of them manges to duck below the kick, speedy for shambling soldiers, but the other is not so lucky, taking the full force of the tigress&#39;s kick in its rotting ribcage! It staggers as its bony parts start to crumble, but cannot hold on, finally tumbling to the ground.
+Lidara and Angus both manage to target the same cultist, the cat&#39;s knife slipping effortlessly between ribs and the fox&#39;s pistol shot finding its mark. Unfortunately, it seems to have no effect aside from making the hooded figure sway a little. Lidara, looking up into the hood can see the empty eye sockets of another skeleton looking down at him, though the sounds of chanting still come from within somehow.
+The remaining skeletal warriors hurry across the field, abandoning previous targets. Four are scrambling toward Kazel where she stands near the fallen cultist who is climbing back to his feet, the two fighting Rokarion turn their backs on him to pursue Lidara, and while one remains to fight Cara, two more lurch toward Angus!<br> <br>Zuri steps back after defeating one of the skeletons that was engaging him, while another breaks off to find a different target. He looks left and right, at the skeletons charging at his friends, while the others break off to attack Kazel. Fearing that Kazel may be left stranded and outnumbered he decides to help her. He sheathes his dagger and plants both feet on the ground. With careful motions he starts to trace mathemagical symbols in the air, once again gathering up the ambient moisture and concentrating the frigid air. He unleashes the spell, causing pellets of ice to rapidly form around the charging skeletons and begin swirling rapidly, impacting them at various angles. Very quickly a vortex of hailstones forms around them, guided by the small salamander to the best of his ability.<br> <br>Rokarion stops his singing once one of the cultists is revealed to be a skeleton, &quot;So much for that.&quot; The plant being wastes no time, quickly dashing towards the skeletons that are leaving him, aiming a pommel strike at the skeleton&#39;s head. <br> <br>Kazel is, of course, a gentlebeing and helps the fallen, skeletal cultist up. By grabbing his bony neck and holding the light creatures in the air with her sword arm, after sheathing the weapon. &quot;Doubt I can kill you like this, can I?&quot; She shrugs. &quot;Oh well.&quot; A second later the cultist gets the ride of his lifetime. Thrown down a dark hole of death.<br> <br>Cara glares at the last skeleton who is apparently still in her way. The feline swerves around the skeleton and she pulls her left hand back while the gauntlet glows a vivid white, &quot;Hold still!&quot; Then, she swings her fist forward with the intent of punching the skeleton away.<br> <br>Lidara smirks slightly when his dagger lands, but that rather quickly fades when he realizes exactly how little the blow did.  And when he looks up to be greeted by the skeletal face... the cat&#39;s eyes even widen a little bit.  The fact that he&#39;s standing close to something that reeks heavily of death probably isn&#39;t really helping very much either.  Eventually though, he does pull out his dagger and instead step to the side slightly, at an angle that would leave the cultist between himself and the pit... and then, he plants his feet firmly in the ground, his shoulder against the cultist, and gives the best shove that he can.<br> <br>Angus reacts to the lurching targets by drawing his blade, striking out with it at the things skull to try and remove it. &quot;I hate the undead.&quot; He snaps, muttering to himself as he sneers just a bit with the lung, wanting this to be done fast!<br> <br>The deperate push from the party has more than satisfactory results. Zuri&#39;s localized ice storm manages to keep the skeletal soldiers at bay, shattering two previously damaged ones and Rokarion shatters the skull of one of his own attackers. It is not enough to keep them all away from their targets, however.
+Even as Kazel sends a coweled skeleton howling into the bone pit, a skeletal soldier rears up behind her, sword raised high! The abomination crashes down on her wounded shoulder, its shining sword biting deep through armor and into flesh.
+Lidara finds himself in a similar situation. He has only a moment to savor his triumph as the chanting skeletal being cries out in shock, tumbling into the pit. Then a skeletal hand wraps around his ankle and pain like fire slices across the back of his leg as the skeleton actually BITES into his calf!
+Cara and Angus manage to pull a one-two knock out in the far corner of the room, each managing to shatter the skull of one of the skeletons, leaving only two of them to trouble the group. And one more chanting cultist, who despite being very, very alone continues to mutter and wave his arms.<br> <br>Zuri maintains the icy maelstrom for as long as he can, but eventually the little salamander has to cease it, huffing tiredly. Magic is always so tiring.. he draws his sword again and sizes up the room once more, free to pick his targets with every single skeleton focused on someone else right now. He grimaces as he sees Lidara&#39;s leg being bitten by one of the shambling minions, and quickly charges towards it to help the embattled feline. He brings his broad blade down on the skeleton&#39;s arm, trying to bash it in the joint to force it to release the leg it&#39;s holding.<br> <br>Rokarion pulls away his rapier, taking a step forward and moving closer towards Lidara, only to spot Zuri rushing there. Seeing as how the group was handling the situation, the flowerling instead moved towards the whimpering cultist, pointing his rapier downwards and gesturing for the cultist to stand up, &quot;You better start tweeting, songbird.&quot; <br> <br>Kazel&#39;s eye twitches as she is actually hit. She can&#39;t even recall the last time that happened. She turns towards the foe and it is good that she is wearing her helmet, because the look on her face would even scare the dead. She draws her sword again and brings it down on the skeletal fighter. And again. And again. Striking at the spine, neck and head of the fiend.<br> <br>Cara glances towards the remaining chanter and she rushes toward the chanter in a burst of speed. The runes on her body glow vividly and upon reaching the remaining chanter, she slows to a stop. Then, her gauntlets shine white once more as her stance squares up. She takes a deep breath before promptly launching a series of punches faster than anyone could possibly see. Her fists continue to move in a blur as her desire to pummel the chanter makes itself known.<br> <br>Lidara smirks again when the robed figure goes tumbling down, this one seeming a bit more confident than the last... but it wouldn&#39;t really last much longer, unfortuneately, quickly being replaced by a grimace of pain as he feels, well, pain shoot up through his leg.  The cat lets out a cry and wobbles a bit before eventually tumbling, though thankfully he manages to keep enough control of himself to fall onto his side rather than into the pit in front of him.  There&#39;s a quick glance back, and as much of a thankful smile as he can manage up to Zuri, before he begins to kick at the skeleton&#39;s skull with his free leg.<br> <br>Angus steps back, working to reload his pistol. &quot;Cara, stall them for a moment so I can help Kazel!&quot; He shouts as he jams the ramrod into the barrel as he works to reload the thing. Looking up from his work he scowls once more, ears flicking a bit in irritation as it takes way to long.<br> <br>Whatever these cultists or whatever they are were trying to do, it looks like it has been stopped! And thank goodness! Who knows what a bunch of necromancers could have done in a place like this?
+Kazel&#39;s rage does the job for her hanger on, shattering its skull and shoulders until all that remains is its skeletal arm dangling from the sword caught in the armor on her shoulder. It says something about the bat that she is more concerned about smashing the things bones than binding up her bleeding arm.
+Between Lidara and Zuri, it seems that the last skeletal warrior is dealt with, Zuri breaking its hold and Lidara&#39;s frantic kicking sending it sliding over the edge of the pit.
+Angus&#39;s call to Cara seems unnecessary as her fury seems to be enough to finish her opponent. The last cultist tumbles backward and lies still on the floor, wrapped in his dark robe.
+&quot;D-d-d-don&#39;t hurt me!&quot; the shivering cultist in the corner says, slowly rising with his hands in the air, &quot;N-n-no one was even supposed to be here!&quot;<br> <br>Zuri gives Lidara a big smile and a thumbs up, before once again scanning the room. As it seems the situation is under control he sheathes both weapons and makes his way to Rokarion&#39;s side. The small salamander first checks over the jasmine to make sure he&#39;s unhurt, then turns to listen to the cultist&#39;s pleading.<br> <br>Rokarion sheaths his two blades and nods his head, &quot;And I am assuming you were dabbling in necromancy for completely innocent reasons then?&quot; The plant being removes the hood off the cultist, &quot;Now do carry on, who organized this, what was your plan, and was the graveyard keeper involved?&quot; <br> <br>Kazel grunts and sheaths her sword, seeing as everything is dead or a coward. She squints and her left hand grabs the sword that is somehow still stuck in her shoulder and pulls it out, causing blood to squirt out of her wound and, moments later, flames to burst out of her armor. As the flames vanish, the wound on her shoulder is gone and she turns to face the cultist, walking up to him.<br> <br>Cara stares at the now collapsed figure for a moment. She looks at the skeletal figure for a moment and then proceeds to walk towards the still whimpering cultist. Cara takes a look at the cultist for a moment and silently waits for an answer.<br> <br>Lidara returns Zuri&#39;s smile once the skeleton is dealt with, even giving a quick, &quot;Thank you!  A lot,&quot; to go along with it.  Rather than get up to go and help interrogate the cultist though, the cat rolls to a sitting position and pulls up the bottom of his robe slightly, revealing a pair of brown trousers beneath... which he then grabs onto and, using his dagger, cuts a piece off of the bottom of the garment, large enough for him to bind his leg with.  It obviously wasn&#39;t much, but it would do to at least stop the bleeding until he gets something better.<br> <br>Angus cocks the hammer on his pistol just in time to see the last skeleton fault. Taking a deep breath he holsters the pistol, rubbing at his ribs a bit as he finally remembers the pain at his ribs. &quot;Everyone okay?&quot; He asks as he tries his best to catch his breath.<br> <br>The cultist turns out to be a rather chubby little groundhog. &quot;Th-they said that it wou-would please th-the Lady,&quot; he stammers, &quot;Th-that the d-d-dishonored d-d-dead would f-f-finally have their say.&quot; His trembling chin firms up and he stares around defiantly. &quot;Th-then the Lady would accept m-me!&quot; he says, frowning around furiously, &quot;She would let me sp-speak for the dead!&quot;<br> <br>Rokarion shakes his head, &quot;Let me guess, you and your friends are from the shanties?&quot; The plant being idly places a hand on Zuri&#39;s head as he continues, &quot;Now tell us, who are they? And did the mole upstairs know about any of this?&quot; <br> <br>Kazel just kind of looms over the already scared cultist and breaths heavily, not speaking. The fully armored being does certainly add to the atmosphere of the questioning, if nothing else at this point.<br> <br>She looks at the cultist for a moment and sighs, and her gauntlets lose their white glow. Her tail flicks for a moment and she speaks, &quot;Listen, if you wanted to do that, than why would you need to bring the dead back as the aggressive warriors who tried to shoot us from the trees? There would be no need for that. Plus, if you wanted the dead to be honoured again, than why not just restore the graveyard instead or spread a new holiday that honours the dead?&quot;<br> <br>Lidara finally climbs to his feet against now and begins to make his way over to where the rest of the party was gathered, even if he&#39;d be walking just a little weirdly now, with most of the weight being put on the leg that hadn&#39;t been bitten.  He does quickly glance over to Angus though, even giving him a small grin as he does so.  &quot;I&#39;m alright, at least.  That abomination really bit into me,&quot; he glances down to his leg again, &quot;But I&#39;ll be fine.&quot;  After that though, he simply goes quiet, allowing the others to interrogate the cultist and listening along.<br> <br>The chubby groundhog sneers at Rokarion. &quot;The old man?&quot; he spits, &quot;No. He doesn&#39;t care about the dead! He&#39;s just as happy to sit in his cottage and let this place fall to ruin!&quot; He swallows hard and shakes his head again. &quot;I&#39;m no d-d-desperate shanty towner!&quot; he stammers, &quot;A-a-and I w-w-won&#39;t tell you any more. I h-have my p-p-pride!&quot;<br> <br>Zuri listens to the groundhog&#39;s words, seeming somewhat uncertain as he listens. &quot;You know.. it is kind of a miserable state that this graveyard is in. The First Text itself has very clear guidelines on how these sacred grounds should be maintained.&quot; He pauses, then scratches his head. &quot;But unburying the dead and animating them.. isn&#39;t really any better. Truth be told, you&#39;re both being negligent, in different ways.&quot; He nods at Cara&#39;s words. &quot;Yea, exactly.&quot;<br> <br>Rokarion raises a brow at the groundhog, &quot;If you are this annoyed about the dead not being respected, why didn&#39;t you and your friends offer to help the graveyard keeper, instead of blaming an old being for not being able to maintain an entire graveyard by himself.&quot; Rokarion shrugs, &quot;Regardless, you will be coming with thus and the authorities will continue this discussion. You might discover then, that we are a lot nicer when it comes to interrogations.&quot; <br> <br>Cara sighs as she places her hand onto her forehead, &quot;I think it might be best if I help with the interrogations as well. Something tells me that I might be useful for this.&quot;<br> <br>With the battle over and adrenaline fading, Lidara would definitely be looking quite a bit more tired than before, and even with a bit more of his weight going to the uninjured leg.  Plus he was getting that same queasy look from before on his face again right about now, since there&#39;s nothing to distract him from the horrible stench in the room.  He doesn&#39;t much to the conversation until the end, simply nodding along with everyone else up until that point.  &quot;So... we should leave as soon as possible then, right?  To get him to the guards?&quot;<br> <br>Angus puts a hand on Cara&#39;s shoulder. &quot;I think it may be best if you stay here, to many people will just make it worse.&quot; He comments on the course of things, leaning a bit to much on Cara as he continues to hold his ribs, winching just a little bit.<br> <br>Whatever else the groundhog may be, he is not a complete coward. He glares around at his captirs in sullen silence.<br> <br>Zuri nods at Rokarion. &quot;I think we should just hand him over to the guards. Our work here is done, anyway.&quot; He gives the groundhog a sad glance, then turns away to walk towards the exit, feeling like he should get some fresh air.<br> <br>Rokarion nods his head at Zuri, &quot;You heard the salamander, get moving.&quot; Rokarion says as he turns around and begins to leave as well.<br> <br>Kazel roughly pulls the cultist up and gives him a nudge forward. &quot;Get going.&quot; She then walks over to the hole in the middle of the room and pushes the lid back in its place, before leaving as well.<br> <br>Cara wraps her left arm around Angus&#39;s back and she waits for the groundhog to move with the rest of them. She makes sure to help hold Angus up as well.<br> <br>Lidara gets a smile on his face as the group starts to leave, and the cat is sure to follow close behind them, moving at a slightly faster than walking pace even with his leg being a bit hurt, which would result in a kind of funny looking gait, really.<br> <br>Angus shakes his head, patting Cara. &quot;I&#39;m fine, I&#39;m fine.&quot; He answers her unspoken comment, standing back up to pull Manacles out of a pouch at his hip. &quot;I&#39;ll take them with me I guess.&quot; He mutters, waiting for them to put their hands out before slapping them on.<br> <br>The cover clangs back into place and the manacles clang around the chubby groundhog&#39;s wrists as he trudges along in the midst of the group without looking anywhere but at his feet. Honestly, he looks rather relieved.
+Above ground, the old mole caretaker is waiting with Cassidy. &quot;Barty?&quot; he asks incredulously, holding up his lantern, &quot;What happened here?&quot;<br> <br>Zuri keeps close to Rokarion, staying silent as he watches the reunion that&#39;s about to take place. He looks up at the others, gauging their reaction to this revelation.. especially Cara.<br> <br>&quot;Your apprentice decided that religion included bothering the dead.&quot; Roka remarks as he exits the graveyard, ruffling the salamander&#39;s head, &quot;You should file a report to the Crown and tell them that old one cultists were operating within the graveyard. That might get them to repair the place.&quot;<br> <br>Cara looks at Barty straight in the eyes with solemn expression on her face before turning to face the old mole caretaker, &quot;That was actually part of the reason that he did this in the first place. Just do everything you can to get this place repaired and if you want me to help out, then I&#39;d be honoured to aid you in the repairs.&quot;<br> <br>Once the group does finally enter the graveyard again, Lidara ducks off the side, and... well... the sounds of some gagging and a bit of wretching should make it rather obvious exactly what he&#39;s doing.  After that though, he quickly rejoins the group and finds something to rest against for a bit, leaving the talking to them while he focuses more on keeping his last meal down.<br> <br>Angus gives the Mole a nod in greeting, not bothering to give the answer as he continues to drag the kid away in irons. Grumbling to himself he made a mental note to make sure he visited someone to make sure that he didn&#39;t just break a few ribs. <br> <br>&quot;Well,&quot; the mole says, blinking in obvious confusion, &quot;I suppose you got that all cleared up then?&quot; The caretaker turns and leads the way out of the graveyard. &quot;Got pie all ready for you!&quot; he says. He is in for a surprise when he goes down into the catscombs again.<br> <br>Zuri blinks, then smiles very wide! &quot;Pie! Yay!&quot; The small spotted salamander had forgotten his reward! He breaks off from the group and heads up the path back out of the cemetery grounds. &quot;I wonder what kind of pie it is.. I hope it&#39;s apple. Or raspberry...&quot;<br> <br>Cara blinks for a moment and then opens her mouth. &quot;Did he..?&quot; In her confusion from the apparent oblivious nature of the caretaker, she turns directly toward Barty and shakes her head in disappointment, &quot;Is he always this oblivious to what&#39;s going on?&quot;<br> <br>Lidara can&#39;t help but get another smile on his face when he sees Zuri&#39;s excitement, he even calls out after the salamander, &quot;You can have my pie if you want it!&quot;  With that though, he gets up again and starts making his way out of the graveyard and back in the direction of the city gates.  He does, however, add on, &quot;I shoud probably get some rest...,&quot; after a moment.  In a much quieter tone though, of course.  <br> <br>Angus shakes his head, declining pie as he continues to tug the kid towards the exit. &quot;Nah, I appreciate the offer but I will have to decline. You have yourself a good day sir.&quot; He answers, trying his best to smile before heading out.[[Category:RPLogs]]

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