Chương 19: Grave Stakes

"Your death!" Tiya snarled angrily in reply to the ghoul, and brought Bull down emphatically directly on the ghoul lord's broken neck, shearing it through and severing it from his distended, pasty corpse of a purple-gray body that was equal parts glutted hideously and wretchedly starving. The head bounced free in shock, while Orange-tinted Wrathfire blazed in triple hues all over its corpse as it suddenly died, whooshing through the air and devouring the stinking miasma that surrounded it quickly in but a moment.

The worm of a corpse wanted to shudder, the tongue wanted to keep squirming, but hey, it was dead now, and Tiya decided that hacking the backside of the thing open so that the corpse could Burn into white dust even faster was far from a bad thing to do. -It appears we have a volunteer for our first undead Baneskull! - Deuce /exclaimed, nearly invisible in concealment with the shadows of the stones, the mist now spilling out of the tomb, and his small size. -Well done, Mother!

- Tiya just nodded, in her Combat Stance and holding it as Combat Vigor pulsed with every heartbeat and restored the Soak the thing's claws had ripped away from her so quickly. Deuce was also going to have to Mend her armor, too.

"Is someone watching?" she asked under her breath. -Two Invisible people by the entry to the park. Likely the Mayor and our hostess, wondering if they want to try anything special. -"Anything on him of value?" Tiya asked quickly, seeing necklaces start to slide away, a purse lift from the silken rope of his belt, and rings and earrings wriggle off from the disintegrating corpse they were attached to. -Unless it's in this purse, his spellbook is probably still inside, he was simply planning to come back and get it.

- The carried loot disappeared into the bag on Deuce's back, treated with a Deeppockets spell that was Tied Off and would Renew itself from Renewal to Renewal.

"Let's go get it, then. Leave a little surprise when they try to follow?" Tiya asked, pivoting towards the door fearlessly, and heading inside without really asking, Deuce sliding in at her heels. -That would be entertainingly cruel. Certainly! - Deuce /replied without missing a beat. -Let me put a Glyph on the ceiling here, they won't see it in the mist until it's a wee bit too late.

- Trying to stifle a laugh, Tiya bent down, picked up her son, and let him stand on her shoulder as he traced a glowing symbol above the entryway, right where anyone following her would be ducking to get inside. A handful of breaths later, he was done.

He slid down into the carry-sack on her back, and watched keenly ahead with his glowing Silver eyes as she padded down the mist-filled, white-filled corridor where a lot of stacked bones and remains were Burning down to nothing, and the stink and stench of ghouls and their meals and litter was replaced with the fresh air of vivus at work. All of the burial creches here were violated, the bodies missing, the few coffins present either torn apart or their lids ripped off and thrown to the floor.

She had to watch her footing on the broken stone and wood, although the latter was misting now, stained white and affected by necroic energies and the rotting stuff falling into powder. The catacombs of consumed dead gave way to a wider burial chamber with several sarcophagi in the middle, all of them with shattered tops and empty of their previous contents.

The back of it appeared to have been dug out even further by years of work with bony claws, and fit out with what looked like a scavenged table, a divan, a bookshelf, and an impromptu throne of sorts, all of which were now Burning around the edges with vivus, either crumbling or being stained white slowly. Also, two very wide holes in the walls to the left and right, large circular stones fallen into them, and a lot of mounds of white dust and rotting clothing Burning away around them.

Deuce flicked up a Disk for them. -The books first. Something is behind them, too. -"Grave-robbing, no doubt." The Frokkin often sent off their dead with some valuables in death, and a favored weapon, too. Of course, they set them to pyres on the sea, so it was a great deal more difficult for grave-robbers to gain such things later on. Tiya began pulling off the moldering tomes and stacking them on the Disk quickly, the shelves starting to collapse as she did so.

She noticed there was a square line of mold outlining unseen seams on the stone behind the shelves as she did so, exactly as Deuce had intimated. She managed to stack up all the books before shoving the entire bookshelf over and watching it collapse into vivisizing splinters. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Deuce waved away the stone covering after telling her to back up and to the side against the wall, which she promptly did so.

A second later there was a hissing display of crawling black energies directly in front of the revealed niche there, where a small wooden chest was safely ensconced, only a little green on its bronze fittings.

Tiya watched a bunch of long oily-black tentacles come squirming out of the ground, looking like they wanted to do unpleasant and intrusive things from below, and made a face as they writhed and lashed about, smacking the wall and floor and one another, looking to grasp and pound something to pulp around the entire back end of the room. She stepped back as the tip of one smashed just short of her toes, while another hit the ruined stone sarcophagus next to her and furthered its crumbling.

- Black Tentacles, - Deuce /mused, looking at them wriggling and lashing all over the place. - You can chop them off at the base or simply wait for the spell to end. - Tiya eyed two of them that had encircled the throne and promptly reduced the solid oak to crushed carvings that were crunching and falling apart in their grips.

"I think I'll just wait and relax," she said diplomatically. After about ninety seconds, the tentacles all unwound, snapped to pointing straight up, and then receded into the ground they'd sprouted from, leaving an abused floor, wrecked table and throne, and no other trace of themselves behind.

"I imagine getting a couple of those around you could be really bad," she murmured, stepping back up to the chest. She started to reach for it, but Deuce clicked his tongue in warning, and she hopped back immediately. From out of his small purse he pulled an actual key, obviously taken off the dead ghoul lord above. With his other hand, he brought up a section of the throne's seat that was still intact, using magic to manipulate the key while holding the wood section behind the lock.

The key turned remarkably easily, once, twice… There was a click and pok sound, and something was jutting through the wood below his hand. Deuce dropped the wood and flicked open the chest, ignoring the embedded dart and poison smeared upon its tip there. Within the velvet-lined chest was a darkly leather-bound tome of fine make and preserved very well, while about it were scattered an array of colorful gems, jewelry, and a collection of gold and platinum coins of various mintage.

"Ah, he had a go-chest, and didn't take the time to grab it?" Tiya guessed, looking at the haul.

"And this must be the spell book that the Mayor wants…" -After I examine it. - He used Minor Telekinesis to heft the Tome and float it over on top of the others. -It's coated in a slow, mild contact poison, too. It's why his fingers were so black. - Tiya recalled that minor detail while she watched Deuce as he dumped it on top of the other books, then waved his fingers about in a manner that made the whole stack of books on the Disk glow, then suddenly transform into a flat piece of paper covered in runework.

She was very curious as he calmly folded the paper up, then rolled it up and stuck it into his purse. -Time to go! - he /announced. There was a boom that made the walls shake, and an immediate tirade of cursing and pain from back the way they'd come. Tiya was definitely not afraid as Deuce climbed aboard again, but he simply said, -Take the new stairs. - Part of the wall melted down to form stairs going up, while the ceiling lifted up and away.

Grinning, Tiya started up them energetically, watching the roof above her melt away, and glanced back once to see the stairs behind them reform into a blank wall with nothing showing. A few seconds later the top of an empty crypt receded from above her, and she hopped right out back onto the graveyard's surface, out behind the tomb they were just inside. Without missing a beat, Tiya just turned and started jogging towards the entry to the graveyard, the Disk trailing behind her.

-We'll need to come back here at night, - Deuce /sighed to her, his blankets wrapped around him again on her back.

"Oh? Why's that?" Tiya asked, a bit surprised. -There's over a dozen damned spirits here the bastard was suppressing who are going to be able to manifest come sundown. If the place was Consecrated properly, they'd be restricted to their graves, but guess what? -"It's not Consecrated. So, we have to kill them," Tiya nodded, looking ahead of them at the path leading out.

"Hey, look, she brought some muscle to help her out, too." This time, she smiled widely, and her Axe was in her hand, the Orange, white, and black Flames upon it snapping to life and earning a great deal of attention from the four men in breastplates and greaves gathered there, blanching as they saw her trotting their way.

"Good news!" she called out to them in a friendly manner which was definitely not.

"All twenty-two ghouls and the ghoul lord of the cemetery are dead! Tell the Mayor I'll come see her in the morning!" They looked at the claw marks that had shredded the leathers below her neck and down her side, yet not managed to draw any blood, then the unnatural Flames on Bull, and decided that standing in the way of someone who could kill two dozen ghouls was not on their high priority list.

Tiya just chuckled and spun Bull in her grasp lightly as they all stepped aside, and headed back down the street past him to the rest of the town and her comfy room for the night. Deuce probably had stuff to read, but she was just going to take a nap until she had to get up again. Humming happily to herself, wondering how much they'd made in Karma and goldweight and other stuff for the future, Tiya headed for her little rented cottage and whatever the night was going to hold, in its own due time.

Most of the books had held up remarkably well for their rotting environment, courtesy of the kind of rag paper they were made from and at least a modicum of care from the ghoul lord, who had likely owned them in life. One of them was his journal. It was thus revealed that his name was Rinando Pierglias, a wizard and once a member in fine standing in the magical community. That had been hundreds of years ago, not long before the Silence of the Gods.