Porcelain Child/SessionThirteen

Among the farms…
<onine> The darkness of night is beginning to fall across the village, and the two young fire aspects outside the mill. Then, you both begin to hear movement. Movement all around, though you can see it well, it is enough to make the hairs stand out on the backs of your necks There are a few in the fields, standing in the rice paddy water, the moonlight reflecting around them. A few can be seen on roofs of barns nearby, another few move in from around the village proper. One leaps - or rather - soars from one building to one far away. The kind of jump that only a spirit or an exalt can do. There is a crashing boom followed by cracking very loud behind you which makes the pair of you jump as whatever is inside the mill tries to force the door...
<onine> There appears to be a rather large group of these creatures moving in on you. Roughly seven loping, stooped across the watery rice field, plants and reeds dangling off their decomposed bodies.
<onine> Another group is moving in from the village, there is a small bridge crossing a stream which may slow them down. And of course there is no telling what is behind you in the mill.
<Anona> "Oh, great."
* Vana slowly turns her sword horizontal, quickly counting numbers. "My thoughts exactly..."
<onine> Anona has heard of the undead, though there is very little in regards to 'sightings' of zombies on the Blessed Isle. Living on the threshold however, Vana has seen common zombies with somewhat more frequency.
<onine> To you, these zombies are 'wrong' they aren't staggering around like drunkards, and the characteristic moaning is all but absent.
<Anona> "Vana... you ever encounter this sort of thing before?"
<onine>
*WHAM
* Another assault on the mill door begins
<Vana> "Plenty of times. Only they usually make some sort of noise... and the decomposition makes them unstable and jerky."
<onine> Four of the zombies from the field scramble up one of the rice field tiers close to you, and another pair move across the bridge from the village to your left.
<Anona> "Guess these are fresh."
*FOOM
* "I hope they're flammable."
* Vana looks up behind them. "I think we'd better hurry... these don't look like they'll hold for long." Her own anima sparks into existence.
<onine> In the dimming twilight, the two exalteds' animas roar brightly, lighting the whole area and standing like a pair of bright beacons.
* Vana scans each zombie in turn, her anima reflecting off the gold of her blade and highlighting the decaying features of her foe. She whirls suddenly, a brief burst of hot air marking her path as she sweeps her sword in a low arc to demolish the closest tier, then again to neatly slice it's way across the now-falling zombies.
<onine> The sword carves into the ground, knocking stonework out of the wall, caving the raised section underneath a pair of the zombies.
<onine> Your blow slices across the midsections of a pair of the creatures, bloated organs and fluids gush from their stumbling bodies.
* Anona extends her hand, sighting along it at another one of the approaching undead. Flames rush from her anima into her outstretched palm until they form a fist-sized ball, which Anona hurls at her target.
<onine> The flames splatter across the creature's chest and face, engulfing it in roiling fire that manages to catch, but... the creature keeps moving despite the flames searing its rotten flesh.
<onine> The zombie starts to stumble as its legs begin to burn through with the sickening popping and sizzling of burning flesh.
<onine> One creature makes its way from the bridge towards you Anona, and another nearby actually leaps over the stream, forgoing the bridge altogether.
<onine> Another small group begin to quickly move in on Vana having climbed or jumped the undamaged portions of the wall.
<onine> One creature shambles up to Anona, swinging its fists down against her, hissing and gurgling strangely, but the blow is ineffective.
<onine> The zombie on the ruined section of rock swings, trying to hit Vana's legs as it climbs awkwardly, one of its legs cleanly amputated by her previous blow.
<onine> Another is up and running across the wall towards Vana, its arms out in some nightmarish parody of a sleepwalker
* Vana catches the first one's blow with an odd ducking motion, neatly clinching it behind her knee and directing it at the second.
<onine> With an odd urking noise, the zombie's blow catches the soft unarmoured spot behind Vana's knee. It doesn't hurt though, much of its leverage is lost in its position.
* Vana drops to her knees as the first blow connects, crunching the hand between armored thigh and superheated calf, reaching above her head to grab the second attack and pull it toward the first zombie's outstretched arm.
<onine> Smoke errupts all around you as the zombie with its arm caught behind your knee catches fire, its flesh burning with a sickly sweet smell.
* Vana grimaces at the feel of melting flesh stuck to her leg, but rolls back away from her flaming opponents, neatly slicing at the remaining zombie mid-handspring. She turns halfway, landing in a low crouch behind the remains of the rice tier.
<onine> The zombie is cut clean in half, falling to a smoking heap on the ground, flailing its arms and hissing angrily, which begins to fade quickly.
<Anona> Anona raises her sword and makes two swift cuts at the approaching zombie, a little burst of flame exploding on each hit.
<onine> The first cut severs the zombie's head cleanly, wisps of smoke billow upwards from the stump of its neck.
<onine> The Zombie across the stream comes at you - it literally floats fast through the air towards you. No leap, no jump, it just... launches towards you, swinging its arms.
<onine> Meanwhile another pair make their way fast across the bridge - very fast.
<onine> You quickly duck out of the way, and the thing lands in the wreckage of the wagons behind you - neatly impaling itself on one of the broken planks of wood.
<onine> From the fields, a trio of the zombies leap, run and climb their way over to Vana, all intent on doing her harm
<onine> A fourth climbs up a short distance from you and waits, crouched on the edge of the tier.
<onine> Meanwhilst, whatever remains barricaded in the mill continues its frenzied assault on the doors....
* Vana waits until they are in range, before diving forwards into their midst; the first strike she takes squarely on her armored back, but the second she captures between both hands and reverses, using the monentum of her roll to throw it at the last of the freaks. A snap of fiery Essence, and she flies in the other direction, physics bowing it's head to her elemental majesty.
<onine> The zombie's blow catches his own 'comrade' square in the jaw, knocking the zombie's face on its side, the blow he aimed flying wide of the fire aspect warrior.
<onine> Vana's flaming aura burns further into the zombies - looks like they dont like fire after all...
* Vana looks worriedly at the mill for a moment, where whatever-it-is still hammering at the doors, but she soon turns her attention back to the approaching zombie menace. A nigh-invisible strike sends a line of fire across three of the enemy, with a slight curl of flame rising up with her last blow to connect with the one on the wall.
<onine> The zombies fall like cards before the mighty fire aspect warrior, eviscerated cleanly, only the fourth zombie that waited is still even able to move.
<onine> Pushing off with its legs it pounces, hissing on you, smoke billowing out of its body as it wraps gangly water bloated arms around you.
* Vana just steps to the side with a loud crack, smoke trailing in her wake.
* Anona stares at the two approaching undead with a hard look in her eyes. Opting for power over speed, Anona makes a forceful swing at one of them, flames trailing the sword's wake.
<onine> The zombie surprisingly lashes out swatting the blade with its clawed hands, hissing and glaring at you, while the other zombie trails behind, then leaps at you...
<onine> The zombie latches onto you and starts to constrict you in its arms, slimey fungus and other less nameable substances rubbing onto your pristine clothing.
* Vana leaps back over the piles of zombie goo, a knife searing through the air towards the zombie's neck before the jade daiklave follows it.
<onine> The imprisoned... thing... in the mill continues to bash against the doors, the walls, everywhere, it grows more frantic as time goes on.
<onine> Anona has a close up of the zombie's decomposed face. A farmer. One instant it is there, the next instant there is a knife sticking out of the side of its head - then then Dragonblood and Zombie are thrown to the side by a blow.
<onine> The flaming zombie remains steadfastly and fondly attached to you, gnashing its teeth and licking at you with its bloated tongue.
<Anona> Anona wiggles her way out of the zombie's arms. "Hey, no tongue! We just met!"
<onine> You manage to push the zombie off yourself, its arms weakened by all the surface damage your anima has dealt to it.
<onine> The zombie doesn't fare well anymore, dropping to the ground, likewise the other zombie that Vana was fighting before drops flaming the ground. Strangely, the undamaged zombie does likewise.
* Vana looks around in confusion, weapon dripping with gore.
<onine> Suddenly you are both thrown the ground with such force that the air is knocked out of you.
<Anona> "oof!"
* Vana makes a similar noise, but instincts kick in and she rolls to see what it is.
<onine> Stars dance in your vision and you barely feel chunks of wood and brick rain down around you. Both of you barely maintain your grip on consciousness as the mill explodes outwards. First from the top, then the bottom section is suddenly and inarguably destroyed, throwing doors, gears and wagons.
<onine> Your senses finally return, a large gear is sticking out of the ground a few feet from Vana's head, and a Wagon has landed over Anona.
* Vana shades her eyes from the dust and peers into the wreckage.
* Anona looks up at her newly-acquired shelter. "Well, at least it didn't land ON me..."
* Vana offers an odd smile. "Yeah."
<Anona> "What in the world DID that?"
<onine> The whole area is in chaos, like a warzone. Smoke hangs around, debris is everywhere, and there is little remaining, save for an impact crater.
* Vana carefully gets to her feet and approaches the wreckage, sword held ready. "I guess we'll see..."
<onine> Inside is...
<onine> ...
<onine> ...
<onine> Nothing.
<onine> Although the hopes of something remaining is really a long shot.
* Vana frowns. "Or not."
* Anona shoves the wagon - already smoldering from her anima - aside. "How anticlimactic."

<onine> Magpie, you Ujiro and the Magistrate move through the marketplace, the flickering light of your makeshift torch doing little to scrape away at the edges of the darkness. The way the shadows move it seems to make things worse.
<onine> Diamandus steps carefully forward hefting the goremaul. "Magpie?"
<Magpie> "Yeah?"
<onine> "I want you to go as quickly as you can to Yengo, do you understand?"
<Magpie> "Yengo. He's..." She spins in a circle. "That way, right?"
<onine> "On the northern road-" He starts, but is interrupted by a loud crash as one of the house screens explodes outwards onto the street and a dark shape leaps down from above.
* Magpie jumps back. She glances at the northern road, and back. Hesitates. How could she just run and leave them there?
<onine> The Magistrate swings around barely missing you with the massive jade maul and catches the attacker in the chest with a whump and a series of sickening cracks as ribs give way. The force of the blow sends the assailant sailing and crashes into another house wall, shattering through it.
<onine> "Go! Now!"
<onine> More of the creatures kick their way through house fronts, and some... bodies draped over barrels and wagons stand on their own.
<onine> Ujiro slices into one, the wound spraying gas and bile all over him.
* Magpie turns, and runs, catapulting her way down the road...looking back one last time as she turns the bend. Then she wonders if YENGO'S fighting monsters, and runs faster, heart thumping in her chest.
<onine> A shape leaps out in front of you as you run, hissing and gurgling - one of the bodies!
<onine> Its arms flail around you, trying desperately to grab you as you pass.
* Magpie puts her head down and swerves out of its reach, catching her breath and sprinting out of its range. Having evaded the municipal guard for three years- three! - in the Imperial City, she wasn't going to get caught by some stupid -zombie-.
<onine> "Kaaaaaah!" There is a wet slicing noise behind you. You take a brief look and see Ujiro, nearly covered in all manner of unnamable fluids cleaving into the zombie that tried to net you.
<onine> He waves as happily as you and runs back to the battle...
* Magpie giggles a little hysterically. He was fast runner, too, to catch up with her. She wondered if the Magistrate at exiled him to the run-away crew too. She gives him a little wave, and then turns her attention back to the road, charging down the dirt lane.
<onine> Back in the marketplace, the Magistrate bats the creatures left and right, bodies sail into the air as he swings his maul. Quickly however, you are out of sight, and heading up the village north road to Yengo, Tara and Epheri...
* Magpie begins to wonder, as she pelts through the darkness, if Yengo and Tara and Epheri were fighting. She bet Tara would smack them with that huge pan she always insists on cooking with.

The village homes…
<onine> You round the corner and start to head upwards, the group is not difficult to find, you can see Tara standing on the street, her hands covering her mouth with a look of shock, Epheri is doubled over nearby and looks ill. Yengo is backing away from one of the houses.
<Magpie> "YENNGO! There are zombies!"
* Yengo moves his sword from side to side slightly as he keeps his eyes locked on the house's doorway. "I know. Stay back."
<onine> You almost miss it, but you notice that the body of the child that was on the verandah is gone..
<Magpie> What was this with adults and telling you to stay away. But since no zombies were attacking -immediately-, Magpie pokes around the dust of the road, locating a clutch of truly superior throwing-rocks. She plants herself above them.
* Yengo moves the sword slightly back and forth a few more times before suddenly lunging forward at the creature in the doorway, throwing all his weight behind a downward diagonal slice. A wave of dust bursts up at his heels as he digs his feet in and backslashes, forming a crude X.
<onine> The first blow cuts the creature open from left shoulder to right hip with the kind of sick crunching noice that you dont get when striking a living target, smoke and fluids gush from the gash, and are bisected by the second blow that cuts it across the belly, spilling bloated organs onto the ground.
<onine> "Yengo, look out!" Tara screams. You turn in time to see another figure sailing towards you, - the kid.
<onine> The child's body wraps its arms and legs around your neck and torso, and it squeezes, its is amazingly strong, but your armour absorbs most of the strength.
<Magpie> "Yengo!"
<Magpie> Forgetting her rocks, Magpie darts forward and grabs the child-corpse. She takes two fistfuls of its flesh, and tries to pull it away from Yengo. "Get OFF him!"
<onine> The thing remains steadfastly wrapped around Yengo, strange gurgles and hisses escaping it as you pull.
* Magpie digs her heels into the rotting wood of the porch, and leans back, pulling with all her might.
<Magpie> "You stupid...stinking...rotting..monster!" she pants as she struggles to make a dent against the creature's stolid strength.
* Yengo digs his own fingers into the creature's rotting flesh and wrenches it sideways against Magpie's tugging.
<onine> The creature's arms snap as its weakened bones break, and it sails sidewards away from you... and keeps going, floating under its own power to rest, crouched like some insect against a house wall on the second floor. It glares with its milky eyes and bares its rotten child’s teeth at you.
<onine> "Yengo?! Help me here!" Tara yells, backing away from another of the corpses that refuse to stay dead. She swings a large frying pan at it, succeeding at least in keeping the thing back for now.
<Yengo> "Tara!"
* Yengo, predictably, takes a running start at the creature menacing Tara, throwing himself between it and her, his sword flashing out in a brief, glittering crescent.
<onine> Yengo cuts into the zombie, severing a hand and a large portion of its opposite shoulder. Judging by the clothes, this one too was a young farmer's wife...
<Magpie> Did no one keep out of trouble if she wasn't keeping an eye on them? Magpie looks frantically around for something hurl at the corpse. At last, her eyes fall on a bent copper cup. She scoops it up, and sends it sailing over Yengo's head to hit the creature on top of its head.
<onine> The cup thwocks the zombie in the face, turning its hissing head to the side. In retaliation he claws at Yengo with its grubby fingers
<onine> The strikes are ineffective, but they make a neat set of parallel scratches down Yengo's breastplate.
<onine> Tara swings and misses with the frying pan, nearly clocking Yengo on the back of the head.
<onine> Epheri nocks an arrow and tries to aim it into the melee but does not fire for fear of hitting her friends
<Magpie> When her frantic glance does reveal any other throwables, Magpie grabs a board leaning up against the porch, grips it two-handed over her head, and rushes forward past Yengo hollering, swinging the rotting piece of lumber overhead in an arc. She had seen this move -all the time- in street theater...
<onine> Magpies overhead blow smashes into its head, crushing the weakened skull into a pulp, splattering decomposed brain matter and bone all around. It takes a few faltering steps, swinging blindly at Yengo, then topples into a heap.
* Magpie looks stunned. "I did it. I DID IT!"
<onine> "Look out!" Tara yells as the child zombie swoops upon you.
<onine> It gets only a meter away before a pair of arrows impale it and it too drops the ground. Like the other, it staggers around a bit in some greusome parody of a wounded person, then falls and stops moving.
* Yengo takes a step back from the nearest zombie, looking around hurriedly to see if more are coming. "Everyone all right?"
* Magpie nods, eyes wide.
<onine> "Uh...huh." Epheri pants, pale as alabaster...paler than she usually is anyway.
<onine> "I'm alright." Tara says, looking down at the 'zombie remains' that Magpie splattered all over her.
* Yengo pats Magpie absently on the head, gives Tara a quick once over, glances back at Epheri. "Okay, good. These things must be all over town by now, I wonder how the others are..."
<onine> "I hope Anona's okay..."
<Magpie> "Ujiro and the Magistrate were splatting zombies in the marketplace," Magpie reports.
<onine> Epheri wipes her mouth some more.
<Magpie> "Diamandus told me to run." She sounds disgusted.
<Yengo> "He did the right thing. When a Dragon-Blood starts channeling Essence, it's best for mortals to keep clear."
<onine> "That's right, he just didn't want you getting hurt Magpie." Tara defends. "Keeping you safe is his responsibility after all."
<Magpie> "But I still splatted a zombie!" She is obviously enormously proud of herself. "Are there more inside?" She moves to investigate.
* Yengo rummages in the pouches at his belt, pulling forth a few of the weighted scalpels he keeps there. Part of him still can't believe he's doing this, but... he carefully hands them to Magpie, handle first.
<Yengo> "These are sharp, be careful of the blades."
* Magpie gasps. "Forme?-" She takes them gingerly- not out of any concern of the blades, but as one receiving sacred treasures..
<Yengo> "Don't get used to it," he warns. "But if we run into any more of those, you'll want to be tossing something besides rocks. Just be careful with them." Yes, sure. Be careful. The entire situation was certainly safe aside from sharp objects...
* Magpie starts to juggle them, stopping at Tara's death-glare.
<onine> Oh and she deathglares you GOOD.
<Magpie> "I was -practicing-...." Realizing the imminent danger of her sharp shiny objects being taken away from her, Magpie changes the subject. "So, I guess we should go see how the others splatted, right?"
<onine> Wonder if Vana will let you keep them...hell you just wont tell her.*wink*
<Yengo> "Believe me, Tara, I have my doubts, but..." he trails off. "We need to get back to the others, quickly. I'll lead. Epheri, you bring up the rear. Tara, Magpie, stay close."
<onine> "Right." Epheri says.
* Magpie nods and steps into formation, scalpels clutched tight in her hands and ready to throw.

The road through the town…
<onine> On the trek back, Tara still isn’t happy with Yengo. "You shouldn’t be giving her knives, Yengo. She's only...*quieter* she's only a child."
<Magpie> It's lucky for Tara Magpie didn't hear that, paying too much attention to the countryside for zombies to throw them at.
* Yengo whispers back, eyes still focused ahead. "I know, Tara. She shouldn't even be here at all... it's no place for a child... but it's the lesser of two evils."
<onine> As you are about to continue, all of you hear a loud boom from the fields...
<Magpie> "That way?"
<Yengo> "Yes. Fast and careful." Like those terms aren't a contradiction.

Back among the farms…
<onine> "Vanaaa! Anonaaa!" A voice calls from higher up in the village.
<onine> The Magistrate and Ujiro are making their way towards the 'impact' area. You can see the others further up also making their way towards you.
* Vana turns and waves to the source of the voice. "Over here! Not that it's hard to see..." She mutters quietly.
<onine> The two arrive in battle mode with weapons drawn and ready. The Magistrate is more or less clean, his crystalline anima fading from view slowly. Ujiro on the other hand is covered almost head to toe in... well, stuff.
<onine> "What happened, we came as fast as we could!"
* Vana gestures at the crater. "That did. Whatever that is."
<onine> He grunts unhappily.
<onine> "Ujiro is definitely sorry he missed THIS battle..." The mortal looks around sadly, surveying the extreme carnage.
<Anona> "Wasn't much of a battle. More of an earth-shattering 'kaboom'."
* Vana nods. "Sorry, Ujiro. Maybe next time."
<onine> The Magistrate looks over the remains of some of the villagers you dispatched, still flaming. "I take it you too had encounters of the dead, restless and hungry."
<onine> Around this stage, Yengo, Magpie, Tara and Epheri have caught up.
<Anona> "A perfectly reasonable conclusion, yes.
* Vana flicks a little zombie-saliva off of Anona's neck with her sword. "Some closer than others. Ew."
* Yengo surveys the devastation with a mixture of awe and disgust. "Everyone in one piece?"
<onine> "Woah..." Epheri breathes. "You okay Anona?"
<Magpie> "Anona! Vana! I splatted one!" Magpie points to the bits of gore still clinging to Tara.
<Anona> "Apart from any long-term mental damage from having one of those things lick me? Yes, I'm alright."
* Vana grins at Magpie. "Nice work."
<onine> "That's disgusting."
<Magpie> "It -licked- you?" Magpie wrinkles her nose.
<Anona> "Yes it was, and yes it did."
* Yengo wipes the worst of the gore from his sword with a rag. "They've all stopped moving, at least."
<Magpie> "Do you think you taste good?"
<onine> "Enough!"
<onine> The Magistrate glares at the lot of you.
* Magpie shuts up, looking repentant. With sneaking glance at Vana, she hides the scalpels so the Dragonblooded won't see them. Probably Yengo would forget too...
<onine> "They've stopped moving for now at least and we are going to be sure they stay that way. That Immaculate's body was hung almost ritualistically, what does that tell you?"
<Magpie> "Uh, there was a ritual?"
* Anona opens her mouth, then shuts it. (Was going to say the SAME thing.)
<Yengo> "I don't know, Magistrate. The only walking dead I ever heard of in the Threshold came out of the Shadowlands."
<onine> He taps his forehead meaningfully. "It suggests intelligence... Maybe not from the dead themselves however... I should think not."
<Yengo> "Someone had to set this up.... But who? Here on the Isle... a massacre like this... the walking dead... that's unheard of." He frowns. "Just like Wyld zones."
<onine> "Exactly. Of course we can no longer rule out the possibility of Shadowlands, but on the Blessed Isle? Normally I would dismiss that, but we have recently seen many things that do not belong."
<onine> "However we can discuss this later. We can't leave all this here. Get torches. Anona I never thought I would say this, but I want you to burn this entire village to the ground."
<Anona> "Yay!"
* Anona sounds entirely too happy about the matter.
<onine> "Ujiro and I will collect the bodies from the field. Anona and Yengo, take the village proper. Epheri and Tara, take care of the storehouses. And Magpie... stay out of trouble."
* Yengo should feel more sympathetic... but having the dead try to kill you tends to strip most of that out. "We'll make sure none of these things get up again, at least."
<onine> "Vana, you destroy the mill and the bodies here, then help Epheri and Tara."
<Vana> "Yes, sir." She gestures to Magpie, and starts hefting wreckage into the crater.
<onine> "Alright. On your way. Yengo, also don't forget to take care of the Immaculate's body. Give him some respect in death at least."
* Yengo nods.
* Magpie trots after Vana, and helps shove things into the pit, struggling with the heavier items.

The village proper</b.>
* Anona marches off into the village with a will and a mission. As she passes the first few huts she gleefully begins tossing fireballs at huts, bodies, anything that'll burn, really, and uses her anima to take care of the remainder.
<onine> You all go about your assigned tasks. The Magistrate and Ujiro heap bodies into the crater of the mill while Yengo and Anona go about taking the village apart the way only Anona can love.
* Yengo follows discreetly behind Anona, watching as the houses ignite. "Just think... a week ago, these people were going about their lives. Now they're dust in the wind. Maybe it's that way for all of us."
<onine> Finally, the entire town is ablaze, pouring smoke into the night sky, lastly Yengo and Anona move to take care of the Immaculate.
<onine> His body however is missing.
<Anona> "Hmm. We have a problem."
<Yengo> "Maybe he just moved somewhere else... none of us saw him during the fight, though."
<Anona> "Yes, but if we was also a zombie, he should have dropped to the ground like the others... right?"
<Yengo> "You're right..." He rubs his chin. "Don't like this."
<Anona> "Neither do I..."
<Anona> "Well, maybe he moved a bit and THEN dropped...? Let's look... and tell the Magistrate."
<Yengo> "Good idea."
<onine> You hunt about through the streets for a bit, but find no traces of the body, nor of anyone moving it.
<Yengo> "Now I like this even less..."
<onine> The night is starting to cool considerably, and it looks as if a light rain may fall sometime during the night.
<onine> The gruesome task of 'disposing' of the village is finally coming to a close at least.
<Anona> "Hm. If it rains, that saves us the trouble of making sure the flames don't spread too far, at least."
<Yengo> "I hope this is the only village like this we find. There's no way to know."
<onine> You make your way back to the windmill, or where the windmill was. Most of the area is aflame, and the others save the Magistrate are waiting there for you.
<Anona> The thought stops Anona dead in her tracks. "*Another* village like this? That's... not a very pretty idea."
<Yengo> "No... but I've given up on being skeptical about what we might find, even on the Isle."
<onine> "You're back, good." Epheri says standing and walking over. "Have a pleasant time?"
<Yengo> "Not me," Yengo grumbles. "Our Immaculate's body is gone."
<onine> "Oh. Well that's not good at all." she says.
<onine> "You didn't just... forget where he was did you?"
<Anona> "No, we even looked around. It's like he got up and left. Which I would normally say is impossible, but..."
<onine> "Hmmm.." Well, the Magistrate should be back soon. "He's doing his 'Magistrate' thing. Looking for clues. Judging by his rapidly descending mood, things weren't and aren't going well."
<Anona> "I could have told him THAT."
<onine> "I think it's worse... well, differently worse. He's trying to figure out what happened, and he cant."
<Yengo> "That makes two of us."
* Magpie has wandered over. "But it's obvious! A ghost came and made everyone into zombies, and then possessed the ghost and went away cackling."
<onine> "Well ah, no offense Yengo, but you don’t strike me as much of a detective."
<Magpie> "Well, I'm guessing about the cackling."
<onine> "Oh really." Epheri says monotone.
* Yengo shrugs. "Not much of one." He sulks.
* Magpie sees no one is listening. "Why did the mill explode? Ghosts don't usually do that, I think."
<Magpie> She says this very loudly.
<onine> "No, I don’t think they do, and zombies don’t usually exist, and they don’t... well... fly."
<Yengo> "Magpie has a point... what was up with that mill, anyway?"
<onine> Epheri looks at Anona for the answers.
<Anona> "Something was in it. It got out."
<onine> "What'd it look like?"
<Anona> "Don't know. I was rather involved with getting out from under a wagon that nearly landed ON me at the time."
<onine> "Fine fine, you get to torch a village and you get grouchy..."
* Epheri moves away a little to sit on said wagon.
* Yengo sits on the other end, breathing heavily, stretching his arms over his head. "I wish I could take this armor off... doubt that'd be a good idea, though."
<Magpie> "So shouldn't we look for tracks?"
<Anona> "That's the thing, there weren't any tracks."
<onine> "I think that's what Diamandus is doing...oh there he is." Epheri says as the Magistrate approaches.. and walks past, swinging his goremaul, shattering some random debris before walking off down across the field towards the road to the valley.
<onine> Ujiro quickly follows after him, the man has worn a bitter expression with this whole gruesome affair.
<onine> "Uh oh..." Epheri murmurs.
<Anona> "Yes, he definitely looks less-than-happy."
* Yengo sighs. "What an ugly day. You'd think by now I'd be used to the smell of this place..."
<Magpie> "Huh. Think the Magistrate will want to stick around for a few days?"
<Anona> "I hope not."
* Yengo glances over at her. "Considering his mood, I THINK not. But..." He shrugs.
<onine> "Same. I think we've done everything we can here."
<onine> After a while Ujiro returns, bowing slightly to you.
<onine> "The Magistrate says it is time to continue our journey." He looks up at the village. "Let us leave all this behind us. Another place lost to obscurity by cowardly evils."
<Anona> "Glad to hear. This place... isn't one I'd care to stay in for long."
* Yengo stands up, taking Tara's hand, squeezing it lightly. "Sounds good. I can't wait to put this place behind me."
* Magpie nods emphatically.
<onine> You move down the tiers and onto the fields where the Magistrate awaits, his goremaul in the ground with his foot resting on the head. He looks sadly up at the village as the flames consume it.
<onine> "We have done our duty, as best as we could." he sighs.
<Yengo> "Yes... all we could do was clean up here..."
<onine> "Sadly yes. Little can be done staying here, we must push on." He pauses. "You have done well today, all of you. This was not an easy task. Let us hope that we can do more next time, let us hope that we will be in time to save the next village that faces dangers such as this..."
<Magpie> "Do think there are a lot? Of villages dealing with things like..." her voice trails off.
<Anona> "I pray not."
<Yengo> "I would've said no a week ago. Now... who knows?"
<onine> The Magistrate nods.
<Magpie> "Well. Let's go then!"