Step One: Recon
5/5 late morning
I got back to the inn and gave Drusilla and Lividia each a good morning kiss. I was ready for a light breakfast, so I put on my Abercrombie face and robe and headed down to the bar.
Watcher Ladimore, her hair brushed and tied back and her armor cleaned and maintained, was waiting. She looked much better when she wasn't exhausted and took a few moments to groom herself. More importantly, she looked resolute, which was good. I may have every intention of adding her to my harem, but first we had a hard task to carry out together.
“Miss Ladimore. I trust you are prepared to go?” She nodded and joined me at my table. We exchanged pleasantries, but she wanted to get down to business as much as I did. I ate quickly. “I hope you know the location of your father’s grave. This will be much easier for you and my nephew if you do.”
“Yes. I used to visit it before the undead grew too great in number. I should warn you, killing undead near that graveyard should be kept to a minimum. When more than one or two are destroyed, the rest will grow agitated and start seeking those responsible.”
“Oh, don’t you worry. I have a bit of experience with such things. I’m more dangerous than I look.” I’m not sure what riled them up the night I picked up Jitters, but I wouldn’t be shocked if Lividia had started executing undead to try to make the streets safer or something. “I’ve been living out there for quite a while.”
“I apologize. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”
“It’s alright. I’m too old for field work anyway. Don’t hold anything back, there might be things I forgot about. If I didn’t warn Otto of something, then maybe you could.”
“There are a handful of different types of undead out there. Skeletons, who tend to be old soldiers or mages and retain some of their skill from life. The ghouls are bestial and fast. They are probably some of the most dangerous individually, while the skeletons are more dangerous in groups. The zombies tend to be relatively weak and passive, and only try to attack if you get fairly close.” Given that they were being deliberately raised by one necromancer, my best guess was that the zombies were kept away from danger so they could mature into ghouls. “Finally, there are dangerous spirits that can mess with your head, plant thoughts or impulses in your mind. They aren’t common, but we haven’t got many ways to ward them off. Unless you can fight them, I’d suggest leaving at that point. If the situation looks bad, we get out. We only have one life to give.”
“All good advice. I’m glad Otto will have someone like you backing him up.” Also that bit about spirits sounded badass. I was suddenly very excited to see what Lillibeth would be capable of. “I'll be seeing off my companion, Tessa, first. She’s going to Northshire. Once I do that, I'll gather you and send you to meet my nephew.”
I headed outside to the north part of town. As I did, I whispered into my amulet to Darcell. “Are you two somewhere safe?”
“Not particularly. But I could get to one of our hideouts if you need it?” She sounded a bit haggard as she spoke.
“Don’t worry. It’s no trouble, I was just seeing if I could give Tessa a shortcut. Is the gnoll situation going well?”
“Um. Yeah. I think so? Keryn seems confident and the gnolls started to fight each other.” Neat. That sounds productive.
“Are you learning?”
“It’s overwhelming, but amazing. There’s so much to learn.”
“You’re doing good, I’ll come pick you up when Keryn has finished her mission.”
Having confirmed that Tessa was going to be walking, I turned to her with a smile. “It’s been great. If you decide you want to join up with us, we’d be happy to have you. But go put some minds at rest for now.”
I’d miss having her there as a bulwark, but having more than one non-retinue member along for a dangerous mission would make escape a lot harder, and I could call her back in a few days. In addition to that, I’m not joking about her needing to put in an appearance at Northshire. She’d blend in with the others I had Keryn and Darcell releasing into the wild with amnesia. I felt bad about the families of the ones who actually died. They weren’t going to get much closure. Oh well, it was me or them.I turned back for Darkshire, leaving Tessa to travel alone through the fog. I wasn’t worried; she was kitted out with heavy armor and was an excellent fighter. She’d be fine.
“Abby. I’m going to be teleporting several people into your shack. One of them is a member of the Night Watch. Make sure anything alarming is out of sight, ok?”
“As you command, master. I’ll clean up. Could you check on that zombie juice, by the way?”
“I’ll get to it when I get to it. Oh. And tell Lilli to stay out of sight. I think the new blood would be shocked to see a spirit floating around.”
••••••••••
I gathered Drusilla, Ladimore, and Lividia. We walked along the road out of town towards Raven Hill, but once we couldn’t see town through the fog anymore I turned to the watcher.
“This may feel odd, but I promise it’s necessary.” I wrapped my arms around her waist, lifted her, and sent her to Abby’s little shack. Once she was gone, I switched my face and clothes to Otto. “Right. You two get going to Abby’s shack. I’ll be joining you in a few.” I gave them a minute or two so my timing wouldn’t be too perfect, then sent myself to the gathering.
Abby was serving tea to the others, crowded around her tiny table. Lillibeth was nowhere to be seen, but I didn’t know if that meant she was invisible or elsewhere. “Right everyone. This the new girl?” I dove right into the conversation the moment I landed in the room. “I hope you’re ready, Ladimore. If we are real lucky we won’t run into too much trouble, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this. The sun’s up, the ghoulies are at their calmest. That means we should make our first trip out now.”
Ladimore seemed faintly scandalized by my informality, but that was fine. It meant she’d be less likely to think “Abercrombie” was secretly the same person as Otto. “So you know our destination, right? Lead the way, we’ll back you up. Today is scouting, unless we get lucky.” Drusilla and I summoned our imps, and I cast power word fortitude on each of us, making us a bit healthier and resistant to harm while we were still in a safe place where I could drink and restore myself.
We headed out as a group, leaving Abby behind. Someone in our group using necromancy against the undead would be far too likely to raise suspicion, from both the enemy and Ladimore. If Abby instead stayed safely squirreled away in her shack, there was little to no chance of calling down a host of shambling corpses upon her head, not to mention the far worse possibility of resetting the timer on The Hermit. Plus, she’d serve as a waypoint to teleport to.
“Hey boss I think I managed-“
“Very impressive, but not now Tony.”
The town was much more occupied than I remembered. It seemed like there was a skeleton on every street, not helped by the fact that fog obscured my view quite a lot. Luckily, both Lividia and Ladimore seemed to be able to see well enough. Lividia didn’t need further explanation for me, but Ladimore seemed to be holding a bloodstained bone in her off hand, along with her currently unlit torch. One of Eva’s charms? With that in mind I looked her up and down and she had several small tokens of bone or severed claws. Any advantage you can get, I guess.
It was a tense, quiet trip. Sound carried well through the fog, and we didn’t want to draw the wrong kind of attention; I suppose that’s why the night watch doesn’t wear heavier armor. To my surprise we never actually entered the cemetery itself. Instead we drifted along the outer fence, avoiding conflict as well as we could. Checking my map at one point, I confirmed that Lillibeth was shadowing us in the fog.
We arrived at a small plot of land with a handful of simple graves. “After the way he died, they put him in the criminals’ plot. Not really part of the main graveyard, but they weren’t going to just throw a paladin in the river.” Ladimore was speaking quietly, but clearly. Unfortunately, the criminal’s plot was still graveyard enough to have a handful of undead, a pack of six ghouls, lazing about it.
Lividia served as my eyes for this, “They are each sitting at different graves, my king. Just staring into the distance.” I wasn’t sure if they were sentries, or if a group of zombies had been raised and left to fester here at each of their own burial plots until needed.
“How long you reckon we have to work if we rush these lads down?” I asked Ladimore. We needed to at least check the grave, after all. If his spirit was hanging out here even as his body wandered about, we could have our chat and get the hell out.
“A few minutes. They’ll start moving towards us immediately, but the nearest gate is a short jog away.” I nodded.
“Alright, so we get in closer, Dru and I will take two of them out, and when they rush us you and Liv keep the rest off us.” She seemed worried, but nodded. In particular she seemed very skeptical of Lividia’s ability to fight. I didn’t blame her, Lividia’s visage made her look like a woman ready to go to a modestly fancy party, not a fight.
The plan went even better than expected. After one of the ghouls had its head blasted by a firecracker and another was rapidly incinerated, we heard the sound of scuffling in the distance. Only two ghouls came rushing at us out of the fog, and they were greeted with impish fireballs and warriors protected by shields of light. Ladimore held her sword out steadily and the ghoul practically impaled itself, after which she bashed its head with her suddenly blazing torch. Lividia pounced on the ghoul, meeting it in midair, and wrestled it to the ground with tremendous strength before bashing its head open against the ground. The skin on her hands and knuckles split, revealing the scales underneath. As she stood triumphant, however, the rips in her skin and dress fused shut and ordered themselves, leaving no signs of the struggle except for somewhat mussed hair. Even her fingernails looked manicured and lacquered.
We rushed towards the sound of fighting, and saw two ghouls tearing each other apart. Taking note of a relevant bit of information, I incinerated the one that wasn’t wearing Lillibeth’s necklace. The Lillibeth ghoul, covered with claw marks and burns, stood and gave a triumphant “ryeaaah!” with jaws that couldn’t form human speech anymore. Then the necklace seemed to dissolve, and a tall, beautiful, and familiar woman appeared behind it as it started limping towards us. We made quick work of the newly aggressive ghoul.
Lillibeth had taken obvious cues from Abby. In fact, looking her up and down she had almost exactly the same look I’d given Abby this morning. There were only two differences, at all, that I could see. Her shiny, shoulder length hair was chestnut brown instead of blonde, and instead of a ratty old robe her hourglass figure was wrapped in a corseted dark grey dress that blended with the dark atmosphere, especially at the ends where it turned into mist itself. When she noticed me looking her over she beamed at me and gave a little twirl. I gave her a nod and a smile, but there was work to be done.
https://imgur.com/a/sYgJmpL
Ladimore made a beeline towards her fathers grave and knelt. She seemed to be praying, presenting the ring. “It’s ok, we forgive you. We just want you to rest.” A lot of that sort of thing. I checked my app and got my hopes up for a moment, but the new mission was just the new minor mission after Tony handled the gardening. Capturing someone, no less. I went back to the main menu and notes was lit up.
*Lillibeth He is not here. He is bound to this place, but only as a refuge.*
I looked over at my newest recruit. “Elaborate?”
*Lillibeth I can see the tether. He is somewhere within the graveyard. Perhaps if he were injured, he would need to return here for a time?*
I sighed. “Arright lads, let’s pack up. Bad news is that this didn’t do it. Good news is that Lilli found us a new lead. Worst news? The lead’s behind a small legion of the dead.”
••••••••••