Another Dead End

[wrecking_yard]

I dozed off for a while, hazily asleep; sunlight registers, then Orthax flattening itself as much as it can and hiding, then the sound of hooves. No cart, so it's a single rider, and the only time I've seen it that irritable and intent on hiding is when there's a paladin around.

Not worth immediate concern.

At least until the horse stops nearby.

"Fancy meeting you here." I know the drily sarcastic voice - not well, but I haven't exactly associated with many paladins. "Are - you alright?"

"Better than I should be." I sit up painfully, the scattered burns more obvious now that I'm not half frozen; there's a palomino that's just a little too shiny and an armored figure with a sun-disk shield. "Lowell, yes?"

He winces in sympathy as he realizes how bad off I am, but nods. "Did you get caught in that fire?" He's already kneeling down and reaching over to steady my shoulder.

He ends up accidentally putting his hand on a raw patch, and I flinch with a half-laugh. "I started it. Didn't expect it to go up that fast."

He's channeling to heal, but still shooting me a look of frustration, concern, and confusion; the soft glow and warmth from his hands mends most of the burns, and sitting up and moving is much less of a trial.
"Are you this gracious to everyone who confesses to arson?" I gesture at the smoke still rising down the road, the smell filtering out enough to be noticeable here.

"Well, I've found that people give better answers when they're not in pain and terrorized." He rocks back on his heels. "And from what I remember, you're too cunning to admit to something like that if you didn't have a good reason for it."

I test out my shoulder where he'd set his hand; no sign of pain moving it. "Are you sure about that?" I did just get half-roasted in a firestorm I started, after all.

He raises an eyebrow and is just staring at me expectantly.

I sigh, sagging. "The place was overgrown with some kind of necromantic fungus that was re-animating everything it killed. The 'unnatural poison fog' was clouds of spores it was putting out. I only got through it with an alchemical filter mask. I thought I'd see if it would burn on my way out."

He grimaces. "Why were you out there in the first place?"

"I was investigating something for personal reasons." I'm not being paid and I don't want to talk about it.
Lowell sighs and stands up. "I was going to take a look anyway, and your account makes it more urgent - would you mind coming with?" He offers me a hand up. "You already know the lay of the land, and I might sense something you would've missed."

I take the hand; it can't hurt to have extra eyes that can sense dark magic and someone else handy in a fight to give the place a closer look, as much as everything about the situation is Not Anything I Want To Share. "May as well." I look down the road, pausing. "If there are any lingering spores, I only have one mask, and the filter is fouled; I'd need time and a workplace to replace it, much less make another."

He shrugs, casts something, and touches my shoulder, leaving a brief odd tingle. "I have divine protection of my own." He walks over to his horse, pulling out a scrap of paper and piece of charcoal, and scribbles something on it, rolls it up, and wedges it in part of the bridle. "Take this to Kara."

The horse snorts and turns, trotting off toward the main road.

"She's not staying closer?"

He half rolls his eyes. "She and Talia are helping the local folk get stray fires under control; they'll catch up, and Albedo's more helpful making sure they know what to prepare for than here." More backup with holy magic. Definitely a plus when I have no idea what might've survived the fire that would be angry now.

The smell of smoke gets stronger as we walk back into the destroyed town. There's occasional burning spots here and there where something sturdier had caught, but they're spread out and dwindle as we get into the area where the infestation and fog had been the worst. The landscape is blackened ash.

"You know, maybe you can help with what originally brought us out here."

"Oh?" After what I saw in there, I would not be surprised if something the Briarwoods abandoned was causing trouble that I hadn't caught.

"There's been a number of strange murders in the area; the targets are hard to predict. According to the townsfolk, a few have seen a shadowy figure with a monstrous, birdlike face and blank eyes; some of them say it's a demon and others that it's the ghost of a murdered noble out for revenge. Of course none of them caught what it's revenge for to give us anything to work with."

Oops.

"I haven't encountered anything of the sort, I'm afraid - I was focused on my own investigation into the 'curse' on this place."

Note to self: Do not pull the mask out around him or his companions.

He sighs. "It was worth a shot."

I'd thank Pelor that paladins can't easily or randomly detect lies, but I'd probably get divinely slapped upside the head for it.

The burnout is honestly impressive, especially for how fast it went - the few rotting trees further in went up almost as fast and easily as the fungus. The only sign of the roaming zombies is blackened bones here and there. Still, Lowell is visibly more on edge the further we get. By the time we reach the edge of the town he's downright jumpy, even though nothing is moving but us and the breeze clearing the lingering smoke. The buildings are more intact than they'd normally be after a fire, but it's still all ash-covered stone, charcoal, and broken glass; anything too flammable's gone.

Lowell stops at the cracked stone fountain in the old square, putting a hand on the stone and zoning out. I feel a prickly skin-crawl before he steps back, snapping out of it.

"I've never felt a place so desecrated." He's gone quiet and solemn, while still somehow being just as jumpy. "We need to be careful."

"I wish that surprised me." It's where the Briarwoods started out, of course it's unhallowed ground.

Lowell gives me an odd look at that, then scans the skeletal town and the looming hulk of the manor. "All we know is that this place was abandoned and said to be cursed; it wasn't something we had a reason to be asking about much, although maybe it should have been." He's speaking slower, checking the area every few seconds. "What have you learned about this place?"

I did say I was researching this curse, but it's a subject that's a kobold's lair worth of booby traps. I inhale, shoving my hands in my pockets. "The manor belonged to a family that'd gotten rich off some of the further trade routes; they settled here before there was much else, claimed the land, and a small town sprung up around it. When the other nations spread closer, they were never granted a noble title, but they also never conflicted with the local nobility, so they were mostly left alone." The village was small and not worth the trouble of annexing as long as trade taxes were paid.

"That's the general history. The last master of the manor grew deathly ill; his wife was largely focused on sending for every doctor, healer, and cleric she could get to come out here, but no-one could touch whatever was killing him. According to the official records, he passed; she shut herself up in the manor and presumably followed soon after. People started disappearing in the village along with other mysterious deaths and problems - blighted crops, talk of monsters. Eventually the place was completely abandoned, as everyone had either left or fallen to the 'curse'. After that it's rumors and hearsay."

Still nothing moving, even if Lowell's nerves are catching. "And the rumors?"

I adjust my glasses, feeling to be sure the chain-device that keeps them from falling off in a fight is secure. "Well, the most common one is that the illness that took the master of the house was the curse, and that it spread to claim the town; some relic in the house from some foreign land with magic or spirits that didn't take kindly to being displaced."

"You don't sound like you believe that." He shifts restlessly, then motions to follow, turning to make a very slow and cautious way toward the manor.

I trail behind him. "I met a lady in the village who said she'd gone by the manor on a dare, after the master's death but before the place became uninhabitable. She said she saw him in the gardens through a side gate, hale and hearty as though he'd never been sick with his lady attending, but with an unnatural gleam in his eyes. Apparently there's a much less prevalent rumor that the lady of the house turned to some dark power to save him, and they are the curse that killed this place."

He stops in the road leading toward the gates. "Are?"

I test my glasses even though I know they're fine. "Well, if that is the case, nothing came close that would have threatened them - suggesting this place outlived its usefulness and they moved on to seek further power elsewhere."

He's giving me a very odd, gauging look that makes me intensely uncomfortable, then shakes his head and turns back to the road toward the manor.

"...Ah - before we get too close, there was definitely something prowling the grounds as a guard. I dodged it, but if it survived the flames...." I take a moment to check over the pepperbox; there's minimal crud from my time in the river to clear, it's just a matter of making sure there's fresh powder and everything's dry in the mechanisms. He readies his mace with a nod, waiting until I'm done with my maintenance.

The wall's visible now, scorched stone that's standing nonetheless. There's a metal plaque on a stone arch over the broken gate, blackened and tarnished, with one name across it.

Briarwood.

There's two pedestals on either side of it that had been covered completely by the fungus before. On one side, a broken grotesque looms over the path, broken off bits littering the ground around it. The other side is empty, with no sign of broken pieces.

"Do you suppose it got up and walked away?"

Lowell makes an uncomfortable frustrated noise. My bad joke is exactly what happened.

He walks over the broken metal gate laying on the ground, and barely passes the threshold when there's the sound of claws sprinting on dirt and a very large blur launching itself at him from the side. I'm shooting on reflex even as there's a flash of light obscuring whatever happened, the wolf-thing and paladin tumbling off to the side.

My weapon's trained that direction as I dash in, ready to fire again. He's getting back to his feet with noticeable marks and scrapes on his shield and armor. One of the thing's forelegs is severed and twitching on the ground, part of its chest and the shoulder missing with the place they were scorched; it's also got a hole in its side that's less dramatic. The head's splitting apart multiple directions with no real rhyme or reason, a mass of teeth and bone splinters splayed out.

"The fuck?" Go figure, Delilah's monsters are something new to a paladin with some experience.

I might be staring it in the face much taller than the first time I encountered one, but I am still much happier having an angry paladin between me and it and have no desire for that situation to change.

I take a couple shots at the spread out head as it lunges, slowing it just enough for him to bring down the divinely charged mace through the mess of teeth and the main chest. The thing falls, scorched and split partly in two - but with hind legs still scrabbling for purchase, the foreleg twitching despite hanging on by a thread.

He steps back, and there's a swift, focused small pillar of gold flame that finally gets it to stop moving.
I don't think he could ever understand how reassuring a sight the blackened, crumbling remnants of the abomination are.

"What in the Seven Hells and the entire bloody Abyss was that?!" He does glance to me, but it doesn't seem like he expects much of an answer; I shrug, the gun hanging loose in one hand.

"A guard dog?" Just because I've seen one before doesn't mean I have a fucking clue what they are.

Lowell groans, on full alert and jumpy as he wedges and pushes through the broken front door, his armor making it a little harder to get inside than it is for me.

I'm scanning the side halls and the foyer, avoiding the portrait. "It couldn't get inside the door. There didn't seem to be anything posted guarding the inside, unless you count an absolute shit-ton of traps I had to take apart - and one ghost I avoided that seems to stay in a specific room." Nothing's moved since I was here before, and it's eerily untouched by the firestorm. "...And the workroom downstairs. That was concerning."

"So is the portal to Hell open down there, or just straining?" Very bitter sarcasm. He gestures up - toward the portrait I'm avoiding looking at. "The former master and lady?"

"Presumably." There's a light dusting of ash on the rug, so even though the fire didn't get in here, the wind has blown some of the remains through. It takes a couple seconds to realize it's too quiet and look up enough to see Lowell studying me in a way that is extremely uncomfortable.

"Well. I can tell you they did not leave a single scrap of paper, symbol, or anything that looked like it might be important or give any clue to their agenda as of my search, but I cannot sense magic or anything else..." I shoot him a shaded, pointed look, crossing the floor to be between him and the portrait at the base of the stairs.

He's definitely thinking too hard for my own good about something, but he shifts, focusing with his eyes closed.

"...I can't speak to other magic, and this area's so unhallowed that it's not easy to pick any one thing out of it all, but..." He frowns, scanning the entire inside of the foyer. "It looks like there's only two active things I can find inside this house - likely the ghost and the workroom, and the workroom's the worst of those." He ducks his head a little. "Kara and Talia are much better at dealing with lingering and spirits than I am."

"Well, sounds like that decides that." I turn and head toward the door where I'd found the basement stairs.
He's following me, now, and I'm just hoping the workroom is enough to distract him from trying to figure me out; the last thing I need right now is one of Pelor's own prying and possibly pissing off Orthax enough for it to decide it's not going to hide around him anymore.

I make it two steps into the chamber between the parlor and the workroom.

It's hard to tell myself the bloodstains are old, I know too much about half the tools in the room, I can smell the wax from the candles in the dungeon and fresh blood, every one of the old scars is itching, how the Hell did I cross this room before with blinking -

Not Hell, the Abyss, I had a literal inner demon blunting everything so I could hunt, and it's making itself scarce because there's a bloody Paladin of Pelor behind me that it doesn't want to deal with right now.

"Percy?"

The first two impulses I have are to either throw up or scramble out of the room to find a corner to hide in, and I'm throwing all my willpower into standing still and doing neither.

"Percy!" There's a gauntleted hand on my shoulder, and then I've wheeled back away, flinching around with the gun half-raised.

Lowell's taken a step back with his shield up and his other hand open and empty over it. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Focus on him and the door behind him. "I'm useless for dealing with that anyway, so I'll wait by the stairs in case the others catch up."

He does step aside to let me stalk out the door of that room; I think I hear some kind of faint whisper, then he's speaking up as I enter the parlor with my back to him.

"Are you sure you don't know anything about those murders, de Rolo?"

"Yes." I turn around to shoot him a glare -

And the name he used registers alongside the glow fading from his hand on the holy symbol he's pulled out of his armor.

Fucking divine magic and fucking being able to detect lies with a cast, fucking too smart for his own good recognized the crest on my coat buttons.

It could be worse - he wasn't able to sense Orthax when it was hiding before in open, neutral spaces, and he's already said that the sheer desecration the Briarwoods inflicted makes it hard for him to pick out even large, unhidden auras.

For a few very tense moments, he's staying still with one hand on the holy symbol and the other keeping the shield between us, and I'm staying in the parlor with the gun aimed at the ground glaring back in a pile of raw nerves.

There's also a worrying twinge that's steadying my nerves and my hands, just barely.

He takes a step back; he's not lowering his shield, but he is raising his other hand over it again, open and empty. "Right now, this place is the main concern, and I do not want to fight you."

There's a hundred possible ways him figuring out that I've been hunting down their agents and people, even without the context of the demon, could go horribly.

"I can't begin to guess at what you've suffered that's brought you here, but I am very sure that whatever you're up against is the real threat-"

There's a surprised yell upstairs and commotion, and the entire confrontation is forgotten as he's pushing past me to dash up the stairs at a dead sprint. "KARA!"

Ghost. Upstairs. No opening to warn the other two about it.

I stagger back and fall into one of the chairs, plumes of dust scattering around me, the gun resting between my knees pointed at the rug. There's still commotion upstairs, but I'm focused on catching my breath and trying to shake off the slow bleed of old injuries.

He knows enough to be dangerous, but I don't want to fight a paladin of Pelor, I'm outnumbered, and if I'm the only one who walks out of here it'll be as bad as if I'd gotten into a fight with them on that open street when I first met them. They're not actually interfering with me or blocking me, I never wanted to and still don't want to murder innocent bystanders and good people who are trying to do the right thing, and they're all lined up to also be enemies of the Briarwoods and the opposite of an obstacle, there's still the graveyard that I didn't get a look at and they might've left something there of use that I might not get without divine magic backup.

I take a few deep breaths, clicking through the chambers until I'm at least feeling less likely to shoot my own shadow if the light flickers - shove the gun back in its holster, my hands in my pockets, and stalk upstairs to the hallway where the ghost is.

Hopefully was, rather, the commotion's died down and I'd hope those three can handle one ghost.
"-even know what the fuck even that corpse outside is, the hell is with this place even?!"

Talia's agitated - she was helping on fire brigade. I know Lowell sent a message warning them to prepare protections against any lingering spores. I don't know if he mentioned me in the note. I know he didn't have a clue what he was walking into - the dead village, the way the manor's unnaturally untouched. From what he'd said the area's probably desecrated enough that they both would have noticed without being told.

I turn the corner to Lowell giving a quiet, basic and direct outline of things - he's going over the abridged history of the place I'd given him, very carefully, in a tone that's clearly meant to be trying to calm things down.

"-and given the state of this place, I'd say he'd already proven his theory before setting the blight on fire-" He turns with a startle at the sound of my footsteps - he's definitely still jumpy, but there's a tinge of relief.

Right, gun is not in my hand.

The other two are definitely not acting like they think I'm suspicious -

Well, Talia is, but no more than normal for her.

"The state of this place?" She looks between me and him; I give a slight shrug since I have no idea what he got to actually explain.

"No books. No documents. No personal effects beyond the most general. Not even a coin in a hidden safe. Traps on bloody everything. There were regular masses just inside the walls, spaced too neatly - that fungus had been planted. Also the guard beast. This place was cleaned out and turned into a deathtrap."

Lowell nods, motioning to me. "Also there's apparently some arcane workroom downstairs with an aura I'd have picked up on from the river if this place weren't so twisted - we were headed there when we heard the racket up here."

"Do you think our murderer is something from here?"

To his credit, while he definitely freezes at Talia's question, he's playing it off as a thinking pause with a few faint helpless gestures buying time. "No." He shifts his shield, adjusting the weight of the armor in a way that's entirely pointless with the way that kind of armor's made. "I'm sure there's a connection, but not only are the murders much less indiscriminate than anything here...." He wrinkles his nose. "The necromantic blight and desecration were clearly meant to spread. If the culprit were something from here left as part of that, then there wouldn't have been such a gap between the village being abandoned and the killings in the neighboring villages."

They're both giving him a look of calculating confusion - they know something's up that he's not saying, because he's bad at this, although I have to give him points for trying.

"So what do you think the connection is." Talia sounds very tired and a bit exasperated.

"I want to investigate the victims once we're done here to see if we can find a connection that wasn't immediately obvious - we already have accounts citing revenge. If the victims were connected to the Briarwoods, it would prove the murderer is connected to some victim of theirs."

Even Kara's giving him the exhausted, exasperated stare, and Talia slides a sidelong glance my way, looking like she wants a drink or twelve.

Kara shakes her head, rubbing her temples. "Let's focus on the immediate problem. I can't even guess at how many lives were saved by burning off that growth." She leans back against the wall. "I'm sure you weren't the first to investigate this place, Percy, but you were the only one prepared enough to survive and do something about it before anyone else could fall to that blight, and Everlight bless you for that." It's a clear bid to defuse and redirect the situation.

I shift weight sheepishly, still keeping some distance. "It wasn't particularly well thought out." Lowell might have healed me, but my clothes are still visibly scorched and ratty from it, and it will be a while before I'm fully clear of lingering soot and ash.

"So. What's the next step?" Kara's looking to Lowell and I, heading off any further questions.

"We were on our way to check their old workroom - it's the only remaining active power in this house now that the ghost is handled." Lowell motions back the way we came.

"Then that's where we go." Kara's making shooing motions at the rest of us, taking it on herself to keep everything on track while we're in the middle of an abandoned vampire/necromancer lair.

Lowell leads the way; I try to trail behind, but Talia very pointedly trails a little behind me, almost running into me when I stop in the basement parlor, several feet from the door into the old torture chamber.

"...I'll wait here. I'd be no help anyway, I am neither skilled with nor knowledgeable about magic." It's true, even if I'm only citing it so loudly to not admit that I don't want to set foot in there again. Lowell waves to that and tugs Talia's wrist before she can say anything; Kara gives me an odd look, but apparently my expression and Lowell's reaction is enough for her and she shrugs, going along with it.

After the door to the torture chamber closes behind them, I am left in the middle of the empty parlor, acutely aware of every creak and shift in the house, and that I am in the Briarwood's old home with very few distractions and nothing to do but wait. It quickly turns into pacing a circle around the room, gun in hand just to click through the chambers as something to do with my hands. The place looks like any other well-off merchant's parlor and that alone seems wrong -

Also there's a little too much of a gap between cement and stone on one of the rock walls.

Tracing the hidden door makes for a welcome distraction, and the mechanism isn't that hard to find - the wall sinks in and slides aside smoothly.

It's one room, four walls covered in half empty shelves - the first thing I've found that isn't COMPLETELY cleaned out; there are some books on the shelves.

None of the titles or spines look like anything that stands out as potentially useful, so I start at the top shelf on one side, pulling down the first book on it to flip through and see what's in it and if there's any signs of anything hidden or unusual.

Elven poetry. Gnomish book on rabbit husbandry. Pigeon breeding. Travelogue of a tropical port. History of vineyards of the southeast. Color varieties of northern tulips. Birds of the central plains. Folk songs of northeastern shepherds. Knit patterns. Cathedral architecture. Fish of the western ocean. Clan marks of dwarven pottery. Paper making techniques. Cattle breeds. Identifying regional origins of glassware styles. Dye pigments for different fabrics.

"PERCY!"

I jump, fumbling the book I had been holding, barely catching it with my left hand, the gun aimed off at the floor but ready in my right as I stumble into the shelves behind me. All three of the others are standing at the entrance to the hidden room, staring at me, and I have no idea how many attempts to get my attention preceded Talia yelling my name.

"What have you got there?" She gestures at the book.

I glance down at it. "Beekeeping for mead production."

She buries her face in her hands.

"Have you found anything useful or relevant in here?" Lowell actually looks a little concerned even if he's still jumpy from being on desecrated ground and wary of me after earlier.

I glance to the other side, where I've been stacking books as I finish searching them. "...No."

"Were you going to go through every one of them in this room like that?"

I holster the gun, straightening my coat. "Yes - checking for ciphers, swapped pages, things between pages, notes in margins, hidden compartments..."

"And?"

I shift weight from one foot to the other. "I've found two pressed daisies."

"You really don't have any way to sense magic, do you." Talia's still got her face buried in her hands.

"...No."

She sighs heavily and does some small cast, scanning the room carefully -

Then goes around the room honing in on several specific books that she pulls off the shelves carefully and sets aside. "Enchanted traps. You're lucky you didn't open any of them."

"Can you dispel them?"

She grimaces at the small stack with a groan. "Not all at once and not all of them by myself."

"I'd guess this is more of the same you mentioned from your earlier search - something to catch anyone too clever or thorough." Lowell nods to the books I'd already been through.

The sad part is, he's probably right; they definitely have gone over this room the same as everywhere else for anything potentially interesting, making it a perfect extra layer of bait. There's nothing about the titles or binding to suggest anything more exotic than what I've already been going through.

I set the beekeeping book on the pile of other texts; some of it would be interesting, if it were anywhere else at any other time. On the one hand, I don't like passing on the chance that they might have missed something in among the books...

On the other, I don't really want to linger in this house longer than I need to, and none of us have even glanced at the old graveyard yet.

"Any luck with the workroom?"

That's three variations on pained looks of discomfort. "Nothing to give any clues, and it will take much more than the three of us to scratch that."

It figures.

I give the unopened books a frown, including the ones Talia's set aside. If there is anything useful down here, it's probably in one of the trapped books, which is incredibly frustrating.

"We can come back to this - these aren't going anywhere, but we might want to leave it until we're sure nothing else is going to try to ambush us." Lowell motions toward the back part of the estate, where the graveyard and crypts are.

I sigh, giving the books one last glance and following.

Well, following everyone except Talia.

A gate in the back wall long fallen off hinges opens to a graveyard with a wrought iron fence around it; it doesn't look like it got overtaken by more than dustings of spores from the infestation, now turned to a thin layer of ash and blackened marks on everything. Judging by the state of the ground, nothing green has grown there in a very long time. There's a couple larger crypts and a handful of gravestones -

And not a single undisturbed grave.

Some of them were neatly dug up, large open holes that've had time to erode and partly collapse; others look like they were dug out from below. All of it has the same coating of ash as the rest of the graveyard - none of them have been occupied for a very long time, and there's no sign of the former inhabitants.

There's also no sign anything's moved in this area for a long time, besides some large distorted pawprints around the wall that don't quite cross the threshold of the gate.

"Well... I imagine the nearby towns had some problems with undead years ago." I nudge one of the worn down dirt piles next to a dug-up grave. It's about par for the course for them, even if the other three living people are a little more on edge for it.

The crypts aren't very big, and both of them have been opened, sarcophagi inside likewise open and empty. It's cramped enough with three people going over them for anything surviving that might've been protected more from the elements, and I don't want to be in close quarters with them so much; I hang back keeping an eye out for any sign that anything else is lingering.

One moment everything is calm except for frustrated quiet conversation and an occasional breeze.

The next there's stone claws in my shoulder and I'm off my feet, carried by a very large pair of wings.

I manage to get my left arm in front of my face as the gargoyle tries to bite at me - sharp stone jaws on my arm instead of my throat. It's got one of my legs in one of its hind talons, tail whipping out, but I've still got my gun in hand and get a shot just off-center; the bullet breaks a chunk of stone off, the damaged area blackening and crumbling wider. It doesn't slow the gargoyle down, and I manage another shot that ends up a little more centered on the chest; it's stone, there's no organs or anything to damage.

It growls and bites harder on my arm, a sharp spike of pain and the audible sound of bones snapping; I manage to get the gun pressed against the base of the thing's jaw, angled so that the next shot lodges into the head, the corrosion breaking it off the rest of the body.

It shudders and goes limp quickly - I hadn't even been sure that would work.

It had also gotten decent altitude in those few seconds.

I hear someone yell my name, then someone casting, and there's a burst of light as a strong warm wind gusts through, breaking the fall; I end up on the ground in a pile of dead gargoyle. There's no other reason to try and move or do anything other than curl up around the broken arm.

Then there's a hand on my shoulder and the gashes where it'd grabbed me close, before Kara tugs at the broken arm to get it where she can see it. I let her have it, and she focuses with a hand each on the elbow and wrist to keep it straight, casting again.

The wound closes, the bone healing; there's a little bit of a mark, fresh scars where the jaws closed, but not even as bad as it should've been.

"Thank you." I manage to sit a bit straighter, letting my nerves settle; the other two are right behind her -

And Lowell's paused where the gargoyle's head fell a few feet away, poking at it with his mace for a better look.

"Looks like I was wrong - it didn't get up and walk away. It flew."

He groans, stowing the mace and burying his face in his hands.

The graveyard had nothing else of interest; the books that could be gone over turned out to be more of the same, and the ones with the enchanted traps were loaded into Albedo's saddlebags to go over in the temple with others to help with dispelling.

It puts them out of my reach if there is any information, but there's not much I can do about that and no way I'm setting foot in a temple right now.

There's tense silence on the way back to town, but none of them seem inclined to prod at me and I'm perfectly happy to leave it at that. It was the last lead in the area; they had a few people keeping tabs, a couple of minor black market suppliers that'd been helping acquire components now and then to send back to them, but nobody that knew anything useful, which means time to make for the next town, check finances, and see if I can find any other clues.

And I've now got a troubleshooting team from the temples suspicious of me. As soon as I'm further away from them, I'm definitely going to end up having an argument with my shadow, if not a few more arguments in dreams; Orthax is not going to be happy about slinking off and leaving them be.

There's the usual nightmares, but Orthax doesn't try to chat that night; probably not taking any chances on making itself noticeable enough to get identified.

I gather my things and take a mug of coffee and a couple apples out to a stack of wood crates on the east side of the building, sitting up on the crates and watching the sun reflected in the drink.

There's some awareness of other people out and around, but nothing actually registers until there's a voice next to me.

"Rising with the sun?"

Lowell's leaning on the wall next to the crates; no armor, no weapons, basically in street clothes, and I'm sure it's a calculated truce flag.

"It's quieter outside." Morning prayers have felt like asking for trouble for a few years.

"What's your business now?" He's not looking at me, and it's airy and neutral and normal in tone, but I know what a loaded question it is.

"The house was the last lead I had in this area, and it's a dead end." I slide back a little to have my back more against the wall. "So, back to mercenary work." Until I can pick up another useful trail, at least.

"There is something I need to confirm about what went on here, before we go on with focusing on necromantic activity." He holds up his holy symbol and glances sidelong to me -

Answers where he'd know if I was lying.

"Fine." The cast is short and quiet; it's a detection spell, not something that would force an answer.

"The victims here were targets because they were a part of that, weren't they." He motions vaguely in the direction of the empty village.

I sigh. "Minions. Informants and minor suppliers, nobody involved in anything useful." Aware enough that they were part of something awful, not aware of the details.

"And I take it you're leaving as soon as you're done here?" A nod toward my coffee.

"Yes. Nothing else for me to do here, and I don't want to stay in the area of that place." He's confirming I'm not going to hang around and possibly end up clonking heads with them in a way that might not be cooperative.

I give the glowing holy symbol a narrow, tired look. "I don't want to involve bystanders; there's too much innocent blood shed in this already. I do want revenge - and to be sure they won't harm anyone ever again." It's fully honest, and I want him to know that I have no plans of any murderous rampages.

He inhales slowly letting the spell go. "You are a good man at heart, whatever you might have gotten yourself caught up in." There's a brief flicker - a sharper glance toward where my gun's holstered; I had to invoke the enchantment Orthax laid in its creation to bring the gargoyle down or I wouldn't have been able to hurt the damn thing meaningfully, and there's very little Nice that uses that sort of energy. "As long as you keep on this path the way you have been, my oaths don't allow me to turn a blind eye to someone skulking around playing lone judge and executioner ... but they also demand I maintain reasonable priorities, and only a fool would bother you with some kind of necromantic conspiracy going on."

There's another flicker of a glance; he's definitely suspicious, but he's not trying to confront me about where the power that killed the gargoyle came from.

"So you're letting me go?"

"We have a common enemy. I just can't help you unless you're willing to explain everything and take up less questionable methods." That is a very pointed flat look - he's nudging his plausible deniability hard. "Because the way things look right now, I may not be able to turn a blind eye to things in the future."

I drain the last of the coffee, sliding off the wooden crates. There's not really anything I can do with that; the longer I stay in his area, the more I risk Orthax getting pissed and doing something stupid, and I really don't want to fight him. "Then I hope we never see each other again." I only get a few steps before I stop. "If you do keep tracking them ... be careful. What you saw here is what they were capable of years ago. Gods only know what they've managed with resources and time to dig in."

"The warning is appreciated." It's a complicated mess, and he's in an even more awkward position than I am; he's not going to get his temple's backing without solid proof, and they've been working to make sure there isn't any that couldn't be twisted or dodged. Even the house we just went through has been abandoned long enough to be easily written off as the handiwork of something else that moved in.

I leave the mug by the door and head for the road; the more distance I can put on this, the better for everyone involved.