Necropalypse II DLC Aftermath

Val chuckles as well. "Maybe he'd just melt." 

She nods back at Rol and starts running at the same time as him. She turns left and keeps running. Her wings spread out and she takes off into the air again. Once she's high enough she turns back around and looks at Vesbaoth. She hovers for a bit while casting another spell. A flame appears in her hand.

Vesbaoth keeps charging his staff and keeps his eyes on both Rol and Val. He raises his free hand and aims it at Rol. A single Ice crystal shoots out straight at Rol once he gets too close.

Val dives towards Vesbaoth once Rol has his attention. She flies so fast and close to the ground that ice and dust fly up behind her. She readies her hand with the flame to throw it at the archmage.
He notices and gets ready to avoid it. But instead Val keeps flying. The elf looks shocked and surprised once he realizes she isn't going to throw it.
Val turns slightly at the last moment and decks the mage right in the face with her flaming fist.
He is sent flying and crashes through what was once a window in the only wall still standing of that particular house.

Val slides over the ice and manages to stop herself before she crashes into anything.
Vesbaoth gets back up but is very dazed.
"Rol now!"

--
At the wall the militia men had somehow all missed the single normal zombie with their arrows. So they try again and this time four arrows hit. One of them goes through the eye. The zombie goes down.

When they turn around they see there are only four town guards left fighting three militia zombies. They also see Eryn clashing with the last guard zombie. Her giant sword splinters her spear so she tries to tackle her. Eryn does not go down that easily.

The militia men run down the stairs and attack the three zombies from behind. Attacked from both sides the zombies don't last long.
Eryn hits the zombie's face with her elbow and pushes her off herself. She then cleaves the last zombie in half.

The wall is safe.

(Am I still looking to grab the staff? I'm gonna go with that)

Rol narrowly avoided the ice crystal as he weaved his head around it, the crystal cut his cheek as he passed by it. He continued forwarded as Val sent the mage flying seeing his opportunity. The bounty hunter put his guns away, as Val called out, he sped up a little his shadows speed moving in front of him, he activated them in front of Vesbaoth, creating a smokescreen of dust, smoke and ice and jumped forward at where the staff was to attempt to grab it with his right hand. In his left hand, another explosive he planned to put of Vesaboath's arm if he grabbed Rol again.

(Yeah she attacked him to try to give you an opening to grab it.)

Vesbaoth shakes himself out of his daze but that's when Rol jumped out of the smoke. Taken by surprise Vesbaoth tries to jump back to avoid an attack. Instead Rol grabs his staff and pulls it out of the archmage's hand.

Vesbaoth looks at his empty hand and then at Rol who is now holding the staff. "I see. You tricked me. However, don't think you have bested me yet." He holds out his hand to the side and forms a short sword made out of ice. He grabs it and charges at Rol.

Val starts running towards them with her sword drawn. But the ice on the ground forces her to slow down. She seems to be getting tired and doesn't have the stamina left to lift off into the air. She unsummons her wings.

Rol eyed the mage, then looked behind himself and contemplated just.. Bolting. A few more seconds of thought had him realize that might not be the best idea, unaware of how much power Vesbaoth could muster without his staff. The bounty hunter also notice Val struggling with her stamina (lol) and tere was no way he'd just leave her behind with the mage. 

As the mage approached, Rol place the explosive he was holding on the staff, as a preemptive measure and waited reading himself to dodge/block. He wasn't going to get to aggressive, his priority was keeping the staff away. 


"Hey man there a self destruct button on this?"

Vesbaoth slashes at Rol and the extremely cold ice sword cuts his shoulder. The cut doesn't go very deep however.
He then grabs the staff with his free hand and tries to pull it out of Rol's grasp.
The two of them push and pull over the staff.

Suddenly a flame flies by. Val tried to hit Vesbaoth but he noticed and dodges. He keeps his hand on the staff however and the struggle continues.

Val keeps running and is getting closer. "Rol, smash the gem on the staff!" She shouts. Hearing this the Archmage throws his ice sword at Val. She jumps to the side and dodges but slips on the ice. She falls but starts getting back up quickly.

Vesbaoth then grabs the staff with his second hand as well and pulls harder. "This staff belongs to me. Release it now!" He demands.

"Y'know I'm feeling generous, have at it." 

Rol sent his shadows to wrap around the mage and hold him in place while they were fighting, as the positioned to the lock the mage in place Rol let go of the staff, quickly stepped back and activated the explosive he put on the staff.

"Huh?" Vesbaoth raises an eyebrow as he pulls the staff towards himself. Then he notices the shadow and the explosive. His eyes widen and he starts saying something but he doesn't have the time.
The explosion triggers right in his face and sends his helmet flying. Before the first explosion is even finished the gem on the staff cracks. Enormous amounts of magical energy are released and with it the spell that Vesbaoth was preparing.

Razor sharp and Ice cold winds erupt from the gem. They spread out faster than the blink of an eye. Catching all three combatants and sweeping them off their feet. Rol is hurled several feet towards the wall. The sudden force makes him let go of the archmage with his shadows.
Val and Vesbaoth are sent flying up and come crashing down. They land near each other and were flung in the opposite direction of Rol.

Rol's everything hurts. His ears are ringing and he sees two of everything for a few seconds. After a few seconds his sight returns to normal and the ringing is less loud but still there.

In the distance he can see Val getting back on her feet. Vesbaoth takes longer but gets up as well. His armor seems badly damaged.
From this distance Val doesn't look like she was injured that much in the blast. Probably because she was farther away when it happened.
But she is panting heavily. Probably due to fatigue.

Rol can see her pick up her sword from the ground. Vesbaoth creates another ice sword and they both get into a fighting stance.

Rol sat up. He checked himself. "Anything broken? Yes? Awesome."

The impact hit him hard. It was gonna take him some time to be mobile again. He watched Val and Vesbaoth in their little face off. "Gotta help.. Could I crawl?" He pondered and quickly deduced that would take too long. The pain and ringing messed with his focus so shadows of any reasonable complexity were out of the question. 

"Guess we go with old trustys." He drew Pew(L) and Pew(R), both loaded with real bullets and waited. "Cover fire.. Might work."   

Val and Vesbaoth circled each other slowly waiting for the other to make a move. "You know something is odd about all this. You attacking this town I mean. You weren't the only one to survive the battle at the castle. So where are the others?" Val asked.

Vesbaoth didn't respond. He just kept his icy glare on Val trying to find a weak point.


"Right, you never were much of a talker." Val chuckled. "So maybe the General did not survive our last encounter and you're here to avenge him. However if he was dead you wouldn't be the one I'd expect to take revenge. I have not been attacked by Æwynne yet and there are no wyverns anywhere in sight. She'd be the first to come for revenge, so that means either he's not dead or you killed her for some reason."


"General Maleroth does not die that easily. I'm here to bring him your head." The archmage spits on the ground. As soon as the drop hits the ground the dirt starts to freeze again.
Val sees this and leaps forward to attack before the ice spreads too far and make it harder to fight. "You should have brought a larger army then. Because you've already lost!"

Their swords clash. Val kicks him and he stumbles backwards.
She tries to decapitate him but he blocks her attack with his ice blade.

He grabs her wrist and her armor starts to freeze. She chants a short spell and summons a flame in her hand. She uses it to grab his hand burning it and thawing out her own armor.
She then headbutts him and jumps away.

As he recovers from his daze he is hit by several bullets from Rol. He turns to see the bounty hunter sitting far away.

Val uses this distraction to grab his ice sword with her flaming hand and shatters it.
He tries to jump away to cast a spell but Val swipes her sword at his legs and he falls on the ground. She puts her boot on his chest and points to tip of her sword at his neck.
"I said you already lost, didn't I?"

Vesbaoth grunts.


Back near the wall Rol is reloading his guns as Eryn runs over to him. "Are you alright?" She asks as she kneels down next to him.

"I'm alive. Alright might be a stretch. Don't suppose you have a healing potion or magic of sorts?" Rol watched the battle that seemed like it was finishing up. Vesbaoth looked like a cornered rat, but well you know how that saying goes. 

"I'm really worried about what else Vesbaoth has cooked up. Gotta back Val up." He murmured to himself, not very quietly.

"Not yet." Vesbaoth answers. He suddenly grabs Val's sword with one hand and her boot with the other. Frost starts spreading from both his hands.
"I guess that's something you and the general have in common. You just don't know when to give up!" Val pulls and slashes her sword, cutting off his right hand. She then throws her sword away as the frost creeps along it.
She bends down and grabs Vesbaoth's throat.


"You made a mistake girl. You can't suffocate the undead, we don't breathe."


"I'm not trying to suffocate you." Val then suddenly starts pulling at something.


"Wait, no. How are you?! It can't be.."

"Oh, it can." Val starts pulling out Vesbaoth's soul. Her hand is wrapped around the throat of a green glowing specter that looks just like Vesbaoth. His body starts struggling. He lets go of her boot and tries to pull down her arm. But he has lost most of his strength, he also has only one hand and a half left. So he can't put up much resistance anymore.

"NooooooooOOOOOO!"

She stomps her boot on his face and rips out his soul. "Go into the light, asshole."
She releases the specter and it evaporates.
--

"Sorry, I don't have any healing potions on hand. But there's bound to be a few in the storage building." Eryn answers Rol.
She then turns to look at Val who has just finished Vesbaoth. "I'm not an expert but she doesn't seem like she needs back up right now."

Val slowly makes her way over to Rol and Eryn. Limping slightly due to her frozen boot. She waves at them.
Once she reaches them she kneels down before laying down on the ground next to Rol.


"Are you alright your highness?"


"Yeah, I'm fine. I could really use a nap right about now though." She chuckles and gently
grabs Rol's hand.

Rol watched the events as the unfolded and nodded to Eryn response. "To be fair, I didn't know that was a thing she could do. Not literally anyways."


As Val approached, Rol commented. "That was real impressive." He chuckled as Val laid beside him. "Yeah, about six weeks of bed rest and I'll be good too." 

"Thanks. Becoming the guardian of what is basically the afterlife comes with some fun new abilities. Also a lot of new responsibilities unfortunately. The lack of extra paperwork makes up for that though." She chuckles.


"Six weeks of bedrest and a nice long vacation would be nice." Val smiles and closes her eyes, enjoying the moment of rest. Then she sighs and sits back up. "Unfortunately that'll have to wait. Red riding hood is still out there somewhere."

"Red riding hood?" Eryn asks.


"Someone seemed to be working with Vesbaoth. They disappeared before the fight though. So we have no idea where they went. They could still be a threat so we need to find them."


"I see. Unfortunately none of us are in any shape of going on a man hunt. I've only got four men left and the militia isn't in any better shape. We need to regroup and heal our wounds first. That includes you your highness." Eryn puts a hand on Val's shoulder and gives her a worried smile.

Val nods and sighs. "Fine, you're right. I don't have any mana left and Rol looks like he got run over by a dragon." She gets back on her feet and looks down at Rol. "Can you walk?"

"I can carry him if need be." Eryn comments.

"And I thought you already had the woman in power thing already down pat. Dang, that's hot." Rol chuckled.

He managed to stand up after being accosted, a little wobbly. "I don't think I'll need a piggyback, but if you can offer a shoulder I'd gladly take it." He responded to Eryn.

Eryn nods and offers Rol her shoulder. Unfortunately the size difference means she has to bend down for Rol to even be able to grab on to her shoulder.

After several awkward attempts Eryn shakes her head. "This isn't gonna work. Here take my arm instead." She holds out her arm at a level where Rol can easily lean on it.
By the time they reach the gates Eryn's men and the milita have somewhat fixed the gate. It doesn't look like it'll hold under stress but for now it's better than no gate.
Everyone returns to the Town guard headquarters.

The fire that was raging around the town had subsided because of the heavy rain.

Once they reach headquarters Eryn let's Rol sit on a chair and hands him a health potion. Val sits down next to him.
The Militia men take off their armor and take care of their wounds. Where there were once over thirty of them there were now only seven.
The four remaining Town guards help the wounded militia.

Eryn sits down on a chair opposite of Val and Rol. She starts taking off her armor piece by piece. You couldn't see it under her armor but now that it's off it's easy to see just how large Eryn's muscles are. If you painted her skin green she could be mistaken for a powerful orc.

Another thing the armor was hiding is the burn marks. Several of them are on her arms and shoulders and a few on her legs. She downs a health potion and some of the more recent burns disappear slowly. But some seem older and they aren't going away.

Val drinks a health and a mana potion. "That's better. I could use another one but we still have work to do."

Eryn nods. "Can't have the empress walk around town drunk after a disaster like this."

"That's the downside of using alcohol as a solvent for magic potions I guess. But anyway, we need a plan." Val then turns to Rol. "Finding the red robe sounds like a job for a bounty hunter."

Rol nodded at Eryn readjustment. "Made bad, a little woozie didn't think about the whole size debacle."


Once they reached the guard HQ and Rol managed to recover a bit more thanks to the healing pot he was feeling a lot more functional. "There's alcohol in these? Jeez I should have been paying attention in... I'm sure I've had some sort of alchemy training. But like public school alchemy training. Sub par."


The bounty hunter looked towards Val. "I don't disagree but usually there's a bit more information in my traditional line of work." He paused. "That's not to say i'm not on the case, just that it's not gonna be completed in record time."

Val nods. "Obviously information is vital. Which just means we will have to find that information ourselves."


"You said one of the gates was open right? If this red robed person can teleport or something it could have been them who opened the gate. Maybe that's a good place to start looking."


"Agreed. We should ask the civilians if they saw anything suspicious too." Val then got up from her chair and stretched her legs. "Okay, we have a plan. Let's go."

Eryn nods and starts to get up as well.


"No, just me and Rol. Eryn, you and your men should make sure the town is safe. There could still be a handful of undead wandering around."

"Will do, your higness." Eryn bows to Val and then turns to her men. "Alright, you heard the empress. Let's go."
The town guards saluted Val and then followed after Eryn. The militia stayed behind to lick their wounds.

"This is your area of expertise so lead the way. I'll follow." Val said to Rol.

"Well, to the (back to the??) gate. To search for clues."


Rol got up out of the chair he was on, and 'tested out' his limbs making sure they weren't just putty. 


"Where are all of the citizens? For when we need to ask questions."

(The other gate. The one you first came in from after spider hunting. Not the one you just defended. I think it was the east gate but I'm too lazy to check. I'm probably wrong and it was the southern gate? Doesn't matter.)


"Most of them probably went to the temple since the underground shelter is there. Others might have boarded up their houses to keep the undead out. They're probably all still hiding in those places." Val answered.

Rol can feel the potion working and he slowly starts to feel better.
(Potions heal a bit instantly and then keep healing over time. Rol should be at 50%-ish health now. Not that it matters I've planned for him to be healed up completely by the time he needs to fight again.)

Eventually the reach the still open gate. Nobody living or undead seems to be nearby. Only the couple of zombies that Val and Rol killed when passing through earlier are still lying dead on the ground. There hasn't been time for anyone to clean them up yet.

The rain from earlier seems to stop. Only faint sounds of thunder in the distance remain.

"Can ask 'em later then."

Rol went closer to the gate's opening mechanism. (quick question was it just opened, or blasted or??) He doubted there would be like finger prints or something equally telling but more insight into the situation never hurt.

"Any marks on the undead? I know some casters like to leave a mark on their work might just be ol' Vesbaoth but ould have something else."

There were no signs of the gate being opened by force. No damage to any of its parts, it was just wide open. There was one thing that was quite odd though. The other gate had a giant wooden beam keeping it locked and preventing the undead breaking through.

(Although they eventually managed to almost break through anyway. It held them off for long enough.)

This gate had the same mechanisms to hold a beam. However there was no sign of the very heavy beam that was supposed to hold this gate.


"I'll go check." Val walked over to the zombie corpses and bent down to take a closer look. "Oh gods, the smell. It's even worse than before." She carefully examined each corpse while holding her nose. After a while she stood back up and somehow managed to avoid throwing up on the spot. "Gross. Absolutely horrible. I didn't find any marks. Unless they marked the genitals. Which would be weird and there is no way I'm checking that."

She walked far away from the corpses. "Last time I checked Vesbaoth wasn't a necromancer though. Sure he was undead but he himself never raised undead minions. Considering Red riding hood touched his staff before the second wave of zombies was raised.. I'd say they're our necromancer. Whoever they are."

The rain had made the ground muddy and any tracks that might have been left behind had been washed away. Except a small piece of torn cloth near the gate. A vibrantly red piece of cloth.

"Weird.." Rol said, as he noted the difference in the presence of the beam between the two gates.


Rol put his hands on Val's shoulders. "Sorry I made you do that, you did not deserve that." He apologized profusely far more than the situation needed.


As he was apologizing he noticed the red piece of cloth. "What is that over there?" The bounty hunter grabbed the cloth with his shadows, in a shallow attempt to preserve the evidence. "That's far too convenient."

Val takes Rol's hands in her own. "You really don't need to apologize. Trust me you wouldn't be able to make me do things against my will. Although I'd rather not do that again. Next time I'll get a servant to do the autopsies." 

Val looked at the red cloth. "You're right that is suspiciously convenient. That or our red robe is extremely clumsy. We should hold on to that piece of cloth for now. It might come in handy later."

Val looks around the area one last time. "Seems like we looked at everything we can here. I don't really know where else to look. So let's go interview some civilians. Unless you' want to do something else first?"

"It's a little weird that it would be that easy considering the disappearing act they've been putting on. But, it's not exactly condemning either definitely could just have been good ol' clumsiness."


Rol (or Val idk) put the cloth away, for safe keeping. 

"Talking to strangers sound great!" He exclaimed, and gestured for Val to lead the way.

Val led Rol to the temple. It wasn't too far away.
The building didn't look very impressive. Outsiders would probably not even think it was a temple. It looks more like a slightly larger house.

Inside it wasn't any more impressive. Just a large empty room with a long purple carpet leading to an altar. It was surrounded by seven statues that looked like they were just a bit too large to fit around the altar. One of them looked like it was going to fall over at any time. Rol could recognize the statues as being the seven sages. Which were worshipped by most people in Northern Centrea. Although their temples tend to be far larger than this.

There was nobody around and the silence was slightly unnerving.
Val walked around the altar and lifted the white sheet that was on there. She then put a key into a tiny hole on the altar and a loud click followed.
The altar rotated to the side and revealed a staircase that went down to a large metal door.

Val walked down and opened the door. As soon as she did there was a scream and then another. But it quickly calmed down when the civilians saw Val and not the undead horde they were expecting.


"It seems everyone here is safe." Val let out a sigh of relief and raised her hand to gather the attention of everyone. "The Undead have been defeated. Eryn and her men are looking for any stragglers. As soon as they return you can all return home safely."

The crowd cheered. There seemed to be about two hundred people here. They all started talking among themselves and expressed their joy.


"However, while we all wait we would like to take this time to asks you all some questions. Thank you for your patience."

She then turned to Rol. "Alright, lets see if they saw anything suspicious."