[Gameplay] 4. The Canny Jackal

'They were psychopomps.. But very bestial ones...its possible we just caught up in their hunger.. If you say there were brought forth by magic I wonder if it was someone trying to fight of these undead.. But not thinking to keep closer control on them.' Khadi winces as she checks over the woman, focusing mor eon the others wounds than her own.

She was wounded badly by zombies, dying, but Khadi's earlier channelling healed her wounds. "Monstrous! I'm going home. Thank you so much for saving me!" She runs off, grateful but terrified by the zombies who attacked her and the esoboks who intervened.

"Well, that was interesting," Tabat says, looking to his weapon and raising an eyebrow behind his mask as he notes the blood disappeared with the creature. "Shall we maintain our path to the necropolis gates?"

Jaware looks around. "Keep an eye out. The range for summoning is less than 50 feet."

Tabat narrows his gaze and peers around again, seeking any sign of an enemy. "An invisible foe, perhaps," he says. "I apologize for this, please do not be alarmed - I will remain myself, though I will look...different."

Tabat focuses several moments, completely still and motionless, then suddenly reels forward, his body rocking as if hit by a large stone. His muscles and features start shifting under his armor as he reaches up to remove his mask and hang it from his belt. He sprouts brown tufts of fur on his exposed skin, his ears grow long and pointed, and his nose becomes more flat with widened nostrils.

He takes a deep breath in the air through his nose, then several shorter sniffs. "Let's see what these senses might reveal, where our eyes were failing us," he says with a deeper, more bestial voice.

Tabat's abilities aren't able to reveal to him who conjured the psychopomps, but he does pick up a familiar smell. It takes him a moment to identify it, over the smells of the zombies and the terrified bloody woman who ran away, but then it hits him.

He smells a person was nearby, and on their body the faint trace of a smell he's smelt before. It's an incense used at the Grand Mausoleum.

The person is gone now.

As several minutes pass, Tabat's features return to normal and he completes his investigation. "The person who summoned those creatures is not near, but my nose does not lie - whoever it was, was covered in the same incense as from the Grand Mausoleum. Only narrows the culprit down by, well, not much, but seems to me we have reason to believe someone within the ranks of the clergy may have been involved here. Perhaps after we visit the Necropolis, we should return there with this suspicion."

"Of course, your holiness," Tabat says with a curt nod. "Where can we find them?" He takes the note and looks to the others to see if they're ready.

Khadi looks slightly uncomfortable at the mention the Voices being to blame. '..I'm sure it was a stray soldier not the group as a whole.' The others may recall while chatting and socialising in taverns as a group between their adventures in the tombs Khadi has likely mentioned one of her fathers is a member of the Voices of the Spire

She reminds you where the precinct is.

"I hope you're right, Khadi. I'd rather not deal with droves of those creatures in the streets." He heads in the direction of the Precinct of Left Eyes.

The Precinct of the Left Eyes is the headquarters of Wati's town guard. Law courts and halls of justice fill the surrounding blocks, many of them as old as Wati itself.

On your way, you find a low sandstone building - worn smooth from centuries of exposure - stands out among the larger, more recent constructions. Statues lining the wall hold swords and scales, but the fresh corpses scattered on the street outside the doors hint a something far darker within. It is an old courthouse, not too far from the precinct.

"Maybe we should check this out?" Iseret offers. So saying, she carefully and quietly approaches the entrance.

"It seems we must," Tabat says, his eyes wide at the bodies surrounding the building. "Careful, Iseret." He follows at a safe distance back, sword and shield drawn.

The corpses are inanimate but the bloody paths trail behind them, as if they had stumbled or crawled from the courthouse's front doors before finally succumbing to their wounds.

When Iseret gets to the doors and peeks inside, he sees that a trial is going on, but in this case, the dead are trying the living! A reddish, skeletal judge presides over a courthouse staffed by skeletons, while a man and woman attempt to legally defend themselves.

"Khadi, more undead. You ready to do your thing?" At the mention of skeletal enemies, Tabat stows his khopesh and shield and instead readies his heavy flail, hoping it will prove more effective against their bony foes. "Let's end this perversion. I will charge straight to this judge and take them out as swiftly as I can."

Tabat steps forth and, with one might hand, points the long haft of the two-handed flail at the skeletal judge. "Whatever you are doing here ends NOW, creature!" He rushes the front of the courtroom towards the skeletal judge.

The judge orders his bailiffs, "Seize them!"

Iseret is first!

Iseret draws her shortsword and readies herself to receive an attack.