04. Dues for the Dead

Aramil, the ghoul pushes away your initial attack, but you use you left hand to stab it through the side of its abdomen and with a burst of adrenaline, you stab it straight through its decomposing heart with your right.Chitkree, you feel your body seize up as you see your fallen comrade Pierce convulse on the ground. Zrukz, this time you manage to squeeze past the pit and you sprint forward in an attempt to help the rest of the party

Vess, you slash the ghoul in a streak of icey blue fire and it looks like it is barely clinging to whatever cursed life it has.

Augustine , a bright light extends between you and the ghoul as it feebly tries to claw at you. You then stride over a quickly bring Pierce back to life.The ghoul that looks close to death seems to have very little fight left in it as Chitkree easily defends against its attacks. But the other one stabs its claws into Aramil’s chest and bites deeply into his neck.

Aramil, perhaps it’s due to the pain or the slight bit of panic from the ghoul’s vicious attack, but you fail to retaliate with a hit of your own

Chitkree, knowing full well the danger of becoming paralysed by one of these creatures, you swiftly dispose of the very hurt ghoul in front of you in order to limit the danger to one last ghoul standing.All of a sudden, a ghostly skeletal hand soars out from the darkness and it grabs the ghoul by the throat where it leaves a black mark. As it furiously tries to understand where the attack came from, Vess, slashes her burning blade across the ghouls chest. It has gone from being unhurt to being extremely close to death.

In a moment of catharsis, Pierce absolute roasts the last ghoul with a blast of lightning and the threat for now is over.

Before you walk back, you take a look at the scene with Chitkree especially taking a lead. You see tracks from a small group of humans in the dirt on the ground, tracks that you presume are from the contingent led by the Doomguide to investigate. You also see tracks from the ghouls leading back to the other side of the door and neither set of tracks are particularly old, you estimate that the ghoul tracks are just slightly fresher. The ghoul tracks lead further into the catacombs and you guess that they had perhaps grown bolder by the lack of activity in the upper catacombs after the doors were locked shut. Cassyt is thrilled to see you all return and listen to the story of your fight with rapt attention and a good deal of concern. "I just don't understand where these ghouls come from. We haven't had any issues with undead for a long, long time".

You carefully maneuver past the bone pit and back out to the passage. Looking ahead, you see that the passage descends by shallow stone steps to a 15-foot by 15-foot square room. Wooden stairs wind around the walls of the shaft down into the darkness. The stairs look as though they are ancient, and the wood rotted and weak.
They wind around a tall statue of a strange, four-armed humanoid with vaguely insectoid features. It clutches a scroll in one hand, a quill in a second, a skull in a third, while the fourth is empty. Before descending, you decide to take a small break.