Against the cult: the Forest Ruin (1.5)

So far, only Albertus and Theran have declared actions for turn four.
Xana waits for a target to appear on turn 3. Seeing none, after a few moments she begins to follow the others up the stairs. When she finishes moving halfway up the stairs, Xana can see the one attacking Theran.

@Moofsalot Go ahead and roll the Eldritch Blast attack and damage for your turn four action.

Joseph spins like a dervish, and lashes out with his blades at the last figure.

ROUND FOUR RESULTS

Long hair streaming, Kragga moves up the stairs, his implement glowing a searing white, and launches another burst of flame at the silent dead man, searing him for 8 damage. As the flame passes through that space, Aanbo follows it, spinning around Ogbar, whirling his staff, and bringing it down onto the adversary's shoulder with a crack, bludgeoning for 5 damage. The figure staggers, and Aanbo leaps up, his foot flashing out over the railing, and kicks it over with a further 4 bludgeoning damage. The figure bounces off of the wall and slumps to the ground at Theran's feet, motionless, eyes dark. Albertus and Ogbar watch it expectantly, but the fight has gone out of it. Xana and Joseph see the figure drop out of view behind the railing.Kragga and Xana are halfway up the stairs. Theran and Albertus are on the second floor balcony/mezzanine. Aanbo, Ogbar, and Joseph are adjacent to them on the landing, but a pace-and-a-half-high railing separates them. Everyone can see the light areas of the map: the upstairs landing and the square mezzanine/balcony is lit indirectly by the flickering light of the torch far below you. Two doors beckon: a closed door behind Albertus and the open door behind Theran.

But the characters with darkvision - Aanbo, Kragga, Theran, Xana - can see the grey areas as well: a passageway lined with doors to the west, a short hall that seems to dead-end to the north, and the open door behind Theran revealing a room with what appear to be four cots. It's clear to Albertus, Joseph, and Ogbar that they will need light to see anything on the second floor past this point.

No, there's enough indirect light to see shapes but not details on the mezzanine. Go any deeper into the second floor without light and Joseph will be at a disadvantage from not being able to see, though.

Albertus lights a torch and discusses next steps with Kragga. The wizard asserts that they should continue exploring the ruin, and Theran agrees as he draws upon the power of the wild to heal himself. The dark bruising fades and disappears. Ogbar also lights a torch, vaults over the railing and pushes past the half-elf to move through the open door. Inside, the barbarian sees a simple rectangular room with plain walls painted a pale yellow. Four wooden pallets are here, without blankets, furs, mats, or mattresses. Tracks in the dust show where the pale dead men with glowing eyes just walked out to attack the group. Dark brown stains the wood of each pallet and a large section of the floor under the thick layer of dust. Albertus kneels in prayer and the power of the sun flows through him briefly, easing the itching of the thorns' poison; the many scratches fade and disappear. In the light of the paladin's torch held high, Aanbo and Joseph's eyes are drawn back to the glint of the medallions hanging around each dead man's neck, just below their slit throats. They hadn't been able to get a clear picture of them while fighting, but now they can see that each medallion is identical: a sort of bird inside a sunburst ring, depending from a simple chain. Xana observes all of this and approves: the group is clearly thriving under her leadership.

Less interested in the medallions, Aanbo examines one of the bodies more closely. It's the corpse of a human man, incredibly pale from all the blood having been drained out of him from the slit in his throat. It's no wonder that, in the extreme motionlessness and the paleness of darkvision, he mistook the body for another statue. The corpse's head is bald. Its flesh is cold, but smooth and supple, as if the man had been alive just moments earlier. But the thick dark brown stain of long-ago shed blood soaked into the front of his robes doesn't match that assessment. That - coupled with the thick dust on his front, including his face - suggests that he bled to death a long time ago...a long, long time ago. Decades, at least. His unblinking dead eyes remain exactly as they were before...except without the glowing. The fresh wounds dealt by the party are clean cuts and punctures, with no trace of blood.

Aanbo scans the other bodies: they all look very similar. Three of the others are also very dusty on their fronts. The last one has a thick layer of dust on his shoulders and the top of his head but is otherwise medically the same: apparently lost all his blood ages ago from a slit neck, but has not decayed or decomposed in any way since then.