Nat, after some nudging, tells us that Stephen’s body is supposed to be in the basement, under a spell that should prevent him from being turned into undead. Clearly, it didn’t work. We’ll have to look into that later, but for the moment, we keep heading deeper.

The air gets dryer and colder. The road narrows, the buildings getting closer and closer together. Dalish detects residual mana in the air, but it’s not a lot. There is rustling nearby, and we all stop. Blacked skeletons with coal red eyes, and a bunch of tiny smoke monsters burst out of an alley and attack.

I shoot some of them, this crossbow seems pretty useful and easier today. We do manage to make them dead… again… and Gerhardt once again comes through, patching us up after the fight. I sit with Maribeth while the others begin looking around. Nat finds the right path to get to townsquare.

We head that way, and can hear shuffling all around us. We move our lights away from us to try an get them to chase it. We got to the square, though, before they got to us. There is an old big green wicker witch there, like at the festival. And there’s some crying coming from it. Nat approaches, as the shuffling moves away from us again.

She calls out, and a voice answers. When she tells the voice her name, it becomes an enraged shadowy figure shouting for her to Fix It! She attacks and we’re fighting again. I try my spell again, but it still causes more problems than gains. Or at least that’s what the boys say. I don’t know how to do anything else though.

Dalish finds footprints heading into the townhall, so we all head in. It’s a bit of a maze in there. Crumbled walls and burned out beams. There are two ashey, pale figures with glowing eyes and sharp teeth. They are arguing about bells, paper, and shoes. We quietly argue about what to do, until Remy walks right by them. Shrugging, and happy to not be fighting again, we follow suit. We pass another pair who are also arguing about packing things.

Eventually, we find a set of stairs going down. Exhausted, we take a break to rest. Nat keeps poking around though, and finds a strange symbol in the corner. Remy and Dalish look, too. They all decide it is definitely necromatic, but no one is sure what it does. Rested, we head down the stairs. And down, and down, and down. At the bottom, we start hearing the sound of boiling liquid, fire, and wind blowing from somewhere.

Voices drift up to us. Master, they approach. They come to fast. I know, I can feel them, too.

We head in to a room filled with tables, books, and alchemy equipment. There’s a boiling cauldron with green liquid inside. Stephen is in front of it, with a female strange ashen figure. Nat immediately calls out to her brother, demanding to know what he’s doing. Stephen is not interested in talking, though. Remy shouts out that he’s not going to let us leave and we start attacking.

Chaos erupts. Nat tackles Stephen. Stephen bites Nat. Dalish tries to spill the cauldron on the bad guys. Maribeth closes the doorway with a sheet of metal. I lift him up into the air when he steps away from Nat. He turns to mist and floats away, leaving us to fight his servant. Klyce insists Stephen will be fine and we should just let him go. Dalish tries to stab the girl with a wooden stake he found. Nat tries, too. She bites Klyce pretty deeply, but eventually we manage to put her down and Klyce rips her head off. It’s pretty gruesome, so Maribeth, Nat, and I start looking around for other things.

They found a bunch of scrolls, potions, platinum coins and books. Apparently the book had a ton of spells in it that they can all learn. The scrolls were spells, too, and the potions had a lot of healing in them. Seems like a good haul for our troubles, if we get to keep it.

We decide it’s pointless to try and find Stephen, so we head out. The creepy arguing folk are all gone. Klyce is feeling pretty weak, so we give him all the water, orange juice, and wine that we’re carrying. This, unfortunately, makes him very drunk. Fortunately, all the undead leave us alone as we exit the cave. Klyce is funny when he’s drunk. Eventually, Remy casts silence to stop all our arguing. When we get outside, Klyce wants to go swimming, but he’s way too drunk, so I levitate him to stop him and we pull him back to the castle. Once there, he immediately starts baking all the things. Drunk Klyce makes excellent bread and muffins. But he’s really heavy when he passes out. Dalish makes a magic disc to carry him to bed, and we all take a well deserved sleep.