The crypt itself held no fear for Shiara. She was at home among the bones of the dead, even going so far as to let an ancient and nearly-gone echo twine around her fingers. The action might look odd to those nearby, but she hardly cared. She was increasingly frustrated by the lead knight's refusal to tell what, in her opinion, was essential information.

Even less pleasant was the crumbled wall leading into a sewer, and the stench that came with it. Shiara pulled a fold of her tunic up over her nose and mouth to block the worst of it out, but even so it was enough to make her cringe. Breathing lightly through her mouth, she considered letting the other three go on without her -- but then how was she to get any answers?

Over the course of the next minute or two, which were miserable enough to feel like far longer, Shiara thought to wonder why a child would be in the sewers -- or the crypts, for that matter. Something was wrong about the situation. It was that conclusion as much as any lack of visible injury or restraint that kept her from objecting to the man's words, or his apprentice aiming a crossbow at the girl.

Another moment made her realize that it was no living child before them, though also nothing like she'd ever encountered before. "That's not a child," she whispered, trying to get a feel for the forces animating what, in her mind, was no longer a person but a creature, and not a natural one either. "There's no spirit there."

Mergoux's footsteps echoed through the catacombs, until with a sickening splash, she entered the sewers. The smell was obscene, and it took a great deal of willpower for The Butcher to hold back a gag. Wrinkling her nose in revulsion, she pressed determinedly onwards towards the noise of the girl. She didn't pause to stifle the stench, knowing already that getting it from her armor and clothes would take days. Instead she kept going, even as waves of foul air billowed around her.

It didn't take long for them to find the child, a small girl, cowering with her back to them. The poor thing was curled against the wall, and Mergoux's first instinct was to move forwards and comfort the girl, but... she couldn't bring herself to do it, something felt... off. Looking over her shoulder, she saw her unwanted companions working among themselves. A crossbow was being aimed at the girl, a thing which normally would send Mergoux into a rage, but now she remained calm, if nothing else then for the child's sake.

Sheathing one of her knuckle daggers, she stooped low and shuffled forwards, one gauntleted hand outstreached. "Easy there." she said, softly, almost kindly. It was not the tone she'd spoken to the others with, but one that promised no harm. "Are you alright? Turn child, let me see you." As she spoke, the Bone-Mage's stunned whisper registered in her brain, and Mergoux tensed, her right hand gripping her weapon tightly in case all went to hell in the next few moments. "Child, let me see your face, please, no harm will come to you." she promised, though privately she already knew that her promise was a lie. If the mage was right, then the creature before her would have to be put down, permanently.

The change was sudden, and freakish. Shiara fell back a step in sheer horror at the sight. Something was gravely wrong, and not just because it was attacking the fourth member of their little band. The knight and his apprentice seemed to know what they were about, so she stayed back and let them do their work, even as more of the things emerged from the darkness ahead. "Kem, do you have the shape of them?" she murmured, opening herself further to the plane of spirits, until together they identified the emptiness that marked where the Cursed lacked any spirit at all.

"Yes, there. And--!"

They sensed it behind them, and even before the knight called his warning Shiara was in motion, gathering her will into a command. She lifted a hand. "Back," she said, thrusting it forward, a dim shimmer of air spreading out from her spread fingers to create a barrier a short distance before her. The thing was harder to turn than a simple lingering spirit, but she'd faced down stubborn ghosts. It wasn't so different. The light on her bracelet brightened as the bone mage called on her spirits for support to enforce her will. "Back, I say!"

And the inhuman beast stopped mere inches from her fingertips, snarling and straining to push forward but unable to do more than shriek its indignation.

Mergoux shouted as she was knocked over, the swing of her weapon falling too slow as she was sent into the filth. It was a trick, of course it was. How could she have been so foolish? Deep down she knew why, she'd hoped that it really was just a lost little girl, a little girl who needed help, and that the plague hadn't spread to the city already. If it had, then there was little chance that the four of them could stop it. She caught herself then, even as she went down, already she was associating them together? It had been a long time since she'd had a squad of any kind, she could take the little girl, even if she was being brought down by the ambush.

Mergoux might have been taken by surprise, but she had experience in combat more than any other here. Before the Raven Knight's boot sent the creature flying, Mergoux was already bashing at it with the knuckle dagger, while holding it off with her other armored hand. Filthy water filled her nose and covered her face, but she had enough discipline to keep her mouth tightly sealed, knowing that the last thing she needed today was to literally eat shit.

As soon as the weight lifted off her chest, she emerged from the water swearing violently. Her mouth tasted like sewage and she was going to have to burn her clothes. Still swearing, she drew forth her second dagger and took up a ready stance. "Bastards!" she said, even as the little girl's skull was split beside her by the Knight. She knew the undead, but not of this kind, just to be safe, she lashed out with a powerful blow, severing the girl's head at the neck and letting the body fall to the ground. Rolling her shoulders she fell back into her stance, eyeing the approaching enemies cautiously. She didn't like this, not one bit. Undead aside, the tunnel was too cramped for her to bring out her big weapons, namely her greatsword, and her crossbow would be useless without a bit of the wax that The Apprentice had.

The Knight shouted, and Mergoux was half-tempted to turn her head, but that could prove a fatal mistake. Her hearing told her there was only three beings behind her, or at least only three making noise, that meant the other two women, and another undead thing. The Mage she didn't know enough to judge, but if the apprentice was half as good as her master then she could handle a single fiend. A light began to glow behind her, but she stayed still, even as her shadow was cast before her. And so she waited, knowing in the past that the first move was often made by the loser in a battle, patience being key, and for combat she had plenty.

Kenfort always felt so distant from the river that ran it through. So different and far from the people up and along. Not even the well-trodden dirt path connecting the charcoal burner camp not a half day's walk along the river to the town itself brought it home.

Unless the wind turned south, casting the faintest taste of roasting wood over the town. Not thick enough to make a smog, not recent or near enough to still be warm. Instead, the cold charred taste. It was not the smell of home for everyone, mind you. Those in the city most certainly still preferred their natural aromatic persuasion.

So it was perhaps just Kapti and Brook Van Ken that thought that smell was homely. It was Brook's home by all meanings. Kapti's less so. It was the hint of it that was home to he, who had found the woods so pleasant in his aging state.

It was down that well-trodden dirt path that he now road. Shifting and swaying with the cart and carriage, and the pair of horses that pulled it forward. A mile marker along here, a stick effigy there. These were all things well-known and recognized to the man. It was only two years ago that Brook set down the effigy to ward away ghosts that walked the same path as his father Kapti. And so Kapti now looked upon such little things with fondness.

Other things he saw, too.

Smashed branches and foliage, and a bush gone nearer to Heaven than any man. He saw a boar and suspected it went off along the distance.

Or days old scratch marks in a tree. Something sharper marking its home.

Even just the bare footprints of a child in the mud followed by a shoe-clad bowing pattern in the mud with a deep sole. Ghost stories and whispers written all along the path for the watchful to observe. The bored to learn. And so it was that bored and watchful Kapti made his way for that distant and ever near Kenfort. His namesake. When the land first became Ken, a small group called themselves Of Ken, and it remained.

When it came he finally reached Kenfort by the North gate he waved at the guardsman standing watch. Thomas, if he was remembering correctly. Either way the familiar face was waved in by a familiar stranger and they offered each other the respect of a nod. It was obvious by the ash stains on the cart what Kapti was here to peddle to the people of the town. The Coal Man had come to town with his fuel for the flames of society. When his cart had spun itself around the center of town once and settled into his position his first customers had already began to collect and wave at him small bits of coin and work.

Hellos and goodbyes were brief, and the material exchanged hands even quicker. Shaped for good charcoal. It was good. The day was restless and chilled as the refugees came through and, finally when his work was done and his cart nearly empty, he felt the compelling urge to tend to the church. When he arrived at the church the strangers had already engaged in their adventure, unbeknownst to he. He was not a religious man of any greater sort save for some old rites and rituals that he performed more out of habit than faith, but he had recently taken up praying at the church as a way to think and process when he was struggling.

So as he stood he grabbed his splitting maul, a trap, and two of his tomahawks, before placing each gently onto its place on his belt. He crunched down onto the ground from his seat on the carriage, and paused to pat the rump of one of the two horses. He had long forgotten its name, and it was old. Not withering. Well fed and fit, but still old. Its hair was bleached and ancient.

He turned around the carriage, and pulled a sack's worth of charcoal from the back and contained it in such a vessel before moving towards the church. Once at its steps he took it all in for a moment, the size of it. The grandeur and religiosity of it.

He stepped inside and offered a quiet, "'Ello, brought shum coals." Then awaited a response in the entryway.

@LordOfTheNight

The apprentice had deprived the beast of its head, yet still it tried to reach them. Even Shiara's warding was taxed by the dark magic animating the body. A twinge like a half-remembered nightmare tugged at her thoughts, but didn't resolve into anything of use. Whatever it was, it was old, maybe even older than some of the traditions she upheld.

For the moment all she could do was watch the knights and the lady fighter dismember their various opponents. She had nothing to use as a weapon aside from the shovel that she still held in her off hand. Even if she'd had a proper weapon, she was no fighter. Her strength lay in her magics, and she'd be a poor match for the beasts even with Kem's help.

Mergoux snarled as the one-eyed man and the child skittered towards her, brain already working on how to dismember them without her largest sword. Her solution presented itself as the Knight embedded his axe in the fat woman's face, the child skittering towards him instead with a howl of rage. Presented with only one foe, the fight would be relatively simple.

Mergoux took two steps forwards to meet the one-eyed man's charge, and as she did so she swung her right hand, knuckle dagger gripped tightly, towards the man's face. The full force of her body and it's movement was built up behind the punch, and the semi-rotted flesh didn't offer hardly enough resistance to the powerful woman's blow. The man's nose caved in and he was sent to the floor, dropped instantly by the power of the punch.

Before he could get to his feet, Mergoux had jumped into the air and brought her entire body weight, combined with a double-kick to his chest. The horrific sound of splintering bone and rending flesh filled the air as he howled through crushed lungs, the woman's boots embedded in his chest. Mergoux knew this wouldn't kill him of course, but it would give her time enough to do what she needed. Half-submerged in filthy water, the man was virtually helpless as her long daggers flashed out, each slashing twice at the arms and then together at where the neck met shoulder. The head was held on by a scrap of flesh, and with another jump-stomp, both arms were torn away, most of the flesh rent by her blade, and the bones snapped by her heavy boots.

Now convinced her foe was mostly harmless, she proceeded to make sure he was utterly destroyed, yet another double stomp smashing his pelvis and rendering him totally immobile. Pain or not, you physically couldn't walk or move with your pelvis in a dozen pieces.

Turning her eye to the knight, she saw he needed help, and so she moved to do just that. His axe was laying in a puddle, having chipped away a portion of the one-eyed man's scalp, and as she advanced on the two undead, she picked it up, holding it a little awkwardly in one hand. Catch! she called out to him, even as she moved to the fat woman. Her tactic from before wouldn't work here, but this one was fat, meaning she'd be slower. Mergoux began dancing around her, blocking or avoiding the woman's strikes, while beginning to chip away at the blubbery arms, hacking here, slashing there, aiming to declaw her before she could hurt anyone else.

The Knight could deal with the boy, or else he was no knight at all, for now all she could do was keep the bitch busy while he put down the freakish child.

Mergoux was still sloshing around, jabbing quickly in and out with her knives, slashing away at the flesh slowly. One arm was cut so deep the bone was exposed, and were the woman alive she would have died half a dozen times over from bloodloss. As it was, Mergoux was flecked with the undead's blood, soaked in shit-water and just wanted to get above ground again.

The tunnel echoed with a howl of rage, and Mergoux spared a glance to see the Black Knight taking out his anger on the undead youth. Grunting her approval, she darted forwards again, and with a powerful blow she managed to sever the already badly damaged arm, a few seconds before the axe slammed home into the fat woman's skull. Mergoux was hit by a spray of blood, but that didn't stop her as The Raven Knight kicked the woman to the sewer floor and ordered Mergoux to finish it.

She nodded once, and with practiced ease casually threw one of her twin blades so that it embedded itself on the half-submerged corpse of the man she'd already taken down. She wasn't about to sheath the blood-soaked dagger and make cleaning the sheath even harder. It would be enough to get the sewer stink off it.

She hefted the axe in one hand, not clumsily, but not with the same expert proficiency that she used her blades with. Having missed her chance to take out her disgust and rage on the one who'd knocked her down, instead she gritted her teeth silently and began butchering the woman before her. The axe came down again and again, joined by the remaining dagger as she took the woman apart piece by piece. A minute or so later she was breathing heavily, her shoulders rising and falling as she did so. Bits of the woman floated here and there, and speckled the walls. Mergoux was splattered with blood as her violent outburst, silent but deadly, had left the woman almost unrecognizable as once human.

She lazily handed the axe back to Lucian. "Here... Name's Mergoux. Suppose you deserve to know it after all this... shit" she said, gesturing to the battle they'd been a part of. She rolled her shoulders and retrieved her second knife, wiping the blades crudely on her pant leg before putting them away. The threat was dealt with, now there was only to get clean. Not that Mergoux hated or was afraid of dirt, but after taking a dive into sewage, she felt disgusting.

She was distracted by the Knight swearing loudly and falling to his knees. Mergoux moved next to him, kneeling also and was about to attempt to steady him when she saw the wounds closing. Even under her helmet, the open mouth and wide-eyed expression betrayed her surprise. She'd never seen anything like this before. What potion was this that could heal so quickly?

Shiara let her shielding fall once it was clear the dismembered thing before her was no longer a threat. A glance behind her indicated the three fighters had the battle well in hand, so she turned her attention back to the disfigured corpse. It was easy enough to remove a finger, and her little knife made quick work of the meat, leaving her with just the distal and intermediate phlanges. Shiara tucked them into an oiled pouch. She'd need to clean them more thoroughly later, but for the moment it would do.

If she didn't know the nature of their opponents, the sight of the knights butchering their targets would have been sickening. Even so, it was not an easy thing to watch. When at last the deed was finished, Shiara allowed herself a soft sigh of relief. "So these are Cursed," she said softly. "The rumours did not hold the entire truth. Raised dead would be far simpler to deal with; these are something else entirely." She paused as the older knight doubled over in pain, his veins turning black. Whatever was in the vials was powerful, but the power clearly came with a price.

"We should return above," Shiara commented, after the third fighter introduced herself. "I'm sure the crypt has an exit into the church." And perhaps on the way the male knight would deign to tell her more about the Cursed. She'd need to learn everything she could about them to be effective against them -- and more importantly, to find out if there was any hope of putting a stop to them for good.

As the large man entered the church, he made a quiet point of removing his cap and taking it all in. The grandeur of it, while not necessarily elegant or excellent or exceptional in any way was something that drew Kapti in. Perhaps it was the holiness pulling on the heart of the old behemoth.

Once the business was tended to — Kapti of course being incredibly generous for the Bishop — he took the Bishop's words in rather seriously. His face grew sullen and tightened. His brow furrowed up and twisted into a million pieces before splintering off into a nod and a toothy shower of a smile, like a moldy piece of oak he spoke in those jovial tones that so defined his presence. Barky, growly, thundery, and calm. The lamb and the lion.

"Yessir Father. Just out in the yard then." Again there was contemplation in the form of a deeply rooted warping of the birch tree face, covered in the fallen leaves of both the most recent and the most distant falls. It were as if the whole world had taken the duty of being his face. The crust showing through in his brow as that thick wooded mass of a face began once again began to speak. "I'll be back here in a bit once I've talked t'them a bit." That face seemed all at once to unroot itself, revealing a deep system of obscured muscle and bone that turned and shaped to pull the lumbering figure out of the Church.

First, he left the now empty sack in his cart, tied his two horses and the cart down with a rather gnarly looking iron stake that plunged into the dirt and seemed to call it home as quickly as a mouse in the crevice of the house. Already armed and ready for such ventures as conversation, he made his way into the graveyard and began to patrol down the lanes in search of these individuals... Or any disturbances of any other note. When he entered the yard he kept his eyes sharp and his splitting maul in front of him held in two hands just above his waist, carefully. He didn't want to fall into a grave or anything of the sorts, after all.

@LordOfTheNight

Shiara considered offering her assistance to the apprentice, but it was obvious the two shared a close bond. Instead she lead their strange quartet back towards the crypt, with Noa's light to guide her. Before long the older knight was walking without aid, an amazing recovery after the injuries she thought he'd sustained. Shiara was curious -- both a virtue and a failing, according to her teachers. Not now. Wait until we are above ground, and the man has had a chance to rest -- and to decide what he wishes to share. And you to figure out what other aid you can offer. There was a brush of approval from Kem as she counselled herself to patience.

The idea of more Cursed was not a pleasant one, though now with bits of bone she would be able to study them, and fashion a better shield, perhaps determine the cause. The place where someone had broken through from crypt to sewer -- or perhaps the other way -- made her pause a moment, to examine the crumbling wall. "It will need to be fixed," she murmured, casting the light from her bracelet over it. "Until it is it will weaken the protection consecrated ground offers, and cause problems in turn," she murmured, and sighed. Such an endeavor would not be an easy one, she suspected, and her skills did not lie in building and masonry. With the breach as it was, she would not be able to fully restore the graveyard's spiritual threshold, but she might at least strengthen it some.

The apprentice knight's question brought Shiara back to their current predicament: underground in a crypt they'd fallen into. "Ah, sorry. Give me a moment, and I should be able to find someone that knows the way." She lifted a hand before her, calling Kem to her under her breath to lend strength to her sense for spirits and echoes. The ones buried in the crypt were older than those buried above, and so their presence was weaker. It took some several moments before the young bone mage could acquire an echo strong enough to follow. Fortunately the crypt was less a labyrinth and more many smaller passages off a single main hallway, and that hallway had a presence strong enough to pick up. "This way. The main corridor should be just a turn or two ahead, and it will take us up into the church itself."

The man turned his head away from the pit, and gripped his splitting maul in both hands with a ferocity that ramped suddenly. The whispers in the pit, the tracks around it, and the strangers that burst from the crypts. He barked very suddenly, and with an intensity that rivaled that of a raging mut. His words seemed monstrous for the first moment before the sound and shock twisted up into those hateful and inquisitive words:

"What goes on below the town? What queer majiks do yu employ to make thisere desecrated grave call for my company?"

His words gave themselves power as he seized forward with great steps that shook his gear and made it dangle with some amount of intensity. He planted himself adjacent to their path, not intent on blocking their progression. Instead he kept his maul extended gently so as to ensure he had the advantage of distance while he questioned the strangers with as much harshness as he could muster. The animal moving in the sack seemed altogether representative of their strangeness, and what the individuals themselves might have been up to.

"Dump the sack." He gestured, his right hand sparing a finger to point at the squirming vessel, before resettling his grip on his weapon and continuing to snarl while he spoke. "Whot's on. One o' yu tell me before I go'nd call for thee churchmen and the Lord's officiators of the law." There was an ambivalence in even the way he moved. He didn't recognize all too well this plethora of creatures in front of him: The dark one, the older fellow, the girl, the woman. These alien individuals. He would proceed with such uncomfortable presentation of himself for the time being. Not as though he had particular control over the moment. Something dreadful about the beckoning of the void, stronger than his normal urges, had brought him great and ferocious horror.

@LordOfTheNight@shylarah@Rosenrot@Overlord Thraka