Zilo, Jin, and Leo exit the ship that ferried them to dwarven capital, Craghold, but once they hit the land Zilo halts. Jin turns to his friend.
"Is something wrong?"
Zilo walks forward and says, "The door guards... They aren't here."
Leo looks at the door into the mountain then back at Zilo as he says, "They might just be on break or something."
Zilo nods nervously as he shows his friends to the mine cart ride that would transport them into the city. When Zilo attempted to activate one of the carts, it stays still. Unlike last time when it would shoot off into the massive catacombs.
Zilo's heart sank as he began walking down the tunnels before reaching the giant hollowed out mountain. Off in the distance the dwarven the city of Craghold stands, quiet. The bustling and distance sounds of craftsmen forging their wares was absent.
Zilo's face contorts and winces. Jin offered him a drink from his bottle, and Zilo smiled before drinking a bit. he was shocked that he emptied the surprisingly little in the bottle. Zilo side looks to Jin, who shrugs and says,
"Long voyage and weak booze, had to use quantity over quality." Zilo sighs and throws the bottle over his shoulder back to Jin. It takes them a bit to reach the city. Once the three friends walk into the main city the streets are quieter than a mouse, as a mouse would at least squeak.
"Lively place here Zilo, I regret not joining up earlier." Remarks Leo sarcastically. Zilo turns back to him and says,
"I wish you had too, We coulda used the help when the lich came." Leo shakes his head, remembering who he was speaking to. The three of them walk through the empty streets, looking around in houses. The food in them has gone bad, but the houses have yet to decay.
Jin observes the age of the houses and reports, "Judging from the age I'd say the houses have been unattended for a few months at most."
"That would probably be around when we left then, but that doesn't explain where the people went." States the bard.
Jin walks out of the house with the other two and looks to the ceiling of the rocks and notices soot stains from smoke that collected above a fire. Jin places his hand on Zilo's shoulder as says, "Follow me, I think I know of where you may find the people."
The group looks for the source of the old fire and Zilo is stunned silent when he comes across the mostly burned ash remains of hundreds of dwarves stacked in a pile. Jin and Zilo let the moment of silence extend, unable to speak words to do the scene justice. Leo crosses his arms after he thinks the time has passed and says,
"Yes, yes great tragedy, but I would much rather spend our time here doing something else."
Jin and Zilo look at him, disgusted before Leo says, "Yes I know I, have no soul, No remorse, no sympathy, trust me I've heard it all before, but I am also a realist. They are dead and nothing we do can change that, and wasting time regretting stopping it will do nothing."
Jin hangs his head and responds, "I don't like it, but you are right, very well, what are we to do Leo?"
Leo rubs his chin and begins to speak, "Zilo you are the one who killed the lich, so find the body and get the tooth, Jin good work on finding these bodies, see if you can track anything down about who committed this travesty, like the leavings of tracks, bodies from the other side of the encounter, something."
Both nod and Zilo takes off to another section of the city outskirts. Jin begins looking through the burnt bodies. Leo silently smiles and thinks to himself, " Perhaps these dwarves have a vault in the castle that needs to be... emptied."
Zilo walked to the north section of Craghold where he and his companions faced off against an entire army of the undead. Zilo hadn't been conscious to see the aftermath of the battle, but it hadn't been touched. The dwarves may have thought this battlefield cursed from the undead marching.
Some areas were scattered with ash from the magics of May and Cruxis, but a fair amount were littered with shattered bones, clearly the work of Him, Alaroc, and Zig...
Zilo stops a moment, remembering the little goblin monkey. Zilo looks around to try and find his little friend, but doesn't see his body. After searching for a bit Zilo finds a small wooden cross with the upraised sword symbol of Arete on the cross. a small parchment on the cross reads the following
[Here Lies Zigger, may Arete protect him in the Heavens above]
Zilo pats the top of the cross and mumbles, "Thank you Cruxis." As a tear rolls off his cheek.
Zilo breaths heavy and goes back to looking for the Lich's body. It wasn't hard to find, it was the only undead that had a set of armor on it. He however didn't find the Lich's head.
"Huh? but where did... OH YEAH, I cut off the head." Zilo looked around a bit more before casting Detest Magic. Even defeated, the Lich King would still have a bit of magic in it. Didn't take him long to spot the head and pluck out a tooth.
He left the scene behind and walks back to find the other two. Once they all meet back by the dwaven bodies Jin points behind his shoulder,
"There's some evidence of an elven base camp just past this body pile. There's strands of long blond hairs, but I thought elves and dwarves were allies."
Leo crosses his arms and says, "I wouldn't be so sure, I just looked in the dwarven vault and all I found left was this." Leo holds up a simple looking gourd which has a tan leather surface, and a delicately braided red string wrapped on it's body. Jin's eyes go wide at the beautiful, but simple structure of the gourd.
Leo dismissively tosses the gourd around in his hands and says, "Elves only like to drink fruity wines and such, so it figures they would deem this the only treasure to be useless, an Infinite Ale Gourd."
In an instant Jin's tail flicks out and snatches the gourd out of the air and abruptly states,
"Dibs."
"Huh?"
"I said dibs, this is mine now."
Leo gasps and shouts back at the monkey, "You! You can't do that, I'm the one who found it! If you found an awesome sword in some old elf camp I'd let you keep it!" In the meanwhile Leo's hand is suspiciously tucked behind his back.
Zilo remarks, "Hey Leo, what you doing with your fingers there?"
"Nothing! Shut up!"
"Is that a human thing?"
"Ye... Yes people do that when they are being earnest about something."
Zilo makes a quick not of that in a journal then says, "Well either way, he called dibs, you can't fight that. I got the tooth, so we can go now."
Leo turns and raises his arms, saying, "Fine whatever! Let's get back to the ship."
The three begin to walk back as Jin gulps away at his new gourd, using his tail to hold it aloft to his lips. After deeply drinking he wipes his lips and smiles.
"I can't wait to show Alaroc!" says the monk.
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