Steal stood still, his eyes flitting upwards to meet Kor'Ak's. A sudden coldness swallowed the room. Steal exhaled, a trail of thin mist coming from his throat and dispersing into the air before him. He and the Djaal stayed motionless as the woman before them unfolded her legs beneath the silk sheets, crossing them again after a few moments, smooth feet swaying hypnotically over the end of the bed.

Something else rustled beneath the sheets, rising to sit beside the woman. The first Steal saw of it was its head, a human's, mottled and grey, dry skin cracking, bloated and transuclent over rotted flesh. The sheets fell off it as it sat up completely, revealing a chest with a similar condition to its face. Ribs guarding a seemingly hollow chest that did not rise or fall with breath. A long suture was clear in the thing's belly, running a jagged horizontal line across its torso.

The woman's slender arm rose, her soft palms caressing the zombie's cheek. She pulled it's head closer, soft red lips pressing against the undead's cracked, paled lips. Her undead companion's own hand rose, pushing shining silver hair back behind her round ears to reveal the full extent of her face. It was smooth, not angular, soft, not hard, yet there was something in the deep crimson eyes of hers that Steal felt as her eyes glanced across him, something that made the cold air feel only colder.

The paladin's gripped their weapons tighter, though they didn't recoil. Kor'Ak took a step backwards, averting his gaze and gagging slightly at the ghastly sight. Steal's eyes merely wandering focused on the action, that of sharing lips, something he'd never seen. It seemed intimate, but the reactions of his companions told him there must be something wrong with such an action. The goblin shrugged his shoulders and tightened his grip on his own weapon.

With a heavy, ecstatic breath, the pale woman pulled herself back, lips parting with the zombies. Her chest rose, she opened her mouth as if to speak again, but was cut silence by a rough, dwarven voice, Hard's words seemed even heavier as they rung and echoed through the hall-sized bedroom. "You've killed far too many, taken too much life, acted upon too much sin for us to dare worry about being rude!" His voice seemed to lose its strength again as he uttered a name, yet it carried itself through the room for all to hear "... Melissa.."

The woman before them seemed to take offence at such a comment, her demeanour nearly crumbling as she forced herself to suppress the wavering beginning of a snarl. Her composure quickly returned as she let out a haughty laugh "Dundrim? Is that you? Oh my, I could barely tell it was you under all that armour. I must say, if I had known I'd be meeting you on this job, I would have taken it even without the reward. It really is good to see you again, I'd been hoping I would be adding you to my collection some day"

Hard clenched his weapon tighter "It's been twenty years Melissa, you haven't aged a day. I have. I've fought since then, my body is hardened by scars, resolve hardened by faith. Things will not be the same, today I will-"

"Kill me and finish what we started all those years ago?" Melissa's eyes rolled as she slipped from beneath the sheets, exposing a bare body as she pulled a gold-inlaid wooden case from beneath the bed, producing a set of frilly black and red clothes from it and setting them atop the ruffled sheets. The zombie that had laid with her did the same, slipping off the opposite side of the bed and pulling an iron box from beneath it, quickly pulling a thin blade from it and moving to its master, who was currently affixing her skirt as her eyes narrowed on Hard. "You always were predictable, and boorish. Not even telling your men to avert there gaze as your wife is dressing before them." Her head craned back, looking down the soft ridge of her nose at him. "Pathetic"

"You are my wife no longer Melissa, you're no more than a monster"

"Tch, if you held no sentiment, then why haven't you already demanded my head be severed and put on a spike? I'm sure you wouldn't waste time on a conversation with one of my darlings would you?" Her hand went over her shoulder to pat the head of the zombie behind her, as it awkwardly fumbled in attempts to fasten her corset. "Well, I can tell you have no intent to let me live." She fiddled with the corset, pulling it up slightly to cover her chest. She took a seat at the edge of the bed, raising her left leg up as her undead partner moved to pull a long, thin sock over her leg. With the first done, he moved to pull up the other.

The pillar at the centre of the room began to rattle, piles of black bone pouring to the floor like a waterfall as the bones continued to spill forth and rattle along the floor, they continued to rattle as they pulled together, breaking away and dividing to form more humanoid figures, snapping to each other to build themselves into skeletal frames, black skulls staring back through empty eye sockets

Following that, the two suits of armor that stood upright around Melissa's bed creaked and moved. Shields and swords at the ready as they pressed forwards to guard Melissa, whilst still giving the woman enough space to cast her gaze over the paladin's as she stood, the zombie she lay with bending low, pulling a metallic, skull-topped staff from beneath her bed and passing it to her. She seized the staff in her right-hand, tapping it's metal bottom against the wooden floor at her feet.

As the staff struck the ground, it made no discernible sound of striking, instead, the strike rang like a bell, echoing and bouncing off the walls. The air was silent for a moment. The paladin's readied themselves.

A wave of thin green flame erupted from the skull atop her staff. Emeraldine embers grasping onto black bone and black armor, quickly skittering upwards and crawling into the skulls of the skeleton's and helms of Melissa's vanguard. The light of the fickle embers dimmed for a brief moment before bursting to life, roaring into bright flames amidst empty eyesockets.

Melissa's grin grew wider "Don't worry my old dear, once I'm done with you, I'll be sure to raise you up to serve at my side."

The blackened skeleton's charged forth like a tidal wave, there hands suddenly alight with eerie green flame as they surged forwards.

Steal pulled back as the wall of shields fell into place in front of the goblin, paladin's readying for the oncoming surge of bodies.

It didn't quite come as they expected.