Roxie pushes out her wings to right herself before throwing them down and slowing her decent whilst she throws her mana towards the ground. It connects with the road and she starts pushing against it, further slowing her decent until she lands on her feet with only a thud and a small grunt of pain.

The thing, who had already landed in a heap with its front half mostly crushed by the landing, gets to its feet as an aura of wrongness flows out of it, the parts of it that had been broken snap back into place, the flesh seals and the arms on the clock turn.

Roxie draws her axe and charges, forcing it to jump back and make a swing with its scythes which she avoids by moving closer and past the blades. She continues and pushes it over, using her axe handle to pin its head back whilst she uses her claws to rip out its throat. It continues fighting, despite its head being slammed back into the ground and its throat ripped out and pushes her off as the feeling of wrongness gets stronger as the arms on the clock continue counting down.

It backs off and launches away again before Roxie can get to her feet, so she drops into a sit instead and waits for the others to find her. As she does, the various people who had been scared by their sudden drop in slowly come back out of hiding or lower their weapons, eventually coming closer to ask questions. Roxie avoids giving direct answers and instead just tells them that it was some kind of monster and that it hates silver.

Ilia and Donovan eventually arrive and help disperse everyone, just telling them that they work for Till.

Once the crowd moves and people continue on with whatever they were doing, Roxie finds somewhere else, away from everyone, to sit and starts rubbing a hip joint “The necromancers have definitely taken notice”

Donovan deflates and sighs “Alright. And people will start asking questions”

Roxie moves to her other hip “I told them that it was just a monster, one of your ones, and that it hates silver”

“Why not just tell them the truth” Ilia looks between Donovan and Roxie as they give her tired looks.

Roxie stops and lists “Oh, I wonder how much panic, telling the general populous that a soul consuming, body twisting, organised group are hiding in the city and preying on them, will cause”

She looks down at her “Point taken”

“If they’re gonna start sending things like that out, that can leap around like a Silver, then we do fucking need to start telling people” Donovan shrugs before looking around.

“I know, but the question is who? Who’s gonna take that info and do something about it other than shouting it from the rooftops and panicking. Or have you forgotten that you and Till are the only people that we—” She juts her head to Ilia “Know here”

He scratches his head and says “I know a couple of rankers who can be subtle”

Roxie looks up, then nods behind him “Go then”

He shrugs and mumbles an “Alright” whilst he wanders off before turning around and asking, “Can you find your way around?”

“Well, the people around here seem nice enough—” She idly waves around her “I think we can just ask our way through”

He nods and heads off, but stumbles back as one of Till’s aide’s lands in front of him, a massive stitched gash scored across their chest, framed by bloody torn cloth and chainmail “Roxie! There’s been an attack, a bunch of crazed people poured out of some houses and cleared out one of the squares, they’ve been preventing people from getting in and there’s a pair of people casting magic around the landmark. What’s going on?”

“Don’t know until I get a look, lead us there”

They nod and move to go before Donovan stops them “Hey, do you have any food pills on you, we’ve been going for most of the day”

The aide hands over a box from which Donovan distributes three palm sized, odourless balls which the three eat as they wind they way through the streets and alleys to eventually come out into the square where several shambling people are swarming and assaulting anyone that comes close.

Roxie sends the aide to Till whilst she speaks to Donovan and Ilia “Ilia, summon that stone guy and break the circle, we’re going for the pair in the centre”

“Fuck that, I’m helping people” Donovan charges off to a pair currently arguing over a person who’s struggling and trying to maul them in their grasp.

Donovan rushes up besides the two people and impales the person in the head before throwing it to the side.

The man who was being accosted by it screams “You killed him!”

“He was already dead ye' idiot!” His companion smacks him on the shoulder before meeting another one.

Donovan nods to them as the circle starts to close in on them, then collapse inwards as Johnson, with Roxie on his shoulders, barrels through it and up to the robed pair in the centre.

Donovan’s attention is ripped from them by the sound of cracking bone and death cries. He turns around to find Clockface wrenching its sickles free from the ribs of the pair he just helped, breaking them open without any care for the gore it’s spilling. It springs into action once Donovan shows that he’s not daunted by its show of cruelty by producing a knife; he dodges back to avoid the sickles whilst flicking a weight into his other hand which he starts to spin. Clock face rushes forwards whilst reaching up, letting it wrap around its weapon and using that to pull Donovan towards it. Donovan instead lets it be pulled from his grasp, the chain being pulled from his sleeve as he reaches under his shirt to pull a small ball with a stem that catches on something and ignites. He holds it and backs off as it burns down before throwing it at Clockface which swipes it away, but it still blasts near it into a loud bang that it barely reacts to.

Seeing their opportunity, the bald man, now wearing a shirt and the top half of plate armour, charges at Clockface and slams a Warhammer into its side, piercing through with the hammer’s spike which catching in the muscle. He shifts his grip on the shaft to then lift them over his head into the ground, he then lifts the hammer and moves to smash its head. Clockface quickly springs up and back, scoring its sickle across his breastplate whilst avoiding the slam, then leans back to avoid the man’s retaliation swing. Taking his own chance, Donovan takes a folding hook from under his belt which he then swings into them, hooking then pulling them back onto the ground as the man transitions his wide swing into a vertical slam that makes contact, crushing its head and scattering gore mixed with bright red crystals across the ground.

…………….

Jonson crushes through the circle of shambling bodies with Roxie on his shoulder, triggering the pair in the centre to panic and trigger their work; a large ring of dust is ejected from the ground before the middle disk drops with the pair riding it down. Johnson, instead of stopping, leaps over the hole to avoid falling in, landing in a skip to a stop. Deciding against following, Roxie instead turns her and Johnsons attention to the dozens of shambling citizens approaching them. Roxie waits for the circle to come close before leaping over them, landing, then attracting their attention by hacking into the back of the nearest one, triggering nearly half of the circle nearest to Roxie turn from Johnson to approach her. She then starts to throw her knives with her off hand whilst backing off, some miss but most make contact though only a few actually pierce, those that do pierce kill their target instantly, even if the wound was only skin deep or in a non-vital area, though the silver glow and warp after.

Johnson meanwhile faces the ones still aggroed to him and makes a wide sweeping backhand that takes out multiple at once, repeating the motion and thinning his half of the circle. Roxie charges to the side of the group and starts hacking in their heads as she starts to run a slow circle around, corralling them into a bundle whilst whittling away at the edges until Johnson, done with his ones, takes them all out with a single swing.

Roxie and him stay at the ready for a moment until Johnson holds out his fist at her. She looks up to him with a frown, then to Ilia who approaches whilst trying to not look at any of the corpses. Donovan and the bald man approach as well, shortly followed by the few people who don’t start mourning over the dead.

One of them, a young elf with dark blue spines in similar garb as Tills aids, peeks over the edge of the hole “So, are we going to sit around with a finger in our asses, or are we going to—”

He’s interrupted by Roxie clamping a hand over his head, she then turns her attention to the aide that had landed nearby with a medium sized sack and a small box.

They approach and hands them to Roxie “Till is gathering people as backup, but sent me to deliver the salt and silver you requested”

She checks the contents then nods to the aide “Thanks” Then announces to the people that are still around “Those of you who wants to pursue those that done this, prepare yourselves quickly, were going in soon. Those of you who want to stay and mourn, I ask that you do so quickly too as others will more than likely come and seek to follow” She pauses her speech to make sure that people are listening “If you want to get back at those that done this, but don’t want to enter, I ask that you stay to intercept those that will come”

She lets go of the elf who at this point was trying to wrench her fingers from his scalp who sets to rubbing his head. She turns to those that had approached and stayed; one is an old man wearing a skirted gambeson with several boxes attached to it, another is someone in full armour with a large crossbow and the elf.

She then asks Donovan “You got some spare pouches? Or some string?”

Once their sorted, Roxie sets to decanting the salt with several of the silver slivers in them which is then handed to the others whilst going over why they should keep it close to their necks. After, Roxie leads the drop into the hole, landing with a thump on the stone cut out.

They drop into a massive room, the walls consisting of marked and torn brass, littered with bones of various creatures; behind them is a giant door which was blown open with several cages either broken open or mauled, and in front is a large observation room with a light still on. The others follow closely, dropping or climbing their way down. They scan the room and find another door, mostly hidden by it being in a similar state to the walls.

The elf is the first to the door, only to flinch back when he opens it as an oppressive heat and humidity hits him “Fuck, does this lead to a butchers bin—” He then braces himself and opens the door again “Or a mass grave?”

Roxie pulls him back and looks through the door into the darkened hallway on either side. She asks the group “Anyone have a lantern?”

The one in armour reaches into a pouch and throws up some iron filings that hold above their head and glows with heat, flooding the area in a low light. Donovan meanwhile debates putting his tiny lantern away, but lights it anyway.