Ensnarement and brute force followed by the lick of magical flames bring the fleshless creature to its knees. Broken and blackened, it looks upwards at you before finally collapsing into a pile of smokey bones.
Two small and rough stones roll out from the eye cavities, apparently unscarred, and tumble off across the ground a foot or so near your feet. Milky. Shiny. Full of fire in the twinkle of Carthum's magical little rock and Dain's accompanying torchlight.
Undead. Rarely seen and even less spoken of, but still mentioned here and there within texts of years long lost. Necromancy, a topic of interest no doubt for The Burning Rose, as some forms of magic come at a heavy cost and warrant great warning. It is not a path encouraged by the wise. Otiroth recalls perhaps lessons of restraint and how one must dodge the most foul of corruptions. Yes, there are ways to immortality through magic, and though the study of death and the leeching of souls may be tempting for those wishing to extend their grip on life, this particular path comes at a most horrible price. Perhaps the price of a youngling. The size and proportions of the remains would indicate a human, definitely in its early years.
The church of Suru too, would find the existence of walking dead most abhorrent. A violation of justice of the highest order. The right to rest in peace. The sacrilege of preventing a soul from its final trial, to prove worthiness and enter the quiet tranquility of the heavens.
For this to have existed, someone must have animated the remains. A sombre thought, that perhaps down here somewhere lies a guardian still capable of breath. Even more worrying perhaps, is how a child came to be here of all places to see its humanity snuffed out.
Stood with back to the far wall, Annit's expression of surprise probably mirrors your own. Then her gaze turns down to the pair of gems silently waiting on the floor. A twinkle returns to her eyes as she points to them.
"Moonstone," she says. "My father calls them the stone of permanence, but it seems you've just put an end to that theory."
For the magically gifted in the group, you can almost feel a shallow wave of power radiating from them, like ripples upon the top of some dark unknown pool.
Somewhere far away the occasional sounds of rock splintering under impact can be heard, but for now, all else is still...
