A short while later Deacon and his team passed through the gates of Crok’s Landing. The homes here were thatched roofed and stone masoned. Dirt roads ran between thigh high stone walls that separated the individual homes. Some of the more expensive looking houses had small groves of trees on their lawns. Toward the middle of the town there was one two story building with sign hanging above the door that read Croks Tavern.

“Let’s start at the tavern. I haven’t felt an itching sensation for a while,” Deacon commented.

“You should have a healer check that,” quipped Hani getting snickers from Typhus and Tantus.

“Alright boys. Let’s make this quick. The quest only says to investigate. A simple fact finding job, nothing more,” Amanda chastised.

Three children ran between houses not far from the taverns entrance. One was being chased by two others, but they weren’t looking where they were going. As they came upon the party, they turned sharply around a barrel heading straight for Deacon. Not wanting to ruin their fun, Deacon went insubstantial as the lead child passed right through him. That brought the other two up short.

“Did you see that? It’s like he’s a ghost or something,” the first child said before waving his hand back in forth through Deacon.

“Quit it. That tickles,” Deacon said with a smile.

That made the other two run screaming for their mothers while the first child stood fascinated by the man that wasn’t really there. The boy proceeded to hop back and forth through Deacon.

“Hey! Stop that. You’re abusing my kindness,” Deacon chuckled.

“When did you die?” asked the boy on his third jump.

“I’m not dead,” Deacon said before tapping the boy on the forehead with his index finger. He was very careful not use any of his strength for fear of injuring the child.

“What? How did you do that Mr. ghost? Are you from the cemetery? Do you know the top hat man?” the boy asked in rapid succession before a woman came from a nearby house to collect him.

Deacon looked over at his friends and shrugged his shoulders. Typhus just pushed open the tavern door and was followed in by Amanda. Tantus was snickering into his hand as Hani began a slow clap. Deacon then scowled and walked in after Amanda.

Inside the tavern were no more than eight round tables surrounded by chairs. Four weight bearing posts stood equidistant from each other supporting the rooms on the second floor. There was a narrow staircase in the center of the room and a bar along the back wall. The walls were decorated with wreathes of various root vegetables. Typhus walked across the distance to the bar and took a seat.

So far, they’d only seen Deep Dweller’s and the occasional Gnome. The bar keep was obviously a Gnome. He couldn’t have been more than four feet tall, and he was tottering back and fourth on a unicycle behind the bar. He had wild white hair and wore a backpack that had bits and bobbles dangling everywhere. Deacon found this quite amusing and couldn’t keep a smile off his face.

“Welcome to Crok’s Tavern travelers. What can I get for you?” asked the barkeep.

“Answers. Has anything strange happened around here lately? Also, do you have to balance on that all day or just when there’s people here?” Deacon asked poorly veiling his amusement.

“All answers have a two drink minimum. So that’s four drinks each!” huffed the unamused gnome.

“Deacon! I apologize for my friends rude behavior. We’re from the Adventurers guild and we received some information that lead us in this direction. We only really want to know if you’ve seen anything strange lately in these parts?” Typhus asked apologetically.

“Strange you say. No we’ve had no trouble lately. A few months back there was concern of giant rats in the field. Turned out to be nothing. The kids stole some of the clothes from off a scarecrow. Couldn’t find what they did with them though. Hardly a concern for seasoned adventurers and one jackass with white hair,” huffed the barkeep.

“You’ve got white hair too and who are you calling a jackass!” Deacon yelled stepping forward before Hani distracted him.

“Can dish it out but ya can’t take it!” the barkeep yelled after Deacon as Hani lead him outside.

“That was tragic,” Hani said to Deacon once they were outside.

“That little shit. I was just curious about the balancing act is all,” Deacon lamented.

“Sure you were big guy, sure you were. Why don’t we go check out that cemetery the kid was talking about? I don’t think the tavern is a safe space for you,” Hani said mockingly.

“You’re right. I shouldn’t be picking fights with tavern owners. I should just buy his place and burn it to the ground,” Deacon said turning back to the tavern door as the rest of his party exited.

“Let’s go. The tavern owner says the cemetery at the west end of town is old. With gravestones that date back to the gnomish homeland before it was destroyed. If we’re looking for undead that’s where we start,” Amanda said before she started walking.

“Stupid tavern owner,” Deacon grumbled to himself as they all began walking west.

The sky was coming upon dusk as they reached the wrought iron gates of the cemetery. There were above ground mausoleums as well as headstones dotting the landscape. There was even an ominous fog rolling here and there. Deacon entered first and immediately felt a cool sensation rolling across his skin. That of course was followed by a fit a scratching his shoulder.

“This is definitely the right place,” Typhus commented scratching his forearm.

“Bizarre. So you mean to tell me when you get close to the undead, your blessing from Bael starts to itch?” Hani asked incredulously.

“ It was handy when we were fighting vampires, but it hasn’t acted up much since. The real question is why did we feel it down by the road?” Deacon queried.

There was movement behind one of the buildings and several birds were disturbed, flying in all directions from the roof. The group raced over graves and past solemn looking statues to find nothing hiding behind the building.

Deacon focused his aura out to the extent of his range. He hoped that would give him the jump on anything moving stealthily. That’s when the moans started to spring up. Without warning graves began disgorging their residents one after the other. The scene was reminiscent of time lapsed filmed plant life. Whereas normally a body digging its way out would take a while, these bodies were just shoved skyward. Some even landing face down in the dirt that just ejected them.

“This is weird. Why would the graves act this way?” Tantus asked before he started clambering on top of a nearby above ground tomb.

Something moved very fast through Deacon’s aura and spun around to catch a glimpse. There was nothing but a throng of four foot bodies shambling their way toward them. Searching through his abilities, Deacon found nothing suited for soulless masses. He could fight them one on one or shred a line of them with Dragon Claw Barrage. That would only leave him in a mass of bodies and low on soul energy. He knew he could siphon some soul energy from the animated corpses but not enough to keep Dragon Claw Barrage going at fifty percent soul energy a pop. That was only six uses before he ran dry. He decided to go with Summon Soul while the others held the high ground atop the tomb.

Calling the dispel ram should make short work of these zombies as long as they were magically created. Deacon funneled his soul energy into a dispel ram costing him ten percent soul energy for an uncommon creature. It manifested to his right and Deacon gave it the command to run amok. That opened some space around him before he felt that swift movement again.

“I see it. Over there on the right!” yelled Hani pointing vigorously.

Deacon finally laid eyes on a decrepit corpse wearing a top hat. He added everyone to his party and activated Inspect.

Grave Hat, Animated Corpse- This monster is more accurately classified as a symbiotic puppeteer. The hat is the actual monster, animating the corpse to do its bidding. The hat commands all like objects or entities in its vicinity. The hat can only be destroyed once it is separated from its host. Level 24/ Mystical Symbiote.

“Oh great. Get the one with the hat!” Deacon ordered.

Lighting struck the area around the hat zombie as it ducked and weaved between the others. Typhus jumped from shadow to shadow chasing it through the headstones while the dispel ram became overwhelmed by the dead. Deacon was using Spectral Leap to stay above all the grasping hands while Hani was carving through the dead like a white hot knife through butter. His hat was spinning around him like a circular saw. The zombies didn’t stand a chance against that jester hat.

Deacon knew Hani was burning through stamina trying to keep a clear zone available. He needed to end this now. That’s when Amanda jumped from a nearby roof, knocking the grave hat zombie to the ground. Then Typhus was there, emerging from a shadow to pin the corpses legs to the ground. Deacon landed next to Amanda who struggling to keep the shoulders down. Several chunks of flesh kept ripping free from her hand holds.

“Hurry this up please,” Amanda said.

Deacon grabbed the hat and yanked with all his strength. There was a tearing sound before five sharp tiny legs began to squirm from under the brim of the hat. Deacon planted his right foot on the chest of the corpse narrowly avoiding a bite from its jaws. Then he heaved popping the hat clean off. All the zombies in the area fell lifelessly to the ground as if they were never animated in the first place. Then the sharp barbs from inside the hat began to reach out for Deacons wrists.

“Tantus! Hit it in the sky!” Deacon hollered before whipping the hat straight up into the air.

It spun through the air like it was graduation day. Then a bolt of purest blue lightning smashed it back down into the ground. Then through the ground. A deep hole opened up on the spot the lighting hit. It began to grow larger and larger as the earth from all the nearby graves started to funnel into the newly forming sinkhole.

Everyone started running but the ground they were standing on ended up dragging them closer to the hole. Before long they were all swallowed into the darkness below.

‘Deacon. You must wake up,’ came a strange yet familiar voice, ‘You are so close now. Can you hear me?’

Deacon got to his knees and coughed grave dirt from his mouth. The others were all around him save Tantus. His Triage perk kept all their health bars from bottoming out while they fell through all the churning dirt and rocks. They were all filthy but the dirt around him was sifting through something. He cleared some space around his knees to see they had been stopped by some metal grating forming a floor around them. Looking around he could see light in the distance. They were in a large underground cavern. He didn’t think cavern was the right word since the walls and floor were made of metal. There was railing nearby, and he slowly made his way over to it. Below them were rows and rows of unmoving humanoid shaped figures. He couldn’t make out details from here, but they stood stock still like statues.

Deacon checked on the others who were also coming around. He looked up to see the whole they fell through lead up a good sixty feet. No wonder he cats grace didn’t activate for him. On the periphery of his aura he felt movement. Turning to see the danger, Deacon noticed the brim of a top hat fall over the railing down into the chamber below.