Donut pointed to the side of the building. Across the street, another structure had half caved-in. Thankfully it was a business and not a residence. I’m glad we’d chosen a different building to stand upon. “Your explosion went up, down, and to the side. But it didn’t blow this way. I wonder if that magic door protected it.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But either way, that reception office is just gone. If that’s where Miss Quill and Featherfall were standing at the time, they wouldn’t have had a chance.”
“Those poor stuffed animals,” Donut said. “Now let’s go down there.”
Donut started to wiggle her butt, and then she jumped deftly down into the magistrate’s quarters as I tied my rope to a chimney. This was starting to get cumbersome. Donut was right. I needed a better way to go up and down. I descended. I swung my way into the chambers. I left the rope there, hanging all the way past the mall level. The full length of the rope ended about 15 feet off the ground.
A few fires crackled here and there. I gave them a wide berth as we explored deeper into the large building. Donut released Mongo, who immediately moved to a small, empty cage against one wall and started sniffing at it.
The magistrate’s office had been just on the other side of the reception area, which meant it was now gone. There was no sign of the magical door. It was probably buried in the debris along with the corpses and all of Miss Quill’s beanie babies. And past the office was the living quarters, which extended the entire length of the mall below it. There wasn’t much here. A few tables and T-shaped roosts. There was a chest against a wall, but it was open and the contents empty.
Donut inspected a small cage that interested Mongo. It appeared as if it once held regular-sized mice or rats. The door was open. She said it smelled moldy, like it hadn’t been used it a while. All I could smell was smoke. She pulled the cage into her inventory and came to examine the chest, which I poked at with my foot.
“Hey Donut, look. The clasp is broken. That didn’t happen with the explosion.”
“So, it was sitting here already looted before we blew it up?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Maybe another crawler broke into here before us,” she said.
“Maybe,” I said. “We’re the ones who killed Featherfall, though. Keep one eye on the map.”
I looked around. The entire apartment seemed oddly empty. There were shelves, but nothing was upon them. Nothing hung on the walls. That empty cage had been a food box, but it hadn’t been used in a while. There was a heavy door against the far wall, leading deeper into the house. I leaned into it, opening it slowly.
The moment I pushed against the door, I saw the X appear on the map. I pushed the door all the way. The moment I did, several dozen additional red dots appeared, along with an equal number of Xs. I froze as I formed a fist, ready to defend myself. Nothing happened. Nobody moved.
Holy crap.
“Mongo, shush,” I hissed as the feathered dinosaur forced his way into the room. He opened his mouth to howl, and I pressed my left hand down on his beak. “Shush,” I repeated.
Donut leaped to my shoulder, putting herself in the firing position. Still, nothing in the room stirred. Donut gasped, her entire body going rigid.
“Carl,” Donut whispered, her voice terrified. “You were right, Carl. This was a bad idea. I don’t like this. Please, let’s go. Let’s go now.”
I swallowed, examining the horrific sight before me.
We’d stepped into a serial killer’s wet dream.
The entire room was filled with naked female corpses, hanging upside down from the ceiling as if we’d just walked into a meat locker. There were human and elves and dwarves, along with a scattering of others, such as orcs and a single ogre. The ones that appeared as Xs on my map were all missing their heads. The others, at least thirty of them, still had all their parts, but the heads were detached, hanging a good six inches below the neck, with only the white of bone and straw-like arteries keeping them attached. It appeared as if someone had grabbed their heads, given it good yank, and then left them there, bobble-heading. Wisps of purple energy swirled around the red-dotted ones, like they were being recharged.
They all appeared to be asleep. Their eyes remained closed.
The horrors didn’t stop there. At the center of the room, hanging upside-down in a massive dreamcatcher made of bone, was the naked, emaciated corpse of Magistrate Featherfall. His featherless wings were spread all the way out, with nothing but goosebumped, gray skin left, like a pair of uncooked chicken wings with grasping fingers at the first knuckle. His milky white, dead eyes stared out at us under a cracked beak. A clear fluid dripped from both his mouth and eyes. At the top of the hoop-shaped construction, his taloned claws were spread out and splayed, facing the ceiling. The whole sight was reminiscent of a fucked up, inverted parody of DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man. His body was lashed to the bone structure with old, frayed rope. It appeared as if he’d been there for some time. His body was in the process of being mummified. The circle twisted in the air, rocking back and forth, creaking.
Lootable Corpse. Former Magistrate Featherfall. Dark Cleric. Level 32.
“How did we get credit for killing that guy when he was like this?” Donut whispered. “He looks like he’s been dead a long time.”
“I don’t know.”
This was a nest of krasue. The original description said to truly kill them, one had to find their bodies and destroy them. The ones without heads were, I assumed, out and about in the town. But if that was the case, then why did they appear as corpses on the map? The descriptions just said they were regular NPC corpses. Were the bodies technically dead until the krasue returned? I supposed it didn’t matter as long as we killed the bodies. But could we? I knew we couldn’t kill the ghosts without using magic. But what about their bodies?
The entire ground was sticky with gore and lumps of fallen, forgotten body parts. The smell was almost unbearable.
If we wanted to approach Featherfall, we’d have to brush by several of the hanging women. The closest one, a blue-skinned elf, was a mere five feet away. She was young and thin, hanging from the ceiling with her ankles in a noose. Her long, dark hair cascaded below her, not quite long enough to reach the ground. I resisted the urge to punt her head.
“We need to get closer to loot his body,” I said.
“Yeah, no, I’m not taking another step in there. Those things are going to wake up.”
“If that explosion didn’t wake them, then maybe they’ll stay unconscious.”
“Of course, they’re going to wake up, Carl. Have you ever watched a horror movie?”
She was right. And with the blood splattered all over the room, I strongly suspected whomever the head bad guy was, he probably had that Suppurating Eye spell going. We couldn’t stay here long. I sent a quick query to Mordecai, who said the headless ones were maybe fair game to physical attacks, but the ones with their heads and the purple swirls were likely protected. But he wasn’t certain.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Let’s kill this one here and see what happens. If it works, we’ll carve a path. We’ll loot and run.”
“Okay, let’s step back. I’ll hit her with a missile,” Donut said. “If they all wake up, I’ll cast my Torch. Maybe it’ll scare them away again.”
“Hey,” she said a moment later. “Not fair. It says the area has been muted. I can’t cast spells.”
I sent another note to Mordecai.
Mordecai: Spells in your menu and scrolls won’t cast if you’re in a muted zone. Everything else, including magical items, potions, and spells you’ve already cast will still work.