The road ends beneath a cold moon, where crooked grave markers crowd the silver grass. An overturned cart rests beside the gate, its wheels slowly creaking though no wind blows.
A short, narrow-shouldered goblin trader, an elderly goblin man, stands calmly beside the wreck. His moss-green face is lined with age, one yellow eye hidden beneath a brass lens, and a red vest hangs over patched black robes.
Among the graves, five attackers lie scattered in the pale grass. Their weapons are abandoned, their forms still, but fingers begin twitching beneath the soil-darkened sleeves.
The nearest tombstone bears one freshly carved name: Valek. Beside it, a blackened oath-mark burns across the goblin's raised palm, shedding sparks that vanish before touching the ground.
Gribbit
An ambush, certainly. Though the dead seem dissatisfied with how it ended.
The goblin turns toward Caedric, studying the codex, the incense, and the steel-plated whip. Behind him, one corpse drags itself upright between two leaning stones.
Gribbit
You came for the haunting, exorcist. Tell me you know what is waking beneath this place.
The graveyard answers with a dull chorus of shifting earth. Moonlight catches the oath-mark again, and the goblin waits without retreating.
✓ Quest Accepted
Contain the graveyard's undead threat before it reaches the town
✓ Quest Accepted
Determine what is waking beneath the graveyard
“"This place must be cleared of all evil that resides! LIsten trader, do you have any supplies that may help me on my journey to erase the evilness that surrounds us. Hey watch out for that over there! It's a zombie!”
SUCCESS (Superb Reasoning, rolled +0)
Caedric Thornmere
This place must be cleared of all evil that resides. Trader, do you have supplies to help erase the evil surrounding us? Watch out for that over there. It is a zombie!
Caedric's warning comes as the risen attacker hauls itself fully from the grass, its dead gaze fixed on the living. The other fallen ambushers twitch but remain down.
Gribbit
A zombie, yes, and not a common one. I am Gribbit. Take this grave-salt, ash of blackthorn, and a vial of sanctified oil. They are yours.
Gribbit opens a lacquered compartment beneath his red vest and places the three supplies into Caedric's reach. The goblin's oath-mark flares as the zombie turns toward the gate.
Gribbit
That corpse bears a fragment of Valek's command. The mark on my palm called it up, but your knowledge is sound: the graveyard is saturated with hostile consecration.
The zombie, a gaunt adult man with gray, split skin, hollow eyes, and a mud-streaked burial shroud, steps between the leaning stones, dragging one foot through silver grass. Its shadow points toward Valek's freshly carved name instead of following the moon.
Gribbit
Use the salt to bar the threshold, the ash to break its binding, and the oil to seal what answers beneath the stone. I will keep the other dead from rising.
+ New Item Acquired
Grave-salt
+ New Item Acquired
Ash of blackthorn
+ New Item Acquired
Sanctified oil
Director's note
pours salt in to palm, blows it in the face of the zombie. places a pinch of blackthorn on the forehead, and give a squirt of sanctified oil onto the flesh of the enemy
“"Like this Gribbit?”
SUCCESS (Poor Magic, rolled +0)
Caedric Thornmere
Like this, Gribbit?
Caedric pours grave-salt into his palm and blows it across the risen attacker's face. The salt flashes white against its dead eyes as the creature recoils.
He presses blackthorn ash to the attacker's forehead, then casts sanctified oil over its gray flesh. A pale circle of fire closes around the zombie without burning the grass.
The command-fragment tears free as a black thread and sinks into Valek's carved name. The zombie collapses, its shadow snapping back beneath it, and the graveyard falls still.
The spell's cost marks Caedric's purple codex: one page chars black, its script rearranging into a serpent-shaped sigil that pulses once beneath his hand.
Gribbit
Cleanly done. But Valek has noticed the hand that severed his command.
Gribbit lowers his marked palm as the last sparks fade. The fallen attacker remains motionless, and the freshly carved name no longer draws the corpse's shadow.
Quest Complete
Contain the graveyard's undead threat before it reaches the town
Attribute Upgrade: Reasoning Superb→Legendary