Inside 60

[Aric Kale]

Apartment Complex - Necromancer

The necromancer and her forces surge forward, the wights pulsating with unholy magic supplied by their mistress.

The gray and black cloak skips the first floor altogether, floating up to the second story and bringing the wights with it.
With a hefty blow via iron staff, the window blocking their entry is shattered, and the wights swarm in, ready to turn any who live.

Fortunately, when wights are created by her wights, they are easier to dominate. And the longer she controls the original seven, the less they will resist her will.

Clearly this shady character is powerful...

[Rebonack]

[Apartment Complex]

Morgan

The russet mold poofs some spores at Morgan as she goes rushing past, but since she has the good sense not to stick her face into the brownish red mold and breath deep like a certain dead person who thought it would send him on a trip she'll be just fine. Then it's down the stairs! As soon as she gets a view of the fourth floor she may realize that going down probably isn't a very good option.

Why?

Because of all the wights, of course!

Most of them are the mummified sort, but they aren't the only ones, unfortunately. Some of them are bloated and water-logged, dripping brine that sizzles when it hits the floor. Others are coated with thick patches of disgusting alga and bog weed, a repulsive odor exuding from them. Still others have skin that's blackened with frostbite, ice clinging to their bones and rime spreading from each footstep. And then there are the burning ones, their body blackenedd and cracked, the scent of burning flesh wafting from the baleful flames burning inside them.

Thankfully the more powerful looking wights are a small minority compared to the mummified ones.

Two normal wights drag a man out of her room, kicking and screaming against their grasp. And where do they take him? In front of the most awful wight of the whole group, of course. A towering wight, easily eight feet tall and bedecked in armor. His skin looks akin to cooled lava, dark and rough without and burning with sweltering heat within. Evey motion causes his flesh to crack open, exposing veins of burning, violent orange.

The man looks upon him, rightfully terrified.

"Where is the crucible?" the lava wight asks, his voice like the bellow of a blast furnace.

"I-I don't know what you're talking about," the man stammers.

"A pity," the lava wight replies before grasping his face with a burning hand, causing his flesh to wither and mummify as claws push out of his fingers. He then casts the new wight away from himself with disgust. "Keep searching! Rip this place apart! Find the crucible!"

Well! That's certainly interesting. And also awful.

Tenebra and Friends

"Do you have any idea what these wights are doing here?" Tenebra asks the new pegasus as the five nightmaere gloomlings search another empty room. "Aside from murdering everyone."

The pegasus shakes his head. "I'm not... I'm not really sure. One of them asked me where 'the crucible' was? I didn't know what it was talking about. Then it killed me."

The little earth filly continues bouncing gleefully on her father's back. Previously this was all terrifying. But now it feels like an adventure! "I tried hiding under my bed, but the monsters still found me. I think they were cheating." Those awful, cheating monsters. They should be ashamed.

"A crucible is a ceramic container for smelting metal," Stalwart hums. "It might be some kind of artifact that they're looking for. But this seems like an unlikely place for something like that."

One empty room to another. It seems like the first floor has been mostly emptied, partly due to the majority of the wights heading up to the second floor, and partly because of the Spooky Necromancer who had called off a bunch of the wights that had been left behind.

Though... While the grownups are all busy talking about grownup things, the little earth filly hops off her father's back and begins to wander. Specifically? She's checking on her friend's apartment! They play together all the time. She finds the door open and furniture strewn about, implying that there had been a scuffle of some kind. She really doesn't pay attention to that, though. Instead she heads straight for Clarissa's room. Clarissa and her mommy and her daddy had one of the bigger apartments. Clarissa always had new toys to play with and new socks to wear. Sometimes she would give her old socks away, since they didn't have many holes in them.

The little filly giggled at the idea of wearing socks now, listening to her hooves clip-clop on the floor. She noses Clarissa's door open and slips inside. "Clarissa? Are you in here? I think all the monsters went up stairs."

There's no reply. Though... there's a sound from the closet. A kind of creepy scratching sort of sound... But she's a strong little filly now! She doesn't have to be afraid!

"Clarissa?" she asks again, reaching up to pull the closet open...

Spooky Necromancer

The wights fly up to the second floor and smash through the windows into one of the apartments! Within is-! An empty room. Okay, not empty. Inside is a wight sweeping the same spot on the floor over and over again. It won't react unless attacked, and if attacked it'll go down under the force of superior numbers in a hurry.

Once dispatched it will molder away into dust, then motes, then nothing.

If the necromancer wants living people to turn into wights, she's going to have to get ahead of the main body of undead surging up the stairs from one floor to the next.

[Deathkeeper]

Apartment Complex

Crap, crap, crap.
Crap, crap, crap, CRAP.
Morgan hustles back up the stairs as fast as she can. They haven't gotten to the upper floors yet. She can't pull the fire alarm or warn everyone, that will only drive everyone outside to the slaughter. Right now the best hope the people have is that the monsters find what they want and spare those still alive. She'll find a panic phone once she's out. She has rope and an old leather whip (long story) in her bag, maybe she could climb down to a lower floor? If they're ascending the floors the lower ones should be less occupied, right?
Morgan frantically heads upstairs, loading a new bullet into her revolver to replace the spent one.

[Aric Kale]

Apartment Complex - Necromancer

With a blast of necrotic energy, the door goes flying off of its hinges.'

DEAD FLESH, bring yourself to ME and end your miserable existence!

The wights, under The Necromancer's control, who will from now on be known as her children, will throw themselves upon the wights on the stairways, the dark cloak of evil following behind ominously

[Rebonack]

[Apartment Complex]

Morgan

Crap crap crap indeed!

Morgan ascends to the sixth floor whilst reloading her weapon! A woman peeking out her door, having heard the gunshot, sees someone running up to her floor with a gun in her hand. She gives a strangled cry of alarm and slams her door shut.

Well!

At least she knows there's something dangerous going on.

She just doesn't know what the actual source of danger is.

Anywho! There are external windows are a few places along the hallways that Morgan could get to. Only problem is that the windows don't open, barring violence. Near the window is a rather large vending machine she could probably tie her rope to. No doubt the huge contraption would have no problem holding her weight.

Tenebra and Friends

...to reveal a little girl huddled behind some coats! A living little girl huddled behind some coats. She scoots away from the somewhat spooky looking unliving filly. Said filly smiles with a set of teeth that do not look like they belong in a pony mouth. "Found you, Clarissa! Come on, let's get out of here before the monsters come back."

The other little girl wrinkles her nose at the pony. "Tisha...?"

"Yep!" the filly that used to be Tisha chirps back. "Call me Velvet Socks, that's a good pony name!" she laughs. "Are you ok-"

Then her friend glomps onto her with a hug. "The monsters took mommy and daddy!"

"Oh... well... Me and my friends can get them back!" Velvet replies cheerfully. "They'll just be ponies like us! Isn't that neat? My daddy's a pegasus now with wings and everything!"

"I guess that would be kind of neat..." Clarissa sniffs.

And then? Enter a worried looking pegasus! "Velvet Socks! What were you thinking, wandering off on your own," he scolds. Velvet immediately begins inspecting her hooves.

Clarissa just... stares at the stallion. "Are you...?"

"I'm Wind Chill, Velvet's father," the pegasus replies. "Now come on, you two. This isn't any place for fillies."

Spooky Necromancer

Poor door.

What did it ever do to anyone?

The second floor still has some wights milling around and hunting down survivors that went into hiding or are otherwise trying to hold out. The first few undead go down easily, though basic wights aren't the only sort in here. No, not by any means! A pair of brine wights cease spewing caustic fluid on a warded door and turn their attack on the wights that are attacking other wights!

Acid breath, oh noes!

[Deathkeeper]

Apartment Complex

Morgan swears again. She's got only one more hope with this plan before she has to break the window and blatantly reveal herself.
She goes toward the lousy public bathroom. Of course these apartments share a bathroom, you think this place was nice enough to have individual plumbing? There was a window in there, the kind with the extra-blurry glass. Maybe that one opened? She thinks it did, for ventilation. And she could tie the rope against the stall! Please oh please work....

[Aric Kale]

Apartment Complex - Necromancer

Oh no! Two of the wights are melted and a third is injured!

The cloaked arm rushes forward and uses more necrotic energy upon the brine wights. Seems to be a bit of a one-trick pony...for now.

As the children of the necromancer fight their brethren, the blackiron rod grasped by the dark arm swings about wildly, likely vaporizing wights on impact.

[Rebonack]

[Apartment Complex]

Morgan

You know apartments are awful when they don't have any private bathrooms.

But maybe this will work out in Morgan's favor? She slips into the bathroom (which has a drunk guy passed out on the floor despite it being the woman's bathroom) and heads for the window in the back. The thing... sticks. But she gets it open! Just requires some effort. The window is pretty small, all things considered. But she should be able to slip through it.

So...

Just slip outside, dangle from a rope over fifty feet up in the air for a while, wait for the undead to move past her floor, and then sneak onto one of the floors they've already ransacked.

Yeah!

That sounds like a good plan, right?

Tenebra and Friends

"Okay, listen to me carefully, okay Socksy?" Wind Chill says. His daughter nods her head. "Alright, we've been to Cunningham's Children Home plenty of times to play at their playground, you remember that?" Velvet nods again. "Okay. I want you and Clarissa to go there. You be a strong little filly and protect your friend, okay?"

"Aaww..." Velvet pouts. "I wanted to help fight the monsters!"

"Fighting the monsters is a job for the grownup ponies, sweetie. You go to Cunningham's and tell them what's happening here. Then you stay there until daddy comes to get you, okay?" Wind Chill says. Velvet sulks some more, but eventually she nods. "That's a good little filly."

And thus Velvet and Clarissa will flee to the children's home!

That just leaves the big ponies to go brave the second floor...

They begin climbing the stairs together.

Spooky Necromancer

One of the brine wights gets clobbered, causing the monster to explode in a blinding blast of caustic brine! The vile fluid gets all over everything nearby, filling the air with thick, eye-stinging vapor. Not that the necromancer likely has any eyes to sting or what have you. The other brine wight backs ups, spewing its caustic fluid at the necromancer's staff this time around.

Eliminate the threat!

With the necromancer distracted and the number of children reduced, the normal wights begin trying to swamp the children one at a time, starting with the injured creature! Six verses one is hardly fair odds. The wights will try to rip it apart with their claws!

[Lord Magtok]

[Unknown Location]

N'alae nods to herself. Yes, this was working out fairly well. "Until I get confirmation on that, current orders will stand, but I'm sure you knew that already. In the meantime, rest assured that should we find out who tried to kill you before I interrupted, they will be treated as any other murderer. Worse, even, since they were foolish enough to try to catch me in the attack. Finally, should you need an exit, I am ready to assist, if you need it."

"I'll have to take you up on that; I don't seem to be getting a signal down here," Magtok answers. It's not entirely accurate, but our cyborg is thinking ahead here. Best that they believe he'd be useless if stuck down here a second time, so that any competence or ability to resist later on would come as a complete shock to the Emperor's men.

[Deathkeeper]

Apartment Complex

Morgan gulps. She feels bad for the poor sap, but there's just nothing she can do. It's not like those monsters won't check the stalls. He's not in view from the door, maybe they'll skip checking here? No, no time to think. Morgan ties the rope around her waist, the other end to the stall, and rappels down the side of the building. Sadly, her rope isn't long enough to get her down more than two floors. But hopefully she can get one of the windows nearby open, or else she's pretty much screwed. Three stories up into concrete MIGHT not kill her, but it's not like she'll last long in a place as crappy as this.

[Aric Kale]

Apartment Complex Necromancer

Well, time to use Trick Number Two!

The children are abandoned to die, all of their mistresses' will having left them. Instead, she concentrates all of her on the brine wight.
This one is strong and can be used.

As she tries to dominate its will, her silver fingernails glow, and the iron rod is covered in necrotic energy, somewhat shielding it from the acid. The arm itself is burned a bit, causing the dark flesh to roil.

The voice turns harsh and curses in a language unfit for dead or undead ears.

[Rebonack]

[Apartment Complex]

Morgan - 3rd floor bathroom

Three stories down...

So from the sixth floor down to the third. Morgan is in luck, though. The bathrooms are in the same general spot on each of the floors and the windows don't seem to lock. As with the first window getting it open might be a bit of a chore, but she'll be able to wiggle it up with some effort and good old fashioned elbow grease. While she's busy finagling with the window, she might notice a tiny black pony and some random little girl fleeing out the front doors of the complex and dashing off down the street.

You go, little girl and tiny magical horse! You two run away before you get eaten by wights!

Anywho, Morgan wrenches the door open and-!

Maybe be dismayed to see a wight inside the bathroom endlessly mopping the floor. Its attention never leaves the filthy tiles its sloshing equally filthy water on. By all accounts it should have seen Morgan when she opened the window, but if it did it makes no indication at all of this being the case.

Tenebra and Friends - 2nd floor north stairwell ==> Inner rooms

Four nightmaere gloomlings climb the stairs, each cautious and tense. A carpet of shadow muffles their hoofsteps thanks to Tenebra, though sadly she can't shroud a pony other than herself to hide them. That's more of Nyx' talent... But there's no time for regrets right now! There are people to save! And judging from the sounds of battle coming from the other stairwell, the number of people to save is dropping. It's quickly decided that they'll avoid the battle for now since it sounds like a bunch of wights shrieking at each other rather than having any sounds a living person might make.

They creep toward the core of the building, the inner rooms that the wights probably would have saved for last. Or at least would have gotten to last. They'll work their way from there out, checking the rooms for survivors or lone wights that will be easy to turn. The first monster they find? A filthy bog wight smashing its fists into a warded door, each attack causing the simple locking spell to shudder and flicker.

Tenebra nods to the others to wait in the wings while she launches herself at the unaware creature, striking it in the face with a hoof covered in cloying gloom. The darkness adheres to the monster's face, blinding it and muffling its cries as the gloomy thestral unleashes a flurry of blows whilst deftly deflecting a toxic counter attack with a shell of solid shadow.

Stalwart moves in front behind to flank, delivering a crushing buck to its back, sending it sprawling. With the bog wight prone he rears up on his hind hooves before dropping down heavily, a smite of radiant energy detonating around his front hooves and utterly obliterating most of the wight's torso. Thus vanquished, the wight dissolves into black mist and flows into Stalwart's eyes and mouth.

"This is going to be about as unpleasant as it looked, isn't it?" Starlwart asks hesitantly as his stomach gives an nasty gurgle.

"Mmmhmm," Tenebra confirms.

And then oh boy vomiting liquid gloom! What fun!

Necromancer - 2nd floor south stairwell

Once freed the remaining four wights cease to do battle with their fellows, remembering well that they had been slaved. Bony fingers are pointed at the necromancer. That one is the real threat! One undead lopes off toward the north stairwell to relay a message to their Master that another puppeteer is meddling in their business!

The brine wight, meanwhile, fights back with all its will, but so much magic focused on just one creature is more than it can endure. It is now slaved to the necromancer.

Also? A good dozen normal wights are swarming toward her from both sides now. Wuh oh!

[Aric Kale]

South Stairwell - Necromancer

Long, dark fingers aim the staff towards the stairwell, a mental command prompting Brine to spew his acid down upon the oncoming horde.

She will move out of the way as necessary, bashing wights over the head if they get in her way.

Hmm, what would happen if she were to be swarmed?

Miserable little wights...why fight?
Such a sight...you'll cause a fright...

Little wights...such delights...

What an...unnerving song...

[Deathkeeper]

Apartment Complex

Morgan doesn't have much choice right now. She can't swing to one of the other windows; her rope barely reaches where it goes right now. So with a nervous resolution she takes a knife from her boot and cuts the rope free of her as she eases her way into the window, as that's faster than undoing the knot. With gun and knife in hand, she tries to slowly and quietly inch around the wight and towards the door, hoping the thing is mindless enough to just never look up if not threatened.

[Rebonack]

[Apartment Complex]

Morgan - 3rd floor bathroom

The wight just keeps mopping.

Wights are weird like that. If they're created 'free willed' they'll usually just find some task they did in life and repeat it without thought until their hunger for the essence of living things drives them into a feral craze. That's why wights often times just wander around their burial sites pointlessly rather than swarming into the nearest village and turning everyone.

It's the wights being controlled by someone that you want to watch out for.

Morgan will be able to hear screams, the occasional gunshot, and general violence going on, but most of it sounds like it's going on above her rather than on her floor. The wights have already swept through the outer and middle apartments and are working on the inner ones now, barring a few holdouts who managed to barricade themselves into their rooms. Provided she's careful, she should be able to sneak to one of the stair wells...

Unless the wights are smart and have stationed guards at the stair wells. That could be a potential issue.

Necromancer - 2nd floor south stairwell

Blegh acid! Several of the wights get dissolved, but this time around they completely ignore the slaved undead and all go swarming for the necromancer while even more wights descend from down the stairs! Maybe calling all this attention to herself wasn't the best plan in the world? That's usually how it goes with the powerful. They bet on their power being able to carry the day. There's a lot to be said about the usefulness of stealth and subterfuge. Like, say, how they make it easier to avoid getting dog-piled by a bunch of jerky-skinned undead.

Seriously, though. There is an absolutely stupid number of wights in this building. Which is kind of what happens when wights attack a crowded tenement house.

Team Nightmaere - 2nd floor inner rooms

"That was really awful..." Stalwart huffs, wheezing as he tries to catch his breath and fight down the remaining spasms running through his stomach.

The cause of his distress is, of course, the pool of liquid gloom on the floor in front of him. A pool that rises up and takes shape, forming into a nightmaerish unicorn with glowing eyes the color of recently spilled blood. She blinks, shakes her head, and then drops down onto her haunches. "Oh wow. Haha! That was a trip! So what am I now?" she looks down at her cloven- "Hooves?" Then she tries rather hard to peer at her own forhead, blowing a lock of her mane out of the way before touching a hoof to her- "Horn! Hahaha! I'm a screwhead!"

Her appearance is a little different from the rest. Her body is slightly larger, lankier, and more angular with an almost predatory look. That, and her twilight aura is noticeably more potent. She isn't just a gloomling, no. She's a-

"Nightmaere spawn!" Tenebra whistles. "Oh, this is a good break for us. Having some bigger guns is going to be a huge help. And you can command more spawn, too! What's your name, mare?"

The new pony responds with a wide, manic grin, shoving a lock of her straight, limp mane out of her face. "Name's Red Velvet," she replies as an image of a cupcake appears on her haunches. A cupcake with a little skull on the top. "And before those wights killed me to death in my sleep I was a pretty solid haimamagos."

She's met with some confused looks.

"A blood mage?" she tries again. That gets a better reaction. "Haha! Here, let me show you how it's done!" she laughs as she lights up her horn with a bloody glow and a huge gash opens up along her back. Blood flows from the wound, crystallizing into a steel-hard battle axe still connected to her by a tendril of blood. "Little pig, little pig, let me come in!"

"Begone, foul abomination!" someone yells from the other side of the door.

Red's grin grows even wider. "Then I'll huff! And I'll puff! And I'll blow your door in!"

The weapon hefts itself back before plunging into the warded door, shattering the simple locking spell and blasting a long, splintery chunk out of it that gets ripped away as she yanks her weapon back to herself. And then? She peers in through the ripped open door and says, "Heeeeeeeeere's Red! But no, seriously. Open the door. The wight that was out here is dead and there ain't no stoppin' us ponies."

[Deathkeeper]

Apartment Complex- Third Floor

Morgan winces. She does feel bad. Really she does! But there's just nothing she can do, not now.
So she doen't do much else besides try to creep as fast as possible to the North stairwell, since it sure sounds like bloody murder down at the South end. As terrible as it sounds, the horrible sounds up above mean she's probably almost in the clear going down further!

[Aric Kale]

Southside Stairwell

Well, they can't all be particularly strong wights, can they?

The Brine child continues to melt the simple wights as well as he can, but the lone dark arm would appear to be overwhelmed.

Take note, it does not seem to be damaged by the wights...but it is not striking back...it even let go of the rod so that it can...reach inside the cloak?

Fools...I cannot be destroyed by the likes of you!

[Rebonack]

[Apartment Complex]

Morgan - 3rd floor north stairwell

All those poor, bewighted people... And all those other poor soon to be bewighted people!

But Morgan really isn't equipped to help them, is she? It takes some pretty potent magic to mend someone who has been turned into an undead monster, after all. The sort of magic that is difficult to find outside of... well... Inari's Temple?

With all the wights trying to smash their way into the inner rooms, Morgan is free to make her way to the north stairwell. A furtive glance will tell her that it is not occupied by any wights. No doubt they're far enough beyond the third floor that leaving guards all over the place is kind of pointless. The really aren't worried about someone escaping at this point.

Necromancer - 2nd floor south stairwell

More melting! More wight slashing! Obviously their life force draining isn't doing much, hence why they're making use of their claws. There has to be something they can damage in there somewhere!

Team Nightmaere - 2nd floor inner rooms

The wizardly looking fellow on the other side of the door eyes the nightmaere minions cautiously. They appear both living and undead, as impossible as such a thing is. He hasn't ever seen their like before, though from their general form he would put money on them being nightshades of some kind. Except nightshades don't typically have living flesh.

One thing is for certain, though.

None of them are wights.

"Very well," the frumpy wizard huffs. "I'll open the door. You didn't have to destroy it."

"Did so," Red counters. "It was just begging me to bust a hole in it. It was going 'oh Red, you're such a sexy haimamagos! Come hack me to pieces with your big, bloody axe!'"

Stalwart Hoof gives the weird mare and equally weird look. "Is that supposed to be a euphemism for something?"

"What would that even be a euphemism for?" Red replies quizzically. "I literally hacked the door to pieces with my big bloody axe."

"Oh... eerr... alright..." Stalwart mutters.

"Wasn't my fault the door was being all amorous at me," she adds.

"Can we please focus!" Tenebra huffs, sounding increasingly exasperated. "We've got another survivor on our hooves here. That changes plans a little. Now, mister...?"

"Bartholomew," the wizard replies. "Bartholomew the Abjurer."

"Right, you can come with us to help more people, or one of us can escort you out of the building," Tenebra says. "Which would you rather- would you stop that?"

Red Velvet quickly ceases making lurid gestures and sounds at the hole in the door with one of her bloody tendrils and flashes an innocent smile. It looks like she was just trying to fluster Stalwart and generally doing a good job of it. Tenebra's scolding look remains on the recently sired nightmaere spawn a few seconds longer before returning to the wizard.

"I have valuable research materials in my room," Bartholomew says. "I would prefer to hole up until this nonsense has passed. But it would appear that might not be an option. Let me grab a few essentials, then an escort would be appreciated."

Wind Chill gives a little nod. "I'll see Mister Wizard out to the first floor. It was clear when we came up, and I don't think a wight or two should be any trouble for us."

That said, wizard and gloomy pegasus head for the north stairwell while the rest of the group continues to scour the inner rooms.

[Deathkeeper]

Apartment Complex

Morgan knows that there are terrible things happening, but all she can think is haha! Suckers! Luck for once!
It's important to appreciate the little things, like the coast being clear.
Morgan will continue to go down the stairs as quickly and quietly as possible, and then keep climbing as much as possible down to safety.
She'll probably meet a spooky pony or two on the way down. Or more wights. Can't be that easy, can it?

[Rebonack]

[Apartment Complex]

Morgan - down the north stairwell

As Morgan hurries from the stairs she'll be met with an interesting sight upon reaching the second floor.

Namely?

A tiny black pegasus is fighting off a wight while a frumpy looking wizard trundles toward the stairs as fast as his old bones can carry him! Sadly, he lost his frumpy wizard hat when the wight leaped out at them, but losing a frumpy wizard hat certainly beats losing his one and only level! He would really rather avoid getting wightped out!

He's just about to reach the stairwell when another mummified wight comes loping out of a nearby apartment and tackles the wizard, slashing him with its yellowed claws. The poor old man gives a single exhaling breath as he falls still, his skin immediately beginning to shrivel. With its first target down the wight turns its baleful gaze on Morgan, leaping at her with far greater strength than such a spindly creature has any right to possess.

It would probably be a good idea not to get clawed by that wight.

[Deathkeeper]

Apartment Complex- North Stairwell

Once again, Morgan is noticeably not thinking about things when she's being lunged at by a monster, especially not how loud gunshots are and how likely that is to attract the attention of a horde of undead. What she's thinking is just DANGER->KILL.
So once again, she brings up her revolver, aims best she can in a tenth of a second, and squeezes the trigger. Twice this time, mostly out of slight panic at her escape being blocked than anything else.

[Aric Kale]

South Stairwell - Necromancer

It's possible that the claws are doing some damage, but the arm itself appears to be a solid shadowflesh, so it doesn't bleed the way one might expect.

There's a pulsar

Spoiler: warning: it's absurdly big

Show

That is not nearly on the scale of the above monstrosity.
However, it is full of Pure Evil energy and Shadow.

This should be enough of a blow to give the newly revealed Nightshade a moment of reprieve.

The figure is about 5'7", slender and extremely feminine. So for a Nightwalker, she is tiny and infant-like. Physically, the Nightshade looks almost as if you took a normal human female and blacked her out.
Only her silver nails and matching eyes have any color, and she forgoes covering herself with the tattered black cloth. Why should she? She is the epitome of darkness and evil energy.

I am Solana, and you will rue the day you sent wights to kill me... The woman attempts to project a thought directly into a wight's mind and deliver it directly to the Master in control.

I have given up my physical size for even stronger magic, and I will not be stopped here, so soon!
She reaches out towards the staff and crushes it from afar, raising her arm to throw more necrotic energy around at the wights.

How ever did there come to be so many? She is envious. They must die...again.

[Rebonack]

[Apartment Complex]

Bone sand begins blow through the hallways as black, necrotic bile oozes down the walls...

The atrocity is growing great enough that the Gloom is starting to bleed over into Midgard.

Morgan and Windchill - 2nd floor north stairwell

BLAMBLAM!

Against that first wight Morgan shot? That was totes a crit. Headshot and everything. But on this monster? One round blasts into its chest while the other nails it in the shoulder, totally ruining the joint. The ghoulish abomination is still undead and kicking. And what's worse, those two rounds arrested basically none of its forward momentum.

Which means?

Morgan probably just got tackled.

And if she got tackled?

Then the wight is slashing at her with its good arm whilst hissing in her face. Its breath smells like ash tray mingled with bad jerky.

Windchill blasts the wight he's tussling with using a powerful burst of hurricane force wind, sending it bouncing across the floor awkwardly. The sound of the gunshot causes him to flatten his ears and look for the source, giving him a good view of the dead Bartholomew and the potentially soon to be dead Morgan. "Hang in there, I'm coming!" the pegasus yells as he begins charging toward the still ambulatory wight.

Necromancer - 2nd floor south stairwell

The necrotic pulse sends the wights tumbling away. Some of them seem dazed. Others simply burst in a riot of power due to negative energy overload. Those poor, exploded wights.

With that fancy reveal, the rest of the wights begin retreating! There's no reason to fight against a foe they can't harm.

A telepathic voice returns, perhaps surprisingly.

~As I recall you attacked MY minions, nightwalker,~ the voice is deep, burning with hate and disdain. ~I have no patience for your perversity here. There are many weak mortals in this disgusting city. Take what wights you have stolen from me and haunt some other wretched hive of fleshlings. Do not believe for a MOMENT that you will stand, let alone walk, should you provoke my ire.~

Strong undead tend to be pretensions jerks.

[Deathkeeper]

Apartment Complex

Gosh darn it all. Just when she thought she was home free.
Morgan is bodily knocked to the ground, wheezing as the wind is knocked out of her accompanied by the stench of undead. She would just shoot it in the face, but her gun-arm is a bit busy trying to keep the claws from ripping her throat out. It's getting pretty mangled in the process mind you, but at least her carotid is still in one piece.
With her only sure kill out of commission, all she can do is reach up with her big knife and attempt to plunge it into something vital. Since the wight's no less tall from being mummified, the highest she can reach is its neck. She goes for that.

[Aric Kale]

South Stairwell - Solana

The shadow woman spits, You are no threat to me, and neither are your minions!
I will destroy all of your children and empty out this whole building!

And if I find you, I will consume you to strengthen myself

Speaking of which, she begins lunging after the retreating wights, attempting to absorb all of their necrotic energy and dispose of the leftover husks.

[Rebonack]

[Apartment Complex]

Morgan and Windchill - 2nd floor north stairwell

When wounded Morgan will feel a horrible sensation of warmth being drawn from her as part of her life-essence is shredded and consumed by the wight. As if that weren't bad enough, the monster feeding from her life causes the wound in its shoulder to mend, thus granting it use of both limbs back. Both limbs which it intends to use to rake at the already injured explorer.

Hopefully she can fend off its attacks for a few seconds at least, because that's how long it takes Windchill to tackle the monster from behind and smash it into the wall of the stairwell. There comes a sickening crunch from the impact, though he isn't quite done yet. The gloomy pegasus gives his wings a beat before tossing the monster down the central shaft of the stairwell, allowing it to drop a good twenty feet to the concrete floor below.

Sounds like a rotten, dry log hitting the ground.

"Hey, are you alright?" Windchill calls before swearing. The wight he had blasted over has scrambled back to its feet and leaps on the hovering pegasus, biting and clawing at him.

The dead wizard continues to mummify for the second round.

Solana - 2nd floor ==> 3rd south stairwell

Om nom nom wights!

The wights crumbles away to dust, their animating power stolen away.

There don't seem to be any other undead in proximity to Solana, they all seem to have vacated the area.

...it's starting to get a lot hotter all of a sudden...

[Deathkeeper]

Apartment Complex- Morgan

Morgan can continue to stab at the undead, which might count as fending it off? It sure doesn't do much to stop it from clawing at her a few more times as it gets its arms back, but luckily it gets tackled before she's completely dead.
That being said, she's pretty badly messed up. Maybe not in the face, but her arms are pretty much covered in gashes, as well as a few on her shoulders. She can't offer much advice to the poor pegasus other than a bit of injured-sounding moaning. In fact, the best she can do at all is let go of the knife and take the gun from her other hand, determined to get at least one shot in should anything show up to finish her off.

[Hattish Thing]

Apartment Complex:

A figure shows up in robes of dull and worn scarlet, appearing to all the world as nothing more than a hooded man clad in a shabby cloak. A hood of the same ratted material covers him, shading most of his face away from the world. A long beard, white with age but grayed with soot flaps in the wind, a staff of banded iron ending in a torch sconce gripped in his rugged and dirty bare hands. As he walks forward, a grim look appears on his face, giving the countenance of one clearly meaning something.

How good it was, to be a part of something better, but for all Haldavyr's talk of goodness, it was time to truly act upon it. This was his first mission alone, and with great haste, he makes his way into the complex. He sensed dark magic, evil and otherworldly. There was something terrible going on here, and the red wizard would do his best to right it. He will stride up the complex until stopped.

[Aric Kale]

3rd Floor - Solana

And here I thought there were an unfathomable amount of undead here to absorb...maybe I can find one of Those-That-Should-Not-Exist.

Uh-oh. She might mean the ponies...she probably means the ponies.

The Necromancer and her Brine Child will begin to look for a strong Necrotic presence.

[Rebonack]

[Apartment Complex]

Morgan and Windchill

The stabbings totally helped. They were enough to keep the thing from ripping her throat out, which is notoriously difficult to survive unless provided with swift medical attention.

Windchill gives his wings a pump, smashing the unwanted wight passenger into a wall to dislodge it before blasting the thing with bolt of power that literally looks like a chunk of the sky at twilight. Far from beating the monster over the head with trashy romance novels, the Twilight Smite violently disrupts the wight's animating energy, causing it to twitch spasmodically before going still.

Huh. Didn't even turn it into dust. More like turned it into a corpse. In fact... its wight-like features are fading as it slowly becomes the cadaver of the person it was made from! Huh... That's actually pretty neat.

"How on earth did I do that..." Windchill mutters before landing next to Morgan. The pony is pretty roughed up, but the human is obviously worse. "I'm going to take you to my friends, okay?" he says. "One of them used to be a paladin when he was alive, I think he'll be able to help you."

And then?

He'll try to very gently begin dragging Morgan to safety.

The dead wizard continues to mummify for the third round.

Solona - 3rd Floor

There are lots and LOTS of minor necrotic power sources, several moderate ones, and one HUGE power source with all the fury and inevitability of an encroaching lava flow. There are very very few undead creatures with power like that. And only one kind has a such an all consuming presence of devouring flames.

A lava wight.

And lava wights are among the most vile, ancient, and deadly of undead abominations. If it comes to a knockdown, drag-out fight it's difficult to guess whether a nightwalker or a lave wight would win a direct conflict. There's a not unreasonable chance the building would be burned down in the process.

The unliving nightmaere gloomlings, though, are completely undetectable. That's strange, they seemed strong than that, didn't they?

Frumpy Wizard? - 1st floor lobby

The first floor of the building is all but abandoned. Nothing is down here. Nothing at all.

Except for that long wight that just fell down the center of the stair well and landed with a dull thump not too dissimilar to a rotten log smashing against concrete. The monster groans and tries to move, but its limbs appear to be broken. It could probably be finished off with a stiff breeze.