Date: Fifth of June, year 810 Post Seminal War (810 PSW)

Location: Bandit Outpost ?, Carrion Road, forty days to Chedal.

Blue stooped and examined the skeletons before proceeding onward. She picked up two mostly intact skulls and held them to catch the light from Job's cantrip.

“I see the same changes wrought upon their bones as the skull on the road, but not of the same base race. This one,” he hefted the skull in her left hand, “Has the tusks of an orc or half-orc while the other shows no distinctive features. Probably human.”

Blue dropped the skulls to the stone, “this necromancer has access to multiple different kinds of bodies. I doubt her personal guards will be simple foot soldiers like these. Keep close and strike hard.”

She led the way through the doorway that the skeletons had emerged from into another short tunnel. The walls were scalloped out in eight places – spaces just large enough for a skeleton to stand in between 'shifts' at the entrance. Another rough wooden doorway led into an actual barracks room, complete with thirteen beds and wooden footlockers. Each bed was rotted and ragged, covered in the stains of rotted straw and scraps of decayed hide. Every footlocker was thrown open and cat aside, hastily ransacked long ago.

Blue stopped at the threshold and let her eyes drift across the space, noting the wooden partition to her left It was little more then a crude plank wall some six feet high and fifty feet long, intended more as a privacy screen of sorts than an actual blockade. The far end had a large gap, a double-wide doorway of sorts, and beyond that was another large alcove. Blue blinked a few times trying to parse what she was seeing. It looked like the humanoid skeletons she had helped de-animate earlier, but much larger. It stood almost eight feet tall, though the naturally bent unguligrade legs and hooves made that a bit hard to judge. Two curved horns added anther foot to the skeleton's bovine head, both in width and height. It stood 'at attention' with a greataxe grasped casually in one bony hand and the tattered remains of a loincloth hanging from its pelvis.

“Candle, do you see it?”

Candle squinted hard and thought harder, “the minotaur? That race is rather distinctive, but they are a post Seminal War race.”

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“That explains why I don't recognize it at least, and the height of the ceilings. Think we can kill it?”

Candle flexed her claws, “that one is rather durable looking, but I believe we can put it down. Hsst! Job!”

“Yes?”

Blue pointed one of her gladii at the minotaur skeleton. “on my mark, put the heaviest spell you have on that thing. If this is one of the necromancer's personal guards, then there's probably a second one nearby, so we need to put it down quickly.”

Job let out a slow breath, “I can only throw two really heavy spells before I start running dry. DO we want to spend them on a guard or save them for the necromancer?”

Blue thought about it for a moment, “save one for the necromancer, spend all the others on the guards. Ready?”

Job nodded. Candle flexed her claws.

“Go.”

Job punched the air in the direction of the skeleton and leveled his staff over Blue's shoulder.“”

Four lines of brassy fire crashed into the minotaur skeleton's ribcage and a golden seed of fire burnt the loincloth to cinders. The minotaur rocked back on its hooves, but otherwise was unmoved by the assault and readied it's greataxe. Candle exploded forwards pouncing into the minotaur's chest, scratching wildly. One set of claws skittered harmlessly of of the greataxe, but the other found purchase in a cracked rib.

“Eich Taro!”

Candle's claws lit with a flash of unlight and a great chunk of rib was ripped free to clatter on the ground. She landed lithely in front of the minotaur skeleton and stood ready to do battle. Blue charged forwards, but was only able to close half the distance to the minotaur skeleton in the time it took for Candle to make her attack.

“[Mind Thrust!]”

The minotaur skeleton's head rocked backwards and cracked in a spectacular fashion, but it stayed on it's feet and swung it's greataxe in a horizontal sweep. Candle ducked under the blow with ease, letting the smile of the greataxe blunt itself on the stone wall of the room. She had just enough time to turn her head at the sound of clopping hooves before a second minotaur skeleton charged into her from the left around the end of the wooden screen. It threw its horned head upwards, trying to throw Candle back and to the ground, but she held firm despite the bleeding gash in her side and the mewl of pain that forced its way from her lips. Candle retaliated viciously by ripping the damaged minotaur skeleton's left leg off at the hip and sending it crashing to the ground to collapse into a heap of bones.

“Eich Taro!”

The until-now uninjured minotaur skeleton staggered back a half step as Candle's claws turned ribs into splinters and dust. Blue charged forwards and sprung into the air with her gladii held in reverse grips.

“[Brute Force!]”

Blue's gladii slammed home point first with a flash of ultramarine light, each one finding an eye socket, slamming home to the hilt and exploding the back of the minotaur skeleton's skull with the force of their impact. It crumbled to the ground to leave Blue standing shin beep in bones as the greataxe clattered harmlessly on the stone. Blue kicked the bones aside and rushed over to Candle.

“[Mend Wounds!] Job, lend me a hand getting Candle back on her feet, there is still the Necromancer to slay."

Job scratched his chin and eyed the next room, “It's a dining room with an inch of dust on every surface. I don't think the necromancer is here, just minions he left behind a long time ago...”