Dark fog seeped from the ground around Kia's boots, slithering up along her dress like sinister vines before gathering in her half-open palms. A small magical circle appeared in front of the mage as her magic enveloped the dead goblin causing its torso to be pulled upwards and onto its legs like a puppet.
"This goblin doesn't look that fresh," Shiro walked up to Iris's side and whispered in her ear as a ghostly blue fire began to burn inside the goblin's head and the corpse arched its spine backwards. "Do you think we will learn anything useful? I heard that speaking to the dead after one day is pointless."
Interacting with the dead wasn't only the domain of necromancers but also clerics and druids to a lesser extent, they too possessed abilities reaching beyond the veil of life. Clerics of Citranus, Corin and Tinnbera are known to sometimes use their power to speak with the dead and in the case of worshipers of Corin even resurrect them but only if the soul remained near the body which last around a day otherwise the clerics of life turn the lifeless corpse into a a mindless puppet not to different from the wretched undead. Iris took another look at the husk being puppeteer by Kia, the necromancer rarely choose to raise the dead, preferring to create constructs whenever possible and the undead she created were quickly released when their job was done but with a single move of her hand the blue flames inside the goblin's sockets seemed to gain new unholy life.
"It's better to try than not to. Also, I'm curious what had turned this goblin stronghold into a ghost town without leaving much of a trace." The risen whispered back as Kia stepped away from the goblin.
"What did you want to ask him?" The ancient asked turning her body to the gathered women.
"Who are you?" Iris crossed her arms in front of her chest and waited for the undead to respond.
"Mmmm," Kia tapped her cheek before taking a step closer to her minion. Without fear or disgust, she laid her left palm on the goblin's rotted forehead, pushing it backwards as she pulled his lower jaw opened and looked inside its toothy maw. "He should work now. Ask again." Kia said, sounding like a craftsman consumed by her work rather then her usual self as blue fire burst from the goblin's mouth once more before retreating back into the mummified husk's chest causing the goblin's inside to resemble on oven.
"Who are you?"
"Glob... best gobbo around." The goblin seemed to have a little of its personality remaining as it puffed his chest as best it could upon uttering the name.
"And what did you do?"
"Stealing... thieving... guarding market."
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"Exemplar of justice this Glob is... was." Shiro smirked before frowning as her words tripped over her tongue.
"How did you die, Glob?"
"Closed myself... inside... I was scared... I stayed until no noise outside... never stopped." The undead goblin answered with a rough husky voice as if each word was forcefully croaked out.
"What were you scared of?" Nakatei asked before the elf could open her mouth. The undead turned its head toward the beast woman but remained silent. "Is there something wrong with me?!" The shaman furrowed her eyebrows as she looked down at her feet.
"He is thinking!" The necromancer came to the goblin's defence, sounding strangely protective of the animated pile of dried meat.
"Then he should think faster and not make me feel wrong!"
"A humee with pointy ears... meet with Boss... wanted something... Then other red humees attacked us... flying red things too... took Glob's friend and made him fly..." The zombie raised his fist into the air, a vague amused expression crossing his shriveled face as his old personality came through the surface.
"Were they actually humans or something else?" Shiro turned toward the goblin.
"Glob... doesn't know..." The undead turned its hollow gaze to Kia and seemed apologetic to its master.
The undead prostrated himself even more as the necromancer stepped closer and laid her hand on the goblin's forehead. She bobbed her head from side to side with her eyes closed while everyone waited not knowing what was happening.
"Outrageous ." The mage said as she stuck her tongue in disgust at what she saw in the goblin's mind.
"What did you see?" Iris asked worried about what had the mage seen.
"Showing so much skin *Bleh* shameless woman." Kia stuck out her tongue making all the women around her to look at each other in confusion.
"What?" The fox asked. "Don't suddenly stop without telling us."
"Kia are you feeling alright?" Iris walked up to the cringing necromancer and rested her hand on Kia's shoulder.
*Brrr* "Why wear clothes if you going to show that much?" The ancient undead shuddered a little bit before opening her eyes, disgust painted clearly on her face. "Was I thinking aloud?"
"Yes, you did, What did you see in there?"
"Oh," Kia said. "I saw a woman with very inappropriate articles of clothing which showed this and this and it was split here..." The girl put a lot of effort into showing what dress the woman she saw wore. To be fair to Kia, the dress she was describing was very inappropriate by any standard Iris was familiar with but that was not what they were looking for.
"Could you describe what you saw other than that dress?"
"S-sure," Kia responded appearing flushed as she did so. "The red humans had horns on top of their heads and their weapons and armour looked very well made but I don't know anything about them. I also saw red human-like monsters with tinny bumps on their foreheads and skin that was sucked onto their bones flying overhead and picking up goblins into the air."
"Anything else?"
"That is all that he saw of note."
"Daemon attack?" Iris said as she figured the flying monsters Kia saw were imps.
"I thought so too," Shiro replied. "Hopefully they didn't get a hold of whatever they wanted from here."
"Are you sure? There are no bodies, not even a single drop of blood and aren't daemons meant to cause, you know carnage and bloodbath wherever they go?" Nakatei chimed in.
"Yes, it's weird that the entire city seemed to be licked clean of life." Shiro pondered.
"If they wanted to hide their identities they should have smashed a couple of buildings and left a bloody trench," The elf said trying to figure out why was the city left in such a bizarre state, with not a single drop of blood in sight. "It would be more believable that one of the great beasts found this place than an entire clan suddenly leaving their lair."
"Let's just hope that whatever their reason was, they failed to see it though," Shiro sighed at the things above any of their control before turning to Kia. "Order him to lead us to the closest exit."
"Sure." A simple look caused the animated corpse to start moving with unyielding confidence through the meandering streets in front of him with the four women following behind.