Mika rubbed his eyes sleepily and sat up, still sore from yesterday's exertions. Darbie was just uncurling himself from his blanket by the fire, Larys on his shoulder, and Ed and the mule were shaking the morning dew off of themselves.
"Hurry up, dammit," Aubrey demanded. For a moment, Mika regretted releasing Audrey's consciousness.
"Take off my clothes, first," Mika said evenly as Aubrey's eyes flashed. "I don't want your armor tearing my shirt to bits." Glaring at Mika, Aubrey irritatedly acquiesced. Mika put his hands on the nude little boy's shoulders, relieved to find the feeling of the dark arts was not as strong as yesterday. Repeating the incantation from the previous night, Mika tensed for any possible backlash, but to his relief, he succeeded in returning little Aubrey to fully clothed and armored Audrey.
Still annoyed at having had to spend the night as Aubrey, Audrey hurriedly readied the group to leave. However, Mika was still curious at the events of the prior night. The black magic he had felt from the undead attackers had been nothing like the sensations he received from Ed or Larys. <i>Just how many practicioners of the forbidden arts had suddenly come out of the woodwork? <i/> Mika wondered to himself.
"Let's get going," Audrey ordered. "I don't want to risk running into anything else around here." The group appeared ready to set out, but for one person: Mika. While the others waited, Mika carefully examined the nearby ground where they had fought the undead the night before. Even the limbs which Audrey had hacked off had been changed into pieces of lizard, which actually was not that suprising, considering the amount of black magic Audrey had released from the stone. Crouching near a mass of hoofprints, Mika finally found what he was looking for. Although squashed and deceased, probably by Ed in his panic, one lizard was still intact. Mika reached out to touch it, but held back, still wary of the dark magic swirling around the creature.
"Mika, let's go already!" Audrey hollered, ticked off at the delay.
"Hang on," Mika responded unconcernedly, more focused on the task before him. Pulling out a piece of cloth, Mika laid it on the ground before him, then used a vial of purple ink to draw runes all around the edges.
"We don't have time for an art project," Audrey scowled, coming over.
"There's something strange going on," Mika replied, nonplussed. "Where did all those undead come from yesterday? There's no village for miles in that direction. Don't you think it's odd in three days we've run into three different types of black magic? I need to bring back a sample for my master, she'll want as much information as possible." While he spoke, Mika finished his preparations, then reluctantly picked up the lizard and dropped it on the cloth. Wrapping it quickly, Mika sighed in relief as he picked up the cloth, which he was pleased to find was containing the dark magic, easing his discomfort. Packing the cloth and its contents into one of the mule's pouches, Mika frowned in disappointment.
"I wish I had held onto one of the live lizards, we might have gotten some answers," Mika said, furrowing his brow.
"How're you gonna get answers out of a bunch of reanimated corpses?" Audrey asked dismissively.
"Well, you were changed into a boy, Ed was changed into a horse, Larys into a mouse...maybe they weren't originally corpses," Mika countered, much to the horror of Darbie, Larys, and Ed.
"Do I take it to mean...you are not hypothesizing that...somehow, living human beings were turned into undead? So those dead lizards might have been people..." Ed trailed off, looking rather nauseated at the prospect of having trampled to death people-turned-undead-turned-lizards.
"They attacked us, what would you have us do, sing them a song?" Audrey glowered at Ed contemptuously.
"There were a lot of them, their trail through the forest shouldn't be that hard to follow," Mika contemplated, ignoring Audrey and Ed. "But we need to get to Arlor as soon as possible too."