A few ligaments connect the upper jaw with the lower one. The tendons still look surprisingly fresh, for the lack of a better term. The whole skull is stripped of its skin and it looks like it’s been polished frequently.
“If this truly is his wife’s head”, Bruq says, “that would be disturbing.”
He kneels in front of the skull and takes a good look at it. Missing teeth have been replaced with glass ones. Two shiny black stones are placed on the spots where her horns used to be.
“Well, your face ain’t pretty, either!”
The satyr falls backwards, startled by the grim phenomenon in front of him. The skull mocks him and laughs now that it sees how much it scared him.
“Holy hells.”
The hunter’s voice is high and he gasps for air, hand pressed against his chest.
The skull laughs again.
“I was waiting for one of you to come closer. Took you longer than I expected. Thanks for the help, painted me!” The skull makes a subtle gesture to the woman in the painting, who happily waves back at her. “So, you’re looking for my husband?”
Bruq gets up again and the others gather around the woman’s head.
“Yes”, Dargothoth says. “He has answers about this curse and we want them.”
Mero wonders what kind of necromantic spell keeps this head ‘alive’. He has heard about a few, but keeping only a head so well preserved and intelligent requires powerful magic.
“Sorry to break it to you, lizardman, but he’s dead. Three demons came, took his body with them and hid the blood with ointment the half-elf found. Luckily, I’m here to help. I’m Callysta. Since you didn’t ask, I thought I would just introduce myself.”
“Hold up”, Oslando says with raised hands, slowing down the rambling demon head. “Go back to the part of Phenilias getting killed. What happened?”
The skull bites the air in front of her, creating a rhythmic ticking of her teeth.
“This is best I can do since I don’t have any eyes to roll or eyebrows to raise.” She continues the ticking. “My stupid husband meddled with things he should have stayed away from, but as the village’s mage he made it his responsibility to find out what kind of spell was causing this disaster. After burning through some major detect magic spells he found out that there was a lot of transmutation activity somewhere in the city. He made a rather ordinary looking lantern for detecting magic so that he could subtly check around the city at night where the source was. The fire inside changed colour when it came closer to magic. It got him killed.”
She stops speaking. She ticks her teeth again, slower this time.
Oslando wants to ask a multitude of questions, but it feels like it would interrupt a moment of grief. Dargothoth is not as patient.
“Tell us about his killers and we will avenge him.” The sivak’s voice sounds more ominous than helping. “You said there were three. What did they look like? Did you know them?”
There are more spells at work than just a reanimating spell, because the skull can shake his head a bit.
“I didn’t see their true form. When they barged into the store, Phenilias immediately recognized the transmutation magic. They looked like the average citizen, but they are shapeshifters. Anyway, that’s what he said to them. They were spellcasters, all three of them, and they had one of those floating eye monsters with them that paralyzed him before he could do something. When he broke the spell, they maimed him so badly already that he lost a lot of blood. It was an unfair fight and I couldn’t do anything but witness it all.”
She imitates a swallowing sound and stays quiet. Dargothoth takes a step closer and picks up the skull.
“Can you tell us anything useful? How are we supposed to find three demons who shapeshift? Do you have any idea how difficult those are to track?”
Bruq puts his hand on the cleric’s lower arm.
“Take it easy”, the satyr calmly says. “I know compassion isn’t your strong suit, but you can at least try it.”
Dargothoth growls.
“It’s okay, sweetheart”, the skull says to the satyr. “After all this time without physical contact, a little manhandling was just what I needed. Your friend just wants to show how dominant is.”
The priest looks at her with a crinkled nose and squinted eyes.
“Disgusting”, Dargothoth replies and he puts her back on the table. “We are doing this for you as well. You had your fun, now tell us what we want to know.”
A short cackle bursts from the skull's mouth.
“For me? That’s crap and you know it. You’ve been raiding our home since the moment you stepped in. Take what you want. We can’t use it anymore, but don’t act like you’re a saint!”
Her animated voice imitates the sound of breathing heavily, like he has screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Please”, Mero says to break the tension, “we want to help. Tell us more. You said something about a floating eye. We know about those, but they aren’t supposed to do things like this. Was there something strange or different about it?”
He hopes she can tell him something useful to help his uncle. It already worried him that Oanoa can’t see the spectators anymore, but to hear they are attacking civilians is a on whole other level.
“This one had metal parts to it, very different to the one Phenilias found.”
The glow in Mero’s eyes brightens for a second.
“He found one?” He sounds just as surprised as he sounds worried. “Where?”
“Go to the bookcase and take out ‘Hidden Words of Ozephelyx’ and ‘Nomicon Nomiconai’. Those are on the second and third shelve.”
They turn towards the massive cabinet and quickly spot the two books Callysta mentioned. The first is a hefty tome with a thick black leather cover and golden letters on it. It seems less dusty than the books beside it. The same applies to the other book, a thinner book with a blue cover and red markings at its edges.
“Good”, the skull says. “Now switch them.”
Bruq and Lyssa trade books and put them in place where they found the other book. A sharp clicking sound comes from the wall to the right of the bookcase. A couple of bricks sink into the wall and slide sideways. Mero covers his mouth in disbelief when he sees the spectator.
“There you go.” Callysta sounds happy with herself. “There is your eye monster.”
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