"Ya go from living... to dead...  maybe to undead...  Since when it there a Redead?" Judal asks, curious and annoyed at the same time.  "And wouldn't being Redead just un your undeadness making you ordinary dead again?"

"It seems like they're between us and King's Landing."  The Princess said from the back of the Kocra.  Her arms prickled with goosebumps when the wretched scream rolled past them.  "Can we sneak around, Judal?  Do you think?  Do we have to fight them?"

There are shouts somewhere far off, though of people, this time.  Living people, as opposed to what Judal has described.  A fight somewhere in the distance, the voices carried on the dense air of the eternal twilight Hyboria has fallen into.  All this, this conflict, between them and their best chance to get off the continent of Hylia.  

Thea's ears twitch. Redead? She slowly raises up on her tiptoes and cranes her neck to peer up over others to try to get a glimpse. Her mind wandered on the topic along with Judal's musings. She understood dead, and the concept of undead, but how familiar was she with redead? Brows knit together in thought as she digests what little information presented.

Twitch. Twitch.

Ears pick up the low rumbling moan followed by the impossible to miss scream. Thea wasn't immune to the consecutive sounds that wove through the space. She felt them. The low groan reverberated through her core, peppering her skin with goosebumps as the scream caused her to flinch, dropping down from her peeking for the briefest of moments before stretching herself back up further in an attempt to get a better view.

Blink. Blink.

Big innocent eyes flutter as pupils dilate in a seemingly hopeless search of the source. Thea then pats around herself as if she's doing a hasty self-gear check while impulse carries her a few urgent steps forward. Ouf. She bumps into someone. Everyone was all still standing still.

Blink. Blink.

"Wait. What? Mean we're not going to help?" Thea blinks, bewildered as to why no one was rushing to help. Still, she finds herself tip toeing around her 'blockade', being drawn closer to the source of those who sound like they're in need. Anyone paying attention to the young blonde would see her tap her heels together. The wings on her boots begin to flutter as she then lowers herself into a crouch. Should no one stop her, Thea would kick off into the sky and rush off to see if she could do anything to help.

     "I, uh... I only saw the nine of them," Judal replies to the princess, unsure just what fighting she thinks she would be doing.  "We should easily enough be able to give them a wide berth, assuming there aren't more and more of the... re-dead?"  He looks around at the others to see their thoughts and reactions but then he hears the shouts...

     "That's not...  What I saw didn't make THAT noise.  Though maybe are causing others to...?" he adds, looking in the direction of the shouts and trying to determine if they are from the same area as the creatures he saw.  He thinks perhaps...  

     "Careful," he says as Thea bumps into him, seemingly to distracted to even notice that she had.  

     "Nobody said we're not!" he responds.  "We just have the Princess to guard... We should take care of rushing in blindly..."  But shit, it looks like she was about to do just that anyway.  With a sigh Judal blinks and readies himself to follow her... If he can keep up with her.

"I see no reason to delay and fight these 'redead'. We have other, more important objectives and they naturally are of higher priority." To punctuate his point, the wizard conjures the image of a quickly-spinning clock, with a bit of chronurgy.

"I would have to agree, Fighting our way through these.....'redead' Seems like it would be a precious waste of time." Malenia falters for a moment atop the Kocra, Her hand reaching out into the air and grippingtightly onto Thea's shin as she attempted to take to the air. "Thea.....i know you want to help but we have no real information to act on and we are tasked with something MUCH more important." Her gaze shifts to the surroundings, Her keen eyes narrowing while scanning over the environment. In search of just who or what those noises had come from. 

"Besides we have a Child with us now, Even if she is a Princess she is just a child and we should take her safety into account for all decisions." 

Perception check: 23

As Thea starts to fly off, Malenia reaches out and grabs her with little effort, pulling her back to the safety of the group.  

The creatures ahead of them in the field, moving slow, are unable to keep up with the band as they work to skirt around the situation, continuing on through the field toward King's Landing where a boat should be able to ferry them out of Hylia...

They hope...

But the trek is all but uneventful.  The shambling things in the fields behind them can't catch up, but there are more groups out there, and more Redead amongst them, milling about the field in what seems to be small squad-sized patrols.  

Ahead, the city is in turmoil.  It's clear that whatever is happening in King's Landing is nothing short of cataclysmic.  Buildings are burning.  There are explosions, and the shouts and screams of mortal combat.  Metal clangs.  Commands are ordered.  Whatever is happening, some sort of attack of course, it is terrible, and the city is taking an awful toll...

     “So… Redead… Anyone going to explain what they are?” Judal asks, still mightily curious as they weave their way through clusters of them. “How are they different from undead?  What causes them?  Should we really just let them be when it doesn’t sound like they are on the cause of good?”

"Quite the spectacular lightshow, wouldn't you agree?" The fae's tone is light and conversational as he continues. "A dysfunctional settlement does us no good. Whatever this situation is, I recommend we resolve it posthaste and continue on with our plans."

The wizard, from his heightened position, tries to get a better view of the attack. (Perception, 19)

Thea deflated and her brows knit further as she was patronized, as if she wasn’t trying to gather more information.

Having gravitated closer, she finds herself next to Judal. “Apparently not.” The blonde mutters, mostly to him, as his questions are left to hang in the air. She felt her attitude souring the more time ticked away. She’s been waiting to be enlightened by the others too. Considering those who were so sure she’d have wasted her/their time investigating the situation herself sooner stopped her, only for them to decide later that it’s nuisance enough to affect their ‘priorities’, she can’t help but cross her arms in a harumph, rolling her eyes when the wizard on his high disc decides it’s now time to act.

When Judal asks again, Lelith shares what she remembers.  Before the Twilight Embers had arrived at Castle Hyrule, they'd stopped at Lon Lon Ranch, where they had tried, unsuccessfully, to save a family from a wandering horde of these undead things that had somehow been released by Ganondorf and the Lord of Darkness when they'd marched through the area.  While most of the undead, zombies, were a dangerous nuisance, the Redead were a different story.  She was a little fuzzy now who it'd happened to, but when someone had gotten close to one it had screamed and paralyzed them, and seemed to redirect all the other zombies toward them for attack.  She still wasn't sure what caused them, created them, whatever.  

With all that said, it becomes apparent that, in the distance there are multiple gently glowing red figures stumbling about the landscape, and if there are zombies with each one, that means there are dozens of foes between them and King's Landing.

As though they have been summoned, the band slowly starts to realize there are a lot of zombies slowly closing in around them, creating a sort of wide arc in the grass of the plains south of King's Landing ahead of them.  

     “If we’re not looking to wade through a bunch of re… non-living… then I suggest we go around them and be quick about it,” Judah suggests surveying the oncoming hordes.  “From what I can see if we head east and then hook up north we can maybe skirt the majority of the things…”

     Unless someone suggests a better idea Judah will shortly start doing what he suggests, booking it to the east to try to get to the edge of that grouping and then cut to a more northerly route to try to swing around the creatures and head in the direction they’d like with the minimum of detour.

Even if slow, Thea believed that the crowd of varying degrees of death were just going to follow them anyways and then crawl up from behind. But, others insist on continuing to skirt around them. Suppose it could be the fastest way to get to the battle at Kings Landing when one doesn't have access to flight. So she'd chew on her lip.Then with no one else taking point, Thea follows close, maybe too close, nipping at Judah's heels.

The team spends the next couple of hours skirting the various hordes of undead as they crawl across the fringes of the Great Grass Sea toward King's Landing.  Princess Zelda becomes increasingly more and more stressed out as they draw close.  It's obvious that the city isn't just under attack, it's falling.  Buildings are burning.  The sounds of fighting are increasingly more frantic.  It seems like the attack is being pressed from the west, from the direction of Castle Hyrule.

As the party nears a hole in the southern wall of the city that appears to have been created by some sort of blast, they see purple lasers streaking in the distance.  Also in the distance is something moving through the air, something faintly glowing on its four corners.  A beam of light is being projected from its underside, searching the streets below and firing on any perceived enemy below with the same purple laser they'd seen before.  

A woman crosses the street not far from them as they climb through the hole and into King's Landing proper, illuminated by the burning guard tower next to them.  Her hair looks matted in blood as she disappears down an alley.  

Nearby, someone screams the awful screams of the dying.  

It doesn't take long for the party to realize how dangerous the situation is.  As the kocra carrying Zelda hops down from the brick and mortar rubble of the wall, it begins to change a deep red, then deepening to almost black.  

Before the party has time to think for long, a huge construct comes stomping around a corner on six legs, the laser turret on top of the huge thing twisting in circles as it searches for targets.  Three horned fiends walk along with it; infantry protecting a heavy weapon, halberds at the ready...

Clutching Zelda tight to her frame, In an effort to provide some degree of comfort to the child. This strange urge to protect the child, Unknowing where it had come from or if it would last. Was a duty she would see done, Not because it was asked of her. Because She wanted to do it. So the Jedi's eyes scanned every inch of the environment as the party moved through it, gauging and examining any potential threats to Zelda's wellbeing. Her metallic prosthesis providing a low whir as the mechanism hidden within was ready to eject her weapons at a moments notice. 

Malenia's heart drops at the vicious sight of this massive construct, in fact she barely registers the changing colours of Kazu's plumage. Something about this....thing screamed danger. Without a moment to spare, she slid off the back of the Kocra. Clutching tightly onto Zelda's hand, while her gaze was fixated on the Construct and the Horned fiends that walked along with it. "Zelda.....Do not leave Kazu, Understand?" More of a statement than a Question, the Jedi turned her voice to the nervous bird. "Kazu.....No matter what, Keep Zelda safe for me." 

There's no time for anything.  The construct spots the band shortly after they cross the rubble of the wall.  It levels its gaze on Thea for some reason, probably because she is the first of them that it sees.  It makes a singular blast with a loud horn, which gains the attention of the nearby flying construct, and then a laser levels on Thea's chest and begins to flash.  

A spotlight settles on the band from the flying construct...

Kazu rears, his plumage ruffling in panic...

The dull whir of the already active hidden mechanism within her prosthetic arm hums to life, Ejecting her weapons out the moment the horn began to sound out. Catching both hilts, the dull amber colouration of her weapons lights up her immediate area when they ignite. Holding them in a defensive position in front of Kazu and Zelda. Malenia grits her teeth, her eyes fixated on the stranger flashing light centered on Thea's chest. 

Bonus Action: Patient Defense. 

Action: Holding an attack if anything comes within Melee range.

One of the infantry moves forward, halberd at the ready, and begins what will become a defensive wall to advance in front of the construct...

“That’s new…” Thea muses aloud in a mix of awe and curiosity as she’s a bit mesmerized by the red dot on her chest. She goes to try to touch it.

Move. 

Thea’s horn glints as a gentle beam of sunlight shines down on her. The light refracts, creating the faintest of rainbows, like a shimmering arc before her.

Riair examines the construct and the light, hypothesizing at their connection before speaking. "Concerning, in a sense. Perhaps it would be best it to prevent such a calamitous strike, yes?"
The wizard snaps his fingers, and his familiar presses a face of the Cube of Force, blocking all spell effects from passing through the cube. He then turns and points at Lelith, putting an umbral shroud over her.