Jodon: Coming over to the man on the floor, Jodon notices the vacant stare of the man, his eyes open and unmoving. The man's body is in relatively good shape aside from a puncture wound in his chest and a slash across his arm. His chest does not rise and fall. He is definitely dead.

Dathyra: Wendel walks to the edge of the balcony and sits down beside the ladder letting his legs hang where the stairs once were. His eyes roam around the room for a moment before he speaks, "I can't tell you. I wish I could, but Kristoff brought a man here and he said he cast a spell a spell on me that would kill me if I told anyone about this place." He looks to Dathyra with shame and apology plain on his face. Wendel adds with a shrug, "I won't stop you from looking around," then he picks up one of his arrows and begins absentmindedly spinning it on the floor beside him.

Holg: Less squeamish a lot more used to death and combat, Holg realizes the necessity of salvaging from a battlefield - be it an open field or some converted manor house. The dead man's studded leather armor seems to be fairly new aside from the one puncture wound. A thorough cleaning would turn this armor into a good piece. Tied to the man's belt is his shortsword scabbard and a coin pouch with several coins inside. There are also loops where the daggers were kept, which reminds Holg they were thrown across the room to no effect.

While Holg would normally collect his spoils from combat, he realized that Jodon and Dathyra may not be too keen to him looting a dead adversary. With a feeling of modesty and moderation, Holg collects only the shortsword and coin pouch, leaving the dead man untouched otherwise. He looks to the others, "Well then, where to we go from here?"

Jodon steps away from the dead man, and turns to Wendell.  "You don't have to tell us about this place - had we wished you harm, we would have kept fighting.   But we don't, so let's just talk, safely.  You say this spell covers the place.  You have already said Kristoff's name, so it obviously does not cover the person.  So tell us about Kristoffn, and other places.  Where has he gone?  What plans does he have outside of this place?  If we can find him, we can help you by stopping this enchantment altogether.  And surely such a spell could not cover somebody else -- do you know anything about a person named Arlen?"

 OOC: Odd message in spoiler space, so trying again

Persuasion: 20

Edit 2: now roll in spoiler space ok

Wendel nods and as he moves down the ladder towards the party, he talks, "I'm comin' down...You said you wouldn't hurt me. I only see Kristoff sometimes. He's always with the man that raises the dead. He is the one who put the spell on me. I guess. I sure don't feel like I've got a spell on me. I wonder what that feels like anyhow. Do you think it hurts?" Realizing he has wandered off topic and his predicament, he shakes his head and continues, "Kristoff never tells anyone where he's going. I think he owns an ale company or somethin'. Seems like a weird mix - zombies and ale..." Wendel trails off and thinks for a long time and then he looks Jodon dead in the eyes with some kind of intensity; it's almost unnerving. He says slowly and deliberately, "I don't know any Arlen."

All of those answers were unsettling. To begin with, it appeared that there was a distinct possibility that Arlen's disappearance was not connected to Kristoff's, unless, of course, Arlen was now one of the bodies the "the man that raises the dead," and Wendel didn't know the difference. Still, it complicated things. Further, it confirmed that Kristoff was involved in some illicit activity, which worried Dathyra considerably. She had hoped that he was only a victim, but it seemed he was an instigator. Just what this was exactly wasn't clear, but if it involved raising the dead, it definitely couldn't be good.

"I'm all for continuing upstairs," she said. She looked wearily at Wendel. "I'm sorry you have ended up in this unfortunate situation. You don't strike me as someone who wanted this. But I'm afraid I don't know any way to remove the spell placed on you. Dark magics and hexes such as this are not in my repertoire. Do you at least have free range of the manor? Does this spell give you the freedom to leave the premises?" She hoped that he might have the possibility to put some distance between him and the spellcaster, in the hopes that that would dissolve the spell, or at the very least, put him out of harm's way. She may have been willing to fight against evil forces, but she wasn't about to punish those who didn't deserve it.

Jodon is a stranger to physical conflict, but not verbal.  He meets Wendel's gaze, and then smiles.  "Relax, friend.  I am not going to hurt you.  But your tale interests me.   Who is this man who raises the dead?"  Motioning to the never-before-animated corpse, he continues "not this one, I presume?  I agree, ale and the undead are a strange combination - but, if he never tells people where he is going, that must means he comes back from time to time to not tell people where he is headed next.  When, and where, is that?"

Wendel looks at the man on the floor and shakes his head and then looks to Dathyra. "I've left many times without any incidents. A man has to eat, you know?" He looks to Jodon and says, "I only see Kristoff when he comes here to pick up a shipment-" Wendel seizes up and then convulses violently after which he falls to the floor, unmoving. Blood seeps out of his ears and nose.

"Wendel, no!," Jodon screams.  He rushes over to the fallen man, attempting to call forth the power within him to help, over, and over, but nothing comes.  He switches to a more familiar energy, and tries that, again and again.  "This man was trying to aid us, to answer us truthfully without anything to trigger the curse, and I ask him 'where.'  A good man -- I may as well have shot him myself."  He turns desperate eyes up to Dathyra.  "Isn't there anything you can do?"

An instinct took over her, and Dathyra quickly got to her knees to examine the poor man, desperate to help before it was too late. She wasn't about to let another life be lost to whatever malevolent force Kristoff had allied himself with.

Dathyra's time in Lathander's temple taught her quite a bit about anatomy and health. The refugees were always sick and sometimes strangers would show up at the temple seeking aid. She knew there was more to healing than divine magic, and her natural instinct to aid had her moving before she had even registered the thought. Quickly, she put two fingers to Wendel's neck only to discover no pulse. She went to work manually pumping his heart with her own hands. In between heart compressions she blew breaths into him, trying to ignite some semblance of life. It took some time, but in the end Wendel's chest rose and fell on its own. He was alive and breathing, although unconscious.

Jodon stares up at Dathyra with a mixture of confusion, relief, and not a little awe.  "You... continue to amaze. Where I rush in, thinking I can help, you just... get it done.  Please, teach me."

Including Holg, he continues, "Did you see how Wendel talked, especially about Arlen?  He knows things.  He knows things, and was trying to tell us despite the curse, despite the danger.". He frowns again.  "Until I pushed too far."

"He may not be a warrior, but he was being brave to help us.  What was he trying to say?"

Dathyra sat up, catching her own breath, and glad that Lathander had decided to smile favorably on her efforts this time. She gave a small laugh as Jodon admired her efforts. "It's something I've just picked up. Thirty years in temple will do that to a person, I suppose."

Though the actual skills she had learned had been gradual over the years, she could easily remember why she wanted to learn them. Many of the elven refugees of her homelands had arrived in Sundabar in various states of damage. Elves weren't exactly beacons of fortitude and stamina, after all. Her own mother had been on the verge of death by the time they got there, leaving Dathyra to care for her youngest sister, who was still but a child, and leaving her older brother to do everything in his power to keep what remained of their family together. Dathyra could remember watching the human initiates performing healing spells and using their own medical know-how to help save their people, her mother included. She had recovered but remained sickly and weak. Dathyra vowed to do everything she could to never let the same tragedies plague others, and took up more of the healing arts in the temple.

In the meantime, she was mulling over Jodon's revelations. Her own head was spinning, trying to keep it all straight. "So, if he said he didn't 'know' Arlen, that could mean anything, I guess," she said. "He could be here, and for all we know, he doesn't know him personally. I mean, what do we even know about him, aside from the description we were given? But what did he mean about coming here to pick up a shipment? A shipment of what...undead?"

Holg stood and watched as the aid was being rendered to Wendal. While he had no attachment to the man, Holg felt sorry for him and the curse that was placed on him. "Well done Dathrya. I fear this goes far beyond looking for a missing person at this point, but it seems that Kristoff is at least alive and aware of these activities. Maybe a more thorough search of the house will give us more information." Holg walks over to the edge of the pit and looks inside.

Jodon looks pensive.  "Still...the way he said it...perhaps he doesn't know any 'Arlen', because he knows him under a different name...an alias!  Or perhaps...", he looks at the other corpse on the floor, "Arlen is no longer with is, in the traditional sense."

Holg discovers that the pit in the center of the room plunges into darkness past any heightened sight he has. Looking the area over, it would appear that all of this rock and stone around the room might have been excavated from this very hole. From this vantage, a large drum can be seen on the second level of the manor, which the study ropes surrounding the carriage are attached to, creating a lift only operable from inside the manor. Where the pit leads is anyone's guess...

Jodon rolls the zombie on the floor over on its back to get a better look at it. The chest of the dead thing has a large, stiched up, Y-shaped cut on its chest just like the man on the counter in the converted kitchen. The zombie also has quite a bit of dirt caked into its clothes. Jodon gathers that this person has been dead for far too long to be Arlen, and was probably dug up from a cemetery or some such.

The rooms on the first floor are occupied largely by dirt and rock. A few things linger here and there, suggesting the place was once something to be proud of, but now has fallen to ruin on the inside. Wendel's longbow has seen a lot of use, but still remains very functional.

Coughing, Jodon says to the others, "this zombie has the same incision that the other one did.  Did we finish examining what was inside that one?"