This little nook in the wild was surprisingly peaceful. Even on the road, wary of dangers, Bründir found it easy to relax under the stone outcropping. The adjacent pines gave plenty of kindling and branches for a fire, and soon he was boiling a mixture of dried meats from trail rations with vegetables. The others were busy with....their own doings, so the dwarf took to whistling a little tune to himself.

A few minutes passed before he heard a pause for breath was filled with resonance against the natural roof. The lingering noise brought a smile as it reminded him of home once again. Bründir closed his eyes and blew a shrill triplet and waited for the sound to fade. He waited in the depth of his sould to hear the accompanying response to indicate life in the depths underground. No sound, he thought, no life below; take stock of brothers and sisters above and return home.

The memory was somber, a daily ritual of miners returning to hearth and home from a long day. On rare occasions, his fellows were struck when no sound answered their call, but their numbers stood less at the end of the day than when they ventured down at the start. On these days, Bründir would sing to himself on the walk home, just as he did now below the rocky shelter, "And no one dared...Disturb the sound silence."

Sat around the campfire, his back to the games of Thurston and Val with a slight pout on his face, Jex sharpens his blades. As Brundir sings quietly next to him he relaxes, moving his stone to the song and joining in quietly. "Fools said I you do not know."  His voice is softer and higher pitched than the dwarf's, but filled with it's own sorrowful quality. Hshimi, released from the wagon, wraps around his leg, tasting the air with curiosity and flinching as the whetstone sparks across the blade.

Aiden quietly hums along with the tune, remembering the songs of the vikingr would sing as they rowed across the Norscan sea. A longing filled his chest...a longing for salty sea air and the violent hospitality of the Norscan people. He closed his eyes and let himself remember his time on the isles. His thoughts are interrupted by a clattering of armor. He raises an eyebrow at Thurston and Val. "I did tell him to just be himself," he says with a slight smile.

Vark sits near the warmth of the fire, completely entranced by the shifting form of the codex before him. He’s been motionless like that for an hour since making camp. But while he is deep in focus, he is not completely deaf to his surroundings. The haunting tune sung by Bründir and Jex tugs his attention away from the esoteric geometry that currently occupies it, and he slowly turns towards the fure. A soft smile appears as he watches the dwarf cook and sing, and Vark is taken back to those rare few moments when he found peace amongst his tribe. The communal nature of food and song meant that for those brief moments he actually felt like he belonged to the Galestones. Even those rowdy young orcs who bullied him during the day were too filled with joy and camaraderie to worry about terrorizing the little runt. Vark turns to Jex now, and his eyes grow more pensive. It’s so rare for him to see this softer, genuine side of the rogue. Gone is the bravado and the self righteousness and Vark is reminded that Jex is his ally after all, despite their conflicts. His smile picks up a little more, and remains there as he turns back to the codex and continues his studying.

From beneath Thurston, Val tries to put her hands against Thurston and shove him off her with a smile, but his superior position allows him to push her back to the ground. The armor was ungainly and difficult to move around in, she found she could not move quite the way she wished. She laughs as she weakly tries to shove him off once more. “Okay, point made! So, how do you prevent them from just knocking you over with all this metal? I feel like I cannot move my arms and legs properly!”

The two warriors spend the next 30 minutes or so going over the basics of fighting in the heavier armor as Valaith moves about and tests different ways of moving and striking. She cannot help but smile and blush as Thurston helps her out of the armor once they have finished the lesson. “Tomorrow I will give you lesson on using your anger. But first lesson is that you must control it, do not let it control you. It is like…” she pauses as she thinks. “It is like lumivyöry. I do not know the word in this language. The falling wall of snow. If you know how to control it, you can ride the snow. But if you let it get out of control, it will bury you beneath its weight and your breath is gone. Think on this tonight while you rest. You must find something that triggers your anger, something that makes you want to lose control, but you must control it here.” She pounds her fist against his heart. “For now, we sleep. Long road ahead.”

"I will think about it and yeah... we sleep " says Thurston but holds her hand close to his chest. He looks into her eyes " Thanks Val. Good night" he presses her hand with care and let it go as he walks towards the stream of water, undress and takes a bath on it. 

The mountain to the north casts the camp in shadow as the first rays of sunlight frame the edge of the moon in a brilliant corona of gold. Dawn has come and with it Valaith and Aiden's watch. Amidst the morning frost, there is little to do but huddle around the dying embers of the fire. However, as they sit together in the cold half-light, Valaith senses something. It is too quiet. Even the birdsong of the dawn chorus has ceased. Something is wrong.

Val enjoyed the quiet time during early grey hours of the mornings, sitting around the embers and listening to the sounds of nature around. The sigh of the wind in the trees, the burbling of the brook, the chattering of squirrels, and the songs of the bird--- She frowns suddenly as she turns her head towards one side. There was no song from the birds this morning, that meant. She sits back quietly, her breastplate feeling much more comfortable than it had in a long time after the encasement of the plate armor as she slowly reaches for Rook and clears her throat to get Aiden's attention as she rolls her shoulders. "Well, I think it is about time to get breakfast together, yeah?" She casually looks about to see if she can spot or hear anything out of place...

The pealing of a bell rings out across the campsite, dragging the weary warriors from their slumber. Most look around wondering what the noise is, but Jex wakes to a fell humanoid form of solid black looming over him like a living shadow.

Aiden had been relaxing during the watch, but his hand goes for his sword when Val's goes for her hammer. His eyes crackle with lightning and his senses extend to catch the foul stench of an undead creature coming from Jex's wagon. As the bell rings, he shouts. 

"Undead. One creature. In the wagon. Wait-" he pauses, sensing something strange. The creation of an undead wasn't something he had felt in this way before, but if he had to guess, he would assume this is what it felt like. "Possibly more."

Jex let's out a yelp, shrill and fearful. His instincts kick in though and he rolls out under the shadow, practically falling from the wagon he just about lands on his feet. Scrambling around he dives behind Thurston.

"There's a thing. Probably someone I killed, come back to haunt me. They deserved it I swear. Whoever they are. Probably."

Thurston hears the bell, and knowing that means trouble gets out of his tent, only wearing a pants and looks around, extending his hand so Rikkazarik flies to it. 

"What's..."

But suddenly Jex comes running and dives behind him babbling something. 

"An undead?!" he looks towards Aiden knowing that he could manage it but his grip on Rikkazarik's grows stronger as he moves to protect his friend from the attacker. 

The shadow streaks down out of the wagon and after Jex with preternatural speed. It swings its mist like arm at Thurston, but the Norscan is too fast for it. However, behind the paladin, much to Jex's horror, a second shadow coalesces and peels off of the half-elf.

Aiden leaps to his feet as the shadow peels off Jex's form. He swears in Norscan, turning his gaze to the sky. "Almighty Thor," he prays, "grant me your strength to destroy these things." 

The last word is punctuated by the thrust of Aiden's new sword into the air. Thunder cracks and lighting strikes the blade, channeling down through Aiden's body. The power cascades through his form, lighting up the early morning fog. Lightning courses over his armor, his eyes a bright blue. Then, a release. The energy pulses out and one of the shadows is reduced to shreds of dying light and the smell of ozone.

The sound fades, leaving the cleric sword in-hand, ready for a fight.

Seeing another shadow peel itself off Jex, Valaith raises Rook and charges the strange undead and slams the weapon into it with all her might behind! The lack of substantial resistance throws Val off-balance slightly as the shadow bursts and dissipates quickly. "That was not so bad."

Thurston looks around himself as his friends obliterates the shadows that were attacking Jex. Spining from one side to the other, the still half sleep Norscan, stares at Valaith smashing one of the shadows with a smirk in his face. 

He blinks after she speaks and, blushing a little he moves strategically the hammer and one leg.

"Seems so..." he replies to Val. Still suspicious he looks around "Were those came from? are there more of them?" he asks.

The ringing bell drags Vark from slumber dressed in his light tunic and trousers, looking much the same as he did the first time he met many of these warriors scrambling to action around him. He watches as Jex stumbles out of the wagon, some unholy shadow clinging to his form. He quickly grabs Path Maker along with the codex and gets to his feet. Aiden and Val quickly work to dispatch the entities as they peel off of Jex's body, but the macabre tension still hangs in the air. "What are these things?" He shouts over to Aiden, who seems well equipped to combat this darkness with Thor's divine power. "Undead! It could be a curse." the cleric responds. Vark nods and holds the codex aloft. Vark wagers he can use the artifact's power to dispel such an effect if that is truly what's causing the affliction. He focuses, and a beam of crimson light shoots out and locks on to Jex's body. Then with a pulse of energy the laser beam crackles and splits into dozens of chaotic red tendrils as the codex works to disrupt the matrix of any magic laid upon the half-elf. They fizzle out a moment later, but it isn't clear if it worked. Still concerned, Vark looks to Aiden for an answer.

Aiden focuses his senses. There was no distinct undead presence, but there was an aura -- growing in power and forming in the same way it had when Jex had been in the cart...

He shakes his head. "It didn't work," he says, trying to determine where on the half-elf the darkness was emanating from. "It's the mask," he concludes, pointing. "Those things are spawning from it." He looks around at the party, seeing confused and tense looks on their faces. "I take it this hasn't happened before."

Bründir emerges frantically from his tent, Karakarin and Dumdrengi at the ready. "Where're they?!" Seeing the motley confusion, he drops his arms in a huff immediately, "Damnit! Missed'em again! Well, I'm up now. May as well break down and suit up. Stonebrow! Rise n' shine!"

In the early morning light, Bründir had almost mistaken the righteous light of his blade with rising dawn. A wild smile erupted as he saw the blade's runes burning, "Look alive! More's on th' way!"

As if the words of Bründir were what the creatures were waiting for, Thurston sees how the shadows around Jex swirls again and begin to form two more creatures. 
Pulling Jex from one arm to move him behind himself again, the paladin jumps and rises Rikkazarik, smashing one of the creatures with the hammer, small sparks of lightning jumping from the hammer towards the shadow. Seeing that it still moves, Thurston smash it again, this time making it explode in hundred of small pieces of shadow and making a small hole in the ground. 
“If all that you’ve killed is going to appear now this could take a while...” he says to Jex