(forgot Brix had attacked recklessly last round, so Z5 should have had advantage. Very unlikely to hit anyway, but just in case: Attack: 5 Damage: 3)

11

Z6 swats at the translucent hand produced by Squiggles' spell, looking confused, having no idea where it came from. Just then, Shale's spear sails toward the creature, a bit off its mark, but the zombie is too distracted to dodge and the spear embeds itself in the zombie's flesh (14 damage), which is enough after all the other injuries to finish it off. It collapses to the ground.

Meanwhile, Dalrak's hammer makes contact twice with his zombie (Z4; 17 damage), which now has two large dents in its face, and is looking pretty rough.

Brix also makes solid contact twice, stabbing wildly with his rapier, resulting in a punctured zombie (16 damage) that looks about as rough as the one engaged with Dalrak.

Jarl is up

   Shale moves to retrieve his spear from his downed zombie. "You can study it when it's dead - again. I dont feel like saving your asses again like when you wanted a sample of that basilisk for your poison. Damned near turned to stone. It's hard enough trying to keep a leash on that one," he gestures to to Brix.

Jarl:

“Well, they’re certainly heartier than my drones, since this one’s still standing,” he says. How unfortunate. He casts Primal Savagery. 

Attack: 27 Damage: 30

Holy moly, a 19 and then triple 10s... Jarl, I'm assuming you moved up to Z4 to attack?

As Jarl approaches Z4, his fingernails magically extend into razor sharp claws coated in a potent acid. As he slashes at the zombie, the acid coats its flesh (30 damage!), dissolving it into a pile of goo in a matter of seconds, leaving only one (badly injured) zombie standing.

9

But not for long, as Balian calmly releases an arrow from his shortbow, striking the zombie right between the eyes and knocking it to the ground.

Combat is over. Go ahead and have some dialogue if you want; something will happen in about a minute in-game, but I'll wait til tomorrow to post it to give folks a bit more time to finalize their various choices.

   Shale removes his spear from the zombie. He gives it a couple of pokes making sure it stays dead. "I dont know what you're talking about, Squiggles. These things seemed to go down pretty easy." He looks down the street from where the undead mob came from, and then glances around the square for any sign of the townfolk.

BRIX

As Brix sees the last zombie he had been engaged with go down via arrow, he turns around to see who had shot it. "BALIAN!" he says, swiping his rapier once through the fire before sheathing it. The 3-foot Goblin walks toward Balian and looks up at him, starting intensely. "That was MY...KILL...AND YOU KNOW IT!" 

He turns his back to Balian, and a slight grin forms across his sinister-looking face. "BUT...I'd be happy to...overlook such an offense...for a single gold piece...or two." He gives a sharp look over his shoulder toward Balian, raising an eyebrow.

   "How about I buy you an ale there, Brix?" Shale calls to the goblin as he walk toward the drow and the pile of goo at his feet. "Solid hit there, bub," he says, clearly impressed. 

"Thank you Balian! I would have bought a Stone to flesh scroll if it got you Shale. Research!"

Squiggles frowns at the minced remains of Z4 and pokes at it with his mage hand. "You could have left me something to study..."

BRIX

"HMPH! ALE!" Brix says, turning toward Shale. "Don't think I can be bought so easily, cleric." He nevertheless abandons his position, waddling toward Shale. "But after taking care of TWO of those things by myself," he yells, taking a moment to turn back and give a wink at Balian, "I guess I do feel a bit thirsty! Where do you suggest?"

Brix peers around to see if he can see any living person in the immediate vicinity that doesn't belong in their group. Perception: 5

(I misread and thought Z6 was still up. So ...yes, Jarl moved to Z4.)

”That’s more like it.” Jarl pulls out what used to be a nice handkerchief, and wipes the last traces of acid off his hands — the cloth has obviously been used for this before and is very tattered in places — before putting the handkerchief away and immediately crouching down to poke at the re-corpseified body. “Looks like your standard zombie, I suppose, but this is a non-standard zombie location, correct?” He looks up as Shale approaches. “I may have gotten a little carried away.”

(With 2 class abilities to create zombies, would Jarl have advantage to inspect the zombie for anything out-of-the-ordinary?)

Brix doesn't see anybody around. The streets seem oddly empty for this time of day.

Jarl, make a nature check with advantage.

Nature check: 16

Dalrak wants to investigate the clothing and possession of the zombies. Maybe trying to find out where they possibly came from. 

Investigation: 8 plus Shale’s guidance 4

BRIX

Upon noticing the oddity of empty city streets, he points it out to the rest of the group. "This IS a city, isn't it? WHERE are the people?"

Jarl, you notice that the bodies (the ones not ravaged by magical fire/acid/necrosis, anyway) have undergone rather little decay for former zombies.

Dalrak, the corpses have pretty ordinary street clothes on them, most of them relatively clean, apart from the blood around the wounds your party inflicted. You find about 10gp worth of various coins among them. It definitely doesn't seem like the people these used to be had been buried or prepared for burial upon their deaths.

(Assuming Jarl has told us this)

"See Jarl, I told you they seemed more substantial than your average zombie, despite you disintegrating that one into a fine mist. Your's tend to be more overripe. Perhaps some strange magic is at play?"

Arcana check: 14

Squiggles, you know of several magical means to raise corpses as zombies. The animate dead spell, for example, could raise a corpse at any time after death, but requires a separate casting for each corpse. The more powerful danse macabre can raise several zombies at once, again, at any time. You've also heard or read about cases where corpses are reanimated on a larger scale, usually after they've been corpses for a few days, at least.

As Jarl, Dalrak and Squiggles are busy investigating the corpses, and Brix and Shale are looking around for somewhere to get a drink, Balian sees a humanoid-sized creature with large hawk-like wings wearing a gray robe specially fitted for its avian anatomy descending toward the plaza from above and to the north. How do you react?