The Valley of Ends

"you know the ones that don't go....," He puts out both of his arms and groans while rocking side to side, "undead coming in all shapes. Sisterhood got metal zombie roaming around,"

After some chit-chat, the party leaves the little gnome's importu shop and returns to their journey to Essear. Unlike town and cities with larger cities with huge walls, the town more moderate sided wooden walls but the walls are surrounded by spikes and barded wire. A few old copries and even bones remains on the spikes and entangled into wire.

As the party approaching, a guard directed the party to a stone platform that points to the city with two ropes stretched across the spikes and bardwire. After a moment, the two ropes starting moving as wooden pathways is pulled in towards the party. After crossing the wooden path, a lightly armored gold scaled dragonborn is waiting on the other side.

"Hello. I am Mormash. You should be . . . ," He peeks at a piece of apper in his hand, "Gotch, Lyrant, Onyx and Raynor? Welcome to Essear. Please follow me and i'll fill you on our ghoul problem," He points to a moderate house down the stairs off the platform. Inside the house is similar to Tobais' set up with a large book in the middle.

"Please have a seat," Mormash incidate several seats as he seats across the table, "We have reports of a Ghast leaving the ghouls in the area. Ghouls we cna handle but ghouls led by a Ghast is a problem. We have nightly waves of ghoul attacks so we can not spare the resources to hunt down the ghast ourselves which leads to you being here. Is there any questions?,"

“Do you have any information where the Ghast is seen most often? Also do you have any reports about what numbers we are looking at?”

"The Ghast appears at night only. Often standing where a general would stand, directing the enemy. As for numbers, too many," Mormash states, "We kill many but more appear in the next wave. We seen numbers of undead monsters among this army including skeletons, zombies as well as Ghouls under this Ghast's command. We have tried to track the ghast but it's track disappears after some distance each time,"

Mormash points out of the window here part of the city's walls people are building, "We've been under this undead siege for weeks. Every few nights, we have waves of ghouls attack the city. A simple rush would be easy but under this ghast, the horde is smart. Two nights ago, the ghouls rushed a single point of the wall. The first wave was a sacrifice for the following waves, they died on the spikes but their bodies were used as platform the next wave," Mormash looks out at the window.

"We can spare a tracker to show the path of the Ghast's tracks from two nights ago if you wish,"

"It would probably be best to fight this thing in daylight, when it might be weaker..." Gotch says with a glance to his companions.  "Should we try to track it while it is still daylight?"

“As far as i know, undead are vulnerable to radiant energy, is there a priest around, who could bless our weapons? Or can we buy some holly water somewhere?”

"Sadly we have no clerics in the town. Normally we could ask for clerics from Caelfalls but they're need to handle the Knights I believe. What holy water we had been used up for a while now," Mormash states.

(Proably due to me moving story along and lack of response from Onyx about making any preparation, I can recton you buy some holy water in Caelfalls afer learning about the job)

"From what i've been able to learn, ghoul have no aversion to sunlight such as a Drow individual, you may be able to find ghouls asleep maybe but once again, we do not know where they are. When we tracked the ghoul, where they came from, it's similar to the Ghast where their tracks simple start somewhere in mass, and never in same location or even direction,"

“We follow the tracks from two days ago. If we find something before sunset, we will follow up on it. If not we return to the city to spend the night within the walls. What do you think?”

"Sounds good." Gotch confirms the idea.

"Does Raynor or Lyrant wish to ask a question before I call for the scout?" Mormash turns to them and ask for their input. 

“I have one question. How risky would you say this will be for the scouting party, just based on your experience with the land and the ghouls?”

"During the day? Very little, the tracks end not to far away from the city, an hour's run at most, a bit longer if walking. Ghouls are not active during the day. But I have standing orders, all individuals must return to the city before sunset. We are not attacked each night but should someone be out when a wave hits, they will swarmed quite fast and I believed added to the ranks of the army," Mormash explains.  

"Sounds like we should get out there and see what we can see, so we can get back by nightfall." Gotch speaks up.

"Does any one know where this Ghast came from or what it wants? If it's so smart I assume it has a purpose and it's attacking for a reason."

"We do not know where it came or even where it goes each night after the attacks. We have not determine a purpose beyond it wants to invade the town. We are just an outpost town with some farming," Mormash states, "It seems well verse in tactics but communication never been an option. It appears at night, leading attacks and disappears whenever we repel it," There is a knock at the door, "Come in," the door opens, a hooded figures comes into, it's talons clicking on the ground as Kenku turns it's head side to side looking at each person in the door.

"Mimer. Scout. Tracker," Mimer states, each words spoken in a different voice.

"Whenever you're ready, Mimer will lead down the Ghast's last known tracks. I will answer any questions you have beforehand," Mormash states

Mimer leads you back across the pulley bridge and takes you one of the small hills overlooking the city, "Ghast," He mimics Mormash's voice while he points to a set of very deep footprints among many dozen footprints, "GHouls. SKeletons. Zombie," He points out the footprints among the hill before moving down the hill out of sight of the city. About 30ft from the base of the hill, Mimer comes to a stop and pointing down another deep step of Ghast footprints but beyond them are undisturbed grassy fields, "Start point,"

Gotch takes ten minutes to ritually cast Detect Magic  he is looking for any magical residue from spells that may have been cast here.

After the 10 minutes and 6s, Gotch finish his ritual and looks around the area, First thing he sees is just faint traces of magic that seem to be losing it's strength as time pass. It takes him a few minutes to determine the arcane energy is from conjuration school of magic. 

"Ok, you have a wizard involved here."  Gotch says as he dusts off his hand.  "Someone is transporting these undead here, then transporting them away again."  He shrugs and turns to his companions.  "There is no trail due to the wizard casting a spell to move the undead from this spot to wherever they stay during the daytime hours."

“A necromancer, perhaps?”