"Klauthsura, what happened here? What on earth is going on..."
Renato turned, instinctively starting to question the female Dragonborn, but the words caught in his throat. Once again, he saw that bewildered, helpless face.
She stood amid rotten wood chips and dust strewn across the floor, her fingers frozen in midair. The psionic glow had faded from her slit pupils, leaving her looking utterly helpless.
Renato covered his face with a hand and rubbed it hard. Taking a deep breath, he forced his turbulent emotions to settle.
I can't panic. I have to stay calm. Klauthsura had never even been to the Surface. She probably knew less about Nittel Royal City than he did, despite his being human.
Besides, she had been born into Ereel less than two years ago, and almost everything she knew about human cities came from the Library's records. Renato could not irresponsibly place the entire burden of making decisions on Klauthsura's shoulders.
Whatever their next move was, they had to get moving now.
Renato pulled a bottle of Oil of Speed from the potion pouch at his waist and drank it, continuing to scan the street beneath the Burning Wood Inn through a gap in the window.
The bitter liquid assaulted his taste buds, its magical ingredients swiftly entering his bloodstream and rousing his sensitive nerves.
The Skeleton Warriors in the street below, transformed from Nittel's patrol soldiers, had clearly been drawn by the sound of the female Dragonborn crushing the Zombie's head with Psychic Power. They began following the noise, converging on the tottering inn.
The skeletons at the front had already stopped outside the inn's entrance. Beneath their rusted helmets, ghostly flames flickered in their eye sockets.
They tilted their heads to look up, their hollow gazes seeming to pierce the floors between