The group broke up, with plans to be at the stage in the town square in one hour.
That would be enough ti to warn most of the people that there was
sothing to announce, as well as prepare for the spell. With the System Interface, all of the clerics already knew what they needed to do, and were presumably gathering to prepare, while the other City Councillors were making preparations for the fallout from the day's events.
Karl and the team found themselves a nice spot where they could see the stage, but wouldn't be in the press of the crowd. That was their waiting spot for the show to start.
True to his word, forty-five minutes after they split, the City Lord was on the stage, followed by the majority of the Council mbers. Notably absent was the cleric, but the rest were there.
"People of Banar, I have tragic news for you all. We have been cheated and tricked by one that we should have been able to trust.
The renovation of the city was never done. It is nothing more than an illusion placed over the city. An illusion that hides a most terrible curse.
You might have noticed that your food lasts longer than you are used to. That your aging loved ones have pulled through longer than anyone could have expected.
But the sad truth is that neither is true.
The curse forces everything in the city to take on a pristine condition. The buildings, the trade goods, even the people.
Many of those standing among us today are long dead, and maintained by this necromantic curse. If they were to leave the city, the magic would fade, and it is believed that they would either collapse, or continue their existence as a form of Undead."
The Lord took a deep breath.
"I was the one who hired the contractor. There was no bid for the job, I accepted his proposal and paid for his services personally. This curse is upon the city of Banar due to my choices.
As of today, I will be stepping down as City Lord, and the King will be sending a replacent guardian for the people.
But first, the Forge Priests will cleanse the hidden decay of the city, and then I will break the curse placed upon it, allowing everyone a fresh start."
There was panic in the streets as everyone tried to understand what exactly that ant.
But the Lord didn't intend to give them ti to worry, and the first half of the effort, the combined spell cast by the Clerics swept over the city.
Karl watched as the spell washed over the undead in the city, and most of them started to heal, becoming whole again.
However, contrary to his expectations, none of them collapsed, even the ones who were clearly not healing. Maybe this wasn't going to end as badly as...
Nope, there it was.
As soon as the resurrection spell ended, hundreds of city residents collapsed, and the City Lord gritted his teeth, then shattered a statue in his hands.
The illusion faded from the city as residents who had lost loved ones wailed in despair, and then the Mage from the City Council opened a portal for the City Lord to step through and moved to address the crowd.
"As the temporary head of the City Council, you have my condolences on your losses.
We will be starting an effort to actually reconstruct the city over the next few weeks, and city funding will be available for funerals. Rest assured, the cost of burying the fallen with dignity will not fall entirely on the people."
The shock was beginning to wear off as the people realized that their loved ones had been dead for quite so ti. Once the resurrection had failed, most of the bodies had shrivelled to emaciated corpses, as you would expect of a body left in the desert's dry heat for months or years.
Looking at them that way, many realized that they had gotten far longer than expected with their loved one. But what they hadn't realized yet was that many of the illnesses they had seen lately were a result of bad food.
The Clerics kept most of those from being fatal, but there would surely be a few.
The outrage was beginning to creep into the crowd as well.
"Where did that no good Lord get to? He needs to face judgnt for his
cris!" An old Dwarven woman shouted.
The mage held up his hand to silence the crowd. "And he will. We sent him to the Palace, where he will be held pending trial for incompetence."
"Incompetence? He got our people killed. You might not have been on the council then, but I haven't forgotten the lies that he told us about the renovation before he cursed us!" The woman shouted.
The mage bowed his head to the Elder and raised his voice with magical augntation.
"It will be one month before the trial. Until then, the forr City Lord will be in custody. His wife has been exiled from the city, returned to live with her family. If you want to attend the trial, you have one month to get to the capital." He
declared.
That was acceptable to most. There was a portal platform, and more than enough Earth Mages in the city that they would surely be able to find soone to open a portal for whole groups of them.
The Capital was going to have a monuntal crowd for the trial, but for now, there was more interest in what they were going to do about the situation in the city. Not only with the dead, but also the rotted products, and the dilapidated buildings.
It all needed to be handled before any of the buildings collapsed, and suddenly every Dwarven Earth Mage in town was incredibly popular.
One of the other councillors stepped forward to the enchanted microphone. "If ergency repairs need to be made, please inform the city guard, and the Captain will approve paynt to a local Earth Mage out of the city budget. We are willing to clear the city coffers to make things right if that is what we need.
A few lean years for city programs are inevitable, but we have a plan to keep the city guard fully funded."
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