Another job had been available for both Keita and Gundar if they were willing to take it. Gundar already knew he was never one to turn down a job so he was always available unless he was already doing something else. He could bet Keita was also up for another job or two so he would most likely be able to count him in as he had relayed the message of having another job available to him. Gundar was currently situated in his room which was basically designed to look and act as a workshop for smith goods. Gundar liked to smith things every now and again and didn't really sell his wares but just freely handed them out to lesser guild memes and minions. Sometimes, they come out with magical properties that even he was unaware of since he never tried to purposely create them as his skill wasn't high enough. Well, that was enough of thinking about his hobbies as he goes to find Keita.

It was currently the mid afternoon, about three o’clock or so, and Keita was currently relaxing in his home, reading a book. He knew that there could be something new today that he could be doing, but he knew that relaxation was important every now and then. He had no desire to constantly be a busy body, but this sort of contradicted his fierce ambition of wanting to become as powerful as possible. This was more or less what it was like to take a rest day when one exercised a lot, as the muscles needed a chance to heal and grow back stronger. The stress of constantly trying to become stronger by any means necessary could take its toll on people, and Keita was simply relaxing. He wouldn’t be averse to some sort of mission or quest should he figure it out, but he felt like he didn’t want to go and seek out anything strenuous that day.

On his way to Keita's place, Gundar had discovered this man reading like a lunatic when there was work to be done. Grunting loudly,  Gundar had hoped to catch his attention in order to inform him about the next job they were to meet the client for. He had to admit, he was mostly excited because of the increase in pay for these jobs but at the same time, the increase in danger. With that in mind, he knew he had to be careful in future expeditions. Once heh ad gotten Keita's attention, he'd begin to explain what he was here for and then usher him into the direction that would lead them down the fastest route to their client's 'office'. He couldn't wait to get the information for the next task so he could get more jewels. Gundar had already had a few things he wanted to purchase in mind as he was looking to buy a forge for himself.

Keita was busy reading when his good friend Gundar burst through his door essentially looking for him. He was uncharacteristically excited about something, and Keita was wondering what, but then remembered that there were plenty of things that the dwarf wanted to buy, as the man wanted to get his own personal forge. He was seriously the embodiment of every stereotype he had ever heard of dwarves, and he wondered if it was true or if he was just being ignorant and racist. Keita shrugged it off as Gundar hurried him out of the house and led him towards the strange back alley hole in the wall meeting place that they would meet their client at and discuss what to do. He already had a bit of the knowledge on what they were going to do, but they needed specifics. Keita walked up to the door, and there was a bald headed man with a scar waiting for them there.

Finally getting Keita and himself to the destination where the client was, Gundar was in a fairly good mood. Heading into the alleyway to where they normally meet their client, they had entered an office in order to get the mission briefing for their next task. Sitting down, the client who happened to be a bald and scared man had greeted the two of them and thanked them for their jobs down well so far. He had said this time the request would be a little different from the initial two. The two of them had to go back to the underground catacombs in order to retrieve a holy relic that was keeping the undead from pouring out more than normal. There were three of them in total but he only needed one. If studied by the local cultists, they might find a way to use it to produce more undead around the general area of Oak for hunters to kill.

The man started thanking them and then started talking about their current predicament. There were special holy relics that were placed around the catacombs that were deterring the undead. This would cause them to walk around it and slow down, causing bottlenecks and preventing the undead from harassing the people as much as they should. The relics needed to be removed, but there would definitely be some sort of resistance. The two of them only needed to go and grab one of the three relics, as they didn’t need to stop them from being there, as that was most likely above their current pay grade. All they needed was something that resonated the energy for them to study, and so one opf the holy relics was enough. Keita nodded, before asking if there was anything else that they needed to know, and what sort of opposition they would face. The man started to speak about some priests that patrolled the safer areas.

Continuing further with his explanation, the client had informed them that they only needed one of these relics removed as removing or destroying more than one or all of them would indeed be detrimental to their business. Although more undead would be better for business, the sheer amount that would pour out would not be able to be contained even if all the combatants of Oak, good or evil,  joined forces in order to stop them. He couldn't stress this enough. He was aware the church could make another one but the process would take them several months with the ingredients and the rituals that would have to take place. Gundar nodded, gaining the gist of the situation. So they could only take one relic and one relic only, otherwise the undead could potentially destroy Oak and that wasn't the goal of this excursion. Only to learn how to reverse engineer these relics and create undead in other places for their company to hunt and kill for profit.

Learning about the potentially monumental consequences should the two of them fail their task by going off the rails and getting more than one of the relics, Keita nodded seriously. He didn’t really feel like getting up from where he lived and leaving to a new place, nor did he feel like dealing with the consequences of what the guild would do to him should they mess this up and have Oak overrun. He knew how greedy people could get when one got in the way of their profits, as he was similar, but instead of profits, it was more like he would kill anyone who got in his way on his rise to power. As the explanation was finished, the man said not to worry too much about it, as it was incredibly difficult to accidentally steal a second one of these things, as they usually gave off some sort of strange glow.

Now that they've been briefed on what their task was going to be, Gundar would get up from his seat and promptly take his leave. Exiting the office and walking out through the alley they had come to, Gundar had wondered how he would get into the catacombs a second time. He didn't mind just forcing his way through again but after their past fiascos they would no doubt have tightened up security. Placing his right hand underneath his chin and stroking his beard, Gundar had pondered how they should go about doing this. After a little while of thinking about it, he decided he had nothing and poked Keita for an idea while grunting a bit. He figured he'd see if he had any ideas before going with the tried and true way of just storming the front. There was no greater honor for a warrior dwarf than to just charge right in.

The general idea of what they needed to do was perfectly laid out, and Keita didn’t really have any more questions about the mission that they needed to do, and so he was ready to leave. He didn’t have a plan either for this, as there were too many variables, as no one really had an idea about how many priests would be there guarding the relics or if there was going to be any resistance from the undead. Keita’s plan was to scout a bit so that he could make sure that there would be enough of a chance for them to just walk in and take the damned thing for that to be a viable option. Gundar seemed to be thinking for a bit before grunting to Keita. This was a weird form of communication, but Keita eventually figured out what it meant, and so Keita explained to Gundar. “Let’s scout it out first to see how deep in the relic is and how much resistance we have.”

Prodding at Keita for a plan, it seems he didn't come up with one either and so they were left with the tried and true way or having to scout out the place of interest to see if there was some sort of weakness or exploit they may or may not be able to expose and use to their advantage. Well, that was that. Giving a shrug and a grunt, he decided it was the best course of action. With no objections in mind, Gundar just decided it was their best course of action for now. He then began to head toward the church of Oak. no matter how many times he goes there, he could never get used to the trip. He couldn't really explain it but he had mixed feelings of excitement and anxiety, knowing something bad will happen but welcoming the challenge. Still, they were only here to scout out the surrounding area and so, that's what he'll do.

Keita saw that Gundar nodded towards him and then started heading out of the area towards the vicinity of the church of Oak. Since the church was in a constant state of turmoil due to the zombies, and then the priests and mercenaries taking care of the zombies only for the dark guilds to make sure more came out, the citizens around the area were constantly worried. Keita thought that normal people would stay away from the church like it was the house of plague, but it seemed that the opposite was true. They were murmuring about the church being under attack and only their prayer was stopping the forces of evil from overrunning them all. This was the sentiment that Keita got as he and Gundar approached the church, and it also seemed that there were plenty of people there telling rumors about the strange happenings in the basement of the church, which intrigued Keita.

Arriving at their destination of Oakland Church, it seems there was quite a commotion going on around here as per usual. Gundar grunted as he never really knew what possessed mortals to worship 'deities' they've never personally witnessed themselves. He's never needed a divine intervention to solve his own problems so he figured nobody else needed to either and were weak for relying on something so baseless. Scanning the area, Gundar had kept his eyes and ears open for any members of the church that may or may not be out and about at this time of day. It was a bit hard to tell since there happened to be a large crowd praying and worshiping scattered about. Seeing as it was futile to count exactly how many priests or members of the church were nearby, he could use this crowd to his advantage and just pretend to be one of the worshippers of this church and sneak right in.

They had finally made it to the church that they needed to be at, and as usual the surrounding area was filled to the brim with apostles and other worshippers of the gods. It was almost like a very successful and busy street here, but all the time. Although, the only thing you would get if you wandered here were words based on whatever holy book edition that the church was peddling that year. Keita mused that for a god that was supposedly ancient and all knowing, he really put out a lot of edits and errata to the rules of his religion. Keita simply found it funny and wore the same relaxed grin on his face as he always did as he followed Gundar into the church. As they got into the church, Keita immediately scanned his surroundings, and it seemed that it was packed, but that would work out better for them really.

Pulling his hood over his head in order to obscure his face, Gundar figured with all these people around the area as well as inside of the church he might as well try and go into the catacombs without being detected. Giving a quiet grunt, Gundar had conspicuously walked towards the podium where the trapdoor was. Unfortunately, since he did this in such a visible manner he was of course halted by some priests and questioned about his actions. Gundar had just blankly stared at them, not knowing what he should tell them as he just sort of walked over in plain sight. Well, this was just his luck and he figured he'd try his hand at stealth but he wasn't exactly good at it so now, they had to do this the hard way unless Keita had some means of getting him out of this particular situation. If not, he just deliver a swift punch to one the priests that questioned him.

They had entered the church and slowly made their way over to the trapdoor. As they stealthily made their way through the crowd of people in the church without them questioning them much, Keita started to think of a plan that they could use to get into the catacombs from the trap door. Right now, he thought that they were just going to scout it out and come back at night so that they could sneak in when there was no one really around, but all of that went out the window as soon as they got close to the trapdoor. It seemed that subtlety was not he forte of Gundar at all, and he just walked over there and was seemingly going to just open the hatch in the middle of a busy church. After facepalming to himself for a moment, a large magical circle would appear under Keita's feet, a sigh escaping his lips.

Well it seems as if their only option was to fight and Gundar was okay with this outcome as he delivered a swift punch towards the priest directly in front of him halting his path. He didn't have time to activate a magic circle like Keita did so this was the best he could do for the time being in order to get a bit of time to himself. He'd hop backwards a few feet in order to get his bearing and activate a magic circle beneath his feet in order to conjure earthen spikes from through the floor of the church, ripping through the ground towards his targets. A lot of screams could be heard from the bystanders as the fight broke out. This was fine as the ensuing chaos would help the situation in his favor since the priests wouldn't act too recklessly, meaning while Gundar and Keita could act ruthlessly.

Keita watched as Gundar punched someone and conjured earth spikes that ripped through the wooden floors of the church. The spikes rammed into some of the priests, injuring them and knocking them out of whatever potential fight that they were going to put up before they had a chance to react. This had the added benefit of partially destroying the trap door and the rub that hid the trap door, and it seemed that some of the head priests that were there had figured out what they wanted to do and grabbed their staves. Keita had already planned to go loud, his magic circle had already been formed, and a firehose-like stream of concentrated water smashed into the couple of priests as everyone else seemed to panic and flee. A lot of the priests that weren’t in good positions were trampled and pushed around, Keita taking the opportunity to jump down into the trapdoor, signaling Gundar to follow.

Nodding towards Keita's signal, he began to follow him down into the trapdoor amongst the chaos and the confusion created by the worshippers stampeding out of the church. The other defending priests were too busy gathering their bearings in order to really attempt to repel Keita and Gundar so they used this opportunity to go in. While chaos ensued above, Gundar would make his way through the catacombs until he came across something that matched the description of the client. Luckily it wasn't too far in so there wasn't any opposition. Grabbing the relic, Gundar put it in a bag he had brought with him and began to head back the way he came. Going back up the trap door, most of the church seem to have cleared out leaving only a few stragglers behind that were wounded or unconscious from the stampede. So Gundar quickly used a side entrance instead in order to make his escape back to the client with the requested item and collect his payment.

[Exit.]

Keita and Gundar swiftly made their way into the trapdoor, ducking the disorderly priests before they could take any action to stop them. The church was still in chaos, and before they knew it, the duo was already in the catacombs below. This place was still really close to the entrance of the church, so the undead were all already taken care of, and the relic would keep them at bay regardless, at least in this area. As they headed in, it seemed that Gundar spotted the relic on top of some sort of stelle that seemed to keep it suspended in the air. The dwarf grabbed it and started heading back. Keita nodded, opting to bring up the rear just in case there were some priests deeper in the catacombs coming for them. They managed to sneak out of a side entrance and make it back to their client without much of an issue.

[Exit]