<I've always wanted to incorporate a skull into a club. It's like a fantasy come true here.>
Wait, do the people here have socks or perhaps stockings? Could put a half-brick in one of those and call it a day. And if stockings are available, could use those to reinforce the club.
<Well, I think probably the best idea would be to get at least one other person as backup, if only to diffuse the responsibility a little and have some redundancy, y'know?>
Fetch a less decomposed corpse not far from the Rivercave and drag it back, then take the soul sphere (which I assume is Irine's) and try to convey to River wordlessly and calmly that it'd be great if he could revive Irine and that I've brought him the corpse in case he needs a lot of protein to do it or something, I dunno.
<Bashing in skulls with skulls. Reminds me of egg tapping.>No socks you can see just lying around. Probably because it's hot enough here they're not really needed, at least not in the city. If you made a more thorough search, you could probably find some. It probably gets cold in the night further away from the city. And sure, reinforcing your club with more cloth would make it more sturdy and slightly less intimidating. Or you could just tie a long piece of cloth on a heavy rock and use that as a sort of flail or thrown weapon. Or you could use a different kind of material. All depends on what you want.
<Great! More people to talk to! I approve. And the redundancy thing, that too.>You begin walking back to River's temporary lodging. As you walk, you notice that there is an effect high above ground zero that seems to be distorting light slightly. Probably another one of those residual magic side effects your entity talked about.
Your enhanced senses find a corpse that looks sort-of OK, hidden in a cavity of a building, crushed by debris. It is one of the few that is not surrounded by bugs and it smells mostly fine. You manage to retrieve it with nothing horrible happening to you and start dragging it back towards your hole.
Along the way you encounter something strange. At first it looks like a still burning flake of ash, kept aloft by the occasional wind some distance away. But suddenly it starts flying towards you, soon joined by similar looking things following it. You prepare to dodge or run away, but it turns out to have been unnecessary, as the points of light simply pass you by, creating a somewhat impressive light show. They keep moving, going out of sight somewhere behind you.
<That was weird. And kind of fun.
Looked alive. Let's hope it's not the dangerous kind of Spirit or some sort of Demon.>You drag the corpse the rest of the way to the hole with no other notable incident. Getting it through the hole is a bit difficult, but you eventually manage to pull it through.
<Honey, I'm home. Brought you diner.>As you move the corpse to where he had stored the others, you notice that one of them is missing. Looks like he was hungry. So it's probably a good thing you brought extra food.
That done, you retrieve Irene's soulsphere from the corner it was lying in. It seems to react to your touch, the movement of the flame inside getting closer to your hands and slightly faster. It feels a bit warm.
<Err, are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, I'm all for reviving her, but given that he tried to kill her once... I don't know, don't you think he might try to do it again? Shouldn't you wait until you're at least able to talk to him about it, make sure he won't go all papa wolf again?>
<Heh, 'papa wolf'. Get it? It's funny because it's both a trope and he's- Oh crap. You might want to turn around.>Turning around, you notice bugman standing behind you. Either that guy can move really quietly if he wants to or there's something wrong with your ears.
Undeterred, you approach him very slowly in the most non-threatening manner possible. When you are close to him, you push the soulsphere towards his chest, inviting him to pick it up. After a couple of seconds, he raises his hands, grabs the sphere and pushes it back towards you. You push the sphere back towards him, a bit more forcefully now, and let go of it, hoping he gets the message and accepts.
He spends several seconds alternating looking at you and the sphere. Is he trying to figure out what you mean? Is he trying to figure out what to do? Is he trying to to figure out the best way to hit you in the face with it? Is he trying to figure out what that strange glowy thing in his hands is? You have no idea.
Finally he apparently makes a decision. He walks towards the exit hole and starts going through it, holding the sphere with his injured hand.
<Hey! Where do you think you're going? We brought you food you idiot, now fix her! Don't do anything stupid!>